Travis Kalanick's founder rule, why pushed kids lose, & what excellence really costs

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0:56Eric Siu:that co-founder of Uber. So he had a conversation with David Center, who does the founders podcast, and this one's called David Center. But anyway, so there's a couple of lines in there that I think stick out that I think we can react to. He did actually say, I'll tell you one thing, don't put money into bench, don't let benchmark invest in you, right? Or in like Bill Gurley, like he's looking, he's talking about VCs, he's bad mouthing them because he got kicked out of his company because of that. Now, that has nothing to do with us. But I do want to talk about the true lifestyle of an entrepreneur.

1:22Eric Siu:And one of our mutual friends were I spent like nine hours playing tennis Monday through Wednesday, right? And we're just like, dude, like at the end of the day, one of the main things is the founder has to be involved, right? And the funny thing is, I think about you for a moment, right? Like, I think about one of our mutual friends. So he was out of the company for two years or so, okay? And when he was out of the company, his CEO was alone. He basically had like a dad was there, right? But when he came back in, it's almost like mom came back, right? And when mom came back, and you split the load, the company was able to move forward like that.

1:52Eric Siu:I think about you, I look at you, even though you don't really have a title at your company, I still look at you as a CEO because you're driving things. But I'm not the CEO. Whatever. You look at Elon Musk. He's not really the CEO, right? Like he's driving things. And remember, long time ago when he put money into Tesla, Elon said, I don't want to be a CEO. He's like, I never want to be the CEO, right? And then he realized to get things done, you have to have the CEO title, right? And then he's driving things that way. And he's not like a typical CEO. You'd agree with that, right? So I still like, despite you not having a title, you drive things like a CEO.

2:26Eric Siu:And I think Mike Camo, who's your co-founder, you both are the drivers, right? And I think it's so important to have, it's so helpful to have a co-founder there because when you only have one driver, right? It's a lot more difficult when you don't have mom and dad both there.

2:42Neil Patel:Yeah. That's why Y Combinator typically only invests in three people, founding teams or two, but it's either two or three. I haven't really, there must be some examples, but Y Combinator usually doesn't invest in a one-person-led or one-person founding team.

2:59Eric Siu:Yeah. You know what though? What's interesting is, I forgot, I was listening to another podcast recently and it was like, I think it was A6 News. I think it was, it might've been Ben Horowitz talking about this, right? What they've noticed is this. You might have two co-founders, you might have a technical co-founder and a founder, right? The founder might be more sales-led, marketing-led, And you have the product person. But usually what happens there is only one of them is the true driver. You usually don't have two drivers in the company, right? One of our mutual friends, I would say both of them are drivers.

3:26Eric Siu:I look at you and Mike, I would say both of you are drivers. It's actually fairly rare to have both of the co-founders being drivers. And you call it the pusher.

3:36Neil Patel:Yeah, I agree with you. So it's semantics here, but I think we're speaking the same thing. I look at it as I don't drive. I push. It's the same thing. A real life example of this. Or let's go back to driving. The reason I don't consider myself a driver is, and even Mike Camel, my co-founder, we genuinely don't run the business. The CEO runs everything. He knows so much more about the business than us. I would be in trouble without him being really honest. Although at this point, we have a big enough executive team. I'm not saying the CEO could be easily replaced. I don't agree with that. but he has built a really solid team underneath him and he has told me if something happens to him here are the few people who should help run the business he's been very explicit about that yep when i look at um mike camo and i i would say we're more pushers than anything else and i don't think mike knows what i do on a daily basis mike camo my ceo is also named mike so just trying to reduce confusion here.

4:42Neil Patel:And I also don't know what my co-founder does on a daily basis. We have ideas of what we're focusing on. But we're also in a point in our career where I don't think we're really grinders anymore. I don't have it in me to really grind it out. And I'll give you an example with Fuse. You know, Kellen, you met up with Kellen. We did dinner together. So Kellen and I were talking about doing a business together. there. They would fund it. We would end up creating a company that would help automate a lot of the work that marketing agencies are doing. He was down to fund it. I would own a large chunk of it.

5:21Neil Patel:If I wanted a bigger chunk, I would just put in some of the money that would be raised. Let's call it a$10 million round. They're willing to put in$7 million of it, roughly. I'm speaking on their behalf, but that's roughly what they would have put in for a first round for 20%. So 10 million, you lose 20%. So call it 40 million pre-money valuation 50 million posts. And I remember I was walking up and down in my driveway. My son was kicking the soccer ball to me. And you're ignoring it. I'm just kidding. I was half paying attention. I tend to kick the soccer ball within probably like four or five times a week.

5:57Neil Patel:I don't like when my daughter gets involved playing soccer with us. I know that sounds really bad to say I love my daughter, but my son and I do stuff we're not supposed to do. Like let's kick the soccer ball on the roof and see if we can get it stuck. And like, we'll break like shingles on the roof and do stuff that you're not supposed to do. But I have fun just messing around and like, let's kick the soccer ball into our balcony and like, we'll break furniture and pots. And I know that's a really bad example and we're wasting thousands of dollars, but I'm really bonding with my son and we're having a blast.

6:28Neil Patel:But I'm talking with him, I'm kicking the ball with my son and I'm like, he's i'm telling him like i'm at or i'm asking him like what's required of me and he's breaking down usually what people do in these kind of roles and i'm like dude i don't know if this is for me and he's like why not i'm like i gotta kind of answer to someone because i have investors even though i'm an lp in his fund yeah and well it's work yeah so i was just like i gotta sign up for all this kind of work and i'm like this isn't me and he was just laughing he's just like I know, but he's like, it's a big opportunity. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, he's like, I respect it.

7:04Neil Patel:And I'm like, look, dude, I don't mind writing you checks for your venture fund. And you guys can invest my money in other places like they do with a lot of other investors. I don't want to do the work.

7:12Eric Siu:But here's a side thing, right? So you've heard of the story before where there's a fisherman in Alaska. He's very successful, right? He's fishing all these fish. And then the investor comes up and is like, dude, let me invest in your, let's build this into a company, right? And the fisherman's like, well, why do I need that? Well, what we're going to do is we're going to expand. And then we're going to build this into a huge multi-billion dollar operation, right? And then the fisherman's like, well, then what am I going to do after that? Right? He's like, well, then you can do what you're doing.

7:36Eric Siu:Like you can chill and you can catch fish every day. He's like, well, I'm already doing that right now, right? So the point is you've already worked. And this is not saying don't work hard. Like Neil's already paid his dues. He's already worked very hard. He's just not in that season anymore. We have different seasons of entrepreneurship. But going back to this, if we think about, when I think about driver pusher at the end of the day, the reason why I think the founder is so important is because the founder is naturally incentivized to care the most. And that's because naturally you have a big chunk of the company, right?

8:06Eric Siu:And so of course you're going to push the most. Of course you're going to drive. And our mutual friend was talking about another friend that we knew. And we've talked to those before. We have a lot of people that they will hire someone and then get out of their way completely. And I think that's one of the biggest fallacies, I think, in entrepreneurship, because we know someone on Twitter that likes to talk about how he owns all these different businesses and all that, right? And not even he, or it could be a she as well. But to say you're going to sit out of the business and not push, I think is broken.

8:36Eric Siu:And the reason why I'm even bringing this up right now, because we're talking about that clip, right? So this is what Travis Kalanick says. The lifestyle of an entrepreneur at its core is I can take more pain than the other guy and I'll prove it. There's a Zen that can happen when a warrior has fought for a long time, you can get used to it right and so by the way if you and i put through poo poo moments right now we deal with them pretty well right unless someone tries to screw you over and like you know maybe you're buying something at a store that's a different story then you lose your your stuff

9:02Neil Patel:so yeah i actually get upset on that end but normally i haven't really i don't ever have a temper um or get upset i i used to as a kid but i do get upset when someone tries to pull one on me and screw me over uh but you were spot on to go back to the pusher and the driver i went through this this week because when we look at M &A at my company, two deals a year is no problem. When you start doing three, four, five, six deals a year, it puts a lot of burden on the team and it makes more work on the integration and it's just harder, especially if you do them in the same regions. But right now, I have an LOI out for a company in Latin America, which I think we'll go through.

9:51Neil Patel:We have terms agreed upon in one company in the United States, which I think we'll go through. We're in negotiation with one company in France, and we've already discussed pricing and everything, and they want to sell to us. So I think if we want it, it would go through. There's one in Germany that I want, my team wants, but how many deals can you end up doing? And we think that one's probably one of the better ones. And then there's another one in the US that has some hair on it, but they work with our ideal customers in a service that we don't do a ton of. But the business isn't growing like a hockey stick, but you combine both.

10:37Neil Patel:They work with our ideal customers. They don't sell all the services we sell. We don't really sell. Yeah, we can make the math work out on that so roughly i don't know how many of them will go through but it's more than two and you're talking about in a period of six months where maybe three on the low end five on the high end right and i'm still building the pipe but i keep telling my team i'm like you can do it right why not and i keep pushing them and i remember them saying two we don't need to do more than two a year it becomes really hard to now my team is coming back to me like yeah this third one's not bad yeah maybe this fourth one too and they're changing their attitude because it's a muscle yes i keep pushing and pushing and getting them you so i'm like i'm like i instead of saying hey i get you can't do it all right let's do only two i start asking why is it that people only do one or two a year what are the bottlenecks what's the main reason behind this What are the big things that I'm missing and I'm not thinking through?

11:37Neil Patel:And then they break it down. I'm like, then how would you solve for that? Oh, this is how I solved for it in the past. And this is what we do. We'd build a pure integration team that just focuses on X, Y, and Z. And then it becomes more manageable. I'm like, okay, then go do all of that.

11:49Eric Siu:So this is what we call reverse first principles thinking. And I just came up with it. So, you know, Elon likes to talk about, you know, I think about from first principles. Jensen Huang, I like to think about from first principles. And what that really means, by the way, for everyone, when you think about a rocket, right? The Russians were trying to charge Elon an arm and a leg to buy these rockets back in the day, like$6 million or something. And then Elon's like, well, what actually needs to go into a rocket? Well, actually, the components actually lead up to about 300 grand or so. So you actually end up saving like what, like 95 % plus, right?

12:19Eric Siu:Something like that, right? But he broke it down to the first principles components. This is the same thing here. What's required to get a deal done? That's what you're basically asking your team. When I say reverse, you're basically putting on your team to think from first principles. Now, Neil doesn't read these things. I'm just giving it. But that's what he's doing intuitively, which is amazing, right? But this is no different than like we look at Noah over here. He's got a six pack, right? He's working out all the time. But you're just stacking on a little more weight each week, a little more weight, a little more weight.

12:48Eric Siu:And eventually it's like, oh, damn. Yeah, I can actually put up 225. Like easy. No problem, right? And, you know, there's a lot of examples like that.

12:55Neil Patel:But I can't do it. He doesn't have a six pack.

12:57Eric Siu:I don't think I would ever achieve that. Well, that's because you don't eat enough. We can talk about you for a moment. I would have to eat less to get rid of body fat. How many grams of protein do you get for a day? Real quick, if you want to acquire customers faster and more efficiently this year with the latest strategies and tactics, then check out singlegrain.com. That is my ad agency. Again, www.singlegrain.com. Check it out. And if it seems like a fit, we'll get in touch and help you with a free marketing plan. Recently or when I try?

13:26Neil Patel:When you try. When I try maybe 80 to 100. It's not enough. you're like 120 right i weigh 125 this morning so so this is so here's the hack for you okay this

13:36Eric Siu:is funny so you guys can go to chick-fil-a okay go to chick-fil-a you get the 24 pieces you will actually get 76 grams of protein on 24 pieces and it's only 400 calories right and it's not that

13:46Neil Patel:expensive either but i don't care for a six pack you don't need a six pack but you need more macros

13:51Eric Siu:you need if there's anything you know what's funny um uh hormozy he when there's a period of time where he's making these videos like workout videos and things like that right and he's like you know So for 20 years, I've had 200 grams of protein every single day. And literally, he'll eat like a giant tub of like, you know, Greek yogurt and all that. Yeah. But the thing is this. He'll get his 200 grams and he'll eat whatever he wants, like cupcakes, dinner, dessert and all that. Right. And so as long as you get your macros, like it shouldn't be a problem for you because you're already at the right weight.

14:18Eric Siu:And this is not a workout podcast, but I'm pretty sure if you wanted to get it, you just need to, you know, adjust your diet a little bit. Right. Right. Noah. See.

14:25Neil Patel:But I don't want to adjust my diet.

14:27Eric Siu:Your diet is fine. It's fine.

14:29Neil Patel:Yeah. Yeah, no, overall I eat pretty healthy, but I agree with you. I do work out enough. I don't eat enough protein. And just in general, if I get 100 grams of protein a day, I'm happy. And my goal is to get there. And I think I can consistently get there. I don't know if I can get enough protein to build like mass and muscle, but I'm okay just having 100 grams and eating sort of healthy. I think 100 is perfect

14:53Eric Siu:because 100, you'll be satiated. It's already like 80, more than 80%. That's all you really need. I think some people like it's got to be one-to-one, but honestly, 80 % is fine.

15:01Neil Patel:Yeah. So even 70%, I don't think it's the end of the world. Well, I don't want, and this is the problem with, I think some people who are in fitness, I was talking to someone the other day and he's, he was just like, dude, I'm more jacked than ever. Cause my friend was at a gym, Curtis, you know, Curtis. Oh yeah. Curtis was at a gym. He sends me a picture of another guy that I know. And the other guy, I don't, I'm not that close to him or anything like that, but he sends me a picture of him. So I text the guy and I text him and I was just like messing around, you know, my personality. So I text him like, you're looking a little weak there, bro.

15:35Neil Patel:Yeah. Yeah. And the guy's in pretty good shape. He has a six pack. He posts images of his six pack online. I don't follow him. I think that's, you can post whatever you want on, but I think to some extent it starts becoming a little douchey. Just my own two cents. I've told him this too. Yeah. and as he's responding to me and i'm just joking he's like dude i'm more uh ripped than ever i'm taking repetitide or repetitide it's something like that okay it's like this peptide yeah yeah

16:07Eric Siu:i think it's like a ozempic alternative it's like a gop one yeah it's powerful it's a little too

16:11Neil Patel:powerful and he's telling me he's like he's like i now have my bottom six pack i never had the bottom i only had the top two yeah and he's like you're gonna send your picture like no i don't you know pictures or anything like that so he's going in real in-depth and i'm telling him i was like why would you want to take this medicine to just get your bottom six pack like to me you're already in good enough shape he's like dude this medicine's really good for you and all this and i just stopped the conversation i'm like you should google it whatever it is there's side effects it causes mood problems that one well not just mood problems yeah you can't take drugs and medicine or a magic pill and expect it to not have many side effects.