I Spent 7 Days With The Richest Men In Texas | 10 Things I Learned
He was showing us around his house. He's like, that's my nap room. And I was like, you're a nap guy. I'm a nap guy. And he's like, oh yeah, nap. I take a nap every day for the last 2 years.
Do you want to nap together?
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.
All right, you're back from Austin. You were there for 7 days. How was it?
It was great, dude. I had one conversation. I got to ask you this. I got put on the spot. So I was talking to— I did an episode with Tim Ferriss and he said something in the middle of the interview. He goes, He goes, I wanted to ask you this. What do you say? What do you think is the, um, the brand of your podcast? He goes, what I mean is, if you're not in the room and someone was just telling their friend about it, how would they describe it? Ideally, to you, how would they describe it?
You actually did this before, and I actually thought it was great. You said, hey, look, we're doing these meetups, and if you are the type of person who goes to a restaurant and you wonder, how could they make this a little bit more efficient, or how much money do they make per meal, or how much profit do they make, and how can they expand this. And you also like to joke around. You're perfect for MFM. And that's sort of the person who I would describe is into it. I would say that we're this weird combination of making silly dumb jokes and deconstructing interesting companies and pointing out different trends.
Why? What did you say on the air?
Well, luckily he let me off the hook because he asked it. He's like, I want to ask you this. I mean, you don't have to answer, but you could do the— and he just kind of kept going. And in my head I was like, okay, the master of podcasting asking me what is my podcast about? And it's sort of like, you know, if Leonardo DiCaprio comes up to you and he asks you what your name is and you're like, I have one, I just don't know what it is right now. You know, the panic ensues.
I had to go out of town, so it was a weird timing. I wasn't able to make it, but you interviewed 4 or 3 people, but you hung out with a ton of people. How, how was, how was Tim, for one? You also interviewed Joe Lonsdale. How were these guys?
So I took notes. I always take notes when I go. I take a little journal with me, and basically I'm not taking notes on what happened. I'm only taking notes on what are the new epiphanies, what are the new golden nuggets, what's the one phrase somebody said that I'm gonna remember.. And I'm looking for a high rate of revelation. I think that's also, by the way, a good move for the podcast. What is the rate of revelation per minute? How many interesting things are coming out to you?
RPM, baby.
RPM. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is a very high RPM trip for me. I wrote down a bunch of names on our doc. And for each one, I had one, one big revelation. And so you can prompt me and go for whichever one looks interesting to you, not in order.
Person. So Mohnish, from what I know, he is a, uh, what's his book called? The Dhandho Investor. Uh, basically what I know about him is that he started maybe in the '80s investing in companies because I think he made some money, uh, through his own business. And then he's sort of like an Indian Warren Buffett and he's got this huge following and, uh, he seems really fascinating type of guy.
Yeah. So exactly. I wanted to talk to him because my mentors consider him a mentor. Right? Like if you like this podcast and you like, you know, either Andrew Wilkinson or Syed Balki, like both of them look up to and learn from Mohnish. When I was going out there, I texted Andrew. I was like, hey, wish I asked him. I was like, you know him, right? And he's like, dude, he was my first value investing man crush. And like, you know, somebody whose brain you got really attracted to because he has very interesting philosophies and thoughts. If you Google his net worth, it says like, you know, almost $2 billion. I don't know, you know, Googling net worth is not an exact science, but he's up there. More like a B than an M. And he's an interesting guy. Like, his story is basically, he's working at a company. His dad is like, son, it's time to quit. And he's like, his dad was an entrepreneur. He's like, dad, I don't want to do what you did, man. Your life was crazy. Like, it was ups and downs. Don't you remember as a kid, we were being brought into the living room when we were 12, 13 years old trying to figure out how to like let the business survive one more day. He's like, I'm traumatized for that. I just want to work here, save money in my 401k every year. And in 35 years, I'll be set. And his dad was like, okay, you're not wrong, but you took the wrong lesson away from, from what you learned, what you, you actually got a crash course in how to do business and how to not do business. Maybe you should just take that and actually learn from it and do it right. Do it better than I could do it. He told him, he's like, you know, at this company, there's 2,000 people here. You're just a cog in the machine. Like you could die tomorrow. And no one would even know. And so he's like, you know, you're— you'll never reach your potential just sitting there. So he's like, all right, shit, he's right. Goes, starts a company. It was an IT, like, consulting company. So this was like during the dot-com boom run-up when the internet was really exciting, computers were really exciting. He creates an IT consulting business. And so—
crazy. Mark Cuban also had an IT services business that he sold for $6 million, I bet around the same time. So it was enough to be comfortable, but not enough to do nothing.
Exactly, exactly. And so what he did was, he takes that money, and he starts investing his own money. And he compounds his own money, his own money turns like, whatever, I think at first he had sold $1 million of secondary, he turns $1 million into $13 million. So he knew the Indian tech scene pretty well, because he had his, his consulting company had, you know, overseas staff, so he's paying attention to it. So he invested in one, and it was 140x. And so he's like, wow, that's insane. I should get out. He pulled out like a million or $2 million from that. That's how he made his million bucks, and he just reinvested. And along the way, you know, he's giving his friends like stock tips. He's like, I'm buying this for this reason. I'm buying this for this reason. They're doing really well. But they're like, Mohnish, like, you know, we can't just listen to your tips because you're not telling us when to sell. We don't know what you're not telling us. Can we just give you the money? And so he takes a million bucks from his friends. He's like, okay, I'll just— if I'm investing in my shit, I'll just put their money in the same thing. But he's like, that was the side thing. He's like, I had $13 million. That was $1 million. I didn't really care about it. He proceeds to basically over the last, whatever, 20 years, 30 years, whatever, run that million dollars up. He now has like about just under a billion dollars of assets under management of the compounding of that, plus people bringing more assets in, obviously, along the way. So, okay, that's a long story about Mohnish, but that's not what was interesting about him. Well, what's interesting about him is I call him the relaxed billionaire because I go to this guy's house. He's just chilling. He's just there. He's in his basketball shorts, no shoes, just walking around. He's like, all right, sup? Like, and we were— because I went the day before to hang out with him. I was like, we're going to do the podcast tomorrow, but I want to get to know you a little bit. Let's hang. Let's— can I swing by for a little, you know, let's just have some, some, some, some tea. So I go over to have a tea at his house. He calls it chai with pabrai. And he's like, he's like, yeah, I do this from time to time. I just have— I make, I make a really good chai. I'll just have it with random interesting people. 1 out of every 10 proves to be like someone really compelling I want to hang out with more. And, you know, 9 out of 10, no problem. I just had some chai.
And he just moved to Austin, right?
He's been there for a little bit. Yeah. So he relocated from, I think, LA or something. So I was like, so what are you doing today? Because like he's hanging out with us for like an hour. And I was like, what's— you don't— there's nobody here. Where's your team? Where's your schedule? Where's your assistant coming tapping and be like, you have a call? And he's like, I don't have any of those things. He's told me a couple of interesting things. He goes, investing is not a team sport. And he goes, I, uh, I have a few folks, analyst type people, and they'll do specific things that I need them to do, but they don't make decisions. Uh, they don't make investment decisions. I make the investment decisions. He goes, why? He goes, to be a great investor, you need to make a contrarian bet, meaning you have to believe something's good when other people believe that it's bad. Fundamentally, that's how it works, right? If you think it's good, but everybody thinks it's good, you'll never make any money. The price is too high. If it's bad and you think it's good, you'll never make money. The only way to make money is you think it's good and other people think it's bad. He calls it, I look for things that are hated and unloved. He's like, last year I made one big bet or whatever, last two years, like on coal. Coal. He's like, man, coal, nothing is more hated and unloved than coal. He's like, and before that it was this, before that it was this. And so he's like, I look for the hated and unloved things. He goes, if you have a team, Everybody just centers around the safe picks that we can all agree on. And he's like, you know, you'll never find the truly, truly contrarian, hated and unloved things if you invest as a team, because it's not a team sport. Number 2, he goes, he's like, he was showing us around his house. He's like, that's my nap room. And I was like, you're a nap guy. I'm a nap guy. And he's like, oh yeah, nap. I take a nap every day for the last 30 years. Do you want to nap together? Yeah. He's like, he's like every 30 years, he said for 30 years I've been napping every day. He's like, I love it. Knock out in the afternoon, 20, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever it is. He's like, it's good for my brain. He's like, I don't make good decisions if I'm not well rested. And he's like, I don't need—
Did you guys like high five and hug over there?
Yeah. I was like, finally, this guy's my people. And he's like, oh yeah. He's like, I used to live in Dubai. That's how they do it. It's too hot during the day. You just nap. And he's like, it's a no-brainer. But overall, he was like, I have a clear schedule. I spend my time, I read, I think, Maybe I'll go teach or talk to somebody. He goes, I teach not because I want to be a teacher. He goes, because if I want to learn something, the best way is to go try to teach it.
Where does he teach? At like a school or—
Yeah, he'll go give a talk at a university or like to some group of aspiring investors or whatever. And so I was just fascinated by this guy. I was like, this is the relaxed billionaire. I love this guy's style. I love his MO. I go to his library. He's got just thousands of books. And he's like, yeah, this is my like biology and science section. This is my investing book section. This is my business book section. And he's like, you know, just recommending different books to me. I thought it was pretty fascinating to see this guy because it's high contrast to all the other people I've met on this trip who are like, go, go, go, you know.
So I've heard this so often where people say, for one, people will say like Warren Buffett, they're like, I just, I read like 500 pages a day. And then I'll talk to our friend Andrew Wilkinson and a few others. He goes, I just want to read all day. And in my head, I'm like, okay, reading, because that Like, like, I just read this, like, awesome, like, science fiction book about, like, aliens. Like, is that counting? Like, what, what do they read, I wonder, all day? Like, is it only work-related? Is it like the equivalent of you and I skimming Twitter?
No, no, I think it's less Twitter. But I do think it's, you know, some percentage of that is companies' annual reports, right? Like going in and diving in and looking at a company or looking at an industry, trying to understand it. Some of it is understanding the macro, the psychology of humans and about business and about whatever. And he's got business books, psychology books, all that. Some of it's about science and he's reading about that. And some of it's just for fun, just to kind of like expand the brain. Like science fiction is actually quite, quite interesting as an example, because a lot of the things that are happening today were predicted by science fiction, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Everything from cryptocurrency to, you know, video calls to things like that, that at the time seemed far-fetched, you know, predicting video calls where you don't even have a cell phone. Right? It's like, uh, it took, took some, took some thinking there. And so, so I, yeah, I do think it's a, it's a wider breadth. It's not just reading, you know, 10 Qs.
Yeah, that's what I was worrying. I'm like, is he just reading? It's just, is he just reading those all day? 10 Ks, I think, by the way. We don't want to look like a total fool.
I'll give you a couple of takeaways from Joe Lonsdale. So for those people who don't know, Joe created Palantir. He's the co-founder of Palantir, which is a $50 billion company. But His actual claim to fame when I was talking to him, he said something, he goes, I've created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else in America. That's thinking bold. And I was like, cool, cool, cool. I got a podcast. What's up? I've created more episodes than, than most podcasters. I thought that was a really amazing, amazing, you know, achievement. And it's true. He's done like at least 5 billion-dollar companies. And these are all like in the last, you know, like short period of time.
His background is I think he went to Stanford and he somehow got into Peter Thiel's orbit when Joe was just like 21 or 20 or still in college. He kind of like right-hand Peter and was almost like a— yeah, was his protégé, intern, whatever, at his hedge fund, I, I think.
But the story is really hilarious because he's like, uh, somebody asked him in an interview when I was doing my research, they were like, what were you like as a kid? And everybody Like if I asked you, successful person gets asked what it was like growing up, what's the typical response?
Selling stuff.
It's usually humble origins of some kind, right? Like I grew up middle class, you know, maybe I had a reading impediment, but that led me to, you know, really working on something. There's usually some rags to riches. The guy asked Joe and he goes, yeah, grew up, had great parents, great family. I was, stuff came pretty easy to me. I was basically, I just was really good. I just aced all my tests. I was 99th percentile math, 99th percentile science. I was a programmer. He's like, you know, there were smarter kids than me, but like, you know, school was pretty easy. I focused on it. I did well. I got into Stanford. I did. It's like, that was his story, which I found to be hilariously candid because there, of course, that exists. But most people don't want to say that. They're so busy virtue signaling that they'll like, they'll try to bend their awesome upbringing to be, to focus on some one bad thing where he's like, no, my parents love me and they really put me in a position to succeed. And I was super competitive and I fucking won. That was his story.
And then he, you know, he got in Peter Thiel's orbit and he did. He was probably wildly successful just as an employee at PayPal, but then he spun off and they created Palantir together. And then off the backs of that or off the success of that, he created like 8 or 6 other companies, right, that he like, quote, co-founded, which I don't understand what co-founded means within his case because he's done it so often that I don't even understand the logistics of how he has time to do that.
Yeah, he like seeds them basically. So he's like, okay, I have, you know, the idea, I'll bring the team together, I'll have the initial strategy, I'll recruit the initial talent, I'll recruit the initial capital. And then, you know, over time, he either is CEO or not CEO of these different companies. So he's done Adapar, he did Palantir, he's done Epirus, he's done like a whole bunch of different things in different spaces. One is financial, you know, software for wealth managers. Another one is like software for spies for the government. Another one is, you know, it's like Anduril. They're making like a weapon for the government. You know, like they do different things in totally different spaces, like trucking and logistics. They've done all kinds of shit.
Let me show the viewer, if you're on iTunes or whatever, go to YouTube to see this. I get this text message from Ben. All right, so Joe has— I don't know what his home is like, but the room that he's in is elaborate. When you think of like old money and like the boys club of men smoking cigars, like you're just surrounded by Encyclopedias, there's a picture of Joe and he's sitting there, he's got a, a suit with a high collar. He looks like a hedge fund guy, looks like the president.
And we had an awesome, awesome interview. He, he was like, that was the best podcast I think I've, I've ever done.
Um, he said that?
He said that. His, his right-hand man who's like his media guy said that. I don't know if they're just being nice, but I'll take it either way.
What did he— what was like the one revelation you got from him?
I'll, I'll give you 5 points. I'm just going to read them fast. Number 1, Some people actually just want to save the world. So I am very, very suspicious when people talk about, you know, they want to just really help people, they want to improve society, they want to fix America, all those things. Joe is that guy. He actually is that guy. That is actually what drives him. I went back and read his, like, early blog posts and Quora posts, stuff, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, stuff he wrote when he was in school. He's been saying the same thing the whole time. And that's usually the giveaway is not somebody who's, you know, changing their tune once they make it, but somebody who's saying that before they make it. And, and I think he looks through everything through that lens of like, what are the biggest gaps? And then how do I fill them? When we were on our way out, it was like, oh dude, we've been hanging out all day. Like we hung out, we went there in the morning, which was my hack. We went and did his workout, did a workout with him at 8 AM.
And then we— was he fit?
Yeah, of course, he's super fit. And so we worked out together, we cold plunged together, we got breakfast together, we hung out, then we did the interview. So by the time we do the interview, we were totally like, you know, in high rapport, I guess. And so I'm hanging out and I'm like, dude, I could hang here all day. But I could tell like, I think it's my time to leave now after this thing is done. He's got to go do other shit today. And we're walking out and freaking Elon Musk is walking in. That's what was going on in that moment. So pretty insane.
And all right, what were the other two?
Number two, he's still wrestling with the idea of focus. So one of the things he said I thought was really interesting, he's created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else in America. Let's say I take his claim at face value. And he brought up honestly, he was like, you know, but I'm not sure if that was right. He goes, one of the lessons I learned from Peter Thiel is that you should be really, really careful putting effort into new things almost always it's a better idea to put money into your main compounding thing that's got a lot more room to run. Like there's more area under the curve to kind of like fill of something that's really working than to go take that same unit of effort onto something that's starting from zero. And he's like, honestly, I probably— if I had just done one of those companies, I probably would have built a bigger thing than all 5 combined, or all 6 combined, or whatever it is, which I thought is a pretty interesting thought.
And that makes me feel good to know that people I admire or look up to or who are ahead of me, uh, struggle with the same stuff that everyone else struggles.
I think he was at peace with it because he was like, but at the same time, that would be if I was optimizing just for money and valuation, but that's not what I'm optimizing for. Like, I thought these companies needed to exist, so I built them. I'm glad I did. It's more fun to do multiple things, and those were problems that needed to be solved. So like, I'm glad I did it. But just do the math here for a second. So it's Palantir, now $50 billion company. Market cap-wise. Even if you take Adipar, which I think a $3 billion company, or OpenGov, which he just sold for $1.8 billion, it's like those are, let's say those two together, each one took, you know, 7, 8 years, 10 years to kind of build. Um, let's say, um, average company, let's say it takes 7 years to do, and he, even if he totally wins and he gets to a $3 billion, uh, outcome or $2 billion outcome, if he had just put that same energy into Palantir, like taking Palantir from $50 billion to $53 billion is a hell of a lot easier. And he probably would have taken it to $70 or $80 billion if he had put all of the same entrepreneurial energy into that versus starting these new things. I think he's actually kind of right on the math, but I think he's also right in how he decided to do it. He had an interesting rule, which is like, I only do 6 things. And that was like his definition of focus. He's like, I can only do 6 things. He's like, and he's like, they're not all equal. I have like my main 1 or 2 things like 8VC and starting, you know, 1 company, but He's like, I, I can only do 6. He's like, I think for his, his like team is like general managers or his partners in his company. Like the high-level exec people, like they're also, there's like some number where like they're only allowed to have 3 or they're only allowed to have 6 things on their plate at any given time. And I think 3 was the number for them and 6 was the number for him because he's not, he's not operational as the CEO. By the way, his rule was if you're the CEO, you have one thing and it's your company. That's it.
This is awesome. I'm so— you know, he's only 41.
This guy's a— he's a machine.
So prolific. He's a machine. I'm so excited to listen to that.
Also, by the way, just next level awesome in terms of lifestyle, like baller house, full staff, chef, all the good, all the good shit, all the shit you would want. Like for me as somebody who's like, you know, you do play the money game. It's interesting to see like what does the final level of the money game look like for these people? Like, oh, that's interesting. It's cool to, it's cool to get to sample it.
What do you think was worth it of what he spent on?
He's got a basketball court in his house. Thought that was pretty awesome. He's got a— he likes— he's like, oh, I like gaming, so I got a game— like a gaming room, like a LAN room where he's got like 6 computers. And he's like, yeah, me and my cousins all come here and play or whatever. I think like I've always been a big proponent of like a chef. Like I think it's the— to me it's the number one wealth luxury. Is to have a private chef because of the amount of time it saves, the health benefits for you and your family, and the taste. Like, all three, it's a win-win-win. And so yeah, I thought that was pretty cool too.
And then you got to hang out with Nick Gray. Nick Gray is one of my favorite people on earth, and you got to see his magic, uh, what he does with his parties. That was— it's pretty cool, right?
Yeah. So when we— the end here is, uh, you know, we do all the interviews, we do all the one-on-one meetings, and at the end it's like, dude, there's like a list of 100 people that are interesting in Austin we would want to hang out with, but you know, there's just no time. So we were like, let's just do a small house party. So we did like a small 15-person house party and we asked Nick to organize. So I got to see Nick Gray, the legend, run one of his famous 2-hour cocktail parties. Go buy his book, 2-Hour Cocktail Party. This guy is so— he is such a legend in just his vibe.
It's awesome, right? He makes you feel good.
I just gotta tell you this hilarious story. So he does all the normal Nick Gray things. I walk in, he puts a name tag on my shirt. The name tag is yellow so that after we all do our kind of intro, he's like, we're just chatting. And, you know, like normally you're just kind of chatting, you're mixing and mingling and like everybody, our own social prowess is somewhat limited. Some people are really good at it. Some people feel awkward. You don't know how to exit conversations. Nick makes that easy because he'll be like, great, harmonica. He plays harmonica. He's like, we're gonna do a structured activity. Look at the color of your name tag. Join that group and I want you to talk to those people now. And so he like makes it, he like, he like will stir the pot basically to mix you, mix you up. So he's doing his thing and then he's like, um, at the end he's like, we're trying to leave and he's like, um, he's like, hey, uh, Sean, can you call my phone? I want to do a gag. And I'm like, what do you want to do? He's like, I have a gag, call my phone. And I call his phone and he reaches into his bag and he pulls out this giant like handle of a butcher knife, but it's a phone case and his phone is on the other end of it. And he's like, hello, this is my gag. I thought this was really funny. And I was like, not only was that funny, I've never heard someone say, hey, hold on, I want to do a gag. That is just—
Dude, he's great, right? Nick's a special person and he makes the— he, he makes his parties fun. Did you guys like do the introductions and then he like cuts people off if they talk for more than 10 seconds?
Yeah, he's awesome. We did a thing at the end where I guess he had been just like slinking around the party to like listen for interesting things. So he pulls out his notebook. He's like, gets everyone in a circle. He's like, all right, Sean, you were saying you discovered this amazing hack for your, you know, business. And it was just like, it was so effective. What was that? And he gets you to share the thing. He's like, you mentioned you were doing an art show. Can you tell us about the art show? He had 4 or 5 people just like do a thing. It's definitely like, I feel like I'm in second grade and my teacher's like, it's, you know, put up your bunny ears and like, you know, just everybody quiet now, we're gonna do a structured activity. But honestly, it's such a relief because I hate social gatherings. I don't even leave my house most times. And when I do, it's kind of an exhausting thing. But he's, he's really got this shit down to a science. I kind of love it.
But your takeaway in Austin, it's a pretty special place, isn't it?
Fishing for a compliment? Yeah, sure. It's a very special place.
It's cool. It's like there's, there's, there's a lot of cool people there. And you— I didn't know you this— you hung out with one other person. Hassan, Hassan Minhaj. Dude, I do not like hanging out with him because he is so smart and so funny that I get intimidated being around him. Do you not feel that way?
I had the opposite reaction. I walked away and I was like, dude, Ben, like, that is one of my favorite people on earth to hang out with. Like, if you said, hey, and it was perfect. It was like a breakfast before I caught my flight. I basically missed my flight because I was having so much fun at the breakfast. I was like, fuck it, it's worth it. Like, it was He is so great. And I'll give you the kind of 3 reasons why it stood out to me. Number 1, obviously humor. Like, it's unfair. He's a ringer. Like, hanging out with anybody who's funny is great, but, you know, professional comedian, it's sort of like, you know, he brought a gun to a knife fight.
It's intimidating when you hang out with him, or when I hung out with him, because, like, he just makes little small comments and I'm like, you're just so much— you're so much quicker and funnier than me.
So much quicker, dude. So much quicker.
He's so fast. He's so fast. It's like a JV athlete hanging out with a pro where it's like, I don't even want to play with you. This isn't, this isn't fun. That's how fast he is.
I love seeing it. It was amazing. He's so quick. And then number 2, present. He is so present when you hang out, which is great. Like, not looking at his phone, not thinking about what to do next, not, you know, eyeing the room, fully locked in, fully present, which I thought was really great. And the other thing is, he asked a ton of questions. So we had a different hangout with, we did a breakfast thing with a different billionaire type of guy, nice guy, had a great time. But I shit you not, dude, this guy literally asked one question in a 2.5-hour hangout. And it was not difficult because like I had tons of questions for him. So it was no problem. But it was difficult to sit there and be like, is this person just really just doesn't give a fuck about being here? Like, do they not want to be here? Because they could leave. I don't need to do this if they just don't want to be here.
Here's what I think it is. I think that so when you and I host like MFM meetups, I go there and I'm like, I'm just going to get peppered with questions and I'm going to ask other people questions to be be cordial and everything, but I feel like, you know, there's like a status-like game here. They're here to see me, so I'm going to be answering the questions. And then you go hang out with someone who's above you in status, and it's like, I'm, I'm the one who's the, the mentee in this situation. I'm going to be asking you all the questions. And I think when you're as successful as this person who you went and hung out with, you're just used to being the, the— I don't know, not particularly wise one, but you're the one that's supposed to have a lot more answers. And you have what others are seeking, and so you're used to just being the one who's— I'm going to be an open book, I'm going to answer What do you got? You know what I mean? And that, that, that shift, it's like an alpha shift. It is kind of, it is really uncomfortable, but it's totally understandable.
But I also think, you know, I kind of wish, I almost wish I had said it, but like, I kind of wish people are aware what that makes the other person feel like. It's a good reminder to self of like, never make other people feel that way. I think Hasan was the opposite where he asked so many questions. His cup is not full, right? Like, He's, he's here and he's like, pour some water into me, like, give me some, something to think about, something to learn, something to whatever. And he's asking tons of questions. And I think that's such an attractive trait in people. And it was just a good reminder of that, like, on this trip, I was, you know, got to be in both positions, some, some places where, you know, the status game was sort of shifted one way and others where it was totally shifted the other way. It was a great reminder of what it feels like and how easy it is to just make somebody feel amazing, like, I think Hudson does that, you know, really, really well. I have a couple others. Can I give you two others real quick? Yeah. Do you know this guy, the Peachy Babies guy? No. You ever met this guy? Okay, so he's in Austin. I thought you might have met him. His name's Tyler. So there's this company called Peachy Babies and they sell slime on the internet. Not just a little slime on the internet. They sell a lot of slime on the internet. Tens of millions of dollars worth of slime gets sold from these guys. They got like, if you go to their TikTok, they have 10 million followers on TikTok. And the reason why is because they create awesome content, the content drives sales. It's just like this great engine. So anyways, I was pretty fascinated. I'm talking to this guy and I'm like, he was at the house party. So I was like, what's the story? And he told me a pretty fascinating story. He's like, well, I, he's like, I was, he's like, before doing this, I was a poker player, pro poker player. I was looking to transition out. And he said, before I was a poker player, I was the best Yu-Gi-Oh player in the country. So he goes from the top, like, Yu-Gi-Oh player to one of the top poker players.
What's Yu-Gi-Oh? Is Yu-Gi-Oh like Pokémon?
It's like a Pokémon type thing. And then, then he comes, he meets this girl, and she's telling him about this slime business she used to have, but she shut down. And as he asked some questions, he was like, hmm, that actually sounds kind of promising. What if we revived that? Which I thought was just like a pretty impressive to take a business that somebody else shut down and be like, I don't know, seems like there might be legs there. Let's try it. And they tried it. And they ended up, you know, crushing with it. And the only takeaway I have from this guy was he totally pattern matches to what I've been saying so many times on this podcast, which is that people who have a background as a competitive either gamer, or in some competitive niche, spelling bee, Yu-Gi-Oh, poker, whatever. Those people who know who learn how to win that game, learn how to win at League of Legends, or You know, they're the number one sneaker flipper in California or some shit like that. As soon as they just pick a better game, they're going to win that too. And that really gets me to like something I really want to do. And it's a call to action I have for anybody that's in the audience is I really want to organize some kind of event that pulls together the people that are young and doing those types of things. The mathletes, the, the best Pokémon players, the best League of Legends players, you know, whatever, best Fortnite players. Because it's just a matter of time till they get the spark to shift their game. And I want to do two things. I want to invite other people who have that background. For example, Joe Lonsdale. He was a competitive mathlete. And that's what he was doing, right? Super dork at that age. But like, those types of people are always going to make it, you know, the founder of this company called Traba. He's the spelling bee kid, right? We talked about that on the Pomp episode. As soon as they decide to play a better game, they have a great ability to do, you know, like excellent things. I'm sure some percentage of them never shift games. They kind of stick in that world too long, or they just become a coach in that world. They never really start to apply it to the world of business, but if they did, they would do phenomenal. So I want to organize some event.
What's that channel or the show you like? Something 100?
Physical 100?
Exactly. Yeah. What would be the Unphysical 100?
The Laptop 100.
Yeah. And so what are you going to do? You're going to like host like a—
like, so I need a name and a frame. Name, right? Like, I need a name and a frame for the thing. And then I want somebody to organize it. I'll put up $100 grand to like, pay for all the event stuff. And I, I just really want to— for those people, I want to give them exposure to, hey, here's 20 people who have the same background as you that then shifted their game and now do amazing things in the world. So I want to, I want to have them meet. And then I want to scout that talent and be like, hey, whenever you're ready to go do something new, I'll be your first investor. And so that's what I want to create.
You can get like a, like a cargo short company as a sponsor, or like a wrist guard, uh, company as a final shield.
Yeah, yeah, you make fun of these, these nerds. Watch, Sam, watch, you'll be groveling to them years from now.
I, I, hey, I acknowledge that they're all going to be the, the, the big shots, but I'm still going to tease them. What was the last person?
All right, I'll give you a quick one and then I have a little bit longer one. So quick one is a little lesson. So I was talking to a guy who also is doing, you know, tens of millions this year on TikTok shops. And so they're crushing on TikTok, not a game I play, but it's a very lucrative game for those who cracked it. And I said something in passing. I was like, oh yeah, I saw this TikTok that had this hook, the hook being like, you know, the first 3 seconds of the video. I was like, oh, I thought that was a great hook. And like, I've been talking to this guy for 3 hours. I thought I had said 50 interesting things by then. He didn't make a— he didn't flinch at any of the 49. But on this 50th one, he immediately goes, wait, wait, what was that again? And he takes out his notebook and he writes it down. He's like, and he goes, he's like, did you tell your friend that they should do this? You should definitely tell your friend that they should do this. And I was like, no, I just, I don't know. I just thought it was just a silly TikTok. And he's like, No, no, no, that's not necessarily TikTok. He goes, one hook like that can make your whole company. And it was a great lesson that I actually, I saw 5 times during the trip, which was when you find, when you meet a really interesting or successful person, pay attention to what they pay attention to. So like he leaned into that and, you know, maybe Mohnish would not have leaned into that, but he would've leaned into something else that I said. And if you start to pay attention to what people lean into, teaches you a lot about what matters in their game and in their world and how their brain works. And maybe something to you just looks like, you know, rubbish, but to them it's gold. And so it just was a good reminder of pay attention to what other people pay attention to. Like, if somebody was talking to you, what would they see you whip out your phone to write down or notes that you would want to take?
That's a good question. Well, something related to my current business. But yeah, like, like like, you know, if someone says something about retention or something or how to create a breakthrough amongst a group of people who don't know each other.
Right, right. Or before, for you, it might have been something in writing. Oh, I love the way he phrased that.
It's like, yeah. Or like a really good ad for acquiring newsletter subscribers.
You had a note or a doc that was like you, a swipe file of awesome ways that people phrase things, beautiful writing, little phrases. Most people don't pay attention to those things. They don't collect those. Well, it makes sense that you ended up being a guy who's known for writing and wrote a newsletter that millions of people read, right? Is it kind of like makes sense once you add, add, once you connect the two. And so I just thought that was really, really indicative. Last one, I got to watch Ben Cook. So Ben Levy, my business partner, who is the secret to anything that I'm able to do. Ben's superpower is connecting with people. And I want to just share with you one little thing that he does. So Every time we would go to a meeting, because like, imagine our schedule is basically like we meet with somebody for, let's say, 2 hours. There's like a 10-minute Uber ride before we're going to meet somebody else. And we were just doing that nonstop for 4 days. And, you know, I got to feel like the president because I'd be like, who are we meeting now? I don't even know the schedule. And he'd be like, we're meeting this guy. And he's like, and then he would always have his one thing. And I'm like, because I'd be like, oh, what are we going to talk about? Maybe we tell them about what we're doing with this. But Ben's focus was always, what's the one thing we could connect with them on? And so he was just really good at this. Anytime we would go meet with somebody, Ben would have his like one thing that he would bring up and the person would immediately crack open like, you know, a pistachio shell. And it'd be like all of a sudden they're excited, they're talking and like it would open it up. And Ben probably wouldn't even say anything else for the rest of the meeting. It's like Ben talks less than 10% of the time when we go to these things. But it's the one thing he says, which like cracks the person open.
So what's an example of one thing?
So we will meet with somebody who's known for X, let's say they're a YouTuber with 10 million subscribers. But what Ben knows is that they started this side channel that's just starting and it's getting— it's not that popular yet. But it's about one thing, you know, like their hobby, their interest in this one area. He'll be like, oh, you're really into that, right? And you won't even phrase it as some like profound question. But he'll just ask him, he'll just try to connect with them about the one thing where clearly their passion is, they have some passion around it, but it's not the thing they're famous for. I noticed he would do that over and over again. Oh, you know, we, we, um, we hung out with Joe Gebiet, and he's known because he's the creator of Airbnb. And so we're hanging out, and instead of asking about Airbnb, he would say, um, you're really into like microplastics, right? Like, aren't you like really trying to figure out a way to not have You know, my, what's that about? And then all of a sudden, Joe, who's told the Airbnb story a million times, and every time I was asking about Airbnb, it was like, I'm forcing him to play his greatest hits. All of a sudden he lights up because he's like really into this right now. He's learning things. It's like more of a, more of an area he's really into right now. So he would just find that one thing. And then afterwards he had his one thing too, which was after the meeting, I'm like, okay, where are we going to go eat? Like, that's where my brain goes. Whereas Ben's like, Oh, we should connect him with this one person, or we should send him a link to this, or we should send him that example we have of the thing he said he wanted to do. Or like, oh, you have, you've talked about that. You should send him a note about that thing. And it really, I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm just trying to be useful. And then when we talked to Mohnish, he talked about, you know, he was really good friends with Charlie Munger. He said when Charlie Munger died, I think on his tombstone it is written, or he wanted to have it written, like, you know, Charlie Munger, you know, he tried to be useful. And to me, I'm like, that's what Ben does. He just tries to be useful for people. Like, oh, we can help them with this. We can help this person with this one little thing. He just keeps doing that. And then that's how he builds these amazing connections with people, just by trying to be useful to them in a way that I am so bad at it.
Ben has this other quality to him, which is he's always like mostly happy. I've never seen Ben not like— I've never really seen him in a bad mood, you know, he's always— and so when he asks these things, it's— sometimes he'll ask me that are like pretty private, but because he's always so happy about it, I'm like, ah, yeah, whatever, we can talk. You know, it is a safe space.
He uses a safe space. The last thing that's hilarious that he does is he never turns it off. Like we will be playing in a pickup basketball game and it's like we're going to 11, it's 10-9, it's game point. And he'll be guarding some guy and he'll be like, he'll just be like, so what was revenue last month? Or he'll just be asking him questions like, oh, I heard you, I saw you tweeting about this thing. And the guy's like so thrown off. Like, dude, what now still? And like, it's just like so endearing. He's like, dude, he's just so curious. He just can't turn it off. He's always He never turns it off, even mid-game, which is so funny to me.
I was with Ben at a family's birthday party and he, he was, it was in on mode and I was like, Ben, let's ask this freaking 12-year-old. We were with, we were with a friend who was dating a new woman and she brought her daughter around and I go, Ben, ask the daughter like about school or something. I was like, I don't know, like engage the kid. Don't, I'm not talking about my revenue in front of this new lady. It was so funny. He was like, it was like, so what's churn like? Yeah. Uh, how much money do, how much money do you have?
I'm like, Ben, well, it's not always personal. Like sometimes it's just like, how was Austin? Right? But it's like, dude, now's not the time for the how was Austin conversation. It's like, it's not even that it's always personal questions. It's just that the curiosity, there is no, you go, he was in on mode. There's no off mode. I've never seen him in off mode. I hang out with the guy 24/7. It's amazing. All right.
You had a good trip. I mean, I could actually listen to these stories all day and I'm going to listen to the podcast. I never listen to our podcast. I don't know if you do or you don't.
Or what you do when I'm, when I'm not on it, I'll listen to it. Yeah, I do listen to it.
I listen to yours as well, but if I'm on it, I will never listen to it. I'm incredibly excited about Joe Lonsdale. I know you talked to Tim Ferriss. Uh, I know Tim a little bit, so I'm less excited about that just because I know him already, but I'm excited about, uh, Mohnish. Uh, I'm excited about his and, and Joe Lonsdale. So I'm happy that you got to hang out with them. It seemed pretty good for you, for you personally to be able to experience that.
Yeah. The funny thing is, uh, it's like most things in life, you think the payoff is over here, but actually it's over here. Like I think every time I go into these episodes, I think the payoff is, oh, I'm going to make a great episode. But it's like, by the time I've done the research on these fascinating people, gotten to know them, gotten to hang out with them at their house, like, that was all the value. The episode itself is gravy for me. And I hope they turn out great. And, you know, I think that these ones did. But the reality is like, and I think there's a principle of most things in life, like you have some goal, you have some idea you think is the reason you should do it. But it's like, you know, something along the journey is actually the valuable thing. You just couldn't have known that. You just have to go to go pursue it full force. And then it happened. So hopefully, this episode was me sharing some of the random nuggets along the way. Besides the episodes that you'll get to see when they come out.
All right, that's the plug.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like no doubt. Days off on the road, let's travel, never looking back.