$500M Bitcoin Lost Because Of An Angry Ex

0:00Hey everyone, welcome back to Secret Leaders. Another day, another dollar. Which I guess means things aren't going well. well um but chris welcome to the show nice to have you back looking fresh been to the barber i have been to the barber yeah you love sharing that on your instagram stories don't you i just have a really great relationship with the guys in the barber shop yeah and i think that they do a great job like you get a little little massage you know you get your ears flamed you know you get your your nose and your eyebrows done i think about this quite a lot it's like the ultimate um like line of where male like masculinity and spa treatment kind of vibe meet it's amazing isn't it you know because we don't go to the spa and do things like that but you go in there and they do your little massage like you say head massage your back your shoulders you know well not often do i get that but not on the insta stories no and so i always into them and they're always saying you should have your haircuts for free and so forth and i'm like no i don't want to muddy the water here i love the haircut i love the experience of the place but i don't want to do a brand deal with you i'm just going to post it because i like it and they're like okay get free gel no just pay for it like a psycho who isn't really popular online so what's new with you dan obviously i've had a haircut what's happened with you i have been playing lots of paddle i'm very inspired we played paddle together yeah you were very good and um and i was inspired and i was like you know what i thought you were quite good i could get better at this i could get better at this so i did the only thing that a real man does in these situations i bought paddle shoes paddle shoes yeah they're basically tennis shoes but the paddle anyway i bought shoes because it turns out that my vivo barefoots are were agonizing i was basically limping for a while so they definitely are not good for that kind of impact sport anyway impact on the feet i played paddle three times last week oh wow yeah and i'm not gonna lie i'm going public here on secret leaders i even just played a game during the day and just pretended that i was working i got something just came up and i was like you know what i'm in that rare spot where i've got no meetings yeah i'm the boss yeah if i can't just go and play paddle right now because i've no meetings and i feel like it then what the hell is the point in all of this and it was incredibly freeing i mean i would say for years now i have played paddle and tennis gone to the gym gone for long runs in the middle of the day because that's when the world is really quiet yeah it's true and then i'll pick up the work later in the evening plus try and get a paddle game on a weekend it's impossible like i pretty much only play paddle and tennis with other entrepreneur friends because we can play in the middle of the day yeah it makes sense so it's very freeing but yeah i thought you i thought you were good yeah but i'm looking for greatness mate yeah yeah we then wear trainers yeah yeah yeah start with trainers anyway so that's my thing i'm gonna i'm gonna get myself some more i'm gonna get some lessons yeah um and i'm gonna play a little bit more and then i'll uh i'll come back and uh and and hopefully take you on fantastic in other news you didn't you didn't ask about my haircut i had a haircut too yep thanks for noticing how was it it was great thanks yeah i mean i guess if it didn't go and looks good if it didn't go on insta stories it didn't happen so that's it i do sometimes take a photo when i'm in there thinking yeah and then i'm like it's just a bit weird what's that phrase um this is cute might delete later yeah yeah yeah exactly it was you take a photo though you don't post it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um the keeper it was it was it was just not worth it yeah um but it is it's an interesting thing right you go into the barber i know it's by the sounds of it have very similar barber in in terms of like you get your little massage in between, your hot towel, your ears flamed, your nose waxed and all of the stuff.

3:44And it's kind of like going to the spa. It's like the masculine version of going to the spa because it hurts a little bit. I love the spa spa though. You love spa spa? Oh my God. If I can go in for a 90 minute massage, that's it. I mean, on holiday, I'm choosing that all the time. I just get them at home. I did quite a few in Cape Town to be fair, but I got a really great masseuse to come to come at home. There you go. We should like put an ad in here somewhere for some sort of... 1-800-MASSAGE. I'm not sure that's the one you want to call. That feels dodgy. Okay, great. It's just a redirect to Pornhub or something.

4:17Okay, so... What are we talking about here? Well, on the subject of male grooming, we had Sean Dixon. Thank you. Good segue. We had Sean Dixon, who is the founder and managing director of Richard James Suits, which actually started off as the smallest tailor on Savile Row and is now the largest, which actually in itself is a really nice story. Yeah, international presence, New York. They've become an international brand and we've got a bit of a masterclass on that kind of business, what bespoke suits are like, who their types of customers. I mean, they've had some crazy ones. Soon to have Chris Donnelly, but who have they had before?

4:55They have had Eldon John, who famously went in and bought everything, bought the shop. That is a baller move, isn't it? Which is a baller move. they had another time where there was Oasis were in there at the same time as Elton John at the same time as he couldn't tell us the name like an industry titan and so he said that sounded like Richard Branson didn't it I reckon it might have been like you know like Anthony Bamford or something you know like a big name but not public right so they had those three at the same time he said that Liam was super stylish Noel was a bit more challenging but yeah I mean amazing that they were two guys who started a suit shop on Savile Row and are now you know effectively clothing the most wealthy famous people in the world pretty cool and Chris Donald is in well yeah maybe if I need a suit yeah okay so this story is insane so there's a guy in the UK that accidentally threw away his hard drive containing what's now over half a billion pounds in bitcoin so I can't off the top of my head work out how many bitcoin that is but still a fair amount 8 000 apparently is that right because it's like a hundred thousand dollars a coin now yeah 19 something like that yeah yeah not not that you're watching the crazy thing is he knows that it's in a landfill uh and he's been fighting for years and years and years to get it back and so now i think now we're in the situation where he's trying to buy the landfill is effectively where we're at yeah it's weird so basically he's been trying to access the landfill for years and is offering the council a share of the bitcoin if he finds it which they refused makes no sense so he sued them but a judge has thrown out his case saying there's no reasonable grounds for the claim and he's now representing himself at the court of appeal ironically using ai to help him here's the thing that i don't get when i read the story and i like i find something about it really fishy there's really no reason for the unless i unless i'm mistaken there's no reason for the council to not take him up on his offer if he finds the bitcoin he'll give them a portion of it that could be a very large portion who knows what he's offering but a reasonable amount right and if i'm in his shoes 50 50 anything like that yeah that's what i was thinking i was like well 50 50 is better than like 100 of zero what did it was half a billion yeah right so it's like well whatever 250 million for the count anything like why not yeah so the only thing richest counsel ever right so all i can think of when i think of this story is that i reckon someone's found it and taken it back in the day at some point i reckon it's somewhere else and they know that they don't have it why would you ever pick up oh when the story broke about the hard drive maybe yeah why would you ever pick up a like old hard drive yeah fine but like you're what you work in this and this this this this came out about three years ago this story now he's trying to buy it but you know if i was working in that council at that point i'd be right in there with my shovel it's funny and i know there's so many people who watch this will have the same experience and you will be exactly the same when we were younger and bitcoin was first out we were using it to buy all sorts of nonsense online yeah nonsense i don't talk about exactly what we were buying online yeah but you know relatively it didn't it didn't last yes it was a consumable um and that you know that was what we all did but i used to remember using it for buying um things on games like selling armor and swords and weapons on games in crypto yeah and so like i can understand that there are probably still shit loads of these um hard drives out there because you you could have hundreds of coins but of course you could like They had zero value.

8:37I think the other detail in this is that he didn't throw it away. His ex-girlfriend threw it away. I mean, most people don't really like their ex-girlfriend in the first place. This will be a whole other level. Yeah, I mean, for me, that makes it feel less believable. Really? I think that's the first thing I'm like, it feels a bit unbelievable. But I mean, he's still offering to buy the whole... But is he like, has he at any point tried to sue her or claim from her? I don't know. I mean, sounds a bit funky. Why would someone throw away someone else's computer? Yeah, it's a bit weird. I mean, that is a bit weird.

9:12I mentioned that his... You go into Melissa's laptop and go, whoop, get rid of that. It's quite weird behavior, isn't it? Yeah, and hard drives back in the day were like, you know, they were bigger and thicker than that and they'd go in the back of a computer. Yeah. Or she'd go to the back of his computer, take it out or throw the box out. Seems a bit odd. I mean, I don't know. What am I? Who am I? You know? Well, you're obviously not a psycho ex-girlfriend like his no yeah but objectively i you know if it was true i would probably be a little bit upset with my partner yeah slightly because 500 million would be i mean certainly wouldn't have to do this with you i mean you know no i could charge you to do this with me you could i'd have to i'd have a lot of power over you if i had that much money yeah yeah yeah i would turn up just be impressed yeah you would turn i would turn up in a good mood you yeah if you're paying me a bitcoin a day exactly that'd be fantastic that's a good rate both do that um okay and what do you reckon the ai's legal arguments to win this case against the council could possibly be i have no idea i mean if you're the council i yeah i don't know why they wouldn't at this point because the story's been going on for so long at least allow him to raise money and pay for himself and split the outcome it's weird what is in it for them to just all they wanted to stay landfill all he's saying is i'm just going through the trash so if he raised the money which he probably would be the crazy people would give him money even if crowdfunded it he'd do it and then the deal was to split half of it with the council 25 % with the crowd and boof you're off that's amazing yeah I don't know why he wouldn't do it odd okay new story there was an interview recently with All Elite Wrestling AEW CEO Tony Khan now somebody who we're actually hoping to have on the podcast as well now he was saying he wasn't intending on going public but he wanted to pass the company down to his kids which is an interesting thing because i'd actually like to hear more about it but it's got me thinking about whether i'd be interested in leading the same company forever or passing it on so in terms of like the different options out there and you know a company life cycle how do you think about this do you think that any of your businesses you'd want to pass on to your kids it's it's it's tricky because i certainly have never felt the business i've run so far i would want to pass on to my kids however at this age now like i'm running a few businesses and i'm starting to have an idea it sounds so bizarre this is quite a new thought but i'm starting to have an idea of what my long-term business will be and that i think is pass on able and so i think a lot of what i do now creates value super fast and then is either sellable or cash generative for a short period of time none of that stuff i think is like everlasting and i think you have to bitcoin margin trading no you have to you have to like build actual repeatable long-term value for it to be a company that can be passed on right i mean so right now i don't think about a huge amount but i think that what i will do after this next phase of my career is probably build some form of like fund and i think that is something that could be passed on to the right people fund like rolex tax dodge not tax dodge fund or funds like investment fund investment fund like you know picking picking businesses that i can give unfair advantages to and you know invest with cash but so kind of like the sahil model family office style i think i think yeah i mean would be my own money uh wouldn't be external money and then would be that i could probably drive really positive outcomes with my sort of you know reach reach and so forth yeah so that that is what i think i will be doing in five years time interesting that's what i think i will my my job will be the i saw a great tweet related to this i don't know if you saw the anthropic um sorry not anthropic i don't know if you saw the perplexity announced that they were launching a VC fund.

13:11And someone just tweeted underneath saying, you either die a startup or stay alive long enough to become a VC. And I was like, that's just so great. And also what you've just described, which is kind of like, you just stay a founder long enough or you just, you know, end up becoming a VC anyway. I think for anyone who cares, I think I would never want to actually be like a VC. or I'm actually still not that interested in investing in like early stage startups I'm probably more interested in finding businesses that I think are really good and helping them massively lever up basically um which I've done a few times over the years and I've really enjoyed the experience yeah um is that more like the Cody Sanchez style then yeah so it would either be like joining a business helping with strategy and reach and funding you know maybe it's like maybe their limiting factor is uh so i'm talking to this big property company at the moment i feel like their limiting factor is reach and cash like they actually have a really good business but if they raised 30 million they could go way faster and super profitable but i don't think they have the capability within the business to raise 30 million whereas i feel like if i work with them for 6 to 12 months i could probably help them do it that i think i would find really interesting and create a lot of value um and that could be passed along but otherwise no i mean also in the uk we don't have that sort of thinking here as much like you know in germany that's how they think they think about building family long-term businesses to pass on i just think culturally it exists here as much no i was actually part of technically a family business so my grandpa started a business with my dad.

14:53My dad was 17 and they ran it when my dad was 67 when he passed away. And, you know, the intention was for me to go into the family business, etc. I just didn't want to. It's clothing, wasn't it? Yeah, fashion manufacturing. And so... Do you know how I know that? Go on. I remember well before I was co-hosting Secret Leaders, you having a Secret Leaders chat with Nick Telson about how both of you i think both of you were jewish both of you had family businesses that were like in clothing yeah and it's called in in in that because it's like east end jewish like immigrants from europe whatever is called the rag trade is that right yeah yeah okay yeah that's how i know that about you um and apparently like very common i don't know why but it's just a very common industry for oh actually i contextually i i learned about this actually from um malcolm gladwell's book um what's it called famous one yeah malcolm gladwell's book outliers i was reading that and i was like oh god that so answers the question i've always wondered which was like what is up with all these jewish people going into what they call the rag trade it turns out because a lot of uh jewish european immigrants were uh experts in textiles and then they all had to emigrate and a lot of them went to the uk and a lot of them went to america and the american ones ended up going and starting magic circle law firms randomly.

16:19And they've been brought up in textile, like families. And the ones in London went and just did more what they called rag trade. Who knew? So thanks for that, Malcolm Gladwell. So anyway, that's my rag trade story. Didn't end up in the rag trade. I don't know how he even got there. What about you? Your dad ran a business. Were you thinking about working with him? My dad does run a business, yeah. That's property, right? Yeah, and all three of us worked for him, uh you know over um i think all of us did at least six months oh i've done that yeah i think i did up to maybe a year and so he's a prop he's a commercial property broker commercial property agency and so he works for brands to find them high street presences and and fits them out and gets them ready and so forth he's worked for basically every big company there is he's been involved in like big companies growing and so forth um made it's like the best lifestyle business I've ever come across.

17:10You know, it has like a very natural size. He doesn't have a huge team. It makes good money. He's run it for 25 years. Yeah, I mean, we all worked in it. And I think we all got a really good sense of like how to run a sort of client-based, delivery-based business. And I would say like Verb had so much of its thinking done by my dad's agency, basically. Did I think about joining it? I think, you know, I think you could have. he has an amazing reputation like incredible reputation but there wasn't much for business there without him so you'd have to become him and then you have to scale it yeah and so i think that like i decided to do my own thing i think my older brother might have but he moved to america and my younger brother obviously runs lottie so so donnelly and sons will have to come from your next iteration well technically i'm a donnelly muet so donnelly muer donnelly muet as a double borrowed name but I suppose from a work perspective stage name this is your Sasha Fierce I've got in the room with me I got it yeah I suppose so my work name, my stage name is Chris Donnelly alright what's up next, we've got advice so a couple of questions people have sent us so let me kick these off for you sir started my company to be my own boss but now I have 100 bosses, investors, customers, employees.

18:37Obviously. Did I just create a worse job for myself? Obviously. Next. Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course. I mean, by now it's obvious. Like everyone says, I don't want a nine to five. And I think what you clearly pick up the second you become an entrepreneur is you have a nine to five, five to nine, and then every other hour and every weekend until the thing works. And it shouldn't be underestimated. I think entrepreneurship is a great route forward, but my god does especially the first one pre like any money or leverage or levers in your life the first one is just so hard and i remember building verb for 10 years and i just i could say i had 10 bosses they were my 10 biggest clients my 11th boss was then definitely the staff because you have to do everything to maintain culture yeah and so yeah i mean it's your you know don't be surprised by that um i never had investors in that business but equally if you have big investors they become your boss they can push you around um so did i create a worse job for myself i don't know the beginning of entrepreneurship is fucking rough well yeah the beginning you did create a worse job for yourself yeah nine times out of ten what's that phrase like very exciting though the beginning that's the only thing you do get away with a lot of the adrenaline and the i'm making it on my own kind of vibe it counts for a lot that and there's that like you know slightly cliche saying that you see on the side of gyms sometimes which is like uh I will work like others won't so I can live like others can't entrepreneurship if you do the 10 years of like pretty close to I would even describe as like brutality and it's horrible and it's hard and all the rest of you sacrifice a lot for it if you make it through that successfully you do often find yourself in a position you've created yourself real wealth and to create real you know liquidity at a young age is very tough very tough real wealth which is obviously the sixth type of wealth yes i just realized our biggest competitor is our ideal acquirer do we lean into that or try to diversify our exit options well i actually just went to an event yesterday on this um i went to an event yesterday on acquisitions and company mergers and stuff like that held by my law firm that was really really interesting um so the answer to every single question when it comes to negotiation, regardless of whether it is with a customer or an employee or an acquirer, is leverage.

21:00So, you know, do we lean into that or try to diversify our exit options? Diversify your exit options. Totally. Do not go into any conversation ever where you're negotiating where you want that outcome, which already is your whole leverage is gone because you want it so you're now desperate you really can't go into any conversation like that you need options and the reason you need options is because there's going to be a negotiation either way between two parties and the only way that you're not going to make a bad decision is if you understand what other options are on the table then you can still choose to take a worse deal because it's with the right acquirer but that was doing it with the full knowledge that there were other options available to you we talked about this on our deborah meaden episode which someone might put over here we're over here um and on that episode we talk about how the biggest mistake that the entrepreneur makes when they come into the den of five options is saying i've come for you you know um um peter jones i've come for peter jones all the other dragons go okay fuck off then and then you're just left with peter and you have no leverage on peter and so it's the same thing it's exactly what you said like you've got to give yourself optionality and i remember i remember we were selling our company we approached the five well we knew through the three biggest digital marketing agencies out there who are all pe backed and then we approached the next two biggest and we said we're for sale and then for about a month we just ping them off against each other until whoever got to the best price and i say it in my video that i did four secret leaders on exiting which someone will put up somewhere around here and this video i talk about the fact that you have have all the leverage until the point that you effectively say the deal is done.

22:45And so make sure that you do some bloody good negotiating before that point. Here's another one for you, Daniel. Our product roadmap is being driven by our loudest customer rather than our strategy. How do you say no to feature requests without losing business? This is actually probably more one for you to answer, to be honest, because this is a much more of a b2b problem i did used to work in b2b sas and this was a very common problem but we but b2c is not a thing we had this a lot at lottie because lottie owns a at lottie we bought a variety of sas businesses and put them together and built our own sas tool for care homes and so we have this a lot feature requests and so forth i think it's about expectation management up front about timelines actually a lot of businesses are fine with timelines as long as you hit the timelines and so be realistic about the timelines um and i would say loudest means nothing to me i'm not interested at all in the loudest if you're saying that your biggest customer is driving your roadmap then that's fair enough if they're paying enough um but loudest and small i would tell the customer to shut the fuck up yeah yeah you're not the boss of me i already have 11 um okay i've got two potential co-founders one's brilliant but difficult the other's average but amazing to work with which matters more in the long run oh i'd love to know if we agree on this go on difficult but brilliant or average but amazing to work with average but amazing to work with every day of the fucking week you yeah i'd say the same i just i'm too fucking gnarled by this whole entrepreneurship thing to be to work with someone i find difficult yeah i think that's kind of it basically there's a lovely saying which is it's not what you do it's who you do it with and i think that's really true like i you know i think about that a lot when building my teams and working on any company life is short every single place you choose to work is a choice or should be a choice that's well considered especially if you're like us and you're lucky and you don't have to do the thing so you know spending that time with somebody you don't like and it's difficult to work with is is a terrible idea it doesn't matter if they're brilliant and people i mean in startups, the person that you have to become is certainly not who you are at the start.

25:05Absolutely true. And so like, if you go in with someone that's got high energy, high ambition, growth mindset, growth mindset, they want to work with you, they're a good partner, I would take that all fucking day rather than the really brilliant dickhead. Yeah. And you're never going to change a really brilliant dickhead. That's the ironic other side of that, which is you can have all of those things and be average and get to good or great. But usually if you're a brilliant dickhead, you quite often stay that way. Yeah, you never change. And that's a wrap, guys. Thanks a lot for watching. And now, before you go, please don't forget, hit the subscribe button, follow on your podcast player.

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