I Spent 7 Days With The Richest Men In Texas | 10 Things I Learned

0:00He was showing us around his house. He was like, that's my nap room. And I was like, you're a nap guy. I'm a nap guy. And he's like, oh yeah, I take a nap every day for the last three years. Do you want to nap together?

0:19All right. You're back from Austin. You were there for seven days. How was it? It was great, dude. I had one conversation. I got to ask you this. I got put on the spot. So I did an episode with Tim Ferriss and he said something in the middle of the interview. He goes, I wanted to ask you this. What do you think is the brand of your podcast? He goes, what I mean is, if you're not in the room and someone was just telling their friend about it, how would they describe it? Ideally to you, how would they describe it? You actually did this before. And I actually thought it was great. You said, Hey, look, we're doing these meetups.

0:51And if you are the type of person who goes to a restaurant and you wonder, how could they make this a little bit more efficient? Or how much money do they make per meal or how much profit do they make and how can they expand this? And you also like to joke around, you're perfect for MFM. And that's the person who I would describe is into it. I would say that we're this weird combination of making silly, dumb jokes and deconstructing interesting companies and pointing out different trends. Okay, that's pretty good. Yeah, I like the restaurant thing where it's like, if you went to a restaurant with four friends, and three of them would be looking at the menu trying to figure out what to order.

1:23And you'd be looking around counting the tabletops and trying to figure out how much money this place makes. That's us. We are that friend. Why? What did you say on the air? Well, luckily, he let me off the hook because he asked it. He's like, I want to ask you this. You don't have to answer, but you can do that. And he just kept going. And in my head, I was like, okay, the master of podcasting asking me, what is my podcast about? And it's sort of like, if Leonardo DiCaprio comes up to you, and he asks you what your name is, and you're like, I have one. I just don't know what it is right now. The panic ensues.

1:53I had to go out of town. So it was a weird timing. I wasn't able to make it. But you interviewed four or three people, but you hung out with a ton of people. How was Tim, for one? You also interviewed Joe Lonsdale. How were these guys? So I took notes. I always take notes when I go. I take a little journal with me. And basically, I'm not taking notes on what happened. I'm only taking notes on what are the new epiphanies? What are the new golden nuggets? What's the one phrase somebody said that I'm going to remember? And I'm looking for a high rate of revelation. I think that's also, by the way, a good move for the podcast.

2:26What is the rate of revelation per minute? How many interesting things are coming out to you? RPM, baby. RPM. Yeah, exactly. This is a very high RPM trip for me. I wrote down a bunch of names on our doc. And for each one, I had one big revelation. And so you can prompt me and go for whichever one looks interesting to you. Not an order person. So Manish, from what I know, he is a... What's his book called? The Dondo Investor. Basically, what I know about him is that he started maybe in the 80s investing in companies because I think he made some money through his own business. And then he's sort of like an Indian Warren Buffett.

3:06And he's got this huge following. And he seems really fascinating type of guy. Yeah. So exactly. I wanted to talk to him because my mentors consider him a mentor. right? Like if you like this podcast and you like either Andrew Wilkinson or Syed Balki, like both of them look up to and learn from Manish. When I was going out there, I texted Andrew. I was like, hey, what should I ask him? I was like, you know him, right? And he's like, dude, he was my first value investing man crush. And like somebody whose brain you got really attracted to because he has very interesting philosophies and thoughts.

3:40If you Google his net worth, it says like almost 2 billion. I don't know. Googling net worth is not not exact science, but he's up there. More like a B than an M. And he's an interesting guy. His story is basically... He's working at a company. His dad is like, son, it's time to quit. And he's like... His dad was an entrepreneur. He's like, dad, I don't want to do what you did, man. Your life was crazy. It was ups and downs. Don't you remember as a kid, we were being brought into the living room when we were 12, 13 years old trying to figure out how to let the business survive one more day. He's like, I'm traumatized for that.

4:12I just want to work here, save money in my 401k every year. And in 35 years, I'll be set. And his dad was like, okay, you're not wrong, but you took the wrong lesson away from what you learned. You actually got a crash course in how to do business and how to not do business. Maybe you should just take that and actually learn from it and do it right. Do it better than I could do it. And he told him, he's like, at this company, there's 2000 people here. You're just a cog in the machine. You could die tomorrow and no one would even know. And so he's like, you'll never reach your potential just sitting there.

4:44So he's like, all right, shit. He's right. Go start a company. It was an IT consulting company. So this was during the dot-com boom run-up when the internet was really exciting, computers were really exciting. He creates an IT consulting business. And so... Crazy. Mark Cuban also had an IT services business that he sold for$6 million, I bet, around the same time. So it was enough to be comfortable, but not enough to do nothing. Exactly. Exactly. And so what he did was he takes that money and he starts investing his own money and he compounds his own money. He turns like whatever. I think at first he had sold a million dollars a secondary.

5:23He turns a million dollars into$13 million. So he knew the Indian tech scene pretty well because his consulting company had overseas staff. So he's paying attention to it. So he invested in one and it was 140X. And so he's like, wow, that's insane. I should get out. He pulled out like a million or 2 million bucks from that. That's how he made his first million bucks. And he just reinvested. And along the way, he's giving his friends like stock tips. He's like, oh, I'm buying this for this reason. I'm buying this for this reason. They're doing really well. But they're like, Manish, we can't just listen to your tips because you're not telling us when to sell.

5:52We don't know what you're not telling us. Can we just give you the money? And so he takes a million bucks from his friends. He's like, okay, if I'm investing in my shit, I'll just put their money in the same thing. But he's like, that was the side thing. He's like, I had 13 million. That was 1 million. I didn't really care about it. And he proceeds to basically over the last, whatever, 20 years, 30 years, whatever, run that million dollars up. He now has like about just under a billion dollars of assets under management of the compounding of that plus people bringing more assets in, obviously, along the way.

6:19So, okay, that's a long story about Manish, but that's not what was interesting about him. What's interesting about him is I call him the relaxed billionaire because I go to this guy's house. He's just chilling. He's in his basketball shorts. No, no shoes. He's just walking around. He's like, all right. What's up? Because I went the day before to hang out with him. I was like, we're going to do the podcast tomorrow, but I want to get to know you a little bit. Can I swing by for... Let's just have some tea. So I go over to have a tea at his house. He calls it chai with pabrai. And he's like, yeah, I do this from time to time.

6:54I make a really good chai. I'll just have it with random, interesting people. One out of every 10 proves to be someone really compelling I want to hang out with more. And 9 out of 10, no problem. I just had some chai. And he just moved to Austin, right? He's been there for a little bit. Yeah. So he relocated from, I think, LA or something. So I was like, so what are you doing today? Because he's hanging out with us for like an hour. And I was like, there's nobody here. Where's your team? Where's your schedule? Where's your assistant coming tapping? He'd be like, you have a call. And he's like, I don't have any of those things.

7:28He told me a couple of interesting things. He goes, He goes, investing is not a team sport. He goes, I have a few folks, analysts type people, and they'll do specific things that I need them to do, but they don't make decisions. They don't make investment decisions. I make the investment decisions. He goes, why? He goes, to be a great investor, you need to make a contrarian bet, meaning you have to believe something's good when other people believe that it's bad. Fundamentally, that's how it works, right? If you think it's good, but everybody thinks it's good, you'll never make any money. The price is too high.

8:00If it's bad and you think it's good, you'll never make it right. The only way to make money is you think it's good and other people think it's bad. He calls it, I look for things that are hated and unloved. He's like, last year, I made one big bet or whatever, last two years on coal. Coal. He's like, man, coal. Nothing is more hated and unloved than coal. He's like, and before that, it was this. Before that, it was this. And so he's like, I look for the hated and unloved things. He goes, if you have a team, everybody just centers around the safe picks that we can all agree on. And he's like, you'll never find the truly contrarian, hated and unloved things if you invest as a team.

8:33Because it's not a team sport. Number two, he goes, he's showing us around his house. He's like, that's my nap room. And I was like, you're a nap guy. I'm a nap guy. And he's like, oh, yeah. I take a nap every day for the last 30 years. Do you want to nap together? Yeah. He's like, for 30 years, I've been napping every day. He's like, I love it. Just knock out in the afternoon. 20, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever it is. He's like, it's good for my brain. And he's like, I don't make good decisions if I'm not well rested. He's like, I don't need... Did you guys like high five and hug over there? Yeah.

9:01I was like, finally, this guy's my people. And he's like, oh, yeah. He's like, I used to live in Dubai. That's how they do it. It's too hot during the day. You just nap. And he's like, it's a no brainer. But overall, he was like, I have a clear schedule. I spend my time. I read. I think. Maybe I'll go teach or talk to somebody. He goes, I teach not because I want to be a teacher. He goes, because if I want to learn something, the best way is to go try to teach it. Where does he teach? At like a school or? Yeah, he'll go give a talk at a university or to some group of aspiring investors or whatever.

9:31And so I was just fascinated by this guy. I was like, this is the relaxed feeling. I love this guy's style. I love his MO. I go to his library. He's got just thousands of books. And he's like, yeah, this is my biology and science section. This is my investing book section. This is my business book section. And he's just recommending different books to me. I thought it was pretty fascinating to see this guy because it's high contrast to all the other people I've met on this trip who are like, go, go, go. So I've heard this so often where people say, for one, people will say like Warren Buffett.

10:01They're like, I read like 500 pages a day. And then I'll talk to our friend Andrew Wilkinson and a few others. He goes, I just want to read all day. And in my head, I'm like, okay, reading. I just read this awesome science fiction book about aliens. Is that counting? What do they read, I wonder, all day. Is it only work-related? Is it like the equivalent of you and I skimming Twitter? No, I think it's less Twitter. But I do think it's... Some percentage of that is companies' annual reports, right? Like going in and diving in and looking at a company or looking at an industry, trying to understand it.

10:37Some of it is understanding the macro, the psychology of humans and about business and about whatever. And he's got business books, psychology books, all that. Some of it's about science and he's reading about that. And some of it's just for fun, just to expand the brain. Science fiction is actually quite interesting as an example, because a lot of the things that are happening today were predicted by science fiction 20, 30 years ago. Everything from cryptocurrency to video calls to things like that, that at the time seemed far-fetched. Predicting video calls where you don't even have a cell phone, right?

11:07It took some thinking there. So yeah, I do think it's a wider breadth. It's not just reading 10 Qs. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. him. Is he just reading those all day? 10Ks, I think, by the way. We don't want to look like a total fool. I'll give you a couple of takeaways from Joe Lonsdale. So for those people who don't know, Joe created Palantir. He's the co-founder of Palantir, which is a$50 billion company. But his actual claim to fame when I was talking to him, he said something. He goes, I've created more billion-dollar companies than anyone else in America. That's bold. Let that sink in.

11:42Bold. And I was like, cool, cool, cool. I got a podcast. What's up? I've created more episodes than most podcasters. I thought that was a really amazing, amazing achievement. And it's true. He's done at least$5 billion companies. And those were all in the last short period of time. His background is... I think he went to Stanford and he somehow got into Peter Thiel's orbit when Joe was just 21 or 20 or still in college. He right-hand Peter and was almost like an... He was his protege. intern, whatever, at his hedge fund, I think. By the way, the story is really hilarious because he's like... Somebody asked him in an interview when I was doing my research.

12:21They were like, what were you like as a kid? And everybody... If I asked you, successful person gets asked what it was like growing up, what's the typical response? Selling stuff. It's usually humble origins of some kind. I grew up middle class. Maybe I had a reading impediment, but that led me to really working on something. There's usually some rags to riches. The guy asked Joe and he goes, yeah, grew up, had great parents, great family. Stuff came pretty easy to me. Basically, I just was really good. I just aced all my tests. I was 99 percentile math, 99 percentile science. I was a programmer.

12:58He's like, you know, there were smarter kids than me. But like, you know, school was pretty easy. I focused on it. I did well. I got into Stanford. It's like that was his story, which I found to be hilariously candid. Because of course that exists. But most people don't want to say that. They're so busy virtue signaling that they'll try to bend their awesome upbringing to focus on some one bad thing where he's like, no, my parents love me and they really put me in a position to succeed. And I was super competitive and I fucking won. That was his story. And then he got in Peter Thiel's orbit and he probably was wildly successful just as an employee at PayPal.

13:33But then he spun off and they created Palantir together. And then off the backs of that, or off the success of that, he created like eight or six other companies that he like, quote, co-founded, which I don't understand what co-founded means in his case, because he's done it so often that I don't even understand the logistics of how he has time to do that. Yeah, he like seeds them, basically. So he's like, okay, I have the idea, I'll bring the team together, I'll have the initial strategy, I'll recruit the initial talent, I'll recruit the initial capital. And then over time, he either is CEO or not CEO of these different companies.

14:07So he's done Adipar. He did Palantir. He's done Epirus. He's done a whole bunch of different things in different spaces. One is financial software for wealth managers. Another one is software for spies for the government. Another one is Andruil. They're making a weapon for the government. They do different things in totally different spaces, like trucking and logistics. They've done all kinds of shit. Let me show the viewer. If you're on iTunes or whatever, go to YouTube to see this. I get this text message from Ben. All right. So Joe has... I don't know what his home is like, but the room that he's in is elaborate.

14:45When you think of old money and the boys club of men smoking cigars, you're just surrounded by encyclopedias. There's a picture of Joe. And he's sitting there. He's got a suit with a high collar. He looks like a hedge fund guy. He looks like the president. And we had an awesome interview. He was like, that was the best podcast I think I've ever done. He said that? He said that. His right-hand man, who's like his media guy, said that. I don't know if they're just being nice, but I'll take it either way. What was the one revelation you got from him? I'll give you five points. I'm just going to read them fast.

15:17Number one, some people actually just want to save the world. So I am very, very suspicious when people talk about they want to just really help people. They want to improve society. They want to fix America, all those things. Joe is that guy. He actually is that guy. That is actually what drives him. I went back and read his early blog posts and Quora posts, stuff 10 years ago, 15 years ago, stuff he wrote when he was in school. He's been saying the same thing the whole time. And that's usually the giveaway is not somebody who's changing their tune once they make it, but somebody who's saying that before they make it.

15:59And I think he looks through everything through that lens of like, what are the biggest gaps? and then how do I fill them? When we were on our way out, it was like, oh, dude, we've been hanging out all day. We hung out. We went there in the morning, which was my hack. We went and did a workout with him at 8 a.m. And then we... Was he fit? Yeah, of course. He's super fit. And so we worked out together. We cold plunge together. We got breakfast together. We hung out. Then we did the interview. So by the time we do the interview, we were totally in high rapport, I guess. And so I'm hanging out and I'm like, dude, I could hang here all day.

16:28But I could tell, I think it's my time to leave now. After this thing is done. He's got to go do other shit today. And we're walking out and freaking Elon Musk is walking in. That's what was going on in that moment. So pretty insane. And all right. What were the other points? Number two. He's still wrestling with the idea of focus. So one of the things he said, I thought was really interesting. He's created more billion dollar companies than anyone else in America, let's say. I take his claim at face value. And he brought up... Honestly, he was like, but I'm not sure if that was right. He goes, one of the lessons I learned from Peter Thiel is that you should be really, really careful putting effort into new things.

17:08Almost always, it's a better idea to put money into your main compounding thing that's got a lot more room to run. There's more area under the curve to fill of something that's really working than to go take that same unit of effort onto something that's starting from zero. And he's like, honestly, I probably... If I had just done one of those companies, I probably would have built a bigger thing than all five combined or all six combined or whatever it is, which I thought is a pretty interesting thought. And that makes me feel good to know that people I admire or look up to or who are ahead of me struggle with the same stuff that everyone else struggles with.

17:42I think he was at peace with it because he was like, but at the same time, that would be if I was optimizing just for money and valuation. But that's not what I'm optimizing for. I thought these companies needed to exist. So I built them. I'm glad I did. it's more fun to do multiple things. And those were problems that needed to be solved. So I'm glad I did it. But just do the math here for a second. So it's Palantir, now a$50 billion company market cap wise. Even if you take Adapar, which I think a$3 billion company or OpenGov, which he just sold for$1.8 billion. It's like, those are, let's say, those two together, each one took 7, 8 years, 10 years to build, let's say.

18:18Average company, let's say it takes seven years to do. And even if he totally wins and he gets a$3 billion outcome or$2 billion outcome, if he had just put that same energy into Palantir, taking Palantir from$50 billion to$53 billion is a hell of a lot easier. And he probably would have taken it to$70 or$80 billion if he had put all of his same entrepreneurial energy into that versus starting these new things. So I think he's actually right on the math. But I think he's also right in how he decided to do it. He had an interesting rule, which he's like, I only do six things. And that was his definition to focus.

18:48He's like, I can only do 6 things. He's like, they're not all equal. I have my main one or two things, 8 BC and starting one company. But he's like, I can only do 6. I think for his team, his general managers or his partners in his company, the high-level exec people, there's some number where they're only allowed to have 3 or they're only allowed to have 6 things on their plate at any given time. And I think 3 was the number for them and 6 was the number for him because he's not operational as the CEO. By the way, his rule was, if you're the CEO, you have one thing and it's your company. That's it.

19:22This is awesome. You know he's only 41. This guy's so prolific. He's a machine. I'm so excited to listen to that. Also, by the way, just next level awesome in terms of lifestyle, like baller house, full staff, chef, all the good shit, all the shit you would want. For me, as somebody who's like, you do play the money game, It's interesting to see what does the final level of the money game look like for these people. Like, oh, that's interesting. It's cool to get to sample it. What do you think was worth it of what he spent on? He's got a basketball court in his house. I thought that was pretty awesome.

19:54He's got a... He likes to... He's like, oh, I like gaming. So I got a game, like a gaming room, like a LAN room where he's got like six computers. And he's like, yeah, me and my cousins all come here and play or whatever. I think like I've always been a big proponent of like a chef. I think to me, it's the number one wealth luxury is to have a private chef because of the amount of time it saves, the health benefits for you and your family, and the taste. All three, it's a win-win-win. And so, yeah, I thought that was pretty cool too. And then you got to hang out with Nick Gray. Nick Gray is one of my favorite people on earth.

20:32And you got to see his magic, what he does with his parties. It's pretty cool, right? Yeah. So the end here is we do all the interviews. We do all the one-on-one meetings. And at the end, it's like, dude, there's a list of 100 people that are interesting and awesome we would want to hang out with, but there's just no time. So we were like, let's just do a small house party. So we did a small 15-person house party and we asked Nick to organize. So I got to see Nick Gray, the legend, run one of his famous two-hour cocktail parties. Go buy his book, Two-Hour Cocktail Party. This guy is so... He is such a legend in just his vibe.

21:04It's awesome, right? He makes you feel good. I was going to tell you this hilarious story. So he does all the normal Nick Gray things. I walk in. He puts a name tag on my shirt. The name tag is yellow so that after we all do our intro, he's like, we're just chatting. And normally, you're just chatting. You're mixing and mingling. And everybody... Our own social prowess is somewhat limited. Some people are really good at it. Some people feel awkward. You don't know how to exit conversations. Nick makes that easy because he'll be like, great. He plays the harmonica. He's like, we're going to do a structured activity.

21:34Look at the color of your name tag. Join that group. And I want you to talk to those people now. And so he will stir the pot basically to mix you up. So he's doing his thing. And then he's like, at the end, he's like, we're trying to leave. And he's like, hey, Sean, can you call my phone? I want to do a gag. And I'm like, what do you want to do? He's like, I have a gag. Call my phone. And I call his phone. and he reaches into his bag and he pulls out this giant handle of a butcher knife, but it's a phone case and his phone is on the other end of it. He's like, hello, this is my gag. I thought this was really funny.