Jake Paul Thinks We'll Live Forever

0:00We got Jake Paul. He's here. Come sit down. Jeff Wu too. How you doing? Let's run it. What's up? What's up? How are you? Good to see you. What's up, bro? How are you? Good to meet you. Tell us the news. You raised a bunch of money. Smack that gong. 100 million oversubscribed. Woo! There we go. You can do it. You can do it. Wow. Come on. Great to see you. Great to see you. Tell us about the fun. Who do you raise money from? Are you talking to endowments now? Are these your friends? Is it all your money? What's going on there? You're good. Yeah, a lot of our own money. We have a 10%, maybe even more.

0:40It's like 10%, 12%, 13%, 14 % GP commit. Getting in the game. Yeah, our lead investor is Aquarian Holdings. So shout out to Rudy and Eric. They've believed in us for a long time. They doubled down into our growth fund, and it's been a great relationship with them. and then, yeah, just like other people that we know in our network. Yeah. Highlights from the fund so far. Sorry, I was going to say, like, I think going from more of just investing our own money, I think we are going more institutional, right? So Aquarian, they manage$27 billion plus as an insurance holding company. So I think we're just proving our sophistication as fiduciaries, as investors, to be like, hey, endowments, institutions, we can compound money faster and better than other VCs can for you.

1:25How is the strategy changing with the new fund? Is it changing? Like number of checks, check size, ownership, all that good stuff. Yes, time has gone on. I think the barbell approach for us has been very successful. I think going big with bigger checks into growth stages in companies that we believe in with the best founders. You know, you don't bet against Palmer, Lucky, Elon, Sam, the big names like that. and getting to fast DPI, going into SpaceX and XAI, working with Jared Burchill to get into some of those rounds, and then you're liquid very quickly. And so I think that's very attractive and putting bigger checks into companies like that.

2:12And then on venture one, early stage, and getting in, betting on founders from day one sometimes. and yet taking that more venture approach on that side of things. We've deployed our full venture one. This is our growth one, going into venture two now, raising for that, and then pretty much fully deployed on growth one. We've been working on it for the past eight months, getting into a lot of these big companies and actually going into growth two already. And so we've just had tons of great access, and I think that's obviously the key. and just were hustling and in all the right rooms providing marketing support, consultant support on that side of things, which a lot of these companies need.

3:00That's what we've realized in every room that we go into, whether it's, I mean, I won't say names, but pretty much everyone needs users. Sure, yeah. And so distribution. You'd be surprised at the level of marketing knowledge that these companies have. It's like day one, very basic. These are the most technical companies in the world, right? but they're not the best at breaking through to grow their users. And so we've just been able to really help on that side of things. And the most basic 30-minute call about marketing is extremely helpful for these companies. Take us through it. What are you actually talking to a tech company that might have their pitch dialed for investors or engineers?

3:43Or even customers once they get them on a call. Customers. but like it's just that whatever story they're telling it's not resonating with just the normal person and I feel like you've gone so big with everything that you've done that you've touched every part of America the world globally and you can probably offer more feedback and advice on just like how to tell a story as a company that resonates outside of this tiny little you know Enclave in San Francisco. Yeah, no, correct. I mean, I went from Vine to then it was YouTube, then Facebook popped off, then Snapchat was the thing. Me and my brother were the first people making Snapchat stories, like a full content.

4:27Evan Spiegel invites us out, asking us like how we like the app, what can we change in Venice? And then it went, you know, to all these different platforms, TikTok, Reel. So it's been however many years, like 14, 15 years of knowing exactly how to talk to the audience and be relatable and grow brands and my own brands from Better, W, Anti-Fund, MVP, becoming the biggest boxing company in the last four years. And so I could do it from a personal side, but I also understand it from a corporate side. And I think a lot of the times, you know, these companies raise all this money, they have a big balance sheet, they're printing cash, and they get really corporate with their messaging and they want to create like a one, two, three, four million dollar commercial.

5:21And I think oftentimes that doesn't reach the audience. And so it's actually just a lot of times telling them to be more relatable and to scale down and to tell their story in an easier to understand way and obviously I'm summarizing and it depends on like what the company is right we've helped companies market you know towards engineers because that you know there may be just an engineering product and so it's like how do we appeal to that side of things so each case is is different um but yeah it's just second nature and I think been pretty helpful do you remember the first piece of content you ever created i was born on camera so my and i didn't know that until like two years ago my mom's like look at this footage of you being born i was like oh great you've never shown me this like what are we doing mom like you didn't this is a great part of the story influencer era you know yeah that's the first time with the first platform that you were on or the first series of the first uh like the first content where you're like okay this is I'm taking this seriously yeah I would say it was vine so I downloaded vine the first day it came out it was promoted through through Twitter I was like oh this is super interesting and I just started making videos in like my cafeteria and school and just doing random stuff I was like the class clown I loved making videos me and my brother had been on YouTube before that just messing around cooking up edits with our with our video camera and posting it on YouTube.

7:05So we were naturally kind of like good at making the content. And when Vine came out, I thought it was super cool. I got to like 40 followers. Everyone in the high school was like, this is hilarious. Your videos are funny. And then me and my brother got into an argument about like how to film a video. And I was like, bro, I have more followers than you. Like, shut up. And I had like 40 followers and he had like 20. And I mobbed him so hard that day. And that's actually what changed everything. Because the next day, he started putting a ton of effort into his Vine videos. And I was watching him.

7:41I was like, oh, that was really good. Oh, he's really doing this. And then he got to like 80 followers. I was at like 80. And then we just kept on putting more effort. And two weeks later, one of the videos that we made went viral. and once we tasted that success we both gained like 5 000 followers we were like oh my gosh we're famous like this is it we're the coolest people ever um and once we figured out that recipe of like the level it took to make a viral video we just kept on cranking that level out and it just one thing led to another and once we realized we could make money from it i got paid like$200 for my first brand deal and I was landscaping I had my own landscaping company and I was making$10 an hour and I was like$200 for a six second video I don't have to be in the hot sun exactly and that was the motivation to just like take it even more serious as the nature of the competition between you and your brother changed yeah I think when we were younger it was like very intense and still there and we were just like young and it was actually good because there was no one else to compete with we were the two biggest vloggers in the world um and so i was it was inspiration and competition at the same time and then as we've gotten older we're just like collaborative now and we're on the same team obviously he's a general partner in anti-fund and we work together on a lot of things and everything that he does benefits me and vice versa and so it's like building out a we're the testosterone kardashians essentially it's just like i any given day of the week you got to see one of our faces somewhere so the kardashians of testosterone how do you how do you think about uh capacity uh you've got a great partner and Jeff with Antifund, but you know, multiple businesses, it feels like there's always some ceiling, maybe you haven't found it yet.

9:53But yeah, where what's the limit? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, every year, I've just continued to compound since I was 16 years old. And I think it's just a testament to scale team having great partners on all different sides of the business. and the best in class from Gus, the best videographer in the world, to Laura and all these people around are just top notch. And I think that's been a massive part of it. And then just continuing to, you know, see ahead and know where the ball is going. I think that's one of my best attributes is being a visionary and being able to pivot, move, change, adapt, and continue to grow my career that way.

10:47But again, I think it just goes back to team. And I'm inspired by people like Elon, where it's like, how do you have, you know, four, five, six of the biggest, some of the biggest companies in the world? And obviously he's a machine and I don't stop. I work all the time around the clock. and it's like even if i'm doing something fun i'm filming it to be posted as content so like it's just non-stop grind for the past you know 14 years and i just love hard work what's the future of boxing in america yeah that's an interesting category because it's not uh you're going up against you know the biggest the biggest names the biggest balance sheets in the world competing over a market that historically hasn't been a monopoly but maybe is you know there are some efforts to try to create a monopoly in that space yeah it's not going to work you know i think so many people have tried to take over the sport of boxing and it's just too diversified too many sanctioning bodies with the belts too many fighters and promoters and managers involved.

12:03And it's a sport that is always going to be, you know, scattered across the board. And I think our strategy on that was essentially we're the WNBA of boxing, because we've cornered a market in women's boxing and believed in Amanda Serrano since day one. And that was really the test case to say, okay, we can make a woman a massive star and taker from making$500 a fight to$5 million a fight. And no one is pushing women's boxing. They deserve to be pushed. Their fights are arguably more entertaining, especially than Floyd Mayweather, for sure, without a doubt. And we saw that, and we were like, all right, let's go after women's boxing because it's untapped.

12:52And now we have seven out of the 10 pound-for-pound best women fighters and 40 overall, some of the best up-and-coming talent. And that's where we found a little bit of a niche, as well as being the leaders of working with Netflix. I think pay-per-view, there's so much piracy and so many issues with that. And so I was the first one to be like, all right, there was the TV era of boxing. Then there was the pay-per-view era. and then I was like, now we're in the streaming era. And so realizing that we had to pivot the business model to be accessible where it's like if you have Netflix or one of these subscriptions, you're not going to want, you don't care, you're going to pay the$7 a month or$10 a month or whatever it is now.

13:48And getting distribution that way, obviously I'll probably still do pay-per-view fights here and there, but we're definitely moving into the the streaming era of boxing how do you think the Tyson fight broke Netflix right so yeah it did right that literally for such a storied engineering team over there for decades how do you how have you approached negotiating with you know platforms like a Netflix like what does your team look like for that yeah so my my business partner and most valuable promotions, Nikisa Bedarian is one of the best negotiators in the world, but he was the CFO at UFC when they sold to Endeavor, and he helped lead the sale and was a part of their organization for many years.

14:38So you think Dana took that personally? Oh yeah, that's a whole big part of the beef. It's not just me, it's the fact that Yeah, Nikisa and I have teamed up together. So, yeah, definitely a sore subject for Dana. And, yeah, I think it's just having the relationships and making the right fights at the right moments. And we've also put on amazing events and have great relationships with so many fighters. And so we're able to pull together the Ronda Rousey's, the France and Ghanus, the Nate Diaz is the the Mike Perry's because we've always been fighter first. So people love working with us. We came into the world that was I say it was like taxi and we're Uber in the fight world.

15:32The way we run things is like a startup professional treating fighters, right? We're on time or pay, you know, instantly. All these little details, as production, fighter kits, helping them, instant communication, social media tips, the list goes on. These things are all like super basic to me and Nikisa, but in the fighting world, it's like fighters will fight and then like not get paid for like a year. And just like there's so many issues in the sport. So just by running it like a proper SF startup, we've, amongst many other things, but that's why we've been able to become the number one promoter in the sport in four years when a lot of these other people have been doing it for 30, 40, 50 years.

16:21I mean, Bob Arum, I don't even know. That guy's like 100 years old. He probably was alive when the T-Rexes were running around. So it's like just these small little changes are why we've risen to the top. How do you think the results of America 250 are going to impact the UFC? On one hand, the Gaethje story of coming back from this really brutal knockout a couple years ago to then getting the belt is amazing, but at the same time, in the process, he took out a rising global superstar. And so I can make an argument that it's good or bad for the UFC, but I'm wondering how you processed it. Yeah, look, I think the event overall was great and great for fight sports in general.

17:12And it was such an entertaining show. So I think overall for all of MMA, it's a net positive. And I think it just depends how Aaliyah comes back, right? I mean, I think Conor McGregor has lost so many times, but his brand has you know stayed up there because he just keeps on fighting he keeps on coming back he keeps on trying and so I think it's up to Ilya on that one but yeah Justin Gaethje is like overnight superstar legend and we'll see you know how far he can go from here at his older age but overall what's the mindset of a of of uh fighter that's rising you know through the ranks when you have a fight like ilia just had you're taking damage that's gonna probably stay with you in some capacity forever are fighters like pretty acutely aware that at any point you could take a beating that like you makes it a lot harder to come back from i'm sure you've gone through Yeah, look, I think they're definitely aware of it.

18:23I think the thing is that they're just addicted to the sport, and it's really all they know. And they're willing to sacrifice for that thrill and for that entertainment, for the love of the game. So I don't think they necessarily care. And you know that going into the sport, that it's brutal and tough and rough on the body, and it's going to affect your health potentially in the long run. I think people deal with the effects of injuries differently, but to each their own. And I think a lot of fighters know what they're signing up for. How did you process the enhanced games?

19:11I always thought it was dumb. Um, yeah, from day one. Why? It sounds like a good idea. You take something, Olympics is entertaining. You add steroids, fuel to the fire. Like this is George's. It's the best people in the world. Like you could take something, but the best people in the world are the ones who are the most dedicated to it for 20 years straight. So there's no replicating that 20 year dedication just because. Yeah, you take somebody that's like fifth best in the world, which seems not that far away from number one, and you give them all the PEDs. But the gap between five and gold is actually so big that you can give them, again, give them a horse worth of testosterone, and it's not going to make up the difference.

20:02Yeah, no, and again, I believe that's what happened. I didn't watch it. I saw some clip-outs, but I heard the production was bad and that no one beat any records. And I think there were some people who weren't on PEDs that beat the runners. I don't know. But my fiancée is an Olympic gold medalist, and she was like, if anyone, she just won in Milan, and she was like if anyone tried to like do the enhanced games to beat her like she was like no one's beating me still. Well what about more broadly health maxing, looks maxing, peptides, do you have a take on the current trend? Yeah look I think it's amazing right like you see today you know they just launched the new imaging yeah mid journey yeah mid journey it's like the the world we're living in is so exciting and I've told my friends you know we met we're in SF with the merge labs guys and Alex Milania was like yeah we're all gonna live forever like we're just gonna like transfer our mind into some robotic body and saw I think this whole like health Do you believe it?

21:24Yeah, 1 ,000%. You do? Yeah, 100%. Do you think that'll be good for the fight game? Because I feel like there's a lot of insane athletes out there that would be incredible fighters, but they're just not willing to make the sacrifice to take that level of damage. And if we can solve CTE and some of these other things, it could actually make the most violent sports. I don't think so. So I think if someone's like afraid of getting hit in the first place, they're not going to be a good fighter when they're like, even if they transfer into a robotic body. But also, I don't think it'd be entertaining.

22:00I think like I'm I'm very, you know, long on traditional human sports in terms of a business model, because the story is what matters and everyone's on the same playing field. so when you put in like robots and all these perks and extra things and blah blah blah i i don't think people will enjoy it as much what's your timeline to a humanoid being able to beat you in boxing i'm sure very soon like i mean bro if i'm going up against a metal robot like i'd probably lose so i know but but but speed speed matters the will the human spirit human spirit you're long the human spirit. Yeah, I think a computer spirit, there's no spirit.

22:51They just don't even feel the pain. It's just like straight up robot. It's like iRobot in real life. It's happening right now. What about on the investing side? How much of your current thinking is like software only singularity, invest in the token path versus stuff like bio, health, defense tech, hardware, robotics, all the next gen and stuff that's maybe not product market fit, not billion dollar ARRs yet, but interesting. Yeah, I think it's really both, right? So we're pretty AI maxis here. So we're in open AI and then going down that stack, right? So you go down the inference providers, like the modals, and then you go to the semiconductors, so we're in Etched, which is an inference ASIC.

23:36We just did Helion, which is a fusion company. So I think in some sense, I think that software game is going to be won by an open AI, Anthropics, SpaceX, Google, maybe about cognition and some of these like second tier. The power law is being realized. Yeah, because I think there's just so much capital for just all the compute, all the models are getting bigger and bigger. So I think, I mean, partly we're here to just visit El Segundo as well right after the show. So I think it is like defense tech, robotics, manufacturing. I think getting to atoms is more and more important. Yeah, going forward.

24:14And then secondly, I think bio cross AI is also very, very new. I think we're just texting with Sam Altman. He's like, yeah, we're like, it's still really early. Like he wasn't like, hey, there's like obvious like winners there yet. So I think in terms of like finding that next wave, I think that will be robotics, hardware, bio. What about celebrity brands? What's your framework for a successful celebrity brand? Yeah, I mean, I think we're not as excited around those often. You're like, leave it to me, buddy. Yeah, exactly. No, seriously. And yeah, I think unless it's like the Kardashians or someone at that level, then it's, you know, very difficult.

24:59So we've been way more selective. And then, you know, there's just way more upside on the tech and software side of things versus like CPG. And that's where we're spending our time, right? We're fiduciaries. So at the end of the day, and for our own money. So at the end of the day, it's like, where is time best spent? And that's really how we think about it. I think to me, like Celeb is just like a solve for distribution. But it's not a full solve. Because like it's like a flywheel. It's a half soft distribution is not is not convert a million people over to this one time Yes, it's how are you going to continue to grow and hence like I think product is actually most important I think choosing the right market in the right product is everything distribution is just gasoline on that fire And then I think second I think Jake is actually very special as a celeb entrepreneur, right?

25:54Like yeah his story of just like You know being a landscaper, right? Like I think a lot of celebrity folks that we've crossed paths with, right? They were really good at singing or dancing or playing a ball sport since you're like 13. So they never actually had to like, actually like hustle their first brand deal, actually think about business. Yeah, tell a story. Or they're well-known, but they don't have an owned audience, right? Correct. Like it's very different, like somebody that's posted every single day for, you know, 15 years to launch something. I think that's why NFL players are very hard to cross over because one, their face is not even recognizable because they're in helmets all the time.

26:34And then two, the NFL owns their distribution. NFL is their distribution channel. They don't have an audience that they're used to speaking towards on a daily basis. So I think the internet generation folks are interesting because they own that distribution. And I think I'm lucky to work with Jake because I think Jake has the hybrid of both. He's mainstreamed on the Netflix platforms as a professional athlete and has a respect of actually being good at a craft and an art and a sport. Plus he comes with like a, what, like 200 million followers across different channels. So I think that's where it's like, like an experiment for us where it's like, okay, we have a touch into mainstream, a touch into internet.

27:13And then I think there's also just like a hardcore capitalism, like heart that we're like, Hey, how do we monetize the opportunity set? Are haters a source of strength? We were talking to Alex Karp about this. He says all the AI leaders have only haters, no fans. And he was saying, I at least have fans. I have a lot of haters, but I have fans. Are haters a source of strength in the fullness of time? Are you glad you have both fans and haters? Yeah, 100%. You know, I don't think anyone who does good things in this world or big things in this world doesn't have haters. I mean, it's the day one story.

27:54And I honestly, you know, since day one, when I first went viral, the video I was talking about, like, I instantly, yeah, instantly people in my school started hating. So, like, I don't even, I don't even remember life without haters. Yeah, your mom, you know, took that video when you were born. I'm sure some of the nurses were like, yeah, this kid. They're like, oh, fuck this guy. Yeah, yeah. No, you have to have it. And, you know, good news travels fast, bad news travels faster. And the haters actually will talk about you more and say bad things. But at the end of the day, people don't really remember what was said.

28:33They just remember your name and your face. And so you could do with that what you want. And, you know, it's really they're adding to the algorithm at the end of the day. So it's really just math. And if you just have fans that are saying things, you know, let's say that's 10 ,000 people, but add 10 ,000 haters in there, and now 20 ,000 people are talking about you, and it just adds to clicks, views, talk, trending. So that's the way I've always looked at it, and yeah, the biggest and best people in the world all are also the most hated. Ferrari Luce has a lot of haters. Will you be getting one?

29:14Say it again? The Ferrari Luce. Oh, bro. New electric vehicle from Ferrari. Are you in the market? You gotta be careful because if you want any of those halo cars, you know, this is going to be permanent. I know you might want an F80 at some point. You gotta be really careful. I just want you to be really careful. This is a political answer. No comment. Okay. That shit's ass. No comment. No comment. No comment. Oh, well. That was a lot of fun. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, congrats on the new fun. Congrats. Have fun down in El Segundo. Hopefully, give our best to everyone. It was great.

29:50The South Bay, I'm sure you guys are going to be spending a lot of time there post-SpaceX IPO. It's just going to be more and more action. Let me close out by telling everyone about the New York Stock Exchange. Want to change the world? Raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange. We were off for a couple days. We'll see you back at 11 a.m. next week. Is an IPO on the list? We got some ideas of things. We're cooking, dog. We're cooking. Flash bang out. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Sign up for a newsletter at tbpn.com. And thank you for tuning in today. Goodbye.