The Future of AI Art Generation And How Production Companies Are So Profitable

All right, so what's going on? So basically there's streaming wars going on. Netflix, Disney, Hulu, everybody's fighting for subscribers. Okay, well, how am I gonna differentiate from— if I'm Netflix, how do I differentiate from Hulu, if I'm HBO and all this stuff? Basically they need original content. Okay, so that's created this like huge imbalance of— there used to be a lot of content and a small amount of distribution. Now there's a lot of distribution fighting for a small amount of content, and all the distribution players have just decided like, The prize is big. Let's lose money for a lot of, like, several years and invest billions into content. And like, let's be the last person standing. And so they're, they're investing on what you call a J-curve where the curve goes down, you lose a bunch of money, and then it J, like a J, it goes way up and you make money later. What that means for these production companies is they'll overpay. There is a bidding war and they're willing to overpay for my content. All right. In this episode, we are talking about the latest industry that I am totally, completely obsessed with. I almost can't think of anything else, and I'm not sure why other people aren't freaking out about this. So I go on a rant about that. What else we got?

We talked about Mark Manson and, uh, how he's got this amazing empire on this book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. I'll say F there. And how it started just as a blog post and turned into this amazing business that's making tens of millions of dollars for, for, for him. And, and then we also talk about production companies and how the breakdown is actually way better than we thought. You know, the economics and how it works is far more fascinating than we anticipated.

All right.

Enjoy. All right. We're live, dude. I'm in a horrible mood. And the bad part about this job is like you have to, like, immediately snap out of a horrible mood. And I can't exactly explain all the details about why I'm in a bad mood, but basically involves like a real estate deal that I did and someone I feel is trying to take advantage of me. And here's what I think happens. And tell me if this happens to you. I feel like we— I do a deal with someone, or whether it's like a small deal or a big deal, and then they like learn about what our stupid podcast is named, or they Google us, but it's mostly the fact that the podcast has such a horrible name. And then they like, you know, you get like, you know, like in Hawaii where they got like the local price and then they got the other guy price. It's like, I, it's like I get the other guy price, you know what I mean? And, uh, if the, even if it's just a little of another guy discrepancy, It pisses me off.

That's hilarious. Uh, yeah, I, I don't think that happens to me. No one's ever, ever referenced it. I've never got that feeling. In fact, I actually get a bunch of credit the other way. People are like, look, um, you know, I don't want to offend you with like a lowball offer on your, on whatever, whatever it is. I know this money doesn't matter to you. And I'm like, dude, like I'm, I'm showing up here. The money matters. Like, you know, uh, please don't not give me the money because you think it won't matter to me. Like, you know, I think it does. Right. So I think that it goes, It cuts a little bit both ways. People like, I hate the thing where it's just like, dude, thanks so much for taking. I know how busy you are. I'm like, dude, I just like sit around in my boxers all day. Like, you know, I don't know what, I don't know what you think I'm doing, but like my son just threw up on me like 2 hours ago. This is awesome compared to that. Like, you know, what do you, what do you, what do you think my life is that is so, you know, so busy and interesting? Cause it's really not.

Yeah. It is funny when people say that. I'm like, well, I am busy. I'm talking to people all day, but like, I don't think you understand that like talking to just like slack and back and forth and like having conversations. I remember When we first started The Hustle, like basically these like producers, and this happens all the time, these producers, they email just tons of people who are even remotely interesting and they're like, hey, can we make a TV show about you? And obviously, like, they didn't know what they're getting into. Like, I'm not— we weren't even remotely interesting enough. But I'm like, you guys do realize we're just sitting in front of a computer all day, right? Like, it's like the most un-fascinating, uninteresting thing. It's not interesting at all. But dude, I'm shocked you don't get like that, that, that, that other guy pricing it. If you have a BMW, right?

Yeah.

Is your house fancy, you think, or just normal? Normal.

Nice. My house is— my house is not fancy.

My house isn't fancy either. And just like, I don't know when they like, maybe when they see that, like, I'm at home during the day. I don't know why, but like, I just— I'm always nervous. I'm like, wait a minute, my neighbor's paying only $150 a month for their landscaping. Why am I going to— why are you telling me $250? You know what I mean? I feel like that stuff happens.

He has a podcast. Yeah. Get your wallet out, boys. He's got a podcast.

So whatever. I'm past it. I got to move past it.

That's so funny you said that thing about filming, by the way. I had that same idea back in the day at Monkey Inferno because we had this really nice office and I thought building startups was the coolest thing in the world. And I was like, why isn't there a documentary crew here? Like, you know, The Office, but I'm the cool Michael Scott, right? Like, I'm awesome. And so, you know, I had watched Hard Knocks on HBO, which basically makes like NFL training camp look like so epic. So like you start rooting for these stories, all this stuff.

So I was like, they have like mics on the players and you hear like, hey, get up, get up. Hey man, what you doing? Like you hear like them talking and like the pads hitting, you know what I mean?

It's like good. Yeah. But then it also extends into, it's like, what you doing? It's like, sorry, man. I'm just having a lot of trouble at home. And it's like, cue the music and they cut to the backstory of like, you know, what's going on at home. And I was like, yeah, we got these stories, man. We're trying to make it in the rough and tumble world of social media. And I was like, you know, so it's like, I I thought we were cool. And then this like filmmaker type person came to the office. They're like, wow, incredible place. Um, quite day, huh? I was like, what do you mean? Like normal day? He's like, everyone's just sitting there with their headphones on, like not talking to each other. I'm like, oh yeah, that's what we do all day. He's like, well, what would we film? And I was like, well, sometimes we have like a meeting where we look at the numbers. I guess. Yeah, I guess you're right. We're lame as hell. And so yeah, that ended at that point.

It's so lame. I, I, it's always embarrassing people like I sometimes our address and the Daily Email was in our email and people would stop by and I'm like, yeah, so this is the one room that we sit down in. There's the bathroom.

You can go to the left side or the right side. You want to see what it looks like from this corner?

It's just like, we just sit here and don't talk sometimes for 3 hours at a time. There's music playing in the background every once in a while.

Your office was hilarious, dude. It's like, why do the dogs sit in chairs and the people have to sit on the ground? Like, I love dogs. It's like, whoo-hoo. Why, you know, what's going on here? Why is there only peanut butter in the kitchen?

Yeah, dude, I used to eat like a jar of peanut butter every 2 days.

That was my shtick. So then let me tell you this other interesting thing. So I don't know if you remember this, but there was a—

that's so funny, by the way, you remember the peanut butter. I would eat so much peanut butter. We also, we also used to do eating contests once a month as like a fun thing because like we were idiots and we didn't have a lot of money to like go and do a family or like a team building thing. And we would just go and buy like 500 Burger King Chicken McNuggets because that's only like $50. And we'd be like, the first person to eat 100 wins, which is a horrible idea for dozens of reasons. The first reason being everyone's sick afterwards. It can't work. The second reason being it's just stupid. And the third reason being like no one does it and they just puke. And we would do a Krispy Kreme eating contest, a Burger King Chicken McNugget contest, White Castle. It was the worst. I was an idiot.

Dude, I think these videos still exist online. When I was doing my very first startup straight out of college, which was like two buddies doing this stupid sushi restaurant thing, living in one apartment, you know, like my buddy lived in my closet, my co-founder lived in my closet. And like, you know, we, we all, we would basically buy air mattresses and like return them every 90 days to Target because we were like, oh, you could just like get your money back.

Suckers.

Yeah. Yeah. Idiots. We're totally living the high life with this. And so, um, basically we, we were like, I don't know why we were like, you know, the way to make our restaurant, uh, you know, restaurant's not open yet, but what can we do that's like our scrappy mark? I don't know why we even thought this was like remotely relevant. We're like, let's get people invested in the journey of building this. To do that, let's create a YouTube channel. And we called it The Duel and it was me and my first friend. And the opening clip is like a high noon, like a standoff. Like we both walked 15 paces away, turned around and looked at each other dramatically. And it's like, The music's on. And then we, we would take a challenge from anybody who'd commented on the YouTube channel and we would do that thing. And so it was like, oh, you're doing a sushi restaurant? Brush your teeth with wasabi as toothpaste, uh, for 1 minute. And so we like did it and then we would, it's like, you know, uh, whatever. We did these like really dumb things. You could just see they're like in this apartment, like crappy, ugly looking kitchen.

And it was pretty big. I mean, you had literally dozens of subscribers.

I remember we, I went out to a casino one time and my sister was in town and this guy goes, You're the Wasabi Guy. And my sister was like, what? Are you famous? And like, I was like, what? Am I famous? And it was like, it was like the first hint of what was, you know, fast forward 12 years, I created the podcast. Uh, like, but in that moment I was like, this feels nice. If I do dumb shit, people will then know me. And then it ends after that. Worth it. Let me go for this. And all I tacked on later was like, And then I could sell cohort-based courses, you know, like that became the, the endpoint. But, um, anyways, long story short, I, uh, if you remember when Clubhouse was popping off, there was this group of also people in college, like people just graduating college or in college that created that show Shoot Your Shot.

Do you remember this? Yeah, it was popular, like really popular for 4 weeks basically. And if I remember correctly, it was like 3 good-looking women and they would call up a guy and the guy would hit on them, or would the girls make fun of the guy?

I forget. So they created a room that was called NYU Girls, uh, NYU Girls on Clubhouse, which is already interesting because Clubhouse was just SF dudes. And so you go from SF dudes to NYU girls. That's like a major, like, you know, uh, you know, walking into a, a room full of bears with a pocket full of honey. It was like, well, what's going on? There's, there's interesting people on this app.

Just like, you just imagine a bunch of like good-looking SoHo women who hang out with James Franco right poetry and like, you know, don't wear bras. Like, like this, like, it's like stereotype.

Oh, NYU. Yeah, there's already no bras on Clubhouse, but now there's girls with no bras on Clubhouse, right? Like, so anyways, they created the show and Shoot Your Shot was basically call up an awkward tech dude onto the stage and he got to like shoot his shot, kind of like basically like an ultra budget version of The Bachelor. It's like, come on here and spit game. At one of these girls and we're going to talk for 20 minutes and we can either boot you off or we like you and like you're in the group. You, you kind of passed the rite of passage, a little dating show. And so it started organically, but it got to be like the most popular show on Clubhouse, which was, you know, the small pond syndrome, right? Like you were the best thing in a small little growing pond.

And so anyways, it was embarrassing to listen to. I was embarrassed. I was like, it was, it wasn't bad, but I was like, oh, they're going to make fun of them. Oh, don't make fun of them. Or like, don't say something stupid, guy, please. Like I was rooting for the men. Like, don't, don't not to screw up.

You know, they would get out, say, be like, hey, you know, my name is, you know, Akbar, and, you know, typical SaaS guy. And they're like, sassy guy? And he's like, no, like SaaS, like B2B SaaS. What are you saying?

What are these words, Akbar?

Words. So anyways, they— do you know what they're doing now? So the fact that—

the fact that you said that phrase about them I'm already on board, like in. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Not far listening to this somewhere. He's just like, there's, I could do it again. That was like a highlight of my life. So I met the main girl who was behind it. I think her name is Devin and we did a Zoom call. You know, did she roast you when she's like, what's up nerd? Yes. And guess what? Loved it. Now I did the Zoom call. You know, when you meet a founder, like within sometimes within 60 seconds, you're like, all right, you're a star. So you're a star. That's established. Established now. Now I just gotta figure out, is this your dumb idea, your kind of dumb idea, or your good idea? Cuz you're gonna go through probably all three and I just gotta figure out where you're at in life. Uh, have you met founders that are like this?

Oh yeah, for sure. And it's just like, you're, you're, you're not, you're not there yet, but I, I, I still am interested in buying the stock and getting in. I think that's why a lot of people invested in me at The Hustle.

Same thing with me. Like, I'm like, God, people gave us this idea for our sushi restaurant. Like, you know, uh, and they were helping us and they really liked us. Like, I thought that meant we have a good business idea. And actually what was happening now that I'm in that position, I'm like, they're just like, oh, this guy's going to do shit. I like this guy's mojo. This is his dumb idea. And like, you know, whatever. I'm on board to get to the good idea. Like, I'd like to start this relationship now so that as he figures this shit out, you know, things, good things happen. That's how I felt about this girl. And so she—

is she like an NYU woman? Like, is she like that age?

Yes, she was. She was at NYU and then she graduated. And so now she's like, I don't know, shortly out of NYU. So she's raised $6 million now to build, um, her show Mad Reality. So the old thing was NYU Girls Roast Tech Guys. That's what the room was called on Clubhouse, which was great. And now it's called Mad Realities. And Mad Realities is— they have a— it's a— they, they, they went to like Web3 and like all this stuff, right? Like, uh, you know, I don't know if you need to do that. They basically gave NFTs out to the audience. Audience gets to vote. It's like The Bachelor., but the audience like votes on what's gonna happen in the show. And so it's a reality show where the viewers kind of like, you know, they can kind of help fork the show and, and engage with the plot in some way. And, um, fans vote 'em off or whatever. And so they created the show. You can be an NFT holder, you get a, you're a Rose holder. Like, I don't know, like they've raised, I think 172 ETH. So what is that today? Like at today's prices, that's like, $250 grand of sales of their NFT. So not, not huge, but, you know, not terrible. But like the A+ firm in crypto, Paradigm, invested in it, led the round, I think.

Do they do— is their reputation to do anything that's decent or are they selective?

Paradigm, they're a little mix of both. Like they're the smart guys in the room. But I also think like part of being the smart guy, you know, like The smart guy starts to do weird and crazy shit and you're like, uh, you sure this makes sense? And they're like, no, it doesn't. But that's why it makes the most sense. Like, all right. You know, like, uh, like Founders Fund, you just invested in like, I don't know, like this plant that like only causes you to hallucinate in a bad way. They're like, hallucinogens have a bad rap. And you're like, all right. They're like, in 30 years, hallucinogens will be your morning cup of coffee. And you're like, I don't think that's true, but you're so smart at, you're good at chess and math. So like, I guess I'll just. I defer to you on everything in life. That's how I feel.

You worked at PayPal in 2008. You know what you're doing.

You know, exactly. Like your hobby is cryptography and you created PayPal. So like, I guess I'll roll with you on this, like, you know, kombucha that you're investing in, even though it doesn't really seem like that big of an idea. So anyways, that's kind of what I felt like was going on here. Like here's their, uh, investors. So Paradigm led it. Paris Hilton, uh, Paki McCormick, you know, like Scott Belsky, friend of the pod, uh, you know, our homie who's super smart. But I think, you know, when I met this woman, oh, uh, there's like a bunch of names I don't recognize besides that. Like, you know, probably, you know, I don't know, EDM DJs or something. People I don't know. Yeah. You have to like leave your house to know these people. And so I'm out, you know, the, um, but, but I thought this was kind of interesting to like, to create a show. And I've actually been, I don't think that this is, So two things came to mind. One was when you're a star, you're going to get funded to do some dumb shit and that's okay. I actually think it's a smart idea to like back these star people because they're going to do amazing things in their life as long as they just keep taking attempts. I think this is probably not her best idea, but, you know, 3 years from now, whatever she's building is probably going to be amazing.

I'm on their site and I'm just skimming through their videos. I don't know, man. It seems like they're executing kind of well on maybe a dumb idea. It seems like a dumb idea, but like my wife is a very smart, you know, techie woman. And, uh, she like is obsessed with The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, whatever. I don't even know what it is. Uh, like we have to have, we have it in the house. I know, I think it's like Tuesday at 8 o'clock. It's like on and like way to throw people off your trail there.

Say the wrong date. Yeah. Like you don't sit down every Monday with your, with your glass of rosé with Sarah and you guys don't watch this together while holding, holding toes.

I can't— that'd be weird. I can't stand it. All I know is this season it's two women picking dudes, and I just don't like— I don't like the thing at all. But I know that it's a huge deal. It's still like a huge deal. And my wife Sarah is like talking to all of her friends about it consistently. So like, I don't know, man, this is kind of a cool idea. So it definitely does seem big. And I actually do think that you and— I don't know about you, but I don't know anything about the movie business or Hollywood or entertainment. I don't know anything about that. And When people talk to me about like a production company, I'm like, the fuck is a production company? Like, I don't know what that is, but I do know that Reese Witherspoon owned one of them things. She owned one of that production company things, and it got acquired by Blackstone for like $500 million like a few months ago. And I do know that one of the richest Black men in America, I believe his name is Byron Allen. And when I was— I was reading about on Wikipedia, I wanted to learn more about what this guy did. And it was like talking about his production company and all these shows that he made. Like, Damn, dude, whatever this is, it's actually much bigger and more organized than I ever even imagined.

So it's funny you bring that up. I've been actually in the lab. It's not ready yet, but we're going to take it out for a spin right now, which is I've been in the lab learning about production companies. And, um, I want to tell you kind of like, here's the, here's my, can I give you just like random rant?

Like it's hard to understand, right?

Normally I have to have like a packaged, like a take on it. That's what I like to be. But you brought it up. So let me give you the unpackaged, unfiltered, raw, like where—

give me that cookie dough so far.

Yeah, exactly. Hey, turn the oven down. We don't need it. We got a spoon in the dough.

I want this content extra gooey.

Explain what that means. So, uh, they have writers on staff or writers come to them with an idea. They go, this is intriguing. We're gonna pay money and we're gonna pay $100,000 or $500,000. We're gonna get some actors and a set. We're gonna make 1 or 2 episodes of this. We're gonna shop it around and then someone will buy it and we make profit.

Exactly. So I'm going to use a Hollywood term that I don't know how to use, but I'm going to just like, you know, whip it out here. They option it. What does it mean when they option it? It's like, you know, they basically like, it's like they take an option on the future of this thing and they basically take, you know, they create a sizzle reel where it was like a 2-minute teaser or they create a pilot or they create nothing. They just have the pitch and the concept and you're Kevin Hart. You go walk into 6 Studios, you say, um, it's a movie where, uh, you know, me and a tall guy You know, uh, we, you know, we are co-workers that don't like each other, but then we get trapped in an elevator. And they're like, love it, we'll take it, you know. And you're like, you know, how much does it need? It's like, we're gonna need $100 million to do this. Of that, you're gonna pay the production company X millions of dollars to go produce this movie. There's some margin in that. And then, um, you know, they're gonna— and then you're gonna, uh, you know, whatever the revenue or the upside would be, you know, of the project, we're gonna have some, some split. And presumably it also has other Um, you know, businesses that, that produce. So 50% come from the studio arm. Well, what's the other 50%? It's a combination of other things like content licensing, brand consulting work for companies like P&G, Lyft, Sam's Club, stuff like that. So I don't know what he's doing, but like, that's Kevin Hart's business.

That's the $100 million one. And the value here is presumably Kevin Hart and team know about what type of content gets eyeballs and gets engagement. They presumably have connections with all the big players and they have some money that they'll finance things upfront. And, and, and that's how they're curators and operators.

And you know who crushes it this way? Fucking Ryan Seacrest. I was reading about Ryan Seacrest and American Idol and this guy, that guy is a workhorse and he has a production company that kills it.

Yeah. You know, you know, our buddy Pomp— Pomp is like the Ryan Seacrest of the crypto industry, right? Like, he's just everywhere. It's like, dude, you got a morning show and then an afternoon show, then you're producing this thing, and then at night you do this. Like, wow, you— your output is unmatched. That's Ryan Seacrest. Yeah, man, it is crazy.

He's like, dude, I'm 20 years—

I'm on radio for 3 hours a morning for 20 years. Then I do this, then I put on my suit, then I host this, then I produce the— he produced the Kardashian show. Yeah. And then he's like, then I go do American Idol. And after American Idol, I go do this other thing. He's like, geez, man, like, uh, like blink, you know what's going on?

He's grinding, man. Yeah, that guy kills it.

I'm a big Reese fan. Reese Witherspoon and Brad Pitt. If you're in it, I go to it.

You called her Reese Witherspoon earlier, and I just thought that was a nice, like, touch. I had never heard that, that rendition before. I liked your remix. Um, so, so, you know, I call her Reese.

You know how much money this—

Yeah, she also has a clothing brand. The clothing brand wasn't a part of it, but Dapper James or Drapper James or something like that. What's it called?

I don't even know.

Dapper, maybe something like that. And then she has a book club. It's Sunshine something like Hello Sunshine Book Club. Is that what it's called?

She's great, man. She's great.

Okay. You know, like cutthroat, you know, like media mogul or like, you know, innocent Reese is just like, that's an amazing model. Um, so yeah, I think that's kind of crazy. And also she also sold, I think the data. So like, Um, uh, you know, like either, like you can, like the, the people who bought it, I think they get like, you know, access to that membership of the book club and then the data around them of what they like, what they dislike.

So long story short, this Mad Realities thing, you kind of just did the pitch for them where I'm like, okay, the macro thing, that's as an uneducated person, that's, that's mildly interesting. That's a, that's an interesting story. You, you kind of sold like this actually could be a huge thing. This could be as big as any other tech company almost. So that's interesting. This young woman doesn't have, you know, she doesn't have the clout or connections likely that Reese or whoever has, but like, she's got the charm. I buy it.

Well, there's two versions of a hit. A hit can be it does well, and then there's a hit like the Clubhouse thread or the metaverse thread or stuff like that where it gets to like 20 million people and like You know, like those were hits. Those were like, I don't know, super hits or grand slams. So which one do you mean? Like the, those like absolute bangers or just like, this gets thousands of likes and gets shared. Maybe it gets read 10,000 times or 100,000 times on a blog post that gets like 100,000 views.

Well, so let's just say there's Friends and Seinfeld and The Simpsons. And then maybe there's like Family Guy and then maybe there's like The Bachelorette or The Bachelor. And then like below that, it's like famous threads. Yeah. Below that, what's another TV show that's like It's like, it's actually, it's like a hit, but it's like, like the Goldberg's.

That there's like people busking on the street and below that there's your thread.

No, I mean like, look, like, you know, your version of Family Guy so far has been one or two things that you've written, but then you've had like a bunch of like mild hits.

So I think if I— I think to answer your question, if I tried the way you said, I think 7 out of 10 would like do very well and then probably one out of every 10 would be— 1 out of every 10, maybe 1 out of every 20.

Yeah. I was gonna say 0 to 1, probably.

It'd be like a banger. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that's just like a tweet, which is like easy-ish to go viral. To create. Yeah. Um, now let's go a step up. A YouTube video. How many YouTube videos, if you had 10 tries, do you think, or let's say 20, could be like a hit?

Honestly, I, I, I don't know if I'm gonna answer your question the way you want, cuz I kind of think for YouTube videos it's a little easier. I don't know why. I think maybe because we hung out with MrBeast and I was like, oh, okay, I get it. Like, I get it. I get what goes into, like, I get what a viral concept would be that people would click and that they would share. I get what the hook would be and I get like, you know, how to like have the big payoff, the big reveal. Um, and also I haven't done it. So, you know, things seem easier when you haven't done it, when you haven't like gone and tried actually. But I actually think I could have higher hit rate with YouTube videos because you get editing, you get like there's a whole bunch of things that go into it compared to a Twitter thread, which is very intellectual. Like a YouTube video, you can like lean on other things to make it interesting. Like the visual, the like, just literally the fact that it's like a visual, it's a lean back experience versus like, hey, read these 15 tweets and like, I hope I've tickled you to like the smart part of your brain enough where you give a shit. Um, so I actually think a YouTube video, I think if I tried on YouTube, I think 7 or 8 out of 10, I think would hit. All right. Like in a major way.

Amp it up. You have more time. You have a million plus money, uh, dollars. You have, uh, a little bit of a team. Uh, you have to make a hit show once a quarter or once every 6 months or once a year at most, or at least. What, uh, do you think you could actually come up with a hit? Like how hard do you think coming up with a hit would be? Uh, you have more money, you've got more time, you have more resources. You have to hit, you have to have a hit show and it doesn't have to be a, a Friends, but it has to be a, we're happy that we gave you money for this and we're gonna keep buying. You, how many times out of 10 do you think you could do that?

That's crazy.

And then I answer the way you thought or no?

Yeah, you did. And an interesting exercise, I didn't prepare for this, but an interesting exercise is to think how many game-changing pieces of content like Mark's book, um, we would have to think of a few more examples. We could probably think of a lot of books, um, just started with like a really small thing and they're like, oh, that's an interesting vein. Let's actually pursue that. Uh, and, and that's like an interesting exercise because his his book created tens of millions of dollars worth of value. And it basically kind of almost on the headline itself, it's kind of a winner. And then I'm sure the blog post, which I haven't even read, I'm sure that was actually fire and amazing. But I wonder how many amazing bits of content have just started with a small little rinky-dink thing.

Okay.

That's, that's cool. I like how they did that. I, that's, I can pick that up for my game.

That's crazy.

Yeah. By the way, one, one other numbers here. So LeBron's production company, 45 million in 2020, uh, revenue or funding? Revenue. $100 million in 2021. And, um, they basically do the same thing where they do a bunch of stuff. So they have, uh, like Uninterrupted, which is videos, and like—

it's good, I like it.

Uh, they also have like merchandise, apparel. There's like a clothing brand. Then they have the HBO series The Shop. Then they made the new Space Jam movie. And so his company Spring Hill, uh, basically created a bunch of these and They did the same thing. They went and sold it to others. If I was these guys on— if I'm, if I'm LeBron and I have so much income coming from other things, I would play a really long game because I think that going and selling The Shop to HBO— like, The Shop is actually a pretty dope show. It's like this barbershop and they get like, you know, whatever, whoever, big actors, NFL players, basketball players, just shooting the shit in a barbershop setting. And it's like really high quality. It's great.

It's kind of like MFM, but famous people who are more interesting, better, and getting haircuts.

Yeah. Take what you see now. Yeah. Trim my beard. First of all. Secondly, we're more athletic, more successful, funnier, you know, like cool, you know, undeniably cool. All right. So, so basically that show is awesome. But how many of LeBron's fans, right? LeBron's fans are like mostly younger people. Like, you know, that's like if you're an NBA star, your fans go from like, you know, 8 years old On Up, they don't have HBO. And so it's like, if I'm him, why am I not playing the long game, Jeff Bezos style, and just saying, I'm gonna drop this dope premium content on, uh, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, whatever, and I'm gonna put the whole thing here. I'm gonna blow normal content out of the water here cuz I'm bringing production budgets to this. And actually I'm gonna invest like what Michael Jordan did with his like, uh, The Last Dance, Legacy, uh, The Last Dance, like documentary. It's like, I'm gonna invest a lot of money, but I'm not gonna like put it behind. I'm gonna like, Netflix is okay cuz it's a paywall a lot of people have. Um, but I would just put it on YouTube and I would basically bet that if I grow my brand and my legacy through this content, um, there's a bigger payoff than what the streaming companies are gonna pay me today. And I would be willing to invest $20, $30, $50 million in order to build like a billion dollar plus type of brand payoff at the end because you will just be like, you know, worshipped and adored even more than you already are. And so, you know, you want to go on one end of the spectrum or the other. You want to go like, I'm getting paid a stupid amount of money and it doesn't really matter how many people watch this, or I want everybody to watch this and I'll pay money to get it there because there's a bigger payoff for me outside of that. You know, like the Logan Paul method where it's like, everything's free, everything's on YouTube, I'm in your face, and then I'll launch my like energy drink And I think their energy drink does like some stupid number, like it's doing really well, like $100 million a year or something like that.

Well, I, I, I don't know the exact number. I heard about on the pod, they were talking about how they did 10, like, I think it was around $10 million in month one of sales. Um, but I actually think that the, their, that drink business, um, if like MrBeast has a $40 chocolate business, I'm curious if some of these low ticket items can actually become like legitimately great companies as opposed to just okay. Uh, I think it's hard to sell a $2 drink, uh, and make it like work really well. So we'll see if they'll make it work.

But, but dude, all these water companies do amazing, but many don't, obviously. I mean, many don't, but if you got the distribution right, like why is MrBeast not doing Beast Water? Because he can basically pair it with like, you know, like that boxed water thing where it's like, this is better for the earth.

Yeah.

It's MrBeast likes that shit where he's just like, oh, we're going to plant a billion trees. And the way we're going to plant a billion trees is by not doing plastic water bottles. All right, everybody join me. This is MrBeast, you know, aluminum cans, sparkling water, like go fuck LaCroix up. All right, like go, go fuck these guys up. Like MrBeast could destroy these guys, right? Like, uh, you know, like Beast Water, like go into the things, go, go make products that everybody on earth consumes because you're the mainstream, like content maker, right?

So it's like, dude, when he, when he had the chocolate, I was like, damn, dude, I want to like eat this chocolate because I want to like, you know, show you like appreciation for like being here and you brought your item. And like, yeah, sure, I'll eat some of it. But I felt so bad eating it because I don't like eating that type of stuff.

I mean, I don't eat a chocolate bar. Yeah, daily basis.

Well, yeah, and I love it. And I'm so much fun eating it. I was like, I don't want to eat this, but I want to be respectful and kind and because he brought this thing and I was like, dude, you need to make something different that I, that, that I like can consume guilt-free. I don't know that many people that just eat chocolate, like a, like a Hershey's chocolate bar. You know what I mean?

Correct. In fact, that's a filter I have. If I ever just see you just eating a chocolate bar on a Tuesday, like I'm going to begin to distance myself. Right. Like I'm trying to be around a certain type of person that's like, you know, healthier. I like, come to think of it, I don't know anybody that does that. Actually, you know, funny story, uh, when, when I joined Monkey Inferno, I was like, um, so what was it like the last product manager, the lat— the guy. So I joined as a PM, product manager. The guy who was there before me was this guy Alex Tu, who created Million Dollar Homepage back in the day and now is the founder of Calm, like a multi-billion dollar company. Wait, he was the app—

he was the boss of Monkey Inferno?

Not the boss. He was the, he was like the product manager. So he was the product manager there and he quit to go start Calm.. And, um, they were like, I was like, oh, how's Alex? Like, you know, I love that guy's work. Like, you know, Million Dollar Homepage is dope, calm, interesting. Like meditation, is he just like super zen or what? Like, is he huge on meditation? They're like, you know, that's the funny thing. I, they're like, I think he needs calm. I wouldn't say he is calm. I was like, what do you mean? They're like, you know, Alex is a fun time, dude. He's like, he loves to hang, he likes to go out. Like he loves to have drinks. Like, you know, he's just like a, a young dude, like in his 20s in a big city. Like, you know, he's, he's not like, Waking up every morning, going to his Japanese, like, you know, you know, garden and just like sitting there for 8 hours, just, you know, contemplating, you know, the thoughts in his mind. And so I was like, what's the craziest, what's the most degenerate thing? I was like, gimme a story. What's the most degenerate thing the founder of Calm has done? They go, I remember one time he came in and he was kind of hungover and he just got a bowl, like, you know, for cereal. Like, his office had like a kitchen. He's like, but instead of cereal, he just went and put a bunch of M&Ms in there with a spoon and just ate it. I was like, I was like, I don't know if this story is true or false, but it's hilarious. And I'm running with it.

That's awesome.

I remember thinking at that time, if com ever becomes a thing, I'm always going to remember that, you know, like, you know, that story. There's like one of these like hilarious small, small stories.

He's a degen just like us. Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better. When we had our office, I remember I was having a bad day and when I have bad days, I like to like punish myself by eating poorly. You know, it's like, that's like my version of just like drinking a 12-pack. And I, it was me and my writer Connor were still in the office at like 8:00 PM. And I was like, Connor, today sucked. I was like, I looked at him, I go, bet you I can eat this whole jar of unopened Skippy in 3 bites. And I did, and I did, and I felt so horrible for like 3 days. And so that was my, that was my degen diet moment was just eating an entire jar of Skippy peanut butter in 30 seconds.

No.

Stable Diffusion's the new demo that came out. Unlike DALL-E, they basically, they, they didn't like kind of paywall it. And so anybody can go and, and use it and you just type in a prompt. So you're like, uh, like go to the subreddit Stable. So go to Stable Diffusion subreddit, uh, just to see like what people create. So it's r/stablediffusion. So just look at the top thing, right? So, um, I look at like, Um, let me show you a good one. Okay. Go to the one that says Wendy's. Do you see it? Like scroll down, maybe top from when today, or it's hot. Uh, I just like normal sorting. So hot and then go down 5 and just look at Wendy's.

Oh yeah. Oh my God. This is awesome.

So how does this work? So basically you just type in like the prompt, right? So, uh, the prompt that he gave was a beautiful portrait of Wendy's mascot intricate, elegant, elegant, and highly detailed. And then it just creates this like beautiful redheaded girl holding a burger with fries. And it's like, it looks like this incredible art. And, um, and so you could just, and then you, you could just, you just hit the dream button. That was the, the button, like, you know, the Google button is like search or I'm feeling lucky. The one on this says dream and you hit dream and it just, it'll just morph it. It'll morph it. It'll morph it. It'll morph it. It'll morph it. It'll just keep making new ones. Instantaneously. It's like working with a designer. It's like, try again. Give me something else. No, not that. Okay. Make it blue. And it'll just instantaneously recreate something incredible, uh, right then. Right. So it's like, um, it's, and it's just mind-blowing what it's creating. And then you can see these videos. So go down, uh, just do like a Ctrl+F and, uh, write the words preview of next feature. Um, and it's a picture of a duck.

Yeah. It's a picture of a duck and it's like, it looks like a guy in Photoshop or Paint making a duck.

Right. So he's, he's, he's in, I think, I think it's Photoshop, this is the actual tool, but, uh, it looks like a Microsoft Paint duck. So it's just like a yellow blob with an orange little duckbill, right? All right. So it's a 2-minute video. What he's showing is he created a Photoshop plugin using Stable Diffusion that lets you draw anything crappy and then you just run the plugin and watch, get to the end. So like go all the way to the end. And so he just adds a little blue. And so by the end you see this basically like this like fancy looking duck wearing a monocle. And like a blue, like, tuxedo shirt. And it's like the sophisticated-ass duck.

And if I'm a web designer, I'm freaking out right now.

We thought AI would like, you know, it's going to automate the shitty jobs. It's like, actually, it's coming for your throat, artists.

Have you ever heard this theory that your words shape your thoughts? And it's not just like positive thinking. It's like literally if that, if a word that doesn't describe a particular type of feeling exists in your language, then it's hard for you to have that feeling. So this particular example isn't exactly proven to be true and a lot of people debate it. But there was a group of Africans who didn't have like the perfect word for square or like a 90-degree angle, and all of their homes were in circles. They were like circled. And so they didn't— they for some reason, like the idea of like square and 90 degrees, it just wasn't part of their language. And so everything, a lot of items in their, in their culture were circles. Or there's like terms for like, you know, I'm feeling depressed, but I'm not suicidal or something in like a different country. And like, that's like a better word sometimes than like depressed. And so people are like, well, you know, I'm just in this mood and they can explain it a little bit better and they feel that way. And it's almost like explaining to a blind person like, hey, tell me what red looks like. It's like, I don't know. I can't— I can't explain what that is when I'm— it's too hard. I don't have that in my vocabulary. With something like this, I wonder if there's— if it will unlock like a new way of storytelling or a new way of seeing art. And it will actually— could actually change our mindset on a lot of different things because like if you, if you, if you want to make a movie now, I mean, you're going to be influenced by everything that exists. And then occasionally someone's going to come and do something totally mind-blowing, mind-changing. And that one person is like kind of once in a generation type of person and they just like are really unique, like a Steve Jobs. But when you have something that is collectively aggregating all of the data in the world that has ever existed and then coming up with something interesting, do you know what I mean? Like I wonder what, like, that's how I've been thinking about it. Like, man, well, the new stuff that this thing can come out with, I can't, I literally can't think of, you know what I mean?

Because what they do is they train it on like, just, you know, they basically go scrape gigabytes and gigabytes and gigabytes of images from the web. And they basically, and there's a big controversy around this. Some people are like, that's unethical. Those people who put their images up on the web, they didn't know it was going to be, it was going to be used to train AI that was going to then put them out of work. Like, that's, that's not so great. But like, and by the way, there's like a name for this. Some people are trying to do vegan AI. You know what that is?

No, but that's awesome.

Vegan AI is basically AI that's trained only on non-copyrighted work. So it's like, like work that images that were like, uh, intentionally said to be royalty-free out there for public use, out there for use it however you want. Um, it's like if it was only trained on that, it's sort of like grass-fed.

Well, what's like a perfect example of this and like is the ultimate villain move is GitHub, which is a website that developers post code on. It's almost like, uh, it, it's part practicality. They post code so you could share it, but they also like, it's like a portfolio almost. And what GitHub is doing, which is owned by Microsoft at this point, I think they are basically like using AI to scan all the best code of all the code that has ever been uploaded. And you can kind of like, am I explaining this right? You can, they've using AI to write new code based off of all the users who have input data and the users are like, Oh, cool. So you're taking our portfolio, you're, and you're gonna use it to put us outta work. That, that's nice.

Dude, when we did, when we discussed this, I'm like, this is a, this is the type of like macro movement. That it's like, dude, just quit what you're doing and just join, get in somehow, you know, almost. Yeah. I don't really like crypto, but almost like crypto in like '09 or '11 or something like that. Oh, uh, it's like, I don't know, man. It's kind of hard to miss if you're just kind of in the, in the, in the ballpark.

100%, 100%. That's how I feel about this. Like, that's, wait, we drove by a purple unicorn, pull over the car, pull over the car in your career and basically go dive in and figure out what this is. And if people are already driven in, Tell me, because I'm trying to dive in. I wanna learn as much as I can about this over the next 6 months because I find it fascinating. I'm gonna, I can't show this graph, but I'm just gonna tell you a graph real quick. All right. There is a company, I wonder if I can say the name. I'm gonna say the name. Maybe we have to bleep this out later. So there's a company called— have you heard of this? Yeah. I don't exactly know what they do, but, uh, they're basically like an, I think they're just like an AI copywriting solution.

That's what their website just You know, are they, are they based out of Austin? I think I met the founder actually.

So sounds cute, right? Uh, you know, AI helps you copyright. Copywriting is this little niche thing that you and I are in. We help people with copywriting too. We both have like a copywriting course or product like that. Here's their annual recurring revenue. January of 2021, January, $2.5 million.

That, that's their annual recurring.

Goddamn. Yeah, I'm on board with this stuff. This is pretty cool.

That's insane. I can't believe how big that is.

Wow. It seems almost too good to be true.

All right. Anything else that we wanted to cover?

No, that's the pod.