The 5 Most Interesting Businessmen Alive...

25:20The Farming Newsletter? I forgot what it's called, but he basically writes the biggest newsletter for farmers in the country. And he has FarmCon and a bunch of different things. But he said something to us once. He goes, you know, the train always comes back a second time. And we're like, what do you mean? He's like, for all of the best possible deals, investments, trends, opportunities, you overlook it the first time, very common. And you think you totally missed it. Oh, I missed the boat. He's like, but he's like, I just see it over and over again. The train comes back around. Maybe you didn't invest in Facebook, but then the stock tanks for a couple months.

25:57That's your time to get back on. It's not always going to be the same price as it was the first time. But for the truly great things, the train has such a long runway. It's so much upside that even if you just get on the second time, you still get filthy rich. And he's like, the same thing happened with Bitcoin. The people who just kicked themselves for not buying Bitcoin the first time they heard it at$150, instead of just buying it at$500, They just kept telling the story about how they missed it at 150. And then they missed it at 600, 700, 800, 1 ,000. And now it's at 60 ,000. They're still missing it.

26:27He's like, but the smart people are like, well, the train came back around. Let me hop. Let me hop on. I do. I now recognize the value in this thing. And I feel like Sean Parker did that with his career. So for a period of time, Sean Parker was seen as this kind of like bad boy, but like kind of untouchable. Like you couldn't invest in Sean Parker. He's too rebellious. He's getting sued out of existence. the big companies hate him, the government's after him. He was like an untouchable. And then later, it was like, oh, Sean Parker, this guy, he led the round into Facebook. And he was an early huge investor in Spotify.

27:00And he did this and that. And he became the guy who could do no wrong. But those weren't his companies. But he recognized that those companies were winners and actually made his fortune not on the thing he did, Napster, but in recognizing the brilliance of the next Sean Parker. and that was Daniel Ek for Spotify. Yeah, when he was like, he did this when he was like, he was an elder at 25. Yeah, and every hacker looked up to him because this guy's an icon. He used the reputation, but not necessarily the money to make all his money. Usually you use your money to make money. He used his reputation to make money.

27:35So a couple of things that this guy did that's pretty fascinating. So first, I'm going to give you some lifestyle things and then I'm going to give you the career story. So crazy lifestyle thing. So I met somebody who went to his wedding. Have you ever heard about his wedding? Yeah, man. And he got a ton of shit for it in the heyday of Silicon Valley. So this guy basically spent somewhere between$5 and$10 million on his wedding. And he was like, and so the interesting thing here is just like, weird people are not just like, they're not just like crazy in their business and super chill in their normal life.

28:05Most of them. If you're wired a certain way, you just apply that to everything that comes your way. So for example, when it came time to get married, he's like, all right, the budget, no budget. let's just do the sickest thing we can imagine so like we're gonna go to a forest in the big sur and it's not just gonna be a wedding it's gonna be like a like an immersive theater experience i know people who are there they're like it was crazy you walk in and like you could see the stars above you but it was daytime i was like how the hell are there stars and like there was rabbits running around like wild rabbits that were just like you know there because we were in the forest and they're like but it was all planned they had the the costume designer from lord of the rings made everybody's outfits um you know he ended up paying like two or three million dollars in fines because you're not allowed to just use the most beautiful public forest for your own wedding, but he's like, fuck it, I'm doing it.

28:51To propose... Sean, are you sure? They're like, is there a permit? And he's like, put on your costume and get in here. To propose, he baked his wedding ring into an onion. Gave it to his wife. He's like, what? I don't even know what this is. It's like being mad at a UFC fighter for getting drunk in a fight in the streets. Like, yeah, he's an animal. What do you expect? Right. The guy who gets caged up in his underwear and fights another man to the death. Like he wasn't super chill outside the octagon. That's weird. He bought this$55 million house in LA from Ellen DeGeneres and then like tricked it out.

29:30He's just got like his houses are crazy. Like it's worth a 30 minute dive just to go look at his houses. But even in his other stuff, like, you know, rich people do philanthropy, but like how you do it is also interesting. So for him, he's like, I want to bet on, he's like, I'm going to take a venture capital approach to philanthropy. So he's like, I'm not just going to donate to the Red Cross or whatever. He's like, I'm going to find the people that are trying to cure cancer in the most interesting ways. And then nobody will fund them because it's too crazy. It's too unproven. They have to like, they'd have to convince the whole world that their crazy approach is going to work.

30:00He's like, but that's what, that's like in the startup world, that's exactly what happens. Some crazy kid has a crazy approach that like, you know, most likely will not work. But if it does, it's going to change the game. and that's what VCs do. They bet on that. He's like, I'm going to do that for curing cancer. And so he's poured in tons and tons of money into unorthodox cancer treatments. How wealthy is he? He's very wealthy. So when he identified Facebook as a thing and he was like, you know what? I want to invest in this, be a part of this. Mark really liked him. He's the one who connected Mark to Peter Thiel to get the investment, the first 500k investment.

30:38He's the one who convinced them, I think, to move to Palo Alto and leave Boston, which then let them recruit the best talent, which let them succeed when other social networks like Friendster and MySpace were failing. So Sean ended up owning 4 % of Facebook, which became worth like, I don't know,$4 or$5 billion just on his Facebook stock. Then there's an interesting story of how he invested in Spotify. Have you ever read this email that Sean Parker sent to the Spotify founder. Wasn't it something like, this is Napster, but done legally? Exactly. So he just cold emails them in 2009. Spotify launched in kind of like 06, 07 range.

31:20Spotify launched in Europe. So Daniel, I think, lived in Sweden. And then on top of that, they've only launched Europe because the rules allowed them to do it in Europe. But he knew he had to build up enough critical mass before entering the United States market. It's like one of the weird reasons that Spotify worked and all the other music sharing services never worked because they all tried to start in the United States. And all of the music labels were so ready to just sue the shit out of everybody from Napster that you couldn't have done that. They would come after you when you were just a baby, an infant.

31:50So he writes them this email and it's just subject line thoughts. And he's like, Daniel and Shaq, he goes, I've been playing around to Spotify. You've built an amazing experience. As you saw, Zuck really likes it too. I've been trying to get him to understand your model. And I think he just needed to try it to see it for himself. Then he talks a little bit about Facebook. And he's like, we should partner because we can integrate Spotify's music stuff with Facebook's social graph, all that. But then he just compliments me. He's like, your design is clean, elegant, tight, and fast. It's clearly lacking some important features like the social stuff.

32:19But I think you've done a great job sequencing. You've nailed the core experience, blah, blah, blah. Ever since Napster, I've dreamt of building a product similar to Spotify. I might have tried had I not been, quote, sidetracked with Facebook, Founders Fund, and this dope shit that I've been doing. And he's like, to be fair, I also was pretty scarred from the record labels. And he's like, so I've adopted a watch and wait thing to try to see, A, when the labels would come to their senses and realize that they need something to distribute music. And two, until a product that would come in that would fix all the things we got wrong with Napster.

32:54And he's like, you have done that. And then he just goes on and articulates from a product point of view what they have done right and what they need to change. And he's like, I can help you do this shit. And he ends up leading a$15 million investment into Spotify, which is like an amazing investment. I want to read you one other Sean Parker story. So the guy's pretty magnetic. And actually, this story comes from you. A long time ago, you posted on The Hustle a blog post about this famous story of the painter who took stock in Facebook. I guess he was like supposed to get paid 60 grand. And instead of taking the 60 grand for the painting he did on Facebook's office wall, he took stock and the stock ended up becoming worth$200 million.

33:34I almost chose him for this segment because David Cho, I think he's a crazy man. He's a crazy man. And he did this interview on Howard Stern. And what's cool about it. So I knew the story. I think everybody kind of knows the story of the painter. What I didn't know is why he took the stock. And the answer to why he took the stock is that motherfucker, Sean Parker. He's like that guy. And so he's like, dude. And so Howard Stern's like, why did you pick the stock? Like, you know, were they offering not a lot of money? And he's like, no, they were. I told him the price is$60 ,000. They said yes. He's like, that's a lot of money.

34:05He's like, yeah, I just, I decided that's what it was going to be worth. And I think he was like coming out of jail or something at the time. And Sean Parker loved this artist and was like, no, no, no. This artist has to be the guy. And he had tried to get him to do something for Plaxo, his other company, but they didn't have any money. He's like, finally, he hit him up. He's like, yo, we finally have money. I'm at this new thing called the Facebook. I think we have enough money. Come on. Only you can do this painting. So he comes over. He's like, cool, it'll be 60 grand. You want to paint this whole building?

34:29It'll be 60 grand. By the way, I've been to the Facebook office and they've redone it. But parts of the ceiling, they use the same drywall. So you can actually still see the painting. Right. And so Howard's was like, what happened? They didn't have the cash? He's like, no, no, they had the cash. He's like, so why did you take the stock? Did you believe in this? Are you like an investor? Did you believe in this? He's like, dude, I never invested in anything in my life. he's like I asked Sean I was like what's this company he starts describing you know what Facebook is a social network for college kids and I was like dude that's lame as shit and he's like I wasn't on Friendster I wasn't on MySpace I hate that shit he goes and this is for college students oh even worse I hate education I hate college I never went I don't even like college students he's like so you hate no social networking you hate college he's like yeah I dropped out of school I hate everything about school and he's like and it's only starting on Harvard and Stanford campus?

35:22Oh man, I hate Harvard. I hate Stanford. I'm like an anti all those things that they stand for. He's like, so why did you do it? He's like, because every time I'd hang out with Sean Parker, he would just tell me like, yeah, I'm going to make some shit happen. He's like, before he went and met with Peter Thiel, he says, oh, I got to go. I got to raise money for Facebook. And he goes, I'm going to bend these fuckers minds. And he came back and he's like, he's like, yeah, the rich, he's like, those fuckers ended up being like the richest men in America. Like, you know, like Reed Hoffman and Peter Thiel.

35:50And he's like, dude, this little nerd, this scrawny nerd, he's got a lot of swag and confidence. And he's like, he's just... And he came back, he had raised the money from them. And he's like, okay, interesting. And he's like, so... He's like, you want the cash or you want stock? And he's like, you're in this? He's like, yeah. He's like, all right. He's like, I sized him up. And I'm like, this guy's going somewhere. He's like, so that's why I took the stock. That's awesome. That is so awesome. And it ended up being worth hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't know what he sold and when he sold it, but that's insane.

36:21And that's what, you know, these people are, they have a sort of magnetic, a magnetic trait to them that I think is pretty common. And that's a good example of it. Were you going to talk about his career? Or is that the career part? That's mostly the career part, right? Well, you know that he's done a few other things. He had a bunch of things that failed. So he had Plaxo, he had Airtime, he had a bunch of things like that. Then he was a managing partner at Founders Fund. That's all I know. What else is there? Have you heard of Opportunity Zones for real estate? You know, I believe he invented that.

36:49So basically, I read this a long time ago, I'm going off the cuff, but basically opportunity zones, if I remember correctly, they're zones designated by the government that show these places are impoverished, or they're like warehouse spaces. And we want to incentivize investors to open up, I believe, residential build stuff there. And I think it was his idea. And he lobbied the He lobbied the government and he turned it into a reality. Opportunities those are the brainchild of Sean Parker. In the early 2000s, he was Facebook's first president and he wanted to minimize his capital gains on his tech stock fortune.

37:26So he lobbied the government to create this idea of opportunity zones so that investors would be incentivized to invest in areas that were not receiving enough investment. And he did it. That's pretty fascinating. Yeah, he convinced the Obama administration, I think it was, to make this a reality. And now it's a thing where billions and billions and billions of dollars go to this. And it was his idea. And he didn't just come up with the idea. He lobbied the government. He changed the law, which is really fascinating that he did that. So he's done a bunch of interesting stuff. And I think, in fact, I think he also played a hand in Obama getting elected a little bit or something like that.

38:02I mean, he's a political guy. So he's done a bunch of interesting stuff. Hey, this episode is brought to you by Mercury. They are the fintech of choice for over 200 ,000 companies. I myself use it for eight different companies. The reason why we all choose it is because it does everything you need under one roof. So like my e-commerce company, it's super important for us to be able to easily wire transfer, pay all our different vendors and suppliers all around the world. And the old way with our more traditional bank that shall now be named, I try it online. It would say no. It would freeze my account.

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39:31And then he went bigger and then he went bigger. And I think that's a common thing, but Tom had one thing those guys will never have. He had enough and he was able to walk away. And so Tom's story is pretty wild. I didn't, I didn't know the backstory. So also age 14 hacks, chase bank gets access into chase bank. All of the names, the bank accounts, the, the, um, the, the, the amounts in them, he could have wired as much money as he wanted out of it. He did not. He knew their mortgages. He knew everything. And he was basically the leader of a hacking crew. And his nickname was Lord Flathead. And so Lord Flathead gets root access and he leaves a message in Chase Bank.

40:09And he says, basically, you need to let me keep my access or I will expose all this information. I will leak all this. You need to give me full access. even, you know, just acknowledge that I won and give me access to this thing. And he starts bragging about it. So he tells 40 of his friends, he shows them exactly how he did it, how he hacked Chase Bank at age 14. And this is why the FBI conducted one of the biggest raids they've ever done, a simultaneous raid of 40 different people, all happening at 7 p.m., all in one area, because they didn't know who was the kind of the mastermind behind it, but they knew who all had, you know, had seen it or had access to it or was talking about it.

40:52And so they raid everybody at 7pm. They steal his computer. They take all stuff, but they leave him alone because they're like, the guy's 14. What are we going to do? We can't charge him. And so he gets off and he agrees. Okay, I'm not going to hack stuff anymore. That's his origin story. So now he ends up creating MySpace. MySpace obviously was one of the biggest social networks in the world. And MySpace was dope for a bunch of reasons that don't even exist anymore. So, you know, he's on our top five, but he was in everybody's top eight on MySpace, which was like, you know, my top eight friends.

41:23And he was the first friend to everybody on MySpace. He has the iconic picture of him turning away from a whiteboard, wearing his white shirt. Everybody knows that photo. Everybody who's our age, at least, that grew up on MySpace. And MySpace was kind of a culture shifter. like something that Facebook never really actually captured was that MySpace actually was cool for bands and getting discovery for music and talent and art. And MySpace was kind of amazing. And he sells MySpace for$580 million and he peaces out. He bounces. He has a quote where he's like, yeah, before the acquisition, I could do wherever I wanted.

41:57It was pretty fun. He's like, now it takes all this time to get anybody to agree on things because they sold to News Corp, I think. and he says, you know, there's like a budget review and a process for everything. It's a pain. So I'm out. So he peaces out and he's, I think 38 years old or something when this happens. He's pretty young and instead of doing what almost every other business guy does, which is like, cool, and now I shall, you know, change cancer, free speech. I'll take rockets to Mars. Tom's like, no, I'm gonna travel the world and just take a bunch of pictures. He's like, I'm just going to go have fun.

42:34So I'm going to read you what I admire about this guy. A, his Twitter bio is not, it doesn't say, I'm Tom, I invented MySpace, I exited to News Corp for$580 million. Currently a VC and professional dad, husband of two, husband of one, father of two. He doesn't do all that shit, virtue signaling. He just says, enjoying the good life. My new hobbies are surfing, architecture, photography, and golf. and what he does is basically he's like, I'm not going to waste my time just debating politics or trying to be the next big venture capitalist or whatever. He's like, I'm too busy. My eyes are too busy blinded by the reflection from the Maldives Sea.

43:13I can't be bothered with all that bullshit. I'm just going to go travel the world, do awesome things and take awesome pictures. And so he becomes, if you go to his Instagram, he becomes a world famous photographer. He has almost 700 ,000 followers. And he takes beautiful pictures. His Instagram is amazing. It's just pictures from his life traveling the world. And even he's surprised. He's like, I didn't have a big background in this. He's like, but I took a few photos while I was traveling. And he's like, I couldn't believe what was coming out of the camera. He's like, I couldn't believe that this was coming out of my camera.

43:43So he's like, yeah, I decided I'm going to post this stuff. And so he starts posting. It gets popular. So his second act was as this. The reason I put him on this list is because I was on air chat the other night and somebody shared a story about him. They go, you know, they go, Tom is a hero of mine of all the tech heroes. He's one of the biggest because he was able to win the game and then bounce. And they go, not only did he win the tech game, but he won the photography game. And then he bounced from that too. So if you go to his Instagram, his last photo that he posted was like 300 weeks ago.

44:14So you're like, what happened? Where'd he go? Why did he stop? And why did he stop? It was because Tom has the ability to have enough. And what happened was this guy goes, I ran into Tom and I was like, Tom, why aren't you posting pictures anymore? He goes, oh, dude, I was traveling one time. I was in whatever, Thailand and I was, he's like, I keep all my camera stuff in my locker. And my locker got jacked and he's like, somebody stole all my cameras. So I was like, all right. That hobby's done. Moving on.

44:41Can you imagine like not only winning the business game, then you win the social media game and you're super popular and everything you post, you get the dopamine mean rush of hundreds of thousands of likes and comments saying how beautiful it is, how they're so jealous of your life. And then someone steals your camera. And of course, you can afford another one. But you're like, maybe it's a sign. Time for the next adventure. And he just moved on to the next adventure. So what's he doing now? So the last thing I could find, because I was like, I needed to know this answer. And I went into... By the way, he does reply to some tweets.

45:10I did remember that he replied to one of mine. And if you go to his replies, or maybe he didn't, but somehow he came up on my head. He did reply recently, and it was like the last time somebody had heard from him. and he just replied like with emojis to somebody and people were like, oh, Tom, he's back. And somebody on Reddit was like, I bumped into him in Hawaii. He's like, and I basically got the sense that this guy is literally just like swimming, taking pictures, doing like kind of like, you know, he's just like swimming, hanging out. He's like, I think he's just like, you know, hooking up with like smoking hot women.

45:39And I think he's just having a great time and he's like not bothered by anything. They're like, that's the vibe I got from him for my 30 second encounter. And that was the last information I could find about, Tom, look at this picture I just posted on the MDB thing. Tom's on that longevity protocol. This guy's in his 50s now. And look at him. He looks great. He's young. He looks fresh. He looks happy. But he looks like he's in his 30s. He looks really good. Yeah, without life-hacking, bio-optimizing and taking 96 pills a day and cold plunging for 10 minutes every morning. He's just like, cool, I'll just live a stress-free happy life and get a lot of sun and hang out and eat good food.

46:17meet cool people dude when i think of hackers at 14 i don't think guys who look like sean parker or or tom so god bless these guys what do you think they look like hairier rounder like for sure hairier and for sure rounder these guys aren't that hairy or round they look great so they've won yeah that's part of why we put them on this list because they're awesome in more ways than just their net worth. All right, I'll bring it home. Like I said, I tried to pick people who you or the listeners would not have any idea who they are. There's a 5 % chance that you've had a run-in with this guy, though.

46:57And I only put maybe 10 % because I think he would have ran in the circles of Michael Birch. But basically, his name is Vivi Nevo. So V-I-V-I space N-E-V-O. Google this guy for me really quick. Tell me who you think he looks like. you probably don't know pop culture enough, so I'm actually going to say it. He looks exactly like Sting. Okay. He definitely looks like a rock and roll icon or like, you know, what I think the guy who invented Zara should look like. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's a great, which by the way, Google the guy who started Zara. Doesn't look like that. Looks like what I think a hacker looks like.

47:35So I call this guy the Israeli Greek Gatsby. And so I need to tell you this guy's story because he's incredibly mysterious. So this guy, he's famous for being an investor. He claims to be, and many people, including the New York Times, claim that he was the largest shareholder in Time Warner. He was a very large shareholder in Goldman Sachs. So he runs in all these amazing circles. He's the godparent of some of Rupert Murdoch's kids. And he's incredibly well-connected. The reason I heard about him was, Do you know how there's that famous like Bohemian Grove, like who's who of the world conference called Allen & Co?

48:15Like the Sun Valley Allen & Co conference where everyone walks out in their vest. You know what I'm talking about? And they have those high def photos. Every photo on Google Images is him at the Allen & Co conference. He sticks out. He's a really good looking guy. And he does not look, he looks like a rock star. And I thought it was Sting at first. And they said his name was Vivi Nevo. And I was like, who the hell is this guy? So I started researching him. So here's his backstory. He was born in Romania, eventually moves to Israel, and his parents die when he's in his 20s. And his parents were very successful.

48:47They owned a chemical company. And they leave him something like$3 million. And he was obsessed with Hollywood. And so he moves to LA, and he's like, somehow, I want to make it into the entertainment business. And so the story is that he got some type of low-paying... Not low-paying, but he convinced some guy who he met at a gym to hire him at this man's investment bank. Because Vivi was like, look, I like investing. I know a thing or two about it. I've been investing my parents' money. Hire me. And so this guy eventually goes on record. His last name is Burke. And he goes, somehow, this guy just starts showing up at my office.

49:23And he was incredibly engaging. However, he didn't do anything. And that was his whole point is that he did nothing. He was kind of a gopher and he didn't really do anything. And all the traders and money management guys were like, what the hell does this guy even do? He doesn't keep a schedule. He can't, he's like a hummingbird. He's so ADD. He just jumps around from thing to thing. And I didn't even know what he was doing, but he just showed up at my office until suddenly he quit showing up. And I don't see this guy for years. I went to his apartment to see if he's okay. He moved out of his apartment.

49:52I couldn't find any records for him. I was looking all over the place in yellow pages. I couldn't find this guy. He comes back into my life like three years later, and he's totally different. He dresses fancy. He starts hanging out with celebrities. And we have no idea what he did in those two, three, four, five years. And so the rumors about this guy, and there's all these articles about what the hell does this guy do for a living? None of us can figure it out. Because he basically has said that he's one of the largest shareholders of Time Warner, which was eventually sold for tens of billions of dollars.

50:23Like I said, he was one of the largest shareholders of Goldman. And he's hanging out with all of these celebrities. And so he's, like I said, he's friends with the Rupert Murdoch. Vivi, he owns homes in New York City. He owns home in Beverly Hills. He owns these mansions in Malibu. And Lenny Kravitz eventually lives in one of his guest homes. That's how fancy it is. And a reporter goes to check out his house because it's this amazing piece of architecture. and they're like, what do you do for a living? And he won't tell anyone what he has done for a living. It even comes out that he is engaged to the actress from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

50:58This woman is like one of the top five most famous women in China and he's engaged to her. And everyone's like, dude, what the hell has this guy done? We have no idea what he's done for a living. And it turns out he's also one of the larger investors of Twitter, one of the larger investors in Square. And if you Google him, you'll see there's all types of photos of him with Leonardo DiCaprio, with all these young, amazing, attractive women, even though he's like 65 now. He hangs out with all these celebrities, the who's who of everyone. And these reporters are like, I have no idea how this guy is everywhere.

51:32He's always at the biggest events. I don't know what he does for work. I can't figure anything out about this guy. And he's a prolific investor now in startups. That's how I thought you would have known him. And he owns homes that are worth tens of millions of dollars. Many of them. He's got one in, I think, Beverly Hills that he tried selling recently for like 50... Or sorry, that he bought recently for$48 million. The homes are filled with the most amazing art. These things by Basquiat, Keith Haring, like tens of millions of dollars worth of artwork. And he claims to be a startup investor. He claims to be a public equities investor.

52:09Have you ever heard of this guy? I've never heard of this guy. And also, I'm still unclear. Are you saying you don't think he is those things? Because you're kind of like, he claims to be this, he claims to be that. But like the story doesn't fully add up. So what's your take here? The story doesn't fully add up because if you own more than 5 % of a publicly traded company, you have to be listed as that. And New York Times have asked Time Warner and a bunch of his people, they go, he is a shareholder. That's just all they'll say. They'll say he is, in fact, a shareholder. And he's in the ears of the CEOs.

52:44And the CEOs of Time Warmer will be like, hey, Vivi is really important to our operation. He's been a big deal. Now, a lot of people think there's rumors that he's part of the Mossad, which is basically like the Israeli secret service. Because no one actually understands what he does. And you'll see him with all these interesting celebrities. He looks super fit. And they all say the same thing about the guy. They go, he's the most charismatic person we have ever met. and story after story after story. It's billionaire after billionaire after billionaire saying, oh, Vivi, he's one of my best friends.

53:14And they'll say, well, do you know what he does for a living? We don't really talk about that, but he's the most engaging guy you'll ever talk to. He's the least boring person. And they go, we're best friends because just like this person, this person, and this person who will say the same thing, he came up one day and he sat next to me and I couldn't stop listening to what he had to say because he was so interesting to talk to. And so my theory is that he is, in fact, very wealthy. And he's wealthy because he made connections to a bunch of different people, and he connected them and would get little bits of equity into a variety of businesses.

53:46And he's fascinating to me because he's completely made up this fake persona that has become a reality. and you know if you read that book 48 laws of power one of the rules is to change your image constantly and he basically disappeared in his 30s and he came back with a new persona and he became that person and many like hollywood people have been like this guy needs a movie if you guys this man had the greatest new year's resolution of all time he's like all right new year new me literally literally now i'm the most charismatic interesting well-connected romantic and richest person in the world.

54:21Fantastic. You've never had run-ins with him? No, I've never bumped into this guy. Have you... And I'm glad too, because it sounds like... Have you ever seen Eric Weinstein talk about Jeffrey Epstein the first time you met him? What did he say? That he was charismatic? Well, no, he's like, the hair on my neck stood up immediately. It didn't add up. Where did this guy... How have I never heard of this guy? Where did he get his wealth? How did he create this hedge fund? How is he splashing cash around like this? why does nobody know him from before a certain time? And he's like, Jeffrey Epstein was a government construct.

54:56He was basically a government-created entity that was meant to ultimately get compromised, blackmail on a whole bunch of rich, successful people. And that's what he goes around talking about on podcasts. I don't know this guy at all, but it just reminded me of that, the mystery of who is this person? how does this all add up? Okay, your mom left you 10 million bucks, but then how did you become such a big shareholder in all these things? That's not a big starting amount of capital to be able to accumulate big stakes in things. It's also interesting that he was one way that he came back years later as a totally different guy with a totally different personality and a different persona.

55:40Dude, the New York Times said he's the single largest shareholder of Time Warner, which is a big deal. That's billions of dollars. and it's amazing that in today's age that you can't find out this guy's background no one really knows no one talks about it look at this picture i put into uh the doc it's him at the allen and co conference riding a bike while the two people he's talking to are walking yeah and he's like that's not even possible dude how are you gonna ride a bike and how are people gonna walk and talk next to you you can't even i've tried that you can't ride slow enough where they could do that and they can't walk fast enough for you to do this.

56:19This just added to the allure to me in a way that nobody else will really understand. This is impossible. He is defying physics to be able to socialize like this. And you see him with literally the most powerful people on earth and he is always talking with his hands flailing. Yeah, he's gesturing like crazy in all these pictures. And the people who are the most powerful people on earth are leaning in, listening. There's a photo of Tim Cook stroking his chin, leaning in like, oh, what's your opinion on this? And he's just engaged them wildly. And so this guy, he is somehow in the ear of the most powerful people on earth, but no one knows who he is.

56:59I think it's hilarious that we ended this list with a guy that we basically know nothing about, no one knows anything about, may not actually be an interesting guy. And we're also massively reading into these signals from these random photos where we're like, look at the way that lean is happening. Oh, he must be charismatic. I'm like, look at this bike. Look at how he's biking while other people are walking. How can he even do that? Wow. This guy is fantastic. We have so little to go on. We are grasping for straws on this guy. We are not grasping. I'm grasping. You're grasping too. There's something here about this person.

57:32I need someone to message me information about him. Surely people in our audience know who this person is. I did that on a t-shirt by the way. I'm not grasping. You're grasping. That's our version of like, you can't triple stamp a double stamp. All right. Well, that's the list. I think the real list here is basically that these are the most interesting billionaires you've never heard of. That's right. That's where we've learned. I agree with that. All right. 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, less travel, never looking back.

58:14Hey, 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.

58:45If 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 N8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members FDIC.