20VC: The $BN Greenoaks Backed Protein Bar | Hitting $100M Revenues in David's First Year: Lessons & Mistakes | $0 to $600M: The Untold RXBAR Story | Product-Market-Fit, Pricing, Branding: What Every Founder Gets Wrong Today with Peter Rahal

24:57You need to be in stock, in full. One of my strategies is actually like, how do we build the brand outside of our core product through different things? Because you can in the food business you have to be available and you have to be the right price Why do you need to be so available? I was going on international health retailers to buy David at crazy fucking prices Almost the friction made it almost attractive in some respects and that's for our premium product That's in our current life cycle or at where you know we're nine months old and I'm thinking about longer term as we We proliferate and expand in our different phases of our life cycle.

25:35You're going to want a full portfolio that addresses a larger population. Now, you can't be everything to everyone. So you're positioning as to be consistent. But in the food business, different than luxury like Chanel, we can't offer exclusivity and scarcity. And so we have to find other ways to do that. That will be a key part of our strategy moving forward. But if I was a co -founder of yours, which you would never let me be quite wisely, I would say like when the housekeeper in Atherton opens up the fridge in 10 years time, I just want to see David everything. David Cod, David Chocler, David Ice Cream, and it is expensive.

26:12This is the shit you buy in Air One. But by the way, when people open up the fridge when they have a dinner party, you kind of get who I am from me being so David filled. That's what I want to be. I don't want to have one David Bar in every kitchen in America. I think we'll have different things positioned different ways for different people. Why did you, sorry, I'm so jump here. I'm just, so I'm so love this. Why did you, you can also tell it's like a real passion of mine and I love the products. Why did you do code? That felt no offense, like untied together. There's a lot of layers to it. So I'll give you the background.

26:46Starts with why we made the product. So with the question, then for the questions like, why do people eat protein bars and what do they, what do they really want? People eat protein bars for protein. And so what they want is the most amount of protein with the least amount of calories, like a just a protein delivery system. And so one way to measure that was be through this objective measurement, which was calories coming from protein. So what percentage of your calories are coming from protein that should really define objectively a good product or not in the protein bar space. And in general for processed foods and broadly, the value of a processed food should be measured by calories coming from protein.

27:21And so we created this metric. It's on our package called CFP, calories from protein. and we're at 75%. And so then we were with our chief science officer, Peter Hasey, and he was like, well, we can't just compare ourselves to just other bars because it's like, and showing that your number one isn't cool. So he's like, we got to find something that's better than us. And the thing we found, the food that has the best protein to calorie ratio is boiled cod. And it's funny because it's unappetizing. So on our comparison chart, we put boiled cod. And this is from when we launched. That's what we are comparing ourselves with.

27:54And so it was a little tongue -in -cheek. So I created a paleo -approaching bar, which would be like minimal processed food, and it was part of like that movement. And so when we went on to David, we got a lot of criticism from sort of people that were maybe fans of our X -bar, or expected our X -bar to point out. And so sort of a tongue -in -cheek way to address them is like, we listen to the market, you don't want processed food, which is a whole other conversation because everything's processed. And so we launched Boyle of Cod to address them. And it's very inconvenient, doesn't taste great.

28:23and is extremely expensive. And so it's a way to communicate this concept of protein to calorie ratio, and it's a way to emphasize the importance of like affordability and actually how difficult it is to get the calories for protein we've got. Do you think it was the right decision? This is my second time doing this, and I just have to, I can't just be selling protein worse. Yeah, I get you, but again, if I was there, but like fucking ice cream, you like protein bars for your snack off to lunch, We do protein ice cream after dinner. No one's saying we're not doing protein ice cream. I don't think we have product market fit with boiled cod.

29:00So I don't think we're going to be carrying it forever. It's because no one likes boiled cod. I know. It's like cake or death. There's an Eddie's odd sketch, cake or death. And it's like, cake, please. And he's like, OK. And then there's one cake, please. And say, no one wants death. No one likes cod. Sorry. And no one does. Do you think we've sold? How much do you think we've sold? How long have you been selling for? Since Monday, it's Friday now. I think you've probably sold a thousand. We've sold less so far. Less. Yeah. How many did you plan to sell? Oh, I really have no idea. I mean, this is just a giant experiment.

29:34We were taking bets in the office. I was the most bearish on it. I didn't think we'd sell a lot. That was not the objective. I was expecting maybe, you know, $500 ,000 worth over the next three weeks. I'll report back to you in the actual numbers, but the objective was not that. I mean, the objective was to have a clever way to have some riddles and get people questioning and to get brand awareness. You will leave this interview and think, what an arrogant dick. But what a mistrick as well, dude. I would have told a story about building the cod product. Why you chose it, going and finding it, doing taste tasks, do TikTok shorts with the team being like, oh, bat's on.

30:17this is terrible, how much are we going to get? It's a content factory. I know. We're not going to make content. That would be so fun. I would build real brand affiliation. I know. We're seeing the team doing taste test of code being like, Peter, there's fucking sucks. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And no, no, it's great because it's such a good opportunity. I know. We're all bunch of. But if I was also like on your team, I'd be like, I get it like, oh, it's like minimal cost, whatever. Every second is so important. We've just wasted time. I know it's like interesting and intellectually cool CFP cool like no, no, no, we could be doing more moving faster if we just haven't wasted this time Time on what a chord.

30:56Oh, well There's one constraint we have we don't have much supply of a really key ingredient of ours But also Independent of selling product like we do on it We just wanted to build things and have fun and we thought it was fun and it's not in it and it should be clear It didn't take away the development of actual commercial products So like we still have our calendar out. Like this didn't interfere. When I was eating these balls at home, my other half threw a shit fit with me because she opened up the backside and she was like, oh my fucking god, Harry. Like this is outrageous. Look at all this shit in here, sorry.

31:31You said like all foods processed, talk to me about why she's wrong. Give me some ammo. Come on, boys club. Yeah, yeah. So our societies are generally really confused around nutrition and nutrition science. And you know, like Peter Teal, how he talks about like, if you put science at the end of something, it's not real science. And it's a little bit of that with nutrition science. And so people in the confusion want to have like very simple, simple sort of correlations to help them understand it. And in general, the conversation on nutrition is very emotional. It's not really intellectual. Some of those simple correlations would be like, I don't understand food.

32:08I'm just going to find some attach myself to something like processed food is bad and non -processed is good So that's like a very simple thing and there's much more nuance to that another one would be like oh There has a lot of ingredients therefore it's bad or less ingredients is good Do you not agree if you don't understand what the ingredient is is bad? Monotry glossaride or Dodo Dodo like salt okay, so sodium chloride and people probably wouldn't you go on the streets be like a sort of chloride good People would be like, no, I don't know what that is. But it's just salt. Like it's ideal, like chemicals are bad.

32:43No chemicals are good. It's like everything's technically a chemical. So on the process food argument, most things are pasteurized. All things have to be pasteurized for food safety. So that's a process. Things are packaged. It's a process. Like brushing your teeth is a process. So it's not really sophisticated way to say, oh, all process things are bad. Now this is where like calories coming from protein. So if you're looking at processed food, like an RX or a David protein would be processed and then a potato, bag of potato chips are processed. Those are the same category. They're wildly different and it's like a net positive thing to get protein unequivocally.

33:18So to lump them together because their processed is not really that sophisticated and my point is like an objective way to review processed food would be to measure its value through calories coming from protein. Do you know what I think that's a little bit of a simplistic view when you look at different qualities of protein, synthetic versus non -synthetic protein? What do you mean synthetic? Well, if you have eggs and egg whites, it is a higher quality of protein than protein powder or protein bars. Is it though, way protein isolate is food derived. It's actually just filtered to have higher percentage of protein.

33:54Listen, you are the one with the protein company, so I'm now asking you questions. maybe misleading marketing, that it was digested at different rates, and the absorption level was different within synthetic or like a whole grain protein, natural proteins or severses, versus non -natural. No, I mean the digestibility we've measured through PETA CAS, so it's amino acid composition, you know, isolates just further filtration to get more of what you want, a higher concentration of proteins. So like milk protein isolates are, and weight protein isolate is 93 % protein. So what you do is you remove the lactose, which is sugar, and you just get what you want.

34:33So it's actually a better process. And on top of that, there's a lot of those processes filter out unwanted things. Would you say that now David Balls is better than R, is Balls? Yeah, because of the calories from protein right here? Yes, it's efficiency. And there's another, like here's another thing. So did you see on Twitter, the plasticlist .org, Yeah. Okay. Rx bars were like really bad on plasticizers, so microplastics. And Rx bars predominately in agricultural product, states, almonds, eggs, David scores like is super clean. It doesn't have any plasticizers, heavy metals. And that's because of its processing.

35:14So that's example of like by that definition of clean. So I think clean is without unwanted heavy metals, pesticides, microplastics, like that to me is clean. David B .R .X. bar, ironically. And then if you were to survey people, they would think R .X. bar is organic, but yet it has these things in it. So again, there's much, it's not simple. There's new ones. Do you have constraints from what you can say about R .X. bar because of the sale? I don't think so. No, I mean, that was like six years ago. On the sale itself, I'm just, it was such an incredible journey, amazing well done from you and the team.

35:51When you had the chance to sell, how did that come through, Peter? I really decouple myself as an employee and myself as a shareholder. I was the CEO of our X -Bar, then I was also a shareholder. So the sale, like as a CEO, I was still had a job. I really decoupled that and I was in CEO mode. You know, it was just another day. I was good achievement. So the business to a larger company to scale it. but I did relate with that 10 people that reached out to you. How did they reach out? Like just take me through the process. I was pretty private. So we didn't do any media stuff. Like I didn't want to be like a public -facing CEO or anything like that.

36:29So you know, we went from this like quiet stealth sort of like Chicago startup to $600 million. Like no one knew our revenue. We were quietly big. What revenues were you doing when you sold? We did a hundred sixty one million in sales. Wow. What was your growth, right? It's like we're 300 % year -to -year for like five years, four years. Why sell? Candidly like opportunity for financial freedom was one big factor. At this stage, sorry, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Are you not like making a lot of money yourself that $161 million, right? We just were paying, like not that type of money. Yeah, we were doing good, started doing some bonuses and stuff, but not like that type of money.

37:08But the big reasons to sell was financial freedom, and then second, our expert did belong in a broader portfolio. These, a single brand company really belongs in a portfolio of things. And then the thing that the big food companies are really, really good at that can't be understated is like mega scale. I viewed as like my job as a CEO is get this thing to scale, build a good brand and good product, good supply chain, and then hand it over to someone to take it to the next chapter. But I do think like great companies don't sell. It's true like Peter Teal says that. My position with David's a little different.

37:41Do you regret selling? No, not at all. Do you think secondaries are great? Because I'm looking at this now going fuck 160 million going 300 percent. This is an amazing business I mean I was you know about 12 years old when this was happening so I sadly couldn't have done it But I'll give you 20 million dollars in secondaries tomorrow for that. I also like knew we were close to our ceiling What made you say that? Sorry, it's interesting because I see it everyone Oh the Tam and food and beverage is pretty clearly defined 161, I was like, we can probably get to 300 or 250 million in sales, but I didn't see a very clear path to like 500 million.

38:18The product portfolio that we could do was defined by quantifiable whole food ingredients. So our design, that famous design of our X -Bar really was a constrain out where we could innovate. Because you had to formulate stuff that could be communicated on the front of pack. That, to me, lower the tam. So as I see a response with a vision, I didn't see a path to like 500 million or billion in revenue. So therefore, it sort of made sense to get it to the big guys. We rise in that respect. Have they gone on to, they haven't gone on to 500 million? Completely right. Oh, I mean, completely right. But then two devastating things happened in our X -Bars future.

38:56One is fasting in keto. Fasting is all about skipping breakfast basically. And then keto is all about like, no sugar, or no carbs, we were a breakfast, predominantly a breakfast occasion product, and then on top of it, we were full dates. So that was a headwind, and then second, the big black swan headwind was like the COVID. And COVID destroyed the bar occasion. You're at home, you're not on the go. The category got crushed by like 50%. You're not in gyms? No, like the purpose of a bar is completely gone. So that was devastating. So when did you sell? October 6, 2017. team. Do you think the Kelo's boys have that as a bad buy?

39:35It's sort of bounced back. What do you think that revenues are out today? I think probably like 200 but profitable right now for index especially in Mars portfolio. Like they need stuff to get to a billionaire revenue and I think that it's position is hard to innovate. You can't go down in price because if you're using a whole real food like egg whites are super expensive. I think they made their money but I don't think it's like an extraordinary buy. That's so interesting how that business changes. 160 million going 300%. I'm like, I'm in 200 profitable low growth. I'm like, you're lucky to get back 600 on that.

40:10You need to understand kind of culture, anthropology, where nutrition's going, and then you need to understand the market, like the tam that you're in. Okay, so you sell the company, and you guys own like 100%. So you make a lot of money overnight, great, fantastic. It's making money what you always thought it would be. I don't come from any money. I think when I was younger, I thought like, oh, I don't have to work. But then you're just like, I just love to, like, it's all about the process, money's in outcome. But I didn't really prioritize money necessarily. I just wanted to make useful stuff.

40:40Do you remember the moment when you got the money in the account? Yeah, yeah, of course. Can you take me to that? It was just like, all right. I went from, I basically went from making like $150 ,000, maybe even less to like whatever getting a big check. I'm so, so much becrested. They literally just why you like $100 million in one. Yeah, yeah, just why are it? Wow. Yeah. I didn't know if it came through like 10 different accounts and I figured your entities are different. No. Yeah, it's weird. And then you just say it, you're like, all right. Then you realize, like, nothing really changes. I think someone told me this once, like, the things that actually change is like, where you lay your head down at night and then how you travel.

41:14That's kind of like all that changes. Money is great for freedom. That's about it. What do you do now with money that you didn't do before? My processes, I think a lot of people go through this when you get money. you start to like, so when you spend it a little bit, like you indulge, maybe you increase material consumption because you're like, oh, I always wanted that like a car or something, a house. And then you spend the next, you know, some period of time accumulating stuff. And then I think people figure this out at different times. And then I think you spend equal amounts of time selling all that stuff and simplifying things.

41:48So for me, like I spent like a year, like sort of accumulating things, and then I realized it doesn't do anything for me. There's no utility in it and then I just started selling everything. What's cheap? It did you buy that you sold? The stupidest thing I started buying was cars. What did you buy? I bought a Ferrari, a Porsche singer, which is a beautiful piece of art. And that didn't make you happy? No, no. It just became a to -do list thing. So then it became a cost to it and then it didn't make me happy or like I think you discover your relationship with material things this way and hopefully you do it sooner.

42:24And then for me it was quickly I was like, why am I doing this? I think as a kid I had fantasized about like a car collection or something because my uncle is a race car driver. So he was like a huge role model for me. He won the Indy 500 and so I grew up with cars and it's a combination of art and science and it's beautiful and exhilarating. I think I fulfilled that child of ding to want a car collection and then I quickly realized like it just wasn't doing it for me. And on top of it I'm like, I like to work and build stuff. And so that you know I accumulated some stuff and then I just sold it all and now I just have a Tesla like a model Y It does the job beautifully.

42:57Can you fly private? I find that's one thing that's worth it Yeah, I bought a plane and that really puts cars into like context like cars make sense You know to be like planes probably the best thing, but then I you know, it's just like lighting money on fire So then I've actually sold it, but um that's for sure the best luxury and freedom thing It shrinks the world, but I don't have a plan anymore. And I feel like commercial. Did it change the relationships around you? Again, like I find that like it's sad almost to me now. My family don't argue with me because I just pay things. Yeah, it changes the politics both with people you're friends with, it changes the politics.

43:38Your relationship with people prior to some event or accumulating wealth and power, those relationships become more precious. When you say it changes the politics, What do you mean by that? So in my nuclear family, I'm the youngest. I was bullied the pector of the lower one. And then all of a sudden I'm the provider. And then I can provide things for my family that others can't. And so it turns out it's harder to criticize the one who's given you who's providing. So it does change relationships in the sense that you can do things for people that others can't. Does it make them better or worse?

44:10I was walking with my mother the other day and she said, I said, what gets worse with money? I love mom. She's very materialistic, love Chanel. And I said, one thing, I think family. It's just this concept of power. So power comes with great responsibility. And I think it's sort of a magnifying glass of your values or personality or power just magnifies it. So it makes the good traits better, makes the bad traits worse. But it comes with great responsibility. So that's the one thing I've learned. You said something before that kind of really resonated with me. You may never be satisfied. And I'm not either.

44:47That's why I see so many therapists. I'm sure without many other reasons. My question to you is do you think that's a blessing or a curse to have this inability to be satisfied? I think it's a blessing. It's more positive and negative. You obviously have to check it. I haven't done much work on it. You know, it's like this obsession thing. It's like an itch. You just gotta keep itching it. I don't understand it. but you'll have this irrational sense of urgency with stuff. I got a lot of pushback the other day because I tweeted that Silicon Valley has dialed up the intense steel and company building and if you want to build a $10 billion business today, you simply have to be willing or really to work seven days a week, like it or not.

45:27$10 billion business is a big business. I got so much pushback. Do you think I was wrong? I think as the world gets more competitive, yeah, it's true. So ordinary things don't get ordinary outcomes. So I think it's totally true. Like look at a really successful person. Like any real outlier, I'm sure there's a huge cost to it. Their personal life's probably fucked. Can I honestly, what's the biggest cost to your success? As it minds probably my health. I have very bad psoriasis. I'm an alcoholic and I have terrible needs because I run so much to escape the shit. It used to be my health and relationships.

46:02Probably were the biggest one. Yeah, like one work is the priority. So your health's kind of the first thing to go. And then relationships like, there's this trade -offs with your time. How did you help me out here? I'm struggling with this in real time. I constantly failing at something and I always choose to fail at being a bad boyfriend because it's the easiest to fail at, to be honest. How did you manage that? I don't think I'm good right now. I think one way is I try to set a boundary, which would be like, I'm home by like seven for dinner. and then spend that time with my son and my wife.

46:36And then, you know, I asked for permission if I can stay late in the office. Like I give her power. Does that not make you worse? I'm so sorry to say that, but like, if I just said, hey, you're a 26 year old single guy, you can crush it in the office every night. And you don't need to ask for anything. You can stay till 10, you can go to the gym and you're not better in that world. The more time you dedicate, yeah, the better? Yeah, it's sort of abstract, but there is a benefit of like pulling away and changing environment and disconnecting. I found, especially from the creative process, like if it's execution mode, yeah, more time better.

47:10But there are times where pulling away changing environments does help connect the dots I found. But in general, yeah, more time, more output. What do you not value that other people do value? Yeah, two things. I don't value the opinions of others. God bless me with this. I just don't I just really don't care if people don't like me in a way. Have you always been that way? Or is that a luxury of money? No, I think I've always been that way. Like, you know, it's a concept of like affiliation. Like I don't need to be affiliated with anything. Like I don't care where I come from. I don't care about what university I went to.

47:44I don't care, like I'm like a lone wolf in that regard. I think a lot of people whether they recognize it or not, really care about like affiliation or opinions of others. And I'm like truly free from that. And that's been a huge blessing, especially entrepreneurship. And then another thing is like, I'm just discovering this. I'm kind of happy if people are upset with me. I'm not like, why not? Not necessarily loved ones, but like, I don't know. I found myself like when people are upset with me, I'm kind of happy and I have an impact the psychology behind it. Do you think it's tied to brand and resonating?

48:20Which is like, if they're unhappy with you, they give a shit enough about you to be unhappy. Oh, partially, I think it's tied to my upbringing and relationship with authority or social norms through my like education in school. So, I growing up dyslexic to protect myself and myself a steam. I had to disagree with and devalue the institution that was grading me. And you think you continue to devalue institutions as a result of being ingrained that they may be value things wrongly? Yeah, something there. That's where I'm leading. That's my current hypothesis. So for me to have self -esteem, I had to say school is wrong and they don't know what they're talking about.

49:05Would you encourage your child to go to university? Yeah. It depends on his personality or his or her sort of temperament. There's a lot of variables. I think the university is good for maturity. It would depend. I don't think it's necessary, but I do think the structure can be helpful, but it sort of depends on themselves. But I'm not like dogmatic about it. But can I ask you just on marriage, given the intensity and the commitment, what's your biggest advice on how to make a marriage very successful and also be a super committed CEO, hard charging every day? Setting expectations, communicating, are clear and just empathy on both sides.

49:44I think it's just little hacks, like just spending time and setting boundaries on time and then just being fully present. Like, my thing is like, I'll go from being like boss mode, fucking, like, really intense maybe, and then I'll come home and like, bring that with me. And I catch myself doing that, and you just have to really like decouple and change your state in certain environments. Did you find it hard selling all right? Because it's such a big part of your identity for many years. And then it's gone. No, I had no problem. And it goes back to that idea of like decoupling. I was an employee and as a shareholder founder, I don't think means anything.

50:18Why do you think it means anything to be a founder, like EC Poogram's founder mode. I think it's a helpful thing for founders to accept it because it's sort of like this, it's like a status thing, but it really, you're a really an employee. I don't think the founders should be treated that differently. They shouldn't have privilege. So your question about Rx being easy to sell or not, like humility is a real value of mine, and it's freedom from pride and pride to sin. And so decoupling emotionally from what you've created is I found really, really important to be super objective. Why is pride is in when it consumes you it distorts your judgment and it blinds you from seeing truth in access Yeah, but everything in access is bad.

50:59Yeah, probably being being proud of your country is a good thing But to the point where it blinds you from bad foreign policy or something totally, but I say saying chocolate is bad Well, no chocolate is fine, but in access is sure everything sure, but in general I think being free from pride is a very powerful thing. Can I ask you just final one for you to a quick five? So enjoyed this. You don't have an amazing cap table with David. And I'm just intrigued. There's big names on that, like your hubamans. How did you think about strategic distribution through the cap table when building out that fundraise?

51:36So, hubran and atiya, I would call it, I got where our brand muses, muses the term in fashion, is like the sort of focal point to design around. So I wanted it something for their approval, like there are sort of design target. Peter Tia, I think of him as the voice of America, he's sort of America's doctor, and I think he'll have a voice as America's doctor for a long time. And then he remains sort of America's researcher, he synthesizes research and information. And so having those as a resource to make sure we're making the best products possible was really a dream. Do you give them equity?

52:11What is that? I had a wheel on the show from Woop, and he was talking in the early days about, not giving anyone actually you had to invest. Did you take the same approach, or did you give them that, what do you think about that? Yeah, it was investing through skin in the game. I think it's important. Who do you not have that you would most like to have? You. But what after I've like, battered you on like identity and content, building a content machine. Dude, I would love to fucking be a marketing intern in David. I would have a great time. We definitely need help. Well, I mean, I wanted to bring a lot of people in.

52:45It was just hard because there's this more demand than there was available. It's sort of like a wedding invite. And I was like, you have to draw the line somewhere. I just had to keep it small. What was the price on the 75 million A? 650. Pre. 650 pre -AKC, you're doing 725 post. What are they underwriting that to you, do you think? Underwriting it. So the conservative underwriting would be like, Who is its closest competitor, its QuestBars, what's QuestBars sort of, Tam, where is it going? And that's like the base, worst case scenario. They just do bars and get to market and full ACV. What does the business look like?

53:20And then you add sort of market multiples to that. What is QuestBars doing? I think like 350 on bars, more with their whole portfolio, but just bars. So then your base you're saying is like a four, it's revenue multiple, you're doing like 1 .2, 1 .4. Yeah. So that would be like the underwriting for like worst case scenario sort of like if they don't really do what they're saying they're going to do. This would be a minimum billion five something like that. And then you have code, which makes it. Yeah, that's a real multiplier. 60. Yeah. Yeah. And now you're like, do you have a pathway to 10? Yeah.

53:55Yeah. What's the pathway to 10? 10 what? So everyone eats food is the enormous tam. The way you have to do that, adjust the tam, is through different brands and different positions with different offerings. So David's tam, I think, was 1 .5 billion. And then with these brands as assets, what's really, really important is you let the assets be the assets. Like you don't force them in places they don't belong. And so for growth, you know, you're either growing or you're not, you have to plant the seeds for new brands. And so we will be planting those seeds and having a portfolio of brands that offer a different value to different parts of the population and different occasions.

54:58So the way to get to 10 is to have a diversified portfolio that addresses a large groups of people that don't really conflict.

55:13Is that what Mars have done? Yeah, the difference Mars is done at the RMEA. We'll do it through creation. Are you allowed to sell weed in America? I think so. Yeah, some states you are. I really want to do a diet to consume a weed brand called Echorus It would pay homage to your kind of David him in an Echorus the guy who got so high he went too close to the sun Yes, I just think you could have some fucking magical marketing calling it Echorus. It's great. Yeah, you could We could work on it together as the next company dude. I'm I'm here if you want a new co founder. All right We can we can spin it up Dude, I want to do a quick fire answer I say short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts.

55:53What's the biggest mistake at our expires that you won't repeat with David?

56:06Culture of bureaucracy. I'm packed up a little bit. So making sure individuals in the company of high agency and decision making is happening closest to the problem, not causing people dependent on other things for decision -making. So, making sure it's decentralized and there's not this bureaucratic central procurement, data and analytics going to one group, avoiding bureaucracy and making sure we have a very fast org. What do you think is the single biggest problem with the U .S. diet today? I think the biggest thing that's problem is over consumption of calories. It's hyper -palatable foods that are cheap that have not a lot of value.

57:02So I think it comes with like energy toxicity over consumption of energy calories. And then secondary would be like just too many people have fucking microphones and there's this utter confusion. Who do you follow for nutrition advice? I'll have them Peter T. And Dr. Ellsson, Lane Norton, those are the main ones. What is your exercise routine like? Currently, I do a bit of CrossFit, maybe one or three times a week, and then I just do strength training, big compound movements, like ego lifting, a little bit of that. What do you do that's bad for you, that you knowingly continue to do despite knowing it's bad for you?

57:57This is a bit strange. I actually like to smoke cigarettes. Dude, I love smoking cigarettes. I know. I don't do it regularly, but I do think it's one of life's pleasures. I agree. Does your wife mind? No. No. If I was a regular smoker, yes, she would be like, you'd need to stop. But if I have an opportunity to indulge, I will. How often is that? Right now, we're just in work mode, so I'm not around people that smoke, but I'm social occasions, which is rare, I guess. So right now, it's been a while, but when I do, I do. Is now a good time to start to consume a brand, do you think? Yeah, I think so.

58:46I mean, it's always a good thing about consumer is there's there's always a need for novelty. So there's always an opportunity people want to know. So yes. Final one, my friend. What do you think about often that you do not think the world is talking about enough? Honestly, religion, God.

59:13I'm packed out a little bit. But I'm 39, so I'm like, I think starting my spiritual journey a bit, but I am a big fan of history too. And I think people aren't talking enough about the decline of religiosity and the failure of religion to adapt, to innovate, to modern times and the consequences of that. the secondary effects, I don't think you were talking enough about it. What do you think the most significant effects are? I think of lack of purpose, grounding, clarity on sort of values and conduct. That's put a hard one out there, really hard matter one. religion has done more harm than good for humanity in history.

1:00:15Agriol disagree. I would say I would disagree. Every war has been about religion. But I think there would be more tribalism and more micro wars if it didn't exist. And so the thing is religion is humans, it's like human constructs to gain alignment. and perhaps it's one definition, it's gonna, it's like culture or politics, it's gonna exist no matter what.

1:00:50But I think it needs to exist. And I think it though the issue might, so my one, I think economics have caused no talent to go to religion. So like, they really talent the leaders, don't go to religion because you can't make any money. So there hasn't been any innovation in it. That's my capital is view on it. It's like it turns out you can't make any money being a priest so therefore you just don't do it. And so all the talents going to other places create companies that are sort of quasi -religious anyway. I might get like squirrels into the woods for this in LA but you know Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology in 1949 was told that if you want to get rich start a religion and in 1953 he started Scientology.

1:01:40So you're right, it's been a while since someone innovated on religion for calculus, say, if any Scientologist is listening, do not hide me in the mountains. I don't believe that. I'm not, you know, the joys of my job is meeting incredible people and having unintended conversations. Thank you so much for being so open for being so brilliant. And I really, really love doing this. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. It's a fun conversation. I just love shows like that where it's a very natural fluid discussion. We basically just left the schedule at the door. Now, it makes a huge difference if you could review the show.

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