From High School Dropout To $952 Million At 33

All right. This is going to be a special episode. I think that the best episodes we do are the ones where we highlight a business or a person who is amazing that you've never heard of. And that's what today's episode is. The person that we have on, Jess Ma, she has built herself, uh, I don't know, 10 companies that have combined, you know, they're worth $950 million. She, um, and not only that, just has she made a bunch of money or been successful with business, but She's just a force of nature. People that I respect think she's one of the best entrepreneurs in the world. And that's kind of amazing for somebody who you don't know her name. You've never really seen her do interviews. You know, Paul Graham, when he met her and she was at YC, put her on the very short list of a couple people with Sam Altman and a few others as the most impressive people, the people that he thought 30 years from now will have done the most and gone the furthest. I was at a dinner. That's how I met her. And a friend of mine pointed out, he goes, that woman over there, Is the best entrepreneur I've ever met. And he's lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years. And to say that, that's high praise. So I had to have her on the podcast to talk about everything from her beginning, where she was basically a loser amongst losers in school. She talks about like, you know, not only was she not cool, even in the computer club, she got bullied and didn't really fit into school, didn't get good grades, really like was just kind of like school wasn't for her. She ended up dropping out of high school because school wasn't for her. She's, but she started a business and it started off as a very, and you know, when she was a teenager, she ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this little server business that she was creating, just paying for her own video games. We talk about that all the way to where she is today, building these biotech companies that are doing crazy stuff. Uh, and I asked her, I was like, were you like a science genius? Like, how did you know to go in this? How did you have the confidence to go into a space like that? Like, I think we all, I think there's a part of all of us that wants to go do the big, bold, crazy, change the world thing, but we're afraid, like, who am I to go do that? At least that's a thought I've had. And, uh, it was kind of amazing to hear her talk about, she felt the same way. Like, she's like, I got a C minus in biology and now I have like a 9-figure, you know, $100 million plus bio company. Like, that's crazy to do that. And how she approached that, how did she meet these scientists? How did she get the funding? How did she actually talk herself into doing that from rock bottom where she was completely depressed and didn't know what she wanted to do with her life to now, you know, living the kind of life she wants. The other thing that's in this episode that I think you're going to like is she talks a lot about the lifestyle and financial stuff that come from people who are already really successful. So she, you know, like, I'm going to give you a trigger warning now. She talks about like, you know, yeah, I just like, I hop on my jet, like, you know, and I bought this jet. I bought it for this reason. Here's the tax write-off that I got. She's very open and very clear about this stuff. And I think for some people who are at the very beginning, it's going to feel unrelatable or it's going to feel like, oh yeah, you know, the classic YouTube comment guy who's like, easy for you to say, you're already rich. But I think the important thing to figure out is she's successful because she always thinks this way. She talks about her mindset and that's why she was able to do this. And also, I love when people talk about money stuff. I love when they're open and honest. I hate the billionaire who downplays it and pretends like, Oh, you know, they're flying coach and oh, you know, money's no big deal. And I, oh yeah, I don't, I don't really do anything with my taxes. No, I like to hear what people actually do, how they use money to improve their life, how they architect their businesses. She does that. She's very open about it. So that's all in this episode. I think you're going to enjoy it. Uh, this is an episode with Jessica Ma. All right. It's good to see you. Good to see you again. Um, I want to tell people the story of how we met, which is not like this extravagant story, but it is one that, um, I don't know, it's like, it's this thing that happens that is like, I would have bet anything that you're an interesting person just on the way that this meeting went. So we got a dinner together. So that's like signal one, uh, you know, uh, a friend hosts a dinner and it's like only friends inviting friends to this thing. That's going to be like a, you know, some sort of founder investor type of dinner. So already you got filter number 1. Filter number 2 is I'm sitting at one end of the table, you're sitting at the far end of the table, but our mutual friend Sieva tells me, he's like, I was like, oh, what's her name? And he's like, oh yeah, that's Jess Ma. He says, he's like, yes, she is the most impressive entrepreneur I've ever met. And I was like, okay, I didn't even ask. And he just says that and he basically gives you this extreme compliment. And I was like, that's extreme. And he's like, yeah, she's extreme. And I was like, okay, I gotta know more. So already I got a signal. Next thing I noticed that you had your dog in the restaurant and I was like, okay, that's awesome. Love dogs. Dog's here. And later I was like, is this like a service animal? 'Cause this is kind of like a nice restaurant. And you were like, yeah, Amazon, you could buy this for $10, this vest. And like, look, and you flashed me like an FBI badge that was like a service dog thing., and I was like, did you buy that? And you're like, yeah, this is great. And I was like, wow, this person is just, you know, so there's all the little signals, somebody who rolls by their own little rules. My friend telling me that you're, you know, one of the most baddest people that he's ever met, literally in the game of entrepreneurship. And, uh, and then when you did your intro, you said something, you go, uh, yeah, I'm working on, like, I started this thing in Dinero, which I've heard of. And you were like, uh, you know, it started that. And now I, I sit on the board, like, you know, whatever, 10 companies. And we do like bold science bets. And you didn't even explain it. And I was like, okay, well, you have my interest. What's a bold science bet? And you were like, you know, like curing cancer, but not like the typical way, like this other path to curing cancer. You're like, you're like kind of nonchalantly gave me some answer as to what a bold science bet would be. And I was like, okay, say no more. I need to meet this person. I need to get to know this person. And I've gotten to know you a little bit now. And Yeah, you are just that impressive. So this is my buildup. That is my perception. And tell me what that feels like to hear, because that's— people never tell you their actual perception, first impressions, as they remember it, you know, in their own head.

That's amazing. It was super fun to have that dinner and meet you that night. I just had a good feeling that we were going to have a fun time. And normally I don't go out. I'm kind of like a loner. I like to be at home and you know, just take it easy after work. And, you know, it's a lot to deal with, with 10 companies. We're going to add more companies this next year and try to figure out like, where do I want to spend my time as an entrepreneur? And that's an ongoing question. I'm sure we'll talk about that. But I've heard about you, you know, I've seen your podcast and you're famous, so it's kind of an honor to get to be friends with you too.

So. Well, the other thing that's cool is you have a holdco and like, you know, if I was going to say what are some of the themes of like almost like entrepreneurship trends. Like, you know, there's fashion trends, but now there's entrepreneurship trends. One of the entrepreneurship trends is this whole personal holdco model. But what most people are doing with the personal holdco, I would say, is kind of like small boy stuff. It's like, we acquired this little SaaS app, or like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy this, this plumbing business, and I'm doing this holdco to roll these up. Um, and you kind of have a holdco, but you also have the big venture change the world kind of thing inside of it, which I find really fascinating. So you're like, yes, I'm doing a holdco, but the holdco is going to be all sort of game changers type of like go big or go home type of bets. I find that really interesting. I also think that another entrepreneurship trend is doing hard stuff. So I think Elon really popularized like, yeah, you can create the next kind of app and that's cute, but I'm going to make rockets and electric cars. And then, you know, then you have AI and Sam Altman, and that's like, you know, the kind of cutting-edge science, do hard stuff movement. And I think you're a part of that too. And so I really like that you're here because you represent, you know, some intersection of these trends and there's very few people that really play that game. And that's what I wanted to learn from you today is, is why do you play that game and how do you do it? But let's give people like, I guess, the quick background of you. So can you give me kind of like your— how do you introduce yourself when you're trying to brag a little bit? About, you know, why anybody should pay attention to what you have to say.

That's an amazing story. And, uh, that question of like, what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failing is like up there in the pantheon of great questions. I asked myself that same question and it changed. I wouldn't be doing this podcast if it wasn't, because I had 3 paths that I had written out. I remember I made a Figma file and I was like drawing like a flowchart of my life. And I was like, I could start a company and maybe it'll be this, maybe it'll be this. And that was, like you said, the Silicon Valley rhetoric, because what gets written about is the visionary CEO founder who creates the next big thing. And that's the movies are about Social Network. And, uh, you know, the, the TechCrunch articles are about that. The VCs want you to be that because they're like, yeah, it's sweet. I get to write a check and chill. And like, you go do the, like, you go win the lottery and do all the hard work at the same time. Like do the low odds, hardest thing you can do, you know, over there. So I was like, I could go start a company. I could invest and just kind of like be on the other side of that. That's, I don't know if that would be the most fun thing that I would do. And then I was like, and I literally wrote, or I could be Tim Ferriss. And I was like, I think I want to be Tim Ferriss. I was like, well, why don't I just do that? I've been thinking about this for like 7 years in the back of my mind. And I was like, well, because what if I'm not, what if it doesn't work? Then I'm just a guy with a podcast. It's cool to be Tim Ferriss. It's not cool to be the guy with a podcast, like a podcast, just normal podcaster with 100 views. Or listens per episode or something. And I was like, all right, so am I just going to not do it because I'm afraid that I might fail at it? Like, what's the worst that could happen? And I kind of had this whole talk with myself. You know, the most important talks are not with mentors, they're the talks with yourself. And it sounds like you had one of those too, where you were like, what would I do if I, if I wasn't afraid to fail? Can you just talk a little bit more about that talk with yourself? Because I think everybody should have that, some version of that talk with themselves.

Yeah, I, I think just expand on that. A big question I asked myself was also, um, how will I deal with the insecurity of feeling like a beginner and terrible at something despite the fact that for the past 10 years I got pretty good at being a CEO and running a business? I'm sure you felt the same way, right? Where you are a great entrepreneur and then now you're getting into, you know, building content. And interviewing great folks, and that's the new skillset that you had to become good at. But for a while, it's awkward, and like the— I'm sure your first videos were not nearly as good as the ones that you posted over the past few months, right? And so that's a lot of the self-talk. It's like, oh my God, I didn't do a good job. I still don't know what I'm doing. People don't take me seriously. Do I even take myself seriously? And meditating on that and thinking, you know what, It doesn't matter 'cause I'm having a great time, I'm learning a lot, and the outcome will work itself out. That's how I deal with it. But how about for you? Like, what's, what are your other best practices?

Yeah, so being a beginner, uh, and being okay, like that mental prep for yourself of I'm gonna be a beginner at this, I think is also a very important part of that conversation. I'm glad you said that 'cause it's one thing to just say, um, What would I do if I wasn't afraid? But then like the fear is still going to be there. It's not just going to disappear when you ask that question. And the fear is what? The fear of being wrong, failing, looking dumb, all those things. And so that beginner conversation is important, which is cool. If I go into this, I'm going to start as a complete beginner. I'm going to get better at it over time because I'm good at learning and I'll try. And, um, you know, if I don't need to become the world expert at this, but I need to become competent at this, and that might take me 6 months to a year, that's like a reasonable expectation. If I really put my mind to this. It reminds me of this story I've told on the pod before of Moiz Ali, who created Native deodorant. And deodorant, it's not curing cancer or whatever, but it is, you know, still it's a totally different space. And so when he told his friends, he's like, I think I'm going to create a deodorant brand. And they were like, cool, random, you know, do you, do you even wear deodorant? Like, do you know anything about deodorant? And he's like, today I know nothing about deodorant, but in 6 months I'll know everything I need to know about deodorant. And that idea of like writing yourself a blank check, I think is really important to starting anything. And you told me this when I was like, dude, you're like working on crazy science stuff. I like that idea and I wish I could do that, but it feels above my intellectual pay grade. Are you just a science genius? And you were like, no, I got like, you were like, I got like a C in biology in school. And then like, you know, you're like, I hired a tutor to to like, as an adult, to like learn about this. And I watched TED Talks and podcasts and then I flew out and I met the scientists and talked to them. You just did all of the like normal blocking and tackling, I feel, with like just like, uh, is that how you would describe it? Like, is that, that was totally different for me. I just put you on a pedestal. I was like, oh, maybe she's doing it because she's just smarter than all of us. And that's why she can do this and nobody else can.

That is a great question. I can tell a quick story and then I'm going to answer that question. So the quick story version is when we got acquired by Twitch, I grabbed, I was like, first day, what do I want to do? I was like, let me go find my people. Cause I went into this, all of a sudden I'm in a company of 2,000 people who, you know, each are doing their little function in this company. And I was like, where are my entrepreneurs at? Like, where are the people who like to like, you know, make shit happen? And so there was a company that had gotten acquired a few years earlier. 3 years earlier, and they got bought for like, I don't know, I want to say like $100 million. And the founder was, one of the founders was still working there. And so I, we go out to lunch and I was like, hey, can we meet? He's like, yeah, let's go to the cafeteria. I was like, no, no, I just need to leave this building. I'm having like big company claustrophobia. I need to get out of this building. So we go to a lunch and I say, why are you still here? And he's like, oh, what do you mean? Like, it's going great. We're working on stuff. I'm like, yeah, but like, Is this what you want to do? Like, you're here, you're 3 years in, and I'm looking in the mirror thinking, do I want to be here in 3 years? There's no way I want to be here 3, 4 years from now. You're going on to year 4 and you're drinking this company Kool-Aid. What happened to you? Why are you still here? And he was like, slightly offended, but he was like, no, it's great. I'm having fun. I'm learning a bunch. I go, let me ask you the question differently. It sounds like what you're saying is you don't want to be doing anything else, right? He goes, yeah. And I go, So let's say that I had put $100 million in your bank account tomorrow. Would you show up to work? And he's like, well, no, like I'd be, I'm like, okay, so you're doing it for the money. Let's, let's, okay, well now we've established that because if I, all I did was I changed the money part of the equation and now your answer is very different. He's like, well, I would buy a ranch and I would, you know, I have 4 kids and we'd be outside all day, but then on the side I'd be building this type of project. I was like, okay, so that's what you. Really want to do. I'm not saying you have to go do that, but let's at least be honest. I didn't like the part where you were telling me this is exactly what I want to be doing with my life. And I can say today there's things, there's a part of my life, like this podcast part of my life, that is exactly what I would be doing regardless of what the number is in the bank account. Um, and there's a part of my life where like we spin up companies, but like we spin up companies, like for example, we just spun up a company that is I would say it is opportunistic. It's not the most fun, sexy company in the world. I don't want to operate it forever. I'm like, oh, this business will work. It'll be successful. It'll have a great exit. It'll provide a great return. It'll put millions of dollars in people's bank accounts in the next 3 to 5 years. And that is good. But if I was totally post-economic, there's no way I would spend an ounce of my energy doing that company. Like just the reality of the situation. So I'm like, you know, partially following that philosophy, but not all the way yet. And I'm kind of honest with my, at least I'm honest with myself of like, yes and no. But my answer to the question of if I was totally post-economic, you know, I have more money than I'll ever be able to spend. The thing that I would do is I would teach and I would either just teach in the way that I do today, like podcast, write a book, You know, just basically be curious, go learn something, and then explain what I learned to people who don't have the 12 hours to go down the bioelectricity rabbit hole. You know, but that's what I would do. Or I would extend that if I wanted to be a little more ambitious, and I would actually create a campus and a school for people like me and be like, cool, let me create the ideal school that I wish I had when I was younger and do that. I just don't know how much, I don't know how much that would be fun, like the kind of reward versus extra effort that that takes versus creating content online and doing the same thing, but not having any of the like students and physical campus and stuff that I need to deal with.

You know, we should talk about that sometime because I've thought about that as well. I wish there was a better school for me and for people like us who are, you know, are creative, entrepreneurial, quirky, and the traditional school system does not like satisfy our needs. And what's cool about it is, you know, if let's say we came up with a concept for how we would do this, like I would just put my whole team behind it and then we'll find a way to find the money and then it will just manifest. Like these things don't have to wait until you have a billion dollars in cash is the point. And, but I asked you the question because I found that bio was on my list. Like, oh, I would do more bio stuff. I'd just fund it and I'm like, what? But I know people who could fund it, so I could just call them and have them fund it. And I, I don't need to fully fund it and I'll manifest. Um, and I think, I think a lot of us, um, have so many of these things that we want to create in the world and it's dangerous to wait because life priorities change. And I think that I see this with many of my friends who go on to get married, have kids, they get comfortable, they're building their ridiculous house and then Life goes by and they never go through this list and it always stays a dream or an aspiration. And I, I just couldn't allow that to happen to myself. And I'm so glad that you're, you know, doing most of the things on your list.

That's a great phrase. It's dangerous to wait. 'Cause I think most people feel like it, it'd be risky to go do it. And I think they vastly underestimate the risk of allowing yourself to just wait. On the things you really want to do in life. Because actually what happens is you accrue this, like, um, it's not like by waiting you get closer to the goal. By waiting, you actually get further away from the goal because you add all this space that gets filled up with other activities, other responsibilities, thoughts. You train yourself to not take action on the shit you actually want and to, like, go down this, like, long winding path. I remember when I was, um, Back to when I was working at Twitch, there's a guy, Dan, who's now the CEO. At the time, he came in as like, I don't know, chief product officer or something. He became my boss. So we go into this like one-on-one and he's like, so like, what are your like career, you know, what's your like goals for yourself here, you know, at the company? And I was like, well, I have two options here. I'm either going to lie to this guy and say, oh, I can't wait to get promoted from L7 to L8 to L10. Like, you know, like the That's like the ladder. Literally, it's a ladder and you, that's your goal.

Ladder climb of angles.

And I was like, I'm either going to lie about this to him because he's, you know, he's my manager. I guess that's what I'm supposed to say, or I'll tell the truth. And so I told him the truth and I was like, uh, yeah, I can't wait to go build another thing or just go on my own. And like, I don't see myself being here and, uh, long-term. And he was like, okay, well, that's, but he didn't, he didn't get, I thought like that's going to put him in an awkward position, but he was like, you know, he's an experienced guy. He totally rolled with it. He's like, okay, great. Now that I know that, and I was like, you know, I don't want you to totally write me off because I said that. Like, I do think I'll be here to earn out this part of the deal. I think I can do good work while I'm here. Like, you know, I think you'll, you'll get value from somebody with my talents being here. So I hope you don't just like, you know, say, oh, this guy's not here for the long haul, like write me off. But that's the truth. And he was like, done. I appreciate that. Now let's talk about the thing you really want to do. What is it that you really want to do? And I was like, oh, I want to do this, this, this, but You know, before I do that, I need to kind of like, you know, I'm trying to get, you know, save up, you know, enough capital because I'm going to, that's going to require a lot of capital and I'm going to learn some things. I'm going to build my network. And he's like, yeah, I'm not really a fan of the, like, I want to do X, so I'm going to go do A, B, and C before I do X. He's like, you're better off usually just going ahead and trying to do X. And I was like, all right, you're right. That's true. I don't need, like, you don't even need to say anymore. You're right. I was bullshitting myself a little bit. Thank you for saying that. That's actually a really valuable piece of wisdom. And it reminded me of, there's this Tony Robbins TED Talk. Have you ever seen the one time Tony Robbins went to TED?

Yeah.

He's like on stage and he's like, what stops, you know, I've been, I spent my whole life basically studying like what stops people from having what they want in life. And he's like, you know, what do you think it is? What holds you back? And people are like, oh, like, you know, for whatever it is you want, you want a better relationship, you want a better career, you want more money, you want better health, whatever, whatever it is. And people are like, oh, I don't have the time. And other people are like, I don't have the knowledge, the skills. And the people in the crowd are saying it. And Al Gore is there. And this was right after Al Gore had lost the presidential race to Bush. I think there was a runoff, like they had to recount the votes in Florida or something. And it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled that whatever, Bush won. And so he hears this voice that says, I didn't have enough Supreme Court justices. And he's like, what the hell? What do you mean? Like, who's, oh, Al Gore's here. And Tony Robbins gives this like 1-minute thing that like actually kind of like bitch slapped all their answers. He's like, uh, you know, everything you guys just said is a resource. You lacked money, time, capital, Supreme Court justices. That's a thing you lack.

Supreme Court justices. Yeah. That's the most hilarious example.

He's like, the only thing you actually need is resourcefulness. He's like, that is the master skill, the ability to go get the resources you need. When you need them for the thing you're trying to manifest. And he's like, is it not true that if you are motivated enough, charismatic enough, playful enough, convincing enough, determined enough and charming enough, can you not get everything that you want? Is it really anything that is outside of you? If you really put your all into acquiring that resource, could you not have gotten the time, the money, the network, all of those things? Like Al Gore, if you were not more passionate when you were on that stage in that debate, would it ever, ever even come down to the Supreme Court justices? No, right? Like you would have just won in a landslide if you had acquired the things that you actually needed to get there. And that's kind of what you're saying of your little manifestation studio type of concept. I love that because it's like you are completely striking out from the thought process of an entrepreneur, the like, Do I have what it takes either personally or financially or, uh, you know, knowledge and skill-wise? You're like, well, if I wanna start a bio company, I'll go recruit the best bio people and then I'll go raise the funding.

What about like, um, you know, crazy science dreams you have? You said you have ideas or you're talking to scientists all the time. What are some things that are, you know, in the future that you're excited about that is not just a pipe dream, like there might actually be a pathway to do it. Like, you know, I don't know if the, the grow test tube baby in a vat type of thing, like, I don't know if that's like just a dream or there's actually people working on the, that, that might be scientifically possible or practical. Can you tell me about some parts of the future that I should be excited about or my kids might get to experience?

I actually think that is very viable, the test tube babies. Um, I know of I've talked to several scientists who are doing the portion to, like, for example, let's say you wanted to be the mother of a child, not the father, and we could take your genetic material and create an egg out of that. I think that we're going to see that within the next 5 years. And then the converting, you know, having an artificial embryo-generated avatar style, that's a little harder to do. I, I've met scientists who've been able to gets maybe 6 weeks before the whole thing falls apart. And that will get better and better over time. But the implications there are huge. Like for women, imagine not having to deal with this and not having to do egg extraction if you're, you know, if you're having trouble conceiving. And then what's also realistic, I think, is extending our lives by 30%. I think we need to be prepared to live till we're 120 or longer. And right now the upper limit in our head is, oh, I'll probably die when I'm 90. We're not thinking about the exponential rate of change here. And I am talking to a lot of longevity scientists. I'm seeing the data. It's compelling. I think we're going to live longer and we need a plan for that future.

What's the short version of how we get that extra 30%? Is it drugs? Is it Uh, diet lifestyle changes? Is it reversing aging? Is it, you know, getting blood from young, uh, you know, baby seals? What are we going to do to make that happen?

It's probably going to be a combination of multiple factors.

And you— all these projects fall under what you call bold science. Could you define bold science? What does that mean?

Yeah, there's just so many, uh, companies working on very incremental companies where it might extend your lifespan by 3 months or 6 months. That's not a great outcome. Like, you're going to be going to the hospital and taking chemo drugs for another 6 months before you're dead. What do you do? That's like, I'd rather go to hospice than prolong my suffering. But if you could, instead of patching the problem, like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound is the analogy, What if you could get to the root cause and reverse cancer, for example? So right now, everything we do within cancer is about trying to kill the cancer cells through chemo, radiation, surgery. CAR-T therapies are super hot and trendy, but that just basically involves using your immune system to target and kill your own cancer cells. But what if killing cancer is the wrong approach? And actually cancer happens because your cells are trying to protect themselves in some way. And if you could train them and coach your cells, instead of killing them, let's rehabilitate them, get them to integrate back in with their surroundings, then you could fix cancer. And so we're working on a company around that. Um, that's what I mean by bold science.

That's, that's, uh, that's great. So it's basically non-incremental. A big leap in function or leap in quality of life. So like, you know, a step, complete step change. And usually that's going to come from taking a different approach than like, you know, or taking a different point of view on the problem, looking at it through a different lens. And, um, you've, you, what you do is you partner with scientists to make that happen. One of the things you said that I liked, uh, when we were talking before was you're like, I get on the plane.

I get on the plane every time. Yeah.

And, um, I don't know exactly what you mean by that, but talk about that because I think that's just an entrepreneur as part of the Manifestation Studios, you gotta just get on the plane sometimes. What do you mean by that?

I have a real example. I have, there's this successful entrepreneur who I'm sure you've heard of. Maybe you even interviewed him. He lives in Vegas. I live in LA and I just said, hey, tell me a time and place on Sunday and Monday and I will fly to Vegas and I will meet you. I'll literally take my plane and fly there just for the meeting and then fly home afterwards. And then Tuesday, same thing. I have Patrick Collison from Stripe asked me to hang out with him and have dinner and it's like, all right, cool. So I'll just get on my jet and go see him and then fly back and be back in my bed after dinner, you know?

And does, does that only work if you have a jet?

I think it's massively underrated. My uncle calls it meeting belly to belly. He's like, you got to meet belly to belly in business. And he's in the real estate game. It's a totally different game, but I loved it. I was like, not face to face, we're going belly to belly. And I just think that that was like created such a good visual in my head. If you were gonna score it, let's say if I gave you 1 point of like trust, productivity, relationship building for a Zoom call versus meeting belly to belly, if 1 is the call, how much is the in-person?

That's amazing. This is when you're a teenager. You also told me, 'cause I asked you, 'cause I think one of the valuable things in life is to study, like to become a good evaluator of people. Like if let's say you're an NBA general manager, you need to be able to spot talent. I think any business person or investor needs to be able to spot talent and ideally spot the difference between good and great, great and the best in the world. And when I met you, I really felt like Oh, this might be somebody who's one of those like elite best in the world at what they do, and they're going to just do special things that are beyond even what really great, smart, intelligent people are going to do just because they seem to be operating differently. But I need to understand them a little more. So I asked you a question when I was getting to know you and I was like, if I met you when you were younger, like 13 years old, what would I have seen? And would there have been any signals for this? And I said, and I will say On my side, I was a totally unimpressive 13-year-old, you know, um, you know, there was no signals that I was going to do anything out of the ordinary. Um, you know, forget like being great at something, just like out of the ordinary, beyond average. And, um, so I wasn't that way, but I've met a lot of people who were, you know, they were like teenagers, they were flipping things like, you know, on eBay, or they were building a product of some kind or, you know, whatever. You have an amazing kind of backstory. Uh, can you tell it? What were you doing? What was like your first interesting little business you were doing when you were a teenager?

Did you know somebody else doing it? Why would you think that's normal?

I don't know. I was on like the internet forums. You know, there are lots of people who do this. So I thought, okay, this is like a commodity business, but I could probably figure out how to do it and make a few bucks and offset my gaming server expenses. That was the goal. I just wanted to make like $10,000 a year to offset my own costs and buy some clothes and not have to like go work at the shopping mall or like rake leaves or shovel snow.

So you're like, I'm playing video games, I wanna scratch my own itch, be able to play my own video games and, and like, you know, pay that, pay off that, buy some clothes, Were you cool in school? Were you like a—

No.

Smart, popular kid, or who were you?

Total geek loser. I was so lame. I, so I had no friends. I went to the computer club at my high school, which is all the nerds who also had no other friends. So you have to be friends with each other. They were making fun of me and they were bullying me. I was literally on the bottom of the bottom totem pole. Like, that's how I knew it was really bad. I'm like, okay, I had to get outta here as soon as possible. So I ended up dropping outta high school halfway through my sophomore year, but I got into this really cool college program called Simon's Rock College. You know, Simon's Rock and going to college early, it really saved me because I was bored in high school. I wasn't doing well. I was getting terrible grades because I was uninterested and because I had no friends and I felt like I couldn't relate to anyone. All the other girls, And guys just like were interested in things that I had no interest in. So when you said, hey, I would love to create the school for people like us, I just thought, holy cow, I wanna create that school too. We can make this happen. Let's do it. Let's brainstorm it. Let's set aside some time another day, or let's just go meet up for dinner. I'll come wherever you want, any day you want. I will fly to you and we will put together You know, a game plan for what this would look like and how we would manifest this without having to wait till we're, you know, sitting on a billion in cash.

Yeah. Okay. Done. Uh, love it. Belly to belly booked. Um, you tell me about this server business. Uh, did you make the 10 grand off that?

A moral victory. Uh, so when you were meeting these people, because you were like, I'm a, I'm a dumb 16-year-old college kid. You're in college because you're 16, because you dropped out of high school and like just went to college. Um, you met Justin Khan, you met Marc Benioff, you met, uh, you know, these different YC founders. Did you, do you learn, did you learn anything? Did anything stick with you? Was there a story that like you remember? Uh, like what'd you get out of those meetings?

Yeah. What I got out of it was that, holy cow, there are other people like me who are a little crazy. Who are willing to approach life and entrepreneurship in an unconventional way and who are willing to do, you know, the hard things. So when I saw Justin and when I saw Steve Huffman from Reddit, I realized, wow, like, I don't need to wait till I'm older to start doing this today. And I also don't need to have money. I don't have to have like a job. To demonstrate success first. So it was more of the mindset. I would say it's always mindset and psychology more than tactics when you're meeting these people that I focus on.

Yeah. Yeah. And you also told me you had met these other people, like when I was like, oh, what's, I forgot, I was like, I think I was asking you like, what you do with your money? And you were like, yeah, I, you said one interesting thing. You were like, you're like, you know, taxes, People, I think I was asking you something about taxes and you were like, people don't spend enough time on taxes. So can you tell me, we'll put this in the bucket of billionaire secrets. You said you've met a bunch of successful, super rich people and the way they think is a little bit different than the way everybody else thinks. And I'm interested in that gap. What's different about the way that the most successful, the richest people that you know think? What is it that they're thinking about differently? One of the things was taxes, but you had a few more. Can you tell me the taxes point and anything else you kind of remember on that?

Like, well, this is so true. I feel when I, like, I have like, a lawyer and a tax person. And if I feel like I, if I talk to another tax person or a lawyer, I'm like kind of cheating on them. And it's like, that's so silly. That's so dumb of a way to think about it. Like, first of all, it's your job to get the best opinion possible. It is to get the best answer. The best answer is not going to come necessarily from the one person, you know, who you picked one time, 5 years ago without vetting anybody else. Um, they may also not specialize in other stuff you're doing. Oh, now you're doing real estate deals. Well, they don't know anything about real estate deals or You're doing, uh, you have an exit, an M&A. They don't know anything about M&A. So, you know, you should be talking to people who really understand that stuff. Um, a team though, multiple opinions is better than one. Uh, specialties matter. Um, also when you said that, it reminded me, I was like, oh yeah, the person who I have doing tax strategy stuff, they stopped giving me strategy after year 1. Like, we, you know, like the bulk, if I've had a pie chart of 90% of the like strategy convos we had were at the very beginning and then like Now I'm just like the client that they, you know, stamp the thing on like every year, right? Like that happens naturally. Same thing with legal, legal stuff. And so you kind of need to keep dating in order to have like fresh ideas or advice coming in, uh, from that perspective. Exactly. And you also said like, there's a certain amount of time you think people should spend on, or like, you know, maybe not should, but like the math tells you, you should be spending a certain amount of time on taxes and actually the, What people actually do is maybe less than 1% of their time.

That's so true because your tax is always your biggest expense. And if you're a business person, you have your, you know, your business tax, then you have your personal tax, you have like investment tax, capital gains tax, you have all kinds of taxes every single year. You know, the same dollar gets taxed a bunch of times. So you're right, basically it's the biggest It's the biggest expense. Even 10% sounds absurd 'cause I'm like, oh, that's 36 days out of the year.

It's overkill. You don't need that much time. I mean, even 5 days in the year to do this gets you a lot.

No, but you're right on the math. Like you would be justified spending 36 days out of the year. You would be justified spending 10% of your time and intellectual mindshare on some, on your biggest expense that's gonna compound every year for the rest of your life. Like, of course that would make sense. So that is a kind of like aha moment for me. Right. What about like coaching or, you know, some sort of like, what is your, like, basically if the studio, the manifestation kind of like vehicle here is an extension of you and your brain and your dreams and your desires, and then like getting the brain to be like functioning well seems important. Do you do anything, whether it's therapy, nutrition, morning routine, like do you do anything like that to like make sure you're the psychology, the, you know, the little voice in your head is saying the right stuff.

Yeah, for sure. I have, I have two different coaches I talk with each month, and I think of it as like going to the gym or taking a shower. Even if I think I'm happy or in a good mindset, I need to still go see them to make sure that my head is screwed on properly. And yeah, it costs me a ton of money, but it pays for itself right away. I also have my CEO group I visit once a month. It's kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous for CEOs. I'm in YPO, Young Presidents Organization, but there's also Entrepreneur Organization and Vistage. List goes on and on. And there, yeah, you think, oh, I don't have time for it, but I actually think you don't have time not to do that. Hmm.

That's a good way of putting it. Also health stuff.

We don't think about that. What if you could optimize through better nutrition and nootropics and through IVs, your— not only your longevity, but your mental acuity. So I work with 5 concierge doctors to come up with my own custom plan, and I'm actually going to put something together that I could share with all my friends so anyone I love can get on the same program. And includes the supplements, custom compounding my own supplements into, you know, just 2 pills. So it's a little easier. And then doing the exosome IVs once a quarter, which I'm a huge fan of.

And I don't know what it— what is that? What is that word you just said? What are you doing?

Uh, yeah, that's what I need. Uh, good. I, I, I'm gonna hit you up for, for some recommendations on that.

I'll send you some referrals. And, and then, yeah, I'll eventually pull all this feedback to make it so that we could share it publicly and for free. So you guys don't necessarily need to pay for your own concierge doctor to do this for you. I think it's ridiculous that like all the work I'm doing here, I'm spending this money on it. Like, this should be like a public service that's offered.

Yeah, because it's not so personalized to you, basically.

No, it's not that personalized. 90% of what I'm doing, like, anyone else should just be able to do on their own. It's just not— this whole longevity optimization arena is so new, and in order for other folks to monetize on it, it has to feel bespoke and unique to you.

When— so, uh, give me the quick rundown. So you spend this money, you have this, this program that you're doing. You said you do this exosome IVs. Uh, okay, great. What are like If you were going to go from like most impactful to like, you know, whatever fringe, you know, stuff, what's the most impactful stuff you're doing?

Again, I'll be super honest. It's hard to know where the impact is. Of course. Yeah. Like on what—

Or just what you, what you kind of believe in or what you would recommend to your cousin or your, your, your friend who you, you know, who you're like, look, we all, we get all the disclaimers. You're not a doctor. This is not the, you're, there's not, you know, bulletproof science. Cool. Okay. Amongst friends, you know, just tell me what your opinion is.

Yeah. I'm a friend of AG1. I'm sure people have talked about that on your pod before. I'm a fan of adding in other— there's this whole list of supplements and nootropics that I can't even recite the name of for you, but I could publish the list for you if you'd like. And then having them all again put together in, you know, a few compact pills that you could take. Um, and then I have a friend who—

And who does that? You, you like go to a compounding pharmacy and you're like, hey, can you make these pills for me? Pretty much. Cool. We'll have like 32 pills delivered. Like, how does that work?

Yeah, I have a friend who actually has his own, so I get it at cost, but my plan is to work with him to create it so that he can make some profit. And then my friends will have basically what I take and not have it be marked up too much like all these other scumbag internet companies are trying to do.

Shout out to the scumbags out there. Keep doing your thing.

That's it in a nutshell. I know that's just the one I've used, I'm a huge fan of. And then there's also, yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of peptides as well if you want to do the more advanced thing. And on the peptides, you know, some of them are injectable. So you know, that I would consult a doctor on, but the supplements you could probably just do, right? And I would benchmark. I would take the True Diagnostics biological, you know, age test just to see how you're doing before, middle, and after. And yeah, so that's another. So taxes, health, Coaching and mindset. What are the other categories for, you know, Billionaire Secrets we haven't covered?

I think those are the big ones. I mean, the other one is what you talked about, which is being non-operational.

Non-operational. Yeah.

Create a vehicle that's going to create all your other vehicles and, and be able to recruit talent that's going to be able to put the pieces together. The way I look at it is like every project needs kind of like a vision. It needs capital, it needs an operator, it needs, you know, what, you know, whatever. What does it need? Okay, I'm going to be able to create those packages. And so that's— I think that's what a lot of the do is they get out of, I'm going to go every day and work on this one business and toil away, like turning the crank myself. And you know, that's the higher leverage way that they operate is like that.

So— Can you give the quick math on, it doesn't have to be yours for sure. Sure. But just like, just the general math so people know, like, How does the buy a plane work from a tax perspective?

Yeah, well, it, the rules are changing, but I, I closed on mine about a year ago. And let's say you buy a plane, it's $5 million and your bank's willing to finance most of it. So you put $1 million down, but you get a $5 million write-off on the plane.

And it's a year one write-off, right?

That, that was an accelerated bonus depreciation year one. But now the problem is this year it's only 80% you could deduct upfront. Next year it's 60% and then 40 and then 20. Yes, it's getting worse and worse. But the point is you do get a tax benefit for buying these assets. They are financed. And then also if it enables you to do more what you want, then there's that like incalculable benefit that you receive. Same with exotic cars. A lot of people I know who have exotic cars, their exotic cars are worth more than what they pay for them. So they buy the car, they drive it for a year, and then they sell the car at the same cost or a higher cost than what they paid for it because other people can't— they want to have access to that car, but they don't have a relationship with the manufacturer and they weren't willing to wait 4 years on the waiting list to get that car.

Yeah, I think, I think it's easy to hate on it, but what's cool is that people could learn about mindset and how to get there. And that's what you're doing with your pod. Like, you're very specific about like how to do these things, I've noticed. And this was not available to people 5 years ago. So, yeah.

I love that. Yeah. Like, I think it is difficult to struggle with the feeling of jealousy and aspiration. And another trick that I'm not sure if this came from Tony Robbins or someone else, but if you're surrounded by people who are more successful than you, instead of envying them, maybe you could interpret it as, hey, this is a great sign because this means more success and more happiness is coming my way now that I'm able to surround myself and attract these people into my life. How awesome. And I remember having to deal with that a lot, especially when I was an up-and-coming entrepreneur and I knew absolutely nothing. And I have, you know, Drew from Dropbox and Sam Altman coming to speak to me and these like CS students, right? Like we didn't know anything. And the gap felt very wide by just having them there to spend time with us and to say, hey, we're open to like, just email us if you have any questions about what it's like to be a founder. We're gonna be there for you. Just feeling like all of them were approachable and accessible, I think made it easier for me to focus on the education instead of the envy.

Right. That's a, that's a great way of putting it. Can I ask you one thing before we go? 'Cause I know I took too much of your time. Sure. Uh, Sam Altman is now like this extremely interesting public character. Um, very few people actually know him. Sounds like you've had interactions with him in the past., can you give me your impressions or any story you remember of Sam Altman? Um, because I remember reading Paul Graham's essays like 10 years ago where he's like, of the 5 most impressive people I've met, it's like Bill Gates or whatever, you know, Larry and Sergey and Sam Altman, you know, and it's like, that's when he was doing Looped and nobody, you know, there was no, there was no track record. He, he sort of was, was like, it was just very apparent in meeting him. At that time that this guy's gonna go on to do great things. Did you get that sense? Or I don't know how much interaction you had with him.

Yeah, I actually, I mean, this was probably 13 years ago now, but I had a one-on-one with Paul Graham and I asked him to share like, who do you think the most, you know, successful people you've ever met, like who will that end up being 30 years from now? If we have another one-on-one like this, and Sam was on the list. I'm not gonna share who the others were on that list, but they're all also doing extremely well.

And, um, what a question by you, by the way. Fantastic question.

Yeah, eventually, you know, it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck. Hey, it became a duck, you know, by the end of it actually. So, so those traits you said just now, sorry to recap was, You said grit or resourcefulness, like, you know, the willingness to make things happen. You said going into being able to collect ideas from multiple spaces and synthesize it so that you actually might create something more than any domain, than the individual domain experts had been able to reach. You get to a new ceiling from that. That was like the second thing you said. Third was wanting to meet the right people, ask the right questions, and being willing to go to certain lengths to kind of meet them, right? That was the third one. Did I miss one? What was the last one that you said?

Yeah, just to build on that third one, it's that how can you make yourself interesting enough at a dinner party so that they would want to invite you back to spend more time with them? How do you broaden your field of knowledge to be able to be an advisor, you know, someone that, you know, a king or president would want to call upon for feedback. And you know, you go to Polygram's house, or this was years ago before he left for the UK. He has a huge library of books and he's read most of these books and he's just fascinated by so many topics. And that also left an impression on me. Like, okay, like we should just learn about random things that have nothing to do with our day-to-day business because they'll help us with category number 3 on that list.

Right, right. Yeah, that's such a good call. I went to a farming conference last year, like 2 years ago, like for farmers.

That's so random.

I love it. And it was the best conference I had been to in like 5 years because I'd only been going to tech conferences. And, you know, I'm not learning anything at these tech conferences or, you know, like I'm adding the same incremental knowledge and it's the same thoughts and philosophies and same types of people in that bubble. And there's nothing wrong with that, but like, there's definitely like, you want that 20%, like, total changeup that is completely out of left field. That's like, wow, these guys talk about different things, think about different things, have a different perspective, live in a different— I was in Kansas City, right? Like, it was like, you know, you go to a different place and you have a totally different perspective. And I literally started a company while I was there because I was like piecing together like two ideas, one from the tech world and one from this like farmer that we had met. And like, it, you know, that was, you know, when we created the Milk Road and we even the name Milk Road was like, 'cause we're at a fricking farming conference and there's like a dairy farmer next to us. You know, like it all kind of played into having that. If, you know, we hadn't stirred the pot in that exact way, you know, maybe you would've come up with a different answer.

Yeah, that's super cool that you did that. And I'm curious to download from you what is also on your list of like the next areas you would wanna learn about and I think it's actually a good exercise for me too, to think about this. For me, it's been bio lately, but I would like to broaden it even more.

So give an example of one of the bio companies that you founded. What, you know, give us the high level of like the problem, the solution you guys are trying to do, and like, you know, the rough stage where it's at.

So you, you told me this, you, you were like, uh, we have one company's, uh, Astonishing Labs. It's about bioelectricity. And I was like, what is— I've never even heard this word. And you said it in a really interesting way. You go. You know, people think that it's like genetics is kind of like what your genes say or your DNA says is kind of like what ends up manifesting. And you're like, turns out it's not that at all, which already I was like, oh, that's a kind of narrative violation. What is, what do you mean? That's all I've ever heard. So what is the answer? And you were like, yeah, there's this idea of bioelectricity. And I went and I watched his TED Talk and he talks about like, you know, they're able to like, you know, grow an arm on something on an animal's back. They're able to like grow a third eye, right? They're able to do all these like show all these amazing like phenotype outputs without any genetic modification. And so can you just like explain that a little bit more about like, you know, the kind of the layman's version of it?

Yeah. Well, I, I'll be honest. I don't even fully understand the science of it, but that's everything you said is correct. Like if you manipulate the bioelectricity on an animal, um, you can create weird outputs like this. So when they saw that a tadpole was growing an eyeball, the bioelectric signature of the cells in that area changed. And so the question was, oh, what if you created that same bioelectric signature but on another part of the body? What will happen? Will it grow an eyeball? Not only does it grow an eyeball there, but it grows connection to the spinal cord. And so you don't have to micromanage biology. If you try to change that through modifying the genome, how would you do that? There'd be no way to do that is the answer. And so if you just think about it logically, genetics are therefore not the end-all be-all. So anyway, I heard of this, it blew my mind. I said, this, this is brilliant. Like, is he, does he have a commercialization partner? What's the status of it? And the answer is it's still in the lab and there was no one commercializing this yet. And Paul Allen was funding the whole lab. And then Paul Allen tragically passed away and then the funding dried up. So he needed money. He needed people to help him make it a real biotech company. So I come in and I say, I know nothing about biotech. I know a lot of rich people who would love to fund crazy stuff like this.

And wait, wait, wait, you just say I came in. That means like I cold emailed him. I called him. I met him. What did you actually do?

That's amazing. And so, um, so you do that. What is the, like, uh, you know, what's the product or what are you guys actually building?

We are building several companies under this holdco. So the first company we created is called Celljabu, and it's essentially a company that will help overcome drug resistance. And how do I make this more concrete? If you're taking drugs for your leukemia or you're taking chemo drugs, it might be effective and work for a while. You have lots of drugs that are effective and work, but then one day they stop working. And when they stop working, unfortunately, there are sometimes no other viable options for the patient, which means they're going to then die. But a month late, a month earlier, the drugs were working and they were fine, right? So that's one company. There's another company that's developing programmable human biobots. And in fact, this got, you know, this article about this in Nature as of today, and that company is called Anthrobots. Wow. So I'll send you more info on that if you're curious. Um, that is really cool. I think CNN is going to post their interview with Mike today about that as well.

And so is all your, all your bio stuff under the, this lab with Mike Levin, or is there, are there other biobets too? Because like you've talked to me about Uh, you know, at that dinner we were talking about, um, I don't know, like pregnancy or something like that. And you said something kind of in passing. You're like, yeah, like in the next, I don't know, 10 years, uh, you know, you know, you'll— women may not need to birth a baby. Like, you know, you'll be able to just essentially grow a baby. And I was like, what?

Um, so like Avatar style, how cool would it be if you could see like a baby growing in like a fish tank? And all you got to do is I could swab your mouth and swab my mouth, put it in the machine, and then a baby will start to grow out of it.

You know, there's just the genetic material. No sperm and egg.

Yeah, exactly. That's how I felt. I literally had this nagging feeling in my soul that I was wasting my capability. And I'm sure a lot of people feel that way.

Awesome. Well, sounds like we got another couple conversations to have. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. Where should people go find you, reach out to you? Where do you want to direct people?

Yeah, I mean, I'm on, you know, my website's mawe.com and I've got a Twitter @jessicama, @jessmaofficial on Instagram. And if people want to reach out, you could either guess my email address, which is what I've done with Marc Benioff and everyone else.

That's a good filter, actually. You don't want the inbound that's easy. You want the inbound of at least, you are at least able to guess an email address.

It's not that hard. Just like, I had like, I literally emailed like Marc@Salesforce, Marc.Benioff, MBenioff, you know, like every permutation I could come up with and most of them bounced and one of them worked. So.

That's awesome. Uh, thanks for doing this. You're awesome. And, uh, yeah, that was a great episode.

Yeah. Great, great time hanging out with you. Thanks for having me.

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.