How this dumb doll makes $2M per day

25:04They take them to jail. And that becomes this viral sort of news stunt that brings even more attention to this. Now, prosecutors end up dismissing the case because they're like, we're not going to prosecute this. But they decide to go in and create their own ethically made chocolate brand. And they decide to call it Tony's Chocolonely because they're like, the guy's name is Toon. That's his Dutch name. But the Americanized, westernized version of Toon, I guess is his name, would be Tony. So he goes, Tony's. And he said, it's going to be very lonely to build a chocolate company that's actually trying to be ethically sourced.

25:39So he called it Tony's Chocolonely. Okay. Great. And that's how they felt in their fight against the cocoa industry. And it becomes a hit pretty much right away. They sell 20 ,000 bars in two days because of the public resonance with their story. And it becomes the best-selling chocolate brand in their market, which is the Netherlands. They get like 20 % share in the Netherlands. It passes up Mars and Nestle and other competitors there. And then they start expanding. And they keep expanding. And then they start finding like-minded brands. I don't know if you know about Ben and Jerry's, but Ben and Jerry's is also one of these very strong, ethical, moral.

26:17Yeah, opinion-driven. They stick to what they want to do. Good people corporations. I actually saw Ben or Jerry, I forgot which one, talk at an event I was at 15 years ago. And I remember being pretty blown away by how genuine it was for them and the extent that they had gone. So, for example, I don't know if you know, they have this one flavor that's like their brownie flavor. I forgot like you know I'm so fucking fit now I can't even remember the name dude it's insane it's chocolate fudge brown something fat people eat so so that's so my past I just can't even remember you're like I barely remember how that felt last week by the way meanwhile I'm holding up this Tony's Jock Lonely three bars are missing from this pack blame it on the kids dude my wife gets pissed off at me because whenever we bring like a treat to like a friend's house we bring dessert they cook dinner and like it's like already open she's like what the hell you can't like give like a pack of ice cream when there's like one i'm like why not we're gonna open it anyway like half an hour why can't i open it now that's sort of what that's sort of what happened exactly she's like i'm a she's like i'm a she always compares me to like a bear looking in cabinets for honey and i get my brother-in-law is like this my brother-in-law aaron he's he's one of these people that like you know doesn't you know doesn't eat a ton in general like food's not a big he's not a big foodie yeah but if you leave like a snack he's like a bear like if you leave a treat in their house it's gone by the morning and you're like did you wake up and and so like he'll eat the whole bag right of anything and so my sister calls it like with oreos like uh like we got a pack of oreos right and she's like oh my god aaron's doing a line right now And doing a line to her meant you eat the entire row of Oreos like he did a whole line.

28:08And I just thought that was so funny. Aaron likes to party. Exactly. We got to have him back on. Brother Aaron, the OGs, the real OGs now. He had two guest cameo experiences like way back in the first 30 episodes. It's hilarious. Anyways, chocolate company. So Tony's Chocolate Only, what did they do? Or Ben and Jerry's, finished the Ben and Jerry's thing. they opened up a factory i think somewhere like in upstate new york or something like this and they they it was after they met um what's it called when you get out of jail and like you're in a program but you like don't want to go recidivism like they wanted to reduce recidivism like people go back end up back in jail which is traditionally incredibly high it's really high and one of the big drivers of why do people who after a long sentence get out and go back it's not because they're like kind of morally corrupt at their core it's like they couldn't get a job and then They didn't have any money in it.

28:59They didn't have a social life. Previous friends were losers, or they left prison without knowing anyone, but only had$50. Exactly. And so one way to decrease recidivism is if people can get a job, but nobody wants to give them a job. So they created a whole factory. Their brownie factory is all brownies made by ex-cons, basically. The Ben and Jerry's flavor. They met some guys who had a good recipe, and they built a factory around them, essentially. So they're do-gooders. So Tony Shackle only to break into the U.S. starts partnering with Ben and Jerry's. And the revenue has just grown and grown and grown.

29:33And so like last year, I think they did 200 million in revenue and they made this like a legit chocolate company that started with two journalists just basically trying to make a stand against the man. How cool is that? This is awesome. This is so cool. Do they run the company now? No, so they're out now. There's like a CEO, it's just kind of run by like, you know, normal suits basically at this point. And they get some flack because like their supply chain is still not perfect. And, but they're very transparent about it. So the crazy thing is like, they'll report that they had like, you know, 11 issues this year of like child labor discovered in their supply chain.

30:12And people are like, see, you're not totally free. And they're like, what? We're trying to like, we're trying to be transparent and say, you know, we're way less than anybody else. And we're also honest about this and we're reporting it so that we can keep improving this. but they get some flack as like, you know, I guess like skeptics say that maybe they're just greenwashing at this point since the founders left. And even I think the founder has sort of alluded to like, it's not the same since we left. I don't know the exact story. It's like, I'm trying to read these like Dutch translations of articles and decided that like, I'd rather just eat the chocolate and chill.

30:42So I'm not sure the exact story, but I think there's maybe a little controversy around that. Yeah, I've known about this brand for a while and I didn't know the, I only knew what Jimmy had said, which wasn't in this depth, but it makes me like them way more. The product's awesome. I mean, I love the brand. They also, and I eat the shit out of them. I mean, it messes me up, but that's cool. Maybe you could be the influencer that blows them up even more. Sam Parr, I eat the shit out of them. It's just like most of my guilty evenings start with a bar of Tony's. And where did they end? Jar of honey.

31:22How much time have we got? uh the the issue is they would sell their candy like it used to come in like the extra huge size it was a huge bar they only sell in bulk by the way did i ever tell you about the time we were talking about recidivism this is not entirely related to business but i think you'll get a kick out of this did i tell you about the time do you know that i've been to like i think we've talked about this i've been to san quentin a few times in indiana state prison so you've mentioned that you did but i don't know the exact story what's what's the story the background of this So I've gone to, I have a friend who I'm going to, this is the story.

31:53It's going to be about him. But I've been to Indiana State Prison a couple times, or once. I went to San Quentin a few times. One time I went to Indiana State Prison. So we go because my friend has this charity called The Last Mile. And the idea is like, when you commit a crime, particularly murder, you're not always sentenced to life. You're inevitably going to get out. And it's better for that person if they get out and have a job. It's better for society if they get out and get a job. And it's better for the taxpayer if they get out and get a job because you don't want them to go back to prison because that's bad for everyone.

32:24And so we are all incentivized. It's totally bipartisan to get this person to be trained and to get a job. And so this company, The Last Mile, started by my friend Chris. They help you learn. I think when I went, I think they were learning WordPress. I don't know what they learn now, but this was a while ago. They were learning WordPress or they were learning some front-end development so you can get a job at eBay. There's vibe coding now? Yeah, I don't know what they do now. Yeah. They have some weird hot or not app. They're just minting NFTs. Yeah. I don't know what these guys are doing. But my friend Chris started it.

33:00And he was a prominent venture capitalist. He was the first investor in Wish. He was an early investor in Snap. He did Boom. He did all these other cool startups. And for some reason, one day he went and volunteered at San Quentin at a prison. and he was like, I think this is my life's mission to help reduce recidivism, meaning when you get out of prison and you don't go back. And so he created this thing called The Last Mile. They now have hundreds of employees. They've had thousands of people who have gone through their program. And up until recently, he told me this stat a couple of years ago, so I don't want to jinx someone.

33:37I don't know the update, but of the 1 ,000 or 2 ,000 people who graduated, not one had ever been back to prison. And that's like a huge thing. And so it's really interesting that this tech person has, like he quit, so he doesn't invest anymore. This is all he does. And I talked to another guy, Mike Novogratz. He was on the pod two weeks ago. And that's his thing now too, is reducing recidivism. So reducing the rate that you go back to prison. But I know a bunch of people who have given up their careers to go pursue this. I'm on their website right now. Pretty crazy stats. So it says, since the 70s, the prison population in the U.S.

34:14has increased by 700%, which is not what you would expect. That's not just like, oh, that makes sense. It should grow every year. It's like, no, no, no. The prison population should not necessarily grow at that rate. It says that every person in prison has an annual cost to the American taxpayer of$70 ,000, which means we pay about$50 billion a year is spent on state and federal prisons. Isn't that crazy? That's amazing, right? The last miles, participants in the last mile who go through their, I guess it's like an education program as they get out, have a 75 % employment rate when they come out, which is great.

34:52I wonder what the non, I wonder what the baseline is. It's got to be half that or less. Well, so basically what happens, and I talked to some of these guys when they were in there, they were like, look, when I got out, I had been in for 10 or 15 years. I was a thug. Like I didn't want to associate with my old people and like my family had either died or wasn't around and they basically gave me a bus ticket and 50 bucks. And I was like, sir, where do I go? I'm not sure where I go to right now. What do I do? And so they're like, that's why I came back here is I just started going back to how I used to behave.

35:21By the way, why does he have a, this guy Chris looks awesome, Chris Redlitz. Why does he have a serious radio show? Does that get broadcasted in the prisons in some way or like, is that just an external thing? Both. So he had, so Chris is interesting. So we had Michael Harris on the pod. but Michael, Harry O is his nickname. Harry O is the founder of Death Row Records. Chris is kind of, I joke, he's an OG. He's an original gangster. So he knows all of these guys. So he's friends with Dr. Dre, Snoop, the founders of Death Row, all these cool guys. And they all have this blend of hip hop, but also crime interests.

36:00And so he decided to have a show with Sirius where he would get some of these cool guys on the radio show, and they would talk about what his issue is. But also it was like wrapped up in like kind of cool stories because it's kind of like hip hop and like celebrity. And so he had a show for Sirius where he would talk about it. Dude, this guy's living the dream. Got rich, decided to do good in the world. Has a great podcast. The Triple Threat, I love it. He's cool. And so he actually, so I became really close with him. He invested in my company when I was a 25 year old or 26 year old in San Francisco.

36:33Very coincidentally, we both moved to this small town in Westport, Connecticut together. And we hang out all the time. And his wife, her name's Beverly. She's a 95-pound woman. And I've been to San Quentin. And we were walking on the yard with these guys doing bench press and sit-ups and whatever. And I walked with this little lady through the yard and the Red Sea parted. And she just walked through it. She's like, Tyrone, how are you? And she would go, Miss Bev, nice to see you. it was the craziest thing that i've ever seen it was like i'm telling you she like ran this prison yard she was the only woman there and it was the craziest thing i've ever seen and they have a joke that says if it glow you may go when you walk in to san quentin they stamp your hand and so when you leave you have to show them your stamp underneath underneath a black light in order to get out and they would do jokes where she would wink at the guy when i'm walking in and he didn't actually stamp me.

37:27He just pretended. And I would go to scan my hand to leave and my hand didn't glow. And they're like, sir, you cannot leave. We have to get this figured out. And I was like, I'm not staying here. So like they would pull like tricks on you. Like when you go and see this place, it was wild. But Chris and Bev are two people. When I think of how to live life, it's them. That is the way to go. That's dope. Can I tell you a related story? So my buddy Trevor was writing a book and he did this great, very smart move, which I'd never really heard anybody else do, but I thought it was a good idea. He goes, hey man, check your email.

38:02I check my email and there's like a plane ticket and it's a plane ticket to go see him. And he's like, I'm going to do, I want to write this book and I want it to be great. And I could sit here and brainstorm this on my own, but I really want to do something that I'm calling a book storm. And he basically decided to fly out the five kind of smartest, most interesting people he knew to hang out with him for a day and just help him flesh out and brainstorm the book together. And he's like, I will owe you one for life, but I just really respect you, trust you, and I really want your help with this because I'm trying to make this great.

38:34I go, and in the room is basically my buddy Trevor, his brother, and then there's the head of like the women's volleyball, the U.S. women's volleyball team, which is like way outperformed in the Olympics and won like a bunch of gold. And there was one other person, and then there was this guy, Larry, I'm like, oh, I'm a professional brainstormer. This is literally what I do. I'm like just ready to rock and roll, but I'm just blown away by this guy, Larry. Every time this guy, Larry opens his mouth, he says something that's super wise, super smart on the nose, just a few words, but he's always on point.

39:09And so after about an hour of the brainstorming around the book, I was like, dude, I got to ask Larry. I missed the intro. What's your story, dude? Cause you're incredible. and Larry tells the story where Larry's like you know I my name's Larry blah blah blah and he goes I was incarcerated for the past 22 years and I think he had just gotten out I don't know how long it had been maybe a year or two something like that and he goes yeah from the age 18 he's now 40 he's like at age 18 I was arrested and I was in for whatever 22 plus years and I was like Larry no offense but you just got out a couple years ago how are you so smart How do you know all this stuff?

39:47Because he would have these amazing polls where whatever we're talking about, he would reference this thing in this book and this quote he could just recite by memory. So I'm like, Larry, how do you know all this? And he goes, I was incarcerated at age 18. They lock you up and throw away the key, right? Like you're basically like the lowest man on the totem pole for society. They don't, nobody invests in you at that point. You're a sunk cost. And so he's like, I was getting in trouble and it was a rough place and it was not a good time. and he's like, I made a decision. I'm no longer in prison.

40:19I'm in university. And he's like, so every day I just studied. I just decided to go to university for the past 20 years. He's like, I decided to read all the books and learn and write and better myself. And he's like, I would literally change what I saw. I would walk in the prison yard and I wouldn't see the barbed wire. He's like, I saw roses. He's like, I literally just brainwashed myself that I am not in prison. I am in university. and I carried myself like that and I acted like that. He made the most of what was, you know, otherwise a very bad situation. I just remember being so blown away and inspired by this guy, Larry, when I heard that story because I was like, you know, if Larry can do that at a life sentence in prison, this sounds stupid, but like, then I can be born in a line at Starbucks for an hour or, you know, whatever.

41:04Like, you can change where you are. You don't have to be in the situation that it looks like you're in. Like, you can literally just decide, no no i'm in university right now no no i'm in a spa right now no i'm in i'm in the brainstorming session right now yeah i mean i am where i want to be about that that's so cool yeah it's really challenging because on one hand for some reason you start you feel like sad for someone like because you meet someone like a lot of the guys i met they i think they kind of had a tone for their sins a little bit where like they've changed but you're like oh i feel so bad for you like that sucks you deserve this and then you like learn about what they did and you're like ah actually no, like consequences exist for a reason.

41:41Like that sounds fair to me. And it creates like a, you get, whenever I've done these things with these guys, I get so many mixed emotions. It's a very challenging thing. It's a very hard thing to be part of too. But it is a no brainer, right? You want someone to like, not go back. So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton. Joinhampton.com. It's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Levan. And Levan saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton, which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's tedious, it's annoying, and it's a waste of time.

42:15And so Levan, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution. And that solution is called Molku. Molku uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF. And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer quote or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Molku and it auto-fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the techners out there. Slavon built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called Bubble IO. They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing.

42:47And it means you can build tools like Molku very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents or paying people to do that for you, check out Molku.ai. M-O-L-K-U.ai. All right, back to the pod. Did I tell you my embarrassing prison story? No, but that sounds so awesome. It's very embarrassing. This could go so many ways. So I go, I go with this. What are you making dad jokes at your first day in? So I moved to Silicon Valley and I'm working with this guy, Michael Birch. And Michael Birch is this wonderful guy. Michael's built a successful career in Silicon Valley.

43:26He's basically like a billionaire. So one day he messages me like, pack it like pack a bag with enough clothes for a day i got two days and uh meet me like at like whatever like meet me at like 8 a.m at the spot you're not going to work today i'm like all right i don't know what's gonna happen so i go and we started driving no idea where you're going i think he tells me on the drive that we're going to he's a part of this group called the inside circle and inside circle was where they take guys from the outside to go meet guys on the inside and it was at the prison, Folsom, what was it called?

44:02Folsom prison? Yeah, Folsom. And so we go drive there. It's a maximum security prison and I'm basically just a huge wuss, right? So I don't know what I'm getting into. I don't know what, I didn't actually sign up for this. Michael's just kind of like, trust me, you'll like this. This is good. You should do this. I still don't really understand what we're doing. I think it's like a, you know, like dare where they like scare you. They like take you in. Yeah, like you're scared straight. Like you're like, I thought it was scared straight. I thought we were just going to observe from like behind this, like really thick glass.

44:31I'm like, Oh cool. We're going to be like, watch. And I'm going to be like, wow, I learned so much today from observing. It's happening on the glass. And then they open the door and they're like, all right guys, come on in. I'm like, what? And so we go in and they're like, all right, uh, you know, pick a buddy, pick a, pick a partner. And so I'm like, uh, and I like pick this guy and, and the, the program starts. It's basically, it's like a men's group. So you sit in a circle, you talk about your feelings. Oh, and by the way, when I walk in, immediately, my eyes are drawn to one person because it was so obvious to me, like, this was the hardest guy in the prison.

45:08Somehow, this guy had sunglasses, and I don't know why he was allowed to have sunglasses. He had a walking, he had a cane, which I thought, like, you're not allowed to have, like, something that could be like a weapon. But he's got a cane and he's got sunglasses, but he's not blind, by the way. He has the sunglasses, like, up on his head sometimes. black guy black guy and he had like an entourage like he had like two guys with him who were really big and like but they deferred to him and he was kind of older and i was just like i don't know who this guy is but i've seen enough was he a somebody to know that this guy is somebody here um and maybe somebody on the outside i don't know but he's somebody in here anyway so he's in my group and his two like entourage guys so we get in the circle and i'm like okay i don't know what i'm supposed to do am i giving advice is this a mentorship test what is this and it's like no no you're here to talk about you know it's a this is a safe space unpack your feelings i'm like oh god and so first guy starts and he starts talking about how he's feeling pissed off he's feeling pissed off because like i mean crazy story but like he's locked up in here and his sister outside is having she's being abused by her boyfriend he just wants to kill this guy but he's on the inside he can't get to this guy he feels powerless and he's sharing this heavy emotional real life problem Yeah.

46:21Like a grade A real life problem. And I'm, I, of course, because I'm horrible, I stopped listening. I'm just like panicked thinking of what am I going to say? You know, when you're like supposed to be listening, but you just actually just planning what you're supposed to say. I start doing that because I'm like. Are you going to like retell a fake movie so you sound hard? Yeah. So I'm like, my startup doesn't have product where I fit. It's just really grinding my gear. What the hell am I going to say? I don't have real world problems, right? Like my life's, pretty good. And the cert, we're going around the circle and it's just one crazy, like real problem after another.

46:58And then, um, and then it's getting to me and I'm just like, what am I going to say? And so I'm like, all right, I guess I go deep in the bag. I'm like, all right, I do have, you know, there is something that's like pretty heavy. I don't really talk about this normally, but like, I guess, thank God I have this. Cause this is the time and place to unpack this story. And so I I start unpacking this story. And in my mind, and also I'm like, I'm talking kind of slower and dramatically because I'm like, let me really ham this up a little bit. Like, let me not be me and laugh during this. Let me, you know, try to be serious here.

47:33And I think I'm doing a great job. And the guy with the glasses just midway through is like, man, I don't believe none of that shit. I'm like, no. And I immediately, I'm like, no, it's true. He goes, I know it's true. and i'm like so what just to clarify you said still are we cool what's going on and he was like and he was like man that ain't your truth though so he's like it's true but that ain't your truth and i'm like what is this puzzle what is this riddle i don't know what this means and then um this creates this like really intense moment where i had to stand up and he's like they're like all right it's time to do the work i'm like what and stand up like we're gonna get beat up and so he's like right right he's like what's your truth and i'm like what i just feel uh and i'm like i'm like i'm like no but that is a real situation that has happened to me and they were like no what's your truth and i was like all right the truth is i'm just trying to say what i think you guys want me to say because i just want you to like me and i point at the guy i'm like i just want you to not hate me and he looks at me just stares at me he stands up he gets in my face he goes that's your truth

48:52and then we sat down and then for the next hour i was like i don't know what the hell just happened but i think i'm in a prison gang and this is awesome i think i'm accepted this felt amazing that's called a breakthrough yeah i had a breakthrough so that was my awesome prison the story that's great did you uh how did it end did you guys like exchange information what do you do dude have you ever taken ecstasy i haven't but i assumed that's what it felt like because for the rest of the time i was just like the weight of the world was off my shoulders and i just enjoyed myself and i and i realized like oh i could just be my insecure neurotic self and that's fine here okay cool i don't have to pretend great and then they were like cool he ain't pretending anymore We like this guy.

49:34Whatever you say now, we don't really care, but we just know that you're not pandering to us. What value do these guys get? What a lesson learned. What value do these guys get? Well, I think they live a pretty hard life. No, I think just in general, they live a pretty hard life, and they go to this meeting every week, so they have this kind of like two hours a week where they get to go and kind of like, as they would say, take the mask off, put the armor down. In fact, it would be a mix of the Hispanic guys, the white guys and the black guys in this session but then they would like openly say like yeah but like he his friend like shanked my friend and so it's on but here it's not on but as soon as we get out it's on again and i was like this is like a pretty bizarre dynamic but they all agreed like all right when we're here it's whatever but when we're out there it is what it is that's this the way that's just the way things are i remember like that's insane um but you know understandable in a way so they have this as a space where they can like deload kind of emotionally mentally which is important and feel like a human being and be able to like express themselves.

50:35I think it's a pretty dehumanizing feeling, right? When you're again, locked up, throw away the key and you know, anybody who comes in, they just see you as your label. Right. But like in that environment for those three hours that we were there, you know, nobody was, there was no status. Nobody was better than anybody else or like, yeah, there was us, but I was worse than everybody else. I guess it's probably the more accurate way of saying it, but like there was no, they got to like be treated well and be helped and be just talked to one man to another man. And at least, again, this is my interpretation of it.

51:03I'm sure that people who do this more have a more sophisticated way and a better way of saying it. By the way, now that we're talking about this, I'm going to wrap up. But Jack Smith, I forgot. This is his big philanthropic cause as well. So Jack Smith, if you ask him what he's doing on a regular basis for a long time, I would say, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm pen pals with people who are locked up. And I have a system where they can order any book, and I'll get it for them. Isn't he giving books? Isn't it a book program? Yeah, where he created a website. I forget how he did it, but where they can order a book and he'll buy them any single book that they want.

51:37Dude, most generic name, Jack Smith. You can't find anything when you Google for Jack Smith. Yeah. Okay, well, maybe we do this. So there's The Last Mile, which you could donate to. So go to thelastmile.org. You can donate there. There's Inside Circle Foundation, where you could donate there. So maybe do a little bit of good. So if there's anybody who's listened to this and inspired either to start your own thing or to attend one of these or to donate, go do it, man. Because seeing it firsthand does a lot of good and I think doesn't get the type of attention that it would ever want. By the way, the Inside Circle guys, they also made like a movie, a documentary about the program.

52:15And Chris Redlitz is the guy who I, who's kind of my mentor and someone I look up to. And you can find him on Twitter. He's super low key, but he's been the seed investor of probably five to ten different unicorns. Hugely successful. And now he has dedicated his life to that. So just DM him if you want to do whatever. He's pretty open-minded. Do you think you're going to do something like this, by the way? Yeah, I haven't found my cause for a long time. Do you have a career arc in mind where you're like, cool, I achieve, I climb success mountain, and then I parachute over to save the world? I told Sarah that at the age of 40, I'm going to stop the getting of money.

52:56So I said, by 40, I will no longer pursue any money and we will have a cause and that's what we will dedicate ourselves to. That's what I, that's. You've also told me that you're gonna disappear off the internet. I think this is badass and you should talk more about this. I said at the age of 40, yeah, I wanna get off the internet and I wanna not pursue any money-making things ever again. I don't want it to like ruin my perspective and just be a shallow capitalist and only care about that and just delete the internet and just focus on doing something good. That's the current plan. How old are you now?

53:33I turned 36 a month ago. So I'm 36. Four years away, dude. Do you think that's a crazy plan? Of course it's a crazy plan, but it's a pretty cool plan. I think it sounds pretty cool. I said by 40. I mean, what's your level of seriousness about this? Is this like, that's what's happening? or like I'm just testing this out, seeing how these words sound in my mouth? No, I just think that, I think that, I think if you only pursue making money, I think that you become a very shallow person. I think that there's more to life. I think that there's been so many times where I've seen something inspiring and beautiful and in my head I think, oh, then we could do this and turn it into this and then like optimize by doing this as opposed to saying, this is beautiful, this is wonderful, I want to experience, let's keep it small.

54:18And so I want to like force myself to appreciate that. One of my heroes is this guy named Felix Dennis. He wrote the book, How to Get Rich. Felix Dennis was a publisher in England where he founded a bunch of companies, a bunch of publishing companies. Eventually it was worth$600 or$700 million. And he wrote that he was diagnosed with cancer something like at the age of 60. And then at the age of 61, while he was learning about his cancer or something, he got into poetry. And he was like, I'm obsessed with writing poetry. Why on earth did I not discover this sooner? And he quit business partially because he was dying and because he fell in love with poetry.

54:51And he wrote in his book that if I could do it all over again, I would have quit at the age of 40 because I had enough and I would have pursued poetry because that was my calling. And I always found that to be amazing because I think that oftentimes when we're doing what we're doing every single day, we get caught into the make more, do more, optimize more when it's like I want to be in the present and I want to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy regardless if they make money. Because how many hobbies have you had where you're like, well i would only do it if i could like make like oh i want to like buy these toys and like maybe i could buy like 10 of them turn into a money making thing now what you're doing is actually pretty cool you but you still have a capitalistic mindset to it you are playing the piano and you are live streaming it which i think is amazing but in my head i'm like i want to do that too it's like well i only want to do that because i want people to see me learning a hobby do you know what i mean and i like that's like tainting well i only live streamed it once no i'm not criticizing you i'm criticizing i i was inspired to do it because i want glory do you know what i mean yeah yeah and well i um i learned pretty quickly when i started playing the piano that um nobody gives a shit if you can play the piano by the way it's not like a thing like uh if somebody plays the piano well it's like oh cool you can play the piano well they don't want to listen to even one song nobody wants to listen to somebody play a five-minute song on the piano that's a very like clear thing to me since learning to play piano, but it doesn't matter because playing a five-minute song is incredibly fun.

56:17In fact, I sent Ben a text message. I'm going to read you this text message because I think it's very relevant to what we're talking about. So Pomp did a SPAC recently. Did you see this? Yeah, I saw it, but I don't entirely know what that means, but yeah. So our friend Pomp, Anthony, they SPAC'd a company and the company's goal was to do the kind of Michael Saylor playbook, which is it's a Bitcoin acquisition and finance company. And so what they're doing is they raise, I think, $750 million. They SPAC'd it. It's now public, you know, it's going to be a public company. And they basically bought$750 million worth of Bitcoin.

56:49Then they're going to raise debt and buy more Bitcoin. They're going to raise companies or pension funds can own POMP stock, but they can't own Bitcoin. So this is how they get exposure to it. Is that right? That's one aspect to it. There's others, which is like, it's levered. So like, you know, you can, for every dollar you put in, let's say you buy Bitcoin directly, you can buy$1 of Bitcoin. but like their thing might, they're going to borrow and buy more than a dollar of Bitcoin for every dollar of equity, you know, for example. They also want to eventually turn it into like a full financial services thing.

57:21So essentially like a Bitcoin backed bank. I think that's like part of the vision. Anyways, I don't know exactly what they're doing. There's, you know, they're only allowed to say certain things, but point is, it's like Pomp, this guy who's very much like us, I think he's the same age, similarly. I hang out with Anthony all the time. Creator on the internet, good dude. and he's not like some uber, uber, uber genius. But he's relatable, is what I'm saying. So he's like one of us. And it's clear that this didn't just happen. He's been working on this for some period of time, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years.

57:52You don't know. So it's like, oh, wow, Pomp raised$750 million, has this public company now. I think he owns 8 % of it, I saw from the filing. So theoretically, Pomp has like$80 million of value from this, right? Some creators make courses. pump's going to make like, you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars from this thing if it goes well. Okay. And that's clearly what he put a lot of energy and focus on and did a great job fundraising for it. And I was texting Ben. I was like, wow, wow, that's incredible. I was like, meanwhile, I've logged 120 hours on the piano in the last six months.

58:26And I go, honestly, no regrets though. Fucking love the piano. Dude. So listen, you tweeted out, you said, I used to think jealousy was a bad thing, like a sin. And I try to avoid it. But jealousy is a wedding crasher it shows up uninvited and recently i started using jealousy to my advantage advantage jealousy is an incredible signal it tells me at a very primal no logic level what my subconscious wants it's a heat signal for taste i don't obey the signal but i do observe it and it helps me now and so this sounds very strange but when i saw what pop was doing i was like that's so badass congrats to him but then very weirdly when i saw you streaming you played the piano for some reason I thought that was oddly one of the cooler things you've done in the last year or two.

59:07And I felt stronger. And I'm like, well, why do I feel that? Why do I think that that is cooler? I don't know why exactly. But it relates to that tweet where I'm like, what's the signal there that that's sending? So anyway, I thought that was really cool. I thought that was significantly cooler. And I said this as well, when you were contemplating making a play or starting a business or something like that. It's like, I don't know, for some reason, the play is so much cooler. So I think I would pursue those artistic things over the money thing. And this sounds like a very trite, you know, like not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that.

59:38But I do think that like it's better for your soul that way. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could already, you know, hear the comments. Oh, it must be nice for you. You don't have to work. Another version of it is tech bros discover hobbies. There's more to life than money. But also, by the way, both true. Both very valid points of view. I don't think it's the important point of view, but I do think they're valid points of view. I think the important point of view is like, try to figure out what you actually want to do and then pursue it like in a relentless sort of unashamed way. And I think it's very cool.

1:00:09When you said that thing, I think you told me like in five, seven years, I plan to delete my social media, disappear from the internet. And now you're talking about like, you know, and you know, stop, stop pursuing the getting of money. Yeah. I really hope you stick to that. I don't know if you will, because I think it's a very hard thing to do. It's like, hey, can you turn down? It's like being like, I no longer eat sugar. It's like those people who are like, I'm going to diet. It's hard to stick to a diet. But if you actually did that, you would shoot up in the rankings of most badass people I know.

1:00:40You know what I mean? You're already top 10, but you would shoot up. I've got four years to go. I better get all of it while I can. But I do think that that... Give me a percentage. How certain are you you're going to do that at the age of 40? I just need to know. I'm going to hold you to this. 60 to 70 percent i mean look i feel this a lot of it has to do with family too like i feel uh like when my little kids start like talking and having personalities i think i would fall in love with them even more and i just want to like be a good example that there's more to life than than just the getting of money yeah yeah i'm totally washed when kids are so cute i'm just washed up now i can't do it i can't do anything dude i'm just yeah like the all the more personality she shows, the more where I'm like, oh, nothing really matters except our health and being around each other.

1:01:31I don't know. Does that stay linear? Does it keep getting hired the more they talk to you? Yeah, it is. But I think at least for me, there's a cap. It's not one of these unbounded things. It's not like I want to spend every waking moment with you. I'm like, you're too annoying. I'm too tired. This is too much. But it does... I do have a... It became my favorite thing for like three hours a day. Like for three hours a day, my kids are my favorite thing in the world. That's three hours a day that my favorite thing used to be working. It used to be, you know, reading. There's other things that were in that spot of like that three hours a day of like voluntary time.

1:02:10I could shoot, I could direct towards anything. And now my kids are that, right? Like we just like jumping into the pool with them and doing stuff or playing a game or whatever. That's like, it is super, super fun. But it is capped at like a three to four hours a day. Beyond that, I'm like, like how dare my wife make me raise my own children? This is too much. I need to be helped and saved. Who's here to save me? This is the softest episode we've ever had. All right, we should get off before we start crying. All right, that's it. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

1:02:43I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.