Speaker 1You got to tell me what it was like to work with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Speaker 2Oh, it was between Elon, Peter, Max Levichan, myself, David Sachs, Reid Hoffman. There wasn't a single one of us whose ego would fit in a large gymnasium.
Speaker 1What is the net worth that you're at now?
Speaker 2It's probably about $100 million at this point. Money is a means to an end. It's not an end. Yes, it's about money, but it's not about money as a scorecard or something like that. It's about how do you bring your life and your resources together? Because that's about all we've got. Money, life, and time.
Speaker 1My guest today is Bill Harris, who has a crazy resume. He was CEO of Intuit. He was the founding CEO of PayPal, where he was in the room with people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levichan, and they were building PayPal at the time above a bakery near Stanford. He then founded Personal Capital in 2009, grew it to $23 billion in assets under management, and sold it to Empower for close to a billion dollars. He's done something like that 11 different times across fintech and cybersecurity. Today, his net worth is around $100 million. Half is liquid, and half is in operating companies that he's still building. He's 70 years old. He's self-funding his newest venture with about $10 million in his own money, and he spends less than $100,000 a year. That's right, less than $100,000 a year. He's sold houses, cars, airplanes, tons of pens, including mountain goats and an iguana, and moved to a small cottage near Miami Beach where he bikes to work every day. His name is Bill Harris and he is one of the most interesting conversations I've had on this show. I met Bill from a mutual connection that I have within the Hampton community. Hampton is a private network for high-growth founders and CEOs doing $25 million on average. What I love about this show is that Hampton is where conversations like this happen naturally. At dinner, in a group chat, I just get to put a mic on it and share these conversations with you people. If you're a founder doing real revenue and you're not in Hampton yet, you have to go check it out at JoinHampton.com. Here's what we cover in today's episode. First, we go deep on the numbers. What $100 million actually looks like when it's spread across public equities, private operating companies, and about $100K in annual burn. Then we get into his shedding. Why someone worth $100 million sold everything they own and what it actually feels like on the other side. And we close on something that Bill said that I've been thinking about ever since. The difference between money as a source of income and money as a source of income. Scorecard versus money as rocket fuel for the life that you actually want to live. This is Money Wise. I'm Daniel Burke. Strap in, let's get started. Here is Bill Harris. Bill, thanks so much for joining us on Money Wise today. How are you doing? - Really good. How are you, man? - I'm great. I'm in Charleston, you're in Miami. So we're both dealing with some tremendous heat right now, which hopefully passes soon.
Speaker 2- Yeah, but I tell you what, I love it. I get up early, take my little bike to work, and come home late. So it's always relatively cool. I'm not doing anything in the middle of the day except sitting in air conditioning.
Speaker 1- Yeah, same as me, for another three months, probably. I was digging into your profile and you were the CEO of Intuit. You were the CEO and co-founder of PayPal. Of course, peers at the time with Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. You've started your own business. You sold that to Empower. You now have your own firm. Walk me through the experience of what it's like in your life, Bill, and bring me up to speed today.
Speaker 2- First of all, life is luck. You do a little bit of hard work and being smart, but it's mostly luck. And so I was lucky enough to be born in an academic and affluent place. What my deal growing up was, to be the golden boy. To always be good at academics, at sports, at everything. And then good schools, good companies, and I sort of transferred the notion of doing what I thought my parents expected of me to what I thought society was expected of me. And so then, all of a sudden, I ended up... I'm now 40 years old, running a public company with 5,000 employees. And based on what I had done in my life, including business school and all the rest, that was supposed to be it. And what I realized, the company was into it. What I realized, and by the way, I wasn't the only guy who realized it. A lot of people around me realized it. I wasn't very good at that. You know, I hope I'm a good leader. I am not a good manager. And I'm certainly not, you know, good at the broad administrative things. And that was just about it. That was about the time of the internet, you know, sort of late 90s. And I had been gung-ho on this stuff and was having real trouble, even as CEO, bringing Intuit to the internet. And you know, there's so much going on around us that I had this opportunity to go, you know, try and start PayPal along with all the other gang and took it. That has been the beginning. So since that time, I've started eight different financial technology and cybersecurity companies. And why? Because I think that's... First of all, that's what I love. I think it's what I'm good at. And that takes me today. But before I go to today, I'll just say one thing, and that is that, you know, it's easy to know or think you know what you're good at. It's really not hard to know what you're not good at. And it's more important to figure that out than the other. And so I...
Speaker 1Or even to admit what you're not good at.
Speaker 2Well, that's it. You got to admit it. I'm happy to admit it to other people, you know, "Oh, sorry, I screwed up," you know. But to admit it to yourself, something that is part of your identity, and for 40 years, my identity was around being... Being very good at a very conventional path. And, you know, and then when I realized, "Shit, I'm just not... This is not for me." That was hard. And even today, you know, the notion is, "Well, I love starting things, but I'm really not good at a certain point. I'm not really good when you need, you know, to start to, you know, every month do it 3% better." You know, the notion is then, "Okay, start it myself, get a COO, ultimately, you know, become chairman or something, and the COO run the place."
Speaker 1That's so interesting. When you think of the path, right, you've been so deep in the weeds of financial services. Think of Intuit, and PayPal, and Empower, and your own RIA firm now, and all the different startups in between. It's always money. You've dealt with money your entire career. It's what you're good at, in your own words. I'm curious, behind that, like, what is money to you in your normal, personal life? In my experience, personal finance, it's much more personal than it is finance, and I think I've tried to delineate between the two. I would love to know, for Bill, what does your financial life look like behind the curtain in the personal life that you have?
Speaker 2Yeah, happy to talk about that, but let me just go back and make one point. You said, you know, what I'm good at is money or finances. No, that happens to be the field, but what I'm good at, I think, and I hope, is ideas. I love ideas, and so I just happen to be in the financial space. And there's a reason why I ended up there, which I could tell you at some point if you're interested. And then going to my own personal finances. And by the way, what you said is exactly right, and it's also what we preach in our financial planning, advising, all the rest of that, firms. It's all about personal. Every person's money is completely, completely unique, and the more important thing is not to optimize the money, but to optimize your life, because money is not the thing. The thing is, it is a rocket fuel. It is the precious resource, the scarce resource you need in order to build the life that you want for you and your family.
Speaker 1So what does a typical month look like for you?
Speaker 2Typical month? Yeah.
Speaker 1Oh, you mean in my money? Yeah. You told me you'd do your homework before we chatted. Remember you said you'd try to figure out where your money's going month over month. I'm putting you on the spot now.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I'll give you the headline. The headline is, "I just don't have much expenses. I live alone, divorced, kids are gone," or not gone, they're doing a great job, but they're not in my-
Speaker 1You can't find them. They don't want you to find them.
Speaker 2That's right. That's right.
Speaker 1I'll put a tag on them.
Speaker 2That's right. And so it's pretty simple and I've got a little cottage and it's all paid off and so there's no mortgage. I pay property tax and I pay, I eat and all that. I don't have a car and so I would spend money on travel. I love to travel places I've never been before. Haven't had the opportunity a whole lot recently, but I would spend a chunk of money there. But otherwise, you know what my addiction is? What's that? Amazon. Okay. Walk me through what that looks like. I should have that and then 30 seconds later, you've got it. So I think I've bought every $38 thing on Amazon. However, back to what do I spend a month? It's probably ... So on an annual basis, it's well less than 100,000 bucks and probably more like 70 or 80,000.
Speaker 1And that's all in, property taxes, all included?
Speaker 2Everything.
Speaker 1And that's a shift from earlier in life, right? Oh, yeah. I've seen some different things that you sort of gave up. Well, yeah. That's right. You gave up things. Is that correct? So what's the shift? Walk me through what you were like and why you changed. I mean, kind of forsaken some of these items.
Speaker 2Four phases. I was on my family's dole for a long time, all the way through graduate school. I worked, but thank you. So you came from money, even your parents? Well off. Okay. I mean, is a professor and a doctor and you don't make a whole lot as a professor, but, at any rate, well off for sure. Then, you know, single in New York City and not really any money and living in a studio and all that. Luckily, I had my own studio. I didn't have to share with somebody. And that was a decade or more. And then it's family and get married and two kids and all that. And I'm now in a period when I shedding things. That's a period when you accumulate things. And so over time, over the, you know, 25 years, you know, by the end, we ended, we had two, you know, huge houses, you know, one Woodside in Northern California, one Newport beach in Southern California. We had, I don't know how many cars. we had um 31 pets um oh my goodness hold on pause there yeah we're talking dogs or you have like cows and horses and pigs and what's a pet it always varied right because there was a lot of birthing and dying and so actually that's the way my kids learned arithmetic you know because they would do additional connection every day but um approximately three dogs three to five cats a rooster uh maybe uh six or seven chickens a um a pony two old nags two mountain goats which was a real mistake because because if they were regular goats you could keep them in the pasture mountain goats they just go like this and they were forever you know running all over town and uh let's see two finches two cockatiels uh and an iguana so you must have had dozens of acres of land we had about five acres this was uh north and in woodside and it had it had been a farm not a real farm but a gentleman's farm and so we had a barn we had a pasture we had um you know outbuildings and things like that but the problem was not the problem the opportunity the fun part this thing was incredible uh it was built in 1906 outside of san francisco and you know nothing in california is that old and in 1906 1906 is when they had the earthquake and so the only thing that i can figure is that it had already been done or mostly done by the time the earthquake came along because otherwise everything would have you know gone to san francisco anyway big old place really beautiful great bones but when we moved in nothing had been done for 90 years and so we redid it and the guys came in they'd looked at it they said listen we can scrape it rebuild it and make it look exactly the same and you know save half the cost and of course like idiots we didn't want to do that so we spent three and a half years fixing that place up wow wow and was that costly or is that sweat equity beautiful place loved it um but then you talk about you know sort of what life was like um i don't know how many cars we had uh i don't know how many i mean you're talking
Speaker 120 cars five cars no no no uh but you know four or five expensive you know sports cars or
Speaker 2um daily drivers no uh well my wife liked uh like a range rover or something um i actually for a while i drove a smart car just because no way yeah i've always wanted to drive one i'm i'm a
Speaker 1big guy you might not be able to tell about six foot five uh i've always wanted to get in a smart car never had the opportunity to but it looks smaller than a golf cart even do i have the car
Speaker 2for you because my uh smart car it was a convertible so it doesn't matter stick out the top yeah oh that's fun we'll get you some goggles and you can that's right oh that'd be but you bigger than a golf cart however uh when i was in uh mumbai at one point no bengaluru where they have you know all the uh little taxis uh they've got in bengaluru uh it's um it's black with a yellow top and they look so cool and they're all buzzing around looks like a bunch of little bees buzzing around and so i decided i'd buy one and you know sort of bought it and tried to figure out through how to get it through customs and all that could never get through the the paperwork so we never actually did it but i was figuring for this place in newport beach they have a rule that you can drive golf carts on the street not on the highway but on the street so i was going to bring it back shove a couple of golf clubs in the back and claim it's a golf cart and
Speaker 1just drive it around i mean you probably could have gotten away with it for a while oh yeah for what it's worth i mean what do they care that's funny oh man okay so you had you had a
Speaker 2you were in the life of accumulation you're accumulating pool and the pool house and you know all this stuff i mean listen it was a glorious uh from a you know from a thing point
Speaker 1of view is a glorious life yeah as it sounds like and then today you're shedding as you said but you're i take it probably more wealthy in terms of net worth than you've ever been is that correct
Speaker 2yeah what is the uh the net worth that you're at now uh well i've probably been higher um because um there was the divorce of course um but uh it's probably about a hundred uh hundred million at
Speaker 1this point and what's the liquid versus illiquid on that breakdown um well first of all my general
Speaker 2approach and this is not the approach that i you know advise my uh clients but my general approach is a barbell because so much of my uh net worth or at least future net worth is tied up in highly risky stuff i mean you know most startups don't work i've been a little lucky so that i've got so much risk there that on you know the sort of liquid or investment assets i tend to go pretty conservative and so i would say first of all about half of that is um in businesses or businesses that are in stealth or just you know parked ready to go the rest of it is probably so half of the 50 million is probably about uh half in um uh diversified securities and just like i would advise my clients about half is in bonds of various natures so then you're a 50 of the one
Speaker 1hundred is in like private equity then is that what you're saying no no 50 the other 50 is i
Speaker 2don't i do no fancy investing um don't really believe in it uh almost all of it comes with absurd fees and um you know on that basis alone but also if you look at the track records everybody's always talking about the rocket ships but on a on a full basis if you look and you know get past survivorship uh bias there's not a whole lot of evidence that the um alternatives uh you know over the long haul do terribly well um but uh no what i'm talking about is having money
Speaker 1actually in operating companies okay yeah that makes sense and you you mentioned sort of do as i say not as i do with your firm are you doing all this yourself through evergreen's platform your current ria yeah bill's investment philosophy is something super interesting he's conservative on the liquid side high risk on the operating side and almost nothing in between that barbell approach is something i hear a lot of people talk about and i think that's a really good point because i hear from a lot of founders inside of hampton hampton is a private network for high growth founders doing 25 million on average these are the people who've already built something real and they tend to think about money a lot less like investors and more like operators if you've built a company doing at least three million in revenue and you want to be in a room where conversations like this one happen every day check out joinhampton.com okay so how do you justify that if someone asks you know your client hey i just want to copy what you're
Speaker 2doing do you just say no no no you don't want to copy what i'm doing no i i do i do i am doing what we advise you are just i'm just dialing it to a much more conservative uh dial than one would expect for someone whose uh resources are that much ahead of their needs i mean if if i came in the only difference i would i would make i mean we're i'm managing the business uh my money the same way with the same people all that kind of stuff the only difference i would make is that if somebody just came in that had my profile i would say oh you know 80 90 equity yeah and when
Speaker 1you think of public equities you're just like s&p 500 you know i used to so so i am a huge believer
Speaker 2in uh diversification when we started personal capital which was uh you know one of the very first online rias we started at about the same time as wealth front and betterment we were quite different we were much more upscale much more you know sort of sophisticated from a portfolio point of view but uh same time um often lumped together and i really respect wealth front and betterment um i do not have respect for robin hood because i think they're in teaching an entire generation of investors exactly the wrong way to invest and so i need to talk to you offline then
Speaker 1because i use robin hood as my main brokerage there you go well you know it depends what you're
Speaker 2in for are you in for you know sort of uh long-term stability uh are you investing and it's not
Speaker 1about the game it's about you know i just dollar cost average like s&p 500 a little bit of nvidia
Speaker 2that makes sense anything wild that makes sense absolutely makes sense and um a lot of people increasing numbers of people particularly young people are in it for the crapshoot and um you know that's fine if that's what you enjoy get your thrills and it's a lot of fun fine but it's not really you know smart smart investing for the long term it's interesting okay when you think
Speaker 1of valuing some of these different companies that you yourself have started that you're also invested in how do you actually put a number to that i mean it could be worth five it could be worth 500 where do you calculate that how do you justify what that net worth comes out to when it's you know a private equity of that type yeah well it doesn't
Speaker 2make a whole lot of difference if i'm just owning it right because sort of who cares how much it's worth you would use comparables and you would use things that you know recent transactions and and things like that and i mean there's a world of investment bankers that will do that for you the only time it really matters is um when you're either getting funding or selling or going public and then okay now the devaluation matters at that point comparables all that kind of stuff but i'll tell you what what dominates it two things markets and story so the markets you know there's sometimes when particularly in tech which is such a roller coaster there's sometimes where holy jesus um these uh the valuations are crazy we're getting we've got that today going as well but you know back I was right in the middle of the internet bubble. I'll tell you a story on that in a second. But the point is markets can be going wild and then everybody will pay for growth and nothing for, they don't care about profits. Then all of a sudden there's a, you know, we're bipolar and now all of a sudden we care everything about profits and nothing about growth. So, and multiples go up and down. All you can really do is say, okay, what's the current landscape? What do multiples look like? Et cetera. That's half of it. The other half is story. Can you excite people? Should they be excited about your business?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And in my business tech, it's really all about growth.
Speaker 1Yeah. And what's the end game for you with evergreen and, you know, let's say the next 25 years, where do you want all this to land?
Speaker 2Yeah. So I've typically, I guess almost always, I think about these things as, um, what's my goal? My goal is an independent, durable company, uh, sustainable. And, you know, it has an. It's always happened. It has, it has never happened so far because I've always, but somebody comes along and is, and it makes more sense for them, or they're willing to pay something where you, you know, you owe something to your investors, but I'm not looking for an exit. I'm not planning for an exit. I'm, you know, I'm looking to build something. And in order to do that, you have to find something that's broad enough. You know, some companies are features. Some companies are products. Some companies are companies, and in order to be a company, you need to have your product and your market be sufficiently broad that it has long legs. Yeah. I've been lucky because in the financial services world, it is so bloody huge that even small percentage of big markets is a lot to shoot at.
Speaker 1When you started getting rid of real estate, cars, things, what was the thinking behind that? Why did you start to, you know, shed some of the layers?
Speaker 2Things are time. It's, it's remarkable. Just, you know, at some point close, you know, when you get into bed, just think about, okay, how much time did I spend today managing my things? Paying bills, getting things fixed, figuring, pushing them around, cleaning things that, you know, I mean, it's just time and I've got enough money. I don't have enough time. And it's not only the time, it's the brain space. I feel liberated.
Speaker 1Yeah. There's real research behind what Bill just described. In a 2023 study out of UCLA, they found that a number of objects in the home is directly correlated with cortisol levels, the stress hormone. The more stuff you have. The more amount of chronic low grade stress you'll also have, even if the stuff is nice and separately, the researchers behind the book, the time bind found that the average American spends about eight hours per week, managing their physical possessions, cleaning, repairing, organizing, finding things, returning things. It turns into a full work day every week, just maintaining stuff. Bill didn't get rid of his houses and cars and airplane because he couldn't afford them. He got rid of them because he did the math and what they were actually costing him. And what? What they were costing him was time. And for Bill, time was the most valuable thing he had.
Speaker 2This is the third phase or fourth phase of my life. And I have very consciously sold everything I've got, properties. I used to have a little airplane, not like a jet or anything like that, just a little plastic toy, but it was a lot of fun. And in fact, it was a really incredible-
Speaker 1Were you the pilot or did you have a guy? Yeah.
Speaker 2That's fun.
Speaker 1A single-engine jet or a plane, rather.
Speaker 2Yeah, a single-engine push prop, a tiny, I say plastic, carbon fiber, brand new. And it was so cool because you could take off and land in the ocean or the lake as well as the land. And it just went anywhere. It wasn't fast, but very maneuverable. And it was built not for transportation, just for fun. But that's gone. The houses are gone. The cars are gone. And it's just, I can breathe. And I can spend my days doing whatever the heck I want.
Speaker 1What is it that you want? What is it that you do?
Speaker 2You know, more than anything else, I just have a hankering for new things. New people, new places, new architecture, new whatever. And so the place I really spend most of my time is building new businesses. And again, what do I think I'm good at or at least what do I like? It's the ideation phase.
Speaker 1Yeah. I want to ask a question that I know my listeners are probably going to ask me. Why didn't you ask him this? You got to tell me what it was like to work with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Speaker 2It was a zoo. I mean, it was really unkempt. First of all, between Elon, Peter, Max Levchin, myself, David Sachs, Reid Hoffman, there wasn't a single one of us whose ego would fit in a large germasium.
Speaker 1That's a good analogy.
Speaker 2And, you know... Well, we were close to fisticuffs most days. It was never clear. I mean, for a good point, I was theoretically the CEO, but it was really...
Speaker 1Theoretically? Yeah. What do you mean by that? You were literally the CEO, but was there a power struggle? Was there a hungry ego at play?
Speaker 2Yeah, there were power struggles, but I wouldn't quite think of them as power struggles. It's just a whole bunch of very headstrong, motivated people. We were all working like hell. And so, you know, I've got this idea. God damn it, I'm going to do it and get out of my way.
Speaker 1And how did that work then? Because you guys did succeed, but I know there was some complexity. And, I mean, I don't know if ousted is the right word, but I know there were some, you know, some walkouts that maybe you can divulge a little bit of the details there if you'd like. But, like, how did it all come together?
Speaker 2I don't want to go into anything that would be personal for them or anything like that. But, sure, there were... We went through all sorts of stuff. People being ousted, people coming back. It was... Let me put it this way. It was unstable. It was incredibly creative. I mean, these were a bunch of, you know, I think I'm smart, but a lot of these guys are off the charts. And very aggressive and action-oriented. I mean, Elon's the boldest person I've ever, ever met. And bold in terms of just thinking, well, I'll do that. I can do that. Here we go. Which anybody else would have said, you know, just, hey, laws of physics. But, yeah, it was unstable amongst everyone, essentially. But it only lasted a small amount of time. I mean, it was about a year. And then the minute eBay bought it, everyone, gone. That's interesting.
Speaker 1You said earlier there was a lot of luck at play in your story. What part of that story was luck versus strong will or even you putting yourself into the right place at the right time?
Speaker 2Well, it is right place, right time. And depending upon when you're going to start, you know, I mean, hell, I was a white man born in 1950. I was born in 1956 in the United States in a academically charged community. I mean, I'm already, you know, 0.0001% of the human race just by being born. And so it depends on your starting point. But let's just say in business, I got to say it's 80, 90% luck and not so much luck in, oh, I flipped a coin, but luck in that, oh, I happened to be in Silicon Valley. I happened to meet some people who were doing. You got to say 80, 90% luck and then it doesn't help if it helps if you work hard.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And of course, in Silicon Valley, the definition of work hard is a little different than in most of the world.
Speaker 1Walk me through what your approximate net worth was through some of these different seasons, because each of your stories is what I would call the peak of many people's ambition. Oh, I got to lead into it as a CEO. I got to co-found PayPal. I got to co-found PayPal with a bunch of awesome entrepreneurs. I sold a company for shy of a billion dollars. And you kept doing it. How was your net worth growing throughout those different seasons and chapters?
Speaker 2You know, sort of gradually and piece by piece and then cut in half with my divorce. And I'm not bitter about that at all. But in the early days, I really, and even today, I mean, I'm lucky because I've got more than enough money to do. I can do whatever I want. But even in the early days, I really haven't been terribly motivated by money. And I think most people who are terribly successful or many people who are terribly successful are not. You know, you're in it for the fulfillment or satisfaction or proving you can. Three words are important for me. The one in this case is mastery. When I feel like I'm, you know, I know how to do this. I'm here. And, you know, boy, what I just did there, damn good. I get a sense of accomplishment. I get a sense of mastery. And I get a, you know, it really powers me. I love that. And so that's probably what I run for more than anything else. So the money, when I started out, you know, I was late to Silicon Valley. I spent the first 10 years of my life in New York City in the media business. And so the whole stock option thing was brand new for me. And, for instance, in the early days at Chipsoft and Intuit, the board would just give me options. And I would look at the number of options that I was getting. And the number of options that most normal people in the company were getting. And I was, like, shocked. And, oh, no, you know, that's not right. They're working as hard as I am. There's an extra comma here. And so I, you know, pushed options down. Now, part of it, I'm not saying I'm an angel. I just didn't quite understand how the game worked. But so did well with options at Intuit. You know, in the media business. I had a nice life. And I had a department. But that's it. And then, so. options that into it that were pretty good nothing like flamboyant um paypal was uh was
Speaker 1pretty flamboyant but um do you remember what you made personally from that acquisition oh i think
Speaker 2it might have been um more than 20 million less than 50 but you got to remember this was 25 years
Speaker 1ago right back when a million was actually a million here we go yeah yeah um and so a series
Speaker 2of the companies that i've started had been good but not you know knockouts um personal capital was pretty much a knockout i mean it was only a unicorn today you know we're talking about billion corns but i'm sorry we're talking about trillion corns you must have made a hundred plus from that
Speaker 1i would assume yeah something that doesn't get talked about enough is when a company sells for some exorbitant amount of money like 825 million in this case the founder does not get 825 million personal capital raised 290 million in vc money before it sold which means investors owned a significant chunk of the company before the deal closed by the time you account for vc dilution co-founders option pools taxes even at long-term capital gains rates 825 million dollar exit can produce very different personal outcomes depending on how early you were how much you earned and how your cap table was structured bill said he made more than 20 million but less than 50 from paypal 25 years ago for personal capital he confirmed it was north of 100 million post-tax long-term capital gains some of it in roths the point isn't the exact number that you make it's that the exit headlines that founders typically share are fairly different than what the outcomes actually look like in their bank account yeah and that's post-tax uh yeah yeah yeah good for you and
Speaker 2of course you know all all long-term capital gains are going to be in the bank account and some of it um in you know roths and things like that so then why go bootstrap your own ria well first of all so why bootstrap um because i can and and the you know the the issue that i had early day and many people have with um starting something is if you've got investors even great investors this was in the day typically in the day when the vcs were actually doing venture capital they weren't doing later stage stuff now you've got a couple of vcs on your board and even if they're great um the early stages of a company like this you're swirling and you really have no idea and things change and you know so then you say oh that's not going to work and and we're going to go this way and then even if you own the majority and even if you've got great investors you still have to call everybody up say hey remember what i told you last week that was stupid well now we're going to go try this and that whole process i've been in conversations like that yes yeah oh no that ceo we got rid of him but new plan yeah yeah but and then also just the the time you spend raising money and raising relatively small amounts of money i mean it's it's counterintuitive because later on when you're particularly if you have a good story uh early days you're scraping and so being able to fund it myself to make flexibility gives me more time to focus on the on the job things like that so that's why i i self-fund at this point to the extent we get to where you know we've got good traction we really need to invest in in the business then i will you know look for external investors but at the moment it gives me um great freedom it's actually just like the rest of my life what do i love about it i don't know what i love about it i don't know what i love about it my life right now freedom i can do i have no boss i can do whatever i want i i not have any i don't have a boss at work i also my things are not my boss and you're not controlled by anything that's
Speaker 1right yeah i mean that's nice and so you own the ria firm outright 100 outside of uh options for yeah sure right right i mean that sounds like the ideal situation well it's your ideal situation
Speaker 2if you're like me right that's a good point you know when i think about it i think about
Speaker 1your story i so i have two young kids i have a third kid on the way uh three boys uh god help us four almost five two and a newborn coming in uh october and november so uh it's gonna be it's gonna be a crazy zoo at the house and and where do you live charleston oh you live in charleston i see yep just uh just outside of charleston but yeah 20 minutes from charleston yeah
Speaker 2and uh we love it you are you are in uh what is now and will become even more so the most intense period of your life yes because you are in the middle of holy shit i've got this business i've got my skills i've got my i'm trying to build myself build the business think about you know build my wealth i mean all of those things happening simultaneously with i've got a marriage
Speaker 1make sure the kids survive your marriage is happy yeah yeah and um and you know the newborns up in
Speaker 2the middle of the night and the young ones are um falling over on the coffee table and you're making you know racing to the hospital and uh i mean i went i had that kind of a life for a while and it was brilliant gorgeous but my wife and i never never did anything you know we would just
Speaker 1at the end of the day with oh jesus christ yeah i barely keep your eyes open yeah so you know
Speaker 2you've got you've got a 10-year sprint you had yeah yeah and i feel it i'm i feel like i'm already
Speaker 1a few years into that sprint and it's interesting because i i don't i don't at all feel like i've made it yet and i don't know if i've made it yet i don't know if i've made it yet i don't know so i'm still ambitious i'm still chasing you know a number or a lifestyle that i don't have quite well defined yet it changes quite a bit but when i hear you know at one point you had the houses you had the cars you had things and then you started getting rid of those i'm wondering at what point in that journey did it start to feel like a burden because it didn't always i mean even as you're talking about the plane it sounds like you even have maybe a healthy miss of the plane like you loved the plane i can tell as you're talking about it like that was a fun thing for you to have and you asked about
Speaker 2sports cars um i used to have a bunch of sports cars i mean not multiple at once but you know a series of them now they weren't you know fancy or expensive sports cars i tend to like um little roadsters european roads from the late 50s and 60s but between you know austin helis and little little mercedes and things like that had great fun loved that loved my little airplane loved all these things and so yeah at you know if i was really it's not a bad idea to go have the little airplane and just having it no it's it i'll tell you why it's a bad idea i was about to say it's not about it what the heck you can just pay the people at the airport to keep it fixed keep it flying be it there but here's why that's a bad idea and actually here's why i i sold it if you fly practice because it is a it's muscle memory and you got to be flying this bloody thing feeling the airplane at the same time the most the most difficult thing is that you're not flying the airplane at the same time the most difficult thing is flipping the frequencies and talking because it's a different language up there and you and the pre-flight and the post-flight and everything else all of this stuff you have to do frequently enough that it is not you're not thinking about it you know it and so if you can't fly regularly don't fly yeah i mean it's it sounds
Speaker 1like a lot more risk than an average person should take on well it's not i mean it's not terribly
Speaker 2risky if you're you know doing it regularly and you're well trained yeah when you think of i mean
Speaker 1you mentioned not being motivated by money but you're still building you're still you know chasing a new milestone with your current venture what i guess what reason do you have for growing that wealth
Speaker 2now if you aren't motivated by money well i didn't say i was completely unmotivated okay it's just not the primary drive but i do like having money i do like building my wealth if nothing else it's self-affirming but why do i what's the driving reason that for instance i work well the first is i don't play golf and wouldn't want to learn um and uh like you just don't like golf at all oh i can't think of a bigger waste of time i don't know that many people with a net
Speaker 1worth of your size who live in miami who aren't golfing at least once a week well i'll tell you
Speaker 2what i live on miami beach and on miami beach there are young people with bodies and old people with boats and i have neither so okay here there you go
Speaker 1i am on the opposite side of the spectrum i'm terrible at golf but i love to play so you know somewhere in the middle of you and i combined it would be a really good golfer that goes once or
Speaker 2twice a month well no no i'm awful at golf i don't think i've okay yeah no but but if i were to i mean really my exercise is more than anything else uh my bicycle i do some strength training but and uh but if i were uh to do something like golf it would be tennis all right money wise listeners
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Speaker 2much time. And I think it's more fun. The thing I really do, and I still do and absolutely love,
Speaker 1is skiing. Yes. And where do you go? Do you have a common place or do you go wherever?
Speaker 2Well, the guy, there's a guy, there's a bunch of us and it was, we go every year. And the guy who put the whole thing together and is our leader, he used to run Kimpton Hotels. And they had a hotel right at the base of Ajax Mountain in Aspen. And so we used to all congregate there. And it was just such a great time. Beyond that, it could be Jackson Hole, or Utah, or Europe. I love skiing in Europe. I've skied in New Zealand, which is wild, and all over.
Speaker 1That's cool. I've been snowboarding my whole life. I go out to Colorado typically. I've been to Whistler a number of times. I lived in Europe for a little bit and I wanted to go to Austria, Switzerland, Madrid. Unfortunately, during the winter I lived there, I loved Madrid. We've been back several times, one of our favorite cities in the world. I had to get back surgery the one winter that I would have gone to Austria or Switzerland. And so haven't been back since then. Back is fine. Everything's good now, but would love to go
Speaker 2to Europe to snowboard someday. Well, here's what you do. Sometime before your oldest is like really engaged in school, which doesn't give you a whole lot of time, go spend the summer in
Speaker 1Europe. I mean, we did last year, not the full summer. We did three, three and a half weeks. We went to Madrid, North Italy, went through the Dolomites. It was amazing. I mean, in fact, we came back and we said, I guess we have to do that every year now because life is going to feel really boring if we don't. And, you know, we had to get over that fast because our normal life is actually really fun. But something about those summers in Europe,
Speaker 2it's hard to beat. Oh, God, yes. And particularly, you know, somewhere along the Med, it's just, it's just so lovely. If I, if I ever, but Europe has got such terrific, if I ever stop, you know, starting around, I'm going to go to Europe. I'm going to go to Europe. I'm going to go to Europe. I think I would go be a student, Cambridge. And, you know, because it's a, you know, everything, anthropology, histories, computer science, you know, just the notion of exposing yourself to new things all the time would be terrific. But just in travel. So I, about a year and a half ago, I was, you know, a little bit burned out. I just said, guys, I got to go. And I took two weeks and I was thinking it was, you know, where to go. I just headed south because it was Christmas time. It was, and it was cold. So I headed south all over Latin America, had no plan just for two weeks, spun around and it was brilliant. Do you wish you had more weeks like that? Yeah. Well, but I do if I want to. And so really I have to, you know, have a stern word with myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1I have a last question here. You started the mutual fund very early. You're, you know, 60 years removed from that. You've been thinking about money at the highest level your entire career. What is something you wish you knew about money and investing when you were 30 that you know
Speaker 2now? It's really simple. Put something away in a way that it'll grow and then forget it. And, you know, come back to it every now and then. But I think we are obsessed with, with the, the here and now. Okay. How can I take my thing and, and what can I invest in to do a little bit better? And that's fine. And that's what drives so many of us, but don't forget to hive off a piece and just put it someplace where you won't think about it and let it marinate.
Speaker 1That's a lot of people just say, park your money in an index fund and just forget about it. Is that what you're suggesting? Just go into an index and just let it be gone at least for 10, 15 years.
Speaker 2I think that's, that's, that has been a good way to do it. I think it's a little dangerous right now because the S&P is so skewed towards, um, tech and AI based tech and everything else that unfortunately it's, it's really not diversified anymore. So ironically you're right. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but yes, um, uh, things where you're not trying to shoot the lights out, where you're just trying to make sure that 10 years later, ah, you know, I've got something that I wouldn't quite call it. Fuck
Speaker 1about the S&P 500 is a bit contrarian according to some of the other conversations that I've had. He thinks that it's gotten a little bit dangerous to just park and forget it because it's no longer super diversified, at least not as much as it used to be. And he's right. As of 2025, the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 make up roughly 37% of the entire index. Companies like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet. You're not buying 500 companies when you're buying the S&P anymore. You're buying a handful of mega cap tech stocks and then 490 other companies that barely move the needle. That's not necessarily a reason to panic. And I personally still think the S&P 500 is a really good thing to invest in. But those companies are genuinely dominant. And it's a reason to understand what you're buying into when you do invest in the S&P 500 is it's the market of 500 companies, but really it's not as diversified now as it used to be. Bill calls this type of money freedom money. It's the thing that gives you the ability to make the decisions that are right for you. When they're right for you. In the Hampton community, we have channels where people discuss what types of money making decisions they do and where they spend their money and what they spend their money on just because they have it. I think that's awesome. I think we should encourage people who have the money to spend it to spend the money. And that's exactly what Bill Harris's philosophy is on life and what a lot of the founders inside of the Hampton community can resonate with. If you want to resonate with and discuss that type of financial freedom with founders just like yourself, check out joinhampton.com.
Speaker 2Because it's not money that you, you know, because I want to be able to say screw you to my whatever, my job or whatever. But it is, let's call it freedom money. It allows you to be free to make the decisions that are right for you at the time.
Speaker 1All right. And we'll end it on this note. I have to ask, top three things you've bought on Amazon for under $100 in the last three months.
Speaker 2Uh, well, uh, goodness. Um, a wireless router, because I was, I was having, uh, you know, satellite based, not Starlink because I was having such difficulty and little things like that. I mean, first of all, it takes time. God damn it. But little things like that, having just having great connectivity. Yeah. How,
Speaker 1how important is that? Oh man, I just leased a coworking space. And that was the first thing I asked is, Hey, is the up and down speed of the internet here capable of, you know, 20 people showing up and working in tech? It's like, is you can't use a space anymore if the internet's not
Speaker 2fast. Okay. So router number two, number two. And again, these, what's important to me, one is computing and connectivity. Another is my little bicycle. And so I've got the helmet. It's the most important thing. In fact, I took another dive about four weeks ago, and busted up my shoulder and all that. But the most, I am the most important thing is, uh, after the helmet is my little rear view mirror. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to have to buy a new one. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to because if you're doing city traffic, which I do, you gotta know what's who's behind. So, uh, all that's good, but I just bought something. I'm not used to yet. That's another rear view mirror that clips to my helmet. And so I've seen those. Yeah. So I have no idea whether it's going to
Speaker 1work or not. My parents both have one. They have the, the e-bikes. And so they're going like 40 miles an hour without pedaling, which I'm like, well, why, why are you on a bike at this point? But they love it. I've, I have fun with them sometimes, but they have that on their helmet. They seem to love it. So I think it should work. Should do you well. Well, if your parents are on e-bikes, uh, more power to them, that's great. Yes. I'm more traditional like you. I have a road bike and I, you know, fly down the trail with my road bikes. That's fine. Yeah. The only
Speaker 2thing that I think I would advise against, um, I see out in the boulevards, I see these guys on, uh, scooters, electric scooters in traffic, you know, and you know what you call them?
Speaker 1No. Pre-dead. Yeah. Yeah. I knew a specialized heart surgeon. And he said, uh, the number one person that he would transplant as a heart transplant, specialized surgeon was motorcyclists. And he said, every time I see someone on the motorcycle, I just say it's a matter of time before they show up in my office. And I mean, that was 25 years ago. He was a next door neighbor. I was growing up. I'm like, I thought of it ever since nothing against people on motorcycles. I know people love them. I don't have one personally, but I'm like, that is stuck with me, that statistic. So there's some danger out there for sure. Well, Bill, this has been phenomenal. You're a great guest for the Money Wise show. I appreciate you just divulging even some of the way you think about money. Is there anything you wanted to share with the Money Wise audience that you don't feel like we covered?
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. So I think we covered it, but I'll just say it anyway. Money is a means to an end. It's not an end. And so remember that. And in fact, I'm starting a little podcast myself. I don't know how to do it, but I'm going to give it a try. And maybe you'll come on at some point. But it's called Money and Life, because that's the important thing, is being able to put those two things together. And that's one of the things I love about this thing that you're doing, because that's what you're doing. Yes, it's about money, but it's not about money as a scorecard or something like that. It's about how do you bring your life and your resources together? Because that's about all we've got. Money, life, and time.
Speaker 1I agree. And time becomes more and more valuable the less of it you have.
Speaker 2That's right. And I'm 70 years old, but that's only 21 Celsius.
Speaker 1I'm going to use that someday. That's really good.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1You don't look a day over. I mean, you could pass as 54.
Speaker 2Well, thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1Yeah, you look great. Keep on the bike. It's doing you wonders.
Speaker 2Okay, man.
Speaker 1But Bill, thanks so much. I look forward to hearing from you soon. You bet. Talk soon. Bye-bye. I love this point that Bill just made. And I think it's the whole point of Money Wise. He said money, life, and time is about all that we've got. And the only goal worth having is figuring out how to put those three things together. Those are the types of conversations I get to have with incredible guests like Bill on Money Wise. And it's very similar to the types of conversations I have all the time inside of the Hampton community. How do I make more, but also what am I actually building towards? Hampton is a private network for high growth founders doing at least $3 million in revenue or who have exited for $10 million or more. If you're building something real and you want to be around people who are asking these types of questions, go to joinhampton.com. These are your people. I've been the host of Money Wise for a while now, and the guests who make the most money aren't always the ones who seem the freest. Bill Harris might be the first person I've talked to like a free guy with a ton of money, not because he just has a hundred million, but he decided what that money was going to be used for. Thank you so much for listening to Money Wise. If you've gotten something out of this episode, please go share it with someone somewhere in the accumulation phase who maybe hasn't asked themselves yet what they're actually accumulating toward. I know I'm in that phase and I know that this episode resonated a lot with me. I'm going to be asking a few hard questions to myself, like what am I building toward? And when am I going to stop building? When am I going to really be satisfied? Again, I am Daniel Burke. I'm the host of Money Wise. Thanks again. For listening, smash that subscribe button if you haven't already, and we'll see you next week.
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