Business Brainstorm: SAT Prep Cartoons, The Onion For Millennial Moms & More
But anyways, this was my Sunday brainstorm. My Sunday brainstorm was, here's 3 cool ideas. 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. Dude, let's do like a life update because frankly, you and I mostly talk to each other. I mean, we spend so much time on this podcast, but don't even like talk that much. I want to know what's going on with you and I'll fill you in on what's going on with me.
I. Did a thing I've never really done before. It's not that groundbreaking. I'm sure you or many people have done this, but I hadn't. And, uh, Friday hit and I just put my phone in a drawer and I didn't touch it till this morning. So I had a no-phone weekend, which was pretty awesome and very unusual for me.
You're not good at that. Like, you're, you're hardcore about your phone. So tell me how that felt.
Uh, it felt like withdrawals from an addiction. Like, I would find my— there was like funny things, and then there was like little moments where I would notice it a lot more, right?
So like grabbing your pants all the time.
I would just keep patting my pocket. Like I would put my kids in their car seat, shut the door, and I'm walking around the car to get to my side. And I instinctively, I'm trying to pat to check my, like, why do I need to check my phone in this 3-second break that I have walking around my car? It's pretty crazy. And there was just like 100 moments like that where I instinctively wanted to go and, you know, just pull to refresh. Basically, I needed to go see a feed. It's like, I need to get my feed. And so, you know, it was nice to do that. I found myself doing randoms. I was I was like humming a lot. I read a lot. I was just like, our kids are kind of picky eaters and we haven't really taught them to eat very well on their own. And so like we feed them every meal basically still. And, and so I'm sitting there and I'm feeding them and normally I've got my phone, they've got their cartoons. We're, we're basically all just cartooned up and I'm just shoving bites of mac and cheese in their mouth. And it really slowed me down. Like time went way slower, but not in a bad way necessarily. It was a lot more peaceful, I would say. Also was a, was a, was part of the, the upside of not having my phone.
Yeah, so the rule was I don't have to be like without the internet or without any entertainment. I didn't go Amish. I was allowed to watch TV and I was allowed to use my laptop if the opportunity presented itself. But on the weekends, I'm pretty much fully in dad mode, so we're not, I'm not really on the computer a whole lot. And even just the physical distance of like the computer that's in your pocket all the time versus, okay, I guess if I want to go on the internet, I'm allowed to, I'm allowed to go on Twitter if I want to, but I just have to go to my computer, open it up, type in the thing. And then like, you know, I can only be on my laptop for so long basically. So that was a good, a very good break and something I'm going to do a lot more of because I don't like the idea of being addicted to something. And I would say by any definition, I'm completely addicted to my phone. If I don't have it, I kind of freak out a little bit. I'm like, I gotta go get my phone. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Whatever we're doing, I gotta go get my phone. I left my phone in the other room. I gotta go get it. And it's pretty crazy that that's the case. Finding myself instinctively reaching into my pockets or like really wondering like, what time is it? Did somebody text me? It's like, who cares? Uh, you know, I don't really need any of this.
Did you follow the news?
Well, that was of course the craziest thing is while I'm not on my phone, my wife is like, oh my God, Trump got shot. I'm like, oh man, this is the one thing that like, the craziest news in the world. Old habits testing my resolve here. And so I did get on my laptop a little bit later and check out what was going on and read all the crazy stuff, but I stayed off my phone.
So that was good. Have you ever heard of NoFap November?
So I like how you just said that as if it's like a scientific phenomenon. Like you were like, have you ever heard of mitosis? It's when the cells split. Like, you just rebranded it. Like, have you ever heard of NonFAP November?
Well, so Like, I think that's a great movement and they like mix it with humor or whatever, but there's like a reason, whatever. And so basically for people who don't know, it's just guys who don't jerk off for November. And I don't, I don't know if the rules are you can't have sex or if it's just masturbation. I don't know what the rules are, but I don't know.
Never paid, never made it past day 2. So couldn't tell you.
Yeah, clearly not into it. We got to have a cute, funny brand for like no phone, uh, weekend, no phone or something like that. You know what I mean?
No, no scroll Sundays.
No scroll Sundays is good, but a lot of my Jewish friends and family, you know, they do no phones from Friday evening to Saturday evening and they all say the same thing. There's like, this is the best. Like, it's, it's, it's wonderful. So we have to, we have to like do a take on that and we'll have to have like a, some type of a cute way to do like Friday to Sunday, no phone.
Right.
Have you seen people who raw dog flights?
Yeah, dude, that is so funny. So explain what it is for people who don't know.
So raw dogging a flight is what Uh, I think it's mostly men.
So men are like, I can't imagine a girl would ever care to do this.
Raw dogging a flight is when it's like when a guy goes out on like a Delta plane and you know how like when you fly, you see the plane going across America and that's all you see. And it's, and it's guys who will just stare at that for the entire time. No music, no phone, no books, no movies. They just raw dog it. And I think it is the funniest thing going on right now. I love raw dogging flights.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's hilarious. I'm big on this though. This like, no, like control your inputs. I think in all facets of life, right? Control the foods that you put in your mouth, control the information you put in your mind, control the people you let in your world, control the amount of, the number of problems you are willing to make your problem. I think that that is probably the most underrated skill you can have as somebody who's trying to lead a good life. Is learning how to control your inputs.
So we're doing like a little bit of life update, and I was going to say that's one of my updates is I am not really reading the news a lot. And I'm honestly like, I, I don't have Twitter on my phone. The news, man, particularly this weekend when a lot of crazy stuff went down, it is exhausting me. And like current events, I find it to be— it wears me out. And, um, uh, I'm just— I'm trying to refer like mostly to, to books when I want like entertainment, as opposed to just scrolling through news. It kills me, dude. It wears you out.
100%. 100%. And I used to get a lot of shit for this. I haven't, I don't watch the news. I haven't, I never have a news app on my phone. I don't follow like news social accounts typically. You know, obviously some news just brute forces its way into your world. That's kind of what happened this weekend with the shooting and stuff like that. But for the most part, I completely abstain from the news. And I used to feel somewhat ashamed of that. Like, kind of ignorant. I just wasn't really interested. It wasn't very hard for me to abstain from it.
But I called you out on that one time when we were just hanging out off air. I was like, you're not a good citizen. And now I've done a 180. I'm like, no, it's not important. What's going on, like in most cases, isn't important.
Well, my trainer gave me a great perspective on it. He was like, it was one of the years when the election was going on, or maybe it was like the state elections or some shit like that. And everybody was talking about voting and everybody was talking about, it was kind of getting heated as politics tends to do. And he just said something in passing. He was just like, he's like, I don't worry about the government. I'm trying to govern myself. I've found that I can't even govern myself. What am I worried about what's going on across the country in Washington, DC? I can't govern myself yet. And so he's like, I focus on that. And he's like, if we all did that, society would be actually in a much better place if we all learned to govern ourselves a little bit better. And so he, when he was talking about the current election cycle, somebody was criticizing, they're like, oh, well, you know, you're not doing your, your kind of your civic duty. He's like, he's like, I don't know about, he's like, I don't know what you think your civic duty is. He's like, I'm in the grocery store. I'm helping the old lady. I'm over here. I'm talking to a friend. I see a kid doing something. I give him a compliment. You know, like there are many ways that you could be a good member of society and just being like fully up to date on the news and having an opinion on everything or like, you know, downloading today's big problem is not necessarily the only way to do it. I kind of like that of like govern yourself first, then be like a positive influence in your grocery store, in the place around you. That seems like a much better way to actually have an effect than just, you know, siphoning off CNN all day. What else you got in the life update corner? Anything else good?
For me, so I'm currently in Connecticut where I'm staying for a little while. I go to the beach every morning and I go to the beach most evenings at 8:30 after the baby's gone to sleep. I'm 9 months into—
Are you walking or what are you doing on the beach?
Dude, I have a scooter, like an electric scooter. It has an odometer.
I have to— Sand? What do you mean?
No, like I ride from my house to the beach a mile away. I have 2,000 miles on this scooter. I drive it everywhere. There are sometimes I'll go 2 weeks without driving a car. I just drive a scooter everywhere. I'm 9 months into having a kid. It's the best. I'm so freaking happy. Like it's just, I genuinely feel like a happier human being. And I had a little mini, not midlife crisis, but I've been asking myself like, what's the point of like this or that? Like I, you ask yourself, I've asked myself about all types of things. Like, why do I care about this? Why am I doing this? Being more intentional. And I think it's because I'm so happy. Like when you get happy and you have less of a chip on your shoulder, that's kind of a weird feeling if you've spent years like grinding and things like that.
Oh, you're saying you're asking the question because you're happy.
Yeah, because I'm happy. I'm like, why am I doing this or that? Like, you know what I mean? You start, questioning things. So I'm really happy, uh, right now. So that's kind of like the biggest update from me.
I'm with you. I got, I got two things. I saw a great Seinfeld clip the other day and it said, uh, it was Seinfeld talking and he goes, you know why I believe in God? And the guy goes, why? He goes, God made it so that people who don't have kids don't, don't know what they're missing. And that's the nicest thing they could ever do for somebody. And I thought, oh wow, that's a really like powerful way of putting it. Cause I'm the same way. Uh, like I just, my, my cup feels incredibly full. Just because of what's going on in my house, regardless of really anything else, which not to get too sentimental, but it's pretty awesome. And for everybody who's out there on the fence or wants to wait or whatever, it really is amazing. And it is a hard to describe phenomenon how good it feels to just, especially like your kid's pretty young, right? She's only what, less than a year old. Once they're like 2, 3, 4 and you can play with them, it is like such a golden period of time. I do have a life story here, a life, life, little life hack. What's that? So we go to a birthday party, kid's birthday party. And, you know, there's a bunch of 3 and 4-year-olds running around and it's at a park and there's a, it's like a park with like a splash area where there's like water coming out of the ground. And we show up and I noticed something. I noticed that there's like all the parents are standing on one side, kind of like standing in the heat, sweating, trying to get shade, just kind of like, you know, kid runs up, needs a drink of water, they give him water and then the kid runs back and plays. And the, and the parents are all making sort of awkward small talk with each other. And you can just see the, like, they're looking at the watch, they're ready to get out of there. It's like, okay, we'll be here for an hour, then we gotta go do the next thing. And so my kids run in and I'm like, I just see like, while we're walking up to the party, I see like a fork in the road. It's like I can take the right path and I can go hang out with these parents, or I could just go run around with my shirt off in the splash pad.
And so Wait, was this during NoFap?
I chose the road less traveled and I went down to the splash pad and I had so much fun and I just played with my kids. I'm up in the playground, we're, we're going to the splash pad, we're playing tag, we're doing like water, like kind of like water fight. And I just have a blast. 2 hours go by, I look over, all the other parents are still just sweating and waiting. And what I realized was like the, the great parenting hack, 'cause before I had a kid, I did read a couple of books about like, you know, what to expecting when she's expecting or whatever, like, you know, how to I wanna be a dad, I wanna be good at something. I'll read a couple books and see if there's any good information in there. I now have a book that I'll write, which has one line in it, which is, don't worry about being a dad, just be a kid. And the best part about kids is that they keep you, they keep you fresh, they keep you playing, they keep you, you have to act like you're astonished and things are fascinating to get them excited about things. And actually it kind of makes you excited and it makes you more curious cuz you're doing that for them. But the other part of it is the easiest way to be a parent is to literally just play with your kid 80 to 90% of the time. And sure, 10% of the time you snap back into adult mode and you make sure that the train doesn't go completely off the rails. But I found that I have so much more fun as a dad if I just lean in and just like completely play with them all day. And I don't know why more parents don't do this. Like I'm in gymnastics class, I'm doing like literally cartwheels. I'm on the trampoline. Like I'm doing all the things with them. 'Cause if I have to be there anyways, I might as well have a good time. That's contagious for them. They have a better time. I'm in a better mood, which makes me more patient. You know, like it's a complete life hack.
Dude, I can just see you like bouncing around gymnastics and break some kid's fucking femur because you sit on it.
Well, definitely not everything is built for me. So, you know, there's definitely been some spills, but yeah, it was great. Like, yeah, I woke up yesterday. I literally woke up. We go to a coffee shop, go to a, hit up a donut shop, go to soccer class. I'm playing soccer in the soccer class. And then after soccer, we just wanted to play some more. So we're playing and now 4 other kids just joined me and it's me, my kids, and 4 other random kids that are all just like playing soccer afterwards. Then we go to the pool and we're in the pool for 3 hours and we come home. Then we're playing Smash Kart, which is this like version of Mario Kart that my kids are able to play because they're like toddlers. We're playing that. Then we eat a little bit of dinner. We read some books and then we go to bed. And it was like, I was just a kid for the whole day and therefore I had a great day.
Are you gonna have more? You've got 3. How many more would you want to do?
No, my cup runneth over. I'm full. I'm, I am completely happy as is. I don't, I don't really feel the need to have any more kids.
I've got Sarah bought into 3, but in my head I'm like, yeah, you know, like, but if we're, if we're gonna go 3, like 5 would be interesting, right? Like, you know what I mean? I, I definitely am currently in the more is better at camp. But like, I don't have to push it out, so it's easy for me to say, which is, uh, but no, man, being a dad, it's awesome. It has completely changed things. I tweeted this out before we had kids, like years ago, and I was like, because I had a, I had a bunch of friends who were, were doing psychedelics because they felt lost, and some of them kind of went over the edge where they took too many, and like they started acting a little weird where I'd be like, hey, are you okay? And I just think that having a child kind of filled that void for me where I didn't feel like I needed to do psychedelics because I didn't have a lack of meaning. And so it's been, it's been really, it just makes me happy. But you've got a lot of interesting topics here.
I got a lot of interesting stuff. Okay. So I have 3 ideas that I want to, want to pitch you and I'm going to basically tell you about a cool business and then I'm going to tell you an idea I think somebody could start that's similar to that cool business. So the first one is Sketchy. Have you ever seen sketchy.com? It is kind of an incredible business idea. I, I'm, I'm sort of jealous I didn't start this business. So if you go to sketchy.com, what do you see?
All right. Learning made unforgettable. Sketchy turns what you need to know into creative visual stories you'll remember forever. Oh, this is awesome.
Right. Basically, it's learn to take the MCATs or the, the medical board exams with cartoons and drawings instead of like boring textbooks. And what they did was they created a Kaplan or like a G, you know, what are the big like test prep Princeton Review? They created a test prep type of business, but they did two things. One, they focused on a specific niche. So basically med students. So before you get into medical school, you wanna take the MCATs or after you're in med school, you're going through your medical classes and then eventually the boards. And second, the twist was they were like, cool, but some people will prefer to learn in a way that's way more visual and way more sort of like visual friendly, you know, easy to remember rather than kind of traditional learning. And I love this because A, that's how I like to learn. That sounds more fun, sounds more interesting. And there's actually like a bunch of science around why we learn better through visuals. So the same way we talked about last, last time about jingles, how How audio, like a catchy earworm, is a much better way to remember something.
So it's basically storytelling and cartoons to teach you things specifically for, um, doctors, uh, for test prep. And do they make all of the cartoons and you pay a monthly fee?
Yep. That's exactly right.
Got it.
All right. And so this business, um, I saw this, I was like, wow, this is a great idea. I'm so— there's also just like a cool business. It's like, it's like a cool thing to do with your life. It's kind of like Khan Academy. When the guy's like, yeah, actually, like, I just kind of want to make like a course for every, everything on the internet for free. And it's just me kind of talking and writing things out and trying to explain things. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm a pretty good explainer. And that's how he's, you know, started just explaining things to his own nephews or whatever. And then he published on the internet and people liked it. And so I really like this business because I think it has like a cool mission. I think it's a cool business model. And I think that, um, it's a, it's a fun product that I'm glad exists.
And what's the business model? Because, uh, it looks like educators use that. So do they, how's it, how's it work? Do they work with schools?
I'm sure they do a bunch of things. My, my thinking is that this is, um, it's very simple. It's your student who wants to pass an exam. That's the, the, the, the bleeding neck problem, right? That's the, the highest urgency problem. And so they're going to, is bleeding. Yeah, probably can't say that anymore.
Huh? Is bleeding, uh, is bleeding neck problem your friend?
Uh, it used to be hair on fire. That's what Dave McClure said. And then somebody said bleeding neck.
I like that too. Oh my God. All right.
So I think that's the thing. Somebody wants to pass a test. They need a, they need help studying for it. They see this and they're like, oh, this seems like more fun to, to do than the other way. And you pay, you know, something like $25 to $50 a month for this and you sign up for a 6, 12, or 24 month plan. And then you go through it and you're like, wow, that was actually a really useful way to study., and now the next test happens. Maybe it's your, your, um, your board exam, or maybe it's just a really hard course in med school. And so they have like kind of the, the supplemental thing for anybody on their like med school journey.
Wow. And it, uh, the recent, the, the only article I could find about 'em is in 2020 where it says that they were doing, I think, $8 million in revenue. And then did they also raise $30 million?
Yeah, they raised $30 million. It says on their website that 500,000 students have used their thing. That's a lot. That's a big number. But I think a business like this is set to dominate a niche. And I think that test prep is a proven business model. This takes a 20% twist on it, which is the visual cartoon thing. And by the way, what an amazing name, Sketchy.com. I think that's such an awesome name for a business like this. I think this is a great business. You know, congrats to the people who did this. I think this is really cool. So now, Um, what's the idea? So, so I tried to convince, do you remember Dylan and Henry? The guys behind, um, Clips or Smart Nonsense and Clips. These basically, if you don't know them, they're, they're young guys. We met them because they came to our house and built out our, our podcast studio. They were fans of the podcast when they were in college. And then what they started doing was they, um, they had their own podcast and they would cut clips and they would cut clips for our podcast. Then they started cutting clips for All In. So right when All In blew up, they were the ones doing the animated clips for them. And so they got popular there. Then they created an agency called Clipt where you can hire like a video editor from them. Like a video editor in the Philippines is a really good animator who can for a monthly fee be your animator. And that business is doing well. So I got to kind of like low 7 figures of annual revenue. And then they started using their own animators to do their own YouTube content and they both blew up on YouTube. And so like Henry has like, I don't know, Millions of subscribers now on YouTube and he'll just do like really short form animated videos.
His shorts are really good. Like I've never seen someone take shorts that seriously. So for the listener, it's basically him talking and he's clearly, you got a green screen behind him because you see all these weird, interesting animations pop up to interact with him and what he's saying. It's awesome.
And so those guys are awesome. I really see a lot of myself in them. I don't know how old they are. I think they're like 25. Ish years old, and they remind me so much of how I was when I was 24, 25, 26. And so I really like these guys and I think they do a bunch of dumb shit, by the way, but that's okay. I did so much more dumb shit when I was their age. They're way ahead of where I was.
Like allegedly showing up to a meeting without a shirt on.
Yeah, they should. Well, you can tell that story. That's a good story.
I don't remember if it was them, but that seems like something in the wheelhouse for them.
For their genre. The story is we got them a contract with HubSpot to do clips for us and other things. And I guess they showed up to one of the video calls without a shirt on, which is cool by me. Actually, you know, common practice where I'm from, but I guess didn't fly so well in the Fortune 500. So maybe they lost that contract. I don't know exactly if that was the reason or maybe a contributing factor to the—
They get a pass because they're like 21 and Uh, they, they've redeemed themselves. So I don't, I think they're doing good.
I don't want to shit on them. They're doing great. Um, and, and so I, I went to them, I was like, guys, you should make this, but for the SATs. So do this for the SATs or for, for APs or IB exams, start wherever you want to start. But I was like, this is a great idea. And there's no one on earth better built to do this than you two because of their skillset. They're amazing storytellers. They are really good with animated cartoons and stuff. I don't know if you've seen their newsletter, but they have like an oatmeal style newsletter. It's great. They created this like character and they tell great stories through it. I'm like, dude, just do that. But instead of doing it for free for random subjects on the internet, charge for it and do it for something that people are willing to pay for, which is test prep. Like people need to pass this test and move on to the next phase of their life.
Why would they not do that? That sounds so much better than, I mean, I was in the newsletter business. Newsletter business is hard. This sounds way better.
And I tried to tell 'em, I was like, guys, that's, oh, that's, if that's okay or good, this is what great would look like in the same genre, like the same work you're doing, just applied in a different way. And they were like, we agree with you. Uh, but we just don't want to do it. We were going to have more fun doing this other stuff. Like, we don't know what, but maybe these other 3 ideas. And I was like, hey, honestly, more power to you. Like, you know, that, that's actually cool. I support you guys in that. But now I can give the idea away for free out here, which is like, I wrote them a business plan. I wrote them like a Google Doc and I was like, Here's how I would do it. Here's how we'll go to market. Here's the, here's that, how we'll charge for it. I'll fund it. Like, just do this, guys. This is like, this is how you disrupt a Kaplan or a Princeton Review is you take a, you take your black belt that they have in social media content. Like they are top 1% level content creators, but instead of competing for free views in the, in the free market of social media, apply it in this place that's like really backwards and stodgy and hasn't changed in 30 years, which is test prep for the SATs or test prep for the GMATs or whatever. And so I think somebody could still go do this. I think somebody could take Sketchy and do it in another niche. You could do it in whatever it is, dentistry, nursing, whatever. And I'm sure Sketchy will try to do some of those things. It doesn't matter. I think this pie is big enough. And I think if you just take the principles of what they did, Um, I think you could have a lot of success with it. So that's idea number 1. What do you think of that idea?
What was Sketchy? So that's actually, uh, one of the better ones that we've talked about, but Sketchy wasn't always Sketchy. What were they doing before? Because they launched in 2013, or did it take 7 years to get to $7 million in revenue?
Because that's a pretty— I don't know. I don't know their full backstory yet. And then I see, of course, Chernin Group is the one who put $30 million into them. I'm like, goddamn, everything I find that I'm like, ooh, This is cool. This is interesting. I'm ahead of the curve. It's like, oh, like, you know, yeah, Chernin funded us, you know, a year ago, right? Like we were, we did an episode on the guy, the gardening guy at Epic Gardening. And I'm like, dude, this guy can be big. Actually, this could be really huge. I'm trying to like tell people and they're like, what gardening? I've never heard of that. And I'm like, I go to him. I'm like, hey dude, I will write you a big check. Like, let me fund you. I really believe in you. He's like, we're all good on funding. Chernin gave me like, I don't know, whatever, $20 million bucks like a year ago. And it's like, oh damn. Wow. How are they ahead of me on all of these?
I'm gonna give this a 9 outta 10. I think this is great. I think this is awesome. All right. I think this is a— Sketchy's a great one. Now the next one, Babylon Bee.
Yes.
Have you lived under a rock a little bit?
I'm not saying this is new, but I don't think for most people they really appreciate this. So if you haven't seen this, it's a satirical news site. So it's like The Onion, but it's just like a variation of The Onion. They have been around for a little while, but they just seem to be getting more and more popular. And I think a big part of it is that Elon retweets them a lot. And so if you're on Twitter, you see them because A, they put out good content, but B, they had like a turbo boost from the most popular guy on Twitter. And so I just, I've seen this and I'm like, wow, this business model is really interesting to me. It's a media company, but it's got such a different approach, right? So the way a media company grows is you make content that's worth spreading. And so there's a tension there for most companies because you need to write what's going on. You want to be trusted, but then you kind of need to clickbait the shit out of everything to get people to click and come to your site. And so you're constantly in this, like, too much clickbait, I kind of lose trust, too much just trust and factuality, too much dryness, nobody clicks my thing, nobody shares this, nobody reacts to it, nobody gets outraged and reposts it and says, this is bullshit. And then that's what gets people to share. So you kind of want to outrage people or you want to get them to share something, but then you don't want to be overly sensationalist. So they always have this tension.
And by the way, so I ran a company that was a media company that made money on advertising, and I hated that feeling that you're describing. I thought email would solve it, a newsletter instead of a website, which it did.
It actually helped solve the news that comes to you.
Yeah, it helped. And then, but I was still mad at that, that that existed. So I thought subscriptions will solve that. So we launched a subscription thing that within year one was doing like $5 million in revenue. Still doesn't solve it. You still gotta do the same game.
A newsletter monetizes so much better than a, just a general news website. So like, you know, you could have a million subscriber newsletter and that business should be doing $5 to $10 million a year. I would say broad strokes, a million subscribers should get you, you know, $5 million plus in revenue. If you do a news website and you get a million visitors a month, That ain't shit. That ain't shit. You might not be doing anything. So like, you know, the Babylon Bee or whatever, the Babylon Bee, these guys are, they'll do 25 million plus visits to their site. The biggest newsletters in the world don't have 25 million subscribers, right? So it's, or readers. So it's a, it's a different game. It's a volume game when you're trying to get the, you're trying to make a media destination versus a newsletter. Anyways, I guess like the, the, the thing I'm trying to say is an underrated part of these media sites is this tension, this inherent tension between trust and viral kind of like spreadability. And so the beautiful thing about this category where you go and you try to be The Onion, you do fake news as a service, you do, you know, satire is it doesn't need to be factually correct. So you only have to win on that one dimension, which is shareability. And in this case, you'll share, people will share because it's funny and it'll share because it strikes a chord with people. And that's why this has spread so quickly. And so The backstory of this is I think it started by one guy and then he kind of like sold it to the two writers of it.
Well, you're missing a big part here, which is so The Onion, which is a satire website, although most satirical websites are left-leaning. This one is right-leaning. I think also has a Christian component to it a little bit. Yeah. So whereas many of these things tend to be left of center, this is right of center.
Exactly. So. That's where I'm going to get to with the opportunity. So the guy who started, he calls himself a Christian entrepreneur, right? And he started off doing Christian cartoons and then it became, now the guys who write it, it's more just about, it leans more conservative than it does the other way. But I think there's a lot more, like the world is not just liberal and conservative. There's like 100 other variations and segments of the market that could be served with this same category. So I'll give you two that I think somebody should go do. So I think Somebody could go do the far more right-wing version of this. So I think that this, like, super right. So, so these guys I think are conservative, but they're still kind of like more centrist than they are full right. But like, if you go read like Dredge or InfoWars, like there's a whole appetite in the world for like really, really far, Dredge, really far right-wing stuff. So I think you could go do that. But here's, here's another angle altogether. It's not political at all, which is just do The Onion, but only for, uh, fake news articles that appeal to just like the millennial mom. And because like, you know, the millennial mom follows a certain set of news subjects. So, um, you know, you, maybe it's a little bit less on sports, but maybe they watch The Bachelor, so they understand The Bachelor memes. Maybe it's that they, uh, are following the Taylor Swift stuff. Maybe it's that they're follow— whatever, whatever topics are of interest, do The Onion for that category. 'Cause it's a very valuable category. And by the way, this might exist already. I have no idea. I don't know. I don't even know how you search for this, but I think that that would be a very successful version of The Onion. That's not, or of the Babylon Bee, which is not political at all, but it's the same thing. It's poking fun at a certain set of popular subjects, but make those popular subjects a different customer than the one who reads The Onion or the one who reads the Babylon Bee.
Here's why I know that that's, uh, that that's true about the millennial mom. So we had this couple over that have a 1-year-old over to our house. And the kid started crying. And so I go to grab a bunch of toys to like entertain him and like show him off. I'm like, oh, I bet you haven't seen this thing. And I start like using this puppet or whatever. And the mom is like, yeah, we have this toy. We have that toy. In fact, all of the toys that you have, we have the exact same ones. And I'm like, well, you guys just clearly follow like the same, like 3 people on Instagram and you read the same blogs because you have bought all of the same stuff. And like, I couldn't impress this kid. I'm shocked at how the millennial mother Like there's probably like 6 buckets and it's like just a different persona for each thing. But for each bucket, it's like, just buy all of this stuff, read all of this stuff. It's so interesting. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly. But I think every segment's that way, right? I think there's a Joe Rogan bro version of that where it's like, oh, let me guess your favorite podcast, Rogan, Huberman, right? Let me guess, you cold plunge. Let me guess, you do this. Let me guess. And you could kind of predict their life if you know 1 or 2 things about them. And there's, I don't know, a giant cluster of people that will fit that description. Not everybody, of course, but there's a giant cluster of people. That's kind of what you need when you're doing media is you need a giant cluster of people who kind of have a taste match. And so I think you take that business model, apply it to a new segment. And again, this might already exist. It doesn't really matter. They, you don't have to be the first. You just have to be successful at it, which means just do a good job at it. And I think the way to start this, by the way, would just be Instagram. You just make an Instagram account. You don't even need a website. And just make an Instagram account that's doing these kind of like funny news things. Like there's a version of this in sports that I follow where they just post like funny sports, like fake sports headlines that make fun of the NBA. And I think that can be done so many times over. And I think it's probably one of the easiest ways to build a media business.
You know, what's interesting is the guy who started the Babylon, Babylon Bee, you said he sold it, his website, his personal website, it's called adam4d.com. It's all dedicated to webcomics. It's just a webcomic website, which is intriguing because that's similar to what, what's his name, Dylan and Henry do. Yeah. Does, is, who owns Babylon Bee now?
I think it's those Seth and Seth and Dan. There's like these, the, I think the main writers now. It says in 2018, he sold it to them. He kept a stake until 2023 when he sold the remaining stake to the to the Dillon brothers.
Do you know who owns The Onion?
The guy who started Twilio. So instead of like rich billionaires, you know, they like to— Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. One of those Facebook guys bought, I forget, some other one. You know, Marc Benioff, I think, bought Time. Jeff Larson, I think his name is, he bought The Onion, which is actually like an interesting purchase.
Yeah, I think that's a great idea, by the way. That's, that's what I like my billionaires doing. Right? Do, do interesting things. Uh, go buy The Onion, make sure The Onion doesn't die. 'Cause I think The Onion was kind of dying, right? He like is trying to save it. He's trying to like reverse it out of like pretty much bankruptcy.
Yeah. So The Onion has been around, I think since 1988. So it's been around forever and it's just like, it's a shit business to, to have to run for a little while, particularly in the last like 8 years where digital media has just been crap. Uh, but yeah, it's hard. It's a hard business. 'Cause also when you think about what's advertising or what's the media business, it's advertising. Who's going to want to advertise on an article that's fake? Do you know what I mean?
Like, maybe, I don't know. Like, I think that if you could curate the right high value audience and they trust your voice to talk about a subject, it's kind of like comedians, right? Why are, why do people sponsor comedy podcasts? It's like, dude, these guys are vulgar. They're just saying random shit. This is not like smart information. This is whatever, but it's They have a trusted audience. The audience trusts them. And so when they do the ad read, people dig it. Um, the people trust them because they've, you know, they've kept it real on all these other subjects. So I think you could do it there. And I think there's not that big of a gap between, you know, a comedy, you know, brand and a comedy podcast, for example.
Yeah. I think the difference is that a lot of people think that the Babylon Bee and stuff like that, I think they think they're real and they share them as if it's real. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like that's actually a massive issue. Let's do the last one. Toxic tampons.
Yes. So I saw this tweet about a TikTok that went viral. So there was a TikTok of a woman walking through kind of like a store and she's, she's in the aisle, the tampon aisle. And she's talking about, you see all the big brands, you see Tampax, you see whatever. And 5 million people saw this video because Berkeley released a paper basically saying Hey, the popular tampons all have like toxic metals, arsenic, and other contaminants in them. And so that's concerning. And so there's like a moment here where I think, I don't know who is the leading player, who's doing native deodorant for tampons, but whoever they're, whoever that is, they're in a good position. And whoever, if nobody's doing it, somebody should go do that. Or even if somebody's doing it, I still think it's a good idea, which is it seems like there's a general trend of people being concerned about gut health, about microplastics, about Is your water clean or is there like, you know, contaminants and heavy metals in your water? Well, this seems like another category that's, I think, going to get transformed, right? I think people are not going to— if you can use the fear and uncertainty and doubt around the safety of tampons, I think you could build a new kind of like alternative clean brand around it.
What I'm trying to prevent here is a bunch of dudes talking about shit where like every woman's listening and they're like, Yeah, we know we use these 8 brands. Do you know what I mean? So I actually, I have no idea.
Could very well be. And I would love to be educated. Feel free to DM me.
I'll tell you what, in my home, I only see the popular stuff.
Yeah. And in general, like, I don't know how many $100 million companies, uh, $100 million a year revenue businesses are there that are doing this. There will be, trust me, there will be one, there will be two, there will be three that are in this category, like the, the current incumbents will either adapt or be replaced by alternatives that are going to, um, that are going to play on these health concerns. This is not going to go nowhere, right? Look at your detergents, look at your soaps, look at your deodorants. This has happened in pretty much every other category. They're going to do it here. And this is a great product because high margin, repeat purchase. And, you know, like the other thing is that it's usually women's products tend to be underserved compared to the ideas that most guys have around what businesses that they'll go start. And so you kind of can compete in a less saturated field than, you know, making to-do list apps or whatever, whatever, like the average, whatever the average bro idea will be.
Yeah. And what's interesting is that with a lot of these brands, like they'll be like, I need to come up with some innovative new thing. And our friend Moise, when he was selling Native deodorant, the buyer of the company was like, well, how are you going to expand? He's like, Well, can you write the word native on some all-natural shampoo? And they're like, yeah. He goes, that's how you're going to expand.
Do you have the, do you guys have a printer to do that? Would you guys be able to type this? If I give you the font, could you type it on a shampoo bottle?
Yeah.
All right. Sweet. We should be good then.
Yeah. And so with a lot of these brands, you don't really need like a significantly more innovative thing other than you have to be able to make it clean enough that you can accurately describe it as as a better for you alternative, but it doesn't need to be a significant thing. Uh, and it's not like Native Deodorant was original. There was plenty of people selling it. They just weren't savvy go-getter entrepreneurs. They were like hippies, you know, who were selling it on Etsy. Uh, and in fact, do it. Let's do this. Go to Etsy and look up tampons. Let's just see what's available.
I like how you're making me do it. So I get targeted for these ads. Um, all natural. There we go. I'm getting some interesting results that are not exactly what I'm looking for.
Is it all natural tampon?
Really? Like a cup, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Not, not that natural. I don't know what I found, but we could take this out. So, so I find this one, right? The Honey Pot Company, 100% organic, regular tampons, unscented organic cotton with bioplastic applicator, no chlorine, no pesticides, no fragrance. I'm like, oh, great. In. In. Review. First review. A very good coffee. Recommend it. What the hell's going on here? All right. Looks like we still got some work to do with this idea.
Wait, wait, wait. Go back to that. What's going on with them? Why is that like that?
I think it must be that the shop has other products in it, and that's for the shop. It's like reviews from the shop, not the product. Yeah. Okay. The shop has herbal teas and other things too.
A tampon coffee company.
Yeah. But anyway, this was my Sunday brainstorm. My Sunday brainstorm were, was here's 3 cool ideas. Sketchy, which is doing visual learning in the medical space. The Babylon Bee, which has taken off as a satire news website for kind of conservative political news. And then this TikTok that was going viral, obviously tapped into some concerns people have resonated with the public around the toxicity and the metals and the arsenic that's in, um, in the popular tampon brands. And for each, I think you could just take a 20% remix and do it. I think for Sketchy, you could just, I agree, you could use Sketchy for another, another test, another customer segment. Maybe it's AP students or it's SAT takers or it's some obscure test. Who knows? Um, I think you could do it for, I think that the Babylon Bee, I think could be done for other customer groups, other customer segments, like the millennial mom is the one I would go for. And third would be this, uh, dude native deodorant for tampons. And, and maybe there's somebody doing it, but this is my Sunday brainstorm of 3 ideas that, uh, maybe they're not great ideas, but they'll at least get the wheels turning in your brain. That's kind of the promise I have here.
I think this is, we got to keep your phone away from you for, from other weekends. This is good stuff.
Yeah, exactly. This is what happens when I don't have my phone.
I want to talk about one more thing. I don't want MFM to like talk about politics because I don't think that that's fun. And I think this is like a little bit of an escape.
I was going to start the podcast with You know, Sam and I have both sold newsletter businesses, so we feel pretty qualified to chime in here on what's going on in our country. And that's how every like business and tech podcast is. They're just like, you know, as a venture capitalist where I've spent my career, you know, investing in early stage tech companies, I just feel pretty qualified to talk to you about what's going on in the Supreme Court right now.
It's maddening, man. It's, that's maddening. And I don't want to become that. But I saw that you're into Teddy Roosevelt.
Well, I went down this rabbit hole, right? So I'm like, the crazy Trump stuff happens and I'm like, wow, that's crazy. He got shot. I'm like, I was like, I wonder how many presidents have been shot at.
So I can tell you, wait, let me, and let me, don't answer that question. Don't answer that question. But let me tell you something, why I'm happy. I have read not only the biographies of all of those presidents. But also multiple books on each assassination. And one of my, and one of my, so this is why I'm happy that you're able to talk about this.
I've walked into your wheelhouse. I've stumbled into your wheelhouse.
Welcome home, Sean. Wait, one of the reasons, and here's, this is a trivia question that I would ask people all the time. How many presidents, and name them, who have been assassinated? Virtually no one gets the second two. The first two are easy.
So, okay. Easy, easy assassinations that I can remember. Let's say. Lincoln, Kennedy, right? Those are, those are easy.
Yeah.
Um, let's see, what are the hard ones? Um, McKinley, cuz he was, he died right before Roosevelt. So that was, uh, I think Roosevelt was the VP, right? Is that, is that how that happened? He became president?
I don't remember exactly, but it, they're in the same ballpark. I don't know if Roosevelt was the VP, but he could have been.
Okay. So we'll leave it there. He could have been. Um, and then, oh, you're right, by the way, I'm looking it up.
You're, you're ex— yes.
Good job. The last one I wouldn't have got, but I see it here in the notes, is, uh, Garfield, Andrew Garfield. I, I wouldn't have got that one.
And, and, and both of those guys, when they got shot, it was very, it was a very solvable problem. So basically up until like the 1910s or 1920s, we didn't really believe, or we didn't know that germs were a thing. And most of these guys, when they got shot, they got shot and then you go digging around and with a dirty surgeon's hand or a dirty instrument and they get infections and that's how they died.
Exactly. So, so like McKinley died, like, I don't know, 8 days later of gangrene. Caused by the wounds, not from like the bullet itself, you know, hitting him in the heart or something.
Garfield died like 6 weeks later.
So I was pretty mind blown. So basically I want to know how many presidents have been shot at, either hit or missed, but a gunshot has been fired at them. Do you know the number for this?
I think it's 7 or 8 or 9, like right, right there.
13.
Oh my God.
And there's only been 40, what, 6 presidents, something like that. So it's basically a 10%. More than that. 25%. 25% chance of being shot at. If you're a president, dangerous, dangerous job. Um, and then of those, you know, 4 have died. The crazy one that I, uh, so there's actually 2 that I found pretty interesting. So I tweeted about one of them. I didn't talk about the other one. Can I tell you about the 2 that I found that were pretty, pretty interesting? This is, this is me, I guess, beginner level on Wikipedia.
So I know, you know, it was Roosevelt. What's the other one?
Andrew Jackson. Jackson. Yes. The Jackson one is crazy. So here's my understanding. Fill in the gaps for me. So The story is Jackson is going to a funeral. He, and he's 67 years old. He walks with a cane. He's a kind of an old guy and he's not very popular. He's, he's walking, he's at the funeral, he's walking into the funeral or whatever. And a guy approaches him with a pistol and the guy shoots at him. The gun goes off, but the bullet doesn't come out. It's a misfire. So the powder explodes, but the bullet doesn't, doesn't leave the gun. And Jackson becomes angry, charges at him with his cane, swinging at him with the cane, trying to beat him up with his cane.
He almost beat him to death.
He almost beats him to death. Well, there's conflicting reports. One is he beat him up and the other one's he misses. And so I don't know which one's true. The other, and then the guy takes out a second pistol, does the same thing, shoots him with a second pistol, also misfires. Other politicians who are there jump on him, kind of tackle the guy. And they then take both of the guns and they're like, man, that we got lucky that this guy, or maybe he didn't really mean to do it. Are these fake guns? What happened? We heard the gun fire, but no, no bullet hit. Um, and so then they shoot the gun again and the bullet comes out and both guns were actually functioning. And they basically said that the odds of both pistols misfiring and jamming like this was like 1 in 150,000. That's what they estimated.
That's insane.
Like the odds of that happening are, are so low. Um, that's pretty crazy, huh?
And what's here, here's what's even crazier is when, uh, up until probably the 1960s after JFK, Secret Service wasn't really much of a thing. So the Secret Service wasn't a thing. I don't think it was a thing when Garfield got shot, which I think was that 1900 even or so, maybe late 1800s. Uh, when JFK got shot, uh, there was only like 150 service, Secret Service agents. It was not big and the budget was tiny and they were overworked and tired all the time. And when Andrew Garfield got shot, I, you know, I have to look at the date. 1881. 1881. Lincoln was shot 20 years prior. You could still, after Lincoln got shot, you could walk into the White House and schedule an appointment. Anyone could go see these guys. And when Garfield got shot, he was walking from the White House to a train. Him and a, him and a buddy were just walking and someone walked up and shot him. It was insane how like you could get away with all this stuff. And, and it, it, it's just, it's wild to think about that.
So the Teddy Roosevelt story was the one that just blew my mind. So this, the Teddy Roosevelt story goes as follows. He, um, he's supposed to give a speech. He's having dinner. He leaves the dinner, he's getting into his car, and as he is walking up to his car, a guy comes up to him and shoots him. And hits him, hits him right in the chest. And Roosevelt got lucky for two reasons. I'm sure you already know. What are the two reasons? I believe the first one was he had his speech in his chest, in his chest pocket, a 50-page speech printed out and rolled it, rolled up into his jacket pocket.
And the second reason I think is that he was strong. His chest muscles were just like, he was a buff dude.
Okay. The second one was he had his glasses case, which was made outta steel.
So that I was making that up. The bullet went through both of those.
So it went gets through the speech, goes through the glass case, but it kind of took a lot of the heat off of it and it still hits him in the chest. And the story's crazy. He's like, he's like, so his secretary was an ex-football player and just tackles the guy. And then he's like, you know, people are swarming. He's like, no, no, no, bring him to me. Bring him to me. He's like, I want to look him in the eyes. And he brings the, they bring the guy up to his face and he goes, why did you do it? And the guy doesn't answer. And he's like, all right, Forget it. Take him away. He's like, but no violence on this guy. Like, I don't want this guy hurt in any way. Like, I want him, you know, through the judicial system. So I put him in the car and I guess he's like a hunter and like an anatomist, like a, you know, a casual anatomist. And so he is like, you know, I'm not, they were taking him to the hospital. He's like, I'm not coughing up blood. I don't think it's hit my lung. So I think the bullet's lodged in there, but I think it's okay because it didn't puncture my lung or my heart. And so he's like, take me to the speech. So he goes and he still delivers, he goes and he delivers like a, something like a 50 to 90 minute speech. And they have the shirt that he wore and the blood is just soaking out of the shirt, Curt Schilling style with the sock. Oh my God. Just as he's giving the speech, they now have this like whatever in a museum. And he's giving the speech and he's like, he says, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot. But it takes more than a bullet to kill a bull moose. And that was the line that he gave during the speech. After the speech, he then goes to the hospital and they're like, they take the x-ray, they see the bullets in there, but the technology wasn't that good at the time. They're like, look, we could try to take it out, but it's risky. I think this is how McKinley had just died.
Well, the technology for the x-ray basically was sort of invented for Garfield. So I forget what the scientist's his name was, but around the World's Fair time, they were trying to invent X-ray and Garfield got screwed up and they were like, dude, we've heard that you have this thing. Can you, can we be your test patient? You gotta find this bullet on Garfield. And so like the X-ray basically, it kind of was being developed because of, yeah, because of this, this one or two examples.
Well, in the end, the doctor decided just to leave it in because they're like, it's too risky to take it out. And so he lives with it. For the rest of his life. And people asked him, they were like, do you feel, do you still have pain from that? And he's like, it doesn't bother me more than if it was a bullet sitting in my pocket.
What a badass. Did you know, did you know that he was partially blind? Because Roosevelt was a crazy person. So he liked to box and he liked to be, he was a man's man. And like, there's a story where I think it was one of his aides, but he would, a professional boxer would come in and he'd be like, oh, you like to box?
No, he would invite people to spar him in the White House, right? He'd be like, prove it.
Let's see, like, you like to box? Let's box. And he would box with these guys, like professionals, and he would like make people get out and they would spar. Well, one time a guy, I think it was his aide or a partner of his, like damaged his eye. And so one of his eyes was blind. And during the boxing match, he was like, hey, look, we can't tell anyone about this. Like, no one could know that we were fighting in here. Otherwise I'm going to get in a ton of trouble. So, so he didn't tell a lot of people, but he was blind in one eye.
Yeah. He got a detached retina from the boxing match and then he switched to judo and jiu-jitsu instead. He like couldn't do enough. There's also, I guess, some story.
I, I guess it was hard.
I guess when he was born, he was born like with some condition where his organs were like too small for his body or something like that. Right?
Isn't there something like this? Yeah. And that's, and that's why he was so active. So he was born with like a bad, he, they, they were like, you're probably gonna die young.
Like, so they told his parents he'll probably die as a teenager and he'll be in bed most of the time and he'll die as a teenager.
And so that's why he was so invigorated with life because they were like, he, A, he expected to die and B, his father was like, we have to get you strong. You have to, you have to be strong so you can survive. And so he wanted to exercise and do all this stuff so he could live. And so that's one of the reasons why he was so active.
Yeah, there's like, this is like the tip of the iceberg. I think there's a bunch of other crazy stories about Teddy Roosevelt also. The teddy bear named after him.
Didn't know that.
Named after him.
I believe it's named after him because he was known for hunting bears and stuff like that. And so one group was like, hey, we'll take you hunting. Turns out they had a bear like chained up to a tree or something. And Teddy like sees this poor bear. He's like, no guys, this is not how we do this. You gotta release that bear. And so it was something involving that story involved him having the teddy bear. They call him a bear or teddy bear.
He didn't like being called Teddy either. Yeah.
I don't think people call him to his face, but there's a whole book called The River of Doubt. And so basically The River of Doubt, you read that, you hear that title and you think, oh, that has to do with you making good decisions or bad decisions and doubting your decisions. No, there was a river called Doubt, I think in Brazil that had never been explored after he was president. He was like, well, I'll go, I'll go figure out what's, and let's, let's, we gotta like map that out. Let's make a map. I'll do it. And so he goes and he, Does this river for weeks or months or something like that, and he almost dies. And this is just him wanting to explore. And there's all these crazy stories about him. Like a lot of people accuse him of starting a war just so he could go and fight because he had the, it was called the Rough Riders. It was his own crew of like these, these military folks, but no, DMX, who else had their own anthem? Teddy was pretty hard. Teddy was an interesting guy.
And by the way, he lost the election after the guy does this, gives a speech during, with a bullet in his chest. He ends up losing to, uh, because I guess he had his own third, he was a third party candidate at this stage, which is pretty crazy.
He was an interesting guy. His, uh, he also, uh, his wife died giving birth. And so the same day that his daughter was born, his wife died. And then in the same house that day, his mother died. And he has this story where he said he used to journal every day. And that was one day where he wrote in his journal, he goes, the light has left my life. And that's all he wrote. And it's a very touching story. And then he goes on this tear where for the next year he's crazy active and they go, why are you being so active? And he writes, ceaseless action outruns depression. And so he was basically like doing all these amazing things in order to outrun the sadness of that day. And so it's really— that's wild.
What, um, did, are his journals like published anywhere or his diaries or whatever?
He was a prolific writer. So his first book was actually, I think he was in his teens or early 20s. His first book was on zoology. So he used to collect animals and take 'em apart and explain, like he, like, he loved Darwin. He was like, right. Tried to, he tried to discover species and he wrote, I think dozens of book, or if not dozens of book, uh, books, like 6 or 8 books. So he wrote many, many books. So yeah, he was really prolific. So you can go and read all of his writing. He was a really impressive guy.
What's the best, uh, what's the best book on him that you've read?
I would read his biography. His biography's amazing because he, he had a lot of bad shit happen to him in his life and he was very optimistic.
Well, he was, his father started MoMA, the museum, the museum. His father, James Roosevelt, like founded that 'cause he was a wealthy guy. Oh, no way. And, but Teddy Roosevelt, by the way, horrible businessman. He was a horrible businessman. That was the one thing that he sucked at. He like would invest in like horses and stuff and he would start ranches. Really bad businessman. He was, he blew a lot of money.
Was he a good dude overall or a bad dude? Right. Cause he's definitely like a sort of man's man in all these interesting ways and has like legendary feats. He really lived a very interesting life, but character-wise, was he a good guy? I mean, I've never read anything about him besides this.
I think he had strong character. I have one massive critique of him, and this is when I kind of, where the phrase all great men can be bad men. Uh, for example, he wasn't, I felt like the most present father. So when his wife died, he goes to North Dakota or whatever to do his thing, the Badlands to do his thing. He left his newborn daughter for like a year and a half. And you could say like maybe he was like suicidal and depressed and he is like, I gotta get away. And you could argue that, but he, uh, he kind of wasn't always around for his daughter, I felt. But in general he had high character. Yeah, he was a good dude.
Interesting. All right. Well, I think that's a fascinating podcast. I'm so glad that you, uh, you have this. You and Shane Gillis, by the way, why is Shane Gillis like such a history, like PhD?
Uh, do you, he has a history major. He studied history.
Uh, I'm a biology major. Couldn't tell you 3 things. What, how does he know? He knows a lot about history, like too much about history.
Yeah. He, he knows way more than me. Uh, he has a good like series of history podcasts. And he's really talented at it. I think it's really fun to read stories. So like you'll read in the biography about Andrew Jackson beating up this guy and you're like, you're just reading it, but then you could take this other thing of like, put yourself there and you're like, that's hilarious. Or not hilarious, but like, that's wild. You know, that someone would do that. And so it's fun to read in between the lines and like actually imagine some of these stories. It's just, I think it's fascinating. I think it's also cool to avoid the mistakes that people make and just copy their, the winnings that they do. So I love that. I don't read any biographies.
And I, but I read a lot about people and I don't know what a word for this is, but I basically will study the ideas and the ideas and kind of like core plot lines, but I don't care where they grew up, how they grew up, who they grew up with, what the scene was like, what their family life was like. I, I don't really care about a lot of those things, and so I find myself fascinated by people. But I really want to know their philosophy and then the action of how they implemented that philosophy, like the stories of them implementing that philosophy or living up to that philosophy or failing on that philosophy. That's really all I care about, which is like a very weird subgenre of studying history or these people.
Well, let me give you two recommendations. So the first recommendation is a book called Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. The reason it's interesting is because you've heard the name John Wilkes Booth. That's the guy who assassinated Lincoln, he was, he's an intoxicating character. He was sort of like a cult leader. He was a famous actor, not quite, but almost like Brad Pitt at the time where everyone recognized him.
He was a celebrity.
He was a celebrity and he was a bad, he was a bad dude, like crazy racist. He was a horrible guy, but he definitely had this intoxicating, like, I want to follow you to the death type of vibe where he was really charismatic and he entranced people. And so the Lincoln assassination. By definition was a conspiracy. It was a group of like 30 people who worked together to conspire to do this.
Yeah.
And he was, uh, gone for 12 days. So they assassinated Lincoln and he escaped for 12 days and he almost got away with it. He was very close to getting away with it. And so the 12-Day Manhunt, the 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killers is, is a book about the 12-day manhunt and it's a very good page-turning read. It's very easy. The second one is Hellbound. And it's about the assassination of MLK. A lot of people don't know this, but James Earl Ray, the guy who shot MLK, and MLK was a great dude. He had some downs, he had some downfalls. He was, uh, he cheated on his wife a bunch, but he, he was a net positive. He was very, a great guy in general, but he had flaws. James Earl Ray shot MLK and he not only did he escape, he, he escaped for months. So basically when he shot MLK, he escaped to, uh, I think he shot him in Memphis and then he drove all over America. Then he went to Quebec. And then he went to Europe and when he was in Europe, he was flying around from country to country. And the only reason he got caught was he was in London on his way to Rhodesia, which is basically South Africa at the time. It was run by a racist regime and he was like, they're going to accept me with like wide arms because I just killed MLK. They're going to love me. He gets through security. Once he walks through security, the security guard who lets him in, he says, uh, thank you, sir. And looks looks down and he sees that he has an additional passport in his pocket. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, why do you have two passports? And they pull it out and they're like, oh shit, the one you gave me was fake. I just got the real one. And he was seconds away from getting away from all this. He was gone for roughly 6 months. He was gallivanting all over Europe. He was all over Canada. He was very close to getting away with it. And a lot of people don't realize that about that story. And that book, I believe it's called Hellbound. Also a page-turner. So if you want to read about assassinations, those are my two favorite assassination books.
Dude, we should make a, you know, like a blue ribbon when you were a kid or whatever. Like we should just have our own list of like books that we think are awesome that, and some commentary around them. Like I wish we just had our own, we should just make a separate YouTube channel of just us doing like a book club or doing like read a book, talk about it and curate for people like the books that we think are just like really unbelievable books for the year.
Yeah, I would love to do that. Those two rank really high. Those are some of, like, I go through series, so like I got obsessed with shipwrecks, so I read like 10 books all on shipwrecks. I could tell you like, in my opinion, what are some of the coolest shipwrecks? And then I did assassinations of famous people. And the reason why I love these books and the reason why I think you don't like biographies, biographies don't have a very good beginning and a middle and an end. Whereas I try to read books that are about an event because an event typically has a beginning and a middle and an end where it's, you know, it's more succinct as opposed to 1,200 pages. And so I like books that are on events, particularly events in America, so I can relate a little bit more.
All right. This was fun. I'm glad we did this at the end here.
That's the pod.
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