We asked a $18.9B Investor how to survive the AI bubble

0:00 15 years ago we set an objective to become the number one performing private equity hundred since we set that goal, the four funds we invest after that have all done five X or better. How do you do five X in six years? Well you go get Navy SEALs to run plumbing companies. Perfect sense too. It works pretty well. Yeah. In your world, there's a bunch of like AI roll up. We're gonna buy a company, we're gonna throw AI in it, it's gonna be awesome. Is that a good strategy? They'll have two million in revenue and a$500 million valuation, and they're gonna go to zero. How do you see the world in the market? Where do you see opportunity? Where do you see destruction? And where do you see overhype? Okay, I'll start with overhype. How about that? I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song on the road, let's travel.

0:52 Brand Weaver here today. You've seen this guy all over YouTube, TikTok, wherever you've been seeing. What I'm interested in is I would have always loved to go to Stanford. And go to Stanford Business World. There's probably a lot of people listening to this.

1:03 I kinda wonder what would it be like and ha ha you know, that would be cool to be able to go learn from the best at one of the best schools. Well, we get to kinda do that today. We have somebody who not only is out in the field, you've got a private equity fund that has almost like twenty billion d in assets under management. But you also teach at Stanford and I think today It'll be fun if we get to hang out and pick your brain and be students uh like we're in your class. Love it. Lo looking forward to it.

1:28 You know, well What's funny is like You I I've watched your talks for a long time and they're they're amazing. How to live an asymmetric life was a really good one. How to live your full life, I think that that wasn't the exact title one, but that was my takeaway from another talk. And I was doing research on you and I'm like, I didn't even realize this guy had a PE fund.

1:46 And it's and I think that's great that your your ideas are s actually what you're known for more than your work. So are you Besides the talks, can you explain with with your fun, uh how how successful are you beyond just the talks? About Fifteen years ago we set an objective

2:04 to become the number one performing private equity fun in the world. as measured by net M O I C, you know, the return on capital and our last uh since we set that goal to four funds we investe after that. have all done five X or better, or the fourth one's on track to do that. So it's been it's been great. Like it's all the all the content that I try to bring to uh my talks or to the students at Stanford, you know, I

2:31 I like to think they're really based in stuff that really works. There's a lot of a lot of amazing people that are have a lot of really good motivational content. I I like to try mine out in the real world a lot and see what actually uh what actually works and I've And I think the you know, the stuff that I I try to talk about is

2:48 is exactly what we what we do at Alpine. But yeah, we've had a really great run. And I'm really proud of how we've done it too. We've done it, you know, with people, treating people really well. We built our entire business. Around the people at Alpine and the people entrepreneurs in our portfolio And um you know, try to be a force for good.

3:05 The three goals are being the top performing fund, be a force for good and be a place where the best people want to come and work s and spend their careers and I think Hopefully we've done it that way. So you um you just said we you set a goal to be the number one performing private equity fund.

3:20 In the world. Um no big deal. That's right. So and and you said five X um M O I C, which is multiple on invested capital. So and that's over like Ten years or what what's the time frame we're talking here? I mean, from the day the first dollar comes into the last dollar goes out, yeah, maybe it might be it it but it's probably easier to talk about the average probably average is about six years of the average investment's probably about six years. That's pretty remarkable. So um you normally you know, sort of rule of seventy two, you put your money in the S P five hundred. In seven years, you should double your money. So you should get two X.

3:53 If you're there and you're you're basically in the roughly the same time frame trying to get a five X, right? So you you're really trying to outperform. Can you in plain English because Uh Sam knows this. I spent the last two days having had forty private equity meetings and Yeah, I'm Half the time I'm just like w they're like, Yeah, we're a sm small fun, a billion and a half under management. And I'm like that was the story all day. I was like, How much money do you guys have? And what the hell do you guys actually do? So

4:18 Can you give me the simple What the hell do you guys actually do? Are you guys buying like H VAT companies? Are you buying software companies? So um I mean private equity's a very broad classification, there's lots of different strategies. Well I'll tell you specifically what we do. I know um there's a lot of talk around AI biden bills, which we can dive into in a little bit, but

4:37 We do primarily buy and build. So we'll we'll take a We'll find a really amazing CEO that a lot of times has worked with us in a smaller capacity, maybe they were the CFO of a company we had or They came through our training program and then we'll back them. We'll go find an industry that we think is really interesting.

4:52 We like the prosaic industries like the ones you mentioned, plumbing, H VAC. We also do software too because uh there's a number of strategies where roll ups in software can be really attractive. So we It's a small part of what we do though, smaller than the services stuff and But a lot of these really prosaic industries are massive. You know, the plumbing and H VAC industry you mentioned is like

5:12 It's like a hundred and seventy billion dollar industry, so it's So if you get it right. And you actually figure it out, you know, you can you can grow You know, almost forever'cause it you just don't run out of Run out of Tam, which is why

5:26 We like to buy and bills'cause we'll get it right once. And then we'll stamp it out a number of times. The other thing that's really cool about buying bills is it really is plays to our core competence, which is just talent, you know, so we're the buy and bill strategy, the way we do it, really is a talent strategy. You know, we' we're

5:42 In a lot of cases we're putting high attribute like military veterans in to go run these uh a plumbing business. And they're just incredible leaders and So our our secret superpower is really training

5:55 these an awesome leaders and giving them an opportunity to do something They might not have had the opportunity to do otherwise. Sam, is isn't that hilarious, Sam? You could be like, how do you How do you do five X in six years? It's like, well, you go get Navy SEALs to run plumbing companies. Perfect sense to right. That's a that's actually simple simplified expression. Yeah.

6:18 It works pretty well, yeah. The deck is only one slide. I like it. The navy the navy SEAL is actually the pro a very common um background of our of our leaders in in these businesses. And um h how big a companies are you buying? So the add on acquisitions, which is primarily what we do, I mean the I think the average deal we did is like thirty million dollars. So the company might have fifteen to twenty million of revenue, something like that.

6:44 Oh, it's pretty small. Do you and do do you borrow money to and do you borrow money to buy it? Yeah, we do. So we'll we've Once we get it going, we can usually finance all the uh acquisitions with cash flow and and debt. So we don't have to put in any more equity.

6:59 That's important, obviously if you're If you're trying to have a high M O I C the Not putting money in part is is a big part of that. The the the main part of your model that's I would say kind of differentiated is is you you kinda I don't know if it it's not a search fund exactly, but you basically start with a an operator or a CEO in house, which most private equity guys don't do, right? They're they're mostly like We buy you. We hope the management team really stays on. That's really important. Or we're gonna later install and do a search for an executive to run the company. But

7:26 What you guys are doing is you start with the person You kind of run a search with them, it seems like. Tell me what I get wrong. Is it not like what's different about it than a search fund? They come in house, basically, is the difference. No, Sean, you nailed it. It's like a search fund where we try to improve on the search fund model like If you think about a search fund and for those who may not know, you know, a search fund is you're backing a a young person to go buy a business. And then they're gonna go run it, but

7:51 Um, the the thing where it kinda falls down is the first part, which is someone has to go source and buy a business. They have to go build an entire private equity firm to buy one company. So we do all that ourselves'cause we obviously doing this repeated on a repeated basis. But the general part about having a really high attribute person Betting their career on a business.

8:10 Is a grey formula. Probably a lot of what you Talk about on this podcast. I mean it's It's the greatest formula there is. So we love the that part of the DNA of a search fund model. We're hiring very similar kind of high attribute people, maybe a little bit older.

8:24 Then the search for a little more experience of bigger businesses. But generally it is what you just said, Sean. It is it is kind of like a superpowered search fund model. All right, so this episode is all about excellence. A while back I shared my personal framework for building excellence in my own life. And the team at HubSpot turned it into a thirty day operating system you can check out right now.

8:45 It breaks down the systems. It took me ten years to figure out. And shows how I actually use them day to day. These are systems that genuinely changed my life. So If you want to build a good life

8:56 Scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now. Let's get back to the show. So the simplified way of thinking about this is you find a really high attribute person, we'll call them the Navy SEAL for now, just say you know, somebody who's clearly a a go getter, a winner, organized, effective per uh individual who's willing to Work really hard for five, six years to create like life changing wealth for themselves and build and own their own business without having to come up with a great idea from scratch.

9:23 You go with that you're already looking at whatever hundreds of deals. You have thesis around stuff, you go and you buy the best deal you could find there, and then you do add ons. So you go buy the plumbing company, it's already a good business. That person should operate it maybe to be a better business growing it organically. And then you're gonna buy maybe more tuck in plumbing businesses to to grow the thing using the cash flow from the first business. Exactly. And then the other thing is once you bought ten plumbing companies. You know what it looks like to run the best in the world.'Cause this one company might do really well on training, this other company does great on customer acquisition.

9:54 This other company has a purchasing uh advantage. This other one has a training event. Exactly. You grab and e and usually that's true. Usually w each company has a superpower, but after Let's just say ten deals, you've got all the superpowers, you know, and And now your next deal, your eleventh deal has ten superpowers. Often we can

10:14 improve that business dramatically really fast just because you You take that playbook and The reason you can make that playbook consistent is'cause you're putting your own people in to run it. W this took me ten years to figure out, but we would We would back founders and then say

10:29 Hey, we have all these great ideas and the founders would just smile and write stuff down and never do anything, you know? And and and that's not that we don't love founders, but you can't you're not gonna buy a a guy who's run a plumbing company for thirty five years and be a And then you know, come in and tell him how to run his business that doesn't work.

10:43 So Sam, sh should we do Graham a favor and make him likable? Uh because You're too hateable. You're happy, you're good looking, you're super successful. You're like, we just got this model that prints. This is amazing. And I'm gonna do you a favor here because That's the end point, but I wasn't where you started. Like the start of your story is you're mowing lawns in Ohio, listening to self-help tapes. on a you know, in your earbuds while you mow lawns to try to figure out what the hell you're gonna do. And I my I my understanding, you tell the the the fun part of the story, but my understanding is you kind of in college bootstrap this with

11:16 credit cards and went through the financial crisis, a bunch of stuff like that. So Can you can you bring it down a notch and g go to the The part that makes us root for you? Like what's what's hard about this? Yeah. Uh

11:27 First of all, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them. But uh I grew up in a small town in Ohio, went to a public school. And it was a blue collar. Town outside of Toledo called Perry's Burg

11:39 Nothing special about it. And um I I was I was probably just average in just about everything, athletics, school This isn't false humility. I mean this is actually I didn't make the basketball team I

11:52 Got cut, you know, from the wrestling team. I mean I I just wasn't Really sp and I was I was okay at grades, not nothing special. And just as you said, Sean, you know, I I was mowing lawns And I st the Stony Walkman came out and I started listening to

12:09 tapes by guys like Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins and Um Earl Nightingale and And guys like that and So you're ma imagine you're like a Fourteen year old kid and you're

12:20 literally and figuratively brainw I'm brainwashing myself with this content because I listen to so many hours of it and walking back and forth. And uh the two big concept the first concept they that they said was you're either gonna be your own best friend or you're gonna be your own worst enemy. So f you figure out you first, you know? Like you think that the world's happening Like for example, I you you think you got cut from the basketball team and You all this stuff happened externally, but really

12:47 It's it's you, you know? And and that was a very Hard Message to hear. 'Cause I was like, Wait, what do you mean? Uh I I had all these excuses lined up like I wasn't tall enough and I hadn't started playing early enough and my parents didn't get me in wrestling early enough and all the stuff.

13:03 It's like nope, you don't get to have any of that stuff. You gotta it's like let you gotta you gotta get rid of all that and just you gotta accept total accountability for your life. And that was Absolutely brutal. And I realized They were talking about me and I wasn't doing that and I was I was exactly who they were talking about. So if the first thing is kinda get out of your own way.

13:22 The second one was like figure out what you really want and I give Brian Tracy the most credit for this about like how to set goals And I think he Maybe the best you know, at least back then was the best in the world at setting goals and so

13:36 I literally would write down my goals every single day, multiple times a day, uh in in high school. And it was just incredible. The combination of those two things, it's like pretty undefeated formula, you know, get out of your own way and don't allow yourself to make excuses and then write down what you want. be super clear and then and obviously gotta go do the stuff you write down. But

13:58 That that formula was like Really powerful. And there was just something in me, I guess, that wanted more than what I had and So I so I just kept plowing through and then And then the story is

14:11 definitely close to linear. I mean Everything you can imagine goes wrong, you know, I mean I I I wasn't great at wrestling. I I cut a ton of weight in wrestling. I mean I was hundred and twenty five pounds at six feet tall. I mean, do do that math. And then and then with Alpine, I mean, our first fund lost money.

14:28 Train my savings account. Uh Then we started clawing our way back, got smacked by the great recession, dreamed by seeing his account again. You know, it was so it's it's definitely not been a linear story at all. But I think the

14:41 This story is just one of like being clear about what you want. And then just this crazy amount of like persistence. I love that. Um I wanted to switch gears and ask about AI. So What the hell?

14:53 What are we supposed to do? So you know, like five years ago, if you if I was advising my cousin on what w what to do, I'd be like, Go study computer science. I mean, like the technology curve's only going this way. Learn to code, you'll be you'll be set. Now they're graduating and they're probably like, you know, um, yeah, hate their uncle now, uh because Uncle Sean told them to go learn to code. And maybe that maybe that's irrelevant, maybe it's super powerful. We can't tell. Well either way yet. And so there's all these kind of there's all this uncertainty. I wanna hear from you kind of like how do you see the world in the market? Like Where do you see opportunity? Where do you see destruction? And where do you see overhype? I want those three categories from you. Opportunity, destruction, and overhype. Okay, I'll start with.

15:32 Overhype. How about that? You know, I I I was I graduated from business school in ninety nine, which was like It felt like this exact time right now, but it was the dot com era. That was the time when you had like Pet food dot com and web van and

15:45 All this nonsense. I think the I think there were four hundred companies that went public And the only one that I'm aware of that survive is Amazon, maybe eBay.

15:57 Um, but it was like it was a bloodbath. And and so people were right. That The internet's gonna transform the world. And look at us right now. We're on a podcast having you know over Wi Fi. And by the way, I can order DoorDash uh just like WebVam might have wanted to, Instacart, right? Exactly. The way they were burning money and and you know, that wasn't and you know, you think about today, I mean your your mobile phone and you think about like Imagine just your wifi doesn't work for a week. Good luck. You know, like that. So it transformed the world more than people could even imagine back then.

16:30 But there was a lot of like false starts and hype that people didn't really know where to place it and they kind of misplaced it. I think that's kind of where we are in AI. And my example of Uh I'll just just to back up, I think there's kind of four places you couldn't play in AI.

16:45 You could be in the infrastructure layer. Which is really, you know, all the chips and data centers and energy and You know, that's a very exciting area. That's gonna have growth first. Long as we can see then the next is the

16:57 Large language models, there's really not a lot of those, so You know, I don't know that you can really play there unless you're a big business and even investing in those Like you're already paying a price that assumes success for those. So I don't think that's really that interesting. Then there's the app layer, which is where kinda all the most of the venture money's going.

17:15 And then there's the use case layer, which is your customer You know, um like a H VAC company and you're gonna use AI And I think and and and that's you know, that's why I think a lot of these venture firms are jumping into these AI roll ups because They're realizing that the first three layers are kinda tough and they're gonna play in that fourth one.

17:33 But where the hype is is the third one, which is the apps. You know, I'm gonna be an app that I'm gonna help law firms settle their cases faster. I'm gonna make call center software that's gonna allow you to not use humans or I'm gonna whatever. I mean there's a million of those applications. I think that's where a lot of the hype is. We we see all these companies as vendors to our businesses. So we They're they're pitching us all the time, these venture backed apps.

17:58 And Still have two million of revenue and a five hundred million dollar valuation. And they're gonna go to zero. Like they're gonna be worth absolutely zero. But a lot of them are. A lot of'em are getting like Huge revenue fast. Are you saying that you think some of those guys are gonna st also go to like is it is the churn gonna be so high they're gonna go to zero?

18:15 I think that you have to say like ultimately What's the barrier and what's the moat that they're gonna be able to build? There are w there will be apps that will be successful, just like there were dot coms that were successful, but They're gonna get attacked by above and below. You know, they're getting attacked below from the companies that can have now they can build their own stuff.

18:35 They're gonna get attacked also from the LMs who are introducing Interfaces and new products that that are like literally just taking the business of some of these apps. So there's gonna be this constant pressure on them. I think if you can build proprietary data sets, which is harder than it sounds

18:51 Um, or you can build really deep interfaces with your customers, which is also harder than it sounds. Those are Those are motes you can build. But really I think sometimes what you're really you know, you might be six months ahead.

19:03 of where the LLMs are gonna ultimately go and that you can make a lot of revenue for a short period of time. Again, g use going back to the internet. There was a ton of businesses. In the U in the You know, ninety's where it was like

19:16 Get your marriage license online. And those businesses made a fortune and they grew really fast, hundreds I mean they were growing at a hundred percent plus a year. They were Until Google just absorbed all those rents, you know, it's like that and that's a little bit of like the analogy of the LLMs, I think absorbing A lot of the rent. So

19:35 I I'm not making a blanket statement that all apps are gonna fail. I just think that's You ask where I think things are overhyped. I think that's where they're overhyped. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out four fifths of the pages. Point is you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business. The insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com.

20:10 And w what about in your world there's a bunch of like AI roll up. So it's like uh Oh, let's go buy these service businesses. Smash in some AI, baby. Uh let's put some AI in the front door. Is there a back let's put some AI back there? Let's lift the shove some AI under there, right? It's like You know, it's like me with the Thanksgiving plate. I'm just trying to put mac and cheese everywhere. They're like, we're gonna buy a company, we're gonna throw I in it, it's gonna be awesome.

20:35 Is that a good strategy? I think the reason that people are approaching the strategy Is'cause they're probably Seeing a little bit of what I was describing about the app layer and saying, gosh, I'd rather be the person using the AI.

20:47 Than someone jet you know, developing it. So I think that's why they land in these AI roll ups. I think you gotta be careful. I mean, we've been doing roll ups for fifteen years. And AI is a a huge thing. It's important. Depends on the industry, of course. Some industries are AI is a much bigger factor than others.

21:04 But the other basics of like getting the talent right, getting the companies right, integrating doing the transition management, having your workforce stay on No doing training, recruiting. Those are really the core elements. The technology

21:18 I mean here's probably a hot take. I think the technology in many, many industries is gonna be is gonna be commoditized. You know, like Like, I'll give you an example. I'll give you a real example. In property management, we happen to be in property management. I know there's been a bunch of

21:32 AI native. roll ups launched by venture firms in property management. What technol like what's their real advantage? Like are they gonna have technology that's better than anyone else? I I would say the answer is no. So what's the what's the mo then?

21:47 Exactly. Like The moat in property management is all the stuff I was mentioning before, you know, hiring well Building, you know, good g good cultures. Retaining, recruiting. But but the technology, at least in that particular segment's gonna come through the I think the software companies

22:02 are gonna and and so we're we're all gonna have access And this is This is my take. You know, if this isn't I mean there there's there can be other opinions on this, but I think Ultimately.

22:13 I think most people are gonna have access to the same technology. So it'll be a tool And it'll help everybody, but It's not gonna be the thing. You know, it's not gonna be like the real differentiator. Um it and so

22:26 So like I I still would go back to say if you want to win In AI roll ups, you gotta win and all that other stuff, I was saying. Yeah, that makes sense. Some people are doing which is not really the roll up part of it, but

22:39 Uh, you know, you go buy a property management company that does six million a year in EBITDA. And then you use AI to make the business more efficient and now it's doing eight and a half million in EBITDA and you're priced at a five X difference. You've created ten million to fifteen million of value. uh just by like running it more efficiently. And even though another property manager might be able to do the same exact thing. Doesn't really matter. Um

23:03 Plus the Most property managers are gonna be slower to adopt AI than like you might be if you're really bullish on this. I I I think that's the thesis. Like what you just described is the thesis. And we'll you know, we'll see how it plays out. We'll see like I'm I'm sure there will be some people that execute really well and

23:19 have some version of what you said. Up it probably won't be as dramatic. And then it's just like where the rents go and do the you know, does how much that rents ultimately get passed down to the consumer. I don't know that you necessarily win on technology per se. So you must get this all the time. If you're teaching at Stanford, I'm sure somebody's raising their hand and saying Hey, I graduate, you know, next semester. What should I go do? Uh like where should I go? I'm a smart, hungry

23:42 person who wants to be successful, you see the landscape and you know what's going on, where should I be going? What should I do? What's the opportunity? I would say um if I were graduating right now I mean knowing everything I know now I would go do a services roll up because I know how to do that.

23:59 It works really well. I think it's It I think AI is a Tailwind. I do that in an industry where you can build real

24:08 motes and stickiness with the customers. Not all industries allow that. What does that mean? Like services, you you're talking about like Pest control? What are we talking about here? Like take wealth management, for example. You know, if you go into that business, you're like, Okay, well, I'm helping people buy stocks or whatever, but what if You were helping people buy stocks and you were doing their trust and you were doing their taxes and you were

24:27 helping them with all their state planning and and and and and That's your uh mode against AI. It's old fashioned stuff. It's it's Your mood against AI is like the deep, deep relationships with your customers. So I would say go into something where

24:43 you can really build those kind of Customer modes and then AI is nothing but a tailwind for you because Your The customer doesn't care how you're doing your back end, you know.

24:54 But I would just be playing around with that. I think it's like It's gonna be a language that I would advise. Anyone anyone, no matter what age you are, but it's certainly if you're a young uh student graduating, like you wanna know that language extremely well. You wanna speak that language'cause

25:09 That'll also allow you to look at an opportunity and say Okay, I know I could do this with it because I'm so facile in these tools. So I think So Sean and I have both started companies and without sounding too like grandiose. I think that sometimes we view ourselves a little bit artisty and creative more so than like

25:29 good or even interested in like financial models and things like that. And And because of that I think it's partially because I was jealous and partially because it's true that I thought that PE was kind of nonsense. Not in the I thought it was very effective, but I thought like Well, buying a company and firing a bunch of people, that's not

25:46 the the only value creation is that is for like the the owners of the PE firm, not necessarily like the betterment of the world. Uh which There's a million examples of why that's totally wrong. But I think what's interesting about you is you're sort of the antithesis of that, where you're putting out this content that's quite soulful. And when I talk to you and w and when I see your talks, I'm like This guy's got it. He makes me feel good. And yet he's in like the most soulless industry. 'Cause you gotta be good at both, right? You must be great at the ruthless analysis of business and finding the levers, cranking out that gross margin and doing doing all of that stuff.

26:21 While still like clearly not getting not not becoming what the caricature that Sam's painting. If I had to keep it really simple, I would I would say like Let's pretend for a second that I wasn't interested at all in being a force for good and I was just interested in generating returns. I'd run my business exactly the same way. A lot of it is for me is like

26:42 It's it's having the confidence in building something that's gonna be durable and and and enduring. Because so like I'll I'll use a real example. Let's say that I have this strategy I won't use any names, but let's say I I'm a

26:55 I'm a software buyout firm. And my strategy is I go into a business I buy a software company I fire people and I double price. I'll make money in the short term.

27:08 But you look at a time like now where AI's coming Like you really want The the companies that are gonna win in software have incredible teams that are on top. They're they're making You know,

27:21 agentic products on top of their software. And they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna have AIB uh this incredible tailwind for them. And you know, if you if you just destroy your your your team and your cost structure You're gonna get attacked from b from both sides, from your customer side and from You know the L M. So

27:40 We found that building things is a lot more durable than ripping things apart. Cause you can make like one and a half times your money, or maybe maybe even two times your money ripping stuff apart if you're lucky. If you time the exit just right. But if you actually build something Time's your friend and it could be

27:56 Yeah. I mean, you can make a hundred times your money. And so Like I I do think a lot of it is time horizon. I think underneath that is even deeper. Like why are you in this business in the first place? Like it

28:09 If your goal to be in the business is to make money and you want to do it as fast as possible, then then m maybe that behavior does flow from that. But But in terms of just being good at private equity, I don't think ripping things apart I don't think you're gonna be the best in the world, you know, doing that. What's the best deal you guys have ever done?

28:26 What's the hero deal? You know, we've had we've had a few really really good ones that rhyme with what I'll describe but you know, w you picked the plumbing in H VAC. Example at the beginning. That's one of our best deals. I mean we

28:39 We back to people that we we hired right out of Uh business school. They they joined our CEO and training program, they went through that program, they became the eventually the co COs of the business we bought a small plumbing an H VAG business that had like

28:53 Eight million dollars of earnings. This year that business will do five hundred million of earnings. How long how many years did that take? It took six years. Six years to five hundred million dollars. You you have to break that down. How hundred million dollars of earnings, not earnings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Three billion of revenue, five hundred million of earnings in And we I think importantly that that happened without us putting in any additional money.

29:18 Wow, so so an initial buy of like what, thirty million or something like that? How much we have? Fifty in the first deal. We might have put in like that first year like another maybe Nine or so that first year and then that was it. Then we never put in any more What was going on? Was it that uh you just you guys just went on an acquisition spree and picked up all the mom and pop, or was it that they weren't doing any sales? They didn't know what they didn't have a good website? Like what was what was missing that you guys added? We got we got fortunate that the third deal that we bought, we partnered with this guy

29:51 So the CEOs are named uh AJ Brown and Will Matson and then the we the third deal we did We partnered with this guy named Ira Pruitt, who was like the The grizzled HVAC veteran. And just this wonderful guy. He had seven of his kids in the business and like

30:06 And he gave us a lot of the playbook levers and then the next deals after that we were adding to that playbook. So eventually We just ended up with this amazing playbook about how to run those businesses. And then we began that talent program we were talking about earlier where we started Attracting a lot of incredible leaders, a lot of the not all of them, but a lot of them veterans. And And then that allows to go buy businesses that other people can't buy because like

30:30 Really, the line of people that wants to go buy a twelve million dollar revenue plumbing business in the middle of Louisiana, that requires a management change. Is short. You have to address this. So you just you described one of the guys, I forget his name, as a grizzled H VAC guy, which in my head

30:48 I have a I have a picture in my head of what that is. So I Google so I'm I looked up uh the company you're talking about is called Apex Service Partners, I assume. Yeah. And I looked up Will Matson. Sean, go ahead and look up Will Matson and Yeah, he probably looks like the opposite of a grizzled is a baby faced guy. Honestly, he he looks and he might actually be twenty eight years old. I I think he he looks very young. And he worked at JP Morgan and went to Wharton. And worked at McKinsey. So the grizzled guy is named Ira Pruitt.

31:19 And And the combination of AJ Will and and Ira's like Amazing. So that's what I want to ask about. I want to ask about what makes this such a high functioning team to go from eight million to five hundred million in profit. Teach me what makes such a powerful team and what attributes are needed in order to grow a business that fast because these guys look like the fairly odd couple. They are they are an odd couple. So the combo in this T in this in this particular instance, the combo is

31:47 AJ is Incredibly Focused on the talent. And he's the one that rallies the navy veterans and flies around and gets them excited. Will is does it the finance and the M and A and a lot of the whole co functions.

32:01 And then Ira's the one that's like Hey, this is this is how you actually run a plumbing business. Here's the playbook we gotta implement. So that that's what how the combination works. What they all have in common And then to answer your question like what we look for in these leaders. Number one is just this white hot will to win.

32:19 And That's more important for us. We found that to be way more highly correlated than like you know, any other factor, IQ or background or experience But like each one of these

32:30 Three in Some version of their life has just demonstrated this crazy Will to win. We learn this from a Book called Who, which was

32:39 The sequel to the book called Top Grading. And it's about basically how to hire an So we do like a three hour interview and you start With the person in literally like in high school and you go through yesterday

32:51 And you're just walking through their background. It's kind of a conversation just like this. It's not It's not super formal. But you're you're collecting data on this person. And you're you're In in A. Gene Wills' case, you know, you'll or or I or really any anyone that had gone through our program, you know, you're just gonna see

33:08 example after example of like, hey, this thing went really wrong. And it was a bummer. And I here's how I handled it. I got I got up, you know, I plowed through, you know, I put my shoes boots back on and I kept marching forward. And you're gonna see that again and again and again. We always say like if it'll leap out of that interview, like and and if it doesn't, then they probably don't have it. So speaking of deciding what to do, uh and a bunch of your talks, it's basically like

33:34 I call it my rich life. It's like how to live a rich life. You call it an asymmetric life and you and you've done a bunch of different talks and on similar topics. You have this cool thing called the Genie question. Which I forget exactly how you phrase it, but it's basically like what would you do if you couldn't fail? And it's an exercise to basically get people to decide truly what they want because a lot of people listening to this, Sean and I included, were ambitious people and sometimes we'll be We only listen to where the where's the money or where can I

34:03 fit into some traditional sense of success uh along with a lot of your Stanford guys, they all s think the same thing. Like where fear talks us out of some of Yeah, like I can't do that. Like I was supposed to like up go to business school. I gotta go to McKinsey, then I gotta do this. I can't Do this other thing. W so you have this question of like what would I do if I couldn't fail? What would you say is um the most common reason why people are really bad at answering that question? So there's a few a few things I'd say. First is I think People don't ask the question. So that's

34:31 That's probably ninety percent of people. It sounds crazy, but they never ask themselves what do I really want, you know? And they haven't given themselves like the permission to even think about that or or or like I think

34:45 Some like the highest form of self love. is to trust yourself enough to say I'm gonna be on the path that Excites me. You're asked to why people failed to say so I'd start with

34:58 People haven't given themselves the permission to even think like that. So let's Let's assume now you have done that. But I would say for your audience, like give yourself that permission. You know, to re you're you matter. Like what you what you get excited about in this world matters. What are some example answers to that question? You've obviously helped a lot of people go through this process, I assume it's uh at at your when you teach at Stanford.

35:20 I'll give you a couple just from my class in the last couple of years. Last year I had a student who's Building a theme park. In Dallas. In Texas. Like literally a theme park. That was our dream. Well what's that call? I think it's called Texas Land. I'm not sure. Maybe they haven't

35:40 Finaliz that as the name, but But that was her thing and she's going and doing it. I have a student this year who is he is brilliant. He could go to Any consulting or finance firm, he's going to India.

35:55 Um, where his his family's from to help them build free hospitals and Like that is his thing. Like it's super clear that's that's his answer to the question. I give them so much credit that he has the courage and commitment to go do that and it's gonna be very hard

36:13 But that's his answer. You know, what you guys are doing. I mean, you guys are building a podcast that's Like really helping people. And you can just tell from being on this podcast, you guys love it. You're having a blast. Like You're doing it, right? I mean you're

36:26 You're doing the thing that you follow that energy. And gave yourselves permission to be like, Hey, d that's a good place and But I but I almost hate saying it that way because I don't want people to think that there aren't doubts yelling at us or anyone who's successful all the time, because I think in another talk, maybe the same talk, you were like I do this exercise, an alpine is a twenty billion dollar fund. And I think you said for the first fourteen years you thought it was gonna fail or you weren't confident that or I I forget the phrase, but you you weren't confident that it was gonna be a home run. Yeah. I think all of us have these like crazy Um limiting beliefs like That run through our minds all the time that are like

37:02 beating us up with like I shouldn't do this, I have to do this, I ha I should do that. I might fail, oh no. And The thing about that is that's very normal. Like having the that fear and the those doubts it's Hundred percent normal. Everyone has it.

37:17 It's just what Like What do you do with that? And and I think one of the things I try to help my students do is like we have an exercise where literally We like spend an entire class writing all that down, like we like

37:29 Like empty your mind of all the limiting beliefs that are getting in your mind. Just let'em flow out. Okay, I might fail, I might run out of money. Just no one might watch my podcast, you know. Uh Alpine might not make it. A I might not work. Whatever it is. Write all that stuff down. And then and then once it's down on paper

37:46 You've removed it like It does the most damage to you when it's in your subconscious and you don't even realize you have it. So if you're if you're walking around with some fear And you don't even know you have that fear. It just looks like in action and

37:58 paralysis and I'm not gonna go forward and I'm gonna stay stay stuck. But once you have it done on paper Let's say one of your things is I wanna start a company but I don't know how I'd pay myself or pay my loans or whatever. Okay, so fine. You for if if that's in your head, you're just not going to start a company, but if you write it down, you're like You can rephrase it and say, How would I start this business in a way

38:19 Did I could service my business school loans and still Pay my rent, you know, and now that's a problem to be solved. As opposed to a fear That is creating complete paralysis. And so

38:32 I like the act of just Going right at your fears, doubts, and limiting beliefs. That's a g it's a great exercise. High highly recommend that. Um I also just think like the

38:44 The you know, you have the blank page. And like There's a lot of things you could do with the blank page'cause I think you said it right. I think ninety's low. Probably ninety nine percent of people don't really take the time to Examine their life or think about what they really want and actually go answer that hard question because

39:01 It's a lot easier to scroll. It's a lot it's a lot easier to worry about what's going on in Iran and then what's going on in the market. What's going on everywhere else besides, you know, here because the you know those are those are uh arm's length away, whereas it's very very personal to to be here. Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. Uh they make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all my businesses. So I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why uh I like products that are easy to use.

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40:06 For the person who's like, I want to build the theme park in Texas. Awesome. I wanna build the hospital in India. Sounds great. I've been in that position before where it's like, I'm ready to have that answer, but I have no idea. And I'm I'm kind of saying one out loud. It doesn't even feel right. I'm just making it up.

40:22 Um And I had to I've taught myself to basically go through this process of sort of dabbling Like you know, d just take this mentality of a dabbler. Like how do I go and Run either lightweight experiments. or brainstorm or just not feel like I needed to commit right away, but like go try

40:37 to see where the energy is. How do you advise people to if they don't have the answer of Oh, this is the thing that would light me up. Like maybe you don't even know. Where do you f go to figure that out? Yeah, I love that. Well Here's an e here's one idea is Maybe don't have one thing, make a list of like nine things that would light you up, you know?

40:55 Here okay, I'd I'd I think I'd like to go to India. I also think I'd like to restart a podcast. Maybe I really want to, I don't know, become a DJ. You know, I don't know. W write down your things. And then like you said, c you know, keep your day job. And devote X number of hours a week to testing those things out. Maybe you're

41:12 going to do some work on it, take some classes. You're gonna start hanging out with people that do it. Maybe you're gonna get trained, maybe you're gonna do podcasts in nights and weekends. And see if it's as fun as you thought it was. And you're not looking there for This is what I think is really important.

41:29 You gotta you be gotta be careful that you're not gonna get a false negative on the outcome. So like A student who says okay, I wanna start a company, so I'm gonna spend Five hours a week. this quarter and if I get traction I'm gonna do it like no no no no no. You th you're gonna get no traction. Like five hours a week. If if you could build a business in five hours a week, like

41:49 It wouldn't be worth building you know, so It's not that you're looking for like, does it light you up? It they in that five hours a week, was that the five hours you were looking forward to that all week? Or was that five hours where you were like kinda like, Oh man, I gotta do five hours on this thing? You know, like that's what I think you're looking for.

42:05 In those like experiments. Because By and large, if you are lit up And you I mean you plus being lit up plus a long time frame There's very few things that won't yield to that. And that was me at Alpine. You mentioned, you know, it took fourteen years for us to know it was gonna succeed. Yeah.

42:24 But I was fired up. I was willing to do it for a long time and I was in it. I was excited and like Most things will yield to that formula with enough time. Was that right? In year fourteen, were you still like Uh, D B D if this is gonna work. And and and what were the numbers? Can you say what your numbers were then?'Cause I would think you would

42:42 You were financially successful at that point, no? Well, we lost money on our first fund. Um, so fund one was two thousand one. We lost money. That means a second fund? When you lose money on the first. Well We were we were very transparent with our investors about what was going badly, what we were fixing, what we were learning. So they were very like they were like okay, we see you're on the right trajectory.

43:07 You're transparent, you know. At one point that fund was marked at Forty cents. We ended up returning like ninety five cents. So they appreciated that. And they gave us another shot, thank God, you know, and um But but what I was gonna say is so we had

43:21 Fun one. Was it You know, we had that anchor for more than a decade. Cause business you have to go in, you buy the companies, you run the companies, you sell the companies. It takes probably ten years and then fund two comes along. And so it was kind of another ten years after that, after Fun Two.

43:37 Where we actually had some success, you know, where where we could have the outcome of That fun, you know. pr proving out that it was working and so that That's the fourteen years I talk about. But to give you the numbers, we were fourteen years in

43:52 I want to say managing Maybe Two or three hundred. Three or four hundred million dollars, something like that. It might sound like a lot, but we're trying to run an entire team and we have all these portfolio companies and Well let's ask the question. So we called the podcast My First Million, and we st started there's a tradition we would always ask every guest. When and yeah, when and how did you make your first million? And we all we like to

44:12 Really put that reference'cause a lot of times the answer was longer than people think. You try to get you know, when you're twenty years old, you think it's gonna be when you're twenty and a half, you know? You think it's right there and it takes a lot longer. It took me I was thirty when it happened. It took same, I think same thing, thirty, thirty one. And so It takes a little longer and also we talk about how did it feel? Like well. Do you know w what did anything change? And what changed? I love it. I that's such a great question. All those are such awesome questions'cause it's So not what I thought it was gonna be.

44:39 So a couple of different ways to answer the question. One thing to be a millionaire on paper. It's another thing to have a million dollars in the bank. They're different. They're different feelings, as you as you guys probably know. One pays the rent, one doesn't. Yeah. So I'll say a million dollars in the bank.

44:57 That's when I actually felt like I had a million dollars. Yeah. And that was the that was year fourteen. That was when we No shit. That was year fourteen of start so I'm I was twenty nine plus four so yeah, I'm in my Fourties.

45:12 I guess when I when I made my actually had a million dollars in the bank. But the but to put that in context, by the way. That is pretty slow, love. Like having a having like a PE firm, your job is to get good returns and to not having like that I wanna say what We had what's called a European waterfall, which means we have to return all the money in the fund plus an eight percent return before we take any

45:39 Profit. And so we had to we had to first of all fun one generated no carry at all. And then fun two. We needed to sell it was really the very last business in that fund. That we sold until until we got paid. So it was

45:54 That that's what I was saying, like of the part about pap on paper versus in the bank. You know, I was I was a millionaire on paper before that, but actually in the bank it was It was fourteen years. But I wanna I wanna talk about wealth for just one second. The interesting thing is like I felt wealthy way before that because

46:13 My denominator is has always been small. So You know, like there's two parts of Of wealth. There's the numerator, which is what you make and your denominator and what you spend.

46:24 The biggest mistake, and this is something everyone who listens to this podcast can benefit from The biggest mistake people make. is the denominator. And they so they they go th like here's a perfect example. I really want to start a business. I'm gonna go take this other job first.

46:42 And then I'm gonna make some money. And then I'm gonna and then I'm gonna start my business. Okay, that's what they say. Never happens. Because They go take that job.

46:52 Then they get a new house. Then they get a new car. Then they move to this other city, then they have kids. Then they have kids schools, then blah blah blah blah. And their denominator

47:02 Is Keeping pace or even surpassing their numerator and they're never fe they're never actually feeling wealthy and ironically They're creating less freedom every year, you know, because there's fewer, fewer things they could do to maintain the lifestyle.

47:18 And there's no way they could they could start that business. And so probably like One of the most underrated things that happen in my life is My wife I married my wife who was an elementary school teacher And made

47:29 eighteen thousand dollars a year pre tax and like our first apartment that I think was like nine hundred a month, you know, she thought it was the Tasma Hall, you know, and like So we never IRS just send you money if you're making eighteen thousand free tax? Do you actually just get a bunch of money every April? That's awesome. They literally should. They they should. Uh I mean she would drive around for like thirty minutes to save, you know, two dollars on parking. I was like, Okay, well we gotta not do that, but but but that So the yeah, the denominator I so I felt wealthy way before that because I

47:57 I just had a big cushion between my Uh what I earned in my expenses. So there's this story, uh and I don't think at this point that this is true, but it's Ruben Carter. Have you guys heard that song uh The Hur Hurricane by Bob Dylan. Yeah. It's basically about a boxer who um. Yeah, it's uh basically a black boxer who is in uh incorrectly uh imprisoned for triple murder. And he didn't actually do it, but it was like a racist thing. And um there's a story that's part of this that I at this point I think it's fake, where he was like, I don't belong in prison And I'm gonna take cold showers every day just to remind myself that this ain't home. I'm only here for a minute, but I'm gonna get out eventually.

48:34 And like I said, I don't think it's real anymore, but I r heard about that story when I was like fifteen years old. And so when I moved to San Francisco to like start things and like I remember making a little bit of money sometimes and then I would go for long droughts, but I wouldn't wouldn't make any money because I was trying to start something. And I was like, When I when the money comes in, I still gotta take take cold showers'cause I can't get used to this. I'm not out of it yet. And so I was always reminding myself, like, take cold showers. We're not home yet. Do not get used to this. But I remember there was freedom in that. I love that. I love that. And the freedom part is so true, Sam. You know, like The steepest curve of utility with money.

49:07 was going from like The first one was having peace of mind of like not having to worry if I had to fix My car or whatever, you know, some Some unexpected expense happen, but I've got money saved away. And I don't have to stress. That was that was actually very steep.

49:24 'Cause that wasn't always true for me, you know, like my car would break, I'd be like, Oh no. You know, and and and then the next the next curve that was really steep was I have enough money to do what I really want to do with my life. I mean, how magical is that? Like That's really where the utility it's flattened out after that, you know. So that's really where the utility of money comes uh for me. But when you're giving advice to your students, what do you tell them that number is? For example, some people say that like financial freedom is twenty five times your annual spending. Some people have like some people will say like as long as you have six months of savings.

49:54 Like. That you're good. Like is there like a like a threshold that you let there is? I I would say having three to six months of savings is level one, which is like the peace of mind. Because then you know, like I said, you have some unexpected expense and you're you're fine. You don't You don't lose sleep over that, you know, you don't have to decide if you're gonna pay your rent or fix your car.

50:13 That's like three to six months of savings. That doesn't sound like much. It's dramatic. It makes a huge huge difference in your life. And then the next one, I think it's lower than that. Like when I say freedom I don't mean like

50:26 the like, okay, I'm gonna live off the interest of my money I have in treasuries. You know, that that I'm okay, sure, that that's nice if you get there, but But I'm not even talking about that level. I'm talking about I'm spending m I'm still working. But I'm spending my day doing something that I enjoy that is the job that I wanna have. I think that's

50:48 probably nine to twelve months of savings. It's not It's not that so I I I think both of those are really within people's grasp. People who are like, Oh, I I really want to get to the like And then what?

51:01 You know, like then what are you gonna like then what are you gonna do? And and I I wanna go back to the other question you asked, did it feel the same that you thought it was gonna feel? No. It did not. So when I actually had wealth and I'd worked and I go back all the way back to the lawn mowing and the

51:16 all the sacrifices I made and getting good grades and getting into the right school and then getting the job and then suffering through fun one and then finally getting on the other side and then finally getting this big liquidity event. It was It was like the most Disappointing and s like

51:34 It it it'cause I'cause I thought it was gonna change everything. It didn't really change it hardly anything and And like what was still There was like th the maybe the thing I'd been running from, which is like I'm not enough. You know, like what what like cur what career milestone, since everyone listening to this is interested in business, but it could and family's too easy to answer.

51:57 Uh, but like what career milestone actually did move the needle on happiness? If it wasn't like a financial thing, is there anything else like, for example, you probably have hundreds or thousands, I don't know how many employees you have, d uh whatever it is, like you've created like an institution. Has that made you feel good? What what what teaching at Stanford, what career milestone have you had that a listener can like be like, Okay, that's like a cool idea on how ac he actually got happy via career. Good question. There are c two ways to answer it. First is Y you could one answer is you're not gonna solve an internal problem with the external Outcome.

52:31 So like if if I feel like I'm I'm gonna be enough when Like whatever you answer that with is gonna be disappointing to you. You know? So That on on that answer, it's it you can't kinda get there with the career And and you you have to

52:46 At least for me, I had to do a lot of internal work. Therapy coaching. journaling, um, meditation and and start to just like let go of this. you know, I'm not enough part and that that's That's probably created more

53:02 happiness and peace of mind then the Then the career probably the career achievement that I remember the most It wasn't even really an achievement. It'd be like my three partners and I

53:14 Oh. In Napa. You know. Together. Working through something

53:21 Where I would just have the self awareness to look around and just be like, Wow, this is This is really special, you know, these are people I really love. We're doing something we love and We created this together. And it so it wasn't like a big wire came through or something. It was more just like these little moments.

53:39 Can we get some uh secondhand smoke therapy from you. So, you know, uh you talked about like doing the work, kind of like internal work. Uh therapy, coaching reflection, introspection, all that good stuff. You know, a lot of people either haven't had the time or don't have the the sort of guts.

53:57 Don't make enough time to do that sort of thing. But I think, you know, if they're listening right now, we can kinda benefit them. I I remember we had Daniel Negrano, one of the great poker players come on the pot and he told us. Nothing about poker. I don't remember anything about poker, but I do remember he said the most impactful thing in my life was a mentor, a lawyer guy who I really like I thought he lived life well. He told me I should go to this event and I went to the self help event. I hated every minute of it, but they made us do this one exercise.

54:21 about like total radical accountability where you write the worst thing that ever happened to you. You rewrite the story. Where you are the cause of all of that thing and you own the the the entire thing yourself. You don't blame anybody. Rewrite the story, and he's like that changed my life. And so like you know, I almost secondhand got the benefit of going to that seminar. Just understanding that principle then you know, then taking it and doing it myself. Uh I'm curious, were there any kind of breakthrough

54:46 really important kind of realizations or exercises or questions or Conversations you had anywhere along the way that we would benefit from? Yeah, a hundred percent. I'll give you a couple of Things that I learned. Um

55:00 So one is Almost all your battles that you have are you against you. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's true.

55:09 It seems like this whole thing is happening out there and you're You know, you're winning this or you're doing this and like But you're remember, all that stuff that happens goes through this filter, which is called like the story you're writing about it. Then it goes Internal And like you can you can change it.

55:26 The easiest part of changing your life is to change that filter, you know. It's it's way easier than changing what's going on out there. It's a lot easier to change how you're interpreting it. And so you can either be your own worst enemy or you can actually be your own best friend. And I can tell you

55:45 That I was my own worst enemy. Like I it did it almost didn't matter what was going on out there. I would look for what was wrong, I would have a bad story about it, I would beat the crap out of myself. And then I would tell myself another story, which is me beating the crap out of myself is why I'm successful. Total bullshit.

56:02 Um It was just what made me miserable. It's like running through life with your foot on the brakes. So one is just that awareness, like That Wow, I'm I'm having more to do with my

56:13 Peace of mind, meaning, success, uh, happiness, then Anything that's happening external. I think if you really think about it, you'll realize that's true. And then the and then the formula for like Actually program it yeah, w actually changing that.

56:28 I finally understood like in a simple way why to meditate and and how to be how to be um how to make it work and and how to have it actually impact your life. So You go to the gym and you work your bicep. And your bicep, you break it down, it gets stronger, and then you know It regrows and is bigger. So meditating is very similar.

56:48 Except the muscle you're working is your basically your mind and your your self awareness, your presence. So you pick your meditation, you're counting your breath. You know, that's simple one, right? You just close your eyes, you count your breath. And then it your mind starts going off and talking about thinking about whatever. You know, I

57:05 messed up this conversation or I should do this, or I've got tomorrow, I gotta do this, whatever. And then you notice that. And you it might take you a while, but you you notice that your mind just took off and you bring it back to your breath and you do that again. And then Happens again, you notice that, you bring it back.

57:20 You're basically building this muscle. You're building a muscle. The muscle is like I'm going to two things. One, I'm separating from my thoughts. I'm realizing those thoughts that are happening aren't me. I'm creating this muscle of observing my thoughts versus just You know, succumbing to them.

57:36 And second, and m even more powerfully I'm building the muscle being present. Like if you want to have a great life, like be present. Like if if if if everyone in the world was present and here, right here all the time and not in their head. Like People would be like

57:51 in this great state of joy like And so Building that muscle. Oh. Of watching your thoughts coming back and being present.

58:00 Um Is the same muscle of being your own best friend because you're Because you you're you're s you're seeing like Oh wait, I see that this thing happened and I You know, maybe I didn't answer this question really well.

58:13 Or I could let that thought go and just be here, you know, and like doing that over and over. Well it's a great reframe, right? Because Normally if you meditate and then you You're sucking at it. You know, your mind is drifting. You're not doing it. You're not having fun with it. You're like I'm I'm bad at this. This is not working.

58:30 It's like going to the gym. And uh, you know, you pick up a a weight that th those last three reps are hard. But you're at the gym you know, Oh, that's great. I did exactly the thing I was supposed to do. I was building the muscle. If I If I just went and I did curls with a three pound dumbbell, like I wasn't doing anything then. I shouldn't have even been here. And so reframing the meditation, the the failure in meditation as more of great, I'm building them I'm building this practice, this muscle, I'm getting better at doing that.

58:56 And how do I get better by by feeling at it? Hey, can I ask you really quick before we wrap up about parenting? I saw that you've got uh three kids. You blogged about how one of your kids went to college. Do you put do any of these exercises with your children? And at what age did you start doing that? Or were they like You're my dad. I ain't listening to you no matter what.

59:16 What? All of the above. My kids are definitely like You're my dad. You know, it's funny because In most circle like worlds, I'm I'm you know, I'm a professor or I'm running a firm or whatever. At home I'm

59:29 I get you know, I have teenagers, like they're ruthless, right? They I do make fun of everything I do. And uh I I I do it in a in a way that's not maybe as obvious But

59:40 You know, f I'll give you a real example. It's easier. You know, my son was like trying to decide his fr he had a really tough year his freshman year. And he was deciding if he was gonna play the cross the next year'cause he had a tough season. It didn't go out he wanted and It was brutal.

59:54 And so you know we I did a o exercise with him and we Okay said, Okay, Blake, like Let's go through and talk about like l I want you to play out your next Three years as though you didn't

1:00:08 play lacrosse. Like let's go through it. Like I want you to really like think through Okay, w you get home from school, here's what you do. You know, here here's the cross season comes along, your friends are playing, you're doing this. Now I want you to go through and you go through the season, but it's hard, you do this. And after that he's like, I I definitely want to play the cross. Like I know for a fact that's what I want. Like

1:00:29 by the end, you know, when I get done with my C my four years, like I want to have gone through that. And So Yes, I use these tools, but it's

1:00:39 It's more letting them kind of It it's in service of their their lives and and it comes up more like As when they ask almost when they ask for it versus me Saying okay, it's Tuesday, we're gonna sit down and do this. Having said that

1:00:55 My kids also watch you know, that your kids watch what you do more than they Listen to what you say and so You know, my kids have goals, they work hard, they write down their goals, they Um, they try their best. I like to think But I think a lot of that just comes from

1:01:11 Osmosis. What what about your employees? Because when I listen to your stuff, I listen to your stuff because I'm looking to change my behavior. Most people don't change their behavior though. And you talked about hiring these um these operators, these like people who have these wonderful backgrounds and who um have a track record to where they have this will white hot will to win. Are you able to change any of their behaviors ever when you hire someone, or are you looking for someone who already has Uh

1:01:39 So I'm definitely not looking to Teach someone how to be motivated or to care. Or to run through walls like I can't Teach that.

1:01:49 However. Um we've bought eight hundred companies. I've been doing I've been in private equity thirty one years. We built some incredible businesses. So we have Incredible.

1:02:00 frameworks and tools and playbooks that we use. That have been battle tested. And they're Yeah. One of the things we're screening for is are they

1:02:10 Uh, do they have a growth mindset or are they open to learning and so Our if if you look at our companies that we have in our portfolio There is a Pretty much a one hundred percent correlation. between how much of the playbooks there

1:02:27 running and how successful their businesses are. So they're coming into Alpine wanting To say, Hey, look, I'm thirty two years old. I wanna run through walls, but I don't know how to run a business. Can you help me do that? And

1:02:40 And that's a great partnership because we have so many great tools. Now now they will take our playbooks. And they'll make'em their own. So five years from now they've added to it, they've Dave you know, change it. They've they've they've made'em better and they've made'em work for them. But

1:02:54 But we're definitely providing a lot of the foundation of like Here's some Amazing tools, you know, like We have Kaizen projects we run, we have process mapping, we have a one page planning. Planning

1:03:06 Have you ever published this? And can I have it? Is this like Colonel Sanders chicken recipe? Or is this Yeah, I'd be ha I'd be happy to share with you It's probably come through in some of my materials, but um

1:03:19 But yeah, we've I mean we've we've We've definitely codified a lot of this and over the years and Yeah, I'm I'm happy to Happy to share with you. That's awesome, man. You're you're you're wonderful. You know, I don't want to compliment you too much because I've I've I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but uh Sean and I have this uh we have this joke where we we call it the total man, where like, you know, we interviewed all these amazing people. We've interviewed people who are deca billionaires, we've interviewed people who whatever

1:03:44 And like we're always nineteen year old is just oldest company, you know, the whole spectrum. The whole spectrum. And we're always looking for someone who's like this combination of a good parent, a good husband, a good business person is interesting, looks like seems like they have fun in life and is kind to one another. And um I think you've checked a lot of the boxes. Um and uh it's really cool talking to with you because you you I think you're a good inspiration of what like a person should aspire to be. Oh thanks, Sam. That that really means a lot. I I really appreciate that. And um I really admire you guys a lot and I've I really enjoy your podcast and and this has felt

1:04:18 To me, just how you Said it would, which is just hanging out and talking about fun stuff that we all really are excited about. And um Really grateful you had me on. Happy to come back anytime. Is it really fun?

1:04:29 Awesome. Thank you so much for doing it. Where where should people where do you want people to follow? Is YouTube kind of your main spot or Instagram or TikTok? Um yeah, probably Uh probably Instagram uh and I mean I'm on all all the platforms, but um I'm Graham C Weaver. Uh at I think that's my that's all of them. I think I'm the same per same

1:04:49 Username at all of'em. So yeah. Well badass brother. We appreciate you uh coming on. That's it, that's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world a no way Be what I want to I put my all in it like my day song On a roadless travel never looking back

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