Elon Musk, Mobile Minorities, and How to Overcome Fear
I just saw if you go to Brett Taylor, the chairman of Twitter, he just tweeted, we've agreed to a deal with Elon Musk.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So I guess I think, I think saying it's done is fair.
Wow. So let me tell you something really quick. I, I, I, this relates, this is going to sound weird, but it relates to what we're talking about. Do you know how a combustible and combustible engine works?
Do I look like I know how a combustible engine works?
No. So, all right, here's how a combustible engine works. So you've got this huge block. It's called an engine block. It's this big piece of metal. Imagine like a rectangular cube that's about 2.5 feet long, a foot wide, and a foot deep in depth. Understand? Okay. When you hear like a 4-cylinder, 6-cylinder, 8-cylinder, 12-cylinder, that's how many cylinders they're going to drill into that block of that, that engine black. And so they, you know, how do you know how big a cylinder is?
Well, I've eaten Pringles before, so I could sort of imagine.
You're not far off. So it's around like, it's like a can of Coke, almost a little bit bigger. But like, just for the sake, we'll say it's like the size of a can of Coke. Okay. And in those cylinders goes a piston, which is basically like you drill those holes and like you got something like almost like a size of a can of Coke going back and forth through those holes. And the way it works is you have a shaft that connects to the pistons, which turns that up and down motion of the cylinders going up and down into motion that the engine can use. But check this out. In order to make this all work, you have this thing called a spark plug in each cylinder, and then you have this other device called a carburetor, and that mixes the perfect amount of fuel and air into the cylinder. And the spark plug makes a small spark and there's a miniature explosion in the cylinder that for— that creates so much pressure that that's— that piston is moving up and down. Does that all make sense?
Okay, I follow. I don't know why you're telling me about this, but I understand it now.
Listen, so it gets even crazier. You know how you're driving and your car will say like 6,000 RPMs?
Yeah, sure.
That means that those, those pistons— so these pistons, it has to be airtight for that explosion to be in that cylinder. So these pistons they're super tight into that cylinder and they're— it's creating a lot of friction. When it says 6,000 RPMs, that's 6,000 revolutions per minute. And 6,000 means you're like driving pretty fast, but not crazy fast. That means those pistons are moving up and down 100 to 150 times per second. Wow. And you have oil in your car because those pistons are rubbing against metal. And it needs oil. Otherwise, if you leave it without oil, they're moving so fast it's going to fuse together and basically weld the piston to the cylinder.
Jeez.
Okay. Okay. The reason I'm bringing this up—
listen, I can't wait to hear it. And because I just watched a YouTube video about it and it's still fresh in my mind. That's why I had to say it. You did? No, it sounds like you just like went on a deep dive.
Well, I was thinking about this. And basically, and then the output of all this is like carbon dioxide. So it's like a, it's like a gas and there's fumes and there's oil and there's liquid. There's all types of fluid. And then there's a transmission, which is like totally even crazier sometimes. The fact that this was invented in the early 1900s and it's still the technology that we have exploited and made so good. We've made this so good that these pistons can move for a million miles. Basically, they're going to go up and down like a trillion plus times. We have pushed that so far to the edge. It's pretty phenomenal what we've done. And it's such a shitty technology. It was good for what it was. And then Elon Musk comes along and was like, well, he wasn't the first one to do it, but he did a really good job of it. He's like, this, this electric engine, actually, all we're going to use is a battery and one motor. That's all it takes. And this motor is like just literally like 3 parts. Like there's very few parts, whereas with the combustible engine, there's like 1,000 parts. And not only is it simpler in terms of maintenance, there's basically no maintenance. It's far better. So a really fast car, I have a, I own a car that's considered incredibly fast and it's quite expensive and it goes 0 to 60. Yeah. Well, it's considered fast and it goes 0 to 60 in 3 seconds. A Tesla that costs $40 grand will crush that, can crush that and go. So it's, it's faster in every sense of the word. It doesn't break. And I kind of had one of these moments where I was like, I wasn't actually high, but it was like one of those high moments where you're like, I can't believe—
On 4/20, you just decided to have high thoughts without smoking.
Yeah, I had high thoughts. I was like, dude, we've been doing this combustible engine thing for like 130 years now. And then along comes a couple people who's like, no, no, we're going to do this total opposite way. So instead of making an engine that just like is— it somehow has more cylinders or it's more smooth, something, we're going to do something totally opposite. And it's like levels above in terms of quality.. And I find that thought to be absolutely amazing. And it just turns out he just bought Twitter today. So maybe something crazier is gonna happen there. I, I actually don't think it will, but maybe, but isn't that wild to think that like we can literally, I don't know how many people have existed since 1910, billions and billions and billions of people. We've all been doing it one way. And then along comes a very small group of people. Let's say tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who said, no, no, no, this is the way to do it. And it changes everything. And I find that to be amazing.
I, I agree. That is amazing. A couple thoughts that came up while you were saying this. First of all, thank you for the engine lesson.
Does that make— did that— did I—
10% more man because I, I know how to describe this.
Did I explain to you— do you understand how the engine works now?
A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like I'm at that perfect point where I feel like I know because I don't know what I don't know. Uh, if you've ever seen the Dunning-Kruger effect, I'm at the perfect peak.
What you should know, the takeaway here is that it's very, very, very crude. You've got these like metal on metals. Like rubbing against each other and creating— it's just messy. It's smelly. It's crude.
Well, I just did something today that reminded— that what you're talking about reminds me of this, which is, uh, I went to the doctor. I went to the eye doctor, had an eye appointment, and, uh, not because I wanted to. I was like, just give me my goddamn contacts. And they're like, nope, you gotta come in. It's out. That's 2 years old now. You gotta do the whole— we're gonna, we're gonna do the thing where we blow a puff of air on your eyeball. It's like, oh God, what is that even for? I don't know. But I went in, I decided to have a little bit of a different attitude. So I got real curious when I went in this time. I'm talking to the doctor, I'm asking a bunch of questions. She runs this other test on me where she takes a picture of my eye and then she shows it to me on a screen. And I don't know if you've ever seen like the inside of an eye.
It's disgusting.
It's fucking wild, dude. This is crazy. She's like, okay, so like this is the nerve in the back of your eye. That's what's sending all these signals. Your eye's just getting light from everywhere and your brain is— this nerve is the thing transmitting to your brain all these light signals and your brain is piecing together some amazing construction of the world. Yeah, it's amazing. She's like, and these are all the blood vessels that's like keeping your eye alive. And when you— whenever I see how the body works, I just sort of marvel in it. I'm like, I don't have to think, but my liver knows how to like detoxify my body. You know, I don't have to think, my heart will just keep beating reliably or else I'll die. But like, luckily it's on autopilot. And, um, in fact, it's on so much on autopilot, I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. And so it's like the way that the human body works is just like a true marvel. And so today's my birthday, and seeing that—
oh, I forgot to tell you on air, happy birthday.
Thank you, I appreciate it. We all— we talked earlier on the phone, but the thing that amazes me, it's like the best thing to do on your birthday is to go just like get a scan of your body and just be like, wow, you know, the human body is like an absolutely incredible machine that just works in like the same way. I don't know how an engine works. I don't know how my liver works. I don't know how my kidney works. I don't know how my lungs work. I don't know how any of this shit works, but it does work. And just the fact that it does is kind of amazing to me. And just seeing my eyeball, my retina, and like the nerves, the blood vessels in my eye was just a reminder of like, uh, it's like, it's like a humble, humbling feeling, right? It's like the humility of how you don't even have control over your own body, let alone the world and all these other things that are going on. So I really appreciated that. That's the first thing. Second thing. I wrote this down the other day for the podcast, but I never knew how—
by the way, are you wearing a Mighty Ducks jersey?
Yeah, dude, it's my birthday. I'm feeling like a Mighty Duck right now.
Oh my God, that's awesome.
The older I get, the more I need to behave like a child, right? Like, that's, that's kind of the game plan is get more childlike as I grow, not more adult-like. So I wrote this down. I wrote vocal minority, mobile minority. And I didn't— I wrote this like a month ago and I was like, uh, it might come up at some point in the podcast. And what you just said about Elon, about basically a very small number of people changing the way that things work, is a great example of this.
So, and it's not like he's the guy like that. He was like, you know, we can't say that like Elon came up with this. We could just say that there's probably a lot of people came to the same conclusion. He just was right, had the strongest will, and is the, is the, is the person who we give a lot of credit to.
By the way, have you seen what he's been saying lately about this? Like origin story of Tesla? Have you seen this controversy? No.
So say that he's the founder.
No, no. So, so he— so the— what, what happened was Tesla started about a year before Elon invested in it. And so now he's seen as the— he's basically seen as the CEO, the founder. He is the CEO. He's seen as also kind of like the founder. You don't really hear about these other guys who started— these two guys that were, that were starting it, I think.
And he, and he is kind of the founder when you think about it. Like, it's like literally the eighth largest company in the world, and at the time it was worth like $10 million. Like, what's the difference?
Exactly. And so, but the guys who started it have like basically made it kind of like their mission. So, so the, the Elon, there's a, there's a group of people that are like anti-Elon. They're a vocal minority against Elon, and they'll say like things like Elon didn't create Tesla. He just, you know, invested in it and like takes all the credit for it basically. And, um, and that one of the original guys also really has like made it his mission to keep telling people how much he— how he was the founder of Tesla, not, not Elon Musk. Uh, and Elon sort of like come out recently, he said something the other day in his interview. He goes, the biggest mistake— they go, what's the biggest regret you have? This is the biggest regret you have or mistake you've made, bad decision you've made? He goes, well, certainly the worst business decision I made was, um not deciding to just like start Tesla on my own with me and JB, like I guess the guy he started it with, like guy he feels like was his co-founder in it, and like basically buying the existing company and then building from there versus just doing it on his own. He's like, certainly that was the worst decision, I think, because financially that guy owns shares of what's now a trillion-dollar company. And then the second thing is that that guy basically has made it his crusade to be like, F Elon Musk, I'm the founder of Tesla.
And you know, how much does that guy own?—
I don't know the exact percentage. Maybe, maybe, uh, somebody, Jonathan, can look it up while we're, while we're talking.
But like, but that guy basically, uh, Martin, there's like, I think his name is—
there's two guys, um, yeah, Martin and somebody else. And I think that's his name. So they— one of the things that they say is like, um, you know, we created Tesla. And then Elon has come out and been like, Tesla was nothing. There was no product. There was basically like, it was a shell of a company. There was no, uh, it was like, you know, pre-launch, pre-everything. I invested $6.5 million. I think he invested in the first round knowing also that I'd have to invest way more after that. Took a chairman role. And then like basically he had the guy from who designed SpaceX's logo design the Tesla branding. And like, you know, he's like, I guess he created— it was a, it was an inactive company is what he, what he had said. Um, he, I think he had, he tweeted something like this out that it was like a dormant company or something like that. And so there's like some controversy around that actual founding of it.
But how is that his biggest mistake? That doesn't seem like that big. Like, it worked out fine. And also, one could argue maybe it was worth it just for the name.
Yeah, exactly. Just for the— exactly. Just for the name. I guess his take would sort of be like the company was just going to die if he didn't invest. Right. He was the only investor at that time. Um, so anyways, uh, okay, back to my vocal minority. So there's We see this a lot on Twitter and other places where there's a vocal minority. This is what people call cancel culture. This is what people will call like sort of the haters or the naysayers online. There's a small group of people that are sort of unhappy about anything that happens, and they'll, they'll be unhappy that Twitter's being bought by Elon Musk. They'll be unhappy that he's a billionaire. They'll be unhappy that Tesla— they'll say that Tesla's cars, yes, they're electric, but, but what powers the electricity? It's coal. You know, they just always have something to say. They're So there's a vocal minority. And I think one of the biggest skills in today for any business person is to correctly identify like a vocal majority versus a vocal, vocal minority. If you just constantly let the vocal minority sway your thinking, you're letting like, you know, the bottom 1 or 2% of people sway your decision-making just because they're very loud about it. But then the, the other, the, so you, I think you wanna overlook them, but what you don't wanna overlook is what's called what I call a mobile minority. So a mobile minority is a group of people who decide to actually like take their business and walk elsewhere, or they take their lifestyle and they just change it. So it's like, you know, if you're Safeway, but all of a sudden there's like a small group of like sort of hippie people that are like buying this like all natural produce, right? And they're shopping at this place called Whole Foods Market in Austin. And that's only got one, one location, two locations, but like all of their spend now goes to this. Or you see people that are like, you know, um, you know, people on Netflix or whatever, people who are subscribed to Netflix, but all of a sudden they start to instead spend all their time on TikTok and YouTube. And it's like they've actually voted with their feet.
Or they're actually silent. I mean, even a, a, a different non-business example. I was just reading about, uh, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. And when the whole Rosa Parks thing happened, the Black folks were like, no, we're, uh, you know, we're not taking that. And originally like, well, that only makes a certain amount of our population. It's no big deal. That it like, right. Goes on for like 2 weeks, you're like, all right, something's happening.
And it's happening in San Francisco right now. Like, a mobile minority of group of people have left San Francisco, taken their business elsewhere. It's a very small group of people. Some of them were loud about it, saying, oh, I'm leaving because I have this, this and this beef with San Francisco. And most of them were just frustrated, like, I'm going to Austin, I'm going to Miami, I'm going elsewhere, I'm going where I will be treated better, where I will be taxed less and get more from my government. And, um, And those mobile minorities are actually ones you want to listen to. If whether you're a politician or you're an entrepreneur, it's like, we, we talk about this a lot. We're like, dude, there's a subreddit that's getting really popular. And it's like, oh yeah, it's only 50,000 people. But it's like, wow, 50,000 people have chosen this lifestyle of like, you know, either anti-work or overemployed, or they're tracking their like fitness and their sleep at this like maniacal way. It's like, yeah, that actually is something you really want to pay attention to, and it's a great place to start a business, is when you notice a mobile minority. Um, and it's also like a really important thing to notice as a leader of either a city or a company, to notice, huh, how come all these developers are like, you know, going to this weird like Web3 crypto thing? Like, what's that about? It's like, yeah, it's not everybody, but like, wow, like, you know, 10% of our smartest people all left to go do this thing. They took a pay cut to go do this thing. That's I think I should probably pay attention to that. And so, uh, so I wanted to point this out, which is ignore the vocal minority and pay extra attention to the mobile minority.
That doesn't mean— there's another side to this. It doesn't mean they're right. So for example, or that like what they're doing, like I, I agree with you. I would also challenge myself to find examples where there is— that's a great— what's it, what's it called? Uh, mobile minority.
Yeah.
That's a good— that's a good one.
Trademark that. We're trademarking that. That's a My First Million original.
So like, there's people like, like, for example, day trading amongst young people has gotten incredibly popular. I don't think the majority of people do it, but I think there are a lot of people do it. They're very loud and they're betting a lot, and I think that's horribly stupid. Yeah, yeah.
I'm not saying it's always a good thing, right? It might be people vaping and it's like, wait a minute, what? Like 10% of teenagers are vaping now? It's like, I'm not saying it's always healthy, But I'm saying it is almost always worth paying attention to this sort of like silent and mobile minority versus like, I think it's worth paying attention to, whereas I think the vocal minority is almost always worth ignoring.
You want to talk a few off the top of our head, a few examples of those groups of people?
Well, you know, a couple, I think I can think of a few more. Yeah. Give me, give me, give me some.
I'm just going to rattle off a few. So things that I'm noticing based off Reddit and my interest, people who don't want to buy off Amazon because they don't want to have to worry about throwing away the packaging. Yes. Number 2, people who want to use reusable, um, packaging. So like a Ziploc bag that you'll pay $20 for one bag, but you can use it over and over and over and over again. Number 3, people who don't want to eat out of plastic. Uh, let's see, number 4.
I have another one that's related to that. So my wife's vegan, and so we're con— anything we do has to be compatible with a vegan lifestyle. And you'd be shocked how much How much is, uh, not compatible? So like, okay, you think about food. I think food is where most people go, but like leather is the other huge one, right? So like we're about to buy a car or, uh, like she wants to buy like a fancy purse or something like that. She's like, she is ready to go to whatever, Louis Vuitton or whatever, and drop $5,000, $6,000, whatever it is. But, uh, she won't, she won't do it because it's all leather. And so she's like, I can't believe these luxury companies don't make one non, like non-animal based product. Like they don't make one bag. Like even they would get all of the, all the vegan people want to buy luxury, like, go to whichever brand makes it, like, all of the big ones— Gucci, Prada, whatever— and, um, and they just don't, they don't make it. Or if they do, they would, like, they'll make the bag but not the, not the handle or the, the strap. And she's like, well, that's the thing, like, if you cared about this, you care about this. And so we see that with, like, car too. Like, Tesla has all, like, um, vegan leather, and they're one of the few car makers that, like, just lead with that. And it's like these little things that, like, again, super easy to overlook. I would You know, I, I would totally understand saying, look, we're not gonna change our product line for this 1 or 2%. But as that 1 or 2% gets big enough, like, I don't know how, how much the sort of vegan population is now in America, but like, let's say it's 2 or 3%, that's of a base of 300 million people. And those are people who like, they don't just kind of care about it, they really care about it.
And so they're the, they're the mobile minority and the vocal minority for sure. Yeah, exactly. They, they use, they, they, they do action and they talk a lot.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, and so like, you know, you make a chocolate and make a cheese, make a car leather, whatever. So that's an example where I've seen a lot of like wallet share go to the one brand that just cares about it.
What else is there? So I think there's also, uh, when I read the TikTok comments, there's so many people that when they post videos of people from the early 2000s, or when I was in high school, 2008, and they say, oh wow, look, no one's on a cell phone. They must be so happy. Uh, so I think there's going to be a mobile minority of people who actually don't want smartphones.
The disconnect slash digital detox. Population. Yeah, there's also a group of that that's, uh, like VR, like absolute VR nerds. So, uh, they don't talk much. In fact, most of the dialogue around VR is how it's not here yet or it's, you know, not going to happen. There's a small number of people that spend an absurd amount of time in VR. They work in their VR. Like, I don't know if I said— I think I sent you this TikTok of— there's a guy who says he's spending 24/7 in VR, and, uh, he literally wakes up, puts the headset on, and he spends his whole day like that, and he even goes to sleep in VR, and then he like, you know, the headset falls off or whatever as he sleeps. It's like some, some nut. What'd they look like? Close your eyes and imagine this guy. Yeah, like the beard touches the chest hair, so there's no line. Yeah, yeah, we need strong borders.
He has a rack just for fedoras.
Ferret is living in this room. Um, so, so, but basically, like, you know, there's some people that are spending a lot of time there, you know. I don't know if that's like a big one yet, but like, I, I'm just sort of like brainstorming off top of my head, you know, people who really, really care about certain things. And I think you'll see this with pet stuff. I think you see this with like, in like house stuff that's going on. Like, if you're in the gym business right now, you know, the mobile minority through COVID has been like home gyms. Like, those people are never coming back once they put like thousands of dollars of gym equipment in their garage or their room, you know, bedroom in their house. Like, they're not coming back into the gym industry, right? So it's a mobile minority. They have voted with their feet, and now they're going down a different path, a different lifestyle.
Yeah, I think that that's a really good term. I'm on board with mobile minority. But what does it have to do with engines?
Uh, well, no, it's about like the few people that go and actually like they do something different, right? So like you were saying, like Elon and the sort of the electric car.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, that's a small number of people who just like took a sharp left turn and decided, nope, we're going to like— we're going to get off the oil and gas system. We're going to like not have a combustible engine car. We're not going to buy from any of these brands. Like, we're just going to go fully electric.
Do you think? But here's the thing I've been— that I think about when I think about him and people like him is I think, okay, so obviously he's right. So this Tesla thing, like, it's right. But it didn't seem that way all the time. It seemed like the total opposite. And there's moments in my life where I'm like, I firmly believe that this is the future. Like, I firmly believe that many homes are gonna be bought online. Uh, like that's an example. But along the way I have so many doubts where I'm like, ah, screw it. And so what I would like to know is, I wonder how he, cuz he doesn't give off that appearance like he ever has doubt. He's like, no, no, no. Like this surely this makes sense. But then he does say all the time, he's like, I think we're gonna go bankrupt. But that doesn't mean he thinks that his idea is wrong. He just thinks that maybe like they're just gonna run out of money because they didn't have enough runway. And so do you think that someone like him, or a lot of these other people like that, that there is self-doubt, or, or what?
You move straight to the end. Now, if you listen to him talk, he actually says 3 things. So he says, they're like, how did you decide to do this? No car company had ever— no American car company had been made since Jeep like 90 years ago or something like that. Nobody had ever made an electric car that was popular, a fully electric car. Nobody had ever started a rocket company, a private rocket company, all this stuff. And he basically just said, they're like, so how did you decide to do it? And he's like, well, I agreed the probability of success was low, but it was worth doing, so I just did it. He's basically like, I thought it was worth doing. Humanity needs this, so it's worth doing, certainly. Probability of success is low, certainly. And then he said one other thing, which was like, did you ever think about giving up? And he's like, he had said in that Lex Fridman interview, it is not in my nature. And I think it's, so if you take those three things, it's like he doesn't decide to do it because he thinks it's going to work. In fact, he decides to do it because he thinks it's worth doing. He agreed that the probability of success was low, but not impossible. And he just decided that he's not going to give up. That's not in his nature. So you combine those 3 things. Well, doubt has very little place, right? It's like, no, I've accurate— I've, I've taken into account the low probability of success and then I'm not going to quit. So, and I just already decided it's worth doing. So we're in that, you know, doubt can't live in that home. That's a 2-bedroom home and doubt doesn't have a room in that, in that house. So, so I think that's how— that's the psychology I've seen, not knowing the guy, uh, just from his interviews.
But I don't— I'm not sure if that's the, the, the entire reality, even though he said that. And here's why. Uh, did you ever pay attention to boxing in the '90s with Mike Tyson?
Sure.
Yeah. All right. So Mike Tyson came on the boxing scene when he was 19 and he was like the man until he was like in his early-ish 30s. And when he walked out of the ring, uh, walked out, uh, in the stadium up to the ring, he was famous because he wore black shorts. He wore black socks and black shoes, and he would come out with no shirt on with his gloves already tight and everything. And he would just, as if he's just ready to roll. Typically that's not how they do it. And he was already sweating. And he didn't have a noise— or sorry, he didn't have a sound, a song that he came out to. He came out to a noise. It was just, mm, that was the noise. And it was just all— his whole thing was about being frightening. He's like, I am a tiger, I'm a beast, I am here to kill.
And he would say things like that, like, I'm going to take out your heart and eat it. Yeah. And he'd be like, you know, you know, it was the great interview where he's like, he goes, he goes, I'm going to— this is impregnable. My will is unstoppable. Praise be to Allah.
He goes, he goes, I'm gonna eat his heart. I'm gonna eat his children. I'm gonna eat his kids. Paise di Allah. Like, this is crazy. He goes, I'm Alexander the Great. He ain't no Alexander the Great. I'm Alexander the Great. Yeah, like this.
Scariest stuff.
Yeah, scary guy. And when he would look at you in the eye, you're like, this guy's gonna, this guy's gonna murder him. He's not just gonna beat him up. He's, he's out to kill him. And I would watch interviews with him now that he's older and he doesn't have to act that way anymore. He goes, He goes, people thought I was so deadly. He goes, I was deadly, but I was so afraid. The reason I acted like that was because my— the reality was my fear was the total opposite end. And I had to act that way because he was— I was so afraid. And I've heard a bunch of UFC fighters that I like, like Donald Cerrone and Chael Sonnen, they'll go every— and Michael Bisping. And they say every single time I'm backstage and I think to myself, why did I do this? Why didn't I quit? I don't want to do this. I'm afraid. I am so scared to do this. In reality, this guy who I'm talking about, Michael Bisping, he's got the biggest mouth of everyone. He talks the most trash. And when I heard these fighters start saying this stuff, I was like, oh, they're like, you're, you're, you are the toughest guy on earth right now, but even the toughest guy on earth is scared.
Yeah. And so that kind of— they go into a cage fight with another guy who's trying to kill them in their underwear in front of millions of people, like, and after talking mad shit, right? So it is one of the, like, you know, most vulnerable positions you could put yourself into. So that's why it's great to kind of, like, learn from them and hear their hear their, uh, you know, their thought process. I think that's true. Somebody had said this about Elon. They, uh, I think it was, uh, maybe Jerviston, like one of the— there's an investor who invested in Tesla and SpaceX, um, and I believe has never sold a share and never said he never plans to sell a share of any of those companies. And so, you know, this guy's got the best returns ever because all his bets were just bet on Elon. And, um, he said like— he said something like, you know, Elon is just— he goes, he's a normal guy but the fear gene got removed. And in his DNA, the fear gene got removed. And I actually think that it's not that, like, nobody is that. Everybody has fears. And the extent to which you are fearless is the extent to which you learn how to dance with your own fears, right? So those UFC fighters, they feel the fear, but they learn how to cope with it. And for Mike, it was getting into this primal state of mind saying certain things and just walking to the, to the thing, to that sound. And like, that's how he was able to like dance with that fear. And so I'm sure that somebody like Elon Musk, even though they have fears of, you know, failure, humiliation, you know, 3 rockets blow up for SpaceX, you know, just like explode, and now you're— you basically put all your money in and you have enough for one more launch and that's it. You had to rush and do one more launch. Yeah, I don't think he was sitting there, you know, with a resting heart rate of 46. You know, I think he was feeling something at that time. You could see it in the videos, uh, the relief when it happens. But he learned to dance, he learned to deal with it. So I think, you know, that's, that's the difference between people who seem, you know, totally brave and fearless, is like they have just learned to deal with fear better than the person who lets the fear slow them down or stop them.
Are any of your closest successful friends autistic or have Asperger's?
Sure do seem like it sometimes. My closest friends, to be honest, because, uh, yeah, I like to get along. I, I end up getting along with people who are a little more outgoing, extroverted, and easier to get along with.
But I've got a—
you have— I've got it.
I know I've got a couple, and you're friends with them as well. And I've got a couple, and what I've noticed— I've got one in particular who I think you know I'm talking about. Yeah. And very, very, very successful, and he just doesn't he approaches things far more logically. And I'm like, well, name, this will never— well, Brad, I'm making up— well, Brad, this will never work. He's like, well, why not? Why won't it work? Like, you know, you see on this Excel spreadsheet, this math adds up to where it does work. Like, well, but like, who's going to believe you? Who's going to have faith in you? How are you going to do it? Well, why wouldn't they? You know what I mean? And so sometimes I wonder, is that just a couple of my friends who are like that? Or if there is something in Elon has said he has Asperger's. Is there something in there where they like, um, where it's like, you know, it's supposed to be a kind of like a handicap. In reality, it's the exact opposite. It's like a superpower.
Well, I played poker for a long time and you see this with poker players too. They, uh, some of the best poker players are some of those sort of like, you know, Asperger-y type of mannerisms. You don't— they're extremely intelligent, but they have an emotional coolness which allows them to be rational under pressure, not get as easily tilted as an emotional player would be. Um, they could play with huge sums of money and not change the way they play. It's all just chips to them. It's a game to them. Um, and they also have the ability to focus for very, very long periods of time, longer than, you know, I would say the average person. And so, you know, there's some definite superpowers if you have that that brain wiring, which is— I don't know what— I'm just using these terms. I don't actually have any idea what the clinical definition of these terms is, but I'm sort of reverse-defining it as a person who has those traits, the ability to have maniacal focus, the ability to stay calm and sort of emotionally cool despite what's going on, highly, highly intelligent, especially with math, probability, and statistics. And so they're winners, dude. I've seen it just so many times. Whenever I sit down against that opponent, that is the person I'm trying to stay out of pots with. I'm not trying to compete against them when I go play poker.
All right, let me, let me tell you something interesting that happened to me. You said you went to the doctor. I went, I had to get some, like, I bought a vehicle and I had to get it like registered, you know, like you gotta get your registered and title and all that stuff. DMV stuff, dude, it sucks. All right, so this is like, some people listening are like, this is so obvious. Do you know that there's third parties that will do this for you?
I've heard about this actually. Some guy told me, he's like, yeah, I was like, DMV sucks. He's like, oh dude, my buddy and I opened up like a, like an alt, like an alternative DMV in the, like, you know, in the DC area. It's amazing. We do like $3 million here. I was like, what? Dude, you just opened your own DMV? Like, what is that? I never looked into it. What is the rules?
All right. So like I went to the DMV and like, I didn't know you had to have an appointment to go. And the woman working there was like, hey, just go to this thing called Frye Title. Or something like that. And so I just looked it up on Yelp and it was like 20 minutes away. And I went out there and there was a line out the door, but I got in and out. And so basically it's a crappy building in a strip mall, exactly like you'd think. And, uh, like next to like a Marshalls or something like that. And you can go there to get license plates. You can get their title transfer, specialty plates, temporary permits. You can register your car there. Um, and it basically has like a lot of the stuff that you would mostly do at a DMV. You can't do some things, but mostly everything that you do. And the way that you get it is you do a partnership with the motor vehicle department of every single state. And you've got to go through this like application process that I don't think is that hard. Because when I was there, I was talking to the owner and he was like a young, he was like a 24-year-old. Like it was like an unsophisticated, smart, but unsophisticated guy. And he was like, yeah, I just applied. And I was like, do you guys always have a line? Cause there's signs everywhere that says we know we, uh, line, no new line people at 4 because we close at 5. So because, so basically like I was like, are you guys this busy all the time? He goes constantly. I'm like, are you kidding me? And he's like, yeah. And I was like, well, how do you guys make money? He's like, well, we're going to charge you like $50 to $100 right, right here for this fee. And I was like, oh, no brainer. Like, cause the, the DMV here in Austin, I've got to wait 4 months or something for an appointment, something crazy. And it was a crazy service. And I started looking into it and there's a few companies that are in this space, you know, DMV, uh, dot org. No, you never heard of DMV.org? It's like if you Google like, what paperwork do I need in order to, uh, uh, in order to get a license in, in, in Delaware, like it'll tell you like what to bring. Uh, so that, that's out there, but there's basically all of these places that I've seen do this. They're just like mom-and-pop, like hole-in-the-wall stores, and they are constantly packed. It was crazy fascinating.
I did hear something which was like, uh, that guy that I was telling you about, something did end up happening or they like cracked down or like they lost their thing or like once, I don't know what happened, but something did, something bad did happen. I, this was years ago, so I don't remember. But let me tell you about two other businesses that are very similar. Have you heard of Aceable?
What's Aceable?
Aceable, it's in Texas. It's, you're gonna love this business. So just go to like aceable.com.
You sound like George Zimmerman. Like you're, you're gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it.
You're gonna like this business. Yeah. You're gonna like this book. I guarantee it. Mens bro house here. Yeah. So, so it's basically driver's ed online and they also do, um, like if you get a ticket, you gotta go to like corrective driving school or whatever.
Oh my God. This guy's kill it.
So they're like an officially licensed, um, like vendor for this driver's ed at these, like these courses or whatever. They absolutely crushed. They bootstrapped for a while. I think now they've raised like $100 million. These guys are absolutely crushing it. I've, I've seen their revenue once before, back way back when I looked into this. And, um, they started with like, you know, like a 32-hour driver's ed course or whatever. And they could do— I think they could do it in like 36 states out of, you know, out of the toll or whatever. And so, um, they said they have 13 million, like, people have gone through it. And they also do realtor's licenses, which is like one of people trying to get their broker's license. And so that's like another, like This is such a— this is an amazing business. This is like a, uh, like 10 out of 10 under-the-radar business that just crushes it. And they crush it due to like kind of like regulatory lock-in and, um, that they're one of like the, the only officially approved people that could do this. They just crushed it with Google Ads because people would search for, you know, driver's ed free, driver's ed online, get my broker's license, blah blah blah. And, um, there wasn't a ton of competition, I don't think, early on. And they just made a ton of money. And so I, this is, I'm pretty sure a billion dollar company at this point.
Oh, for sure.
They're just doing this.
This guy's name is Blake who started it. Another Blake, uh, Blake Myoski, the guy who started Tom's Shoes. His first business was an online driver's ed business and he said he crushed it.
Oh wow. I didn't know that.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
When I read his biography, like giveaway shoes or I don't know, it was one of those, it was like giving—
Buy a pair, give a pair.
Yeah. And, uh, Anyway, this business kills it. What's the other one?
So the other one, so, uh, I was about to take a trip with my family and I was like, oh, we don't have like passports for the kids. Uh, so I was like, oh, let me get like— we don't have their birth certificates because you— if you just like— when a baby's born, they don't give you a certificate. It's like, oh, you want a birth certificate? Like, you know, they roll out like a Candy Crush map. It's like, do these 6 steps and like jump over all these hurdles to like get your kids' birth certificate. So it's like you gotta like do this thing and you go to the city, whatever. So I was like, oh geez, I don't want to do all that. And so I just searched like get birth certificate online fast, and the San Francisco or whatever, like the Bay Area, you know, wherever, like, you know, the Walnut Creek like official birth certificate thing, I was like, yeah, you can like either mail in this stuff or go to our partner VitalCheck at VitalCheck, we'll do it. And I was like, oh, here's another one.
And sure enough, let's see it.
Vital— if you go to vitalcheck.com I mean, there's so many copycats.
There's yourvitalcheck.com, and check is spelled C-H-E-K.
That's how you know these businesses crush— the number of copycats that pop up. So it's an official California birth certificate that you can get online. Um, you know, it's government endorsed. So hundreds of government agencies nationwide exclusively trust VitalChek. So they've got— they basically cut deals with those vendors. And whatever, you go on here, you pay, and I don't know, it's like whatever, $99 or something per birth certificate. You fill out this form and it's done. And it's like, you kind of have to do this. Like, it's like a mandatory thing. It's like a DMV thing. It's like customers aren't just like choosing to go get certified. They have to get certified. And so that's why I love Aceable. That's why I love your DMV one. That's why I love this VitalCheck thing, because customers have to do it to comply. And you can build these kind of like third-party things. And I sent this to Xavier and Siava, our buddies with Enduring Ventures. I was like, dude, this is a beautiful business to buy. Right?
Like, because they're going and trying to buy these businesses that are like just cash flowing, profitable businesses that have defensibility, um, and can be maybe improved by like rolling up multiple or like centralizing the back office and the other, the other like red flag, not red, what's it, whatever the opposite of a red flag is, green positive flag, a green flag that my like red flag of like this is a killer company is going off because the website. It's an ugly website with a lot of traffic and it doesn't say who the founder is on the about page. It says we've been in business since 1992 and we do this, this, and this. And like, I can't find like a guy on Twitter talking about it. I'm like, okay, so you just—
so Siava got back to me. He goes, it looks— he's like, I dug in, it looks like it's owned by a UK public company, conglomerate called, uh, LexisNexis. Relex, I think.
Relex, which owns LexisNexis. It's like a multi-billion dollar— it's like the most Uh, I believe Relic is the most profitable company in the world in terms of margins. So, uh, they, they, they own another— the big thing they own is, do you know how scientific journaling, uh, like publishing works? Basically like these, like doctors and stuff come up with these, these amazing insights and scientific journals are like, yeah, we'll give you $500 for your article. And like, that's all they get paid. And every university like has paid money to get access to these journals. And so they make like $4 billion in revenue and like $3 billion in profit or something like that.
Wow. Yeah. It's a, it looks like it's a $50 billion, a little more than a $50 billion company.
Wow. What's the, does, can you see what the profit, like what the income is?
They probably done like 33,000 employees. Uh, I can pull up, I mean, I can pull up the headcount.
It's like the, I think it's one of the, uh, how do you spell it?
R-E-L-X.
Yeah. I think it's, uh, Dude, how do you know about this?
This is another Sampar special right here. Just knowing of some random British public company that owns scientific journaling companies and is the most profitable company in the world. How the hell did you know that?
I confirm that it's— if it's not the most, it's one of the most. And I knew about it because, A, I had friends in the journal who were like getting their PhDs and I was— they were telling me how it works. I'm like, oh, that's a racket. Like you, you don't understand, but you're lucky. Like, it's like, you know, dentists and stuff publishing stuff on like teeth. Like they don't understand like how margin works. And I'm like, they're paying you $500 for that. You don't understand shit. Uh, so they're just getting ripped off. So I knew right away. And second, when we were launching The Hustle, I love database businesses and I researched database businesses like crazy.
And I came across this company because they own, um, It's more like they own, they own LexisNexis, which is, which is like a total conglomerate in legal records and documents. They own PatentSite, which is, um, it has a patent asset index of 135 million patent documents. Law360, Lex Machina, which is like 88 million whatever thing. There's just a ton of database businesses.
And Law360 is like, it's kind of like Uh, The Hustle, but for lawyers. I mean, of course they were first, so we were like them for not lawyers, but it was basically a daily newsletter for lawyers.
Yeah. Elon's like me for billionaires. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, the problem that I have about Elon is he just rips off my style. Like I was using Twitter way before, like I was popular on Twitter first.
Yeah. I do memes. He does memes, right?
Like it's kind of like The—
I'm impulsive, he's impulsive.
What I am to podcasts, he is to money.
Money, business, and innovation.
Yeah, and dating celebrities.
Doesn't have a podcast though.
Got him. Yeah, dude, I was thinking of, uh, Jake Paul. We had Jake Paul on the podcast, and I was like thinking about it. I was like, if I got into an argument with that guy, he could just be like Well, I'm richer than you. And I'd be like, well, I could kick your ass. He's like, no, I can kick your ass. I'd be like, oh yeah, you can. He's like, well, I'd be like, well, and I'd be like, well, I'm famous. And he would be like, well, I'm more famous. So I'm like, oh, you're like, like everything better. Like, like whatever. Like I think of these people, like, I'm like, oh, like you are everything I do. You are that, but better. I have nothing I could say to you in a fight. Like you're just going to win this argument every single time. I'm screwed. And so sometimes I ask myself, what can I possibly say? And so like, that's sometimes I think about Elon.
No, that's when you have to, uh, swerve into the virtue signaling and be like, well, I'm just not, I don't chase money and fame. Yeah. So yeah, you're way more famous and rich than me.
Yeah. Well, I wouldn't trade lives with you. You must be miserable.
I have one thing you'll never have, enough. And, uh, that's the moral high ground you can always take on somebody better than you.
Good episode. See you later.