What happens when you sell your company for €25m?

25:12Right. The idea that like, you know, why did Bill, why was Bill Gates Bill Gates? Well, first of all, he wasn't born in the Congo. Eliminate that. Where was he born? He was born in the Western seaboard of the United States. What's so special about that? Well, it was 1960 something. What's so special about that? Well, the first computers were being, I think. What's so special about that? Well, Bill Gates went to college. Where? In the one university that was offering the students after hours until three o 'clock in the morning. Who else was around there? Oh, a man called Steve Wozniacki. Who's he?

25:46The guy who invented Apple. With Bill Gates. Do you get a picture here? So right place, right time, right socioeconomic environment. But also, as you say, you have to be those people. Those people were amazingly brilliant people who were obsessed as well. But it was funny about the idea that he was able to go into the college. It was the only place in the college in America where they'd keep it open until three or four in the morning. And you could go in all night and work on the circuit boards and all that sort of stuff. so you got to do what you loved and you did love it and you ran it for 25, 30 years Yeah I ran it for 20 years now I'm not going to pretend that I loved all of those 20 years I mean by golly did we hit the rocks you know our original business model it was working very well till the credit crunch happened so all those guys who were promising us budgets you know they've either been laid off their departments are gone the budgets are gone the accountants have taken over so what's going on you know and before we know it you know things are crashing around us we'd gone into Canada.

26:40I remember getting this amazing phone call from Sean O 'Leary. He says, Hello, Michael. I'm Sean O 'Leary. I'm the vice president of Bell New Ventures. We're looking for the future of smart advertising and we think Pig's Back is that. And I'm thinking, which one of my friends is capable of doing a Mario Rosenstock here? And I actually insisted on ringing the guy back, which he found very funny. And I did. And I established his credentials. And Sean was from Cork. His family was from Cork originally. He was very proud of his Irish connection. So they were useful. Within about six months, long story short, we did a licensing deal.

27:14And it was a huge deal. Bell were going to spend 60 million on the launch of Pigsback across Canada, preceded by a regional launch. And then they had a plan to spend up to 200 million on the launch of it in the USA. But of course, what happens? You know, these black swan events, these things that you can't anticipate, but most businesses are hit by them. Bell enter merger talks with Telus to form a united biggest telco in Canada. It would have been the world's biggest merger if they went through with it. A year later, it didn't go through due diligence and probably because of the whole economic circumstances that were then prevailing.

27:55But at the time, they assumed it would. They appointed a new chief executive whose first act was to put a line through all new ventures because they were consuming cash at a time when they'd be taking on this expensive finance. So that was a horrific time. We had to pull back from Canada, pull back from Britain. And Ireland was being hit really hard. So all these budgets that we were getting from big marketing departments were collapsing. So what the hell were we to do? You know, we had to cut our staff roughly by 80%. It was a really, really tough time. We were like, oh, God, we, you know, we were really struggling with liquidity, cash flow, struggling with solvency.

28:32You know, we eventually did an emergency round. Some of our shareholders supported us. Many of them didn't. That's normal. That's what happens in these things. Those who didn't got diluted. Those who did got what turned out to be very cheap shares. But we didn't know that at the time. And we re-centred our business in Ireland around this new thing called Daily Deals. Groupon had come into Ireland. And we said, right, OK, well, they're broadly in our territory, but they're doing it a very interesting way. They're not asking for marketing fees. They're actually taking a cut out of the deal. So what we did over the following five, six years was we did that in a pig's back way, which was a more upmarket way.

29:08We had an older audience. They were more affluent. They're capable of spending a few quid in the hotels when they went there. So the hotels and restaurants soon wanted our customers over the other ones. So we won market share that way. And just cut a very long story short, some of our competitors, and there were too many, started to blink. And we were able to buy them quite cheaply. We really had very little money now, Mario, but we were able to buy the first one on a sort of a phased payment basis. And it paid for itself within, I would say, three months. We didn't expect that to happen, but it was phenomenal what happened.

29:38So then we bought another one and another one and another one. And we ended up taking our sales in Ireland from seven million gross sales. We obviously weren't keeping seven million, but we're maybe keeping a million and a half of it to 27 million over a phase of just two to three years. And then fortunately, we got a knock on the door from Secret Escapes in the UK. I remember getting a call from Jean-Charles Lacoste, French guy working for Secret Escapes. And a long conversation at the end of it. He says, Michael, would Bigsbag consider selling to Secret Escapes? And I gave him the right answer, Mario.

30:12You know what that is? What's that? No. Is that the good right answer? That's the right answer. Yeah, absolutely. That means he knows that you're worth it. Exactly. Exactly. But we did arrange to meet two weeks later in London. So there was a follow up and I went along to that London meeting. But, you know, in hindsight, the best thing that I had really engaged with my competitors, you know, to learn about their business. I found my competitors very open to discussions. You know, when I say competitors, there were competitors in different markets or indeed competitors at home. And it's a tip I give any young entrepreneur, you know, talk to the people in your industry.

30:43You know, they're open to it. They love it. And, you know, you think they're going to meanly go out and kind of, you know, use the information you've given them to exploit you. But they don't, you know. So I ended up with two bidders and we got a very fair price. Brilliant. My notes, because it's only my notes, tell me that you sold it for 25 million euro. Is that right? It is right. But remember, we had 136 shareholders accumulated along the way. So they all deserve their share of the spoils. And here we are coming to the second half of the podcast, really, because this is where your life changes.

31:13I mean, you decide to not continue with business. Tell me about poker. Tell me about what attracted you to poker. Look, I mean, we spoke briefly beforehand and I know you're a poker player. I'm not a poker player, but I grew up. I grew up with my family teaching me how to play poker. Because they used to have schools on the side of Galway races. Yeah, that's like my mum and dad used to invite their friends over, like couples over and they'd play poker together. Yeah. You know, we'd have Sunday night games. You know, we played all sorts of games. You know, what do you call it? We used to call it Beggar My Neighbour.

31:46I think they called it Beggar My Neighbour. Beggar My Neighbour. Yeah, exactly. and all those games, you know, all these stupid games, brag and blah, blah, blah. We all played all of these things. They kept us amused, you know, and they were great, you know, but poker, poker, I suppose, you know, once money is introduced, you know, it becomes more serious and it's more captivating, whatever. I was, I think I was a pretty poor poker player as I was growing up because I never educated myself in it and I was probably a bit too loose. I got better and better, but only after getting wounded a couple of times, you know, severely wounded, you know, where I'd resolve and this is often what happens in life you know we take one good kick in the guts and we sort of say we either say we're walking away from it or we're going to correct our ways we're going to really learn the thing and then we're going to come back with discipline and apply it that's probably what I did but in the course of the business I had very few opportunities to play poker you know really but any opportunity I got I took my brother John is a very good poker player Harry's another good poker player but John gave me a few opportunities I remember when he had money and I had none he brought me to the World Series of Poker you know and why did he bring you?

32:54he knew I'd love it Mario he wasn't playing he was just he was playing too he was playing he was playing as well so he was playing in the World Series of Poker yeah the World Series of Poker it's a series so there's many different events you know you can play events from I mean it's crazy there's an event at 1 million a pop you know and there are events when you say 1 million a pop you buy in literally an entry of 1 million a pop now all of these people to win what potentially? I suppose maybe the winner might get 25 million my god something like that No, it's crazy. It's out of the world. And you can buy in at a very low level as well.

33:21You can buy in at a very low level. A low. Yeah. I think the lowest single event in the World Series of Poker is$500. $500 buy-in. And$500 in America doesn't get you an awful lot. It'll hardly get you in like a hotel. Exactly. You know. But I suppose you could win what, 7 ,000? No, you could probably win a million. You know, more than a million. Yeah, there was, you know, there was one I played. I was out for over a week, which coincided with the Bitcoin conference that I was just too curious. I had to. This was too much of a serendipity. The Bitcoin conference and World Series of Poker on in Vegas.

33:51First week of June. First week of June. Where am I now? Yeah, first week of June. I had to be there. So I went there. I came back. I've been home two weeks and I'm going off again on Friday. I won my first one, which meant I was in the money because, you know, they pay sort of roughly speaking 15 % of the field. In this case, they pay the winner of each table. So for our three grand, I had half. He had half. We got 10 grand. Right. Absolutely. So now you're paying with their money. And we have the 10 grand in the back pocket. And of course, what do we do that night? Harry was there as well. We went to the piano bar in the win and we had a lovely time.

34:21We probably drank one or two too many, went into the game the next day. I did rather well. I was knocked out in third. But had I made it beyond that, had I won that table, I'd have been on a final table at the World Series of Poker, which would have been an absolute dream. But what happened was a dream anyway. So look, that was that. There was very little more poker for me, you know, going through the hard times of the business. But I, you know, I kept studying poker. I played a bit of poker online. I got a few successes here and there. And then once basically we sold the business, I said, this is something I've time to develop.

34:49I'm going to get coaching. I have had a couple of poker coaches who work on the sort of the technique side of things with me. This morning I had a meeting with my mental game coach. I don't know if you've ever heard of Phil called Andy Black, but he's the winning most Irish player ever. And he spent a long time off on a Buddhist retreat. And I'm sure he's some form of Buddhist monk. A mental coach for poker. Yeah, absolutely. but it's the most exacting game mentally, like the stamina of 12-hour sessions, you know, against lads who are almost always half your age and younger, you know. Is it a young man's game?

35:26You know something, when I meet the young lads and they're all, you know, gung-ho about becoming a professional poker player, like I really, like I'm kind of the party pooper. I say, don't do that, you idiot. I say, finish your education, you know, get yourself a job. And if you're really good enough at poker, play it at weekends and win a few quid, build up a record that way and let's see where you go. It's just a question about being a young man. Is testosterone, which young men have more testosterone. Yeah. Does testosterone make them more risky and therefore more dangerous or more loose or more...

36:00I think if they're testosterone led, they're likely to sort of, you know, do these fanciful all-ins once or twice too often. They'll blow up essentially. You know, the really dangerous players these days are what I call humanoids. You know, these are the lads who are studying GTO, game theory, optimal poker, off computers. They have these, you know, amazing memories and they wrote learn all the correct hands and how to play them from various positions. OK, and this is kind of scary, you know, and like there are now bots online that you're playing against. So you need to be very careful what site you're playing on and what the rules are in relation to these things, et cetera, et cetera.

36:39So I haven't encountered them, but I know they're there. They're definitely there. Sorry, when you're playing online, you're hoping to play against humans. Exactly, yes. But sometimes you have to be wary. You have to be very wary. How do you know you're not playing against bots? Well, the site I principally play on is called GG Poker. And at the higher end games, they insist on real names. Yes. And they don't allow a lot of the sort of poker aids, the software aids that other sites would allow. So I think their governance is good. Wow. And PokerStars, which is owned by Flutter, their governance is likely to be very good as well.

37:15So I respect them. So they're the two sites I principally play on. I mean, some of the American sites are kind of tacitly going along with this, you know, because they say, well, it's introducing a bit of liquidity. I don't like it, you know. So I'm the old guy and I've studied GTO and I've got my coach who's teaching me GTO. But what I've learned is how to exploit GTO. So GTO assumes we all play the same way around the table, that we're all the humanoids, you know, but we're not. So I love when I get at a table where there's maybe a couple of these pro, but there's a couple of old lads like me and there's a couple of young lads and there's a couple of tourists and there's one maniac, you know, because you have to adjust to each of those players.

37:56So you don't just play your hand, you play the player. You play your position at the table. There's a lot of psychology at play, but there's a lot of adjustment at play. So it's that ability to adjust and play exploitative poker that makes the difference. And I love that. And I can just tell you this much. I'm sure it's not testosterone, but I have no lack of kahunas when it comes to poker. You know, if I sense a weakness in the other player, I'll put him to the sword. So you see it for what it is, which for you, it's a hugely strategic game involving deep thought and deep analysis. and which, of course, is anathema to mindless, risky gambling.

38:36Absolutely. It's thought out. Absolutely, yeah. No, it's... Planning, it's planning. It's very strategic. It's very tactical. It's very... I mean, you know, it's kind of weird. You have to be deceitful. You know, you're all the time trying to deceive the other player. Yes means no, no means yes. Well, yes means yes because you might think it means no.

39:01So it's chess-like in that way. In fact, there was an organisation a few years ago and they were really lobbying hard to introduce two games to the Olympics. One was chess and the other was tournament poker. Cash poker, you can tell, I'm not in love with it because I think it's more in the degenerate side of gambling. There's more hustling involved and there's probably more damage involved. Whereas tournament poker to me is a thing of absolute beauty. I think it's one of the most beautiful games ever invented. And it's a beautiful thing to immerse your brain into. I mean, what the hell is a 60-year-old ex-entrepreneur going to do with his mind?

39:39Is he going to sit back and let it rot? Or is he going to take on the young lads and play them in the highest stakes of poker? I know the answer. Yeah, how interesting. Are there a couple of older men than you or women? There are, yeah, indeed there are, but not many. You know, Phil Helmut, who's one of the famous players, the poker brat, you know, He looks like a professional basketball player. He goes around with the big earphones and bigger personality. And he's bold and brash at the table, you know. So Helmut declared this year that he wasn't going to play the main event of the World Series of Poker because it was very unfair on anybody 60 plus.

40:12OK, so, of course, Darrow Kearney, who's a well-known Irish poker author and podcaster for two Irish guys. Worth knowing, two Irish guys, David Lapin and Darrow Kearney, run the biggest poker podcast in the world called The Chip Race. Immensely successful and very entertaining. well worth listening to. But Dara and I both resolved, well, if Helmut wasn't going to do it, we were going to get really fit and we were going to do it. And we were going to prove him wrong, which will be very difficult. Because what happens is you play day one and then you'll get a break and you'll play day two if you get through to day two.

40:4260 % of the field get through to day two. And if you get through day two, because there's so many in the field, they have to split up the days. You'll get to day three. At day three, they bring all of the fields together. So 10 ,000 players start. They start them in four different day ones, two different day twos, but one day three and then it moves on from there. From day three on through to day 10, I think it is, you get no breaks. So it's 10 hour days all the time and so much adrenaline coursing through your system. Yes. So for the last three years, I've gone day five, which is well into the money.

41:13I got 200 and I think it was 247, something like that out of 10 ,000. The following year, How much did that pay? That paid 48 grand. It wasn't bad, but all the big money was around the corner. In the same year, I was 47th out of 5 ,000 in the online version of the World Series of Poker for 54 grand. And I got my ticket for$100 because I won a satellite to it. So satellite is where, you know, 10 of us pay or maybe whatever. And is that your biggest payday? No. Yeah. You don't know the story, do you? Woo! No. Well, get ready for this one. You've got to hear this. Okay. Hey, it's Mike Rowe. And it just occurred to me that Zip Recruiter has been sponsoring my podcast, the way I heard it, for the last 10 years.

41:53Consequently, I've agreed to sing their jingle at the end of this commercial in four-part harmony, all by myself. Why would I do that? Because years ago, when the Microworks Foundation was expanding, and I was desperate to hire a few uniquely qualified individuals, I posted a job for free on ZipRecruiter, and I found the people I was looking for in less than 24 hours. It's that simple. Ever since, I've been telling my audience that ZipRecruiter got me the most qualified, most interested people. And now, I'm telling you. Post a job for free at ziprecruiter.com slash zip. And watch what happens.

42:29That's ziprecruiter.com slash zip. And now, here's their official jingle in four-part harmony. Build your team. Build it sooner. Meet your match at Zip Recruiter. Try it free. GG Poker. this was last year literally this time last year literally a year ago Karen and I had been we spent a lot of time in Connemara in Clifton which we love and we'd been entertaining a few people we'd been busy for various reasons I said Karen we're going home this weekend I'm going to play a bit of poker there's a big series on GG and you know hope that's okay with you no problem at all you know and I remember lodging a thousand dollars and I said look you know online online yeah onto GG poker and And I entered, I love these satellites.

43:20And I don't know why, but I have a great record at them. And it's probably largely thanks to Daryl Carney, who wrote a book about them, which I ate and digested, ate again and re-digested. So I really knew the sort of recommendations, the techniques that are involved in this thing. So I ended up winning the first satellite I played, which was$150 to$1 ,000 event. And I didn't win that event, but I won about$7 ,000. So I said to Karen, woohoo, come with me. This is a great weekend. OK. And I said, I'm going to play a satellite into a couple of other things. So I played a satellite into the big event.

43:55So just quickly, what's a satellite? So a satellite is where 10 people put in one tenth of the price of a ticket each. And one of them wins the ticket. Oh, so you're sort of in a large gamble together going one of us will make it. Exactly. Only one of us will make it. And we're happy with that. So like if there's 100 people enter the satellite, then there's 10 tickets. you know 50 people enter this 50 ticket So one of you get a golden ticket So exactly that's it that's it So I entered one of these satellites and again I didn't win it but I was there were three tickets I was fourth so that meant I didn't get a full ticket but I got the loose change and the loose change was about five grand so I won I've just won seven grand now five grand you know less if you cost but you know I'm going great guns here I fired two more at it and eventually I won a ticket to the GG Millions Super Millions event guaranteed for 10 million in total prize money, OK?

44:43I had never played anything like this online. Live I had, but not online. So I entered, it threw me straight away. It had started, but they were still running satellites. And there's a thing called late entry. You can enter to a certain level and they stop you from entering, obviously, OK? So it was late entry. There were about 60 % of the fee left, which also meant that my chips were the equivalent of 60 % of average, OK? So if I survived that day, I made it into the money. But making it into the money was making$26 ,000 minimum, OK? So I kind of, you know, up, down, up, down, nothing particularly significant.

45:17And I make it to the money. So I go, yee-haw, we've got$26 ,000 wrapped up on top of the$7 ,000 on top of the whatever, you know. So I was really, really happy. And I played very conservatively towards the end to preserve my position. And this number 60 % keeps coming up. But I had 60 % of average chips going into day two. So on day two, so it started with 1 ,300 players. Day two, there were approximately 150 people made it to the prizes, made it to day two. So they were now going to play down from 150 to a final table of nine, which would be played on the following day and it would be broadcast live.

45:53It's still out there on YouTube. So I said, well, this is fantastic. I've got my 26 ,000, so I'm going to play. I'm not going to play conservatively. All the money is at the top. So you've got to take risks. You've got to play. You're better off taking a risk and losing out on that risk than playing conservatively and fading out and getting one of the low prizes. To have a chance of winning the big prize, you must take appropriate risks again. So it was kind of snakes and ladders, Mario. I go up the ladder and then down the snake. But I kept surviving and my chip stack was building. And meanwhile, the prizes were growing.

46:28The field was being cut now from 130 to 60 to 40 to 30 to 20. and then lo and behold, I'm still there with 10 players left. Nine make it through to the next day and at this stage, I get into six figure prizes, okay? And I'm sitting on the big blind. If you don't understand this, don't worry too much about it. For the poker people out there, they will enjoy this story. And I have Jack 8, which is, it's enough to say, okay, I'm on the big blind. How many cards is this? You get two cards, which are called the whole cards. You see those, nobody else sees your cards and then you share five community cards Yeah, so it's like it stood with shared five cards.

47:05Exactly. So you're trying to connect your two cards with the five cards. So you jack eight. Form the best part. So jack eight. I could see you straight here somewhere. Jack eight. You could. But what happened actually was something very similar. Up comes the flop. And the flop is eight, eight, two. Okay. Three eights. So I go, I've, you know, trip eight, they call it. Okay. So I said trip eight. That is just dream hand. Absolutely a dream hand. It's me against one other player. We're heads up, as they call it. Okay. So I check. not showing any strength. And he bets and I take my time and I call.

47:38And next thing an ace comes up, okay? And I could go, okay, he could have two aces, but it's very unlikely he has two aces. You've got to be prepared to take a risk and not be running scared of that one combination that could get you. So I checked again and I'm hoping he is the ace, which he very likely has. And he bets. So I go, lovely, take your time, take your time, pause. The heart is really panicking at this stage. And I called. and next a queen comes and I said, you know what, Michael, that's a great card for you because there's a fair chance he has an ace and a queen which means he has two pair.

48:10Two strong pair, he thinks it's good. He thinks he's really, really good but I've got trips which is better. And he thinks he might have jacks and eights. So I don't know where it came from but I had the composure to take my time, check and he really took his time. He bet sort of conservatively trying to preserve something in case and I went all in and he took his time. He called and up it pops straight away. Mixtor, my online moniker, it said, Mixtor, you are chip leader going into the final table tomorrow. I feel like I've been in a game the way you told us. Oh my God, my heart was racing. I was jumping up and down.

48:45It was like three in the morning. Does that mean you're into the final nine? I'm into the final nine and I turned my phone on. It's been off for most of this. I turned my phone on and it popped. I had no idea, but the Irish lads got the word that Mixter, Michael Dwyer, was going well in this event and was about to get an unprecedented score as far as online play in Ireland was concerned. So I got the beautiful messages, great messages right the way through the next day. But the next day I had to turn the phone off because I must prepare now. I must prepare for the final table. So this is just incredible.

49:24I've gone from$150 to a minimum payout now, I think of 130 ,000 or something like that but a maximum payout of about 1.68 million second place payout of 1.3 million third place payout of a million so I remember getting the room the front room together and that was my sort of sanctuary if you like you know and you know it was clearly I had to have that to myself and Karen and the girls were my two of my daughters were in the kitchen at the back and they were able to watch a delayed online version on YouTube which is still out there. OK, so they'd be watching this delayed stream. I could watch that, too.

50:01And people would have people watching it for them or whatever. I just chose not. I said, I've got to stay in the zone. So I had spent the day just formulating a strategy by researching it very, very carefully. And business teaches you that, you know, that if you have a strategy and you have a decision to make, well, does it conform to the strategy? Make that decision. If it doesn't, don't. And the strategy basically was you've got a nice chip lead here. So you can put pressure on all of the other stacks. In poker, they call it ICM, which basically, you know, translated means the other guys are all trying to survive to ladder up to get from the minimum price to the next price to the next price.

50:35But you've got more chips than them, so you can put them under pressure. More often than not, they'll have to fold, you know. So I exerted that pressure very, very firmly on them. But despite that, a few things went with me, a few things went against me. I made one bad decision, which like the commentators lambasted me online for that. I actually didn't think it was that bad. but they were too busy talking to each other right, making lots of good decisions, you know. But eventually, there are three left. And Jonathan Jaffe turns around. He's a well-known player in American poker and he's the co-commentator.

51:06He turns around, he says, well, if your name's Mixtor and you're living in Ireland, you're Ireland's latest poker millionaire. Well done. I go, wow, that's amazing. And there was this great intrigue online, which I only found out subsequently, but like this chat was running. And in the chat, they were all on about, oh, I love this old Irish geezer. I know how they knew it was an old Irish geezer. You know, putting it up to the young Euro grinders, as they call them. German kids living in Austria and whatever not, you know. So, look, there are three left and the top two have a big advantage over me.

51:41OK, so I'm guaranteed a million. But you know what? I want to still win this thing, but I'm quite a bit behind. Next thing, the top two start going at each other, which is a really stupid thing for them to do. and one knocks the other guy out. It did me a huge favour. You're two now. His name is Dijan and he's from Montenegro. Dijan, if you're listening, thanks again. He knocked the other guy out and I hop up to 1.3 million. So he literally gifted me 300 ,000. It was just phenomenal. I met Dijan in Monaco at the European Poker Tour event in Monte Carlo and a huge guy, he was towering over me and I'm tall, you know, and he put his arm around me and he said, you were some robust competitor.

52:19He said, you played a really aggressive game. And I said to him, I said, I know I misplayed the king's hand against you, but he said, there was one other hand I remember, you know. And I said, there was a flush draw that missed. And I bet into the river. And I said, I know I got that wrong. He said, was that the six, seven hand? Of course, photographic memory. He remembered the hand exactly. He called me down with just the third pair. And I said, I didn't bet enough. He said, absolutely. You made it too cheap. Had you gone all in, I'd have had to fold. Right. And that to me was the turning point.

52:49Right. He was a worthy winner, this guy. he's a serious professional. You know, he's probably won 20 million online, I'm guessing. Wow. You know, that was an amazing story, Michael. And you really put me in the room there for that, right? Oh, listen, I'm still back in the room. Poker is one of several funnels that I have, you know, the others being startup investment. When I left the business, I said I'm definitely going to invest in startups. That was partly a big back, a give back or a pay back. I mean, you know, a big, big back from pigs back, I could pay back from pigs back. But, you know, I love that energy and I wanted to be part of that energy.

53:27It's what attracted me into the space. So, you know, I kind of, you know, like, you know, when you're investing in startups that you're going to lose a lot of it, if not all of it. I mean, if I came out anywhere near breaking... Should you have been on Dragon's Den? Oh, I don't know. I might have enjoyed it. Who knows, you know? But, you know, we had a dinner a few weeks ago with about 10 startups that I'm involved in. I'm not invested in them all, but I've invested in most of them. And the energy in that room was just fantastic. But to give these young people, not all young people. One, James O 'Connor is older than me.

53:57So James is into his 60s. Eddie Dillon must be into his 50s. You know, but there's a lot of young people there. And so it's young and old, you know, bumping off each other. And, you know, just a bit of wisdom. With that being rude, have you made money out of some of your startups? Not at all. No, not at all. But, you know, I'd be very hopeful that I will. Oh, you will maybe, yeah. Like, you know, these journeys. Mine was a 20-year journey. You know, you probably say realistically they're 10 year adjourns, you know. And I mean, three of them have gone down already. You know, there was a guy there recently.

54:24I won't mention the name of the company or the name of the guy. But like I always say to these guys, I'll be of most use to you when it goes wrong, you know, because I understand that. You know, we were so close to oblivion so many times, you know. So I understand that and I understand the pressures. And the reasons I didn't continue with the business or set up a new business of my own was I was done. I didn't have the stomach for another hour of it, Mario. I was depressed in myself. I probably shouldn't use that term because there are people who go through very serious depression. But I was extremely anxious.

54:54I was in a very bad place and I really had to work on it very, very hard. So my working on it was doing new things, you know. And funny, I read something the other day and it was talking about curiosity. And it said curiosity, curiosity is a great thing. Curiosity is a great thing and lift you out of anxiety and depression. but the word curiosity comes from cure or cura. It's the same Latin origins as those words. So it's great to be enthusiastic about learning, enthusiastic about new things. So my new things were writing, bringing my journals together. I had a little art gallery going for a while in conjunction with a friend of mine, John Nolan, who's an artist.

55:36I embraced crypto in a big way. I really went down that rabbit hole. I wanted to learn it. It was a new technology. It was exciting. For me, it was like dot com all over again. And like, you know, it's very easy to dismiss it. And people are dismissing it on this side, you know, particularly in Ireland. I think people are now there's a there's a certain segment of the population who are embracing it and will do very well from it. But there's a large segment and particularly the older age cohort who are very dismissive of it. But they're not opening their minds to it. They don't really understand it.

56:06And they're not putting in the work. You've got to put in the work, you know, starting with reading the white paper written by Satoshi. Sheen Nakamoto, which led to Bitcoin. But Bitcoin is really what crypto is about. It's two thirds of crypto. And, you know, all these, these casino rug pulls, ignore all of those. Just ignore it. Ignore it. Ignore, ignore, ignore it. You know, that's like back to mindless gambling, you know. But the serious stuff is Bitcoin. And everybody should be buying bits of Bitcoin and trying to keep them. That's not investment advice. It's just what I would say to my daughters, what I would say to my friends.

56:36But don't be looking at it every day. Just put it away. You know, what's happening really is around us in the world is that governments are getting away with overspending and they're creating these larger and larger deficits all the time. I think the deficit in America is now 37 trillion and they're adding to it. The national debt. Exactly. And they're adding to it at the rate of about three trillion a year. So the way they do that is they print money, they print more dollars and they manage to get them into the system through banks or sometimes by giving subsidies to people, extra social welfare payments, extra payments to civil servants.

57:10And that leads to inflation. The more money there is in the system, the more inflation there is. so it really is contributing to this very nasty wealth inequality in our society where if you're fortunate enough to have bought a house at the right time that house of course is a finite asset it's a scarce asset it's going to grow in value relative to this currency that's just being printed or if you buy bitcoin there's only 21 million of them there's probably less because the satoshi nakamoto block i can't remember whether it was 1 million or three million, the big block of them anyway, which will never come back into circulation.

57:47Lots of them have been lost over the years. There's probably 15 million Bitcoin, really, that could come into circulation. And they've been taken off the table all the time by the big boys. So you have a chance to front run the big boys before it goes crazy, you know. But for the unfortunate people who don't buy assets or can't buy assets, and you don't need to be able to buy the house, you can buy your bit of Bitcoin, you can buy a bit of stock. My daughter in London spends her time persuading her friends to put a hundred or two aside every month into equities. And she'll point them as to what they need to do because she knows that over time they grow and they just do grow.

58:20Because assets grow in an environment where governments are getting away with printing too much currency. Well, it's like if you look at, for example, the Dow Jones. The Dow Jones is relentlessly going to grow. So, for example, the Dow Jones 10 years ago is much, much bigger than it was now. So if you invested in the Dow Jones 10 years ago, you'd be making a large amount of money. Now, if you express the Dow Jones in terms of gold, which is a somewhat limited asset, or in terms of Bitcoin, which is a very limited asset, you'll see it hasn't grown as much. Because these assets, obviously, have also, you know, they're finite.

59:00And, you know, it's the dollar is the problem or the euro is the problem. So, you know, I'm befuddled by what society should do, but there's a fundamentally unfairness built in. And the sooner people see the light of that, and even in 10ers and 20s and 100s, buy their assets, good assets, finite assets. You know, you can buy Bitcoin on Revolut five at a time. You know, I'm not suggesting that's the best way to buy it, but it's not a bad way to buy it. You can go on a Coinbase and you can buy it and they'll keep it for you. Or if you're very adventurous, you can try to store it yourself on these hardware wallets.

59:41I wouldn't trust myself, so I don't store it myself. I have mine put away in long term storage. But view it as a long term thing and view it as your protection, your each way bet against this system that is working against people who haven't got assets. We're reaching the end because I wanted to tidy up some things for me here. One is we have something in common, that man in the arena thing. Oh, yeah. So you brought this in today, right? And I couldn't believe it when you said it. You had this thing, which is one of your, you love this whole passage written by Teddy Roosevelt. That's right. The man in the arena.

1:00:15In 1910. In 1910. But it meant something very, very special to me as well, because about a year ago in my own career, right, I sort of said, took a bit of a risk in my own career. and with my promoter and everything I said my promoter said would you fancy doing the Three Arena and I went well are you asking and he went okay I'm asking but if you say yes that means it's all in we're going to try and sell the tickets to the Three Arena Superb So we went for it and all year I worked hard and I promoted it and eventually we sold out to the Three Arena but during that year I was obviously very very worried the nightmare is you wake up at night and you imagine you walk into this empty theatre empty place in Three Arena it's half full you've lost loads of money and people go he was only he was only half full it right but I remember going through a lot of thoughts in my mind about going I risked it I tried it I did it now eventually we sold it out yeah but I remember during this thing good on you you took the risk and you got there I did but the final thing was subsequently I thought a lot about risk and how I respect so many people who don't get there and who yet have the balls to get up and do it again right so I found that quote this passage by Teddy Roosevelt about how the man in the arena is what counts and not the people who stand by and the critics who stand on the fence.

1:01:32Would you have it? Would you like to read it to me? Indeed I do. Mum. You know, and like Roosevelt, he was a man of the era so everything is the man, the man, the man and I'm not going to correct Roosevelt. It was what it was. But as you said, he was an action man. It was a long time ago. And he really believed as well that like, you know, people should get out there and take risks and engage in adventurous behaviour but serve as well, you know. Like he really had a strong sense of citizenship. You did. And what our responsibilities are in the context of a society, you know. So like, you know, this is a small passage from a much bigger speech, which was citizenship.

1:02:06I got it printed out. I got it printed out. I got it enlarged and I have it as a print framed on my wall. Superb. Well, listen, I name my book after it. I live my life after it. And this is the passage. So it's from the, this passage is known as the man in the arena and it's from Citizenship in a Republic by Theodore Roosevelt delivered to the Sorbonne in Paris in April 1910. So I came across it on the occasion of the centenary. So it reads, It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

1:03:25Yeah, that's it. Those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. He remarked there about critics. I mean, I understand that critics have to do their job as well, but Stephen Fry is very funny about this, the comedian. When he was asked about critics, he goes, Why didn't I just ask them before I wrote it what to write? They could have told me. Why did I just, why did I have to write it first and then they told me it was terrible? Why didn't I ask them first? Superb, superb. It's a bit like the hurlers on the ditch, wasn't it? I suppose, I suppose. But your book is From the Arena, An Entrepreneur's Journals.

1:04:05It's also called Entrepreneur's Journey in some editions. And this is your journey through the entrepreneur's life in pig's back. That's it. It doesn't transfer to your life in poker, does it? There's a brief mention in the prologue about my poker pursuits, but that's what I'm currently engaged in is hopefully writing it. Well, I have written it, but I've just got to sort of finish it. Where can I find the thing online? You'll get the book on Amazon or on Audible, isn't it? The audio book, which I sat through hours reading it, but really enjoyed. And online, yeah. YouTube, if you look up YouTube, GG Poker Super Millions.

1:04:46GG Poker Super Millions. Super Millions. And maybe Jonathan Jaffe, J-A-F-F-E because he was the co-commentator it should come up and it'll say 13 million on the graphic because it was a 13 million total prize pool and it's a bit of a laugh. Michael, what an interesting life you're having and I can't wait now to see what happens in further games. It's clear that it really, really it's a very exciting life and your adrenaline is flying. There we are. Thank you so much, Michael. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure talking to you. Cheers, Mario. Fantastic. And my thanks to Michael Dwyer for coming in and talking to me about his fascinating life and I intend to keep following him online on YouTube to see how he goes in these big poker games.

1:05:26My thanks of course to you. If you want to contact me it's mariorosenstock at gmail.com for anything that you want to talk to me about. Guests, sketches, compliments, constructive criticism, anything you want. mariorosenstock at gmail.com My thanks of course to our sponsor deluxebathrooms.ie Little Island Retail Park Cork and Dundalk Retail Park of course. Super August All-Star Sale ends on Monday, Bank Holiday Monday. And if you can, tell one other person about this podcast if you enjoyed it. See you same time, same place next week.