Episode 555: Jamie Siminoff: Why "Acting Like a CEO" Killed More Startups Than Failure Ever Did

18:19Jamie Siminoff:but when did someone buy a doorbell when it broke the only time someone or when they built a new house so built a new house or when it when it literally broke and a doorbell lasts for 30 40 years whatever it lasts on a house and so of course there was no market for doorbell but if what happens if you came out with something that people wanted on their front door now what's the market size it turns out the market size was multiple billions of dollars wow so people just didn't see the market uber was another great example of where no one could everyone said like Like, well, taxi business is only this big.

18:49Jamie Siminoff:Uber can only be this percentage of it. It's like, what happens if you change how people travel? Like, what is that market size? And I think that is like, again, I think especially with AI, we're going to look over a lot of businesses because you're going to type into AI, like, I'm thinking about doing a doorbell, and it's going to be like, the maximum size of this business could be this. And you're like, oh, no, I'm not going to do it. That is so true. But isn't that also not, I'll take a little small tangent, about prompting, being really, really savvy and knowing how to prompt these things or which one to use.

19:22And it keeps on being like, AI, what I'm doing on it now was very different than what it was happening to even two weeks ago. It iterates every minute of the day.

19:31Jamie Siminoff:It is definitely getting better and smarter. I think it's going to be very hard though to prompt it to make that big of a leap. Yeah. Like, I think it's going to be very hard to like, and I think that's where like an entrepreneur, an inventor having like, you know, having true passion about something, mission purpose is like i do think that's still going to exist in the future as a differentiator between success and failure and also in ai does not have grit or perseverance and all those other work ethic things that i believe you need with luck right the combination okay so let's go back to the shark thing but it's so interesting okay so then what was the other reason they gave you besides the hardware so it was yeah so it was basically like you know it's too expensive how big is the market yeah i mean those are i guess the two big i think that was the two biggest one They just couldn't see, like, they couldn't see this product being big enough.

20:18Jamie Siminoff:You know, so, so like, they're like, you know, they're like, of course someone will buy it, but it's not going to be big enough. How about Nest? Is Nest considered to be your big competition? I would say at this point, no. I mean, like, I think, I mean, they're, they're out there and they, they, you know, they do the good job in their place, but no, they're not like, they're not that big. They're not that big. Okay. So then when the show actually aired, how much did your sales go up? Like a thousand percent, 5 ,000 percent? yeah so we were selling we were like doing like a couple hundred grand a month and we so and that was actually the scariest thing of going to shark tank is so you go on and they're like you're gonna have this bump and like no one knows exactly like each product sells differently and so we're like okay so i'm figuring the bump is going to be like within the first few hours of the show and that's it like that that's all we're gonna get funny side note we were on shopify our site was on shopify i call up toby who's the ceo of shopify now remember you got to go back that he was the CEO of Shopify, Shopify was not that big of a company.

21:15Jamie Siminoff:Like Shopify today is like a hundred plus billion dollar company. So like calling up the CEO of Shopify today would be insane. Right. Back then it's like calling like the local person, you know, like the local person who runs the restaurant down the street. And I'm like calling Toby. I'm like, Hey, we're going to be on Shark Tank, whatever, two weeks from now. He's like, okay, you're fine. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. If you go down, like I'm going to drive to Canada and kill you. Right. You know, basically. And, and we have this email exchange, which is very funny, which we still saved of him and I going back and forth.

21:42Jamie Siminoff:And he's like, we've spent over a million dollars on servers. Now, like Shopify now, I mean, it's hundreds of billions. And I'm like, no, you don't understand the traffic's so big. So it's like, just very funny. These like two entrepreneurs that are like going back and forth. So I was really worried it was going to go down because I felt like it was going to be such a bump. So we, you know, we go on Shark Tank, kind of wake up the next morning, basically hung over as, you know, when the show actually aired. And it was like a hundred and something thousand in sales so i was excited to have a hundred thousand sales but i'm like that's it right like oh my god i did all this work for a hundred and whatever 150 000 in sales whatever it was then the next day 150 000 in sales next day like it was like literally it just and it then started going down slowly it never went back to like we were like maybe four or five thousand a day or something you know going into shark tank yeah it never went below like it was like stayed at like 30 ,000 or something.

22:34Jamie Siminoff:It was crazy. It just stayed up. So would you say that it was because of the Shark Tank, the exposure of Shark Tank that kind of catapulted the business then? I would say, I think there's, with any business, there's like a million, like literally a million things to make it successful, which is why it's hard to build a successful company because it's never one thing. Right, right. I would, Shark Tank, of the one things, I think it was one of the most impactful. I mean, it was like being on, it was like people being in a garage going on a Super Bowl ad. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was that kind of level.

23:03Jamie Siminoff:And Shark Tank at the time was, it was like the number one show on TV. So it was not only were you on Shark Tank, you were on like the number one show on TV for 12 minutes. It was basically an ad on the whole business. A hundred percent. And it wasn't like you were, like now you have social media to compete with, right? Yeah. People, no one's even watching TV. Yeah, this was when like TV was TV. This was right at the end of that, actually. It was like right there. I still like the show though, by the way. I think that's - It's a great show. I love that show. I really do. It's a great show. It's great for kids to watch.

23:31Jamie Siminoff:it like inspires people it's inspired a whole generation like i love shark tank me too who were the judges when you were on it was uh so it was robert yeah kevin uh laurie damon and mark so did any when she like walked out of the tank or whatever yeah what happened with did you make a friend like did you become really good friends with any of them did they any of them reach out to you not at that point so at that point like i mean i walked out and like you know kind of nothing happened we aired they saw immediately that like from our airing and the response that they got that like this was something unique was it one of the highest rate like in terms of products that like kind of didn't make it pretty quickly yeah it was like yeah it was obvious and then they like our sales like they ask you pretty you know they're like clay and the team that run it are pretty sharp so they were like how are your sales whatever and i'm like oh we've done you know we've done like a million dollars in the first whatever like so we were blowing out every number they had pretty quickly.

24:28Jamie Siminoff:So I think it was like, it was early that they realized they should stay in touch. I don't think they understood how big it would be. I didn't myself either. Right. But it was like starting to already like, you know, become something. We did like an update episode, I think a year later in the next season. And then it just kept going, kind of rolling from there. So wait, so when did you raise money? Like the next round? So you did 500 ,000. I mean, I was raising, I mean, during Shark Tank, I was raising, I was trying to raise a million dollars when we went on Shark Tank. I had$300 ,000 circled.

24:58Jamie Siminoff:I went for$700 ,000 on Shark Tank. I actually needed that money, and I didn't get it. So I just kept like, I mean, I was freaking by hook and crook and whatever. I was trying to get every dollar in. I mean, I was like literally just scraping at the barrel constantly to get money. Like, I mean, that was until we sold, basically. Okay, so how much in all the money you raised, how much did you raise altogether? It's like$220 million or something. That's a lot. It was not a little. Yeah. Wow. So how much did you get diluted with all that? A lot. Like 80%, 40%, 60%. Yeah, like 80s. 80%. Yeah. Wow. So even though you sold it for 1.15.

25:41Jamie Siminoff:Billion, yeah. Yeah, it was just an insane amount of money. You walked away with how much? Like 100 million? Yeah. Like, I mean, that range. You're not poor. It's like I made more money than I ever thought I'd ever have ever. And like so I look like 18 year old Jamie is very proud of 49 year old Jamie, like super proud. But people on the outside certainly have this like they think I made like 100 billion somehow. Like not even like a bit like it's like they like like hundreds of billions. And so like it's so funny how that happens. It is funny. And I see it like a lot is like that. Like that's just yeah, because you get diluted.

26:18Jamie Siminoff:You're a investor. I mean, it's it's it's. um we'll talk about that because i think people don't know that i mean you know i've had a few people on the show we talked about how orange people i know let's say they sell their company for a billion or two billion but they still and that's for like the majority share so they get to keep still like 20 of the company a lot of private equity stuff yeah a lot of private equity but that wasn't your situation at all you stole the whole thing yeah because it was more of like i mean and this is where there's like there's so many different ways to like skin the cat kind of like to build a business.

26:49Jamie Siminoff:And there's people that are like, that build it profitably day one, and they just keep rolling. And they own 100%. Like I have friends that own 100 % of some of these big businesses, and they'll sell for 300 million, no one even knows they sold. And yet they made way more money than a lot of entrepreneurs that you know. And so yeah, I think like the, the outcome size is different than like what people sort of take and how that is. Right. You know, for me, it's like my personality was to go big quickly and want to build something I wanted to like hit the cover off the ball. Yeah. And to do that, you got to take a lot of money, go fast.

27:19Jamie Siminoff:Like, you know, we spent it marketing, like we built the brand. Now it worked. I mean, it's like Ring is, I mean, over a hundred million devices out in the world today. Super profitable at Amazon. A hundred million people use Ring. A hundred million devices in the market. Yeah. Over. And is it still growing exponentially? Very, very fast. So. Because also you have a subscription model. So you're just selling it and you're making money every month. So it was a really, like, we went from 3 million, like, so the year I was on Shark Tank, it was like, you know, so like 3 million, so we kind of hit that, then 30 million, 170, 480, and then we sold to Amazon and sort of hit billions after that.

27:56Jamie Siminoff:People look at those numbers and they're like, that's amazing. It's like, actually, no, it's terrible because the amount of cash you need to grow a business that has a physical product. So the business itself was just incinerating cash as a, because of the growth. the actual like economics on a per customer basis were phenomenal so the fundamentals of the business were actually very strong the act the entire company collectively because we're trying to build this stuff it's very complex like we're trying to like the scale you needed was burning money hand over fist so the problem was it was a really scary business to build because it was like it was incinerating cash the good thing was the on a per customer basis because the subscription because of how we built it.

28:38Jamie Siminoff:Like actually it was a very healthy, like the economics were healthy as long as we got to scale. So we knew if we got to, and we always said like it was probably two, two and a half billion in sales is when we'll get profitable. And that was almost right on the numbers. Like that was kind of right where we had to be. So how much was your customer acquisition per, how much is it per person? It's, you know, it's hard because when you're building a brand, this is always because people would ask you like, what's your customer acquisition cost? Like, well, what do you use to calculate that? We're built, you know, if I stop all my advertising today, is our ring sales still going to happen for the next by one two three four five years yes so then we'd have zero acquisition costs so it's like it's when you're starting to do like top the funnel like you know you start to do tv and things like that that's the problem is people attribute they'll be like well you spent this month a million on tv what you know and you've sold whatever you know you sold 10 000 units so that means that you know you're like a thousand dollars whatever you know per person you're like no that's not like if you stop marketing we're still going to sell so it is very very hard to get these these customer acquisition costs really only working it's like very clean direct consumer programmatic you know you you have an ad on meta yeah on instagram on facebook it converts or it doesn't convert like that's kind of it right um performance marketing like super performance marketing but when you're trying to build a brand it's different it's different and it's like when do you this is but this is the problem it's like when do you stop And then you have competition coming in.

30:05Jamie Siminoff:It's cheaper to build the brand when things are more infantile, when it's early. But was it subscription right off the bat? It was subscription. So DoorBot wasn't when we launched that. We knew we wanted to build the subscription. We just didn't even have it. And then Ring, when we launched Ring, which was 2014, October of 2014, we announced that it's going to be the subscription. And so that was when we announced the real. Like this is when we like showed what the thing could really do. So then when did, like, so give me the story with Amazon. Like who came to you? How did the whole Amazon acquisition happen?

30:39Jamie Siminoff:This is the problem with being an entrepreneur and doing stuff. Is it just like, it's such a long game. So we started talking to Amazon when I was doorbot. And just, I mean, just talking to them, like they had Alexa. Like we were just like, I mean, just like started like, you know, like having conversations with their device team. And they had a little venture capital arm off of Alexa. And then I literally flew up because it was Amazon when we were launching Ring. And a month before we put Ring out in the market, I wanted to preview that with Amazon. So I sat with Nick Comoros, who's now like one of the heads of CorpDev, but was like more junior at that time.

31:13Jamie Siminoff:And again, this is a good lesson. He was way more junior then. Like everyone always thinks you have to meet with like Jeff Bezos or whatever. And here's like me and this guy who was kind of similar peer group in terms of like he was early in his career too, but he needed to make it. and he has and i sat with him and showed him ring and we did the thing he's like this is so cool gonna break to this person this person because again nick wanted to also like get shit out there make it that's 2014 and three years later is when nick and i sat down basically and he said okay like we want to i love this i love that you said that that is such a important point right because people are very myopic they think either you're meeting at the top person or it's like you're out Exactly.

31:53And you have to be so much more strategic, right? Because everybody will, that person that you met with or in any business or company, like their trajectories, they can be running the whole thing. This happened to me many times with people I worked with, right? Which means you should be nice to everyone. You should connect with everyone. No one's too small to, you know, connect with because look what happened to you. Like, and this, by the way, this is what usually happens. In my experience, whenever I thought the other way and I thought, oh, I'm happening with the head person. I mean, nothing ever happens.

32:26Jamie Siminoff:Nothing ever happens. That's always, I mean, like even now, like I run Ring and someone wants to do something with Ring and they like, I want to meet with you. And I'm like, it's like, I'm the last person that's going to actually work on that. Like find, it is find, it's entrepreneurs, whatever. It's like, find the person who needs to make it. Like, I don't now need to make it work. Like your product, like I don't need to make it work with Ring. A hundred percent. But like, there's a person at Ring who's newer in their career, who if they could figure out how to make something really work will make their career and find like that person in any place yeah and and but it's also like just play the long game like first of all be nice to people because it's just better than being a jerk like that's like that's just simple yeah but it is like find those people and then like grow with them and take a long approach at this and i and i do think with tiktok and our 15 second videos like we just keep looking at shorter and shorter term thinking i think because we have zero attention span yeah and then we are like we we are also completely we we're not we're not realistic in how things actually work in the real life like a lot of the people i deal with i was nice to the interns and the coordinators those are the people who are running the companies now yeah and the people that you know what you thought that were like such whatever they they retired they left they're not even there anymore they could and they could care less to your point and it is just take the long game like it's a it's a it's a it's a marathon for most and i think the problem is of course there's going to be some 20-year-old that launches something and in two weeks sells it for a billion dollars.

33:53Jamie Siminoff:It's lottery tickets. Someone's going to scratch off, they're going to buy one lottery ticket in their whole life, they're going to scratch it off and win the big pot, whatever. That happens, but it's not likely to happen to you. It's not likely to happen to you. And a lot of people I know, unless it's nepotism, right, where the dad or the family has friends with the CEO and they acquire your business or whatever, then they then they get lucky but for the average person who's going on grit and hard work and like all the persistence you got to like play the long game and you got to be super super strategic and be like be nice to everyone meet with everyone like make everyone your friend i know a lot of the probably top vcs in the country now a lot of them i know because i knew them when they were like they were assistants or whatever at vc firms and they grew like it's incredible the people that I know that like we're just so early in these things and again it's like it also is like but also it's like it's just such a better world to be like just nice to people and talk to people and like who gives a shit who someone is like but that's I listen I totally agree with you but when you're in when you are struggling and when you're an entrepreneur and you feel like you have like mouths to feed you can think very very you'd be very focused on I need that person I need that person, only that person.

35:10And that's typically that person is not the one that actually is going to, you know, make your, make your dreams come true.

35:16Jamie Siminoff:Typically not. I mean, there's always like some weird cases again, where someone heard something, but like, yeah, I mean, most of the time, and again, most of the time it's going to take longer. Like, it's not like someone's going to meet you and just like hand over a check for a hundred million and you're going to, you know, make it.

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36:42So then tell us about, okay, so you meet this guy. What was his role at Amazon at the time?

36:47Jamie Siminoff:I mean, Nick was in CorpDev, but he certainly wasn't like, he wasn't buying a billion dollar company. Right, he was like a middle management person. He was like middle, earlier career. Yeah, like director, whatever. Yeah, I mean, he wasn't like nobody. But he certainly wasn't leading the way. It wasn't Jeff Bezos or the heads. And so he liked your company. How did it go from day one to year three when they bought your company? Yeah, so Nick was like, this is super cool. Let's do this. We can try to help you here. Again, the funny thing is the higher you get, the less actual work you do. And so Nick was at that level where the people he knew, his peers, like the person over at e-commerce in Amazon, was someone who was actually doing stuff.

37:28Jamie Siminoff:The person in the device group was doing stuff. So it was like the people that were actually at that level, that layer. So we got into like, oh, you know, we then quickly found out that Amazon was going to launch, they hadn't at the time, a screen device. Well, guess what you want to put on a screen? Camera. So now it's like, hey, we want to sign this big NDA with you because we want to have you as an early partner on this and we want you to work on it with us. And so we helped like kind of build the whole video thing with them of how it would work on a screen. Before they bought you? Before. Oh, yeah, yeah.

37:55Jamie Siminoff:Way before. Yeah. So did they just pay you like a consulting fee? We just worked with them as like a, like they were more just, it was a channel that we would, you know, kind of use. Okay. Use. Like a partnership. A partnership. And so, but that's how we started to meet them. And like, and so just, you know, but it took, it was like three years of courting. And I'd say not even with like, it wasn't like, we're like, I think you're always, when you're small like that, you're like, oh, it'd be great if Amazon bought us. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, sure. But it was really just like, let's just keep kind of just doing what's right.

38:21Jamie Siminoff:And we just kept working on stuff. And then all of a sudden it came to this point where they're like, we should, you know. Did you have anybody else who wanted to buy you guys? No, which is kind of interesting. You know, I didn't want to sell the company, so I was not. I do think a lot of times the reason companies have a lot of interest is because they're putting out sort of the scent. You know, they're putting like the pheromones of sale out there and they're trying to sort of bait people. Like, I really didn't want to sell the company. And I told Amazon many times that from working with them, and it was true, that it was the only company I would sell to.

38:56Jamie Siminoff:because I like, you know, Jeff was still leading it as the founder. And you could feel that like founder energy there. And that they really backed the companies they bought. And I just was not done with Ring. I mean, as you can see, I'm still there eight years later. So like, I certainly wasn't done with Ring. But I really wasn't like done with it. Like I really wanted to keep building it. And so I didn't want to sell it. And so I think we didn't get other, because when we sold, a bunch of people came out of the woodwork and said, I wish we had known you were for sale. Like who? I mean, like just a bunch, you know, like big companies.

39:26too like big companies yeah i know i know yeah like large ones so but like you know but so is this what you told me before you're like don't worry i know how to like i know how to like not

39:34Jamie Siminoff:get myself in too much trouble i get in like i get in just enough trouble to like go through life with like what was the name of the company start with like you know like the ones that are big and so but like you know they called you they're like we didn't know you're for sale and it was like partly we we weren't the other part is like i wouldn't have sold to them because i i know how they are with companies and i wasn't trying to sell to your sam i wasn't trying to sell the company i was trying to build still this mission and making neighborhoods safer and i was like very missionary with it and i also felt to the team that i owed them because i said to the team the most important thing we're doing is making neighborhoods safer that's what we're focused on and when we sold to amazon like the thing that jeff said is like you just keep doing this and like this is what we're buying like we're buying a company that like have you met with him since since we sold yeah oh yeah like do you see him all the time are you guys like golfing buddies jeff doesn't golf but i mean we're we're do you work out with him definitely like i would consider him a friend i mean yeah i think i think i hope he considers i think he considers me a friend i mean he's you know well you don't want to say the richest person well you want to like say like no no no but like when did he when did he kind of enter the picture so there they at that point they had realized that jeff loves entrepreneurs so much that if they got jeff in too early that he would like it was like hard to negotiate he'd basically just sort of a little bit and then and then the problem was then they'd have to be like well that's not a price we can do like you know like it sort of would become like crazy because jeff just loves entrepreneurs jeff loves inventors and entrepreneurs really he loves people that build stuff like jeff truly is like just like loves to be everyone's gonna now contact jeff right now with their idea i mean if you can get to him he loves to he would talk to anyone forever about interesting things i love that He loves, he's like a sponge of just wanting to understand.

41:18Jamie Siminoff:He's curious. He's like a very curious person. Really? Yeah. So then when, so at what point did they, did they get you to meet him? So it was basically right after we signed the deal that I finally kind of like, I met him, but not like, you know, like met him like, oh, like this is, you know, like very like, not like met met. And then it was after that that we started to kind of like actually spend some time together. and got to know each other. So then before you got 1.15, what was the initial amount that they offered you? Less. Yes. But it was just funny because they offered me, but not that much less.

41:58Like more than 700 million?

42:00Jamie Siminoff:Yeah, more than that. But so then we had to get, the problem was, and this is like I put my board in a terrible position, which is my board is like, we, you know, as a fiduciary, because we had so many investors, and there's like, people are litigious. And so like, I don't care if someone put a dollar in like, if you sell, it's like, okay, well, why'd you sell for that price? Like you have this company that some people get back. People could have said the company was worth a hundred billion. People say it's worth 500 million, whatever. It's like, no, you're right. Like I agree. The company's on one hand is losing money.

42:26Jamie Siminoff:It could have been worth$0. The other side is it could be worth, look at the growth rate. It could be worth 10 billion. And so you, as a board, you can, so you had, so we brought in JP Morgan, Noah Weintraub and JP Morgan as an investment bank. And it was hard because it was like, Noah's like, well, basically we'll go out and we'll get other offers like that's how you do it and i'm like well i'm not selling anyone else and it's like no it's like oh you know it's like that's why i asked you was there was not even like you didn't even go out with it because i said this was like again i i am probably like i i was probably too crazy about this mission and like i i looking back like it it probably hurt us i was like so missionary mission focused and driven that it certainly made us we made mistakes i probably would have been better, but I'm also not, I'm not a business person.

43:11Jamie Siminoff:So like, it's like, I think that's just is who I am. I'm just like a, like, um, so I said to Noah, like, we're not selling anyone else, get the most you can, and then we'll sell to Amazon. Are you serious? Yeah. So wait, you're not a business person, but you are an inventor, a founder. So who was the day-to-day every, like, were you the founder? Did you, were you the CEO of the company? So I think anyone can run a business if they recognize what they're good at. So like, I don't think running a business takes a specific trait other than knowing the things that you don't do. And so for me, like super missionary, like, by the way, like what a leadership, everyone at the company knew what they were working on, like why to work there, why to be there.

43:49Jamie Siminoff:Like, that's a pretty big one. Like that's you do track people. That's pretty huge. But like day to day stuff, like I didn't do anything. I never I've never had in the history of the company. I've never had a set meeting with my direct team ever. So who does that for you? So it's autonomous. So we have people that run their areas. They're all like CEOs. I look at everyone as a CEO of their area and you just kind of run your own area. So marketing is run by marketing and they kind of are CEOs of that. Now, you have to make sure they work together. And my job, I kind of come in and go out to fight fires, fix things.

44:25Jamie Siminoff:I drive a lot of the product and invention side of things. But day to day, I've never been like the day-to-day trying to run the company. I think that's the problem is a lot of people who start things feel like they have to, by the book, be like a CEO. Right. And they have to have like their weekly meeting and they have to do this and all this stuff. And it's like, it's just not who they are. Yeah. And because of that, it like stops them from scaling and getting big because they're trying to fight to like be this CEO. Like, in fact, I call myself the chief inventor. We didn't have a CEO. That's great because I know that a lot of times what companies do, right?

44:58Like they have the person who's the founder in until they get to a certain place, like 50 million, 20, whatever. And then like the real CEO comes in to scale the business.

45:09Jamie Siminoff:Right. And, you know, that anything, it can work. I mean, you saw it with Eric Schmidt with Google. Like, yeah, these like, you know, the Google guys, the founders were like young and whatever. And Eric Schmidt comes in, who's like more of like a seasoned, you know, person. I think that was actually more luck than anything else. Because if you look at a hundred of those examples, they're probably one of the few that actually work. Because usually when you bring in that CEO, they destroy the whole company. And so I stayed. That's what you said. First of all, what you just said was so true. And I've seen this a million times.

45:42Because you as a CEO, you're bringing the vision. You're bringing the passion. And you're leading the ship, right? So people, to build a really great team of people, they have to really look up to the person, have like a mission-driven reason why they're working so hard and have a corporate culture. Like you're setting the corporate culture.

46:02Jamie Siminoff:Right? I set the culture. And also, I'm super driven. I wanted to win. Yes. So you're setting all these macro big things. But I wasn't doing like a weekly team meeting to go over whatever. I don't even know how people run a business. I couldn't even tell you. Like, I don't, I just don't know how it works. But I know how to build a business. I know how to like win a business. I know how to win. And like, and again, I always look at the inputs. Like to me, the business is like the output side. Right. The inputs are like, do we have the right product? Are we fixing customers' needs? Like, like if you fix, if you, I would say, if we make neighborhoods safer, if someone believes that Ring, when they walk into Best Buy or Home Depot or whatever, if you see Ring on a package, like just that name, and you're like, I know whatever's in there is going to make my neighborhood safer and make my home safer, my family safer.

46:46Jamie Siminoff:you're going to buy it 100 and you're going to reward me with that purchase and so like all i have to focus on is making sure that you know that everything else will fix itself like how that box got there like someone can figure that out like that's so true then why did you come like so you were there for all those years so when they bought you why did like why did you stay was that part of the deal like okay it's kind of it's funny it's like people say like part of the deal meaning like that they paid to keep like that like i was there because they were paying me it's like the opposite. Like part of the deal was like, I get to stay and keep running this.

47:19Jamie Siminoff:Like I told them like I'm staying. Right. Did you get a salary on top of them? Yeah. But like, I mean, yeah, yeah, no, it's been good. No, but what I'm saying, but then you left and then why did you come back? So I stayed, so we sold in 2018. I stayed for five years and I took it from literally like the year before I sold. So 2017, we did 480 million. The year before that 170, we go to Amazon and we grow like a freaking weed. I mean, we just, I crushed it. And I was like, How much did you sell? It was crazy. Like it just grew and grew and grew. You won't even tell me that? It grew and grew and grew.

47:51Jamie Siminoff:I mean, billions. And so, and I got a profitable. So into 23, profitability, crazy growth, incredible invention. You know, every, like, whatever you want to look at, like whether it's reviews, CSAT scores, whatever the things, like everything was like kind of 10 out of 10. And I was just toast. Like my brain was mush. Like I had just not, like, it's funny because people say like when you sold, like, where'd you go? What'd you do? it. I'm like, I went to work. Like I was like, this is great. Cause now I have a big balance sheet to work, work off of. Like, we're going to go faster and harder. So for five years, I was like, I went to like full grit grind mode.

48:25Like what was your schedule? Like, give me an example.

48:27Jamie Siminoff:I mean, it was, I never stopped. Just like, what time did you start work in the morning? I'm not like a, like, I'm not like a, like, I just kind of start, I just kind of go all, I'm like, never stop. It's more like, it's like a constant than it is like an actual, like, did you go to the office or do you do it from home? Office traveling. I mean, lot of travel a lot of like i in person is big for me really like i think in person meetings you mean in person meetings obviously covid was a weird one but but but besides that it's like you know retailers and like i think you know you gotta just be out there and you know i'm i'm like the sham wow guy you know i'm like billy mays you know like i'm i'm like an infomercial so like you are look at your shirt yeah i know i mean like literally i wear ring stuff i mean i like it's like but that's who i am like i'm a i'm so i go there it's amazing and that energy and that's That's how we go to a retailer and say, this is what we're launching, and this is why we're excited about it, and this is how it's going to make neighbors safer and people safer.

49:19You're like the promotion guy. I'm a promoter. The enthusiast. For sure. You bring the enthusiasm, which is also so important.

49:25Jamie Siminoff:But it also sucks your energy. It kills you. Totally. I don't care how you're flying. I don't care what you're doing. It is like you're grinding. And so I just got to this point where I felt like I delivered to Amazon way more than they'd expected. it's i think it's probably the best purchase they've ever done from a company side totally um and so i i just was burnt out i'm like i need to just do something else like i need to read like i just my brain needs to reset and so i worked with them and we transitioned out and so i left at the end or like middle of 23 and then i was pretty quickly miserable so you were i was gonna say because it's not that like you went back i left for like a year and a half yeah so what made you go back so quick?

50:07Jamie Siminoff:A couple things. One is, I mean, I was, it is like my baby. Like, I mean, I wear the Ring shirt because it's like, it's like my baby. It's like my baby. It's like my, it's like I have one son and I have like this one. So I have like two kids. Wow. So I do love it. I love what it does. I love the stories of it. I'm super attached to it. Like people know my face. They come up to me. They're like, Ring did this for my family. Ring did this for me. Ring stopped this thing. Like I, so I, I love all of that and feed on that. And then with AI, I could see really what ring could do and it was the the fires in the palisades that was like the breaking point for me of we like there's so much more we can do like what tell me so i was i mean like my house is in the palisades so it was like you know like it was on fire and so we put it out and um i'm sorry yeah it was just i mean it's like you know if you've been up there it's like it's just such a terrible thing and so we had over 10 000 cameras in that area and i was just thinking like this thing's jumping and whatever and no one knows where it is and like that's part of the problem and like firemen are like being dispatched to the wrong places and i'm like shit like we could like we know where the fire is to the cameras like we could build something to do this and so that was like one of the things that i was like and like because ai like before ai you could not have it would just wouldn't like you can't just dump 10 000 cameras into a anything it wouldn't have helped it would have like who cares like with ai you can like look for smoke fire embers like whatever and with people's permission of course like you know so now we have this thing called fire watch which we launched off of this and so if if a big fire event happens when they do we actually do it now all the time we send out an alert to people in that area and we say would you like to basically let your camera be used for the next 24 hours to help watch duty which is the app that basically builds the fire map for all the command centers and the police and fire to help them and so we then look through ai when the fire is happening and we try to figure out where it's jumping to to try to build a more real-time fire map to help the resources go and fight it fast oh wow and so that was like that was but that was like that's the product and that's kind of the thing but that was like the breaking point of like me going to amazon and being like i have to come back and do this like this is just like we need like this network of of that we've built this mission we've built this base of neighbors which is what we call our customers like we need like with ai we can do so much more so you went back to them and said i want to come back yeah and they were super cool they were like that's great like okay like we'll have you back i was like, sweet.

52:32Well, did you, did anyone take over your job when you left?

52:34Jamie Siminoff:Yeah, someone took over, yeah. So they kick him out or what happened to that person? They, they decided they wanted to go do something else. Yeah. Oh, so it kind of was like, it worked out just fine. It seemed to work out.

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54:16What's with all the privacy issues? Like why are people always giving you such a

54:20Jamie Siminoff:problem with privacy when i mean a couple things i think whenever you're doing something that matters yeah and it's almost funny i would say even whenever you know something matters and that's good for people you always get pushed back like there's there's it's just funny but it's almost like if you do something that's big and impactful and no one pushes back you're probably not doing something big and impactful like as crazy as that sounds it's like it's like what i've learned um so true so we launched this thing you know we launched dog search party oh yeah so we launched search party for dogs got a similar idea where we have right now we have in the ring app in neighbors our ring app we have people post you know almost a million lost dogs a year get posted in the app already like from previous like like it's lost dogs are actually like a huge thing yeah all the time and so i'm like wow with ai we can like take that dog that picture and like look for that dog in the neighborhood and when we find it tell you so So we have now, like we built the technology, we built it with privacy.

55:18Jamie Siminoff:So it is like if a dog is lost in my neighborhood, it'll say, Jamie, like this dog, like this picture that was posted looks like this dog in front of your house. Do you want to contact your neighbor? If you don't contact your neighbor, I mean, you're not probably a good person, but no one knows that you didn't do it. Right. It's like literally no different than like a dog now walking in your backyard. We like, oh, that's a weird thing. That's like a dog. And I look at the tag and I see the number on it. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to call it. And I throw the dog out of the yard. like that would be the same thing like no one knows you did that but like wtf yeah and so we we launched this thing we're literally every day we're reuniting over one family per day with their dog using it today already like it's actually happening we did a super bowl commercial on it and the people went you know i mean it was like a group of people went sort of like well i never understood this well because it's like this could be for surveillance this could be to track this this could be a track that and it's like i think people just you know and i get it like they just can they imagine this like utopian world and they get like they just get freaked out to like super quickly versus being like okay how does this thing work and when you look at how it works you're like oh like i like it doesn't take anyone's privacy like it's it's actually you're clicking to say i want to call my neighbor like you're with a fire thing you're clicking to say like i want to help in the fire so we've made everything like you i think what it is that people have gotten so polarized it's like you either have like you have no privacy and these things happen or you have your privacy and nothing can happen there's like no like wait a second we can have a middle ground that like i can help my neighborhood when i want to and when i don't want to like i can sort of i can control it like no one can imagine that that world can exist this like sort of middle world that's the world we're living in in general everything's polarized everything's so polarized like super one side or the other like the reality is like the middle is where everything should be the middle is where everything should be but that's that's everything thing in life but then how about like the savannah savannah gun three thing with her mother remember because you well how was that affecting ring it affects a couple ways i mean one is um you know first of all it's like it's probably the saddest thing i've ever seen i mean like and there's still no there's this it's still i mean at this point you you i i hope i'm wrong but it feels like there's just i mean i don't just doesn't feel like there's enough evidence like they just don't have but on the ring they saw the guy at the front desk at the front of the door Yeah, so it was actually a nest.

57:37Oh, it was a nest. Okay, there you go. See? See? I know. Everyone assumes it was Ring.

57:43Jamie Siminoff:Yeah. The thing that was really, you know, and most of these things like this when they happen, like some big event in an area that happens like this, usually you have a lot of footage now. Like you have a lot of cameras. In this particular area of Tucson, the homes are in bigger lots. There's a lot of like brush and stuff in front of them. And so it just turned out that like the streets there from the homes like are just not covered by cameras. And so whatever happened there just was not like just no one had, you know, sort of no one caught it. Because in a neighborhood in Los Angeles or something happened like that, you'd probably have 100 people submit videos of cars coming in, cars going out, things, whatever, you know.

58:24But if it was, and I'm not to throw anyone under the bus, Nest or whoever, but if it was a ring camera, would it have been the picture clearer? Would it have shown more angles? Could it have done more stuff to kind of maybe catch the person?

58:37Jamie Siminoff:I mean that you know they were masked I think I think what you really needed on this one was not just that you needed to have some idea of where they came from where they were going like a little bit more of that sort of part because they were somewhat professional it seems in what they were doing but I think if you had video of like the car where it went then you could sort of like then you can usually breadcrumb it like try to go farther whereas like they don't even know what car they were in or as far as i know like i don't you know i'm just like from the public side like what and we don't even have to say them yeah but like in general like what is like how is the ring so far what is some of the attributes that or yeah things that things that the ring has that other competitive people don't you know it's funny i mean i think our cameras to the price every price point i think we deliver the best camera quality so it's not about being i have one.

59:31I mean, not to say that means anything. No, but it's the same.

59:33Jamie Siminoff:But it's not like, people say, do you have the best cameras? And like the best camera is like a little bit, because like if you spend$100 ,000 on a camera, like there are like super extreme cameras that are available, of course, but they're also at a price. And so I think what we've been able to do is democratize home security and bring it to a price point that's affordable and give you an incredible value for that. So I think like our cameras are, I do think they're the best at every price point. And then we've created things like their neighbors and community requests and like all these like things around it that then make the experience so it has more impact.

1:00:06Jamie Siminoff:So, you know, like in the Brown shooting, for example, the police were able to send an alert to all the ring customers asking for footage very quickly. Yeah. And then they were able to get that back and use that. And that's kind of, again, how they breadcrumbed their way into that was like, okay, this person talked to this person. I can see it on a video. Okay. And again, all, but by the way, to the middle submitted with people that all gave their permission at that time. So like they got an alert and if they said no, they were anonymous. if they said yes, then they were able to submit that. Wow.

1:00:33Okay. I didn't even ask you these questions yet, but in terms of advice, right, or mentor, do you have a mentor? Do you have one that you speak to regularly?

1:00:43Jamie Siminoff:I'd say at different times, I think it's different people because you have different needs. But I certainly, there's lots of people that I talk to constantly about things and just like mentors and sort of just like people. It takes a village, I mean, for sure. Is there like one piece of advice that you've gotten over these years that really kind of sticks out? I don't think there is like a single. I mean, I think that's the biggest piece of advice I've ever gotten, I think, is actually like don't give advice. Yeah. Is that, you know, we're all unique. Like we're all a fingerprint. Our businesses are all unique.

1:01:16Jamie Siminoff:Like the time, people ask me like, oh, I'm building this product. Like what should I do that Ring did that made it successful? And the reality is like the world shifted. Yeah. You know, like to start a business, to start Ring today would be different than starting Ring, you know, 15 years ago. It's like, I mean, there wasn't TikTok when I started. There wasn't. So it's like, so I think it's, but history doesn't repeat itself. It does rhyme. And so I think like when you realize that it rhymes, then it's like listen to people and try to like extract understanding of like the rhyming. And then how does that sort of relate to you?

1:01:48Jamie Siminoff:So to me, it's more about like listening and understanding how things relate to your situation, not taking advice. because when people want to give advice, it's, again, it's also coming from, it's even coming from a different time. A hundred percent. And their experience with it. That's a great line. History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Where'd you hear that? Kevin Sistrom told me that, the founder of Instagram. I love that. And I did love it. I don't even know if it's his line, but it's like, when he said it, I was like, because I love it because people say history repeats itself. And it actually, it sort of does, but it doesn't repeat itself.

1:02:19Jamie Siminoff:It repeats the same sort of things happen. because humans themes exactly which is like the rhyming so i do yeah i love that so we never i gotta circle back to the uh shark tank because you didn't tell me how you ended up as a shark so then you become very successful yeah and then did they call you and say hey you want to be a shark because you were the biggest reject that we made a mistake when we sold when i sold it to amazon you know for like you know the sort of the billion i mean and for that like the billion is like you know a billion dollars which was like you know is that it was the largest by far of a shark tank company at that point that it sold for sure and so it's just such a big headline and they said you know do you want to come on and be a shark and it was like i mean talk about like i to me i looked at going on shark tank as like an amateur athlete going to the olympics you know like to me like being on shark tank as a as a like a person like as a as an entrepreneur that was like going on to the olympics and then i like michael phelps that like you know like i won like every medal yes and then i like michael jordan'd it like i went to the pros like to be on shark tank as a shark was like insane.

1:03:22Jamie Siminoff:Like it was like literally like you could not even set your goal that high. It was crazy. So that was a pretty cool thing. How many times were you a shark? Just a couple. I mean, it turns out it's a lot of work. I mean, these people are real that are on it. You have to like invest in their companies. I don't have a back office or anything. No, but a lot of the people, you know, not to say any names, but don't do any investment. Like Mark Cuban actually does a lot of, he puts money. Mark does a lot. Lori is like super busy. Lori does a lot. Mark does a lot. Mark does the most. Yeah. But there's a couple people.

1:03:49Jamie Siminoff:They're all great, though. Like, they've all become like... Okay, but there's a couple of people who don't do anything. But it's really hard. Like, I mean, it's like each one is like a real business that like matters to that family. And so like, I realized like I invested in one and I like went... You did? Yeah, it's one called Moink. M-O-I-N-K, Moo-Oink. And we do direct-to-consumer meat, like sort of packages of meat from ethically farmed from all these small farmers. It's out in Missouri. Wonderful woman runs it, Lucinda Cramsey. And it's done really well. It went from doing$750 ,000 a year to$20 million now.

1:04:21Jamie Siminoff:Really? It's profitable. How much money did you give her? I gave her a little over$700 ,000 in the end. Really? And I got it back. She paid it all back. Really? Yeah, which is crazy. And this is my personality why I can't invest in companies. I now own a farm in that town. I've worked on rebuilding the town. I own the bar in the town, the coffee shop. I've done the sidewalks, the streets. I'm friends with the people. We put a barbecue contest on every year there. Like, I love it. Really? I love that. LaBelle, Missouri. That's amazing. So then, okay, so that's what you mean by a lot of work. Because you, the kind of person you are, you will really...

1:05:01Because I'm not an investor. Right. Like, you really want to... You're like a doer.

1:05:06Jamie Siminoff:Yeah. And I can't, like, have my... Yeah. Like, I have to have my hands into this thing. Yeah. I have no interest in, like... Like, investing is such a boring thing to me in terms of, like... Yeah, being passive. It's just making money. Like, it's like just like a passive investor is literally, you're just making money, which is like, I'm glad they exist and it's cool and whatever. It's just like for me. Not for you. Yeah, no. What was another company that you actually invested in? Shark Tank was the only one I did. That's the only one? Yeah. Today, like in real life, are you an investor now? Yeah, I'm an investor.

1:05:35Jamie Siminoff:I have another one called Clayton Farms, which we're just building now. You like the farming stuff, huh? I do. I like food, like the whole idea of like we need to eat better and wholesome. And so Clayton Farms is the only, right now we have one in Ames, Iowa. It's the only quick serve restaurant where we grow the lettuce and the food on site. So literally like it's a drive-through salad place. It's like a Sweet Greens. Oh. But where it's actually grown in the building. And so your salad is like 45 minutes old. Stop it. World's Freshest Salad. And we have a location opening up in San Francisco at a couple months.

1:06:08That sounds amazing.

1:06:09Jamie Siminoff:It's amazing. It's amazing. It's epic. Where'd you find it? So Clayton pinged me after I was on Guy Raz's podcast and said he wanted to build the John Deere of indoor farming. And he was in Iowa. And because I have this place in Missouri, I said, you can come down to my farm in Missouri if you want to meet. And he said, OK. So he drove down. Really? And I met him. Yeah. And then, of course, I put way too much money in this thing. And it's crazy. And I will say, what I've learned about quick serve restaurants and fast food is if you want to make money, go into fried chicken or burgers. Yeah, for sure.

1:06:41Jamie Siminoff:salads are a hard sell but i don't but i'm also like this is my problem like i don't care like i i love it and so i think clayton farms is like the greatest thing ever it's so cool um what kind of how much money did you give the guy first of all uh i think i'm in it for a million now so then and then are they how much are they making money at all no i mean i know you're not profitable i mean the the are they selling are they the aims are like the aims location is actually like very profitable it's like for like a one single location yeah uh the business is not profitable yeah and then hopefully launching i think we i probably pushed him to make a mistake which is like to try to like build it kind of like in the midwest and like these places where their food deserts come to la that would well that's i think what we realized is so we're going san francisco i think we're going to hit the like but like it's like sort of like it's like bringing sand to the beach here but yes people will use it here and whatever but i i really did it because i want to bring fresher food to places that are eating too much processed food yeah i'm just gonna have to It's going to be a two-putt.

1:07:36Jamie Siminoff:I'm going to have to first, I think, build it in the big cities, use that money to then reinvest it in. But Clayton's mission is to do that also. The founder is super aligned with that. But I think we need to grow first in New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Miami. Well, you know, it's funny because everyone says it's like bringing sand to the beach. But yet the sand does well here. And I will also say there's not that many great salad places here. there really aren't if you really think about it there's not and this is like this is insane like it's like the taste is different oh it sounds amazing yeah so give me an example like what kind of salad would it be like a chicken salad or i mean it's like regular it is like regular like whatever like we have like so great salad i'm gonna google this after yeah the base is great i mean because it's the it's all like fresh grown like like whether it's like you know romaine or like mixed greens whatever the whole stuff is i don't know he's the salad guy um and then we have we have great dressing like good fresh dressing and then the ingredients are like yeah like it's just like you know good you have like organic chicken and like whatever so that sounds so good there's a simple thing there like i just get like the mixed greens and like chicken and like you know like a raspberry vinaigrette and it's like that's i'm done like that's some avocado chopped on there that sounds so good boom those are good i like those companies give me is there any other ones that you did um i have one that's that does uh firefighting with dry ice so if you think about it water is like we've used water since we've had fire so like whenever we created whoever created fire like some caveman yeah use some water to put it out like that's like what we've used and we have never we have not evolved at all in how we fight fires in anything and dry ice is a great way to fight fire because fire is both it's basically heat and oxygen and dry ice is cold and it sublimates carbon dioxide so if you think about it dry ice basically makes it makes it cold so it takes away the heat right and it puts off carbon dioxide which chokes the fire oh that's interesting so it's a really and it just leaves nothing behind so if like a house caught on fire and you sprayed dry ice into it right it wouldn't ruin the house there's no water so the problem is the water like in a house fire usually why a house is like sort of yeah you know it's like maybe one room but like the water goes through the ceiling and like destroys the whole thing it fills the whole thing up and so it's a really interesting it's very hard to like how do you store it all this stuff so that's what we've been figuring out so he has some stuff now he actually just launched the the this guy he's doing just launched the first product uh with it which is more for industrial.

1:09:59Jamie Siminoff:That's a good one also. Battery fire, so it's cool, yeah. These are interesting. Yeah, I'll lose all my money at some point on all these. Oh, that's okay. But listen, you have a lot. I mean, not a billion, but you have a lot. And so how long is your deal with Amazon? You're just going to say they're indefinitely. At this point, yeah, just indefinitely. I mean, it's like, AI has made Ring feel like it's back in the garage again. Like, there's just so many things we can do with it. Yeah, I totally understand that. And like, every day, I mean, I'm on calls now, like, building product that feels like we're back to because it's like they're groundbreaking you know whereas i'd say when we got to the end when i was in like 2021 22 23 it was like more iterative which is still fine i mean we i think we still did great products but there were more iterations like we're gonna go higher on the kilobits on the camera and better audio like it was just fine but now we're like just iterating at like a level that's just i haven't like it's crazy the stuff we're gonna come out with and so i think if that slows down at some point, which I, maybe it's five years, 10 years, 20, I don't know, whatever it is.

1:10:59Jamie Siminoff:Maybe then I'd be bored again and want to do something else and I'll figure it out. But for right now, I'm just like all in and just building stuff. So you, okay. So I didn't even ask you this because it was not that important, but well, it is important, but I was more interested in the Rolex watch apparently, the nonprofit. But so you're from New Jersey. When did you move to LA and where did you go to school? So I went to school. So I grew up in New Jersey, went to Babson College in Boston. What did you get? Entrepreneurship, actually. Oh, you know you hate being an entrepreneur or not an entrepreneur and all the things.

1:11:28Yeah.

1:11:29Jamie Siminoff:So I got a degree in entrepreneurship and then started like a little telecom business that I met a guy doing that, had a business plan thing. And then through that met another guy in telecom and he was doing phone cards and he wanted to move it to San Diego. And so I just moved to San... I was like 23 years old. Okay. So you've been on the West coast since then. We moved to San Diego, met a girl in LA. She said she, I was going to move back to the East coast. Like I was just like here temporarily. Right. And she's like, and I literally on our first date, I'm like, just so you know, like I'm moving back to Boston at some point.

1:12:03Jamie Siminoff:She's like, Oh, okay. Like, you know, I'd like to live in Boston. She's a liar. My wife, Erin. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so, literally we got engaged like the next morning. Like literally, I'm not kidding. Like the morning after we got engaged, She's like, just FYI, we're not moving back to the East Coast. And you're like, oh, that's nice to know now. I was like, that's really great. I'm like, give me the ring back. No, it was fine. And I love, so I've been now in California a long time. So I love Southern California. I love Los Angeles. I wish we could get maybe some better people to run some things here.

1:12:34Jamie Siminoff:But I do love the place and the people. Well, it's funny because most people who have a business or made a lot of money, they've already left. Like the last person should shut the lights off, you know? I worry about that. Right? Because no business is even here anymore. I mean, the... Very few. Very few. The seizure tax, if that passes, will really... I mean, it's already had a huge impact on California. And I think it's a sad one because it goes after the very core of what we are here, which is the one thing we really are in California is entrepreneurs. We are inventors. This place has been built on crazy inventors.

1:13:08Jamie Siminoff:But they all leave. Once they... Before they sell their business, they're all leaving. For obvious reasons. I think the hopeful side is there's always more coming in. And California has always been a place that just like inspires invention. But yeah, I think it's, you know, I love it. So I hope it lasts for a long time and can go through its stuff. San Francisco is a good example of a place that actually is becoming, you know, like Daniel Laurie has really turned San Francisco around, which is kind of cool to see. And so hopefully, depending on like where we go here, like I'm hopeful that California will be a great place to do business again at some point.

1:13:41Are you going to keep on with the ring or is there any other invention in you that you're curious to kind of explore?

1:13:48Jamie Siminoff:It's funny because I that's like my problem is like I couldn't find it's not invention. It's like the thing that impacts people. Right. At scale. And so like once you've had 100 million devices out there stopping crime and doing this and when things happen, you're sort of seeing it literally on like TV in the morning without doing anything. You're seeing like ring as well. You know, it's like I think it's really hard to then just go and like build something. because it's like, what is it? Are your parents so proud of you? Sally, my dad passed away before Ring came out. So like that was a bummer.

1:14:19Jamie Siminoff:I mean, a bummer for many reasons, including that he died. But I think he would have loved to have like, he would have gotten a kick out of this. My mom is funny. She still lives in Jersey, like kind of like same place. And she's a funny little sparky lady. And like, yeah, she's pretty proud. My brother is great and he's proud. And so, yeah, it's been cool. What did your dad do? He was like the guy behind an entrepreneur. So he would always tell me like, James, you need to just take a small amount and just work for someone. You know, it was like he was always like the CFO kind of. Right. Of the company.

1:14:49Like the second in command.

1:14:50Jamie Siminoff:Second in command kind of guy, like the guy working for the guy. And he was like, that's what you want to be. You never want to be out front. And I'd always be like, you're out of your mind, dad. Like, I just want to. And so he had this business partner, the guy he worked for, Adam Ambiele. And so all like, it was just like my dad would be telling me this. And I'd be like looking at Adam and be like, I'm going to be that guy. Right. Oh, wow. It was just kind of a funny thing of how kids are. And then look what happened. You created an entire category that was never even existing before. Yeah. Wow.

1:15:17Did your mother even understand the caliber of what she's doing? Like what you did? I think, like, I don't think I did.

1:15:24Jamie Siminoff:Well, that's why you kept it going. I don't think it's like that even my mom. I think like, you know, until, honestly, until I left Ring, you know, five years after Amazon. Yeah. Even after I sold it, like, I don't think I fully recognized the impact we had. I think there is something about being inside of a company because you're seeing, like, I see the problems every day. Like, I see my emails on every box. Like, we're not perfect. Like, there's a customer service that, like, customer has an issue. So, I think until I, like, left and all that noise went away and I could just see the world, like, clean slate, it was like, holy cow.

1:15:56Jamie Siminoff:Like, this thing is really, like, wow. I'm sure. Are you still friends with all your old friends? like before you became not a billionaire yeah no i'm friends with friends with yeah like all my like my friends from high school i mean it's hard because i grew up in new jersey so i know but like i go back to new jersey at least once a year we get together and have a big dinner and stuff and so like yeah like it's it's like i've tried to maintain friends with a lot of the guys from college are still friends and do you have any advice for people who are listening to this and how to structure businesses where they don't get diluted like you got diluted like this or it's all I think it's actually more of if you're, I think the biggest problem is not dilution or not dilution.

1:16:33Jamie Siminoff:I think it's the problem is when someone raises a little bit of money, but they're like worried about their dilution. I think you either got to be like, if you're going to raise money from venture capitalists, drop the hammer. Go as fast as you can, as hard as you can, raise as much as you can. Who cares what you own? Just freaking go. And if you're not going to do that, do the opposite, which is like raise a tiny bit of money. Be super careful. Go slower. like I think it's like one or the other I think the one where people I see the worst is that they go a little slower because they want to hold their value but yet they never build the value because they're going too slow and so I think it is like if you're you know because venture capitalists they're like the good thing is they were aligned with what I was doing yeah like they wanted me to go fast they wanted me to take the money and like just rip it and rip it how much do you think it's your likability and your you're like you're the kind of person you are versus the idea um i mean we'll invest in which one do you think people i mean i think to create like to create something that's like a ring is luck because it's just like there's just too many things outside of your control timing market conditions like there's just so many things that are outside of your control now i think different times call for different people and whatever and i think like like a ring needed like whoever was going to build the ring of that time needed to be my type of personality, which is like grit, go fast, you know, sort of break everything in the process kind of thing.

1:18:01Jamie Siminoff:And I think that like different companies take different types of people at different times that become these like, like anthropic, like, you know, talk about a company that seems to be just like breaking out right now and doing stuff that's like, I mean. Crushing. And like breaking everything. I mean, like, you know, and it's like, Dario's a totally different type of person than I would be. I mean, just like could not be more from what I've seen. Like, I don't know. I don't know him, but like could not be more different. So I think it is, you know, it's like there's just different people for different businesses in different times.

1:18:32Do you think they're going to take over ChatGPT in terms of popularity and use and everything else?

1:18:37Jamie Siminoff:I mean, it looks like they could be a runaway. It looks like they could be the NVIDIA, you know, like NVIDIA, which is insane. Like, I don't think people even like recognize how insane it is that in the most important part of the most important market that maybe has ever existed in the world there's one company that basically controls it all which is invidia there's people that make chips but no one's even close to them it seems like it seems i mean it actually just looks like amazon might have now with these like tranium and some of the stuff actually might be sort of catching up which is which is i'm very hopeful for because i'm an amazonian but i mean even if even if amazon catches up it'd be two like it's crazy something that's like literally the biggest most important market ever in history of the world and like right now and it looks like anthropic might be breaking out to just be ahead of everyone in such a way that's like it's it's fascinating to watch it is it's a whole different time yeah is there anything i haven't asked you or i that i missed that you think is important to add i no i think like the i think the most important thing is like people are listening and like is just like i think it is like go for something to me it's like go for something you're passionate.

1:19:44If people are listening.

1:19:45Jamie Siminoff:Yeah, I guess if, I mean, I shouldn't say if, like those that are listening. Hopefully have one or two people. No, but I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, I'm humble if, you know, it's a. Yes. Humility. But, you know, it's like the thing you're, go for the thing you're passionate about, be who you are and like work hard. And I do think with AI, the grit side is going to become way more valuable than all this other crap that's been like, you know, the Stanford person and the best developers and the best this. It's like the best developers, Claude. Exactly. Like it's not no, and that's not putting down engineers.

1:20:21Jamie Siminoff:It's just the best engineers now are the ones that know that they're not the best, that using a hundred AI agents at their disposal and then managing that, that that's the most powerful thing they can do. Well, there's nothing also that could ever take the place of human connection, relationships, community. Let's hope. I know. I know. Let's hope. I actually agree with you. I'm very hopeful that basically, you know, I think that no matter how intelligent AI becomes, there is a reason why humans, it's the EQ side becomes more valuable. Oh, for sure. And EQ is grit. Yes. Like IQ is not grit, EQ is grit.

1:20:59Believe me. I talk about this ad nauseum. I mean, if you're listening, people who are listening, this is like my my speech every day grit you know going after things not overthinking it like believe you know all the things right like persistence but what was amazing is like there

1:21:15Jamie Siminoff:was a time in the last 10 or 20 years where like intelligence trumped grit when oh i i would say for sure there's a lot of examples of companies where tell me give me three give me three oh god they put me on the spot with that I want to know three companies where intelligence was more important than grit write an email later how about two? no I think there's definitely a time you can't even think of any you made a very arching statement you got me I don't really think if there's any that I think of I did an entire TED talk on this topic so that's why I'd be curious to hear So I guess it's still grit.

1:21:58Jamie Siminoff:Maybe I always just like to think that like grit matters more with it. I think I want to think that grit matters more than I because the more you democratize. No, I'm saying I agree. No, I know you agree with it. But then I was like thinking, I guess it's, but I guess it's always been grit. When it's not grit, it's nepotism. Maybe, you know, maybe you still needed when you, maybe you need a gritty person needs less of the super intelligence stuff. Like now it's like, because it used to be still like, like Facebook still needed, Google still needed. Yes. So maybe it's like you could build those now without having to find it.

1:22:28Jamie Siminoff:Because it used to be like that was part of the hard part was like finding these engineers to come on there with you. I hear what you're saying. Maybe it's that. Well, what I would think is what you need for a deadly, like a deadly whatever, like to be like the secret weapon is someone who's incredibly gritty. And then who also has the like the analytic intelligence. Because usually one doesn't come with the other. Right. Street smarts is very different than academics. Yeah. I'm a big street smart person, you know. But I do think the world's going to go more to the street smarts now because the academic side has been democratized.

1:23:01Jamie Siminoff:Yes. Okay. That's what I guess. Maybe that's my. But I don't, I mean, I would be curious later on. Doesn't it? I'll let you take a few days, even a week, and get back to me on which companies did intelligence versus. I guess maybe you could look at like the founders of a lot of companies had to code before. Like Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah. Okay. Like Mark Zuckerberg, the next Mark Zuckerberg is not going to be not going to necessarily be someone who came from a place where they had to code. Mark Zuckerberg is incredibly intelligent. Yes, he's incredibly intelligent. Is he your friend also? I actually don't really know Mark that well.

1:23:34Jamie Siminoff:Oh, OK. Go ahead. But he is insanely intelligent. Yeah. And he needed to be to build what he had to build, to do it, to structure it in the code. And I think the next, like I'm seeing, I'm seeing entrepreneurs now that are like all the coding, the apps, everything else. They're just doing it. They don't know anything about coding, but they're building this stuff. Who is the most impressive entrepreneur that you can think of? There's a ton. I'm trying to, who's the most impressive entrepreneur? I mean, I think James Dyson is probably the one that sticks out the most for me because he's the balance of invention, engineering, business building, brand building.

1:24:11Jamie Siminoff:like personal brand like all of it together like and and stands for someone who's like a great human too like so it's like kind of like all of it in one have you ever have you ever never met him no i know i gotta i got i i need to i need to like it's like i don't know i keep always saying i gotta reach out to i just have never i've never met someone that seems to know him to like get yeah interesting so i gotta i gotta i gotta i do need to make that happen because he he was I did look with Ring like he was like what not like my mentor but I sort of had him as a mentor of when I said to you like if you go into a store and you see Ring to me it was like that was the thing that I was able to type that off of was Dyson yeah when you go into a store and you see Dyson on a box whatever that box is a hairdryer a vacuum you're like I know this is the best like so true and that I wanted Ring to stand for that in our own way in our not the best like in the dyson way but the best in like home security and like but it does like that's what's really it's synonymous with it exactly it is synonymous with it like when you think of any type of uh camera like that like wi-fi camera ring is the only one it's synonymous with kleenex or whatever i keep on saying dyson is like the dyson vacuum yeah the dyson vacuum like my wife said the other day i'm gonna grab the dyson she came and she vacuumed something i said you know it's not a dyson yeah exactly like you said to me earlier that's that was messed or like that's like what a great compliment of something you know it's like yeah like that's what i'm saying what you did was like incredibly yeah just impressive and every way so i think it's like what he's done i think it's like that's probably one of the most impressive people again in my space of things there's lots of entrepreneurs have done incredible things but like that's like my space of what i look at and that's amazing okay well where do people find like i guess you can buy a ring if you don't have one probably if you're you should definitely buy a ring yeah a hundred percent but 100 million, I'm sure most people already who are listening have a ring, but maybe use the different features, like the dog feature, the other feature.

1:26:09We have lots of eye features coming out.

1:26:11Jamie Siminoff:So yeah, I mean, that's the cool thing. Ring right now is like the amount of features we're putting out every like week, month is unbelievable. Unbelievable. It's really cool. I know. I like my, thank God I have my ring. I love it. Thank you. And I'm not just saying that to be polite. I mean it. No, I appreciate that. All right. Well, thank you for being on the Habits and Hustle. I think we're done. I think I've asked you every question. I came out with a book called Ding Dong. Why didn't you say so? Because, you know, it's like I'm a promoter. It's funny. I'm like a promoter for Ring, not for myself.

1:26:39But that is Ding Dong. When did it come out?

1:26:41Jamie Siminoff:It came out last year. And it's kind of the story of Ring up until the day we sold. So it's not like post-sale, but it's like all these hijinks and things we did and stuff that we went through and crazy stuff. Can I say one thing that's driving me crazy? Okay, you're sure. It looks like the eye, the dot on the eye, it looks like it is a coffee stain. Why did you not make it orange or a different color? It just looks like it's a coffee stain. I've been staring at it the whole time. This is like an older one. So like this is probably the shirt's body. But I don't know. Maybe I should. I don't know.

1:27:10That's just like something I know. Okay, bye guys. Have a great day. Oh, I should also say, guys, if you have not subscribed, please subscribe if you're watching this. also any type of comment or anything you want to share is always great for us to kind of make this podcast as good as it can be if you have a guest that you'd want me to reach out to uh please let me know and then thank you to jamie thank you thanks for having me bye