The insane story of Blake Scholl: the high school dropout who’s building supersonic jets

0:00 Okay, I have an amazing story. If you're If you're entrepreneurial, Sam, if you have a pulse in your body, if there is А бла Сил бло весел у баді. You are gonna be fired the fuck up after this. I don't know what you got, what do you have scheduled after this? Cancel it. I feel like I can rule the world and nowhere. Be what I want to

0:18 Uh Put my law in it like my day so on the road, let's travel to the ball. What is it? Alright, so you've probably heard of this company Boom Supersonic, yes? Yeah, uh I had the opportunity to invest in this company years ago and uh I didn't have any money then, but also I even if I did, I would have passed on this. It's a ridiculous proposition. I didn't have any courage then either. That was the real problem. Well, like a guy said that uh guy in Silicon Valley said he's gonna build a commercial airline

0:48 Uh uh he's gonna build a jet that can be uh supersonic uh commercial airplane. That sounds ridiculous. Exactly. So the the thing that's going viral right now is Former like Groupon product manager,'cause he worked at Groupon. His LinkedIn literally goes Groupon Product Manager. Then

1:07 created the first supersonic jet and like, you know, whatever. Fifty six years. So it's this insane jump on LinkedIn, and that's kind of going viral right now. Got me curious, because I remember back in the day, this was twenty sixteen. Did you see the deal? I d uh I wasn't it didn't it's not like somebody sent it to me to invest. I could've if I chased it down.

1:25 And then actually several times since then I could have Uh invested, but I didn't. Um Mm maybe not too late. Maybe now's the time. But I remember watching demodet. Do you remember the story? Do you remember his demo day pitch at Y C demo day?

1:39 I didn't know he went through Y C. I didn't pay that close attention to it. So he went through Y Combinator? Exactly. Winter White Combinator. Now I remember at the time it stood out. Now Y C does a lot more like moonshot type of companies back then. It was All apps, it was all software. You're making an iPhone app, you're making like a B to B SaaS tool. And this is sixteen?

1:58 Sixteen. And there was this one guy there who was like We're creating supersonic air travel. Like you're gonna be able to fly from New York to London in three and a half hours. That's what we're doing.

2:10 Remember the Concord? We're gonna do that again. And um He gets on stage and I remember thinking while he's pitching, I'm like, How is he gonna have traction'cause every Y C pitch ends the same.

2:23 Where they show their user growth. We're growing thirty percent week over week, but it's like going from like you know Three to six to nine, right? Like it's like they're they're they have some crazy growth rate, but it's on a very small customer base. But that's always the pitch. So I remember wondering what's this guy gonna do? And at the very end of his pitch, he whips out a piece of paper And he goes, and as of last night.

2:43 We have five billion in pre orders. Thanks to Virgin uh thanks to Richard Branson and Virgin. And we were like what five billion? And it was like a L he had an L O I. It wasn't actually a purchase order. Which basically just says, uh, one day, if you can actually build a safe supersonic jet, we will definitely buy it. We will maybe buy it.

3:06 Right. Like When somebody invites me to like a party I don't wanna go to, I'm gonna start sending LOIs. Because an L L I just means I'm generally interested. But I'm probably not gonna do it.

3:17 Yeah. But still it was impressive. Five billion. Still to this day nobody's walked into Y C demo day. with five billion dollars worth of letters letter of intent. So okay, I remember seeing that. Then he disappeared for a while. Then he actually had to go do the work. So Let me tell you this guy's story because

3:37 Right now in Silicon Valley There is a Buzzword. Actually, I would say it's kinda like an early buzzword. Like I would be buying stock in this buzzword because it's about to go mainstream. And that word is high agency.

3:51 You seen high agency floating around? No, but that is is high agency the new contrarian? Oh, it is. I mean it It's shits on Contrarian, dude. Like where Contrarian walked. We have to sell democratize. Democratized is done. That was the grandfather. We have the short contrarian. We're going all in on high agency. The man in the arena.

4:14 Is that just plummeted? Had a moment. Had a moment. Uh but Chamoth just butchered that one, so that one's done. So all right, so check this out. High agency is this word, and there's uh our buddy George Mack, by the way, is like all in on high agency. Like he

4:29 I think he's writing a book about high agency right now. I think He by the way. He bought the domain high agency dot com. And I was like, How'd you get that? He goes

4:38 The guy let it expire after ten years and I sniped it right away. High agency by him, low agency by the other, right? It's like in uh football. The low man wins. No no in business, the high agency man wins. And so Um the classic meme, which we should put on the screen on YouTube is Guy is the cartoon guy is trapped on an island. And he has these like pieces of bark or wood or whatever, and he r he spells out help. He's waiting for someone to come save him.

5:06 That's the low agency guy and the high agency guy takes the wood and makes a boat and rows away. Um, right, so that that's like the the the gist of this. Okay, but this guy This dude from Boom Supersonic, what's his name? Blake? G is just Absolutely dripping with agency. And so check us out. His guy is soaked.

5:25 This guy is a yeah, he's a buffalo wing and he is tossed, hand tossed and high easy. All right, so here we go. Story starts. He drops out of high school. His parents sent him to a good high school, like a nice private school. And he doesn't feel like he fits in, he doesn't really look like Uh

5:41 Get that interested in class. He drops out. And um so now he's high school dropout blank, parents are kind of concerned. He ends up finding something that he's really into, like science and math, like he in this like after school program or there's some shit like that, but Forget that.

5:58 First high agency move. Once he started getting interested in science, math engineering He's like, Actually I think I do like school. I just didn't know what I I I just didn't like my high school the way I was doing it. But now I found I actually do like to learn. I want to go to college. Well, how do you go to college you don't have a high school degree or a high school dropout?

6:16 He finds that at Carnegie Mellon they have a special program. For high school dropouts who want to go to Cartiggy Mellon. So He applies at he applies as a junior and he writes an essay about why you have to write an essay why you didn't finish high school. And he writes.

6:30 High school had nothing left to teach me. He gets in, not only is he getting in, he gets the merit scholarship. And he graduates uh with a bachelor's in computer science. Okay, so What does he do next? His next move is that He's like, I want to be an entrepreneur.

6:43 But I don't know what idea I want to start yet. So why don't I go and work for Who I think is the greatest entrepreneur right now. And that was Jeff Bezos in two thousand and one. So Amazon is

6:54 out the dot com crash just happened. Amazon's stock is in the tank. I that's what I'm betting you're looking that up right now. Two thousand one it w I mean it was shit. It was uh uh a dollar. Now it's two hundred and seventy three dollars. Great. So he joins Amazon in two thousand and one. And his goal is to learn as much as he can from Bezos. So he's like, All right, I gotta build something that's And at the time

7:17 Bezos had a idea which was like, Hey, we need to We need Amazon products to show up number one in Google search results. So Plate builds this automated system. Where he is

7:29 Um Buying Google ads for every single product on Amazon. Like the entire catalog, he builds an auto bidder. So that Amazon will bid not too much, but bid enough to be the top result on Amazon. Which is one of the reasons, by the way, that like the you know, there's like stories of like there's a story that a company wants you to know, and then there's a story that actually happened. And I've read a lot about Amazon and one of the one of the make or break moments was the fact that they were one of Google's biggest spenders and they crushed it and knocked it out of the park because Google was underpriced and they were able to

8:00 Get big fast because people think all these companies are competitors, they're also cons co conspirators, right? Google pays Apple built tens of billions of dollars to be the default search engine. Apple In uh Microsoft invested in Apple. When they were big competitors, Bill Gates basically kinda saved Apple at a at a time when Steve Jobs needed investment. And in this case, Amazon is the biggest spender on Google. Like, you know, that uh what? I thought these guys were competitors. And Bezos is was one of the angel investors of Google or something like that. Exactly. So He builds this system by twenty four.

8:32 Now he's twenty four years old, three years in. And he was basically working under direct view of Bezos. So he goes, Every three months I had to give Bezos a a report on how we were doing. And by the age of twenty four, he's running a th three hundred million dollar P L inside inside of Amazon. He's the He's the GM of that business. But

8:48 Even though he's learned a bunch and he uh kind of You know. Cut his cut his teeth here. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. So he quits even though he's like a rising star at Amazon and he knows Amazon is like a

9:01 Amazon's a winner, right? Amazon was a winner. If he had done nothing else but just stay at Amazon, get promoted as an exec, keep getting stock options every year. І вода метсо мільзів долар. Essentially risk free at that point. Yeah. But he quits and him and some guy um decide to create a a start. So they create a startup, it kinda fails, they create another startup.

9:19 Eventually they sell that startup to Groupon. And this is where the LinkedIn part of Groupon comes in, is like this hilarious quote on on his Gro on his group on uh LinkedIn description. So he says what he does, like in a senior Whatever, manager of this thing. And then his description goes.

9:34 Nothing like working on internet coupons to make you yearn for doing something that you truly love. So he after two years at Groupon, he quits. And he decides, you know what, I want to do a company. I don't know what I want to do it in. And his whole life he had been interested in flight. He talks about like when he was a kid. He was always interested in model airplanes. His parents took him to a museum. He was always obsessed with flight. One of his things on his bucket list. was that you know in his twenties he wanted to go Mach two. Like he he got his pilot's license. He always just was interested in flight, but it was a hobby.

10:03 And he's trying to think of what startup ideas to do, and his method for figuring this out is I'm going to write a list of all the ideas, starting with What would be the most awesome if I did it? Down from there. And then I'll just probably cross out the first five because they're unrealistic or unpr impractical. And I'll probably do number five on the list was his plan. But number one was.

10:25 Create a supersonic jet. Because like Elon, um, the way Elon started SpaceX, you've heard the story where He went into it like it thinking this is not gonna work. Well, but even before that he sell you know, he sell uh PayPal sells Elon now has a hundred eighty million dollars, he leaves. And he's Just curious like well okay, what else?

10:45 And he's curious, um, what's the latest with NASA's Mars mission? Like I haven't heard about our Mars mission. Like, are we Is it in progress and I just missed it? Is it launching soon? I can't wait to go see it. Maybe I'll fly there and go see it. I wanna see the launch. I love rockets. And he goes on the NASA website and there's no mention of Mars. And he's like, What? We went to the moon like in whatever, seventy three. Like how are we not

11:07 Where's the next mission? And it wasn't even on the website. He's like What? And he got so upset by that. Yeah. The start of SpaceX was actually that he was going to privately fund a mission.

11:18 To send like A plant. To Mars. And then it became like a turtle or jelly or something. There was like, you know, some living some technically living thing. And it was like I'm gonna p spend twenty five million dollars doing this. It's stu it was just like a stunt.

11:31 And um just to kind of like reinvigorate the interest in this. Same way this guy Blake puts on a Google alert for supersonic jet. He's like, I just can't wait. Tell there's a supersonic flight, I'll be the first guy to buy it. And he's waiting and he's waiting. He's like, Is nobody working on this? And he's like, Oh, it must be that the it just doesn't the numbers don't the math ain't math it.

11:50 Like that's gotta be the problem. So he creates a spreadsheet. And In it, he writes down the assumptions. He's like basically like the engineering assumptions. And he gives himself like a few months. to work on this where he's like, All right, let me just dig into this. So I think it was two weeks where he does like He goes and buys a book'cause he's like I I don't know anything about how airplan, but he goes and buys a book.

12:10 And he creates an Excel spreadsheet on one tab was the cost model. He's like, Is it an economic problem? Because The brief history is is We had this thing called the Concord back in the day. Have you ever seen the Concorde? Like uh have you ever looked at photos of it? It looked great.

12:25 Photos. Yeah, slick. And it was like inspiring and everybody loved it. And it was the same idea. You could get from, you know, here to London, in New York to London in three and a half hours ish. Yeah, it was like three and a half hours or three hours and forty five minutes was the fastest time ever. Which it takes. Double the speed. So it's eight hours normal flight. So it was twice you could fly twice as fast. And The idea was the Concorde was like this luxury item in a way. It was priced really expensive. So this is You know. almost fifty that it was invented.

12:52 But yeah, it was priced at like fifteen thousand dollars a ticket. And if you look at the inside of it, the photos, I think it was only like three seats by three. So it was like a it was like two or three seats. Eighty something passengers, I think. Yeah. So there were it wasn't a lot of people at all. So it was when you think about it, it's hard to make a lot of money. Not a lot of routes, only limited number of routes. Uh, but it had all these problems. Like if you go look up like the problems with the Concord, right? Like it was like Yes, it was expensive. It also Like got really hot. Like there's this famous thing where when they first launched it to do like a PR blitz or like to sponsor it, they had Pepsi sponsor the Concord.

13:27 And so they painted it light blue and the Concord before that was a This white reflective material. To reflect heat, uh to not store heat. But the light blue thing made it where it got so hot inside the cabin that you know, the hour flight they could only do for twenty minutes'cause it was like

13:43 Cooking everything inside. So like heat was a problem, noise was a problem, price was the problem. Um, you know, uh duration was a problem. I also think there was a really famous crash, too, where it was like that was the maybe now. And I don't remember if I don't you know, this was the years I was t a kid. Or I don't even think I was alive actually, but I remember reading about it and the what I read was the reality Is that it could have worked or it could have been great, but the perception was that this thing is dangerous and it's too radical and it crashed. I'm never getting on that. Is that right?

14:12 Exactly. So the the last the thing that kinda killed the Conqueror was they had this flight where During takeoff the tire Hit something on the runway. And it ruptured the tire and then the plane Basically explode and kill everybody on board.

14:26 And that was like, all right, we're done with this thing, too dangerous. So it had safety problems, price problems, heat problems. um, you know, like noise problems'cause it would like, you know, shatter windows when it would do its sonic boom. So it was like Oh whenever. So I think in like two thousand and three was the last flight.

14:42 So in about twenty years there's been no no no flight since. Nobody was even working on it. So he he has the spreadsheet. And he's like, look, am I just nuts? Cause the way I'm penciling this out. You know, we only need like a thirty percent improvement in like fuel efficiency

14:59 A thirty percent improvement and this one other thing and he's like, Dude, it's been fifty years like Our TVs got better, our phones got better, our computers got like dramatically better. Not thirty percent better, they got like three thousand percent better. He's like, I'm pretty sure we could make the plane thirty percent more efficient. And then this would work. So he goes to this. Exactly. Like if I can do that, we can make a we can make a jet. So he goes to the Stanford professor.

15:29 And he's like he's like hey like you know this We need a thirty percent I my calculations show when you're thirty percent fuel efficiency. And by the way, that Concord was designed at a time where like they use slide rulers and like, you know, wind tunnels to test things. Like, I think we could do this. And the professor was like Yeah, I think you can. Uh the math is correct.

15:49 He's like, so you know, you might have engineering problems, but like the physics are fine. And so he gets encouraged. He's like I just thought I must not know something. And that's why this hasn't been done. But it's one of these classic things where like

16:01 The beginner's mind goes in and they don't see the problems and therefore they do it. Whereas all the experts just assume that's We tried that, it doesn't work. And so he goes and he he decides to create an airplane company. Okay, so what's the next move? How's he gonna fund this thing? And how's he gonna build it?'Cause again, this dude just bought a textbook about Flight.

16:20 He doesn't know anything about this stuff. So he's like, All right, I need to recruit a great team and we gotta We need some money. So he decides he takes half of it all of his life savings. And he decides to fund the company bank account with it. And he hires up

16:32 something like six to ten people. One of which he poaches the Former chief engineer of Gulf Stream. And he's like, I thought it would be hard to get talent, because here I am. I'm this fucking group on kid saying I'm gonna build a uh you know a supersonic jet that's never been Hasn't been done and you know.

16:50 fifty years, like the last American new American Airlines company that worked was like, you know, eight years ago or something. So the business plan is a little crazy. Probably gonna you know, it I think it cost the Conquered like a billion dollars to make the Conquered. Like it was like a billion dollar project.

17:05 They thought it was twenty million and they ended up spending a billion. He's like, I think we'll I think we'll need two hundred million. But I don't know where I'm gonna get all that. So let me just start by funding it myself. Did he did he say how much he hasn't said the the amount, but he at one point he's like I realized like I'm playing chicken with my own bank account here. He's like, I wanna go raise money. He ends up raising like a million bucks. Still almost nothing. But he gets like a few early believers in

17:27 I have one of my really close friends, Chris, was in that round. Oh wow. Did he say what he saw or why? He's been telling me about it for years, and that's originally how I heard about this. And he was like this guy is just magical. And I I I just couldn't get I'm like A Silicon Valley software person starting a jet company that just that's Really dumb. Which is evidenced by

17:51 Dumb ideas being potentially. Amazing in how that's actually Quite common. And by the way, the airline market airplane market Is super fragmented. Oh, wait, no, it's not. There's two companies. One owns fifty one percent, the other one owns forty nine percent.

18:06 It's just Airbus and Boeing. That's the whole market, right? So You know, he's trying to go to basically break up this duopoly. In in theory. Okay, so let's go back to the to the so he hires this guy So he hires demon and he's like actually one of the the surprising things was

18:20 It was way easier to hire great talent. Because The bigger the mission The better the pitch. So he's like, I had a super exciting mission. I didn't have a lot of other things. I didn't have a lot of traction. I didn't have a lot of funding, but I had a great mission.

18:34 I had an exciting project that was basically like nerd porn. She's like any nerdy you know, engineer who worked on airplanes, you can either go work at Boeing or Airbus. And your job is to like, you know make sure that the cabin temperature goes down by two degrees so that we could sell more, you know, Vive Kictonics. Like that was they weren't trying to innovate at all.

18:54 So if you were somebody who wanted to innovate, this was like the only option. So you've recruited your team. Then he goes into Y C. And he was skeptical. He goes into Y Combinator. He's like, Isn't it just for software companies? But Sam Altman's like No no no, we like hard part stuff. Um

19:08 Sam's like, I don't know if you're you're gonna get in, but you should go talk to these four other guys who had hardware companies that kind of failed in YC, but t but they'll tell you that like They would have failed much worse. Had they not had Y C. So he goes talk to them, they're like, Yeah, it was great, let's do it. So he joins And he's like, I realized something pretty quickly. He goes, Y C is architected in this three month program around demo day.

19:28 Three months you're gonna stand on stage in front of all the investors, you're gonna make your pitch, you gotta raise money. That's the whole point. And so he's like, What the hell am I gonna do in three months? So he goes. I realized that during Y C If I went to them and I was like, hey, we reduced the drag coefficient by thirty percent, and this engine design is really awesome, and like that's our progress update.

19:48 We're cooked. And so he's like, I gotta figure out something that I'm gonna do. So he comes up with two plans. He's like number one I gotta sell the dream. So he spends a a good chunk of his time and money. Just building like a model airplane.

20:00 That looks sick. He's like, All right, this is not gonna actually help us. Make the plane? But uh it's gonna help people see that we're making a plane and it's gonna live awesome. How much does Y C give you? Like a hundred twenty five grand?

20:12 Yeah, something like at the time. So he had like a model, like oh he had like a model, but then he also had Uh like it's And A gnarly looking engine. And he's like

20:25 We just want to stand there with a big ass engine and then people will walk by be like, Whoa, is that a jet engine? He's like, Yeah, that's the jet engine we're gonna use on our supersonic jet. Would you like to hear more? So he's like, I need that eye candy. He needed a booth babe. And for him the booth babe was the model and the engine. So Smart.

20:41 Right, because like one of the commonalities of Elon and these other guys is is you can't just be an engineer in your in your little engineering hole. You gotta know just enough about the rest, about the marketing, the capital raising, all the other things to to survive. So he did. The second thing was he was like I need these like purchase orders. So he makes a list And he's like

20:58 All right. How can I go get LOIs and he's like he makes this list and so he's like uh Here's his cruelty. I realized I couldn't show up to demo day with no sales, otherwise my goose was pretty cooked. So I looked at my sales pipeline and it was United, Delta, Lufthansa, Air China. And we only had eight or nine weeks before demo day. And I thought to myself, there's no way I'm closing Lufthansa Airlines by demo day. It's not gonna happen.

21:22 I'll be lucky if I close them in nine years, let alone nine weeks. So I realized I actually only had two options a startup airline or Virgin. He goes, So we I went all in and focused all of my air my sales efforts on startups and verge. He goes. I went to the startups who are currently operating

21:39 And I got one of them to do an L O I, but it's a company you've never heard of. But it was the best I could do, and here I was twenty four hours before demo day. And the lucky break we got was that Demo day was split into two days. If it was demo day one, he would have stood up on the age and said, We have a small L L I from this company you've never heard of. Luckily we got randomly assigned to demo day two.

21:58 So yeah, I bought an extra twenty four hours. In that extra twenty four hours He ends up getting an email from Virgin the night before demo day that says you're allowed to announce We'll take the first ten planes. We've got options on them. And through Virgin Galactica will even help you build it.

22:12 He goes, I fell off my chair. I almost screamed. I had to read the things three times. I couldn't believe it. We went from hap we went from being the biggest laughing stock on Demo Day. So the company that showed up with five billion dollars worth of an L O I Uh words of L O I's a record that won't be broken soon. Dude, that's so sick. What ye what year is this? What year is this? Twenty sixteen.

22:30 So I yeah, I was reading um I I was looking up my email to try to figure out did I ever talk to this person? How do I know him? And the earliest thing I could only find was I think in two thousand twenty it says uh the hustle actually wrote about'em, it said United Airline wants to buy fifteen supersonic airliners from Boom Sonic. So it took'em an additional two years to get the United Airlines thing. The next LI. So okay, so then how did he get V brandset? Hi agency, baby. I told you. He's dripping an agency. All right, so what does he do? So he's like all right.

22:58 If I get to Richard Branson, I gotta go through somebody I trust. He goes, I'm also not just gonna try one path to Branson, we gotta try paths to Branson. So he's like, If I get blocked over here, I got this other Long shot going. So he's like, I had this guy on our board who was an astronaut. This guy, Mark Kelly, you probably heard of him. So that guy was on his advisory board. He's like he knows

23:16 Brenton. He's like so I'm thinking all right, we got We gotta find a way to uh to get to Richard. And so he goes. Um We asked we asked Mark, what's the best way to get to Richard Branson? How do we make that happen? He g and he told me, he goes H

23:29 You got you can't get him interested in you, but go where he's interested in his own thing. So what do you mean? He goes, Virgin Galactic has this big roll out for their spaceship. Richard's gotta be there. So you just gotta get there. Go where he is.

23:42 And they're like, Okay. And so they get it he's like Could you make could you email him and say, Hey These guys I'm advising from Boom Supersonic are gonna be in Mojave when you're doing your roll out. You should meet with them when you're there. And then he's like, um and then he he reaches out to the virgin guys and he's like, Hey, we're gonna be in town uh to see Richard. Can we come to the roll out? And like, you know.

24:02 So basically they get invited to the roll out. They get there. He's super busy. They end up getting fifteen minutes with him when he's at brunch with his mom. And they go up to him and they go he goes

24:14 Um Uh, Richard, they've shown what they're doing. They're like we're building the first superstar night jet since the Concord, we fixed these problems. Uh, we're making that happen and he goes Look, we're not asking you for your money. All we want to know is this.

24:27 When this thing flies Do you want a virgin logo on it? And I think that was the key. You gotta ask for the right thing. When you do a deal, you it's probably gonna be hard to close. You gotta ask for what's really gonna help you. So we told Richard, look. If you're our customer, we will get money elsewhere. We don't need money from you.

24:45 And that was crucial. Uh basically like the first few babies of these that are in the air, do you want'em with a virgin logo or not? And so that was the thing that got Richard Branson across the line was making the intelligent ass. And hustling their way there. This is a movie.

24:59 If it works. If it ends well, it's a movie. Well, they just did their flight, so they just did their first demo flight where But it wasn't a um I think what the test was, if I remember correctly, was it the engine that they were testing? They got the engine'cause the plane is like a s it's a small plane, right? This was a smaller plane than the real plane that they're gonna have. And I don't think it was the full speed that they're gonna have, but they did achieve I believe they achieved supersonic flight. You could check me on that. But they they achieved the right the the they crossed the threshold, they did it safely, they landed it, and is their like whatever, XB one or whatever they're calling that thing.

25:32 Okay, he's got some great startup advice. So here's here's the way he described his startup. I I like the way he phrased this. So he goes Here's my advice for startups. Um, pick something that's gonna be worth it to you personally. That is what's that is how you stack the deck in your favor. Stack to the deck so that you will be motivated. And when you look at what you're creating versus if you went to Google or Facebook or Amazon, it should be a no contest.

25:55 Um, if you haven't found that, just don't even start a startup. I did that my first time. I just started a startup just for just because And it was a horrible idea. You you should start a startup when you're like, I must make this happen. And

26:08 Um, something I've come to believe is that the bigger the idea, the easier it becomes because it motivates you and the people around you and you attract better people to come work on it. When we were brainstorming this, most of the ideas we came up with were like No one's gonna really appreciate this, blah blah blah blah. But For us, it was like the most exciting thing we could ever do. And so for that's all that mattered was like you know, stacking the deck in your favor, doing it as a must rather than a

26:30 We could do this. Um and so that that's I thought one Really great takeaway. I was reading this quote by the guy I don't know how to say his last name, but the guy who wrote Crime and Punishment, you know, like this famous novel, and he said, um Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself.

26:51 For nothing. And I was reading I I just read that like an hour ago and it's sat with me and what you've described is exactly that. Yeah, I love this guy. Uh, so I don't know him. But I'm rooting for them. I wanna invest now'cause you know, why not? Let's let's get on the team. Uh the um

27:08 And there's been a lot of m well I think there's been well, there definitely has been, but there's been I think he's wrote publicly about a lot of the downsides of all this, which is that it's this has not been clear. I think he had to take a huge down round and he tweeted out about it, I believe. And I think his most recent valuation was two billion dollars. Um which was down from the other amount. But didn't he tweet about the down round and how like they basically almost ran out of money and how it's almost failed at uh a bunch of different times. I don't know. I didn't see that. I also I'm different than you. I feel like you love to know the downsides of

27:41 Things. Like even when a guest comes on, that's one of the questions you tend to ask, which is interesting to me because I never really think about it, but you're always like What are the honest Like it's not all peaches and cream, like what What are the downsides of your approach? Which is obviously an intelligent question. But I think there's something

28:00 good about being delusional about it too. And just being like I have a convenient hole in my memory and in my brain. To not even really pay attention or m remember those things. The reason I ask that is because I have been a victim of this many times, where I go and say, Well This guy did it.

28:19 Why can't I do it? And then I start doing it and I think to myself, This is way harder than it than it than it looked. Why is this so hard? And and so I always look for those I always ask those questions not to say that someone shouldn't do something, but just to say that It is much more challenging than it appears, and that is okay and normal. Because I remember thinking on my journey This sucks. You know, this person, he never felt that way. Why do I feel that way? Like I'm I'm full of shit. What the hell? I'm not I'm not good enough. And then I want to like be reminded that like this is a normal feeling. This is a normal Problem I'm having, you gotta keep going.

28:54 That's why I asked those questions. Totally helpful to have that. Yeah. The one that helps me is um Tony Robbins does this thing where he talks about dabblers. versus stressor achievers versus masters. And I I've talked about this a lot, but I won't do the whole thing, but like one of the things he says at the end. Is that Anybody who's pursuing anything.

29:13 No matter what. If you are in it, you're gonna hit plateaus. So for good even downs, but like just plateaus where it feels like it's not working. The progress is not happening, it's not as fast as you want. It's not growing. It's not working, everyone's saying no, we don't have that investor, whatever it is, right?

29:30 And the one thing that Tony said that just always stuck in my mind almost like as a It's like a s it's like a s a jingle in a song. Or like a commercial. Where he goes. When that plateau comes, the dabbler quits.

29:43 The stressor stresses And the master says, Ah, I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Hello, my old friend. You're here. I I was expecting you. Which is

29:53 Like We have this one company we started uh Just a little over a year ago. That's just been like Up and to the right. Like this company

30:02 Is I haven't announced it yet, but it's like Almost a ten million dollar run rate already. Profitable, boost trapped. In one year. It's like insanely insanely successful. But we just hit like our you know our first plateau and I feel like

30:16 when we called it out, it was almost like this kind of like embarrassing down feeling of like oh man, like We didn't have ridiculous growth this month. And we're out whereas I was like, d dude, I've been expecting you. Where is the plateau? I I know it's coming. I almost don't even trust that it's happening until you're that this is real until we start to face some of these. And so Yeah, that's why I asked those questions, is I don't want us. as a media or whatever we are, to be the ones who

30:41 Who I uh I wanna be realistic. Well yeah. As Spotify's thirteenth biggest business influencer. I just want to say that it is a fucking pain in the ass, and it's still worth it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. Speaking of

30:59 Insane agency speaking of insane downs on a way to a huge up. Have you listened to this episode I did with Nick Mowbray? It came out this morning and I hadn't listened to it yet, but I went and like saw I saw it pop up this morning and I went and Googled his company and I own a ton of the toys that he makes. Like like not my kid. Me. So like he owns uh he owns mini brands. You bathe with the rubber fish? Well I've Oh we have a row of fish actually, uh for my daughter does but d you know, I told you about mini toys, right? Uh and how like I Oh that's his? Mini brands. He owns mini brands. And so like my wife is fucking weird and when she was pregnant and like not feeling well, I would go and surprise her by buying these mini toys, which is the stupidest thing ever. It's just like a miniature, it's a ball full of miniature things, like a miniature can of Coke, a miniature Kit Kat, a miniature

31:50 Notebook. The weirdest shit that people love it. And then the other thing loves those. Dude, I don't know why my wife like loves these. Dude you know what I did was I I went and bought like literally three hundred dollars worth and I hid them in my drawer. And whenever like she had a bad pregnancy day when she was like up uh sick or something, I would go and get one and be like, I got something for you. It was like I was like you know, I had like a secret stash. And then also he makes these electric water guns. That I went and bought uh last summer that I would shoot uh at my daughter like messing around. Have you seen the electric water guns? Dove I think it's hilarious how into the toys you are right now. Uh, could I tell you The biggest

32:25 Oh holy shit moment from the whole thing. Well, you gotta tell the background. It's uh from what I know, it's two brothers in New Zealand that have a toy company that does like three or four or five. More than that. More than that. So let's just let me start with this. We have interviewed I don't know how many Two hundred guests on this podcast, two fifty, maybe? Hundreds.

32:43 Billionaires, billionaires. Young, old, man, woman, whatever. Criminals, not criminals. Criminals, non criminals Guys you don't wanna hang out with, guys that you don't wanna hang out with, right? There's a lot of people we've we've had on this podcast. He is

32:57 Yeah, the top of the mountain. My number one most impressive entrepreneur. Of all of them. I was blown away. He is these he he has the scrappies. Hustle story.

33:10 And Like the like his bottom was like the bottom. Liv literally living on a dollar a day for years. Literally This is how funny this guy is. So he

33:21 Okay, something. Now I'll zoom out. Now I'll give you the context that you wanted. But like I just needed to say that that out of every guest I've ever had on this podcast, ever. He is the number one most impressive founder that I've ever had on the podcast. Okay, and we've had some cool people. Uh no offense to everybody else. All right, so um But sorta.

33:38 Story Yeah. With all doing spec you fucking suck. Okay, Robins. I found Batman. Uh this guy I say he's the wealthiest man in New Zealand. He's got a company that him and his brother started, family owned, bootstrapped, self made billionaire. They do A few billion dollars a year in revenue.

34:01 They do a billion dollars a year in just profit. And they've and they've been doing that. Um never had outside investors. He has dominated the toy industry, so he's built the most profitable toy company in the world. He then built the fastest growing diaper company in the world. You ever heard of uh Rascals Diapers or Million Moon at Target?

34:21 Yeah. He's got the fastest growing diaper company in the world doing hundreds of millions. And by the way, he made that while he was on sick leave. He got his intestine removed'cause he got Crohn's disease. And while he was on his sick bed. Laying there, he's like, Oh, I guess I'll just dominate diapers now. I need a diaper. That's what happened. So he he creates the fast growing diaper company. Creates the fastest growing hair care company on TikTok now.

34:43 Wait, what? He's Monday hair hair care, whatever he owns Monday. Um not only all that He now is building the largest factory. In the world.

34:53 Bigger than the Tesla factory, bigger than all that. Where robots are gonna build houses. Autonomously. And that's what he's doing. He's building houses with robots now. Um, self funding the whole thing, by the way.

35:06 Problem I I I asked I was like, Is that just gotta be hundreds of millions of dollars of self funding? And he just laughed. Um, so so take that for what it's worth. Let me now tell you okay, so that's that's what the guy does. Can I tell you some of the just holy shit stories from this thing? Yeah.

35:22 Alright. The dude's eighteen years old. And he Like after tr selling door to door in New Zealand where they live. uh trying to sell h his brother like invented this hot air balloon toy.

35:34 At a science fair. And his brother his older brother and put him to work and was like, Yo, you need to go sell this door to door. Um the dude. They were they're like, You know what? We need a factory. And they're like, Oh, all the manufacturing is in China. So they move to China, but the hilarious thing is

35:48 I had nineteen. At eighteen. I think. Eighteen nineteen, something like that. They go to China. That's the story where they sleep in the bush outside the airport because the airport lights are too bright, so they leave the airport, sleep in a bush, get bit by mosquitoes. They have no money.

36:00 So they're like they're just on their own. So he I was like, Oh, so you found a manufacturer in China that you scaled up because what if you found a manufacturer? We went to China and then built a s factory on the side of a river. Like we just went with like wood and like a hammer and we built a factory. It was like What was the point of going to China? You know you go to China to their factories are already there.

36:21 He's like, Yeah, we didn't understand that. We just went there and we just built our own factory on the side of a river and we found this like Mom. To make us food for two R and B a day, thirty cents a day.

36:33 And then she had some people that could come work in the factory, and then we just have the we had our own production line and it's like a s it sounds like a shed. Yeah, but they literally built a shed and then they just kept scaling up the shed. And he's like my brother didn't come back home for like eight or nine years. He just slept on the floor of the factory and I've I slept on the floor too, then except for when I had to go sell. All right, so how did they win? He's like and our product sucked, by the way. This is one of my favorite things'cause like everybody

36:57 Oh. Makes it. The key is just to have a great product. And then if you're a founder, you're like, dude, what? Like, okay, I've made a great product. Now what? Nothing's happening. Um and you know, they don't like people

37:08 tend to leave out the like The manual work it took, the lucky breaks it took to like get Get the thing to start working. What was the product? It was a hot it was like a plastic hot air balloon toy, or what? Um even worse. So it starts with a hot air balloon. Quickly re ex I did again, we didn't know anything about anything.

37:27 So we go, we build a shed by the river in China, we're making our hot air balloons, then we've learned you can't even export a hot air balloon. It's like literally it's a fire in a tiny can. Like we can't sell that. So he's like we realized that was a waste. So we gotta come up with a new toy. And again, everybody uh everybody tries to say we're so innovative. So we innovated, innovation is great, and then we made a great product. He is the opposite. He's like So we found that this other toy was selling, so we copied it.

37:52 Uh, we ruthlessly copied that toy and we made a shitty version of it because we didn't know anything about manufacturing. Dude, so this like white guy moved to China and out Chinese the Chinese. Exactly. Exactly. He was like, dude, we lived on a dollar a day. I was like, so you I was like, I heard the store you ate McDonald's every day, and he's like Every day that I wish. McDonald's was our Christmas treat. We would go to McDonald's and He's like I for years I just remember saying like Merry Christmas, bro. He's like Merry Christmas, bro. We would cheers our fries.

38:21 He's like, I used to eat half the fries and take it back and be like, Hey, there's only half the fries in here. You guys jip me. And get like a second serving of fries and he's like that was the treat. Dude, I used to do that all the time at bars. I would order an ice tea and be like You made the long island Ice tea wrong. You forgot the liquor. And by the way, he was not saying applied, he was like I I was almost like

38:40 a c therapist'cause this guy's never done a podcast, by the way. This was the first podcast he's I think he's ever done. And there's no stories you can find of this guy like I went to do the research. There's no like, oh him you know, normally we do research, you've you go watch the three most watched podcasts that they've done and you Pick up a lot of stuff. He has zero.

38:55 He had to download Google Chrome. To do the interview. He's like, It's not letting me do this. And we're like, What? And we're like, just open Chrome. He's like, What's Chrome? And I was like, You're a billionaire, you don't know what c what do you use? He's like Oh I think I have Chrome. Hold on.

39:10 He's like, Oh I got Chrome. Okay, got it. Got it. Let me switch to my laptop. This is gonna work. Okay. Like just to get it. No, he was that serious. Mm-hmm. And so uh I was like, dude, why don't you do any podcasts and tell your story's like I don't know, I just never did.

39:29 What motivates this guy? He's just a maniac, dude. He uh he's like calm. Very calm. I felt like it was almost like a therapy session because I'm asking him about these times back in the day. And he's almost like, Yeah, I don't know what we were doing or why we were thinking. Like he just doesn't think about the and he was like not he's like, Yeah, we you know, we we were super scrappy, but he's like we were also a little mentally ill. Like we just were s he goes We were so naive that naive is not even the right word. So he's like, for example, we got sued for millions of dollars because again we like copied someone's toy. And

39:58 So it's like a two million dollar lawsuit. It's either gonna bankrupt the company 'Cause we don't have two million dollars. Or you have to fight it. But the lawyers that we talked to were like, It's gonna cost you a million dollars to fight this. He's like, Dude, we had like a few thousand dollars. He's like so I go to Colorado and I find this lawyer

40:13 He's like, this guy eventually got disbarred, but I find this guy Chad. And I tell them, Hey, I'm gonna do all the legal work. You put your name on this. And we're gonna fight this this way. And I paid him fifty dollars. To put his name on it. And I did the l all the lawsuit stuff myself, just like

40:29 Googling? And we fought the lawsuit that way and then Chad got disbarred like later for other reasons. It was He told a story. Um He's like, dude, we got this

40:40 Expect we got this. He goes, I used to I was like, So how did you sell the thing. Like how did you sell these toys? You're setting the products up and you were copying somebody else. So why would anybody buy this? He goes I emailed a list. Of every

40:52 Retail buyer. Of every store In every region of the world. And I emailed or called them every single day. He remembered the name of every buyer. This is from like fifteen years ago, because he would call or email them every day. He goes the Walmart buyer.

41:06 He's like, I would call her or email her every day. He's like, I never forget her. And he's like one day she emailed me being like Nick, I do not need your daily email. About your product. Well listen, Jen, I'm sorry, it's just a great product. And I just have to tell you about it because we've really got some exciting things to the pipe. It's like I just didn't let up. Finally he goes, She just send me t the two most beautiful words in the in the English language.

41:27 Send sample. He's like, We're in. And he gets this like Walmart order. And by the way, uh actually before that, uh, somebody's like, Hey, do you have your showroom in Hong Kong? I'll send one of my buyers. He goes Course.

41:39 Of course. Show them Hong Kong. Yeah, yeah, we got one of those. It's like what's a showroom in Hong Kong? So he goes to Hong Kong. He rents this little cubicle where they put like escorts in, you know, it's like the red light district. And like it's enough for one human body and he just sleeps in there'cause he doesn't have enough m roo money for a hotel, sleeps in there, and then when a buyer shows up, he just pops out. He's like, Hey, it's me, whatever, you would like to see our showroom? And they're like, Yeah, we're what is What is this? This is a dressing room for like one person to change clothes in. He's like, Yeah, yeah. Toys are inside. Here you go.

42:07 And he ends up getting this order from Walmart. For uh Two million units. And he's like, Oh my God. That's thirty million dollars. He's like, This is amazing. At at that time the revenue was like a hundred fifty K a year.

42:19 It's just tells this story about how he's like First he's like I go and he goes I learned Two words of Chinese. Too slow? And go faster. Cause our factory, our little old factory by the river, had never produced two million units of anything.

42:33 And he's like so we had to produce two million units of this thing. I come home, I take over the factory'cause I'm just like my brother's like not working fast enough. And then he's like And then Walmart basically cancels the order. after he's like super deep in it and he like took a loan from the like from a contract manufacturer to like help him build the two million units.

42:49 And then he like goes and harasses the Walmart buyer to like Hold up to the end of the bargain. Uh and he's like by the way Product doesn't sell. Not a single one.

42:59 He's like It's retails at thirty dollars, discount to twenty five, discount to twenty, discount to fifteen. He goes, it ends up selling for fifty cents. He's like It's like it was like concrete on the shelf. How'd you find this guy?

43:11 I don't know. I've s read something. I re I I must have heard something or read something. 'Cause about a few years ago we talked about him on the podcast and then I remember that like three years ago. Ben has emailed him no joke he showed me seventeen times over the next eighteen months. Um to get him to come on the podcast. This guy sounds I need to go and watch this. It's not like

43:35 You know, he's not like Mr like super storyteller or Mr. Suave or he's a cr I mean he's a great guy, but like He just tells it like it is. But if you listen to this thing, I don't know how long it is, like ninety minutes or something like that. I mean it is one of the most incredible entrepreneurial stories I've ever heard.

43:52 By the way, all right, so I I let me tell you a story now because we This is Chinese related, but we're just telling stories about interesting people. I gotta tell you about someone I just read about. Have you ever have you ever even been to New York? Have you ever been to New York? Like Manhattan? Yes, I have. Yeah. Okay. When you were here, did you see these crazy guys on electric They're like they're called electric bikes, but they're basically motorcycles. They're like the Uber Eats and DoorDash drivers. No, I don't think those happening then. Dude, so in New York, like four years ago

44:22 It just popped up that all of these Uber so there's seventy thousand Uber Eats and DoorDash people in New York City, in like the Manhattan and Brooklyn area. It's like And they're all riding these electric bikes. That fly. They look like they're normal bicycles, but these things literally go sixty miles an hour. And I ride my bike everywhere when I'm in New York City. And like I've these fuckers have almost killed me tons of times. And they're and they're dangerous. They're really dangerous. And what you'll notice is that they all have like these gloves on their bikes. Have you ever seen these like DoorDash drivers in the winter at Navy? I've seen that.

44:55 Well they keep'em there in the winter uh in the summertime too. And the the reason they do that is because underneath those gloves, they have like a motorcycle style acceleration, uh like a twisty thing on the grip, which is illegal. You can't have that because that like you know, at what point are you to go from being a bicycle to being a motorcycle where you there has to be rules. And so there's There was this weird thing where I'd be walking around and I'm like I even would ask these guys how what is this bike? And they don't speak English. So like they couldn't tell me, but I was like, I want to know what this bike is that goes sixty miles an hour and has like a twisty throttle thing because this is sick. I want one. And so I start doing research around it, and I think I talked about it on the podcast. I couldn't find out what it was. Well, two or three days ago an article came out and it told the story about what this thing was, and it's pretty ridiculous. And so Basically there's a guy who comes from China. He's got a uh two

45:46 hard of a name to pronounce, but his uh American name is Andy. He comes in two thousand and eleven. And when he comes He uh basically admits that he goes, I paid a guy forty five grand and he smuggled me in from Mexico. I came illegally. And then in this article, they even link to a rap video that he did when he was broke and poor and he was like, I decided to come to America to make it rich. That was like the Chinese lyrics of this video. Well, it turns out the first thing that he did was he noticed that there was all these Uber Eat like bike riders and they get punished if they don't bring or if they don't show up in time. Like if you don't deliver quickly, you get like docked, like you don't get the full rate. And so he starts importing he he I think he borrowed twelve grand from someone and he starts importing these electric bikes from China and he opens up a a a shop. And one of these shops was right by my house where I used to stay in Brooklyn years ago. And I would always see these guys like they would kind of hang out outside shop.

46:39 Well, what I didn't realize was that he scaled this thing so fast to where he started having um like literally thirty different stores all around Manhattan to where he's selling these things. It's called fly e bikes. He's sell selling these e bikes that go like forty, fifty miles an hour. And they're only a thousand dollars. It's incredible. And they're incredibly illegal. Like Uh Like they they literally just don't follow any of the laws, but if you look at the under there's like a when you order these bikes, there's like says something in the plate. It says like there's literally like a metal plate and it says like you know this

47:13 Uh meets this USA standard, this and that. And like in the article, someone was like, Nobody checks that. It's just basically an honor system and that we hope that you do it, but there's no one actually checking thing these things. But the guy ends up Andy selling seventy thousand bikes. In four years. And a few months ago. Uh I think it was in September.

47:33 He had the audacity to take the company public. And so it go it goes public. On the NASDAQ. And it's uh I think the ticker is F L E Y. And you can see the ticker. Uh I think that uh I the and you can see all I put all their financials in this document, but the year before they went public, they were doing like thirty million in revenue and like two or three million dollars in profit. But they're getting sued like crazy. Because one of their bikes catch on fire because they follow no rules. The the he basically admits that he's like, Yeah, we're cowboys. We uh build first and we ask questions later. And so like homes have built down people have actually died from the batteries being bur uh catching on fire in someone's apartment and burning the fucking apartment down and they're getting sued. And one of the lawyers suing them. He's got this quote where he's like

48:21 Dude. Six years ago, these guys were bus boys serving dishes or uh cleaning dishes in restaurants. Now they're running a publicly traded company. They know nothing about building bikes. They're just like getting the cheapest shit they can over here. And it's all true, by the way, they're insane. But I cannot believe they went public and in like the the one of the I went and watched Listen to this. I w I listened to one of their um The reports or like when they were inter like investors were interviewing the CEO Andy before he took it public and they're like, Why'd you go decide to take it public? And he says he was inspired by the movie Wolf of Wall Street.

48:58 And that's why he decided to take the company public. He says that in a YouTube video. In a YouTube video, he says I decided to take it public because I saw Wolfle Wall Street. And so now because of all these lawsuits and because the company is just like shit, like it's just like they're breaking so many laws, they just do whatever the hell they want. No. The the stock has crashed. We need a spin out pod.

49:21 Of just absolutely Renegade Chinese founders. Just doing doing things that that we would never dream of. I I would subscribe to that instantaneously. Well, he's like the real life Jin Yang from uh Silicon Valley. Where like he's just sitting there smoking cigars s s cigs and like someone's like, you know, you really need safety stuff and he's like

49:42 Who says? Like you know what I mean? Like the Deep Seek founder right now, the Deep Seek founder is gonna get a lot of pub for this same reason. I it's just this guy's hilarious. And it but it is actually inspiring that like all these Dorks are like, we gotta do this, we gotta do we gotta like have this process, we gotta do this. And meanwhile we've got this guy, Nick, moving to China and not knowing shit. And then we got those Chinese guys moving to New York and not knowing shit. And like it's and it still works. And his company, by the way, he started uh Electric bike company, it does thirty million in revenue and Three million in income. So like it's Not nothing. Yeah so and he started with twelve thousand dollars. Uh pretty badass though. Besides the fact that it's um

50:23 You know, like incredibly illegal and dangerous and people are dying. But besides that, it it's like kind of an interesting story because I've always wondered where these freaking bikes have come from. I gotta give a shout out to Curb. They have um an article and it's called The Moped King, how an X delivery worker uppended the streets of New York City for better and for worse. Um and it's called Fly E B E Bike. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I I just need the spin off. Somebody needs to make the uh

50:48 Not not the right way to do it, but still impressive version of my particular Uh yeah, we went from like We went from like um inspiring, who cares about money. We're gonna like make travel better to um

51:04 Hardcore shark does whatever it takes, but still ethical, but like I'm gonna get rich and just conquer the world. To uh Fuck everyone, get paid. The full journey, exactly. Yeah. All right. That's it. That's the pot. Is that it? That's it? That's the pot. All right. I feel like I can rule the world of no way

51:24 I put my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel, never looking back

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