Business Brainstorm: SAT Prep Cartoons, The Onion For Millennial Moms & More

25:29Nobody shares this. Nobody reacts to it. Nobody gets outraged and reposts it and says, this is bullshit. And then that's what gets people to share. So you kind of want to outrage people or you want to get them to share something, but then you don't want to be overly sensationalist. So they always have this tension. And by the way, so I ran a company that was a media company that made money on advertising. and I hated that feeling that you're describing. I thought email would solve it, a newsletter instead of a website, which it did. It actually helped solve it. Yeah, the news that comes to you.

25:55Yeah, it helped. And then, but I was still mad at that, that that existed. So I thought subscriptions will solve that. So we launched a subscription thing that within year one was doing like 5 million in revenue. Still doesn't solve it. You still got to do the same game. A newsletter monetizes so much better than just a general news website. So you could have a million subscriber newsletter and that business should be doing$5 to$10 million a year, I would say. Broad strokes. A million subscribers should get you$5 million plus in revenue. If you do a news website and you get a million visitors a month.

26:31That ain't shit. That ain't shit. You might not be doing anything. So the Babylonian Bee or whatever the Babylon Bee, these guys are, they'll do 25 million plus visits to their site. the biggest newsletters in the world don't have 25 million subscribers, right? So it's, or readers. So it's a, it's a different game. It's a volume game when you're trying to get the, you're trying to make a media destination versus a newsletter. Anyways, I guess like the, the, the thing I'm trying to say is an underrated part of these media sites is this tension, this inherent tension between trust and viral kind of like spreadability.

27:02And so the beautiful thing about this category where you go and you try to be the Indian, you do fake news as a service, you do, you know, satire, is it doesn't need to be factually correct. So you only have to win on that one dimension, which is shareability. And in this case, you'll share, people will share because it's funny. And it'll share because it strikes a chord with people. And that's why this has spread so quickly. And so the backstory of this is, I think it started by one guy and then he kind of like sold it to the two writers of it. Well, you're missing a big part here, which is, so The Onion, which is a satire website, although most satirical websites are left-leaning.

27:41This one is right-leaning. I think also has a Christian component to it a little bit. So whereas many of these things tend to be left of center, this is right of center. Exactly. So that's where I'm going to get to with the opportunity. So the guy who started, he calls himself a Christian entrepreneur, right? And he started off doing Christian cartoons. And then it became, now the guys you write, it's more just about, it leans more conservative than it does the other way. but I think there's a lot more like the world is not just liberal and conservative there's like a hundred other variations and segments of the market that could be served with this same category so I'll give you two that I think somebody should go do so I think somebody could go do the far more right wing version of this so I think that like super right so these guys I think are conservative but they're still kind of like more centrist than they are full right but like if you go read like dredge or info wars like there's a whole appetite in the world for like really drudge really far a drudge really far right wing stuff so i think you could go do that but here's here's another angle altogether it's not political at all which is just do the onion but only for fake news articles that appeal to just like the millennial mom and because like you know the millennial mom follows a certain set of news subjects so um You know, you maybe it's a little bit less on sports, but maybe they watch The Bachelor.

29:04So they understand The Bachelor means. Maybe it's that they are following the Taylor Swift stuff. Maybe it's that they're following whatever, whatever topics are of interest. Do The Onion for that category because it's a very valuable category. And by the way, this might exist already. I have no idea. I don't I don't even know how you search for this. But I think that that would be a very successful version of The Onion. That's not or of the Babylon Bee, which is not political at all. But it's the same thing. It's poking fun at a certain set of popular subjects, but make those popular subjects a different customer than the one who reads The Onion or the one who reads The Babylon Bee.

29:36Here's why I know that that's true about the millennial mom. So we had this couple over that have a one-year-old over to our house. And the kids start crying. And so I go to grab a bunch of toys to entertain him and show him off. I'm like, oh, I bet you haven't seen this thing. And I start using this puppet or whatever. And the mom is like, yeah, we have this toy. We have that toy. in fact all of the toys that you have we have the exact same ones and i'm like well you guys just clearly follow like the same like three people on instagram and you read the same blog because you have bought all of the same stuff and like i couldn't impress this kid i'm shocked at how the millennial mother uh like there's probably like six buckets and it's like just a different persona for each thing but for each bucket it's like just buy all of this stuff read all of this stuff it's so interesting do you know what i mean yeah exactly but i think every segment's that way I think there's a Joe Rogan bro version of that where it's like, oh, let me guess, your favorite podcast, Rogan, Huberman, right?

30:31Let me guess, you cold plunge. Let me guess, you do this. Let me guess. If you could kind of predict their life if you know one or two things about them, and there's, I don't know, a giant cluster of people that will fit that description. Not everybody, of course, but there's a giant cluster of people. That's kind of what you need when you're doing media is you need a giant cluster of people who kind of have a taste match. And so I think you take that business model, apply it to a new segment. And again, this might already exist. It doesn't really matter. You don't have to be the first. You just have to be successful at it, which means just do a good job at it.

30:58And I think the way to start this, by the way, would just be Instagram. You just make an Instagram account. You don't even need a website and just make an Instagram account that's doing these kind of like funny news things. There's a version of this in sports that I follow where they just post like funny sports, like fake sports headlines that make fun of the NBA. And I think that can be done so many times over. And I think it's probably one of the easiest ways to build a media business. You know what's interesting is the guy who started the Babylon Bee, you said he sold it. His website, his personal website, it's called adam4d.com.

31:31It's all dedicated to web comics. It's just a web comic website, which is intriguing because that's similar to what's his name, Dylan and Henry do. Who owns Babylon Bee now? I think it's those Seth and Dan. I think the main writers now. It says in 2018, he sold it to them. He kept a stake until 2023 when he sold the remaining stake to the Dillon brothers. Do you know who owns The Onion? Oh, isn't it the guy who started Twilio or something? The guy who started Twilio. So instead of like rich billionaires, you know, they liked Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. One of those Facebook guys bought, I forget, some other one.

32:11You know, Mark Benioff, I think bought Time. Jeff Larson, I think his name is. He bought The Onion, which is actually like an interesting purchase. yeah i think that's a great idea by the way that's that's what i like my billionaires doing right do interesting things uh go buy the onion make sure the onion doesn't die because i think the onion was kind of dying right he like he's trying to save it he's trying to like reverse it out of like pretty much bankruptcy yeah so the onion has been around i think since 1988 so it's been around forever and it's just like it's a shit business to to have to run for a little while particularly in the last like eight years where digital media has just been crap uh but yeah it's hard.

32:47It's a hard business. Because also, when you think about what's the media business, it's advertising. Who's going to want to advertise on an article that's fake? Do you know what I mean? Maybe. I don't know. I think that if you could curate the right high-value audience, and they trust your voice to talk about a subject, it's kind of like comedians, right? Why do people sponsor comedy podcasts? It's like, dude, these guys are vulgar. They're just saying random shit. This is not like smart information. This is whatever. But it's, they have a trusted audience. The audience trusts them. And so when they do the ad read, people dig it.

33:24That people trust them because they've, you know, they've kept it real on all these other subjects. So I think you could do it there. And I think there's not that big of a gap between, you know, a comedy, you know, brand and a comedy podcast, for example. Yeah, I think the difference is that a lot of people think that the Babylon Bee and stuff like that, I think they think they're real. And they share them as if it's real. do you know what i mean yeah like that's actually a massive issue let's do the last one toxic tampons yes so i saw this tweet about a tiktok that went viral so there was a tiktok of a woman walking through kind of like a store and she's she's in the aisle the tampon aisle and she's talking about you see all the big brands you tampax you see whatever and five million people saw this video because Berkeley released a paper basically saying, hey, the popular tampons all have like toxic metals, arsenic and other contaminants in them.

34:18And so that's concerning. And so there's like a moment here where I think, I don't know who is the leading player who's doing native deodorant for tampons, but whoever they're, whoever that is, they're in a good position. And whoever, uh, if nobody's doing it, somebody should go do that. Or even if somebody's doing it, I still think it's a good idea, which is it seems like there's a general trend of people being concerned about gut health, about microplastics, about is your water clean or is there like, you know, contaminants and heavy metals in your water? Well, this seems like another category that's, I think, going to get transformed.

34:50Right? I think people are not going to, if you can use the fear and uncertainty and doubt around the safety of tampons, I think you could build a new kind of like alternative clean brand around it. What I'm trying to prevent here is a bunch of dudes talking about shit where like every woman's listening and they're like, yeah, we know we use these eight brands. Do you know what I mean? So I actually, I have no idea. Could very well be. And I would love to be educated. Feel free to DM me. I'll tell you what, in my home, I only see the popular stuff. Yeah. And in general, like, I don't know how many a hundred million dollar companies, how a hundred million dollar your revenue businesses are there that are doing this?

35:30There will be, trust me, there will be one, there will be two, there will be three that are in this category. The current incumbents will either adapt or be replaced by alternatives that are going to play on these health concerns. This is not going to go nowhere. Look at your detergents. Look at your soaps. Look at your deodorants. This has happened in pretty much every other category. They're going to do it here. And this is a great product because high margin, repeat purchase. And the other thing is that usually women's products tend to be underserved compared to the ideas that most guys have around what businesses that they'll go start.

36:06So you kind of can compete in a less saturated field than making to-do list apps or whatever, whatever the average bro idea will be. Yeah, and what's interesting is that with a lot of these brands, they'll be like, I need to come up with some innovative new thing. And our friend Moyes, when he was selling native deodorant, the buyer of the company was like, well, how are you going to expand? He's like, well, can you write the word native on some all natural shampoo? And they're like, yeah. He goes, that's how you're going to expand. Do you guys have a printer to do that? Would you guys be able to type this?

36:41If I give you the font, could you type it on a shampoo bottle? Yeah. All right. We should be good then.

36:49And so with a lot of these brands, you don't really need like a significantly more innovative thing other than you have to be able to make it clean enough that you can accurately describe it as a better for you alternative. but it doesn't need to be a significant thing. And it's not like native eodorant was original. There was plenty of people selling it. They just weren't savvy go-getter entrepreneurs. They were like hippies, you know, who were selling it on Etsy. And in fact, let's do this. Go to Etsy and look up tampons. Let's just see what's available. I like how you're making me do it. So I get targeted for these ads.

37:23All natural. There we go. I'm getting some interesting results that are not exactly what I'm looking for. Is an all-natural tampon really like a cup? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Not that natural. That's not what I found, but we can take this out. So I find this one, right? The Honeypot Company. 100 % organic regular tampons, unscented, organic cotton with bioplastic applicator, no chlorine, no pesticides, no fridges. I'm like, oh, great. In. In. review first review a very good coffee

38:03all right uh looks like we guys still got some work to do with this idea wait wait go back to that what's going on with them why is that like i think it must be that the shop has other products in it and that's for the shop it's like reviews from the shop not the product yeah okay the shop has herbal teas and other things too. A tampon coffee company. Yeah. But anyway, this was my Sunday brainstorm. My Sunday brainstorm was, here's three cool ideas. Sketchy, which is doing visual learning in the medical space. The Babylon Bee, which is taken off as a satire news website for conservative political news.

38:38And then this TikTok that was going viral, obviously tapped into some concerns people have, resonated with the public around the toxicity and the metals and the arsenic that's in the popular tampon brands. And for each, I think you could just take a 20 % remix and do it. I think for Sketchy, you could do Sketchy for another test, another customer segment. Maybe it's AP students or it's SAT takers or it's some obscure test. Who knows? I think you could do it for, I think that the Babylon Bee, I think could be done for other customer groups, other customer segments like the Millennial Mom is the one I would go for.

39:14And third would be this dude native deodorant for tampons. And maybe there's somebody doing it, but this is my Sunday brainstorm of three ideas that maybe they're not great ideas, but they'll at least get the wheels turned into your brain. That's kind of the promise I have here. I think we got to keep your phone away from you from other weekends. This is good stuff. Yeah, exactly. This is what happens when I don't have my phone. I want to talk about one more thing. I don't want MFM to like talk about politics because I don't think that that's fun. And I think this is like a little bit of an escape.

39:41I was going to start the podcast with, you know sam and i have both sold newsletter businesses so we feel pretty qualified to chime in here on yeah what's going on in our country and that's how every like business and tech podcast is they're just like you know as a venture capitalist where i've spent my career you know investing in early stage tech companies i just feel pretty qualified to talk to you about what's going on in the supreme court right now it's maddening man it's that's maddening and i don't want to become that but i saw that you're into teddy roosevelt well i went down this rabbit hole right so i'm like uh the crazy trump stuff happens and i'm like wow that's crazy he got shot i'm like uh like i wonder how many presidents have been shot at so i gotta tell you wait let me and let me don't answer that question don't answer that question but uh let me tell you something why i'm happy i have read not only the biographies of all of those presidents but also multiple books on each each assassination.

40:38And one of my... So this is why I'm happy that you're able to talk about this. I've walked into your wheelhouse. I've stumbled into your wheelhouse. Welcome home, Sean. One of the reasons... This is a trivia question that I would ask people all the time. How many presidents and name them who have been assassinated? Virtually no one gets the second two. The first two are easy. So, okay. Easy assassinations that I can remember. Let's say Lincoln, Kennedy. Right? Those are easy. yeah let's see what are the hard ones McKinley because he was he died right before Roosevelt so that was I think Roosevelt was the VP right is that how that happened he became president I don't remember exactly but they're in the same ballpark I don't know if Roosevelt was the VP but he could have been okay so we'll leave it there he could have been and then oh you're right by the way I'm looking it up yes good job the last one I wouldn't have got but I see it here in the notes is Garfield Andrew Garfield I wouldn't have got that one and And both of those guys, when they got shot, it was a very solvable problem.

41:41So basically, up until like the 1910s or 1920s, we didn't really believe or we didn't know that germs were a thing. And most of these guys, when they got shot, they got shot. And then you go digging around with a dirty surgeon's hand or a dirty instrument and they get infections. And that's how they died. So like McKinley died like, I don't know, eight days later of gangrene caused by the wounds. not from like the bullet itself, you know, hitting him in the heart or something. Garfield died like six weeks later. So I was pretty mind blown. So basically I want to know how many presidents have been shot at either hit or missed, but a gunshot has been fired at them.

42:16Do you know the number for this? I think it's seven or eight or nine, like right around there. 13. Oh my God. And there's only been 40, what, six presidents, something like that. So it's basically a 10 % more than that. 25%, 25 % chance of being shot at. If you're a president, dangerous, insane, dangerous, insane, right? And then of those, four have died.

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43:58Fill in the gaps for me. So the story is Jackson is going to a funeral. And he's 67 years old. He walks with a cane. He's kind of an old guy. And he's not very popular. He's walking. He's at the funeral. He's walking into the funeral or whatever. And a guy approaches him with a pistol. And the guy shoots at him. The gun goes off, but the bullet doesn't come out. It's a misfire. So the powder explodes, but the bullet doesn't leave the gun. and Jackson becomes angry, charges at him with his cane, swinging at him with the cane, trying to beat him up with his cane. He almost beat him to death. He almost beats him to death.

44:35Well, there's a conflict of reports. One is he beat him up and the other ones he misses. And so I don't know which one's true. The other, and then the guy takes out a second pistol, does the same thing, shoots him with a second pistol, also misfires. Other politicians who are there jump on him, kind of tackle the guy and they then take both of the guns and they're like, man, we got lucky that this guy or maybe he didn't really mean to do it. Are these fake guns? What happened? We heard the gun fire, but no bullet hit. And so then they shoot the gun again and the bullet comes out and both guns were actually functioning.

45:08And they basically said that the odds of both pistols misfiring and jamming like this was like one in 150 ,000. That's what they estimated. That's insane. The odds of that happening are so low. That's pretty crazy, huh? And here's what's even crazier is when up until probably the 1960s after JFK, Secret Service wasn't really much of a thing. So the Secret Service wasn't a thing. I don't think it was a thing when Garfield got shot, which I think was at 1900 even or so, maybe late 1800s. When JFK got shot, there was only like 150 Secret Service agents. It was not big. And the budget was tiny. and they were overworked and tired all the time.

45:53And when Andrew Garfield got shot, I have to look at the date. 1881. Lincoln was shot 20 years prior. You could still, after Lincoln got shot, you could walk into the White House and schedule an appointment. Anyone could go see these guys. And when Garfield got shot, he was walking from the White House to a train. Him and a buddy were just walking and someone walked up and shot him. It was insane how you could get away with all this stuff. And it's wild to think about that. So the Teddy Roosevelt story was the one that just blew my mind. So the Teddy Roosevelt story goes as follows. He's supposed to give a speech.

46:30He's having dinner. He leaves the dinner. He's getting into his car. And as he's walking up to his car, a guy comes up to him and shoots him and hits him. Hits him right in the chest. And Roosevelt got lucky for two reasons. I'm sure you already know. What are the two reasons? I believe the first one was he had his speech in his chest in his chest pocket a 50 page speech printed out and rolled up into his jacket pocket and the second reason I think is that he was strong, his chest muscles were just like, he was a buff dude the second one was he had his glasses case which was made out of steel so I was making that up the bullet went through both of those, so it went through the speech it goes through the glasses case but it kind of took a lot of the heat off of it and it still hits him the chest and the story is crazy he's like um he's like so his secretary was an ex football player and just tackles the guy and then he's like um you know people are swarming he's like no no bring him to me bring him to me he's like i want to look him in the eyes and he brings they bring the guy up to his face and he goes why did you do it and the guy doesn't answer and he's like all right forget it take him away he's like but no violence on this guy like i don't want this guy hurt in any way like i want him you know through the judicial system so i put him in the car and i guess he's like a hunter and like an anatomist like a you know a casual anatomist so he's like you know i'm not they were taken to the hospital he's like i'm not coughing up blood i don't think it's hit my lung um so i think the bullets lodged in there but i think it's okay because it didn't it didn't puncture my lung or my heart and um so he's like take me to the speech so he goes and he still goes and he delivers like a something like a 50 to 90 minute speech and they have the shirt that he wore and the blood is just soaking out of the shirt kurt shilling style with the sock just as he's giving the speech they now have this like whatever in a museum and um he's giving the speech and he's like he says ladies and gentlemen i don't know whether you fully understand that i have just been shot but it takes more than a bullet to kill a bull moose and that was the line that he gave during the speech.

48:36After the speech, he then goes to the hospital and they're like, they take the x-ray, they see the bullets in there, but the technology wasn't that good at the time. They're like, look, we could try to take it out, but it's risky. I think this is how McKinley had just died. Well, the technology for the x-ray basically was sort of invented for Garfield. So I forget what the scientist's name was, but around the World's Fair time, they were trying to invent x-ray and Garfield got screwed up and they were like, dude, we've heard that you have this thing. Can we be your test patient? You've got to find this bullet on Garfield.

49:09And so, like the x-ray, basically, it kind of was being developed because of this one or two examples. Well, in the end, the doctor decided just to leave it in because they're like, it's too risky to take it out. And so he lives with it for the rest of his life. And people asked him, they were like, do you feel, do you still have pain from that? And he's like, it doesn't bother me more than if it was a bullet sitting in my pocket. What a badass. Did you know that he was partially blind? Because Roosevelt was a crazy person. So he liked to box and he was a man's man. And there's a story where I think it was one of his aides, but a professional boxer would come in and he'd be like, oh, you like to box?

49:49No, he would invite people to spar him in the White House. He'd be like, prove it. Let's see. You like to box? Let's box. And he would box with these guys, like professionals. And he would make people get out and they would spar. well one time a guy I think it was his aid or a partner of his damaged his eye and so one of his eyes was blind and during the boxing match he was like hey look we can't tell anyone about this like no one could know that we were fighting in here otherwise I'm going to get in a ton of trouble so he didn't tell a lot of people but he was blind in one eye he had a detached retina from the boxing match and then he switched to judo and jujitsu instead but I couldn't do it.

50:30There's also, I guess, some story. It was hard. I guess when he was born, he was born with some condition where his organs were too small for his body or something like that. Isn't there something like this? And that's why he was so active. So he was born with a bad... They were like, you're probably going to die young. They told his parents, he'll probably die as a teenager and he'll be in bed most of the time and he'll die as a teenager. And so that's why he was so invigorated with life because they were like, A, he expected to die and B, his father was like, we have to get you strong. You have to be strong so you can survive.

51:04And so he wanted to exercise and do all this stuff so he could live. And so that's one of the reasons why he was so active. Yeah, there's like, this is like the tip of the iceberg. I think there's a bunch of other crazy stories about Teddy Roosevelt. Also, the teddy bear named after him. Didn't know that. Named after him. I believe it's named after him because he was known for hunting bears and stuff like that. And so one group was like, hey, we'll take you hunting. turns out they had a bear like chained up to a tree or something and teddy like sees this poor bear he's like no guys this is not how we do this you got to release that bear and so it was something involving that story involved him having the teddy bear they call him a bear or teddy bear he didn't like being called teddy either yeah i don't think people call him to his face but there's a whole book called the river of doubt and so basically the river of doubt you read you hear that title and you think, oh, that has to do with you making good decisions or bad decisions and doubting your decisions.

51:57No, there was a river called Doubt, I think in Brazil, that had never been explored. After he was president, he was like, well, I'll go figure out. We got to map that out. Let's make a map. I'll do it. And so he goes and he does this river for weeks or months or something like that, and he almost dies. And this is just him wanting to explore. There's all these crazy stories about him. A lot of people accuse him of starting a war just so he could go and fight because he had it was called the Rough Riders. It was his own crew of like these these military folks. But no, DMX, who else? Had their own anthem.

52:34Teddy was pretty hard. Teddy was an interesting guy. And by the way, he lost the election. After the guy does this, gives a speech during with a bullet in his chest. He ends up losing to because I guess he had his own third. He was a third party candidate at this stage, which is pretty crazy. He was an interesting guy. His he also his wife died giving birth. And so the same day that his daughter was born, his wife died. And then in the same house that day, his mother died. And he has this story where he used to journal every day. And that was one day where he wrote in this journal, he goes, the light has left my life.

53:12And that's all he wrote. And it's a very touching story. And then he goes on this tear where for the next year, he's crazy active. And they go, why are you being so active? and he writes ceaseless action outruns depression and so he was basically like doing all these amazing things in order to outrun the sadness of that day and so that's really what um are his journals like published anywhere or his diaries or whatever he was a prolific writer so his first book was actually i think he was in his teens or early 20s his first book was on zoology so he used to collect animals and take them apart and explain like he like he loved darwin he was like right He tried to discover species.

53:47And he wrote, I think, dozens of books. Or if not dozens of books, like six or eight books. So he wrote many, many books. So yeah, he was really prolific. So you can go and read all of his writing. He was a really impressive guy. What's the best book on him that you've read? I would read his biography. His biography is amazing because he had a lot of bad shit happen to him in his life. And he was very optimistic. Wow. What a guy. Billy of the Week, I guess. Well, he was. His father started MoMA. The museum? The museum. his father James Roosevelt like founded that because he was a wealthy guy no way but Teddy Roosevelt by the way horrible businessman he was a horrible businessman that was the one thing that he sucked at he like would invest in like horses and stuff and he would start ranches really bad businessman he was he blew a lot of money was he a good dude overall or a bad dude right because he's definitely like a sort of man's man in all these interesting ways and has like legendary feats he really lived a very interesting life but character wise was he a good guy.

54:46I mean, I've never read anything about him besides this. I think he had strong character. I have one massive critique of him, and this is kind of where the phrase, all great men can be bad men. For example, he wasn't, I felt, like the most present father. So when his wife died, he goes to North Dakota or whatever to do his thing, the Badlands to do his thing. He left his newborn daughter for like a year and a half. And you could say like, maybe he was like suicidal and depressed and he's like, I gotta get away. And you could argue that. But he kind of wasn't always around for his daughter, I felt.

55:13But in general, he had high character. yeah he was a good dude interesting all right well i think that's a fascinating podcast i'm so glad that you uh you have this you and shane gillis by the way why is shane gillis like such a history like phd he has a history major he studied history i'm a biology major couldn't tell you three things what how does he know he knows a lot about history like too much about history yeah he he knows way more than me uh he has a good like series of history podcasts and he's really uh talented at it um i think it's really fun to read stories so like you'll read uh in the biography about andrew jackson beating up this guy and you're like you're just reading it but then you could take this other thing of like put yourself there and you're like that's hilarious or not hilarious like that's wild you know that someone would do that and so it's fun to read in between the lines and like actually imagine some of these stories it's just i think it's fascinating uh i I think it's also cool to avoid the mistakes that people make and just copy their the winnings that they do.

56:15So I don't read any biographies and I but I read a lot about people and I don't know what a word for this is, but I basically will study the ideas and the ideas and kind of like core plot lines. But I don't care where they grew up, how they grew up, who they grew up with, what the scene was like, what their family life was like. I don't really care about a lot of those things. And so I find myself fascinated by people, but I really want to know their philosophy and then the action of how they implemented that philosophy, like the stories of them implementing that philosophy or living up to that philosophy or failing on that philosophy.

56:54That's really all I care about, which is like a very weird sub-genre of studying history or these people. Well, let me give you two recommendations. So the first recommendation is a book called Manhunt, the 12-day chase for Lincoln's killer. The reason it's interesting is because you've heard the name John Wilkes Booth. That's the guy who assassinated Lincoln. He's an intoxicating character. He was sort of like a cult leader. He was a famous actor. Not quite, but almost like Brad Pitt at the time, where everyone recognized him. He was a celebrity? He was a celebrity. And he was a bad dude. Like, crazy racist.

57:28He was a horrible guy. But he definitely had this intoxicating, like, I want to follow you to the death type of vibe, where he was really charismatic. And he entranced people. And so the Lincoln assassination, by definition, was a conspiracy. It was a group of like 30 people who worked together to make this happen. Conspired to do this. And he was gone for 12 days. So they assassinated Lincoln, and he escaped for 12 days, and he almost got away with it. He was very close to getting away with it. And so the 12-day Manhunt, the 12-day chase for Lincoln killers, is a book about the 12-day Manhunt.

57:59And it's a very good page-turning read. It's very easy. The second one is Hellbound, and it's about the assassination of MLK. A lot of people don't know this, but James Earl Ray, the guy who shot MLK, and MLK was a great dude. He had some downs. He had some downfalls. He cheated on his wife a bunch, but he was a net positive. He was a great guy in general, but he had flaws. James Earl Ray shot MLK, and not only did he escape, he escaped for months. So basically, when he shot MLK, he escaped to, I think he shot him in Memphis, and then he drove all over America. Then he went to Quebec, and then he went to Europe.

58:33and when he was in Europe, he was flying around from country to country. And the only reason he got caught was he was in London on his way to Rhodesia, Rhodesia, which is basically South Africa. At the time, it was run by a racist regime. And he was like, they're going to accept me with wide arms because I just killed MLK. They're going to love me. He gets through security. Once he walks through security, the security guard who lets him in, he says, thank you, sir, and looks down and he sees that he has an additional passport in his pocket. and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, why do you have two passports?

59:06And they pull it out and they're like, oh shit, the one you gave me was fake. I just got the real one. And he was seconds away from getting away from all this. He was gone for roughly six months. He was gallivanting all over Europe. He was all over Canada. He was very close to getting away with it. And a lot of people don't realize that about that story. And that book, I believe, is called Hellbound, also a page turner. So if you want to read about assassinations, those are my two favorite assassination books. dude we should make a you know like a blue ribbon when you're a kid or whatever like we should have our own list of like books that we think are awesome that uh that and some commentary around them like i wish we just had our own we should just make a separate youtube channel of just us doing like a book club or doing like read a book talk about it and curate for people like the books that we think are just like really unbelievable books for the year yeah i i I would love to do that.

59:56Those two rank really high. Those are some of them. I go through series. So I got obsessed with shipwrecks. So I read 10 books all on shipwrecks. So I can tell you, in my opinion, what are some of the coolest shipwrecks. And then I did assassinations of famous people. And the reason why I love these books, and the reason why I think you don't like biographies, biographies don't have a very good beginning and a middle and an end. Whereas I try to read books that are about an event. Because an event typically has a beginning and a middle and an end. where it's more succinct as opposed to 1 ,200 pages.

1:00:28And so I like books that are on events, particularly events in America, so I can relate a little bit more. All right, this was fun. I'm glad we did this at the end here. That's the pod.

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