How this dumb doll makes $2M per day

0:00 The stock has grown in the last year from a seven billion dollar company to now a forty four billion dollar company. 44 billion. Okay. You know what I mean? That's that's what Elon bought X for. This guy's selling laboo boos. It's insane. It's crazy. I feel like I can rule the world and know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my day's all on the road, let's travel, never looking at it. Well one of these are. Oh my gosh. Ramon will not quit talking to me about these things. Okay, so those all right, so for the listener, Sean's showing me. They look like uh dolls, basically in the same vein as a troll.

0:39 But I have gotten text from my friend, our friend Ramon, who says, Have you heard of this thing? It's worth and he says the number and I'm like, Oh Yeah, it must have been a typo. So what what's the deal with these things? Do you know what they're called? I don't a super something? No.

0:56 This is a laboo boo. All right, so get yourself educated. This is a la boo boo doll. Okay. Does it have a Prada sign on it? Yeah, that's part of the part of the stick here. Okay, so what's the what's the story with these things? This is basically the most viral Toy in the world. Yeah. It's one of the biggest crazes since, you know, BD Babies and things like that. And so the story behind this thing is pretty crazy. I just wanted to

1:21 Tell you some of the things that I know about it. Of course, my wife put me onto this months ago and I just ignored it as the uh the stock of this company is up like seven X in a year because this thing is going crazy. Chinese company, right? Chinese company. Yeah. So this is c made by th this these dolls are produced by a Chinese company called Pop Mark. And the maker of it, this guy, Wang Ning.

1:42 He is now the tenth richest man in China. And like he's adding like a billion dollars to his net worth in the last, you know, but he's like thirty, right? Or or like he's He's he's really young. Like, dude, look at this picture of him. Yeah, but Chinese guys always look really young until they don't. Tell the don't Yeah, haven't you ever heard like all of my Asian friends, they're like we always look young and then we fall off a cliff.

2:04 Alright. Do you see this guy? Yeah. Twelve or fifty, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, so this guy is behind this company, Popmart. Uh, but it's kinda fascinating what's going on with this.

2:18 Praise, right? Like it's it's really taken over. So Somebody gave these to my kids. as like a gift and I didn't really understand the significance of it. I was like, Oh, cool, thanks. I didn't realize that we were just gifted. Like a

2:32 Really important. Thing. This is like one of the more valuable items in my house right now. Like these things sell for thousands of dollars. The top ones can sell for six figures. That's how crazy the uh the craze is for this. Okay. So tell me the story because this is this sounds like a good sh good stock to short because that's typically how these like Collectibles. We'll get to that. Yes, I I agree with you. We'll get to that. All right. So the story of the Labuba dolls is

2:56 There's a guy who's an artist around twenty fifteen He's cr he's in the Netherlands. He gets inspired for to create like a a kind of like a a an a a toy world. So like a uh a character world. uh based on where he's at in the Netherlands and he Designs these dolls. These kind of like like look at their teeth, like the little like gremlin looking doll. Yeah, there's hope for there's hope for us, okay? Because

3:19 The experts are describing this. Um as ugly cute. And it's succeeded because it's execute. And I just thought like our podcast I just feel like that just gave us like some wind in our sails for what we could do as well on YouTube. It's worse for us because we're not particularly ugly, but we're not particularly good looking. Is there like a

3:37 Yeah. What the kids call mid. Yeah. He creates these in twenty fifteen. Not a lot happens from there, but in twenty nineteen, so four years later. He partners with this company Popmart and Popmart was started About a decade ago because

3:54 This guy Wang Ning had this insight, which is he thought that this cadet trend, we talked about this before because you're into Legos. So he's like this cadult trend, this like Kids toys for adults. Like a thing. Yeah. And so he creates this store and the store uh to really take advantage of this like style, this business mechanic called blind boxes, which I don't know if you've seen.

4:17 Uh LOL dolls or mini brands where you buy the box, but you don't know what's inside. Similar to like Pokemon card packs. You buy the pack, you don't know what cards are inside. And so this mechanic which I think they call it like the gotcha mechanic, creates a lot more spending, right? People will will keep buying because it's a little bit like a treasure hunt. And you want to see what you can find. What you can get. Will you be a scam. Like I remember Logan Paul or Jake Paul were sponsored or did business with a company called Mystery Box. And that was like a rage, like a very trendy thing for like three months. Do you remember that? Like ten years. Yeah, like these loot boxes are in games and people know that okay, this is kind of not it's not a scam per se, but it's basically manipulative, right? It gets people to buy a lot more. People get addicted to this thing.

4:59 And especially when you're targeting kids, which is why Logan Paul and those guys got in trouble was Hey, this is targeting kids. The beauty of this is it's not targeting kids. So the way these blew up is through celebrities. Wait, can I ask a question about the company Pop Mark. So he had a Popmart. He had just a t it was a toy company for a long time. Or what was the the origin?

5:19 So the story is twenty ten He opens up a small designer store in Beijing. And he's trying to build it off this collectibles brand. He starts selling blind boxes. This Labubu's not in play at this point. There's other blind boxes that he's trying to sell. And in ten years they grow from one store to you know three hundred plus stores. two thousand vending machines where you could just like it's just

5:40 Y you know, you just buy one of these boxes right out of a machine. It ends up going public in twenty twenty. Stock doubles on the first day. The stock has grown in the last year from a seven billion dollar company to now a forty four billion dollar company. Forty four billion. That's that's what Elon bought X for. So That's so insane. Uh so the before it became when it was just a four or seven, I think you said billion dollar company. They just sold like dolls that people liked. And it's so which which a seven million dollar toy company is is that's already a mega success. So they sold other people's stuff.

6:12 That was over four years. But yeah, yeah, they're they're they're selling collectibles of different brands, different IP, and this is one of the IP uh that they have and this doll alone, like these These laboo booster. uh did like seven hundred million last year. So they're like now like almost it's it's it's getting close to about half of the revenue of the company overall because the trend has exploded. And then they connect with this with this artist and so that brings us to where we are now. Yeah, so the question is how did this explode? Where does a

6:40 The the thing that fascinated me is like Where does a trend like this even come from? How does this happen? Because It's totally irrational, right? Like why this doll? Why not another doll? Who is it the teeth? Is it the outfit? Is it what what is it behind it? So there's some I guess learnings to have from this about like the psychology of a winning product. So just wanna tell you a little story about how this happens. So Check this out.

7:02 Uh Exhibit A, twenty twenty three. Okay, so this is a photo that you clearly can tell it's just Rihanna like getting coffee or leaving a hotel. She's going to an airport. And she just looks like she's it's not sponsored, she's just being a lady and she has one of the toy b Bebops or Boo Boo's or whatever they're called.

7:24 Book bag. Is that what it is? Okay, I it looks like a bo I'm looking from far away. It looks like a book bag. Okay, so she spotted with it. Hm, interesting. At the same time, another trend is happening in Thailand. In Thailand People are starting to see these laboo boos for whatever reason

7:43 as possible good luck charms. And in Thailand people are quite religious. And they started to view these as like almost like a spiritual, like a little guardian that they could have with them. And so that's that rumor starts to spread. And then what happens is Uh, do you know the bla the band Blackpink? Do you have you ever heard of this band? No.

8:00 It's like a Korean pop band based like one of the most popular pop brands in the w in the world. So It's a girl band, like Spice Girls. Oh, I know it. Yeah, I like I like those guys. I I see their music videos, they're very eye catching. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Uh just like uh it's a sensation. You'll go on YouTube and you're like, What is this thing with a billion views on YouTube? It's sort of like the sensation of Like the BTS thing.

8:22 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so uh this is Right here, this is Now we're talking about Black Pink. So Lisa from Blackpink goes to Thailand to visit her friend.

8:35 Her friend says Hey, what do you want to do today? They decide Let's go shopping. She thinks Okay, we're gonna go shopping, clothes, bags, what are we gonna go buy? But no, she wants to go to Pop Mart. And she says what pop I don't know what Pop Mart is, but they go to a Pop Mart store.

8:49 At the Popmart store, the friend really wants A Labuba. And Lisa says, Honestly Not into it. Don't I don't get it. Don't don't care about it. Blah blah blah. But the friend gets super disappointed because they're all sold out.

9:02 And the lady at the store is like, listen, it's impossible. You're not gonna get one. And that little mimetic monster inside Lisa starts to roar. The one in her stomach and she's like, You know what? I can't have it. I must have it. And she decides

9:16 Actually, I think I do like labos. And I think I do want to go get labos. And she starts to collect these. Now She starts Getting obsessed with Popmart, she goes, she buys my boxes. As she starts collecting these this becomes her D stress. type of thing she does from the the stressful life of being a world famous pop star.

9:33 Yeah. Now She gets caught. Having a laboo boo. Why?'Cause she posts it on her Instagram. So now we're fast forward twenty twenty four.

9:41 This is the photo. That created the craze. It went from Just like you know how a hurricane starts and there's like some some sweeping winds. Maybe a a a casual storm a casual rainstorm. And then

9:54 Then comes the hurricane. And this this Instagram story started the hurricane. And it's her hugging her laboo boo. Can I say something? I kind of get it. That looks pretty cool. Yeah, it's uh it's like an old white guy in overalls. It's kinda what it looks like. It looks like a farmer. Yeah, this does look like a Midwest farmer, actually. This I kinda like I I

10:17 And it's big. It's about two feet tall. I kinda think that's neat. I understand. Yeah, so they they come in different sizes. The the one that sold for over a hundred thousand, that was like a a human size one. Okay. Okay, so this is the stock since that photo was taken. And you can see the stock is up seven X since then as it's just been crushing. And so the Labu Boo Craze starts and what you know, what's interesting about this is Why? Okay, so celebrities started

10:42 Posting about it. That's it. Okay, I get that. But w what else? So here's some of the other things that I found kinda interesting from a I don't know, behavioral psychology point of view. The first is The lipstick effect. Have you ever heard of the lipstick effect?

10:56 I don't think so. So there's an economic theory that basically says that whenever people are under financial pressure, so uh maybe the economy's a little bit choppy, maybe there's Um uh you know, you know, there's inflation, there's w there's wage pressure, whatever it is. People will opt people think that you'll stop spending, but what actually happens is you shift the spending. And so instead of buying a new bag, you'll just buy some lipstick. They'll buy a new lipstick. And so lipstick sales sales will explode.

11:23 at a time during economic pressure because you take away from bigger luxury purchases and they go into smaller luxury purchases. So instead of a two hundred dollar outfit or Uh bag you're gonna buy a twenty dollar. uh item instead. And so people think that this is part of what's behind La Boo Boo, which is that

11:40 this thing uh you know initially started where these are like, you know, a twenty dollar twenty five dollar box that you buy and you get a little boo boo. But the thing with these, the smart thing of these is I showed you the doll. This is the most important part.

11:54 This little ring because Most stuffed animals you just keep them at home. So there's no virality to it, right? You just have it at the comfort of your own home. Nobody sees it. Uh you don't get to show it off. It's not a status symbol. By just having the bag clip attached to these things

12:08 They suddenly became Like luxury accessories. And so that's why Rihanna had it attached to her bag and this black pink lady had hers. And then David Beckham is posting that and Kim Kardashian posts that she has 10 of them and she starts clipping them to her bags. It becomes this add on to your luxury bag. This cute little add on that you could put on your bag.

12:27 And then each one of these has an outfit. So I can take this off. And I can buy new clothes for this and I can upgrade my labuboo. So now you have all Can you spell Labu Boo? L A B U B U.

12:40 Oh, okay, I see. By the way, Leboo is actually only one of the characters, but that's just what it became called. The the character structure called the monsters, but um nobody that didn't stick. Oh my gosh. I'm on their website. Yeah. I think it's kinda cool.

12:53 Yeah, I agree. And so and so what what I think is interesting here is that You have this kind of what Charlie Monger calls the Lollapalooza effect. So maybe you have the lipstick effect. Causing people to look for for little luxuries.

13:07 Then you have the cadet effect where You have adults looking for uh, you know. Maybe comfort and pleasure. uh because when there uh that's a another economic theory here, which is that when adults face stress uh from work and global events like wars and whatnot, they find emotional relief in connect c uh collecting toys and things that connect with their childhood. So you have that effect kicking in, you have the lipstick effect kicking in. You have the status symbol effect of this where you can attach this to your bag. You have the ugly cute effect

13:35 Which we are just Expl we're just crushing with right now. And so all these come together to create the phenomenon that is laboo boo. Great, great great job. Uh good find. I uh I've been hearing about this, but I didn't exactly dive deep. So that's cool that you did this. This is not sustainable. And this is definitely gonna go away in the next five years.

13:55 But let's get it while the kitten's good. All right, so I've built a few companies that have made a few million dollars a year, and I've built two companies that have made tens of millions of dollars a year. And so I have a little bit of experience launching, building, creating new things. And I actually don't come up with a lot of original ideas. Instead, what I'm really, really good at, what my skill set is

14:20 is researching different ideas. different gaps in the market in reverse engineering companies. And I didn't invent this, by the way. We had this guy, Brad Jacobs, we talked about him on the podcast. He started like four or five different publicly traded companies with tens of billions of dollars each. He actually is the one who I learned how to do this from. And so with the team at HubSpot, we put together all of my research tactics, frameworks, techniques on spotting different opportunities in the market, reverse engineering companies and figuring out exactly where opportunities are versus just coming up with a random silly idea and throwing it against the wall and hoping that it sticks. And so If you wanna see my framework, you can check it out. The link is below in the YouTube description.

14:59 So I started thinking How do I make money on this? All right. So the first way I should have made money on this was when my wife started telling me about this. Which was I don't know, six to eight months ago. I should have either bought the stock. I should have looked. I didn't even think it was gonna be a stock. I just thought it was like a stubbed animal. I didn't even think it was like a public company. Should have bought the stock. Or, you know, you could have ch could have tried to f collect and flip. Okay, that's too much effort.

15:18 So what's the play here? So I went and looked up. I asked AI. I said Tell me the last five craze toy crazes. As crazy as Laboo Boo. Over the last fifty years and compare them. What were some of the other ones? So it would have been cabbage was the first one that it came to the baby baby babies.

15:36 I think trolls were popular for a minute, but I don't know if they were a craze. Then it gave me Pokemon. Pokemon cards. Which had two two bumps. There was the one when we were kids where buying and collected packs reached about about the same revenue, about two billion dollars a year.

15:51 And then it died down for about twenty years. And then recently with like kind of Logan Paul started collecting them again, they had another peak and it had one point six billion in It sales um on the pep cards uh recently. So Pokemon.

16:05 And then the last one I gave you, which was I thought kind of interesting, uh as AI, but actually is a good point. 'Cause I was thinking maybe Furby's or Tamagotchis. I didn't I didn't know what it was gonna give me. Um those were smaller. It gave me Stanley Caps. Which actually makes total sense'cause it's the same thing. It's the exact same thing.

16:23 And so it gave me those and the funny thing about these is On a sc on the scale, la booboo is actually still small. So this doll did about seven hundred million. Uh, those all at their peak were kinda like one point six to two billion dollars in sales. So I actually expect that over the next year. This thing

16:40 Goes even The star kinda goes viral now. It burns out. And it hits a two billion or three billion in in revenue. Um And then it's gonna crash. Cause the funny thing with all of these. is they all had about a two to three year peak.

16:54 Tops. And so I think the actual play if you want to make money on this thing is to short Popmart stock. Starting. Around uh, you know, end of twenty twenty six and you know, maybe maybe through twenty twenty seven.

17:07 Uh now shorting is dangerous because you can lose your shirt. Uh,'cause it shorting has sort of asymmetric downside. Uh, but if you Yeah, I think if you were a betting man, the odds are that, you know, by twenty twenty seven This thing is not a forty four billion dollar company anymore.

17:21 What was the name Okay, so you had a friend, uh Michael, Michael Smith, Michael Acton Smith. He had a The guy who created calm.com, before he created calm dot com, the the meditation app, he actually had a toy, a stuffed animal toy company called like Minnow Monsters or something. Yeah, that's right. Um what was the name of the thing? And this so his company was called Mind Candy and it was Moshi Monsters was the name. Minnow Monsters was a a mobile game. Moshi Monsters was his. If I remember correctly, I'm this is all fifteen years ago, so it's harder for remember everything, but he raised lots of money as a technology company almost, or at least from tech VCs.

17:58 And he was like, I'm gonna build a massive toy business. And I remember reading at the time, this is insane. You're stupid. But now that I think about it, there's been many examples of where that is not stupid. And this is yet another one of them, where you could actually build a really cool IP toy company. And he was sounds like he was on the right track. It didn't work out. He was it it was big in the UK. So in the UK it was like I don't know, one out of every three kids is playing Moshi Monsters. It was like insane. It was like ninety million users globally.

18:26 And I remember meeting him I think it was still during the Kinda like It was kinda like the tail end of the peak. So it it was big. But it was it had it had stopped exploding and he was like

18:40 That's okay. We're gonna like Try to turn this into a thing. And he was telling me They're making mochi shampoo and body wash and you know, it's going into every category. But unfortunately that one didn't work out. We have to get Michael on, by the way. I was gonna say that. We have to get Michael in the pot because have you met him? He's one of the coolest guys uh I've met. He's such a nice guy, first of all, like total Genuine good dude.

19:03 Super creative. Really creative genius. And then also like Ro a rock star, kind of? Like when you meet him, you're like, Oh, I'm talking to Russell Brand's like you know Cooler bu cooler brother. You should g everyone should Google him. His name's Michael Acton Smith. And I remember back at fourteen or thirteen or twelve where I mean, I'm still interested in this, but I was like

19:23 I wanna be like I was like looking for a person I wanted to be like. And it was like him. He would be there was like photos of him like holding hands with like Paris Hilton. Or like he was like if you Google like Michael Apton Smith, like he But they're not even dating. That's the best part. Just holding hands. She was like He had like paparazzi photos of him. Because he w have this like tech angle, even though he wasn't exactly in tech, but he l if you guys Google him and see what he looks like, you'll understand he looks like Daily G Telegraph described him as a rock star version of Willy Wonka. That's his Wikipedia page. It's great. This guy was so cool and now he has since started Calm, which I have no idea how big it is, but it's Hundreds or hundreds of millions or billions. A multi billion dollar company. He's the man. This guy's absolutely the man, and he's been the man for twenty years. He has.

20:09 He has. He he is he is amazing. Okay, I'm gonna call him after this and be like, I will fly to you. Let's do it episode because Where's he even live now? I think he was in the UK. Uh he was kind of back and forth between like you know US and UK. I think he's in the UK now. He's just like a rich guy now. He just like does what he wants? Well uh I think he always did what he wants. That's why he was uh that's why he was our hero. That's the difference between rich. That's the difference between guys like me and guys like him, I guess. Money and money. Yeah. He didn't run very fast. Uh this guy's the man. Cutting your sales cycle in half sounds pretty impossible, but that's exactly what Sandler training did with HubSpot.

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21:15 Okay, I have another one for you. Can I give you another one? So we did kids' toys. I have another one. You might know the story of this one. Okay, what's this? Oh.

21:27 I'm holding up No, it looks like bubblegum? A box of Tony's chocolone. Hell yeah, brother. I love Tony Chocolone. Do they have some that have pop rocks in'em but I've been saying it wrong for a long time. It's not Tony's Chocolone. It's Tony's Chocolonely. Do you know that? I just call it Tony's. I love Tony's. I learned I have always bought them and then when we hung out with J uh uh Mr. Beast, I kinda he told us the backstory. I didn't realize how amazing they were. I love Tony's.

21:56 Yeah, yeah. Their and their backstory is even better than I thought. Cause when we were hanging out with Jimmy, he was like, Oh yeah, I um Yeah, he for for feastables really wanted to get feastable is to have a supply chain that had no child labor. He's like, you know, most of the cocoa farms in Africa have child labor. All the big uh chocolate brands, you know, Hershey's, et cetera, they all buy from them.

22:16 When I learned that that was F up, I went over there and we tried and we've basically spin spending, you know couple of years now trying to fix the supply chain so that That doesn't have to be the case. He was like every company, I don't like this this or that thing about'em, but there's one company that I really admire that seems to be doing something well. And I think that's how he like phrased it and he said, Tony's is the one. They do things right, is basically what he said. Exactly. And he actually called the founders of this and learned from them of like, Okay, what do I need to do? Which is cool because they were the ones who were who f initially made the push. But do you know the the backstory of why they made the push into doing this?

22:49 Wasn't it started by an actor or a famous person in Holland or something like that? Like? A journalist. Okay. It was like a non business person who started it and they started it with it's one of these cool stories where they didn't so much care about chocolate. They cared about like helping the earth or human rights or something. And we're just so happened to be doing it via chocolate. Like it was some like a story like that, wasn't it? So the story is um

23:11 I think there was two uh Dut journalists, but These two just journalists, they're covering the chocolate industry. On their T V show. And um They hear about

23:21 Yeah, that the chocolate companies are All all the chocolate, all the cocoa comes from West Africa. And that there's a lot of child yeah, slavery and child labor. So two separate things, right? Slavery and then child labor. happen uh happening on the farms there. So they wanna go and uh investigate. So they go down there.

23:39 They investigate, they find that it's true. And um they put you know, they put out a story to try to help and um I think the stor the exact story is that At one point all the big chocolate companies signed like a treat. They signed like a pact to say we're gonna Stop this.

23:57 And I guess like years later they had gone back uh they had gone to investigate And it was like the exact same situation. They saw that it that kinda nothing had really changed. And so these guys are pretty disinheartened by it. So they decide Like this is where the story gets crazy because a normal person, even a normal a great journalist Well just report the story.

24:16 Maybe use some. Some some choice language. When they when they talk about it. And then they would shake their finger at them and move on.

24:24 But these journalists went and did like, you know. took the exit off of high agency avenue and were like, No no no, watch this. So the guys They come back. And they do the they decide to do a publicity stunt. So he eats the chocolate.

24:37 And he calls the police. And the police come and they're like, What are you doing? And he goes. I'm eating chocolate that was made with slave labor and child labor. And they're like, that's uh what? That's not a cr you're eating chocolate. That's not a crime. He goes, No, no, actually, according to

24:52 Statute blah blah blah. knowingly consuming this product, knowing what I know that this w is the product of child labor and slave labor. That's actually illegal. Arrest me, boys. And so they lock him up, they take'em to jail, and that becomes this viral sort of news stunt. That brings even more attention to this.

25:10 Now prosecutors end up dismissing the case'cause they're like, we're not gonna prosecute this. But they decide to go in and create their own ethically made chocolate brand. And they decide to call it Tony's Chuck Alonely because they're like the guy's the guy's name is Tune. But in the the d that's his Dutch name, but the like

25:27 Americanized, westernized version of of of tone, uh I guess is his name. Would be Tony. So they goes Tony's and instead of And he said it's gonna be very lonely. to build a chocolate company that's actually trying to be like ethically sourced. So we called it Tony's chocolate only. Okay. Great.

25:42 And that's how they felt in their fight against uh the cocoa, you know, industry. And It becomes a hit. Well pretty much right away. They they sell twenty thousand bars in two days because of the public like resonance with their story. And um it becomes the best selling chocolate brand in their market, which is the Netherlands. They get like twenty percent share in the in the Netherlands.

26:02 Uh, it passes up Mars and Nestle and other other competitors there. And then they start expanding. And they keep expanding. And then they start finding like minded brands. So they're, you know, I don't know if you know about Ben and Jerry's, but Ben and Jerry's is also one of these like very Uh sort of like Strong ethical, opinion driven they they stick to what they want to do. Good people corporations. I actually saw Ben or Jerry, I forgot which one, talk at an event I was at uh like fifteen years ago.

26:27 And I remember being pretty blown away by the like how genuine it was for them and how the extent that they had gone. Right. So for example, I don't know if you know it's like They have this one flavor that's like their brownie flavor. I forgot it. L yeah. I'm so fucking fit. It's insane. Chocolate fudge brown. Something something fat people eat. That's so my past. I just can't even remember. I barely remember how that felt last week. By the way, meanwhile I'm holding up this tummy chocolate only, three bars are missing from this past.

27:00 My wife gets pissed off at me because of whenever we bring like a treat to like a friend's house, we bring dessert, they cook dinner, and like it's like already open. She's like, What the hell? You can't like give like a pack of ice cream when there's like one I'm like why not? We're gonna open it anyway in like half an hour. Why can't I open it now? That's sort of what happened. She's like I'm a She always compares me to like a bear looking at the cabinets for honey and I get my My brother this, my brother in law Aaron. He's he's one of these people that like you know doesn't you know doesn't eat a ton in general. Like food's not a big he's not a big foodie. Yeah. But if you leave like a snack, he's like a bear. Like if you leave a tree in their house, it's gone by the morning and you're like, Did you wake up and And so like he'll eat the whole bag, right? If anything. And so my sister calls it like with Oreos. Uh like we got a pack of Oreos, right? And she's like Oh my God, Aaron's doing a line right now of and doing a line to her man you eat the entire row of Oreos like he did a whole line. And I just thought that was so fun. Exactly. We gotta have it back on. Brother Aaron, the OGs, the real OGs now.

28:17 He used to he had two guest cameo experiences like way back in the first thirty episodes. It was hilarious. Anyways. Chocolate company. So Tony's chocolate only, what do they do? Um Or Ben and Jerry's to finish the Benedarians thing. They opened up a factory, I think somewhere like in upstate New York or something like this.

28:33 And they They all w it was after they met Um What's it called when you get out of jail and like you're in the program but you like don't want to go recidivism. Like they they wanted to reduce recidivism, like people go back end up back in jail. Which is traditionally incredibly high. It's really high. And one of the big drivers of why do people who after a long sentence get out and go back, it's not'cause they're like kind of morally corrupt at their core. It's like

28:56 They couldn't get a job and then they didn't have any money and then they didn't or the social life and Previous friends were losers or th they left prison without knowing anyone, but only at fifty dollars. Exactly. And so a big uh one way to decrease recidivism is if people can get a job. But nobody give them job. So they created a whole factory, their brownie factory. is all brownies made by X Cons, basically. The the the Ben and Jerry's flavor. They like wanted to They they s they met some guys who had a good good recipe and they like built a factory around them, essentially. So they're they're do gooders. Um

29:25 So Ton Tony Shaccolone to break into the U starts partnering with Ben and Jerry's Um And the revenue has just grown and grown and grown. And so like last year I think they did two hundred million in revenue. And they made this like a legit chocolate company that started with two journalists Just basically trying to make a stand against the man. How cool is that?

29:44 This is awesome. This is so cool. I uh are are do they run the company now? No, so they're out now. Um, there's like a CEO that they like, you know, it's just kinda run by like, you know Uh not normal suits, basically at this point.

29:58 And they get some flack because like um Their supply chain is still not perfect. And but they're very transparent about it. So the the crazy thing is like they'll report That they had like, you know, eleven issues this year of like child labor discovered in their supply chain. And people are like, see? You're not.

30:15 Totally free. And they're like what we're trying to like We're trying to be transparent and say well, you know, we we're way less than anybody else. We're and we're also honest about this and we're reporting it so that we can keep improving this. But they get some flack as like You know, s I guess like skeptics say that maybe they're just greenwashing at this point that since the founders left. And even I think the founder has sort of alluded to like it's not the same since we left. I don't know the exact story. It's like

30:37 I'm trying to read these like Dutch translations of articles and decided that like I'd rather just eat the chocolate and chill. Um so I'm not sure the exact story, but I think there's maybe a little controversy around that. Yeah, I uh I've known about this brand for a while. And this and I Didn't know the I only knew what what Jimmy had said, which wasn't in this depth, but that makes me like them way more. The product's awesome. I mean I love the brand.

31:00 They also and I I eat the shit out of them. I mean it's it it messes me up, but that's cool. Maybe you could be the influencer that blows them up even more. Sam Parr. I eat the shit out of them. It's just like you most of my like guilty evenings start with a bar of Tony's uh The the issue is they would sell their candy, like it used to come in like the extra candy size. It was like a huge bar. They only sell in bulk.

31:33 By the way, did I ever tell you about the time? Uh we were talking about recidivism. This is not entirely related to business, but I think you'll get a kick out of this. Did I tell you about the time? Do you know that I've been to like I think we've talked about this. I've been to San Quentin a few times in Indiana State Prison. So you've mentioned that you did, but I don't know the exact story. What's the story? It's gonna be about him. But I've been to Indiana State prison a couple of times, or once I went to San Quentin a few times. One time we went to Indiana State prison Uh so we we go because my friend has this charity called The Last Mile. And the idea is like

32:08 When you commit a crime, particularly murder, you're not always sentenced to life. You're inevitably going to get out. And it's better for that person. if if they get out and have a job. It's better for society if they get out and get a job. And it's better for the taxpayer if they get out and get a job because You don't want them to go back to prison because that's that's bad for everyone. And so it's we are all incentivized. It's totally bipartisan. to get this person to be trained and to get a job. And so this company, The Last Mile, started by my friend Chris,

32:33 They uh help you learn. I think when I went, I think they were learning uh WordPress. I don't know what they learn now, but this was a while ago. They were learning WordPress or they were learning learning like some uh front end development, so you can get a job at like an ebay or like a huge time. Yeah, I don't know what they do now. Yeah. They have like some like weird like uh like uh hot or not appear. NFTs. Yeah. I don't know w what these guys are doing but My friend Chris started it and he uh was a prominent venture capitalist. He helped uh he was the first investor in Wish, he was an early investor in Snap.

33:08 He did uh boom, he did all these other like cool startups, and for some reason one day he went and volunteered at San Quentin at a prison. And he was like, I think this is my life's mission to like help reduce recidivism. Meaning when you get out of prison and uh you don't go back. And so he created this thing called the last mile. They now have hundreds of employees. They've had thousands of people who have gone through their program And uh I up until recently, I I he told me this stat a couple years ago, so I don I don't wanna like jinx someone, I don't know the update.

33:38 But of the thousand or two thousand people who graduated, not one had ever been back to prison. And that's like a huge thing. And uh and so it's really interesting that this tech person has uh like he quit. So he doesn't invest anymore. This is all he does. And I talked to another guy, Mike Novogratz, uh he he was on the pod uh two weeks ago. And that's his thing now too, is uh reducing recidivism. So reducing the rate that you go back to prison. But I know a bunch of people who have given up

34:07 their careers to go pursue this. I'm on their website right now. Pretty crazy stats. It says since the seventies, the prison population of the US has increased by seven hundred percent. Which is not what you would Expect. Uh you know, th that's not just like oh, that makes sense. It should grow every year. It's like no no, the prison population should not necessarily grow.

34:26 At that rate. It says that every prison every person in prison has an annual cost to the American taxpayer of seventy thousand dollars, which means we pay About fifty dollars a year is spent on state and federal Prisons.

34:40 Um Isn't that crazy? It's an it's it's a it's amazing, right? The the last miles participants in the last mile who who go through their I guess it's like an education program as they get out. have a seventy five percent employment rate when they come out. Which is great. I I wonder what the non I know I wonder what the baseline is. It's gotta be half that or something. Well, so basically what happens and I and I talked to some of these guys when they were in there, they're like look, when I got out, I had been in for ten or fifteen years. I was a thug, like I didn't want to associate with my old people and like my family had either died or wasn't around

35:10 And they basically gave me a bus ticket and fifty bucks and I was like, Sir, where do I go? I I'm not sure where I go to right now. What do I do? And so they're like, That's why I came back here is I just started Going back to how I used to behave. By the way, why does he have a um This guy Chris looks awesome, Chris Redlitz. Why does he have a serious radio show? What does it does that get broadcasted into in the prisons in some way, or like is that just a external thing? Both. So he had so Chris is interesting. So we had Michael Harris on the pod. Michael my uh Harry O is his nickname. Harry O is the founder of Death Row Records.

35:42 Chris is kind of he I joke, he's an OG. He's a he's an original gangster. So he knows all of these guys. So he's friends with Dr. Dre Snoop. the founders of Death Row, all these cool guys. And they all have this like blend of like hip hop, but also like crime, like interests. And so he decided to have a show with Sirius where he would get s on get some of these cool guys on the radio show and they would talk about what his issue is. But also it was like wrapped up in like kind of cool stories'cause it's kinda like like hip hop and like celebrity. And so he had a show for series where he would talk about it. This guy's living the dream, got rich.

36:19 Decided to do good in the world. Has a great podcast. The triple threat. I love it. He's cool. And so he actually so I became really close with him. He invested in my company when I was a a twenty five year old or twenty-six year old in San Francisco. Very coincidentally, we both moved to this small town in Westport, uh, Connecticut together. And we hang out all the time. And his wife, his her name's Beverly. She's a ninety five pound woman. And I've been to San Quentin, and we but we were walking on the yard with these guys doing like bench press and sit ups and other whatever. And I walked with this little lady through the yard and the Red Sea parted. And she just walked, she's like

36:56 Tyrone, how are you? And she would go, Miss Bev, nice to see you. It was the craziest thing that I've ever seen. It was like I'm telling you, she like ran this prison yard. She was the only woman there. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And they have a joke that says if it glow, you may go. When you walk in to San Quentin, they stamp your hand, and so when you leave, you have to show them

37:19 your stamp underneath underneath a black light in order to get out. And they would do jokes where she would wink at the guy when I'm walking in and he didn't actually stamp me. He just pretended. And I would go to scan my hand to leave and my hand didn't glow. And they're like, Sir, you cannot leave. We have to get this figured out. And I was like, I'm not staying here. So like they would pull like tricks on you, like when you go and see this place. It was wild. But it's amazing. Chris and Bev uh are two people when I think of how to live life. It's them. That that's the way to go.

37:48 That's dope. Can I tell you a related story, so My buddy Trevor. was writing a book and he did this great very smart move, which I I'd never really heard anybody else do, but I thought it was a good idea. He goes. Hey man, uh check your email. I check my email and there's like a plane ticket.

38:04 And it's a plane ticket to go see him. And he's like, uh I'm gonna do I wanna write this book and I want it to be great. And I could sit here and brainstorm this on my own. But I really want to do something that I'm calling a bookstorm. And he basically decided to fly out the five kind of smartest, most interesting people he knew.

38:23 To hang out with him for a day. And just help him flesh out and brainstorm the book together. And he's like, I will owe you one for life. But I just really respect you to trust you and I really want your help with this'cause I'm trying to make this great. I go and In the room is basically my buddy Trevor, his brother

38:38 And then there's the um head of like the women's volleyball the uh the US women's volleyball team Uh which is like Way outperformed in the Olympics and won like A bunch of gold and there was one other person and then there was this guy, Larry.

38:53 I'm like, oh I'm a professional brainstormer. This is literally what I do. I'm like just ready to rock and roll. But I'm just blown away by this guy, Larry. Every time this guy Larry opens his mouth, he says something that's super wise, super smart, on the nose. Just a few words, but he's always on point.

39:09 And so after about an hour the brainstorming around the book, I was like, dude, I gotta ask Larry. I missed the intro w what's your story, dude?'Cause you're incredible. And Larry tells a story where Larry's like, you know, I um My name's Larry, blah, blah, blah. And he goes. I was incarcerated for the past twenty two years.

39:28 And I think he had just gotten out I I don't know how long it had been, maybe a year or two, something like that. And he goes, Yeah, from the age eighteen, he's now forty. He's like a at age eighteen, I was arrested and I was I was in for uh whatever, twenty two plus years. And I was like Larry, no offense, but You just got out a couple years ago.

39:45 How are you so smart? How do you know all this stuff because he would read all this. He would have these amazing polls where whatever we're talking about, he would reference this thing in this book. And this quote he could just recite by memory. So Larry I'm like, Larry, how do you know all this? And he goes I was incarcerated at age eighteen. They lock you up and throw away the key, right? Like you're basically like the lowest man on the totem pole for society. They don't nobody invest in you at that point. You're you're a sunk cost.

40:10 And so he's like I was you know get in trouble and it was a rough place and it was not a good time. And he's like, I made a decision. I'm no longer in prison. I'm in university. And he's like, so every day I just studied. I just decided to go to university for the past 20 years. Is like I decided to read all the books and learn and write and

40:30 Better myself and he's like I would literally change what I saw. I would walk in the prison yard and I wouldn't see The barbed wire. He's like, I saw roses. He's like, I literally just re brainwashed myself. That I am not in prison.

40:42 I am in university. And I carried myself like that. And I acted like that. He made the most of what was you know otherwise a very bad situation. I just remember being so blown away and inspired by this guy, Larry, uh when I heard that heard that story'cause I was like You know, if Larry can do that and a life sentence in prison. This sounds stupid, but like

41:01 Then I can be board in a line at Starbucks for it. Or you know, whatever. Like I you can change where you are. You don't have to be in the situation that y it looks like you're in. Like you can literally just decide, no, no. I'm in university right now. No, no, I'm in a spa right now. No, I'm in I'm in the brainstorming session right now. Yeah, I mean, I am where I want to be about that. That's so cool. Yeah, it's really challenging because

41:22 On one hand. For some reason you start you feel like sad for someone like'cause you beat someone like I a lot of the guys I met, they I think they kinda had a tone for their sins a little bit where like they've changed, but you're like Oh, I feel so bad for you. Like that sucks. You didn't deserve this. And then you like learn about what they did and you're like, uh, actually no, uh like consequences exist for a reason. Like that sounds fair to me. Uh and it creates like a b you get whenever I've done these things with these guys, I get So many mixed emotions. It's a very challenging thing. It's a very hard thing to be part of, too. Uh, but it is a no brainer, right? You want someone to like

41:55 Not go back. So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton. Join Hampton.com. It's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Lavon, and Lavon saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton. Which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's tedious, it's annoying, and it's a waste of time. And so Levan, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution. And that solution is called Molku. Mulco uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF.

42:25 And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer quote or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Moku and it auto fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the tech nerds out there. Slavant built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called I.O. They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing, and it means you can build tools like Molku. Very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents or paying people to do that for you, check out Molku.ai. M-O-L-K-U-

43:00 Dot AI. All right, back to the pod. Did I tell you my embarrassing prison story? No, but it that sounds so awesome. So I go uh you make a dad jokes at your first day in? So um So I moved to Silicon Valley and I'm working with this guy, Michael Birch. And Michael Birch is this Wonderful guy.

43:24 Michael's built a successful career in Silicon Valley, he's basically like a billionaire. So one day he messages me like Pack it like Pack a bag with enough clothes for a day. A day two days. And um meet me like at like whatever. Like meet me at like eight AM at the spot. You're not going to work today.

43:41 I'm like, all right, I don't know what's gonna happen. So I go And we start talking about it. I think he tells me on the drive that we're going to He's a part of this group called the Inside Circle. And Inside Circle was a where they take guys from the outside.

43:55 To go meet guys on the inside and um It was at the prison uh Folsom was what's it called? Folsom prison? Yeah, Folsom. And so we go drive there. It's a maximum security prison. And I'm basically just a huge wuss. Right. So I don't know what I don't know what I'm getting into. I don't know what I didn't actually sign up for this. Michael's just kinda like, trust me, you'll you'll like this. This is good. You should do this. I still don't really understand what we're doing. I d I think it's like a You know like

44:20 Dare where they like. scare you like Taylor. Yeah, I thought it was scared straight. We're just gonna observe from like behind this like really thick glass. I'm like, Oh cool, we're gonna be like watch. And I'm gonna be like wow, I learned so much today from observing. Tap it on the glass. And then they open the door and they're like, All right guys, come on in. I'm like what? And so we go in and they're like All right, uh you know

44:45 Pick a buddy. Pick a pick a partner. And so I'm like, uh and I like pick this guy. And W and the the program starts. It basically it's like a men's group. So you sit in a circle, you talk about your feelings.

44:58 Oh, and by the way. When I walk in immediately My eyes are drawn to one person.'Cause It was so obvious to me like this was the hardest guy. In the prison.

45:08 Somehow this guy had sunglasses. And I don't know why he was allowed to have sunglasses. He had a walking he had a cane, which I thought like you're not allowed to have like a Like something that could be like a weapon. Uh he's but he's got a king and he's got sunglasses, but he's not blind, by the way. He has the sunglasses like up on his head sometimes. Black guy. And he had like an entourage. Like he had like two guys with him. Who were really big and like but they deferred to him and he was kinda older and I was just like, I don't know who this guy is, but I've seen enough somebody?

45:36 To know. That this guy is somebody here. Um it may be somebody on the outside, I don't know, but he's somebody in here. Anyway, so he's in my group. And his two like Entourage guys.

45:46 So we get in the circle and I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Am I giving advice? Is this a mentorship test? What is this? And it's like, No, no, no, you're here to talk about yeah. It's a this is a safe space, unpack your feelings. I'm like, Oh God. And so First guy starts. And he starts talking about how he's feeling pissed off. He's feeling pissed off'cause like

46:06 I mean crazy story, but like he's locked up in here and his sister outside is having uh he she's being abused by her boyfriend. He just wants to kill this guy, but he's on the inside. He can't get to this guy. She he feels powerless. And I he's sharing this heavy emotional real life problem. Yeah. The grade A real life problem.

46:24 And I'm I um of course'cause I'm Terrible. I stopped listening. I'm just like panicked thinking of what am I gonna say? You know when you're like supposed to be listening but you just

46:35 Actually just planning what you're supposed to say. I start doing that'cause I'm gonna like retell a fake movie so you sound hard. Like my my startup doesn't have problems fit. This is really grinding my gear. Like what the hell am I gonna say? I don't have real world problems, right? Like My life's pretty good. And the circle we're going around the circle and it's just one crazy, like real problem after another. And then um

47:00 And then it's getting to me and I'm just like, What am I gonna say? And so I'm like, All right. I guess. I go deep in the bag. Oh my. All right. I do have you know, there is something that's like pretty heavy. I don't really talk about this normally, but like I guess

47:14 Thank God I have this, because this is the time and place to unpack this story. And so I start unpacking this story. And in my mind, I'm and also I'm like I'm talking kinda slower and dramatically'cause I'm like Let me really ham this up a little bit. Like let me not Let me not be me and laugh during this. Let me uh you know try to be serious here. And I think I'm doing a great job. And the guy with the glasses just midway through is like

47:38 Man. I don't believe none of that shit. I'm like, I'm like, no, and I immediately I'm like, no, it's true. He goes, I know it's true. And I'm like, so what? Just to clarify, you said stuff. Are we cool? What's going on? And he was like and he was like Man, that ain't your truth, though.

47:58 So he's like it's true, but that ain't your truth. And I'm like What is this puzzle? What is this riddle? I don't know what this means. And then um It creates this like really intense moment where I had to stand up. And he's like they're like, All right, it's time to do the work. I'm like what? And I stand up beat up.

48:17 And so He's like, right? He's like, What's your truth? And I'm like, What? I just feel uh and I'm like I'm like I'm like no, but that is a real situation. That ha has happened to me. And they were like, No, what's your truth? And I was like

48:33 All right, the truth is I'm just trying to say what I think you guys want me to say. 'Cause I just want you to like me and I point at the case. Like I just want you to not hate me. And he looks at me, just stares at me. He stands up, he gets in my face, he goes That's your truth. And then we sat down and then for the next hour I was like I don't know what the hell just happened, but I think I'm in a prison gang and this is awesome. I think I'm accepted. This felt amazing. That's called a breakthrough.

49:04 Yeah, I had a breakthrough. So that was my awesome for the story. That's great. Did you uh How did it end? Did you guys like Exchange information? What do you do? Uh have you ever taken ecstasy? I haven't, but I assume that's what it felt like. Because for the rest of the time I was just like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. And I just enjoyed myself enough. And I realized like, oh, I could just be

49:26 My insecure neurotic self, and that's fine here. Okay, cool. I don't have to pretend. Great. And then they were like, Cool, he ain't pretending anymore. We like this guy. Uh, whatever you say whatever you say now, we don't really care, but we just know that you're not pandering to us. What value do these get? What a lesson learned. What value do these guys get? Well, I think you know, they live a pretty company hard life. No, I think it's just in general, they live a pretty hard life and they go to this meeting every week.

49:54 So they have this kind of like two hours a week where they get to go and kinda like, as they would say, like take the mask off, put the armor down. In fact, like It would be a mix of like the Hispanic guys, the white guys and the black guys in this session. But then they would like openly say like yeah, but like He his friend mur like shanked my friend. So it's on. But here it's not on, but as soon as we get out it's on again.

50:14 And I was like, This is like a pretty bizarre dynamic, but they all agreed, like Alright, when we're here It's whatever, but when it when we're out there, it is what it is. That's just the way it's just the way things are. I remember like that's insane. Um But you know, understandable in a way. So they have this as a space where they can

50:29 like D load kind of emotionally and mentally, which is important. And feel like a human being and be able to like express themselves. I think it's a pretty dehumanizing feeling, right? When you're again locked up, throw away the key and You know, anybody who comes in, they just see you as your label, right? But like in that environment for those three hours that we were there. You know, th but nobody was there was no status. Nobody was better than anybody else. Or like, yeah, there was status, but I was worse than everybody else. I guess is probably the more accurate way of saying it. But like

50:54 There was no They got to like be treated well and be held and be just talked to one man to another man. Um At least I again these are my my this is like my interpretation of it. I'm sure that people who do this more have like a more sophisticated way and a better way of saying it. By the way, now that we're talking about this, and we can wrap up, but Jack Smith, I forgot, this is his big philanthropic cause as well. So Jack Smith, if you ask him what he's doing on a regular basis for a long time, I would say, What are you doing? He's like, Oh, I'm I am penpals. Uh with like people who are locked up and they

51:23 I have a system where they can order any book and I'll get it for them. Isn't he giving books? Isn't it a book Program? Yeah, where he created a website. I forget how he did it. But uh

51:34 where they can order a book and he'll buy them any single book that they want. Dude, most generic name, Jack Smith. You can't find anything when you Google for Jack Smith. Like Yeah. Okay, well maybe we do this. So there's the last mile, which you could donate to. So go to last mile uh the lastmile dot org, you can donate there. There's inside circle foundation where you can donate there. Um so maybe do a little good. So if there's anybody who's listened to this and inspired either to to start your own uh thing or to attend one of these or to donate, uh, go do it, man, because it's uh

52:04 Seen it firsthand. Does a lot of good and um I think doesn't get the type of attention that I would ever want. By the way, the inside circle guys, they also made like a movie. Uh a documentary about the program? And uh Chris Redlitz is the guy who um

52:18 Who I who's uh kind of my mentor and someone I look up to. And you can find him on Twitter. He's um He's super low key, but he's been a seed investor of like probably five to ten different unicorns. Hugely successful and now has dedicated his life to that. So just DM him if you're Wanna do whatever. He's he's pretty open minded. Yeah, I haven't found my cause for a long time. Do you have like a a career arc in mind where you're like

52:42 Cool. I uh achieve I climb Success Mountain and then I uh you know, parachute over to like You know, save the world. I told Sarah that at the age of forty I'm going to stop the getting of money. So I said buy f

52:58 By forty, I will no longer pursue any money. And we will have a cause and that's what we will dedicate ourselves to. That's what I that's that's you've also told me that you're gonna Disappear off the internet. I think this is badass and you should talk more about this.

53:11 I said at the age of forty, yeah, I wanna get off the internet. And I wanna not pursue any money making things ever again. I don't want it to like ruin my perspective and just be a shallow Mm. capitalist and only care about that. And just delete the internet.

53:27 And just focus on like doing something good. That's that's what that's the current That's the current plan. How old are you now? I Turned thirty six a month ago. So uh I'm uh Thirty six. Four years away, dude.

53:40 Do you think that's a crazy plan? Of course it's a crazy plan, but it's a pretty cool plan. I think it sounds pretty cool. I said by uh I said by four. I'm just Testing this out, seeing how these words sound in my mouth. I think that um

53:58 I think if you only pursue making money, I think that you become a very shallow person. I think that there's more to life. I think that there's been so many times Where I've seen something inspiring and beautiful. And in my head, I think, oh, and then we can do this and turn it into this. And then like optimize by doing this, as opposed to saying this is beautiful, this is wonderful. I want to experience, let's let's keep it small. Uh, and so I wanna like force myself to appreciate that. One of my heroes is this guy named Felix Dennis. He wrote the book How to Get Rich. Felix Dennis was a publisher in England where he founded a bunch of companies, a bunch of publishing companies.

54:30 eventually was worth six or seven hundred million dollars. And he wrote that he was diagnosed with cancer something like at the age of sixty. And then at the age of like sixty one, while he was like learning about his cancer or something, he got into poetry and he was like I'm obsessed with writing poetry. Why on earth did I not discover this sooner? And he quit business partially because he was dying and because he fell in love with poetry and he wrote in his book that if I could do it all over again, I would have quit at the age of forty because I had enough and I would have pursued poetry because that was my calling. And I always found that to be amazing because I think that oftentimes when we're doing what we're doing every single day, we get caught into the make more, do more, optimize more when it's like kind of I want to be in the present and I want to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy regardless if they make money. Because how many hobbies have you had where you're like, well

55:18 I would only do it if I could like make like Oh I wanna like buy these toys and like maybe I could buy like ten of them turn to a money making thing. Now what you're doing is actually pretty cool. You but you still have a capitalistic mindset to it. You are playing the piano And you are live streaming it, which I think is amazing. But in my head, I'm like I wanna do that too. It's like Well, I only want to do that because I want people to see me learning a hobby.

55:40 Do you know what I mean? And I like that's like tainting the thing. No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing I I was inspired to do it because I want glory. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And I um I learned pretty quickly when I started playing the piano. That um Nobody gives a shit if you can play the piano, by the way. It's not like a thing. Like uh if somebody plays the piano well, it's like oh cool, you can play the piano well.

56:05 They don't want to listen to even one song. Nobody wants to listen to somebody play a five minute song on the piano. That's a very like clear thing to me since learning to play piano, but it doesn't matter because playing the playing a five minute song is incredibly fun. In fact, I was I sent Ben a text message. I'm gonna read you this text message because I think it's very relevant to what we were talking about. So Pomp did a a spAC recently. Did you see this? Yeah, I I I saw it, but I don't entirely know what it that means. But yeah. So our friend uh Pomp, Anthony they spacked a company. And the company's goal was to do the kind of Michael Saylor playbook, which is It's a bitcoin acquisition and finance company. And so what they're doing is they

56:39 They raise I think seven hundred fifty million dollars. They spacked it, um It's now public you know, it's gonna be a public company and they basically bought seven hundred fifty million dollars worth of Bitcoin, then they're gonna raise debt and buy more Bitcoin and they're gonna Because companies can Companies or pension funds can own Pomp stock, but they can't own Bitcoin. So this is how they get exposure to it. Is that right?

57:00 Um that's one. one aspect to it. There's others which is like it's levered. So like, you know, you can for every dollar you put in. Let's let's say you buy Bitcoin directly, you could buy one dollar of Bitcoin, but like their thing, Mike b they're gonna borrow. And buy more than a dollar of Bitcoin for every dollar of equity, you know, for example.

57:16 Um they also want to eventually like a full financial services thing. So essentially like a bitcoin backed bank. Uh I think that's a part of the vision. Anyways, I don't know exactly what they're doing. There's you know, they're only allowed to say certain things, but point is Uh it's like Pomp. This guy who's very much like us. I think he's the same age. I hang out with Anthony all the time. Creator on the internet, good dude. And he's, you know, he's not like some uber uber uber genius that's like you know, but he's like relatable, is what I'm saying. So he's like he's like one of us.

57:46 And it's clear that you know, this didn't just happen. He's been working on this for you know some period of time, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years, you don't know. So he It's like oh wow, Pomp raised seven hundred fifty million dollars. has this public company now I think he owns eight percent of it, I saw from the filing.

58:03 So like you know, theoretically Pomp has like eighty million dollars of value from this. Right. Pump's gonna make like you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars from this thing if it goes well. Okay. And uh that's clearly what he put a lot of energy and focus on and did a great job fundraising for. And I was texting Ben, I was like, Wow, wow, that's incredible. I was like meanwhile.

58:22 I've logged a hundred twenty hours on the piano in the last six months. How to go? Honestly, no regrets though. Fucking love the piano. Dude, so listen. You tweeted out, you said I used to think jealousy was a bad thing, like a sin, and I try to avoid avoid it. But jealousy is a wedding crasher. It shows up uninvited. And recently I started using jealousy to my advantage advantage. Jealousy is an incredible signal. It tells me At a very primal, no logic level, what my subconscious wants. It's a heat signal for taste. I don't obey the signal, but I do observe it.

58:51 And it helps me now. And so this sounds very strange, but when I saw what Papa's doing, I was like, That's so badass. Congrats to him. But then very weirdly, when I saw you streaming you played the piano, for some reason I thought that was oddly one of the cooler things you've done in the last year or two. And I felt stronger and I'm like Well, why do I feel that why do I think that that is cooler? I don't know why exactly, but it relates to that tweet where I'm like, What's the signal there that that's sending? So anyway, I thought that was really cool. I thought that was significantly cooler. And I said this as well, when you were contemplating making a play or or starting a business or something like that. It's like I don't know, for some reason the play is so much cooler.

59:29 So I think I would pursue those like artistic things over the money thing. And this sounds like a very trite, you know, uh like Not everyone has the uh privilege to be able to do that, but I do think that like it's better for your soul that way. Yeah, exactly. I mean you could already, you know, hear the comments. Oh, it must be nice for you. You don't have to work. Another version of it is Tech Bros discover hobbies. There's more to life than money. But also, by the way, both true. Yeah, both both very valid points of view.

59:55 I don't think it's the important point of view, but I do think they're valid points of view. I think the important point of view is like Try to figure out what you actually want to do and then pursue it. Like In a relentless sort of un

1:00:06 Unashamed way. And I think it's very cool when you said that thing, I think you told me like in five, seven years I plan to delete My social media disappear from the internet. And and now you're talking about like you know and you know, stop the st stop pursuing the giving of money.

1:00:21 Yeah. I really hope you stick to that. I don't know if you will, because I think it's a very hard thing to do. It's like, hey, could you turn down? Like it's like being like, I no longer eat sugar, right? It's like those people who like Like I'm gonna stop I'm gonna diet, right? It's hard to stick to a diet. But if you actually did that

1:00:37 You would like shoot up in the rankings of like most badass people I know. You know what I mean? You're already top ten, but you would shoot up. I've got four years to go. I better get all I better get all of it while uh I can. But I do think that that it it's also but give me a percentage. How certain are you you're gonna do that at the age of forty? I just need to know. I'm gonna hold you to this. Sixty to seventy percent. I mean, look, I feel this a lot of it has to do with family, too. Like I feel uh

1:01:05 Like when my little kids start like talking and having personalities I think I would fall in love with them even more and I just want to like be a good example that there's more to life than than just the getting of money. Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally washed. Kids are so cute. I'm just washed up now. I can't do I can't do anything, dude. I'm just hooked. The all the more personality she shows, the more where I'm like Oh, nothing really matters except our health and being around each other.

1:01:30 Right, right. I don't know. Is that does that stay linear? Like or does it like uh like does it keep getting higher the more they talk to you? Yeah, it is. But I I think at least for me, like there's a uh there is a cap. It's not one of these unbounded things. It's not like I wouldn't spend every waking moment with you. I'm like, you got like you're too annoying. I'm ti I'm too tired. This is too much. But It does.

1:01:50 I do w I do have like a a um It became my favorite thing. For like three hours a day. Like for three hours a day, my kids are my favorite thing in the world. That's three hours a day that my favorite thing used to be Working.

1:02:03 It used to be, you know, reading. There was other things that were in that spot of like About three hours a day of like Voluntary time I could shoot I could direct towards anything. And now my kids are that, right? Like we're just like jumping into the pool with them and doing stuff or playing a game or whatever. That that's like it is super, super fun. But it is capped at like a three to four hours a day. Beyond that, I'm like

1:02:22 Like how dare my wife make me Raise my own children. This is too much. I need to be helped and saved. Who's who's here to save me? This is the softest episode we've ever had. Alright, we should get off before uh we start.

1:02:36 Crying. Alright, that's it, that's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzi Cameo.

1:02:59 After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcasts.

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