#814: Chatri Sityodtong, CEO of ONE Championship — From Dirt Poor to Top-10 Sports-Media Franchise, The $100M Breakfast, Dominating Social Media (30B+ Views/Year), Key Strategic Decisions, and The Moneyball of Fight Matchmaking

27:02And I think the saying is that, you know, when someone loves you, it gives you strength. When you love someone, it gives you courage. And I think that that's a very true statement when it comes to my relationship with my mother, she gave me both. I could feel her unconditional love and she gave me strength to do things when I was full of fear, doubts, and insecurities. I wasn't some academically gifted guy or I wasn't, I remember I was that first week, I was dirt poor. I didn't feel like I belonged. I thought everyone was better than me, smarter than me. I didn't have money for the full ride. I had to go find loans.

27:41And it was just like a time of massive uncertainty in my life. And I just had to keep it to myself. But again, looking back on everything, the fact that I had my mother's love, that gave me strength every day to fight more. And I always say too that if you're fighting for yourself, like you're fighting because you want a six-figure salary, you're fighting because you want to buy a nice car, it's very easy to quit. But when you're fighting for something bigger than yourself, it's impossible to quit. So in that moment, I was fighting for my family, fighting for my younger brother, fighting for my mother.

28:17Of course, you know, down the road as I was, again, been blessed with a lot of good luck in life. These are the things that I always remember. It's like, you know, when you're fighting for something much bigger than yourself, you become unbreakable. There's so many precious lessons that I learned from that journey. And crazy enough, when I made my first little bit of money, I think I was around 30-something, maybe 31, I bought a condominium in New York City to surprise my mom because I remembered what she told me in the dorm room and brought her to New York and gave her the keys, and it was overlooking the Hudson River.

28:55And it's one of my most favorite memories with my mom is surprising her where the own house, because she had suffered for so long, for so long, that I would just be able to see her face. And knowing that little crazy dream was born in the dark of midnight when we're going to sleep, and she wanted to talk about our dreams. So in that sense, she also gave me that. I'm a little bit of a crazy dreamer. My friends think of it as a crazy guy, and I think I got that from my mom. Go mom. That's incredible.

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30:48All right. Well, we could spend the next two hours just unpacking what it was like to actually hand over the keys and how your mom responded. But I have a million questions I want to ask you. So I would say, let me mention a few things and then we can add in any sort of seminal moments as needed. But my understanding is you leave grad school, you try your hand in the world of startups, you do pretty well in the startup world, then end up going to finance and do pretty well on wall street and my two questions are i know that's a major major condensation but number one what was it like and what was the moment because i remember for myself the moment where you're like oh my god i actually have some money right like when was that moment when you were like oh this is a little different this is a lot different I actually have some money.

31:48It doesn't need to be a lot of money, but what was that like? And then why didn't you stay in finance? Why didn't you stay on Wall Street? So it's kind of funny. When I was a kid, there's a few things I was truly obsessed with. I was obsessed with martial arts. And anyone from my childhood would tell you, Chatur, that he's the martial arts guy. He's crazy about martial arts. But I was also crazy about, for Christmas, somebody gave me the book, one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch. It's a great book. And I just got completely fascinated with, and I think I was like a teenager, but I was completely fascinated with, wow, people can actually make money doing that.

32:26And so I got obsessed with Warren Buffett and Ben Graham and intelligent investor. And this was like when I was, again, a teenager and I just voraciously consumed it, but I never thought I would ever, you know, ever do something along those lines. Right. And it wasn't like I was investing or anything. It was just, it was just like a, a hobby curiosity, but it was almost borderline obsession because I was reading, I mean, tons and tons of finance books and investing books just for like, for fun. So I always had kind of that in the back of my mind, you know, I don't know, it's just like an external kind of stuff when you're younger and as a kid, oh, it'd be so glamorous to be, you know, a hedge fund manager on wall street, that kind of stuff.

33:01And so I think, you know, when I graduated from Harvard, I was dirt poor, dirt poor. I went to Silicon Valley with my mom. We slept in a tiny little apartment. I couldn't even afford beds or furniture. So we had two sleeping bags. And it's just, we talk about that all the time. We had two sleeping bags on the floor. And that was how I started my journey in Silicon Valley. Because again, I just had this crazy dream, right? One of my classmates, Sue and Lou, said, Chacha, let's go to Silicon Valley. Let's let's just try our luck. And both of us were poor and we had maybe a few months of cash left, if at all.

33:40But by pure luck, we went to this angel investor day at Harvard and this guy named Richard Armstrong, literally one hour meeting, he's like, okay, I'll cut you a$500 ,000 check. It's a good meeting. Yeah. We were blown away. Sue and I were blown away. Out of that small little apartment where my mom and I slept on the floor, we started hiring people. And so I think at our peak, we had like six people or seven people in that little apartment. And what was the business? Just in brief for folks. It was a company called Nextdoor Networks. Basically, it was enterprise resource software. It started off as a marketplace, but eventually morphed to enterprise optimization.

34:19So basically, Jiffy Lube was our largest customer at the time, where you could come in with dynamic pricing and And the software would, you know, how many bays there were, how many cars were coming in. And, you know, what we see dynamic pricing today with airlines and stuff, right? Or hotels, that kind of software. But it was for the, it was more enterprise. We rode the internet boom all the way up and we came partially down and we're lucky to have, you know, sold the company. We grew from like, you know, like six, seven people. And then within about a year, we'd raised$40 million and had like, I don't know, 200 people, you know, real offices and all that stuff.

34:56And it was just a crazy ride. This was in early 2000 or around 1999, 2000 timeframe. That was a crazy ride. And when I look through old photos, and it's kind of crazy. So soon, Lou, my classmate from Harvard who started the company with me in Silicon Valley, he actually lives in Singapore now. So we hang out here and we, you know, we have obviously our collection of pictures and whatnot. And we go back and like, man, that was some crazy times. And my mom would be there in front of the microwave because we would, we're so poor at the time we would get a dollar. I remember$1.25 microwave frozen food and, you know, these little meals.

35:32And that would be our lunch or dinner or whatever it is. And my mom would be in front of the microwave and, you know, we have photos of that and we're in our little startup. And again, these crazy days. But after we sold a company, I said to myself, okay, I didn't make a ton where I could retire for life, but I had a good little bit of a nest egg. I thought deeply, what do I want to do? Am I a software entrepreneur or what am I? I started going into this kind of deep. If I could actually interrupt for a second, I'm sorry. That initial nest egg, whether it was from savings, from salary, or the eventual exit, was there a moment?

36:08And if not, that's totally fine. I'm just so curious, having been poor for so long and scrapped so hard and having to track everything in an Excel spreadsheet to make sure you don't exceed your$4 daily budget, etc. Throughout school, was there a time when it's like you went to the ATM to take out a little cash and you saw the balance and you were like, huh, okay. Like things might actually now start to be different. I grew up in a well-to-do home when I was a kid and saw it get wiped out. I mean, it was like that, okay? That I, even to this day, I don't have that sense of like, look at my bank account or look at what I have as a sense of like security.

36:52Yeah. So I never had that moment of, ah, I could exhale. Like exhaling. Yeah. Exhaling. No. So what we did, though, was we went with, I think, about 13 or 14 employees. And we rented two RV vans. And we did a cross-country trip across America. And that took, I forget, a couple weeks. That was me moving from Silicon Valley to New York. I didn't know at the time that I was going to move to New York and I was going to do the whole investing thing. That ride, I remember. And I remember one night, it was in Albuquerque. and we were in a RV park and I went up to the roof. I was lying down on the roof of the RV and looking at the night sky.

37:38It was completely beautiful stars and it was just clear sky. I mean, it was night, but it was clear in the sense of all the stars. And that was the only moment I felt like, man, I can actually do anything from this point on. I don't have to scrape by, but it was just a momentary fleeing sensation of like, the universe is so big, I can do anything. And it wasn't, I can do anything in an arrogant way. It was more like whatever happened in the past, my family and my father, I didn't have to be burdened by it or trapped by it. So it was a feeling of not exhale, but a feeling of, I'm not gonna be shackled by my past.

38:16But it's weird, Tim, even to this day, I had this feeling of, man, life can throw you curve balls and all of a sudden I could be on the street. It's crazy, it's crazy, but I still have this fear, or not fear, I don't know what it is. Or maybe what it is, is I never want to be so poor again. Because what really broke me, and this one I remember very poignantly, I'd never seen my mother cry up until my father abandoned us. And it was one night, and she tried to be this really strong, brave woman. And I saw her cry. That broke my heart in a million pieces. And then one other time I saw was in my dorm room at Harvard.

38:58And that was my fuel. I said to myself, I never want to see my mother cry ever again. I'm going to work my ass off. I'm going to be rich. And so I naively thought genuinely that when I was poor, that, man, if I just make a crap load of money, all my problems will be gone because I will be able to provide for my mother. She'll have no more worries and this, that, the other. I didn't fully understand the meaning of life. I accepted society as you make a lot of money and that's just you buy things. It wasn't later in life until I was maybe my mid-30s when I had my hedge fund. We had a record year.

39:37I made a lot of money. And of course, you're very happy because you made a lot of money. But then I went down to the sushi restaurant down in the office building and I sat at the sushi bar for lunch and I remember, I was by myself and I remember all adrenaline and happy, but then over the course of that lunch, I don't know what happened. I just started thinking about, is this what life is about? Like, okay, so I'm going to go now and buy more material things. I'm going to go buy a house, another house or whatever. It just hit me hard. I'm like, man, what's going to happen with my life is I'm going to keep living this thing where, okay, yeah, I can make a lot of money, but I had a deep sense of emptiness.

40:14And yeah, my mom was taken care of. I was happy, of course, all that stuff. But it was almost just like, oh my gosh. And I remember a cold sweat thinking, I'm going to roll forward another 50 years or whatever to the end of my life. And shit, all I have done really is buy and sell companies and short companies. My clients were all either multi-billion dollar institutions or multi-billionaire families. So then I'm like, what was I here on earth for? and what was I doing with my life. And I remember so well when I was five years old, but my mom would read this all the time throughout my elementary and middle school years and all that.

40:52She would always say, Chautry, you're going to grow up to help people. And I always thought my mom was gibberish because she was like, you're so special, Chautry. And of course, I know every mother says that to their child, to their, you know, but it was weird when I was at that sushi restaurant, those words came to me. It was like, Chautry, you're going to help people when you grow up. And I was sitting there and I'm like, right now I'm helping nobody because if I'm helping wealthy people get wealthier, okay, what is the point of that? And if I'm making multi-billion dollar institutions get wealthier, what is the point of that?

41:27Right? And so I remember being very restless for several weeks. I couldn't sleep. Eventually I said, I have to do something. And it was again, pure luck, but also a lot of introspection. at the time I was training at Henzo Gracie's school, Jiu-Tzu, training every day. And it's crazy, this whole journey from being in a well-to-do family to being poor, to escaping poverty and making it, I trained religiously, either Muay Thai or Jiu-Tzu every single day. This is just part of my DNA. And actually, even to this day, I just came back from training earlier today. It's my foundation to every single day.

42:07If I get my training, it's almost like, Tim, you've competed as a wrestler and done Sancho and stuff like that. When you're in the moment of training or sparring, there is nothing else you can think of. You're in the moment, right? Yeah. If you think of something else, you get reminded very quickly. Exactly. Exactly. So it's almost like you can escape whatever, good or bad in your life, for those couple hours and not think about anything. You see, if you go for a run, you'll still think about work, family, your relationship issues, your dad, whatever it is, you'll still think. Or if you go lift weights, okay?

42:46Your mind is still active on whatever, you haven't left your life. But you know, Tim, when you go train and you're sparring against someone who's really good, all that stuff evaporates. And so that's what I love. You know, I own a chain of martial arts schools here in Singapore. and I train every day with Muay Thai world champions. Is that Evolve? Yeah, Evolve, yes. Or Jiu-Jitsu world champions. And I truly believe my grandmaster, Kurya Tong Senanan, used to always tell me, I never really understood it until much later in life. To unleash your greatness, you must be surrounded by greatness. And so every day I go to Evolve, these guys are the best in the world what they do.

43:26You know, I'm a high level martial artist for sure, but not against a world champion. Right. I mean, you train with Jong Sanan and Bunker, you know how bad ass those guys are. Yeah. Yeah. Best in the world. There are levels and there are levels. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Same thing for a black belt. I mean, I'm a black belt, but there are levels to being a jujitsu black belt. And for the most part, when I train with them, I get my ass kicked, but I relish that. Obviously, it's a two hour break from anything I'm dealing with in the world, but I love it because it's a daily and constant reminder of how I should live my life.

44:00you see if i have ego you know i'm the owner i walk in and this guy beats the crap out of me in another world if i didn't have martial arts my whole life i'd be like blah blah blah you know i'm the boss but what i actually tell to my training partners bro whatever it is don't go easy give me if you can't submit me you suck you better submit me or you better hurt me if we're sparring, you better get the best of me because you're a world champion. Don't hold back because that's not what I want. I want you to help me improve. And so you have to let your ego completely disappear. In society, I'm a CEO, but when I'm in training, I'm a nobody.

44:44And these guys beat on me, but it levels me up. And it's a daily reminder to me that I'm here to learn, grow, and evolve and be the very best martial artist I can be. and the only way to do it is by surrounding yourself with greatness because diamonds are created under heat and pressure and that's how I think all of us how we all can unleash our greatness in life is it's kind of sad but it's through love pain and suffering that combination can work magic in terms of unleashing human potential you will discover things about yourself that you never even knew existed in you when you go through a process of love pain and suffering And so that's something I do every day.

45:26Number one, I love it. It's my greatest obsession in life. But I do go through pain and I do go suffering every single day because it's a part of this warrior mindset. I mean, you spend time in Japan, you know, the whole Bushido, the whole samurai spirit. Yamato Damashi. Yes, yes. You nailed it. This is what Tim is talking about, guys, is this Japanese warrior spirit that every Japanese person has, you know, in their heart. Actually, that's why it's the birthplace of mixed martial arts. It's the birthplace of kickboxing. Obviously, the birthplace of karate and Aikido and Judo and Kendo. It's a magical country.

46:00And I'm not saying that because I'm half Japanese. But the more I understand about Japan, the more I truly appreciate the culture. And so one of that is this sense of unbreakable warrior spirit. Japanese fighters are some of the toughest. And I don't mean technically. I mean, I'm talking about you cannot break a high-level Japanese fighter. And if you went to the Budokan and watching the Judo Championships, these guys, they don't break. They don't break. Yeah. Yeah, they'll go until they can't go. I still remember to this day a fight way back in the day. I was in Japan for this way back, which was Pancras.

46:36So Pancras had just launched. And it was a fight between Basruton and Funaki. And Funaki got beaten into – He looked like a tomato that had been kicked around a room by 12 kids for an hour. I mean, he was so destroyed, and he just kept getting up. And I mean, there's a point where I remember Boss was just like, what is this? What are we doing here? Yeah, exactly. And to this day from 15, I remember watching that and thinking, good Lord, this is just a different species of experience. And just to come back to the mixed martial arts in Japan for a second. So when I was there, the way I initially got exposed to all this was through Shuto.

47:24So Sayama Satoru, the first generation Tiger Mask. Yes. Unbelievable. He was at the event in March in Saitama. Oh, really? He was my guest. He was my personal guest. He is a tough, tough, tough, tough human and a very, very tough coach. he used to take a shinai like a bamboo kendo sword cut off the tip and then if his fighters were misbehaving or not doing what he wanted he would hit them in the back of the legs hit them on the back he was tough and uh nasty fighter also and from there then ended up wanting to figure out where to train i went to this place called kiguchi dojo and kiguchi was a former olympic wrestler and Rumina Sato and all these guys train there.

48:13Yes, Rumina's a friend, you know. And yeah, all these guys are telling me it's crazy because I was literally just in Japan a couple of weeks ago with Sakamoto, who's the CEO of Shuto. I just was hanging out with the CEO of Pancreas and we're talking about all these old crazy stories. And again, yeah, Saiyama Sensei. So everything you're saying is just crazy. It's super small world. Yeah, super small world. And I'll give you two more small world. So I have a bone jutting out of the side of my ankle from Rumina, who put on the nastiest heel hook in practice. I'm still a little annoyed about that.

48:43It was so aggressive. But I ended up doing well after that. Probably should have tapped much earlier, which also leads to NYC. We're going to talk more about Henzo. But I actually spent a little bit of time at Henzo's gym way, way back in the day. Only went a handful of times. And it wasn't really his fault. It was an accident. But Rodrigo actually popped my right elbow, and I'm getting surgery probably in the next few weeks because I want to get back into training and the extensors have been torn for like 20 years. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. But that gym is phenomenal. And it also ties into just to loop a few things together.

49:19So from Wall Street, I have written down here, correct me if I get any of this wrong, but in 2008, you start Evolve. I moved to Singapore in 2007. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Got it. Down there. Yep. But I'm still a hedge fund manager at that point. So it was crazy. So So I get to Singapore to open up the Singapore office for my hedge fund. So we have offices in New York and Singapore. And there's no place to train because Singapore is not like a mecca of martial arts. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to start a martial arts school. And it was really just selfishly for me to be able to train with, you know, and all my Sityatong brothers were in Thailand and it's an hour and a half flight from Thailand.

50:00And they're all the baddest world champions on the planet. it. And that's how Evolve started. It was kind of like - Scratching your own itch. I don't want to say a side hustle. It's my obsession. I mean, martial arts is my obsession. So the fact that I didn't have any high-level place to train when I was used to training at Henzo's, right? When I was in New York, that was kind of the - Murderer's Row. The accidental birth. Yeah. So many good people there. Yeah. But that whole time period was when I'd reached Singapore was already after I had that lunch, that sushi lunch. I'd already had this sense of, I have to do something.

50:34bigger with my life. And it's not about making money. It's about helping others or making an impact. I think you had also said that's right, Tim. When you retired from angel investing, angel investing was fun, but you didn't have that impact that you had when you came out with your books. And that's when you had millions of people reading your books and their lives changed by your lessons and learnings about life. When we work our asses off for something much bigger than ourselves and we know we're impacting, if you're lucky, your country, and if you're even luckier, your continent and maybe the world, right?

51:07There's a sense of like my life has meaning. And it's not about money. It's that somehow Tim Ferriss is on this planet and he's actually helping people, millions of people all over the planet through his books. Same thing I get now, the joy of one, hearing about you having this WhatsApp group with your buddies and all you guys are competitive former martial artists or fighters. And then you discover one and like that's, I get excited. Or like, you know, when I was in Japan and the entire stadium of Saitama completely sold out. Or when we were in the US in September in Denver, the Denver Nuggets stadium, completely sold out.

51:43And, you know, I was sitting there in Denver and I was just like, this is the Denver Nuggets. This is the NBA world champion stadium. And it's completely sold out. And this company, I started here in Singapore and never in a million years did I think we would sell out. And then literally months later, we sold out in Thailand, Impact Arena, a massive stadium. And then in Qatar, Doha, the next month, also another massive stadium. And then Saitama Super Arena. So it was just like this last several months has just been just a reminder, you know, in some ways, like as I travel around the world, this thing has just gone viral.

52:18And, you know, our viewership members are just massive, massive around the world. you see that is the same i feel what i've read about you tim is you know that same drive or that same sense of meaning in your life or purpose is the same thing when i really get excited when somebody's like man hey i saw that fight or i was there or you know or whatever oh yeah we're gonna definitely get back to this through line in a second but vividly remember watching one for the first time and it brought back all of those memories from japan because it's very elegantly produced in the sense that it's not like being trapped in a video game with a thousand distractions which a lot of spectator sports have kind of turned into it's like you have the lights on the fighters the crowd is often darkened yes and yes there's this i'll paint with a broad brush here, but it depends on where the fights are, right?

53:13There's either, in Japan, you know, the audience is very reverent and it's very quiet. There might still be like, a fight, you know, like something like that. And they'll clap for certain things and shout for sure. But otherwise, it's quiet. It's very different from the US. And then I've actually, so I've been to Lumpini before and I've been to Rajadamnan before. And that's like, ah, you know, high energy. With the music and the bedding and the hey, hey, everything. low kick or whatever is coming out. And as a viewer, as a spectator, it really allows you to kind of savor the main course without distraction, which is the fights.

53:53Let's hop to one. So it looks like around 2011, that's the birth of one championship, was not an overnight success. And we're going to get eventually, because I did not expect to find Mike Moritz and Doug Leone in this story, which is fucking wild. So we're definitely going to come to that because that seems like a really important moment. But before, I want to read one of my friend's questions because there have been different fight promotions in, say, Pan-Asia before. For instance, in China, there's something called Sanda Wang, which is like King of Sanda, which actually has some great fights, but they never hopped.

54:36They never really hit the mainstream globally. And for the people who are wondering, Sanda is like shoot boxing. It's like kickboxing plus throws. It's actually very entertaining to watch. But they never crossed the chasm, at least as far as I know. And my friend's question is this. I want to know about the economics starting out. What was the thesis about why they would succeed? And what did they learn from prior fight leagues, whether successes or failures. And then his other question, which is also one of my questions, is most importantly, how the fuck do they have such consistently high-quality fights?

55:10Because I don't know what savant quant you have in the basement who's moneyballed the matchups, but I'm accustomed to watching fight cards where it's like, yeah, okay, great. Two out of the six fights are good. And all of my friends have no idea. We've watched a lot of fights in every possible discipline, how you guys consistently have such absurdly, but just starting out, I also want to know what were the kind of original theses and what did you learn from prior fight leagues as well? It's been over 13 years and to be sitting where I'm sitting is honestly less than 1 % of 1%, okay, odds. If you told me to do this again, I definitely would not have.

56:01I would have just rolled out a chain of martial arts academy and I've had a few hundred locations by now. Why? The first three years, I really thought, I love martial arts. Asia is the home of martial arts, 5 ,000 year history. There's 4 billion people here on the planet. Surely it's gonna be easy to create a global sports property. And naively, okay, I did this high level. I was like, well, you know, America has NFL, MLB, NASCAR, Europe has F1, Champions League, EPL, Bundesliga. These are all multi-billion dollar properties. You know, the market cap of NFL is, you know, north of 120 billion. NBA is$70 billion in its valuation.

56:41And I thought, man, I'm a martial artist. I know martial arts. I'll be able to somehow aggregate 4 billion fans here and then export this around the world. And it'll be easy. The first three years, Tim, complete disaster. My buddy from Harvard and I, we made a little bit of money, so we invested. Thinking that within a year, we'd get institutional investors to back us, given our credentials and our expertise and the market opportunity, zero. For the first three years, we couldn't land. We met with 150 institutional investors, zero. Broadcasters across the continent, zero. Brands, forget about it.

57:18governments forget about it. Most governments banned martial arts content actually on TV, live martial arts content. Why? Because of the violent nature, okay? And first three years, literally, no fandom, no metrics what to speak of, just losing money hand over fist. What were the main objections of the investors or broadcasters? Maybe we focus on, let's just say the investor side, what were the most common patterns of objections or refutations? There was this billion dollar property and you're way too late. You're way too late. Late to the game. Late to the game. You want to create a global property.

58:00And I think at that time UFC was about a couple of billion, right? And their metrics were already substantially larger than ours because we were just a startup. I remember when we first started our Facebook page, they had some like 20 million fans on Facebook or something like that. we started with zero today and it's all organic today we have 50 million they have 50 million on facebook as an example but i'll tell you what how we got very lucky it was at the end of year three and i called my mom my japanese mom who was completely against me starting this okay because in japan as you know tim martial arts promotions combat sports is run by yakuza the mafia in japan mobbed up yeah super mobbed up so my mom is this conservative tiny little japanese lady and she's like there's no way my son is gonna quit wall street become a mobster she's the typical japanese lady where she was like my son went to harvard and he's on wall street and he has his hedge fund she loved the check boxes the checklists you know of credentials as you know japanese culture is very much this way japanese society you know if you went to the Kodai in Japan, you're viewed as a God, right?

59:10Like, you know, it's very hierarchical. And I said, mom, I want to do what I love. And, you know, mom, you told me as a young kid, I got to go help people. And I want to live my life with my greatest obsession and somehow help people, you know, whether it's our athletes, our fans, et cetera. And you know, it's crazy, Tim, in writing the business plan, there was no such line of like, we want to have the biggest pay-per-view. We want to have the best fights or this. It was literally the mission of the company over many, many, many days and weeks. literally came, and it's still true to this day, is to unleash real-life superheroes who ignite the world with hope, strength, dreams, and inspiration.

59:43And of course, we put on the best fights. I agree with your friends, and I'll explain how we put on fights. But the first three years, complete disaster. There was no TAM. It was all theoretical. It was all this business school mumbo-jumbo. Yeah, for folks. And nobody was interested. Total addressable market. Yeah, right? Exactly. And if I didn't love martial arts as much as I did, a thousand percent of the quiz. So I call my mom, mom, end of year three, lost a crap load of my money and my friend's money. And I think we're done. We got no traction. And I thought my mom was going to tell me I should stick with it because, you know, Chachari, since you're a kid, martial arts, blah, blah, blah.

1:00:19You love it. And she said, oh, great. Why don't you just quit then? Before you get double sleeves of tattoos and can't go to the on-sun with me. Yeah. And then the conversation ended shortly after that. And I remember thinking to myself, my mom just said, just quit. And then I said, okay, if I just quit, let's say I quit today. And then it goes back to like, well, why did I even start this thing in the first place? When you really put yourself to say, I'm going to quit, you start to think about, why did I start this thing? And what is it? And I said, well, martial arts, my greatest obsession. If I want to make an impact on the world and I have an opportunity to inspire millions and one day, hopefully billions of lives through our heroes, values, and stories is what we call those are the three pillars of what we call our formula of success at one championship, values, heroes, and stories.

1:01:08If we can unleash these real-life superheroes and tell their stories of overcoming adversity, tragedy, poverty, impossible odds, those stories are going to be incredible. And of course, the values that we exhibit, which you know very well, is the true Bushido values of integrity, honor, respect, courage, discipline, compassion, et cetera, that martial arts teaches us. And I thought, there has to be a place in this world, one promotion, one promotion that has true authentic martial arts at its core. And so from that day, I said, I will never quit. Come hell or high water, I'm going to put everything into it.

1:01:43If I lose all my money, screw it. And we got so lucky. Facebook, so a big shout out to Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook started taking off in Asia at around that time as smart mobile devices were as well. If you chart Facebook's user growth and just engagement levels in Asia with the history of one championship, it is like mirror. So what happened was we saw a couple of videos start going viral around the world when we posted. And again, we're a small platform at the time, very small page. But we could see that something was happening. So we used that hockey stick data. Even though it was small, we collected this data.

1:02:22And we showed broadcasters. They took a look. This is something that's happening. in your country. Numbers have just gone 10x. Yes, they're small, but they've gone 10x in the span of three months. And then I remember we had a few months left of cash and I bet the whole firm and I put everything into video. I said, we are going to be the world's best viral video makers along the lines of value, heroes, and stories. But we want to ride the algo, not pollute it by bastardizing martial arts, but really showcasing the very best. So whether it's a knockout, that's great. Spinning back, kick all that stuff.

1:02:54But in the context of, how can I say, I didn't want to cheapen martial arts. I didn't want to bastardize it and cheapen it just and make it look like two thugs, you know, cussing at each other out. That was something I didn't want because that's not my experience in martial arts. My martial arts experience has been about love, pain, and suffering, right? As a result of that, of thousands of hours of training, you inherit these incredible values and something I'm sure you relate to, Tim. I mean, for you to get heel hooked by Ruben Asato and then somebody else in Henzo Rodrigo popping your arm and, you know, like this is part of the journey, love, pain, and suffering.

1:03:24And yet somehow you want to get back into it, right? So that to me is what martial arts is about. The unbreakable warrior spirit, the beauty of authentic martial arts. So anyways, long story cut short, the combination of us making the bet on Facebook literally saved the company. This is something that Facebook confirmed with us. And actually I ended up getting invited by Zuck to go to Facebook headquarters a couple years ago, because out of 5 ,000 sports properties on Facebook, the number one producer of organic video views in the world is one championship. We produced 30 billion organic video views last year.

1:04:03And this year we're on pace already for 40 billion, 40 billion, not million. And I remember we went from how fast we went from a hundred thousand organic video views for the whole year. And suddenly the next year it was like, you know, 5 million and the next year, a hundred million. It just went ballistic. And without that, I don't think we've been able to convince broadcaster investors and brands and sponsors and athletes. And now, as you know, Tim, as a business expert, once you've built a platform business, you know, every global sports property is a platform business where... There are multiple stakeholders who derive economic benefit or social benefit or some level of benefit from the platform.

1:04:43and hence the platform becomes, quote unquote, monopolistic, right? NBA. There's no way you can break NBA. There's no way you can break NFL. It's truly a platform business. And so we have achieved that status. And like I said, if you'd asked me to start this business again, no way. And it's less than 1 % of 1 % that we're standing here. And there are many, many inflection points of luck. just blessing. Yes, my team and I work our asses off and we made the right bets when it came. But if you told me 13 years later, you're top 10, according to Nielsen, top 10 largest global sports media property, there's no way I would have thought that would have happened.

1:05:25It's crazy. We're broadcasted live in 190 countries every single week with the largest broadcasters, like it's Amazon on America, but it's Sky Sports in Europe. It's in Japan, it's Unix. And in Thailand, it's Channel 7. In Middle East, it's Bean Sports. It boggles my mind what has happened. And it's like a lot of hard work, a lot of love, pain, and suffering. But I have to be 100 % honest, it's a lot of luck, a lot of luck. But putting on great fights, like your friend said, is not luck. We have a chemistry lab, if you will, where we slice and dice qualitative and quantitatively. It's a team of about 13 or 14 folks.

1:06:07And we slice quantitatively and qualitatively and, you know, and all that. And of course, one huge benefit is all of us on a matchmaking team, we're all martial artists. So it's like, you know, Matt Hume, you know, legendary Matt Hume. Folks like Rich Franklin, you know, legendary martial arts himself. And so got very lucky that happened to be all my friends, right? My martial arts buddies. and we're all working together and we get to cook up the best fights. And another advantage we have is because we're not only doing MMA, we're the world's largest martial arts organization, right? We showcase everything from kickboxing, Muay Thai, submission grappling, boxing, MMA, and everything.

1:06:45And the most important thing for us is signing the very best of the best athletes, the very best of the best martial artists, but very equally important is finishing ability. So this is something that's, I don't know if other organizations look at it. I'm sure they look at it, collect it, but I don't know if they look at it when they sign athletes. One champion has a 70 % finish rate. That means of all our fights - It's absurd. 70 % - It's absurd. It's a lot. People get knocked out or tapped out or choked out. It's a global duopoly now, right? UFC dominates in the West. We dominate in the East.

1:07:16We're roughly the same size. They have a 38 % finish rate. And why is that? Because in America, there's predominantly American wrestlers like yourself. and American wrestling is not necessarily geared towards finishing. It's an unbelievable martial art that controls. You can take the fighter down, pin him up against a cage. You can hold him. You can ground and pound him, but it's not necessarily a finishing finishing, right? Versus out here, we get a Rooktang or we get a, you know, it depends on the discipline or we sign the Rural Total Brothers. Those guys are killers. So we look for the best of the best, but we try to find athletes who come to kill.

1:07:52And again, I don't mean kill in a bad way. What I mean is the true origins of martial arts is self-defense. Self-defense is not about dancing for points. It's not about taking someone down and waiting and letting the judges score. It's about finishing a robber coming to your house, somebody coming to harm your family. Martial arts is about finishing a dangerous situation, right? So that you live for another day. That spirit, that Bushido, that samurai warrior spirit lives in one and lives in our athletes. And that's why we have a 70 % finish rate. All right. So I have so many more questions to ask about that.

1:08:28We're going to come back to that. But I want to mention just a few things for folks. So initially, all that pushback, the 100 plus investors, the broadcasters, sorry, UFC has already taken this game and won it. You're too late. When I started this podcast in 2014, the vast majority of people I asked who were involved in the game told me I was too late. In 2014. And now you're the number one in the world. Yeah, number one business podcast in the world. Amazing. Yeah, and sometimes that's true, but it's not as true as often as people say it. And some of the things I wrote down here, which were like, my God, these seem like really important things.

1:09:09I mean, there are tons, right? But leaving finance, fight card construction, right? Matchmaking, how to get Amazon Prime and Sky Sports. We're going to get to that, like that kind of stuff. Sequoia, and then social media slash non-event engagement because I've watched what you guys have done on social very, very closely. And correct me if I'm wrong, it also seems like by diversifying outside of MMA and having Muay Thai, having pure submission, the only way you make pure submission, well, I say like combat grappling interesting is if you have people finish, right? So you have to prioritize that for a general audience.

1:09:48Muay Thai by itself is action-packed, right? Particularly if you incentivize fighters. And also, I'd be so interested to hear, what are some of the other ingredients that you consider for putting on good fights? So you talked about finish rate, but by the virtue of having these other disciplines like Muay Thai also, you increase the likelihood of having clips that will get shared a lot. Because, man, you add elbows in, and then, oh man, Do things change? And a few things, and I might be misremembering, but I looked at it and I thought also in at least a lot of the fights that I saw, okay, rounds are short.

1:10:27That's smart. It makes me think of K1, where people put it all on the line and they weren't trying to conserve energy for round 10 or something like that. What are some of the other elements that go into constructing these fight cards? You mentioned the quantitative and the qualitative. So finishing rate would be one. And that's not just matchmaking, but actually signing fighters in the first place. What else goes into that? Because it is incredibly consistent. It is just, I've never seen anything like it. Thank you, Tim. And I'm truly grateful because that you can see that because we try our best to have the, you'll see a typical one champion card in tomorrow night.

1:11:08We have one Friday fights, right? That's every week. We have 12 fights. You'll see like eight, 10 of them will be finishes and all 12 will be barn burners. Okay. We don't have one championship where in other organizations, they may have a 12-fight card, but eight fights are a little bit of a snooze fest or decisions. And then the main co-main is amazing. It lights up the stadium. It's literally from the go. First fight, all the 12th fight, it's as if they're fighting for their lives. So I think our scouts around the world scoured 10 ,000 of the very best martial artists on the planet. We give out 50 offers a year.

1:11:40And we have a criteria for what we look for. So let's say you're the best in the world, but you are a decision, a points person. It's very unlikely you'll be signed by one. It doesn't matter if you are like 15-0, like Floyd Mayweather. But if you're there to play a game, score points, that's not real martial arts. And there's guys without a perfect record. And as you know, some of the Thai world champions have 400 professional fights, and they have lost 100 times. That's real fighting. If you have fought 400 times, and your record is 300 wins and 100 losses, that is an average world championship record in Thailand, as an example of an elite fighter, because there are no like padded records.

1:12:22Like, you know, if someone's 50 and O, it's highly suspect that they were given easy opponents or they chose their opponents at the right time, or there's a little bit of this kind of manufacturing. And you see that a lot actually in the West, okay? In the West, there's a lot of 20 and O, 15 and O, 30 and O, like in different combat sports. it seems like the West really puts a priority. But the problem with that is, you know, the longer you go with an O, the more defensive you become as a fighter because you're protecting that O, right? So when we sign athletes, we look for the best of the best in the world, doesn't matter what discipline, but we look for that killer instinct and the finishing rate.

1:12:59We really spend a lot of time looking at that so that when you get two pit bulls who are there to finish. And they're both the very best in the world. So that's one layer. You got to get the ingredients right. But then as you said, the incentives. So we pay the highest in the world for fight purses, but the win purse, but also the bonuses, especially knockout, finish bonuses. That's a quantitative side of things. But then also backstage, again, before every big event, I line up the entire card and I literally give, and I think some of it's on social media already, some of my speeches, but I literally give like a two minute Rocky Balboa type of speech.

1:13:36And I don't do it for drama. I do it because I really want to inspire every single athlete to give their very, very best performance. And so I talk about, or I ask them about, why are they here? They've spent typically 10, 15 years training six hours a day, six days a week to reach the pinnacle of martial arts, the highest level in the world in one championship. and I asked them to think about all the sacrifices, all the heartbreaks they suffered through, the injuries they've gone through, how many birthdays did they miss? How many friends' parties? How many cousins or nephews or nieces' birthdays did they miss?

1:14:12How many times did they have to sacrifice to get to this point? And then I asked them, you know, is this your greatest love? Is this what you were put on the planet for? And I make them really go deep. And if you are able to tap into a person's why, the deepest why, and you're able to then also tap into everything they have to suffer. And I tell them tonight, it's broadcast live to 190 countries around the world with the biggest broadcasters. Our last show in Tokyo at Saitama in March, our last big show, we broke viewership record. We did 2.3 billion organic video views on digital and social, okay?

1:14:522.3 billion on single show. I didn't know that at that time it was going to be that big at the time. And that's executing our TV broadcast, right? So our TV broadcast around the world. Then we ended up trending on number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, but trending in US and UK and France and Australia, Thailand, Japan. It was just trending all over the world, China. And I tell them, how do you want the world to remember you tonight? You have a chance to unleash your greatness upon the world in a way that you will make magical memories for your fans. You will create something extraordinary.

1:15:24And I've had fighters cry in those huddles that I have, and then I walk away. And the reason why I can give this kind of speech is because I have walked, I mean, maybe not at the elite level that they're at, but I have walked in their shoes in training and competing and injuries or whatever it is. So there's a real bond that I have with our athletes. And the fact that I train every day and I train with them, I mean, I don't want to name names, but I train with our athletes. different athletes that come by and, you know, or I'm flying to Tokyo or I fly to Denver or I go wherever, you know, because I'm always training.

1:15:57No matter where I am, I always train. But how do you produce a Six Sigma performance? It's not because you train and you're, you know, I'm going to fight. No, it's, there has to be something bigger. You have to be fighting for something bigger. It's almost an emotion. It's almost an emotive state of this is it. This is my moment in time and I'm going to deliver everything I can. I'm going to be unbreakable. And what Chattr told me in that locker room, all the sacrifices I went through, my parents going through, and if I win, of course, the purse is big and blah, blah, blah, all the other stuff.

1:16:30If you're fighting for something bigger than yourself, you're unbreakable. That is what I, at the end of the day, try to remind our athletes, that they are fighting for something much bigger than themselves. Well, it certainly translates to a phenomenal viewer experience. For folks who have not seen one, check it out. You will not be disappointed. You can thank me later. I do want to double click on two things. So the first is pushing all your chips in on Facebook and social media, because a lot of people, I'm just trying to time this out. Maybe this is like 2014, 2015. Yeah, they're on there.

1:17:12Okay. So a lot of people were pushing their chips in on social, maybe not in as aggressive and all in fashion, but a lot of people were trying to make it work. And a lot of people didn't figure it out. So what I'm super curious about is what were the guiding tenets, or the principles or the lessons learned where you zigged and zagged that allowed you to actually make it work? That's kind of question number one. And then I definitely have to get to this Sequoia meeting because I want to know how the hell that happened and what happened in that meeting. I really did not expect to see this in my research.

1:17:54I'm so happy I was surprised by it. But first, on the social media, because a lot of people to this day try to make it work and never figure it out. So what allowed you to translate pushing the chips in into success on social? Again, there's a lot of element of good luck. I don't want my team and I to be so arrogant to think and to say and have the world believe that it was just hard work and our genius. You know, I'm going to be an asshole. I'm sorry. I'm going to jump in though. I want to give credit where credit is due also because when I first saw you guys on Amazon Prime, I was like, oh, oh, this is really interesting.

1:18:29And then I followed you on social. And then I was looking at the videos and I was like, okay, this is very smart. I was like, number one, they are not stingy with highlights. You share basically, as far as I can tell, all the best highlights, which doesn't mean you shouldn't watch the full fights. I want to watch the full fights because it's like rock them, sock them robots the whole time. But you share highlights and you also tell really, really good stories. And I remember Stamp Fairtex, who doesn't hurt that she's pretty cute and does her dances and so on. But what a killer also. She's a beast.

1:19:05She's a beast. Oh my God. Like when the opponent's backing away and she throws the liver kick. I mean, it's just brutal. But the way that you tell the story and also because you have such privileged access and focus on Muay Thai as well. And as you mentioned, poor person's sport, that's how a lot of people hope to get out of poverty. They start fighting when they're really young. And you have this incredible human interest story. And you guys do a masterful job of combining that with spectacular fight footage. But yes, there's always some luck involved. So I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of the controllable factors.

1:19:41So the controllable factors, obviously, you have to know what the combat sport fan wants. But at the same time, if you're only appealing to the combat sports fan, it's a smaller market. If you're able to tell a story and make it more mainstream, again, about abject poverty or tragedy or adversity or whatever it may be, that can transcend beyond a combat sports fan and go viral around the world to human interest stories. So of course, one is my team and I, and I was literally the first social media manager, and I understood that you have to crack the algorithm. But if you just blindly follow the algorithm, you'll put out junk because you're just chasing endlessly.

1:20:19You have to be very clear about who do you want to be? What are you trying to communicate? And what are you trying to do by giving this video to your fans? We always say we want to evoke emotion, strong emotion, laughter, sadness, inspiration, awe, something very like, oh my God, oh wow, something that's going to surprise and delight you in your day. So you're going to hang out with us and watch 10 times a day, whenever you go TikTok, Instagram, wherever, or do you in Kuaishou, Weibo in China, et cetera. But at the same time, you have to be true to why we started this company. You have to be true to real martial arts finishes, real Bushido, the warrior way, not bastardizing or cheapening into some sort of street fight thug by having your athletes create fake drama about hating each other or whatever it is.

1:21:10that's just not what I think will transcend and become truly mainstream. I think at the end of the day, people want to watch all over the world. The very best of the best go at it, but they want to know the stories behind why this person is what they're doing and why he or she is where they're at and what are the stakes of this fight. And of course, we have to be very sharp about every single platform has a specific algorithm that it's looking for and marry that. So that's all the skill aspect of what we can control. But what I mean by luck is you look at the mobile device, okay? Millennium Gen Zs, which make up 80 % of our audience today, what do they do?

1:21:48Their first window of media consumption is their mobile device. They wake up in the morning, they look at TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is. They look at it 10, 20 times a day before they go to bed. That's the last point of media consumption. What does that mean? You need to dominate the mobile device. And that was what we did in 2014. We said to ourselves, we are going to dominate the mobile device. Why is this lucky? Because mobile devices took off, Facebook took off, all the socials took off. But the ping pong ball, the tennis ball, the soccer ball, the basketball, the football, you cannot see clearly on a mobile device.

1:22:22And I'll give you a great example. When Naomi Osaka won the US Open for the first time, and I remember, because she's half Japanese, right? So I was like, oh my God, half Japanese first won like me, blah, blah, blah. So I looked at Facebook and I could see, you know, it was highlights of her match. and I looked at it and I couldn't see the ball. And I'm like, two seconds, I just scrolled past because I'm like, I couldn't consume it. That's what I mean by luck. Combat sports is the perfect content for mobile devices. And that's why you have the two giants, UFC and one today, dominating in that sphere and why we have Milena and Gen Z audience and why other sports are struggling and trying to catch up, but they have the wrong content genre for mobile device because you cannot see the soccer ball, the football, the ping pong ball, the tennis ball.

1:23:04You can barely see the basketball. it is very hard to consume and no one's going to watch a 200 lap car race on your mobile, right? You're just not. That's what I mean about luck. But yes, everything you described about our content and how we explain a stamp fair text or, you know, yes, she's the best in the world, but does she twerk? Does she dance? Does she sing? Is she cute? Is her personality larger than life? And that's her real personality. You know, that's another thing about us. Everything we do is about authenticity. There's no manufacturing. There's no like, oh, well, let that person be a bad guy.

1:23:32that person be a good guy. Let's create drama between them. They hate each other. Let's stage a camera backstage. They bump into each other. We don't do any of that. We just let them be who they really are. We tell their real stories. But the one important thread for all of our content and everything we do is that it's real martial arts. I want to give you and your team some additional credit too. In addition to the human interest, in addition to the highlights, you guys all are very clever. You mentioned strong emotions, right? So laughter, I've seen quite a lot of funny stuff. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

1:24:05That is organic as a product of the personalities sort of outtakes where like somebody is actually kicking their boyfriend in the head as trying to demonstrate a technique. It's like, oh shit. And then you see them doing damage control or whatever. Yeah. That might make me sound like a bad person to find that funny, but it is pretty funny when you watch it. And also, you know, I remember very specific segments where for instance, since you had some absolute Muay Thai heavies, and by heavies, I don't mean big, I just mean killers, kicking a device, people may have seen these in arcades and so on, where you might punch what looks like a speed ball and then it shows you your power output.

1:24:40And you had a number of them kicking a device that was similar, showing like pounds per square inch or kilograms per square inch of impact. And I mean, that is pretty fight sport specific, but I've never seen something like that done before. And I'm like, okay, that's very, very clever. Like that is clever. I'm going to share that with my friends. And even though it might be within the fight porn WhatsApp channel, they'll share that with their five other friends who aren't on it and it'll perpetuate it. Right. Yeah. So I have to give credit. And I tell our team this, we have the very best social media team on the planet.

1:25:16Many of the, my teammates have been on this journey for a long time with me, but I do believe, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but it's the fact that I actually built the first page and I was actually a social media manager. Something about my personality is probably very similar to your, Tim, is like, when you do something, you're all in. Okay. So when I decided that Facebook was going to be it, I said to myself, I want to be the best Facebook manager on the planet. So I was obsessed. Not about reading. I was obsessed about experimenting, learning every little trick. And, you know, of course I was reading in voracious, but I would look at all these other pages that were doing very well.

1:25:56And, you know, and I would just steal ideas and think about concepts and just being completely consumed by it. And of course it helped a lot that I myself, because I'm a lifelong martial artist, I know what the fight fan wants. I know, I know exactly. Right. At the same time, I wanted to build a property that transcended fight fans. I want it to be truly mainstream, right? Again, that's something that NFL has done incredibly well in America, that when it's Super Bowl, the entire country watches. And that is something that one day I do want when we have a major world championship fight that the whole world stops to watch like Olympics.

1:26:33I think when there's a gold medal, like Olympic swimming final or a hundred meter dash final, I think there's something like a billion, billion, five people watch, right? I can see that happening with one. I can genuinely see that having a billion, billion, five concurrent viewers watching or World Cup soccer finals, I think that did a couple billion concurrent viewers. I can see one doing it because just this year, our numbers have, we've already broken our previous high by 300 or 400 % in our last event. So can you imagine on these big numbers of 30 and 40 billion organic video views, we are still breaking our records on a single individual event by three X.

1:27:11So we're just scratching the surface of what one can be, you know? Let me take you back to the pain and suffering for a second. So you're struggling, struggling, mom, I want to quit. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. You should quit. And they're like, wait a fucking second. And it's not working. It's not working. Suddenly you have some graphs to show from social media. Hey, broadcaster in country X, this is what's happening in your backyard. And yes, the numbers are small, but take a look at the growth rate. And so the tide starts to shift and then you seem to hit an inflection point. And I've had Roloff Botta on this show before from Sequoia.

1:27:56How important or unimportant was that meeting that you had with Michael Mortz and Douglas Leonian for people who don't know who they are. These guys are kingmakers. I mean, they are the top of the top wizard of Oz venture capitalists behind so many successes we could spend the next 30 minutes listing them all off. I mean, these guys are absolute icons. Was that meeting important? And then assuming it was, how on earth did it happen? And what did you do in that meeting that made the impression it made? I call it the$100 million breakfast because Sequoia Asia orchestrated it. They thought we were onto something very big.

1:28:41And they said, Mike Morris and Douglas Leona are coming, and we're only booking a handful of meetings for them because they're a very busy schedule. What was the organization that helped book it for you? Sequoia Capital Asia. It was the managing director. Yeah, Sequoia Asia run by Shailendra Singh, and he was the managing partner. How did you connect with them in the first place? This is what I mean about serendipity. Long story cut short, it was around April of 2016. We had hired a small investment bank and we said, we want to now go raise institutional funding. And we didn't have any institutions at the time.

1:29:18It was still bootstrapping, but we think we had enough to go raise institutional funding. We had a slide with our metric, a couple of slides with our metrics, all these big hockey stick charts. And that was like, I think four o 'clock, the meeting ended with our bank. We walk out and now we didn't think anything of it. Two hours later, the investment banker calls us and says, Sequoia Asia wants to meet you. And we're like, how did you do what? This investment banker, he walked in to the elevator and Shailendra Singh, the managing partner of Sequoia Asia was in the elevator. he happened to be carrying the one championship slides that hockey stick charts and shilendra said to our investment bank ripple dot is the name of the thing and our investment bankers name atin kukreja he turns and says what company is that well he's hockey and he goes oh it's a sports company called one championship what is that and on the elevator ride shilendra decided i want a meeting with these guys i'm going to fund them off of the metro because okay it's It's literally like this is literally what happened.

1:30:23Bananas. So on Sunday, it was a Sunday because Sequoia Asia demanded to meet us, to meet me. So on Sunday, I had breakfast. Me and my partner had breakfast with Sequoia. And they told us, I mean, as Shilinder said, we want you to drop the investment bank. We want you not to go on the roadshow. We will fund it. This is the first institutional funding, you know, and they funded. And it was a small check. I think it was like 15 million. But about a year later, I think, is when Mike Moritz and Douglas Leon were in town, only for a couple of days, because they were doing a thing, doing Asia-wide tours, only a couple of days in Singapore.

1:31:03And Shilender said, hey, I want them to meet you. They want to meet you, whatever it is we want to meet. Of course, I know who they are. They're legendary. Mike Moritz is, as Tim said, Mike Moritz and Douglas Leon are probably the greatest investors in Silicon Valley has ever seen, amongst the greatest. Sequoia Capital, obviously one of the greatest, if not the greatest venture capital firm in history. I go to breakfast and it's Mike Moritz and it's Doug and Shalendra. So it's the four of us. And I'm sitting there and they're asking all kinds of questions. And Mike Moritz says, you know, ask all these questions.

1:31:36And I will never forget it. At the end of the breakfast, Mike says, H.R. Tree. there are founders who their entire reason for being born on this planet and he named i think it was like you think he named bill gates or whatever it is you know for microsoft that were put on this earth for that one reason to go after something gargantuan and you are that guy for this opportunity and there is most founders are there for a business opportunity they see a pain point in the market and they solve the solution and they go ipos or they sell the company and then they move on to the next thing he just looked me in the eye and says this is going to be a home run No, they grilled me all these different kinds of questions.

1:32:12So the funding actually came out,$100 million funding came out of Silicon Valley. So this is the first sports investment in the history of Sequoia in Silicon Valley. So it didn't even come out of the Asia fund. It came out of the main fund to invest into one. And I think, or again, I might begin the years wrong, but around 2017, if my memory serves me right, I think that was$100 million at a billion-dollar valuation around there. I was in shock because after the breakfast, which I thought went okay, I know it was It was an hour. Literally two hours later, Shilender says, we want to cut you a check for$100 million.

1:32:45Two hours after the breakfast. So we had the breakfast in the morning. I remember 10, 11 in the morning, I'm walking and Shilender calls me and says, we want to put a check for a hundred million bucks. They think you're onto something special. And man, I'm eternally grateful to this day. I mean, eternally grateful to Mike Morris and Douglas Hill. In that one hour, they slice and dice in the business completely. and even me as a person. I'm telling you this whole journey have been moments of serendipity, moments of just good blessings for us to get this far. It's mind-blowing to me and I would never have done it if you told me do it again.

1:33:19I would never. It's luck. I mean, of course, the elevator. I hope that an investment banker gets a box of chocolates too every once in a while. No, no, no. A tin Kukreja. I'm giving a shout out to a tin Kukreja, Ripple Dot. But it is the best TMT investment bank out here in Asia. What is TMT? Technology, media, and telecom investment bank. Okay, got it. So you did have a lot of luck with that amazing encounter in the elevator. You also had to perform in the breakfast. And those can both be true, right? So there is definitely a skill element needed to capitalize on the luck. What I'd love to hear about, you mentioned them asking a lot of questions, slicing and dicing the business, as well as you personally.

1:34:06I guess two things. What were some of, and it may be too long ago, but to whatever degree you recollect, even an impression, what types of questions made them different from perhaps other investors in other meetings? What types of questions did they ask? And number two, what were the main pitch points from your perspective that you think made the difference? It was very interesting because I remember Mike Moritz asking very qualitative human questions about me, about my motivation, about how I hire people. It was just very qualitative. And so I didn't think the breakfast would result in an investment.

1:34:50I thought it would just be another prolonged process. I'd have to go to Silicon Valley and it'd be just a long, prolonged process. And he quickly sussed out very quickly. He said, this thing is so big. This project is so big, but it's going to require a founder with unbelievable resilience. And that's why you've got to find the guy who this is his life's calling. He said, it also requires a founder who can attract and retain the very best people on the planet. And not every business plan needs that, he said. But in this case, it requires a founder that can attract and retain their very best. And he just looked me in the eye, guys, I think you're the guy.

1:35:28I think you're going to be able to convince broadcasters, athletes, investors, group presidents, chief commercial officers, internal and external stakeholders to build this whole thing. I'm like, in one hour, how could he have guessed that about me? And I didn't even have that impression of myself. I just thought, hey, I'm a guy who loves martial arts and I'm a little bit crazy, so I have a high tolerance for risk. And I guess even though I did almost quit in 2014, I guess I do have a little bit of resilience. But I didn't think of myself in the terms of the way Mike Mortz was saying. And Doug, his questions were about the business.

1:36:07And he educated me in that one hour that what I'm sitting on in a sports product is a platform business. He's the ultimate platform business, actually. He said, most tech companies, SaaS or platform, they can get broken. And he gave a great example. And I don't want to name names of a tech company, but it was a relatively well-known tech company. It is a relatively well-known tech name, but he gave the example, said, three PhD engineers in Stanford, if they come up with the right solution, can dismantle this, at the time it was a$10 billion company. They can dismantle it like that. I think I know which one that is.

1:36:41He said, there are no three engineers in this world that can dismantle what you've created right up at this point. Because at that point, we maybe had a few billion organic video views. And at that point, maybe we were in 117, 120 countries broadcast. There was clearly momentum being built and clearly we'd broken through a lot of barriers. Government started getting interested in us. He could see that different stakeholders were going to derive economic value from the platform we've built. But he could also, and he literally said this to me, and I remember it. He said, there's no engineering team in this world that can dismantle you.

1:37:15And that was very powerful. So most companies, tech companies, software companies can be dismantled by a great team. Does it better, faster, cheaper or whatever, right? But no sports property, no global sports property can get dismantled in a heartbeat. We now have about 500 million fans, a little over 500 million fans, okay, globally. If I left one and I said, you have to now compete with one championship. I'm going to look at one championship is going to do about 40 billion organic video views this year. They have 500 million fans. They're in 190 countries broadcast live every single week. They have the best athletes across every single discipline.

1:37:55Where do I begin? Do I fly to Amazon and say, hey, it's Chachri. Do you remember me? Or do I go to our world champions and say, hey, your contract's going to end. And I would not be able to replicate this, or at least, Tim, you'd have to give me, you and I would have to go raise$10 billion together, and you'd have to give me at least another 10 years to gather that many fans, to put out that many videos. We put out about 20 ,000 videos a year right now, all produced in-house. So it's just this. And again, Douglas Leon just nailed it. On one hand, Doug is this business model genius that's slicing and dicing.

1:38:30On the other hand, Mike was slicing, dicing the human characteristics. If I was the right founder, if I was the right entrepreneur, did I have the right skills? And he really narrowed it down to the number one skill for this thing to work is a founder whose greatest strength is to attract and retain resources or attract and retain talent, internal talent, the very best people, but the very best athletes, the very best governments, investors, and et cetera, et cetera. Again, I didn't think of myself in that way. And it's very humbling to think of that, right? But in the end, Mike and Doug both, and I don't know how they saw it, are dead right.

1:39:05If you ask me, what is the necessary skill required? Even to this day, it would be exactly what Mike said. And it's exactly what Doug said about the business. In one hour, I don't know if they had prepared a plan or I don't know, but they slice and dice and then, and again, like two hours later, literally, Shalendra calls me and says, we want to cut you a check for a hundred million. And I think it was about a billion dollar valuation around there. did you give a presentation at the beginning of the breakfast or was it just conversation no no i just sat down it was like breakfast with your uncles it was so informal it was so informal and so casual and i had a presentation prepared i have my laptop you know but it ended up just being like you know how do you like your eggs and da da da and like you just it was very float as a conversation.

1:39:52Yeah. I guess, you know, they've obviously they're legends in the business and they've earned their reputation that way. And their experience base must be so vast in sussing up business models and founders and entrepreneurs and whatnot that they can, you know, it's pattern recognition. Yeah. They have a very well-developed water feel for these things. Was there anything that you learned in all of the 100 plus prior pitch meetings that you brought to bear on that conversation in terms of knowing which points to hit? I imagine they also, by that point, were very much a warm audience in the sense that regional Sequoia had invested.

1:40:32They were probably pre-sold on the metrics or their analysts or associates at Sequoia had combed over all the numbers and everything ahead of time. But was there anything after all of your pitch meeting experiences that you felt you brought to bear on that meeting? I remember that breakfast, I can remember like yesterday, I just remember walking away feeling like everything was so laid back, almost disarming. And so, I don't know, maybe their line of questioning or how they did it. It's just like, there was no gamesmanship. There was nothing. I was just like, plump, whatever they asked, the way they asked it, I felt comfortable enough to just give them the good, bad, and ugly of the business.

1:41:15Versus in the earlier days, I might've tried to paint the most positive light possible, right? I'm sure that if it was my very, very first time meeting Sequoia and I was that way, it may not have worked, but I just went with the flow. And I remember that morning, I just went with the flow. And that's why after the breakfast, I thought, man, there's going to be a lot more meetings because there's no way there's going to invest in it. And actually, they didn't tell me that this meeting was one and done. I had no expectation. They just said, hey, come to breakfast. That was literally it. And they didn't tell me anything.

1:41:43And it was again, two hours later that they called and said, hey, we want to put a hundred million. And I was shocked, but Doug and Mike only met me for one hour, but they're legends for a reason, right? I don't know. They're a lot smarter than I am. So, you know, what do I know? Well, I think you know a thing or two, it would seem, or you're doing a great job of faking it. Either way, it seems to be working out for you. I know a lot about martial arts. How about that? I know a lot about fighting. Doing every, all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's true. And I don't want you to over short sell yourself in some other departments.

1:42:16So let me ask you a little bit more about the business side. Sure. Whether it was before the Sequoia meeting or afterwards, what were the most important broadcaster slash platform deals? Of course, I'm based in the US. So Amazon Prime leaps to my mind, but maybe that wasn't the most important because sometimes as you know, to grease the path for all of your future larger customers, you need one marquee customer. And maybe the marquee customer was not in the US. It was somewhere else that kind of de-risked the proposition for other folks like Amazon Prime. I have no idea. So I'm just curious what some of the most important initial dominoes were in that kind of broadcaster ecosystem and how they happen?

1:43:00I don't know where I read this, but I read this saying of like, go chase your dream and the path will appear and the people will appear. Something along that lines, I'm screwing up the quote. But when I started this thing, it is crazy how much luck, again, just like that breakfast I said, right? But around that same time, a guy named Fabian Stetcho from CAA, which is CAA's, the second world's largest agency business. They do all the media rights for all the major sports properties. They have all the major Hollywood stars. And it's a huge, huge talent agency. Yeah, exactly. Very popular. But they do all the sports media rights properties.

1:43:44Literally in 2016, 2007, around that same time period, Fabian and I, we met over a video call because one of the divisions within CAA was looking at potentially investing in us. and Fabian and I just hit it off. And he's based in New York. What is his job or what was his job there? Oh, he's still there. He's a very senior person. He's basically in charge of selling meteorites for properties, for the biggest sports products. So he did NASCAR. He did, I forget which ones, but the very big ones, MLB, et cetera. And again, almost 10 years ago, he spotted us and the investment arm of CA was looking to invest at an early stage company like ours.

1:44:27and Fabian was from the meteorite side and Fabian and I hit it off. And he actually was the one that helped orchestrate this Amazon deal. But that's what I mean, Tim. Along the way, so many incredible people appeared and just suddenly believed in what we were doing, believed that the world needed a major global sports property out of the continent of Asia. Because if you think about it, all the big sports properties around the world, global sports property only came from the West. We're literally the first and only global sports property coming out of the East, sending content around the world.

1:44:59Okay. I don't know. Maybe they saw the address of Mark was huge. Maybe they saw the brand. You know, it's hard for me to know exactly. How did you initially connect with, was it Fabian? Yeah. CAA. Did you just get a cold email? So I might be getting the dates wrong, but I think when Sequoia announced they invested in us, that came with a lot of interest. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Mike Morris, Douglas, he's only investing in one. And so CAA's division that invests contacted us and we did a call. But what transpired from there was a friendship with Fabian and many years. And again, he was instrumental in helping us crack the US market.

1:45:41And CAA was also instrumental in getting us Sky Sports in the UK. You know, that's the biggest sports broadcaster. It's the ESPN of whatever it is, right? Of the UK, of Europe. It's literally one thing after another. I'll give you a great example. I am on this panel for Milken Institute. It's a conference, a business conference. I'm on this sports panel. And literally next to me is a name, now a very close brother, a friend, named Hassan Al-Tawadi, who at the time was chairman of FIFA Qatar, the World Cup of Qatar. And this was also like eight years ago. So we're sitting on a panel and then it's NBA and then it's F1.

1:46:22and they just sat us next to each other. And Hassan turns to me and says, Chachar, I want to meet you afterwards. Oh yeah, of course. We have this meeting and he's like, Chachar, I've been doing Muay Thai for like five years. I love Demetrius Johnson. I love, you know, Rotteng. And we had this one hour power. And I'm like thinking, this is the chairman of Qatar World Cup, which is going to be happening in, I think I know four or five years from now. Right. And he's like, Chachar, hey, why don't you come to Qatar? Just, I want to show you around. Hassan. And we became very fast friends. And I flew to Qatar for the first time during COVID in 2020.

1:46:56Everything was shut down. I got some special visa to leave the country of Singapore and got some special visa to be allowed to enter Qatar. I go there. Now I've been to Qatar. And Qatar is literally like a second home to me now. Qatar Investment Authority, the government of Qatar invested in one as a result of this me sitting in Milken next to Hassan Al-Tawwadi, who is literally like a brother now. We're very close. Who's a martial artist like you, Tim, okay? Time-wise, just to put it on the timeline, was that after or before the Sequoia investment? That was after. After. Around the same time, maybe 2017, 2018.

1:47:28Sequoia was around 2017. So maybe a year after that. So what happened was after the word got out in Asia, but around the world that Mike and Doug personally, or GGF, it's called, I think, the Sequoia Global Growth Fund, which is managed by them, like Doug and Mike invested in one. That's when we got invited to speak at Milken, World Economic Forum. Like it just suddenly all the pieces started coming together. But at each of these things was somebody who loved martial arts or saw the purity of what one was doing and how different it was from anything else that existed on the, on the planet. It was one thing after another.

1:48:00And again, like, you know, when you, when you open this talk, you said, Hey, I have this WhatsApp group with my buddies who are all your friend, Doug introduced you to this one. That is literally how all the dots have connected is like somebody saw that. And then you said, Chachri, I don't mean to offend you, but it reminds me of pride in K1. And of course, I know your background having lived in Japan. I'm sure we're going to end up training together. Okay. Like just these weird things, you know, go easy on my right elbow. The weirdest coincidences I'm telling you, man. And so this, I really believe that sometimes when you chase a dream that's aligned fully with your passion and your purpose on life, my purpose, my mom told me from when I was a five, that I'm going to help here to help the world or help people.

1:48:44And how do I help people today? You say, well, our athletes, we change our lives. And through the stories of our athletes, we inspire all of our fans to live their greatest life. Every week, we give magical memories to families with their fathers and sons or daughters watching in front of the TV. I'll give you an example in Thailand, again, which you're very familiar with. In Thailand, one championship is as big, if not bigger than NFL or NBAs in America. The number of fans have come up to me and said, I spend time with my father more than I've ever spent because of one championship. Because every Friday as a family, we sit down in front of the TV and we watch one championship.

1:49:23Man, that is exactly how I got introduced to Muay Thai. My father took me to Lumpini Stadium, which you have been, when I was nine years old. And despite all the, I had a complicated relationship with my father, didn't see him for decades. A lot of anger, a lot of hatred. But in the end, I'm full of gratitude for all the good he did for me. And without him, I would never have found my greatest love, which is martial arts, when I was nine years old. And the fact that that's my most poignant memory of my father to this day, and that magical memory is happening all over the country of 70 million people in Thailand, where I grew up.

1:50:03I just came back from Thailand. It still doesn't register. It's wild. I land in the country and it's like, imagine Tim, if you had started NFL and it became popular in your lifetime, let's just say in America and everyone knew Tim started NFL. It's like that. It's like, it's the most surreal experience as a kid growing up in Thailand and to see what's happened now. But you see, but now I really do believe that my mom's words about helping others, somehow it all feels almost like destiny. You know, my father named me warrior. He took me to Muay Thai. I was so obsessed with it, and I am still obsessed with it, that it became my life.

1:50:41And I could have had a very comfortable life in the investment world as a hedge fund manager or an entrepreneur in other business or whatever. I could have done real estate or whatever it is. But somehow, it's the weirdest thing. I just feel like my destiny is to be here, right here, right at this moment, and everything that came with it. And all the good, bad, and ugly that happened in my life somehow have led me to this moment. Sorry to be a little bit cornball with you. I'm a very philosophical guy. I think deeply about the meaning of life. And I think deeply about what is it that I want to do?

1:51:13You know, what is it that I want to do? Meaning that, you know, I don't own a lot of fast cars. I own a Toyota. I don't have any material desires. There's a G-Shock watch. I don't have many material things. I almost nothing. It's because I just learned a long time ago being poor that all that kind of stuff is attaching yourself to material things versus attaching yourself to a purpose or meaning of life. I don't know. I found much more deeper fulfillment and happiness having found and aligned my passion, my purpose than I ever did buying anything material. Well, I also imagine given your background and experiences that attaching yourself to material goods or just subconsciously becoming attached to them as you accumulate them and value them more and more highly feels like skating on very thin ice compared to purpose, which is much, much harder to take away.

1:52:07Just seems like psychologically, it makes all the sense in the world. And I'd love to ask, I have a lot of questions remaining. I am definitely going to ask you, I'll plant the seed about Henzo. I want to hear more about Henzo and his role in your life. Before we get to that, though. I want to ask a few specific questions. You mentioned philosophy. I also recall the one up on Wall Street, the Lynch book. And I'm wondering if there are any books that you have either reread quite a bit on your own or gifted to other people. And this comes to mind because you're attracting talent, right? You're cultivating talent and stakeholders.

1:52:49And And I've been involved with quite a lot of companies since 2007, 2008. And I remember visiting the Shopify offices for the first time because I was their first advisor in 2008 or 2009. What an incredible story. Great guys. And they have, at least at the time that I visited, they had, for instance, Andy Grove, High Output Management, and a few other books that they would give to everyone when they became an employee or at least someone in a management position at Shopify. So for all these reasons, I'm just curious if there are any books that stand out to you that you've reread or that you've gifted or recommended to other people.

1:53:28I don't say that I have one book that I go to, but I would say a few books that I think are very interesting. One is a book that recently came out called 32 Principles by a friend of mine, Henner Gracie. So he's part of the Gracie family, the jiu-jitsu family. and the 32 principles relates to jiu-jitsu, but it's a double meaning. Each principle is also relating to how to live life. And I found that to be a very powerful, almost like Bible of what martial arts has been for me, but also how I also have inherited from jiu-jitsu doing for about 20 years and all the life lessons that applies. It's very simple things.

1:54:08Because if you force something, it often doesn't come to you. If you align and connect and you go with the flow, you'll be able to catch that submission. You'll be able to choke someone out or get an armbar or whatever it is. But oftentimes when you go for something directly and you force it, it's a very good analogy for life. You know, certain things that you can't force passion or purpose. It's either that's your true self or you're faking it. If you're faking it to yourself, you only get so far and you'll fake it to the world. So that's one book that I think I would recommend anybody to read.

1:54:40And whether you do jujitsu or not, there's a lot of powerful lessons in that. And sorry, it's very martial arts because I'm always martial arts obsessed. Another person that I think books, and there's a lot of books on Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is someone, and people may not truly understand. Bruce Lee was, yes, he was a world-class martial artist, but he was a very deep person in how he thought about life and meaning of life. And so reading his philosophies, reading his, has always had a major impact. The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, his first martial arts book. But there's a lot of stuff on Bruce Lee about how he lived life and all that.

1:55:16And one quote that comes to mind is, he says, he said many, many, many years ago, right? When he was alive, don't pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a hard one. And the meaning of that, you're like, why would you want to do that? You pray for the strength for a hard one because a hard life is often a meaningful life. Love, pain, suffering. You're going, because you're pursuing something, oftentimes bigger than yourself, that involves love, pain, and suffering such that the path is going to be hard. Praying for an easy life means you wasted your potential as a human being. I have an easy life meaning I never was given a challenge.

1:55:54I was in the lap of luxury my whole life or whatever it is. I had food on my plate. I never went through any adversity. So Bruce Lee is someone I talk a lot about, quote a lot, but I also look at even modern day heroes, including our athletes and their stories in terms of whenever we'll have a company meeting, and it's completely unrelated to martial arts, but every month we have an award called Be Like Nick. Goes to the employees, our teammates who go above and beyond the call of duty in their work and do the extraordinary. and we tell the story of it. And why is it called Be Like Nick? Because it's about Nick Wojcik.

1:56:34So there's this motivational speaker who was born with no arms and no legs. I don't know if you know Nick Wojcik. Yeah, I think I've shared his videos in my newsletter actually years ago. Yeah. Yeah, I think he's from Australia. He's born with no arms and legs. Tried to commit suicide when he was nine by drowning himself in the bathtub because he was endlessly bullied and had no future and his mom saved him. Incredible life, incredible life story and incredible optimism and sense of if he can make it and become one of the world's greatest motivational speakers. He has a beautiful wife. I think he has three kids.

1:57:06Incredible life. And so, and we started this Be Like Nick several years ago award. And those are my tools for how to teach because I just feel like sometimes for me as a leader, if you pan people books, they may or may not read them, but that's not how they learn. I find storytelling to be the most powerful way to live and exemplify the values of your company, of your organization, by like, be like Nick these stories, rather than say, everyone be good, don't lie, don't cheat, or whatever it is, the values, right? It's better to tell stories of real life heroes within your own company that exemplify your values, that exemplify what it means to do extraordinary things, and hence be like Nick.

1:57:48So I know I'm not answering a question directly about books. I have so many books I would, you know, so if you want to know about investing, Yeah, bridging to the storytelling is great. I mean, it can be a physical book, but it's more a metaphor for teaching in this particular case, learning slash teaching. So I think the storytelling maps into that. Are there any people who you have looked up to or who you admire for their storytelling ability? It could be within the world of business. I remember one of my most nerve-wracking interviews very, very early on that I had was with Ed Catmull, who at the time was president of Pixar.

1:58:24And he wrote a book called Creativity, Inc., and it talks about storytelling quite a lot. The reason that was so nerve-wracking is the first person I did not know who I interviewed on the podcast. I was really, really nervous. But are there any folks you look up to as storytellers in the way you describe it or otherwise? Outside of my family, my greatest role model is Kru Yotong Senanan, who is the founder of Sip Yotong Camp, Sip Yotong Gym, which is where I cut my teeth from Muay Thai. He was a very philosophical man, and he died penniless. But he didn't die penniless because he was materialistic, or he wasted money, or he was into gambling or anything.

1:59:10No, he died penniless because all of his money, all the time every year was given to those less fortunate. His whole mission in life was when he built Sichong Dong Gym, it was the number one in the entire world at one point in Muay Thai, Peru, the most number of world champions, the most fierce fighting gym in the world. And his whole philosophy was giving to orphans and underprivileged kids. And he wanted to share the art of Muay Thai and he would fund their food, their education and et cetera. and a few years before he died i think five or six years before he died he won 56 million baht which is about a million almost two million dollars in the lottery and in the lottery wow yes okay yeah and he the crazy thing he got the money the next day literally he announced on in the media anyone who wants me to give you money just come to the gym tell me your story and i'll give you what I believe is appropriate.

2:00:08And I'm not kidding. Thousands of people showed up, thousands. And people would say, my mom is dying of cancer and he would give 10 ,000, whatever, until it was all gone. This is a true story. You can even Google it and it's there. And he was somebody, again, had the most big impact in my life. And he was an incredible storyteller. He would tell us stories of legendary fighters and why they became great and how they lived their life. He was someone who never smoked, never drank. And he had a whole bunch of other tenants. And to this day, his words are in my head. His lessons are in my head. So a powerful storyteller for me is someone who tells a story, but embedded in it is a deep lesson, because that's how I think knowledge and experience gets passed on.

2:00:59So I don't have anybody in the modern era. I'm just thinking about who tells good stories. I mean, of course, I have friends who tell good stories, funny stories. There's nobody I look up to per se, but storytelling is definitely a very big part of my leadership as it is a very big part of the One Championship brand in terms of, if you look at our broadcast on Amazon, you'll see these storytelling videos before they fight, right? It's why are they fighting? What is at stake? Is it because a mom is dying of cash? They got to pay the hospital bills. Is it because they want to be the greatest in the world and the belt is everything they've ever dreamed of?

2:01:29What is at stake? And what is a story? because that's what we believe. Oh, yes, this is going to be a fantastic knockout. And you and your buddies will appreciate it because it's martial arts at the highest levels. By the way, Tim, I haven't announced it yet. We have a big, a major event in Tokyo later this year. Oh, man. I haven't announced it, so this is coming, but I won't give the date yet. But I would like to invite you as my personal guest to come to Tokyo. We sit cage side together, okay? And Sayama Sensei will be there. Oh, man. Just because you're a background. And I'm telling you, that, when you sit there and you watch all the videos, all the life stories, you'll walk away, Tim Ferriss, with a magical memory and some powerful lesson.

2:02:08And of course, you're in the incredible seat of meeting so many different incredible human beings and you have extraordinary moments through your whole career that it might not be that special, but I promise you, given your background of loving Japan, speaking Japanese, loving martial arts, and being who you are, just you will love sitting there. And then I'll take you backstage. You'll see the speech. You go meet the guys. That, for me, is storytelling. You walk away with some powerful memories and lessons. And I'm inviting you for real. Yes, I would absolutely love to do that. So you can let me know the dates on the bat phone.

2:02:40That sounds amazing. And, you know, I think I actually bumped into Sayama Satoru once when I was like 15 or 16 because I saved up all my money and I went to one Shuto match. And then the announcers were like, you know, Sayama Satoru, Shodai Taiga Mask. And then he came out and did the whole thing. And I just remember being so in awe also of the guy's thighs, the size of his legs and his head kicks, just unbelievable. But that sounds like an amazing experience. So thank you for the invitation. I would love to talk about that. So Chatri, I'd love to ask you just some real quick kind of paint by the numbers one questions on a broadcast and online level from a distribution perspective, what are your biggest countries?

2:03:33You mean in terms of viewership or in terms of revenue? In terms of viewership. In terms of viewership. Well, obviously, the continent of Asia for us is quite large. If you thin slice it within Asia, are there any, for instance, when I'm looking at the podcast, I can go into Spotify or whatever the platform analytics might be and say, okay, looks like US, within the US, these particular states or cities, then you have this, this, this, this, this. So one way to think about it is when we throw events, and it doesn't matter what time of day we throw events, where do we trend around the world is also a very important metric we look at.

2:04:10Because, you know, yeah, I can list our top 10 countries, but surprisingly, they don't always correlate. So for example, in March, we're in Tokyo is Asia primetime show on a Sunday. We trended number two or three in America. America is not a large market for us, but we have a rabid fan base and a very growing fan base. Actually, we're only second only to UFC and we're not even on ground in America, right? In terms of the actual metrics. And there's obviously a lot of local promotions in the US, but for sure, Asia, like, you know, countries like China, Japan, Thailand, these are obviously big countries, you know, India.

2:04:53But what I say to the team is, you know, our 500 million fans are scattered all around the world. So in any given one country, might be small, right? It may be a million fans, but in another country, okay, like if you think it's like Thailand, definitely one of our top markets, 70 million people population and 70 million people are fans. There's no question, right? So that might be one country that over-indexes, but Philippines is the same way. Philippines were top two or top three sports property. I have an assistant in the Philippines who went to one of your shows live in Manila, actually. And there's also, it depends on who's world champion at the time.

2:05:27So this is another funny thing is when we have a world champion for XYZ country. Okay, I'll give you an example. Actually, it's on my Instagram, although I'm not very social media. It's funny, as a social media expert, I'm not very social media active. I'm not, yeah, engaged on my own personal ones because I just find it to be very laborious and I'd rather focus on the business, you know? But I do have one clip up there where when China won its first world champion, okay, Tang Kai, first MMA world champion, CTV5, which is the central government of China, came out on TV and online and on print.

2:06:02Jiayou, which means yay. Jiayou, yeah. China won its first world championship in one championship, okay? It was all over. He came back home, and this is the clip, to 10 ,000 people, the government threw a thing, 10 ,000 fans, and they're all holding their phone. His welcome home was crazy. We did like a billion organic video views on that single fight. Not that big, given that China is a billion three. But the point is that this blob of 500 million is growing. but what we have seen is that the pockets of popularity depends on who's the world champion who's the most popular world champions at the time where are they fighting what country right so like recently in japan our numbers just blew up in march as i mentioned because of the saitama event but previously to that it wasn't you know takeru had fought but he blew up the because unfortunately got knocked out in the first round i mean the best way to think about it is it's a blob and the blob around the world ebbs and flows based on where the events are, what time zones, because sometimes we have US primetime events, sometimes it's Asia primetime, and sometimes we're throwing events in Denver and sometimes we're in Doha, Qatar.

2:07:09So I think that's the best way to describe it. But every metric we look at, again, it's depending on country. I think almost every country I look at, because I get these stats across the world, 2X, 3X, 4X, if it's 4X, it's obviously usually a small base. these are the kind of numbers we have hockey stick charts like almost every week i don't know of a country that is down and just off the top of my head you know from prior time because it's just combat sports is growing so fast so that's a long-winded answer i know but it's because i i'm telling you like last year 100 it was thailand was our number one but this year not necessarily like you know it depends on the year on what is popular right four years ago it China for sure, or three years ago.

2:07:51A few follow-up questions. Actually, a comment on follow-up questions. The comment is, and I started thinking this around 2020, 2021 during COVID, but particularly I'm tracking, and I invest in some of these companies too, but I'm tracking AI development really, really closely and recently dealt with a deep fake video of me promoting stocks and some scam, which was 99 % convincing. I mean, this is fake video. Background, clothing, facial hair, everything except for a few glitches was convincing. And I think as more and more is CGI or AI produced, that man, oh man, one of the last places of refuge for pure authenticity is going to be live sports.

2:08:40So I think the growth, I'd be shocked if the growth doesn't continue and if it might even accelerate as people are looking for some type of oasis where they can separate fact from fiction. That's a very fascinating thing. I've had deep fake videos of me done as well. And it's kind of disturbing actually, you know, and this deep video, it was just last week, my social media team took it down was me promoting gambling. You know, I don't gamble, but we're moving more and more into a world where you don't know what is real news and what's fake news. There's so much manipulation of the media. And then on top of it, now you have AI.

2:09:17It's a scary world that we're going to be living in in the next few years. Yeah, it's pretty spooky. Let me follow up on the offices where you have important broadcast relationships, because I'd love to hear more about that. Because I guess as an outsider who knows nothing about the broadcast world. I think, well, once you sign the deal, or maybe if Fabian helps put together a deal and you agree on the X year term and when things are going to be broadcast, what is there to do with an office on the ground? I mean, is it just taking people out to nice lunches and making sure they're happy? What is actually going on?

2:09:57When we did our first broadcast deals many years ago, I thought that, oh, you sign the contract and it's done. But actually what happens is every broadcaster has tons of content. In Amazon's case, it's, they have NFL, they have NASCAR, they have, you know, WNBA. And of course there's one. And of course there's a programming schedule, but humans are humans. Like if you are, you know, we have these teams and I give a great example, let's say our Japanese broadcaster, we have weekly meetings with cross departmental. So programming, marketing, sales, blah, blah, blah, blah. check-in every single week in Japan on ground.

2:10:35And it's to make sure that the broadcaster and the content is at the right hour, the right number of promos, the highlights. What else can we be doing to grow the viewership? So you're always actually, there's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes to make sure it's a rating success and that it continues. The types of athletes, I'll give you examples. So our broadcast partner in Japan, Unix, asked me to sign some Japanese superstars as an example. So having a deep and strong partnership is very, very important. But also, it's usually we have a team, of course, with broadcast partnership, but we'll have a team of social media experts as well and athlete ecosystem scouts.

2:11:16So there's kind of three pillars that once you establish a very strong partnership with a broadcast partner, you have a broadcast team that manages everything from marketing and sponsorship sales and promos and highlights and da-da-da-da and different time slots and shoulder content. And then, of course, social media, you want to make sure you're blowing up social media so that you're culturally relevant in that country with the athletes and there's content you're always making. And of course, the athletes are competing, so you can also do that. And then the third leg is obviously athlete ecosystem.

2:11:47So I'd say those are the three pillars, whether it's China or the US or Japan or Thailand or whatever, or Philippines, where we have folks. It's usually those three pillars that are at work. I'd love to just drop a quick comparison of, say, physical retailers because I've been learning a lot more about this outside of books. I learned about it within the realm of books and book distribution, but have learned more and more about truly mass retail. which, I mean, it's just wild how much of an impact mass retail has. Online, yes, like Amazon is a big deal, but predominantly physical retails is still just enormous.

2:12:24Also, just for food security in the US, which is kind of wild to think about. But the reason I'm bringing it up is that I'm wondering, and different broadcasters must vary widely, but in the, say, retail space, you go into a large retailer in the US, it's like, okay, if you want an end cap instead of placement down at the knee, then chances are you might have to pay for it. You want better placement or you want them to sell internally to store managers or people who make buying decisions. Well, you may have to pay for that, like co-op advertising fees and so on. They're also going to want to know, in many cases, what you're doing to drive consumers to them as a retailer slash distributor.

2:13:07And I'm wondering if there are similar types of asks of one from broadcasters. In the media industry, you're either the it content or you're not. If you look at the history of the 13 years of one, there were partnerships in the early days where I just had to give the content for free. I'm like, hey, here are the metrics on social, please put it on TV. And Asia at the time was predominantly still free to air TV. It's slowly transitioned to digital, but the vast majority, I'd say like maybe two thirds of the continent is still free to air TV. But as we became more and more popular and again, a champion in China or wherever, and the popularity rises, then of course the ecosystem, whether it's B2B, B2G.

2:13:48What's B2G? I haven't heard that before. What is that? Yeah, government, government. Oh, got it. Governments, yeah, governments, yeah. Because just like F1, we're traveling circus and our events in different countries are funded by governments because they want to attract the eyeballs and the tourism, right? Interesting. Okay, so it's like hosting the World Expo or something. It's good for the local economy. A great example is Qatar. They did World Cup. And what was it after? F1, they have a few big global sports properties that the tourism bodies have funded, right? So we're different countries.

2:14:21So in Qatar's case, World Cup was our big bet in terms of introducing themselves to the world, but also building economic and political bridges for Qatar's economic and political system. But also, again, an introduction, here's Qatar, right? What better way to do it than with the Qatar World Cup where a few billion people watch and for the whole World Cup, it ended up being the best World Cup in history, right? It was in terms of games and viewership or not. But how many CEOs flew in and politicians and how many deals were done? And it has been a major catalyst for Qatar's economy and political landscape.

2:15:04It just has. And since then, there's momentum been built with Qatar. Sports has that power because sports properties, when done right, win the hearts and minds of an entire country or entire region or in Olympus case, the entire world, right? And that is what I mean about you're either it or you're not. So some sports properties, and I don't want to name names, but they just are never going to be it. They're in a genre that the sport is a snooze fest or the sport is long form or it's just uncool or production value is bad, whatever it is, right? And not being the it thing means you don't have leverage.

2:15:44Correct. You're not in a good position. Right. And then in the case of one, again, it's shades of gray just as it is for NBA. NBA is very strong in America, very strong in Philippines. But Thailand, no one cares about basketball. So every global sports property has this like shades of gray and zones where they're very, very popular and they're it. And you can command a very big price for media rights. So it's exactly like retail. If you have a hot it product that regularly sells out with a very, very fast inventory turns, the shelf space they're going to give you is premium and the retailer will probably We give you a rebate back because it's such a great product and it pulls consumers into the stores.

2:16:27Same thing. So a broadcaster will have 30 different types of programming, news, sports, this, that, da, da, da, da, da. But of course, the crown jewels is where they, the ones that drive viewership, drive cultural relevance. These are the ones that broadcasters will pay premium dollars for, right? So it really, really depends on market by market, what the economics are. but in the early days of one, literally we gave the content for free to everybody. We just want to be on air. And then they would be on air on a delayed basis at two in the morning. Then we slowly would persuade them to do it at 11 p.m.

2:17:01And eventually live and the numbers would blow up and then they're like, oh, this is a hit. And then they started investing in the property and then. How much funding have you guys raised at this point in total? We've raised a little over$600 million. dollars. But the beauty of the sports business, even NBA, NBA has about a thousand employees globally, total, full stop. It's a$70 billion property because it's an asset light business that's a platform business that at the end of the day rests on the brand and the media rights. Of course, athletes. But it's not like you have to build to scale globally.

2:17:43Again, Again, we're broadcasting 190 countries around the world every week, okay? Live. It's not like we have to build a factory in 190 countries. We don't need to raise$10 billion. We don't need 20 ,000 people. I think, if I'm not mistaken, very mature sports properties might have 2 ,000 people maximum. Like a WWE, I think, that's not sports, but it's pseudo sports. That's about 2 ,000 employees. It's around there. And that's the beauty of this business. So$600 million is a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money when you think about the viewership that we have, how big we are, how popular we are in the world.

2:18:22When you think about our status as a top 10 global sports property, I think that's also why people love software companies. Although I would argue that for what Doug Leone was saying, sports properties are far more enduring than a typical SaaS company is or typical tech startup is. No, exactly. I mean, it's like I've been involved with companies and seen companies that have raised multiple billions of dollars in their seed series or their series A. And yes, on one hand, you have the potential for 100x return or if you're lucky, 1000x return like that is possible. But also a few PhDs in a lab could design something that completely destroys that company.

2:19:04And there's a certain rapid escape velocity that can be achieved if you're the 1 % of the 1%, but very, very hard to defend, typically, to develop a moat. Whereas your business has been, on a lot of levels, a motherfucker to build. But once you've hit that critical mass, now you have a beautiful thing to defend. That's why I said it's less than 1 % of 1 % that I'm actually standing here with my team. that one channel actually survived the 13 years. And the fact that our metrics are just continuing to explode is mind-boggling to me. But we've hit that point now, like any competitor to one would have to invest a minimum, minimum, I think of a few billion dollars and at least a decade to be able to catch up with us.

2:19:53But by then, our own metrics will be multiples of what it is today, right? Yeah, if people are looking for business opportunities, they'll choose something else rather than try to scale Everest backwards. We didn't get to say much about Henzo Gracie, but I want to at least give a shout out to Henzo because I've only met him very briefly, but what a sweet guy. Also an incredible technician and teacher. And I still remember also some of his finishes from back in the day, like Oleg Taktorov. Oh my God. From the back, heel to the face, basically kip up to run across the ring. and it's just incredible.

2:20:32You're right. It's Oleg Taktorovsky. He was called the Russian Bear was his nickname. And Henzo was on his back and he was kicking. And then Oleg came in and then he got up kicked. Boom, he falls down. Henzo gets, stands up and throws a right hook and knocks him out. I mean, I'll tell you, Henzo is someone who has had a profound influence. Not only did I train under the Henzo Gracie banner and he gave me my black belt, but we joke, we're brother from another mother. We're always talking at different time zones, you know, all hours of the night. I always say he is the candle that lights up all other candles around the world.

2:21:10Like the number of students like myself that he has all over the world that are carrying the torch of Henzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but equally important, carrying his values as a human being of, he's genuinely the most generous person I've ever met, ever met. my whole life, generous of his time, of his heart, anything he can do. He's just genuinely. He and I have been close friends for 20 years plus now, or almost 20 years rather. Actually, he came to the very first one championship show. He flew from New York all the way here just to attend the first one. And at that time, we were just a startup, a tiny little show, but that's the kind of guy he is.

2:21:53And I don't know if you know, he had his last professional MMA fight in one championship. He was 52 years old, came back and fought pride legend Yuki Kondo in Philippines. 20 ,000 people stayed at him. It was crazy. And he wins by the most unbelievable, beautiful submission. And then he's on these corner men's shoulders and he's out there and the fans go crazy. And that's Henzo. I mean, and he gave this incredible speech about ages of just a number. And whatever you set your mind and your dreams are, go and live your dreams and have the guts to be who you really are. And that's his last fight.

2:22:32Yeah, I did not know that. That's incredible. Wow. He gave that to me as a gift. I mean, I'm telling you, of course we paid him, but I'm saying he did not have to fight at 52 years old. Because I said, hey, Henzo, can you fight? I'd love you to have your last fight in one. And again, he's 50, but just epic. And he did it because he wanted to help grow one champion. He wanted to grow our popularity. He knew that if he fought in it, he'd bring the Gracie family name with it, you know, and people would be intrigued about this is his last fight of his career, right? So it's a lot of epic stories. He was actually in Qatar in February, you know, at our show.

2:23:06He was in Abu Dhabi for something, but then he came over to Qatar. But yeah, he's given me so much about jujitsu knowledge, but he's given much more about how to live life. And it goes back to what my mother said. You have to help others. And that's Henzo's to the core. Yes, he is legendary. He's, in my opinion, the most complete Gracie out of the Gracie family. And that's saying a lot because there are a lot of monsters and killers from the Gracie family. Legendary life, legendary career. Left Brazil, nothing but a shirt on his back. Came to America, went to New York City, got cheated by his first partner who took his passport incredible story and then now built the most successful jujitsu academies in america and fought in pride fought in one fought in all the epic promotions and what a life you know what a life and and but people don't know this about him is like he is the nicest the most generous the most loving human being and that's why i said he's the candle that lights up the world yeah he's a one of a kind so deep bow to henzo and And for people who want to look him up, Henzo, that is Brazilian Portuguese with an R, R-E-N-Z-O, Gracie.

2:24:21Yeah, I'm actually wearing a shirt to represent, represent. I can see that. Yeah, I recognized it. So if you could bring back in their prime a few fighters from the olden days, and these have to be professional competitors. So not Bruce Lee, but Sakuraba, fair game. You know, Ernesto Huist, fair game. You can pick from any time, really, Senshi, whatever you want to pick. But if you were to bring people back in their prime to fight in one, in any discipline, who would you bring back? So for MMA, I would get a prime Fedor Emelinenko. Yes. Right? I mean, he definitely has to go down as one of the greatest in history.

2:25:03I'd bring a prime Henzo Gracie and maybe even against each other because Henzo would often give 50 pounds of weight. He'd be fighting at 170 and his opponents would be at 220. I would love to have Ramon Decker. Oh, so good. The rainbow shorts. Yes, yes. And his left hook. Oh, I'm sorry. You know what? I was thinking of a different Dutchman. No, I was thinking of a different guy. Ramon Decker. No, no. Rob, come on. Rob, come on. Rob, come on. That's who I was thinking of. Yeah, Ramon Decker. His left hook. Yes. He had, what was it? Like seven or eight fights against Koban. Yes, yes, yes. Oh my God, you're crazy.

2:25:37Tim, I had no idea that you knew martial arts this deeply. It's a wonder that we have not met before. I'm telling you, I know everybody in martial arts, you know it cold, man. You're an expert. It's crazy. But yeah, so I would bring back the greats like Raman Decker and Rob Kaman, who were the two first foreigners, went to Thailand, went to the fight in the toughest arenas and fought the best ties. And at a time, this was when I was training, it'd be the 80s and 90s where, you know, there were very few foreigners who could even hold a candle to an average tie, right? Today, it's become a truly global sport.

2:26:13You have the likes of Jonathan Haggerty or Liam Harrison from all over the world, the greats. Even now, there's a sensation in Japan, Nadeka, who's broken all records already at the lighter weight divisions. This killer who just joined one actually two days ago. But I'd love to bring a prime Mike Tyson and a prime Muhammad Ali and do a boxing fight in one championship. That would have been unbelievable. I'd bring back a prime, who else? Vanderlei Silva was somebody who was an absolute killer. Axe murderer from back in the day. Yeah. Rampage Jackson and Vanderlei Silva. I was just going to say Quentin Rampage Jackson.

2:26:51When they fought in pride. In pride. In pride, yeah. That, to me, was one of the, I mean, these guys, ugh. Just the guard slams alone from Rampage Jackson. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. Come out with the chains. That was so fun. Even grappling, I want to do one of the greatest of all time, arguably, is Marcelo Garcia. Yeah. Yeah. My friend co-founded this school with him in New York City, Josh Waitzkin. Yeah. Yeah. So Marcelo signed a one. You know, he had his debut in January. He wants to fight Ty Rulotolo, the current welterweight champion. Yeah. Rulotolo brothers are nuts to watch. Nuts. So getting those two guys, Marcelo versus Ty, I think would probably be the biggest.

2:27:30How old is Marcelo now? 41, around there. But he's in prime, prime condition. Of course, the last couple of years, he's battling cancer, but he's cancer-free now. And that's why he won one last big run. And then if he wins the world title one, he will retire as arguably the greatest of all time. Can I just say a quick thing about Marcelo? So people can look up Marcelo. He's famous for the Marcelotene, as he calls it, the variation of the guillotine, where he kind of levers up one of his arm on the shoulder of the person in his guard. But Marcelo, number one, absolutely one of the sweetest human beings I've ever met in my life.

2:28:08Yes. So soft-spoken and just a deeply, deeply kind human. Secondly, as my friend described it, is able to turn himself on and off better than almost any athlete I've seen where he would literally, they'd have to find him before his world championship bout. let's just say in a tournament or a finals match for the world championships because he would be taking a nap under a bleacher and they would be like marcelo you're up you're up and he'd go okay wake up kind of like shake his head and then just go from zero to ten and get out there and similarly would compete against folks and i guess this is true in like adcc absolute division and it's true in all japan judo championships but he'd compete against guys who were like 50 80 100 pounds heavier than he was.

2:28:56Just an incredible athlete. So Marcelo will be competing again in one later this year, but his debut was in January in Thailand. And he was very nervous backstage because it's a huge production. And obviously, it was a major event. He was fighting Imanari, the leg lock specialist from Japan, legendary leg lock specialist. And because Marcelo had not competed in 13 years, but also went through cancer the last few years. He didn't know how he was going to come back. And he just put on a flawless, unbelievable, just crushed Imanari, made him look like, honestly, like a blue belt. And that's no disrespect to Imanari.

2:29:34Imanari is a high level, world-class black belt, unbelievable, leg lock specialist. But Marcelo, just there are levels, right? And Marcelo is just on another level. So I do want to do Marcelo Garcia versus Tyrell I think that will be the most watched Jiu-Jitsu match in history because of the epic storylines. Stylistically so different too. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Couldn't be more different. Yeah. Man, this has been such a fun interview because I've said a lot of things or told a lot of different stories or just unexpectedly because of the way the flow has been. And at the same time, I had no idea how deep, deep you are.

2:30:12because obviously, you know, I did my work on you and I knew you did martial arts, but I didn't know how deep, but that's crazy. It's crazy how much you know and all the little nuances too. I mean, down to Henzo's upkick on Oleg Taktarov. I think that event was called Extreme Fighting Championship or something like that. Yeah, it was an oldie. This is way back in the day. This is way back in the day. When I had just come back from Japan, it's probably a few years after I came back from Japan. And in Japan, I would always go to the bookstore after school, after judo practice. I did judo. And I would try to find Kakutoki Tsushin, which was this magazine that was all martial arts, to see the latest K1 photos and so on to see what had happened.

2:30:53And that's basically how I forced myself to learn to read, was judo textbooks and Kakutoki Tsushin. Wow, wow. How long did you study? Because your accent is flawless. It's like literally a Japanese accent. I was there for 11 months. I studied for maybe five months before I got there and lived with a Japanese host family, went to a Japanese school, wore the seifuku uniform every day and did basically next to no English for the entire almost year that I was there. Then I came back and I studied a bit more, went to Middlebury Language School. But really it was that 11 months and just going like 100 % gari-bing, like get the kanji in a poster and it's like, I don't care how tired you are, If your senpai made you drink or clean the judo floor until you were dizzy, you have to do 20 characters.

2:31:46It doesn't matter what condition. You have to do 20 characters a day. And that was the deal. Amazing. So people can find all things one championship at onefc.com. Is that the best place to point people? Yes. All right. Great. And then for social, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to point people just so they can see the master works that you guys put up? It's a hashtag. It's just one championship on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever, the usual, the YouTubes. Yep. The usual. All right, guys, check it out. You won't be disappointed. The highlights are ridiculous. As are the stories and everything else that we've discussed.

2:32:22Very last question. If you could put anything on a billboard, could be anything, just to get a message out to, metaphorically speaking, many millions or billions of people. Could be a quote. Could be anything at all. I was thinking about the love, pain, suffering. Of Of course, the Bruce Lee quote comes to mind, but it could be anything. Is there anything that you would put up? Suffering is a path to our greatness. And I say this to all my friends, my relatives, and I truly believe this from the bottom of my heart, that suffering is a path to greatness, that oftentimes God or the universe puts us on a path where when we're going through it, we suffer.

2:33:03but in hindsight when you look back on it it's probably the most beautiful part of the journey i'm sure for example tim when you're in japan not being able to speak english it was suffering for quite a bit until it six of the 11 months were brutal absolute brutality yeah but yeah so that's what i would say is suffering is a path to our greatness because it brings out the best in us and it's just it's a hard thing to understand when you haven't suffered but when you do suffer be grateful for the suffering. That's what I always say to myself. When I'm suffering anything, it's because as long as I have a very powerful reason or why, then you can almost suffer through anything.

2:33:42So I think suffering is a path to greatness. All right. Excellent place to wrap up. Chachri, thank you so much for the time. This has been so much fun for me. I've really looked forward to this. Can't wait to get back in front of a screen or in front of an actual ring to engage with one. So let's definitely keep in touch. And I really appreciate you making the time today for a very, very wide ranging and super rich conversation for me. I took a ton of notes. So I deeply appreciate it. Thank you so much too, Tim. I had a wonderful time, incredible questions, incredible conversation. And I look forward to seeing you in Japan together.

2:34:20Oh, I'll be there. I'll be there. And for everybody listening, we'll link to everything in the show notes as usual at tim.blog slash podcast. Just search Chhatri or one championship and it will pop right up. And until next time, remember, be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others, but also to yourself. And as always, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend between one and a half and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

2:35:00Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

2:35:40If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog.com. Type that into your browser, tim.blog.com. Drop in your email, and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Midnight Luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs, and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. Kind of over the top, to be honest. I mean, they frequently say it's the best night of sleep they've had in ages. What kind of mattresses? What do you do? What's the magic juju? It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever.

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