E106 - Will AI Replace You By 2026? What You Need To Do | Daniel Priestley

28:55Have you ever written a book and you've reflected and thought, actually, I didn't say what I wanted to say, or maybe my opinion has changed? Every single book. Okay. Every book I've written. How do you deal with that? Because you can't update a book. I mean, you can do a volume. You can actually do a revised edition. So you can do a revised edition. You just have to live with it. You have to live with that. That was my best thinking at the time. And because I published the book, because I put it out there, my thinking was then able to evolve. And it's the same. The Beatles wrote, I want to hold your hand.

29:32And then three, four years later, they're doing like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, LSD, drug references. they cringed and john lennon especially cringed at all the early beatles stuff but that's where he had to start from that was his starting point so you know all of those poppy songs that they launched with were not the grungy sounds that they ended up with six seven years later but you had to evolve to get there so it's the same you write a book it's your best thinking at the time it's your best go at the time it connects with your audience at the time and then it allows you to roll roll on to the next one what are some of the biggest things that you've changed your mind on um the first book is there anything that stands out yeah so key person of influence um when i wrote that i wrote that in 2010 there was still things like cds and dvds and um those so i reference creating information products um which are totally out of date and i had to revise that and that's a small change.

30:36There was a big change. There's a book I wrote called 24 Assets. And I wrote that in 2016, shortly after Trump had won the election. And at the end of that book, I'd given like a little bit of a jab at the whole Trump phenomenon. And I now have a better understanding of the Trump phenomenon, which I wouldn't have put that in. I wouldn't have put that political bit in. I also did like a big thing about um the united nations global goals as like a really positive initiative and i take that back completely so i need to i need to scrap that because i didn't understand fully like a lot of negative agendas that were being snuck in underneath that framework so i i just naively was like oh cool here's some ways to change the world if you're really interested in changing the world here's here's a framework for doing so and i referenced that in the book you know but my thinking on that is completely 180 yeah because that was one of my biggest concerns because i feel like 34 now in five six years i'll probably look back and maybe change my way of thinking without a doubt i just wonder if i would say something which i would regret saying yeah but you know what your book will have an initial spike and then it'll have a long tail and because of your podcast, people are going to go on a journey with you anyway and they'll forgive you for saying something that you've changed your mind on and just be open about it.

32:00I'm now open about the fact that I wouldn't reference UN Global Goals. Well, I guess it would be a red flag if you just said, no, I wouldn't change anything. Yeah. I was right about it. I was right about everything. Yeah. Yeah. And look, book one, Key Person of Influence, all about personal brand. book three 24 assets all about digital assets very little about personal brand but that was my evolution what was the biggest breakthrough for me at that time was building personal brand to a small degree and then the next biggest breakthrough was building all the digital assets other than my personal brand so i'm just taking you on my journey um you know you've had it it's interesting you're going on multiple journeys you've got a fitness journey that people really want to know about.

32:46You've also got a business journey that is like becoming more and more of your focus. Which I think is the, we're still in the early phases of that, I think. Yeah. If we look at the grand scheme of things, I feel like now it's like, okay. Yeah. Well, one thing you could do is you could almost close out the fitness journey chapter by putting out a book that's very fitness orientated, very much about that. It's, you know it's you could put all your visuals in there that you want to put in there or you or your insights like think jamie oliver but for fitness yeah you put that out there and in many ways that could actually just draw a line under that and say all my best thinking around health fitness wellness uh the the aesthetic all of that is there and you can go reference that um and like it's it's almost like it mentally allows you to move on from that if you want to because i i I feel like the journey I've been on with my fitness journey has been very much about gym, lifting weights, building muscle, the aesthetic look.

33:50But I feel like that's probably going to phase out towards my late thirties. And then we'll move into the territory of longevity, wellness, anti-aging, biohacking. So how do you look and feel good long into the future? So let's say you did a book called The Aesthetic, right? And it was all about looking good, right? And then you did a second book follow-up at a later date called The Long Life. Yeah. And that is your best thinking here about achieving an aesthetic. And it's written for people who are very much like in their 20s, early 30s who want to achieve that look. And then there's a book that says, hey, look, that was my thinking about that idea.

34:36And that's where my head was at the time. And that closed out that chapter of my life. And now there's this chapter, which is beginning. You know, and I personally think a lot of people feel that a book would lock them in to a particular way of thinking or a particular way of showing up. I personally felt the opposite. It freed me up to go, I've now released content on that. I've put my thinking into that book. Now it's time I can now move on from that and start thinking about other things. If you want to know what my thoughts are on this, read that book. Now I'm on to the next thing. So it almost closes it out.

35:14Going back to the point when you were talking about hiring a team and running a business, how do you know when you should just call it a day and end it? Because ultimately, I guess, if you tried hard enough and you had the right people, i guess there would be eventually an outcome where it would succeed but then there's the opportunity cost of you could have maybe used that time and resources on something else or another business which would have given you 10 times more in return so there's all this talk about entrepreneurship you give all this advice about how to grow a business when this is like this is not the right one or maybe you have multiple but then there's one which maybe this isn't paying enough back in return?

36:04So one thing to be aware of is that entrepreneurs are painfully impatient. And a lot of the results that you think you're going to get in two years show up closer to year five to 10. So you've got to be aware that that's going on, that there is actually this thing. There's this thing called doubling speed and doubling speed is exponential growth. and it's like, you know, let's say you had a business that you launched and you do 200 grand in year one and 400 grand in year two and 800 grand in year three. And you can actually say, oh, this is doubling every 12 months. And you might be saying, oh, like I thought I'd be at 4 million by now.

36:44And it's like, well, hold up. Let's just play this out. 200, 400, 800, 1.6, 3.2, 6.4, 12 million, 24 million, 48 million. If you were to continue that up, then it actually would exponentially go way past your wildest dreams. And what you're really trying to do is build a business that maintains doubling speed. And that is worth a lot of money. If you can build something that has a doubling speed that's consistent and it's not changing, you want to extrapolate that forward and go, okay, the doubling speed on this is great. There's kind of like two phases. There's establishing the business. And I would call that kicking the door down.

37:28And that is where you burst onto the scene and you run a campaign and you establish that the business exists. And then once that settles down, there's the consistent doubling speed. So you might burst in and do a million of revenue. And then the next year, you might only do 1.2 and then the following year, you might do 1.8 and then 2.4 and then 3 and then 3.7. And then if you can kind of plot it and it's like, oh, actually we burst onto the scene with a million of revenue on a launch campaign, but now we're actually hitting a nice doubling speed. And you say, we're doubling every 15 months. Interesting.

38:06So once you know that you're doubling every 15 months, extrapolate forward, and then you put a team in place whose job is to maintain that doubling speed. That's actually linked, their bonuses are all linked to maintaining that doubling speed. And the doubling speed is things like making sure that you have everything on digital assets, that you do all the cool things well, that you don't tinker with a winning formula just because you're bored. Some of my favorite doubling speed businesses are Tabasco Source. So Tabasco Source was a tiny little family business that now there's a Tabasco Source in everyone's house in the world.

38:44Fender guitars, like Fender Stratocaster has just doubled and doubled. Metallica. Metallica has amazing doubling speed. They burst onto the scene in the 80s, early 90s, and they were a big band. And then they fell off the popular charts, but they maintained this doubling speed. Today, three days a week, if they want to, they can have 50 ,000 people in a stadium every day of the year, every week of the year. so if you had let's say you had a couple of different revenue streams different companies one of them is performing and it's doing the doubling every year but the others are just when would i kill them would i mean would you continue to run all three or four or would you be like let me just focus on the one that's doubling depends on how much energy and effort the other ones are costing me because sometimes you can tinker businesses a huge amount of A huge amount of entrepreneurship is basically experimentation.

39:45And if you approach it like a scientist who's experimenting, hypothesis, testing, measuring, testing, measuring, you basically, you should be able to conduct little experiments to see whether this works or not. So let's say I've got a business that's just not performing, but I know that there's something fundamental about that business. Or let me use a real-life example.

40:15Bookmagic.ai is my software for creating books. Now, here's what I know fundamentally about that business. I know that 50 % of Americans want to write a book in their lifetime, half. I know that of the people who try, only 3 % will complete the task. so if a business is based upon an unmet need that is a massive unmet need huge unmet need half the american population want to write a book three percent who try succeed so therefore there is 97 of just the people who tried who are who feel an unmet need uh and want some support and there's as many as half the population that would use the tool so i know that the fundamentals of that tool are strong.

41:00But with that said, the early days with this business, we have currently about 400 paying customers on that platform. So in my world, that's not a big business. It just barely washes its face at this point. It's just all the revenue that it generates just goes back into developing it. And I know that we're conducting little experiments. So we're conducting experiments about how to tell our story and how to get people on boarded and how to make sure that people get looked after when they're on the platform and who we can partner with to get good results. So all of those little experiments are happening in the background.

41:38Because I believe in the fundamental story of that business, I couldn't really care less about the numbers that we're doing right now. So I'm happy to let that go. But if I had lost faith in the fundamental story of that business, then I'd just get rid of it. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. uh speaking about companies that are progressing and doing well there's obviously companies which see the opposite and one which is quite interesting which i don't know why i'm getting bombarded with it on my youtube algorithm but there's the maybe because everyone just likes a hate story or a downfall but the logan paul and the the prime drink is not performing very well i think from 2023 2024 uk revenue fell by 70 percent and in the us it's dropped by 40 percent which is raising uncertainties about where that's going to end up yep remember when it launched the hype was crazy yep but now there's an oversupply nobody really wants it it's getting a little bad press and then you can argue maybe that the founders are not as popular as they used to be this uh this follows a very predictable pattern um so when you get big founders there will be a massive initial boom that will drop by 60 percent afterwards if you look at what happens on an influencer campaign almost all the value of an influencer campaign happens within six months and then the long tail is very small so if i let's say i you've got million plus followers on your Instagram and YouTube.

43:13So let's just take your Instagram. How many? 1.3. 1.3. So let's say I did an influencer campaign with you. If I'm sensible about it, what I would expect to happen is that in the first six months of the partnership, we would capture most of the value that's in your network. Anyone who's going to buy will buy within that first six months. Now it won't happen on month one. It won't happen on month two, but about month three, we should see just a build. And then about month four, it should plateau. Month five, it starts to drop. Month six, it drops back down to where it was roughly month one. And we get this nice curve in the first six months.

43:49By partnering with you for six months, we get a lot of uplift there. And then if we continue the partnership into the future, we should just have basically a slow burn, what's called the long tail and the long tail effect. Now, what these guys haven't done is they haven't, what they've done is they've used their personal brand to create that initial boom, and now they're in the long tail. They haven't really essentially come up with a second campaign that makes it cool or keeps it cool. They haven't partnered with hundreds of streamers, and there's obviously these extra campaigns they could have run.

44:25So who sits up, like, Prime is lots of caffeine, right? Well, I think one of the biggest problems is I don't think the product is that great. The product might not be that great. But let's say it's just a caffeine drink. So who sits up all night? Streamers. So Logan Paul should have created 100 streamers who basically say, I sit up drinking Prime and streaming all night. And if you like sitting up all through the night doing computer games, great. And they could have found that as one avenue, one campaign. I feel like they kind of did, but it just didn't. Just didn't hit. Do you remember the brand Super Dry?

45:01Yeah. Right? Same story. Same story. They were so cool and they had this meteoric massive boom and everyone was into Super Dry. Everywhere you go now, the stores are empty. Yes, but I don't understand how they still exist though. Yeah. Nobody's in there. It's like a massive money laundering business. No, it's essentially they get the massive boom, they raise a bunch of money from investors, and then they're sitting on a pile of$200 million, and then they're trying to keep the brand alive with that$200 million as it goes out. It's really hard with these businesses because there are certain businesses that if you're too hot at the beginning, you have a meteoric rise and a meteoric fall.

45:44It's the difference between lighter fluid and hot coals. So lighter fluid burns hot and fast and straight away, but then as soon as you take your finger off, boom, it's gone. And then hot coals take forever to warm up, but they stay hot for a long time. Your job is to try and use that lighter fluid to build hot coals. And if you don't do that, then you have this meteoric rise and meteoric fall. Part of it could also be the product. I don't know. I've not actually tried Prime, but it could be just a terrible product where parents initially let their kids buy it And then they went, oh, wait a second, this is not good for the kids.

46:20The other issue too is that if you appeal to a teenage market, they age out of those products really fast. Now, I've seen this with several brands. Like, for example, even you and I are 10 years apart. I'm 44, you're 34. There are brands that were super cool for me that would have been super weird for you. Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was everything when I was 10, when you were born. and I bet you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles weren't even a part of your childhood. No, I think they were phasing out. Yeah. Because I remember I watched a few episodes, but it definitely wasn't. You're like, what the hell is this?

46:58Why is my big brother or sister interested in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? So people age out. Take a look at Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren have been super clever at basically targeting people 35 to 55. and if you get that market you've got 20 years worth of unchanging fashion habits you will just buy the same shit over and over and over between 35 and 55 you settle into your fashion choices and you just buy your fashion choices yeah you don't immediately switch so you don't try and become the cool trendy thing hugo boss made a big mistake and they were 35 to 55 year olds and then they tried to be super cool and they did big hugo boss logos and they tried to basically create something that was young and trendy and they got a little bit of a boom but then they lost their 35 to 55 year olds and now they're desperately trying to get back in with the 35 to 50 year olds quick interruption guys have you noticed how a lot of guests that i've been speaking to on this podcast have taken the leap and built something meaningful for themselves they didn't just think about it or make excuses they took a risk and they made it happen i don't want to hear about why you can't do it and why your situation is different.

48:11It's exactly why I have created the digital playbook for you. This is a step-by-step guide to you building your online presence, your social media following, and ultimately monetizing that following so you can live a life of freedom, both financially and geographically. So if we look at something like Newtonic, we've both invested into the company. Why do you think Newtonic will succeed? The reason I think Newtonic will succeed is, I don't know James as well as I know Chris, but Chris plays long-term games. So he has just stuck with his podcast and stuck with his podcast. He's a bit, I mean, he's okay with repetition.

48:55He's okay with doing the reps. He does three episodes of his podcast every single week. And he's someone who pushes through pain. like the difference between Logan Paul and like Logan Paul loves the hot thing and he like loves doing the explosive thing and then he moves on to the next thing and he loves doing the big new thing and then he moves on to the next thing Chris is much more of a different character when he does something he's willing to just endure and endure and endure and what I think he's going to do is use the initial lighter fluid of his brand and James's brand but they will do the work to build hot coals.

49:35And one of the things they did is they signed up a bunch of angel investors who can help with that. So they said, we're not going to do this all on our own. I think they've taken on board 20 or 30 angel investors, you, me, Cody Sanchez. There's all sorts of interesting people they've got who have built long-term businesses. Assembled the Avengers. They have. Yeah. And they're surrounding themselves with people who know how to transition a business from lighter fluid to hot coals. Do you know much about the beverage industry? I don't know a lot. I've had a friend of mine make hundreds of millions from the beverage industry.

50:07I have previously completely stayed away from anything fast moving consumer goods. I wouldn't like normally up until this point, I'd never touch supplements. I'd never touch food. I'd never touch drinks. I'd never touch anything that is a high volume business that has perishables or that has to be shipped around any of that. You try shipping a crate of cans around. Half your margin goes in just logistics. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nightmare. These guys seem to know how the formula works and they've got people on the team who know how the formula works. They're launching into a certain few key markets.

50:45They're making the brand desirable and unattainable first. So they're playing all the right games. um and i had a look because i was curious to see like at this stage you go to a store there's just an endless selection of drinks you can choose from even bottled water there's all these different yeah yeah every now and then one will do you go to the scene do you go to la i'll be going in a couple of weeks go to a shop called erwan erwan is like the mecca of health and wellness and And basically, this shop prints money, right? So it's a health food store that just prints money. $20 smoothies and people lining up out the door for their$20 smoothie.

51:30They sell$40 ,000. They've got something called the Haley Berry smoothie. They sell$40 ,000 of these a week, I think. And they're$20 each, right? So Irwan has an aisle for water. They just have a water aisle and it's hydrogen water. Yeah, all this trending stuff. Yeah, all this like this other water. What's it called when it's alkaline water, like sea salt water? So anyway, they just have an aisle of water. But yeah, like, yeah, they're everywhere. Jay Shetty has just done an amazing drink. Yoni, which is a tea drink. The key is these are incredibly difficult businesses. But if you can get a breakout, then you make a lot of money.

52:18Yeah. A lot of money, hundreds of millions to billions. But the key is to get a breakout moment, and most people cannot get a breakout moment. Jay Shetty can because he's got 10 million followers. Chris and James might be able to because they've got a few million followers. Mm-hmm. So this is a high stakes. Anyone listening to this, don't do drinks. there's some of the fastest growing beverage brands in the past year one of them which one of my friends invested into actually is olipop i don't know if you've heard of that so that hit over 400 million in sales in 2024 and is recently valued at 1.85 billion there's another one called poppy which i i hadn't heard of that one that surpassed 100 million in sales in 2023 acquired by Pepsi May 2025 for 1.95 billion.

53:10Then there's Liquid Death, which was the can of water. Because I remember seeing that and I was like, oh, I thought it was an energy drink. Super smart. And then I tried it and it was water. Just water. And for some reason after that, I kept going back to it because I liked the fact that it was in a can and not in a plastic bottle. So I don't think they've sold that yet as far as I'm aware, but that's - Hugely valuable. Valued at 1.4 billion. That even seems low. That was March 2024. Yeah, I would say it's double that now. Because Liquid Death, the key insight they had is that people wanted to be healthy but didn't want to necessarily look healthy.

53:53They wanted to make a beer can that had water in it. Water in a beer can, basically. The core idea was I want to be at a party. Everyone's got a beer in their hand. I'm not drinking beer. I'm drinking water, but I still look cool. I still look like I'm doing something dangerous, liquid death. And it was viral because people would say, what is liquid death? And they're like, oh, it's just water. It's such a risky one to call your product liquid death. Yeah. But it paid off. There was, I haven't heard of these, Waterloo Sparkling Water, Air Up. Air Up is big. That's, I haven't seen that one. Flavoured water.

54:31Yeah. So what they've done, Air Up is, they've done - huge promotion to teenagers and it's water with a smelly circle that gives it a scent and you drink the water in it and you can smell different scents and teenage girls love the stuff don't know why but it's it's really big in schools and they've focused on schools and it's basically once again it's trying to make water interesting or water cool and parents love it because your kid's drinking water and if hey if they need a smelly scent to drink water great yeah there was another one mogu mogu which when i googled it i realized it was the the drink which has got like the chewy bits of fruit in you probably recognize it but apparently that's very big in asia and then saratoga the the ashton hall blue bottle don't even know about it so you know ashton hall who We went viral for the daily routine, putting his face in ice.

55:33Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So every time he made a video, he was getting the blue bottled Saratoga water. And putting it in. And because of his videos, which were reaching, I mean, you get billions of views. Saratoga was also getting billions of views. So that has, apparently the sales grew from 13 million to 71 million in 2024. Attention is the currency. Attention is everything at the moment. the ability to get attention if you can do it and you get global attention absolutely wild yeah yeah you've seen the recently the jet 2 holiday advert no what's that one um you must have seen it in in some of the videos there's there's like a a catchy jet 2 line which is like and then the jet 2 holiday no no no no so that's been taken off recently like every uh real or tiktok is using that that jet two viral thing yeah slogan but it's it kind of does it in a funny way so if this is like um you know you're on holiday but there's something terrible that's happening it looks are they putting jet two on that yeah but because of that it's now getting billions of views and then it's raising the awareness of yeah jet two i mean it used to be when i grew up there were five radio stations, five newspapers, five television stations.

56:55And essentially the game was pretty simple. You just bought your way onto those. And now you have to earn your way onto millions of different platforms. Like essentially every YouTube channel is a channel. Every podcast is a channel, is a radio station. Every blog, every LinkedIn. I don't know if you know this, there are massive LinkedIn influencers. So there are people who have millions of followers on LinkedIn. They are essentially bigger than the FT. If they say something's hot in the business world, boom. Yeah. Because I guess the quality of the followers is much more valuable in comparison to TikTok.

57:37Exactly. So a TikToker might need 50 million followers to be valuable. On LinkedIn, And if you've got 200 ,000 of the right people and a single post can move the needle with CFOs or COOs or marketing directors, these guys are hugely successful. LinkedIn, by the way, is probably one of the biggest open opportunities for most people because only 1 % of people post and 99 % of people lurk and watch. if you go onto tiktok everyone's posting and there's some of the best creators in the world who are you know really in competition with each other for amazing content linkedin you can have fairly basic average content but still only one percent of people will post and 99 of people are just the audience and they will never post because you think about the dynamic on linkedin most people are working and they need approval to post because it's too associated with their job.

58:37Yeah. So like, let's say you work at Coca-Cola, you might be the marketing director at Coca-Cola, but you still wouldn't post on your LinkedIn because you don't want it to be associated with your work. It has to be an approved post. You could lose your job for something that goes wrong. So these people, they're going on LinkedIn to view stuff, but they're not posting. So if you can be a LinkedIn influencer, massive opportunity. Are you quite active on that? I've got 120 ,000 followers on LinkedIn. So I'm a big deal on LinkedIn, yeah. If you have a thought, you just write about it. Yeah, I just put business-related content on LinkedIn.

59:16And sure enough, it does move the needle. Like if I put something on, you know, I only really promote my own businesses. so because i've got seven different businesses i'll just talk about the stuff i'm doing but i can see directly that if i do a good post on linkedin lots of people sign up um you ever talk about the companies that you've invested in or yeah yeah no i'm happy to talk about anything that i'm doing what i don't do is take sponsorships like i don't have any sponsors or the reason that i can be so open online and you've seen me be political and say stuff that you know could get most people in trouble but that's because i don't have any sponsors to answer yeah it's just me and my companies it's the best feeling that's the way i've gone about it total freedom people always used to be like oh yeah um mike doesn't want to be entirely truthful because he'll lose his sponsorships i'm like i don't have any what sponsorships i'm not sponsored as soon as things started taking off i was just trying to get rid of yeah all the sponsors but what you what what you should do is start building out your brands.

1:00:18Yeah. You know, be sponsored by your own companies. Yeah. You know, you could easily, you're 34, by the time you're 40, you could have 100 million worth of equity. Yeah. Well, I liked it when I asked you some advice when it came to investing. Mm-hmm. And you gave me a good, solid approach to go by, which was you put together a fund and then when you make an investment, it would be one 30th of the fund which you have something like that yes yeah if you're going to have a fund you need 30 investments to get what's called portfolio risk so if let's say you have 30 million you put a million into 30 companies and now you actually have a diversified portfolio yeah um you know so essentially you're you're de-risking any particular bad decision but for you menu.

1:01:09you The money you make, you just put that into S &P500 or you put it into a diversified portfolio of liquid assets, but then use your influence to gain equity in speculative speculative assets. so like let's say you make a million a year and that you can put that let's say you put that into a combination of property and shares and bonds and any bitcoin let's say anything that you can easily sell um so you just have a diversified portfolio over there that's your money portfolio that means if you get hit by a bus it doesn't change the value in that but then you say all all right, I'm going to put my time into five brands and I'm going to take 10 to 30 % equity in these five brands.

1:01:54No money, but you get my influence, you get my network, you get my, you might, when I say no money, no major money, you might put a small amount of money in, but you try and structure those deals influence for equity. Yeah. So these are not my brands. These are other companies, which I maybe believe in. You want to be a minority shareholder. You really only need to be good at two things. one structuring the deal so you can get out at the right time so you need some clause in the agreement that allows you to be a pain in the ass if you need to be a pain in the ass so the ability to override certain hiring decisions or the ability to um uh override uh the the ability to limit their income limit their dividends um so something that prevents them from being able to take money out of the company when they want to so then they go oh let's get rid of Mike.

1:02:44All right. Let's buy him out on the next round. Let's get him out of the deal. All right. So you want to have a stick that you can have if necessary. So that's structuring the deal. And then the ability to very rapidly make a few key introductions or a few key posts that get them speed to value. You've done your job. You can move on to the next deal. And now you're an equity holder in everything that company does going forward. Yeah. That's my biggest fear is getting myself involved with someone who doesn't have the best business ethics. Yeah. Because it's a cutthroat game out there. You can't just assume that everybody's nice and has your best interests at heart.

1:03:27Well, if you're trading on your reputation, you can't do anything to damage the reputation. That's part of the currency. So you've got to be super selective. Also, your million people trust you. You can't ever abuse that trust. you know that that is what ultimately what are people paying for they're paying for the trust that people place in your decisions so you've got to pick businesses where you go you know what i love this business this is a great business i the i i have the product myself i pay for it i order it i use it um i've been trying to find something like this i like the team i've met the team of you know we've we've spent time together um you know i would happily hang out with them yeah i think that's a lot to do with the i guess the founders if you if the founder is a good it's a good person guy woman then well you said with chris you've go back to high school did you say yeah since university yeah so you university you've known chris for that long yeah and then the opportunity to work together and james as well like i don't know if you've seen his content but he like he calls companies brands people out for their bullshit i have seen so you know he's creating gummy bears he has to be really careful so that he's not in a position where people are going to call him out oh yeah and his product for his bullshit if there is any book because i know there must be so many people who want to get james for something yeah because he he gives it yeah he gives it so they want so i have faith in the fact that i know chris and james are going to be going through the ingredients making sure that nobody can pick it apart yeah and and yeah because I saw James do a scientific assessment of gummy bears.

1:05:07Yes, creatine. Creatine lollies. Amazing video. Yeah. And yeah, so that's the kind of, exactly that. It's the kind of person you want to invest in because you know that they do things right. Yeah. I don't understand how all those creatine gummies were able to go to the market with such a low amount of creatine. Because anything goes these days. Like we're living in such a complex world. No one's checking. There are no grownups. Yeah. You can now do anything. The governments have lost control of their citizens. Companies don't know what's going on inside their own companies. The whole world is being disrupted at the moment.

1:05:44There are no grown-ups in the room. So essentially, there are always bigger fish to fry. If you go and report there are creatine gummies that don't have a creatine in them, there's no one who has the capacity to look into that other than another influencer. Yeah. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But look, what's happening in the world at the moment is the world is going through a massive fundamental change. So 300 years ago, we were an agricultural society. We had two systems of government, which was essentially feudalism and colonialism. And that was all land-based, that everything was about seizing land under feudalism and colonialism.

1:06:25And that came to an end with industrialized economies. And basically, from 1750 to 1850, there was the fading out of the colonial agricultural feudal system and the phasing in of the Industrial Age. And by 1850, we were a fully industrialized Western economy. Factories had replaced farms as the primary economic engine. And then from 1850 to 2000 was the peak of the industrialized period. But then from 2000 to now is the fading in of the digital age. And the digital age means that geographical borders don't really matter. Anyone can be a media company. Anyone can get a message out to the world.

1:07:15Money has become digital, Bitcoin. So all of the rules and regulations and norms of the industrial age are coming to an end and they're all being replaced by the digital age. Yeah. And that basically from governments to banks to schools to institutions to brands, everything is being disrupted. And we've just hit the big uptick. So the first 25 years of the digital age was 2000 to 2025. And that's where we laid the foundation of cloud and social and mobile and a little bit of AI. And now we're about to go through the big uptick for the next 25 years, which is a complete overhaul of all of society.

1:08:02And society will basically, everything will look different from government to healthcare, to schools, to everything will be reorganized in the next 25 years. That's interesting. Speaking of reorganization, I looked at the recent figures for millionaire migration in July 2025. I don't think there's any surprise as to which country is topping the list for leaving. And for gaining. Yeah. So I think it's actually got worse for the UK because I think in 2024, the worst was China they were losing 15 ,200 millionaires the UK was now was 9 ,500 now the UK is 16 ,500 yeah expected to lose about 1500 millionaires a month and then China is minus 7 ,800 then India South Korea Russia Brazil France and then it's pretty small numbers then we go into gaining obviously uae is now top of the charts last year it was 6 000 6 700 this year it's 9 800 yeah then after uae it's the u.s yep 7 500 it's for different reasons so the uae people come here because it's a frontier city it's very low extremely low tax um and it's very exciting with Frontier Opportunities, people go to the US because it's by far still the biggest market.

1:09:36It's the biggest money. There's the most unicorns. There's the most talent. The USA is still the big dog. So even though it's high tax, you're paying taxes, but you're getting an opportunity. Whereas in the UK, you're paying high taxes, but you're not getting a big opportunity. Yeah. So you're paying, it's like checking into a three-star hotel and paying five-star prices because it used to be a five-star hotel. Yeah. And then after the US, you've got, Italy's doing quite well, 3 ,600. Yeah, because you pay 200 ,000 tax, 200 ,000 euros, and that's it. Yeah. That's it. Your global income, you're completely covered for tax.

1:10:19So it's 200 ,000 per year. Yeah, not on what you earn in Italy. So if you earn money in Italy, you pay normal Italian taxes. But if you live in Italy and you have global income, then you pay$200 ,000 as a one-off for your global income. And you can live in Italy by paying$200 ,000. So let's say someone is earning$30 million a year. They pay$200 ,000, so long as they didn't earn it in Italy. That's interesting. Is that a recent thing? Yeah, it used to be$100 ,000, then$200 ,000. So they were finding their feet with it. And yeah, they introduced it a few years ago. And then you've got Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Portugal.

1:10:59Switzerland is an incredibly well-run country. Only 25 % of GDP is government spending. Anything you don't like, you can go and have a referendum on very easily. Incredibly well-run. Like if ever you've been in Switzerland, trains, government, they pride themselves on efficiency. Yeah. So you're paying taxes, but you're getting a lot for your taxes. I think people are interested in value. So like no one minds or wealthy people in particular don't mind paying a lot if they get a lot. You look at what wealthy people buy. Well, you know, they'll spend a fortune on a watch, tens of thousands on a watch because it's the best watch and it holds its value and it communicates status and it does all of those sorts of things.

1:11:49millionaires will spend a lot of money on travel because they want the five-star experience. But what millionaires will not do is pay for the five-star experience and get the three-star. And also look at the way millionaires, take millionaires, imagine a millionaire checks into a hotel and they're getting a three-star experience. And also imagine everyone in the hotel hates the guests. They hate the high paying guests. So they let you know, we do not like you, even though you spend the most money, even though you pay for our jobs, even though you pay for everything, even though you keep this hotel running, we secretly, we hate you and we want you to know it.

1:12:29It's not that, it's not, it's an open secret that we hate you. Millionaires are just going to go, this is not where I want to stay. I want to, I want to, like, I don't own paying, but I want to be respected. I want to be safe. I don't want to be attacked on the street. I don't want to be attacked for my reputation. I don't want to have a situation where I say something like me personally. I've said, hey, look, I'm in the 1 % who pay 30 % of the taxes in the UK. And then hundreds of people online will just say, get out. Like I had the edit. Or they said, get out what? Because you're complaining or because they're trying to give you some restrictive advice.

1:13:04Because I'm saying, no, no, sorry. There's two types of get out. There's smart people saying, get out, Dan. This is pointless. and then there are like there are people like um there's there's literally there is a guy who is like the editor of a major magazine but he's very left-leaning and he's like i'm saying the uk is overtaxed and we're going to lose millionaires and we're going to lose our engine of our economy and he's like uh well you know why are you still here right and he even like he his implication was I wasn't born in the UK, so get out of the UK. So for someone who's generated millions of taxes, for someone who's created hundreds of jobs, there are literally people saying, well, if you don't like paying ridiculous taxes and if you had the audacity to suggest that the government isn't being run well, just get out, leave.

1:13:59Like, you shouldn't be here. um oh is there actually any benefit that comes from millionaires leaving because i know a lot of people talk about oh the the the damages it's going to do but does it actually bring about any benefits so imagine if a load of millionaires do leave and for example they all put list their properties on the market, that increases the supply, brings down the property prices. So does it make things a little bit more affordable for the people who stay? Well, West London property has crashed. So it's down 35%. Mayfair, Kensington, Chelsea is down 35%. The problem is when you live inside a country and the entire lending system is inside the country, what happens is you go to the bank and you say, hey, I'd like to buy a Mayfair property, you're now subjected to the fact that you're part of this system.

1:14:59And because the economy is dropping or it's flatlining, the lending criteria is more difficult, the interest rates are higher. So you end up with a difficulty of local citizens being able to buy the property. So what typically happens is that when you crash a property market, foreign buyers come in and buy So what is actually happening now is that you get British people who moved to Dubai 10 years ago. How long have you been here? Five and a half. Five and a half years. So here's what might happen. What might happen is you've not had to pay taxes for five years. So you've probably got all this money saved up.

1:15:37You might go, oh, Mayfair is cheap. I'm going to go in and buy a Mayfair property. So you might go and buy that, but now you're living over here. Now, technically, you wouldn't be a foreign buyer because you're a British person, but you might hear about it with people in Dubai might sit there and go, oh, we're going to buy up the UK. Now, this is actually happening. So as it currently stands, the Qatar Wealth Fund owns more London property than the royal families of Britain. So London is more Qatari-owned than it is British-owned as far as the top end. So we've now got the Duke of Westminster.

1:16:17He has to pay enormous amounts of taxes. He has to pay this inheritance tax every 10 years called provisional tax. He has to pay all sorts of crazy British taxes. And he also is hated because he's a British aristocracy. And who does he end up selling his properties to? Norway Sovereign Wealth Fund and Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund. So our own British aristocracy is in the decline and they can't even survive. And it ends up in foreign ownership. So all the profits go back to Qatar and to Norway now. Covent Garden is now owned by the Norwegians. The Shard is Qatari. A beautiful Battersea property, Battersea power station development is Qatari.

1:17:05That's so weird. Yeah. Is there any... negative implications of that in the future, the fact that a lot of the UK properties are not owned by - Well, it just means that the added value and the profit goes overseas. We've sold off all of our primary assets. So all the British car companies. If you go to Los Angeles, everyone wants a British brand. So Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, McLaren - Probably not Jaguar anymore. And not Jaguar, Range Rover. So all of those are the big brands that people want to own, the big British brands. People love those brands. They're all foreign-owned now. So what we've done is we've essentially sold off the future profits.

1:17:54But when foreign ownership takes over, essentially all the rent that people pay goes overseas. So basically by crashing the market, you would think that it creates opportunities for local people. It doesn't really. It just creates foreign buyers. BlackRock is buying up all the farms right now. BlackRock is buying up all the family homes to rent back to British citizens. So the UK property market will be owned by US private equity firms. So that is deliberately created by left-leaning. All of these left-leaning policies, they sound good and they're disastrous. us. Imagine you had two children and you're a millionaire and one child you say, don't worry about money.

1:18:40I will always take care of you. You will get a huge inheritance. And when I die, you will get a massive inheritance and I will always take care of you financially. And the other child, you say, I'm a millionaire, but you're not a millionaire. I'm never going to take care of you and you will not get an inheritance. Now, this kid is going to go out and make their own way in life. This kid is going to sit around being a lazy shit. Probably be a drug addict. Yeah, right. Because of the different messaging. So even though it sounds nice to say, I will always take care of you, it produces a terrible result.

1:19:16And it sounds terrible to say, you've got to make it on your own. It produces a wonderful result. Now, the left-leaning people, they sound nice by saying, hey, we're going to take care of everybody, and they create disastrous economies. And the right-leaning people say, you've got to go make it on your own. They create great economies that people want to live in. So this is unfortunately what has happened. So you asked, is there any upside benefit? Unfortunately, the prices come down on these things, but it ends up in foreign hands. There aren't enough people in the UK to afford these. Because when the economy contracts, the lending contracts.

1:19:54The other thing that happens is that you would think that if millionaires leave the UK, they take their businesses with them. They actually don't have to take their businesses with them. So if I left the UK, let's say I own a gym. I don't, but let's say I owned a gym in Putney. I actually don't have to leave in order to, I don't have to close that business down or sell that business. So I could have a business in Putney, but I could live in the UAE. You give up your residency. I give up my tax residency there, but I still own the business and I can still take that money out and end up with it tax-free here in Dubai.

1:20:28When you force a business owner to leave, they can maintain their business. Because of technology today, they can maintain the business in the UK while not paying tax because they live abroad. So it's just a complete loss. I do wonder if they would ever introduce something similar to what the US does, whereby regardless of where you relocate to, as long as you are a US citizen, you always have to pay taxes. Do you think the UK would do that? The UK probably could, but it would take several years of campaigning to do it. And it's a complex set of laws. I think a lot of British people would probably say it's better to give up my passport.

1:21:13Because a lot of millionaires have two passports. Yeah. So I've got two passports. Do you have two passports now? No, no, no. Okay. So it's not that hard to get a second passport. So you would - Wouldn't mind the Spanish one, to be honest. Yeah, you could, right? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of countries that like there's one British Virgin Islands I forget which island it is, but you only have to invest$200 ,000 into their economy and you get a passport. And it's like a passport that's respected by 140 countries and all this sort of stuff. St. Kitts, maybe. Anyway, you basically, yeah, UK might do that.

1:21:56It will impact the middle. The middle will be stuck. But the rich are never stuck. You have to adopt one of two mindsets. Mindset number one is we make our country desirable for wealthy people to come to. And that mindset produces Dubai, Switzerland, Singapore, the wealthiest, most successful countries in the world. They have a mindset called let's make our country desirable for the right people, right? Wealth creators, high producers, highly productive, highly talented people. We're going to be super desirable for those people. And then everyone else gets to ride on their coattails. and then the opposite mindset is let's make it a living hell for people who are wealthy let's let's pin them down let's let's try and take their money off them let's punitive taxes punitive fees let's see how many things we can lump them with and let's call them assholes and let's tell them that their shoulders need to be broader and you know we'll get you one way or another the truth is that above a certain amount of money and it's not that high it's probably five million above 5 million you've just got the world of options you don't have to put up with that shit yeah so if you know i mean even the u.s a lot of people in the u.s are actually surrendering their passports but it's at a higher level of wealth um but they're famously there are many people who have who've let go of their passports now it the u.s at least has a major reason to keep your passport which is the biggest economy in the world um a lot of people don't want to give that up but what is britain offering what's the what is the big british thing that we like what's the british let's say i've got access to an irish passport let's say i've got access to a you know uh french passport or like let's say i've got an ancestor or i can get a passport somewhere in the eu um australia for me like what is it what is it that i'm you know you're trying to pin me down to something yeah what what do i get you know i know it's a horrible way to think about it, but it's just such a terrible thing.

1:24:02It's like the difference between a business. I mean, imagine this building. If the management here said, we want you to stay and we're going to make your stay here the best we possibly can, or we want to tie you up in contracts, we want to figure out how we can get you to never leave, right? You're just going to get out. Yeah. I wonder what the UAE would need to do in order to drive me out because I'm at a point now where I like it a lot. where if they started introducing some taxes, which they did with the corporation tax, they could if they wanted to keep pushing it. But at what point is there a tipping point where I would, me personally, where I'd be like, nah, I'm going to tax too much now.

1:24:45There is a tipping point. And especially, look, the UAE has a lot that doesn't work for it. It's too hot. Yesterday was 52 degrees. And you have to spend so much time indoors. And there's all these different things. there comes a point where you do weigh it up. And let's say, for example, that they said, we want to tax your global income, everything you do globally, we want to tax it at 24 % on corporation tax. And then if you take any money out of the company, we want to tax it at 45 % on top of that. How long are you going to stick around? Well, that's the British system. And the thing is, a lot of people here, they have no real reason to actually be here.

1:25:24They They could be gone in a second. They could be gone in a second. I've not bought any property here for that exact reason because I like the freedom. Let's be real. This is a desert. People are moving to a literal desert for low taxes. Yeah. That's how it works. Now, they've done well with it. It's amazing. It's an incredible place to live. My kids are here and we're talking about the fact that I've been saying to them a hundred times while we're here, if you can build a city in a desert, you can do anything. If humans can build Dubai, we can do anything. And I'm trying to use it as a way of inspiring them to say, look, this place is literally a desert and they've built one of the best cities in the world here.

1:26:05But the truth is that people are moving from around the world to live in an inhospitable desert to have low taxes. That's how much we like low taxes, right? And so there comes a point where if Dubai basically said corporation tax is 24%, income tax is 45%, VAT is 20%, these are all the British numbers. There comes a point where you go, ugh. And then also, Mike, if you die, 40 % of your estate gets taxed as well. And you're now sitting there going, well, there are better places to be. Yeah. And then Saudi could just, for example, if Dubai wanted to go down that route and Saudi would be like, oh, hey.

1:26:41There will always be a market. There will always be a market for the low tax model. Yeah. Right? It'll move. It'll move around the world. Someone will recognize this is what we need to do. By the way, the UK could do this. So, for example, all of Dubai is two and a half times the size of London. And you could just say we're going to have special economic zones in Wales, in Liverpool, in Blackpool, in the north of England. take all of the areas that are low socioeconomic places that need growth. We're going to create 10 economic free trade zones in the UK. And if you relocate to those zones, you pay no taxes for a period of time, let's say, or you pay really reduced taxes.

1:27:26All of those cities would just spring up overnight. I mean, you would have Liverpool just become roaring Liverpool. You'd have the Welsh, you know, massive development just going on. If you committed to essentially take the land area of Dubai, split it in 10, put it 10 little locations around the UK and create a replica of Dubai taxes in those 10 areas, you would have massive economic growth in the UK. And it would happen fast. So why do they not do that? Because they're idiots. Because they've never run a business. These are people who have never run a business. They've never had to maintain...

1:28:06Think about in business, if you make a mistake, you get punished immediately in government if you overspend they increase your budget like you know like they're just not sensible people so imagine okay we'll put we'll imagine this scenario you're now prime minister of the uk you can you can literally do whatever you want you don't have to ask permission or get the majority vote you can just do it implement it straight away what are some of the the first things that you would do to try and get the country by country. So special economic zones, I would definitely do that one. So straight away, I want to have low tax special economic zones.

1:28:45I would reduce corporation tax. So here's the problem, and I'll get to the solution. But one of the problems is this, most people don't know this, but every time the government goes to the central bank and asks for more debt, they have to commit to a covenant of what they will introduce in exchange to get that debt. So for example, if they go to the central bank and say, we want to get a hundred billion, they say, well, how are you going to pay for that? They say, oh, well, we'll put VAT up. Do you remember when VAT was 15 % and 16 and a half, 17 and a half, 20 %? So they moved VAT from 15 to 20%.

1:29:25Why did they do that? Because every time they went to the central bank, the central bank just simply says, how do you intend to pay for it? And they have to come up with something. Most recently, they went to the central bank and they said, how do you intend to pay for that? They say, oh, well, we'll hit the farmers. So now they introduce these farm taxes. And then they say, oh, well, we'll introduce a wealth tax. So they have to come up with a way of doing it. Now, the problem is that when they get those bonds and they get that debt, they sign a covenant that means they will maintain that policy until that debt is paid down or rolled over.

1:30:00So a lot of what I would do as prime minister, I would get in as prime minister and discover I can't do much, right? Because the previous governments have tied my hands to these covenants. So here's what I would have to do. What I would have to do is create a two-speed economy, one that impoverishes the British people and weighs them down with all these taxes that have been brought in and makes their life shit, because that's already set in stone. The government has already put too much weight on the British people. And at the same time, I would have to create a second system for international money to come in and get extremely favorable terms.

1:30:38And the two systems would have to coexist for about 10 years until such time as this system can then cover the costs of this system. So what I'd have to do is I'd have to say, sorry, if you're British, you pay you're going to have 10 years of being a second-class citizen in your own town and for the next 10 years we're going to create amazing special economic zones to invite all the british people who previously have moved abroad and taken their money with them to come back so we're going to do special deals for them to come back into the system and we're also going to lock in special deals for millionaires around the world to come and come to the system so i would if i If I didn't have to worry about getting re-election, to unravel the mess that we're in, I would have to do terrible for British people, amazing for non-British people.

1:31:31It would be the most incredibly unfair thing for 10 years. but then the people coming into the system and bringing all their money with them would create so much economic growth that we could then get rid of the debt reduce the amount of um interest that's paid on on the debt get better favorable terms roll over the debt from five percent down to three percent uh take the burden off the british people and then lower the taxes on british people as well yeah horrible situation but that's yeah and then how would you how would you ever get approval for that. Because you would have to tell the average British person that the millionaires are going to pay less tax than you.

1:32:10And they would never accept it. You would have to say, listen, you're not economically that important. You earn$40 ,000 a year. You pay$8 ,000 of taxes. We'd spend$18 ,000 on you per year. You're actually a$10 ,000 a year loss. We need someone to come in and cover your expenses. So we need a millionaire to come in who can pay$500 ,000 a year of taxes on millions of income. Now, mind you, by the way, as radical as this sounds, that's exactly what Italy has done. That 200 grand a year is only for non-Italians. Yeah. Right? So it does happen, but you've basically got to essentially disadvantage your own people relative to international people.

1:32:54You do that for five to 10 years, you fix your economy, and then you can include your own citizens in those advantages. Would you ever get into politics?

1:33:29in the world to be a digital business, theoretically, is the UK. Best time zone, great universities. It's a small little geographical thing. It's got amazing access to the USA, amazing access to Europe and Asia. It should be the center of the world. It's got beautiful farmlands. It has all sorts of things going for it. If you were to turn it around, it would be fundamentally the best place in the world to build from it, to be the digital heart of the world. Yeah. So what you, you would need the people in charge to be younger and more with times or just more educated about what the hell's younger.

1:34:10You have to get rid of the blob. The blob is the civil servants who are all in their fifties and sixties now, who essentially they've all just entrenched themselves. You need to basically fire everyone, you know, like you'd need to, if you've seen what happened in Argentina with, um, the prime minister who had a chainsaw and he came in and he just basically, he was a comedian and he basically won the election. And his whole election campaign is, I'm going to take a chainsaw to government. And he's like, he's ripping up all of these departments. He went from 31 government ministries down to 11.

1:34:45He just slashed the government. And he has the highest approval rating in the world. The government has gone from loss making to profit making. They've gone from all the citizens being horrifically oppressed by debt to being freed up. So, yeah, he's turned things around in two to three years. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully it starts to get better. Because I love the UK. I love the UK. I love the fact that I grew up there. Particularly in that time period, it was a great time to grow up in the UK. It's made me who I am today. Yeah. Can't beat the British sense of humor. Yeah.

1:35:21Yeah. Yeah, I grew up in Australia, same sort of thing. We're also destroying Australia. Australia is being destroyed at the moment. Left-leaning governments, right? Yeah. Yeah. So where are you going to see yourself in the next five years or so? Because I know you're being around quite a lot. If it gets any worse, so the UK Chancellor's got a new budget that comes out, the autumn budget. If it goes the way that I think it will go, which will be worse, I'm probably going to move to Switzerland or UAE. I just can't handle it anymore. I've got too much going on globally to just deal with the nonsense.

1:35:57Yeah. And then I'll look forward to the day that I can come back. I'd love to go back to the UK. I'd love to pay loads of taxes. I'd love to pay a million a year in taxes in the UK. I just don't want to be hated for it, and I just don't want it to be oppressive and punitive. Yeah. And I guess this is a good opportunity to hear, and Switzerland's good for the kids as well. Switzerland would be great for the kids, yeah. Yeah. Or I might go to the US, but I would go to the US to pay lots of taxes, but to access huge opportunities. I feel like the USA is still a four-star hotel that has four-star prices.

1:36:37You're still getting a lot for your money. I would say this about the USA. The USA is probably one of the best places in the world to be rich. Like if once you're on a million a year or more, like the USA has amazing houses and luxuries and things and stuff to do. And, you know, you can live amazingly in the USA. You just have to earn in the top 1%. So the USA is very, very good if you're doing well. Well, even for me, whenever I do a fair bit of traveling now, it's more so for business collaborations, podcasts. every time i go to america they end up being like the most productive and i don't life-changing trips for me in terms of my career yeah the amount of people to collaborate with the people i meet is that's why i'm going back in i think it'll be in one week i'm gonna do a little tour new york and then la have you ever seen the chart of um the 50 biggest companies in the world are they all in america they're all american there's there's like one german there's like one nordic there's like a saudi aramco nvidia is american yeah um of course yeah they're like they're 40 out of the 50 are american and you also do a like a chart of private equity funding or vc capital um any of those things it's all it's still all american centric awesome well i appreciate you coming on again it's always a pleasure i always feel like i I learned something when I speak to you.

1:38:15So good seeing you, man. And yeah, hopefully we'll do round three in a year's time. And hopefully we celebrate at some point in the future. Hopefully this will be worth a billion. A couple of billion and we can have a big party on a yacht. Awesome. Where can everyone find you? At Daniel Priestley, danielpriestley.com. Yeah, so at Daniel Priestley is on like Twitter or X and Instagram and all that sort of stuff. Awesome.