Shaan Goes to LA, The Number 2 Guy Network and Getting Bucked Up

34:42And it's like, basically they gave at least$20 million to a high school to build a better football facility. So their kids would have a better shot at becoming a better football player. And I was like, this is such a misguided way, such a like inefficient way to help your kids. And I've met many people like this. I know people who are wealthy beyond measure. And I asked them, why are you still working like so many hours? What are you doing? Why are you taking all this risk? They're like, okay. They're like, my dad, when I wanted to be an entrepreneur. said you're never going to do it and he refused to give me any money to start so I struggled so hard at the beginning when my kids turn 18 I'm going to give them each 20 million dollars and say like you know I will support you in building any business you want with that you know someone who said that their literal plan and they're saying it bragging to me again crazy brag how old are their kids to me their kids are currently their oldest maybe 10 years old and their youngest is 4 so i have four kids that's 80 million dollar uh uh you know allowance that they're gonna they're creating trust fund that they're creating creating for the kids to start these businesses and i told him i was like well you know that like because you didn't have the resources you developed all these skills which is what made you successful in business like you weren't if you were handed 20 million dollars i don't think you would actually be who you are today um so i i love that you're trying to help your kids, but I just don't think what you're doing, which is working super hard when they're kids being so busy, being busy that you're kind of away from them, making all this money that you plan to hand them at 18.

36:19Like, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but you know, people, it's a horrible drug addict. So, you know, I don't think that message was, was received very well. Um, but you know, I just found that people do crazy things in the name of, of like their kids and money. No, I think that that's crazy. I think that's exactly how you create like a future heroin addict. I'll tell you a couple other ones I think are good. Talk to an investor friend. So I have a friend who was a VC at one of the big VC firms. He's left. He left and started doing his own thing. But he has a style and a strategy I think is very different than most people.

36:49I find it very fascinating. So if I asked you, I said, what's, what is like, draw me like a picture of the typical Silicon Valley VC. Like, can you just describe some things about them? Like, you know, what, what are they like? What are they doing? you know like just the average vc let's say average vc a tall looking white guy who wears a sweater um and brown shoes or shoes that have white soles like white bottoms and they basically meet tons and tons of people of tons of coffee meetings yeah tons of coffee meetings lots of introductions from other people who come from really amazing universities and And they'll pass on most of them, but then they'll invest like 50 to 100 companies, smallish checks, and then never hear from...

37:37They don't really talk to the founder often unless things are going really bad and they bitch at them. Yeah, exactly. They say they're going to be value-add. They invest in dozens, maybe 40, 50 companies over their lifespan of a couple of years. They're taking tons of coffee meetings. They're super agreeable. They'll only kind of smile and say nice things to your face. Typically, they cast a wide net. They love going to networking events. They'll say that like, we're a founder's first company. We're founder first. We're founder friendly. We invest in world changing ideas. Yeah, all of them only invest in the best somehow.

38:11Every single VC only invests in the best. They do all those things. This is an investor friend that has a Twitter egg profile picture. They go to no networking events that are like VC run and or like kind of generic founder events. They do go to random events that are like, oh, I'm going to this biohacker meetup in downtown Oakland where people are going to like shoot themselves up with DNA. It's like, okay, I'll go to that. Like they go to those types of events. They have a strategy, which is basically, here's what he told me. He goes, every year, one company becomes like kind of the center of the universe.

38:52And my job is to have invested in that company three years ago. And I go, wow, okay. I like that. So what, give me examples? He goes, well, like, you know, back when we met, I met this person in 2012 or 2013. They were like, you know, Stripe was actually the center of the universe at that time. Stripe was the company that like was the clear breakout. Recently, he's like, most recent ones last year would have been OpenAI. So OpenAI before kind of like our like kind of early chat GPT or before releasing GPT-3. right now I go right now who is it right now he goes Ozempic Ozempic is the center of the universe right now and I was like oh interesting so not just like tech companies when I last time I talked to this person was maybe three years ago in earnest and I was like so what are you up to nowadays and generic usually the answer is like oh a little bit of this a little bit of that this person said I quit my job and I am just hunting down a way to own a piece of OnlyFans.

39:49I go, what? The porn thing? And he's like, yeah. OnlyFans, I think, is going to be massive. I think it's one of these. It's the center of the universe right now. It's going to be the center of the universe. People don't realize it. I think it's going to be the one of this year kind of cohort. This is going to be the company that matters. So my only mission is to add so much value to the owner of OnlyFans that I can invest in it or own a piece of it somehow. And if I don't, whatever, at least I was helping that rocket ship go. And, you know, previously it might've been SpaceX or Tesla was like, you know, those, that comp the company and, um, Bitcoin, Ethereum, like those are like some of the other ones that had their, their, they own that, that year, there was no more valuable company that was like creating more value that would then in the future be realized.

40:39And, uh, I just thought it was awesome. I thought it was an amazing, I was, I'm just so happy that this person's a friend that like thinks so differently, operates so differently than the average person. Has he been successful? Has been successful. And he told me, I was like, I go, so what's the strategy here? He goes, oh, I'm trying to make all the best investments I can so I can make the worst investment of my life and buy this like soccer club in Europe that I grew up loving. And he's like, I'm trying to make the best investments ever so that I can make the one worst investment ever. And does he use other people's money?

41:16In the past, he did. I think now he's doing a lot of his own or he'll raise SPVs. I was like, oh, you invest in this company? Cool. How much do you invest? He goes,$100 million. I go,$100 million? I was like, yeah, I have$100 million. He's like, yeah, I raised$100 million SPV because I believe in this company. And it puts your own conviction and ambition in check. You're like, so what's the company I believe most in? How much have I plowed into that? And why is that number not$100 million? right like you can only like self-check when you hear stuff like this in a good way it's a frame breaker i said where'd you get the hundred million he goes from one lp i convinced one person and they were actually already convinced actually that person was kind of already convinced that this was a good company i busted my ass to get the ability to put a hundred million dollar check in and they put the money in what did you put a hundred million dollars in can you say i can't say.

42:07Has it worked? Again, you bake these things three, four years ahead and we'll find out did that company, was that the right place to concentrate like a laser beam of conviction? So I loved that conversation and meeting that person. So that was one that I think is great. Let me give you one more that I think is, oh, here's a quick one. Neighborhoods, not cities. You're, I think, a great person to talk about this because you've been traveling around trying to find cool places to live. you don't pick at the city level. You pick at the neighborhood level. It's actually what is the best neighborhood to be in, not what is the best city to live in.

42:46And it's, that was just an obvious understanding to me once you go to a place like LA or, you know, you've done this in New York or Brooklyn or - And it's really hard to do that, by the way. Like the idea that, like, let's say that you're a normal person, your home is likely going to be the biggest purchase of your entire life. And it will unfortunately be the, for most people, it'll be the largest portion of their net worth. and it's pretty insane that you make that decision a 20 or 30 year decision off one maybe two one hour visits right uh like in like for a uh uh open house it's it's it's insane and you did this i think way back in the day i think you created one of these for san francisco i think it was the the roommate infographic for neighborhoods in san francisco it's like if you live in this neighborhood here's who your roommate's going to be like which is so brilliant because it's a about neighborhoods and b it's about people um because people is also what makes your experience when you're in a in a city it's not it's not the environment yeah basically in 2014 we had this app and in order to make it popular we launched in five cities san francisco boston manhattan la and chicago i believe and what we did was we're like all right in order to make things go viral we have to name as many names of local restaurants and local people that we can think of because those people will share.

44:05And if we name like 50 of them in each one, that's 50 people sharing in that city. That's how we'll get popular. And so we created this thing called the Stereotypical Roommates of Los Angeles, Stereotypical Roommates of San Francisco. And if you Google them, you can find them. And we just made like an infographic that made fun of each neighborhood and all the brands and places that they shopped at. And that way, you could like figure out what restaurants were like that neighborhood, but those restaurants and the people in those neighborhoods would share. And here's the thing. At that period, I don't think I'd never been to New York.

44:33I had never been to Boston. We just looked at Yelp. We just went to Yelp and look at what are the most popular things and we found the jokes that people were making about it and then that's how we made the infographic and it went like crazy. I think we got tens and many, many tens of thousands of downloads for the app in the first day. I saw that before I ever met you. I read that thing when I moved to San Francisco. Somebody shared it because it was so funny and like kind of like, oh, that's funny because it's true. So it was actually useful too because it was like a little bit stereotyping, generalizing, but it was true for the most part.

45:00So I thought that was so so good. And I kind of wish somebody did that for every city now. Exactly. Whenever I go and look at new neighborhoods, I try always go to a bar and I say, what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? And I'll ask the bartender or whatever. I'm like, tell me the stereotypes. And they'll be like, oh, a lot of gay people are moving in. And I'm like, all right, up and coming. Got it. That's what that means. Like gentrifying or like, oh, like what's the stereotype of this neighborhood? Tons of strollers. So I'm like, all right, rich young families. All right. Got it. What else?

45:28You know what I mean? Like there's all these like things. Yeah, there's like codes. It's like, Like that's a, it's like, you know, if you're in the government, it's like, oh, it's a 38333. That's the government code. That means X. This is the same thing. It's like when somebody says critically acclaimed, cool, code for not profitable. Thank you. Moving on. Or boring.

45:49For the everyday man. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I got a couple other quick ones for you. Rattle off one more. I'll give you a networking hack. So Tim first back in the day, they had this blog post called how to build a world class network and record time or something like that. I love that. I remember reading that and like kind of like getting inspired by that. So I don't know if you know this, but business partner, Ben, I think is the greatest networker in the world. Actually, I've now come to realize this. I had no idea. I had no idea what was going on until recently. I've now now learned this. He is working the phones and he is just like, it's so funny, too.

46:27what he does is he just checks in on people. Like just this morning, he texted my friend from college that I had introduced him to once. This is one of my best friends from college that were helping buy a business. And he goes, yo, yo, I remember you said that the close date was supposed to be 731. Did it end up closing? I was like, bro, how did you remember to check in? Like he's the, he's the perfect boyfriend. Basically. He's just fucking checking in and supporting everybody. Like bar shop. You can probably attest to this. And all of our, we work together. I probably text you, I don't know, a couple of times a year max.

47:03And it's usually about something that's like urgent, sort of transactional. I'm just guessing that you talk to Ben fairly often. Could you just describe this for a second? Because I think there's something to learn out of this whole thing. Yeah, I can pull up my text. He probably hits me up like two or three times a week. Like, how's the X project going? Or how's X going? Yeah, he's a beast. So I noticed this because I would meet people and then somehow afterwards they're only keeping in touch with Ben. I'm like, dude, am I just unlikable? I was like, and I think there's something to it. I definitely give off some stink that's like, you know, repels people, but Ben has the opposite effect on people.

47:41He draws them in. He's like a golden retriever and he's always smiling. He's just harmless and people like him and he's helpful. He's just supportive and helpful to everybody. And so he's like, he knows, here's what he's figured out. He's figured out that most people just nobody checks in with them. so he checks in on how's that that your mission in life how's that going does he do it on his cell phone or on the computer on his phone then they reply with like a long ass update and i'm like you're basically just saying sup and then the sup is generating this like highly interesting response and then what he does is he's just like connects dots so he'll be like oh you should talk to that guy like oh you uh you really like this tv show we just met the writer you should meet him and he'll just connect dots and like he's just a dot connector and then people are like oh that was helpful or like once he knows you're trying to do x like let's say he knows sam you're trying to um do some uh body fat thing he'll then just start sending you tweets just little links like he does that related to it and he's also what's it called like infatigable like you can ignore like you probably ignored the last four that he sent don't matter no hard feelings gonna keep them coming and i'm like wow this is just a recipe so this kind of led me to this understanding of, okay, Ben is world-class at this, fantastic.

48:57But in general, Ben's kind of like my wingman. He's like my number two. And everybody's got like a number two at some, once you get to a certain level, you get like a number two. And actually the number two guy network is the most under tapped resource. So why were we meeting these NBA players? Because we're friends with the number two of an NBA player. And it's like, and guess what? Nobody knows that guy. Everybody wants to get to the NBA player. Nobody even knows this guy's name, but he's got all the access he's got 98 of the access to the nba guy has but he's got two percent of the like um the the busyness and which we did with uh with huberman's guy um god i'm blanking on his first name uh what's his name um rob rob moore uh yeah i went out to i hung out with that guy in la and he was like he runs the huberman show huberman's the face but this guy's got all the keys he's like oh yeah we interviewed this person if you ever want to talk let me know the Keys to the kingdom.

49:53And generally, these people are nicer, less busy. They're the ones who actually do a lot of the fucking work. So they're actually more interesting people. They also are kind of like the gatekeeper. Like they decide who gets in, who gets out, what opportunities come in, what gets out. And they're hit up way less. They're hit up way less. So they're way more available. And they're very helpful. They know a bunch of the other people. And so I'm like, oh, shit. The number two guy network. I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but I've had the insight now. and I'm like, I actually get along better with the number two guys, but for all those reasons I just mentioned and I just think that this is like an undertapped resource and I get why everybody hits up Ben now because he's the number two guy and some people have figured out this arbitrage that you should hit up the number two guy because he's nicer, smarter, better, faster, more accessible, all the things.

50:43And so this was just a realization for me on the networking side. One of the few like big unlocks I think that I've had. Before we wrap up, did you, what was this thing about Bucked Up? Is that someone you met with in LA? I didn't meet them, but I heard, I met somebody who told me their story and I was blown away. Had you ever heard of Bucked Up? No. What is it? So Bucked Up is a hunting thing. Is this a hunting thing? No, no, no. Okay. Let me tell you, don't even look it up. Let me just tell you the story. So, um, starts basically in the, in the, in early two thousands, there's these two guys, two twin brothers, I think, and they just do affiliate marketing.

51:19So they're like affiliate marketing. They're like, hey, it's 2001. Google is not that competitive. We can basically say, oh, you want leads for your lawyer practice? Cool. What are you going to pay us? We'll get you leads for that. You want leads for your apartment thing? We'll get you that. You want leads for this supplement? We'll get you that. And at that time, those guys killed it. Those guys are killing it. Kill it. By 2010. So they've been doing they do this for about 10 years. They're making money. By 2010, they're generating 25 million a year in revenue with only three employees. that means they're basically pulling in like 20 million a year of profit uh as well if they're if they're if their uh cbcs are low or the cost per clicks are low which back back then they were maybe i'm super aggressive yeah i thought it was it'd be pretty low then maybe i'm super aggressive let's say it's eight to ten million in profit i think it's a very yeah a ton which is just amazing three people doing this so this was like you know what they were doing my partner my partner joe by the way joe spiser my partner in hampton he started this and when he was 25 he sold the business it It was called Epic Advertising.

52:18He was the affiliate marketer. He sold a portion of the business for$250 million. That's amazing. And it was all this affiliate marketing stuff. And so these guys, they're doing the affiliate marketing thing. And a guy comes to them and says, this is now like a decade later, right? And he comes to them and says, hey, I have this supplement called L-Arginine. And the brand's called L-Arginine Plus. And he's like, I don't know what L-Arginine does, but like... It's like a vitamin. I think it helps make you sleep or does it give you energy? I think it gives you energy. Or does it help your brain function better?

52:52Who the hell knows? I don't know. I think you're supposed to drink it with caffeine and it gives you energy, I think. Yeah, maybe. Like right now, it's just some generic fucking supplement. It's the one. But back then it was arginine was the one. And so. Yeah, whatever. The guy goes. Acai bowls and shit. It's all. It's all. Or acai berry or whatever the fuck that thing is. It's all a different thing every time. What's that shit called? What's that Brazilian shit called? Acai? I ain't no ACA berries. It's like whenever I see the word quinoa. What's that quinoa? Quinoa? Quinoa. Quinoa. Yeah, it's like what you call you ever used to call.

53:34I used to think that La Quinta Inn was La Quinta. You know what I'm talking about? The La Quinta Inn? I didn't know it was La Quinta. is the thing you said you say it how do you say it now because i think it's also completely wrong what's it called like winter what's supposed to be called i think it's keen time but i don't know uh laquita so so a guy approaches him says hey i'm making 250 a day on this l large anything will you guys be my affiliate marketers quickly in three weeks they ramp it up it's now making like over three thousand dollars a day okay that's pretty good three thousand dollars a day that's like 100k a month they own 50 of this thing and they buy l arginine.com to get an exact match they're ranking number one that's doing pretty well and then he reads this article so he's interested in this supplement game he reads this article that major league baseball just banned deer antler spray never heard of it what the hell is deer antler spray looks it up finds that deer antler uh has some extract that's supposed to help you with recovery damn must be if it's so good that the mlb bans it that means shit must be fire like there's gonna be a lot of so he he he takes he he has the right what is that chris barley thing did you learn the right lesson he learned the right lesson from that news which was this shit must be fire and every athlete's gonna want it so he buys deer antlerspray.com for eight dollars and he's uh he owns the domain he's the number one rank and it goes okay at first not not a huge demand but he's kind of he's there and then i don't know if you remember this but one year before the super bowl ray lewis who's the killed the guy uh no he killed the guy i think the year before but during the playoff run he gets hurt got it and there's a two week yeah there's like a there's like an extra week rest between like the super bowl and the playoffs or whatever i think the story goes ray lewis is hurt but he's got to play in the super bowl and then he plays amazing and they win the Super Bowl and he's and it comes out that he used deer antler spray to like recover during that week and to like get rid of the pain and allow him to play well demand explodes through the roof baby and uh GNC comes to him and says hey we'd like um 30 units he's like okay cool no problem and they're like oh no sorry 30 ,000 units and he's like oh what they're sold out everywhere as soon is they get all this influx of demand.

56:01They're trying to keep up. So for one or two years, they're just keeping up with the new demand and being the number one player in this deer antler spray thing. But as they go, they're like, okay, we're kind of limited. It's like very niche. What if we expand this to something a little bit bigger? So they change the name from deer antler spray to bucked up. They kind of stay with the deer. Oh my God. They change it to bucked up because one of the GNC franchisees who they were chilling with goes, yeah, you know what? sells really well but like you know look it doesn't look that good is these pre-workout supplements so basically the powder you take before you work out that remember no explode yeah no explode uh dude that thing was acid that would that would you could remove paint with that thing i used to take that shit and you would lift so much weight but it would make you feel miserable after i don't even know what was in it yeah you felt like your heart was going to explode it should have just been called like you know artery explode and like you know one out of ten people die of this thing it was crazy but like that category of pre-workout supplements turns out is a very big category um so bucked up today they say is the number one pre-workout supplement this thing does guess how much revenue this does i have no idea 10 250 million a year apparently bucked up does dude the flavors so it's called mother bucker that's one of their things is the motherbucker and it just says like their slogan should be like strong as an ox like this is like ridiculous focus strength energy the mother of all pre-workouts motherbucker that's crazy to me this is nuts you know sometimes when i'm flipping the channels on tv i'll see like um you know hassan minhaj and he's just like you know this guy who's he's this comedian he makes the world laugh he's so good looking he's you know happy he's having all this success and i think you know i was maybe one or two you know right turns away from from going down that path when you see bucked up do you think this because i feel like you were one or two right turns away from being the creator owner and sole proprietor of bucked up.com selling mother bucker pre-workout powders to people on the internet yeah maybe maybe i mean i don't know i guess i could have 90 000 square foot factory in missouri uh and just like you know and a soul patch a huge antler tattoo on your back and a soul patch dude listen the flavors are woke af another one is the bamf heist the the other one is the bamf high stimulation uh another one is the lfg pre-workout let's fucking go another one is called rut this is hilarious these are all like really good names of like really mean dogs you know what i mean like i'm gonna have like a really like a my junkyard dog named buck get him buck that's like what this stuff is you know or like rut yeah like this is crazy this is a deer antler are you this is from that to this is kind of an insane uh insane story and uh yeah and they still kill it yeah they're doing really well right now apparently i mean i mean i'm talking to what i i know this from one guy and then what you google about them but like apparently just crushing it oh my god i have no idea what's in this stuff i would like i mean this might be a legit performance enhancing drug is it still illegal for the mlb because maybe i will order it exactly like haha that's so insane you know as you check out well people talk about performance enhancing drugs like it's a bad thing but i'm like i would love my performance to be enhanced right do you know what i mean like the main problem with my performance that it's unenhanced right now yeah how do i enhance my performance i really want it to be enhanced i prefer to be enhanced than unenhanced so like give me the ped so i'm like in favor of some peds uh not not if it means you break the rule but uh locked up we never talked about this did you see that thing the enhanced games that somebody was creating uh was that the um was that just the uh different sports but for steroid users it's basically like it's like you know i feel like every college bro had this like conversation in their dorm room which is like they should just do the olympics but with the drugs like you could take anything and see what happens like i want to see somebody run like a two second hundred meter dash and it's like these guys created it It's called the enhanced games and it's happening.

1:00:32And I don't know if you've, it came out and it almost looked like, like satire, like it wasn't happening. So if you go to it, it's enhanced.com. I think a better version of the Olympics. Yeah, exactly. That's a great, that's a great, we're basically Airbnb, but better performance. It's performance. I can't find their website. Website right now. The website's down, but Enhanced Games is a planned international sports event where the athletes will not be subjected to drug testing. It's meant to take place in December of 2024. So the guy, Aaron D'Souza, is the same guy that Peter Thiel funded to take down Gawker, by the way.

1:01:14Okay. Sign me up. Prolific. You know, best LinkedIn ever. Here's how he does it. He says, athletes are adults. They have the right to do with their body as they wish. my body, my choice, your body, your choice. And no government should be making these decisions for athletes, particularly those around the FDA. Yeah. So here's what he said. He goes, here's the game plan. He goes, every athlete who participates is going to be a part owner in the thing because you're generating part of the opportunity. I assume that if you were an Olympian, you won a gold medal, your life is made. It's not the case.

1:01:49It's sad to see people who've achieved the highest level of human excellence are living an objectively impoverished existence afterwards. But, you know, the bureaucrats who own these things make millions. The Olympics has 13 ,000 athletes. We're reducing that to maybe 1 ,000 with no special infrastructure. So instead of costing $100 billion to deliver this, it'll cost us double-digit millions. And yeah, they have a bunch of things. Here's kind of their belief system. So it says, the Enhanced Games will be a competitor to the corrupt and dysfunctional Olympic Games. It'll be the first international sports event without drug testing.

1:02:28Olympics are about the past. It's about Greek gods from history. The enhanced games are about the future. We're building superheroes. And it talks about how the IOC is corrupt, like the committee that runs the Olympics, and that anti-aging gets stymied because of all the anti-science authorities trying to take drugs out of performance. And we're trying to do the opposite. It's my body, my choice um he says uh thinking think back 50 years ago being a gay man was like being an enhanced man today it's stigmatized marginalized and illegal in some senses okay i don't know about that um yeah and then i don't know if it's actually going to happen or not this seemed it seemed well their website doesn't work so like we'll see they can't afford their go daddy renewal for the domain but uh no i think i'm i think i'm cool with that my a big i mean besides lance armstrong kind of used to be my hero and then he like got in trouble for lying and i kind of like got upset about that but besides that whole lying thing i was like they're all doing it and he's doing it as well and he's still one so like it's kind of fair uh so i and so i do get that i i i'm kind of on board with that and i think a lot of the peds are pretty amazing like you know what uh epo is it makes you uh get more red red blood cells in your in your blood you can carry more endurance basically yeah you have better endurance and i hear about that stuff and i'm like that sounds great give me more of that i want that uh you know what i mean like there and there's some uh antibiotic steroids that you know you'll die young there was this um which i don't like but there was this one have you seen the guy on instagram he was only 30 but i think his name was joe i forget what his like handle was it was like joe like all ripped or something and he was the guy who you would see flexing and he was so lean and big that you would see it looked like he had little spiders in his chest because all the little muscles were like flexing i think it was his name was like joe flex have you seen that guy no well he died like last week he died like oh that was that guy okay yeah yeah i've seen he died last week because uh he definitely was on the juice uh and he was just it's really hard to be that lean for that long so you have to be on a ton of stuff and he died and so like i'm not in favor of that type of stuff but uh some of the other performance-enhancing drugs, I actually think that you'd be a healthier, longer-living human being if you took some of that stuff.

1:04:47Or like blood doping. So like in the 60s, this runner in Finland named Lasse Varen, he would go up in the mountains and no one would see him when he was training. And what they alleged that he did with blood doping, you could just take out some of your blood and you could put it in a refrigerator and that oxidizes it. It gives you more red blood cells, ultimately. And you just inject it back in your body. That's considered illegal. illegal that's crazy to me it's not illegal it's it's against it's against rules uh for for the olympics but that's insane that blood doping like that is illegal it's like well dude it's just your blood you're just freezing it and putting it back in you things like that you can't do but i've thought about that uh i think it'd be amazing there was a guy in netflix who did it where he was an amateur cyclist and he was like i'm gonna blood dope and i'm gonna document this and this was uh the whole documentary and it was awesome he crushed it he killed it he like improved so much.

1:05:35And I thought that's pretty cool. I think this actually would be a good YouTube or podcast channel. Have you ever gone on YouTube down a rabbit hole of college ethics classes? Have you ever seen this? No, no. Sounds boring as hell, but it's actually kind of interesting. It's not very interesting because it's not made for YouTube. But basically, if you go like you can basically sit in on a Stanford or Harvard ethics class, well, they'll pose some question like, should you be allowed to like our performance enhancing drugs should they be allowed in the olympics or whatever like some philosophical question like the version of the trolley thing where it's like if you could save five lives and pull the trolley and kill one would you do it right like that those kind of like moral and ethical like thought experiment questions and you see people just stand up in a college lecture hall and they're like uh i say no because blah blah blah and then somebody says it stands up and says um i disagree i would say yes because i think that what about blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:06:32And you just see the debate. I think debate is actually like pretty interesting. And I think if somebody did that well, you could do a kind of like NPR style or Gimlet style, like intelligent, but entertaining podcast series or YouTube channel that like, just gets like, find these things like the equivalent of like somebody, I was at one of these dinners in LA, somebody goes, I had jury duty. And the case that I had jury duty for was actually kind of interesting. This guy, um, this guy goes online and he's in this online forum or community for like, kind of like kinky meetups. Okay. Nothing illegal about that.

1:07:11And, um, there's a woman there who says, um, Hey, me and my husband really want to do a thing. It's, you know, here's our thing. It's kind of weird, but like, we want somebody to come over and we want to role play like a kind of like a rape scenario and uh she's like so you know um i'm looking for somebody who wants to do that this guy's like that's fun i can do that and she's like cool um so here's what's gonna happen you're gonna come over to this place i'm gonna act surprised i'm gonna say no that's part of the bit we're gonna do it anyways and you know we're all good was it like a setup was it like a different woman no the guy the husband was role-playing it there's bad so the husband was on this forum as acting as if he was the woman saying that's what i mean and on it she wasn't his wife oh no so oh no now this guy's so the jury duty was should this guy be go to jail for rape what a horrible scenario for everyone involved lose lose lose right like just oh man but it's kind of like an interesting question it's like well like on one hand what a conniving husband yeah it's like okay definitely the husband should be in trouble like that's kind of a separate scenario but this guy like should he go to jail for like 20 years because of this scenario or not like and the the vote was basically like should this go to like is like an indictment so it's like should he go to should this go to trial or no should this not be not go to trial or whatever and we had this just like fascinating dinner conversation about it, just hearing everybody's kind of opinion, hearing like a little bit of a healthy kind of debate or just like a perspective on it.

1:08:48Similarly, there was another one that was like, you know, this couple looks like they're holding drugs like crack or whatever. Cop starts chasing after him. They throw something away in the trash. Cop grabs them. They don't have it on him. He's like, I saw you dump it in the trash. He opens the trash, sees it there, but Who's to say they didn't throw something else away? Right. Should they go to jail for this, like this offense? And it's like, well, on what, if you're the jury, like you kind of do think like they probably did it, but you don't have like uncontroversial or whatever, like evidence that like leaves no shadow of doubt that they, that they did it.

1:09:33And it's like kind of a nonviolent offense. Do we really want to punish them? You start bringing your own subjective opinion into this versus what you're supposed to do as a jury member. So anyways, I just, the conversation was so interesting that I thought, I think this could make for an interesting pod or YouTube channel. What do you think? You have a good sense for content. What do you think? Yeah, I think, I think it would be great. I think I would, I think you could do a YouTube channel, a 10 minute, 10 minute videos where you could, uh, dissect some of these interesting things and just have one take a, take a side of debate and then people live vote.

1:10:00Um, I, I think, wasn't there an app that was trying to do this where it was like live debates and you vote on who's the winner? Maybe. Do you not remember that? Yeah. have in 2014 yeah i think you could kill it it's it's where it's uh you know almost like remember um you know drunk rap battles where it's like napoleon versus like caesar uh yeah yeah you do this in that situation i think like it's a it's an incredibly uh interesting topic i mean clearly if you've gotten gotten into it yeah i think it could work cool um all right that's all i got for my trip to la hope i actually i had a bunch more but uh i think that's that's enough also So Erewhon, you've been to this place?

1:10:36Yeah, I went there before and I wanted to buy the most expensive bottle of water they had to see what it was about. And it was like 20 or 30 bucks. It was a fun, fun, fun experience. How's the water? It was fine. It was normal. But and I also bought like the most expensive. I wanted to I was like, whatever, like the most expensive chocolate is and water. I'm getting it. I think they have like asparagus there, like asparagus water. I think this is also a layup TikTok channel. you know Erwan experiments or the Erwan taste tests you just go to Erwan famous people there though what's that that's why you go but did you see any famous people that's why you go no I was just looking at the snacks is that what I was supposed to be doing oh god this is like it's like in college when I used to go to the bar and you know I'm there to listen to the music and I didn't meet anybody I missed the point you're like doing Long Island IC tasting I forgot yeah you're supposed to go and see famous people no it's a fun experience that place kills it uh they're expanding i think aren't they don't they have multiple they used to be one just in santa monica i think 13 or something like that um for those who don't know erwin is basically like the bougie it makes whole foods it makes whole foods look like the dollar store yeah you're like you look down at whole foods people as peasants yeah erwin is to whole foods as aioli is to mayonnaise.

1:12:00It's the like just jazz up version. The cool part about it is it has a lot of products that are like almost like it's like a DTC pop-up shop. It's like here's a bunch of products that are not the normal things that are on the shelves. So you can try them and they're all three times more expensive than they should be or maybe five times more. And I think a layup content thing would be go to Erwan, buy all the chocolates or buy all the chocolates versus Erwan versus Walmart and you do blind taste tests and you like absolutely try to rank them and you just give your recommendation you spend the money on the stuff and you just do like air one shopping you just you become the air one guy like dude if I was broke again I'd be back I'd be back so fast because I just know these little content niches are right you just see it and you know it like another one is pranks I hate the pranks dude have you seen this guy who does the I think it was Jody or something like that like what is this guy channel the guy who went to sleep at an nba at wmba game did you see this no no but i hate the pranks where it's like people like prank pick a fight with you and then the person responds and actually beats him up and then the recipient is like it was just a prank bro so this guy jd on jd on jd on i don't know how you say it exactly i love his video so he goes he went to the wmba all-star game he bought four courtside seats drop like you know like whatever 25k on these seats and then he came with a blanket and i guess it looks like i got eye mask oh my god what an asshole and he's like the funny thing is they asked him about it he was like dude i had the idea because i knew this would like go viral just fall asleep because he's done it before like he goes to a basketball game courtside and he brought his barber and they put like the the bib on him and he gets a haircut during the game but like if you're just watching tv like is that guy getting a haircut like this is like very obvious and so he had this idea he's like i wasn't going to do it i thought it might be too mean i told my friend about it i said yo maybe you want to do it and the guy was like he's like that guy got so excited because he knew this would go so viral i was like nah fuck it i'm gonna do it myself he's like so i did it he's like but then it turned into like a political thing which is not how i intended it like he got banned from all nba events he got banned from all nba and wba events for for doing this but this guy's just so good at trolling the world and it's like that's just like a it's a uh it's a niche that will never get old like you can what an asshole though there's just like an infinite demand for um he also caught one of the nba balls and tried to shoot it from his seat like because he was courtside dude he's so he's so he's so funny this guy um all right i think we should wrap up there that's the pod we done

1:14:47I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off on the road. Let's travel. Never looking back.

1:15:02Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love. I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. And as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s, you're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

1:15:32If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, column N-A, and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.