Four Ideas For AI, Twitter Empires, and Billion $ Thiel Fellowship Success Stories

I think this is one of the multi-billion dollar trends that like you could be on right now. And I don't say that for hyperbole, like literally this is the window. The tech is just now finally good enough. It's not quite there, but you need to start now and you could disrupt all of these marketplaces.

All right. Um, I went out with, uh, Hassan last night for dinner. Can I tell you about it really quick?

Do it.

It was awesome. So he like admires you a lot. Do you know that?

I admire him a lot.

So, uh, you pronounce his name Minhaj or Minaj? Minhaj, right?

I think, I think his name is actually pronounced Hasan Minhaj and everybody calls him Hasan Minhaj because it sounds awesome and it's like Nicki Minaj.

Nicki Minaj.

And so, you know, whatever. I don't know what the— I don't know how strict he is on that.

Well, we— so basically the story of this is Sean interviewed him last year. I thought I saw him on the street and I ran up and like went and said, hey, and it actually wasn't him. And I looked like an idiot and I tweeted about it and he texted me. I guess he got my number from you and he texted me and we went and hung out. So this guy's like this, you know, pretty big deal comedian. He is so smart. He's so much smarter than I am. And that's what I learned that. And number 2, I was so intimidated to be around him because I didn't know if like, if I was like, can I make him laugh? If I can make him laugh, I'm like, this is a win. And I really didn't. I didn't make him laugh. I failed. I did not. I could not make him laugh. And he like showed me these books that he's reading and I wanted to Google Like, I wanted to tweet this out, but I was too embarrassed. So maybe you could tell me. But I like, like Googled like books on how to be funny because after I hung out, after I hung out with him, I was like, dude, this guy's got me in a trance. He could tell me about anything. He's so funny and good at storytelling. Like, I'm so into it. And I was like, I want to figure out how to be funny. And I went on Amazon and I Googled like how to be funny or like how to be clever. And do you remember years ago when I wrote that article about this guy who games the Amazon the Kindle system to rank really high and it's like shit books, but he like buys reviews. Dude, it's like 6 of the top 10 on page 1 were all him. It's all this guy. I know the author. I know the guy's name. So it's all bullshit. What is there? Are there good books that I can read, you think, on how to be funny or how to be clever? Like, I felt like such a nerd. Like, I was going to tweet this out, but I'm going to look like the biggest virgin on earth. Just like, how do I, like, be clever in a conversation?

Yeah, I don't know, dude, that I feel like this is a, um, it's like a, it's like a skill that's only passed down, like, you know, by hand. And you can, it's only like trial by fire. Like you have to like learn this when you're 12 and get good at like busting people's balls and like saying the funny thing in class. Um, like Theo Von has this like hilarious, I know you like Theo too. So he has this hilarious story. He tells, he goes, dude, I was in my like freshman. I remember the first time I realized I was funny as a comedian. He's like, I was a, it was my freshman year at college and I was going to school in Louisiana or whatever. He's like, and my professor said to our class, he was like, you know, look to your left, look to your right. You know, statistics will say that, uh, you know, one, one of the, one of the three of you, one out of every three people are going to end up being like a child, uh, whatever, molester or something like that. He goes, and I stood up and I just go, not it. And then he's like, he's like, that was the moment. And first of all, it's just a hilarious story. And secondly, uh, I think there's some truth to like, you have these little moments where you get rewarded for being funny early on in life and you're like, ooh, more of that, more of that. All right. How do I get more of that laugh? I want more of that. And then you just keep doing it.

Talent's real, but I think it's a, I think just like anything, like, you know, some people will never be able to dunk, but you definitely can improve. You can learn how to dribble better than before. For sure. Like there's gotta be a skill. There is definitely a skill here. You know, I think like the best are definitely just born better, but I can be good. I can be good.

There's a YouTube video that you should watch. So I've gone down this rabbit hole, probably also after I met Hudson, and I was like, shit. He would tell me a story on the pod where he'd be talking and I'm so into the story. I'm like, you know, what is it, eating out the palm of his hand? And then he would ask me a question mid-story and I just— I'm like nodding, like I'm still listening, like it's a TV show. And then I didn't realize that he said something to me. Like he said, he was telling some stories like, everybody's got that kid growing up. Like you had that kid. Who, who was it for you? And I was so enthralled by the story that I was just like, yes. And I realized that I was like, oh, he asked me for a name. And then I thought about who that would be because I said now I'd said yes, that there is a kid. And he's like, who was it? And I was like, I can't remember any names growing up. I'm so into you that I've like forgotten who I am and my entire past.. And so, you know, that was what was happening when he was telling stories. But he, I asked him afterwards and I think he gave me a YouTube video that was fun that, that he, that he is like, this is kind of interesting. Um, so it's called Mark Normand, How to Write a Joke. And I think it's like an hour-long podcast. So it's the, the thing is called Writing a Joke with Mark Normand. And Mark Normand is a good joke writer. He's a funny comedian.

Um, yeah, he's great.

And this 1-hour thing, he like kind of, breaks down some of the, the like mechanics of what makes something funny. And it's not like follow this, these 3 easy steps and you too can be funny, but it is like, oh, okay, I could see how this, like, if I constantly, if I consistently practice these mechanics, I can take something that's like not so funny and make it funnier repeatedly. And then like from there there's more, there's storytelling and there's setups and there's like tagging jokes and there's other like There's things that you gotta learn, obviously, if you wanna do this well. But I think that video is pretty good.

I'll watch that. It's got like 100,000 views. There's these guys who have this YouTube channel called Charisma on Command, and it's a beautiful name. They've been doing it forever. Have you seen these guys?

Yeah, I remember for like maybe 5, 7 years ago, I was like watching some of those videos.

Yeah, and they're cool. They're, it could be a little lame because it's a, it's a little bit more on like nerdy guys, how to meet women, which is cool and fine, whatever. But like, you know, I was not trying to— I was dating my wife at the time, so I was like, well, I just want to learn how to be like more charismatic. And I, I remember their name, and they like taught a course on it, and like they had all this stuff. I was like, that's a beautiful name, Charisma on Command. I'll watch that Mark Norman joke. But anyway, hung out with this dude last night, it was dope. He paid for dinner, so good first date. Uh, it was awesome.

Did you try to pay? Did you do the thing? No, for sure, a lot me.

But I— you know what's funny is when I go to— he like liked this. We went to Gramercy Tavern, and he likes that place, which is, I guess it's like a fancy or kind of fancy place. And I was like, dude, you come here a lot? He goes, yeah, I love it. I go, I'm not even gonna look at a menu, whatever you wanna order for me, just, you just do it all. And that's, that's how I love, I love going to restaurants like that. I do that all the time. I'm like, I, I don't care. I eat meat and vegetables, get whatever. So I was, I was eating—

the best is then after they order, then you complain. Uh, you gotta do that too. That's the, the true D-bag move. By the way, you know, one thing people liked from the last pod, or maybe a couple pods ago, I got a bunch of DMs about this. They were like, dude, I love the homie move that you said. And I was like, I don't even remember what he's talking about. He's like, remember the homie move? That's like one of the top 10 things you've shared on the pod, which was you were like, dude, guess how many blah, blah, blah. And when you say that, obviously it's something impressive, but I kind of guessed low so that you can have your punchline where you're like, 100 million. And I'm like, oh, I only said 10 because I kind of knew it's more than 10, but let me give you this. Moment. People love that. Uh, I thought that was hilarious.

Yeah, I saw the comments. People did dig that on YouTube. Uh, right.

Um, so I made a little vow to, uh, myself to bring more specific ideas and stories, uh, to the pod because I personally love the free-flowing, just like whatever, wherever our conversation goes, it goes. But I want to make sure that, you know, we have the entrée not just tapas. It's not just the appetizers. I want to have the entree. So let's jump into a couple ideas here.

I got a few too, or I got one big one.

I'm gonna go one and then you go one. All right. So we've talked about this a little bit in the past, DALL·E and like how much AI is advancing. And I don't know if it's just like my TikTok feed keeps feeding me these, but every day I see a new incredible thing. That AI can do.

You have to explain what DALL·E is.

It's just blown me away.

What's that? You have to explain what DALL·E is.

Oh, DALL·E is a program. It's an artificial intelligence program. Um, DALL·E 2, I think is the current name of it, that basically you just type in any word and it generates images on that. So you could be like, sampar, you know, um, fishing, and it will just generate images that like look like they're either hand-drawn or like a stock photo that are Sam Parr fishing, even though no such image exists. Let's say it will create the image. So it like flips the whole idea of like creating art or taking photos or, or painting something. And it kind of like flips it on its head. It's like, no, computers and robots can now do that almost as good, if not in some cases better than what would be, you know, the real thing or humans, human stuff. And so you see that. You see deepfakes, like there's videos where you'll see the Mona Lisa and then they're like, watch this. And they push a button and all of a sudden the Mona Lisa starts turning her head and she starts rapping like, you know, Notorious B.I.G. And it looks like the mouth is like in sync with the lyrics and the thing looks real. It's like, yeah, they just took it. They can take an image and they could turn it into a video using AI. Like AI can basically say, oh, if I have this image, I know where the eyes and those lips are. I have been trained on what talking looks like, what singing looks like. What looking around and acting natural looks like. And I could turn any image into that.

And it's really good.

It's really good. They could take Barack Obama and they can make him like— this happened now with the Ukraine thing. They took the Russian president, like, and the way that people can Photoshop an image to make it look real. You could take Barack Obama and you can make it sound and look like he is saying something, you know, completely racist or whatever. So yeah, it's like, oh man, I can't trust videos.

Well, I heard a podcast about that particular one. I think someone made one of these things to show how amazing it is. And then they also showed— but here's the downfall. And they made Obama— I think he said the N-word or something like crazy, like not cool. And they're like, he said that. And that's amazing. Obviously he didn't. But like, it seems exactly like he said it. This is where it's going to get— it's going to get dangerous.

Totally. And let me— so, so I'll just keep going to some random examples. So there's another one where you you can draw like a very basic smiley face on, uh, on your iPad on this app called Procreate. Um, uh, and then you can, it's basically just like eyes, nose, mouth, and you're just like pencil drawing it. Then you change the brush to the AI paintbrush and you just kind of like shade in, like, you know, like when a kid would like scribble in a shape and it like colors in as if you like painted this in fine detail with the shadows and the colors, the, And all you're doing is literally just moving your hand like a fool. And it's like, it knows already what like high quality art looks like and it just turns your crappy art into high quality art. Um, there, it's amazing. And so every day there's all these little amazing magic tricks and they're not like foolproof yet, but the demo is getting ridiculously impressive.

And so I used it to come up with a logo for a business I'm thinking about starting. I use it to come up with a logo and it was awesome.

Oh, I do that all the time. Yeah. If you just Google AI logo generator or brand generator, there's like 4 websites that you can use. Yeah. And you just say like, like, uh, I, you know, it's a legal, legal startup, uh, the mood is serious but still sophisticated. Go. And it'll spit out like an infinite number of logo variations that you could then— and you could be like, cool, print this on business cards. That's like how they make money is like, print this on a business card. Or like, give me the high quality photo.

You actually use it, right? Like, I used it. I used it. Yeah. Normally what I do is I go to 99designs and I have like You— 99designs is amazing because you can get like 30 graphic designers to like make up a landing page and you'd be like, I like details from number 1, number 8, and number 14. And then someone combines all of them and they gimme the one that I want. Whereas when you work with just one designer, you gotta like, A, kind of be nice to them and be like, no, this, this is, you know, this is okay, but can you kind of change it like this? Instead I could be like, no, this sucks, do this. But also B, you can see all different combinations. And with DALL-E, I'm excited to use it in that way.

And so let me give you like, um, a couple ideas that I've had based off of what I've seen. So here's what I, I, I think these can be very big ideas. Now the problem with these, I'll, I'll tell the problem also, um, is that I think it's so easy to do that you're gonna have a bunch of competition. Um, so you know, you have to find a way to be defensive. But here, okay, here we go. 4 ideas that you can do with AI, um, like right now. Okay, so number 1, is, um, uh, which one do I wanna start with? Okay, so number 1 is gonna be, uh, fake speech. So I'm investing in this company called Unreal Speech. Uh, I don't know if you've heard this, but check this out. This guy sends me fake, uh, deepfake audio of somebody, of Gary Vee and Jordan Peterson reading The Milk Road. So I'm gonna just play one of these. I think you can hear it.

Let me just—

this is The Milk Road.

The newsletter that brings you so much entertainment, news, and laughs, it should be illegal. Yeah, no, hypothetically speaking, of course. Here's what's happening around crypto. Dude, it sounds just like Jordan Peterson.

It's just like Jordan Peterson. Here's Gary Vee.

The newsletter that brings you so much entertainment, news, and laughs, it should be illegal. Yeah, no, hypothetically speaking, of course.

You can see it messes up sometimes.

What's happening around crypto. The new stablecoin on the block. So, so you can— that's amazing. That is so good. Is that, is that available?

Very little. There's very little training data. Um, and literally just like takes my thing and you could see the, the places where my, my written stuff is like kind of like casual. I'm like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And like, it doesn't do that part very well, but the other parts it does like pretty dang well for a very small amount of training. Unreal Speech.

Is it available to everyone?

Did he do it?

I can make you, I can make it so that the Milk Road, it'll auto-add a companion audio. Like if somebody wants to listen to the newsletter on the go, like it'll do it in your voice. Um, like I can just do that now. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. He's like, yeah. And the way we're doing it is cheaper, faster, and like more accurate than like the, the kind of the other models that are out there on like Amazon or whatever. Um, so it's like, you know, dramatically cheaper to do, cause this is a little bit expensive whenever you do this, cause it's like machine learning, but the cost just keeps falling every year. And then there's techniques to make it even smaller. And so think about this, like language translation. So for example, there's a world where we do this podcast and Unreal Speech could translate this into another language in our voices with our tones, right? But just speak in another language. And so now all of a sudden our podcast is in, you know, it is being, you know, done in Spanish and in French and all these other languages. And so we could grow without having to actually do extra work ourselves.

Damn, dude, that's crazy.

You remember Turnitin.com? Did you have Turnitin.com? Like, it would help you, like, if you submitted— you have to submit an essay in high school. It happened. So I used to, like, I had this website that, like, would give you free essays and I would use them all the time, you know, and like most— well, I don't know if most people do it, but, you know, a lot of people do it.

Some people out there will think this is okay.

A person and a person did it and it was awesome. And I like rewrite it a little bit. But then they came up with Turnitin.com, which ended up becoming like a huge company and sold for billions of dollars, I believe, where you would turn in your paper essay, but then you also had to submit an electronic copy and it did a pretty good job of finding out if it was plagiarized. Frankly, I have no idea how it did it, and I don't actually think it's that sophisticated of technology, but they just sold to schools and they like trusted that it was legitimate. Because like if you just Google a phrase in quotations, you could see like where, you know what I mean? It's like not like that sophisticated of a, of a thing, but like it would alert teachers like, okay, like 98% of this is copied from somewhere else. Right. But yeah, it ended up being—

I think, I think it had gotten acquired by GE for like $400 million. Yeah, Flower something.

Do you ever recognize stock image models on different websites?

Yeah. There's this guy who's in The Bachelor who's a stock image, uh, and he's like in like a bunch of like funny, like whatever, random like kids Halloween costumes. It's like, there's that guy. And then you see him again on this like hot sauce commercial. Like, there's that guy. And he's just like this generic smiling black guy. And it's like they just reuse him everywhere.

I saw like the lady that was on the Google Analytics page. It was two ladies and I saw one of them in public and I went up and got a picture with her and, and like I saw her and I recognized her. And then there's this other lady that was on the Google Analytics page. She's— it's like, it's always— it's like a lot of times the same person. It's like a racially ambiguous woman with like curly hair. It's like, you know, she could be Italian, she could be Black, she could be Jewish, white, who knows? Like it just represents everyone. And I see this woman everywhere on all different websites. I used her a couple times. I love this lady and I get sick of using the same pictures though all the time. So for some of my projects I've been using, if you, you can use DALL-E and you can use a couple other services and they'll give you fake people. So I have a couple websites that have like testimonials and they're real testimonials, but I don't wanna use the people's,, face because I didn't exactly ask them for, it was like an email that they like wrote me, you know what I mean? I didn't want to use like their face because they didn't give me permission, but like, it's, who cares? It's just a sentence. I can use that and I'll use, I Google AI sample faces and you can get all types of faces and you could say like, make this person this race, make this person happy, make them serious. You can change it and you can make them all types of stuff. And I've been using that for sample images because when we were running The Hustle, every once in a while we would like do it the right way where we would like use an image that was for commercial use. But sometimes it would get categorized wrong and we would, we'd get like a, what do they call it? Like a, I forget what it— a DMCA notice. Yeah, that's right. And they say like, you know, you have to— multiple times we've had to pay $5,000. You know, you're just like, oh fuck, these guys, like they're going to cause an issue. We just got to pay them $5,000 and they're going to go away. But this is— we just— we're going to get, you know, we're getting screwed here, but whatever, we got to do it. So I've been using them for stock images so I don't have to worry about getting sued or get one of these cease and desist letters.

Wow.

And some people are mad about it because they're like, dude, you read my code, you use my code as the training data. And I get nothing from this. Like, that's crazy. You're gonna basically put me out of a job by using my own data as the training data for this. And that's the same thing that's gonna happen. What these, like, these websites, by the way, Ben found, uh, Spoonflower was the name of the pattern. Spoonflower. So all you have to do if you're doing this is like, you're gonna go and you're gonna scrape and crawl Spoonflower. You're gonna ingest all of the patterns with all of the tags, and then you're gonna basically train it, train a dataset so that it says, okay, cool. The, this is what a pattern with X, Y, and Z keyword looks like. Great. Now you give me that keyword again, I can generate 500 new patterns from scratch. And Spoonflower is basically going to create its destroyer in that sense. Like it is gonna, the data from these, from stuff that's already on the internet is what's gonna destroy those, those services. And I say it kind of hype, like, you know, in a, in a violent way, like destroy and all that stuff. But it is true. Like these are gonna be very competitive very quickly and it's gonna be like the same way that the chess programs like got really good really fast and all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, a human cannot beat a computer at chess or The gayest con of graphic design. Yeah, exactly. Like this thing is going to like enslave and pillage, you know, it's gonna go to your village. It's gonna kill the men. It's gonna marry all the women and it's gonna put the children to work. Like that's what's gonna happen with this, these AI marketplaces. That's my prediction. So Ben, go to this website I sent you in the chat. Can you share this? Uh, Sam, I think you've used this before too, but it's a cool one for people who don't know. Um, It's thispersondoesnotexist.com.

Yes, that's what I used.

And so like, look at this guy.

That looks like you, Ben, kind of. I mean, just looks like a basic white dude. This guy, this sounds like a mugshot on Dateline.

It takes a quick picture of you from your webcam and it just makes someone like you. Um, this is a dude that— this person does not exist. That's an AI composite of a face. So you can use this face anywhere on your website, copyright free, because nobody's gonna be like, hey dude, that's me. Um, this is like such a useful, funny website and it shows you in the bottom right, it'll tell you exactly how the image was created. It's like it was imagined by a GAN, which is a type of machine learning thing or whatever. Um, here's how it works. You can use it yourself, you know, blah, blah, blah. And watch this. You can use it for cats and horses and chemicals. It's like this cat, this cat does not exist. And you can like click a cat and it'll like AI generate a cat.

Yeah, this is amazing. I usually just take screenshot of those and I use those on like different websites.

And so, uh, so yeah, those are 3, 3 ideas. I think I said student essay generation, uh, Unreal Voices for voiceovers. Um, and never, you know, never having to basically turning your voice into a programmable asset and then patterns and prints. And that's just like, that's not even saying some of the obvious ones that I met, the other ones I mentioned, like stock photos.

This is great. Million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars. All right. I have something for you. Have you heard of Jon Steinberg?

Is he the guy who did Cheddar?

Yeah. So listen to this story and I'm going to— there's a reason why I'm telling you, but let me tell you the story. So basically, Jon Steinberg was the COO of BuzzFeed for a long time. I think when he joined BuzzFeed, it was like 20 people. So he wasn't quite the co-founder. But he was, he worked his way up to be COO and he was like the ad sales guy who became COO and he kind of was like pushing it hard and it was almost like a co-founder of BuzzFeed and he's incredibly aggressive, very aggressive. And he started this thing years ago, like 8 years ago or maybe 6 years ago called Cheddar. And the whole shtick was that it was gonna be a live TV station for Facebook Live. And when he launched it, we were just getting started and he like messaged me, he goes, 'Have we met yet?' Which was just an alpha— like, there's such an alpha way to like, 'Hey, I forgot your name.' It's like, 'You just messaged me.' Yeah, he was like, 'Hey, Dave.' I was like, 'Dude, it's— it says Sam, right? We're on Facebook.

I know you.' 'Hey, sorry, I'm really bad with names and faces.' Yeah.

This is one of the more interesting things I feel like you've said. This is— I actually, I don't even think you normally think like this. I feel like this is a, like a, this is not your— you say a lot of interesting stuff, but it's your, you usually fall into, I found this really interesting diamond in the rough. You're amazing at that. Another is, uh, I see what these people are doing and let me break it down in simple terms. Like all they're doing is X.. And sometimes you're like, uh, you know, this is a trend or an industry I see. This is different. This is like, this is something, something different. So I like, I like that you're bringing this up. Let's break this down.

So every time— do you agree with me?

At first when you, I think you tweeted this out and I was like, I don't really understand what he's talking. I didn't really understand it. Uh, then you just explained it and it's, I'm starting to come around on it. I'm like, oh wait, he's kind of right. Every, big social media platform has like native stars. So yes, if you're, uh, you know, whatever, you're the president and you go on Twitter, you're gonna get a bunch of followers. That's one thing. But basically if you take every medium, so podcasting, you have Joe Rogan, you have like, then the people like Joe Rogan, you have the Call Her Daddies and you have like other, Tim Ferriss, you have other people who like, they become stars on that platform and they use that to build a pretty big empire, you know, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions that they can make off of it. YouTube, obviously there's YouTubers. TikTok has TikTok stars, people who were not famous on YouTube but got famous on TikTok. Instagram also, right? There's Instagram models and Instagram like influencers that they were nobody and they became big on Instagram.

Multi-billion dollar companies. We're talking, you know, Kardashians, Rihanna, like these like huge things.

Well, I think they were— Rihanna, Kardashians, they were big off of Instagram. They were big without it. Like, Instagram also— and Instagram add turbocharge to them. But like, there are other people that are, you know, um, just Instagram. Like, Instagram made them famous. Like, Dan Bilzerian is a good example, right? Like, he's not famous without Instagram. Then with Instagram, he becomes famous, and then now he does multiple platforms, right? By the end, everybody does multiple platforms, but you kind of You're really good at the medium. So like, for example, Dan Bilzerian takes photos of himself blowing up cars with hot girls like in bikinis. Guess what? Instagram is a visual, like, you know, put one killer image on there and they're amazing at it. And so, uh, that worked really well there. You're kind of right. Who is that on Twitter? Who is, who is a Twitter native star? I don't even know what that would be. Like, is there somebody who comes to mind?

I mean, there's a, there's a few, like I would say like, and I'm on Twitter.

10 times a day. Like, how do I not know this?

Like, you and I are like very miniature versions, but we haven't really— like, I'm talking like Sahil is a bigger version. So our friend Sahil Bloom, Trung, who used to work for me, he is kind of like that. But you know, we're still talking like 500,000 followers. No one has really pushed it to where it's like, how do I get 10 or 20 million? You know, how do I become— like, how do I build a proper empire as opposed to a niche? Now the difference is, uh, basically between everything you mentioned and Twitter is Twitter is copy-based, text-based, whereas the other ones are visual-based. So I think there's one of two routes that's going to happen. You figure out how to add visuals to your thing and videos don't usually do that well on Twitter, but pictures do. Or you just get really good at writing. And I was like, well, writing's not that important, but I'm like, wait, no, I'm an idiot. Like, you know who Danielle Steele or James Patterson is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

These people have sold literally like, I believe Danielle Steele has sold like 100 million plus books. I don't know if you know this, but in San Francisco she's got like the biggest mansion and fattest house.

Yeah, billionaires row. Her house is like the big fortress.

Yeah. And then you got James Patterson. I bet you he's a billionaire too. James Patterson basically writes like 50 books a year. I don't even know if he writes a lot of them, if he just smacks his logo on it. But like, you know, I was thinking of like, well, that sounds outrageous, but okay, I forget.

But it's maybe a book a week.

It's like one a month. It'll say like So, you know, what he does is like, it'll be like written by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. And then it says like, and also this other name. And it's like a duo about them. It's like a story written about like the White House or something like that. And he like partners, it's like this weird thing that he does. He writes a ton. He's prolific. And a lot of like, like real quote authors, like these like artist folks are like, oh, that's just garbage. But he's like, dude, I don't care. I'm pumping this shit out.

Anyway.

Authors, like, definitely crush it still, and the power of the written word is very powerful enough to, like, you know, get these people to buy all these books, and I still think that's possible, but I, I, I do think that we're gonna see, like, an empire built on top of Twitter. Arguably, you and I have created, we've easily created, uh, 7 figures of personal income through Twitter. Maybe you could say even, I, I would have to add it up, maybe 8 figures, but a lot. Uh, I think though that there's going to be literally billionaires created on Twitter and it hasn't happened yet though.

Wow. Uh, yeah. What's— we can't call ours empires. Like what's a, what's a very, very small, like a Lego, like a convenience store. Yeah. Like we, we've created like a Kwik-E-Mart.

Uh, yeah. We own like 4 Burger Kings. You know what I mean?

You're right. That's Sahil and Trung are good examples of like, They actually try. So like, they like religiously write content. They schedule it. They research it. They like publish. They like try to amplify it. They have calls to action at the bottom and it works. And I've seen them crawl from zero to, Sahil's at like half a million, maybe more. I don't know.

Uh, dude, a lot of people don't even know that Trung. So Trung worked at The Hustle. He wrote the Daily Email. We found him when he was working at like a as a financial analyst, analyst, not like, it was all internal reports. We like, he signed up for Twitter while he worked at my company and we all like shared each other in this like silly circle jerk circle. And now he's got 600,000 followers and he's like a personality and like people know him, like they talk about him and how he's funny and all this stuff. And I think it's gonna happen. And like when I tweeted out that event thing, 1,000 people signed up and I'm like, oh my God, like why aren't, you actually see Instagram, like you'll see like the Logan, the Jake Pauls and Logan Paul, they'll like say like, I'm going to be— when they were starting on YouTube, they're like, we're going to be at this location, come. And they film all these crazy videos of all these people around us. No one's doing that shit for Twitter. And I think that someone needs to just take the YouTuber playbook and just deploy it here and take it full time and seriously. And they could create tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth.

And so what would you do? Because like, I think, well, the guys we talked about, they, you know, Sahil basically does like kind of like mental model, intellectual, like stuff where it's like, oh, you know, either like kind of what I'll call like the generic life advice, generic business advice, or like, um, you know, hey, let me tell you about this phenomenon in psychology about cognitive biases and here's 30 cognitive biases you wanna be aware of. And like, I don't know why these do so well. They do incredibly well. Uh, it's not my cup of tea, but it's definitely other people's cup of tea for that kind of content.

Yeah. I think, I think that's good advice. Like, uh, people will believe about you what you believe about yourself. And, um, and also people will believe about you what they think others believe about you. So if I see you hanging out, you know, if I see you, this is why YouTube works, right? Like people on YouTube will have like, you know, or Instagram, they'll have like, they're taking a picture, but it's actually the background. That's the picture. It's like, I'm just trying to show you that I'm sitting in this car or at this place or with these people. And, um, there's like everything that's said is actually in the background. The foreground is just kind of like your excuse to say it.

Or when Casey Neistat's like walking through New York and he has kids coming up to him and goes, hey, what's up kid? Say hi to the— you're on the vlog. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, oh wow. Like in New York, Casey gets recognized everywhere. He's more than just what I see on my screen.

Uh, and like celebrities do this. They like, when they like tip off you know, the paparazzi to come like take pictures of them and they're like, they like pretend like they're trying to not be seen, but then like they actually, it's like a deal. Like, hey dude, I'm going to be here. Come on, come show up and take my photo. And then we're going to use that photo for this. Or they'll like, you know, uh, do stuff like that. So, so I think that's a thing. Like I had a buddy who created a, uh, he's got like an online e-commerce brand. They opened up their first store. The store is not going to do that many sales, but just showing that, hey, we opened our first store in New York. It's like, kind of like, you know, wherever in New York, some like small place. And it's like, just that makes it feel like this brand is more trustworthy. It's more established, it's more legit. And then they had a bunch of friends, like 15 friends show up and they were like doing a ribbon, uh, ribbon cutting ceremony. And the friends are all like, hey, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, question for you. Like, you know, like trying to pretend like they're the media. And, um, and, and, and like if you zoomed out, it's like 10 people standing in a small cluster. Yeah. But like from the right angle, it looked like a mob was at the store. And again, it's like this perception creates some version of reality. So I definitely think that helps. I don't think that's enough to build the empire. I think you gotta do two things. One, be in it for like the next 7 years. Like MrBeast, all these guys, they didn't start with like, you know, as big as they are. It takes like 5 to 7 years to build something like really truly massive. The second is I would stop trying to jump off Twitter and go to other places and be like, this is where the good shit is. I'm gonna master this medium and this media. Totally. I'm gonna make it work here. The third is I would do some of the stuff that just helps build fame in the first place. So, um, I think having your lane or your niche helps because it'll attract people who are interested in that. Second, controversy or collabing with others, I think is gonna work.

Uh, you know, and people don't do controversial stuff really on Twitter right now, but it should be like, oh my God, I called in to like this show and I got, you know how people used to call into Howard Stern and like get him to like say this crazy shit like, check this out, got him. You know what I mean?

Well, some people do it that, and it works. Like there's a guy who's doing this, Zach Weinberg or something like that.

Yeah, he's hilarious. I love that guy.

And so that's a, that's exactly how Ben Shapiro got famous too, by the way.

And on top of that, then you have like Keith Raboi or whatever, people who are just like a dick. To other people. Like he'll just like respond to somebody like wrong. And they're like, well, explain, like, you know, I'd love to hear your perspective. And he's like, I don't share my perspective with fucking losers. You know what I mean? Like he's like, he'll like, he'll shit on you once and then he'll, even if you try in good faith to come back, he'll be like, the data is out there. Go read a book.

And then one time he was like, one time the best thing he goes, I've forgotten more about startups than you'll ever even know.

Yeah, exactly. Or he'll be like, call me after your 6th unicorn, cuz that's where I am, or whatever. You know, like he, he, he's like, you know, obnoxiously just like shitting on people and it's hilarious. And because of that, like the controversy spread, some people hate him, some people love him. And, uh, he kind of uses that to, to, to, to grow. So anyways, I, I think controversy is also another underrated thing. There's a bunch of things that people need to do, but I would say the main one is like find your, your angle, your hook, your niche. Like for Casey Neistat, it's the daily vlog. For other people it's the explainer videos. It's like whatever. You gotta find that for you on Twitter and then like do it for 5 to 7 years and have faith that like, just like it wasn't obvious that being a YouTuber was just such a big deal back then, I think it's not that obvious, you know, to your point that you could do this on Twitter too.

Yeah. I, uh, so that's my, that's my, I'm, I'm, that's my pitch. I think it could be cool.

All right. Can I tell you about something that I kind of knew about but has recently blown my mind? Yeah, it's the Thiel Fellowship. So, you know, that's amazing what the Thiel Fellowship is. Ben, I'm curious, do you know what the Thiel Fellowship is? Come off mute for a bit because I think Sam already knows. I want to talk to somebody who's maybe more where the audience is, which may, you know, aware but not familiar.

Yeah, so I know the Thiel Fellowship is— I'll tell you just my impression of someone who doesn't know a ton about it is just that it's for essentially high schoolers who are super geniuses, and Peter Thiel is going to give you a bunch of money in order to not go to college and do something cool instead.

Uh, kind of. You're in— it's actually, I think it's actually for people in college to leave college for a year. So $100K to basically leave college for a year and work on something interesting. And, uh, Ben, if I asked you like, hey, is it like successful, unsuccessful? Do you have any idea?

Um, no, except for that I know, um, What's his name did it? The guy who did Ethereum.

Vitalik. Yeah, exactly.

Vitalik. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, which, by the way, I still haven't told my Vitalik story on air, which is I was in Amsterdam and I saw him and I couldn't think what to say. And he's walking right past me and I just turned and went, you're Vitalik. And he didn't like look or say anything. He just kept walking. But it was him. I remember. Did he have security with him? No, he was walking all alone on the streets of Amsterdam at 8 AM in the morning. It was just us. Our software is the worst.

Have you heard of HubSpot?

See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.

I think I love our new CRM.

Our software is the best.

HubSpot.

Grow better.

It is produced. Yeah. It worked out really well, didn't it?

And nobody talks about it. So let me tell you some of the things that have come out of this. Um, you have, like you said, Ethereum, which is like a $170 billion market cap thing that came from Vitalik. Probably like this generation's version of Facebook is like, you know, is Ethereum. So that comes out of this where Vitalik does the Thiel Fellowship and continues working on Ethereum during that time. And he launches, so that's one super, super, super successful thing. Also Figma, which is like a somewhere between $5 and $10 billion company that takes on Adobe in the design space. And Dylan, who is the founder of Figma, was in the Thiel Fellowship. Another one, OYO Rooms. So this is in India. It's like a, You know, kind of like an Airbnb-ish sort of thing. It's like a hospitality, uh, you know, website. OYO Rooms, multibillion-dollar company.

Tens of billions, I think.

but then there's way more. There's actually like a, uh, dozens that are in like the $100 million range. I invested in a company that recently raised another round. I think it was owner.com, the guy Adam, He, he was a Thiel Fellow. And I believe, I mean, that, that, that potentially could be a unicorn, but it's hundreds of millions for sure. And there's like dozens more like that.

The reason I got reminded of this was because I invest in Italic and Jeremy Kai is the founder of Italic. And he was like, oh yeah, I was a Thiel Fellow. That's how I was like, how did we meet? Eventually he's like, oh yeah, I was a Thiel Fellow. We came to your office and you gave a talk and I thought it was awesome. And so that's why we kept in touch. And I was like, dude, was Vitalik in the room? He's like, I don't think he's like, I don't think he was at that event. But he's like, dude, he used to like crash on our couch. Like, you know, he was part of the program and he's like, he's— I was like, what was he like? He's like, he's genuinely the weirdest person ever. Like the weirdest person I've ever met. And like, he's like, yeah, in a good way, in a bad way. Nothing like, he's just nothing like, nothing like I've ever seen. Just different, different sort of cat. And, um, I was like, this is, this is too good.

I think, I think you should, uh, keep using the word cat, by the way.

You like how I did that? I've been, it's something I'm workshopping right now.

Yeah, it looks good on you.

Yeah. I, I take it out for a spin. I take it out of the garage, you know, you know, twice a week and I just see, do people kind of like flinch when I say that? You know, um, it was a good flinch. Tried it with Lit and that was, I had to put that one back in storage.

No, you're too old.

That one's not coming back out. I put that one on eBay actually. Got rid of it.

Yeah. No, you're, yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're too much of a gray bush for that one.

But Cat.

Yeah. Cat was cool. I would stick with Cat, but it is crazy, man. This— the Peter Thiel— I thought at first it was real. It was kind of stupid. I'm like, this is weird. Like, what are these, like, little 18-year-old nerds? Like, they're not going to do anything interesting. Obviously, I was wrong. I like— I— when I—

when I—

when I was, like, rethinking my opinion on it, I was like, wow, I guess just, like, high IQ matters. Like, these guys, they're just— they have more power than I do. I always say they're just— they're higher— you're higher functioning than me. You know, that's just the only way I can describe it. You have more horsepower, your oven burns hotter, and it, it actually, it, it, it, it, it truly matters and it makes a difference.

Your oven burns hotter. It's so good. Oh God, I love that.

That was great.

You know what I mean?

They just got that, they got that, that totally, uh, heater furnace.

What was he like in like real life, like outside of work? Because have you ever seen some of these people interact in like normal, like life? Like, they like— I told you about one friend that's like intense and he literally only owns 2 t-shirts, 1 pair of underwear, 1 pair of socks, and his laptop. That's like the only thing he owns. And he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And then like, I know a bunch of these guys that are like this and like for hobbies they're just all in and like, so if they're into like, you know, like fucking their body or something, they've got like every gadget you could ever imagine and they are— they could tell you all about it. And or if they're into dieting, they've got like their pants. Like my friend Jack, He's into supplements and he's got literally $30,000 worth of supplements in a closet. And they'd be like, what's this do? What's this do? What's this do? And he just like tests everything. What was he like in, like, like, was he like, if he's into cars, could he like tell you every single thing about like a Porsche and what year it was from and why it was special?

Yeah. Yes. But before I tell you about him, I just read this thing that was like about Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. And it's like, oh, what is Sergey like? You know, because he's in the news because of his wife and Elon and all that stuff.. And some people are like, what is Sergey doing nowadays? Cuz he's not, I don't think he's at Google anymore. Um, and it said over the last year or two, he's become very into personal fitness. In fact, he has been trying to master several Olympic sports. And I was like, what, dude?

I don't know, man. I looked at this guy, he, what, like what Olympic sport? Ping pong? I don't know. Like feet shooting.

Yeah. Curling. Um, yeah. The other one is, it said he's currently writing a physics textbook.. And I was like, of course he's writing a physics textbook.

Like, that's more like it.

Come on. Yeah. Um, so, so anyways, yeah, these guys are wired like that where like when they go in, they go in like very deep. Uh, and honestly, I don't know him super well cuz I interacted with him mostly at work. Um, and anytime it was outside of work, it was, it was really cool, but it was like, you know, limited. It wasn't like I hung out with him like 100 times. It would maybe be more like 5 times, you know, something like that over the, couple years that I was there. Um, what I would say is like a couple of little things that stood out. One, he's like us. He's an idea machine. In fact, I need to get him on the podcast because you've been saying that for 3 years now. I know, I know. And when I was there, I didn't ask him cuz I was like, uh, you know, already, you know, me doing this podcast is not a, you know, yeah.

You're like, hey dude, you wanna bail at noon and go and record?

Yeah, I mean, people do that with like karate and, and jiu-jitsu, you know, black belt, brown belt, blue belt type of thing.

Exactly. And they stick with it and they keep showing up.

'cause they're terrible lawyers.

And so that's what people say about you.

He had a dozen ideas that were like this when I was there. All right. That's one thing that I noticed.

Dude, 100% agree. Peter Thiel is the same way. He's like a master or grandmaster at chess and like in the PayPal Mafia, which is now like the most successful entrepreneur group ever. Uh, I think several of them were like very, very high-level chess players, um, that, that have gone through that, you know, that like were in that thing. There's like something to the, the oven burns hotter. That's like true for some of these people. It's a combination of intensity and capability. Um, that is, that is definitely true. Like, uh, another kind of like Emmett observation that I was like, huh, that's weird, that doesn't seem normal. Um, So I guess two little ones. One was, I was like, what do you do for fun? Like, what do you, when you hang out, like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, like, I love board games. He's like, you should come over for like a board game night. And I was like, uh, okay. Like, what, like, what are we playing? Like, you know, Monopoly, like Twister. What do we got going here? And he's like, he just looked at me like, we only play like deep strategy games. And it was like, we only play Catan on like hard mode or like even Catan is like the beginner one. He like named two other games I don't even know about that like like, you know, are like this, the, the, like the board games that are like actually, you know, like multi-level, multi-hour strategy games. And basically it was him and the brothers from Stripe and like the founder of Reddit, and they would just get together and play these games on the weekend.

That's what they did. That's exactly how I want them to spend their time.

Uh, dude, but like, you know, it works at the end of episodes like this. I'm exhausted. I feel like I just exerted so much energy, both listening and speaking. Do you have to take a nap at the end of this? Because you just spoke like with incredibly high energy for— we've done this for— we're an hour and 17 minutes in. Do you get exhausted? I take naps after.

No, not at all. I leave these on a high.

So do I, but then I need to go to—

Always.

You— well, yeah, you never have water. I usually drink 3 drinks while I'm doing these, but like I'm exhausted. I get exhausted just listening.

Well, that's probably my fault, so I'm sorry.

Uh, I am very proud of my friends. No, no, it's a good exhausted. I'm like, God, I just learned so much and I need to get so much better at this, this, and this by hearing this story. And I was just so intensely listening and enthralled by this conversation that I need a nap. I've gotta go lay down. That's how I feel. I gotta go rest.

Balaji went on Tim Ferriss's podcast and did like a 3-hour podcast and I listened to it last night.. And like literally while it was happening, I could feel my brain fatiguing just trying to like digest what this man was saying. He's so— and by the way, you also hear Tim Ferriss sound— I love Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss sounds like an absolutely defeated man on these podcasts with Balaji because Balaji would be like, um, anarcho— you know, on one hand you have the woke capitalists, on the other hand you have the anarcho— uh, anarcho— you know, the anarcho-capitalists. Do you know what I mean when I say that? And Tim's like No, tell me. And like, that happens 40 times in the episode. He's like, um, are you familiar with the concept of the, uh, you know, the Schrödinger window? And Tim's like, um, no, but I assume you could tell me. And he's like, he just does that over and over and over again.

Dude, one time when he was with us, he was like, he was like, you know, Bitcoin is kind of like Battle of the Bulge. And you remember how the Germans were doing it? And I'm like, dude, I don't, I needed an analogy for your analogy. Like, you don't, please don't reference Battle of the Bulge when trying to explain a complicated topic. Like, you know, it's like, you know, Bitcoin's kind of like, uh, like neuroscience. Like, you know how like the chemicals of like this, this, and this interact this way?

Think about the, think of Bitcoin as the amygdala of the crypto ecosystem. It's like, well, what's the amygdala, dude? I don't know. Yeah. That's what, that's what was happening. And, uh, I guess I did that to you in this case, but no, you, you're, you're, well, you're way dumber.

I could totally keep up with that. It just was a good story.

No, you just talk more.

No, I thought it was good. That was a compliment. I get exhausted because I'm like so into it. Like I, like I, I, I love hearing these stories so much.

We used to do these mastermind, uh, like dinners or hangouts where it'd be me, Sam, and like 3 other guys and we'd meet up every 2 weeks or 3 weeks, something like that. And it would always be like, you know, each person gets 20 minutes and you just sort of say what's going on in your business, what's working, what, and what you want help, what you want the other guys to like, you know, basically help you think through. And then, and those things last, basically, if you just do the math, it's like 6 people, 20 minutes each, but everybody runs 10 minutes over. And like, you know, we start 10 minutes late. It's like, this thing is 3 hours long. And we would always start it after work. So we'd start it at like 7. It would finish at 10, 10:30. Uh, we skipped dinner. Nobody's like gone to the bathroom. And basically there was 2 reactions. Some people were like fucking exhausted by the end of this. And they're like, oh, this was great. But like, man, next time let's try to be a little shorter. Uh, and like, I get that logically. My reaction, and we used to do some of these at your office, I remember, um, at the Hustle's office. I don't know if you know this, I would leave your office at 10, 10:30 and I would go straight to my office and I would just work 4 or 5 straight hours because I was like, I can't do that. I was so inspired. I was like a combination of inspired by the, like your guys' awesomeness. Um, panicked that like, oh my God, I have so much I need to do that I now realize. And like, oh fuck, I need to do all of this and I'm just gonna try to do as much as I can tonight. Uh, and like, I was, it was a combination of like enthusiasm and like feeling overwhelmed by like the amount of potential and ideas and like stuff I could be doing to make our stuff grow more.

No, I gotta go like drink Gatorade and take a power nap. Like, yeah, I need to fuel up. I'm gonna go eat a Clif Bar. I get worn out. I'm like, my blood sugar's low. I could feel it. I guess that's the episode, right, Ben?