0:00

used to say like, if you love what you do, you

0:02

do it for free. And I was like, wait, no, no,

0:04

there's a different level. If you love

0:06

what you do, they couldn't pay you

0:08

to stop. And when I

0:10

realized like, how much money would you have

0:12

had to give Steve Jobs to not work

0:14

at Apple? The answer is

0:16

there is no, it was not, you couldn't pay him.

0:18

I'll give you $2 trillion, Steve, but you can't ever

0:20

work on an Apple. You can't build a product again.

0:22

He'd say, no, he's not doing, that's not

0:24

what he's doing. He liked hitting the ball. He

0:26

liked making great products, some of the best

0:29

products in the world, and he did that until he died.

0:32

So yeah, I think that's, you

0:34

know, there's all kinds of people. Some people, they're like, hey, this

0:36

is a good way of, fast way of the world creation. I'm

0:38

going to start a scale sell, and then they piece out. But

0:41

I think the greatest founders, the people, they're like,

0:43

they're doing it for other reasons. Hello,

1:07

and welcome to How to Take Over the World.

1:10

This is Ben Wilson, and this episode is

1:12

a conversation between myself and David Senra, host of

1:14

the Founders podcast. We talk about

1:16

the most important lessons we have learned from

1:18

studying history's greatest leaders and founders, what

1:20

the greatest and most important biographies are that we

1:22

would recommend to anyone, the power of podcasting,

1:24

whether anyone has it within themselves to become

1:27

a founder, whether it's better to be Jeff Bezos

1:29

or Napoleon and more, I just re -listened to

1:31

it. And I think this is a really

1:33

fun conversation. David is just so

1:35

engaging. And I think he has really valuable

1:37

insights. So I think you guys will

1:39

love this episode. Special thanks to Sierra for

1:41

helping make this conversation happen. So without

1:43

further ado, please enjoy this episode with David

1:45

Senra. All

1:48

right, what's up? It's David

1:50

Senra, founder's podcast. David,

1:52

how you doing? Good. I

1:54

feel like we're doing podcasts all the time like

1:56

this. We just never record any of our

1:59

conversations. Yeah, we talk a

2:01

lot. You've been super generous to

2:03

me with your time. and

2:05

with your money, and you've advertised on how to take over

2:07

the world, which I really appreciate. And

2:09

we do kind of similar things. So

2:11

I thought we'd talk a little bit today

2:13

about just the stuff that we always

2:15

talk about, right? Which is, we've got

2:17

podcasts about people who achieve great things and how they

2:19

do it. And this

2:21

is a lot of what we already talk about. I

2:25

guess I want to start off talking about, like, you've

2:27

been doing this for how long now? You started

2:29

in 2015. Almost eight years almost

2:31

eight years almost eight years by

2:33

the end of this year I'll be

2:35

over 400 biographies or autobiographies read

2:38

for In like so many

2:40

of the lessons are

2:42

The same right that's what makes

2:44

it so powerful as you find

2:46

these like common things amongst a Bunch of

2:48

people and then you're like oh wow there's a really powerful

2:50

lesson because if all these people are doing the same thing that

2:52

means it's power That means it's really powerful, but I guess

2:54

the the Opposite side

2:56

of that is do you still find

2:58

things that surprise you like new lessons

3:01

or do you feel like it's reinforcing a lot of the same stuff

3:03

at this point? You're

3:05

how like you're pretty religious,

3:07

right? You go to church every week.

3:09

How long yeah every week that's

3:11

every week so I grew up

3:13

like fundamentalist Christian like To the

3:16

point where like my mom

3:18

when she got cancer like she tried to like

3:20

her first thing was like trying to pray it away And

3:22

when I mean fundamental scripture, I mean

3:24

like Benny Hint. He was

3:26

famous in the 80s and 90s and he'd

3:29

be one of these preachers where you'd

3:31

go to him and he'd blow on you

3:33

or hit you in the head and

3:35

say you're cured of cancer. So

3:37

they're pretty, in my opinion,

3:39

extreme. But the benefit of that

3:41

is I was essentially forced to

3:44

go to church every Wednesday and

3:46

Sunday for most of my childhood. What

3:50

I think the I think the best description

3:52

of founders ever heard is like that it's

3:54

church for entrepreneurs. It's like when you go

3:56

You're obviously Mormon. I grew Christian. It's

3:58

not like You guys are

4:01

gonna church on Saturdays

4:03

or Sundays. It's not like

4:05

this Sunday The the preacher is

4:07

gonna be like, okay enough for the

4:09

Bible like we're gonna move on to another

4:11

book or we're gonna talk about this

4:13

other guy And so I think if you

4:15

actually look through I'm very

4:17

interested in things that last a long time. Most of

4:19

the people that you and I read about, it's

4:22

not like, oh, they had a new idea and they

4:24

changed professions every year. No, they had an idea

4:26

and they did it for a very, very long time.

4:29

And I think if you look at things

4:31

throughout human history that last a long

4:33

time, you can actually draw a

4:35

lot of lessons from it. So countries last

4:38

longer than companies, but

4:40

religions last longer than

4:42

countries. So why do

4:44

religions persist and endure? And I think

4:46

a lot of it is like,

4:48

one, they usually have some kind

4:50

of sacred text, like a book

4:52

that they read from, or they

4:54

constantly revisit. They obviously have a

4:56

leader. And then they gather

4:58

together in certain frequencies with like -minded people.

5:00

And I think there's actually a lot

5:02

of analogies there that you can draw and

5:04

put to companies. So

5:07

what you hit on is absolutely right. It's

5:09

like the things that most excite me is

5:12

not necessary novelty, even though that

5:14

does occur every once in a while.

5:17

It's these ideas that people that didn't know each

5:19

other, that lived in different times, lived in different

5:21

parts of the Earth, and worked in different industries,

5:23

all arrived at the same conclusion through experience. So

5:25

yeah, I would say that I still find, I

5:28

find like interesting applications. So

5:30

like, let me give you

5:32

an example. I just did this episode on this guy named

5:34

Todd Graves, who's the founder of As in Canes, which seems

5:36

like a weird thing for me to cover. Other than like,

5:38

everybody always asked me like, who are my favorite living entrepreneurs?

5:40

Since I studied dead entrepreneurs and I keep bringing up top

5:42

graves. I'm like, who the hell is Todd Graves? I was

5:45

like, he's a guy with a $10 billion chicken finger dream.

5:47

But like, all companies need to figure out

5:49

a way like, how do you finance company at the

5:52

beginning, right? You know,

5:54

his application is very unusual. Like

5:56

he went and worked shift work

5:58

as a boiling maker. Working 95 hour

6:00

weeks for five to six weeks at a

6:02

time fixing things to refineries then from there He

6:04

learns from his other boil makers. Hey, you

6:06

make a lot of money if you're willing to

6:08

risk your life and you go up to

6:11

Alaska and work the summer on these boats where

6:13

people are falling over and dying If you

6:15

survive you'll make a bunch of money. He lives

6:17

in a tent to do that That's a

6:19

new application then he scrap he saves up his

6:21

own money Then he scrounges up some startup

6:23

money from his bookie and this boiler maker named

6:25

Wild Bill so like The idea is the

6:28

same right you need to figure out how to

6:30

finance your your Company that you want to

6:32

start sometimes if you do customers the bank loans

6:34

venture capitalist whatever case is this guy's like

6:36

hey I'm gonna risk my life I'm gonna live

6:38

in a tent and I'm gonna borrow money

6:40

from a bookie so I would say most mostly

6:42

I feel like I'm just telling the same

6:44

story over and over again every week through a

6:47

different personality and that's what makes it powerful

6:49

What you were just saying Reminds me a little

6:51

bit of That quote that you quote a

6:53

lot for I think it's from Charlie Munger, which

6:55

is take an idea and take it very

6:57

seriously. Find a simple idea and take it very

6:59

seriously. There it is. Find a simple idea

7:01

and take it very seriously. And

7:03

I think that's true more often than not.

7:06

Before we hopped on, we were talking, I was

7:08

talking about, uh, John D. Rockefeller and how

7:10

he wanted to work for one of these big

7:12

firms in Cleveland. He goes and interviews with

7:14

every single one of them. Every one of them

7:16

says no. And he's like, all right, well,

7:18

I'll just interview again because I know exactly what

7:20

I want. So he just goes two or

7:22

three times. And I think so often, People

7:24

think they need to find a novel

7:26

approach and they don't at all There's

7:29

another good quote from one of the

7:31

British generals in World War two and

7:33

they asked them about the difference between

7:35

American and British Problem -solving approaches. He

7:37

says Americans don't solve their problems. They

7:39

overwhelm them It's like so often you

7:41

actually don't need to solve your problems.

7:43

You actually just need to overwhelm them

7:46

What was the I love the episode

7:48

you did on Horatio? What's his last

7:50

name? Yeah, that was so good and

7:52

the Especially when he's just like, this

7:54

is my time to die. I'm not going anywhere.

7:56

I love the ending. I, this

7:58

is something you and I talk about a bunch. I remember

8:00

when we were together in Austin, it was like me,

8:02

one night it was like me, you and like Cliff Weitzman

8:04

and we were talking about podcasting. And were talking about

8:06

your podcast a lot. And then, you know, I

8:08

had a bunch of like thoughts and then was like, wait

8:10

a minute, how many episodes have you done? And it was

8:13

like 90. was like, it's not something

8:15

to talk about. Like nobody, I had 90 episodes.

8:17

Nobody was listening to my podcast. I have

8:19

391 I think now because some of them aren't

8:21

numbered. And it is just, I've

8:23

tried to overwhelm people with it. And even though

8:25

I'm eight years in, like let me give you

8:27

an example. I'm really like kind

8:29

of nutty about this, where I

8:32

just got invited to like this

8:34

fancy invite only investor conference, like

8:36

15 people there, right? And

8:38

more than half the people had listened

8:40

to founders or whatever. But I found the

8:42

people that didn't listen to founders and

8:44

I hunted them down. And literally I would

8:46

go and talk to them and I'm

8:48

like, hey, let me see your phone. And

8:50

I would. And our mutual friend Patrick

8:52

O'Shaughnessy was there. And this happened a few

8:54

times where he made a comment at the conference. He's like,

8:56

I wish I could find a way to make money. On

8:59

David's ability to turn literally every single conversation

9:01

back to podcasting because he would just let you

9:03

know this guy would be like yeah I

9:05

bought this company for a billion dollars and now

9:07

you know it's worth 20 times I'm like

9:09

oh that's great. Have you heard a podcast? I

9:13

would literally like grab the guy's phone and

9:15

you'd show up and I'm like oh this is

9:18

over here It is it's on Spotify now

9:20

follow just it doesn't matter what the episode is

9:22

you might not know who it is when

9:24

it pops up just press play Listen on one

9:26

and a half speed that means in 40

9:28

minutes you'll be able to listen to a whole

9:30

episode that this guy spent 40 years You

9:32

know building his company and I spent 40 hours

9:34

reading and you can listen to in 40

9:36

minutes So I do think I believe in that

9:38

like the just the constant pressure constant promoting

9:40

if you're proud of what you're doing And I'm

9:42

very proud of what I'm doing like I

9:44

have no problem You know telling people about it

9:46

And, you know, and the way you do

9:48

that is like, it's a very noisy world. Like,

9:50

so I'll tweet constantly. I will post constantly.

9:52

I will repost things because, dude, I repost episodes.

9:54

I guarantee you now, because you have more

9:56

followers, more people listening to your podcast than ever,

9:59

if you have a great episode, it's a line

10:01

from David Orvery, where he's like, you're not advertising

10:03

to Standing Army or advertising to Moving Parade. I

10:05

just put up this episode, this episode by Chungjoo

10:07

Young, who's the founder of Hyundai.

10:09

I think it's like episode like 117. I

10:11

did it like five years ago. Every week

10:14

somebody would reach out to me about listening

10:16

to that episode. I was like that's kind

10:18

of weird like that one really resonated So

10:20

I spent a few hours at re -editing it

10:22

cutting it and doing everything else and then

10:24

republishing it and then now a ton of

10:26

people listen to it that didn't didn't You

10:28

know go 300 episodes back in my back

10:30

catalogue and find it So yeah, I just

10:32

I'm shameless about you know Promoting my work

10:35

because I think without a doubt I know

10:37

what people listen to it and they apply

10:39

the lessons like it will make their life

10:41

better Yeah, we're so

10:43

you're like this crazed evangelist,

10:45

which I love about you

10:47

And you're a complete obsessive

10:49

about founders and about podcasting

10:51

was there anything before podcasting

10:54

like this for you reading

10:56

Just reading like I have

10:58

a very weird Think of

11:00

an odd personality in the

11:02

sense that like I I

11:04

need a ton of solitude

11:06

like I'd be fine if

11:08

half My

11:10

conscious life the time that I'm awake I

11:12

could spend completely alone and if I'm alone it's

11:14

like I'm I just I'm very curious in

11:16

general so like I love to read and love

11:18

to learn just like I don't know I

11:20

like to understand things I want to have a

11:22

better understanding of the world and then I'm

11:24

really looking for information that can help me like

11:26

prosper in the world and make my life

11:29

better and the reason I know the information that

11:31

I share on the podcast is beneficial because

11:33

it's like made my life better. So I figure,

11:35

oh, if I just sit down and record,

11:37

it's an active service so that people want to

11:39

make their lives better. But no, I don't

11:41

have a lot of passions by any means other

11:43

than I really like to work. I

11:45

get annoyed. Like I'm about to go on vacation. I'm

11:47

like kind of annoyed about it. I'm

11:49

kind of going against my will. And if people

11:51

knew what the vacation was, they're like, this is

11:53

incredible. But it's like the time away from podcasting.

11:55

But at the same time, my kids are excited.

11:57

My wife's excited. But

11:59

yeah, it's just working, podcasting,

12:02

reading. And I really

12:04

like like building my business like it's

12:06

it's addicting. It's fun. It's what I'm gonna

12:08

do I mentioned this in the Todd Graves

12:10

episode. I just did where You know Todd

12:12

was talking about he's been doing the same

12:14

business for 30 years. He owns 90 % of

12:16

his business It's worth at least 10 million

12:18

dollars. He's been offered billions of dollars. He's

12:21

just like I'm on a God -given mission

12:23

like I'll never sell and They're like are

12:25

you worried if you think about in the

12:27

QSR a fast food restaurant? All corporate owned

12:29

all the founders are gone So

12:31

he's like, who are you competing against? He's

12:33

like, non -founded like companies, mercenaries, not

12:35

missionaries, they're run by counts. And

12:38

his point was like, he was asked like, who

12:40

do you fear? And he's

12:42

like, I fear the young guy

12:44

that has the same fire that I do,

12:47

that is coming directly at me. And his

12:49

point was like, that's fine, I'm all for

12:51

competition, but if you're going to do that,

12:53

just know like, this is my life, you

12:55

better get up early, you better go to

12:57

bed late, you better be working every day.

12:59

And I mentioned the podcast every quarter down

13:01

on a Sunday. I was laughing

13:04

because I'm doing the outline and I just

13:06

happened to look at the clock. It was

13:08

9 0 5 p .m. On a Saturday night

13:10

and like I'm doing exactly what I wanted

13:12

to do, which is like work on the

13:14

podcast. I mean, I'm one of my big

13:16

takeaways from both what you do and from

13:18

that episode in particular, which I really liked

13:20

was it's chicken strips, right? It's chicken fingers.

13:23

Chicken fingers. Wow. Is there a difference

13:25

between chicken fingers and chicken strings?

13:27

He never uses the word chicken strips.

13:29

He's like, I'm on a chicken

13:31

finger dream But he takes it very

13:33

seriously he does it very well

13:35

and when people are looking for startup

13:37

ideas, it's often just like Again,

13:39

what we talked about the beginning take

13:41

a simple idea take it very

13:43

seriously Is there's just just look around

13:45

your room is there's nothing that

13:47

you can think of that could be

13:49

better like it honestly People

13:52

overthink things a lot. I think which

13:54

is you can just take something very simple

13:56

Just make it as good as it

13:58

can possibly be and that's that's an idea

14:00

right there So James Dyson, you know

14:02

why I'm completely obsessed with I've done four

14:04

episodes on every 100 episodes I'm rereading

14:06

his first autobiography So I'm about to come

14:08

up on episode 400 that'll be James

14:10

Dyson's autobiography because things are really important to

14:12

reread books again We kind of spoke

14:14

to the influence of religion And

14:17

I think revisiting the same ideas over and over

14:19

again is really good. But he

14:21

makes that point in his first autobiography. He's just like,

14:23

well, listen, if you could just improve an

14:25

existing product, the good news is you don't have to invent the

14:27

market. Now, inventing the market

14:29

is a phenomenal way to

14:31

build a monopoly. You

14:34

literally can define and create the

14:36

category that your product operates in. It's

14:38

just extremely rare and really hard.

14:40

And his whole point was just like,

14:42

they were vacuum cleaners forever before

14:44

I started. And he wind up just

14:46

making the world's best vacuum cleaner. And even now, like,

14:49

am I ever gonna buy another vacuum cleaner that's not

14:51

based on as long as he's alive? No. And it's

14:53

like, you can buy a vacuum cleaner on Amazon

14:55

for like $30. I think it'd be like $600 for

14:57

mine, or $500. And it literally is the best one

14:59

in the world. And

15:01

I think like, the

15:04

insight there is exactly what

15:06

you described, which like, dude,

15:08

go to all these fast foods that are

15:10

around forever. You know, multiple, multiple decades. It

15:13

appears shortly after the invention of the car.

15:16

And it's like, go to McDonald's and eat their

15:18

chicken and go to Gries and Keynes. You

15:20

just tell me the difference. And I just introduced

15:22

my brother and sister who never had it

15:24

before. I was just visiting them

15:26

and I was like, have you guys ever had a

15:28

Gries and Keynes? They're like, no, what's that? And

15:30

I was like, dude, we gotta go. And I went

15:33

and the store that I went to just opened

15:35

up and it's completely packed. It's like they have a

15:37

Kolei following and he positions all his stores. Around

15:39

commuter so across the street Wendy's not

15:41

a single fucking person in the drive -thru

15:43

I went Wendy's and you have 200 people

15:45

trying to get into the raising canes

15:47

across the street And again, I think this

15:50

is just people aren't paying enough attention.

15:52

It's just like what do you? Using your

15:54

day -to -life if you're looking for an

15:56

idea like what are you using your day

15:58

-to -life like this sucks Guess what you're

16:00

there's no chance in hell that you're the

16:02

only person on planet that also thinks

16:04

this thing sucks Yeah, yeah Right, that's definitely

16:06

true by the way raising canes You

16:08

love it. You think it's that good? I

16:11

love fried chicken. Yes.

16:13

I went for the first time. They opened

16:15

one in Utah and I went and I

16:17

was like, it's good. What better fried chicken

16:20

place? Well, maybe I'm just not a

16:22

fried chicken guy because there's nothing I can tell you that

16:24

I'm like, oh. Yeah, OK. Some people don't

16:26

like fried chicken, but if people eat fried chicken,

16:28

it's going to be one or two on the list.

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17:57

like we've been talking about ideas that

17:59

are very simple, that are like Often,

18:02

you just need to take ideas more

18:04

seriously, do more, be more serious about

18:06

it. What

18:08

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thought about the world? Oh, AI, for sure.

18:17

Like, I was like, I'm always very skeptical

18:19

of everybody like rushing into trends. I think

18:21

like, that's, you know, the, the, the magnet

18:23

of humans is something that's been well -documented,

18:25

it's obvious if you just open your eyes.

18:27

And so I kind of resisted it and

18:29

then I started using it. I'm like, oh,

18:31

this is absolutely incredible. And so now I'm

18:33

in, I use different AI apps every single

18:35

day. I built my own to keep track

18:37

of all the other stuff. So again, the

18:39

other idea, we'll come back to that. The

18:41

other idea about finding a simple idea and

18:43

take it seriously, that's a great

18:45

Charlie Munger quote. There's also one that's

18:48

related where he says, we often find the

18:50

winning system in business goes ridiculously far,

18:52

minimizing and or maximizing one or a few

18:54

variables. So I think in

18:56

our trade same situations like I take

18:58

if you look at like my note -taking

19:00

How I organize my highlights the bookshelf

19:02

behind me is literally if you start

19:05

in that upper Left hand corner the

19:07

books are all organized in episode in

19:09

order by episode number I take like

19:11

I go ridiculously far minimum Mack in

19:13

this case maximizing one or a few

19:15

variables which is like organizing the collective

19:17

knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs and That

19:20

that is like this flywheel effect where

19:22

it's like When I did the Todd

19:24

Graves episode, like for example, because I

19:26

have all this information organized, I can

19:28

pull it up and summarize it, and

19:30

then I also spend hours every day

19:32

rereading past highlights. I'm able to

19:35

do an episode on Todd Graves, but then I

19:37

made a list of all the other founders I

19:39

compared them to in that episode. So there's Rockefeller,

19:41

David Ogreby, Steve Jobs, Fred Smith, founder of FedEx,

19:43

Phil Knight, founder of Nike, Peter Thiel, Harry Snyder,

19:45

founder of In -N -Out, Sam Walton, the Red Bull

19:47

guy, James Dyson, Daniel Ludwig, who's the invisible billionaire,

19:49

Michael Bloomberg, Henry Ford. And so that's

19:51

another example of like, of, you

19:53

know, maximizing one or a few variables. In this

19:55

sense, it's like the one variables I'm maximizing. It's

19:57

not good enough for me to make an episode

19:59

about something because we forget as humans, we forget

20:01

that we forget. I go back and reread a

20:03

book that I've read four times and I still

20:05

forget and forgot certain parts of it. I'll go

20:07

listen a podcast that did five years ago. It's

20:09

like, oh, I forgot about all that. So we

20:12

forget that we forget. And

20:14

so this is where now

20:16

if you actually look at

20:18

my consumption habits, you

20:20

know, I'm using Claude every

20:22

day. I'm using open AI every

20:24

day. The deep researcher feature from

20:26

open AI is the jump from

20:28

Google to the first, you know,

20:30

chat GPT. That

20:33

jump was huge. And then I

20:35

feel open AI's deep research feature

20:37

is as large from, you know,

20:39

the normal chatbot AI chatbots to

20:41

that is freaking incredible. I've been using

20:43

it to make episodes and literally

20:45

the lines that people will give

20:47

back to me. Not

20:49

they're not even the books. They're from

20:51

open as deep research. So I use

20:53

I subscribe to them all I built

20:55

my own obviously called sage. I use

20:57

that every day. I use for plexi

20:59

day every day. I use Claude. I

21:01

use open AI I can't think of

21:03

any other ones, but like that was

21:05

that's a truly unique technology Yeah, are

21:07

you using it at all to make

21:09

in your research? I'm

21:12

not using it very much in my research. Are you

21:14

using in your day -to -day life? I

21:16

use it somewhat in my day

21:18

-to -day life I mostly or I

21:20

think you should for like it's

21:22

so important most people what they

21:24

do is as they age they

21:26

like Yeah, this is why technology

21:28

is like a young man's game

21:30

My friend Ravi Gupta wrote this

21:32

great essay called AI or die

21:34

and his whole point is like

21:36

These these tools are so wonderful

21:38

for people like you and I

21:41

in general for super productive people

21:43

If you force yourself to spend

21:45

a few hours every week Learning

21:47

how to use this I listen to these a

21:49

podcast to get ideas and I even think it'd be

21:51

a good idea Bill Gates had this idea where

21:53

he do these think weeks and this has come up

21:55

on the books a few times It's like you

21:57

gotta get you guys get away from your day -to -day

22:00

and he would bring like you know bag of

22:02

books and he'd sit in like a cabin or something

22:04

I can't remember where he went and he would

22:06

just know Internet know nothing just read and think for

22:08

like a week or two straight maybe like a

22:10

week I think I'm gonna start doing that but not

22:12

just reading, is like literally trying to consume and

22:14

make myself get good at using these tools. Because so

22:16

much of the value extraction is dependent, because we're

22:18

on the early stages, so much of the value extraction

22:21

is dependent on the person, on how

22:23

you're able to prompt, on how you're able to use them. It's

22:25

not like just picking up your iPhone. My

22:27

dad can barely read, right? But he

22:29

has an iPhone, and he has

22:31

one, he literally doesn't use email or anything else,

22:33

but he has one app on his phone, it's

22:35

TikTok, because TikTok doesn't

22:37

ask, Anything from the user just

22:39

to scroll and like and it'll serve everything

22:41

up as not it's the opposite You've got

22:43

to learn how to extract all the power

22:46

that it has out and the only way

22:48

to do that So literally treat it like

22:50

a you know part -time job or like a

22:52

course like imagine if you went back to

22:54

friend NBA just like okay I'm gonna do

22:56

an hour class every night on just learning

22:58

how to use AI do you Use it

23:00

at all to structure your notes or your

23:03

thoughts or you just use it for research

23:06

So not like to structure my notes

23:08

or thoughts so like here I

23:10

so I have an AI trained on

23:12

I Have an AI that just

23:14

the only thing you you can use

23:16

it to search is all of

23:18

my notes all of my highlights and

23:21

all of my transcripts Yes, and

23:23

that alone is nuts. So like right

23:25

now I have one two three

23:27

four five six seven eight nine ten

23:29

eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen of

23:31

Fifteen of it's called sage up Yeah,

23:33

15 tabs in my browser. And

23:35

so, like, I use it a lot

23:37

when I'm reading to, or

23:40

like, I'll be on a conversation with a friend

23:42

of mine who's usually a founder. Actually, I don't talk

23:44

to anybody as a founder. And

23:47

they'll just say something, or they'll have a question,

23:49

and I'll like, I'll prompt Sage because of this. Or

23:51

like, let me give you an example. I just

23:53

used the, I just made the Todd

23:55

Graves episode. And this is the unfair advantage. This

23:57

is why, like, I told me

23:59

you've talked about server -driven podcasting is like

24:01

one of the... the most valuable tools

24:03

to learn that history's ever, that humans have

24:06

ever made. And they're some of the

24:08

most under, they still misunderstood, widely misunderstood. People

24:10

that are outside of podcasting don't realize how

24:13

powerful they are. And so therefore anything I

24:15

can keep doing to keep getting to the

24:17

top of my profession, like every

24:19

hour I can spend getting better at

24:21

podcasting or understanding in a deeper level is

24:23

better than, you know, 10 hours, working

24:25

on something new. And I think what I've

24:27

done here is like just this, I

24:29

have an unfair advantage against other podcasters and

24:31

just keep fucking compounding. And so I'm

24:33

sitting here thinking about Harry Snyder or Todd

24:36

Graves. I'm like, man, this guy is

24:38

so much like the In -N -Out founder. It's

24:40

essentially what I feel like Todd Graves

24:42

is Harry Snyder, who's the founder of In

24:44

-N -Out reincarnated, except they're separated by like,

24:46

you know, 50 years. Todd Graves founded In

24:48

-N -Out, Todd Graves founded Raising Kings, I

24:50

think in 1996. Yeah, In -N -Out

24:52

was founded in 1948. And so I

24:54

just asked because I've done deep. Episodes

24:57

on Harry Snyder as H. Can you give me

24:59

the most important ideas from Harry Snyder and how

25:01

he built in and out and within? 15

25:04

seconds, it's like a complete list of all

25:06

the innovations he made like you know Everybody

25:08

has gone through a drive -thru and spoken

25:10

out of at a speaker, right? Hey, what

25:12

do you want a McDonald's? I want a

25:14

Big Mac Harry Snyder was the one that

25:16

invented that right? I forgot that I did

25:18

the episode forgot that so like it just

25:21

goes through all the stuff he did how

25:23

he was different from his competitors, and it's

25:25

probably 600 words, so it doesn't take that

25:27

long to read. Maybe 800

25:29

words, you know, but it immediately

25:31

reminded me of all the main

25:33

ideas from that. So yeah,

25:35

I think, I told you before, if

25:37

you organize, even if you don't, I happen

25:39

to, people ask for my

25:41

notes and hi's so much, so actually. this

25:43

stuff actually turned into a product and

25:45

like an extension of the podcast. But

25:48

even if you don't do that, I think you

25:50

should definitely think about all the reading research you're doing.

25:52

Like, yeah, you should have it all. And I

25:54

can connect you with the people that can build this

25:56

for you too. But I would have, I

25:58

would be layering an AI assistant on top

26:00

of all your research. And I think every

26:03

professional is going to do that. And I

26:05

think going to be able to

26:07

buy or subscribe to the AI assistants from

26:09

other professionals just because I'm already proving this,

26:11

like there's thousands of people. that pay to

26:13

get access to Sage. So

26:15

this is good because I

26:17

always like, I went,

26:19

I produced half of all the episodes

26:21

I produced last year, which was a

26:23

big jump up for me. That was

26:25

your problem. I had about

26:27

a hundred episodes at the end

26:29

of 2024 and produced 44 of

26:31

them in 2024. And the way

26:33

I was able to get my production up so much as I just

26:35

copied your process. I was like, all

26:37

right, clearly I'm not doing this well. And this

26:40

is the whole hypothesis of my Podcasts

26:42

you can just copy people like you take

26:44

their playbook and it's a great way to do

26:46

it. It's like I'm just I'm just gonna

26:48

steal and you were obviously very open and Very

26:50

willing to share which helped a lot and

26:52

so I just started I was like I'm using

26:54

read wise I'm taking notes exactly how David

26:56

takes notes, but like I don't have it all

26:58

so Like one of the things I want

27:01

to talk to you about a little bit more

27:03

is your process So I know how you

27:05

take notes, which is you read you highlight you

27:07

like to physically highlight red pen ruler, okay? And

27:10

then you go afterwards and you kind of read back

27:12

through it. You take pictures of it and index it

27:14

and read lies. I'm

27:16

a little less clear on what happens then. So

27:19

then you've got all your notes. How do

27:21

you go about structuring it? Like, do you just

27:23

leave it chronologically and then you just kind

27:25

of read through and talk it through as you're

27:27

on the podcast or what does that look

27:29

like? Yeah, basically. Now, Todd, some

27:31

of these episodes are different where like Todd

27:33

Graves, there's no book. So what I did is

27:35

I took He's got two in

27:37

-depth podcast interviews. So I was like, okay,

27:40

well, I'll just turn these into, I'll get

27:42

the transcripts and essentially make a miniature book.

27:44

And I went through the transcripts just like

27:46

it did for a book, right? The

27:48

process is always the same. And

27:50

I don't, like one of

27:52

the most boring things, this is

27:55

actually, we can talk about too, I

27:57

think the best analogy for, for

27:59

pod guesters is actually filmmakers. Because

28:01

you you mentioned like oh being open with

28:03

like your process or like we share a bunch

28:05

of information this is like it doesn't Like

28:07

I did like six episodes on all these filmmakers

28:09

like the greatest filmmakers Steven Spielberg George Lucas

28:12

Quinn Tarantino Christopher Nolan James Cameron and what you

28:14

realize like a lot of these people knew

28:16

each other and they would help each other because

28:18

at the end of the day It's like

28:20

people like oh has been a competitor I was

28:22

like no he's not competitor because you could

28:24

just like in the same way that you could

28:26

go watch Steven Spielberg's Jaws one week and

28:28

go watch George Lucas's Star Wars next week doesn't

28:31

affect Steven Spielberg at all. So

28:33

I don't understand, like most of the podcasters I know

28:35

are very positive some, there's one or two that are

28:37

kind of weirdly competitive. And,

28:39

you know, they have bad reputations and

28:41

they are getting smoked by the other

28:43

people. So yeah, I

28:45

think if you have something, yeah,

28:48

especially in the like, in the world, in what we

28:50

do is like, if I give you information and you make

28:52

a better podcast to me, then you deserve to win. I

28:54

don't know what to tell you. Like it doesn't bother

28:56

me at all. I want to win because like I want

28:59

to make the best product possible regardless

29:01

of what anybody else is doing. So one

29:03

thing I learned from Tarantino though, with all

29:05

these filmmakers, is he was, he's like,

29:07

it doesn't make any sense to do everything

29:09

in perfectly chronological order. Think about how he makes

29:11

his movies. He's like, no one tells stories

29:13

that way. No one says, hey, Ben, tell me

29:15

about your life. You're like, well, I was

29:17

born on, you know, January 1st, and then I

29:19

went to kindergarten. It's like, no, you jump

29:21

around. You talk about the fact when you met

29:24

your wife, the time you had your first

29:26

kid, talk about the relationship you had when maybe

29:28

your dad touched you on a ride a

29:30

bike. It's not chronological. And so

29:32

I don't feel the need to

29:34

organize and to go through what I

29:36

want to talk about. And another

29:38

thing is I'm not trying to

29:40

summarize a book. I'm trying

29:42

to say, hey, I spent 40 hours

29:44

reading about this interesting person. Here's the

29:46

most interesting parts to me. And

29:49

you're smart. You want to know the whole story, but then

29:51

you can pick up the book. I link to it in

29:53

the show notes. But yeah,

29:55

that's really all it is. The process

29:57

is more taste and intuition, anything

29:59

else. All

30:01

the episode, all the end result is,

30:03

this is what's most interesting to me,

30:05

and the thing that's changed over the

30:07

last two years is now I spend

30:10

one to two days in between when

30:12

I'm done reading to when I sit

30:14

down to record, and all that is

30:16

is cutting. It's like, I

30:18

may have had 50 things that I thought were

30:20

interesting and you just read and reread and read

30:22

and reread and then you're like, ah, no, no,

30:24

don't need that. And then just cut, cut,

30:26

cut, cut, cut. This is an idea I got

30:28

from Walt Disney. And I don't even know

30:30

if it was conscious, but he talked about it was

30:33

so expensive to animate back then that you had to

30:35

do the edit before you did the drawing. And

30:37

I was like, that's a really good idea.

30:39

So I edit, you know, I still edit

30:41

it after I record too, but most of the edit

30:43

happens before I record. It's

30:45

so interesting to me that because I've

30:47

heard you say on podcasts or interviews or

30:49

maybe the panel we did or something

30:52

But you've I've heard you say I don't

30:54

know anything about storytelling like I'm not

30:56

a I'm a storyteller. I don't think about

30:58

storytelling as a craft But to me

31:00

you're a very good storyteller for exactly that

31:02

reason is I feel like most people

31:04

feel the need to just why I need

31:06

to flesh out The details here I

31:08

need to tell I need to get across

31:10

the information and you just have no

31:12

compulsion about that. You're like no I'm here

31:14

to say the interesting things I'm going

31:17

to move directly from interesting point to interesting

31:19

point, and that's it. I'm cutting out

31:21

everything else. I think it's heavily influenced because

31:23

Tarantino has always been my favorite film.

31:25

If you look at like go watch Pulp

31:27

Fiction. It's like five main scenes. There's

31:29

huge chunks not missing, but you'll put

31:31

it together. If they're going to

31:33

listen to founders or how to take over

31:35

the world. I don't think you have a bunch

31:38

of idiots listening to you. It's just too,

31:40

there's so many other options for people that are

31:42

like dullards. You know, I'm not making a

31:44

pot. People always like, I'm not

31:46

making it for the mass population. I have

31:48

no interest in, like I'm trying to

31:50

make, I'm trying to make the best podcasts

31:52

for the best people in the world.

31:54

That's literally what I'm doing. And

31:56

so those kind of people is like, dude, they can

31:59

read between the lines, they'll fill shit in, they're smart. You

32:01

don't have to like hold their hand. So

32:04

this is, this is brilliant because

32:06

I've been reading Thus Spakes Zarathustra

32:08

by Nietzsche because I'm working on

32:10

a Nietzsche episode and he has

32:12

a quote that's basically exactly what

32:14

you just said because you just

32:16

go like you say stories and

32:18

aphorisms are what people tell. People

32:21

remember and so that's just you

32:23

just go straight from story to story

32:25

from aphorism to aphorism and in

32:27

Thus Spakes Zarathustra he says in the

32:29

mountains the shortest way is from

32:31

peak to peak but for that one

32:33

must have long legs. Aphorisms should

32:35

be peaks and those who are addressed

32:38

tall and lofty So that's exactly

32:40

what you just said that like he

32:42

just he believes in writing going

32:44

from aphorism to aphorism from Intelligent thought

32:46

to intelligent thought skipping over everything

32:48

else in between and only addressing yourself

32:50

to people who are People are

32:52

they vastly overestimate how much information people

32:54

can retain, right? And so there's

32:57

a great example of this in one

32:59

of the books I read on

33:01

Steve Jobs, where mostly he knew an

33:03

ad should have a singular focus. The

33:06

homepage of Apple would have a singular focus.

33:08

All their advertising, they would pick one feature and

33:10

stick on it. And every once in a

33:12

while, he would deviate from that. And he's like,

33:14

OK, for this ad, I want us those

33:16

five reasons. And the guy that was running,

33:19

I forgot, he's one of

33:21

the best advertising agency founders, of

33:24

course. Steve wanted to use

33:26

them. That would have to be the way it is.

33:28

And he goes, Steve, let me show you something.

33:30

He rolls up five pieces of paper and he goes,

33:33

uh, and he throws five balls of paper

33:35

at him and Steve catches none. He

33:37

goes, that's a bad ad. Now he rolls

33:39

up or crumbles up one piece of

33:41

paper, throws it at Steve. Steve catch. He

33:43

goes, that's a good ad. It's like,

33:45

they're going to listen to an hour long,

33:47

how to take over the world or

33:49

an hour long. Founders and they're going to

33:52

remember one or two things and this

33:54

line about like breaking things down into like

33:56

how do what what do I actually

33:58

remember? I remember I love aphorisms. I'm obsessed

34:00

with maxims, right? There's a maxim on

34:02

my computer screen that I'm looking at right

34:04

now says do one thing relentlessly There's

34:06

no explanation needed. It's just like reminder four

34:08

words I know exactly what to do

34:10

now, right? And I can use as a

34:12

principle to guide my behavior, but even

34:14

the idea of why this is

34:16

important came from another aphorism where David Ogreby

34:18

says, you can't save souls in an empty

34:20

church. And so when he was

34:22

selling advertising for some of the best brands

34:24

in the world, he's like, you have to

34:26

make them entertaining and memorable because you can't

34:29

save souls in an empty church. We can

34:31

sit there and we can educate for all

34:33

that we want. You think about all these

34:35

professors that they're great like history professors, but

34:37

then they get into podcasts. like, why is

34:39

nobody listening to my podcast? And I've talked

34:41

to somebody too, but I listened to it.

34:43

I was like, because your podcast is fucking

34:45

boring. You didn't understand that they're now they're

34:47

sitting in your class not because they're they're

34:49

they're not there to learn necessarily, right? They're

34:51

like you have like a captive audience There's

34:53

all these weird reasons people go to college

34:55

to degree. It's the insurance their parents made

34:57

them whatever he says podcast is fully opt

34:59

-in You can't say souls in an empty

35:01

church. Ogreby's is like they have to it

35:03

has to be entertaining has to be fun

35:05

Doesn't mean dumb down. You don't have to

35:07

dumb it down. You just make it interesting

35:09

I'm interested in this though because I agree

35:11

completely And you're so open and

35:13

generous and you talked about podcasting is

35:15

like filmmaking. It's not zero sum. It's

35:17

collaborative. But one the things you've been talking

35:19

a lot about recently is secrets and the power

35:21

of secrets. So how do you kind of

35:24

square those two ideas, right? Because it's kind of

35:26

the idea of secrets and having powerful secrets

35:28

is kind of the opposite of what you're talking

35:30

about. Our business is different. Like let's say

35:32

you're the some the most valuable companies in the

35:34

world outside of like energy, right? It's like

35:36

B2B SaaS. Like if you look at like who

35:38

wants to advertise on founders or invest like

35:40

the best like these giant companies because like some

35:42

of the most valuable companies in the world.

35:44

or they're selling to businesses, Facebook sells to businesses,

35:46

Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, all of them, Oracle. So

35:50

that, if me and you are

35:52

competing, you need a database provider

35:54

and Oracle loses that, right? That

35:56

contract to somebody else, that is a zero

35:58

sum game. You're not gonna have two database providers,

36:01

you're not gonna have two whatever, in many

36:03

cases, you're gonna pick one. So in

36:05

that case, you should be secretive if you have

36:07

an edge. That is a zero sum game,

36:09

right? For us, it's like

36:11

there isn't like that no one listens very

36:13

few people listen to us one podcast and

36:15

Actually, I think I had like just because

36:17

I've heard this anecdotally We were at one

36:19

of these events where you need these like

36:21

old rich guys would come up to me

36:23

and they literally like I don't listen Oh,

36:25

I didn't even know what a podcast was.

36:27

I only listen to yours But there's that

36:29

that's like the tiniest percentage of like podcast

36:31

listeners most of them listen to you know

36:34

a bunch of them So it doesn't take

36:36

anything away from me Now, if you're like

36:38

a Rockefeller and you want to acquire every

36:40

single one of your competitors and one of

36:42

your smaller competitors gets that acquisition that you

36:44

don't, then that's a bad thing for you.

36:46

Like, you can't let that happen. And so

36:48

that's why, you know, he shrouds himself in

36:50

secrecy. He had all these... You've read all

36:52

the books that I've read. Like, I love

36:54

the idea. It's like... You know fuck these

36:56

Rockefeller guys like I'm not selling the standard

36:58

oil I'm gonna sell to you because you

37:00

know we have to stand up against them

37:02

not realizing that he secretly owned that company

37:04

to like the best. The greatest entrepreneur of

37:06

all time is obviously Rockefeller. I don't even

37:09

know why people debate that. But

37:11

yeah so I like I

37:13

can't think of anything. I

37:16

can't make somebody listen to a podcast where

37:18

it's like here's the features of my product. You

37:20

know, it's almost like picking up a podcast,

37:22

like picking a friend. Like if I asked who

37:24

your best friend is, you're gonna say, like,

37:26

what do you like about your best friend, Ben?

37:28

And you're gonna be like, oh, he's smart

37:30

and he's intelligent and he's thoughtful. And

37:32

then like, yeah, but this guy's smart, intelligent

37:34

and thoughtful. Why isn't he your best friend? It's

37:36

more of like a messy, like human, like

37:38

emotional thing. relationship. It's the most relationship driven medium

37:41

by far. That's not when, like, you know,

37:43

I like this bottle of water. I don't have

37:45

a relationship. I drink Mountain Valley nonstop. Like,

37:47

I don't know who. Like I just like, this

37:49

is the brand of water that I like.

37:51

So this is the one that has won my

37:53

loyalty. Podcasts is not the same thing as

37:55

that. I'm trying to think of, is there a

37:57

secret I don't tell any other podcasters? Most

37:59

of it is like, they just won't do it

38:01

anyways. Like, you know, it's like,

38:04

everybody wants to compete with Todd Grace. Well, are you

38:06

gonna do the same thing for 30 years? Right

38:09

there, you knocked out 99

38:11

.9999999 % of humans. They just

38:13

cannot do that. I went

38:15

on Greg Eisenberg's podcast recently. He says like, how do

38:17

I do what you do? I'm like, what do you

38:19

mean? He's just like, you have this recall of everything

38:21

you learn and there's no script in front of you

38:23

and just coming off top of your head. was like,

38:25

I do one thing, you do 10. You're

38:27

just not going to do that. There's

38:29

something that is in my

38:32

personality where I like simplicity, I

38:34

like doing the same thing

38:36

all the time. I

38:38

didn't even understand, it's very rare

38:40

for humans. So no, I could

38:42

give away all my secrets and

38:45

one, people still won't do it

38:47

in podcasting. And two, I do

38:49

think like Power Laws roll everything

38:51

around us. Podcasting is obviously the

38:53

same thing. There's like 450 ,000

38:55

active podcasts right now, meaning that

38:57

they've updated at least one episode

38:59

in the last month. And

39:02

you know, probably 98 of them

39:04

are bad, 98 % of them are

39:06

bad. Like this is

39:08

happening. Have you been paying attention

39:10

to what's happening with TBPM with

39:12

John Cougan and Jordy Hayes? Yeah,

39:14

uh -huh. So like I've

39:17

been talking to John about podcasting for a few years.

39:19

I've been trying to help him as much as possible.

39:21

I thought he was a very talented person. He just

39:23

had the wrong format. I try to

39:25

get him on Colossus. I've done a bunch of stuff. And

39:27

so I've been, like, talking to him and Jordy

39:29

every step of the way throughout this whole thing. And

39:32

now it's funny because it's absolutely ripping and blowing

39:34

up. And everybody's trying to analyze, like,

39:36

why is it, and they make these lists. And it's

39:38

just like, there's one, one

39:40

guy made a list of, like, one through

39:42

five reasons TVPN is working. And

39:44

I was, one through five is, They're

39:46

talented. Everything that you just said

39:48

is derivative of the fact that they're actually talented.

39:50

And so, like, I talked to a bunch

39:52

of other podcasters and they're like, hey, can you

39:54

help me? My podcast is not growing. And

39:56

I listen to it. I'm like, let me ask

39:58

you a question. They're like, what? I go,

40:00

when you're at dinner, are people captivated by your

40:02

presence? Like,

40:06

are they? Are they like, are

40:08

they fine? Do they find you genuinely

40:10

interesting? Right. And they're like, not

40:12

necessarily. And I'm like, yeah, that's like, dude,

40:14

this It probably has a straight energy transmission It's

40:16

like one you either need to be super

40:19

charismatic, right? Like a Joe Rogan whether you like

40:21

him or not like he's a gift he

40:23

built an empire a giant empire with his mouth

40:25

I don't care. It doesn't matter to me

40:27

if you like him or not. This is like

40:29

unbelievably great conversationalists undoubtedly, right? The idea you

40:31

can have three that people see that like I

40:33

could do that. No, you can't it's so

40:36

difficult So you either have like your great conversations

40:38

You have this like, you know people find

40:40

you interesting or you're just super obsessed the most

40:42

interesting people in the world and the most

40:44

interested this is where like Me and where me

40:46

and you could play where it's just like

40:48

I will just go out and collect more information

40:50

about this topic This very focused topic than

40:53

anybody else in the world. I

40:55

think there's like a big Like

40:57

one of the problems with this

40:59

is So for example, I play

41:01

tennis. Okay, and I was playing

41:03

tennis at the local college on

41:05

some of their courts and the

41:07

college players were playing next to

41:09

me and So they played BYU

41:11

division one program really good tennis

41:13

players And when you watch those

41:15

guys, they are moving so fast.

41:17

They're hitting the ball so hard.

41:20

They're running so hard, you can really

41:22

tell, right? And you're like, whoa, I

41:24

could never do this. I could

41:26

never compete on that level. Then

41:28

I go watch. I went to

41:30

the U .S. Open and I'm watching Djokovic and

41:32

Nadal, the best tennis players in the world. And

41:35

they are so good. They're so good. They're

41:37

so much better than the guys that are

41:39

playing next to at the BYU courts that

41:41

it changes all of a sudden. I look

41:43

at Nadal and I'm like, I bet you

41:45

I could play with him, but I obviously

41:47

know I can't. But in my head, because

41:49

he makes it look so effortless, that you're

41:51

like, oh, I could do that. And it's

41:53

the same thing when people are at the

41:56

very top, when they're looking at someone like

41:58

Rogan, they're like, I think I could do

42:00

that because he makes it look effortless. But

42:02

the truth he's a top .0001 % conversationalist.

42:04

And the same is true of Jordy and

42:06

Kogan, that like they're really

42:08

talented and they're actually so talented

42:10

that it can sometimes hide

42:13

just how talented they are. And so people think

42:15

they can do things that they can't do. Yeah,

42:18

100%. And then they're also smart enough. They think

42:20

like, I told you, the biggest problem with most

42:22

podcasters, they think like podcasters and entrepreneurs, you're

42:25

an entrepreneur. It's like, this is your

42:27

product. And they, Jordy texted me

42:29

about this yesterday, me and him

42:31

and John were talking about this where he's just like, there's

42:33

already people trying to copy them, which they don't

42:35

understand. People try to copy what we do. It's

42:37

like, oh, I'm going to do a podcast about books. You

42:39

think it's about the books. You're

42:41

missing the point. Yeah. And

42:44

Jordy's like, the good news is, if you want to

42:46

compete with us, you have to quit your job. So

42:49

it's like, literally Jordy called me at

42:51

5 .30 in the morning his time.

42:54

They're obviously in California and I'm in

42:56

Miami. I'm like, 8 .30, it's ringing.

42:58

I'm like, what the hell are you calling me

43:00

at 5 .30 the morning? He's like, I'm driving

43:02

to the office. They take their shit very

43:04

seriously. They are streaming. They're streaming 15 hours a

43:06

week, three hours a day, five days a

43:08

week. To do that, you literally have to quit

43:10

your job. So, yeah, those

43:12

guys are going to, you know, they're already blowing

43:15

up. They're just going to continue. It's going to

43:17

the Sherman March to the sea. And

43:19

it's obvious. Like, I was the one

43:21

that actually stole their, their presenting sponsor

43:23

was ramp. And obviously, you know that

43:25

I do like I really help out

43:27

on essentially ramps podcast advertising. And.

43:29

the deal was like they had no

43:31

really small audience this time almost none

43:33

and the deal was like substantial and

43:36

I was like and ramps really cool

43:38

I'm really close to the founders uh

43:40

and so most of the time they're

43:42

just like pull the trigger and there's

43:44

a little like debate I'm like I'm

43:46

telling you no fucking debate this thing's

43:48

gonna it's going to take off I

43:50

promise you And Eric, the CEO and

43:52

founder called me there. He's like, I

43:54

can't believe this. Cause like what looked

43:56

like an expensive deal will now like

43:58

a great deal because of the growth

44:00

and the fact that every single clip

44:02

has the ramp yellow logo in the

44:04

upper right hand corner. They're doing ramp

44:06

ads every, like it's just, it's blown

44:08

up. And I was like, I told

44:10

you, like it was obvious. Most podcasters

44:12

aren't, they don't take it seriously. Most

44:14

of them are not talented. And

44:17

like these guys have their, Gifted

44:20

in both of those domains and they

44:22

also think like entrepreneurs so they think about

44:24

the marketing and the branding of their

44:26

podcast They think about how to get in

44:28

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44:30

just it's perfect. I'm so happy what's been

44:32

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gainsinbulk.com and use code BEN. So

45:12

speaking of talent, do you think everyone

45:14

has what it takes to be a founder?

45:17

No, hell no. No, I

45:19

love and evolve Robocon the the book that our

45:21

Mutual friend. I don't know if your friends are

45:23

you met Eric George. He's another tall guy with

45:25

a deep voice like you So yeah, the the

45:27

almanac involves like one of the best books that

45:29

ever read as far as like changed the way

45:31

I approach my career And there's something he says

45:33

in there. He's like, you know, there's eight billion

45:36

people the planet I think there should be eight

45:38

billion founders That's probably the only thing I disagree

45:40

with them on is like, there's just no way

45:42

that'll ever happen. Absolutely not No, I think there's

45:44

a deep desire in human nature to want to

45:46

conform and to want to be part of consensus

45:48

in a group and to want to be led. And

45:51

if you're like that, you should not be a founder. I

45:53

think that's true. But now there's a lot

45:55

of status with being a founder, which there

45:58

didn't used to be. But

46:00

now there is. So I find

46:03

it's a tricky thing a lot with people

46:05

who are like, I want to be a

46:07

founder. But you can just tell

46:09

in their disposition, it's like, no,

46:12

you don't. No,

46:14

those people don't laugh so like you you

46:16

mentioned Novak Djokovic who's like I really love

46:18

his his crazy philosophy and everything else and

46:20

there's a great article that he did in

46:22

the Financial Times in 2018 that I found

46:24

from this guy named Graham Duncan and He

46:26

says, you know, like they're asking like how

46:28

much longer can you do this like at

46:30

this level? And at the time you only

46:32

like I don't know four or six majors

46:34

now. He has the most in the world

46:36

And he's like I can carry on at

46:39

this level for a very long time because

46:41

I like hitting the ball And

46:43

the follow -ups are, what do you mean? It's like,

46:45

well, there's some tennis players that are playing, they're not

46:47

playing for the right reasons. They don't actually just

46:49

like hitting the ball. And he's

46:51

like, can you tell? He's like, yeah, I

46:53

can tell. I don't judge, but like you

46:55

can definitely tell their motivation is wrong. And

46:58

so I think the same thing with

47:00

like founders is like, to

47:03

me, Some

47:06

of the like it doesn't matter like other people's motivations

47:08

like I try to mind my own business right rule

47:10

number two in the center of family is mind your

47:12

own business Why teach my kids? I think

47:14

a lot of people get in it because

47:16

they want to make money and some people

47:18

if they just care about getting rich yet

47:20

You can do it But the people that

47:22

last the longest amount of time the people

47:24

you've read a bunch of these biographies of

47:26

the founders like they don't They didn't stop

47:28

when they were independently wealthy. They just like

47:30

the act there the analogy how there's they

47:32

like hitting the ball And if you like

47:34

hitting the ball, like the example I would

47:36

use, I remember where I was specifically. I

47:38

was with my wife at this place called Harry's

47:40

Pizzeria next to the design district. I don't think

47:43

it's there anymore. And I had this like epiphany,

47:45

right? And this is the problem of being obsessed

47:47

with what you're doing. It's like you're just doing

47:49

a date and I'm thinking about founders. And

47:51

I remember realizing it was like,

47:54

oh wait, I'm wrong. People used

47:56

to say like, if you love what you do,

47:58

you do it for free. And I was like,

48:00

wait, no, no, there's a different level. If you

48:02

love what you do, they couldn't pay you to

48:04

stop. And when I realized

48:06

like, how much money would you have had

48:08

to give Steve Jobs to not work at

48:10

Apple? The answer is

48:12

there is no, it was not, you couldn't pay him.

48:14

I'll give you $2 trillion Steve, but you can't

48:16

ever work on an Apple, you can't build a product

48:18

again. He'd say, no, he's not doing, that's not

48:20

what he's doing. He liked hitting the ball. He liked

48:22

making great products, some of the best products in

48:24

the world. And he did that until he died. So

48:27

yeah, I think that's, Yeah,

48:29

there's all kinds of people. Some people just don't give a

48:31

shit. They're like, Hey, this is a good way of fast way

48:33

to the world creation. I'm going to start scale sell and

48:35

then they piece out. But I

48:37

think the greatest founders, the people are like,

48:39

they're doing it for other reasons. You

48:42

mentioned rule number two. What's rule number

48:44

one of the center of family? Maintain situational

48:46

awareness. Too many people are out in

48:48

public, not paying attention to their surroundings. Just

48:51

just pay attention to what's going on. So like my

48:53

daughter does really good situational awareness. We were just in

48:55

New York and like she was walking in front of

48:57

me. And you could tell, it's like, hey, that guy

48:59

over there with no shirt on, yelling

49:01

at himself and there's snow on the ground,

49:04

go to the right. Like she avoided him. She just, she

49:06

understands what's going on. You hear these crazy stories where people

49:08

got like pushed in front of the subway and stuff. My

49:10

kids would never happen to my kids. They now stand back

49:12

to the wall. Don't let anybody behind you maintain such a

49:14

way of sharing awareness. We do this all the time. Like

49:17

I've been like this forever. But if you're in

49:19

a restaurant. very practical rules. But if you're just in a

49:21

restaurant, I'm always facing the door. Like, no, you just know

49:23

what's good. Like you have to know what's going on around

49:25

you. And so yeah, I teach my kids this. So

49:28

you mentioned Djokovic and you've done

49:30

a few Founders episodes on people who

49:32

are not strictly founders of businesses,

49:34

right? So you've done Winston Churchill. You've

49:36

done Napoleon. Who else have you

49:38

done? That's not strictly a I think

49:40

they're all so if you think

49:43

about the definition of entrepreneurs like somebody

49:45

has ideas and does them I

49:47

think like they're It's not that you

49:49

have to like start a company.

49:51

It's like the same personality type like

49:53

if Yeah, the market economy is

49:55

what? You're talking about 200 years old,

49:57

250 years old. People are always

49:59

like, oh, do this episode. This guy lived 500 years ago.

50:02

It's really not like market economies. It's kind of hard

50:05

to draw lessons from there. But if

50:07

Rockefeller was alive today, who did

50:09

Rockefeller most of them are? Napoleon.

50:12

And that's like, Rockefeller didn't talk about

50:14

anybody. He would not shut up about Napoleon.

50:16

That meant if Rockefeller was born, you

50:18

know, 200 years earlier, highly likely he's like

50:20

taking over a country, how to take

50:22

over the world style, then he is like

50:24

building the world's most valuable, you know,

50:26

oil company. So yeah, I've

50:28

done, I don't even know, like, you

50:30

know, let's see. I've done a

50:32

bunch of world leaders, a

50:35

bunch of athletes. I did Michael

50:37

Jordan. I've done Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Tiger

50:40

Woods. Yeah. Yeah.

50:43

Yeah. Have you done DaVinci? Yeah.

50:45

Episode 15, but it's not good. Well,

50:48

the reason because you talked about

50:50

like these people, these are the same

50:52

personality types, conquerors and founders. And

50:55

I have found, you know, as I've done a

50:57

bunch of these episodes, a lot of them have very

50:59

similar personality types. DaVinci was the first one I

51:01

read where I was like, now this

51:03

is different. This one of these things is not

51:05

like the others. This is a brain that

51:07

like, I don't even know what to do with

51:10

your brain functions differently than anyone I've read

51:12

about. And What did you think made it like

51:14

give me an example or elaborate on that? So

51:17

for example Like what we

51:19

were just talking about he was

51:21

so relentlessly curious that there's

51:23

no way he could have done

51:26

the same thing for 30

51:28

years straight, right? Yeah,

51:31

I actually couldn't see him really being you

51:33

could see him being a successful founder just

51:35

cuz he's so damn smart. He's so smart

51:38

But he could never be like a great

51:40

founder like a Steve Jobs because he just

51:42

didn't have too much curiosity and not enough

51:44

focus Yeah, I would say like more of

51:46

like an inventor, you know, if you really

51:48

think about it's like Think about Thomas Edison.

51:50

I've done a bunch of episodes of Thomas

51:52

Edison like he invented four or five things

51:54

He didn't work on one thing his whole

51:57

life, but he was always inventing so I

51:59

think of that as like Buffett is the

52:01

greatest financial genius in history, but he didn't

52:03

work on one company he had like Everything's

52:05

in Berkshire, but inside of Berkshire you have

52:07

all these other things. I feel like a Da

52:09

Vinci's like that an Edison's like that It's

52:12

like the act of what they're doing which in

52:14

cases in Buffett's case is like turning a

52:16

pile of money into a bigger pile of money,

52:18

right? Da Vinci's case he's like inventing

52:20

all the thing drawing making some of the

52:22

greatest paintings Edison is like you know Edison was

52:24

like way more commercial in the sense that

52:26

he says like a sale is proof of utility

52:28

doesn't want to invent anything that won't sell

52:30

but he you know his So his career is

52:32

rather consistent. He was just working on different

52:34

things but the the theme that runs throughout all

52:36

this is that he was like inventing all

52:39

the time. One of the like

52:41

one of my favorite parts of

52:43

the life of Edison is really early

52:45

on he's a telegraph operator um

52:47

and then he kind of he's actually

52:49

still working but he's inventing at

52:51

the same time and he's totally obsessed

52:53

with inventing and his family like

52:55

is worried about him because He's like

52:57

not bathing regularly and he's just

52:59

like not sleeping and he's totally haggard

53:01

and he's like selling his possessions

53:03

in order to get more materials to

53:05

indent with. And it just dawned

53:07

on me like, wow, this person is

53:09

an addict. He's an actual addict.

53:11

Like if you substituted indenting with just

53:13

meth or heroin or anything else,

53:16

they'd be very clear what he is.

53:18

It just happens to be that

53:20

he's addicted to something that's very productive.

53:23

But it's probably not like actually

53:25

a well adjusted person from

53:27

that. regard Like

53:29

do you think it's possible

53:32

to be a great great founder

53:34

and be just normal and

53:36

well -adjusted? Do I I'm

53:38

trying to think if I'm ready

53:40

anybody well, that's normal or well -adjusted

53:42

I don't think like I don't think

53:44

there's um one thing that's in

53:46

this related to this like I Don't

53:48

think being like a psycho or

53:51

like an asshole is like prerequisite for

53:53

success like Rockefeller's the perfect example

53:55

of this is like Never said an

53:57

unkind word to people that worked

53:59

for him decades. Never like one time

54:01

they ever saw him lose his

54:03

temper. Very polite. Um, no,

54:05

I don't think I Wouldn't call the any

54:07

I don't feel I'm do you I mean

54:10

you think I'm a well -adjusted person I

54:12

don't think I am like you know me

54:14

pretty well. Um, I think you're a well -adjusted

54:16

person. I think you're a nice person I

54:18

don't think you're a normal person. Okay. Yeah,

54:20

so yeah, I just yeah, so I mean

54:22

mind are I think Everybody you read about

54:24

everybody I read about it's like they know

54:26

what like they're just outliers They're like completely

54:28

they deviate so far from the norm that

54:31

they can they look like a different species

54:33

to me than like just some random person

54:35

you bump into you know Yeah, I think

54:37

that you can have massive success With consistency

54:39

over intensity if you can like consistently do

54:41

the same like build your business and let

54:43

it compound for four or five decades You

54:45

don't have to like, you don't have to

54:47

burn everything. Like, I think you could have

54:49

a great marriage. You could have good friends.

54:51

You could take care of your health and

54:54

still be wildly successful too. Now, a lot

54:56

of them don't do that because what you

54:58

just described with Edison, like they are completely

55:00

addicted. This is one thing I'm worried about

55:02

in the sense that like, I like working

55:04

on my podcast and building my business and

55:06

getting better at what I'm doing. And there's

55:08

very few other things that I like to

55:10

do more than that. And if I don't

55:12

watch myself, you know, I can Mess up

55:15

all different other areas of my life where

55:17

like I know I want to have like

55:19

a Lot of memories when I get older

55:21

and good relationships and friendships and everything else

55:23

so like I'm very You know aware of

55:25

that and kind of try to put guardrails

55:27

on myself Do you do you like being

55:29

fit? Well, first of all, I guess how

55:31

famous are you how famous are you? How

55:33

often do you get recognized if you're out

55:36

in public? Out

55:38

in public almost never If I'm at

55:40

like it depends on where I'm

55:42

at like if I'm at like capital

55:44

camp or if I'm at like

55:46

I'm Like a nor

55:48

like if I'm in New York like very

55:50

very like once or twice on just random

55:52

street, right? Well now once you

55:55

twice per day No, like it like I was

55:57

just up in New York I probably got

55:59

recognized once or twice in like five days something

56:01

like that And again most of them are

56:03

just like love what you do shake hand and

56:05

literally like they're cool Now I'm doing way

56:07

more videos so that may change but like yeah,

56:09

my goal is to never be like I

56:11

first of all very insured in general I love

56:14

one of my favorite things to do is

56:16

like be able to walk around the city and

56:18

like think. So I would never want to

56:20

like get so my face so well known that

56:22

I can't do that anymore. That'd be very

56:24

bad for my life, I think. But

56:26

no, I would say I don't ever

56:28

think of myself as being famous at

56:30

all. And I think it's unhealthy

56:32

if you start thinking about these things.

56:35

And the only time I ever notice that

56:37

people react to me differently is if I'm

56:39

at like a gathering of entrepreneurs and investors.

56:41

It's the only time. The acquired guys had

56:43

like a big New York Times article about

56:45

them last year, I think. Have you had

56:48

anything like that yet? No. Interesting.

56:51

No, no. Have people tried?

56:54

Like smaller publications. It was in New York Times.

56:56

That was a Wall Street Journal. Like literally couldn't

56:58

get a better, if you're a business podcast, there

57:01

couldn't be a better write -up than the one that

57:03

Ben and David, they did for in the Wall

57:05

Street Journal. It's excellent. No,

57:08

there's been like, like technology publications,

57:10

stuff like that. But

57:14

again, my thing is like super more.

57:16

It's like more narrowly focused. I mean,

57:18

it's called founders like yeah, even if

57:20

you think like like there's a ton

57:22

of business owners in in you know,

57:24

America and in the world, but like

57:26

it's not It's it's never gonna be

57:28

like wide. This is not like Mr.

57:30

Bees wide spread like right just never

57:32

would be into this stuff It's interesting.

57:34

I like I guess I started asking

57:36

about fame a little bit just because

57:39

I forget sometimes because in my world like

57:41

you're pretty famous of like the people

57:43

I interact with every day on Twitter like

57:45

of the people that I associate with

57:47

every every day that I mostly talk to

57:49

I read their stuff. I'm talking like

57:51

90 something percent of them know who you

57:53

are you're famous in that in that.

57:55

Yeah, but again, I don't think about that.

57:58

This is the best thing is the

58:00

fact that like I all I did was

58:02

for eight years I trapped myself in

58:04

a room and read and followed my own

58:06

natural interest and then I you know

58:08

expose that to the world but I don't

58:10

like I feel the same so a

58:12

good friend of mine actually pulled me aside

58:14

the other day because what has been

58:17

happening recently is there's some people that like

58:19

I've heard really grotesque one of them

58:21

went viral like grotesque stories about how they

58:23

treated other people like that dude like

58:25

I'm reading that story like that guy's off

58:27

that guy's a dick like this is

58:29

crazy and then I found out who the

58:31

person is I'm like that guy is

58:33

so nice to me He's like

58:36

not even nice, but like sweet as

58:38

can be I was like shocked. I

58:40

was like these like nothing and this

58:42

kept happening and One of my smartest

58:44

friends he pulled me aside. He's like

58:46

I don't think you understand. He goes

58:48

what he goes Everybody's going to be

58:50

nice to you and I was like

58:52

why and he said it's very similar

58:54

stuff that you said and I was

58:56

like I don't feel that way like

58:58

I never ever think about anything I

59:00

don't think this is a negative side There's

59:03

a there's a bad side to focus so

59:05

I think I have the one one of my

59:07

assets like a shame levels of focus But

59:09

I also kind of like don't think about other

59:11

people and not in like a mean way

59:14

I don't think I've ever been mean to you

59:16

like we talk all the time whatever he

59:18

says But literally I don't think of the external

59:20

world. I just like burrow into my own

59:22

world I love this maximus says mute the world

59:24

and then build your own that's what I'm

59:26

trying to do like I'm gonna go on TV

59:28

PN later on and they want to talk

59:30

about NVIDIA or NVIDIA and I was like, I

59:32

don't know anything about them. They're like, you did a podcast on it. I

59:34

go, no, no, I did a podcast on the founder. Like,

59:37

I don't know any like, I don't listen to

59:39

news or press reports. I could talk about the founder

59:41

all day long and like how he was raised

59:43

and how he thinks about his company and everything else.

59:45

But like, I don't know anything that's going on

59:47

in the world. Like, I just assume if there's a

59:49

war or there's a pandemic, that shit will come

59:51

to me, right? Other

59:53

than that, like, I don't know, like, shocking, like, I remember

59:56

going on vacation a friend of mine, and he's like, watch

59:58

this video. And they mentioned this guy in this video. It

1:00:00

was a clip from Lex Freeman. I go, who's that? And

1:00:02

he looked at me. He's just like, I forgot who it

1:00:04

was. It was like somebody high up in like the Russian

1:00:06

government. was like, I don't know. I've never heard that name

1:00:08

before. I don't know who this is. And it's like, everybody's

1:00:10

talking about this guy. was like, I don't know. So again,

1:00:13

like, I don't ever think

1:00:15

about it. I think it's unhealthy to think about

1:00:17

it. I think I should just, you should just

1:00:19

literally try to focus on making a product that

1:00:21

makes somebody else's life better and just do that

1:00:23

for as long as possible. What about like, I

1:00:25

mean, let's say like basketball, you like

1:00:28

basketball, you used to like to watch

1:00:30

basketball, you don't really watch basketball anymore.

1:00:32

No, no. Do you miss

1:00:34

it? No. I

1:00:37

once I pass something, I don't

1:00:39

think about it like I so it's

1:00:41

funny like this will happen like. Somebody

1:00:46

will bring up something and it'll like randomly

1:00:48

make me think of like a memory from like,

1:00:50

I don't know years ago and I'll tell

1:00:52

a story or like, oh, that's kind of like

1:00:54

this thing happened in the past. My wife

1:00:56

who's known me for, I don't know, 15 or

1:00:58

18 years or something. She's like, I

1:01:00

never heard that before. It's like, I don't like

1:01:02

thinking about like, I study history. I don't like

1:01:04

thinking about my own history. Like, I don't like

1:01:07

thinking about the past. Once something ends, I just

1:01:09

like keep moving on. I don't. think about it.

1:01:11

Yes, I don't have like nostalgia. I

1:01:13

wish I actually went to a

1:01:15

basketball game over Christmas and I was

1:01:17

like, all they do is jack up

1:01:19

threes now. Like I don't like

1:01:21

this game. I don't miss anything. No,

1:01:24

man, I just like my mission. I

1:01:26

like my mission. Like that's really it. My

1:01:28

mission, my friends, my family, like there's

1:01:30

nothing else in life other than that, your

1:01:32

health. It's really interesting

1:01:35

to me. I did an episode

1:01:37

recently on Donald Trump and Bill O 'Reilly

1:01:39

said about him. he's

1:01:41

fundamentally not an introspective person

1:01:43

and It just reminded me

1:01:45

of so many other founders

1:01:47

or it's just like this

1:01:49

really odd personality trait that

1:01:51

you just notice between them.

1:01:53

They just are reflexively not

1:01:55

introspective like the funniest is

1:01:57

when people ask Steve Jobs

1:02:00

about him being adopted and

1:02:02

whether that had any impact

1:02:04

on his psyche and you'd

1:02:06

expect him to either be

1:02:08

like Yeah, that really Change

1:02:10

who I am or at least be like no

1:02:12

that had nothing to do with it But instead

1:02:14

he's just like very flippant. It's just like completely

1:02:17

not introspective, right? He's just like, yeah, no, I

1:02:19

don't know I don't know, you know, this is

1:02:21

this is the weird like I don't have many

1:02:23

controversial takes and I would say like I like

1:02:25

our corner of the internet because like we're just

1:02:27

history nerds and we read books and like I

1:02:29

don't think I'm controversial at all You know, and

1:02:31

I'm not trying to be intentionally provocative. I think

1:02:33

like I know you can get a lot of

1:02:36

attention online like that But it's like the shittiest

1:02:38

attention like My entire life is organized

1:02:40

to keep me away from like large groups of

1:02:42

people. This is like, you're just

1:02:44

absolutely looking at what I'm doing. It's like,

1:02:46

I don't, my friend, we were just in

1:02:48

New York. He's like, let's go on the

1:02:50

subway. He's like, absolutely not. And this is

1:02:52

like, he's like, the car is an hour

1:02:54

long. I don't care. Like I was raised around

1:02:56

such bad people inside of my family and

1:02:58

other people around. I've seen enough of that.

1:03:01

I'm working, everything I do is to get me

1:03:03

away and to be able to control how I

1:03:05

spend my time, who has access to me. Nothing

1:03:07

gets better in my life. This is why I

1:03:09

don't go to basketball games. They're like 20 ,000 other

1:03:11

I just I'm not interested in that I'd rather

1:03:13

be reading and with a small group of people

1:03:15

And so one of the most controversial weirdly controversial

1:03:18

takes that people like I don't even know why

1:03:20

they get upset It's like weird thing to get

1:03:22

upset about is the fact that I've it's obvious

1:03:24

which what you just said greatest

1:03:26

founders low to none introspection Not just

1:03:29

low none and what I mean is

1:03:31

there's a lot there may be a

1:03:33

lot of introspection But once they find

1:03:35

what they want to do, there's

1:03:37

not a lot of dilly -dallying. Sam Walton did not wake up

1:03:39

every morning like, I wonder what I'm going to do today.

1:03:41

No, he knew. He's like, I'm going to wake up and I'm

1:03:43

going to solve some problems and I'm going to make Walmart a

1:03:45

little better. And I'm going to keep doing that. And then

1:03:47

I'm going to hunt some quail in the afternoon, maybe hit some

1:03:49

tennis balls, fly my plane, look for it and try to

1:03:51

build another store, just do that over and over and over again

1:03:53

and go to Charleston on Sundays, spend time with my family.

1:03:55

And that was his entire life. The problem is

1:03:57

like modern humans, they're afraid of commitment. Because

1:04:00

like the act of committing is to it's not

1:04:02

just that you're committing to one thing if you're saying

1:04:04

no to everything else People want like this excessive

1:04:06

amount of optionality. It's like I'm not looking at like

1:04:08

what should I do for a living? I'm gonna

1:04:10

do podcasting until I can have a fucking voice That's

1:04:12

all I care about so I don't wake up

1:04:14

like what should I do today? This is like I

1:04:16

know what we do. I'm gonna read I'm gonna

1:04:19

make podcasts, you know I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing

1:04:21

what I do and do this forever and that's

1:04:23

like Thinking about all this other stuff like you're you're

1:04:25

gonna be recognized to do what about this is

1:04:27

like I don't care like I don't know I'm just

1:04:29

gonna keep doing this, and if that happens, then

1:04:31

I'll come up with some kind of solution to it.

1:04:34

Yeah, I've always, the analogy

1:04:36

in my head is it's like

1:04:38

a shark that smells blood, right? When

1:04:41

you find a great founder and

1:04:43

you're like trying to stick a microphone

1:04:45

in the shark's face and you're

1:04:47

like, hey, why are you chasing

1:04:49

this thing that you smell bleeding? It's like,

1:04:51

The sharks are what I do. Even if

1:04:53

it tried to introspect, it doesn't know, you

1:04:55

know, like all it knows is it smells

1:04:57

blood and like please stop sticking a microphone

1:04:59

in my face because I need to eat,

1:05:01

you know. And I think that's true of

1:05:03

like when people find the thing that they

1:05:06

were born to do, it's really hard to

1:05:08

get them to think about like why that

1:05:10

is. I don't even know that they have

1:05:12

insight on it. But this is why like

1:05:14

me and you have talked privately. It's like,

1:05:16

Ben, what's all these other distractions? You're like

1:05:18

launching this agency and you're doing this other

1:05:20

podcast. It's like Dude, do you understand how

1:05:22

rare it is? The only person that can

1:05:24

answer that question is you. Nobody can help

1:05:26

you figure out what you should do in

1:05:28

life. You just either know it or you

1:05:30

don't. And sometimes you have hints that maybe

1:05:32

people are still unsure about it. But one

1:05:34

thing I told you is, dude, the idea

1:05:36

that you could even make a podcast and

1:05:38

be good at podcasting is such a rare

1:05:40

skill, unbelievably rare. Think

1:05:43

about how millions of people have attempted

1:05:45

it. Most of those millions have

1:05:47

quit already. There's only 350 ,000 of

1:05:49

them still going. And 99 % are

1:05:51

never going to go anywhere. And

1:05:53

you've already cracked this thing. If you

1:05:55

love it, I would just keep pushing

1:05:57

as much as possible. And the question

1:05:59

is, is this the thing that you

1:06:01

want to do? And it's normal

1:06:03

to waffle. Some people waffle like, oh, I should

1:06:05

start a company or I should do this other thing.

1:06:08

It's like, the only person that can answer that question is

1:06:10

you. And I find reading life stories

1:06:12

very helpful because then I think of like,

1:06:14

oh, I feel that way. Oh, I'm like

1:06:16

that. Oh, cool. And I'm almost like watching

1:06:18

Game Tape on how they live their life.

1:06:20

And then now I can adjust my life

1:06:22

when I go out and play the game

1:06:24

of life tomorrow by this little tweak based

1:06:26

on what I just learned yesterday. It's kind

1:06:28

of cool Yeah, that's It's interesting. Do you

1:06:30

have like one or two people that you

1:06:32

really think of that this these stories have

1:06:34

really stuck with you and you feel like

1:06:36

you resonate with them and this is someone

1:06:38

that You feel like their soul is like

1:06:40

yours in some way and you really want

1:06:43

to be like them. Yeah, so I am

1:06:45

obsessed with So it's very

1:06:47

different like think about in the entrepreneurship

1:06:49

like in the entrepreneurs there's like an

1:06:51

entrepreneurship like ecosystem now which never existed,

1:06:53

especially when I was younger. And so

1:06:55

now it's like it's heavily dominated. Most

1:06:57

of the media that founders and entrepreneurs

1:06:59

consume is actually created by investors, which

1:07:01

is like weird dynamic there because they

1:07:03

don't always have like the same, you

1:07:06

know, your interest aren't

1:07:08

always aligned. And what

1:07:10

I'm obsessed with is not like the

1:07:12

public company CEO. That's cool. I think

1:07:14

Jeff Bezos is one of the greatest

1:07:16

living entrepreneurs. What he built in Amazon,

1:07:18

fucking incredible. I feel I'm one

1:07:20

of the few people who may be on the

1:07:22

planet that feel he deserves all the wealth

1:07:24

that he's created. He created a magic button that

1:07:26

I can press in anything that I want,

1:07:28

shows from my house in the day or two

1:07:30

later. I'm tuning all the other businesses, the

1:07:32

cloud computing, everything else he's done. He's built one

1:07:34

of the most complicated, difficult businesses that have

1:07:36

ever existed. And he did it better than anybody

1:07:39

else by a long shot. And Gladi has

1:07:41

whatever he has $200 billion, whatever. What

1:07:43

I feel is for me

1:07:45

would be the apex of entrepreneurship

1:07:47

is like a privately held

1:07:49

100 % owned business, right? Like

1:07:51

a James Dyson. So the answer your question is like, the

1:07:54

idea that he owns

1:07:56

100 % of his

1:07:58

business, he doesn't have to answer

1:08:00

to a board. He doesn't have any shareholders to answer

1:08:03

to. He answers to his customers and his employees. And

1:08:05

he builds what are the best products in the

1:08:07

world in his category. So for me, it's like

1:08:09

that looks a lot like what I'm trying to

1:08:11

do on a much smaller scale. And then you

1:08:13

take away from like how big these businesses get.

1:08:15

Michael Bloomberg's the same way. The

1:08:17

founder of Red Bull, he only owned 49 % of Red Bull,

1:08:20

but he turned down, multiple acquisition

1:08:22

offers where his 49 % would

1:08:24

have given him $20 billion, you

1:08:26

know, because he had complete control. He didn't want to go public. He didn't

1:08:28

want to border directors, didn't want all that other stuff. And

1:08:31

then some of these businesses can grow.

1:08:33

Like the people, some of the entrepreneurs I

1:08:35

most admire, I meet and they're like

1:08:37

hidden. They'll never write a book. They won't

1:08:39

do anything. And they're like family -held companies.

1:08:41

And when you get close to them

1:08:43

and I've visited them, I've gone to their

1:08:45

off -sites. I've gone to their offices. I've

1:08:48

gone to their warehouses. They

1:08:50

look like they built entire worlds, like

1:08:52

entire worlds. They have, you

1:08:55

know, they control everything. It's

1:08:57

just fascinating. And then some

1:08:59

of these businesses like, There's all

1:09:01

these reports and you can never really know,

1:09:03

but from what I hear on good,

1:09:05

good account, like, uh, think

1:09:07

about James Eisen, he's like 75, 76 results on

1:09:09

100 % of his business. I've heard,

1:09:11

and I don't know if this is true, that

1:09:13

he's been pulling, you know, five billion a year

1:09:15

out in dividends. And

1:09:17

if you look, you could kind of. There's

1:09:20

hints because like he owns like more sheep

1:09:22

than anybody in the world. He's like the

1:09:24

largest green pea producer It's like you've run

1:09:26

out of things to invest in when you're

1:09:28

just like can't your business throwing up billions

1:09:30

and billions of dollars It's like me and

1:09:32

you taking a paycheck of five billion dollars

1:09:34

a year year after year after year after

1:09:36

year after year and I know somebody that

1:09:38

that controls a large part large base capital

1:09:40

and they're looking Their base capital is getting

1:09:42

so big that they keep having to buy

1:09:44

bigger and bigger companies right to move the

1:09:46

needle and from what I heard is they

1:09:49

approach to see if Dyson was open to

1:09:51

selling. And there's a paraphrase,

1:09:53

there's not a direct quote, but I thought it

1:09:55

was hilarious. The response to

1:09:57

what you'd be interested in selling is, fuck

1:09:59

you, this is a fairly

1:10:01

family heirloom. And so it's just

1:10:03

like, I deeply admire that where he's just

1:10:05

like, I'm not doing it for money. I'm

1:10:07

not doing it so I can sell this

1:10:10

and have the biggest, you know, already

1:10:12

have more money than I know what to

1:10:14

do with. Like what am I gonna

1:10:16

do with more money? And this is where like

1:10:18

you can have a single podcast, a single book, or

1:10:21

something like this, a single conversation, change your mind.

1:10:23

Where Sam Zell, the two hours I got to spend

1:10:25

with Sam Zell, literally, more than any

1:10:27

conversation I've ever had in my life, including the one

1:10:29

I had with Munger, changed

1:10:31

my life more than anything, because that was his point.

1:10:33

He was just like, at a

1:10:35

certain level, you know, and he was

1:10:37

not, he was very wealthy, but he wasn't like the

1:10:39

richest person in the world, but he had already run

1:10:41

out of things to spend money on, to the point

1:10:43

where like, He was making money faster and he could

1:10:45

give it away. And his whole point was just like,

1:10:47

the things that you own tend to start to own

1:10:49

you. He's like, I have a place in Chicago. I

1:10:52

have a compound in Malibu that he spends

1:10:54

38 weekends a year at, right? And

1:10:57

then everything else, he just rents, right?

1:10:59

He's like, it's somebody else's problem. And he goes, there's

1:11:01

only one true luxury in life. He's like, David tried

1:11:03

to get to private jet money. And his whole thing

1:11:05

was like, the only thing that's true luxury for him

1:11:07

was the fact that he used his private jet like

1:11:10

three hours a day. So who knows what you see,

1:11:12

you might even spend like 10 million a year flying.

1:11:14

But 10 million years seems like a lot of money,

1:11:16

but not when you have 10 billion dollars. Like

1:11:18

he's just never going to come close to that. So

1:11:20

again, at those kind of levels, what's

1:11:23

the difference? Do you believe that? Are

1:11:25

you trying to get private jet money? Do believe

1:11:29

that this is the next? So

1:11:31

I think it's really

1:11:34

smart to take the

1:11:36

advice. Have you ever flown

1:11:38

private before? Yeah. Okay,

1:11:40

so oh, yeah, like it's like

1:11:42

completely different Like it's not twice as

1:11:44

good. It's not ten times as

1:11:47

good. Yeah, it's a hundred times as

1:11:49

good So my whole thing is

1:11:51

like I'm not like I'm not gonna

1:11:53

do things That I don't want

1:11:55

to I don't I'm not gonna like

1:11:57

let people Entice me there's a

1:12:00

great piece of advice and Chuck Eager

1:12:02

the guy that broke the sound

1:12:04

barrier in his biography that I read

1:12:06

like four years ago. I still

1:12:08

remember he's like His

1:12:11

obsession was just like flying in pilots. He'd

1:12:13

like to take fly and like to handle

1:12:15

pilots. So he's like, I never, one thing

1:12:17

I'm very proud of myself is like, I

1:12:19

never let them tempt me with promises of

1:12:21

more money or status or prestige to do

1:12:23

something I don't want to do. My point

1:12:25

is, I think if I look at it

1:12:28

from an entrepreneur is like, yeah, podcasting is

1:12:30

one of the most undervalued assets in the

1:12:32

world. I think like

1:12:34

I'm going to keep getting better at it.

1:12:36

I'm going to build better businesses around it. And

1:12:39

I think there's gonna be multiple billionaire podcasters

1:12:41

I've been talking about this for years and

1:12:43

some people say you're fucking crazy And then

1:12:45

they see some of the numbers that Rogan

1:12:47

makes and like oh, maybe it's not that

1:12:49

crazy It's it's just like it's not even

1:12:51

has another podcasting is like if you would

1:12:53

have said there's gonna be billion multiple billionaire

1:12:55

Musicians people like no you're crazy now. There's

1:12:57

a ton of them. You know you see

1:12:59

billionaire youtubers No, it's never gonna happen. Yes,

1:13:01

there's gonna be a ton of them like

1:13:03

it's just everything billionaire athletes, of course, it's

1:13:06

like that It's just it was just obvious

1:13:08

to me sooner than it was to other

1:13:10

people so like Yeah, like out of the

1:13:12

things that I would want to spend money

1:13:14

on to build wealth on yeah private I

1:13:16

don't even have to own my private plane.

1:13:18

The funny thing is how much money is

1:13:20

private jet money? That's well depends like if

1:13:22

you're Sam cell like he's like I'm not

1:13:24

again. I think My goal as like some

1:13:26

people literally have like they wake up with

1:13:28

a burning desire to go to an airport

1:13:30

and get on a plane I'm not one

1:13:32

of those people I prefer when I spend

1:13:34

my summers in California, I like those kind

1:13:36

of trips. You fly, you stay there for

1:13:38

two months, and you actually live there. I

1:13:40

hate these short trips. Yeah,

1:13:43

the short trips. But

1:13:45

there's a guy on Twitter named Preston

1:13:47

Holland that can tell you all about

1:13:49

this. My point being

1:13:51

is people can figure out the economics

1:13:53

or whatever they want and how to do

1:13:55

it on their own. My

1:13:57

point being is I think the

1:13:59

larger thing here is optimizing for

1:14:01

money. After a certain

1:14:03

level This is like all

1:14:06

your life is literally just the

1:14:08

time you spend your time

1:14:10

this is like and I know

1:14:12

a ton of people I

1:14:14

know a ton of people that

1:14:17

fly private that are fucking

1:14:19

miserable. So obviously not The solution

1:14:21

like and I guess this

1:14:23

is part of the wonder of

1:14:25

entrepreneurship is that like And

1:14:28

just life in general is people

1:14:30

will get interested in stuff that I

1:14:32

would just never be interested in

1:14:34

and that's okay and If if Todd

1:14:36

what's his name Todd graves? Yeah,

1:14:39

like he has a

1:14:41

chicken finger dream and in

1:14:43

my head I think

1:14:45

why who cares? Yes,

1:14:47

and I it almost bothers my mind that

1:14:49

you're not in it for the money

1:14:51

Why are you not in it for the

1:14:53

money at the end of your life?

1:14:55

you're gonna die and Raising

1:14:58

canes apparently makes good chicken strips,

1:15:00

but you're gonna leave behind a

1:15:02

bunch of fast food restaurants that

1:15:04

more or less resemble the Chick

1:15:06

-fil -A across the street. And

1:15:09

that was your dream? That was

1:15:11

your dream. I would say

1:15:13

that to somebody, a few people have said that to me

1:15:15

since the episode came out. It's like, Todd, all that

1:15:17

means to me is like Todd Graves is head of most

1:15:19

of humanity, because most of humanity doesn't even have a

1:15:21

dream. I don't care that his

1:15:23

dream is chicken fingers. I just care that he

1:15:25

has a dream. And he has a purpose

1:15:27

and he's identified that purpose. He's made a commitment

1:15:29

to it. He also, for him, he believes

1:15:32

is a God given mission. So he's giving a

1:15:34

lot of money away to like charity to

1:15:36

help people. Like, so chicken finger is

1:15:38

like, I'm really good at this. I can make a

1:15:40

lot of money at this. And then I can use

1:15:42

that money to help people. That makes perfect sense to

1:15:44

me. To me, though, I almost

1:15:46

feel like it's a symptom of

1:15:48

a sick world that I read these

1:15:50

stories of Horatio Nelson and Napoleon

1:15:52

Alexander Hamilton. And I'm like, yeah, that's what

1:15:54

a noble life is supposed to look like. of

1:15:56

founding something that really lasts and adheres

1:15:58

and is beautiful and is a part of

1:16:00

your identity. And people

1:16:02

like Todd Graves are probably have that

1:16:04

quality of spirit, but live in a

1:16:06

sort of sick world where instead of

1:16:09

building something like a city or a

1:16:11

country or something truly beautiful and enduring,

1:16:13

they have to have a chicken finger

1:16:15

drink. I don't

1:16:17

have that same opinion. I

1:16:20

think that we're

1:16:22

obviously Influenced

1:16:24

by the circumstances were born into like how

1:16:26

many people are starting new countries right now? This

1:16:28

is like you just like I think that

1:16:30

same kind of personality Depending on where they're born

1:16:32

same thing with Rockefeller Rockefeller was born and

1:16:35

he came of age He was born 1830 came

1:16:37

of age around the Civil War, right? There's

1:16:39

a bunch of the robber barons were born in

1:16:41

1830s There's something very special and dynamic about

1:16:43

the US economy that that they took advantage of

1:16:45

then and you place them 200 years before

1:16:47

and yeah, or let's go back 700 years and

1:16:49

they're they might be more like Jengas con

1:16:51

Then they are, you know, entrepreneurs. I just think

1:16:54

like, dude, how many people are starting cities

1:16:56

and how many people are starting countries now? Nobody.

1:16:59

Nobody. But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. We

1:17:01

got to get back. We got to

1:17:03

take over the world, David. That's, you

1:17:05

must return, return. No, I say, all I

1:17:07

care about is like, for somebody like

1:17:09

that, he's like literally, he's

1:17:11

in hit, like, and people say it was

1:17:13

unhealthy, whatever the case is, like, I don't know.

1:17:15

It brings me a little bit of joy.

1:17:17

I'm not going to eat it for breakfast, lunch,

1:17:19

and dinner, you know, but like I like

1:17:21

the chicken fingers and he made my life, you

1:17:23

know, a little bit better in that 15

1:17:25

minutes that I'm eating his and dunking his chicken

1:17:28

fingers in the cane sauce. Like I like

1:17:30

stuff like that. I don't think there's anything wrong

1:17:32

with him. It's interesting

1:17:34

to me. Like I so I'm doing

1:17:36

an episode on Coco Chanel and

1:17:38

I've been researching her story. And to

1:17:40

me, she is emblematic of, you

1:17:42

know, she's an entrepreneur who's very successful,

1:17:44

becomes very wealthy. Yeah. And she's

1:17:46

having all of these dialysis affairs the

1:17:49

wealthiest woman in the world when

1:17:51

she's alive when you get apart Yeah,

1:17:53

not just very wealthy like really

1:17:55

well that she has where she gets

1:17:57

like two or five percent of

1:17:59

all the gross profits or gross sales

1:18:01

It'd be the equivalent if somebody

1:18:03

came to you and said Ben I'm

1:18:06

going to Pay you three hundred

1:18:08

million dollars a year and in our

1:18:10

contract. I have to take care

1:18:12

of every single one of your living

1:18:14

expenses That

1:18:16

first scene there's some crazy deals.

1:18:18

That's one of the craziest deals

1:18:20

in history Yeah, although of course

1:18:22

always is resentful of her cocoa

1:18:25

Chanel number five deal where she's

1:18:27

getting 10 % of the Of what

1:18:29

is the greatest product of her

1:18:31

lifetime when you're selling of the

1:18:33

greatest products of all time in

1:18:35

terms of cost per ounce It's

1:18:37

pretty yeah. Yeah, I'm believe it's

1:18:39

like it's like gold But

1:18:42

to me it's interesting because

1:18:44

she's also obviously attracted to

1:18:46

the power and the allure

1:18:48

of old world aristocracy, right?

1:18:51

She's always having these affairs

1:18:53

with these barons and counts

1:18:55

and British royalty and Russian

1:18:57

royalty and To me there's

1:18:59

this interesting tension of like

1:19:01

she comes along at the

1:19:03

time which is sort of

1:19:06

turn of the 20th century

1:19:08

and into World War One

1:19:10

where the old You

1:19:12

know their aristocratic classes really were

1:19:14

driven by Conquest these were often

1:19:16

descendants of the Norman invaders who'd come

1:19:18

to England taking it with the

1:19:20

sword and then said we own

1:19:22

the land now and We get

1:19:24

the money from it and that's

1:19:27

where they got all their money

1:19:29

and there's still this attraction to it

1:19:31

She's she's still attracted to that

1:19:33

world even as she herself is

1:19:35

supplanting it with this new commercial

1:19:37

world and So

1:19:39

anyway, I just think that like

1:19:41

even as that world has been

1:19:43

supplanted we cannot really get over

1:19:45

the allure and the attraction because

1:19:47

The whole world is a series

1:19:49

of games. We all choose the

1:19:51

games we play right and I

1:19:53

think there's a certain attraction to

1:19:55

yeah, but there's one game that's

1:19:57

bigger than all the others and

1:19:59

Those people who really feel like

1:20:01

they are world beaters that they're

1:20:03

the greatest they always have an

1:20:05

attraction To that game they want to play that

1:20:07

game. They want to play the game of kings. Yeah,

1:20:09

they want to play the game

1:20:12

of kings It's like that game isn't

1:20:14

even being played anymore. No, it

1:20:16

definitely is like You get you get

1:20:18

access in a different way now

1:20:20

like think about the power that like

1:20:22

a person like Bezos wields He's

1:20:24

got almost unlimited money. No, he's

1:20:26

got no he's political influence Absolutely,

1:20:28

like it's not the same like you're

1:20:30

not gonna be like a dictator

1:20:32

like a like a Putin kind of

1:20:34

character Without that, but like in

1:20:36

terms of if you're living in a

1:20:38

free society, like the amount of

1:20:40

power that you can wield through building

1:20:42

one of the world's largest companies

1:20:44

is like unbelievable. Kind

1:20:47

of, but he's so

1:20:49

restrained by social strictures

1:20:51

and by social strictures.

1:20:54

Like, you know, his wife divorces him and takes

1:20:56

half his money and there's nothing he can

1:20:58

do about it, right? He's already

1:21:00

made all the money back. Yeah,

1:21:03

he's got plenty of money. But it

1:21:05

just shows that like there is a very

1:21:07

strong limit to the actual amount of

1:21:09

control he has in the world. You

1:21:11

know, he buys Washington Post and what does it

1:21:14

do? Like you say he has all this political

1:21:16

influence. What has he done with it? Maybe

1:21:18

maybe he just has no vision for

1:21:20

the wider world and he doesn't really care

1:21:23

about that. But you know, I do

1:21:25

think like one petty king in

1:21:27

1350 had more power. No,

1:21:29

no, no way. Yeah, wait, 100%.

1:21:31

It reminds me of Caesar,

1:21:33

who, you know, he's going through

1:21:35

some little alpine village and

1:21:37

he's, his friends are making fun

1:21:39

of this like little village

1:21:41

in the, in a Swiss mountain

1:21:43

side. You know, they're scratching

1:21:45

potatoes out of the country. They

1:21:47

didn't have potatoes, but you

1:21:49

get it scratching, we out of

1:21:51

the hillside. And they're like,

1:21:53

this, this place is pathetic. And

1:21:55

Caesar goes I'd rather be

1:21:57

the first man in this village

1:21:59

than the second man in

1:22:01

Rome and And I think there's

1:22:03

like something to that that

1:22:05

like Bezos has all this money,

1:22:07

but no Bezos has built

1:22:09

his own world that like no,

1:22:11

no if Then why is

1:22:13

he one of those people like

1:22:15

I'm telling you they've built

1:22:18

their own world just because the

1:22:20

point is you know You

1:22:22

we talked about ratio Nelson. Yeah,

1:22:24

and he like He basically

1:22:26

says to one of his captains,

1:22:28

who tells him, I

1:22:30

expect to see you after the battle

1:22:32

with a great victory and in

1:22:34

command of 20 prizes. And he says,

1:22:36

goodbye, Blackwood. I'll never speak to

1:22:38

you again. And goes and gets shot

1:22:40

at his moment of glory. And

1:22:43

I just think that

1:22:45

a life worth like

1:22:47

that is, I

1:22:49

view the world essentially artistically. Okay,

1:22:51

and the life like that

1:22:54

is so much more worth living

1:22:56

than a chicken finger dream

1:22:58

Depends on what he does with

1:23:00

the money I'm taking Todd

1:23:02

Graves life over that like I

1:23:04

have to say because that

1:23:06

this is I guess that's my

1:23:08

point it doesn't matter what

1:23:10

he does with the money because

1:23:13

Living a beautiful life is

1:23:15

the end is the a whole

1:23:17

sum of all of it

1:23:19

listen it like I think the

1:23:21

problem that people have that

1:23:23

I apparently don't is they're like,

1:23:25

that person's like X. I'm

1:23:27

not like X. So therefore I

1:23:30

don't understand that. And my

1:23:32

point is like, yeah, I don't

1:23:34

want to build a chicken

1:23:36

finger, chicken finger dream restaurant. But

1:23:39

I'm just glad that he found

1:23:41

something that he's so interested in. And

1:23:43

he finds it like addicting and fascinating. And

1:23:46

he's trying to do. Be the best he can

1:23:48

at it. It's like irrelevant to me what

1:23:50

people choose, you know, just like I didn't want

1:23:52

to be a basketball player I don't want

1:23:54

to be a public company co. There's all these

1:23:56

other things I don't want to do and

1:23:58

I'm sure people look at me like dude I

1:24:00

went to dinner one time and there was

1:24:02

I was actually John Coogan his two Lucy co

1:24:05

-founders and this other guy who I think is

1:24:07

a youtuber and The whole time I talked

1:24:09

about podcasts and after that John's like they thought

1:24:11

you were fucking crazy Why is this guy

1:24:13

addicted to podcasts? Well, like that it's the same

1:24:15

exact thing of you saying their opinion of

1:24:17

me is the same as yours opinion of Todd.

1:24:20

And my point is just like, it's not the

1:24:22

actual like activity. I'm just glad. I don't care

1:24:24

what people get obsessed with or what they want

1:24:26

to do. I'm just glad that they have some

1:24:28

kind of purpose for their life. See,

1:24:31

and I, I do care because I just thought

1:24:33

if you're listening to this, this is what I want

1:24:35

to message. Hoist

1:24:37

the black flag, take a knife between your teeth,

1:24:39

start slitting throats. Your life could be so much

1:24:41

more than this. Why aren't you doing that? Why

1:24:43

aren't you doing that then? Because

1:24:45

I'm not that guy. And what I am trying

1:24:47

to do, that's why at the end of the

1:24:49

day, and I know I talked to you about

1:24:51

maybe changing the name of the podcast, but at

1:24:54

the end of the day, that's why I've never

1:24:56

changed it is because that's what I really believe

1:24:58

in is taking over the world. And

1:25:00

I'm not that guy. Like I can read about

1:25:02

Caesar and just look at him and say, his

1:25:04

character is not like mine. I could never be

1:25:06

Caesar. If you threw me in that position, it'd

1:25:08

be very bad for everyone involved, including themselves. But

1:25:12

I think

1:25:15

I want to, I'm very

1:25:18

attracted to that type of

1:25:20

personality and that type of

1:25:22

person and that type of

1:25:24

vision. And I want to

1:25:26

inspire others to take that

1:25:28

on. What do you mean

1:25:30

by you look at the world artistically?

1:25:35

I think good

1:25:38

and bad

1:25:40

is ultimately an

1:25:42

aesthetic judgment. like

1:25:46

people trying to quantify it, you

1:25:49

know, you've heard of effective altruists

1:25:51

who are like, ooh, if I

1:25:53

can chart the number of lives

1:25:55

saved, then the best life is

1:25:57

that which saves the most number

1:25:59

of lives. Like, no, there's no

1:26:01

value by which you can judge

1:26:03

what is good and bad. It

1:26:07

is a judgment

1:26:09

of taste, ultimately.

1:26:12

And so I think Everything is

1:26:14

artistic like it can only

1:26:16

be said to be good or

1:26:18

bad off of taste I

1:26:20

find it beautiful is the ultimate

1:26:22

judgment. I think on anything. How

1:26:24

do you so then how

1:26:26

do you? Apply that to your

1:26:29

own like life and work

1:26:31

The way actually that is like

1:26:33

I guess my better question.

1:26:35

Does that belief actually change the

1:26:37

way that you go about

1:26:39

building like your life? Yes,

1:26:42

absolutely. Yeah which

1:26:45

is to say, if I didn't

1:26:48

think that what I was building

1:26:50

was beautiful, I talk about how

1:26:52

all these people are essentially addicted,

1:26:54

right? And they happen

1:26:56

to be at least beneficial

1:26:59

addictions, right? But

1:27:02

if at the

1:27:04

end the day, it

1:27:06

doesn't create something

1:27:08

beautiful, then it really

1:27:11

is just an

1:27:13

addiction. Even if it makes you

1:27:15

money, that's the way I see it, right?

1:27:17

Which you know, that's why I'm

1:27:20

attracted to most of all

1:27:22

founders like Phil Knight Steve Jobs

1:27:24

because for them it's not

1:27:26

just about Making money for sure

1:27:28

and it's not even just

1:27:30

about building business like they have

1:27:32

to create something beautiful They

1:27:34

do have that as a product

1:27:37

the company like I Jobs

1:27:39

this is quote that can't get

1:27:41

like I mean I could

1:27:43

get Completely accurate, but directionally correct

1:27:45

is like the point of companies only

1:27:47

exist so we can build products This

1:27:49

is like and profits only exist. So

1:27:51

the company continues to exist to build

1:27:53

the product You know, it's just like

1:27:55

I wouldn't build companies unless I wanted

1:27:57

to build products and new those are

1:27:59

also the founders I love I just

1:28:01

did this clip or I just hired

1:28:03

this guy that does my clips now

1:28:05

and the first clip he did was

1:28:07

excellence and Tattled anti -business billionaires. Yes,

1:28:09

and it's avan chanard from Patagonia James

1:28:11

Dyson Steve Jobs And she's like, they're

1:28:13

so obsessed with the quality of their

1:28:15

product. And that is the first and

1:28:17

most important thing. So like, let's

1:28:19

say people have tried to actually hire me

1:28:21

like to work or run their company or whatever.

1:28:23

And it's just like, no, that's a money

1:28:26

decision. I'm like literally trying to build

1:28:28

a beautiful product. Right? That's why we talked to,

1:28:30

I don't know if we were recording or

1:28:32

not, but like, why won't outsource the editing? Why

1:28:34

like, I don't think I'll ever outsource the

1:28:36

editing. Why do the things that I want to

1:28:38

do is like, I want to build the

1:28:40

best. in best product in

1:28:42

my category for the most successful

1:28:44

and productive people in the world.

1:28:46

That's how I think about founders. And

1:28:48

so that is what I'm trying to do. And

1:28:51

I would rather do that and make

1:28:53

way less money than work, it'd be

1:28:55

hired as a CEO at your company

1:28:57

and for 15 times or 100 times

1:28:59

the money. Because I also think

1:29:01

something I talked about in that clip is like, if you actually

1:29:03

build a great product and make somebody else's life better and you

1:29:05

retain control, you'll get the money anyways. I

1:29:07

find that you have created a very

1:29:10

beautiful product in founders. Even

1:29:12

though it's so Spartan, right?

1:29:14

No intro music. The cover

1:29:17

art is literally black background, white text

1:29:19

founder. Did you create that background by

1:29:21

the cover art? Somebody asked me the

1:29:23

other day, they're like, what is the

1:29:25

font of founders? I go, I have

1:29:27

no idea. I created it in five

1:29:29

minutes and I paid $5 to export

1:29:31

the high res version out of an

1:29:33

app. That's

1:29:37

amazing. That's amazing. You just like looked at

1:29:39

some fonts and you're like, that looks good. Right.

1:29:42

Founders. Yes. I like

1:29:44

everything I do is just off my personal taste.

1:29:46

Like there's like, I don't think there's any other way

1:29:48

to do it. What am I to do? Like

1:29:50

remember when you were, I want you to finish your

1:29:52

thought in one second, but like, I remember you

1:29:54

were starting to put like music into some of your

1:29:56

episodes and you're like, Hey, read this like thread.

1:29:58

What, what, what, uh, What should I do here? And

1:30:00

it's like, one guy's like, I love the music.

1:30:02

The next tweet underneath, it's like, I hate the music.

1:30:04

Cause like, what should you do here? So what

1:30:07

you should have been doing the whole time, which is

1:30:09

like, make what you like. Cause like there, every

1:30:11

single person you put something on the world, they're going

1:30:13

to be filled to love exactly like it and,

1:30:15

and like the exact opposite. And it's just like, I

1:30:17

just, everything's personal taste. I went through, I was

1:30:19

like, this looks good. Boom, done. And

1:30:21

then people are like, what, what, what, what other process?

1:30:23

I'm like, there is no other process. I

1:30:26

listened to the episode before I go, it goes out.

1:30:28

If I like it, it's going out. Yeah,

1:30:30

so what I wonder where what point are

1:30:32

you making about being Spartan though? Well,

1:30:35

I just think that they're like I do

1:30:37

think that what you do is like extremely

1:30:39

worthwhile because I find I'm just interested in how

1:30:41

much you put thought into that versus what

1:30:43

it comes naturally to you and it just

1:30:45

from what you said It sounds like it

1:30:47

comes very naturally to you, but it's it's

1:30:49

it's more than putting thought into it You could

1:30:51

think about something for a few hours few

1:30:53

days to take your taste in intuition is

1:30:55

molded over your lifetime. Yeah And some of

1:30:57

the stuff you won't even be able to

1:30:59

stand because it's in your subconscious. I love a

1:31:01