Robot Businesses That Will Take Over The Fast Food Industry And Showmanship
The world has changed where there's now this like robotic arm that's a general purpose robotic arm. So think of it like an iPhone, right? It's a piece of hardware that you could buy that you could program to do anything, right? So when, when Steve Jobs came out with the iPhone, they were like, this is an iPhone. It can access the internet. It has a GPS inside and it can make phone calls. Like that's what it could do. And from there you guys figure out the rest, right? Like initially they didn't have the App Store, but then when they did have the App Store, now all of a sudden you get the flashlight app., and then the app that turns, you know, it's like a ruler uses the camera to like measure something. Then you get like Strava. It's like, we'll use the GPS to do this thing. So it's basically like a programmable general purpose tool. So that's what's happening with these robotic arms.
All right, we're live, bro. What's up? Listen, listen to this thing. I'm gonna tell you something. I, uh, you know, have been being really healthy this summer and didn't eat a lot of sugar. Didn't have no sugar other than like fruits and fruits and vegetables and like just no sugar added. Today I decided— today was my planned cheat day after 3 months of like doing this, and I ate some ice cream. I feel miserable.
Yeah, the cheat day is always underwhelming. It's always like I'm looking forward to it. I'm planning for it. Then I start doing it. I don't even feel good while I'm eating it.
Well, it's like— it's like when you drink and then the next day you're hungover and you're like, why did I do that? But then you immediately do it again, like a few days later. I kind of feel like that, except instead of like 3 days, it's like 10 minutes. So like I eat something and 10 minutes later I'm feeling horrible. I'm like, oh, fuck it. There's still some left though. I should probably do it. Oh my God. I feel so sick.
You have such an extreme personality. You always go to these extremes. You also, I feel like this is also why people hate like fit people is because they like have these types of problems and normal people are just like, what are you talking about? Like, what is the big deal? Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you waking up in the middle of the night? Thinking about ice cream. It's like, uh, the way that, you know, the way that some people get annoyed about like CrossFitters and you know, like people who love to talk about intermittent fasting. I think there's people who feel that way about us with business and money, which is just like, dude, not everything's a business. It's okay. And I would say that if we succeed, we, we need to succeed in creating people that are as annoying as CrossFitters as our fans. I think that's my new goal.
Yeah. You need freaks. And here you've got, you, you're at a huge disadvantage. You know why, right? It's because you are what I like to call normal, emotional, emotionally stable. You have too much emotional health, good emotional health, in order to, you know, be extreme like some people. I'm reading this great book about leaders and how the guy, the author, looks at a lot of, like, interesting leaders who we like. Like, so, for example, Abe Lincoln is one of the most written about, I think the most written about American figure ever. Winston Churchill, a bunch of people like that. And he basically, his whole theory is that during okay times, a mentally stable leader is— could be adequate. But during bad times, mentally unstable leaders typically are the best at leading because they understand like the ups and downs. They are kind of like crazy enough, kind of like when an entrepreneur like invents something or starts something versus the type of person who just runs it and runs it like even keel. And they're like, well, you kind of need some extremes in extreme times. And it like analyzes history on emotionally unstable people and looks at like, oh, they're actually the best during bad times.
Well, I think people underestimate this cuz in theory it sounds like you want somebody who is stable. In theory you want, let's say you join a startup or a small company, you want it to be like, oh, how do we make decisions? You know, we, we talk about it as a group, we get a bunch of different perspectives and then we sort of all chime in with what we think and we go with, you know, maybe the majority. It's like a democracy. And actually that shit doesn't work in startups. Uh, it, it is not the norm. And that would be the outlier if it was to work. The, the norm is what they call the benevolent dictator. So it's basically, we agree for better or for worse, that person's the, the captain, they're the captain, and we're going on their ship and either we're going down or we're going to the promised land. And that's how the best startups work is they pick a captain and they just go ride or die with that person. And they say, look, for better or for worse, we need to make decisions fast. So one person's gonna always be faster than a committee. We need to be, um, extremely decisive. So we can't be torn constantly by warring. You know, one group wants A, the other group wants B. We can't have that. Uh, three, we need it to be a little bit extreme because look, we're trying to do an extreme thing here. So maybe we need an ex bit of an extreme leader. And so I think in companies you actually want a dictatorship and people don't like that. They're uncomfortable with that because That's not what you want in your country maybe, or that's not what you want in your, you know, your local city, but it is what you want in a company and it is what you want on any creative project is kind of my view. You want kind of a crazy genius who's gonna be the creative force driving the thing and everybody else get on board or get off. Well, and, uh, that's, that's how you ran The Hustle. That's how I run my companies. It is definitely the way when it comes to, to creating new stuff from scratch.
Yeah. And then it actually makes sense. And let me, uh, explain how I was and you tell me if you were the same way, but if you look at like with a CEO, like it doesn't really matter if there's a 30%, not approval rating. It's just like, do the numbers. Like, does it work? You know, for a publicly traded company, it's like, it didn't matter. Unfortunately or fortunately, the way you look at it, it doesn't matter if you're an asshole. Did the numbers go up and did you achieve what you said you're going to achieve? And so it doesn't matter if your employees— I mean, it matters if it becomes a retention problem, but if it just— if you have a 10% approval rating, but your numbers are great, It's great if you have a 10% approval rating and you're the president of America. Well, you're jobless, you know what I mean? Like, you're not going to win the next election. So it's just like all about appeasing the 1%. And because of that, we get used to this idea of like democracy and like, you know, I don't want to be led. This is like, you know, don't lead me, just like get me involved. And so I remember when I started my company, I was like, yeah, that's how I'm going to run it. Like, look, it's— this is like a meritocracy. We are all here working together and it is that, but it is definitely more like, hey, I'm the boss. I will take input in from everyone. I'm making the decision and this is the way that we're going to go. And it's my job to make sure that you feel inspired to be here and all this other stuff. And I remember feeling really self-conscious about that. And then there'd be times where I wasn't the leader, like for example, when I joined HubSpot or maybe when you and I work on this podcast, it's like, well, I'm not exactly the boss. And I actually felt a lot of security and comfort when I said, hey, who's the boss of this project? And you just say, is this person the boss? Great. Hey boss, uh, what, you know, make your decision please. And I felt actually good about like being a follower. And then I realized that maybe I think my employees, when I'm the boss, like you have to have a boss, I think. And when you are the boss, it is kind of cool, but also very stressful. But when you're not the boss, it's like, yeah, I'm, I'm okay taking this role and I recognize we need a leader. Just tell me what to do.
Right. Yeah. Uh, what do they call it? One neck to choke. It's like there needs to be one neck to choke when it comes to any situation or any problem. Like if it's like, if I don't know who's in charge, if I don't know who's, who actually makes the call, then you lose one really powerful thing, which is accountability. And, uh, and so I think that's, that's really important. I think that, uh, you're absolutely right. I don't mind whether I'm the person or I'm not the person in charge. I just like that there is a person in charge. I want a benevolent dictatorship cuz that's what I have personally seen work best. I remember when we were, uh, when I was at Twitch and we did, uh, the first executive offsite. So it's like, I don't know, the, the sort of like 15 exec leaders in the company go to whatever, some fancy place. They have a spread of, you know, like whatever, tea and crumpets and it's like—
Dave Buster's in Daly City.
Yeah.
Fridays.
You go to Friday's during happy hour.
Potato skins and the nuclear margarita. Yeah.
Yeah, you, you eat a loaded potato and you, you start to decide the future of the company.
You got to feel like your customers, you know. You got to go to the Applebee's and you got to get the nachos.
So the, the, the CEO and the COO, they get up there and they say, hey, look, we, we read the results from the last, the last offsite we did last quarter, and it seemed like the big thing you guys wanted was you felt like the decision-making was too top-down and you didn't have a say, and you feel, felt like your ideas either weren't heard or, you know, the groups, you know, you It was, it was all just sort of mandated from above and you just had to execute. You didn't feel empowered. So this time we're doing it different. And they like spent the whole day and it was like, what are your ideas, children? And then everybody writes down their ideas on sticky notes. Awesome. Let's do a color voting system. Everybody vote on your top 3.
And you're like, uh, and they go through this like, you know, uh, so you want to do a commercial with the Rolling Stones, Sean? You know that, that, that cost $1 million, but okay, we'll, we'll take that into account.
Yeah. Who here, who here keeps writing billboards are back, back from where? What is this idea about? Right. So it's like you basically, and then you go through this whole day process where everybody's talking about it and you could tell that these exes in a way they're interested, but they're also like biting their tongue a bit. Cause they're like, look, all right. We said, we're not going to just like slam in with our opinion and just overrule everything and be like, guys, it's fucking obvious. We're doing 1, 2, and 3. What are we talking about here? And so they didn't do that. They let everybody do their things. Great. Come up and we leave the offsite. Fast forward either the next quarter or the quarter after that. So 3 or 6 months later, we go for the next offsite. It's like, oh, read the feedback. Uh, we feel like we just don't know how decisions are being made. Uh, we kind of wish that the leadership would just step in and give us clear direction on what we're going to do. Like, hey, we're ready. We just need some clarity from you guys.
It's called the long con, man. This is the long con.
And so they basically were like, here, we'll let you, you know, try this. And I was just like, am I the only one in the room that just remembers what the last feedback was, which is the exact opposite, which is like, it's too top down. And now it's like, are the leaders gonna be leaders or not? Like, we need clarity. Your job is to give us these decisions. Like, uh, we feel like you're just sitting back and then now it's mayhem. And it's like, and so that was like the affirmation of something I always believed.
The second part, there's this, uh, there's a skit from the Chappelle Show where he wants to get Oprah pregnant. So he, uh, you know, he wants to have Oprah's baby. And he gets her pregnant and goes, gotcha. And, uh, like, that's how— that's how I feel Emmett is just like saying to himself after like 3 months. He's like, gotcha.
You guys see the Dave Chappelle gotcha clip?
Look at me, I'm pregnant.
Are you sure it's mine?
Listen, it's yours.
Got you, bitch. What?
Hey, hey, hey.
The, uh, the second thing is wartime and peacetime. I think this also matters a lot. So you want this sort of like dictatorship when it is wartime. And for, for a startup there, for a company, there's usually two wartimes. There's the beginning when you're nobody, you have no customers, no product, no direction, you have no market share, no nothing. And then if you start to succeed, you will hopefully enter some version of peacetime where it's like the thing is working. We don't need to every day wake up and worry about dying or killing our competitors or like all this stuff. Like maybe you're working on, you know, maintenance, fixing bugs. Maybe you're working on, um, talking to customers and making sure your support, you know, things that you kind of push by the wayside. Now there's more time to go do those things properly. You work on security, we work on server robustness, whatever it is.
The same thing, but more and better a little bit every time.
Yeah. You don't need to go and conquer new lands. You're basically taking your existing land and saying, oh, you know, we need to fix up some things around here that we ignored during the wartime rush. But then you enter wartime again, inevitably, and that's when, you know, the competitive landscape changes, you know, a new platform gets released, competitors emerge, um, whatever, and the economy changes. And being able to shift between those two gears is pretty tough. I think very few leaders can be the best wartime CEO and the best peacetime CEO. Usually you're one or the other. You're an amazing peacetime or amazing wartime, and then you sort of stay too long dur— when the, when the, when the season shifts. And so I think that's the other thing to recognize, cuz people will always say, oh, this person's good or bad. And it's like, well, actually maybe they're just amazing at one season and the season has changed and now a different type of person would actually be best for what's going on now.. And so, uh, that's the other thing about like kind of this dictatorship stuff that you gotta know is like, what season are we in? If we're in wartime, I want a wartime CEO. If we're in peacetime, I need a peacetime CEO and I need to know when to shift.
I always hated saying this because there were so many people who died and it was so bad for so many people. But I remember thinking like, dude, COVID was awesome. Like I loved, I loved being in the trenches, you know, like it was actually quite exciting. It's exciting now because I know how the story ends and things end Well, at the time I was quite scared, but looking back, I was like, oh, I feel alive. Like this is, this is, this is what it's about.
And honestly, I kind of hate the war metaphor because, you know, first of all, there's people who are actually in war. So yeah, that's true. This is a, it's a borrowed, it's a borrowed term and they didn't give us permission. Um, the second thing is, you know, our war is fought literally at a keyboard with clicks firing left and right. And so, you know, there's a part of me that just feels very lame. It's like, yeah, I felt so alive when I, was logging into Google Analytics every morning and checking out, you know, what was going— it's like, well, do you acknowledge that you're kind of a soft bitch? Right? Like, it's like, okay, yeah. As long as I acknowledge that, then it's okay to continue this, this metaphor. But let's acknowledge it is a metaphor. It is not like real in any, any way. But I know what you mean, which was that when these big shakeups happen or there's a downturn where most people's reaction is, Oh shit, I'm, you know, this is bad for me. And they just go with the sheep of like, it's bad for me versus a lot of other people recognize, hey, this is happening whether I like it or not. And given that it's happening, the questions I need to ask are, what opportunities does this open up for me? Where does this, where, what, what am I now gonna get strong in that I was otherwise weak in? What have I been neglecting that now it's time to put my focus on, right? Like just ask yourself better questions. Then you start to focus on, cool, I'm gonna take market share in this area. I'm gonna, I'm gonna quickly pounce on this thing that I've otherwise been neglecting that I now matters a lot. Or, hey, oh, now that everybody's comfortable with remote work and stuff like what, oh, that opens up this new opportunity for us and just ask better questions and you'll get better answers.
Dude, speaking of, so I've got two topics here that are like kind of related to like madmen and crazy people. The first, have you ever heard of this guy named Brad, uh, Brett Adcock?
No.
Have you heard of this company called Vetri? Do you remember Vetri?
Not really. Okay. But no, I don't. I couldn't tell you what it is.
So this guy named Brett Adcock, he— I just met him recently and he joined our community and I've been getting to know him. Listen to this guy's background. So he's 36 years old. He's from central Illinois. And in around 2012, 2015, he started a company called Vetri. And it's nothing particularly sexy. It was just basically like a job site and it was a little bit like hired.com and eventually Hired.com tried to bully Vetri. Hired.com was also a similar business, a job board, but like, you know, more in-depth, more technology. And they raised north of $100 million. Fast forward 5 or 6 years later, Vetri ended up buying Hired.com when Hired.com went bankrupt. And so Vetri was basically a job website to help people recruit engineers, raised $10 million, eventually was acquired for $120-ish, about $100, $150, I think. So this guy Brett, he's 36 now. So back then when it was acquired, that was in like 2015. So he was in his 20s. He made low-digit tens of millions of dollars. So he didn't tell me, but I would imagine in the $20 million range. But here's what he did tell me. Listen to this. He put 100% of his money minus a little bit of cash that he put down for a down payment for a house. So when I say 100%, he told me, he goes, I didn't own any outside equities. I owned Nothing. I had my down payment, my house, and 100% of the earnings that I made, which was low tens of millions, tens of millions, put into the business bank account. And then he started a company called Archer. So basically they make like these car— they— some people call them flying cars. They're basically like helicopters, helicopters, but they kind of look like a car body. And I was like, how did you learn about this? And he said, I learned it all on my own. I read 50 engineering books and built 3 generations of electric aircraft in 2018 at the University of Florida, where I was doing engineering courses as an undergrad. I had to build a lab there to have facilities big enough in 2018. And so he, with owning zero public equities outside of Archer, the Archer stock, he, he makes zero outside investments. And he, and he said because he needs extreme focus, so he put all this money in Archer. Archer eventually does a SPAC. I believe they did a SPAC, but they, but they went public. So they sold like $1 billion worth of these flying vehicles to United Airlines or something like that. Takes it public for $3 or $4 billion. Now the stock is, you know, like most stocks in the, in the growth space, isn't doing so hot. But I still think it's a billion-dollar, uh, company. And his net worth skyrockets to a billion. I think now it's in the $300 or $400 range and makes all this money from Archer. And now I can't talk about his new startup, but I can soon. He's told me he took basically $200 million and he's put all of it into his new company. And still to this day, he goes, the only stock that I own is Archer and my house. That's like the only outside investments. And then now the new business. And so I go, you know, is your wife and family okay with this? He goes, I've been doing— I've been going all in and been doing this for 20 years. They're used to it now by now. And I said, well, what do you, what do you think about people who say, you know, you're kind of nuts? Why don't you square away a little bit of money while you can? And he goes, I don't care what people think. I just want to build the future. And this guy, he's not like one of these Elon Musk types where he's like hard to talk to and you like ask him a question and he can't, he's like, you know, so smart that he, that he can't articulate it. He's like fairly normal, I guess, normal in quotation marks, but he's like easy-ish to talk. He's easy to talk to. He's a personal, personable, charismatic guy. And you're like, oh, you seem very reasonable. And then he says he does this stuff and I'm like, you are insane. Insane. You're a madman. And so really interesting guy, totally under the radar from central Illinois. He's only 36 years old. So I got along with him because I'm from Missouri. Really fascinating dude.
And I'm on his Twitter. He's talking only about this thing called Polestar. Is that his new thing or that's— Polestar is a—
Polestar is like a subsidiary or they're a partner with Volvo and they make really cool cars. Is that what the tweet is about? I don't know.
Yeah, he's just talking about Polestar cars the whole time. Okay. Uh, wow. Amazing. So, uh, so that's incredible. So they basically, is it the, are they actually planes or are they what they call VTOL, like vertical takeoff and landing?
The second one. So kind of like a helicopter-ish. It looks like a helicopter. It looks like 4 blades, 4 helicopter blades attached to like, you know, a Honda Civic.
Right. And why do you need this? What does this do differently than a helicopter?
I have no idea.
You're like, question— here's Sam's question list. Does he ask, you know, it's usually name, where you're from, and then instead of like, you know, what do you do, it's like, what other equities do you own? And like, how much of your personal net worth are you reloading into your next company? Wow. Okay. Let's focus on that. I don't even want to know why, why you've created this company.
I have no idea.
What the actual helicopter does.
That's what a website's for. I don't know. To take cool pictures. I don't know. What are planes for? It's just like a, plane.
I don't know. I mean, I'm looking at the website. Oh, it's also just cool pictures of the aircraft.
Yeah, I don't give a fuck what the widget is. He makes it— it's a widget.
It's, it's just like this beautiful Black woman getting into this helicopter in a dress, and I'm like, what's she doing? What's the purpose here? And then she— and then the next photo is she's on like a sand dune in Dubai. It's like, oh, did she just Fly, fly to the desert.
Yeah. She had like an appointment.
Yeah.
Amazing. Yeah. She had to go somewhere. I don't know. It looks like she's on a date.
Uh, sorry, Brad Adcock. We did not do it justice there on the, on the, on the actual thing, but okay. So hold on. There's a little question or a plot hole about the story. So it said that he had to, he was an undergrad in 2018, but you said he sold his company like in 2016.
So did he go back to school or he was in school? Like he went back to school to learn how to do this stuff.
Oh my God. Even more incredible. This guy is interesting, right? He became an undergrad.
Yes. And he told me, he goes, he goes, whenever I do something, I go all in. He goes, for example, I'm, I, I'm going all in on my latest thing. I went all in on Archer. He goes, when I was starting Vettery, there was a time where I took a personal loan one month because I didn't have any money in my personal account and we had to pay rent. And he goes, this is just what I do. And so he said he wanted to learn about electric cars or whatever these, this cool shit is. And he went and learned about it at University of Florida.
Wow. Uh, okay. That's incredible. Speaking of people who go all in, you know, uh, my buddy Furkan and he's been on the podcast. We haven't had him on a while. We should bring him back on. But basically he was my co-founder at my last startup before we, we, uh, it was called Bebo and we, we sold it, um, to Twitch. And then since then he left and he was, I was like, what are you gonna do?
Well, you gotta say what he did before that.
Oh, before— he's got a kind of a crazy story. Before that, he was a co-founder of a company called AppLovin that went public, and it's like, I don't know, uh, $15-20 billion mobile ad network, uh, mobile gaming company.
So like one of the fastest growing companies ever.
Yeah, just an incredible story. Like, they've only— they only ever raised $4 million, and they took that $4 million of external capital— so they took, I think, $4 million from the founders and $4 million from, uh, from like strategic investors, and they turned that into basically like $20 billion of equity value, which is just insane capital efficiency.
And it makes $3 billion a year in revenue. So it's like a big business.
And they like rotated. They were a mobile ad network and then they went public. And when they were going public, it was like, ah, mobile ad network. Their comps were not very good cuz most mobile ad networks were like not doing very well. And even though they were like, well, our business is actually really good, but we're just gonna keep getting compared to these low multiple other mobile ad networks. So they basically executed a pivot mid-flight. And we're like, well, on our ad network, the number one advertisers are games. That's who makes the most money on our network. That's who pays the most money on our ad network is mobile games. So they're like, why don't we just build mobile games and buy mobile gaming studios? And so they built up this mobile gaming arm that I think does over a billion dollars a year in revenue.
Yeah, exactly. So they started buying up these little partnering, buying up studios. And building their own studio in-house. And then they would just use their existing reach and their ad network to like grow their own games and, uh, insane. And then they got valued at much higher because they had like a different story than just we're a mobile ad network and that's it. So anyways, Furkan's been doing crazy shit, but he's been going all in since he was very, very young. So when he was 15, he worked at a dot-com, uh, during the, uh, like dot-com boom. Like his dad was like, hey, um, I met this guy. They raised like, I don't know, remember dot-com is like, hey, this guy raised $50 million on a PowerPoint. He needs somebody to build his website. He doesn't know how, you know how to build websites. Like, why don't you go work over there? So at 15, he's working at a dot-com. Then he starts his own e-com site that's like selling, uh, like cool, like mods for your computer. You know, people like trick out their cars with like rims and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
He was doing that for like your gaming computer or stuff like that. You could have like a, a see-through case with like blue liquid going through it or stuff like that. And he goes to San Jose State. So not like a fancy school.
Freshman year, he's like, and is he an immigrant?
Isn't, is he from, well, yeah, his family's, they're Pakistani, but they, his, they've lived, he grew up in the Bay Area. So he grew up, that's, that's part of the magic is like his dad worked, I think at IBM. And like when he was like 5 years old, his dad would bring home like the, the early computer or the early printer and be like, let's assemble this together. So that's how he learned how to do shit. So, um, so anyways, he, he's freshman, freshman year at San Jose State. He's like, Dude, I just keep leaving the classroom to take calls cuz like, you know, we're out of inventory or whatever. And so he just quits San Jose State. He goes all in on the e-com thing. He figures out one hack with the e-com thing, which was like back then, I think on Google or Yahoo or some, somewhere where people were searching for stuff, you could just sort by cheapest. So he just wrote a bot that would always price what, like their, their main like high selling SKU, 1 cent lower than whatever the cheapest price was. And it was like his loss leader and it would always bring somebody to the, to the site. And that's what he, that's when he decided to quit school was he was in a class and they were describing what a loss leader is. He's like, oh, that's the shit I'm doing with my, like, I'm like, I'm like selling this stuff at a loss to get traffic. He's like, I don't need to be here. I'm learning this shit like in the real world. So he just left and just like, I dropped out. And then he's like, whatever goes on. He spends a couple years playing poker as well. Like, you know, a bunch of different crazy stuff. Comes back, starts doing startups. And now, and so after we sell and after AppLovin goes public, the guy never needs to work again. He's got all the money in the world. And I'm like, so what are you gonna do? And he's like, he's like, I wanna, uh, like, he's like, I'm, I'm gonna buy a big space. And basically he's like, he's creating his heaven on earth, which did, did he buy that space or did he rent it?
It looks beautiful.
He, he's renting that one, but he was looking at buying before. Then when COVID started happening, he's like, uh, I'm just gonna lease these. They're all like dirt cheap leases now. And like, I don't know who buys this. Yeah. He got this.
Sick place over on the Presidio.
Yeah. So he's in Fort Mason. He's got like, I don't know, maybe 10,000, 20,000, 25,000 square feet or something like that. It's crazy. And he basically created his heaven on earth, which I've come to realize is like, I, that's actually what I respect the most. It's like, I don't respect, because people will be like, oh, on one hand you guys go all in on Elon or Brett Adcock. These guys who go all in, is that what you love? But you also love this guy who's got this amazing lifestyle. And works 4 hours a month.
They're the same thing.
They're the same thing. They're creating their heaven on earth. And I think that is my best description of what I admire and what I want to do is create my own little heaven on earth, which takes 2 days.
I don't even like that description. I say they're taking the world and they're just bending it over their leg to how the shape that they want it to be. You know what I mean?
They're just, they're just, they're spanking their world. You're spanking the world. Yeah.
They're a dominatrix and the earth is their recipient. No, they're just like making the world, because that's what it feels like. It feels like they're forcing things.
They're forcing an industry and they say, and they say, Billy, go get my belt. And then they bend the industry over and they spank it. Yeah, exactly. Clip it. Billy, go get my belt. That's another one. So he's also an all-in kind of guy because he basically immediately created like a lot of work for himself. He rented out this space. He puts 40— I went there to visit. There's 40 people working in there. I'm like, who are all these? This is like a bunch of young brown dudes. Like, who are all these Indian dudes everywhere?
What are they doing? I invested in one of them because they're just part of his thing. I was like, Furqan, are these guys legit? And he like told me this huge explanation. I was like, all right, so just say yes or no.
And I say less. Yeah, yeah. I actually want to just invest in the index because actually individually all of the ideas are a little bit crazy.
They're all crazy.
One of these is gonna work. I just don't trust myself to pick the right one. So I actually have talking to him about like, how do I just index into all of your crazy, like, I would like a piece of every brown dude in this, in this, uh, under this roof here. Like, how do I do that? And I think we're gonna work it out, but I wanna tell you about one of the things that I saw there.
So dude, the guy I invested in was a white guy.
Shit. Oh yeah. You're the NBA GM drafting Kyle Korver. It's like, dude, you should take LeBron. LeBron, I think. Um, so, so one of the guys that, one of the guys I met in there, they were doing something called Orangewood Robotics. Have you ever heard of this company?
No, but obviously I'm in. Yeah.
Orangewood. Yeah. So I, I go in and there's a reason it's called Orangewood. I'll, I'll explain in a second. So they go in and I, I go, I walk in and there's a bunch of people at their computers and then there's the big thing he, he wanted to do was he was like, you know, A lot of engineers, they want to work in a space with other smart engineers. That's cool. But one of the things that engineers struggle with, he's like, the first thing I bought when I got money is I bought like a 3D printer and an, you know, and then like this robotics thing. And then I brought, bought this drone thing and he's like, I just want to have a whole bunch of hardware available for free to engineers that are building stuff that requires the stuff that's very expensive so they can come and hack on these, these tools and they don't need to like go buy this., you know, $15,000 machine that just does this thing. And so that's what he did. And so when I walk in, I'm like, what's going on in there? There's basically a room with a bunch of robotic equipment in there. I walk in and there's this company called Orangewood. And what these guys are doing is they basically are like, I was like, explain what this is. They go, oh, we have this robot that can paint stuff. And I was like, okay, why? And they're like, well, you know, like, you know, look around this room. Like you see that, you see this, you know, There's this process called powder coating. You ever, you ever powder coated something? And I was like, you obviously don't know who you're talking to. Yeah. So I was like, no. Um, I was like, is that for donuts? What is that? And he's like, no, basically it's this like process where you need to paint, you know, I still can't explain it to you.
By the way, that was a, that was a good one.
Thank you. Um, you do that thing in text where you're like 6 outta 10, 8 outta 10 on any, on any joke.
That was a good one. I like that one. The powder coating for donuts.
So, so basically they're like, you know, it takes, you know, a specialist. You have to, you know, you have to hire, hire labor. Labor's really hard nowadays. And it's also like a chemically intensive process.
It's not really that good for you. Basically powder coating, like I do it with motorcycles. So like your motorcycle frame is just metal and then they powder coat it, which is, it kind of looks like paint. I don't actually know exactly how it works, but you do it in like a room that's sealed and you do it with gloves on and it's like you're putting, it looks like a powder on it. And it's like a sealant slash protected thing slash paint, right?
So they basically trained this robot to do it. And what they do, the trick is that the world has changed where there's now this like robotic arm that's a general purpose robotic arm. So think of it like an iPhone, right? It's a piece of hardware that you could buy that you could program to do anything, right? So when, when Steve Jobs came out with the iPhone, they were like, this is an iPhone. It can access the internet. It has a GPS inside and it can make phone calls. Like that's what it could do. And from there you guys figure out the rest, right? Like initially they didn't have the App Store, but then when they did have the App Store, now all of a sudden you get the flashlight app and then the app that turns, you know, it's like a ruler, uses the camera to like measure something. Then you get like Strava. It's like, we'll use the GPS to do this thing. So it's basically like a programmable general purpose tool. So that's what's happening with these robotic arms. These guys wrote software to teach that robotic arm they bought how to powder coat things, and then they taught it how to paint floors, and then they taught it how to weld things. So this thing can literally just weld shit together. Uh, they taught it how to, um, you know, uh, pick and pack things. So it could take, it could sort, take things out of one place and put it into another place based on what it looks like. And, and the way you do it is like you just write a program that, that does each of these functions and you need to specialize it. And then there's, there's more sophisticated ways. They'll put a camera on top and they'll teach it to like recognize stuff. So like my cousin was doing this where he was teaching this robotic arm Literally, I went to his office and it was straight up a robotic arm and a, uh, like a hole. And his whole thing was, can I get the arm to go in the hole? And I was like, what's going on here, guys? Like, this is a little like, you know, sexual robot. Someone is good. And he's like, no, this is where basically in the future electric cars are going to get— need to get charged. But when they're self-driving, there's no driver to get out of the car and plug it in. He's like, so you need the charging station to be able to automatically attach to the car Otherwise, we're never going to have self-driving cars that work that are electric, because who will fill them up? You'll need a person there always to be able to go do this, and you'll need basically gas attendants at every gas station to do this. Which in my mind, I was like, that doesn't sound so bad. But like, you know, there's a reason he pivoted. But the point is, they were training this arm to be able to use the camera to find the hole and exactly get in without scratching the car. And so there's like this whole industry of people that are doing this. They're just figuring out how to program these general purpose robotic arms and they're making very interesting businesses off them. So these guys are doing it with painting. I thought that was pretty cool cuz it's like a high value thing. Like you rent it for $500 for the day and it'll paint all your shit and it's like, that's cheaper than, than hiring a, a person to do it and more reliable maybe because they'll do it, it'll do it like perfectly even every single time. You don't have like human error. And so the other one that, that's interesting like this is Cafe X, which you've probably seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the malls, which is basically a robotic version of Starbucks.
Yeah. And like you see it and you're like, oh, what was this stupid? And then you start thinking about it and you're like, oh my God, the implications here are quite big.
Yeah. No, I saw that and I was immediately like, this is the one of the smartest ideas I've ever seen. So if you haven't seen Cafe X, 'cause you're not like in San Francisco, imagine Starbucks, but now shrink Starbucks down to the size of like a, a jumbo vending machine and it's see-through and inside is just a robotic arm and you go, you place your order. You're like, I need my, you know, cappuccino. I want it. You know, whatever, double shot. And I, I don't drink coffee, so I don't, I don't make it up, but like, you know, oat milk and 2 sugars. And basically the arm then starts to like move around inside and it makes your coffee, then it hands it to you and then it waves and it does a dance and it le— and you get to walk away. And basically you pay, you know, $2.50 and you're getting a robotic coffee. So the, the why this is dope is it takes up like 1/10 of the real estate of Starbucks. It has no like labor costs or very, very low labor costs. It's just the person who comes and cleans the robot at the end of the day and refills the ingredients. So there's like, you know, very low labor cost and the robot like never gets tired, never calls in sick. It just like runs all day and just makes the per— the exact same coffee all the time. And it could do that with like, you know, 100 drinks or something like that. And so Cafe X hasn't quite taken off. I think there's— they did some stupid things. And I remember hearing that like at one point, like in the seed round, the founder only owned 4% of the company or something. They like fucked up their cap table or something like that.
Yeah, I heard of that too.
Um, And so, you know, that, that particular startup I don't think is gonna work, but I'll be damned if this is not gonna be a thing. Like, this is gonna be a thing. It just makes too much. It, it has such an economic advantage and it only has technology risks. And I think people really underestimate that because most businesses have extreme market risk. We don't even know if the customers want it and we don't know if they're gonna adopt it. Then it has, it, but this has like, well, if the customer wants it, it's not, not really a question. The customer wants a fast, delicious coffee. Yes. That's not like, That's not that hard to do. Um, and instead of go making Starbucks as a place where you go sit, it's optimizing for people who want to get in and get out, like subway stations and stuff like that. Like people who are quickly on the go. It has such a big financial advantage if they can do it because of the real estate and the labor costs. Now the only question is, can you make the robot arm work well enough? And actually that's a problem that engineers are good at solving over like a 10-year period.
So I'm trying to just do this math to make sure I'm right. Wow. Okay, so check this out. So I know a few, a few of these guys doing these startups that involve— so a lot of them use the word humanoid. Have you heard that word?
Yeah. I don't like it.
Yeah, I don't like humanoid, but basically it's robots that do jobs of humans, like gas station attendant. So I was just curious. And this Cafe X is interesting. There's another one that's doing it for pizza. I think it's called Zoom. Is it called Zoom?
That was one of the popular ones. SoftBank put like, I don't know, $500 million into it or something Ridiculous.
Which sounds silly, but I— and this is— I only did this research while we were talking. I could be way off, but I'm looking at a government website. It seems legit. Do you know what percentage of working Americans work in fast food?
Oh, man, it's got to be high, but I'm going to give you the homie move and I'll say 7%.
No, that was way too much. I asked that poorly. So about 3.5 million Americans work, in fast food jobs, which is like a point. That's, that's significant, dude. That's significant. Uh, 10% of those work at McDonald's. So McDonald's employs like 250,000, 300,000 people. Um, it's kind of astonishing. I'm, I'm a fairly libertarian person, but when I think of these things, I'm like, what are these people going to do for work? I mean, there's just— that's only— we're only talking about fast food. You talk about all these other things. I mean, potentially 5 or 10% of Americans, of workers, It's like, you know, they maybe don't have a lot of that many skills. Like when these things happen, I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen with these people. It's, it's not a good situation. It almost is more scary than it is interesting. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. People always say that. Um, I don't know. I just feel like it's, there's really two questions, which is like, A, is this new? No. For forever technology has been like making things easier and getting rid of jobs. Like, okay. You know, maybe we were, you know, doing stuff by hand on the fields and then we got the tractor and that like maybe reduced the number of people you needed by 10x in order to run a farm. And, you know, with all the automations—
by the way, the farming industry has massive subsidies. I mean, they like— there's some farmers that are so efficient and so good and there's more nuance to this. So someone's going to correct me. But basically some farms— my parents work in the agriculture industry. It's kind of how I know that some farms are so big and so good, the government will pay you money money not to grow a crop because they say you're going to screw up the whole market if you overflow us with corn. Really? Yes. It's called the Farm Act, I believe. Or is that the Farm Act? There's a couple acts, a couple of bills in America where they will pay you money not to do anything because they say you're going to disrupt, you're going to make too much. We don't want you screwing this up. Yeah. And so the farming thing is a good example. And what has happened is the government is heavily involved.
That sounds so stupid.
I really oversimplified that, but it is basically the case where you get paid not to do something because you will disrupt the market too much.
That's insane to me. I mean, aren't there people that need food and aren't there prices high, higher than ever? Like, that's crazy to me that we're not for like corn.
I mean, corn. I mean, like, America does like two, a few things really well. One, we produce really good entertainment. So like our biggest export, you could say, is like culture, you know, movies and music and fashion. And the second best thing is corn. Like our ability to create corn is like phenomenal. We create corn so well. I mean, corn syrup is in everything. Ethanol fuel is made out of corn. Everything's made out of corn. We are really good at making corn. So I don't know. I think with corn, I think we're kind of, we kind of nailed that one. We kind of like, that's a home run.
Yeah. Okay. I don't know enough about this to really speak on it, but I guess what my point is, over time, technology has just gotten more and more pervasive. And it's like, what's, what happened to all the horse carriage drivers? What happened to all the people that worked in factories? What happened to all the people that did this and that? And the reality is like they shift, they shift around. So, you know, some people will become robot attendants and they'll become good at like managing and cleaning the robots and manif— and fixing them when they, when they bug out. Some people will shift into a new type of labor and like whether that's, they become entertainers on social media, they become, you know, there's new jobs that will get created from every single thing that, that gets done. And like, you know, what's the other question is like, what's the alternative? Do you pump the brakes on making things better, faster, cheaper? Like that doesn't seem like you, it's possible or real or like, yeah.
I'm not gonna let, I'm not gonna let like my feelings get in the way of like progress and technology. I'm just saying like it, it, that doesn't mean that it's not frightening.
Yeah. I, I, I just think, you know, there's a little bit of carnage whenever any change happens, whether it's, you know, change for the good or, or it's change for the bad. Right. Like I, I think in any, there's, there's a little bit of collateral damage along the way. And the question is like, you know, that also creates opportunities because if you created a business that reskills people, not only are there gonna be a lot of people that need reskilling, but maybe the government will pay you to help reskill workers in the economy. So, so the free market can come up with a solution to how to absorb this labor, how to reskill this labor and do things like that. So I, I don't really worry about stuff like that, but I do think that it's very interesting to me that these robotic, like these general purpose robot, robot like pieces can now be programmed to do just a variety of things that are otherwise, you know, today human labor. I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares data across every application. Every team can stay aligned.
Grow better. Have you seen this TV show called The Bear?
I've seen a few episodes. I haven't finished it.
I'm like, all right, so the background in the show isn't necessarily the important topic here, but I want— it's a topic I wanna ask you about, but the background is basically a restaurant in Chicago. The owner kills himself., and the, the brother inherits this restaurant and it's a mess. And the brother is a trained chef from French Laundry, which is like the best restaurant in the world. And he comes to this kind of like shithole restaurant and he's got to turn it around. So that's the whole premise. And I'm watching this show and I used to work at a restaurant like most kids, if, you know, 15, 16, 17, 18, I worked at a restaurant and this show reminded me how miserable they are. And like, this goes on the list. Like right below, like music festivals of things and businesses that you should never start and run from, no matter, almost no matter how good they are. And are like this—
why music festivals? What's wrong with music festivals, dude?
Any business that you could, that you spend 18 months working on and if it rains that day, you're completely screwed. Like that's a 1 out of, you know, 365 chant. I mean, more than that, it rains more than one time a year, but like the odds that like rain come and ruin your whole years of work, that's the wor— that's like, I'm, I don't wanna join that business. I mean, like music festivals, they, they're just horrible. And they're horrible because the bigger and more people who that, that go and the more money that you make, the worse the experience gets. That's why I always disliked conferences. Cause like, damn, the better I make this for me, the worse it is for the attendee and thus harder for them, get them to come back over and over again. And with a restaurant, you see inside this kitchen at the Bear, at the— it's called like Chicago Beef, I think. You see the behind the scenes of the restaurant. It is impossible. This is playing business on the hardest mode possible. People are angry. People are vulgar all the time. I remember when I used to work at a restaurant, like there was a huge contingency of drug addicts. You know, you get off work at 2 a.m., what are you going to do? You're going to go immediately go to the bar and get screwed up and then come back to work the next day at 11. Lots of drug addicts, lots of people calling in sick for work, lots of people angry, lots of vulgar hostility. This looks like a horrible business to be in. Your sushi restaurant was probably a little bit different than this, but was it at all similar to what I'm seeing in The Bear?
Well, ours wasn't just because, A, we only ran it for 3 months and we were only open and live for 3 months. And B, we were the— we were the labor for most of that. We only had a couple other people. The, but what way I experienced this was we sh— we went and worked in other restaurants to shadow, to learn how do you actually run a restaurant, right? So like we worked in other sushi restaurants. My buddy Dan worked inside of a noodles company to see like, how does a fast casual like process thing work or whatever?
And how does that work? With a lot of salt. Oh yeah, no shit.
He was just like, dude, like, because we used to eat at these places. He's like, don't order the tomato bisque. I was like, the bisque? It's a soup. The soup is the good thing. He's like, don't order the tomato bisque. I was like, what? I was like, what's wrong? He's just like, bro, you've never seen salt. Like, you see in the bisque. I was like, he's— it's like somebody who is just like traumatized by what they saw. And it's just like, dude, those people in the back don't give a shit. They're gonna put whatever they want in this. It does— and the things that they're supposed to put are so bad for you. And, uh, this stuff just sits around and like, he's like, don't, don't eat this stuff. I was like, okay. Yeah. Sometimes the less you know, like I remember when we were working in the kitchen and we worked out of a commissary kitchen. So there was other people there. The food truck people would come prep there, the caterers. And the worst was the guy who would sell hot dogs. He had like a hot dog stand, not no offense, but like he would just come in with 350 hot dogs. He would pour them all into the sink and we're like, that's the sink where we do— everybody does their dishes in there. It's like pouring your hot dogs in a hot tub. And then he was like, just started, turned up the water, was just washing them. And then he was just like chucking them to the side after they've been like rinsed for a second.
I was like, fuck.
I was like, first of all, why are you washing the hot dog? Why did this need washing? It was like a— it came out of a package. You washed it, you washed it in the grossest sink possible and you just threw it on the side. I was like, somebody's going to eat that like 6 hours. I was like, I will never eat a hot dog again. I think— forget about what even went into the hot dog, which I think in itself is gross. Like, when you watch these documentaries about, like, you know, farming and stuff like that. And I was like, just watching this dude watch the hot dogs before taking them to the ballgame. I was like, this is really sick.
You saying no offense is now going to be my new neg. So I'm going to be like, I'm just going to be talking about anything like, yeah, dude, I was around this guy and he smelled so bad. No offense. And I'm just gonna start saying no offense, just like all the time. And like, I was out walking around the streets and they were disgusting. No offense.
And this person was so annoying. No offense. I mean, nothing wrong with annoying people. So no offense.
I'm gonna start saying no offense. I'm gonna throw no offense there all the time. That's amazing. That's disgusting. But anyway, this show, what's interesting about it though, and this is a lot of similarities I see in what you and I do, more a lot of our friends do and a lot of listeners do is they are so passionate about this thing. And at first I was like, why are they so passionate about this? And I started, I was like, oh wait, no, this is just their, this is just their shtick. You know, my outlet's a little bit different, but it's like the same type of obsessed. Um, they love it. They love it. So anyway, cool show. And, and I wanted to bring it up because I, I wasn't sure if it was similar to your restaurant experience.
I think it was like we used to do the thing, you get off at 1 AM. And then are you, you know, you, the thing closes at midnight. You got to clean up, prep for the next day. It's 1 before you get out of there. And now you're hungry and tired. You didn't want to eat your own food. So you go to another restaurant, they're getting off. They'll just cook for you for free. But then like, you know, 2 people are doing cocaine in the bathroom and you're like, this isn't like, you know, the most productive lifestyle. The restaurant industry, I would say the bonding is very, very like the camaraderie was amazing. And I would say there's something very soulful about like feeding people, uh, that's like really great. But then the hours are brutal. It is business on hard mode and there's a lot of like degeneracy. Same thing with like poker. I used to play poker. I love the game of poker. I hated sitting in a casino playing poker because I just felt like I was surrounded by so many degenerates and I was like, this is not a high quality of living. Like just sitting here in this kind of artificial air with this guy who's like fell asleep next to me cuz he's been here for 42 hours straight. Like this is not who I wanna surround myself with. I need to get outta this situation. Situation. Let me tell you about something that is the opposite of that, kind of an inspiring work environment. So I saw this TikTok and it just, I saw two TikToks. I wanna remind you, I wanna tell you about, I'm not gonna play 'em here because it'll take a little too long. Maybe in the YouTube video we can play 'em, but I wanna know if you've seen these. One went viral. So it was, did you see this viral clip of the pitcher on the Mets coming out to the, coming out to pitch? He's like the closer. So he was coming out to do his thing and it's normally on TV, they just cut to commercial in between like the chain, like the lineup change because it's like, whatever, it's going to be 2 minutes. The guy's got to warm up. He's got to run out from the bullpen. That takes a little while. Baseball's slow already. He's got to warm up, then whatever. They usually come back, but this time they stuck with it. So they showed— did you see this clip or am I just—
should I describe it? Keep going. Keep going. You're good.
They show from behind the guy like walking out from the thing, emerging basically into the stadium. So they have Dope camera shot.
Oh, and they're using that UFC lens. Have you noticed all these guys are using like— yeah, the UFC's got this beautiful lens where it like blurs out the back.
It's something special.
Yeah.
And then they— and the guy normally comes out to this song. I don't even know what it's called. It's like whatever. I don't know. The guy, Timmy Trumpets, is like the singer, you know, he's featured on it. So this guy with his trumpet, but the Mets had brought the guy there live. And so he was kind of hiding and he comes out, he's got his little trumpet and he's got a microphone on the end of the trumpet and he starts playing the song and he's playing the song live. The guy's running out into like the roaring crowd and it's just so dope. 1, 2, 3 inning.
And now Timmy Trumpet takes center stage as Edwin Diaz gets ready to come in.
All right, business is cool, but like, God, sports and music just have this special thing, this special moment, these special feelings that You, you can't, there's nobody is that passionate about our podcast. Nobody's that passionate about this piece of software. But when this moment hits, the guy runs out, he's the hero. The trumpet guy's there, he's playing, the crowd's going nuts. And it was just like this special moment and it was a lot of showmanship. And so I, I, I watched that and I get this feeling, I'm like, that was dope. I'm glad that they went that extra mile for that showmanship cuz that create, I will never watch baseball, but like, I'm a fan of like this guy, that song.
You don't watch baseball at all right now? Way too slow for you, right?
Too slow, too boring. Uh, used to love it, but you know, when I was a kid. So now I swipe up on TikTok. The next video is this teacher and it says, uh, revealing the, the, the year musical part 1. And I'm like, I don't know why I just hung around for an extra second to watch. He goes, He goes, all right, and this year the musical's going to be— and he like reveals the whiteboard and there's nothing there. And then there's like a small envelope and everyone's like, what? And then he's like, he opens up the envelope. He's like, it's going to be— hold on, this just says turn on the computer. And then the students are like, what's going on here? And clearly the teacher had kind of set up a bit to like just make it more fun. And like, you know, everybody loves this because it's like Here's this teacher of like a middle school or high school or something like that. They didn't have to do this. Like, you know, most teachers are just sort of like, they want to just roll out the TV on the black, you know, like trolley and just be like, all right guys, just watch this fucking movie for an hour and like just leave, right? Like being a teacher is exhausting and like it's easy. It would be, it would be very easy to phone it in. Most don't. And some like this guy go the extra mile. So now he clicks his computer. And it's a video and it's him and he's like, hey, it's me from the future. And he's just like, it's a silly bit, but he's talking back to it. He's like, what are you doing here? He's like, I don't know, I read the envelope. It said to turn the computer. He's like, you just gonna do whatever the envelope says? And it's like, it goes back and forth. So he's like doing this skit with himself. Good. And he's like, he's like, uh, and it freezes and then it freezes and it says, wait, everybody look under your desk. And like one kid has this special thing and it was like this elaborate, almost like an escape room. Leading up to this reveal. And I saw that.
And so what was the play?
Video goes viral. The play was like, I don't even remember.
It was like, it was like not something like that cool.
It was like, you know, Les Misérables or whatever. It was like some like old play. I was like, who cares? But like by the end, the students are going nuts because they're so invested at this point. They sort of midway through, they realized, okay, This is cheesy, but I'm into it. He's doing this for us and like, all right, I want to know. He built up tension. And the reason I bring up these examples is because there is a word that my trainer uses all the time and nobody else in my life I know talks about this. My trainer all the time goes, yeah, you gotta have a little showmanship. And showmanship is a word that I think like for most of us doesn't even enter our brain on a day-to-day basis. And my trainer will always tell me, he's like, you know, he'll be at Starbucks before, you know, he'll go get a coffee before our session. And he'll always tell me these stories. He's like, you know, I decided to add a little showmanship. So I told 'em my name was blah, blah, blah. And they wrote it on the cup. And then by the time the person was done, you know, I told them like, you know, whatever. Uh, you know, he'll like, you know, he'll, he'll say, you know, Bond, James Bond. And then they'll just laugh. They'll have a little chuckle and then they'll write Bond. He's like, add the comma, James Bond. And then they'll do it. They'll laugh a little more. And now he just like made their day a little more entertaining than it was. Than it had to be if he just said, my name is John. And okay, cool. You're just another John. And so he always talks about adding showmanship and it's just like walking through life and just identify little moments where you could do something slightly different than like, than the norm. And I have a, like, I have kids now, so I do this with my daughter all the time. Um, like we used to have such a hard time getting her to eat and my mother-in-law came over and like, you know, as a classic sort of like mother-in-law thing, she's like always being like, like, do this, do that. You guys are doing this wrong. Like, you know, it's true. She's got like, I don't know, 30 years of parenting experience. We got 2, but like, it's also really annoying to be told what to do and how to parent better and how to like do this, do that. So we're normally, my default was kind of annoyed, but one day she was like, she was like, like the milk bottle was like way less. I was like, how'd you get her to drink the milk? And she's like, oh, she loves to drink out of this like little measuring cup. Instead of like the normal cup. And she goes, change of presentation. And I go, and I was like, and so now me and my wife will always joke cuz we're always like, oh God, so annoying. She's always telling us what to do. But then like, like sometimes she does pull this like rabbit out of her hat and like, you know, we'll do something. My daughter doesn't wanna do it. And then we just change the pre— like change the presentation of how we're getting her to do it. And all of a sudden she's super locked in. Like I do this now when I feed her, I, I couldn't get her to eat vegetables. So I decided to create like my own version of the show, uh, Chopped. So I'm like, okay, close your eyes. I'm gonna put one thing in front of you and in front of your brother and like, take the bite. And then you need to tell me, is it one thumbs up, two thumbs up, or thumbs down? And then I do a huge reaction based on the score they give me. And she's like, I wanna play the close eyes game. I wanna play the close eyes game because she, and I can get her to eat a whole meal if I'm willing to basically create a television show out of it. It's really like exhausting for me, but honestly it's like also kind of fun and it gets her to eat anything. Whereas otherwise that's actually even more exhausting to try to feed her something she doesn't want. And so this idea of showmanship keeps weaving its way into my life. And I wanted to bring this up cuz for somebody out there, they're gonna basically use this as like your word of the day. Find a way to like weave in a little more showmanship into what you're doing. A little change of presentation as we say. Have you, do you think about this at all?
I do. And so I was, I wanted, I had to go find it, but have you heard of this guy named Trent Griffin? He's like this, like, 60s, maybe 60-something years old, white dude. And his Twitter bio just says like, I used to work with Bill Gates at Microsoft. So you're like, oh, you're automatically like wise and interesting. So he has a blog called 25 IQ, and I was reading it the other day and he had this article called A Dozen Beliefs About Business, Money and Life that Kanye West Shares with Other Great Entrepreneurs and Investors. It was like, oh, that's an interesting title. And the very first line has always stuck with me and it's about Kanye. It's from Kanye and it says, for me, first of all, dopeness is what I like the most. Dopeness. People who want to make things as dope as possible and, and by default make money from it. And I always think about that quote because I also get caught up in like, well, this does this and this does this and this does this and so it makes money. And I'm like, oh yeah, but this is super lame and not that cool. And like, this sucks my soul. What am I doing? Like, this isn't awesome. Awesome, you know? And it's like, well, what is awesome? I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I do think about that all the time where I'll try to like nickel and dime things about what I'm going to buy. Or like the other day I bought some like Air Force Ones and I was like trying to like get like this cheap ones. And I'm like, bro, I can get the $250 Air Force Ones and I don't have to justify it. Like if they're cool, they're cool. They're dope. I'm doing it no matter what. And I always have to justify like certain decisions to myself. This is just cool. Do it cuz it's cool. I only have one life.
Right.
So yeah, I think about this all the time.
Yeah. Do it cuz it's cool. I think is a great, like, you know, uh, uh, for, for most people who listen to this podcast, they're probably like high achiever types and they're probably rational and like analytical about a lot of decisions. And so I think for that audience, actually you need to add more of this other ingredient, which is the—
Yeah, for sure.
Do it cuz it's cool. F it. Don't measure it. And also, honestly, the same thing can either be done boring or dope. It's like, it's not the thing that's dope. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's how you do the thing that's dope or not dope. And so, you know, the broccoli itself wasn't dope. When I turned it into this game, I made it more dope for her and therefore she has a different experience and I have a different experience in doing it. And if I consistently do that, well, there's just more experiences throughout my day that are dope. And what's a dope life? It's a bunch of dope days. What's a bunch of dope days? It's a bunch of dope experiences throughout the day, right? You just break it down into moment— like you could break it down into its atomic unit and realize that like the boringness or like routine of your life is, uh, like, you know, in your own hands. And if you just add a little showmanship to yourself and to the people around you, you can kind of change how the experience feels. And I'm guilty of this in, in many ways, but like, you know, I'm seeing how this helps me and I wanted to share this little framework.
Do you remember Boosted Skateboards?
Yeah, these are all over the place in San Francisco. People would like skateboard up the hill cuz it was like, you know, San Francisco's so hilly and it was like, look like magic. How are they going up this?
And now like electric scooters are the norm. So like the Bird scooters and all these scooters. So that's like considered normal now. But about 8 years ago, Boosted Skateboards came out with this longboard skateboard that would go 25 miles an hour. I remember I bought one and it was crazy. It was so cool. And I met the founder.. And I was like, tell me about your background. He's like, oh, I worked at NASA and I was doing this other thing. And then I thought about like working in the government and like sending people to Mars. I thought that had been like interesting, but I decided to launch this, this skateboard company. I was like, well, you know, are you interested in skateboards? He's like, no. I, I was like, were you interested in this other thing? He's like, no, not really. I was like, well, you know, why'd you go to skateboards? He goes, cuz it's fucking awesome. And I, I remember it being, I remember him saying that and I was like, well, yeah, you get, you got a point. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is awesome. And I, when he told me that, I just, I remember a shift happened in my life. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a good addition. I gotta add that to my like box of checks, checkbox, you know, of things to do. Like, you know, it makes money, it makes my mom proud. Uh, it's effing awesome. Uh, and I remember him saying that and I was like, oh yeah, you're, you're right.
Right. Yeah. Tony Robbins has this thing he says, which is like, you will, uh, you will only meet the, uh, you'll meet your standards, not your, not your desires. And basically like a standard is like more of a must. A standard is like, you know, I'm not gonna eat at a restaurant if I saw flies flying around everywhere. That's below my standard. And so an important thing to figure out is like, what are my standards for the things that I do in my life? It sounds like for this guy, one of his standards for like, what do I work on is, is this awesome or not? Whereas for a lot of people, that shit is completely optional. Nice to have for sure.
Yeah. It's like I need to pay the bills.
It's not part of the standard. And then you meet certain people and this is the best thing you could do. Like, why do people have that phrase of like, you are the average of the 5 people you spend your most, the most time with is because, is because fundamentally you will adopt the standards of the people you're around. It's not cuz they'll teach you things. It's not cuz they'll give you good advice. It's because fundamentally you will adopt the standards. Like I remember we have a couple friends who are like you, like you're one of my friends who's very fit. I have other friends that are that are very fit or they care about being very fit. And whenever there's a question of like, all right, yeah, let's go grab some food. What do you guys want to eat? It's like, I know that I can't suggest, you know, I can't— Cheesecake Factory's not on the list. You know, like I can't, I can't take these guys there. That's not their, their standard is that that's not what they eat. And so like, you know, I automatically, I will start to only suggest and therefore only go to places that I know meets their standard of what they, they consider.
Just for the record, I fuck with Cheesecake Factory hardcore. Get that chicken piccata all day. Yeah, I'm not above it.
Yeah, we have a couple friends that like, it's like, oh cool, like what, uh, you ordered the gordita. What's good here? I've never been to this place.
Dude, can I talk about something that, that I can't decide if actually, and we could wrap up with it. I can't decide if it's awesome and dope or not. So basically I want to give like people perspective on you and I's like behind the scene. So you and I, Sean and I, get DM'd or cold emailed all the time. And a very common thing is, hey, can I like give you content to share and I'll do it for free or something like that? And the bad thing about free is you kind of get what you pay for. So when it's free shit, you're like, oh, this is too much work. I don't want to share your stuff on Twitter. I don't want to share your stuff on whatever. It's just— it's not good. I don't want to work on it. For some reason, I gave one of these kids a chance and I say no to everyone. I gave this kid a chance. He DM'd me and I was like, you know, I'll give you— I'm going to give you my password to my TikTok and I want you to impress me. I go, send me a picture of your Social Security card, send me a picture of your boss, and send me a picture of your driver's license. And he did. And I go, all right, if you fuck— I was like, if you want— because I was like, if you screw me over here, I'm going to get you back. So like, I have your information. Here's my password to my TikTok. I gave him the password.
Showmanship, by the way. Yeah, that's great showmanship. A threat is also showmanship.
That's what I did. I go, look, like, if you do something bad to me, I'm gonna get you. And so I, um, I gave him my password to my TikTok.
Give me your mother's address because I will be mailing her your index finger in an envelope if you fuck this up.
Well, because there's like no information that I could get to like get back at this person, you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, I need you to have something.
Yeah, we're in balance. You could really screw me by posting on my account. What am I going to— I need to equally be able to screw you. Okay, I get it. Continue.
Yeah. And I gave him the password to my TikTok. It's been one week. So in one week, this kid has taken you and I's videos and posted them two a day on TikTok. And in six days, maybe— I think one week's tomorrow— he's gotten 1.5 million views. And I went from basically zero to like not having an account to like 8,000 or 9,000 followers as of now. A handful of videos have gotten— one got 500,000, one got 700,000, a bunch got 50,000 plus. 150,000 or 200,000 likes, tens of thousands of comments. And I'm like, that's kind of interesting, but I don't exactly believe that this is true. Like, I don't know if this is true. And so I was like, post a video where there's a call to action. And so we did a video about my favorite book and it shot up the charts. And I'm like, all right, people are actually like, these people are somewhat engaged. They're like buying a book.
Yeah. So, and this is the second this is the second time that I did this. So one time I recommended a book and right before I recommended it, I took a picture of its rating on Amazon and then I recommended it and the next day it was number one in the entrepreneurship category and number one in the business category. And I took screenshots of it to, like, prove it. And it was, it was the book called How to Get Rich. That tweet reached 2 million people. This other video that I did, I talked about the same book and it shot up. I think now it's number one in entrepreneurship again. And it's, uh, that video has been viewed 500,000 times.
Bro, let's write our own book. If you got this kind of Oprah influence, I mean, why are you referencing— this guy's dead. He doesn't need your help. Come on. Let's write our own book.
Let's see.
Okay.
Yeah. Look, uh, How to Get Rich is now number 30 in all of Audible and Originals. It's number 1 in the small business category. Yeah. Look up How to Get Rich. Go look at it right now. Look at the categories. Like, it like skyrocketed after this video. And I can't decide if this whole TikTok game is actually—
you should just do it where it's like, you should do it simpler, which is just like, if you're a real person, I don't know if these TikTok views are real or not. If you're real, just put like a 1 in the comment, just type the number 1. I am going to see who's going to do that, you know, because, because I feel the same way about these TikTok views. It's like our favorite words, a little, little fugazi, little fugazi. There's a fugazi fugazi element to these TikTok views. It's like how I'm like, you know, is this really 1.5 million people? What does this mean? Did they actually watch it? What's going on here? If so, that's amazing. But I'm, you know, some things can be too good to be true. Uh, but that's cool.
Yeah.
You've been showing up on my feed for what it's worth, but I think it's because we're, I have like 2 TikTok friends and you're one of them.
This, this book video got 414,000 views. A couple of them got 70,000, 50,000, one got 700,000, lots of 20,000s. I can't decide if this is real. And if it is real, I don't want to sound like Gary Vee, but I'm like, oh, everyone should do this. Like, this is easy. This is— this kid in Miami is just doing this and he just spun this up and it's working wonderfully. And like, you— I don't— I mean, I think you're actually better than me, but I'm not like that charismatic. I'm not that good. Why is this game so easy? And is this game— is it real? And also, honestly, is it worth it? I'm not convinced that it's worth it.
Well, if you can spike a book to number one in the charts, that shows that there's some value there. There's some influence there. Like, it's not just a number, but yeah, it's kind of lame.
Like the most of TikTok, most of there, there's a lot of amazing stuff on TikTok. Basically these 18-year-old kids are like the most creative people I've ever seen. But then there's guys like you and me, these like money people and influencers and everyone's doing the same fucking circle jerk Alex Hormozy stuff and it's really lame. And so I don't know how to make it interesting. And right now what I'm doing I think is not interesting, but the results are incredible.
Yeah. But is it effing awesome? To go back to your standard TBD, TBD.
You know what's effing awesome is when you create content and then like someone like legitimately famous and cool like Hasan like hollers at you and then you're like, yeah, this is the awesome part about it. So like, like that, you know what I mean? Like that's worth all the lame tweets that you and I have done is getting to hang out with like a couple of really cool people.
You know what's cool about selling your soul? Sometimes someone pays the price for it.
You know what's cool about being a whore? The money.
Yeah. And on that note, we're out.