The #1 Most Underrated Quality in an Entrepreneur

24:51Countries are just big companies. And I found this pretty interesting if you looked at it like a company, where it was like, oh, what's our main metric? It's not revenue, it's happiness. So it's like, instead of the GMV, they're looking at how much happiness they're producing in their own economy. And I like that they measure their own. And like, did you look at their happiness index, kind of zero to one and how that all works? Yeah, it's like a weighted score, right? And what were all the metrics? It's basically, it's a weighted score. Then they sort of, they ask people a bunch of questions about their, you know, psychological wellbeing, their health, their time, you know, their education, all these different things.

25:29and they end up with like, you know, basically they're a 0.781 on their scale, which is pretty good. And they measure, oh, that's up 3.3 % since last year. And basically 9.5 % of Bhutanese people are deeply happy. 38 % are extensively happy. 45 % are narrowly happy. And 6.4 % were unhappy, according to them. And what I thought was cool was that a couple of things. Number one, it's one of the very few cases where someone in power gives it up. So they had a king and he voluntarily is like, you know what? This could just go to my son, but we need a democracy. And the funny thing is the people there were like, no, no, king, stay king.

26:08He's like, no, no, no, we need a democracy. They're like, democracy, you see, India is a democracy. Pakistan is a democracy. Look at those places. They're always at war. It's violent. Forget democracy. We don't want it. We're happy. And he was like, well, if I just keep giving this power down by birth, this won't end well. So I thought seeing somebody relinquish power in their crime is so rare that you just overlook it when you're on the surface. But if you actually think about that deeply, that actually is like a really noble and very cool and very unique thing. How few, you know, Biden didn't want to give up power and Trump doesn't want to give up power.

26:41Nobody wants to give up power. Power is one of the most addictive things in the world. And so I just thought that was really noble and really cool of him to voluntarily go to democracy at a time of peace, which is not usually what happens. Usually if a democracy happens, it's after a time of violence or war, people need change, or the Western country comes in and helps and tries to force a democracy on them. So I thought that was cool. Did they say that was the only time that's ever happened that way? It's the only one I know of. They kind of referenced that that's never really happened before, that a democracy happened in a time of peace voluntarily.

27:13Also crazy that just like, you know, until the 70s, like in 1974, there's people listening to this podcast that are born before 1974. they didn't have a currency. It was barter. Even up until 1974. That's crazy, right? And the crazy thing was, even though there was barter, they still had to pay taxes. And it was like, you could pay your tax with like giving the government like a cow. Or if it's like, oh, you don't have livestock? All right, do labor then. And so then they built these amazing buildings because your taxes was basically community service. It's like, hey, I'll go donate like, you know, 100 hours of labor to pay my tax for the year.

27:48And then because of that, they built these really cool buildings. Side weird note, you know our friend uh shiel friend of the pod shiel uh he went there i think he posted this thread it's a thread of him going there he like meets the king because he's like it sounds crazy to meet the king but like he's like i was at a bar and i was talking to this guy and that guy was the former like whatever he was the former like prime minister or whatever he's like now he's a surgeon and he's just drinking at this bar and he's like oh you want to meet the king yeah i can introduce you and so he meets the king and so he's like he's talking about his experience One of the crazy things he points out is a lot of the buildings have penises painted on them in artful ways.

28:27It's a little bit of Superbad mixed in there. I like that. The other crazy thing is the Bitcoin stuff. Did you see their Bitcoin stuff? I know they own more Bitcoin than the total market value of their stock market. It's like a billion dollars in Bitcoin. Yeah, they basically have made themselves wealthy for life. They use their vast nature. so like you know they use hydroelectric mining to mine bitcoin and it's it's believed that they have a billion dollars of bitcoin but that was uh like i think that was reported like uh you know eight months ago so i as as if they have double that now you know what i mean like it's been they've had a great run the u.s has it because they seized the silk road right so they have you the US has$20 billion.

29:14China has$20 billion. UK has$6 billion. El Salvador, which has been buying and holding Bitcoin, has$6 ,000. And the guy on that 60 Minutes show, he did a great job of saying, he's like, we're human. We still want to be rich, and we want stuff, and we want all this other stuff. We also want to be happy. And so, because people were like, well, so if you're just about happiness, why are you buying Bitcoin and all this? He's like, well, I still want nice shit. Yeah, the more prosperous we are, the happier we'll be. The other thing that I thought was cool, they do free education, free healthcare, all that good stuff.

29:48But they also were like, hey, 60 % of the land is going to be dedicated to nature. But there's no, I think they don't allow mountain climbing. They have these amazing mountains because they're in the Himalayas. Yeah. But you're not allowed to, and he said this great line. He goes, nature is not meant to be conquered. He's like, man has this thirst to just conquer everything. Oh, there's a mountain. I got to climb it and put my flag on the top. And they just had a different attitude. It's like, nature is beautiful. It's meant to be enjoyed. It's meant to be sacred. It's meant to be sort of revered and not conquered.

30:18And I just thought, man, these people roll to a different beat. And I respect it. I'm glad that these little experiments live. I had the exact same feeling, which is I saw him talk. And they sort of fit a lot of the stereotypes that you would have with like a Nepal, the Dalai Lama, like this like rise because and i think they're like uh they have like a national outfit or something like that and it looks like the boot and they are buddhist but it looks like that uh like whatever the dalai lama uh like the shaw or whatever he wears so they like jeans yeah we love jinko yeah the national sport is grinding uh they had this like cool vibe of like wisdom and shit and it was very shocking to see that because I'm like watching this on a Sunday night as I'm gearing up to talk about money and gearing up to get after it crushed a week.

31:09And then I see this guy who was like, talk about happiness and shit. And I was like, this is incredibly refreshing. It was pretty cool. It seems like a great country. I think, by the way, there's all these like other downsides. I think Sheil even said, he was like, it's a pain in the ass to get there. Like, I don't even think they have an international airport. Like the roads are not very developed. Like there's, you know, there's other things. When you prioritize happiness above all, Maybe your roads kind of suck. Yeah, so it was pretty sick, dude. I thought it was great. I was very inspired, so I wanted to bring up Bhutan.

31:37Well, there is one other piece to it, which I guess a bunch of young people are leaving the country. Did you see that part? I didn't fully follow that, but they were then going to build a new city in Bhutan, the mindfulness city, and it was going to be like they launched like a$100 million bond, and then they're basically trying to make it a city where it's like walking and cycling and green spaces for meditation and mindfulness-based education and ecotourism. All the shit Balaji talks about with a network state or the Praxis guys are trying to do, Bhutan is building a new city with its own cultural values, trying to use that to attract people to the country.

32:15Well, you want to hear a funny story. Balaji is, and a lot of these crypto guys, are in on this new thing called American Colossus. It's that monument that they're proposing that they build in the Bay Area. I don't know if it's it will never get built very likely but the same architect who's on board with that is doing there is that was the guy in the 60 minutes episode he's the guy who's building Bhutan's new city and so there is this like weird um crossover of the crypto guys and these people who are like let's what's in what would a new city look like and Bhutan yeah it's pretty inspiring honestly it makes you think bigger right it makes you think about things that you just take for granted they just seem set in stone they seem like they were just they were already here they'll always be here.

32:57It always was this way. It'll always be this way. And then you hear about somebody, you know, these people who are trying to like shake that and you realize, oh, wow, it's all the whole world is more malleable than you thought. Yeah. And they also were approaching it in an interesting way with their new city. I forget the quotes, but he said something about how he's like, we know that this is like a 50 year project. Like we're going to go slow because we don't want to hurt the environment. And it was and the guy was like, but you're going to be dead when they like do that. And he was like, isn't that awesome?

33:29That's something will like outlive me. Like they had a very, so if you're listening to this, it's on YouTube for free. So Google Bhutan 60 minutes. It was an awesome segment.

33:43All right, let's take a quick break because I got to tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form and it was open only during business hours. and I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction. They locked my account. They put me on hold for 45 minutes and then they told me I got to visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury.

34:08And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money. I can pay invoices. I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do 200 ,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, column N8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members FDIC.

34:34All right. Now that we talked about Bhutan and happiness and how there's more to life than money, can I tell you about one of the most ruthless, capitalist, bloodthirsty moves that I've seen in a while? You know how in boxing they say steal the round? Because in the last 10 seconds, that's what judges remember. They don't remember the first 100. they don't remember the first 120 seconds, but they remember the last 10 seconds. Whatever you say last is what I'm going to be most inspired by. So let's, we skipped. So sit down, Baton, you had your moment. Yeah, tell me how I can go cut some fuckers.

35:09All right, this is a private equity roll up in the education space that I found pretty interesting. All right, what does that mean? So I went to high school in Texas for the first two years. And then my mom and dad came to me one day and they were like, hey, check this out. Doesn't this look like a cool house? I'm like, yeah, it looks pretty cool. They're like, we're going to live there. And I was like, okay, where? And they're like, it's in Beijing. And then my family moved me to Beijing in 10th grade. And so - They went too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't just me. That would have been super cool.

35:40They moved me there and they moved themselves. So they were like, hey, you know, all those friends you've had, you're not going to see them anymore. And so they also lied to me and said my dog couldn't come and told me that China doesn't allow dogs. And later in life, found out that was a huge lie. So maybe that'll be my revenge tour, dude. That's it. That's the thing. Wait, so did they leave the dog? Yeah, we sold our dog because dogs can't go to China. I was like, what? Oh, my God. It was stupid. There was no Google at the time. I got to. This was pre-Google. So I finished high school in China.

36:16And I went to this school called the International School of Beijing. And it was actually an awesome school. and it turned out to be great for me to move. And all these awesome things happened to me there. But as one of these things, again, I just, I go to the school. I just take it for granted. There's a school here. I don't know. Schools are part of the government. They're just like from the land. I don't know. God put it here. I don't know what puts these international schools here. And now I'm like in my thirties and I'm reading up and I realize, oh shit, these international schools are an absolute juggernaut of a business.

36:43And so I'd like to tell you about this roll-up that happened called Nord Anglia. Have you ever heard of this? Yeah. My friend Anan from CB Insights is obsessed with it. And so here's what these guys did. So the founding story is back in the 70s, you know, things like 50 years old. There was one school in the UK. There wasn't even a school. It was like making materials for other schools to teach English as a foreign language to people who are trying to learn English in the UK. And then they expand that into Eastern Europe or whatever. And then they start their own school. They're like, oh, we'll do our own school for teaching English.

37:18international people and will teach them in a sort of English second language kind of way. And over time, the thing grows and it goes from one school to multiple schools. And they create this business that eventually becomes a$14 billion conglomerate of 80 plus international private schools. Can you say the name one more time? Nord Anglia, N-O-R-D, and then Anglia is A-N-G-L-I-A. So, what do they do? And by the way, remember when IMG sold? IMG, which is like the sports prep academy, and it sold for a billion dollars. We're like, wow, Nord Anglia bought it. So, this bought IMG. And the reason they bought IMG, they're like, IMG is a really cool sports-focused brand, but it's all in the U.S.

38:06We know how to basically create international schools that the richest, wealthiest, or expats living overseas want their kids to go to, to be able to get into maybe US colleges. So they bought it for a billion dollars being like, cool, we're just gonna take the IMG brand and we're gonna pop it up in China and India and all these different countries in order to get those types of students who are sports focused, whereas their schools are more teaching the IB curriculum, which is like the kind of international baccalaureate. The equivalent of AP in the United States is IB. So like I took the IB program.

38:43um and so and but the cool thing about this business is actually for the first 10 years it was just a slow burn and these businesses fascinate me like i don't even really fully understand how you can go from kind of like a consultant selling teaching materials at one point they had a daycare like a nursery built in it was like just this slow sleepy business for like 10 years was it like a family run thing yeah it was like privately owned and then they hired the ceo and then they start expand they start their own schools they start expanding then they start buying other school like chains. So they bought like a six school chain that had like a presence in let's say France.

39:19And then they buy another one that has a presence in Latin America. And they're just rolling up as many international schools as they can buy. They buy five schools in India for$200 million. And so now they got five international schools in India. And basically this company ended up going public and then had a take private offer and now is valued at$14 billion, which is pretty wild. And there's one PE firm, this Swedish private equity firm that has just made an absolute killing. It's called EQT on this entire 20-year run of this business. So let's say, here's the timeline, 1970s, it's teacher training language programs.

40:011990s. So now this is like, you know, 20 years into the business. They pivot to owning and operating their own international schools. 2008. Now another 18 years goes by. The Swedish PE firm comes in, gives them a bunch of money to rapidly go expand and acquire schools. 2014, they go public. 2017, they go private again for$4 billion. 2024, it's acquired$14.5 billion. And 2008, when they did the private equity round, they were at$40 million in EBITDA. and about$200 million in revenue. And so these things trade at like 8.5x EBITDA, basically. And they only own like 10 % of the international school market.

40:40Still 90 % of the international school market is fragmented and not owned by anybody. Well, now they do a billion in revenue, it said. Yeah, now they do a billion in revenue with hundreds of millions in EBITDA. And actually, I think it might even be even more than that. But just to give you an example, here's a slide. but like this is like one of their schools. So they show like the profitability of a school. This is one of their case studies. So it's like Dubai. They opened an international school in Dubai. They opened it in 2014. It took seven and a half million dollars to build it and open it.

41:13And then basically they break even in year two slash year three. And then it's basically making 55 % net, you know, cash on cash. Once it's at that mature level, once they get the enrollment up to like 1400, 1500 students. And so you could see like the enrollment basically by year three, they're at almost 1 ,400 students, so almost at capacity. How do they convince parents that they're worth it? Because like with school, it's tradition usually is what like, you know, gets people to buy in. Yeah, so it's kind of the same thing. So if you go look at their pitch, it's basically that, you know, we have the best run schools.

41:52our kids get into top-tier colleges and, you know, X percent of them, you know, a huge, like, 90-something percent of them graduate. They do better than their peers on, you know, the standardized testing, things like that. It's basically like when Chick-fil-A started expanding to New York and all the New Yorkers were like, finally, you know what I mean? Like, people, like, know this brand. Like, in Beijing, the school I went to, right, like, we probably had, like, 100 % graduation rate. There's, like, no dropouts. Everybody graduates And then like 98 % went to college. So it's like, compared to like a normal school, the whole school I was going to in Houston before that probably was like 75 % graduation and less than 50 % would enroll in college the next year.

42:34And so, and then the school I went to, you know, that's like a first grade through 12th grade school. And every year you're basically paying college tuition. It was like 40 grand a year to go there as a first grader and as a second grader and as a third grader, as a fourth grader. But like the way my parents afforded to go there was the same way that many students did, which is when companies bring you overseas, because let's say my dad worked for a company, they wanted him to relocate to build up their business in China, then the company basically pays for your kid's education as part of the relocation package.

43:04And that's like a really good perk. That's the perk. It's, oh, you know, and so these schools, basically, it's kind of like US schools, how they make their money is because the government will give like student loans to anybody. Like anybody can get a student loan. So you can get like, you know,$200 ,000 of debt to go to the school, whether you're going to be able to pay that off or not, doesn't matter. So the schools are like, great. That's why tuitions keep going up because they're like, awesome. The government will just keep paying for this. This is amazing. International schools work largely the same way, which is it's either very wealthy people there who want their kids to go abroad.

43:33Like if you're very wealthy in Indonesia or China or India, you want your kids to study in the United States. And you're probably, you know, like very, very rich. And so you're happy to pay, you know, 40K a year for like elite education or the companies are paying for it. So this is a beautiful business model where you're only catering to that top 1%. And interestingly, I think that there's actually a blue zone in America because when you think of a for-profit university, I think of University of Phoenix. I think bad. I think they're the ones who let everyone in. And they just buy all the Facebook ads and Google ads and it's slimy.

44:09But for some reason, when I look at these schools, I think prestige. I think it can be done well. Do you know what I mean? You know the one I want to do, or I've been very tempted to do, is the modern-day film school. So film schools exist in the States, and you can go to USC or UCLA. These are the famous ones that you can go to. But media and content has changed dramatically from when those schools were founded. And credentials are less important, I would think. And credentials are way less important. And back then, you know, let's say you were a student in the 80s and you wanted to work in film someday.

44:49Well, when you were in school, you really had no shot. You could go be an intern somewhere, maybe hold up, you know, you're holding the lamp in the back and you're holding the light. And that's like all you would be qualified to do. Today, let's say you want to be good at creating films or content or music or whatever. You could literally be publishing on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Spotify. You can be publishing everywhere and actually like you could be in the market. You can be a player. The day you have the idea to do it, you could be published that night. You could be 14 years old and you could be the best in the world at doing Twitch streams or whatever it is, right?

45:21And so what, and the number one dream of young kids is to be a content creator. It's the number one aspirational profession, which you could judge and say that's stupid or whatever you want. The dream is the dream. That means there's a lot of demand for people who want to learn this. Why don't I go to Mr. Beast? Why don't I go to Jimmy and say, hey, why don't you create with your brand a university that is the modern day like content creation skill stack. So it's all the things you need to know, right? Videography, photography, script writing, editing, sound production, music production, all the creative arts basically, but do them in a way where it's like a two-year program.

46:00It's like a business school. So it's two years and it's all project-based. So you go there and you have access to all the equipment, which you normally can't afford as a young person, like the best cameras, the best recording studios, the best editors, terminals, all that stuff, animators. And then there's people who have different disciplines. One guy wants to be an animator. One guy wants to be an editor. The other person wants to be a talent, whatever it is. And you work together on projects, you create content, you actually put it out on the networks and you get judged based on the number of projects you create, the quality of the projects you create.

46:30You're getting real feedback along the way. And then you have mentors or teachers like a Mr. Beast or like others who are going to like drop in and basically teach you some of the fundamentals of maybe storytelling or different things that actually you need to do. And I think if you did this, I mean, just the math of this stuff is pretty crazy, right? Like you get 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 people coming to your school and it's, you know, 25K a year for two years. That one batch of kids, 10 ,000 people in a class, if they're paying 25K a year for two years, that's 500 million in revenue. What stopped you from doing this?

47:08so you seem pretty hyped up on it and it seems like a very logical thing. Well, I had the idea for like four days ago. So, you know, that's probably... No, you've been talking about... No, specifically the media thing. Like I've always been interested, like what would you do if you did a new school? I always thought of it in terms of entrepreneurship, but I actually think a more like trade school style school is better. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Because you can only, you know, teaching entrepreneurship is hard because A, there's not a class for business really. A business school doesn't teach you business.

47:34It teaches you management. What you think of as Harvard Business School is actually a middle management to senior management training program. That's what that is. So I think when you actually learn a skill and learn a trade, that's good. The skill of business takes a lot of time, and it's not one skill. It's a bundle of 15 skills. You've got to know a little bit about strategy and negotiation and marketing and building and managing and all these things. So I think this trade school style is much better. There's an interesting example of this, by the way. Do you know what Full Sail University is?

48:06Yes. So I'm looking up ITT Tech, but I'm also looking at Full Sail. I know a few people that went to Full Sail and they had great things to say. Yeah, so Full Sail is kind of, it's at that scale. So 25 ,000 undergrads, it's$26 ,000 a year. It's a private for-profit college. So you just do the math, by the way. 25 ,000 undergrads, 26 ,000 a year. So that's like the annual revenue. Let's do some public math because big numbers are an exception. So that's$600 million,$650 million a year of revenue that they're generating from like a four-year cohort. My friend, Chris, have you heard of the company Linode?

48:46Yeah, yeah. He bootstrapped and sold it for, I don't know, like$800 million. He's from Nashville and I knew him when I was younger. And he went to Full Sail. And that's kind of how I learned about Full Sail. But they have like, if you look at... You know Jason Citron, the founder of Discord? He's one of the alums. yeah and so i think they do more than just uh like i knew it as that's where you'd go to get like a like a if you want to become a music engineer yeah so it was like game design was one that's why jason went there because he wanted to build video games they have music and then they have the dan patrick school of sports broadcasting so he liked it that much a tv broadcaster they had their own little program a degree a sportscaster degree program just how does it work since it's a for-profit university, does Dan Patrick actually get paid to use his name or he didn't donate?

49:37A licensing, a royalty, a equity, whatever. That's great. That's what I'm saying. If you're Jimmy, you're Mr. Beast, why are you selling chocolate? We should do this and we just need to find an operator and do it with a physical campus and do the whole thing. Make the whole thing happen. There's an enormous talent economy that needs to be made, not just for people who themselves want to be a famous YouTuber, but every single company has to create content. Content is marketing. And so any company that needs, go look at every corporation from Nestle down to your nearby eyebrow waxing place. They've all got an Instagram.

50:11They've all got a TikTok. They're all posting content on there. And so every company needs media creation talents. And nobody teaches you that. Today, it's something you learn on your own outside of school using your own social media as a testing ground. And I think that's a little bit crazy given the value of this thing. And so I think, you know, it's the type of thing that could be built and be a, you know, multi-billion dollar business within three or four years easily. You know, getting 5 ,000 or 10 ,000 people to enroll is not hard for something like this, because it has tangible value too.

50:47Like when you walk out, not only will you have these hard skills on, you know, actual content creation, all the bucket of content creation skills, but you're highly employable. So whether you become a creator or you go get a job, you're highly employable with a set of skills, especially if you make it elite. Don't make it University of Phoenix. Make it more like Harvard, where it's like, oh, where do the talented people go? What's it like, Juilliard? It's like, make it more like Juilliard. This is where the most talented people go and build that reputation. I think that's the key to get this right.

51:17This is an incredibly compelling pitch. Thank you. I want to know what the downsides are, which I don't even know if you know at the moment because you're 72 hours into this career transition. Accreditation can matter. So if you want accreditation, you can do that. Does that matter? Does accreditation matter? I guess it does for optics, right? No, it matters for funding. So how do you get funding from the government? How do your students get loans? If you're an unaccredited school, students can't get loans. They got to pay for it out of pocket. Understood. And so you want accreditation so that you're eligible for loans, which would let students go there who don't already have the money.

51:55Plus, it's much easier to spend money the government gives you when you're 18, 20 years old. So you want to be eligible for that. But you can get accredited or you could buy a school with existing accreditations. That's not a blocker. It's just like a thing you got to do. The hard part is actually running it and doing it well and actually providing quality education. You don't want to be University of Phoenix. So you got to have some soul. You got to have some energy. You got to have the entrepreneurial energy. So why am I not personally doing this? because I personally am not going to be the guy running this.

52:23I want to kind of make it happen and find an operator who wants to create something like this. And I can connect all the dots of how do we get the capital? Because it takes a lot of capital. You know, like Joe Lonsdale started a school in Austin. I don't know how much that costs, but I think it's like a... I wouldn't be surprised if that's like a$50 million to$100 million project of investment. What is it called? University of Austin? Austin University? That's crazy. I mean, yeah, that's pretty wild. And if you look at like... So billionaires have put$200 million into funding that school. So yeah, it's a big CapEx lift to do it when you have a physical campus.

53:01And I wouldn't do it remote. I would do it legit. I would do it with a physical campus. And I would just try to make it awesome. And it's the same thing like we talked about the baton thing. It's a 50-year play. You want to build prestige and legacy like a Harvard or a Stanford where it's the reputation. The reputation and the brand is the value. You want the best people to pay top dollar to come to this thing and get the best education. Then you want all the companies you want to hire to value the label that you have. So to do that, you have to assume you're going to be... You want to do something that peaks 50 years later in terms of brand prestige.

53:33Yeah, that's an interesting thing, by the way. So there's been a lot of times where people will sign up for a university. And the goal is that after 10 or 15 years, the brand name has elevated. so you bought the price before it was full. It's just like investing in a stock. And then there's other times when a university will have a protest

53:59or something will happen and it hurts the brand. And you're like, for example, let's say you graduated from Columbia. You're like, shit, it's a controversial place right now. I bought this brand. Is that now worth less than what I was anticipating? And so there's this weird, that is like an interesting way to look at building a university brand. I have to increase the value so I can justify the people buying. They actually bought it when it was cheaper as opposed to what it is worth in 20 years. dude did you see Bill Ackman did a presentation about Harvard did you see this no what did he say oh my god alright well I know we're supposed to wrap up but this is honestly incredible Jim Grant asked me to give a talk on Harvard buy sell or hold in the same way you would do with a stock I think the the Harvard motto or slogan is Veritas and the title is Veritas question mark because you know he's on this like anti-Harvard crusade right now what's Veritas mean forever truth I think truth and so he breaks it down like it's a company The business of Harvard College is private education to students.

55:03And then he has a graph. It's like, enrollment has been flat over the last 20 years. Faculty growth has been modest, growing at half a percent. But administration growth has grown by 40 % in 20 years. So he's basically like, oh, you're not growing students, but you're growing your admin, your op-ex on the back end, and analyzing it like a business. This is amazing. And the cost has grown. Basically, the cost has doubled in 20 years. He says, you're growing by increasing prices, not by increasing the number of customers served. Exactly. And then he breaks down the P &L. He breaks down where's the revenue stream, so how much is coming from donations versus tuition, how much of your faculty has diverse viewpoints.

55:41I mean, really, obviously, his agenda in this whole thing was to basically be like, Harvard has gone too woke and the administration has gone rogue and you're ruining the brand and the mission of Harvard. He says the operating margin would be a negative 40 % without distributions from its endowment. Yeah. And he says in 1643, that's how old Harvard is, In 1643, Harvard's first mission was set up simply as Veritas or truth. And he's got this old screenshot of like a hand-drawn logo of the shield. And then he reads like the laws, liberties, and orders of Harvard College. And it's like this handwritten document about, you know, the goal was to encourage Harvard students to seek wisdom.

56:20And he's basically saying like, you know, then he shows how the mission charter has changed. So in 2020, it was instead of about seeking truth, it was like it removed a bunch of references to the 1650 charter and basically left it as more of like a DEI style mission. And he's like, you know, paying attention to that. So, you know, he's like, what happened to new ideas? What happened to the truth? And then he goes and he just breaks down like also like even in the faculty growth. He's like, cool. Is it growth in computer science teachers or is it growth in African-American studies? which basically shows that African-American studies grew like crazy compared to economics or computer science.

56:57But then he's looking at the number of degrees that people are getting and that's not growing. So he's like, your supply is not meeting the demand of the consumer. Your supply is growing arbitrarily, not to match demand. I think there was only, what was it? There was one degree recipient in 2023 in African-American studies and 57 faculty. This is wild. And if you go down all the way to the last slide, his verdict, he says, is Harvard a buy, sell, or hold? And his verdict as of now is Harvard is a hold. It still has many positive attributes. It has a strong brand, 400-year operating history, $51 billion endowment, and huge real estate.

57:41But it has many challenges. The quality of the education has deteriorated. There's so many competitors. Many talented people aren't going to traditional universities. They've misallocated resources and the endowment has been a chronic underperformer. This is a very interesting way to look at many, many, many different decisions in life that are beyond just money. How awesome is this? This is the greatest. This is a fantastic way to think. Yeah, this is so cool. Is this... All decisions, I think, every big decision I have in life, I need to put together a PowerPoint like this. We did this with our child's name, by the way.

58:14We put three names in a PowerPoint and Sarah presented them and argued in her favor which name we were going to choose. Okay, hold on, hold on. What is even in the slide? What do you say? So the way that we make decisions in our house, oftentimes it's like one person will present three options and then the other person can select the one option that they want. And so if it's like... Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, or Frozen Dinner. So it's like if I'm selecting the three, I will select three that I'm at least okay with and then she could select the one that is of most interest to her. For baby names, it was like, she was like, I want to select a three and then you could select the one.

58:56And so she made a PowerPoint and it explained, here's the three names. Here's the background of the name. And I had parameters. I was like, I want something somewhat traditional. I prefer it being the Bible because everyone in my family was named for someone in the Bible, whatever. And she's like, all right, here's the three that I like. I'm cool with all of them. Here's the background of each name. Here's what it means. Here's famous people named that. Here's where it ranks on the popularity list. Is he trying to persuade you towards one or it's a completely neutral pros and cons of each? In that case, it was neutral.

59:31But yeah, oftentimes, there is an underlying persuasion bit. But if you're the person who selects the three, you should select three things that you like. Because that's what you can do. You can select three things that you like and then I, as the final decision maker, will select something and you're happy no matter what. It's a great way to make decisions, I think. And so she did this big presentation on three different names and I selected the winner. And that's how we got our baby's name. Last podcast, you said every month we sit down at the end of the month at our table and we review the month's budget, financial decisions, key financial decisions that were made We discuss unresolved issues that might be lingering.

1:00:13I'm kind of into the PAR Corporation. PAR Corp is probably one of my favorite corporations to learn from. And I think the way you run your marriage like a business partnership is both effective and hilarious. We did that. Great combo. Before we got married, we did that, by the way. We said, you know, this is going great. Like, we really love each other. We like each other. It appears as though like marriage is in the cards. You know, we said it's like six months into dating. write down where you want to be in 10 years. What do you want to do? How do you want to raise a family? Where do you want to live?

1:00:45And we made sure that our wants and our interests, we're like, alright, we disagree here, but that's okay. I'm malleable there. But here's a deal breaker. What do you feel about that? So for hers, it was like, I want to raise children in the New York area so I can be around my family. That's a deal breaker. And I was like, that's cool. I could fuck with that. And so, yeah, we do this type of stuff. It feels cold. I don't even like talking about it because people think... It feels cold. But, dude, this shit works. These type of discussions where it's like, all right, now's the period to discuss this.

1:01:17You have the floor. That stuff is so effective, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's great. Before you guys go to bed, you just shake hands instead of kiss. It's just nice to just keep everything on the up and up and as calculated as can be. That's why I hate talking about it because people think that everything's systematic. It's like, no, there's two hours a month where this is set aside to have these relatively formal discussions. But it's freaking awesome. I think if you have a lot of kids... Don't people do family meetings? I know I saw it in TV shows growing up, but it's not a thing. Yeah, I think family meetings are a thing.

1:01:52I think you guys just really take it to that next level. You guys are the McKinsey of family meetings, right? Vows.pdf before your wedding. You had it all set up. It's good. I like it. It works. I suggest everyone at least try it. It definitely works, I think. um all right i think that's uh i think that's a killer episode to be honest i feel hyped up i have energy perfectly honest with a with a hard h that was a great episode 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 i put my all in it like no days off on the road let's travel never looking back

1:02:48Hey, 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.

1:03:18If 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 8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members, FDIC.