My decision-making framework for which ideas to chase
Today's episode is about one word: excellence. Whenever I hear these stories about people who are excellent or what it took to become excellent or what it took to make something happen that was truly excellent, it makes me want to run through a wall for the rest of the day. So that's the gift to a listener. If you're listening to this in the morning, you're going to want to run through a wall after you listen to this. 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. Sam, it's morning time. Would you like some FOMO pancakes? Because I'm about to drizzle some FOMO pancakes right in front of you.
For some reason, when you say the word drizzle, I ought to—
I'm out. You're out? Yeah. I've never been able to pull that word off.
Yeah, I don't think anyone has.
We, um, as you know, we're hosting our annual event. Me and Ben host this annual event called Hoop Group with MrBeast, and we're hosting it in about a week. And I was just catching up with Ben. Ben takes the charge on, on like everything in your life? Yeah, yeah, doing the things. And I just like keep lobbing in ideas and then I'm basically the most annoying guy. It's like he says, hey, here's everything we got. And I'm like, can't we just make it better? He's like, okay, well how? I'm like, I don't know, just think big. And I say generic things like that and I'll be like, you know, I just got off the podcast with this guy, what would he do? And then he's like, I don't know, what did he tell you about? Like, I don't know, go listen to that, you get inspired. But it is—
By the way, you call it lobbying ideas. The, the, someone, I said that to my coach the other day and she goes, that's called swooping and pooping. Yeah. When you fly in and you just leave a bunch of crap.
Exactly. They've been working hard and then you just swoop in and you poop. But I do it in the name of high standards. Uh, and that's, that's how you get away with anything. That's how you get away with being an asshole. You just say, no, I'm not an asshole. I have high standards. But my standards have been exceeded by what Ben has pulled off, uh, with this event. I just need to tell you some things about this event. Okay. For those who don't know, For the last few years, every year we host a basketball camp. So it's kind of like a basketball camp for billionaires was the idea, the dream. There's lots of different conferences, there's lots of different networking events. And I hate conferences and I hate network events. And despite me talking a lot on this podcast, I'm actually kind of an introvert. I don't really enjoy going to events. And we wanted to do something, but the idea of just creating yet another thing that was very much like everything else that existed was not appealing.
Were you guys just sitting around? Our conference is dumb.
Well, it started with, we should do one, man. We have a big audience. We know all these interesting people. What if we hosted an event? And it's like, great. Like a networking event. Yay. It's like, no, it could be like, I don't know, like people come and talk. And we're like, oh, a conference. Yay. And so then I learned this on my first business. This guy told me, like, irritation leads to innovation. So back then it was a restaurant business, and he was telling me, I was saying how much I hate food delivery and he's like, well, that's the opportunity. Make food delivery that doesn't suck. And suddenly you'll take something that's really bad and just by like making it not suck, the gap between where it normally is and where you are is really big. And so similarly, the idea with this was, well, what would be a conference we would want to go to? And so we just started spitballing with like a, you know, childlike energy where it was like, I don't know, like Instead of icebreakers, like, what if you just— like, what if it was based around sports? We love sports. What if we combined two things we really love? Meeting interesting, inspiring business people, but then basketball. And so the idea became, we play basketball all day. What if we got an NBA trainer to come train us like a fantasy camp? And we invite people who are really, you know, successful and interesting, but they love to hoop. And so we, we all first, we play basketball. It's the ultimate equalizer, icebreaker. People get to know each other. And then at night you talk shop in the kind of like— we all stay in a couple of houses and we all talk shop there. And you've been to two of these that we've, we've thrown. So you, you kind of get the idea.
Yeah, it's great.
17 billionaires are coming to this event, which is pretty insane. So I just wanted to tell you about like the first, just give you a little bit of FOMO because you couldn't make it this year. So I wanted to give you a little FOMO on who's in the room.
I think the only two people that gave me true FOMO there. So, well, first of all, actually, we actually hold on. Let me think. Jesse Itzler is awesome. So I like him. I'm fortunate that I've been able to hang out with him. So I have less FOMO, but he is amazing. He was probably the best person I hung out with there last year. But, uh, Jesse Cole and, uh, the, uh, Nick Mulbray. Is that his name? Nick Mulbray?
Yeah.
Probably those two guys. Those two guys are who I'd want to meet most.
Yeah. I also just want to see Shaq in person. I think that's just going to be incredible.
I don't understand. Shaq doesn't seem like a guy who goes to sleepovers.
Well, he's coming to ours. All right.
Is he sleeping there or is he just popping in?
Yeah, he's coming. He's, he's an attendee. Okay. And so I've bragged about how cool this event is, but there are a couple of downsides. The first is the event is not a roster of names. It's a vibe. It's how you, how it actually feels to be there. And I'm really worried this year that we might have screwed it up by inviting too many kind of big name people who are used to being the center of attention. We got, I think, pretty lucky the first couple of years that all the most interesting people were also great hangs, just really down to earth, really fun to be around, which I don't think is going to be true for like your average billionaire or your average celebrity, right? Like, I think people are just used to being kind of the center of attention and being a little standoffish. So I'm really worried about that. I hope we didn't screw it up. I might be coming back on here in a couple of weeks and say, hey, look, you know, it was fun, but lesson learned. You know, too much of anything is a problem. And the other thing is, you know, for everybody we got, you know, Ben reached out to maybe 10, there's 20 people who said no. And just the effort that it takes to get people to come and to feel comfortable and excited to come to the middle of nowhere with people they don't even know. You've never heard of me. You never heard of Ben. You don't know who any of us are. Um, so I appreciate the people who took a leap of faith, but also like, it's, you only ever hear about the hits and never the misses, but for every hit, there's 19 misses, um, on, on people that we wanted to come. So I thought just to counterbalance it, that would be Fair.
I'm eager to see where Shaq sleeps. What does his bed look like?
Bunk beds, buddy. He's on top. I'm on bottom.
He is the bed. All right, so this episode is all about excellence. A while back, I shared my personal framework for building excellence in my own life, and the team at HubSpot turned it into a 30-day operating system you can check out right now. It breaks down the systems it took me 10 years to figure out and shows how I actually use them day to day. These are systems that genuinely changed my life. So if you want to build a good life, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now let's get back to the show.
All right. So I just want to tell you a couple of the, the philosophies that I think other people could steal to make cool, cool projects or events like this for themselves. Okay. So I kind of wrote down because this is a point of pride for us. I was like, man, this thing started as a pretty wacky idea that we tweeted out, really didn't know where it would go. And now this is your— this is the fourth time we did— we're doing it. And you were there the first year. I mean, it was like mostly just our friends sleeping in bunk beds, no like programming or like idea of what we're supposed to do in the event.
It was janky, but still very fun.
And it was still very fun. It was like there was some— there was a sauce of— there's a seed of something special, but it, it was pretty janky relative to like how it goes now.
It's funny, the things that were unimportant were janky. So the accommodations, uh, a lot of people think the accommodations need to be nice. No, they weren't. It was— I shared a room with 4 guys in a bunk bed. Perfectly adequate and fine.
Yeah. So we, uh, so here, here's some of them. Okay. So the first one is what I said, irritation leads to innovation. So take something that bothers you or you think sucks, and instead of just writing it off, as I don't do that, I don't like that, blah, blah, blah, being closed-minded to it. Just get playful with like, well, what version of this wouldn't suck, right? You just take that as a brainstorm and like, I don't know, 1 out of every 10 times you might actually come up with something interesting. The second is what I call the yes test. So as you get older and more successful in life, you go from opportunity scarce to opportunity abundant. Meaning when you're, when you're young, you don't really have a lot of cool opportunities or things you could say yes to. So you just need to be in the mindset of saying yes to a lot of stuff. Oh, this, this person wants to get coffee. Yeah, I'll take a flyer on that. Hey, th— this person wants me to attend this. I'll take a flyer on that. I'll go speak at this event. I'll go do this. I'll go do this. And then the older you get, both whether for family reasons, your time gets a little more restricted, or you just get more and more opportunities coming your way and you have to go the opposite way. You basically have to practice saying no. And so This creates what I call the yes test. And the yes test for me has become the following: would I do this thing for no money or losing money? And the best projects in my life have been things where I've said yes to things that I would be willing to do for free or willing to lose money. This podcast is one of them. When I started this podcast, I wrote a Google Doc and I said the stated plan was probably nobody will listen to this, and I'm probably going to lose $10,000 this year in production costs. But I'll have, you know, 50 interesting conversations with really interesting people. Back when it was more of a guest-centric podcast, and that was the stated plan, but I was willing to go in and lose money doing it, which is a good signal for like, there's probably a lot of other intangible benefits of doing this if you're willing to do it for a loss. This event, we don't charge anybody anything. We pay for it out of pocket. It's going to cost us maybe a couple hundred grand to throw this event. And so that's just cost we eat. And so the good thing of the bad thing is you lose money. The good thing is the event has to be something you'd be willing to lose a couple hundred grand on. Like, how good must that need to be for you to say yes to that? And it's sort of this forcing function of like, well, it's got like, then we got to have a lot of fun, meet a lot of really interesting people. It's got to be a real core memory. It's got to be something unique to our brand. Like, you know, you have to get all these other benefits in order for it to be worth that.. And so when I think about the thing, the best things in my life that I've done, it's been things that I would say yes to, uh, even if I lost money. And so this year, for example, playing the piano was a money loser, but it's one of the best decisions I made. Coaching the high school basketball team has been, you know, food for my soul. I've loved doing it. And I have, you know, I make no money. I lose money doing that. So I wanted to share the yes test with you.
It's so funny because so many things in my life that I have been thankful for doing, I only did it because it made money. Or like, I I only did it because I wanted the end result. Like, I don't, I don't want to lose weight. This sucks. I don't want to eat this food. I don't want to, like, exercise. And I just want the result.
I call some of those win-lose, especially not things like losing weight or exercise, because those are fully in your control. But let's say it's like a business, right? Those are what I call win-lose, which is, hey, if I get the result I wanted up front, then this was worth it. It was a win. But if I didn't, I'm going to be kicking myself, right? I'm going to feel like I lost. I wasted my time. And I think there are other win-win situations where you say, well, at the minimum, I already win, right? With the podcast, it was like, at the minimum, I'm going to have an excuse to go have 50 dope conversations with awesome people. I'm going to learn so much. I'm going to get to know them better. And, um, so it's already a win, even if nobody ever listened and I lost money. But then in the long shot, which was people started listening to the podcast and it started to make some money, maybe from advertisers. Well, then I win double. Great. So my two options were I win, I win small or I win big.. And I just think that that's generally a better place to be when you actually are excited about the small win, not like a moral victory or like, ah, I guess, you know, it could be worse, right? Not that I'm saying you're genuinely excited even about the basic win, but then there you leave yourself room for the upside.
So can you remind me, um, the pod was started, I think in July, some type of like late summer of '19, right?
Yeah.
And I'm almost positive. I don't think it made more than 6 figures for the first year and a half, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, probably not. I remember doing the first ad read and the first ad read was, this episode is brought to you by nobody. But think about it, this could be you. Because I needed to sell one ad, you know, to pay for— I was renting a studio, so I was like, can I pay for the studio time? $100 an hour.
I don't remember. I think it was like, it didn't make any money for like a year and a half and then it made kind of a lot of money and then a lot more. But, uh, which is pretty funny. Okay. And what are the second 2?
Okay, actually I have 3 more. So one is the bigger you go, the easier it gets. So there's a fallacy that people have, which is that going for big things is hard, is difficult. So going for smaller things will be easier. But actually, whenever you're doing something that is like a new product, an event, anything that needs differentiation, if you think smaller or you play more reasonably, you actually are less differentiated, you're less interesting. And the actually the harder it gets to people to get— let's just take this event. Let's say this event was not about basketball. It was just a normal meetup or event. And let's say the guest list was a bunch of people you never heard of that were easier for me to get in. Well, it would just make it harder for me to do everything that I'm trying to do with this. It'd be harder to get the next guest because why? Why would I come? There's nothing special about this.
This is true for business too, by the way. The bigger your idea, the better people you can recruit.
Exactly. And then the better people you recruit, the easier it gets to do the thing, right? That's the third part, right? And so having a bigger thing where it's like, yeah, we're going to get the most interesting people, people that have like, you know, one name recognition. I'm only able to get them because we're doing a unique thing, but because we're doing a unique thing and we get some of them, it makes it easier to get more of them, which makes it easier to do a more unique thing because now you have all these really special people coming.
And in your case, Shaq— or not Shaq, MrBeast was like kind of the, the, the tentpole, uh, the anchor, the initial anchor. Yeah. How did you get in touch with Shaquille O'Neal?
Cold email.
Really?
Uh, actually, sorry, Shaq was through, uh, kind of a, it was like a cold request. Ben saw, uh, so the guy who started Ring doorbell is coming and Ben, uh, doing Ben miracle things that only Ben does. He was like, who are the investors in Ring? And so he goes and he looks at who's the first investors in Ring, saw that Shaq was an early investor in Ring and presumably made a bunch of money off of the Ring investment. So he's like, hey, you think Shaq would want to come to this thing? And the guy was like, hey, let me go, let me find out. And so it kind of made the, made the intro and then went from there. But Jamie had never been himself, so it's not like he could do like a hard vouch for it, but it ended up working out. But he cold emailed a bunch of people that like, you know, the founder of Airbnb came because he cold emailed him. And he knew, hey, I know growing up you were a ball boy for an NBA team. So like, I'm guessing you love hoops just like I do. I was a ball boy too.
Dude, you should call this Camp Ben. I mean, that's what this is. Good job, Ben.
That's one of the principles is basically the product is you pushed out. So, uh, my trainer told me this one time when I was like trying to figure out what to do. Should I start this company or this? Should I do this or this? And I was telling, I was just mentioning it to my trainer in passing. And he goes, he goes, what do you mean? You are the product. I go, what? He goes, you are the product. He goes, the product is just you pushed out. So just do you, but like turn the volume knob up. And so he's like, look at the podcast. What's the podcast? Do you have to think before you go on the podcast? Like, ooh, how should I act? And what should I— no, you just, you're just being you, right? You and Sam, you just get on there and you hang out like you and Sam would normally. And he's like, so the product is you pushed out and that's what resonated with people, right? That's the one that, that, that clicked. And then he was showing me, like, in another project that we did, he's like, that's just, that's like you pushed out again. And so with the camp, the camp is basically like basketball, which something me and Ben obsess over, but it's basically the mix of like, on my end, it's like my version of like a TED conference because we do these little mini talks every night. And that's kind of like, I, even my Twitter bio says I'm an idea dealer. Like, that's the thing that I get off on the most is like the sharing of ideas and like wisdom and like picking up these nuggets from each other. And the thing Ben loves to do is curate really interesting people and get them in a room together. Like, Ben is a— he's not like a networker per se, but he just loves to meet interesting people, and he just gets lit up when he meets somebody who's done something interesting, who's cool. And so, um, anyways, I think finding something that's basically— if you just look at the product and you say, that's me productized— I feel like the hustle for you was in many ways you productized big time in your writing voice. But also the sort of punk rock attitude, the hustle, the name Hustle, the, the conference that you did, like a lot of that was just your DNA.
But you want to know where I screwed it up? I built something I disliked. So which I think that— have you ever done this with a company where you build a company or a project and then you grow to dislike the people and the culture? Like, not that they're bad, but for example, if I— when I started doing it, I was 24, 25, and then by the time I was 28, 29, 30, I was like, well, I'm a little bit different, or I care about slightly different things or whatever. And it's neither good or bad, but have you ever, like, built a project that was like your own prison?
Yeah, you can outgrow, you can outgrow a project. I think it's generally usually an insecurity leads you to make a decision that's not in line with who you are, and therefore you end up, you do that 6 times and you end up in an almost unrecognizable spot.
And it's sort of like boiling water. Like you're, you're, you're in lukewarm water and it just is slow.
You don't notice.
You don't notice.
It's like, it's too late, right?
Yeah.
And where did that poor decision— where, why did you start making those, those turns, like, down the wrong roads? And usually the root of it is some insecurity. So for me, when I've done this, this thing you're describing, it's I'm so afraid for this thing to fail, and I so badly want it to win. I badly want to make money that I start just, like, trying to conform into, like, maybe that will work. Maybe this is the thing. Yeah, maybe this is the thing. And then suddenly I've built a live streaming app for Twitch streamers. Nord. I do not stream video games. I don't play video games. I don't even watch Twitch. And yet here I am. How? It's like, kids, you might be wondering, how did this happen? That's, that's where I ended up out of that insecurity of I just want to be successful.
So I don't think that's bad, by the way. Like, you were a mercenary, right? And in a way, I felt like I started as like a missionary where I was like, this is my life. This is what I'm all about. And then it started working and I was like, okay, well, I have to hire some people and this person's good. And you sort of become a mercenary some, some of the time. And so I still am envious of the people. So for example, one of the reasons why people are obsessed with Dyson, who you were joking about, why is everyone obsessed with Dyson? Is he and Brian Chesky, another guy at Airbnb, they appear as though they started as a missionary and they have remained that way, where they are all— they are down for the cause and they refuse to bend or sacrifice. But the thing is, is that you can get mildly or very successful even by bending and sacrificing. You don't actually have to stick to your values all the time in order to be a commercial success. And oftentimes bending your values and doing what you think is expected of you, not what you want to do, is actually significantly more profitable. And so there's been many times where I've made that sacrifice and I maybe got what I wanted financially, but I was, and I was pretty upset with how I, what I gave into. And in turn, the reality is I probably would have been significantly more profitable had I stuck the whole time. It just would have been more painful. Does that make sense?
Well, you're saying both things, right? You're saying I built something that I didn't even love, which is sort of a painful feeling. So that's kind of like a bad outcome, but it was a commercial success, so it's a good outcome. Yeah. And so can you make a commercial success while being mercenary about it? Absolutely. Can you also make a commercial success while doing something in line with your mission or something that lights you up or something that you feel is like the type of thing that you, you know, you sort of, or it's organic to you.
If you have good taste. Correct. If you have good taste.
But to me, I'm like, if I can, again, one is a win-lose and the other is a win-win. If win-win is possible, then I'm going to pursue that.
But it's not always that, dude. My point, my point is it's not always that. I have so many, I went to Belmont University. It's a music school or it's a school that has a big music department. I knew so many people that were like, they're like, we're going to be musicians. This is the stuff we're going to play. And it's like, mildly interesting, but it's not like a pop hit or anything. And now we're all the same age. I talk to them and they're kind of bums and they regret their decisions. They're like, I wish I would have chased the money. Casey Neistat has this funny thing. Casey Neistat, did you know that? So Casey Neistat got famous, I believe, when he started vlogging every single day, I think in 2015. He did not turn on ads on YouTube. He thought that that was ruining the art and he refused to do it. And he did a talk recently about a year ago where he goes, how foolish of me. That would've added up to like $15 million or something insane like that. And he was like, now my advice is the exact opposite. Take the money when you could take the money. And, and so I guess this, this constant tension between like doing art and doing what's cool versus taking the money. And so I think what you're saying is true and also it's maybe not true for everyone.
So in that example you're giving, I think that, um, so what are these called? These are called dialectics. It's like two opposite. 2 things at opposing ends of a spectrum, which can both be argued to be very true. And so you would think, how is that possible that 2 things on the opposite end of the spectrum? So for example, uh, patience is a virtue, but at the same time, a lot of entrepreneurs would not be successful if they weren't very impatient at the same time, saying, 6 months? How do we do this in 6 days? Right? So like, you have these opposite things and then you find the way that they link together. So like, my favorite one with the patience and impatience comes from Naval, where he says impatience with action, patience with results. And you're like, ah, that's it. Exactly. Because if you're patient with your action, you just don't do shit. If you're impatient with your results, you give up too easily. You get frustrated. It leads you to make shortsighted decisions. And so that's the right combo. And I think there's a version of that here with like, to what extent do I build the thing that I think is interesting, that I think is cool, that is more natural to what I want and, be mission-driven, maybe to the impact I want or the type of thing I want to build, the type of company I want to build, the type of product I want to build. And also realizing that the more commercially successful it is, the more interesting people you're going to be able to hire, which will make the product better, which will let you do this for longer. Like, right. So there's a way where, like Disney said, you know, we don't make, make movies to make money. We make money so we can make great movies. Right. And so you want to basically realize like, oh, this is, this, this money thing is important and we have to understand where it's going to come from and how this is going to work. We can't be blind to that. At the same time, that can't be the North Star. If it is, we're going to build something that's, you know, compromised in a way. And I made that mistake. I think I made that mistake of compromising because I've now done both. Now, it might be argued that you do the compromise first and that gives you the freedom to take a bunch of shots on goal or gives you the confidence or gives you the story. Now you have the skills or whatever. I don't know. But if I could rewind it, I would go back and advise myself to just be like, hey, you should just keep building The things that you find most interesting.
Were you not interested at all? And I mean, it's so funny. You didn't play video games.
I was interested in them because of their market potential. I was like, oh, napkin math. This times this times this equals this.
That's not wrong. I mean, that's not wrong. That's fine.
I do. I don't think it is ideal, right? There's not right and wrong. There's like, you know, there's good, better, best, right? There's different grades.
Like, for example, I think MrBeast is like, I don't, I actually, that's an interesting question. I don't know if he cares. Does he care about making movies or does he care just like this was the game that was set in set forth, and now I want, I want to win.
Well, he is interesting, right? Because it's kind of both. He was clearly, he clearly loved to make content and wanted to be a YouTuber almost like at an identity level more than anything. That's why for 6 years nobody's watching and he just keeps making videos year after year. 12 years old, 13 years old, 14 years old, 15 years old, 16 years old, 17 years old, 18 years old. Nobody watched till he was 19. And so, and even then it's not like it was huge. It was small even at that stage. But he kept going and he had said up front, like, okay, I'm either going to be a famous YouTuber or I'm going to die making YouTube videos. Like, I'm going to try, die trying. And so, you know, in that way he was pretty mission-driven. And I don't think he was, you know, there was a lot easier ways to make money if he needed to make money, right? Like over time he could have given up and gone towards other things. And also the types of videos he made were videos that, you know, he obviously found interesting. At the same time, you know, I think his, I think more than being an artist about like What is the, what is the most artistic video I can make, right? I think he's basically saying, I want to make the best YouTube videos and best is defined as what people want to watch. I like making things that entertain the masses that people want to watch. That's the version he likes, you know?
I think the video he did the other day got like 100 million views in a few hours. And for some reason, MrBeast videos never pop up on my feed, but this one, like it had like all celebrities in it. I didn't realize he was doing that. 30 celebrities fight for a million dollars and it's like Paris Hilton and Kevin Hart and shit like that. Did you see that?
Yeah, I watched that one. That's crazy. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out 4/5 of the pages. Point is, you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com.
Did you have a third or fourth?
Yeah, I got two more quick ones. One is everybody— it doesn't matter how rich you are, everybody's a little kid. So last year, for example, you know, you've got this room full of people who can buy anything that they want, but what can't they buy, right? And so we rent out the stadium for the final game of our tournament at the, at the camp, and they walked in and there was jerseys, printed with their names. And like, everybody was so excited, like a little kid. And so it's these little moments in between the big things that actually create the feel of the event. And so, for example, this year we're doing this little touch where we play basketball in the morning.
We got to tell— wait, Shaq, cover your ears.
So we play basketball in the morning, and then we go to the house for lunch or whatever. And at the house, you'll already see on the TV screen, like photos from that morning's game, like little videos and photos.
Were you inspired by, uh, Steve Bartlett? I heard he, I heard he does that where you record a podcast with him and then when you're done with the podcast, he hands you a book.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's a photo album of the podcast.
Yeah, which is a very, very great touch. We stole it from K Academy. Coach K does this and they, they have that there. And so we were like, oh, that's a great idea. So little things like, uh, after the, the final game this time, we were like, how do we make it fun? How do we give you that moment that you can't buy? Like, you know, what's the, what's the fun thing that like would bring out the childlike energy in these people. And so we were taking them to the locker room and, you know, like in sports, like when you win a championship, they like have champagne and like ski goggles in the locker room to do. So we have that set up. So it's like the winners are going to get to go do that. It's like, I don't know, just like have fun. I think caring about these little details. Last time after the event, we made this custom magazine.
It was cool.
Uh, with like photos of everybody, almost like Slam Magazine back in the day. And we sent it to each person. It took me a week to work on that. Like, they were just like, what do you, do you have a job? What do you do? You know, like, you know me in life. I'm pretty not a man of the details. That's not where I'm from. But with this event, it's like, pick and choose the few areas where you're not going to 80/20 in life. Pick and choose the areas where good enough is not good enough. Like, okay, this is one project where we're like, we're going to try to go all out to a ridiculous degree and they're going to feel that. They're going to know that we went all out for our own amusement and for our own, like, just to see what we could do if we really create something that's special. And so I'm excited to do that.
Have you been working on this all year?
No, this is like the last 6, 6 weeks, let's say.
Wow. That's a, that's a lot you get done in just 6 weeks. Is this, was this what you will focus on the whole time? The whole 6 weeks?
No, I'm not focused on it really at all. I just meet with Ben at the beginning, say, here's like, here's some ideas. Here's what I thought was good last time, bad last time. Here's some ideas. Ben goes and does things. And then we brought on some event organizers to help us this time. And then every couple of weeks, we just sort of check in on, like, and he's not doing it full time either, but, like, you know, a big chunk of his time.
Well, the hard part is just the inviting the right people and getting them to say yeah.
What I was doing, so I told you I was trying to write that book. So I was like, I've basically become that Family Guy meme. I don't know if you've ever seen that episode of Family Guy where Brian's been writing a novel and Stewie's just trolling him. He's like, how's that? How's that novel going? Yeah. Got some pages? Got some chapters? Beginning, middle, end? Little juxtaposition. And he's like, Brian's like classic writer who's like just like stuck in the mud, like not making progress on this book. It's like too big of a thing. It's like intimidating him. And so I've had this idea to write this book. I've done all this research, but I was like slowly, like I would draft chapters, but I like, I wasn't like writing the book. I was just like drafting chapters. Yeah, you were pretending. Yeah, I was like pretending. So 2 weeks ago I was like, all right, who am I? Am I the kind of guy who's talking about this book? Am I going to write the book? And so 2 weeks ago I decided I will have a prototype of the book. So like not the full book, but like a cover, opening, intro, first chapter, second chapter, printed physical book in to show these people in 2 weeks. And in the last 2 weeks I wrote it. Print is getting printed right now. It'll be printed the day, the last day of printing will be the day.
Is it any good?
I threw myself into it and it's good because it was such a good forcing function and there's a lesson I was telling Ben, like, Tony Robbins has this phrase, he goes, peers aren't just the people around, like, near you, like, just the guy you see to your right. A peer is somebody who has leverage over you. And it's like, what do you mean leverage over you? He's like, a peer is somebody who you care about their opinion of you. So they have some leverage over you. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing. But like, the good version of that is if you get the right people around you and you care about their opinion and they value the things that you value, Well, you will sort of rise in accordance with wanting to be seen well by your peers. Like, it's very hard to just become a monk and renounce, be like, I don't care what anyone thinks of me, right? Like, everybody likes to say that shit, but then you're all on social media posting and trying to get likes. Like, you know, come on, we all care what people think about us. The trick is to pick who's going to care about you and what those people care about. And so, you know, if you're a mom and you're around other great moms, then you're not going to want to look like a bad mom. And the result is good. It helps you be a better mom.
January is like the biggest month of— January 2026 might be the biggest month of your professional career in the last 5 years.
Definitely the most productive. Um, I mean, nobody tries to write a book. Well, I gave myself 2 weeks and then I went to the printer and they were like, hey, yeah, we need 7 days. I was like, oh good, I got 7 days to write this. Fantastic. So I just pulled all-nighters for 7 days and pulled her off.
You want to tell— can I tell you a cool story about excellence that I think is actually related to this? Yes. And it's probably the only time that the sports that I'm interested are going to overlap with the— well, with sports in general that you might be interested in.
Let me guess, does this sport not involve a ball or a goal of any kind? No, it's defense.
The only sports I'm into are people beating each other up or running away from each other. It's either— it's chasing someone or what you do when you catch them.
So which one is this one? Is this a running or a fighting?
It's a running one. Okay. Let— more boring, but way more inspirational. So, okay. I read this book a few years ago and I was watching a documentary on the same topic and, and last night, and, and I really wanted to bring it up with you because I think you maybe heard of it, but I don't know if you knew all the details. So, uh, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was this, uh, coach. Uh, his name was Bill. He was a track and field coach up in Oregon. And he was the man. He had served in the, in the military in World War II. And he was just like tough guy and kind of sort of had this like scientist way about him where he was all about efficiency. He loved efficiency. And he was like, what's the most— what's the best way that I can get these kids that I'm teaching or coaching at the University of Oregon? How can I make them run faster other than making them train more? And he got really nerd— like nerdy on shoes. And so he started taking apart different shoes and he started thinking, how can I make these shoes better? And originally like the lore or the story is that he was like, well, if you're 6 feet tall, you're gonna take this many steps per mile. And if I can reduce the weight of the shoes by only 1 ounce, that's gonna save you 50 pounds per mile. That seems like a big deal. And so he's hanging out with his kids one day, and his kids at this point, I think, are in their 20s, but they came over for brunch. And the wife, his wife, Bill's wife, is making waffles for him. And he was like, I got it. I know exactly what to do. So he steals the waffle iron from his wife and he pours liquid rubber into it and he folds it down. He folds it up and he's like, this is it. And this was the sole for his new shoe. And so he used that and they called it the waffle for the shoe and it kicked ass. And now I think you know who I'm talking about, right?
Yeah. Bill Bowerman. Bill Bowerman was the co-founder of Nike. The more famous co-founder was Phil Knight. Phil Knight was actually one of his athletes. At University of Oregon, and Phil Knight had a class on— an entrepreneurship class.
So are they like age-gapped by like 20 years or something more?
I believe, at least based on photos, I think he was probably in his late 50s and Phil Knight was in his mid-20s. He had created the idea of Nike as a college student, but at first when he started the company in the '60s, he was basically just importing Japanese shoes. And he knew Bill liked to tinker with shoes. But it wasn't until about 5 or 6 years in did Nike actually start saying, Bill, let's actually just make the shoes that you are already making. But they were partners.
Yeah.
And this is like, what is it called, Blue Ribbon or what's it called?
Yeah, they were basically importing Japanese shoes and he called it Blue Ribbon. So importing other people's shoes.
And then Bill separately, his coach, is experimenting, tinkering with shoes. And then they come together at some point. What's the come together story? Do you know?
Is there a story there? Well, Phil Knight was, uh, was his athlete. And so Phil Knight wore some of Bill's prototypes. Prototypes. But they were really rough. Like, people used to complain that they were kind of rough, but they did work. But I think they would only work for like 2 races.
It's the shape of a circle from the waffle.
Yeah, it was, it was weird, but it was really effective. And then so they teamed up and he was like, let's import these shoes, and then Bill, you give them to the Nike guys or to the Oregon team, and we're gonna go track meet to track meet. And it wasn't— it was a company, but it's almost like, it was almost like if I started a honey company, uh, and I started going to like farmers markets like, and somehow that turns into Burt B's. But, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. Okay, so that's not the story that I want to actually bring up. What I really want to talk about was Steve Prefontaine. Do you know who Steve Prefontaine was?
So he was a runner also. Was he like the first athlete? He broke some record. He's wearing Nikes. Is that his story?
Sort of. Kind of. You're in.
You're in the ballpark. He lost a leg, or that's the Canadian guy?
Yeah, that's Terry Fox, who I made fun of once in Canada, and they booed me on stage.
Hey, you're swinging and missing with some of these jokes, all right?
Yeah. Basically, Terry Fox was this guy who ran across Canada with one leg that he lost to cancer, and I saw a sign or like a statue for him like all over like Canada, and Sean and I did a live podcast. I was like, who the hell is this Terry Fox guy? He's everywhere. It did not land.
The definition of punching down. Yeah.
So Google Steve Prefontaine. We were talking about like kind of like punk rock and not compromising.
Guy's a hunk.
He's a hunk, right? Is this guy the hunkiest of hunks?
So Steve Prefontaine, by the way, hunk, pretty underutilized. I think we can— I think we should own that word.
Is that what you want to be known for?
Is bringing back the word hunk? Amongst a few things, I'd put that top 5.
Steve Prefontaine, he was born in like a small fishing town called Coos Bay, and he was badass. He was badass in high school where he just like crushed everyone. And at the time when he was— this was in the late 1960s— Bill Bowerman actually basically pioneered the word jogging in America. So running was not even a thing. Bill Bowerman was like, everyone, you should run. It's good for your health. And that is when like housewives started running because previously people would see someone running in the streets and—
This blows my mind, by the way. This is not that long ago. What'd you say? It was like in the '60s or something, wasn't it?
Like the jogging revolution was in the '60s and that's when Steve—
and then that's crazy. That's like, you know, my dad is like a teenager or something. That's a— Jogging seems like it's just been around since prehistoric times.
No, it wasn't a thing.
To me, that's an incredible marketing story, how they got, like, America to jog.
Do you know what inspired Bill? Was he was in World War II and he, they were surrounded by Germans at one point. And Bill was in, was an outdoorsman. He was into physical fitness and hiking. And he noticed that the more fit soldiers who he was around, they were able to survive longer. And he eventually, like, overcame this German. They were surrounded by Germans and somehow he conquered them and made them surrender. But it was at that time where he's like, I realized how important fitness was, and jogging is a really good example of how to get fit. And so he's popularized jogging. He wrote a book called Jogging, and it went viral. It was on the COVID of, uh, Sports Illustrated in the '60s. That's how—
I've seen a newspaper article that was like, this strange phenomenon taking place in the suburbs of America. Yeah, people are going outside and running. Like something's come over these people, like an alien invasion has happened and people are doing this strange behavior now.
That was Bill. So Bill popularized this, and that's one of the many reasons why when Steve Prefontaine was in high school, running obviously not very popular now, unless occasionally you get like a freak like Usain Bolt and you're like, that's really cool. Well, Bill Bowerman was sort of that guy in the '60s and '70s where people like, this guy invented jogging, how cool, he's kind of neat. But then it wasn't like a cool thing, but it was like a neat thing. But then this kid named Steve Prefontaine, and he was the exact opposite of Bill, and I'll explain in a minute, but he just crushed all these kids in high school. And then he got recruited to the University of Oregon to run for Bill. Now, Bill is a very methodical, scientific guy. And what that means is that he hated front-running. His whole idea was, it's your goal to win the race. Your goal is not to look cool. It's not to, lead the whole time. It's to do the least amount of work to get the desired result, which is to win. That is not what Steve Frugentem was about. He said he has this famous quote. He goes, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it with style. And his whole shtick was that he would run the race from beginning to end as hard as you could. He was short and he used to say that he wasn't gifted. He was very gifted, but he would kind of joke that he wasn't gifted. And he would say to give anything less than the— less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. And he also, he had this other quote where he said, a lot of people run a race to see who's fastest. I want to race to see who has the most guts. And that's what he was famous for, was running all out as hard as he could.
Hunk.
Hunk, right? Like in the book.
Hunk-like attitude.
Dude, it gets even hunkier. In the book that I've read about him, they used to talk about his gaze. I don't know if you could Google like Steve Prefontaine.
That's getting a little too much now.
Google, well, hold on. Google Steve, this is important. It's actually about branding. Google Steve Prefontaine posters. And he's famous for this, like, gaze. He would, like, stare really hard at things. And that poster is one of the most famous posters. If you are, like, a nerdy high school kid who cares about running, like, you have this poster. This guy was the boss. And turns out, uh, in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, he did his front-running thing where with, like, 3 or 4 laps to go, which there's still a lot left to go, he takes hold and he leads the Olympic race for the 5,000 meters. And it doesn't work out. And at the very end, the other guys outkick him and he gets 4th. And tragically he dies like a year and a half later in a car crash. He was drinking and driving, but he was Nike's first sponsored athlete. And what Phil Knight says is the, the, the— even though that Jordan kind of made Nike most famous, that's how people know Nike now. They say that Steve Prefontaine was the soul of Nike. This idea of like fierce independence, of competitiveness. He goes— Phil was like, I didn't really have that. That was Steve. Everything Steve was about, I took it from him and I made it into a brand called Nike.
That's sick. It's like if the man was a brand and then they basically built Nike in that, in that image, right? Like that attitude.
It's badass. Yeah. So before Nike was Nike, it was called Blue Ribbon Sports. Then they changed it to Nike and they were like, Steve is the brand that we're trying to be like. And the reason I think this interests me is I love like these punk rock, like maverick renegades, renegade guys. But I also am interested in like stealing from the past. So like finding good ideas. And so I was thinking about Bill Bowerman and He has this famous book called The Men of Oregon and Steve Pervonte. And I was like, what can I steal about his branding? He has a bunch of really cool branding. So for example, when he was at his peak, he was kicking everyone's ass. Someone made a shirt that said, Go Steve, Go! Or said— or sorry, it said Go Pre! And he made a different shirt that said Stop Pre!
Yeah, I'm looking at that right now.
And he put it on a stop sign and these t-shirts got really popular.
Stop Pre! Wait, why? Why did he make the opposite? Because the first one's supporting him, but he just was like, no, it was a joke.
But it was just kind of like, look, I'm so good that people have to stop me. And it's pretty cool. And so like that, actually, that t-shirt is really cool. I love that t-shirt.
And then if you look at these quotes, look at this quote: No matter how hard you train, somebody will train harder. No matter how hard you run, somebody will run harder. No matter how hard you want it, somebody will want it more. I am somebody.
How good is that? So he's got so many of these quotes.
When you get this combo, like athlete-poet, and you get Ali or you get McGregor or you get, you know, this like Steve Prefontaine, it's the best.
And I think that you can have, and so like a lot of times people don't realize this, but there exists certain personality types and attributes that supersede a sport or a genre or a niche.
Totally. I love this guy. I don't even care about running.
You don't care about running.
But I would buy this guy's shirt.
Yeah. Or like Lance Armstrong was another one. Like Lance Armstrong. You're telling me this guy's going to be the most famous athlete on Earth for a couple of years, for a handful of years via cycling? Are you kidding me? Right. And even frankly, I don't remember exactly, but when I was a kid, golf was a loser sport until Tiger Woods. Like, yeah, it wasn't like that big of a deal. Same with Serena Williams and Venus Williams. It was like kind of interesting. But, but then like that movie Marty Supreme came out and it's about table tennis. And I remember watching that table tennis sport, like, I'm like, oh my God, this guy's punk rock. I love table tennis now.
Yeah, it's so good. Uh, I love when people, like you said, transcend the sport. Like, uh, I've told the story before, but I've always, I always remember it. We used to, at our company, we used to always like take breaks and just play FIFA or like any kind of video game really. But like a lot of it was FIFA. And I've told you this, Steve Bartlett used to, used to work for us and he used to always play my CTO Furkan, like in FIFA all night. Like we used to play for an hour as a break. They would play for an hour as a break. You'd go back to work and then starting at like 9 or 10, they would start playing FIFA again and they would play till 2 or 3 in the morning every night. And, um, Steve, I think, was getting the better of, uh, Furkan a lot. And he used to talk so much trash. And the biggest, like, trash talk was he would say, he's like, even when I leave, even when I go back to the UK, you're going to remember me because I'm not a man. I'm a concept. I'm a concept. I'm just a concept. And he just kept saying, I'm just a concept. And I remember just laughing because I had no idea what he was even talking about. Has nothing to do with FIFA. But I've always remembered that, like, actually, that is the highest thing is when you're a concept. You're not even, you're not even in your physical form anymore. To me, I'm like, I see Prefontaine. I'm like, Prefontaine is a concept.
And it's also, it's kind of messed up, but it's kind of for the story. It's better that he, I think he was 26 or 25 when he died. And there's a bunch of these guys who die at a very young age. And I'm like, because they died so young, it makes them significantly more— the mysteriousness of it makes it way more compelling. And so Steve Prevontaine, I don't know if we have— we have a Billy of the Week. I guess that would be Bill Bowerman. But Steve would be in that category.
Legend. Legend of the Week. All right, let's take a quick break because I got to tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and, you know, the type, it's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form and it was open only during business hours. And I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction, they locked my account, they put me on hold for 45 minutes, and then they told me I gotta visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. Uh, after asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury. And so now my payroll is 2 clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies, and so do 200,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Call M&A, and Evolve Bank and Trust, members FDIC. So why does Phil Knight get all the props? Is it because Bill Bowerman's not around anymore or he took it over, or what, what's the deal?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. His— yeah, they, uh, they're multi, multi-billionaires. But he, uh, he, he was much older. So look at when he died. Did he die in the '80s?
I think '99.
Oh, oh, he made it that long. Okay, I didn't even know he died in '99. Uh, no, he, um, but he was out of the picture starting in the '80s, I believe.
What's the genius of Phil Knight? And what's his, what's more of his story? I haven't read Shoe Dog, by the way, which I know is like supposed to be mandatory. I started it and I was like, eh.
So I've only read Shoe Dog and I've read Bill Bauman's book. So I've never read too much about Phil Knight other than that one, Shoe Dog. No, I think that, um, I think Phil Knight was a dog. I think he was just like kept at it. I think like he did not, he was, he was relentless. You know, Nike, the book Shoe Dog, it only goes for the first 10 years of Nike. And the first 10 years of Nike was from like 1968 to like 1978. The Jordan shit didn't happen until the '90s. I believe Jordan was picking between Converse and Reebok, and those were the Nikes of the era. And so my guess from reading about him, Phil Knight was pretty good at operating. He was very scrappy. He was good at hiring people and letting them do their thing.
Have you seen Air, the movie about the Jordan signing?
Yeah. And in that, in that movie, they made Phil Knight kind of look stupid, which I think was very unfair.
I don't know if they've sensationalized, like, I don't know how accurate that movie is to reality, but, but yeah, they made it seem like he wasn't, you know, particularly involved or particularly helpful in, from what I remember, in the Jordan signing.
I think that also, like, to think of, like, a lot of people don't realize this because of, like, Air Force Ones and shit like that. Nike was explicitly a running company, right? Like it started in the, in the not popular or cool niche. I mean, I guess basketball wasn't particularly popular in the '70s either, but it was a running company. And so I guess it took like Phil Knight to say, I guess let's go after basketball. But I don't particularly think he was the most creative guy ever.
Who have you seen that does the Nike playbook? So what made Nike such a powerful brand? And then who's applied that in another space? What comes to mind?
Yeah, so I think they did, uh, obviously it takes a thousand things and you sort of overestimate the credit to a small number of things, but okay, what seemed to be the big levers? Okay, so they fundamentally have like, you know, a simple brand that can be, you know, international. So the checkmark, small name, like cool. That's the, you know, the foundation of the brand puzzle. Is your actual brand identity. Okay, then what comes next? So then they basically went down the athlete route where they were like, let's get the greatest athletes. The athlete is aspirational, and if the best athletes wear Nikes, that will sort of trickle down, and then suddenly you have, you know, the dad bods walking around the neighborhood wearing Nikes. Like, that's where you make your money. You don't make your money off of the top prep athletes buying Nikes. You make your money off of everybody buying Nikes.. And so how do you get them to do that? And you know, what they did brilliantly was they don't talk about the shoes, right? So it's like counterintuitive, right? The ads are never about the product. They don't tell you how many, how many, uh, whatever squishes are in the air bubble and how many ounces are on the toe and how, how many millimeters wide the heel is. Like, they don't do any of that. And so they focus on the feeling, the emotion, the storytelling. And the simple fact that Nike celebrates greatness, the great athletes use Nike. And if you want, if you consider yourself who's, you know, trying to be great, Nike will become a default for you. And so who's applied that in other areas? It's kind of interesting, right? Like Apple, I think famously tried to do this with the Think Different campaign. It worked, right? And it worked. And he was like, you know, there's that great Steve Jobs speech where he's talking at some university or maybe it's an Apple brand meeting or something. And he basically is unveiling the campaign. I think Apple was sort of on the, uh, on a bit of a downswing and they, you know, Steve comes back and he simplifies the product line, but then he also launches this brand campaign, which was like the Think Different campaign where it's like Einstein and Gandhi and like, you know, all these like kind of rebellious, mischievous, like world changers, um, the people who changed the world. And he's like, if they, they, you know, they didn't have computers, but if they did, They would use Apple and it was like, oh, okay, yeah, I get it. You know, they sort of—
it's pretty funny, right? That's like the greatest influencer campaign ever. I'm just going to find people who are dead who can't say no.
Make them a deal they literally can't refuse.
Yeah. And it's not even a deal. I'm just going to say.
And so, you know, I think Apple obviously did a great job, but those are sort of cliché. You know, I'm seeing this a little bit in like the health space. You know, I think like I invest in this company Superpower and I think Superpower is going to try to do this. I think, you know, other companies probably in the protein space have tried to do this where it's like, how do you create like a Gymshark athlete, right? Where you basically sponsor all these Instagram famous people because maybe that's where the attention is now. And they don't have to tell you why that sweatpants is the best or whatever, but you just know they are a— it's not like, hey, buy these pants. It's I am a Gymshark athlete. I am a whatever, right?
It's like identity. Nick Bare, you know, you remember— do you remember Nick Bare? Yeah, of course. I don't remember if you were on the times that we talked to him.
I was. Yeah.
Yeah. That was years ago, I think pandemic time. And he— there's a joke in his fitness world, which is like this thing called the hybrid athlete, which is basically like a big, ripped, yoked, meathead-looking guy who also is really good at running. And he sort of, in a lot of people's minds, kind of invented that. And there's like this joke on Instagram, like, don't forget your hybrid athlete kit. And it's like they're all wearing the same hat, you know, like the same shorts and they're whatever. He's— he appears to have done that quite well with this hybrid athlete thing. And Nicks owns a company called BPN that sells protein. And very rarely is he like promoting the protein or electrolytes, but always promoting the lifestyle of lifting weights and running far.
Yeah, being a hybrid athlete and maybe even more like, you know, sort of the grind culture of workouts where they're like, you know, I didn't want to wake up today, but I do it, you know, that, that sort of thing where it's like, you know, I got it in today under these circumstances. Raining, doesn't matter. Cold, doesn't matter. You know, uh, I wasn't feeling good, doesn't matter. That sort of attitude, right? So you can, you can kind of elevate not just, hey, we're athletes, but like, well, what kind of athletes? It's like, well, we're more in that David Goggins sort of like no excuses athletes. And you could take something like that, right, like what Prefontaine did, and you could do it in other spaces. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more.
I think it's hard to pull off. Like, for example, of course, like the people who you, but not just hard, I mean it's hard emotionally. So for example, you told the story where you're like, with my company, with your e-commerce company, my business partner or my friend Suli told me, don't do anything except for spend this much money on Facebook ads. He didn't tell you to like do cool shit like sponsor, you know, cool people. He said, just do this because the ROI is instantaneous and you know within 12 hours what's working, what's not, and you're gonna make small incremental changes and you are willing to do that because you have bills to pay and it will pay the bills. But then just turning that off and doing stuff that doesn't make sense on paper but feels right potentially, but also feels like a huge bet. That's a scary thing to do.
Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I think it's hard and scary and, but you know, it's, it's the big prize. Brand is always the big prize. Right? Because brand is you living in the person's head rent-free rather than you paying for every impression that you get on Facebook or a billboard or a display ad or anywhere else, right? So, like, I think Seth Godin has this great thing where he talks about, like, um, if I told you that, um, Hilton Hotels was making a shoe, do you even— could you even imagine what that would look like? But if I told you Nike made a hotel, you could probably actually imagine what that might look like. He goes, that's brand. And I thought that was always a great, like, differentiator, which is they own a piece of real estate. They own a meaning in your head, whether it's of quality, it's of design, it's of greatness, it's of excellence, it's of health, it's of wellness, it's of recovery, whatever it is. Like, different brands can be about different things. But a simple test about the strength of the brand could be, well, what if they went into an adjacent space? Could you imagine what they would do? And would you be excited about what they did with it?
That's actually really hard to think about and how to actually pull that off. All right. So if you think about how to pull that off, well, you have tons of employees. Like, for example, my company, let's say we have 25 employees. Like, how do I get everyone to be consistent with the marketing? It's actually really hard versus just following what's profitable. So like, for example, at your company and my company, if we're buying ads, you meet once a week or every day and you'd be like, let's change this image to this other image because the click-through rate will be higher. Because we know this other company is running a very similar image and you just are iterating. You're there iterating yourself there to wherever it is you're trying to go. But at no point do you say, but wouldn't it be cool if we did this other thing that is just cool?
Well, that's kind of what I'm saying. Remember the thing at the beginning of like the opposites, right? So it's like on one hand you have this extremely data-driven, measurable, scientific, small iterations, let the data decide approach to building, to marketing, to acquiring customers. And the other hand, you have the exact opposite. It's emotional, not data-driven. There's no scorecard immediately. There's no immediate payoffs. There's only long-term payoffs. And yet there's obviously examples of people who have been able to do one or the other or both. The best companies obviously have been able to do both.
But you know what's cool is you were just— so you're using Nike and, um, we were using some other upscale brands. You know what's funny is speaking of Shaq, Shaq does, uh, general insurance. Is that what it's called? 1-800, you know what I'm talking about? I don't know. So Shaq is a spokesperson for an insurance company called— the spokesperson is a general. It's a little general. You know, the jingle. It's like—
it's called The General.
Is it The General? That's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. So if I— if I— I'm almost—
he's standing next to this, like, mustached general.
Okay. And so that little general, that company, I think it's like a low-cost provider and we've only been using fancy stuff, but actually Shaq is a great brand because Shaq actually, he's famous for— I think he is a Walmart spokesperson.
Yeah. Like people who don't have a lot of money that want to like acquire certain things, like Shaq's like the guy, like, and that's pretty cool that he's able to pull that off. So I guess it's not just examples of Nike or Ferrari or whatever. That's who I was thinking of. But Shaq does a good job.
Here's another one. Airbnb, I think, did a great job of this. So Airbnb spends, you know, or spent at least in the past. I don't know what they're doing now, but they spend a lot of money on Google Ads and things that you would need to do if you're in the travel space, right? Like somebody wants to go on a trip, you need to be showing up as like a place to stay. Fantastic. You're competing against Booking and Expedia and all those other things. But Booking and Expedia and those other— Kayak, you know, I feel nothing. Feel nothing. Numb. I recognize the name. So it's not like they've done nothing. They've built a brand, right? I could tell you those names off the top of my head. Could I tell you what's different between Expedia and Booking and Kayak? No chance. Could I tell you anything about them? Anything about their story, but what they represent? About if I told somebody else that I use Kayak, does that somehow accrue status or value to me? No. Right. Airbnb did an interesting thing, which was Airbnb could have been couch surfing. They could have been, here's the cheap way to get a place to stay, sleep on someone's couch, their bed, their air mattress. Literally, it started Airbnb as air mattress., bed and breakfast type of thing. And over the years, they actually built the brand around traveling like a local. And they made a hotel, which is nicer, provides more service, is usually in a better location, right? If you just look at a hotel, right? Like, they have somebody who comes and cleans your, your room and tucks the sheets in so tight that you're gonna have to, like, kick them out. And they do that for free every day. And, um, you know, it's in a better location. It's safer. Um, it's a more known quantity. It's standardized. There's a commitment to a certain quality that you're going to get. And somehow Airbnb made them seem like the generic choice, like the, the, the sort of like, well, you could, you know, just choose to go stay in a box or you could authentically travel, live like a local. Right. And they, they lean into like in the way that food does this too. It's like you can eat from a chain. Yeah. Yeah. Fast food chain. Or you can eat from this like local, you know, this local joint. And Airbnb did a great job of basically like leaning into not the low-cost sleep on a couch thing, but traveling and living like a local when you travel and actually experiencing the city versus just being in the city. And I thought that that was like a kind of a genius emotional thing because travel is escape. And, you know, either it's to a place where everything is handed to you or it's to a place of authenticity. Right, to actually experiencing the place you're going to. It's like clean your own shit, pay an extra fee. You don't know what you're going to get. There's like all these downsides, but they make that seem like the upside. Like, I talked to a guy who ran events and he goes, dude, the best thing Burning Man ever did was something called Radical— what is it called? Radical Self-Reliance. He goes, you know how smart that is from an event point of view? It means we're going to do nothing for you. Oh, you got lost? Radical Self-Reliance, baby. It's not our fault. Right. We don't have lighting over here. Radical self-reliance. Oh, we don't have water fountains. You got to figure out how to get it from the community. Come on. This is what it's all about. This is the experience you paid for.
Is that what—
to get nothing?
Dude, I'm going to steal that for— I'm stealing that for Hampton.
Like, oh, you— The office, bro. Radical self-reliance.
Dude, we're doing this thing. So we're moving into this new office, I think February 20th or something. And I'm implementing a new rule every Tuesday at 3 o'clock, between 3 o'clock and 3:20. We're cleaning.
Well, I saw you posted this. You— who was it? The Japanese?
The Rakuten. Yeah, Rakuten did it and I wanted to do it and I did it in my last company. People freaked and it just did not stick. But now we're moving into a new office because I hate clutter. I hate clutter so much. Yeah, it like makes me anxious when, when there's shit all over and particularly in an open office plan. And so I'm going to like hold myself accountable to like stick to this hardcore.
Dude, nobody is giving more thought to like their, their office and their culture than you right now. I feel like you are really planting some seeds. I'm very curious, either in 2 years from now you're going to be like, I overindexed on that. You know, some of it was helpful. A lot of it was wasted energy. I should have been focused on this. Or you're going to be like, it was the best thing for me. I was, I wasn't sure, but I felt it in my gut.
I trusted it because I refused to become—
at the time it made no sense. And in 2 years you're going to be like, that was the best thing we ever did. It's going to be one of those two.
I just don't want to make the same mistakes that I've done before where I created my own prison. You know what I mean? I don't want to do that. And so culture is just an example or just a—
Yeah, but you're not being specific. What was the prison? What was bad? Like, what are you going to change this time?
For example, I had a team, someone who worked for me, and they wanted to lay off someone who worked for them, but they only wanted to give like 2 weeks severance or something for this person that worked with us for a long time. And they were like, well, that's like normal. Like, that's like a fine. That's fine. Like, that's just— it was expected.. And I was like, but this person has worked here for 2 years and like, they're a good guy. They're just not getting results. And this just doesn't feel right to me. And I went along with it. I did the 2 weeks and I remember that feeling and I hated it. And so we got this value called Build with Pride, which basically the idea is like, if I'm gonna lay someone off and I do it actually for 2 reasons. One, so I don't feel guilty. And two, like if you just have like this like halo effect of like you treat people well and I, I'm just gonna shower you with significantly more severance than I think is actually the, the industry standard. And so that's one example.
Okay. All right. I like it.
Yeah.
I'm very curious to see how— what I think it will definitely be good. It's just a question maybe of two things. Which bets have the biggest payoff? I think you're going to come out with a bunch of learnings on that. Like maybe it'll be the small things. Maybe it'll be the 10 minutes of cleaning a day. Maybe it'll be, you know, this offsite you do every year or whatever. I don't know. I don't know which bets are going to have the biggest return, but they're not all going to be even. So I think you're going to get a good learning from that. And then the other thing is, um, proportion. So like Seinfeld has this great quote where he says, um, they're like, why didn't you, uh, do that one last season? Cause he, he holds the record for most money turned down.
Yeah. For like the 8th season or 7th season.
I think, yeah, whatever the last season was going to be is $110 million. He turned it down and they're like, Jerry, one more season. Why didn't you do it? He's like, because in art, it's all about proportion. He goes, too much of anything. Too much cake, too much jokes, too much anything, too much of anything is a bad thing. And he's like, the secret to making anything great is proportion. And it's so true. Ever since I read that, like, I now see it everywhere. Because, you know, I was more simplistic, just black and white. This is good and that is bad. But, like, too much affection is clinginess, is smothering, right? Like, in a relationship. Too much space is distant, is cold. So it's not a question of is affection good or bad, it's how much. And you can use that in anything. You're cooking a dish, it's the proportion that matters. And so I think I'm interested to see, did you get the proportion right of how much time and energy you're spending on the leadership and the culture and the environment that you're putting together here?
There also is a world where you think I'm spending more time than I really am on it just because I'm vocal about it. But, but you could be right. Yeah. I mean, will be, will be interesting to see. You know, it'd be funny is to see all these companies who we think have crazy cultures like the big guys. We should go talk to— I've always been curious to go talk to like the middle management or like the new staff. It's like, are you drinking the Kool-Aid? What's the deal? You know, like, like a, like Patagonia or something like that, right?
I had the same idea yesterday. I was in a restaurant and I was walking out and I saw the value. I saw the values. I had like an a not so great experience at the restaurant. And I was walking out and it was like, don't just serve, delight was on the wall. And I was like, I just had the opposite of delight in this restaurant. Like, you know, ordered something gluten-free for somebody who's allergic to gluten. They mess it up. And then they're like refusing to like, just give us the gluten-free version. Uh, wanted us to like pay again for that one. I was like, what? What's going on? Um, you almost killed somebody just now. Like, what are you talking about? And I was thinking, I was like, it would be so funny to just go to 100 companies. I guarantee you go to 100 companies and at every company you just stand outside the office and you take a random sample. The first 50 people that come out of the building or walk into the building in the morning and you just say, hey, we're doing a little game, a little test. I'll give you $50 for every, um, one of the values of the company you can name. Like, but you got to get word for word. What the word, what the actual phrase is. And I was like, I'm just curious how many people will know any of the values. And I think it's going to be this histogram, or like this, this chart that's like, most people know 0 or 1, almost nobody knows 2, and nobody knows 3 or more. And I just want to have that for like 100 different companies because I just think values are probably the most overrated exercise that companies do because If it's not in the people's heads, what do you like? Then what was the point? They're not doing it.
I've heard of— yeah, I've seen their culture deck.
Yeah, I was looking up what they're— I was like, what actually are the values? You should look up.
It's like, I know one is like, we're a team, not a family, right?
Like, that's not even like— no, like, I mean, like, they literally have written out the values and it's like 18 of them and it's like kindness. It's like everything: curiosity, courage, candor, selflessness, judgment, creativity, inclusion, resilience. It's just a— it's pretty funny. It's just a list of stuff.
I was like, oh, they should just slip in like a derogatory term in there and just see if anyone ever notices. Nobody would know. He's just slipping the F-word in between courage and inclusion and see what happens.
Reid Hastings seems like a pretty big baller. He, um, He, the CEO of Netflix or former CEO of Netflix, and he was talking about the culture. And I was listening to this podcast with Patrick O'Shaughnessy about him, and he was just, you know, he was saying the coolest shit ever. And then I go, I was like, well, he's talking all about values. Let's go see what they are. And I go to the website and I see like this. And I was like, huh? Like, do what? Like, that's, that's way less intense than he sounded.
Yeah, exactly. It's only about actions, right? Not words. So the question really is, what actions do you take that are any different than anybody else? What actions do you take that are any different than what my default behavior would have been if I switched over from an adjacent company to yours? Right? So your severance example is a good one, for example, right? If your value is treat people like family or treat people well, whatever it is, and you're like, cool, here's an action. Here's default actions. Our default actions are different than the other default actions. So maybe these companies do have great default actions or they—
I don't know. Part of me thinks it's impossible to do that when you get past a certain point. We should actually ask Dharmesh about this. Dharmesh wrote the culture code, or they all have to drink the Kool-Aid.
Nobody can be honest about this when they're in their company. Who's gonna get on here and say it's all shit? Nobody knows, dude.
It's just a bunch of bodies to me.
We come in, we look at revenue, and we try to figure out what's happening. Like, that's what we do, uh, right? Like, nobody's gonna ever be honest about that sort of thing until they're out, and then they're like disillusioned, and then they're seen as like Crazy. They went crazy if they were to talk about it.
Well, where do we go from here? Is that it? Is that the pod?
Yeah. Our value is the Irish goodbye. And we talk, we laugh, and then we suddenly decide, I think I've said enough today.
All right, that's it. That's the pod.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.
All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear 'em share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.