The Wildest Stories of Corporate Espionage We’ve Ever Heard

All right. A sentence that has never been said before. B2B enterprise HR software space is the most riveting, the most compelling espionage story you'll ever hear.

I feel like this episode is going to have to start with the Netflix, like, da-dun, because this is a Netflix original level drama. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never look back.

So, all right. We got to do this story. Parker Conrad, who is the CEO of a company called Rippling, they do like payroll as well as other kind of back office stuff for, for startups, tweeted, came out 2 days ago and said, Rippling sued Deal today. Our lawsuit alleges that Deal cultivated a spy at Rippling and orchestrated a long-running trade secret theft. The spy searched Deal in our system 23 times a day on average, letting him spy on Deal's own customers who were considering switching to Rippling. And then he post screenshots of the lawsuit. Did you read this?

Yes. And we should preface this saying, I think you have friends at Deal.

I'm an investor in Deal. So I invested in Deal many years ago. It's one of the best investments. I really like Alex. I don't know him super well. Like, we're not like buddy-buddy, but like Alex, the founder of Deal, I think is awesome. And, uh, I use Deal. I think Deal's a great product. And so that's kind of my, my bias and context coming in is I like Deal and I invested in Deal.

And when I talk about this, everything here, it's allegedly, and it's also, this is just what the, the lawsuit suit says.

And also, it's just comedy for me. Like, I don't— I, I don't know about any of this, and I am just like everybody else on Twitter. This is for entertainment for me, so, uh, please don't take this too seriously.

What's the baseline story?

Okay, so basically the story is Rippling notices— he's saying, we noticed somebody was looking up deal a lot in our systems. So then this is where it gets good. He's like, So we created a honeypot.

The best. The, the, the story behind this is basically like, I don't, I wouldn't even be smart enough to come up with the idea of this. This is amazing. So the way it worked was, I think I read that it was Rippling's founder and their legal team and maybe one other executive were in a room one night saying to themselves, dude, Deal is spying on us. What is going on? How do we catch them? And they said, let's—

how did they know they were spying?

Like, I don't know that they just noticed on the logs this guy was searching the internet a lot? That sounds— I don't know.

So crazy.

I think that's right. So that's allegedly what happens. So they go to the local authorities because I think this is happening in Ireland, by the way, like he's working at the Ireland office, the Dublin office, and they go to local authorities. They get like whatever the the ability to kind of like subpoena his phone. So, so I guess what happened is person comes in, says, hey, you've been served, you need to hand over your phone right now. And he says, oh, it's upstairs in my bag. Like, all right, let's go get it. So they go up, they look in the bag, just a laptop in there, no phone. And they're like, um, okay, where's the phone? He's like, I gotta go to the bathroom. So he goes to the bathroom, locks himself in the bathroom real quick, and then the story goes the person heard him doing something, quote, doing something on his phone, and he's shouting, knocking on the door, basically shouting at him like, hey, if you, if you delete anything on that phone, you're in violation of the law. The story goes that the spy goes, that's a risk I have to take.

He said that?

That's a risk I'm willing to take.

He said that?

That's what they wrote in this thing. So, and do they hear a flush? They hear a flush and then the guy flees the premises. They don't get the phone. And then Rippling orders somebody to go check the plumbing of the building to see if he flushed a phone. Couldn't find a phone in there. Uh, no phone. And so that's, that's where the story stands today. And then that's why they came out publicly and tried to like, you know, win this in the, in the court of public opinion instead.

I don't know if— I don't know if any of this is true. There's a whole bunch of back and forth. So here's the— here's a bit of the other side of the story. So Uh, I think someone from Diel came out and here's what a Diel spokesperson said. Weeks after Rippling is accused of violating sanctions law in Russia and seeding falsehoods about Diel, Rippling is trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims. We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims. All right. I too look forward to them asserting their counterclaims.

You know what's funny is I lived in San Francisco and I was a— so the guy who started Rippling, I was a customer. His name is Parker Conrad. Parker previously started Zenefits, and back in '13 or '14 or '15, that era, I think Zenefits was the fastest growing company ever. I think it grew to like $100 million in revenue, something insane. And Parker, from what I remember, he got fired by the board because Zenefits was like a payroll and benefits company, which means you need to be pretty uptight. And I think that he was accused of being a little loosey-goosey. Like it was like people were, uh, if I remember correctly, the articles were like people at the parties were like having sex in the hallways or something insane like that.

And like, I don't think that was the— well, maybe that was happening, but I don't think that was the issue that got him.

No, that was— but, but that was like a canary in the coal mine. It was like, dude, this guy, like he does it— like not everyone has their health benefits license, something, some license like that that you need to sell benefits.

I guess in order to like be a broker, a licensed broker, you, you had to have it in like all, every state that you were operating in.

There's a bunch of compliance things.

And what he what had happened was either some people didn't have it or, uh, there was another thing, which was he had created a macro, like a piece of software that would just take the tests for you. Yeah. So you could like speed through this and get your license like way faster to keep up with the growth and like, kind of like you didn't actually do it yourself. And I think that's when he got in a lot of trouble. And he's got, again, in this case, you know, like basically he got shamed. He got kicked out of the company. David Sachs took over. David Sachs, who was his COO and big investor. I think Sachs had put in like $10 or $20 million of his own money into the company and then came in as COO because it was like the next big hot startup. And then this came out and then Sachs basically threw Conrad under the bus.

But they use like the, these guys are partying, they're banging in the hallway. Yeah.

Just made it look like the whole thing was a mess, whatever. Yeah. And then, um, and, and, and so took over and he, he got basically the shaft and then Rippling was sort of his revenge company. But, uh, yeah, this guy finds himself in some drama.

Uh, I guess Parker likes to party. Parker, Parker's putting the PA at party. I mean, He's like, he likes to get down. And now I'm hearing about, I didn't know about this Russia stuff. So Parker lives life on the edge and, uh, you know, he's kind of the bad boy of the HR SaaS industry. What can, what, you know, what can you say?

He needs to go Jensen leather jacket, just pure snakeskin. The bad boy of HR SaaS is here.

I like Parker. Parker parties, man. Like he just, he gets down. He's always finds himself himself in a sticky situation. Sign me up. Parker should come on to MFM and we should go hang out. But this guy likes to party, you know.

All right. So, all right. A lot of uninformed speculation here. I feel like we're going to get hit with a lawsuit here soon.

What's he going to say, that he doesn't party? Like, is that slander?

Parker's Ring doorbell has shown him to be home before 8 PM every night.

Does Parker— does the man in the polo and jeans not like to get down?

We deny these allegations. All right, so okay, whatever. So there's the deal Rippling thing. There's a bunch of funny tweets about this. Um, it's just good comedy. I have actually a different angle here. I don't know if you have anything else you want to say on this, but I have a different angle which was— got me thinking, what are some other great examples of corporate espionage in history? And I have some for you, Sam.

Oh, okay, cool. I, I like that.

All right, so, so check this out. I went down a little rabbit hole and I tried to find, you know, examples of great corporate, corporate espionage, um, cases that have happened in the past. I want to start with the British East India Company. Okay. Are you prepared for this? So, um, basically back in the day, we're talking about like the 1800s, the British East India Company, basically it was a trade, it was a trading company between the UK and India. Okay. And they did two notable things. One, which is unrelated to corporate espionage. Did you know they had their own corporate army?

Well, I know that they were like the, the ballers of the earth. They like started in like 1600s and like, uh, basically like helped shape global trade.

So they were so prolific that like other parts of Europe, like basically they were attacked on their trade routes and there was like a lot of security concerns. So they formed their own corporate military. Which is pretty badass. And I think, you know, if I'm Perplexity or something like that, if I'm like the third or fourth tier AI company right now, might just spin up a corporate military just to put some shine on me and what I'm doing, make it seem like I got some trade secrets that I need to protect. Like just armed guards going through Soma. It'd be amazing.

Yeah, I think that every company needs like a fake enemy or a fake, uh, emergency to prepare for. I think it's good for them.

It's like when I used to be in college and, um, we would go out and, you know, I'd be at the bar and just a lot of strikeouts was going on, you know, pretty low batting average, pretty low slugging percentage, taking a lot of L's.

What was your cold approach open?

What was like a little girl? Okay, here we go. Ready? Uh, Sam, just turn around.

I'll be the girl.

I'm gonna be the girl. You're just gonna feel my body coming closer to your chest.

Yeah, so I was hanging out with this guy. Wait, hold on. What is this?

Oh, you didn't want to grind?

Oh, no. Oh, shit.

Okay, my bad. Totally thought you wanted to grind.

That was it? The mistake grind with the immediate apology shtick?

That was if it was on the dance floor. All right, if we're not on the dance floor, if we're at the bar, ready?

Yeah, so I'm just turned around. I'm looking over here. I'm just hanging out.

Hey.

Yeah?

Do they do drinks here? Just a question. Just an innocent question.

That was it? Mine used to be, uh, hey, Salva-Bet, how many oceans are there? 5 or 7?

Oh wow, that's great. I'm talking about pre-reading the book The Game. Once I read the book The Game, then it was, uh, hey, you guys gotta settle an argument here. And I just literally ripped the line from the book where it's like, my roommate's girlfriend is making him throw away all the pictures of his ex-girlfriend, uh, in his apartment. Is that crazy? Or is she— we think she's crazy. Is that crazy? And they're like, no, you gotta get rid of that. And it's like, oh, do you want to be my girlfriend? No? Okay, never mind.

Do you know what the worst line is? Is when I would steal all of the lines from the game, and then 1 out of 10 times a woman would reply and say Yeah, I read The Game Two, you douche. And it was just like, you go home so sad.

That was the worst. I would have thought that worked. We have so much in common. We love the same books.

I didn't have that turn shit into gold type of persona back then. You know, I was so—

There's a reason I was single for like, not just all 4 years of college, but even 2 years after college. Like it was, it was a long, it was a long drought. I felt like the British East India Company just marching through the drought.

That's not exactly a drought. Because the drought implies that that's not normal.

Well, yeah, exactly. I guess it's just a desert. Yes. Water.

Well, what are some other ones? Wait, by the way, have you ever done this with a company?

Done what? Corporate espionage? Do you think I'm cool enough to do that?

Like my, uh, my extent of it was like having a friend at Facebook and them like telling me like what my competitors are doing. Uh, I've been there, done that a few times.

Yeah, yeah. No, I've never done anything this cool, I don't think. Um, but you know, okay, I gotta tell you this British East India Company story. All right, so back in the day, China had like a monopoly on tea production, and this was a big problem. Tea was super popular, China made all the tea, and, um, nobody could figure out how to make the tea. Nobody had the like the seeds, nobody had any of the stuff you needed to like try to break that. So they were all trading with China to get tea. But they didn't have anything to trade back with China. So there was these huge trade imbalances. And so basically Britain, I think, was trading like opium into China as its only thing that could get into China. And China didn't like that. And it created what was called the First Opium War. And so there's literally a war broke out because of this trade imbalance with the tea. And so what happens is the British decide to, to do something about this. And so let me tell you this, uh, story real quick.

The East India Company, the British East India Company, hired this guy named Robert Fortune. He's a Scottish botanist and adventurer, and they paid him. They were like, you are going to infiltrate China and you are going to steal the tea industry secrets of China. And by the way, Google a picture of this guy because I don't know how he pulled this off. He looks like a Scottish man, but he disguised himself as a Chinese merchant and went underground. He was wearing Chinese clothing, Chinese hairstyle. He traveled deep into China's tea region. Which is actually off-limits to foreigners. And he was able to get access in and he studied tea production step by step. Everything from planting, harvesting, drying, packaging, all of it. He didn't just observe. He was able to collect thousands of tea plants, seeds.

This guy was supposed to be Chinese.

This guy was supposed to be Chinese. I don't know how he did it, but he looks like me. He's you with sideburns. Like, if you had sick chops.

Wow.

He not only that, then he started recruiting, like, uh, like turning other people. So he started recruiting Chinese tea growers, hiring them and persuading them to leave China secretly and relocate to India. And basically he pulled it off. He goes and he steals the trade secrets. He hires the tea growers. He smuggles them out of the country. He brings the seeds, the tools, the knowledge, the trade secrets. He gets to India and they start growing tea. And soon after that, India surpassed China in terms of its tea production, broke the Chinese monopoly on tea, and prevented future wars. Actually de-escalated the conflict because now there wasn't this huge trade imbalance and opium problem.

That's insane that this guy pulled this off. How long was he in China for?

Uh, I think this was like a multi-year thing.

How, uh, exciting. That's a life— that's a life worth living.

Let me give you some other ones. All right, so now let me give you a more modern example. Oracle versus Microsoft. Have you heard this story? No. All right. So two giants, two successful companies. Microsoft, if you remember in the '90s, was doing antitrust cases. And Bill Gates— there's videos of this on YouTube. He's like in depositions and they just were getting hauled in front of the antitrust committees and they had to defend themselves.

So he was being accused of a monopoly, monopolistic behaviors.

And this really was a problem for Microsoft. It slowed them down. There's— I think it's called like the lost decade where basically like for a long period of time, Microsoft couldn't acquire companies. They couldn't, like, if something got hot, they couldn't release a competitor and kind of use their distribution to win because they had just gone through this, like, you know, antitrust problem.

They had to lay low.

The other day, in an Elon Musk interview, someone asked him, I think it was like Ted Cruz was like, who do you, you know, a lot of people think you're smart. Who do you consider smart? And the first person he said was Larry Ellison.

Elon said that?

Yeah. He goes, Larry Ellison. He goes, I think Larry Ellison is one of the smarter people I work with. He said, Remember from Forrest Gump where he says, stupid is as stupid does? Elon goes, smart is as smart does. So he took the inverse of that line, which I thought was pretty funny. He goes, smart is as smart does. And I think Larry Ellison might be the smartest person I know. And so it's pretty funny that I didn't— up until Larry kind of got a little bit more front-facing with some of these things, I didn't— I regarded him as like just a guy who He kind of just started early and became the best. I didn't realize how sharky, not necessarily in a bad way, that he actually was though.

Yeah, how elite he is. Um, wow, that's amazing. Elon, I think, took some of his spin. Remember when he like, he impregnated that woman who works with him and he was just like, underpopulation is the biggest crisis we face. And like turned it into, I'm saving the planet.

Yeah.

And I was like, whoa. Playa with no R at the end, man. That is incredible. Like, can you imagine having the balls to just come out and not just defend it, not deny it, but to claim that you're doing good?

That's like a story that like, at high school when you're hanging out with your buddies smoking weed late at night and you're just like riffing and saying the dumb shit you're gonna do the next morning when you're sober. Like, we're gonna go, Dude, we're changing now. We're gonna get up and we're gonna like, we're gonna start working out first thing in the morning. That's like a thing that Elon would say.

It's crazy. It's like, hey, like, don't you think it's kind of inappropriate? You know, she works with you, she's an executive company, maybe there's an imbalance of power here. Like, are you concerned about this at all? He's like, I'm concerned about underpopulation. Nick Cannon just like writing notes out there. All right, here's some other ones. Um, Coke versus Pepsi.

Dude, did Nick Cannon just catch a stray bullet on that one?

Yeah, he's like the icon for too many kids, dude.

Say it ain't so, not Nick Cannon.

So, uh, 2006, Coke versus Pepsi, another, you know, deal rippling, Microsoft, Oracle, Coke, Pepsi. These are all just like the legendary rivalries. So an EA at Coke who's disgruntled, this woman, Joya Williams, decides, you know what, screw it. She leaves her post as an EA and she steals basically some trade secrets. She takes a new, a can of their new product that's unreleased. And she writes a letter to Pepsi and she says, I have the formula for Coke. Do you want the secret formula? And I have a new unreleased product. She sends a letter and she says, I'll give you the formula for a price. Guess what her price was?

$100 grand. A million.

I don't know. $1.5 million.

And what year? 2006. All right, so about $3 million today.

Wow.

Isn't that crazy?

Wow. That's a lot. Maybe like— maybe too much. Yeah, maybe like— maybe a few months. Pepsi, you guys suck.

Maybe promote her. I don't know. 8 years in prison seems like it was a lot for that. So yeah, she, she got made an example out of.

That's crazy. This was like a recent story. 2006. So it looks like her boyfriend was like also in on it. Like they— like this was like a— this is like a legit scheme. Yeah, that sucks. I like when I hear Joya, I think of like an old woman who's like, oh, Coke, you didn't give me a raise. I'm going to get back. You know what I mean? Like, I think that there was more to it. All right.

Also, what do you think about Pepsi turning down the secret formula and the trade secrets? And deciding to take her down.

Because what are you gonna do with that? Pepsi's like, what am I supposed to do, make my shit taste like Coke?

It's just sugar.

Yeah, like, yeah, like, like, I don't know what you expect me to do with that, with that. Because like the secret, or the, the whole thing with Coke is that like only like a few people have access to it. I don't— who the fuck knows, dude? That— there's no way that's true, by the way.

Let me give you a couple other quick ones. Uber and Waymo. Do you remember this one? You probably remember this.

Uh, yeah, the, the main character of Waymo stole a bunch of stuff from Google and Uber was going to use it and now Uber got sued.

Well, I understand that's why a pardon exists.

He's like, Anthony's a big football fan. I don't want him to miss the Super Bowl. It's only once a year. Let's get him out.

So where's he now?

Uh, that's a good question.

Like, I wonder, is he like, uh, damaged goods? Or is— surely not. Like, uh, some, some VC was like, dude, I don't care that you're like Martha Stewart, you're now cooler.

He's the CEO of Paul and Mobile, has been for 3 years. Okay, I don't know what that is.

Okay, these are great stories. I'm, I'm in on it. Do you want to hear something that's related to security and also I think is almost equally exciting?

Yeah, wait, wait, before we finish, I just have one more little tidbit. The US This is actually baked into the DNA of the United States. Espionage. Espionage. Corporate espionage. And so America's founding father and first U.S. Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, decided that— basically realized that Europe was ahead of the U.S. and actually decided to encourage intellectual piracy. Doesn't all crime sound better when you just give it like a longer— like more letters? Make it sound better? And so what he said was, He advocated to reward those who would bring improvements and secrets of extraordinary value into the United States, which made— which was instrumental in making the U.S. a safe haven for industrial spies. And they did.

This guy Samuel Slater, my boy, I love Samuel Slater, one of the greatest stories of all time.

What's, what's the story? So he brought British textile technology to the U.S.? What does that mean?

Is he like, they claim— they claim, uh, sort of actually, they claim he was like had a photographic memory. This is like the story that you're told as a kid, like in history class, which is that he had a photographic memory. But basically he was from England and he memorized and partially wrote down how factories in England worked. He came to America and he helped reinvent American factories, which spurred the Industrial Revolution, which arguably made America what it is.

Are we pro-espionage? I think I might be. Um, so By the way, this guy's nickname, top 5 nickname, do you know Samuel Slater's nickname? No. Slater the traitor. That's what they called him in the UK.

Yes, but he was like welcomed with open arms here. We loved him. So yes, Samuel Slater is sort of an American hero.

That's crazy. At the age of 21. So he literally prison broke it. He photographically memorized, uh, all these trade secrets and then came to America and gave it to us and spurred the Industrial Revolution and made America great again.

Well, maybe not great for the first time. Yeah, for the first time. Yeah, yeah, the inaugural Make America Great for Once.

Yeah, yeah, those hats are out of style.

That's actually pretty funny. Yeah, he made America great. Um, I have another story. So last year, we— there's two parts of the story. Last year we talked about this company Wiz. Wiz is a cybersecurity company. To most of our listeners, We mostly talk about small business stuff. These guys are not that. They're enterprise cybersecurity company, but it has two amazing components. So one part of the story that you talked about, and by the way, these guys, Wiz, remember when we did Sarah's List, they were on Sarah's List. So, right. We, we, we kind of, uh, we didn't exactly nail it because it was, uh, yeah, a little pat on the back. I don't know if the mic's picking that one up because they were already like kicking ass. And I don't know what the multiple was on when we named them, but it was at least double. But there's two amazing stories about this. The first is how fast they grew. I want to, like, show you how fast they grew. But before we talk about how fast they grew, we have to talk about how they started. And you talked about this.

Wait, you buried the lede. They're getting bought for $32 billion.

Oh, yeah. They got— they got bought for $32 billion. Sorry. So this company, Wizz, is getting bought for $32 billion. The story of how they started is amazing. The story of how fast they grew, also amazing. It just happened the other day. But listen to this. So you, I think, are the one who brought this up. Were you the one who talked about this guy, Gilad?

Yes.

So Gilad is an Israeli cybersecurity veteran. So he's exited a few companies in the cybersecurity space. And he was also part of this elite group of cybersecurity specialists in the Israeli military called 8200, I believe it's called.

And he invented CAPTCHA. Invented like a certain type of firewall. He invented a lot of shit. He's an OG, like the OG's OG in cybersecurity.

Information.

They own pieces of Gilley's fund. And any time one of these startups does well and succeeds, they get paid out. And so it's this very insular group of a lot of Israeli guys. So they have that bond over that. They have the bond over being Jewish and they have the bond that they probably all came from a very similar part of the Israeli army. So there's this like bond after bond after bond. And they're like, yeah, look, we'll help you. We'll get you off the ground. And then we're going to get the money. Just, it just flows around nicely. And so that's what he did with these guys, uh, Wiz. And isn't that a crazy setup?

And it's pretty amazing. He, he's so precise about this. So look at the first YouTube link that I posted in our MDB doc. So basically there's this video that has 400 or 800 views, less than 1,000. It has 528 views. You see that 528 view video? In this video, he breaks down where he says, he goes, I've done this 35 times. I have a 9 to 18 month journey that I use to achieve product market fit before building any cybersecurity company. And he goes through the key phases, which is basically like exploring different pain points and how to find them. Uh, you spend 7 months developing the right solution that mere mortals can use. And then here are the questions that you need to ask prospects. Here's how you find prospects.

Here's how great— what a great find. Only 500 views on this guy who's given out like, you know, like a billion dollar playbook.

And he goes, he talks about how he is gonna— you want to accelerate the timeline and what the benchmarks is. He gives this whole playbook that he uses and he goes, I've, I've done this 35 times and we've turned this into billion billions of dollars. It's, it's incredible. Now here we are with Wiz. So Wiz was founded by a guy named— what is his first name? Asaf. Is it Asaf? Or his last name's Rapoport. But he basically had a company that he had previously sold for something like $350 million. And he did it when he was like a kid still. So when you think what someone does that does that, well, why on earth are you going to join this thing? Well, he did join this thing.. And he left Microsoft and even explains, he's like, he sold this company to Microsoft and he left and he's like, I'm afraid to leave Microsoft. I'm not sure what to do. So he joins this thing and listen to the timeline that he, that Wiz went through. So Wiz was founded in—

when you say he joined this thing, he joined what?

Gilly's Cyberstarts.

Sorry. Oh, he joined Cyberstarts.

Okay. He joined Cyberstarts, uh, Gilly's thing. And he, uh, starts the company in, uh, January of 2020. And they go through the— and because he's already successful and he was part of this ghillie crew right off the bat, they raised $21 million in funding and they're able to hire a team of 10 to 20 people. By December of that first year, they raised $100 million. So fast forward one year to March. So we're still in winter of 2021. That's one year after founding. They're only at 40 employees. But they are at roughly $100 million of AR. Is that crazy?

So that's breakneck speed, right? Like this is, by the way, there's a lot of, we do this, but there's a lot of people who are like, dude, venture money. Don't, don't raise too much money. You know, growth, growth, growth. It's a, it's a problem. You know, you gotta bootstrap. You gotta, uh, you know, you know, people, there's different ways to win. This is a great example of like, No, raise a bunch of money out the gate, call blitz scale this thing and keep raising money and just go for the huge prize.

And if you look at their Glassdoor review, the CEO has like, people rave about 'em. And like you could say, well, I don't know, is Glassdoor even accurate?

I'm not sure. Dude, you're the only dude who looks at Glassdoor. You're the, they have one web visitor a month and it's you, man.

I'm telling you, you can get so much insight. So if you go to Glassdoor, you sort by negative and you look at the neg— negative reviews, and then you look at the positive reviews. And the truth is in the middle. And I'm telling you, you could learn so much information about what people are complaining about.

Did you ever, were you ever on Glassdoor with any of your companies? Like, was the hustle on Glassdoor?

Yeah. And I didn't look because the only people that left reviews were the people I fired.

Correct. And do you think that they had an accurate view of like the company?

Well, it's an accurate view of the people who disliked me. Like, so, but, but there's like, there's like, so like what, I, I don't even wanna read it, but what, what's it say? Does it say, or I'm, I'm trying to go. I don't know if we have one anymore because we haven't been in business for like independently for years. They could have shut it down. But like, it was probably like the management is good, but the CEO like moves too fast and like is not communicating well, which is like probably true.

Too handsome, too ripped, moves too fast.

Well, like I would like make decisions like I'm like intimidatingly smart. I would like make decisions quickly and I would say, this is what we're doing now. And I just wouldn't like communicate with my managers. I would just say, this is This is it.

I just can't believe you like reading the, the reviews of whiny employees of other companies. I just like, what, what do you really get out of it?

Like, it reveals so much truth.

Like it could, it could say like, um, but that thing you said is true about like every company, you know, like, yeah, but like the CEO likes to move fast.

Yeah. It could be like, let, let's say there's this new startup and, um, it says like, you know, uh, the market, like, like we were, we were going to do like a BetterUp, you know, a BetterUp is, is like a coaching platform for before Hampton. We were thinking about getting into that. And I read the reviews of BetterUp and the reviews were like, business boomed during COVID but now we can't get anyone to sign up for online coaching. So that's like an interesting, like a macro insight into the market of coaching. Like it boomed during COVID I like that. And so you'll see that on like 4 different coaching platforms, Glassdoor reviews. Or like, you know, our valuation, if you see this in like 5 different ones, is way too high. I have no idea how we're ever going to grow in this. That's not something that you want to see on 4 different Glassdoors of companies in the same industry. So you get like insights like that. Or it could be like, CEO's amazing at press. Don't believe everything you see. And if you see a bunch of those, then I think to myself, I've been like basing a lot of my insights off of public articles. I don't know if I should actually do that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I just, I, I personally wouldn't do, like, you know, I personally wouldn't trust it because I think you're gonna get a lot of basically false negatives, um, in this that would spook you. So for example, but did you ever work at a company that had blind?

I didn't work at a company when that existed. I know, or like, I, I used to read it, I had one.

You probably just didn't, didn't join it. But like, um, blind is basically a private social network. So let's say you work at a big company. There's an app called Blind. You log in, you have to use your, I think you have to show that you have a work email there. So like only people who work at the company can see it and can post there.

But it's all anonymous. Yeah, it still exists. And it's all anonymous. And it's basically just like a back channel for people to bitch and moan and complain. And then the upside would be that they, you know, there's kind of like a whistleblower-y type of thing where you can, you could call out hard truths that you're not going to call out. But the reality is that it was all just complaints. Um, and the problem was it was misguided complaints. So like, for example, at Twitch, it's like I was on the exec team. So I knew, I knew all the numbers of the company. I knew what was going on. I knew the strategy. I knew who was smart. I knew who wasn't because I'm sitting with these people every day. And then you read a blind review on Blind or like a post on Blind from someone who's like a, you know, just like a mid-level employee. Um, you know, some engineering manager somewhere, they would often be like, oh, we're, you know, there was no way we're going to hit our numbers. I'm like, dude, we're hitting are numbers. What are you talking about? I could see that. I could see the numbers. You don't have access to the numbers. So you're just like, you know, just talking out your ass basically. But, and the loudest, most sort of extreme voices would get the, get the most play, right? They would get the most attention. And so it's the same way, like when Dropbox launches on Hacker News and the top comment is like, no one's ever going to use this. And he can give you a highly intelligent breakdown of why nobody's ever going to use Dropbox and then Dropbox becomes like so big, right? So I think like A lot of these message board, anonymous message board type things are too biased towards negativity from people who don't have real information and, um, are too prone to false negatives to be trusted. So like for every example you could find where you get signal, you're going to find counter signal, which means to me, I can't use this because I can't differentiate signal and counter signal properly. Only, only in hindsight, you know?

No, if I think if you read enough of them, I think you can start it like like, for example, if you're trying to understand like a macro trend or industry analysis, I think you can see trends in the Glassdoor reviews. And I think that it could help paint a picture, but not be— it's not a fact. It's just like, is this like, is this, does this jive with other sources that I'm learning about? So that's why I'm on board with it.

By the way, agree to disagree. Like, I think you're right. I think you're right. I don't think you're wrong. I think there's some problems with it, but there's some utility. You're the only guy I know who uses it, which I find like funny.

Well, like, like I wanted to learn about the CEO and I'm like, what makes a CEO so great? And I read an article about him and it was like, don't mistake this guy's gentleness for ruthlessness.

It said, don't mistake Asaf's gentleness for someone who is willing to play by the rules.

Yeah. And I was like, that's like an interesting title. So this guy's like, must be like a really nice guy, but he's ruthless and he's kind of a killer. That's like an interesting trait. Like, is there like, is there, is there like anything I can learn from him? His personality. And I went and read his Glassdoor reviews and he had glowing reviews as a CEO where people are like, nice guy but total hard-ass. And I just thought like, that is a— that, that mix, those mixes of those two traits when you mix, like, you could be polite and like hardcore. I respect that. I like that. Is this a person I want to learn from? That was kind of like my insight from looking at the Glassdoor reviews. And also reading interviews, things like that. Right, right. And so I just thought it was fascinating. But we had Mark Lore on the pod. Mark started, uh, diapers.com, which he grew like during like the dot-com boom and he sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. Then he did the same with Jet.com, sold that for billions of dollars. Now he's got a new thing. Have you seen this new thing? It's called, I think, Wonder.

Wonder.

Yeah. And he had this thing when he came on the pod, by the way, when he came on the pod, he— we could tell that he didn't have a laptop and we were like, Are you calling from your iPhone? And he was like, yeah, I don't, I don't use laptops. And we were like, is that like a billionaire thing?

And he was like, he was awesome by the way. I love that guy's energy. Like he, he was super positive, super energetic, super optimistic. He was great, right? Charismatic. He was fun.

He was a fun guest to have on the pod.

He was the best.

I would love to have him on. Yeah.

We gotta get him back on.

Equal? I don't know. This scaling at breakneck speed seems a lot more challenging to me.

I think if you had a small bootstrap startup that was growing quickly, you would feel a similar amount of stress. But there is no— that's true. But there is no chance that you would have a $32 billion exit in 5 years.

He worked for BP.

And so he was like, yeah, the energy industry is just like the restaurant industry. You're going to spend the same 10 hours a day, except in this one, there's 3 extra zeros on the end of every project. And so would you rather spend that same time on a small project or a bigger project? Like, that's, that's what you're deciding between here. Um, and I was like, which is sort of hard to hear, right?

Like, you're like, I'm dedicating my life to this thing. You're dedicating your life to this thing, but your prize is so much bigger.

I didn't think it was hard to hear. I was like, oh, that's the truth. Okay, cool. Thank you. Like, okay, what do I do? And then I pretty much immediately switched and went and did a biotech thing with him in Australia. Like, you know, I was like, I was pretty ready to hear the truth. Um, I think that most people, you're right, don't like to hear the truth. I like to hear the truth because I realized that basically the truth, while short-term painful, is actually long-term less painful. And I think most people don't like the short-term pain. They're willing to have long-term pain.

Have you been following these guys, like, getting acquired? Was there anything that, uh, you liked about the story or that stuck out to you?

Well, remember when we first brought this up? We first brought this up because Wizz was rumored to be selling for $23 billion, and then it's— and then something happened where it was like, no, that's just a rumor, or Google couldn't do it because of antitrust, or for some reason the deal wasn't going to happen. And if you remember, Asaf came out and he tweeted this, like, kind of, like, badass memo. Where it was like, first they leaked the deal, like first deal information got leaked. There are rumors about an acquisition for $23 billion. Then he releases this thing and he's like, we're not looking to get acquired. Let me be clear. I think he said like, let me cut to the chase. Our next milestones are $1 billion in ARR and an IPO. And everyone was like, yeah, that's it. That guy's a killer. And most of us were like, most of us on the side, they were like, oh, nice negotiating. Like, pretty sure it's going to sell for, I don't know, $25, $30 billion in the next, in the next 12 months. And that's exactly what happened. It sold for $30 billion. $32 billion in the next 12 months. It like came exactly true what a lot of people noticed, which was like, what was the first offer?

The first offer was like $20 or $18. $23. Got it. So we got $10 billion, $10 extra billion.

I love hearing about this story. I'm very excited. The, the time that we've worked on this podcast, this guy has built and sold a $32 billion company.

Well, when you put it like that.

Yeah, but does he have 650,000 subscribers on YouTube? Probably not.

And now he will try to. I bet you this guy is going to get into podcasting. That was the funniest tweet I saw the other day. It goes, even kings and billionaires want to be podcasters. And I was like, it's true, dude. Like, you see, you know, whether it's billionaires on the All In podcast or, you know, Bill Gurley and his podcast, you have— dude, Elon is tweeting like crazy and trying to be— trying to get his word out there. You see Gavin Newsom starting the new— then his new podcast. They want— they all want what we got, Sam. They all want what we got, and we'll sell it to them for $32 billion.

It's always been this way, you know. You look at, uh, like, who has bought Time magazine, and with, uh, Washington Post and Bezos, you know, king— or once you've— once you're rich, you always want to be king, and to be king oftentimes is to own a media company. For some reason, it's been that way for hundreds of years.

Yeah, he's got— I think at this point when you have that much money, more money is probably boring. His father did a good thing on DJ Vlad where he was talking about how he was like, Elon, I knew after he sold Zip2 that he wouldn't stop until he was number one, the richest person in the world.

He's like, I knew that.

Yeah. He goes, I, he goes, I knew that was— that's what he wanted to do. And he would never stop until he was number one. I could tell he was like that since he was a kid.

Wait, so Elon's dad did an interview with VladTV?

Yeah, didn't we talk about this?

Um, yeah, dude, what else was in this? This is incredible.

So VladTV, part of Black YouTube, one of my favorite niches of YouTube. Uh, he had, uh, what's Elon's dad's name?

I don't know, or something like that.

Ah, forget his name. He had his dad on, uh, the other day, and DJ Vlad is weird. He never just releases the whole—

so, Errol Musk.

Ariel, he like releases like clips and he's been releasing clips over the past month of this interview. And he talks about what Elon was like as a kid and how like, are the rumors true that you are rich? And it sounds like this guy and Elon are exactly the same where he made some money and then he's like, we're going to spend it all buying this farm and turn this farm into a thing. And it went broke. And he's like, well, I'm going to convince some other people to give me money. We're going to start this new thing. And that worked. And he went rich and bust. Like constantly. And he was like, I loaned Elon money to start Zip2, and that turned into $30 million. And I knew when he made that money, he was never gonna stop until he was number one. And he just tells these crazy stories along the way.

Do we need to do a whole Reacts video? Was the interview good?

It's pretty good. It's shocking that, like, if my father said any of this shit publicly— it's weird, dude. It makes— it's very like— they they talk exactly the same. The way they're, they're—

yeah, all the comments are like, his laugh is a DNA test in itself, or they're timestamping and it says, I swear this is Elon. The face mimics it, the way he laughs, the way he rolls his eyes. I could see Elon here. This is, this is a— this laugh is a paternity test.

Like the spacing and words, you know how Elon talks slow? He has like a very like unique structure, uh, how he talks. It's exactly the same. And his dad is insane, by the way. Like, there's like some crazy story about how he is now married to his stepdaughter. Like, he does some wacky-ass shit.

He's married to his stepdaughter?

Something weird like that.

Yeah, he has a kid with a stepdaughter.

Yeah. And there's a— and there's like, uh, just when he's talking, you see, I understand why the children who you raised, why they're insane and why they're ultra— like, in order to be ultra successful, you have to have some type of like weird like daddy issue., and I see him and I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get why you have a daddy issue cuz you're insane. Like he reveals stuff. Like he'll be like, yeah, Elon like was crying to me when he was like 23 and I thought how weak. Like he like, like will tell a story where he's like disrespecting his son in front of everyone and I'm like, oh, you're an asshole. That's why your son behaves this way sometimes. It's like a very interesting interview and it was, has been totally under talked about.

Yeah, this is crazy. This is a 2.5-hour interview.

Oh, did he release the whole thing finally? When did that get released? Normally what do you think? A month ago. He normally does like clips, like he releases clips.

It's a 2.5-hour interview released a month ago.

Um, how many views does it have?

171,000.

That's it?

Yeah. Just, just to put that into, uh, into perspective here, DJ Vlad's most popular interview, um, is with, let's see, who's he got here? Uh, Boosie. Boosie has 6.6 million views. Cardi B, 5.7 million.

I mean, Boosie's a good, a good listen. It's a great interview.

Double B, 5 million.

So we're gonna have to like watch the whole thing, but there's like crazy good insight into all this. And, um, it, it like, my takeaway from all this is like, it's not worth being successful if you and your father behave this way to one another. Um, like it's very strange to see, like you don't have to be a psychologist to like watch this and be like, like, uh, I, I understand why this family screwed up.

Yeah, messed up family. Okay, wow, that's amazing. All right, corporate espionage stories. You got what you wanted. Ever remember, everything on this podcast is allegedly, and this is a comedy podcast. Thank you very much. Uh, don't come after us.

All right, that's it. That's the pod.

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

I put All in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. Life.