A Brutally Honest Conversation about 100 Thieves

26:29That's been almost 100 episodes now or over a hundred episodes across the last, you know, five years, which, you know, in our area of gaming is a pretty rare feat as well. So, you know, I think the big part that's different between Matt and I is that like, look, people come up to me and they'll ask me questions. I was very grateful to be given ownership in 100 Thieves by Matt through the efforts that I had made, but I don't make any of those executive decisions. I'll get reached out to on my thoughts on something and give where I think would be best or give my opinion. But for my end, what I still love about it is, you know, and what I agree with Matt on is e-sports for us is what rallies, I think, the core of our community and the diehard people that are with 100 Thieves in, you know, day in and day out.

27:13And I also love the fact that I think 100 Thieves is a place to this day where if you were to pull majority of, you know, gaming creators out there, especially women in gaming, their goal would be to be part of 100 Thieves. It's especially women in gaming is like that would be their dream, dream organization. So for me, what excites me right now is just continuing to push and achieve and do whatever we can to help lead this industry in the right way. And I think that Matt doesn't give himself enough credit at times for a lot of these decisions that anyone would have made in certain, you know, certain ways in the timeline of 100 Thieves that I was right there with him being like, fuck, yeah, this is going to be awesome.

27:55This whole space kind of reminds me of skate culture. Like I grew up skateboarding and I remember like going to the local skate shop and watching the, you know, the, the, the new tape that came out, right. Like the new girl or chocolate tape. I just remember like watching those and like really aspiring to be on those teams or like get sponsored or be a part of that culture. And I think as I look at the history of esports on the internet, it reminds me a lot of skate culture, which is like, look, in skate culture, no one was going to tell the story of these skateboarders, right? Of like someone in the crew had a camera and someone in the crew was starting to film what it was actually like to be part of a skate team.

28:38And then the aspiration was to join that team. And oftentimes it was just cool to be like, I'm on blind or I'm on girl or I'm on whatever. But as we've watched skateboarding try and grow bigger into more like corporate settings, whether it's SLS with Rob Dyrdek, like Street League skateboarding, or even with the X Games, like the independent skateboarder can make a lot of money. But I don't know if the skateboard organization can scale to the point of like a billion dollar company. Yeah. I don't know. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm missing a skateboard organization. But I think - No, I don't think you're wrong.

29:12I think esports is different because the games themselves make an exorbitant amount of money, right? Like, what do you think? I don't know the answer. this question. How much does Epic Games make? Or like a Roblox or something like that? Well, you know, I know that the biggest thing that's gone on in gaming in the last year, which has been a lot of flack, is the amount of layoffs in what many people in the gaming seem to be like, this game is doing layoffs. Like, they're the most successful of all of us. Well, there's reasons for that, though. No, absolutely. But I'm just saying, you know, with the amount of stuff that Epic does, I'd actually be really interested to see if Epic is a profitable business.

29:50Like they have Unreal. You know, I think Fortnite for them is a loss, could potentially even be a loss leader to promote Unreal Engine and promote their, you know, that service, which is probably. Which is like their AWS. Yeah, exactly. Or just where people go to develop games and everything along those lines. Like there's a reason Fortnite now does yearly chapters is to show off what's the biggest and brightest in Unreal. So, I mean, yeah, like, I mean, Matt, I'm sure you have thoughts on this, but. Hundreds of millions of billions of dollars. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of money, a lot of money.

30:25Back when I was in the office with John and like in the room every day, they would talk about these numbers all the time. I forget exactly like from the calendar year of 2022 to 2023, how much money would Epic be making. Jack's right. Like I actually, they started spending money just as quick as they were making it because they were just trying to continue to scale. Yeah. Like I'm certainly not qualified to talk about like the macroeconomic climate and the recession that it never ended up getting labeled a recession. But there was such a significant downturn in spending across the board in every industry.

30:57And Epic at that time, you know, they were just spending money. Every company was that was making it. You're just continuing to invest. You're continuing to invest. and then they just kind of reach a scale where it was too much and every company goes through layoffs but it's not like they aren't still unbelievably well I'm kind of talking myself around circles in my head before I even say anything so I gotta like and I think it's been interesting too to see just how well indie games have now started to really take over in a lot of ways too like individual developer type games like a lethal company and that's the problem with the gaming industry is that you have publishers and companies that are trying to either venture back a video game or they're building a game internally at Activision and Epic.

31:45Those are the big fucking head honchos that have tens of millions of dollars to throw at a game and the resources to build over the course of time. And even if the game is released and it's not good and it isn't successful, their portfolio of games and the IP that they own already, it makes no impact on whether that game performs well or not. And then you have all these new companies that are starting up that are spending the same amount of budget to build these games and then they're dead on arrival. Nobody's fucking playing them. But then you have indie game companies that are just building games as a hobby with like three, four guys because they love it.

32:21And they are making$100 million over a weekend because it's like the number game, number one game on Steam. Like, I think the industry is in a really weird fucking place because some of these games that we even get paid to like consult on they're giving opinion on i just play i'm like holy shit what it's it's such a tough business man it's kind of like the movie industry it's like everybody's just trying to throw money at the problem and make the best film possible but you just get a hunk of shit but the trend is like it's kind of the same across the board that everyone's able to do more with less like individual creators able to do more than a lot of media companies who have a lot of money indie game developers able to do a lot more than maybe big game developers.

33:03And I would assume that like, that's a trend that younger gamers even understand. And they're probably weighing, do I just stay independent? Do I just stay myself and make money? Or do I join a team like 100 Thieves? Like, I wonder, I'm just asking, like, what is the advantage or the pitch for a young gamer who's like, I could probably do this on my own to join 100 Thieves now? Yeah, so real quick before we talk about anything more about 100 thieves i just want to reiterate and go back to what i was saying if you're watching at home and you have a perspective on esports or you guys even listen to me now the last six months of 2024 this past year was probably the hardest six months that i've ever had we went through three rounds of layoffs in a year and a half I didn't want to be the CEO of the company anymore.

33:54And I was working on transitioning to be more of a creator like Jack or Valkyrie does for us because I just needed to sit back and step away so that I could be on the outside looking in again and be a fan of 100 Thieves rather than all the pressure I felt from the very heavily weighted decisions that I'd had to make for seven years with raising as much money as we did, investor expectation, the business transitioning and pivoting like three, four different times. And I would just overcook, burnt out. And so I'm not working at 100 Thieves from a day-to-day perspective right now. I'm probably in the office like once a month and I'm on the calls with our executive team to help still continue to guide the ship.

34:39But I'm not as tapped in as I used to be or once was. But this would be my pitch for creators and what the value for them to join 100 Thieves actually is. And it's funny, I think the focus of this conversation or even the question in itself and what Jack said about it's a young kid's dream to join 100 Thieves, I'm still trying to quantify in my head and materialize why it makes sense for creators to join organizations in the first place. And I don't feel like that way in such an accrued, aggressive way. I mean it where we have to really sit back and think. and I think actually Banks is really smart for some of the things that he's doing right now at FaZe, even though I would probably handle it substantially different.

35:19I love you, Ricky. But they basically gutted their entire company, cut all the creators that were legacy members of FaZe, and he picked five, six guys that he actually spent time with on an everyday basis and truly fucked with them. And I sound like a fucking frat boy saying fucked with them, but they're clearly having a lot of success right now. not having sex i'm just clip that clip a lot of sex happening they're they're fucking gentlemen they're fucking but the point that i'm trying to make is that it's like 100 d's we brought on a lot of different creators from a lot of different backgrounds that played certain games that had vastly different communities and it was kind of like marvel at disney where you had you know very brand safe brand focused you know good-hearted creators but we and we created of connective tissues.

36:09Like we're all friends. We enjoy being on shoots with each other. But beyond that, like our day to day doesn't really have any intersections. It's like if you look at the creators on our team, like it's Timmy is like a professional apex player and he can be a professional in any video game he plays. But he stays in his room and he grinds all day and he plays these games very, very good. I'm fucking 31. I've got a kid. I just got married. I'm trying to settle down in my life. Valkyrae is basically a fucking superstar. Jack is making videos with Nick A30 on Fortnite. Nicewig is casting Apex as well.

36:43But like, there's just not a lot of day-to-day interaction. And when we go back to your original question, it's like, if somebody's dream is to join 100 Thieves, for me now with how much stress has been dealt with with like negotiating creator contracts and being in the middle of these two things, we really did not make any money from working with creators. I mean, yes, apparel sales probably went up marginally. But, you know, after we got these guys to like their fifth apparel shoot for the year, it's like, hey, can you put out the tweet? They're like fucking burnt out. Like, ah, you know, of course, I'll put out a tweet.

37:20But like nobody paid attention to it. Nobody, we did so many apparel drops and apparel is just a very small part of our business. I don't mean, you know, laser focus on that. But it's funny when you ask that question. I don't want any more creators to join 100 Thieves. And I don't mean that to be divisive or sound polarizing. But until we figure out how to actually bring everybody together and have there be like a monetary value created beyond, and I'm skipping over the fact that it has to feel like a community. It has to feel like the brand has good intentions and people want to be a part of it.

37:57But if they're not even a part of it on an everyday basis, like spending time together, I think it's just really hard to take the energy that you want and internalize it with 100Ds, even though you have so many moving parts that are so vastly different from each other. It's just not authentic. So I'm flattered that it would be like a kid's dream to join 100Ds, but it's like, what can you do for us to help bring all this together? So I'm really fascinated by earlier in the conversation when you brought up Barstool, because when we were talking yesterday, that was the comp that I brought up. I actually assumed that that was the current roadmap was to go in that direction, right?

38:33More talent, more shows, more media, like that. They obviously had an incredible outcome, right? Yeah, 100%. $450 million sale is super significant. And I would assume that, is this correct? You guys have raised 120 million? Yeah. So at 120 million raised, you're looking for that type of outcome, right? Yeah, of course. And so that type of outcome, obviously that's few and far between. and their story is like very unique, but that's like personality led, right? Dave Portnoy is like incredible personality, personality led. And then they're just creating different mixes of shows. And like you're saying, in terms of connected tissue, a lot of the talent's showing up on each other's shows and anything that you're into, whether it's actually sports or just TikTok culture, like they got a show for it, right?

39:17They essentially turned into like a podcast network is what they turned into it. To me, from the outside looking in, I assume that was the trajectory of 100 Thieves. See, and that's always been like the double edged sword of trying to create a company and emulate something like Barstool in the gaming space because the traditional route for somebody that's in the gaming community is like, OK, I just need to get like 500 viewers and then I can quit my job and I can stream full time from my home and I don't need to live in the traditional world. and I know that sounds like oversimplified but that's the problem when we reach out to town 100 thieves since we started with like the big dogs and trying to pay you know the biggest creators to be a part of 100 thieves to raise like our street credit and the community and the brand we never figured out how to like take a creator and help build them up and this is probably what was wrong with machinima at the time too because like hutch sarsky or mr sark mr sark and And C9ers, as soon as they realize that they can make enough money creating the content that they're creating for Machinima, they all fucking quit and just made their own channels.

40:23And that's kind of what I think has always kind of held 100 D's back from finding these creators. And I think it's credit to Dave Portnoy. I'm very good at being on camera for my community. I know what works because I've been doing it since I was 16. I'm actually not that great of traversing the internet and finding these people in these random places. like I don't know how Dave Portnoy assembled the cast of characters and I'm sure the right hires and the right people just led from one thing to another naturally like great place right time and I just haven't been able to find the time away from all the things that I was responsible for at 100 Thieves to nor do I think I have the ability to scale a content business in that fashion because like J.H.B.

41:09was our best example he was an intern who really understood the internet was like this really quirky kid, hilarious. He starts doing this show that was sponsored by JBL right off the rip called TBH for JHB. And it was like the best and most awkward 10 minutes. It was kind of similar to Between Two Ferns. Got it. But then all of a sudden, JHB doesn't really want to make the show anymore. He realized he doesn't want to be a creator as much as he had hoped or thought he wanted to. He doesn't want to be in front of the internet, just wants to be behind it. And I was like, oh my fucking God. He's our head.

41:41He works on a social media team now. He put out a tweet for his birthday. He said, this year's been great. I've been spending less time on the internet and on social media. I'm like, what the fuck? Bro, we, what? I think, like, Jermaine, I'm happy for you, brother, but you're our head of social. I don't want to fucking read that. I think, like, Portnoy is absolutely the unique competitive advantage there. Because whether he can scout talent or not, that guy has a motor for making content unlike anyone I've ever seen. Like, he'll do pizza reviews. He'll talk about stocks. He'll do gambling. He'll talk about sports.

42:11He'll talk about politics. He's on like multiple podcasts. He just doesn't stop. And he's not settling down with his first kid. Like you are trying to chill a little bit and like relax and like reassess, right? Like he is his own unique beast that I think uniquely makes Barstool what it is. Yeah, no, for sure. And it's, this is - So it's hard to even be like, could we be the, people always say, could you be the Barstool of? It's like, well, do you have a Dave Portnoy? Yeah. Then probably no. And this is the tough part about even just talking about these topics is that I have run down every scenario that I'm even remotely alluding to 20 million fucking times in my head.

42:50And I've had the same conversation with our executives, with my wife talking about those conversations, complaining how hard the day was. So like I can just ramble and I can talk in a loop. it's like when you bring up Dave Porter and Barstool that's why when I say these creators that their road to success is not the same as somebody working at Barstool like I've talked about this now a thousand times I just can't talk about it anymore and I don't make any sense I hope to god some of this is sound cohesive because I just jump around from place to place of the last thing I've thought about this thing and then it just brings me back to where I have no idea where I started.

43:28So you're trying to, you're trying to get, this juvie fucking hit me. So is that stizzy. So you're trying to get back into more of a creator mindset yourself, but Jack, you're very much in it. Where are you at in terms of like the longevity of your career burnout, how you're looking at sustaining, you know, both being a part of a hundred thieves, but also your own creator now. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think I got really, really lucky with the gold rush of Fortnite and being alongside for that ride. The gold rush of 100 Thieves and being alongside with Matt and being there for really the huge upward swing of 100 Thieves.

44:11And then the final, the realest gold rush of all was the streaming contract and the streaming war that happened from 2019 to 2020 two really. And so for right now, after coming up on seven years full-time, mainly just as a Fortnite creator, I think this year I've probably felt burnout a bit the most. And not burnout of enjoying playing video games and being in this industry. More of just when Fortnite's your only thing. I love all sorts of different games and things. But when you have seven full-time employees, they rely on me to keep playing Fortnite because that's what brings back our five long-term partners and potential streaming contracts and things like that.

44:56So, you know, for my end, while the last five years from a streaming and content creation side have been really lucrative, I'm also like a bit feeling, starting to feel, I think Matt's, I mean, Matt's a year older than me, but also I've always kind of felt like he's wiser than me in seeing where he wants to go in the future. So from where I'm at, I'm like, oh yeah i guess i am 30 now and wanting to also enjoy my time a bit more go on five mile walks a day and not think twice about the five mile walk he's doing five miles a day damn that's fun and just so instead of stressing about my last youtube video being a one of ten it's like sure i think i'm just at a point now where it's like we've done daily uploads we've split into the four different channels we've condensed back to three we have the shorts channel now it's back on the one we've done unlisted live streams kept the live streams public done this the react channel that I'm just like, some months are going to be good.

45:53Some months are going to be bad. I'm trying to let myself be less psycho around. So you have a YouTube streaming contract. Yeah, it's ending in November. But I was the first creator to sign three with one platform. So I did YouTube 2019, YouTube 2021, and then one more year, 2023. Incredible. And is - Yeah, it's a real blessing. In terms of talent with 100 Thieves, is that revenue shared back with 100 Thieves? Is any of the revenue - What revenue is there? Is there any revenue? It's not like an MCN, not from any other channels. Money that we make from the creators are from partnerships that we package and pitch to the talent.

46:29They get their talent fee that's negotiated with their management and the rest is upside to 100 Thieves. Whatever upside is left. Like Courage and H.I. Chacho, like partners we have. Got it. Got it. Which has pretty premium partners, actually. Yeah. I think Courage and H.I. Chacho, from a partnership perspective and things like that, has probably been one of the most most successful things. Who are some of your guys sponsors and who have? Heineken, Lexus, Adidas, AT &T. Current sponsors, yeah. Yeah, those are, I mean, that's crazy. Current sponsors, that's crazy. Those are not, those are not sponsors that creators get across the board.

47:04To be clear, and this, again, goes back to why I'm telling people that my perspective is fucking important. 100 Thieves, we might be profitable by doing this here. No, I'm being dead serious. Wow. It would be a massive, massive achievement for the business. You're not talking about, the profitability random mobile games and like vpns people haven't heard of like heineken lexus adidas and doing collaborative drops with the apparel yeah at times can we talk about how 100 thieves makes money like what is the revenue mix like if you were to break down a pie chart i was literally just about to say pie okay uh i would say like little ceo vibes 50 60 is partnership revenue so with all those partners that we just listed out um and then you have merchandise then And we have...

47:49And what percentage do you think merchandise? Merchandise, I'd say, probably is like 15%. Okay. And then we have commerce with high ground keyboards. I'd probably bake that into... I'd probably bump it up to like 30 % then if you bring those two things together, like C &G. Okay. We don't have Juvia anymore. We don't have Project X. What's the fucking third revenue stream? What am I missing here? Oh, in-game revenue from our relationships with Riot and Call of Duty, in-game skins. Oh, cool. Oh, it's like 100th of the skins. Yeah, when they're bought, like licensing. Yeah, and it's split between all the teams that are part of those leagues.

48:28Competition revenue is no part of it. Well, I would, no. I wouldn't look at prize money. Prize money is not part of it. Contractually, when we negotiate with players, like, some organizations will take like 10 to 20 % of it. And even before then, they used to say, okay, we're going to pay you a salary, but you get none of the prize money. Whatever you earn, we get to keep. So, no, competition, I would never look at like prize purses if we were making that analogy about Booga and Fortnite World Cup and Tiger Woods, you know, and his earnings like three, we don't touch any of that. Yeah. Have you thought at all about what Ludwig has been doing in his perspective?

49:07Manically. On esports and gaming. Like when we spoke with him, he called esports a dying industry and he was like the solution I think the subtext of that was like, the solution is not, you know, an event with an esports team or with a group of esports team, but it's live events around an individual. So like Ludwig's chess boxing, or like in your instance, like Valkyrie holding her own event, helping her facilitate that, bringing in the sponsorship, right? Doing like individual creator style events. Yeah, I think those are just two like very different businesses. You know, with the amount of capital that we have raised, if like we could go reset and start from scratch, there probably would not be any focus on esports if you had if I had to make that decision today as a businessman who has tens of millions of dollars at his fingertips to deploy as a CEO of the company and I don't think that takes away from any of the validity behind the value behind esports teams like that could get clipped you might think I sound like a fucking moron when I say that but I'm serious like with where we're at today what I think the best course of action for a legacy team like Optic or Team Liquid or Cloud9.

50:15And now from the seven years that we've been in esports, I would consider us like a legacy team compared to some projects and, you know, spinoffs that I see like, you know, Ludwig working with Moist or Disguised Toast, which I like some of the things that he's doing. But with where we're at, how much money that we've raised and just our position in the gaming community and esports as a whole, That's why I say it's probably best that we operate as a traditional sports company. We do content because we want to, not because we need to. Sell the merchandise and then really bank on esports continuing to grow over time as the spectator experience gets better for the games that are being played.

50:57That's the beautiful thing about gaming. I think there's always going to be another opportunity in the future. And that might sound like a fucking infomercial sales pitch. but it's like to me with how Valorant popped up four years ago and Riot with the staying power of League of Legends like we know that they're going to continue to create more games we know that Call of Duty is not going to let esports of competitive Call of Duty just go away and there's going to be more in the future that happens I'm not understanding though how you make money as a sports team and like when you're saying that partnership revenue okay so that logo representation on stage, the content that the players make around that brand.

51:38You know, it's just like an individual creator getting a partnership deal, except we have it packaged in more of a premium view. It's like, that's what I think is beautiful about esports, is like hardcore fans, the same way they interact with NFL, they interact with the teams and the leagues that they're a part of. And the ravenous fans, like, yeah, they might have a couple, well, I'll leave it at that. But it's not like you guys have like a home-based stadium and like ticket sales are part of your, like, cause that's not a part of your revenue. It's just pure play. Like if a logo is on the, on the hundred thieves Jersey, that's partnership.

52:13Like when you're talking about that 50, 60 % of partnership revenue, I'm assuming that's a mix of content sponsorship. Yeah. And then like logo. Yeah. And I wouldn't say that the 50, 60, 60 % of like that pie chart with partnership revenue, we're not, I'm not accrediting all of that value to e-sports. Like those are, we're still doing deals more broadly with creators. We're still doing individual activated events, but I bucket it all in revenue in general. But it's like Team Liquid. They've had a partnership with Alienware that's been, I think,$20,$30 million over the course of a couple of years.

52:47It's not impossible to broker a deal that actually delivers value for the brand that you're working with. And it's like an awesome opportunity the way they set it up with their entire office space and the team and the computer lab that they have. it's a beautiful partnership. It's a beautiful partnership. How beholden are you to, as the head of an esports team, to the events that already exist? Like, do you have to be at certain events or can you spark up your own event? And like Samir's saying, you don't have your own home stadium, but is there a world where maybe you do and you start holding your own events and bringing other teams?

53:28It's kind of what Optic is doing in Texas. They do a lot of like fan events, watch parties. They'll host tournaments. I don't think that's like a very impactful opportunity for our business. And logistically, it's a nightmare, to be honest with you. And then it's like if you want to do an event with a game like Valorant or League of Legends or Call of Duty, you have to work and facilitate everything with Activision or Riot and get the sign off on all these things. And that's the other tough part. I might sound like esports is a terrible business. We're making sense of it, but there's just so much red tape when you're building a brand and the players even and the creators.

54:09You really don't have any leverage. You're building your creators, your individual success off of somebody else's IP. We don't own any bit of fucking Riot or the games that we play. And that's why the franchise model was so exciting for a lot of these teams because there was a way to actually have ownership in partnership with the people that were making the games. So you never felt like the rug was going to be ripped out from underneath you at any given time. But those events, I think, are a little harder to run for a team versus an individual creator. If an individual creator like Ludwig, and I know he has the company behind it, I bet he would have exponentially more success going and pitching these ideas to companies like Riot Activision and doing that itself because they just don't look at it the same way they would look at an organization who's like, that's their entire business.

54:59And that might sound like a little caveman, but just from the nuances of the conversations I've been around and seen, like individual creators doing their own thing, like you just described, is always easier for them to navigate from a business front and even from like a fandom and community than an eSports team. So if you are a little bit beholden to the game developers, but indie game developers are taking off. Is there an argument towards like 100 Thieves becoming an indie game developer? Well, that's what we kind of started doing with Project X. We spun up a first-person shooter, made a bunch of hires.

55:34And it was actually great, but we just didn't have enough runway for the entire business for us to afford that. Sounds expensive. It can be expensive. We were actually, we only put a couple million dollars into the project, but we got to a certain point where we had a prototype. We were showing it off to other venture, capitalist funds and we were trying to raise like a separate round for the game itself but at the time when we started raising it it just it was it was hard to convince people like this thing was going to be a success because making a a studio hit video game is actually like incredibly hard it's like playing the fucking lottery no guarantees yeah you see how many games are submitted every single day to steam i know indie games versus what we were trying to do is very different, but it's just a tough market right now.

56:20I guess if anything, though, the other side of that is that the passion behind and the amount of people who are making and submitting games is a good sign for the overall health of gaming and esports. Oh, I think 90 % of people, 95 % of people out there have an issue only with executives in gaming versus the people making the games and the decisions that are made from an overhead of just appealing to shareholders or stock price. I think that's where the issue comes in. Matt mentioned so much money is made. People totally see that and are like, well, then why are you still, if they just made their most money ever off of insert this game, why are they still having to lay off 10 % people?

56:54Because, well, if the game's not growing as much, it's still making good money, how are they going to appeal and make it look like the trajectory's still going up versus just like, hey, we had a year or two where we just sustained or maybe went down a little bit. It's like that just doesn't look right for investors. And then that - How similar is the business of 100 Thieves and that revenue mix to the business of like an independent gaming creator? Is it essentially the same where it's like, hey, this is going to be majority partnership revenue. Maybe I have 30 % merch and sales. Merchandise or something.

57:29I mean, I think I have to take the streaming contracts out of the equation because it was a rare occurrence across the whole scale. I think if I were to remove that, because that would have been over 50%, you know, probably 70%. Those are big contracts. Yeah. Then I would say, you know, from a traditional creator standpoint, you know, 50 % to 60 % would be ad revenue, especially from a YouTube side. Yeah. Or just like streaming revenue. and then probably for me, 45 % partnerships and then like 5 % merchandise or things we've made. But I'm not a big merch man. But that's a classic creator business.

58:12It's like 95 % advertising between brand deals. But then there's also like, you know, when David Dobrik was popping and he could make like clickbait merch and that was like, or - That was a different era. That was. That was a different era. But like, to me, that's like, if I'm, when I'm making apparel, It's simply to give my fans something tangible to go and wear and enjoy. Sure. You know? So I just only, I'm not releasing it to, most of those I just like broke even or lost, even lost some money on just because I want it to be nice quality and really make it good. More of like a collectible. Exactly.

58:42They can identify with you. Yes. What do you need to do right now to stay competitive from a content perspective? Is it like, like how often are you guys streaming? Because I watched some of your stream yesterday. Oh dear God. You were out of the room for some of it. and then you came in, sat down. I was probably having a manic moment. I mean, it was interesting. It was like 82 fucking degrees. That room does get hot. I don't really, I mean, to me, like it's hard to connect, right? Like I don't fully understand. I get it. Like I can cognitively understand it, but it's not, you know, I didn't. I remember one time my buddy took me like out here to Koreatown to play Counter-Strike when I was like in fifth grade.

59:19And I played Counter-Strike for a day and I was like, I can't sit in a room all day. I could never do this again. Do you play golf? No. Well, you play lacrosse. What other sport do you play? I'll play tennis. Tennis? Yeah. All right. You know when you square up on a ball, dead center, the fucking middle of the racket, it doesn't even feel like you hit nothing at all. Yeah. And you just watch this thing. Yeah. And it just curves over the net so perfectly. You get that feeling like 20 ,000 times a day while playing video games. I understand that it's probably hard to connect with like a gaming creator if you're just sitting there watching a stream.

59:55and if they're playing like a competitive game, there's not a ton of chat interaction. They're like dialed in on the game. And the people that are like really, really good at it and also have like a bit of a personality that just crack jokes, I look at them like they're fucking radio hosts. Yeah, totally. That's really what it like turns into. Was FaZe the first to kind of bring personality into this world? No. No? No, I don't even know if you can pinpoint. FaZe and Optic and we all just came up with YouTube at the same time. Like I wouldn't, the way we talk is like gaming and YouTube creators are so separate, but they were like one in the same.

1:00:32And all the creators, I don't know where personality necessarily started, but if you're talking from where we come from, it's optic phase. TSM started to do it a little bit like with League of Legends. And that's when that organization really was king made as like one of the biggest in the US because they did a team house and they produced a series around it. but I'd say like the early 2010s were optic and phase and you know tsm but it was at the same trajectory as like gaming and uh you know whatever beauty fucking vloggers on youtube we all really it was at the same timeline it was just and I think it was all I think the core of it all was this relatability like everyone that's watching makeup brands blowing up in that time they were going and using those same products or want to learn and celebrating those gaming was watching Matt, who's working at McDonald's, then also go and try to make it as this and yada, yada.

1:01:27Everyone's just relatable, which I think that whole point in the internet was the centerpiece of it all. I think with FaZe, too, it can get unrelatable really quickly when you start making a ton of money and you're raising money. When you look at FaZe and who思ied? the kind of ups and downs that they went through and have gone through. what do you feel like they did well and what do you where do you think they went wrong and do you do you learn from any of their missteps um were you ever jealous of them uh no i actually yeah for sure i was so i could have joined i could have i was about to join phase before 100 thieves and take on ownership of the company and i was really close with banks and tommy and temper over there but I think I just said that.

1:02:21I just said that for street cred. I'm not lying to you. It's just not, it's contextually for the question you asked. It's not really important there. I'm very similar. But that's good street cred. It immediately made me think. I just, yeah, I just want y 'all to know. I started looking at your tattoos and I was like, I'm turning into things. Just so you know, I could have been in FaZe. Yeah, so what I think FaZe has always done really well, it wasn't until like the Fortnite era where FaZe like felt like they were as relevant as they once were a few years back with Call of Duty. They signed the right guys at the right time, and they kind of hit a goldmine with Cloaksy and Tfue.

1:02:57And who else was on FaZe at the time before, like, Mongrel and all these guys joined or whatever the fuck? Who were the other two guys that played with Cloaksy and Tfue? Nate Hill and Funk Bomb? Nate Hill was really big. There was a couple other guys. But they kind of had a reawakening from Fortnite because Call of Duty was kind of in a lull. optic was always not optic became bigger from like a competitive aspect and on youtube but phase was still they had more people following them than optic ever did but if you were in the community you you liked optic more than phase in most cases and then when fortnite came out after you know call duty kind of reached its ceiling with how big it would be they just got into it at the right time and they exploded again.

1:03:41And so FaZe came into this newfound relevancy that they haven't had. And now they've been able to do it a couple times over, especially with how big IRL streaming feels right now. But the biggest problem that they had was just raising capital and giving the business to folks that don't know fucking anything about the gaming space and the nuances of it. There's so many people that are like that, but some are better than others. And I'm not saying all the people and fine folks at FaZe were bad at what they did or had the wrong intentions, but they've had multiple different groups of leadership. And the FaZe guys, I think, in a lot of ways kind of turned into what I feel like, where they were living in this house in New York, and it was literally them just trying to get out of their parents' basement house and make something of themselves.

1:04:29And then they were getting tens of millions of views every single month on years of YouTube. And that adds up. Like, you make some good money from it. then they moved out to fucking Orange County, lived in Newport, same neighborhood Kobe lived. And it's not that I think they got complacent. I think more than anything, they were probably burnt out. And then FaZe was now on autopilot being ran by, you know, suits and executives that were really trying to create value for FaZe so that they could have an exit and make a lot of money from it. But those decisions never lined up with the decisions that FaZe would ever make if they were put in the same shoes.

1:05:02But it's a catch 22 because they didn't want to fucking do any of that shit. But the phase guys need like the executives needed the creators to like buy into it some way, somehow. So they kind of turned it into just like a transactional business where they took on the new creators that were popular in Fortnite, kind of put the entire business on their shoulders. The OGs that were there from the start didn't really have anything to do with it anymore. And so you just had this buildup of fucking exhaustion and anger on both sides and resentment because they just would never make the same decisions, but they don't want to do the dirty work.

1:05:37Let me ask you a question. Is esports and our esports teams venture backable at the scale that you guys have been backed? Because are those two things at odds, right? Like when you take on venture money, the expectations are very different, right? And it is hard in not just in esports, in a ton of other places to remain authentic to a core community, right? esports is like an underserved authentic community or at least where it started when but when when you guys started when Faye started like again the reason it reminds me of skate culture is it's kind of like that it's like if you're inside you can only do it from the inside out you can't have someone from the outside come in and run a skate company right yeah it's got to be from the inside out and with esports I feel the same way and with that in mind like with the scale at which the excitement at which people were throwing money into the space, was that ill-advised?

1:06:30If I ran a fund that had$100 million at its disposal, I don't think anybody made the wrong decision at the time because of the excitement. And I would never do that again if I were writing checks myself in this current age of where the esports business actually is. And that's why I appreciate all the conversations and all the rounds of funding that we've gone through is that we weren't telling and selling them this dream that this, we were going to have a billion dollar exit in five years. And there was certainly a focus to have an exit at some point in the near future, but we told them that this is going to take a long time.

1:07:11You know, this is maybe the perfect conditions in five years. We're actually making a$500 million a year. Everything scales perfectly. Maybe that was in like 2017 when we were not ignorant, but there was a lot of hope behind the business that we were building. And at this point in time, I would never write that check again if I were in somebody else's shoes. I think that teams need to figure out how to get to profitability immediately. And only money that should be raised now are from the teams that actually have a viable business plan, which should all be pretty similar, but they're using their funding efficiently, no negligence, no overspending.

1:07:56They have to be spending money on the things that actually will withstand the test of time. And that's why I think the players and the contracts and the teams are the most important to me right now, because I still think it's a blue chip item. I still think that the teams that are cemented in this legacy over the next few years will be the winners long-term and there won't be a lot of newcomers and i think the players and what it actually means to compete in esports is legacy and that's and that's why i think that this is still valuable for the future going forward yeah but i wouldn't write a check the way that they they were spending money i read phases q2 earnings report from last year when they were public.

1:08:38Yeah. And I was looking at it and it was like 11 million, I think 11.7 million in revenue, maybe 11.9 million in revenue for the quarter and 1.9 million in gross profit. And I was like, that's a fine business, but it's not a public company or it's not like a billion dollar company. No, it's not. It's just like a pretty good lifestyle media business. And I think that's like, I totally agree with you that this is a bet on the long-term future. And I'm curious in that perspective of like what needs to happen for the future of the esports landscape to be as big as maybe everyone thought it was going to be.

1:09:20I don't know if it'll ever be as big as everybody thought it's going to be. And I think that's why profitability and being able to sustain a business that can run without any other factors affecting it. if you can get from January to December and you're not spending more money than you're earning, these teams can sit and wait to see what happens and it buys them time for what they hope it can be. Teams don't need to be a billion dollar valued company. It's okay if we don't reach the ceiling that we thought didn't even exist at the time. But I just love competition and I love the community that has been actually built around these games and built around these teams.

1:10:05And if you're in it, just like these kids were in skate, if you were in it, you felt it and you loved it. You know, it's like gaming can be toxic. Absolutely. But there's something that's so fucking, and it sounds corny and dramatic, but pure about e-sports. I get what you're saying. I'm just thinking of like fucking people that don't fuck with gaming just make a fun of me for saying that. But I genuinely mean that. Just because that's how I grew up. And that's what I did to be happy because I couldn't play fucking sports. And that's what I'm fucking banking on. Like the purity of the competition and people just wanting to be winners and champions.

1:10:46It sounds like a fucking Apple TV episode of Mythic Quest. Mythic Quest, whatever the fuck it was. Hey, bro, I'm dead. I'm like, I'm ripped up right now. I would imagine you're with that. I just want to win fucking God Champs. You obviously came up like, Oh, dude, are you kidding me? The amount of times I'd watch a video of someone in StarCraft 2 when I was 16 and I would be like, oh man, he put his hatchery down at this point. I got to do that. I got to go try that build right now. I don't even know what you just said. But what I mean by that is like if someone does something in a game and I watch it, if I watch it happen in a game and I'm a fan of that game, I'm going to go apply that to my game.

1:11:19If Aaron Judge, who I love the Yankees, hits a home run in Yankee Stadium, I'm not going to be able to hit a home run in any form of that sport anywhere. So I actually completely agree with Matt where I think what still excites me or really keeps me excited about esports is I completely agree with Matt of keeping that level of profitability and giving it time. But like, we also haven't really had a new generation that's raised and people who were in our age now raising their kids as fans of their favorite esports teams or in that esports landscape. You know, like, I think that that's going to be really interesting to see and as that dynamic.

1:11:54Last thing too. Yeah. I might sound like I'm hitting the weed because I am. I'm serious when I say this the next 10 years are going to be really interesting I have bought I've had every single iteration of like I had the HTC Vive when it was in beta got the fucking Vision Pro just to see the Oculus I got two of the fucking things I just love new tech and virtual reality has not like risen to the fucking top like everybody thought it's not intuitive to your everyday life maybe that habit might be formed further in the future but where I think eSports gets really exciting is just the barrier of entry there is from a spectator's perspective.

1:12:35The games are very complicated, so unless you play them, it's not easy to watch. That's why games like Rocket League are super digestible. It's cars with a fucking ball, and you got to get in this big net, and everybody understands it. But what they're already demoing with F1, where you can have the map in front of you and see the cars move around, and you've got screens on every part of your screen. I mean, I'm not saying I even want that for my kids to experience life in that way. But I actually think esports becomes a little bit more easy to digest and more fun to watch, which tides raise all ships.

1:13:09If it's more enjoyable to watch, I think it's going to get bigger from there. And I think just it being a digital game is going to have a lot of advantages, not advantages to anything else. I mean, I would imagine traditional sports do the same thing. That might even impact the like in-stadium experience. You know, like when I was watching, again, the phase 30 for 30, you know, they're in Arthur Ashe Stadium where they play the US Open and it's sold out. Yeah. Right, for a gaming competition. Does that still happen? And in the future, I would imagine with a headset, with augmented reality, that gets way more interesting to potentially be a part of that experience.

1:13:44Yeah, digital tickets. Yeah, and if eSports can continue to fill stadiums, bring people out of their homes to a collective space, I think that's a really good sign for the future. Well, I think one of the major pieces, obviously, this was a big thing a couple years ago. But just plain and simple, athletes and hip-hop artists like video games. And that's super important to culture. I mean, gaming is the biggest entertainment in the world, too. That was always part of our pitch when we were raising, too. It's like all of our athletes and celebrities and artists today, they grew up playing video games.

1:14:16So now it's a part of their everyday life. Yeah. I think that's true. I, funny enough, like that's one of those things are kind of intangible and you can't really, if I were like a data and analytics guy, like how, how can I attribute the popularity of video games and pop culture and how does it help esports? But for us, it's actually been kind of like a, it hasn't really made that much of an impact. I just think it's, some people might, it might add validity to what esports is. It's like, oh, I mean, people. I mean, I think a lot of these brands, man, like media brands and culture brands, like it's hard to quantify some of this stuff, Which again, for me is why I think like raising the first 10 million, I think like if I'm in your shoes or if I'm looking at, obviously I'm like a Monday, what do they call it?

1:14:57Like a Monday morning quarterback. But if I'm like looking at this situation, I'm like, all right, I can raise 10 million and try and build like a lifestyle business out of this. But at 120 million, you do need to quantify what that means. Oh, yeah. Right? You have to have answers that are tangible numbers of how that scales out over the next couple of years. Because$120 million assumes you're a billion-dollar company. Yeah. Right? In terms of a return for everyone. But I do think it's really hard to quantify, but the cultural impact of gaming and these brands is significant when you see, like Drake's an investor with you guys, right?

1:15:34Drake's an investor with you guys. You see, you know, the Sports Illustrated cover with FaZe. I'll never forget that. Seeing that, I was just like, damn, this is unique and interesting. We have Bronny James sitting here in a phase chain or Snoop Dogg at the Super Bowl halftime show or a phase clan. So there's something, you can't put that into a deck and be like that created X amount of dollars or X amount of value. Then that's why we got to be profitable and hang around because that's the blue chip right there. It's like these brands are going to be solidified and cemented as the brands of gaming.

1:16:05Totally. If gaming continues to be this much a part of everyday culture, can you be one of the stamped, trusted, established brands? How do you hold on though? Do you have to raise more money? Or I guess you said you guys will be profitable. I mean, that's why we had to make all the tough decisions around layoffs. You know, that added to the opportunity. And you know, you asked me about the energy drink before we started. And I didn't make a big public announcement about Juvie not being a part of 100 Thieves anymore because that's when I was kind of in my rut in the last six months of last year.

1:16:33I was about to have a baby. I'm fucking, I'm like having a midlife crisis. I'm like, sure. I know this is, these are first world problems, but to me, they're so fucking, you know, I called Jack in the parking lot outside the hospital because I was trying to figure out what to tell the board and what decisions should I make for me potentially just quitting from everything and going offline for a fucking year. I mean, everything was on the table. And so, I don't know how I got here. What the fuck are you talking about? like the staying power and like oh how you stay around like because i understand now like the business i started telling that side story then well i mean let's let's go it was around being profitable and yeah oh yeah but why don't we go into the hospital and tell the story of the birth my wife pushed it no we had a c-section um no i i want to get to the end of this i had a I went off the fucking rails.

1:17:33My question was, how do you hold on long enough to be one of the stamp? Exactly. Yeah. Great question. You make tough decisions. Make tough decisions. Don't have big expectations of what, like, we're not investing to fucking build a scale anymore or go to a higher scale. We're just literally riding the fucking wave. You make enough money where you don't go fucking bankrupt. You stick around. You keep doing the fucking games on stage. we're competing you hang around yeah i wish we never went back my ba uh my baby's beautiful gracie's a beautiful little girl we picked her up from the hospital i'm tapping out for the rest of this podcast it's on jack i'm out of here yeah i think also too um from from my end as well is just like esports also holds that young audience that is so craved by so many people like brands and things that, you know, exactly too with what Matt says, like hang around and I think go on the trajectory that esports was supposed to go on before a lot of billionaires and outside money saw it as a potential golden goose.

1:18:39Get rich quick. You know, everyone's seen the Mark Cuban, how'd you spend your first billion dollars? I bought the Mavs for 280 million and now it's worth$4 billion. That's a son of a bitch, dude. But it's like, God damn it. When you have billionaires who lead certain companies going to their other billionaire friends and saying, hey, wait, we can try to pump this up. These gaming kids. Yeah. This is the future. Boom. Yeah. Where it goes from where guys were playing for like Matt were playing for, you know, my dad's a plumber to make a plumber salary to then sit five years later. They're like, oh, so the buyout for this player is$2 million.

1:19:14It's like, but hold on. If that individual player goes live at home, he gets 38 viewers on Twitch. Like where does that, you know, begin to add value? I think now we're back. We're coming back down to earth of. Life is a circle. No, everything's secular. So I was going to ask, like at the end of the day, everyone's business on the internet is essentially acquiring attention. and then monetizing that attention. And that's actually everyone's business in sports, in media. That's just most people's business. You acquire attention and you monetize it. I do think that there's now the nuance of, since the past 14 years of social media, the nuance of what type of attention is worth what and what's a more valuable version of attention.

1:20:07I do think gaming has a very unique style of attention because you're willing to be inside of a game for eight hours a day. 12. 12 hours a day. Degenerate hours. Yeah, you're willing to hang out on your stream, either one of your guys' streams, for a couple hours. Hell on earth. That's very different than watching a quick video, right? Like a TikTok for you page, 30-minute scroll is a different type of attention than 30 minutes on one of your streams is a different type of attention. 30 minutes, you'd never play a video game for 30 minutes, but then like an hour of playing a video game. So I think we're at a point now where the different styles of attention carry different values.

1:20:47But when it comes to the potential monetization of esports attention, I do think it has major scale in the future. I wanted to bring it back to this conversation around juvie because I remember when you launched juvie I remember that commercial. I remember it. I was like, oh, that makes sense again Acquisition of attention monetization of attention We're gonna sell kids or adults energy drinks. What happened with juvie? They were drinking them Oh, they were drinking them. I mean look dude, it's like to be honest with you when you explain juvie with what we've seen now, it sounds like the worst fucking idea ever because there was just a trillion energy drinks on the market.

1:21:32And at the time, there was still a lot, but there's definitely been a lot that have popped up in the last couple of years. But the beautiful thing was, we always had an energy drink sponsor. I mean, these two things go hand in hand. Of course. And so we're like, okay, well, why don't we just make our own so that we can grow the wealth for the value of our company? um that sounded stupid but it makes sense but with juvie

1:21:59growing the value i'm crashing now no you're good no i'm like joe biden right now i need the teleprompter no let me get back to fucking juvie we um we actually thought that all these energy drinks on the market were over flavored and oversaturated and we actually always thought that they had too much caffeine. Like an eight ounce Red Bull has 65 or 75 milligrams caffeine. And that was great. But when I would have the small juvies as somebody's been drinking an energy drink a day since I was 18, whether that's a good thing or not, 85 was never enough. 75 was never enough. But then Celsius and all these other fucking big camp monsters are like 180, 220.

1:22:37Bang was like 300. So we wanted to make an energy drink. Bang was how much? 300. Bang's 300, yeah. You drink a bang, I'm scaling this fucking wall right now. Yeah. So we split the difference. We did 127 milligrams of caffeine, flavors that weren't overwhelming on your taste buds and something that we can market to gaming authentically and endemically. And then it also just has the curb appeal from the way the can looks, the way it tastes to stretch out further beyond the gaming industry and be neck and neck with a brand like Celsius or any of the other fine folks of Monster and Red Bull and Bang doesn't exist anymore.

1:23:14But the point is, we were actually making great progress. We had launched, I think, when we sold the company over like nine, no, not nine flavors, like six or seven different flavors. I still drink them every single day. But the problem was we needed to cut off the arm to save the body for 100 thieves. Like I've been sitting here rattling off profitability, survive, outlast this cold winter, and just continue to be around as one of those legacy names. and Juvie just, we didn't have enough money that we would need to comfortably operate 100 Thieves and Juvie and Project X, the video game and High Ground.

1:23:55So it was more so, we know that we think we can make this successful with a couple of years time, but we just didn't have enough runway for it. So you sold it to someone? Yeah, we sold it to a Midwest brewing company and they're still launching new flavors and cans. and the business is actually doing really well. You know, we didn't make any money from the transaction. We basically broke even on it with all the money that we had invested just to, you know, get it off the ground. But that was kind of one of the reasons why I was just feeling burnt out because it just turned into, okay, I just spent two years like in putting not all my time into it, but a lot of my time, energy and thought.

1:24:34And then we kind of just let it go on its way. And I understand as, you know, the head of the business, Like we have to save and preserve what we have now. But as like somebody who I'm like, oh, I'm a creator. And I'm like a fan of the brand. I'm like, this is fucked up, dude. I don't want to fucking just flush this down the toilet. But, you know, that's the tough part about running a business. Like we ended up here because of decisions we made. And I still love it. I still love it. I have a suggestion for 100 Thieves. And you can tell me I'm totally wrong. Shoot, brother. We'll take anything.

1:25:07You got some money? I don't have money for you. I just have this idea I feel like 100 Thieves and Faves should just hate each other I do fucking hate those guys let's make it worse I fucking hate Tommy I hate Banks if there's gonna be like the Lakers Ronaldo, Lacey well Ronaldo sucks there's gonna be like Lakers there's gotta be Celtics and if you want to be the established teams you should make people choose sides just have fun over there yo Lacey me versus you mud wrestling I mean I hate to say It wasn't necessarily like a close match between you and Banks. I got a fucking slam, brother. Maybe we slot someone else in.

1:25:48He's actually our best. No, no, we're just going to change to a whole different thing. I mean, I don't want to fabricate anything that's not there. Maybe you're talking more like the little giants. But people have. The annexation of Puerto Rico. But like those storylines matter a lot to the NBA and the NFL and all these leagues. If like there are two teams that hate each other because it drives allegiance. It drives jersey sales. like yeah we had that in call of duty it's kind of like the nba now social media ruined everything because now everybody is just like doing players not teams yeah they're well it's not just players not teams the players just they've known each other for so long nobody hates each other anymore that's a problem there was a lot of like competitive call of duty was kind of like the wwf people like you would think it was scripted we won a tournament back in 2012 it's an infamous video uh in the call of duty community we won this tournament against one of the all-time greats We ended up being one of the all-time greats, and he pushed me after we won.

1:26:40And it seems like this stupid fucking stupid thing, but it was like wrestle fucking mania for these kids online, and people still talk about it to this day. But the problem is social media, if you want to be in the good grace of the community, you can't really be like a douchebag. You can't be talking shit. Like the villains that play the villains, because there have been like, this guy is the villain of the Call of Duty community, unless they are really fucking good or can continue to make themselves relevant off the drama that they keep spewing, their career is fucked. Like nobody wants to play with them.

1:27:14They don't make enough money from it. It's a good point though, because if like sports works because of that, because like there's a really clear cut win and loss. It's the easiest story to tell, right? It's clean storytelling for everyone to understand. Someone's going to win, someone's going to lose. But if the stakes, the emotional stakes of like these people hate each other aren't there, the winning and losing is like not as exciting which is why it's exciting in boxing right and it's almost comical that when you talk about like someone getting pushed like that every boxing face-off now is basically they're working for the social media clip of pushing the other guy and then it's like on house of highlights like things got heated at this ufc face oh yeah and and but it works because you look at it and you're like oh i kind of want to watch that those guys clearly hate each other.

1:27:58I mean, I think Call of Duty does it better than almost any e-sport of the, that side of things. The social media side, the drama side. I mean, we just had two girlfriends get shown on the, the Call of Duty production. Like a head-to-head camera. Showed a head-to-head camera of the girlfriends of each other. Oh, wow. That was a center of action. That's exciting. That's actually fucking hate each other. Yes. The only, the only double, the only catchphrase on that is it's harder to monetize. It's harder to bring in the right partners. Yeah. When things are stooped to sort of, If it gets too low and too like, so chirpy.

1:28:32Yeah. I think the other piece is, I mean, I hate you guys. Right. Sure. I fucking hate this. Yeah. We had you been up an e-sports team and then we can hate each other. But one of the issues I think also that I face as an outsider, like coming in is how fractured the landscape feels. Like when you mentioned like, there's not like, it's not like basketball where there's one game that everyone is playing. Like in this context, teams can like hundred thieves can have multiple teams that are playing multiple games. Oh yeah. Or like a variety of games. Well, I mean, there's a lot of people who watch our call of duty team who can't even watch our league of legends team because they don't understand league of legends.

1:29:08Yeah. And then I also think that social media as a whole, obviously now with four you pages being very, you know, oriented towards that things along those lines, you are less, uh, there's less opportunity for that because you're not like if you're, you could be a diehard gaming fan but like not tuned in at all to the dota you know right finals that happens because um i can't remember the name of it right now but you know i've never watched it because i just don't understand it's like trying to watch a tv show in a different language without subtitles like to me i'm just not gonna get it so i totally agree with you that that's something that can hurt it as well so what does that look like with like i you know briefly saw this announcement about the eSports Olympics and Saudi Arabia.

1:29:51Can you explain that to us? We're going to Riyadh. Are we coming? I'll come. Everyone's welcome. More than that. Who's playing we've taken? Fuck. One of the princes. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things right now that, I mean, there's a lot of critics around too, for good reason. And it's like all the critiques that happen when F1 goes there or insert this sport there or, you know, all the drama that happened with the Fortnite World Cup. Jesus Christ, I played too many video games. The actual World Cup in Qatar. Like, it's the same thing, but now it's just happening to esports and gaming. And at the end of the day, kids dream of participating and you give them a million-dollar tournament, they're going to go out there and compete.

1:30:36Now, the thing with the Olympics going on is, I think back in the day when esports felt a bit more like an underdog story, people were, like, looking for any reason for it to be legitimate. to be looked at as a legitimate thing. And obviously the Olympics is the peak of sports, so wouldn't you want an Olympics for eSports? I think that now most people are just jaded from what's all happened with VC and billionaires coming in, that it's like, can we just rock and figure out our own selves first? Can we just figure out ourselves before we begin to do all this? We're the biggest entertainment space in the world as gaming as a whole.

1:31:10eSports is a very small part of that in the grand scheme of things. And let's just figure out what we need to do with us first before we start handing out gold medals. And yeah. So you're moving out of LA. Yeah. Which means you're moving away from the Cash App compound. I am. It's actually not the Cash App. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The 100 Thieves. We had like a$100 million deal set up with, what's the crypto, not FTX. Binance. Binance, yeah. Yeah, and we talked to them for like eight months. It's great to become the Binance compound. And right at the last second, yeah, They wanted to change it from like$100 million over the course of like six years like partnership deal to an investment primarily with not really a lot of capital for our balance sheets for like the actual company and money to add to the bank.

1:31:58So that got kind of pulled out from underneath us and right as like COVID was hitting. So it's just this weird thing where we had all this hope and basically had this contract signed and sealed and delivered. That was a tough time for the company. So yeah, as of, I think like at the start of this episode, you released a video that says Nadeshot's moving on. I think that's the title of the video. Yeah, this is a virgin Nadeshot show. Oh my God, we were talking about me moving. I don't get to think. But yeah, within it, I think I did. No, you're like a Matlib, bro. That was one word. I feel like AI today, not the good one.

1:32:39The thing that's interesting is it wasn't the answer to my question, but it was a really interesting answer. It was. Bro, my hat is floating. No, yeah, we're getting out of Texas. Leaving the compound. Not with Cash App anymore. You're getting out of LA, you're going to Texas. You're getting out of LA. You're going to Texas. Yeah. The compound's staying here. Yes. It's no longer the Cash App compound. We need a sponsor. We need a sponsor. It could be the Colin and Samir compound. It could be the Colin and Samir compound. You got$2 million. He said how to invest it. We'll come check it out. We'll have a compound.

1:33:07You found the answer. There it is. Wait, but Binance was going to pay$100 million for that? I think it might have even been bigger than that. That is wild. I mean, FTX and TSM had just announced like a$150 million deal. I thought it was like$200 million. $300 million. I actually think, though— I thought it was like$220 million a year for 10 years. Wait,$220 million for what? It was across 10 years, and they changed their whole team name to TSM, FTX. It was the whole naming rights and everything. So we were right in there. Crypto had a big impact on esports and gaming. I mean, on all— I think actually in the whole creator economy, it did, which attributed to that huge, like big rise.

1:33:42Save the children. Fuck face. Okay, there you go. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But it like exploded. You're doing a good job right now. No, Ricky, I didn't mean that one. But it like exploded everyone's rates, right? And now like things are coming back down to earth. But you're moving away from the compound. Yeah. is your effort to continuously get further away from the day-to-day, but still be like, you're still going to be on stream. You're still going to be creating. Listen, man, I'm all in on 100 Thieves. I've got it tattooed on me. I just am not the right person to lead the company from a day-to-day operations perspective.

1:34:23Is there a CEO right now? I'm the CEO as it stands. My co-founder and my former partner, John, left the company you know uh it back in january and so i had to spend a lot of time talking to the board spent a lot of time talking to our executives um that had been with us for years so nothing really changed at the top besides john's departure except for jacob uh toft anderson who's been leading our esports program for the last like six years he's now the president and see uh the president of hundred thieves and then our head of people uh who's been with us through the best and toughest times of our company, Julie Vann.

1:35:03She's actually the CEO and knows the company from start to finish and has been supporting the business in every way, shape, or form. So, I'm definitely transitioning away as a CEO, whether it's at the end of this year or the beginning of next. It's just been a tougher conversation because it's hard to hire somebody outside of the business because I don't trust many people's perspective about esports and certainly not the one to go find somebody. But it's something that we're working on. But when the business is ready for me to finally step away from day to day completely, I don't think I'll ever be an arm's length away like that.

1:35:43But it's certainly not going to be me in the office three or four times a week like it was. Obviously, I'm going to be in Texas. So I really just like to help with high level strategy from a creative perspective. I'm not an operator. I don't want to be. I'm not a manager. I don't delegate my own time well. I can't fucking manage people anymore. And I never really was, to be honest with you. John really handled a lot of that responsibility. I'd help with hiring. But it was always really just like a tastemaker more than anything. And that's what I want to be completely on and off the books. So I just need to have separation of church and state.

1:36:19I mean, that's great. Yeah, I'm excited. That's like the moment, right, that you go from being an esports player yourself, the player that like cared about the lifestyle component of things like you were always into like fashion and stuff and that became like the fabric of hundred thieves and you got wrapped up in the management side and the growth and i think it's great like now's your time yeah man to go it's to go back yeah and that's kind of like what this thought that has been just uh circling around my head it's just like it's like you're taking a little kid's toy and you got the fucking square that you're trying to put in the circle and the triangle that's trying to go into the square.

1:36:56Like it just doesn't fit. My brain is not, I'm not good at multitasking. I'm not good at anything that an operator and like the CEO of a business should be. I'm good at facilitating anything and everything that the company needs to be successful. But I am at my best when I'm just in front of a camera and doing what I think is funny or enjoyable. And that might sound fucking stupid, but it's just what's led me to this. I feel like a passenger princess in my entire life. Like, I feel like I've just been in the right places at the right time and said the right things. And success has kind of just popped up.

1:37:31And to be honest with you, I want to go back to just fucking living my life the way on my own terms with no schedule and just grow my family. And I think good things will happen from it. I know that's a very fucking ignorant thing to think, but I think you're right. No, I actually think though, in the comparison to Barstool, like I don't know what happens behind the scenes there but like Portnoy's best use for that company is just to continue being in front of the camera yeah and that grows that company a lot yeah if he is the best version of Dave Portnoy on camera before the company started I was getting like three four hundred thousand views of video on YouTube and I was uploading every day right and then I just went from that to not uploading at all the worst thing that's ever happened to this business was me trying to play pretend as like an operator in a in a in building the business because i stepped away from everything that the company actually needed me to do yeah but since we brought in folks that weren't endemically from gaming or didn't have any experience in esports i played this part that i'd never really even believed in to begin with of me like acting like i'm fucking you know smart yeah jesus oh mark zuckerberg jesus yeah yeah like dude just get me on the camera let me talk yeah and these motherfuckers that grew up with me they just followed me wherever i go because we love them in our 30s that's like you weathered the storm you got you weathered the storm and yeah it's a common it's a common creator story though yeah no i've heard a million times yeah it just is like this is just how it works fuck dude i'm a stereotyper hey bro you suck that vowel especially dog jesus that crosshair placement um i'm very happy to be clear i couldn't be happier that matt's doing he did matt's doing this and uh you know when he talked to me about it i'm always in matt's corner this is the best thing for matt and i think once this gets sorted i know the right person is in role or whatever role there is 400 thieves i think matt doing what he is doing is best 400 Thieves overall.

1:39:40And just, again, back to what made 100 Thieves be a thing is Matt doing this, making people laugh, a community driven around him. And it's like, again, when everything kind of shot like this, we're going to Hell's Kitchen if Gordon Ramsay ain't on TV, brother. Pies raise all ships. We will blitz all night. What is that from? In the day, David. you're just throwing out references that dude what are you what are you ADHD bro we got we got we're 95 episodes into our podcast so I'm gonna get you right always I'm always a long for the ride thank you for uh thank you for coming spending this much time with us yeah appreciate I'm down to keep talking yeah I wish we could have done this podcast like eight months ago when my brain was like totally locked in but uh in that time of rambling I'm hopefully something made sense i really know it's a very thoughtful questions it's all tell why you guys are successful all honest all honest answers too which i think everyone really appreciate yeah no i mean i'm massive fans of you guys i there's few people in gaming that i'm like wow they're an incredible host or this you know i felt like i truly felt like i was one of the best hosts in gaming and when i watch you guys host i'm like god damn i was i'm trash compared to these i appreciate it no no the last creator summit you guys blew me away and you're going to continue to be successful and um i just i need to just feel confident to bother you guys more please yeah man please i have my own questions yeah yeah as long as you send us some hundred thieves merch i like that jacket y 'all want the new uh jerseys oh i want to know white and gold for you just okay hit me where you talk like it yeah uh not where you talk like it now the fact that you're friends with blake i've never told this story this is actually a good one okay they're one of the most successful venture funds ever, Sequoia Capital.

1:41:32We had a meeting for our seed series, or maybe it was our series A. And I didn't know anything about Sequoia. I obviously got the spark notes from John. And we actually had a pretty good pitch. And I still think some of that makes sense for the business today. But this was at the time where everybody, like you said, wanted to talk esports. We get in there and five people walk in and one of the lead one of the LPs or whatever the fuck. I don't even know the terminology. I've been doing it for so long. His name was Albert. And he's probably pretty famous in the investment world. But no bullshit.

1:42:09Five minutes, like 10 minutes in his presentation, he just put his head down on the desk and didn't say anything as we rambled on for like 10 more minutes. And then essentially we just left right after. Like, I don't even think he made eye contact with us. Helped yourself out. Dude, I have like a, I've never been more embarrassed in my entire life, dude. I thought I was going to start crying on the plane on the way. That's so good. All right, guys. Thank you guys. Thank you guys so much for coming on. Thanks for having us. This was awesome.