Episode 471: Lance Armstrong: The Real Doping Story, $100M Loss, and His Venture Capital Comeback

27:55What was the question? What is the one thing that people don't know about your dad? How much do you fart? All right, I got to go. I'll call you later. We're keeping that in there. We're keeping that in there. I love you. Love you. Bye. I can't lie. We're keeping that in there. That's 100 % keeping that in there. I'm very proud of my fart prowess. It's a thing. I don't know. She's right. Do you eat a lot of coniferous vegetables? I don't know. No, I don't. Do you have gut problems? I don't know. I just know. But anyways, that's funny she said that. It's true. That is true. That's true. That's the big thing.

28:35I'm sort of a world champ when it comes to that. Really? So you're a world champ in a lot of different areas. That's hilarious. I'm glad that Olivia called just in that time. That's the 14-year-old. She's not actually 15-year-old. Wait, how old is Olivia? I'm 14. So then, that's so funny. What would your 17-year-old say? Same thing? That you're like a champion farter? Yeah, he's 15, almost 16. Oh, he's 15, okay. He would, yeah, he probably said the same thing. Because you've been, because they, you, this happened, like your whole, the downfall, so to speak, happened like, what, 15 years ago, you said?

29:13Like 13? 12, 13 years ago. 12, 13. How did it, like, did it soften you? Did you become more playful because you, is that when you. I was always playful before that. You were always this way. So how did what happened to you with the doping change your personality? Or did it change your personality? Did you become much more, was there more humility because of it? Or did you lose a lot of friends? So then you had to like kind of pivot and... Look, I don't, I think you lose, I certainly know you lose a piece of the following. And anybody in that situation would. And anybody in that situation would lose a part of the team, right?

29:48So the parts of the team that were there, because it was their job to be there, right? Whether that's an agent, a business manager, a publicist, whatever. You know, people that have jobs because of this machine, right? Right. Which was me. When that machine goes from 100 miles an hour to zero, it's not a business anymore. So those people then, so that part of my life went away, which is to be expected, right? I mean, you're going to lose people like that. So, but people that, I mean, I didn't have anybody who I would have sworn was a great, amazing, true friend that I lost. Like all the people that I loved and I would have called in the darkest moments, they're still there.

30:35I mean, they stayed. And so now, you know, there was obviously the situation with Livestrong, which did go away. Right. But you started, can you talk about that a little bit? Because, I mean, you did raise, because of you, there was like a five, was it 500 million, 700 million? What was it? Well, yeah, at the time, 500. Million was raised. And it was, who thought of those yellow bands? Nike thought of the yellow wristband. And so. And fun, fun fact, my partner at Next Ventures, Mel Strong, was on, she worked at Nike at the time and was part of that original team that, that, that had this crazy idea, which there's still some debate on whose actual idea it was because it turned out to be an amazing idea.

31:22But so just wild to be totally reunited with her and having been her partner the last six years. But yeah, so that, right. I mean, just answer the, I mean, I started the organization when I was diagnosed. So many years ago. And then obviously, yeah, I mean, that was in 1996. it was fueled by two things. One, I mean, if I was diagnosed in 96, we were officially a 501c3 in 1997. I won the Tour de France in 1999, right? So that's the first sort of called tipping point. Right. And then, but then the organization continued to grow and then the yellow wristband came in 2004, right? And we sold 82 million of those in a fairly short amount of time.

32:11I used to wear one. Yeah. So it, but, but that was, that was, you know, if there was, if, and I considered it a friend, right? I considered the organization and the movement, a friend of mine. And that friend went away, right? Yeah. Because that friend chose to go away. It's too bad because it's a great thing. I mean. Yeah. Well, it's still a thing. Is it though? Like, I don't really hear about it or see it or is it really a thing? Yeah, it is. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, you don't have a relationship with Nike, of course. But yet. I mean, yes and no. I don't. I don't. I'm not a sponsored athlete.

32:46Mel is no longer at Nike. Obviously, she's full time. What did she do at Nike when she was at Nike? The better question is, what did she not do? Oh, really? Okay. She was there almost 20 years and worked her way up. She ran a ton of businesses there. She's a force of nature. But that's a whole separate podcast. Like, you should have her on your business. That's actually very interesting. Interesting, yeah. She's a force of nature. Does that mean, by the way, Nex is only six years old? Because you said she's your partner for the last six years. That's right. So you started Nex with Mel. Yep. Okay.

33:20And so obviously the relationship with Nike was pretty good if you became partners with one of the head executives there. Yeah, she had decided to leave Nike. But I still have, I mean, I'm still very close to Phil Knight, the CEO of the business as of nine months ago was Elliot Hill, who before he went back to Nike to take that job, lived in Austin. Grew up in Austin, Texas kid. I consider him a dear friend. So I still have a relationship through that, but I don't wear the swoosh. Well, yeah. But also, though, you're not like a professional athlete anyway. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, I mean, you're going to, yeah.

34:05That's not, so then how did it go from, okay, so then that's with Livestrong and all of that, Mel became, so how did you kind of ricochet into the venture area? Like, were you always interested in like CPG brands or business? I had tended towards consumer brands. Okay. So we're drinking Waterloo water, like that's one, for example. Is this one of your brands? Yeah. I love Waterloo, actually. It's really good. That's right. It's one of my favorite types of. Good. Yeah, this is very good. Yeah. When did you guys invest? At what stage? Well, these I just did personally before Next Venture. So I did Waterloo before that.

34:43I did Athletic Brewing before that. I did Honey Stinger before that. I did just other. That's just on your own before you even started actual. And so we raised fund one. It's technically a 2019 vintage. So we fully deployed the first fund. and now almost done raising our second fund. And, you know, that is, there has been some consumer exposure there, but less and less. I still have a soft spot for it, but that's, there are funds that focus exclusively on consumer and they're great at it. Right. And not that we wouldn't do consumer, but we just do less now. What do you do more of now? We do more, it's, we define investing in, if you think about health and you think about investing in health, and you can look at it in a simple way, really two ways, upstream care, downstream care, right?

35:40So preventative care and more sick care. We will dabble in both of those and I'll give you examples, right? So we did a point of care diagnostics company in fund one called Vital Bio. So lab testing in the doctor's office, very fast results. Sounds an awful lot like another story that this world has heard before, but this one works. We explore a lot of opportunities. Oh, yeah, it sounds very familiar. That's right. Right, so without naming any names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We explore opportunities in and around Medicare, Medicaid. But at the same time, we did Outside Inc. We did a really cool, our last investment in Fund One, because you're so passionate about this space, you probably know about it.

36:24We were talking about Stacey Sims earlier. She does work with a company called Eternal. So that was our 21st and last deal out of Fund 1. So however you define Eternal and optimization, a health play, there's a lot of that. So are you like a big, do you like... But let me just finish on Eternal. The thing I love about Eternal, other than just believing that society has fundamentally shifted their views on health, I do believe that. I believe, and I live that. I love backing exceptional founders. And Alex Mather, who started Eternal and has been successful many times over, is just a guy you wouldn't bet against.

37:06So what was it? You were going somewhere? No, no. I was going to say, like, are you someone who's like, are you really into like longevity and biohacking? Like, do you kind of like gravitate to that stuff or? I don't. Probably not. Okay. I'm not opposed to that, but you were, I mean, I have a gym at my house. Right. But I don't have a cold plunge. I don't have a sauna yet, although we're getting those this summer. I was going to say, do you like that kind of, like, you're not even just a sauna? Yeah, I don't like cold, but the sauna I would do every day. So that's, but I'm not, I don't invest a lot of time in all these things that you read about or see on TikTok or Instagram.

37:47Like, do you think a lot of it's just a bunch of nonsense? Yeah. And be honest. I think lifestyle is the biggest factor. What would you say the number one core or the keystone habit is for someone to be optimally at their best? Well, sleep's an obvious answer. Okay. But there are people that are just really challenged by sleep and they try different things and different hacks. And it's very hard to get that right. But I've been blessed my entire life to be an incredible sleeper. Like I just, I can sleep. Really? Yeah, I can sleep. I get to lay down right here, right now and go to sleep. Wow. It's so weird.

38:28Yeah, my wife hates me. Yeah, I hate you too. And I think, you know, and my diet is not great, but getting better. What do you eat? What kind of stuff do you eat? I eat whatever I want to eat. Although I remember that because I went to see Kill, we went to see Kill Tony and you had like four of these like gross, like hot dogs that they had in that room. And probably Diet Coke. Yeah, just like nonsense. But what I find to be super ironic - But five years ago, I would have had 10 cocktails. But the interesting thing is the people I know who are at the most elite, elite, high-performance people, truly who are, are like you.

39:05They're not so into the longevity and all the biohacking stuff. They're not doing the cold plunges and the saunas and the glucose monitoring, and they're not eating - By the way, I'm not knocking all these things. It's not because I'm not even saying it as a knock. I'm just saying like, it's just not part of their daily rituals, right? They're like you. They like eat whatever they want. They kind of just - I mean, take CGMs, for example. You just mentioned it, right? The glucose monitor. There's no scenario where I would wear that 365 days a year. Yeah. There is a very real scenario where I would wear that for three weeks, twice a year.

39:43And I would love that. Okay. So you get in, you know, the first time you're going to learn a lot. You're going to learn about your habits and your lifestyle and your diet and how they impact these things. You're going to see, you're going to learn quickly if you're paying attention. Yeah. And then you're going to get out. I would get out. And then, you know, six months later, go back and check in again and kind of relearn and refresh. I love that. Right. But there's no world where that lives in my arm year round. Yeah. Well, also, it's for people who are legitimately, who are diabetic. Well, that's the difference.

40:18But I'm saying all of this stuff has gone just a little bit too far, right? Like, I think that, where does it end? I think it's become a massive business, right? It's like a trillion dollar business. Everyone wants it. No, exactly. This is an area that you should really be thinking about. That's why I told you to come with me to the conference tomorrow. Because I feel like there's, not like a, I'm not going to say a sucker is born every day, But I think that people are chasing youth and people want to live to 180 and any little thing that you think might, but there's no regulation on anything.

40:51You could be, it could be all a bunch of snail. A lot of these things really are not moving the needle that much, right? Maybe if you don't have your diet and your exercise and the basics and the fundamentals down, these things are not going to move your needle. Yeah. You know? It's better that people are engaged. Or aware of it. Yeah, but you could take 170 supplements, but if you're not exercising and moving your body daily, so? Well, I would hope that in conjunction with the 170 supplements, they would go move a little bit. Okay. There's no substitute for that. There's no substitute for that, right?

41:29Okay, that's my... And physically and also, I think, mentally. I mean, I think there's... I know I would go crazy, literally go crazy if I didn't work out. Me too. Like I would be, I would, I don't know what I would be, be bad. Well, cause you probably, does, have you found anything besides, does anything besides cycling get your brain to turn? No. Right. Cause it's the endorphins from. I don't know. It's just what, that's my church. Yeah. Would you like to be alone a lot? I'm obsessed with being alone. Yeah. I love being alone. Because you spend a lot of time alone. If you're on a bike for hours and hours training a day, right?

42:09That's like people like ultra marathoners. I preferred to ride alone. Now there are a lot of times I would ride with other people. And if I ride now, I will mostly ride with other people. But there are plenty of times I get to ride by myself. And it's just sacred. I love it. But I also just like being alone. Like, I'll give you an example. Like, I'm going to, I don't know what the date is. This is probably two weeks from now. We spend the summers in Colorado. I will, when we take our cars up there, and so I'm going to drive my car there all alone. Straight shot, 1 ,000 miles, all alone. And it's, I'm not, Jen, I'm not shitting you.

42:47It's like, it is my favorite day of the year. I love it. I'm talking about it right now. I'm like, wow, that's right around the corner. I love it. So you're married for 17 years. Yeah. Okay, so you spent a lot, like, what kind of - Haven't been married that long, but we've been, yes. But you've been together a long, long time. And what would she say? What would your wife say about you and your love for being alone? I think she would agree and she'd support it. Does she like to be alone too? Not as much as you? Probably not as much as me. I probably like to be alone more than most people. Yeah.

43:25I've been around so many people my whole life. And I'm still around a lot of people. And I don't, when you're younger, I think you're better equipped to just sort of deal with it. As I've gotten older, I now know that I have to stop and I have to carve out time to be by myself and just reset this whole thing and calm everything down. And I get to, right? I get to create my schedule. And so I will intentionally make sure that I have that time. So how do you spend your time? I can't imagine being miserable being alone. Now, there are a lot of people that can't be alone. Right. And that's fine. That's the way they're wired.

44:14And I can't imagine that. So how much, okay, so like a day in the life, right? Let's just go through a day in the life. Like what would a day, a typical day - I get up very early. What time do you get up? I mean, I get up, not very early. I mean, I get up today, I got up at 5.30. Okay, that's very early, by the way. I mean, there are people who get up, but I'm just, I am an early riser, but I'm also guaranteed to be alone. Right, exactly. So I get up early and I have probably a couple of hours where I'm all alone. What do I do? I drink coffee, I read the news. Are you a big reader? I don't read books, but I read news slash current events.

44:56I read stuff relevant to our space. And whether it's, you know, I read a lot of newsletters are pretty religious about, you know, reading Axios and Strictly VC. And a lot of these, I mean, I think you learn, you just kind of keep a pulse on that. They also fit Insider. I think they do a great job. That's a good, they do a good job. I agree. It's once a week, so you don't have to, but the other ones are daily. But if I subscribe to a newsletter, I read every word. And if I find myself just skipping it or deleting it for a few days in a row, I'll just unsubscribe. Like it's not sticking with me.

45:32Do you read my newsletter? I'm not. Yeah, I have one. I will after today. Okay, good. And if you don't like it, you could always just unsubscribe. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the healthy thing. Okay, go on. So 5.30, 7.30, you're reading the news and all that stuff. It just depends. I mean, if my daughter's now out of school, summer started for her, so I would take her to school at 8. And then I have to work out in the morning because my motivation drops in the afternoon. And then I'll, you know, I'll come here to the office and work. So you work out for an hour, you said, in the morning? Yeah.

46:05If I ride, nobody rides. I mean, I wouldn't ride for an hour. It's not worth getting dressed for. But I would, you know. How long would you ride for? Two hours. I could ride for more, but then that's more time. That's too much. Okay. And then what? You come to, you work every day at the office? I work here every day. So do you spend most of your time when you're at the office doing your venture stuff? Most, I spend 90 % of my time on next ventures. And are you picking the companies that you are like interested in? Are people bringing you deals? All the above. And we either source through, there's obviously inbound.

46:42and then there's outbound we will hunt for deals our founders networked our existing founders have a have a we like to think a great network other vcs have have bring us deals so it's all over the place and then and then in terms of who decides it's not me that decides it's we decide right so we me and mel who i've talked about and jordan who's been on the team for years it's a three-person team. So we will ultimately decide, not so much if we want to spend time on a deal because it takes time to, you have to decide to diligence a deal. But we collectively, we're the IC. So we will decide if we do the deal.

47:22And, okay, so then what's we do? Because I see outside - We do is the podcast. Okay, it's just, but do we do hard things? Is that like the we do, whatever? Yeah, whatever, he wants to do crazy shit. It's just the podcast. Yep. Okay. I thought it was going to be like a, there was another, I thought that was an umbrella and then you're going to have other things. I mean, we do other, we have merch and we have, it could probably be a lot of things. Because I like the name. It's very good. Yeah, it's a cool name. Yeah. Did you think of that name? You know, no. I mean, well, the idea behind the name of We Do, like who wants to do crazy hard stuff.

47:59Yeah. Yeah. Or like we do anything. That's why it's a great brand name because you can like add whatever to the end of the sentence, right? But it could be all, I mean, we could do, I just, I have to admit, I got a little lazy with it. I'm not lazy because we still do the podcast, but like you couldn't, next requires, and as it should require, 90 % of my attention. The podcasts are, for the most part, easy, right? Like take the tour podcast, for example. Yeah. Like that's, you know, that's, we're talking about the day's action, right? So that's, we sit down and we watch the race, we sit down and we talk about it.

48:34And that show's huge. Huge. So we've sort of been spoiled by the success of the tour show. It's not like we sat around and are not trying to be creative or entrepreneurial with that brand. So you're the most passionate, though, about next ventures, it feels like, right? I'm passionate about both of them, but it's, it's, I think it's, um, look, we have, I don't know, a hundred LPs, right? So that's, which is great. But what that means is they have trusted us with their hard earned money. Yeah. A hundred percent. So that's a serious commitment. So that, that I spend, that's why I spend most of my time on that.

49:15Were you always interested in business like this when you were like an athlete also or did you have to just not not to this degree but i mean a lot of these deals i did you know very early i mean i was the very first and for example i was the the first check into active.com in 1997 oh wow okay so tell people what that is because i don't think a lot of people would know what active well now they would i mean Active.com is event registry. I don't even know. I haven't gone and looked in a while if people still register events on active.com. Do they? Probably not. But at the time it was a big deal, right?

49:53At the time it was a big deal, right? But I knew the founder and liked him and wanted to support him. But my point being, that was a long time ago. So name other ones that you were kind of first in on that were big money makers for you. Direct investments. I mean, I would say athletic brewing is, between Waterloo and athletic brewing, those would be. I thought you were involved in like Oura Ring and stuff like that. Oura is a part of our fund. So in fund one, we were an early investor in Oura Ring. Okay. What do you think about wearables? Is that an Oura Ring right there? It's an Oura Ring. Like, do you feel like it's kind of like, I feel there's now backlash a little bit on wearables.

50:31No, it's because you read the article in the New York Times last week. I did, but I also know that. You can, but just because. But no, that's not why, though. That's not why. But by the way, I think the article is totally fair. Like if my wife is a good example, like she's a bad sleeper. So now she has a device that's very accurate that is just confirming daily that you're a bad sleeper. That you're a bad sleeper. Exactly. So there is a natural sort of just anxiety around that. And you get more anxiety. Like I was. I mean, I don't know. I mean, she goes through phases. She's now wears the ring daily.

51:11But she's gone through phases where she's like, all right, I'm sick of this. I don't want to look at this data anymore. I'm not going to wear it for a while. Well, I also think the anxiety piece is real, right? Like if you're constantly looking to see if I'm sleeping well, not sleeping well, how many steps I'm, all of that, like all that noise is actually causing more issues versus less. By the way, it's not just the farting. I think you have like burping too. I think you drink too. That's because of the Waterloo. Are you sure? 100%. I think you should get your gut checked. Waterloo is very carbonated.

51:39I did. I did a whole thing. Maybe you're allergic to something. Maybe you have like a gut. Are you not drinking? I am. Nothing's happening to me. You're going off topic here. This is very carbonated. It is carbonated, but I feel you're having an issue. We should probably take a break because you're having like, okay, well, I'm just making sure. How much time do we have left? Listen, excuse me. I haven't even started all my questions. That was just me like trying to get to know you a little bit. We have to be done in eight minutes. Are you joking me right now? This is a joke. I mean, I didn't even get to all the important things.

52:12This is what we'll do. This will be part one. That's like, you're just kind of placating me. And then when we'll be part two in 2034? Like I have lots of questions. Yeah, but I mean, I would allow it to happen if you'll do part two in the next six months. Okay. I got to leave in 10 minutes. Okay. I want to do a question. Okay. Let's play the question game. Okay. Well, wait, you just kind of like got me off track. I had all these things to ask you. I thought these questions have been amazing. Okay. Well, that's very nice of you. I have a whole lot of other questions and I just lost my page, which is not exactly wonderful.

52:48But hold on a second here. Well, wait, let's go. Okay. So let me go back to, okay. So, cause I can't be bothered. Now I'm getting nervous cause I only have seven minutes on the clock with you. And that gets me all like scared here. Okay. Okay, so it is for Clinton. Okay, so how else are you, I want to get to the money part because I think this is what I'm curious. So when this whole thing happened with the doping and you had to give back all these things, you must have had like a crash of money. Like your sponsors were pulling out all these things. But by that point, you already made a lot of money, right?

53:19So it wasn't like you had to give back. Well, you didn't have to give back money, right? I did have to give back. Well, I heard that, but I didn't know if that was actually true. You had to actually write checks back to the people. Not so much to sponsors. but there were, I mean, this gets really complicated, but - It's okay. My audience is very smart, Lance. So if you lose a sponsor, you just lose future revenue. Right. So it just stops. So you could count that as some sort of loss, but there were other, the way that my team had structured most of my bonuses and salary were through insurance policies.

53:59Okay, you're right. This is complicated. And so they were either, either they didn't have the budget to fulfill the contract or meet the contract or for whatever reason, they were just engineering it that way. And so when it went down, then the insurance companies came and said, we want the money back. So yes, I had to pay it back. So did you have, were you in a lot of it? How much did you have to give back? A lot. I mean, the, the, the, people like details. This is a thing. You know, more than. Tens and tens of millions. More than$100 million? If you factor the repayments with whatever guaranteed contracts were in place that you could have just assumed you would have fulfilled, it was north of$100 million.

54:45Holy moly. And so that in itself would drive me into a depression. You don't know that it's that number at the time. I didn't know. So if somebody would have walked up and said, hey, I know you're having a shady day, but by the way, this is exactly what this is going to cost you. Of course it would have driven me crazy. But it was death by a thousand cuts. But whatever. I mean, over time, I was able to navigate it. And I had made great investments. And obviously things like Uber. See, Uber. That's another one that you were. But I had access to Uber through a fund. So I was an LP in lowercase, which if you look at the record books, I mean, it was the most successful venture fund in the history of the world.

55:33And, you know, by the grace of God, you know, I had access to that. And that changed. Everything. Everything. Everything. Right. So you, because of that, it kind of. Saved my family. 100%. No, that's not. I meant that. So, wow. So then how were you then making money? Like, what was the first way of making money after that? Wasn't sponsored? Did you give back the money? Of course, these investments. Were you like someone who people like, were you doing a lot of speaking gigs because people were super curious? No, that dried up. I mean, that's back, you know, I wouldn't say with a vengeance, but I do a lot of speaking now.

56:18But no, that I couldn't. No, there was no speaking gigs. Because I would think if I was a company, I would, resilience is a major topic, right? You would think that would be. But the resilience story, it's a story now. Because people, and this is the story they like to hear is, I mean, if it's the first two, three, four, five years, you haven't proven that you've. Are resilient. Are resilient or have been able to reemerge or reimagine, right? And so now that's the story that people love to hear. But at the time, I mean, you just had cooties, right? And so they wouldn't. That's true, right? But also, I think there's also like, you know, there's an accident you want to look.

57:02Like people are curious about like where someone is. Well, I didn't get any calls for the accident. They didn't care about that, right? I didn't get those calls. But the resilient piece is massive. I do feel you're having like an uptick right now. I don't know if it's because of social media or what, but I feel there's a lot of like, there's more curiosity about you. Also, don't forget our Netflix special that we did together, our 30 for 30. Oh yeah, I'm so glad you did that for me. You're welcome. You know, it's interesting. It's a fun data point because it wasn't a Netflix documentary. I know.

57:36Just for people to know. So Lance did a 30 for 30. I'm kind of half kidding, but long story short, I should have started the podcast by saying this. Lance and I have a mutual friend, Eric Byrne, So shout out to Eric, who introduced us many years ago. Amazing guy. Amazing guy. Amazing guy. I had a breast cancer charity with my best friend, Nikki Austin, for many years where we auctioned off bachelors and all the money we got for dinner dates and all the money we got, we gave to breast cancer. And every year we had a celebrity host or someone to be involved. Eric suggested Lance many years ago to be involved because of his situation with cancer.

58:18Long story short, he did it as a favor. He didn't want to do it, but he did it as a favor to Eric. We met briefly at The Thing, 30 for 30. ESPN was doing a story on Lance. They came to the event. They interviewed me. Cut to the 30 for 30. Go on. Yeah. Well, it was released as a 30 for 30. On ESPN. Yeah. But that was, it came out five or six years ago. Five years ago. Yeah, five years ago. And I didn't know that it was going to be, whether they call it re-released or put up on Netflix. Right. But they did, like six months ago. No longer. No, it was less than a year ago. Really? Yes. Yes. The Netflix part of the story is new.

59:06But people think it's a new documentary. Yeah. Because they didn't watch it on ESPN and they don't watch 30 for 30s. But everybody has Netflix. And I only know this because people come up to me every day like, hey, I just watched your new documentary. And you don't, I mean, you're like, well, I don't take the time to tell them that. But I'm like, oh, cool. Thanks. But nonetheless, I had the opportunity really to watch people's reaction five years ago and their reaction today. Because they're two really distinct periods of time. And there's no time in the middle. Like people weren't discovering it in the middle.

59:40But when it hit Netflix, a lot more people saw it. And so, but their reaction to the film on Netflix, which is, by the way, the film is unchanged. Right, I hear it out. It's the very same film. Their reaction is totally different. What is the reaction? Well, I think it's important to say that when it came out on ESPN, people were like, eh, they were mixed. Now, I don't hear from everybody, but the people, but I do hear from a lot, the people that react to watching it on Netflix, which is a current, is real time, is they're like, wow, that guy's a fucking man. Like, it's just a totally different, it's a totally different reaction.

1:00:23It's funny you say, I agree with you. And it's funny because I remember watching it five years ago on ESPN because someone was like, hey, I just saw you in Lance Armstrong's 30 for 30. I'm like, really? And then now, I know, thank you. I am a star. Thank you for putting me on the map. It's a symbiotic relationship. And then now, or the last six or seven months, whatever, it's been on Netflix. Number one, it did really well on Netflix. It was like in the top 10. Did you not know that? For a long time. So the funny thing is I would get hit up constantly. People are like, why? I just saw you in Lance Armstrong's thing on Netflix.

1:00:59That's why I even knew it was even on Netflix. and people did have a different, a totally different response. But I feel like people, like you become very likable recently. I don't know if it's because of, it's probably part of that, part of it, social media, part of the podcast. Like, I feel like you've kind of rebranded as - At the time, does that mean time helps? I think, I think. But it's funny because now we're living in a time of cancel culture more than ever before. I actually completely disagree. Really? Tell me. I think, I mean, without being political, but you can just observe the political landscape.

1:01:38Oh, no. In the last, yeah, in the last six months, different. But I was one of the first people that America canceled. Yes. And no matter what you think of the current situation politically, I mean, it's, I mean, here's a guy who is now president who for two years we were trying to put in jail and people swore that you'd never hear from this guy ever again. and now he's president again. So there is clearly some redemption from somebody, right? And so, and I don't know. Talk about resilience. Talk about like not staying down. I mean, that's another one. Yeah, I mean. You're not going to say a word one way or the other, yes.

1:02:19I mean, but I feel like I do think that there is this overall sentiment and whether it's with Donald Trump or whether it's with me or whether it's whoever of like, hey, did we really just, are we just going to, because we tried to erase him and now the guy's president again. I was convinced we erased him. He's our president, right? And, you know, we erased him, that guy that's cyclist, right? And so he's, I don't know, and now he's, so there's been a, which, look, I'm super grateful for, right? I mean, whatever that is that society has allowed me to reemerge I could have willed it all I wanted to, Jen.

1:03:01Right? We can all will shit. I can will, you know, winning the lottery. I'm not going to win the lottery. There has to be this moment or these moments where society says, all right, we'll let you come in for a little bit. Let's see how we feel about this. And then they let you in and then they let you in some more. And then all of a sudden, but none of that happens if society doesn't say, okay. Well, I think people like the human aspect of people, right? Like to get into know people in a real way. Social media does that because you show yourself like you're doing your workouts and you're doing your podcast now.

1:03:38My daughter said I fart a lot. Your daughter said you fart all the time and you let me keep it in the podcast, right? You're not like, oh, we're going to have to. I mean, the only thing better would be if I actually farted on the podcast. Well, listen, we have another minute and a half. As I'm trying to get you to wrap this up, that could be a great way because I'm going to go play golf I what would you well listen if you really want to wrap it up quickly I sent my wife this thing on Instagram the other day because it was somebody put it up like this is the sign of a healthy or couples who fart around each other that's a sign of a healthy relationship and I thought that was a senator I was like see honey and what did she say oh yeah great no she she I mean What did she say?

1:04:25Well, no, what did she say? She's like, yeah, well, great. Then we must have a really healthy relationship. Yeah, we do have, yeah. Well, I mean, I think, well, listen, I think after time you get comfortable with anybody, right? And like you're, everything just kind of, it's like, it's a free for all. Yeah. How much time do I have with you still? Not much. Well, you tell me, because I have, should I wrap you right now? Yeah, let's wrap. Yeah, well, this is part one. Do you promise? I promise, I promise. Because there's so many other things that I want to talk to you about, all these projects that I'm not going to, you know, that I want to know about.

1:04:56We talked about a lot of fun stuff, I thought. We did, but like, this was kind of a short-ish podcast. You told me 45 minutes. I know. If you would have said, let me just put it this way. If you would have said, listen, my shows are three hours. Do you know what I would have said? No way. Jen, I love you. There is a 0 % chance I'm doing that. But you did Joe Rogan like 10 years ago. I know, and I'm one of the shortest ones he's ever done. Really? How long was it? It was like low twos. Really? And I asked him before, I was like, wait, how long, how long do you do these things for? He's like, ah, three, three and a half hours.

1:05:28I said, Joe, I'm not sitting there for three hours. Yeah. I won't sit anywhere for three hours. I mean, that's a long time to sit. A long time. Did he, did he ask you anything earth shattering in that two and a half hours? That's a long time. It was 10 years ago. I know. But like, how do you ask someone? I mean, I could actually probably do it. Look, Joe's the king. He's, he's very conversational. He, he doesn't, I mean, he has, I mean, I think Jamie helps him a lot, but. I would not like to sit and just chit chat for three hours. I wouldn't like that. He doesn't mind it. Well, also, because you like to, you probably have ants in your pants.

1:06:04Like you're not interested and like you want to go play. I do have ants in my pants. You do, right? Like it's like a lot, which is interesting because you sit on a bike for 12 hours at a time. You're moving, you're seeing things. There's tons of energy that everything is, you're constantly reacting. Like that was one question. One more question. Constantly reacting. Okay, and then we can do part two. While you're on this bike doing the Tour de France, what's going through your head as you're riding? Are you just super focused? Do you listen to music? Can you listen to music? No, you can't listen to music.

1:06:32But there's no daydreaming in the Tour de France, ever, ever. You've got to be really alert. Yeah, and think about it. I mean, it's four to seven hours a day. Alone? No, no, no, no. You're with 200 guys. No, but you're alone on the bike. Yeah, but you're constantly, there's the crowds as well. I mean, you have a million people a day on the side of the road. You see over here, somebody jumps out on the road to take a photo or there's a lot of obstacles. Yeah. And, you know, the group is tight and packed together. You're constantly, God forbid, the weather turns bad and there's rain and the roads are slick.

1:07:12There's no daydreaming, no listening to music, no zoning out, so to speak. Did you ever get any bad injuries? I don't remember hearing of you ever getting a bad injury. I was lucky there. Right? Like you never had like an issue like that. Do people like change your bikes like they do with the F1, like a wheel here, a wheel there? How often does that happen? It didn't happen very often for us. It didn't. But it's not like Formula One. It's not like Formula One. But somebody would change your wheel if you got a flat tire. Well, it is. The only way I think of it as Formula One too, it's very dangerous.

1:07:44Like I said, like you're going so fast and like one bad move and you're dead, basically. Like that's scary. I don't know if you're dead. Well, with F1, you could be dead. In cycling, you can die. But it's more, it would be more just road rash, broken collarbone. But look, I mean, people ask me, look, people ask me all the time, wow, what's it like when you crash in the tour? I said, well, let me just make this really easy for you. And we can end on this. And this guy's a cyclist, right? Or a gal, whoever asked the question. I said, well, here's what you should do just so you can answer it for yourself.

1:08:20I said, go put your bike clothes on and have your wife or husband or whoever you want to drive the car. And have them just drive down the road at 30 miles an hour and jump out of the car. That's what it feels like. That's a really good way to end the podcast. But that's exactly, that's what happens. And that's how... Nobody would want to feel that way, of course. Nobody could ever jump out of the car. like nobody's that hungry to get the answer to that question, but that is exactly what it feels like. How many times did that happen? A lot. That happens a lot. To you? Yeah, to everybody. Wow, I know.

1:08:54Even to you, even to you. Yeah. Okay, fine, I'll let you go. Part one, part one. Okay, so thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate you actually doing this, even though you hate sitting. So this is a big honor. Thank you for sitting. I appreciate it. Thank you. Go follow Lance Armstrong if you haven't already. He's amazing. He's got great workouts and listen to his podcast. Goodbye.