This Hedge Fund Manager Got Away With Insider Trading… Then Made Billions

24:23Yeah. Just doing hood rat stuff with your friends. That's what it feels like. You're doing bad stuff with your homies and that does seem appealing. The one sexy thing I like about hedge funds is there was a guy when I was in college. A guy comes into the office. A guy comes into our class. Slick back hair. And I forgot his name, but his dad is like a legend in the hedge fund game. Like he was like one of the OG hedge fund guys who made a billion dollars or whatever. This is the son. Son's got his own hedge fund. And he comes in and he just had, you know, when you like, you guys are talking before we started recording about like, somehow the like more successful and rich people get the actually the more like at peace and like chill they are.

25:02They're more generous with their time, ironically, and they're nicer and kinder. so this guy kind of had that energy where he was in no rush and i just remember i could literally feel that energy coming off and that this guy was in no rush which was very different than every other person i had seen who was this person we're always rushing from one class to the next or cramming for finals and shit like that like this like high achiever stress it's just like who was this person i forgot his name um regardless guy comes in and he's there to give a talk and he says basically two interesting things that always stuck with me.

25:35First thing he said was he's talking about his hedge fund and blah, blah, blah. We're all kind of like eating out the palm of his hand. And he's like, you know, who here would find it fun to work at a fund like ours and do this, like make big bets for a living. And like, you know, 80 % of the class hands up. And he goes, he goes, okay, so look around. Here's 80 % of the people, 80 % of the class has raised their hand. And imagine if you all applied, because somebody had asked him a question about risk, like how much, should I work this career ladder or should I try this thing that's a little bit of a risk?

26:06He's explaining. He goes, look around. He goes, imagine all of you applied to this job. What would your resume look like? All of you would just give me a white piece of paper with black text. You'd put your little name at the top and then you'd put Duke University and you'd put your stupid GPA and then you'd put your internships. You'd put four internships and you'd make it sound like you'd change the world in those internships. He goes, there is nothing that differentiates you. He goes, you have a degree. Great. That's table stakes. Like, you know, like, oh, great. You went to a good school. Like, so what?

26:37So did everybody else that applies to this job. He goes, the only thing I can look at to even decide, do I want to meet this person is the bottom fifth of your resume, the very bottom 20 % where it says other. And that's your chance to say other stuff you're into, your interest, your store, something you've done that's remarkable or notable. He goes, that's the only way I'm going to differentiate between all of you that are raising your hands right now, because otherwise you're all students. You all did an internship. You all got a three point, whatever GPA. It doesn't matter that you were on student council.

27:06Like no one cares. And when he said, he goes, so I would take the next three years, four years of your life after college. And I would go stuff that other column because either you're going to make it big doing something cool. Or even if all those fail, when you go to apply to a job like mine, I'm going to have some reason to actually want to talk to you. And that was one of the most, I don't know, profound things, but like best pieces of career advice that I had ever heard and actually changed my, I went and started a goddamn sushi restaurant afterwards because I was like, that's part of my other, you know, either this works and I create the next Chipotle or it's a great story from my other section because he's right.

27:44Like that ring that, that was the truth was told to me. and the commonality between a lot of these folks which i i think you have um they play poker and they got really comfortable uh gambling so so that was the other thing that stood out he's looking around and in class everybody's got a laptop open and he's looking around i'm like i could see he's like counting or something he's measuring something and i asked him i go are you i was like what are you counting what are you what are you doing he goes oh i'm looking at how many of you guys have Macs versus PCs. He goes, because my entire year right now is I'm going to make a long, short bet.

28:18I'm either going to go long Microsoft and short Apple, or I'm going to go long Apple and short Microsoft. And he was like, I was like, what? I don't even know what, I didn't even understand what he was talking about, like a long, short sort of spread trade. And he was like, yeah, so like, you know, my entire, like, he's like, I'm going to make a$10 million bet or I'm going to make a whatever. He said some ridiculously big number. He goes, I just have to make one bet this year and I'm going to bet 10 or 50 million dollars on either Apple or Microsoft here and so I'm just trying to understand like what are you guys using and why why do you pick this and I thought that was the coolest shit in the world like that was like you know he could have lit up a blunt in front of me and I wouldn't have thought he was cooler than what he just said that his entire year was to figure out should he be long Apple or Microsoft and he was just going to walk around the world trying to figure this out he's going to make a 50 million dollar bet on it and I was like That's so cool.

29:10That's incredible. And I'm sitting here playing like poker during class, you know, on the one, two tables trying to make 200 bucks. And this guy was like gambling at a whole nother level on one concentrated bet. That shit was like very attractive to me. I wonder which one he picked. Hopefully, I think he had told us at the time I had asked him. I was like, so which one? He's like, I think Apple because and he had said some reasoning because of Apple. It wasn't just like Apple because it's cool. It was something like he was looking in the education market to figure out like basically our age cohort.

29:42What were we buying? What were the schools like recommending? And then what was like the he had done? I forgot exactly what he was doing, but he was like looking at basically like he thought that it was important to know what high schoolers and college kids and like young professionals were being told to buy and buying voluntarily. And if there was like some difference there, he had said something. Now, this is like 15 years ago. I don't remember the exact, but I remember it being Apple that he was leaning towards. So that's my whole summary of hedge funds of the 40-hour work week. This stuff interests me.

30:12Henry Ford, by the way, came up with a lot of good stuff. Invented Kingsford charcoal. That was his doing. Obviously, Ford, the assembly. He's like, yeah, I got a coal side hustle. The assembly line. The guy is super fascinating. A very imperfect person. Did a lot of bad stuff too, but very interesting. What do you want to do? All right, so I saw something come by that I think you'll find pretty fascinating. Have you heard about this company called Law and Crime? I saw they were acquired recently. They were acquired. And so this is a media company that does a combination of like true crime plus just coverage of trials.

30:50And media company started by this guy, Dan Abrams. And they got acquired for a rumored nine figures. And I was like, wow, that's a pretty impressive exit for like this kind of like crime niche media thing. Do you know about this guy, Dan Abrams? He's got an interesting backstory. No, what's he do? So he's basically pretty prolific with these niche media sites. So 2009, he launches something called Gossip Cop. It's celebrity gossip blog, and it gets to 8 million monthly uniques. So he goes into celebrity gossip. That's number one. I go to TMZ.com every day. Homepage? A homepage every single day.

31:30Every day. That's on my list of things that I check every morning. That's part of your eight-hour workday? Well, you know, you got like the same news websites that you check. I just want to see what's going on. I check no news websites. But anyways, this guy. So then he creates Geekosystem, which is an internet site for meme culture. Launches that in 2010. He creates something called Mediate, which is basically power rankings for media personalities. That one gets to 14 million monthly unique. Still going today. He launched something called Stylite, which is kind of like the same thing. power rankings, but for designers, models, writers, people in the style business.

32:04Holy shit. That's prolific. He launched SportsGrid, which is a sports news business that was acquired in 2013. So he's creating a bunch of these all in this period of 2009 to 2015, roughly. He created all of those that I just mentioned. He created one more in 2012 called Brazier, which was basically chef personalities. And I'm like, this guy's A, that's just an interesting model. But B, all of those are like the right niches. Like there's a, you know, missionary versus mercenary people. Like he strikes me as somebody who's mercenary where he's like, Oh, these, like these idiots care about like, you know, celebrity chefs.

32:40All right, here you go. I'm going to tell you every goddamn thing you need to know news information, um, you know, stories about these celebrity chefs. Oh, these people love, um, you know, whatever, whatever it is, stylized media personalities or style or celebrity gossip. Great. I'm going to create, I'm going to go fulfill demand. I got thirsty customers, I'll go open up lemonade stands right next to them. That's the style of entrepreneurship that I get out of this guy. And if you Google this guy and you click images, most people will recognize him. Do you recognize him? He's on MSNBC. He's on TV all the time.

33:13Yeah, exactly. He's really good looking. He's got a great voice. He's always commenting on another guilty pleasure. I watch Cops all the time. I freaking love Cops. That's my favorite show. And they have a spinoff called Live PD. He's always on there saying like, oh what she did she's about to get charged with x y and z right so this guy i know he's basically a media entrepreneur and he's on yeah like all the all the things that you mentioned he um so abrams media i guess is the thing that's like launching all this stuff one of the things he launches so 2016 he launches law and crime that's the one he just sold it's basically it starts you know legal news website then it's live streaming trials and then they have a cable show they have an ott show they have a YouTube channel they got 5 million subscribers on YouTube they cover every trial because I'm like pretty knee deep in this SPF trial right now can't look away from the car wreck you know like rarely does news get me but this one I mean I'm embraced in its arms.

34:12You're just lapping it up. Yeah I'm just fully engulfed by this SPF trial and so definitely there's like this like part of our brains that's just wired to tune into the stuff like I watched the depth verse heard Netflix show. I don't know if you saw that one really, really well done, like the Netflix documentary on the Johnny Depp trial. You watch these things and you just get fully engrossed in them. He sees that, creates this, and they raise$5 million and reportedly have sold for nine figures, so over$100 million. I don't know if that's exactly true. Three years ago, the reported revenue was like$13 million top line.

34:49Who knows where it landed at? Maybe it's at $20 million,$25 million now. I'm not exactly sure, but amazing exit and kind of amazing entrepreneurial career. He also, by the way, launched during the time he was launching true crime, a long crime. He launched a Christian TV streaming service called Ambo TV, which I bet is also like, that's, I love that niche. You know, which is crazy. I mean, the guy's not Christian at all. So that's really, I said, do you know, Dan? You didn't know the guy. You're like, he's not Christian. Well, Abrams is a Jewish last name. And I'm looking at his, Wikipedia and it says he was raised in a Jewish family and his father has a Wikipedia page Fair enough Point Sam Alright so this is AmboTV What's a Christian show?

35:37Go to AmboTV.com They're just live streaming I don't know good old Christian entertainment I don't know what they're at It's not something I normally watch but you can watch basically live biblical literacy. You can watch like, you know, inside one of these churches, the Christ Evangelical Church live. You can view past sermons. You can watch interviews and shows. And this thing doesn't seem to have a ton of traffic on here, but let me look at the YouTube channel. I bet the YouTube channel's pretty small too. So this Christian site thing, it looks like it hasn't quite taken off yet, but I do like this niche.

36:13I feel like this could be successful as well. And then he has another one called Whiskey Raiders, a site that uses a proprietary algorithm to rate whiskeys on a scale of 50 to 100. Yeah. I mean, this guy just goes into passion niches, right? So it's like passionate niche. Let me create it, right? Like this is what Ramon did with the soap opera blog. It's like, wow, you built and sold a soap opera blog for$9 million. That's like incredible. How'd you even have this idea? And he was like, well, I created Facebook pages around a bunch of niche topics, wrestling, politics, soap operas and others. And I saw that the fan page for these soap operas was like popping off.

36:51It was like the second or third most popular one. And so then he created a blog. He'd never seen a soap opera in his life and created a blog where they would write spoilers and recaps and stories about these soap operas. It built up so much traffic that he was able to sell it for almost$10 million without ever raising any money. It was incredible. By the way, what this guy is doing, Abrams, Dan Abrams, how he's prolifically launching new stuff. I think media is the best industry if your intention is to launch a lot of things. Someone described it once where they told me that a media company is basically a collection of different projects all under one brand.

37:31Whereas a software company typically is one product with added features, and you're just scaling it. The interesting thing about media is when you understand what types of things grabs people's attention and how to look at certain numbers to understand where there's an underserved nerd, underserved need. And nerd. And nerd, yeah. You can basically do that for any niche. It's a formula. A lot different than software. E-commerce is a lot like that too. You notice that somebody who knocks it out of the park with one e-commerce thing, they know that they could do this five times over. It's just do they have the energy and the desire to create an organization that's going to launch multiple brands versus the one.

38:17But it's so applicable to do exactly what you did for one. But there's a problem with e-commerce, which is your cash is tied up in inventory. With media, you typically have more operating cash flow. And so you have more money to deploy to some of these resources. How much of your business... So you have a business, an e-commerce business, how much of the money is in inventory? A significant amount without saying like particular numbers? Probably 30 % in inventory. That's not horrible. That's not horrible. A lot of times it's worse, though, I would imagine. You can go wrong if you mess up, if you misforecast or you get a bunch of dead stock, slow-moving inventory.

38:57Yeah, that can stockpile real quickly and become a big issue for you. But also, it depends how you run it. So in the same way that there's 100 people now trying to create newsletter businesses, and those hundred are not going to have the same success that you did with the hustle or that i had with milk road why is that right because it's how you operate and the same thing with e-commerce you know with e-commerce if you set up the right payment terms with your factory like for example like for us we sell inventory before we have we have to pay money for it yeah so that's great right negative cash conversion so once you get set up like that then you're you know you you're an idiot if you're if you're losing money or you're tying up too much money in inventory right because that's not necessary if you run it well.

39:40It's when you make a mistake or the market turns that, you know, you can get in trouble. Hey, quick message here, because you know that feeling when you send a wire and it actually works? No friction? Well, I've used Mercury for years now, and let me tell you, it just works. And that's why I use it for not one, not two, but eight of my companies. From credit cards to invoices, I have everything in one place. There's no janky dashboard. I'm never told, please visit a local bank branch. None of that tomfoolery. And a few months ago, I landed a big client. And the first thing I did, I sent them a clean, branded invoice.

40:12Boom. Deal closed. Cash in the door. That's the kind of banking experience I want. And that's why I use Mercury. So if you're running a startup and you want banking that feels like it's built in this century, well, go to Mercury.com and get started in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column A, and Evolve Bank & Trust members, FDIC. Tell me about this guy, Tyler, and what his post said. I think I know who he is. Yeah, so I don't know a ton about this guy. This guy, Tyler Hodge, I've seen him on Twitter. He's around on Twitter, but he wrote a great blog post that I loved.

40:45I don't know if you saw this, but it was about sardines. Did you see this blog post about sardines? I didn't see it, but I'm pulling it up now. By the way, the blog post, it's going to make a comeback, I think. Dude, I'm with you. I read this one post, and I was like, I don't know who this Tyler guy is, but I like him. I was like, I like him, and I respect him. one blog post could do that for you. It's very hard for that to happen in a single tweet or an Instagram story or a TikTok short. It takes a little bit more. One blog post. You need more time. Yeah, exactly. I think podcasts work well with it.

41:21Podcasts, YouTube videos, if they're longer, it's basically the amount of time that you've taken from someone. That's how invested they get. He writes this post and he's like, I'm reading this book, Margin of Safety. And in it, he writes about this a famous bubble that happened that you probably haven't heard of. I guess not that famous, but there was a bubble that happened that you probably are not aware of, which was the sardine bubble in Southern California. So I'm going to read it out for you here. He goes, there's an old story about a market craze and sardine trading where, um, sardines disappeared from their waters in Monterey.

41:51And so the commodity traders started bidding up the price of a can of sardines, the price of one can of sardines soared. And everybody's buying up these cans of sardines. They're making a bunch of money, flipping them. and one day a buyer decides, you know what? I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to take one of these expensive cans of sardines. I'm going to pop it open and I'm going to enjoy. He pops it open and immediately just becomes sick. He's vomiting and he's like, oh, he tells the seller. He's like, hey man, I bought these expensive sardines for you. These are no good. And the seller's like, you don't understand.

42:20These are not eating sardines. These are trading sardines. And he's like, so then Tyler draws the point. He's like, it feels like this is what's happened in the last few years with like tech company valuations. He's like, there was a game to be played. You would invest in the seed round and then the EA. And this company is trying to use that money to grow. It's not really profitable. But don't worry about that, right? We're losing money, but it's all good. We're growing and we got this narrative. And the narrative just needed to be sold to the next round investor. The B round, the C round. You know, the better analogy for this is crypto.

42:50Well, I don't think it's quite... There is some in crypto, right? But like there's the NFT stuff in crypto. But the difference is, to get to the point of what he's saying. So crypto is a different type of asset, right? crypto is not a productive asset. It's not a cash flowing asset. So what he's talking about, he's like, you would get these businesses that would go later and later stage and each round is getting bigger and bigger because everybody is basically as a greater fool theory, right? They're thinking, well, I don't care if this business actually generates a lot of free cash flow. I can just sell it to the next buyer.

43:21And they would do that. They would get to the point where it goes public. But now the music stopped and these companies have to be, you know, they're opening up the cans of sardines and realizing that, oh shit, These were not eating sardines. These are trading sardines. And so you see a company like Hoppin go from$4 billion valuation or$2 billion valuation, whatever it was, to I think it sold for like 10 million bucks or 20 million bucks the other day. Like, you know, it's down whatever, 100x from its peak valuation just two years ago. and there's another company called Better which is like a mortgage company that's also like you know about to go bankrupt after a billion dollar valuation and this is going to keep happening you're going to see a bunch of you know the sort of dead unicorns and in crypto there was a version of this like NFTs for example are you buying this because you love the art are you buying this because you think the price is going to go up and up for 95 % of people 99 % of the people it was I'm buying this is the price going to go up that works until the price stops going up and then at that point we all are sitting here holding these like you know these trading sardines that we don't want to eat.

44:23The difference, of course, is that, and the point that Tyler's making is that what's in vogue now is eating sardines. Companies where if you couldn't sell it to the next, but if you can't exit, if you can't IPO, if you can't go raise the next round, well, it doesn't matter. Just pop it open and eat it, right? It doesn't matter. The company has profits. It has cash flow. So we don't need to flip this to the next person. It produces enough cash flow. and you know this sounds very basic to a lot of people like the whole idea of crypto is triggering to them or the idea of venture capital and these unprofitable tech companies that raise money at these crazy valuations that's just triggering to them and so you know for the cash flow kings out there this is like you know today is your day now is your era you're you are now kind of like king of the hill at the moment and I wanted to bring this up with you because I feel like you have really never gotten into any of these trading games.

45:18I have never seen you get swept up in angel investing where you're like, yeah, this company today, it's worth 10 million, even though it's got no product and no revenue. But it doesn't matter because they'll raise an A at 50 million. I'll be marked up 5X. And then it will raise a B at 120 million. I'll be marked up 10X or whatever. I've never seen you fall into that one or crypto, really any of these trading games. You seem to be a guy who always goes into eating sardines games. whereas I've dabbled in both and made money and lost money in sort of both. I'm curious what your reaction is to this.

45:50Yeah, so a bunch. The first thing is the reason I've never got into that is I think people default to being too optimistic about particular businesses. You know, what's interesting is one of the very first signs or pieces of writing that humans have ever discovered, we're talking cavemen era, they wrote on the on the um they wrote on the cave that said the generation after them is lazy and they just don't care and that's like a common theme every generation says the late the one after them is lazy they just don't care they're whatever yeah their music sucks it's like the same thing over and over again and you said something about we're caught up in this at the moment my philosophy is we have always been caught up in that human nature doesn't change we have been the same for almost forever.

46:38And the way that we act today is the way we have always reacted. And so when I see new things, I think, this isn't new. This has been here many, many, many, many times. And my goal is to find out what has been here for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years or thousands of years. And that is where I choose to place my time in. For example, in this blog post, he quotes Sarah Gao, who's a famous investor. And apparently, one of her portfolio company said, Sarah, tell all the founders their jobs to generate cash flow. Because no one has ever told me that. And that's crazy. But that's a common thing.

47:12And I was I'm taking this do not read a balance sheet or cash flow statement or prop P &L. Yes, but you know, of course, there's there's levels to that game. So I don't really know how to read it. And so I'm taking a my intent to take a course at like, I want to do like one of these executive MBA classes, like one of these fancy ones. But before I even did this, I bought this course called the 4-Day MBA, where this guy is teaching me how to read a balance sheet. And his whole course is summarized in a very simple way. And it's basically, the point of cash is to generate or just to buy stuff that you can then sell to create profit, which that profit can turn into cash flow.

47:51And a lot of times, people focus on profit. But profit is a hypothesis. Cash is a fact. And it took me to take that course to realize and get back to basics of like, wait, everything is about creating cash flow. And he uses this wonderful example of Enron. He's like, check this out. Look at this balance sheet. They're generating lots of profit, lots of profit. Goldman, Morgan Stanley, they're all saying, buy this company, buy this company. Their stock is great. Look at the P &L. The P &L will show you the profit. No, that's the issue is profit isn't important. Operating cash flow is. On paper, they were making lots of profit.

48:26The problem is that they weren't actually making profit. Or they were rather, but they weren't creating operating cash flow. The vast majority of their cash came from financing activities, aka raising more money. And this is why there's a book called The Smartest Guys in the Room because apparently everyone was like, oh, they'll be fine. They're the smartest guys in the room. And you see these trends today with crypto, with Web3, now with AI, before that with social media, where the smartest guys in the room say it's okay that they're not making profit. It's okay that they're not making cash. It's okay that this valuation is huge.

48:59But that's just a common problem that we see over and over and over again. And so I get suspicious of all of those things because I read a lot of history and you see patterns. And this is a very common thing. We have thought this way from the beginning. Yeah, but the story of the tech industry, like the story of all the startup industry, Silicon Valley, is that that actually was correct. Like you're saying it like with social media, the story was these companies, you know it's okay. Yeah but most of them fail. Most fail. Of course. Some work. That's what I think what it is the real the real lesson is you have to know what game you're playing.

49:33So for example Correct I agree. When you're playing the Silicon Valley game the Silicon Valley game is most of these companies are going to fail or be sort of inconsequential to your returns. The only thing that matters when you're doing venture capital or doing tech investing is every year there's like 20, maybe 30 companies that matter, did you get into them? How many of those did you get into? Is it zero? Is it one? Is it two? Is it three? The issue, though, is that people put too large of a percentage of their net worth into these things. That's where it becomes a huge problem, and a lot of people do that.

50:08I don't think that's true. I think most people are not even invested in startups. The average person is not invested in startups. Get startups out of this example. You could say crypto. I mean, a lot of people have gone broke because of it. and at the underlying asset still does not have like a repeatable way to deliver cash flows. And that's the difference. You know, there are different types of assets. So for example, you could buy a watch or you could buy ARC. They're never going to produce cash flow. You could buy gold bars. They're never going to produce cash flow. There's different types of assets.

50:40Certainly certain types of ARC, certain Rolexes have grown. They're non-productive assets. But they are collectibles. But there is a history of hundreds, 100 years, 50 years of people wanting to purchase it. Of course. Not as much with crypto. Yeah, and of course, you don't get the same upside because it's sort of that game is played out and it's a more efficient market versus crypto collectibles came out. So here's a new version of collectibles. And in this one, you could be Jack Butcher and you could make millions and millions of dollars because you understood that crypto collectibles are going to be a thing.

51:16Or you could have come in at the wrong time or put the wrong percentage. And of course, you can make money and lose money in any of these. But the idea is you have to know what game you're playing. If you're playing the game of crypto or investing in gold or investing in art or investing in watches, you're not playing the same game as somebody who's investing in cash flowing businesses. If you're investing in startups, you're not playing the same game as somebody who's investing in cash flow businesses. So I think the important thing is you have to know which game are you even playing and then what are the rules and topology of that game?

51:43So for example, with venture investing, the mindset said is actually, I'm going to lose money eight out of 10 times here. And then if you go read Warren Buffett, you're like, oh, this guy's the greatest investor of all time. Let me learn something about that that I can apply to angel investing. And Warren Buffett's first rule is don't lose money. His second rule, don't forget rule number one. If you use Warren Buffett's rule, you could never be Peter Thiel. If you use Peter Thiel's rules, you could never be Warren Buffett, right? Like, you know, these are, they're different games and you have to know the rules of that game in order to play it.

52:10What I think is interesting is that at different times, that at different times each game might have a sort of like hot season. There's a there is a there are these like windows where certain games are more ripe or more more attractive, more lucrative to play. But my point is you ask why I don't do this type of stuff is I get nervous about many of those games because I believe that, for example, before startups in the early 1900s, there was car companies. Do you know how many car companies existed in the 1920s and 1930s? Tons, tons. tons. Most all of them went bankrupt except for like five. There was tons of car companies and it was the exact same thing as tech companies today.

52:50And so I'm wary of those types of games where I fall a little bit more into the Warren Buffett thing where I'd rather have steady but smaller returns as opposed to big lumpy jumps. I do get big lumpy jumps, but I do those in things with things that I can control, which is starting and selling companies. I just prefer not to do it in things that I don't have control in. Yeah. And typically you don't actually play the Warren Buffett game, you play the index investing. Basically, I don't try to make my money on the investments. I try to be safe and conservative with my investments because I'm going to be aggressive and risky with entrepreneurship, which is not what Warren Buffett does.

53:25He doesn't start companies. He buys companies in full. I met Warren Buffett in the sense of I'll try not to lose money and I'll take a somewhat more conservative approach than many of my peers. Yes, yes, yes. The startup game is a, the startup investing game is a chasing and waiting game, which is a very strange combo. You're trying to chase to find these breakouts that are going to become one of the 20 companies that mattered this year, not the 2000 that didn't matter. And then you have to play a waiting game to let those seeds kind of bloom over the next, you know, 7 to 10 years. A month ago, you went to Brian Johnson's house.

54:04I want to ask you about that. Or do you want to save it for Friday? You could do it. let's do it well so brian johnson the the the crazy guy who i love who claims he'll or he's trying not to die by decreasing his age you went to his house you interviewed him that's going live soon how was it was there any like spectacular learnings from him yeah going to his house is kind of remarkable um so big house uh not huge but um like nice definitely a nice place um walk in and actually meet his son first. So I see his son. His son who's on the same. I've seen him on Instagram. He's on the same protocol as his dad, pretty much.

54:41Yeah, ripped, right? But he's like 20, whatever, he's like 20 years old or 19 years old or something like that. And so he's like, I think he's in college or going to college, something like that. He, he's super ripped, super kind guy. And, you know, I was like, so, like, what's it like to be, you know, eat lunch with your friends and you've got the green sludge and they're, you know, they're eating nachos or whatever. And he's like, yeah, it's school tonight I don't care you know I'm doing what I want to do it's like you know the independent mindedness that it takes to live a lifestyle of Brian Johnson you can see like you know from as even as a parent how that like shapes your kids to be a little bit different and you're like oh you're emotionally healthy it was like you know I was like what do you think would be great out of this interview with him and he was like you know I hope you clear up like some of the misconceptions like there's a bunch of misconceptions as to why he's doing this and if people understood why he's actually doing this they would feel a lot differently about what he's doing and um and so you know i just i enjoyed that got a tour of his house showed us showed me where he works out how he where he eats he opened up his fridge and literally i was like let's see what's in here he opens up his fridge and there's literally nothing in the fridge there's like there is absolutely nothing there's like one bottle of red wine on the side and he's like then he's like oh yeah um he like opens up his free he opens up his freezer and there's like some medicine in there I'm like, oh, what's that for?

56:03He's like, oh, that's like this drug that they give to people with leukemia, but I just take it proactively. I was like, oh, cool. You know, you're trying to find rapport when you go to someone's house. And I was like, so I wear this Fitbit. I'm cool. I'm into tracking too, right? Like, yeah, I work out sometimes. Sometimes I eat chips. You know, like, you know, it's like, wow, it's literally like meeting a bit of an alien in person because his lifestyle and his discipline and his values and his uh priorities are just very very different than mine but also very cool very inspiring he's a very very cool guy so he was um like when you go to someone's house you meet somebody and you're off camera within three minutes you get a vibe of like what's this person's vibe some people will give you a hardcore fuck off vibe some people are kind of like let's get this done you know vibe and he was totally different he was very kind very curious uh you know what you know it felt like you know respectful uh very very respectful very nice what was he curious about you um well first he was just like thankful he was like oh yeah the first episode we did was a lot of fun the one that we had him on a long time ago and he's like that really kind of like you know helped get the word out there got a bunch of good messages from it and that led to more good things So I think first thing was like, kind of like, thanks for, you know, thanks for doing that.

57:32That was the first thing. The second thing was like, you know, how do you react to this? He's like, so I'm curious, like, what do you think of this? And is this something you would do? And how can I make this more approachable? And like, what do you find? You know, he was like, almost like doing a bit of research in a way to like, versus just being a know-it-all. Like, I already know the answer. I have the answer. you guys are all idiots for not following versus having an open mind on what's a null person who's not in the protocol what's their reaction to this and did he have help running around his house he has a number two person she helps do a bunch of things but not like house help no I meant nurses there was no doctors or nurses there when I was there we went up to his room where he's got like all the heavy machinery to like measure your skin and then measure your eyes and measure your ears and all that stuff and i was like i was like so you're really measuring like every organ separately he's like of course you know skin is the largest organ in your body it needs to be healthy and like you know my eyes are important that's how i see and i'm like well when you say it like that yeah sure um i was like so what's the weak link and he's like left ear uh or like one right or left ear i can't remember he's and i was like he's like i have the ear of like a 70 year old and I go why he goes from shooting he's like you know I used to whatever he's like one ear is down but the other ear is exposed and so he's like when I would shoot that loud uh gunshot that I used to do like you know with some frequency it messed up my ear and it's very hard to rejuvenate or recover an ear and he's like so you know this goddamn thing is the weak link did you change anything in your life after seeing him I tried his protocol for about 20 days um so I no way Yeah.

59:19So I ate the, I told my chef, I was like, Hey, this is the new thing. I want, I would like some sludge for lunch. And then I want some nutty pudding. And, um, and I tried to buy, I didn't do all of his supplements. That's the one thing I didn't do. Cause to do his supplements, you need like 65 things that I couldn't even source online. I was like, how the hell do you do this? And did you feel good? I mean, it definitely felt light, uh, lighter, like lighter weight. Like you can literally feel your body has like less baggage on it. You know, when you're doing it. However, I, um, I really detested that, like the main meal, the like kind of lentils and green stuff.

59:55And the one I had, the one I, when I followed the recipe, did not taste like the one he had is his house. So I think he's got like new versions of the recipe that are better tasting. That's so fascinating. I'm seeing a lot of people. There's a whole subreddit of people saying they're living his life. Well, there's a, there's a group of people that are doing this. So, uh, they hold what's called tea parties, which is a testosterone party. So you, it's a bunch of guys. they get together, they have a tea party where you get tested and you get your testosterone levels and you find out, you know, do you need to be taking testosterone or what?

1:00:25And then that same guy has created a meal delivery service called the Blueprint Delivery Service, which takes Brian Johnson's meal plan and makes it easy to do. Because again, that's honestly the hardest part of the whole thing. It's like it's not easy to just do it. And there's like, it's hard enough to stick to something. If you add a bunch of friction of making it hard to even do, that's pretty tough. So I think it's great that somebody's doing that. I think that's honestly a good business idea because when I met with this guy, I was like, oh, between the first time we talked to you and now, he is way more famous.

1:00:54And then between now and where he's going to be in like sort of three years, you could tell this guy is just going to become one of the most well-known people in this world. Like, I think that his story is going to be one of the most well-known people in this world because he is essentially donating his body to science while he's still alive, which is like, Just a crazy thought. And he said this during the interview. He goes, a bet against me is a bet against AI. And I probably wouldn't bet against AI. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, I've basically handed over my body and the decisions I make for my health to whatever the technology tells me is optimal.

1:01:35And so if you think this is not going to work, you're basically saying that science and technology is not going to make better decisions than the average human. Like, no way. Of course it's going to make better decisions. And I'm just going to do what the data tells me, what the algorithm will tell me to do. And he's like, long term, that's AI. And he goes, a bet against me is a bet against AI. And then the crazy thing, by the way, and this is in the interview, and I don't know how people are going to receive this because it's kind of intense. The interview is a bit intense. He's like, he's basically like, I'm competing with Jesus.

1:02:07And he doesn't say that, but he keeps comparing himself to Jesus. And I'm like that's kind of blasphemous so what what do you mean and he's like well here's the thing he's like uh i was told because he grew up pretty like a very religious like upbringing he goes i was told do xyz and then you'll die and then after you die you go to heaven i have a different offer for you do xyz and don't die he's like that's my whole thing don't die if you're against me you're on team death. If you're with me, it's team don't die. It's like that's how simple he's boiled it down to. And I'm like, well, you're still going to die.

1:02:50Like the current thing is you're aging slower, but you're still aging. And that's where he was like, correct. That's currently what's happened. Yeah, for now, the better the tech gets, the better the AI gets, the more I'm able to experiment, the closer I get to just slowing down the speed of aging to the point where I'm not going to die. One of the takeaways I have is what he has done, it's significant. But you can do a version of this where you dedicate your life or just six months to something and some crazy experiment and talking about it and you can build a career. Another example of this that's way more attainable is the carnivore diet is a thing right now.

1:03:33Be one of these guys that only eats meat for six months. That's challenging, but it's not that challenging. And you can build a career out of that. And that is really interesting. So he's spent a lot of money. I think he says he spends $2 million or$1 million a year. That's out of this world for just about everyone. But there are other experiments that you can do. And it becomes your identity. And you can build a career around that. Tim Ferriss did that a little bit with the 4-Hour Body, where he tried things that weren't crazy. But he did a really good job of explaining it and making that part of his identity and he built a really great career around it.

1:04:06And I think that's really fascinating. That's a takeaway I have, which is, can you dedicate six months to something and talk about it? And will that actually change your life for the purpose of actually talking about it? You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's totally true. And one of the cynical ways to look at Brian Johnson is he just did one of the greatest pre-launch marketing campaigns of all time because now he's rolling out his olive oil and he's launching his blueprint supplement pack or whatever ability for anybody to follow his protocol simply. I don't think that's I don't think that's I don't think that's true at all.

1:04:39The guy's way too rich to like become an olive oil salesman. You know, like I doubt he's got 800 million dollars or whatever. Like, you know, he sold his last company for a million dollars. I don't think that he's doing this to launch a new supplement brand. I don't think that was his intention at all. I genuinely believe that he needed some purpose in his life and he decided he found purpose and meaning in doing this. And now he's trying to like, just do it at level 12. So he's like, cool. And, you know, for most people, they can find some purpose and feel good in exercise or taking care of themselves.

1:05:13He just turned that dial up to level 12. And that's what I see out of him. Well, that's awesome. And, you know, you don't necessarily want to also be at level 12 because the wheels start to come off when you're at level 12 and it's pretty intense. But it's cool. It's very cool that there are people who live at level 12. I'm glad that Michael Phelps exists. I am glad that Elon Musk exists. I am glad that Brian Johnson exists so that you can see what level 12 looks like. And then you dial that down to whatever makes sense for you. But you can take inspiration. You at least know what level 12 is.

1:05:43What I say about those people is I say I know two things for sure. I love that they exist and I'm not them. That's what I know. Well, that's sick. I'm excited to see the episode and I guess we'll end there. 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 my days off on the road. Let's travel. Never looking back.

1:06:14Hey, 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, you know, 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.

1:06:45If 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 and Trust members, FDIC.