Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast)

I found this guy tweeted something a couple days ago whenever it was hilarious. He goes, "Most people's alarm clock is David Goggins telling them to wake up and get after it. My alarm clock is David's center yelling at me, telling me to be like Edwin Lann. It's like I repetition works." Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rezenthal. And we are your hosts. Today's episode is our next installment of Acquired Sessions, a video format on YouTube that we started playing with last year. Our guest today is David Senra of the Founders Podcast. David is quite possibly the only person we know who is more obsessed than us with business history and the lessons that great founders teach us. David Senra, that is, has read hundreds of founder biographies and done deep episodes on them all. I don't know that I'm at hundreds yet as me, David, but I'm definitely in dozens. I aspire to be at hundreds, but David Senra is just one of our closest podcaster friends and friends period out there. His show is awesome. Here on this episode, we had him out to my living room here in San Francisco and we had just a awesome, really fun, multi-multi hour conversation, just like the ones that he and I have scheduled every month on Zoom when the mics are off. It was super organic, super unstructured. We covered a ton of ground, including that I think two nights before we recorded. David was just coming up from LA where he had dinner with Charlie Munger and so we spent a lot of time talking about that. Charlie's influence on David, his more and his influence on all three of us, a bunch of thoughts on advice generally and as you can imagine, David just sprinkled dozens and dozens of historical examples and founder stories throughout the episode. It is crazy. Every time someone's making a point, he'll dive in. This is just like that thing Edwin Lans said that one time, or David Oglevy or Coco Chanel or who have you. David is definitely close with the eminent dead. I will say after editing this episode, I had one enormous takeaway. David Senra is really, really into podcasting, so get fired up to meet him on his level. All right, quick things, go follow ACQ to brand new show, search it at any podcast player available for free, become an LP. There is voting going on right now for our next episode, which LPs all have input on. And for every new LP that joins, we will shoot you an email to your inbox, voting closes about a week after this comes out and we are straight up picking whatever you tell us. The next episode should be with really no editorial from us, so help us direct the next episode. Join the Slack. It is one of the only places on the internet with this super high level of incredibly thoughtful discussion by well-connected kind folks with a deep appreciation for history. People meet co-founders, they find jobs, and they get nuance takes on the news of the day in there. So join at acquired.fm/slack. Lastly, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss. And this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only now onto acquired sessions. So David, do you want to tell us who you had dinner with the other night? I had a three hour dinner with Charlie Munger. That was awesome. Where I could ask him any questions that you want. Well, first of all, I guess we should back up. It's like there's a reason that he's so admired by so many people. But for me particularly, you get to meet a lot of really interesting people because of the work that we do, right? And so that's like a blessing and something that I know we've had conversations in the past that we deeply appreciate. But Charlie's a different level for me. Like I literally think of him like the wise grandfather I never had. You know, I met all kinds of people. I don't really get like nervous or star struck. I was legitimately like shaking the day before. I was like, I cannot believe. I didn't want to tell them any people because like there's no way this is going to happen. Like I won't believe it till it actually happens. We do very similar work, right? Where it's like how many people have spent six, seven years, tens of thousands of hours reading hundreds of books about the history of entrepreneurship and investing. And then not only reading it, taking notes on it, making a podcast Charlie and Warren. Yeah. And so the reason I bring that up is because you think about all the different companies and founders you guys have studied, all the different companies and founders that I've studied, right? And like even amongst the rarest group of people, Charlie still stands out. And the crazy thing is he's 99, right? And so I get there and we start off in his library, which is like the best place for me that you could possibly see. And set the stage more. How big is the library? Like how many books are we talking about? So it's not so his, one of his family members was there too and she's like, oh, this is like nothing. This is like a front view. Wait until you see the back. Yeah. So it's like it's similar to like the rumor in like, you know, very similar size and you know, floor to ceiling shelves. And so I'm with a small group of friends. It's in fact, neutral friends for us. So the people that set this up for us are for me was Andrew Wilkinson and Chris from Founders of Tiny or mutual friends and so we're sitting there and there's actually a funny thing where it starts out and they know both Warren and Charlie they've talked to me for. So they go right into it and then like, I'm sitting there. And I had this whole list of probably like 25 questions. I was going to ask if you like prepared in advance. I know you did. I never got the chance to open my phone because I was just sitting there like, I'm looking at him. And he's, you know, very close, like, you know, maybe a little bit further from me to remember disrespectful to like take up my phone to that too. And I had, you know, read every single book on Charlie. I watched all of his videos like, I have studied this guy forever. And so every time he had said, Hey, read this book, I go and read the book. And then I see a bunch of the books that he has recommended behind them. So people are like, Oh, was he as like you expected? Like they say, Hey, be careful. Don't meet your heroes. Right. It's like he was unbelievably gracious. You know, unbelievably like, uh, I was like, Hey Charlie, you mind if I take a look at your bookshelf? Right. He's just like, do whatever you want. Just unbelievably polite. Still like biting intellect for rocious intelligence at 99 at 99. So we were talking earlier downstairs, where the scary thing about Charlie is. I remember asking a question about Henry Kaiser. This guy that was super famous when Charlie was younger. He built like a hundred companies, built a Hoover Dam. Like he was as famous in his time as like Elon Musk is today. Right. And I was asking questions about Charlie in the book and his recall is just insane. So the point where I asked him, I go, How do you know all this Charlie? He goes, I knew his partner and then he starts telling stories about being knowing like having a relationship with Henry Kaiser's business partner and then all these three hours of just unbelievable stories. And then I go Charlie, like, how do you remember all this stuff? Like do you write? Like you take notes, you read the books over and over again, he's like, Nope. And all I could think of was like, imagine, wow, that guy's mind at 99 is still so short. I had brought a gift form because he talks about like Rockefeller a lot of time. I bought him this special edition, Centennial Edition version of Henry Flagler's biography. Oh, Flagler. So I live in Miami, the guy, less Santaford, I think is his author of that book. He is good friends with, there's only like one local bookshop in Miami called Books and Books. And so less is a local author who's good friends with the owner of that bookstore. So they did a, you can't get this book anymore else. It's a special edition book because Flagler moved to Florida later on. After the Standard Oil thing. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a fascinating story we talk about that where he made, he unbelievably wealthy because of Standard Oil. Yeah. He's, you know, 50, 60, 70 years old when he's doing this and he's just like, Oh, what do we do now? I'll build an entire state when he gets to Miami. Miami is a little less than 500 people living in a swamp. He just can't live there. There was no AC at the time. And so then he builds the world's first railroad over connecting to Florida Keys. He just essentially, like, you read that book and you're like, Oh, humans have no limits other than the ones we put on ourselves. And so that's what Flagler does. He just stretches it. And he does some terrible things too where it's like, yeah, I wanted to find a way to divorce his wife. So he literally moves to another state because he couldn't be a divorce in New York. He gives the government of Florida, they create the Flagler law, which allows him to get a divorce. Then he does that. Like, I think a few times. I think he's like, in the 70s and Mary's like a 30 year old, like, that's not all good. But that guy's like, Oh, your rules don't apply to me. Like, I will build whatever I want. He built infrastructure hotels, everything else. This is like one of my, the things that I keep learning from Founders podcast and I'm curious if you do it intentionally or if you, like, try not to do it. But like, every single time, like, Oh, people aren't perfect. Like none of your heroes are perfect. And do you find yourself like, because we run it on acquired a lot where like, it's not as fun to tell stories about terrible people. And so you, you like, don't want to show someone's negative side as much because it doesn't, like, it's just, it, well, we, we like, we fall in love with them too when we're doing that. Right. And you're like, wow, they're the most extraordinary person on this one axis to ever live. And we, we should talk about how they're a flawed person in many ways, but it's not fun to dwell on. Like, you kind of want to like, move through that and be like, yep, yep, they were flawed. Here's the next amazing thing that they did, like, how do you handle that? Like, you know how a normal biography is written, right? It's like way too much family history. Like, I want to know some family history. I don't want five generations back stop. Like, I don't want to know the origination of their last name. I don't need that. And you're like the most qualified person in the world to critique a bio. writing style at this point, so. - So why we're reading it is like, everyone wants to know the climb, right? It's like how did you, you guys, I just went through your entire, to get part of the prepped for Charlie is listening to all of your Berkshire episodes, right? Where you guys do a fantastic job on this, 'cause like the first two is like, the young Charlie, the young Warren. So I would literally, and I've done this forever, it's like I don't, when you think of Warren Buffett or Ben Franklin or George Washington or anybody that's super famous, when we see them it's like, oh, who's the Ben Franklin on the hundred dollar bill, right? Or who's of Washington on the dollar bill? Or who's Buffett on the meeting in Omaha? It's like, no, no, that's the guy that is enjoying the fruits of the person actually built the empire. - That's the fault, yeah. - I go and stare at pictures like a freak of young Charlie Munger when he was like 38 or young Warren Buffett, right? They were like, oh, they were young people once. - In our Berkshire series, the first, did we end the first episode without even getting to Berkshire yet? I think we might. - You have the Buffett partnership. It was just the partnership, yeah. - You mentioned it on the Walmart episode, where it's like, everybody says, oh, Sam Walton didn't start Walmart 'cause he was 44. Yeah, but he was doing 25 years of practice and learning. And he wasn't just sitting on his ass. - Like, starting a bunch of stuff that looked an awful lot like Walmart. - Yes, learning from that. And so the, which is totally like, I mean, aside, but we have no agenda here. That is like, I think both an advantage that like we have all three of us and like kind of a secret that we have, which is that like, we wanted, we did Walmart 'cause we wanted to do Amazon. And so we're like, how do we do Amazon, right? We gotta do Walmart first. People want this. This is the right way to study things. - I think, I'm glad you brought that up because I think this is why people get a lot of value. And I don't want it to make us about, hey, this is an acquired foundation. The reason that some of the people in our audiences are the most successful people in the world. They're all reading biographies. They're all studying the history of business. I told you guys a few weeks ago, I was very lucky to have a two hour one on one lunch with Sam Zell that I didn't think was possible. When I realized in that conversation, it's like, you don't make, you don't, Sam Zell is a company for almost $40 billion, right? $38 billion, whatever it was. It's like, you don't build a company, sell for $40 billion, and then learn all these. It's like, he was doing this since he was young. We were talking in his autobiography talk about, I think my favorite episode of your podcast is the Kobe Bryant episode 'cause like, this is what these guys are doing. They're like Kobe Bryant. They're watching Game Tape. They're working on the fundamentals from the time they're 12 through the time they die. They don't stop. - I think that's what we're listening to acquired and founders is you're watching Game Tape of Fish and Fish Grace on Chpunters. Sam did this when he was younger, but this ties together where Bill Gurley had a fantastic quote about this, a treat about this. When all that crypto was going crazy and the run up and the people were getting rich, and he's like, one thing I don't like, and I'm paraphrasing 'cause I wasn't expecting to talk about this, he's like, I don't like these younger people denigrating the people that came before them. And he's like, he made the point that none of the, none of history's guys on Chpunters and investors did that. They had the opposite perspective. All of them had idols. You've just made the point. You can't understand Jeff Bezos until you say Sam Walton. You can't understand Sam Walton, so you understand JC Penney and Soul Price, and all these guys. - And even all these contemporaries. Like the point that Walton always made was, I don't think my competitors are stupid. I want to go shop my competitors and get all of their very best insights and then bring them into my store. - Yeah, 100% they're learning machines. - Yeah. - And so you get to Charlie's going times to go back to this, you get to Charlie's bookshelf, and it's just biographies I've never even heard of. And I do this for a living. (laughing) I do this for a living. I was like, what is this book? And then I started looking. I was like, oh, I'm just taking pictures. I took pictures. I was like, I'm ordering every single one. - So we're talking about this idea that like the way to get truth is to weave together the tapestry of all of history stories of things that are adjacent to understand like how this opportunity to start some business came to be. And you always have to like all history is revisionist and all history is biased. And so I think one of the hardest things about making an acquired episode is figuring out like when we're looking at a source, like someone giving an industry talk who works at a company or like a biographer who shows to dedicate two years of their life to writing this book after working at Newsweek and covering the sector forever is like trying to mentally account for and discount from whatever bias and perspective they're coming in with to create whatever the source material is that we're using to then incorporate into our version of here's how this thing happened. Which is, that's like, I think it's the hardest part about what we do. And I'm curious if you ever think about that. - I think about all the time 'cause people are like, oh, like survived with your bias or revisionist history and everything else. It's like, here's the problem. Like humans don't see things as they are. We see them as we are. So like we could have this super long conversation between the three of us right now then go into the room and write down, you know, what just occurred. Every single version is going to be different because it's viewed it through all of our experience, the way we think, the words we use. And so what I'm looking at is like, when I'm reading about Sam Walton, right? It's just like, the story we both hit on all the podcasts 'cause I've done a bunch of podcasts on Sam too. Or it's like, the guy's pissed off. He's just like, drive him to store the store and he's like, mountain roads taking forever. So he buys the plane and he realizes like, oh, this is a massive advantage 'cause I'm doing something my competitors aren't, right? I'm flying over and you guys mentioned it too, which I thought was hilarious. - That's his face. - And then he just lands and he's like, who owns that? - And then he buys for action. So he's like, we're gonna negotiate right now. I wanna buy it from you. And so my point is he's like, okay, yes, that most likely occurred. But what is the idea behind that? It's do, you can have an advantage by doing something your competitors are not doing, right? - Yep. - And this ties together with what you just said, is like they all learn from somebody else. When we're reading these books and listening to these podcasts, it's like, what's the idea I can use in my life? We're not building the next Walmart. There's no way we read Titan that we could tell. Did this actually happen, right? I don't know, but I'm looking for the ideas behind it. Not, I'm gonna verify for every single word in this book. That's ridiculous. - And the truth is always, it is always the case that the clean narrative is grafted onto a fact pattern. And it's like, okay, well, what I care about is the lessons I can learn from the clean narrative. Not, it does the fact pattern. If you had all the facts in totality, did it necessarily mean that it, you know, this was premeditated? It's like, whether it was premeditated or not, you know, the facts are the facts and like, maybe I could duplicate it in a different realm. - For what we do, I mean, on a good, I think on a quiet more than you, especially 'cause you will do multiple episodes of different books on the same people. - And multiple episodes on the same book. - Yeah, and multiple episodes on the same book, right? - Your format is bad. - We're doing a narrative weave, so like, you know. - We're shooting the moon a little bit more in this respect. Like, your format lends itself to, so everyone is listening. Like, founders is more about, hey, I just read this book and I wanna tell you what I learned from this book. And it's always biography and like, sometimes you'll do five different biographies on Edwin Land. And like, if a choir was gonna do Polaroid, we would do Polaroid. The episode would be Polaroid. Maybe it would be like, Polaroid part one and part two, or like, maybe at some point, we have one there. We'd have like, someone on to like, talk about the story, you know, in addition to our one canonical episode, but like, we would be shooting the moon on like, let's make sure that we get the Polaroid story as right. It's almost like, how do we find the correct average of all of the other stories to create the canonical version? - I wasn't expecting to quote Bill Gurley two times that early, so far. But he, that's it. - Is that, you know, this is gonna be a good episode. - That fantastic talk he gave, which to me is the best talk for entrepreneurs and investors on YouTube is called running down a dream, how to survive and thrive in a career you love, right? And he says, he's like, listen, in the age of the internet, he's like, you don't have to be the smartest person, right? Charlie Munger, after talking to him, whatever mind that dude has, I don't have that. And I'm cool with that. Like, I could not imagine trying to compete against that guy 40 years ago, like he would destroy me, right? He's got a super mind that I don't have. But what Bill says is like, you may be like, you don't have to be the smartest person, but you can collect more the most information and he holds you to a high standard in that talk. Bill's like, listen, in the age of the internet, all the information you possibly need, right, is right at your fingertips. You have no excuse not to do this. And so he gives the example of if you, you wanna be a domain expert in whatever you're doing, like within two years of intense study, if you're doing that and you're focused on it, it's like you're gonna get to the point where you're like, you know more than maybe anybody else. And so that's my whole thing was like, when you talk to, you've never met a founder or an entrepreneur that's like kind of into entrepreneurship. It's like, no, it's our lives. So, of course, the reason why so many of them listen to both of our shows, right? It's because they're building machines where they literally can turn knowledge into profit, right? I become close friends with the guy through the podcast. He's a young kid, and I don't mean to call him a kid, he's not a kid, but he's a lot younger than I am. And he's like 28 years old. And we were on the phone the other day because he had a very serious offer for company humans like 95% of them, they were gonna give him $100 million, right? Might as well say no to it. But the point where he's like, when you talk to him, you know, he's listened to all the episodes, it's read like 60 of the books. He'll text me a picture of like, you want me to tell him it was a book. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure I read that. Like, he's like, oh yeah, it's from this episode. It's like, oh, why? What if he finds one idea in a book, one idea in a podcast, and it gives a 10% improvement on his company? - That's a $10 million idea. - Yeah, well, we were talking about this earlier. Like, this dinner that you have, sounds like Charlie is just like a very curiosity to remember. She, but we know there's lots of folks that have regular dinners, and have groups of people often geographically dispersed. Why did they do it? Why is it worth their time, their money, their effort? It's if they get one idea. The leverage that they can get on that is-- - Charlie tells the stories. Like, yeah, I made $400 million from reading Barons for 50 years. He's like, what the, what are you talking about, Charlie? - I didn't even quantify that because he does. He goes, I read, this isn't something he said dinner, that firms say publicly. He's like, I read Barons every all the time for 50 years. I found one idea that I can act on. I made $50 million on that deal, and then I took that 50 million, and I gave it to Lee Lou. Is that the-- - Oh, yeah, yeah. - I gave that 50-- I gave that 50 million to Lilo and Lilo turned it into $400 million. That's how I made $400 million from reading parents. - Wow. - And listen, I'm not, and this is another thing where I feel like everybody's like, oh, this time it's different, this is new. It's like human nature has never changed. It will never change. This time it's not different. You're just experienced, the difference is here. If you don't study the history that people came for, you're just ignorant and making mistakes that people already saw in the past. Learning from history is a form of leverage. He has billions of billions of billions of years of collectives like human history. The sky spent 70 years and there's thousands of them. And like Sam Walton's book, how many people spent 50 years in one industry, in the retail industry? - Yeah. - And he distilled it down to the most important. - And then you could read it in a week and then you could listen to a choir's episodes. You can listen to David's episodes on Sam. - Okay, that's a good addition to that. - So the question is, then do you have 90% of Sam's wisdom or do you have 0.1% of Sam's wisdom after-- - There's no way you have 90% - Right. - Because like the time, like the instincts. - I was just rewatching Peter Teel's talk at white commentary, he says "competitions for losers." - Oh yeah. - And he goes one thing that we do in Silicon Valley, is we overrate, overvalue growth rates and undervalue durability. And he's like, that doesn't make sense for a technology company because all your profits, the vast majority of your profits are 20 years in the future. And so if you're trying to optimize for growth and that over optimization can cause your company to go to business, you're never gonna collect that. You optimize for durability first, dummy. Like that's to me, like my end-gerbishing, what are you saying, right? Yeah, so you're gonna get, you know, 1% probably. - Maybe 5% - But that's still enormous leverage. 'Cause you read it in five hours and he took 50 years to which everything-- - And it's Sam Walton's wisdom. - And it's what you do with the idea. - I know you've talked about this before, but like, what was the moment where you're like, I'm gonna start this podcast. Like it's crazy, right? What you do, you talk to a microphone yourself every week. - Yeah, my friend-- - Not that I think you're crazy. - You are, but-- - No, I definitely am not, for sure. (laughing) And that's gonna be, like we can talk about, did you guys read Jeff Bezos' last shareholder letter before he-- - Yeah. - The best lines he has is that the end. He's like, differentiation is survival. And so they think about that, like how hard. They say, let's say somebody says, "Damn, I love what Ben and David do "and I'm gonna do the exact same thing." They can jump in and try to do that, right? But you have six years of experience. You have 600 hours out there. You have to counter position against us, or address a different audience, or-- - Exactly, by the way, they definitely should. Every time we talk to somebody who wants to-- Without that, I'm always like, you absolutely should do this. - Yeah. - And you will, even if you never succeed in terms of any like numerical success, or like you will succeed because you are learning, like-- - So being a nut job and completely crazy is I think makes you harder to compete with. And it's also, we're gonna go all over the map here, but it's impossible not to be that. Like, think about how steeped you guys are in the same information that I am, where it always says, "Oh, you're the sum of the first "of your five friends," or whatever, right? Well, it's like, it's also like what you get to some of your podcasts you listen to. And the books you read, and so what have five friends including your pair of social relationships? - And so now what happens is like, you mentioned dude, like you really read like one book about him, you'll go crazy. And so what happens is when I'm really interested in somebody, I will, I listen to Bill Gurley. Again, I just take advice from people who are smarter me. Bill said, "Go collect everybody, everything you can." Okay, I'll do that. This is very, these are simple ideas. And so I'll find somebody that's interesting, I'll read everything about him. And so with Charlie, I have like a little Charlie Munger on my shoulder, I have a little Steve Jobs, a little Edwin Land, a little David Ogoofy, Estee Lauder, Coco Chanel, all these people that have been heroes of my James Dyson. And so now I'm presented with the situations like, what would they do? And you have, if you read and spend, or everything that's out there about these people, like you'll have an idea of like how they would respond. Did you guys ever read Ken Cocianda's book, Creative Selection about that? Well, that's shocking. He worked on the original human interface for the iPhone. He's, so he made the keyboard for, when it was still, like, the iPhone or something. Yeah, the keyboard. He made Safari before the iPhone. He has this excellent book that I've read like three times, called Creative Selection. Think how Apple design products and golden age of Steve Jobs might be the subtitle. But he talked about that where he's, he demoed to Steve, right? And you're not going to describe it to him. You're going to demo and you're going to hand it to him. And so they iterate, you guys already know this, they iterate through a series of demos. And it's based on Steve's taste, like he is not, oh, let's talk about this. Nope, do this, do this that. And so Ken has a great line in the book where he's like, demoing for Steve is like asking questions to the Oracle Delphi, except the Oracle Delphi would like respond with a riddle. And he's like, no, no, Steve was unbelievably, like crystal clear. You understood him. Out of every single person of ever study, Steve Jobs is by far the clearest thing I have ever come across. Like I just gifted at that. Charlie is like the Oracle and it's crystal clear. You are not like, you are going to understand what he's, the idea he's trying to get into your brain, for sure. But my point being is like all of the people that we study, they don't denigrate the past. They, Steve Jobs, the reason I'm so obsessed with Evan Land. I read in a biography. When Steve was like 20 in his 20s, Edwin Land is in like 70s, he goes and meets Edwin Land and he goes visiting Edwin Land was like visiting a shrine. He's like, he is my hero. More people should try to be like that. And then you guys made the point in that Jeff Bezos took a lot of ideas from Sam. Who took a bunch of ideas from Sony too, Steve and Jeff. So that you always find these people where you're like, oh, I thought this was a Steve Jobs idea. - Right, no. - No, it's an Akyah-Married idea. - Yeah, or an Edwin Land idea. - Or an Edwin Land idea. When you had to watch the presentation that Steve would give, where he's like, oh, we're building at the intersection of technology level arts. He put it up on screen. - He would set up a whole set of ideas. - Edwin Land said that exact work. But that's the point. It's like you're never gonna find anybody gets to the top of their profession without doing the work, like studying the people that came before them and learning from them and admiring them. - This is a good, like, sort of personal pivot. And it's like, I've never asked you in all the hours we spent. It's crazy. This is the first time we've met in person. Like we spent hours and hours and hours on Zoom. How did you decide that this is what you were gonna do with your time on this planet? And like, what led to this? - Okay, so I, you know, our mutual friend, Jeremy, from Formula of Tiny. I just spent like a bunch of hours with him. He was in town. In one sentence, he like, he psychoanalyzed me better anyway else ever has. He goes, you didn't have any mentors growing up. So you like, you have, then you took it to like this extreme and he said it much more eloquently than I am. But he's like, you didn't have any mentors. So I view your career as like the psychopathic search for like mentors that can help you. You know, so like, to answer questions like, I don't wanna go into too much detail here. But like, I've only had one habit my whole life and that was reading. I was reading for as long as I can remember. My mom passed away from breast cancer a couple of years ago. And she, we didn't have like a lot of money like long story but like I was the first person not only to graduate college, but like high school in my family. I came from a family like unfortunately, both sides of family like no education, a lot of like just bad habits. So I identify with a lot what Charlie Munner says because he essentially observes by behavior and then tries to do the opposite, right? So I was just, let me give you an example. I was just up in Canada, actually at an event Andrew Wilkinson was hosting for a bunch of entrepreneurs. Me, Shane Parrish from the Knowledge Project and Farron of Street was up there, Ben Wilson from How To Take Over the World and we were doing this panel together and Shane's the moderator. And we don't know what we're gonna talk about beforehand. And so Shane asked the question, it's like, oh, what did you learn most from your upbringing or something like that, right? And I go, I learned not to do cocaine and to graduate high school, like so that kind of thing, right? And so there was just a bunch of anti-models. I thought about this as I was walking through the tenderloin this morning in San Francisco. And I was like, I should do this walk with my daughter as the best, like, hey, this way you don't do drugs. Like this is the perfect example. Like you would, you would observe bad behavior and then you do the opposite. So long story short, I've always been obsessed with reading. Like one of the best things my mom ever did was even if we didn't have money for books, she would take me to the bookstore and just sit there. Like, you know, bookstores are so cool because they just let you read. They don't, no one comes here. It's like, hey, you've been reading for an hour. Like you got to get out of here, you know? And just reading, reading, reading. So was there anybody who introduced you to reading a book? So you just, like, there was just some of the bad news. Sounds like it's mom. Yeah, but no, she wasn't a big reader. The only thing she read was the Bible. There was no books in the house when I was younger ever. So how did you be like? I can't, so take me to the bookstore. I can't answer that. All I can say is like, my wife has known me for 15 years and her thing, what she says is, she likes my family and gets along with them, but she goes, how did that come from that? It's like, it sounds like you have a classic, like you're the one who made it out story. Sam Hinky, our mutual friend, actually gave me the way to think about this. And it's called the founder of your family, right? And it's the person that, like, and I used to call them, and it was a terrible name, but generational inflection points, because you'd read this in the biography where you have like generation after generation of just not good things happening. And then one person just says, it stops now. That's what Rockefeller did. Rockefeller, I always think of Sam Brompton, the guy that did Seagrams. Oh, yeah. And he's in Canada growing up. But like, they were so, their parents had lots of much money. They think they were Jewish and they had to like escape from persecution and Russia. I can't remember where they came from, but they go and they have to start all over. And they're in Canada and like, there's no heating and like, they're freezing. And like, he, so he has this like psychopathic drive to change, but that stays with you forever. So like once, you know, business massive company and literally changes the trajectory of all of his descendants. And his daughter's an adult and she tells the story in the book where Sam is sitting there in like a mansion By a next-door fire like shivering thinking about how embarrassing it was to have to go to school with Tatter clothing Is this like that guy's never gonna go back to that and he never never loses it So I just always been a reader. That's the only thing I've ever like the only one unbroken habit I've always had and so I just had this idea like I was obsessed with podcasts forever I was obsessed with audio before there's such thing as a podcast Like I would listen to talk radio when I was a kid and at that time, you know, it's it's not like there's no on-demand anything You would listen sports talk radio politics talk radio. It's embarrassing. There was like this woman that used to be on at night People would write in like advice for love their love life and I would listen to that just the idea of like There's all this information man. I used to listen to Coast to coast AM with art Bell. Do you ever listen to this like it's when all the other radio programming sort of expires And then you enter the like one in the morning AM radio stuff and it was like, you know, aliens and like tons of Very normal stuff, but it was like if you if you listen like you know the the cabs gay man So I'm from Cleveland and so like then you listen to like the sports post game and then it goes into like the politics hour And if you still can't fall asleep then you're into like aliens and it's like four hours of that stuff I do you ever radio in your bedroom? Yeah, I'd be able to I don't I imagine my parents probably came and turned it off But like I'd leave it on while I fell asleep every night and then remember like I remember so you have to jump up from that and then the the AM radio stations would then start streaming To into your browser internet. It's that was an on demand So if you're not listening at three o'clock or twelve like you miss it and then once I saw what I guess what Mark Cuban's company was He was like broadcasting audio for sports games though, I think I don't actually know It's like an era of it's broadcast calm, right? Yeah, yeah, and it was competitive with real player Which also wasn't on demand that was just streamed radio. No, the first on demand was the first time I saw this was like This is insane like especially for people that are that are like learning machines using Charlie's where it's like I can go to even today like they did you can go to any podcast player type in whatever you want to learn about and then you can Hear so much you she spent yeah hundreds of hours teaching you about the stuff You can also find intellectual high-quality content more easily now because All content because there were a limited number of channels and a limited number of time slots everything had to be produced for the lowest common denominator and now you can opt into your niche and find the highest quality content in that niche Yep, and like the only way to do that before was books like there wasn't an audio way to there wasn't content There wasn't niche audio content broadly available and they weren't certainly several million authors out there right But there's several million podcasters right but you made a good you're I think you were getting to a good point It's like because the business model didn't support that and so now and there was no distribution Yeah, and now with podcasting it's like you guys, you know, I'm sure I think like 50 I don't ever look at analytics But I think last time I look was like 50% of my audience was in the United States, but then everywhere and I so I was doing the early days of founders I was just I remember it all changed because I couldn't figure out the business model So you would do like affiliate, you know at that time I remember when I first started you went through a bunch of business Yeah, so when I first started they're like hey, um, you you contact like the few podcast advertising networks They were back then, you know, because you guys started your show in 2016 right 15 50. Okay, so I started in 2016 and You contact me like yeah, we can do ads for your show You know, you need like 25,000 downloads an episode and at the time of like I'll never get there Like obviously we've skyrocketed past that but like that's impossible It's like as many people as in a basketball arena. Oh when you start visualizing the audience It's like oh two-and-a-half NFL stadiums show up for every acquired episode like that's an insane. Yes But do you guys think so do you guys think about that only in in Adding to the pressure in a good way like it's a good motivator I never think about it real you know when I think about it how my show set up is why I say you and I yeah I was like right I like how you treat the audience as like the person you're it's one person so like one and I've done this forever It's like I it's funny. I remember it's one of my friends that we were met up one day And I was like man, I think I'm gonna try to make like a business around the fact that it reads so much and he's like And he called me like a year like six months ago a year ago. He's like I can't believe you do that He's like I thought you were this dumbest thing I've heard but I just picked your him when I started it's like oh The whole idea behind the show was like what if you got to meet up once a week with your friend that reads a lot And he just tells you the stuff that he read that week like interesting ideas So I was picked one person to like try and convince him to do the podcast with you or somebody else and you're just like nominate So one that one thing we don't have like a bunch of prepared stuff But one thing us three talked about it's like hey, why don't we talk about like who was your influence on why you do what you do And so I feel the greatest Podcaster of all time is Dan Karlin from Harper history. That's like my I think he's like I can't believe what that guy does right you and him are like the only successful Model log podcasters like I think it's the hardest thing to do in this medium and I can't I mean There's everyone else either has a guest on or a co-host. Yeah, well, there's another guy that was That so I took Dan Karlin. I was like I was obsessed with him. I've listened to all his episodes for like years You talked about phone sleep. I did that too, but I fell asleep to Dan Karlin So I'd over and over and over again to now where I listen to him. I'm like I thought it's like it's a like I've lovian Yeah, I was like no, don't wait. It's not a nighttime bro But there was another one that a friend of mine put me on so there's this community named Bilber He does the Monday morning podcast. He used to do it every Monday now He does I think Monday and Thursday's right he is one of the first podcasters when he was podcasting his his first episodes At the time he would do it He would call into a number and record, right? And then that there was a service that would transform that recording from your phone into An MP3 that you could upload and put on your iPod way before like anything and so wild how things if I mean you know We're here now in this recording setup that we have here, you know with thousands dollars a year and like yeah We start I remember when we first started. I don't think you let me do this But I was like well, why don't we just talk at the computer and like set up quick time dude when I listen back to our first few episodes like Pixar and I'm like we it sounds like we were just talking at the computer. Yeah, basically where yeah, that's one People like I have a lot of psychos that they're like I'm I started number one. I go. I thought I was like oh like please don't Yeah, if you're gonna have if you're gonna do like I'm gonna go on the opposite one of the things I'm gonna talk about I I used to um because that way at least by the time you get to one you like You you're a fan, but if you if you start at one you're like all these just guys just suck. Yeah, but like that it's almost like There's great pleasure in hearing something that you think is excellent and fully baked and like Especially when it's been long running you're like oh this has always been a macular and perfect And then you get to go see someone the early work and you're like oh You want the early Charlie? I get that I can see where the magic was even though they didn't know yet like The books that you're reading though like Sam Walton when you tell a story where his his landlord screws him over and he goes He goes I'm not whipped. I found I found the store off. I'll do it again, right? Yeah, and it's like Yes, Walmart is a huge success. You guys made the point that there was a great point where it's like You're never gonna think 25 years in the future when there's Watermelons and donkey crap on the ground that this is gonna be the richest family in the world right if you're right and now standardized form of retail Yeah, but and so you see like oh he that same guy that became the richest person the world that his now family is a rich family whatever It's like he's imperfect to just like I am and so that is the only benefit of listening to an early acquired early founders It's like oh you see the improvement just like in the books. You see it's fun too Like I like I'm back in list this every old episode. I get to like see your journey. You know like I'm proud of you like the But I've been thinking about that. I was thinking about the head of our conversation here like I Used to say all the time people like oh, I go back. I listen to the early episodes like no, don't it's so embarrassing I actually think like we always want to be embarrassed by our last episode We've just constantly kept like every episode like we try and just notch it up because we keep picturing the stadium and we're like that's That's the like that's why I think about the stadium because I think about the like the pressure of like we got to do better next time Then we did this time and it's not just filled with like you know Seattle's NFL fans It's filled with like hundreds of thousands of the smartest people that and this gets to like the psyche like the deep and Securities that at least I have of like I want to impress those people I want those people to think I'm smart and so I have to produce something unbelievably worthwhile of their time and the minute that I don't I'm like literally walking out in front of an NFL stadium full of people that I want to impress and like I didn't use to have that pressure but like once we've found content market fit for acquired with like people that I've always thought highly of that I think we did it well. There were a couple years where we kind of Drifted there wasn't that pressure to keep answering the bar and then right in 2017. Yeah. Yeah I think you're never going to be embarrassed about your your latest episode at the time we're making this is LVMH You're never going to be embarrassed about that. That was excellent and like that It doesn't mean you can't keep improving 10 years from now. No, like I look back at that. I think like Yes, that's certainly an episode I don't know how you feel but they're like I'm proud of But I look back like I at the time like so we didn't know that was going to be a popular episode totally unpredictable It's our it's our Because we haven't shared this publicly yet. It's our our number one episode by a huge margin 40,000 more people have listened to that episode Then the next highest which was Amazon dot com. I probably could have told you actually I was like David No one's gonna listen to Amazon 'cause everyone already knows this story, which was super wrong. but I either thought like, no one will listen to this one or like this will be our most successful episode with LVMH, even after we recorded it, I was like, or after we edited it, 'cause we had to edit a lot of stuff. But I was like. - This is fun. - This is how much we did good. - But it's not like our best ever, but apparently it's our favorite episode of yours. - And I heard from a ton of other people that how much they liked it. Like, it's really good. - Well, thank you. - But to the bottom of the conversation, there's a bunch of stuff that we could have done better than that episode, like a whole bunch. - So I do this all the time where like, I'll go back and listen to all episodes because people like, this weird juice in a podcast is like, no, this is a tool. - That's how you're better. - This is a tool footage. - No, we didn't even try to get better. It's like, oh, I haven't read that book in like two years. I'll just listen to my episode on it. And it shows it's a tool for me. That's how I know it's good for other people, right? And so I was like, and then I'll listen to it. I'm like, oh, wow, I forgot that. I need to keep that idea in my mind, except. But I'll hear myself like, oh, you said that in two paragraphs, like in one paragraph, cut that part, that doesn't make sense. And so, yeah, I understand the improvement, but what I'm saying is your quality is already super high. Like, it can increase and get better, it won't be wrong, but like, you're never going to be embarrassed. You're just like, oh, I could probably do it 20%, 30% better, which is still excellent from the level you're at. So the way that we edit is our editor takes the first pass, and he's unbelievably good, and we're so lucky to have him. And read while we're listening, word-for-word sentence for sentence, and try to cut every unnecessary sentence. And we end up pulling out 20-ish minutes of just fluff. It's just like, okay, we could have been tighter in that point, is there a way to get tighter in it without re-recording it? And I think that has dramatically contributed to episode quality, because by the time we ship it, neither of us feel that there are extraneous sentences. All right, listeners, now is a great time to tell you about a longtime friend of the show, Vanta. AI has scrambled the whole security picture. It used to be that you proved that you were secure once a year on audit or a static PDF, then everyone would not, and you're done. But in an AI first world, that doesn't hold up anymore. Yep, your risk surface changes every week now. Vender turns on an AI feature or someone writes in a new model without telling IT, and your posture is different than it was last week, let alone at your last audit. Vanta's own research found that around 70% of companies have this "shadow AI" running with no security review at all. Right, and that's where Vanta comes in. They're the leading agentic trust platform, meaning they've built the thing that closes the gap, and the way that they close that gap is Vanta agent. Think of it as a GRC engineer, that's governance, risk, and compliance, except that it's software and it doesn't sleep. It finds the issues drafts the fixes and cuts the time that you'd spend on vendor assessments in half. In half, which is exactly why more than 16,000 companies today run on Vanta, companies like RAMP, cursor, and snowflake, all stay audit-ready and catch the risks that crop up between audits across every vendor, every AI tool, the whole environment. And that's the real value. Trust has to be continuous now, which is why Vanta automates your security, your compliance, and the work to earn and prove trust. We're huge fans of Vanta over here, and literally hundreds of acquired listeners have become Vanta customers at their companies over the years. So you can get $1,000 off Vanta at Vanta.com/acquired. That's V-A-N-T-A.com/acquired for $1,000 off, and just tell them that Ben and David sent you. So, I don't know if I'm like that. Like, you're still one man, Shell, right? I do every, no one touches anything. So like, everything, soup to nuts. I'm gonna answer your question, but I also think like we should just a perfect point to like, how we became friends, and why, like, I'm putting this out on my feed, and no one, no one, you're gonna be the first non-David Senra voices that I ever heard on founders, and they only would agree to do it, and I only agree to do it with you guys. It's because like, this goes back to like, why I want to be surrounded with, first of all, people who have interest, super-smart people, but also people who have like positive some thinking, right? Patrick Showns, he has his gigantic, successful show. If that's like the best, he's got the closest podcast network. His fund is called Positive Sum, and that's how he acts. I join his network, this is like months later, and they're like, hey, like, you know, we have editors, whatever, like he has like this empire over there. And resources, he's like, what do you want? And I was like, I just want you to amplify my audience, and then connect me with first, first rate advertisers, because like, I think acquired is a luxury podcast, not maybe not luxury premium, we got to go over the distinction there. But like, we're saying, no, this is like, we're trying to set the bar here. But anyways, he's like, hey, do you want editors? You want, hey, this is off. I was like, no, I don't want, no one gets to touch my stuff. People think, oh, like, do they tell you what books to read? No, Patrick liked my show, and he's just like, why would I tell you? Just whatever you're doing, just do it to more people now. And so, the answer question, no, like, I picked the books, I record them, I edit, I'm still one person show. I don't know if that happened forever, but I do think the fact that it just spends so much time with the material gets it in my brain. But the reason that, like, I want to talk about like, the role you guys played in that, where we were getting on Zoom, and for, like, the background here is like, you know, we had known of each other. I talked to Ben a long time ago, because he was running this program podcast, it's like years ago. And so anyways, we're like, that's also funny to think back, like, all the dead ends that we went to, like, we went down a ton of them, you went down a ton of them, you're about to talk about some of them, like, there's so many dead ends. - But they're in the books, too. - Yeah, but they're in the books, that's exactly how we changed the name of the show to adapting. - Oh my god, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, that was, I didn't know what was on me. - That was the story. - COVID happened, and then we were like, no one wants to hear these, like, stories of, like, extreme capitalism. Like, we're like, the X games of capitalism. And like, this is a moment where, like, everyone is hurting, zero business, and like, this isn't that the stock market trough, too, where you're just like, wow, like, you know, all businesses are going to go under. - Yeah. - I have no one's ever going to have jobs again. This is, you know, this is scary. And so we were like, well, like, what story should we tell? How about businesses that are adapting to make it through this tough time, until, like, show how serious we were about it, we changed the name of the show. It was like our three least listened two episodes, covering a pretty amazing stories, but we just branded it wrong. - Totally. - Like, canless is, like, the most interesting restaurant story you could ever hear about. - Yep. - And, like, we did the intel. - That's the only time we've ever done the intel. - That's the only time we've done the intel. - Because it was adapting, not quite, it was stupid. - So stupid. - But there's no way to do, like, learn, rather than, do you want to know the first name of founders? - Ooh. - You know, like, in your RSS feed, you can change the name, right? We can't change the link, like the, it'll still say. - Yeah. - So, you look at it from mine, and it's auto-tellic. The worst name. Auto-tellic comes from this one called the spell. - How do you spell that? - A-U-T-O-T-E-L-I-C. Maybe? I don't know. I can't spell for it. I can't spell, pronounce. I have no grammar. So, we've like, you read so much. I was like, I don't pay attention to that stuff. - Is that the Mihai? - Yes. - The guy that said Mihai? - Yes. It is an activity that you do for the sake of itself. Going back to your questions, like, why? Like, I just love to read. I'm going to do this if no one listens. Like, that's how I know I'm going to win. Because it's like, people are like, "Oh, would you do it for free?" It's like, "No, no. I paid to do this." - Like, like, a long time. - For a long time. Like, I literally said, I'm going to quit. And I'm going to, I have the savings. I have a wife and a baby, or a daughter to support. Now I have a son, a wife, a daughter, and a son. And I was like, I bet you, I just put trust in myself. It's just like, I'm going to, if I focus on this 70s a week, I'll figure out the business model. I know, like, I don't think I'll ever get rich from it. But I will at least pay my bills, right? And so, like, every month, I'm like, "Oh, less money there." And like, so I paid to do it. So the idea where you're like, you know, again, people get, I think Steve Jobs talks about this. Like, the older he gets, the more he realizes why people do things matters. And so he's always asking those questions. Like, I always say, like, how do you know that you found what you love to do? And people are like, "Oh, because, like, I wouldn't sell my company." It's like, "Okay, there's another level." It's like, how much would you've had to pay Steve Jobs to stop working in Apple? The answer is he wouldn't take all the money in the world. How, how much would you have to pay Charlie? A lot of people tried to stop Steve Jobs from working in Apple. Yeah, but like, think about that. Like, the idea is like, he's not doing it for money. He's in a different game. He's doing it for the sake of itself. And so I went through a bunch of different names. History's greatest men, history's greatest, like history, all these terrible names. And I just started narrowing it more and more and more to like founders. And I was like, "Oh, that's perfect." There is a question. Like, you weren't coming from the tech world. You weren't like, this wasn't content marketing. No, there was just like, the idea I had known about like, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and all these other people. And I remember, you had Kevin Rose on your show a long time ago. So you guys remember his, if you would stop that long show, maybe a year, year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. It's just time flies. Because it was post. He was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was pretty much already fully webed three by the time we. So do you guys remember foundation? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, he's like one of the first high quality. Yeah. And you're like, imagine if he would have stuck with that show. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it would have been a monster. It's like the only episodes that ever came out was like, here's me interviewing Elon Musk. Here's me interviewing Sam Altman. Here's me. And like, these people. And also before they became like, I found the model. Elon had the model, that's it. Elon had the model, that was the only thing he was just about to release the model. The, the roadster. No, they were in the factory because I watched it all the time. They were in the factory building the model. That's right. So I don't know if you could buy it yet, but it was like coming or whatever. And Elon looks way younger and like, you know. And then in 2015, Tim Ferris, I was a big fan of his podcast. I read like, you know, for our workweek. I remember the way I just go for our body change my life. Did it? Yeah. With its low carb. Yep, slow carb diet. I did that to slow carb diet. Cold showers like I did and the funniest thing is like that this is like this whole cold punch thing That's like becoming a thing now. I'm like was nobody like reading Tim Ferris in 2011 Like it was a huge part of yeah Only our demographic was actually that that made me think of something Let me interrupt this story because I think it's really important You're like, oh is any of you any listener are like no one's gonna listen to our Amazon episode They already know it and so this is something that like and you know who becomes the most successful are you gonna quote? Ogovie yes, yes, I'm just into enough founders to know because it's like this is so key that people don't understand It's like you're not advertising to standing army advertising to moving parade and so like I will literally get on calls with like media company founders They're like selling ads or like building companies. I'm like. Oh, yeah, you must have read Ogovie They're like what and I was like these are not new lessons like if and again this comes from the humility to realize Hey more about it smarter than me So if that dude in his shareholder letters is saying David Ogovie is a genius. I'm like wait a minute This dude how many businesses has Warren Buffett looked at at that point? How many founders and managers has he looked at and he's like this dude's a genius. Yeah, this is not rocket science guys Just going like let's search David Ogovie in Amazon five books good order them these days at search David Ogovie in your podcast Yeah, choice like that's I went to explain the the standing army versus so you're not advertising to standing armor you're advertising to moving parade But what happens is like even when you put on the Sequoia episode right we went me and David went on a hike in Stanford and I was like dude you have this crazy back catalog every single day you have more people following your podcast feed than you had the day before I was like and I because I knew this because I was a subscription podcast, right? Recount briefly your business model journey, so I I'll give you a shorter break down because like I went through so many of them I just put a hard pay well listen to the first 30 minutes. You want to listen to all of them? Then you pay right and it convert and this is when we had that chat. Yes, we got to go back to that we like dude You're doing it wrong. You're doing it. Yeah, because there's been times like this one where we're like what the hell are you doing? But there's been other times where you come to us and you're like do you know how good your Sequoia episodes were and like the fact You four times the audience that you have now and none of the 75% of those people have ever heard the Sequoia episode What are you doing and so you guys we had this my hike the this is all of the idea. Remember not my idea. I don't get like Everything has already been done guys just pay and I'm speaking to the people listening not you you obviously know It's like they've already been done. Just go see hey that person smart. He learned from 40 year career Like you're not gonna you they're gonna pick up an idea you can use this silly. So I told I do David. No, I was thinking about this There's some cases where it's it's not true But I think most truly like Iconic world-changing businesses and founders they build they stand on the shoulders of giants But they have one or multiple things that is novel that they come up with It's the combination of these ideas like Sam Walton taking soul prices ideas and his competitors days and like Hey, what about you guys are kind of ignoring these like 4,000 person Communities I'm pretty sure like the thesis beyond Walmart is like will they just drive for our businesses just to save money? Right dancers. Yes, right right right right, but that that is it a novel idea. Yeah, exactly It's a very it's that's a whole thing to it's combining like one big novel idea with a bunch of other things that You guys combined David O'Grey's idea by republishing your secura Podcast and then you text me like oh my god like the downloads are crazy Yeah, and because the vast majority because you're not Podcasting to a standing army you're podcasting to a moving parade and so I had known this because through my experimentation I would take an old episode that I had done Do a preview throw it up and you'd get conversions every time because it was new to them and that was like so O'Grey I credit O'Grey for that idea. That's an idea. He got from Claude Hopkins and Albert Lasker who were building Advertising businesses 50 years before him. Is this a scientific advertising? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Also good founders episode Yeah, he's excellent that that that um that book scientific advertising sold like eight or ten million copies They kept it in Albert Lasker so Claude Hopkins worked for Albert Lasker Claude Albert Lasker thought that book was so good. He stored in a vault He wouldn't like he's like he built because it was like the secrets of the industry, right? Like don't publish this because we don't want this getting out I learned that because in O'Grey and advertising at the very end of the book David's like here. These are the six giants that I went from so I was like okay Well, then I'm gonna Google search who say like I'm gonna read the book. This is not a rocket science again So then he's like oh Albert Lasker made more money than anybody than anybody else in the history of the advertising business It's like hold up what how also none of us know this guy's name Yeah, and so then then you realize it's like he says in the book He's like his estate outside of Chicago was so big he had 44-time employees. I'm like what? Like what are you talking about like that make these words make sense in my mind that doesn't make any sense to me So you read Albert Lasker and then he tells you about Claude Hopkins He's like yeah, the information was so good that like I stored that in my vault for 20 years and then once he sold his Advertising I think he gave it away like a token like $100,000 you know to the people working there And then they released it and Claude went off on his own and everything else. So these are not like yeah, okay So you were doing the 30-minute hard cutoff when we So one satisfying it's like I'm gonna listen to 30 minutes of this episode and then like I'd have to get Someone's asking to pay for the rest The conversion rates were higher, but you guys said this is where you got a local maximum This is where like you were really helpful like David first of all and you guys are nice There's nothing language you use you're like Idiot like But you guys are so nice. It's like dude. You're doing it wrong. Listen for every one person I think it was Ben that said it's like for every one person that would buy a podcast There's a thousand or a hundred that would listen to him for free like just it's about a hundred Yeah, probably more than that, you know And so then you guys would show me like you open the kimono. You're like this is these are our downloads This is who we advertise with this is what we charge advertising. You just like well the other the other really key insight is So after spending a bunch of time with Originally Kimberlite then glow which is all delibson and still what powers the acquired LP program uh an interesting learning is most podcasts Should generate about 50% of their revenue from direct monetization some kind of membership program or paywalling their feed Um and about half from advertising and and it should the mass should sort of work out where that's gonna be the case For the type of podcast that we are where you have lots of founders and CEOs and hedge fund managers and the sorts of people listening You could never ask someone to pay you in membership what they are worth to The most valuable advertiser for that slot and so the way it sort of works out is like you're massively hamstring your monetization potential If you make it membership only because you'd have to be like uh, yes, please pay two to five thousand dollars a year in order to get access to this private thing versus if you were to Take that same piece of content and open it up to advertisers You made the great the good point earlier and we can elaborate on that right why you're so psychotic about this sentence is Needs to get out of here like these two sentences. Let's remove it because If you could factor in the average hourly rate of the people in your audience it is unbelievable So even I think if you make what a million dollars a year and we know people obviously in audiences make a lot more than that But I think a million dollars years but 500 bucks an hour or something like that. I don't know the amount of not a good math person But like so you're asking if they listen to an hour long podcast of founders like that's $500 like you cannot waste these people's time So I never answer your question when you're like hey, how do you guys think about this? You do read it or do you cut them out? I use the script as well I actually think the way I listen to founders is obviously listening to it and listening and reading Like the super power of podcasts as you can listen to it when you're doing something else But when you're editing though, but I think I'm gonna put all my all my podcasts up on YouTube not I don't have any video But I think I'm gonna use the script so like if you there is like some people have success Just putting up the audio and audio like a static picture And you can listen to it on YouTube But I also think I was like well if I'm gonna do that And I have this and that's kind of cool if you want to use it But don't have to we did not find success doing that like this episode will be the first episode this year That's on YouTube because we basically said if there's not interesting video then it's not a video podcast And you can go find it in a podcast player. I it's I'm using it just for search and I would use it. I'm never gonna I don't think I'm ever gonna do video anything because it's just like it's so much simpler to do Literally what I'm saying is like I'm gonna upload the mp3 to YouTube Like I'm not making a video just because it is they're eventually gonna have they're not stupid They're eventually gonna have like the podcast player inside of YouTube Like I did you they released this like 40-page document. I read on the their podcast goals. Oh YouTube Did I said it you guys? No, I'll send it to you guys. So right now I have YouTube premium So you can listen to them in the background. Yeah, like a podcast player, but what's great? But they need to have podcast functionality. It's still like a video. Yeah, yeah, anyways The the way I do it is like yes, I'm very aware that Who's listening? I'm not ever gonna waste a lot of their time And what I've found with the more practice I have for the podcast is I'm able to edit on the fly like I don't have a script Right, so like I'll go through the book. I highlight then write down whatever pops my mind I don't like just am I first of all the highlights are like am I excited about that? Oh, that's interesting Highlight just go off instinct right and then write down It like something that oh that's like this or that maybe think of this and I just write it down, right? Then I'll reread all these highlights the night before I record So it's like the second time you're doing this in physical books. Yeah, but you're putting your notes into read wise That happens after okay, that happens after so the fifth time every single book I do I think I read the highlights five times and the fifth time is me actually taking pictures of the physical book and putting in a read wise So Jeff Bay I was thinking about this just because I'm also slightly obsessed with Jeff Bezos and he's slightly obsessed with a lot of founders That's why we're like you're like we're sitting in chairs like dude. I'm gonna be For yeah, we're setting up the camera angles before because you want to love like um we're like I would - We got Moved David's chair a little bit. - If you ever watched the old Jeff Bezos interviews when he's like, first starting Amazon, he's like, skinny and bald. - It's old, so it's like in that field outside the conference. - Yes, I think there's no one. He's like, sitting, you see, grasping on him. I don't know if he's in a field. So, but he like leans forward. And he's like, we're gonna be the most customer obsessed company ever. - He's like, he's got that look at his face. - Yeah, that's why I am about founders. I'm like, you know, but that dude's a psycho. - But Jeff says something that he is. - But Jeff says something in, in Vent and Wander, which is an excellent book. 'Cause it's all of his shareholder letters and transcripts of the speech. - Yeah, Walter Isaacson did that, right? - Yep. And all of his transcripts of the speeches and he goes, do you really want to live in a world or to compete against somebody that's as good as you? Like, I certainly wouldn't, that's what he states. And he's like, if you read his shareholder letters and listen to him talk, he's like, he's constantly looking for unfair advantages. - Yep. - And I think part of the fact that I have now over 20,000 highlights from hundreds of books, I still have like 50 or 60 or maybe 80 books that I haven't put in there yet that are in my library. So it's like, that's, my read-wise account is an unfair advantage because anytime somebody's talking, it's like, I can immediately, oh, you said something, I search for that term and it pulls up. And it's like, oh, and then I see my highlight and I see my note, it takes so long. Like, so long to do that, but it's worth the extra five or two words. - And that's gonna grade it into your process of making. - Yeah, because I'm reading something. I remember, you know, I know I've seen this before, I can't remember it, type in that term and it pulls up every single instant. - Wow. - To get burned out. - It's an unfair advantage that I have with me all the time and what I'll do is, like, whenever I'm waiting for it over today, right? Just pull up read-wise and read-wise has the highlights feed and I'll show you guys what it looks like. It looks a lot like a Twitter feed, right? Completely random. So I'm not choosing this. And instead of me reading Twitter all day, which is not a good use of your time, it's just highlight from the Dodge Brothers. I haven't read that book, you know, that was like episode, you know, probably in like the one 15th. Billy DeRan, who's the founder of GM. Sam Colt. - And so are these ones that other people have liked a lot? No, therefore it's-- - No, this is reposting to your own. - Yes. - So it's my form of practice. So you've got, let me give you an example. - A healthy Twitter there on your phone. So is that what, like, how many times a day, like how often are you just pulling up read-wise and almost every day? And if I'm not doing it on read-wise, I'll go to like my bookshelves. So what will happen is, you can pull a book off my shelf. And I'm thinking about this for like my kids long after I'm gone. My kids can like, what was my dad into? You know, and they can go back and see, oh, and when he was 35 or 38, this is the podcast he made. Let me go find that book. And then they can pull off the shelf and like, oh, this is the line he thought was interesting. Oh wow, you see dad's handwriting here. And like, so I use this for myself where I can pick up a book and quote unquote read it, reread it in 30 minutes by rereading my highlights and notes. And now I'm like, it's backing back in front of mine. And then what happens is like, you can do this anytime. Like people are like, oh, I'm running late for lunch. Like, I'll just do this or I'll answer DMs or all. I always have stuff to do with me. But I use it as a form of practice. The reason I said this is like, it sounds stupid. People think it's maybe they think it's silly. I don't know. But I read this book, it's episode two 12 Founders, it's called Michael Jordan the Life. It's a 600 page biography. And in that book, you just have like this encyclopedia knowledge two of the numbers of your episodes, which I'm so impressed by. I don't, it's only because I reference that all time. So when if you look up something over and over again. Yeah, yeah, it's repetition. Everything life is repetition. Stay in Walton's career is repetition, you know? Like it's like, I just think you're trying to, this is what I asked Charlie. Like, he's one of the most interesting things he said. He's like, one of the best things that ever happened to me is I got rich later in life. You know, like he saw the time and how difficult it was. Like he was talking about like, imagine you being like a super famous rich when you're like 21 or 25 and how disorienting. He's like, I was a full grown man. Like with life experiences of the wife and kids. Yeah, it's how you died. Yeah, I did not mention that, yeah. But like he had all, you know, full life experience. And therefore also the main problem that happens is people don't know. They're like, I was the son of a poor man. Now I'm rich and my kids live an unbelievable amount of wealth and privilege. How do I deal with that? That comes up in the books for hundreds of years. The answer is no one knows, right? And so with Charlie though, the benefit is he didn't have a famous last name or a lot of wealth. His kids were like grown. Right. They wouldn't have to do it. That when you're five or seven or 10, he also gave me some advice that was fascinating. You do that, like you got to pay that bill eventually, though, like his grandkids have to. Well, so how do you do it this though, right? Like he's multi-billionaire. Like that's an insane. Right, this is a five generation. Not only is he a multi-billionaire, he's still like, people like us talk for hours about him. He's like a celebrity. So I just read this fantastic book. I like reading obscure books because go back to what Jeff Bezos said, differentiation is survival. So like I'll find like weird books, like me and Sam were in this, I was searching for books for you guys. I just couldn't find any. I will order them and bring them to you 'cause I always bring books. And I was really, we went to three different bookstores. I'm not kidding. I brought energy drinks. Yeah. But no, we, like, bless Sam and his patients with me. And like, drove me all around Menlo Park and follow out to yesterday going to bookstores. Like I was literally looking for you guys. What a great, what a great, oh my god. No, no, no, I like going to use bookstores and just like I think of how I, my interpretation of you guys in my mind, and I just know if this book is good for that person. Like the Charlie Mo, the Henry Flagler book, I knew that was good for Charlie Mover because of what he said. So I don't know what's gonna happen. Now I do have two books picked out for you guys, which I'll send you, but they're like newer books. But anyways, that sounds like a great day. Driving around with Sam Pinkey and going to bookstores, like what, what better day can you spend? Also, the peninsula is like beautiful. So like, yeah. And like, you know, Sam's unbelievably intelligent and like, he's got a weird alien brain as I always tell him. Our mutual friend, Mitchell Baldritch, or that all three of us know, says Sam has a gigabrain. I think he's, I think, I think he's, I heard him say that before. I think it's what he said. He has a description of it. But I like obscure books. I read this book that it's very hard to find. It's like 300 bucks. It's called the Invisible Billionaire Daniel Ludwig. It was a richest person in the world in the '80s and no one knew who he was. He paid public relations firm to keep his name out of the papers, okay? - And do what your competitors don't. - Yeah, it's the way he's just like, I don't want to be known. And a lot of his was like, it's like shipping and oil and refining and mining and all that other stuff. But the author made the point in the book that how different a million and a billion is. Going back to Charlie Munger, right? - Oh, yeah. - And he goes, a stack of, a million dollars and a stack of a hundred dollar bills is like 40 inches, you know? Billion dollars and a stack of a hundred dollar bills would be three times taller in the Empire State Building. - Yeah. - And so like for us, like, oh, that guy's kind of rich. He's like, no, the billionaire and millionaires are not in the same category. It's so disorienting. - This is also a thing where like the English language has done us a disservice by naming two things that are a thousand times different, very similar words. - It sounds similar. - Yeah, so they're not similar at all. - What was, a lot of people were asking, like think about all the wealthy people that Charlie talks to, and they're asked like, okay, what do I do with like this wealth with my kids? And it's like, you know, if you give your kids a bunch of money, is it gonna demotivate them? Charlie goes, of course it's going to. So he's like, but he's like, you know, it's like, again, like this should be obvious to you. So he says, I don't try to steer his kids or his grandkids into what they should do for a living, which is Charlie Munger's one of his best piece of ice that I took to heart. It's like, fall or natural drift. - Yeah. - Like, how I pick books. There's been like 15 or 20 that have read completely or half, and it's like, I don't like this book. I'm not making an episode about it. I go to my bookshelf, and I have like, probably 80 or 100 books I haven't read yet, most come from the audience, and I was like, what am I most excited to learn about now? That's how I pick it, right? So falling natural drift. - Which is also more or less how we pick episodes too. We have a little bit more planning, 'cause now like, there's such long lead times, but it's kind of like, what's interesting to us right now? - 100%, so he's like, you know, don't try to steer them too much, and he's like, he definitely feels that some of them are gonna be less motivated because they're born rich, but he said this was the most surprising thing. But he goes, you have to give them the money anyways, or they're gonna hate you for it. (laughing) And I was like, that's like, 'cause my answer before this, I've read so many like, family dinosaur stories, and I'm not saying I'm trying to buy this. - But they just said we're not gonna give them the money. - Or no, they did and it ruined them. Like, did you guys, you guys haven't done an episode on a common case? - That's the common case. - TCI, John, John, Malone. - No, okay, that's what it is. - That's like, that will happen this year. - Or is it? - So, you know why? That was one of the books that was recommended the most. They're like, you gotta do cable, grab all you gotta do cable, grab all you gotta do, cable, grab all you gotta do. - We both have read the book, it's awesome. It's excellent. And so you know the story I'm about to tell you, where the crazy thing is like, I'm always thinking about, I didn't understand this before, studying, dedicating my life to studying history, right? Where it's like, oh wow, the decisions I'm making now can reverberate through the generations. That's a crazy thing, where Bob Magnus, which is the founder of TCI, is, you know, he doesn't have any monies and rural Texas wants to do this, you jump into this new industry cable, right? Full of cowboys, little cowboys. And he doesn't have money, so his dad gives him a $2,500 loan. So, Bob takes that $2,500 loan, and then that's a 40 years later, Bob dies, and he's gotta pass on his money, right? That was created, from the company, he created two his two kids, and he winds up giving them, I think, I don't know the numbers, I wanna say like 200 million each, two sons. So, think about that one decision, I think I talked about in the episode, and if I didn't, it's a big mess up on my part. And I stopped in that part, but I'm pretty sure you did. I was like, hold on, think about that. Like, what if his dad didn't give him the $2,500? - Yeah, he's talking about that. - Yeah, so his $2,500 turns into $400 million, let's say $200 million each for his grandsons. Change his grandsons' lives, right? See, that means, you rule a thumb, you take like, I don't know, you probably have three more generations after that of wealth, guaranteeing before-- [BLANK_AUDIO] - This is gone because I think it went up their nose. Like, that was, so it's pretty hard in one generation. - But I don't know, like, the point was it's like they, that wasn't good for them because they were not motivated, they did a bunch of drugs. I think they went to jail, like that kind of stuff. And you see that so much. So my thought was like, oh, like, get 'em a little bit, but not enough that they don't have to work whatever and Charlie's like, they're gonna hate you. - Yeah. - And like, what's the point? - Such a good insolation. - It's just like human nature. This is my biggest takeaway from Charlie and I think the biggest benefit that people that listen to founders and acquire it and then hopefully read a bunch of the books and do study on their own are gonna realize. This is like, Charlie, I said it with how my notes. And this is the first thing. It's like, it's comforting. The conversation with Charlie was comforting the same way that people tell me listening to founders is comforting. It's like, Charlie has an almost complete indifference to problems. Troubles from time to time should be expected. This is inescapable, so why would you let it bother you? And the difference, and if you think about, that's the main takeaway from this three-hour dinner hat with them, right? And if you think about how does he avoid this? He avoids it by great things, have less problems. You're never gonna escape problems, but if you're around great people, like they're not gonna throw up, just like a great business doesn't throw up big problem after big problem after big problem. Your wife, your kids, your friends, your coworkers. His whole thing is aimed for the highest quality you can get. And then that's gonna solve 99% of your problems. And then when you have the problem, the inevitable problems are just gonna come. Okay, you just do with it. He talked about when he lost money on Ali Baba, he brought that up, you know, that people try to make fun of him for whatever. It's like, you guys are missing the point. Like, you're not gonna escape, get through life without making mistakes. The founder of IKEA has this great quote where he says, "Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. Only those asleep make no mistakes." - The person in the man in the arena. - Yeah, that's a very versatile idea. - So, okay, so what do you think is the ideal way to handle it if at 35 someone becomes very wealthy. And so when their kid's memory starts around age three, so for their entire kid's memorable lifetime, they've grown up in wealth and privilege. Like, how does one handle that? - I have no idea. I have no idea. Like, I don't, the, me even giving the answer to that is like, there's this guy named Charles Ketering or Kettering, I don't know how to pronounce his name. I read his biography, I think it's episode 127 or something like that. So, he invented the electric starter. He found an AC Delco that gets acquired by GM. He is the head of research and development at GM when GM is the most valuable company and most, like the cutting edge of technology company in the world at the time. There's a story from his wife and his daughter in that book saying, "Hey, when he dies, there's only one, there's only three words on his, on his tombstone. I don't know." 'Cause that's what he would say over and over and over again. One, there's a, he's having this conversation, same thing. He was the son of a poor man. He is now a rich man. His kids are rich. He's talking to other people that have the same experience. His peers are like, "What do you do?" And the answer they came up with, I don't know. - Yeah. - 'Cause it's so dependent on who the person is. Like, maybe you give them money that's going to Bob Magnus' grandsons. Maybe they're, you know, they're like Warren Buffett's kids where like they run foundations and they want to give them money away. And I don't think they're Koch addicts, I don't know. But like, you don't, it just dependent on the person. So if there was a simple, if there was a correct answer, I think some of these guys, some of these guys would have figured it out. - Well, that's the thing about humans, right? Like every person is different. - Yeah. Yeah, so it's, I have no idea. It really, that's the biggest thing where I think, this is one of the lessons I learned from the podcast where, you know, you mentioned this at the beginning, Ben, where most of these people are just, so, they're like, best in class in this one dimension in the world. And of course, to get that, they had to, to be, poor, they had to, they couldn't optimize all of the areas of the life as to what they did for like their work, right? You know, Sam Walton is one of the rare guys where he gets to the end, he knows he's dying 'cause he's got cancer all over his body when he's writing that book. And he's like, listen, if I could do everything again, he's like, yeah, I miss some of my kids' childhood. They worked in the stores and he took them with them, but he's like, I'd do it again. I was like, I had to do this. I had to get after it. I had to improve. A lot of them, you know, gets to any of the life and like, oh, I regret. The founder of Aikia has the best words on this. He said, you know, I had three sons growing up. He started Aikia when he was like 17, worked on it until he was like 80 something. And he's like, I sacrificed my three sons' childhoods. I regret it. He goes, it's, anyway, it has kids, knows that childhood does not allow itself to be reconcred. And so like, we were hanging out today. We were gonna do a recording, go to dinner. And I was, my plan was, I wanna see my son. He's like, and my daughter, it's like, I'm gonna take the red eye. And then I realized I was like, yeah, but I wanna spend time with David and Ben, so I'm leaving early and tomorrow morning. But it's like, I'm doing this as fast as possible. And if I had you, I'd like fly back and forth. Because like, your kids are, think about like, the relationship you guys have with your parents, are they still alive? - Yep. - Yep. - Okay. So you get to talk to them, see them. But you have your whole life, right? When your kids are small, there's like this tiny window when they're like two to five to six, where you're everything to them. - Oh, yeah. - Even my, you know, I've talked about that. - Absolutely feel this way. - Even my 10-year-old daughter, like right now, she must spend time with me. Like, it was the cutest thing ever. I was leaving, going to L.A. to see Charlie and then coming up, just gonna see you guys. And she texts me, she goes, I'm wearing your sweater. 'Cause like, it makes me feel close to you. Like, while you're gone, you know what I mean? But if you ask her, do you wanna spend movie night with dad and mom, or do you wanna go play world blocks with your friends? - For sure. - Every day with their friends. And she loves me, don't get me wrong. But like, their friends are way, they're really important to them. Where like, every day I miss my son's about to turn three. It's like, I'm not gonna get back that day. And there's only like, a thousand of those days. - Yeah. - And my wife won't have any more kids, even though I was like, I don't want a bunch of, like, what's that? - I feel like, exactly. - 'Cause I want a bunch. And she's like, no way. I say, hey, I don't have to get pregnant, so that's fine. - Something that Buffett and Munger did with the Graham group that like, was way ahead of its time that now anybody can do is they formed their social networks outside of geographic barriers. And they found their like, most compatible, most like-minded, highest level of talent, you know, peers. And then they just like go on planes and got to go see them. You know, and like, that was really hard to do back in the day. And now anybody can do it. It's kind of like the Bill Gurley, you know. You have no excuse not to do that. - You also, but here's the thing, what people get wrong is, they're like, oh, I want to meet this guy. You have to do the work necessary to make them worth your time, right? Which is like, the unfair advantage that the three people sitting in this room have, is that it doesn't matter. That's why like in the last six weeks, they've gone to lunch or dinner with multiple billionaires. This is like, and the people that like, you get to talk to and also stuff. This is like, this dude is crazy. He's read 300 biographies of entrepreneurs. There's no way I'm gonna have dinner with them and not pick up one idea. - Yep. - Like, and then now I've built this machine where like, oh, that's an interesting idea. I'll just plug it into this business. And like, it's not a financial transaction by any means, but there's no, the reason it's not that like, Charlie was the first person I met that I was actually nervous about. And it's the reason I'm not nervous is because I know I've done the work. Like, you can't pull me in a room with anybody on the planet. And I'm not gonna be able to tell him at least one interesting thing. It doesn't mean I'll be the most the best dinner they've ever had in their life. That's not what I'm saying. It's just like, they're gonna hear something. That's like, oh, that's interesting. And like, go through their own brain. And it's only because I've spent six years and same with you guys. It's like, oh, you should feel comfortable. Like you guys mentioned earlier, it's like, your audience feels like, you know, two football fields and like, oh, it's a little bit of like, you didn't use a word in security, but like, you know, a little like nervousness. I want these people to like, like me. It's like, you know, you're pushing you from box. - But you know, like, you've most likely read, you're more about the subject than they do. - Sure. - But I need to make something worthy of their time. - Yes. - That is admirable. - Yeah. - It's like, who cares? I could spend all the time in the world and fail to synthesize the narrative and the takeaways and all of a sudden that I've just, you know, that I've failed them. Regardless of how much work I did, the product wasn't good. So that's the thing. - It's hard to not have the product be good because you did the work. I guess this is my point. - Yeah, I think we now have a process that means that when you and I put in the work, the product is good, but it took a long time to arrive at that. It's almost like, you know, this is another Sam Hinky thing. Trust the process. - Yep. - The, the point I was making there though, is like because you guys do so much preparation and like it's now your life's work, it's just so much, it's gonna be so hard not to add value to the people in your life, whether it's like friends that never show up on a podcast or friends that like, you don't have a business with this, it's like, and like you're just gonna add value because what you do is so rare. Like, the Volvo Robocon has this, he's influenced my thinking a lot too. And he has this thing in the, the Amunac and the Volvo by our friend Eric Jorgensen. And he's just like, if you read an hour a day that puts you in the 0.001% of humans. And I'm like, that can't be true. - No, that's the dirty secret of acquired and founders is that people don't read books. So if you just read them and then tell people what's in the books, you're gonna 100x the market for books. - And I couldn't believe that. I was having dinner with the same friend that was telling me, like I told him, "Oh, I'll try to build a business around my reading." This is like, come months ago. And he's like, you vastly overestimate how much people read. He goes, how many books a year do you think do you think the average person reads? I was like, I don't know, 12. - It's like 0.5. - Zero, I remember asking a book publisher, he said, "America reads a book a year." - Well, he quoted some other study. I said 12. He's like, no, not 12. He's like, it's zero. The average is zero. It's crazy. Yeah, to your point, I become friends with a bunch of writers, some of them I met through the podcast. [BLANK_AUDIO] been telling me like teaching me about the publishing industry and just breaking down. Like 98% of books ever published sell less than 5,000 copies. It's power law. The book business is the venture business, which is so interesting to me how the advanced model works. It's like quite similar to a seed financing. I mean, they put out, you know, $50,000 for an advance on your book, which is, you know, covers your cost of living while you're writing it, and like, they kind of don't care about recouping it because it's even worse. The whole business is about, do I, did I sign up, you know, James Clear this year? And like you know when you have a Michelle Obama on your hands and you have to pay for it, but you don't know when you have a James Clear on your hands. And when that becomes the book that America reads this year, you better make sure it's in your publishing house than not one of the other three big or four big, whatever it is, publishing houses. Seed funding is better because their advances are recoupable, right? So it's like this, I was having this long conversation that's the most preferred stock. Yeah, we were, we were talking before, it's participating preferred. We were talking before we started recording. It's like, man, Jimmy Sony would be great to do a session with just because he's got this historical knowledge of PayPal, PayPal being so important to like, so to come about the history. And he, we were talking about this and he's like, no, like I have to pay that back through sales. I'm like, oh, because the thing is going back to like, you guys listen to Gamecraft, Blake Robbins. Oh, yeah, every episode. Yep. So excellent. So good. So what I loved about is how they focused on the business model innovations and how one decision by some random group of programmers in the 1980s affected a business model decision 10 years later or whatever. And I was talking to Jimmy about this, they go, the books are fantastic, they're the best products in the world. You can, there's a great quote in poor Charlie's Omnick, which says that there's ideas worth billions in a $30 history book for Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. That is literally true, right? Yep. And what I don't understand is like, you guys have such a high value product and you haven't innovated in the business model at all. And so I was telling Jimmy, I was like, do you know the deal? Like you just think about this as an entrepreneur. Like you're not a writer. You're an entrepreneur and your product just happens to be a book, but you can make money off that any kind of way you want. Like you can just get creative. I go, people think it's crazy where I'm like, I'm trying to be the Jay Z of podcasts and people like, what the hell is wrong with you? And I did like that. If you've done episodes on Jay Z, that episode I did on Jay Z is one of my most popular people. I bet. I love Jay Z. I love you. Jay Z has the founder of mentality and he had it since he was a kid and you just see everything his whole career. And people look at him and like, oh, like, this is nothing about intelligence manifests itself in different ways. It's not always like credentialed. In many cases, it's not, right? But like Jay Z is a straight up genius if you listen to him and what he did. And he looked at it. He's like, yeah. He says it from the giggle. He's like, I thought I told you characters. I'm not a rapper. He's like, I'm a businessman and rap just happens to my product. And so I'm going to think about it like that. I go, Jimmy should do that. So why don't you just find a deal like Jay Z did with Samsung? He's like, what are you talking about? Well, it's like two founders, entrepreneurs, whatever, you know, founders in the title, you want to put them. They care about ownership, like they own their work. And you realize that the business model matters, which is why I brought up GameCraft. So what Jay Z did, this is years ago, this is his Magna Carta Holy Grail, probably came out 2013. So he goes, he goes, you know, I could record this album and then I could sell like normal, you know, stream it and sell it for $10, you want the physical copy, et cetera, et cetera. He goes, he goes, what if I just want my money guaranteed? So he goes to Samsung and says, Samsung, you're launching this new app or this new phone and you have your own app on it. I'm going to sell you, I will sell you a million copies, $5 each. You give me $5 million guaranteed from an album. I'm still going to own it. So he gets a streaming app. Yeah. He goes, and so what I'll do is you pay me $5 million. The first million people that get access to my album are going to be Samsung that whatever phone was coming out. You download it for free if you have this device. And so it's advertising to the Samsung and it's guaranteed money to him. I go, dude, you're writing about technology founders. It was like, there's these venture capital funds that have $80 billion vassus in their mansion. It's like, hey, will you pay me a million dollars right this book? And then you say, hey, this book is now presented by whatever firm. This is why me and you have, I still have talked about this privately. You guys already know this was like, there's been like, it's only like 15 acquisition or investment offers for founders. I said no to every single one, a lot of them are like this where it's like, oh, well, you have the attention of people that are valuable. You just said the worst thing that happened to a venture firm is they miss the hit of that. So they have to expand, like, they have to make sure they catch that, right? So it's like, hey, we'll pay for founders or whatever, give you X amount of money, pay you to do it. You do exactly what you do. The only difference is, especially if you're trying to buy up our inventory forever, it's like, hey, founders is presented by X company. If you're going to raise money, email here, you know, and the response I have when these I get these pitches is like, if I did that, that means I'm not actually learning the lessons in the books, which is like, you never give up control. It's like, no, that's, let's dive into like a deal structure on that. So like, what if they weren't, what if you weren't giving up control and what if you weren't giving up economics forever? You're just doing a period of time buyout of your, all your adamantory. This is the intelligent thing. This is what Tegus is doing with investing the best. And this is why, like, it's crazy to me when I talk to people and they don't understand this. I had a conversation with a founder and he's like, it's really weird, I'm not going to say who it was. He's like, it's really weird that this company is running ads on that podcast every single episode forever. And I'm like, oh, and I go, I'm moving for it, not saving it. I go, David Ogri ran the same exact ad in the same magazine for 30 years and it was still effective. And so I went, I was like, this is, I go, what do you think Coca-Cola has been doing for 100 years? No ideas. So either Coca-Cola is really dumb or. Exactly. Exactly. And I don't think so dumb. I talk to Apple has the prime billboard in every major city in America to advertise whatever the latest iPhone is. For ever. Forever. So I talked to Michael Elnick, who's the co-founder of Tegus, and he's an, you got, wait a minute, we all knew each other. Great deal. And we talked about this, like, and this is another example because this somehow, somewhat affects our business because when there's like a decline in overall economics, like, our ad market's usually shrink a little bit and ad rates come down and it's like, oh, you're doing exactly what investors do. Yeah. Like, what do Charlie and Buffett do when there's a crash? They don't deploy. Deploy. You read, is he sharps fantastic autobiography, the founder for seasons, right? And he says it. He goes, he's building what didn't exist at the time, the only chain of five-star hotels at the time. And he says, I grow, and this is every founder does, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Crowley Frick, when they ever session, that's when they grow. So what he would do is his competitors would pull back on advertising. He would spend more. And he says he claims, I think in the book, he increases market share by like 25 or 28% using this over and over again because human nature is, oh crap. Things are short and they cut this way. Oh, give me said. Oh, give me said, if you need advertising to sell your product, it's not a marketing expense. It's a production cost. It's a product. It's actual cost of manufacturing your product. And so what Tegas Michael Elnick did that was such a genius move was, first of all, he knew something was working, right? And he scaled up through podcasts ads. And he knew it was effective. And then he's like, okay, well, now you have all these people in the tech industry, they're stocks creating everybody's like running a treat. What does he do? He goes like, oh, there's probably available inventory. And so he goes, hey, Colossus Network, I'd like to buy up every single ad inventory for 2023 on every single one of your shows. That's how you know that likelihood that guy is going to win. Like I don't know the details of his business. It's private and everything else. It's like, that's the right decision. The same decision. That's what Ogrevey would have done. That's what Buffett and Munger do when they put money in. Like that is, that's what Coca-Cola does. It doesn't matter the economic climate. You're ever going to see less Apple billboards. You're going to see less Coca-Cola. No. It's interesting to think about this in the venture business, right? Like, which obviously, as we record this here in mid-March 2023, there's a lot going on in the venture business. It's so dynamic right now that I feel like we don't know the last two iterations of what have happened because we've been recording and I haven't checked my phone. Like, that's how fast the world is moving right now. Things are happening very quickly, as we speak. But I think a consequence of that, to your point about, like, you should advertise heavier during recessions, I think customer differentiation among venture firms is just declining rapidly, right? Like, what is. Well, no. It was until interest rates went up. But now. Nobody even. I think, I think both the up and the down cycle is both, I think, are commoditized. I totally disagree with this. I think when, when, when capital was a commodity and money was free, it was extremely hard to differentiate yourself as a venture firm or any financial firm. But like, it should be easier than ever to differentiate yourself because the thing. Okay, so how do you differentiate yourself right now? You guys are doing it. You can. I mean, well, one of them. Like, let's abstract away, like, speaking to the acquired audience as one of them or as a gigantic means of differentiation. Well, it's actually your XYZ average venture firm out there. Having money and writing the checks. Right, but yes, having money, right? But like. A year from now, it's like six to 12 months from now, that's going to be differentiating. All right, listeners, now is a great time to thank our longtime friend of the show, Service Now. If you are running a large enterprise, AI agents are likely spread across every team and deploying them is no longer the hard part. Yeah. The hard part is knowing what permissions they have, what employees are using them for, or what decisions AI is making. AI security for an enterprise at scale is not a small concern. Like, the risks are real. Exactly. with AI is governing it, securing it, measuring it, and making sure that it actually delivers value. That is why ServiceNow built the AI Control Tower. >> Yep, AI Control Tower gives enterprises a single place to see, manage, govern, and optimize AI across the entire business. And it works with any AI, not just theirs. Every device on your network, every permission across every system, every AI agent, visible, and secure in one place. >> And ServiceNow can do this because they've spent more than 20 years building the operational backbone of the enterprise. The workflows, governance, approval, security controls, and institutional knowledge that power how work actually gets done across IT, HR, customer service, finance, and security. >> ServiceNow already runs more than 100 billion workflows annually and trillions of transactions for more than 85% of the Fortune 500. So when companies need a place to govern AI at enterprise scale, they're building on a platform at the center of how their business already operates. >> And in a future that isn't going to be one AI, it's going to be thousands of AI agents working across every function of the company. But the question is, who's managing them all? >> So if you're trying to turn AI ambition into real business outcomes and make it work safely, securely at scale, go check out ServiceNow.com/acquired and tell them that Ben and David sent you. >> So I have a thought on this. One, I don't know anything about venture investing. Two, I don't know anything about investing period. Like I get to talk to SuperSmart investors and I'm sure the questions I'm like, hold on. You had to find that for me. And I'm sure they're like, this kid's an idiot. But when you guys were talking a little bit about your business and your venture game in general, is I just think of like one of my favorite things that I heard Jeff Bezos say is, for years, people were like, hey, when are you going to do physical retail? When are you going to do physical retail? And he says something that was crazy. He's like, physical retailing is an ancient business. And I love that term. It's like an ancient business. So I'm not going to do it until I know it's so hard to improve on an ancient industry. It has to be completely differentiated. You mentioned I heard you on one of your podcasts where you went to the Amazon Go store just as like your curiosity. It's not like you needed something. And so you guys are probably right that story too, where at one time they were going to do like meat and all this other stuff that you'd have to talk to somebody. He's like, no, you have to redo this. This doesn't make sense. The key that the differentiation here is that you walk and you walk out. Not walk in, talk to some guy. He's like, cutting salami for you. You got to get that out of there. And so I've had this thought, because I've read a bunch of biographies on investors too. And like investing is an ancient business. And we're just doing it in different ways now. And so I was like, well, if you wanted to invest, right? Let's say you wanted to invest in private companies, which people have been doing forever. I always think of like, where did JP Morgan get his deal flow? And you know, you read through the history. It's like people like, oh, that was JP Morgan Bank. Like, no, there's no retail bank. Like, you're not going in there. There's no ad sign on the doors. Like, here's JP Morgan. Come and he's like, it was a relationship based. It's like, you got in if you knew somebody, right? I read this biography that's incredible. I highly recommend people read it. It's episode one of three of founders. It is the richest woman in America. Heady green. I can't remember the stuff. I love how he denies that he knows every number of every episode and then busts out three more. It's only 'cause I like reference this all the time. So, heady green, right? It's only because you reference every episode all the time. One day, it's just gonna be a recording of just all the episode numbers. But he-- You are an algorithm. You are your read-wise app of the-- Well, that's how I get it. So, the heady green though was so wealthy that she bailed out the city of New York. Like, that book has unbelievable stories. This is, I've never heard this person's name and they bailed out the city of New York. Her family, so the richest, when she was alive, the richest city in the world per capita was like New Bedford, Massachusetts. Oh, yeah, willy. Yeah, willy. So, her family made so much wailing and the way they looked at the family fortune is I am a steward of this money. My job is to make it grow so that the next generation has more and then they want-- She's like the third generation of these wailing and then wailing, like it died out. I think the generation before her. So, they had to figure out how to make money. The technology stocks of her day, rowroads. Like, she made a ton of money rowroads and then she'd buy land, like real estate in New York and everything else. My point being, and I had this conversation with Patrick one day, I was like, think about it. Like, that was an ancient, investing in ancient business. So, like, you wouldn't do it, Heddy Green did. Like, where did she get her deal from? People knew her, they knew she was wealthy. They knew that she was the first person to go to in financial panics. They called financial panics, what we call recessions and depressions now. And it was like, you know, every three years back then. Yeah. And so, what she would do, she had a desk in Chemical Bank in Manhattan. So, the advantage there is geography. Physical location, you're at the center of finance in America. You need to be here. You build a reputation. So, literally there's stories in the book where there'd be a line of people in financial crashes waiting for her desk. She's like, okay, I'll save my row of stocks. Penny's on the dollar. Cornies Vannebrill did the same thing. She invested with him and a bunch of other people, right? And I was like, but what would you do today? Like, you're an, you're, you want an edge. Everything we're talking about is like, you need an edge, right? You can't play, Ed Thorpe has a great, the great quote in his book. He's like, I've been a manager for 50 years. One thing I know is you, the surest way to get rich is only play games and make investments where you have an edge, right? Which is another way of saying, do something your competitors don't aren't or can't? Or with Edwin Lann. So, Edwin Lann plays a huge role in my life, founder of Polaroid C just here, because he said, I have a personal model. It may not fit anybody else. Don't do anything somebody else can do. And so, I was like, okay, I don't think anybody else can do founders the way I do it. So, I'm just gonna do this, right? So, my point being is like, how would you do it today? Well, you would, it would look very much like what I think you guys are building. And I'm not an investor, so I don't know anything about your world, but it's just like, I'd spend my time reading and learning about business history. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett did that. Every single investor you guys are part of, right about does that all the time? They read consulate, right? I would share what I know. That's gonna build my network of other people, those people are eventually getting somebody deals. Then I have this huge advantage that you couldn't even do 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, 'cause it's interesting as a podcast, right? It's like, now I could record all the stuff I'm learning, right? Which we should say, there have been iterations of this. Like, this is how union square ventures became union square ventures. Our Foundry Group became Foundry Group, 'cause blogging, blogging, and then Brad and Jason writing the book on venture deals. I mean, it's like, angel. Venture hacks with Naval and Ruby. I have two other examples. This is like, it's not even venture. Like, what is the most successful content marketing of all time? Michelin? No, Berkshire, shareholder. Oh, of course. Berkshire, shareholder, of course. Because this is how you know genius. It is the greatest act of salesmanship, 'cause you never even see the sale happening. It's like, hey, and they spend, you know, you guys have probably done this research, how much time they spend on those letters. It's like half a year, seven, eight months for every letter. And this is not like, oh, I just jotted. Don't know what I learned in this year. And the crazy thing is like, he's. Oh my God, Warren. How many people have, this is something Charlie talked to. Oh, so this is a great, great thing that this came up there. Did you talk about the letters with them? No, I asked him about like, so I was explaining to him. I was like, Charlie, I'm literally in the middle of like reading about you when you were like around my age. So every time I read a book, I'm like, okay. I first of all, I know what year they're born. So every time I go through the book, I'm like, how old are they? And I write down, okay, he's 24 here, he's starting. I want to know what they were doing in and around my age. And so I was like, Charlie, I'm thinking about you guys. Like you just started. Like your fund starts to be like 41 or something. I don't remember what it was, right? And I was like, then like 50, like you start out, you're trying to figure things out. You could see them kind of figuring out, making mistakes, you guys an excellent job on your episode, like talking about what they learn from, getting to like get away from the Ben Graham, like get to one of excellence. Great businesses are rare, we should be in there. And then there's let time do all the work. And I was like, and now like you guys put up the greatest investment record the world's ever seen. It's like, are you surprised? He was, of course. He's like, of course I'm surprised. Like how could you not be? Like we want to be successful. And we were like, we were ambitious and driven, but there's no way you could say, I'm going to be worth, what's Brookshire's market cap right now? I don't know, like 500 billion. Yeah, whatever it is. But he said, but the reason that popped my mind when I was asking him like these questions, let me actually get the exact notes. I don't want to mess up the way he said it 'cause his lines were just excellent. And so he goes, he's surprised. I was successful, him and Warren turned out like, how could you not be surprised? And then he says something was fascinating. He goes, I think we get too much credit. And I was like, whoa, that's interesting. Like why do you think that, Charlie? And he's like, it's very, he goes, it's, I find it odd to be so wealthy and loved. That's not, these are not exact words. These are my interpretation of his words. Let me just be clear here. I find it so odd that to be wealthy and loved, that's not a usual human reaction. And then my note tied to why I think the Berkshire Letters are the greatest content marketing of all time. He goes, I don't know, I wonder if this is because they spent so much time teaching others. So what is, when you're so required, you guys are teaching, right? Berkshire, I'm going to go to Paul Graham too. Berkshire, they're teaching, like you could just not read a book and just read Berkshire's Letters and you're going to get a fantastic education, right? And then in there is like, oh, by the way, we'd like to be the buyers of choice. So if you happen, if you happen to know of this business, like this business that you want to get your hands on, like, you know, you care about it and he does this excellent product differentiation, call me, the greatest content. What is, like, how much money do they make off of that? And obviously, and I think this is probably, I don't even know if it's on the list of things that they care about, but like, it's also marketing for their businesses. Like, totally, I have guy co-carn churns because it's a Berkshire highway company. This is how we talk, I'm drinking. I feel an extra kinship for Brooks running shoes. I'm sure. Where in Brooks right now? Okay, so I, I changed out, I was in a polo hoodie right before it came over. I watched the documentary on Ralph Lauren. I just did a podcast. - I just listened to your episode. - Yeah, I think it's episode 288. I wonder if I'm right. - There it is. - Let's see if I'm right though. - Let's see if I'm right. I could be wrong. I could be full of crap. It's 288. (laughing) So, but before that, I had watched a documentary on 'em. Like years ago, and I found out that he did the, I always go to Ben for the proper pronunciation. Like we'll do the same podcast. I will, I say like a Kyo Marita, and then he's like, "Akyo Marita." I'm like, "All right, I go with Ben." - I don't know. - You get the, I will give you the correct American pronunciation. (laughing) It's unclear if it's actually right or not. - So, he did the same thing that Kyo did. You know, like they were struggling in the early days of Sony. They get this huge order. Like we're gonna take 100,000 units or whatever it is, but take off Sony and put on our name. And Akio's like, "We have no money." - Yeah. - But he refused to do that. 'Cause I'm not building your company and building mine. I love that, like that entrepreneurial, like bullheaded Tennessee. Same thing with Ralph. Ralph was broke. Him and his wife are living in a house. Our apartment was a train running over a top of them. They're sleeping on a mattress and he's making ties. And Bloomingdale's like, "We'll take 'em. We love 'em. Take that name off. You're gonna be our house brand. - Yeah. - And he packs up his ties. He's like, "I'm not here to build your brand. I'm here to build mine." Like that. So, that, which is fun because later in life, like he would make so much money on just licensing out his brand. - He's like, "I don't think I can make any of the products." - Yeah. - Literally just license the brand. - Hearing that made me buy more polo clothes. Hearing your affinity for Geico makes you buy Geico. The advertises that you have on acquired because they love you, your audience, if you, I know you guys vet them. And like, you have a ton of people that want to advertise that you don't like. It's like, that goodwill that you're building up, the goodwill that Buffett built up. Another, the second, maybe most-- - And by the way, there's a litmus test for that. It's, does the acquired, like, I want to only work with sponsors that I want to so full-throatedly endorse that I feel the acquired brand gets stronger by working with them. - Yeah. - And like, if you can actually just keep doing that durably, I think that is like an amazing way to build a brand. And, you know, we try, it doesn't always work and sometimes we just don't sell ad slots 'cause we're like, well, we, the bar's here. - It's long term. Like, okay, I miss a week on advertising. Doesn't matter, I'm doing this for-- When we get on the phone, the first time we talk, do you guys love podcasting? - I love podcasting. You can do it forever, we're gonna do forever. - You say the same thing? - Yeah, right, right, right. - It's like one week, you know, we could do this another 40 years. - Right. - So, the same thing. It's like the same goodwill that you're talking about. It's why I'm drinking, I don't even drink energy drinks, right? But, like, the format for founder-- - You showed up with five Jacogos. - This is, this is the only energy drink I found, and I only found it because I was driving home on Thanksgiving and all the coffee shops are closed, and I heard Jaco's podcast, and I know he has this, and he says, he said, "Wow, what was?" And I was like, wait, there's a wobble on the turnpike. I was like, I can just go there, like, they're there, and I bought him, and then I was wired for the whole drive home. I was like, "Oh, they work, man, this is fantastic." The point there is, like, it's not like when I went to the energy drink, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll do rock star monsters." Like, no, they didn't make a podcast that I love. - Right, right. - Jaco made a podcast that I love. - You were not evaluating energy drinks at that point. - The format for our founders, I got from Jaco. I found his podcast because he was on Tim Ferriss's, his podcast, at the very beginning, was just him reading books for an hour and a half, saying, "Oh, I like this section." And he does it for autobiographies for military people. I was like, "Oh, I should do this for autobiographies of founders and everything else." So for the combination of ideas, the second best version, and you guys know this more than me, because it's your world, and I don't know anything, I had spent three weeks reading Paul Graham's essays. Paul Graham's essays changed my life. They're reason I need to. - Also constantly changed my life. - So we can get there. - The full, the reason to finally jump and dedicate my life to founders came, my wife was sleeping in bed next to me. I'm up late a night. I read Paul Graham's essay, "How To Do What You Love." I talk about this on such a good one. - Episode 275, 76 and 77, those are right. I know that for sure. Are the three Paul Graham's essays I did. I talk about this snap. How he changed my life, or that essay changed my life in 275. So then I'm re, so I spent three weeks going through every single one of his essays. So something his new essays lack that they had in before, she used to have this bright orange box at the top. It says, "Do you want to start a startup?" - Apply to Y-combinator. - Apply to Y-combinator, yeah. And so I was like, think about, so again, it's not like you went, I thought about this like, what is the founders version of Y-combinator? What is the acquired version of Y-combinators, right? You have to be very careful like who you partner with and what you're doing. So I was like, what is the orange box, right? It's not like you go to Paul Graham's and he's got like 10 banner ads. He's just like, no. - Yeah, he worked very hard. - He knows that doesn't work. - Your attention is here. And it's like, he didn't know that starting Y-combinator, you can go back and read his essays about it, watch his interviews, and he had no clue. Just like Charlie told me, he's like, yep. No, I did not expect to build what it was called the Summer Founders Program. You know what I wasn't even. - That's the best thing about learning about the company and founder history. It's like, there's no way when you could interview Sam Walton when he's shoes, the bottom of shoes has watermelon and donkey crap. - And he's not gonna be like, hey guys, we're just spamming the world. - Right, yeah. - And so I love this idea of, hey, all of these discussions about the business benefit, all comes from, it's the byproduct of educating people, sharing people. That's why people love Charlie and Warren, why all three of us off them. How much of us three learn from him? - Right, so much. - It's like, yeah. - To the point where it was such a good point. - I wanted to cry when I met him. - Because of their content marketing. - What do you think? - Every time it sounds straight, but lazy. The lessons changed my life. They're gonna change the trajectory of my kids' lives. Like that is, and you know, he probably hears that a million times a day, but it doesn't matter. It's like, I got a chance to tell him that. That's it, it is crazy. He educated America on investing while still managing to do it better than anyone else. - There was some funny things about that too, where he says, like, you know, they get, he says something like, well, you know, they're completely, he says, you, both in your episode, you talk about snowball. Snowball has that quote from Buffett in there. He talks about, it's really important to have an inner score card or an outer score card. - Yeah. - Inner score card is his dad. It's like, I'm doing this because I know it's good. Outer score card is like, I'm doing this. What are the people gonna think about me? New slash, no one's thinking about you. They think about themselves. So outer score card people cannot have, like it's almost really hard to have a happy life having an outer score card. I like Charlie's description of that better. He says, like, I think it was Andrew that asked him the question, maybe Chris asked him a question. Like, we, like, we're driven to succeed like to, to pressure dad or your mom. That's a great question. And he goes, no, he goes, I had an inner clock. And I've always had, he goes, I have an inner clock and I always had an inner clock. And I did this because I wanted to do it. And like, that's, and he goes, and they're like, are you saying Buffett's like that? He goes, Buffett has an inner clock too. - Yep. - And it's just like, this idea where they did it their way regardless, they don't care what other people think. He said this about the fact that they keep some of their, their wholly owned businesses. And like, oh, the profits are less. Or they kind of just let them run out. And like, there's just keep the cash. And then people are like, oh, you should invest the cash. And he's just like, no, because we were opportunists. We're individual opportunity driven. It's the line that he has about that. - Right. You were going somewhere, David earlier, with the discussion of being a professional investor and how it's less differentiated than it's ever been before. Well, where I was going with it was, I bet. Look at the reaction on Twitter and elsewhere. And I think in, you know, much of the country to what's happened with this Silicon Valley bank situation, not that this is a current events podcast. But like, it's also by the time this comes out, it's going to be-- - It's going to be old news, right? - Hopefully things will just be calm and settle down. And there'll be no more impending crises. - Yeah, right. - But another one's coming eventually. Like, just like Charlie says. You're going to have another unintended problem a year from now. But I think you are right, Ben, that just having capital to invest will be differentiating going forward. However, I think the aggregate brand and reputation of the venture industry has taken a massive hit. - Totally massive hit over the last several years. - And you're not holding up as you just keep going down. - SVB is revealing to how other people think of Silicon Valley. - What I'm specifically referring to is VCs behavior and reactions on Twitter over the past week. - But that's just emblematic of the direction things that've been going for years now, right? Like, and part of it's related to tech in general, but I think there's a specific like maybe hatred is strong, but brand decline of the venture capital industry. - Yeah, I agree with that. Tie it to differentiation among venture firms. So yes, while as the market goes down, having capital will be differentiating and like the number of participants will go down in the industry and whatnot. But how do you stand out in this market as like if an aggregate your industry is thought less of and people don't want to work with you? - Right. - How do you turn that tide? - Yeah, if the next Sam Walton has the opportunity to raise venture capital dollars and he's like, you know what, I think I would rather just figure it out another way and not build in that ecosystem. - I think there are a lot of people out there right now who want to start businesses and are like, I'm not gonna raise venture capital because of that and I don't need to and it was a lie that I needed to. - Right, can I tell you from the founders perspective 'cause I talked to a ton of founders. - Yeah. - I'm gonna go down, I think, hopefully we'll see, talking to more founders than any non-VC, right? I get offers all the time, like hey, you want to invest in my company, I've said no to all of them. Just 'cause I'm just, I'm like, I'm focused on founders, like I don't care about anything about my past. - Absolutely. have these conversations and it's just like what VCs don't understand is like how much founders hate them. They like they hate them and it's not they hate the good ones. They love the good ones, right? Like I'm not going to say some of the brands that I've heard about they're like oh no like we raise money from much people. They're good. They don't mess with us but if we ask a question or we need something they jump on it, you know. And the problem is this is not like it's it's a natural like distribution of any industry. There's going to be crappy founders and great founders. There's going to be crappy investors and great investors. And so I really think it ties back to the the principle that Buffett and Munger built their business on is it's like only associating themselves with the best people on the best companies. And that's all so much other problems. So yeah, the my issue is like there's a lot of VCs in my audience too and they're nice people. Don't be me wrong, right? Some of my talk to us is like who gave you money to invest? Like what is going on here? But what I don't like is like the best ones like this is what I like about Patrick, right? If you talk to the people that Patrick has invested in, he doesn't like here's a list of 10 things I took two minutes to think about. He's asking quite. He does exactly he does on his show. He has questions. Yep. And if you need something like I'll do whatever I can because he's got a good network and help. No, but he's certainly not. He's like if I have to tell the founder what to do then I why did I invest in like like that doesn't make any sense. So what happens is like I'll get these emails like I love your show like such or such or he was like 10 ideas for you. It's just like you read. It's like you hired like an assistant or a researcher. Maybe you're with us yourself. You thought about this for 30 minutes. Like I think about this all day every day. I thought about this every day for years man. Like that's not helpful. Like what are you doing? Like you're just making I have a lower opinion of you because like this is a dumb idea. And the only way about that is like you know who brace robberts is of yeah. Okay. So he has this is again I've never reached a capital. I've never made a venture capital investment. But I talked to a ton of founders and he has the greatest description. He's like what is the product that founders are buying from VCs? It's not money because everybody's got money. Like that's like well it used to have money. Yeah. But still like there's the reason you're like there's still a lot of people. There's still going to be investments made in compared to venture in the 70s. Yes. Yeah. He said two words improved odds. That is the best from a founder. That is the best description. It's like if I take investment from you as opposed to this other guy over here. It's other grow over there. Like who is going to meet founders. All they care about is can you help my company succeed? Is it more likely than my company succeeds? I'm dedicating my life to this man. This is not a game. Like can you make my company succeed? And sometimes you can do the money. Sometimes you can network. There's other people sitting right across me that could probably help with distribution. That is actually a value I'd like that is the difference. Like if I was going to be a venture capitalist and God knows I would not not be right. I would just start a podcast and then I would do it for six years and I would get really valuable. And then my inbox is full of people. I don't have deal flow. It comes in. Yeah. It comes inbound. I have a friend Chris. Chris Powers. He syndicates real estate investment. Rich people like to invest in real estate. There's all these tax benefits. And he says, David, even with like this guy's done like, I think he's got either a billion or two billion dollars of industrial class real estate under management right now. And he's like, even he's like, David, I just was interviewing and doing my podcast. Again, same thing. Educational. Interviewing people operating in a real estate industry and interviewing founders. And just doing because he'd like to do and want to talk to those sort of people who happen to press record put it out there and never really promoted it. You know, he's like, even with my small audience. He goes, I've raised, he goes, it changes the dynamic from, Hey, I'm Chris. I'm sitting on outbound. Hey, I'm Chris. This is what I do. This is like, can we talk? Can we set up a meeting to, Oh, Chris, love your podcast. How can I get five million year front? Yep. It reverses it because, you know, they get to know you as a person. This is what I don't like also. It sort of cuts the relationship. But it, you just said, it's a relationship, right? Which I think there's too much of this, like calendar, like Tetris that, that, no, if that's that venture capital play because they try to do with me, where our founders do this too, where they're like, Hey, love you show, love to get to talk to you. Can we talk? And I reply back, yeah, let's set something up. Then I get like, then they're like, I'm like, routed to an assistant. And then it's like, Oh, you know, how about six weeks from now, you know, Joe Smoll has 30 minutes, three weeks or so now. And I've done this like once or twice. And now my response is, that's no way to build a relationship. There's my phone number. Just text or call me when you're free. I'm not a 30 minute block in your calendar. And if we have the inbounded Austria get, it's like, I'm already almost hitting a limit to how many deep relationships I can build. So I'd rather instead of talking to a million people, I'm not a fester. Instead of talking to a million people for 15 minutes, I'd rather talk to five or 10 people over and over and over and over again. That's what Charlie, Charlie, you talked a lot about this and like, you've rubbed off on me a lot of this and like, I have changed my mindset and my daily behavior hugely because of our conversations. Charlie and Warren. This is like, they build relationships. They found people they like and mirrored in trust. They repeat, like admire and trust over and over again in the letters and their talks. And then they just did business with them forever. Yep. It's not this wide but shallow. And that's where you get the bad behavior. And anybody that's high quality can see through it. And it's not going to work. And you're only going to succeed like you guys, your business is parallel. You're only going to succeed if you get the very best ones. It's interesting though, like the, man, just like so much in life, like Warren and Charlie really, like they're just so often right. And if you think about like, if you buy the premise that the aggregate opinion of the venture capital industry has declined a lot of it, it may continue to decline, whether it does or doesn't. It's meaningfully worse than it used to be. What have Warren and Charlie done? And to your point about the best content marketing ever, what is what they do? It's a combination of a hedge fund and a private equity firm. What is the aggregate opinion? Public opinion of hedge funds, managers and private equity firms over the last 50 years, nothing but down. What is the aggregate opinion of Berkshire? Nothing but up, you know, it's amazing. This is one advantage that I have, the fact that I'm not an investor. So I don't have to keep up on like, to some degree, venture capitalists have to like know what's going on. Right. And I close myself off. Like yeah. I was having dinner with Sam and his wife and his wife was asking me like, hey, do you know about this person? Oh no, do you know about this? And Sam's like, he's got a very limited like, he said nice way. He's like, you can ask about like books, but this dude's not watching TV. He's not doing any other stuff, right? We keep them in a, you know, hot out bad. And the good thing about that though is somebody actually, so essentially the way I use like Twitter or any social media is like, I put out little snippets from my podcast and you put out a lot on Twitter and text so form, right? Yeah. Which has been really working for you. I was like, I'm going to read something that has a million, over a million views in 24 hours because everything's going on and because I just had dinner with Charlie. So I'm going to read this and then I'll go back to what this is an amazing tweet, by the way. So I go, Charlie Munger tells a story about human nature. Now I didn't put this because of the bank run. Like I was just thinking, I was like, oh, this is, I was reading my highlights post this. It like with regards to the bank run. No. No. I remember I reread my highlights every day. Yeah. And so when I reread my, one of my Twitter is when I reread highlights, like, oh, that's good one. I just put on Twitter. Oh my god. They look like just the greatest timing in history. Yeah. Exactly. Well, like it wasn't intentionally. I knew it was going on, but it never said, oh, let me, I need an SVB tweet. I don't have any money in SVB, like whatever. So it goes, Charlie Munger tells a story about human nature and then this is all Charlie speaking. One of my favorite stories is about the little boy in Texas. The teacher asked the class, if there are nine sheep in a pen and one jumps out, how many are left? And everybody got the answer right, meaning eight, right? Except this little boy who said, none of them are left. And the teacher said, you don't understand arithmetic. And the little boy said, no teacher, you don't understand sheep. And so, so I think good. How do, okay, how, when you were in the room with Charlie for several hours, how did, like, in natural conversation, they just pulling out these, like, parables and these fables, like, you know, let me, I mean, it's that question. The best response to this tweet, I didn't even, I missed it myself. He goes, was the child Charlie himself? I'm like, oh my God, that's exactly what he would have done. He would have been the kid. Yeah, he would have been the kid. So the reason I think it's so powerful, like the storytelling ability, you guys have how I try to break down things to aphorisms, you ask, like, why is this guy on my phone, right? I only think in stories, I think people only learn through stories and then one of the writers, right? That's why Charlie, David Olgamy, that idea, he says it in a creative way. And then you remember fur. Charlie Munger says, hey, if you don't learn probability, you're going to go through life with a, as a one-legged man and an ass kick in contest. So good. And then you think about it, it's like, oh, what is it? I'm going to get my ass kick. Like, so that's the way, this is here because it's Ernest Shackleton. His family motto was, by endurance, we conquer. So we're in the podcast business. You know, people like, you can't do podcasts, it's like two million of them. It's like, dude, there's like 70 or 80% of them that have quit, right? In eight percent. In the business podcast right now. Me and Patrick were just talking about this. I just saw them in person in Miami and we were talking and I showed them this. It's like, dude, for podcasts like Me and Patrick's and yours, business categorized in business, have at least 10 episodes. And I think release at least once a week. You guys, I think are really schedules less than that, right? Three, two, three. So those three categories is like, but in terms of minutes of content per week, we're the same as everybody else. But like, that was one thing, like, they release once a week, right? 18,000. And the business category is the second most popular, like, the second most populated podcast category behind. And I go, do you know the first spirituality faith? Yeah. Oh, two crime is falling off then. Yeah. No. So this is, I'm going to start. So there's a thing about that where I heard somebody said they're like founders like church for entrepreneurs. And I might start dropping. podcast on Sunday and no, no, I'm not kidding. And if I do video, I swear to God, I went and looked. I looked at pulpits. I was like, I'm not gonna get a lot. I swear to God. I swear to God. - You were a crucifix topic. - I'm not gonna get a desk. Think about, my mom was like fundamentalist Christian stuff and I had to go to church my whole life. And she's like, this is pretty crazy. Not in bad way, I don't mean that to majority. I was like, they're learning from the same book every week over and over again. And the stories can tell, limitless. It's one book. I can do the same thing. I have access to all the books in the world. Like I can do that. So I do think there's an element of them. - Totally. Five years from now, people are gonna be like, this is the moment where David started the cult. (laughing) - It's right here on video. (laughing) - We're talking about it. - Colts are the best businesses though. - 100%. - If you listen to my episode in and out, episode 244. - Oh yeah. - There's no way I got that right, by the way. - Oh, now we got this. - I did that. - You keep talking, I'll look up if you got this right. - I did that episode because it's 244, of course. - Is it? - Oh my God. - I read that book because the best businesses in the world are Colts. That's what founder of Trader Joe's. He goes to autobiography. He said that Trader Joe's was a cult for they overeducated and underpaid. - Right. - And that's not to say that like, Colts are amazing businesses. That's not what you're saying. You're saying the very best businesses. - Cheerful. - Develop a cult. - In and out calls them, they use this terminology in their business. - Cheerful cult. It's a positive cult. I'm not talking about Jones Town. Let's get together and freaking drink mass suicide. I don't know. I'm talking things that hopefully you're building a product that's good for the world. - We had Gary Tanon back in the day and he was talking about Palantir at the very beginning and he was like, "Oh, Palantir was a cult." That's why it worked. - Well, this idea also influenced me. He's zero-the-one Peter Till's book. It's like, you know, he says that. He's like the best businesses, like, startups look like Colts. - You have to inspire emotion in people. Otherwise, you can't stand out in the world. You certainly can't have repeat behavior and in a sea of choices for someone to keep choosing you over and over and over again. Just like, it's like how founders have to be weird. - This is one of the main things that was created by ordinary people. - But I have to be in tension about this. I'm glad you said, "Oh, this is where we get in "on camera and on recording that David is sort of as Colts." It's like, I go crazy. People start talking about, I, a bunch of them say, "David's two obsessive podcasts." And I'm like, I'm glad they say that because, like, even now, this is-- - You like, thank you, that's a couple. - No, it's like, I see an opportunity that other people don't, which is the same thing in the book. So I think podcasts in general are just fun to make, and I'm obsessed with it, but they're also gonna be wonderful businesses because they're prone to be cheerful Colts. And how do you know that you have a Colt? You just Google and see if the people have tattooed themselves with the brand. How many people are walking in with a Joe Rogan's face on his tattoo? A Joe Rogan face tattoo on their skin? A ton of them, right? - Really? - Yes. How many people have tattoos of the Apple Apple? - A ton of them. - There's an insane number with Mario. We learned this in the Nintendo game. - Mario, Tesla, in and out. There's a ton of, dude, I like, cheeseburgers are my favorite meal. I'm not a Tattuno in and out logo on my arm, dude. You take another level, and you see this over and over and over again. And so when I analyze businesses, I'm not just doing this, like, it's not a game to me. I was like, oh, can I use these ideas to build in my business. And Warren Buffett says the greatest thing, and this is, I think, speaks to why you guys are so like, hey, we know how big our audience is, and we're gonna take the seriously. Seriously, Warren goes, a brand is a promise. That's the best description of a brand. It's just like, I talked about the fact that I stayed in this hotel brand, I'm not gonna say what it is. In Austin, I loved it. I stayed in Santa Monica. I loved it. I found out they had one in San Francisco. I didn't check the reviews. - You came here and they broke their promise. - I told you to stay with us. - Yes, and that's the biggest thing. A brand was a promise. I know this is gonna be excellent. The hotel's fine. It is in like, it's in a tenter line. It's like a, like-- - Not a place you wanna stay. - No, like if I wasn't traveling alone, there's no way I'd let my wife-- - This is the major misconception about San Francisco, every meeting people who don't live here think that it's, you know, an absolute hellhole in wasteland, a specific part of it is. - Yeah. - But like, there are other parts-- - And unfortunately, that part is mostly where the hotels are. - Yeah. - Which is not good for the city. 'Cause I'm not staying with you or I'd stay on Silicon Valley. Like I've stayed at the Rosewood, which is really nice. - Yeah, that is not the tenter line. - The most expensive hotel, which is good. - I didn't pay for it, so. - Whatever it does, that's the whole business model. - I didn't know how much it was. It was really nice, though. Thank you. - I gotta take that person. - Yeah, so like, again, I don't mean it in like a, but I am very intentional. But like, hey, I'm not gonna break my promise. I want you to know, and you guys do the same thing. It's like, if I press play on an acquired episode, this is why Dan Carlin is, you know, I read one book in episode. He reads like 30. He only does two a year or one a year. - Maybe one a year, right? - But like, I know there's no way I'm gonna press play. - It's gonna be good. - And he didn't do the word necessary. - Yeah, that's all we feel, we all feel. I mean, yeah, in our own ways, we all definitely feel that about what we're doing. - Can I get some feedback? Like, how can we make acquired better? Or have you ever had moments where you paused an episode and we're like, oh, I want to talk to Ben and David about this right now. 'Cause like, I have some feedback. - No. - You probably just text us if you did it. - No, but like, first of all, or the model, not just, not necessarily just the content, but like. - No, well, you guys said on your Benchmark dinner episode, I think was like, you know, there's a few podcasters, let's say I was conversation with Sammy Shades. Like, there's a few podcasters that like, they know what they're doing. And they know by, like, what their position in the market is, like, how they're thinking about it, and I'm not gonna say who, but like, you guys hit it. Like, what makes you special? It's the Edwin Land thing. Don't do anything somebody else can do, right? What you said is like, your marquee thing is these super indebted, like Blake made the funny, Blake Robbins said the funny thing on Twitter. I saw, I loved it. He's like, only a choir could say, all right, let's bring this home and it's so an hour and a half left. (laughing) That's your brand, people know. - Totally. - Yeah, and I think what you're doing here with like, the sessions is like, a way to also, it's like, there's no, you can't increase your, the amount of episodes that you can do because they take so much work to do. But you also have a way to surface all this information that you guys have that's valuable to other people in different formats. - Well, we were talking about this a little bit before it, which I hate to think we were talking about this before we were recording. It's my name, we just recorded it. But, you were also thinking about, potentially doing something similar. - Yeah. - And there's like, - Not now, not years from now, but yeah. - But for the core episodes, we spend, you know, so much time preparing, but then for stuff like this, we don't prepare at all because our whole career is prepared. - Does this make sense? Like, what is the right number and format of sessions? 'Cause this is the second session. Like, we're still figuring sessions out. Like, in your dream world as an acquired listener, what do sessions look like? - Just for, I mean, your sessions should be replace your interviews. Anything that's a non-acquired, like, long deep, how'd you just make them a session? There's enough people interviewing founders and investors, but we need more conversations. So if I ever did, people like, if you ever do an interview show, I was like, first of all, I wouldn't do an interview show. 'Cause like, your interview is a skill. It looks easy. Like, I always tell Patrick. - Hold on a minute. - I tell Patrick, you're a world class at this, dude. - Right. - Like, you have, you wield-- - You've done it. - You've been on the show. - Every weekend, now, twice a week for eight, nine years. - And he's just, it's for, I like to read. He likes to ask questions, so therefore our formats match the personality, right? - Yep. - And so what I tell him is like, I've been on the other side of it. It's like, you can tell, he doesn't have a list of questions in front of him, because you can hell, his good question just came off a response of what, like, a lot of people like, and it's fine, but like the Tyler Cowan thing, where he just like, he has his questions, and you just said something interesting. He's not gonna follow up, and he's gonna go on the next question. - It feels very odd, 'cause you're like, are you guys not having a conversation? - No, they're not. - 'Cause that guy left you an opening, and how did you not take that opening? - They're not, so, but Tyler, you have to do, let's tie this to Jay-Z and J Cole, and answer question also about like, I'm glad you guys are so much nicer, we're like, do you have any feedback? 'Cause like, I can't stand feedback. We're like, not, in the sense of, like, I told you, I text you guys this one time, we're like, one guy is like, hey, I don't like that you reference, like, the super power of the show is that I tie, it's not like, the episode of Ralph Lauren is gonna tell you how Ralph thinks like, Andru Carnegie, and Rockefeller, and Bezos, and it's like, - You literally know all your episode numbers by heart. - And like, so, to me, it's just one large conversation on history, on history's greatest entrepreneurs, that's how it is. To me, it just happens to be separated, and so, I text you, when this guy's like, "Could you save that for, at the end, and just do it, like, as carve out, like, acquired?" And I was like, "Don't listen to acquired, I'm not going to." - I have a singular vision for how this is gonna go, and that's why I own and control and operate the entire thing. - It's even further than that. It's like, I'm not putting on a show. Like, there's a lot, I loved Antony Bourdain when he was alive, I read his books, he had a huge influence on me, like, any time I traveled to a place that he went to, I'd go and watch him. - Have you done an episode of him? - Yeah, 219-5. - There's no way that's right. There's no way. - Keep going. - There's no way that's right, fact checkers. - Oral, it's called the oral biography. It's, that format should be done more, where his assistant had interviewed, and his assistant, a friend had interviewed a bunch of people, actually, Newtonian were there in his last days. And then she organized an interview into this biography called Bourdain, the definitive oral biography, I think. - And, is it 219? - It's 219. - And so, and so, like, where was I going at that? I went on a digression. But, oh, so there's a line in the book that I love. It says, the line between Tony and the show is non-existent. - Yeah. - That's why people, like, I hear a lot of people talk about podcasting. It's like, oh, you don't actually know what the superpower of podcasting is, right? Where it's like, to me, one of the superpowers of podcasting is, it's authenticity scaled, right? Yes, when I meet with founders, I listen to founders, and we have a three hour dinner, they They all say the same thing. They're like, this is like a three hour episode of "Fouters." - Yeah. - It's like the same person there, right? - Well, and I think that is a thing that you did really well and we sort of accidentally did well. But I realized over time, why that makes both of the things we've built as durable as they are. A lot of people play characters on the internet. And-- - Which in other mediums-- - Places really well. - Is an easy trap to fall into. - And like, it's a way to catapult growth. If you adopt a polarizing character, you can get a bunch of followers. - Yeah. - There's a lot of dividends that pay to it. But it's exhausting to maintain over time and it has a conflict where when people meet you in real life, they're like, oh, weird. And so like when you actually are just yourself, it's gonna probably grow more slowly because I'm not like as polarizing, like it would be horrifying to live as a polarizing character that you play on the internet in real life also. And so you have this more like slow organic growth path. But like it is, there is this cool byproduct now where like, I sit down with someone and they're like, "Yup, exactly the same as I expected." - This is why I said, have Blake Robbins on here because he gave me the dynamic, that spectrum that he talks about. Blake is a super smart person in general, but he's like, the way you think about this is there's a spectrum. This is not my idea, this is Blake's spectrum because I'm one of the, he's like, how much time do people spend with you, right? He's like, on one end of the spectrum, you have these like 30 second tiktokers of dance, right? And then all the way on the other end of the spectrum, as you move down, they spend more time with you. All the way on the spectrum, you have the Twitch streamers, right, which he helped incubate 100 thieves, 40 thieves, 100 thieves, where they're spending like 40 hours or 50 hours a week with you, right? He goes, "David, you're like one, you're not, they don't spend 40 hours with you, but you're one, one click to the left." And they're gonna wind up spending 10, 20, 100, 200 hours with you. And you keep moving down and you're like, let's say you do 10 minute YouTube videos, you know? And it's like, the deeper you go down there, it's why I think the guy's name is Nate Shot. When you're like, 100 thieves has a new product and he announces it, you'll see a line down the block. 'Cause hundreds of thousands of people have spent all their time with them. And so it's like, oh, Nate Shot has something to all come down here and you see this over and over again. And then Blake says you could have like a tiktok, it has a tiktok or it has like 10 million followers, yet they can't even get 3,000 people to show up somewhere. - Right. - And so I think that is like the way to think about so. - That's algorithmic throttling too. Tiktok is almost a zero signal if somebody follows you. - It's like, it doesn't matter, it doesn't actually matter. - Or YouTube, it's like, oh, they subscribe to your channel. Like maybe that'll come up in one of the top eight videos that shows up at the top of the screen of like what they should watch next, but like maybe not. So my point in all that is if they're spending a lot of time with you and I love, this is my flip of what Charlie Mugger says that you need to learn the big ideas in the main domains, like physics, psychology, 'cause they carry the most freight. I flip that to time carries the most weight. As long as what we're doing, you said, we're not playing characters. We are passionately interested in this. We're not gonna quit. Then we just have a long period of time. You'll get what you deserve. You'll get the audience you deserve, you'll get the business opportunities and everything else. It's like time carries the most weight. I know I'm not gonna quit. You're gonna have to pry the microphone from my cold dead hand. And I'm just gonna let the chips fall where they are. That doesn't mean I'm like lolligagging here. Like I'm on it seven days a week. I'm gonna try to work myself in a position. So it's something I learned from Steve Jobs when he came back to Apple, right? And he's like, people hear that speech he gives, which he's fantastic. He's like wearing shorts. And he's like, and it's like, I don't even know if he's in the polo, the turtleneck yet. But he mentions like what they're gonna do. And everybody focuses on the fact that he's like, we're gonna, you know, there's no sex in the products anymore. And we're gonna do the four quadrant thing. A lot of people in the technology industry particularly know that speech and like, yeah, let's cut the fat and like put all of our A players, fire the B and C players, put all of our A players and these four products that we're gonna make, right? But they miss desktop laptop high-end. - Yeah, consumer and pro for both laptop and desktop those are four categories, right? They miss what he said earlier. When he talks about Nike, he's just like marketing. He's like Apple sucks at marketing. We have to be a great marketing company. And so he said something where I read the quote and then my reinterpretation of this, right? And people don't know that. It's in Ken's, no, it's in this book called Insanely Simple. I think that guy's name is Ken Siegel. And he's like, he was an ad guy at a company for Apple. And he's like TWA, TWA Chiant Day. That's the ad agency. - So he goes and every Wednesday, actions express priority. So there's another maximum, right? He's like, I don't care what people say. I can hear like what they do. So when people ask me, like, first people, you talk to the founders, like, hey, like, what would you do about this? I never answer, like, well, David Senor would do this. I would say, hey, well, Charlie Munger would tell you to do this or Steve Jobs would do this. Or like, hey, I heard a story about here. 'Cause like, my opinion is useless. It's, you know my opinion on business building on how I build my business. It doesn't matter what I say. It's like, what is he, how is he approaching founders? Like, why is he making decisions? That's the important part, right? And so Steve told you that marketing was important to his actions, 'cause every Wednesday, at like three o'clock, or I forgot the time, they had a like a three hour meeting, he would approve, have to approve every single piece of advertising marketing that went out for Apple. There's not a billboard in Kentucky that went out without him saying, yes, that's gonna go out, right? And so in that speech, when you're, if you actually listen to what he's saying, he's like, listen, I feel that the products we're making in Apple make people's lives better. I want, he says this line. He goes, I want everybody in the world to own an Apple device. We know that it's not gonna happen because it's so expensive, but he goes. And to do that, we have to get really good at marketing. So my interpretation of that on the podcast, what I said is like, if you feel your product can improve people's lives, I think you guys already know 'cause you get thousands of messages, just like I do, that, yes, listening to choir, listening to founders will improve people's lives and work, right? Then you have a moral obligation to get good at marketing, when we're about that. All that means is not get good at marketing so our ad rates are gonna go up or that we can be celebrities doing that. It's no, so these messages for all these, of history's greatest entrepreneurs that are dead, that there's ideas don't die with them. And then therefore, a choir of founders can gather these ideas and push them down the generations. So that's why I mean, it's like, I'm not daily dallian, yes, I'm gonna let time carry all the weight, but I'm gonna do everything I can so more people at least know. And if you try founders say, oh, this sucks or whatever, whatever, I'm cool with that. But I just want you to have the opportunity to know it exists. And me and you have a history of these conversations where it's like, guys, I'm telling you right now, I've said this to you, there's millions of people that would benefit from listening to choir, they just don't know it exists yet. So we gotta come up in fine ways to make sure that people know it exists 'cause they will love it and it will make their lives better. Amen. - All right, listeners. Now is a great time to talk about one of our favorite companies, LaGora, the agentic operating system for legal work. - Yes, most of you have dropped a contract into a chatbot by now, but as a lawyer, how far can that really take you? It's never seen your firm's precedence. It doesn't respect confidentiality and you can't check where its answer came from. - So LaGora's founders approached this the way that great founders do. Early on, the team moved into the office of a big law firm in Stockholm and learned four months. How the work actually gets done. A couple of thousands of enterprise customers and a 100,000 users later, they still work that way. They employ 100 legal engineers on staff. These are lawyers sitting inside of firms and legal departments to deploy LaGora onto live situations like the deal closing this week or the policy review due Friday. - The product has gotten very powerful in a short period of time. A year ago, the goal was a good answer from a chatbot. With the LaGora agent, you hand it the work and it comes back with a plan. Tasks like running diligence on a data room or reviewing a new vendor contract get completed inside the tool you use every day, like Microsoft Word and against your own precedence and playbooks. Every finding is sourced, the lawyer directs the work and signs off before the system executes any steps. - Every legal team can get access to the same AI models. So the models themselves do not give you an edge. What you can do with your own data, people, playbooks, that's the whole game. - Today, over a 100,000 legal professionals at more than 1800 law firms and in-house legal teams in over 50 markets use LaGora. And when LaGora goes head-to-head with its top competitor and a pilot, it wins 70% of the time. - A demo is one thing, but what matters most is an associate who reaches for it at two in the morning during a closing or whether a general counsel trusts what it says before the board meeting. So if your legal team wants to check it out, whether you're at a firm or in-house, go to laGora.com/acquired and be sure to tell 'em that Ben and David sent you. - This may be an area, I'm curious to see what you think about this, where our shows and approaches are a little different. I'm also curious, what you been thinking about this. A lot of these stories are just incredible stories too, that are just like worth, I think worth telling just for the sake of the story. - Yeah, it's interesting how sometimes I'm like, I'm not sure that we came up with a lesson that I would advise a founder to follow, but I know this was very entertaining and as true as we possibly can make it. - Every single episode I've listened to, there's lessons in there, that actually. - Oh yeah, nothing. - I'm not saying there's no lessons, of course there are, but sometimes we'll do an episode, like I always feel this way about the most recent episode, but we just finished making the Nintendo episode. I was like, can I, if you put the best fiction writers in the world. - That's true. - To get. - Yeah. And you said, come up with the best corporate ish story that you could imagine. You couldn't write something this good. - I guess the thing I was referring to, to is a little bit the survivorship bias where like someone did something that I would not recommend anyone do and it still worked. And that's what made for a great story. It's like more of Chang and TSMC, it's like he invented the notion of a fabulous semiconductor company before there was any demand for that. And then it turned out that his timing was exactly right that like within a couple of years, a whole ton of, you know, fabulous companies spun up and wanted to use his foundry. But like he created a solution in search of a problem and like no founder should do that. But my god did he pull a rabbit out of a hat. It's out there. There's a good number of acquired episodes where I'm like we should be crisper I think about pointing out where like I don't this was inadvisable but amazing that it worked. I think that goes back to the game tape analysis where we talked about Kobe Bryant. Jordan did this too where it's like I read this like 600 page biography of Kobe and in the biography they interviewed his high school girlfriend. And they're like what was it like to date Kobe Bryant high school? I was surprised he had a girlfriend right? Oh, that's very long. It's like what's it like to date Kobe Bryant high school? It's like well our dates consisted of me going to his house and watching tapes of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. We're not leaving. I'm not taking it at the dinner like we're literally going to watch this thing. And so I think the game tape analysis of that is just like it is helpful to realize that a lot of this stuff it's impossible to plan in advance. It's the one of the great I mean Steve Jobs has a ton of great quotes. Oh, one of the best ones is like speech. He's like if the comments say connect the dots it's impossible. You're only going to connect the dots looking backwards. So you have to put something in faith and something. You can call karma, religion, God, intuition, but you have to do something. I just did a reread Ray Crox autobiography. The guy from McDonald's. Again and I hit me yeah I've been thinking about the Steve Jobs quote too. And this is why it's so valuable to read. You mentioned this in the McDonald's episode. If you think about this like he's a perfect illustration of what Steve observed 50 years after Ray dies for God's sake. He's just like he goes to selling paper cups. Paper cups leads into selling multi-mixers which are like make milkshakes. Multi-mixers goes like why the hell are you have eight? Why does it make these McDonald brothers out in San Bernardino have eight of my machines? Like people he'd had a hard time selling one. That goes to the franchise system which he didn't even do well. Then he meets Harry Sombra and then Harry Sombra is like dumb real estate. You don't even know what business you're in. You're not gonna he's like you don't build an empire of a 1.4% cut of a 15 cent hamburger. You build an empire by owning the land upon which that hamburger is cooked. Those five things there's no he's selling he's spelled from paper cups to real estate. He sold paper cups for 17 years. But he's just like hey I have to go in my gut to the point where he got divorced over this. His wife was like you can't do this Harry and he's like you have to trust my instincts. That's one thing to what Ben said way back in the beginning of the conversation that you're really good at highlighting Ray Crot. Like he was a terrible person and he didn't try to hide it. Most people in autobiographies are trying to hide it. He's literally like thank you very much June Martino, my first employee for missing every single one of your kids birthdays. You're gonna get some stock in McDonald's. It's gonna get you rich but 20 years later I'm gonna fire you. You don't have to put that story in there. He chose to put that that's crazy dude. I said on the podcast I was like listen it's interesting like I'm glad he persisted interesting ideas for business but like not only do I we never want to do business with this guy. I wouldn't even want to be his friend. Yeah. Like I wouldn't want to do business with Steve Jobs but I want to be his friend. You know. Oh yeah he did very interesting things with him. I feel like the opposite. What's that? Like I'd want to do business with Steve because you could create incredible things together but I'm not sure you'd want to be friends. I think the difference is from like a founder's perspective like there is no working with Steve Jobs. It's working for you hear the stories of how even treated like his subcontractor are not like the owners of the companies that contracted. It's like these guys are empire builders like they're literally building worlds. They're not used to being like they're Charlie was talking about this because you know he loves like Lulu the new guy the BYD guy do one. Yeah. I don't know his name something. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys he loves Lee Kwan U from Singapore. Yep. And what you realize is it's like it's like these are founder types but you can't be like founders of benevolent dictators are in some cases they're dictators of their own company and like some people call Lee Kwan U you know a dictator is like oh like they can't do that America even if that would be beneficial but um all of them there's no working with them they're like they're going to be in complete control of the situation like even being in the room with them like they're not saying they'd be rude or mean but like you're a subordinate to them because everything is in break rock everything is he says in the book uh perfection's difficult I'm demanding perfection with Donald's I will constantly keep expanding this empire to die if you get in my way I will run you over he's like he says in the movies like uh if my competitor was drowning I'd walk over and put a hose in his mouth and he goes and he was on the other end of the calls McDonald's brothers because they're fighting over this he goes would you do the same and the state of thing is like you're gonna have to compete on my level or else I will literally destroy you. Yep. What is so Warren and Charlie are so interesting regularly I'm trying to decide if they are the complete opposite of that or if they actually are like that just in their own ways when every single person has some kind of like their public persona is for that level right it's not like a podcast where they're gonna listen to Joe Rogan for 1600 episodes like you know who Joe is you can't hot he's going three hour shows three days a week for 15 years you have probably a good idea who he is you see flashes of like you know imperfection like we all have I don't think you just you don't get to that level without having he's got sharp they all got sharp elbows like you ever heard read stories about how Warren uh negotiates it's like 1250 bid oh what about 14 1250 bid what about 13 1250 bid that's because he's he's already he's spent 10 years analyzing your business and he knows exactly the price that he's gonna buy it for and so now he's giving telling you the price he's gonna buy it for yeah he's this wasn't like a new consideration that popped up and he's like oh look at this a business it's like no at the skill he's operating at like he knows all the businesses yeah and this this is from the Jim Clayton autobiography um where he buys um Clayton homes right and he even said like he he wanted to sell a buffet he idolized Buffett and he talks about like he wasn't insulting him by any means but he's like Warren wants the microphone and if you're in an area where Warren doesn't have a microphone he's not interested and I've heard that about Warren a lot you know so this is like is there you the world builders like the runs everything you think you're gonna go from being poor to having $200 billion and not distort your perception of the world yeah it's impossible I say say more about Warren wanting the microphone was that mean like literally in person like they would do I think they were doing Jim Clayton was at either like an event to talk to the employees or whatever the case was like he like Jim wanted to have input and he's like Warren would not allow it like he monopolized this and I've heard that about Warren like same thing we're like you're gonna just gotta be an element of him that you know loves the shareholder meetings of course what he didn't need to do that he created an event about how he loves you know yeah you know how he loves it because he's still doing it right right like he doesn't he doesn't have to do anything in the world that he doesn't want to do right and that's how you know he loves it like they're they're beyond I told we talked about earlier like just how disorienting must be to like have and I would love to know this feeling coming wrong like have a 200 billion dollar net worth it's like you're you're living life on like god mode like it's it's insane like I was watching this video I don't know if it's true but it's like Jeff Bezos's private jet has its own private jet like his new yacht has a chase yacht yeah so that you're gonna I think it's like a guest yacht like I think it's so that I mean he knows the biggest yacht in the world and there's a yacht that will sail behind it I was it this maybe uh I don't mean maybe we'll become so successful someday that I will regret my words on this but I got to imagine having a yacht is actually not like additive to your life oh so this stuff I think that's more problems than yeah so I think it was Ralph Lauren uh sold his yacht and it's now a charter yacht because he was like this thing was more work than any of the businesses I've ever run one of the most interesting ideas I've heard and it comes from our mutual fund Jeremy who we I think we mentioned earlier in the podcast hopefully we did give him credit I actually had was talking to him and David Pearl and I'm pretty sure Jeremy said this not David but um he's like I would actually make the argument because everybody's like oh like uh what does Charlie talk about call the Berkshire jet the indefensible yeah and then wasn't there a second one at the indefensible to the indefensible before they bought net jets and now it's like we should be on net. So you look you look at um you look at like those like how could you possibly spend like you know these yachts cost $25,000 an hour to operate in fuel or some crazy number that planes are the same like you know how expensive they are and Jeremy makes the point and Jeremy knows because he's been buying businesses forever and he's exposed like great wealth uh people you know unbelievable amount of wealth he goes he makes the argument that they're actually underpriced assets and I was like oh tell me wow that's that's not what I would expect to hear yeah so I'm going to tell you this book that just proved his point I actually got a text them to tell us um so he's like they they use it not for it's if you know like yawning sitting there sunbathing right he's like they're using it for like customers and invests in potential and so I had heard this I'll tell you about how this relates to invisible billionaire so I had heard this because again I've never raised money I don't pay attention to the venture industry I don't know anything about it I just have a bunch of founder friends and founders tell founders everything and so I'll have these discussions where they're like They describe the courting process that they get from some of these well-known super famous people and it's like, "Well, the process you just described to me sounds like an old rich dude that wants to sleep with a young woman." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - What would you do, right? - What I actually put in the episode, but there's a bunch of this in Nintendo history, because Warner Brothers just bought Atari, and so Warner Brothers was running Atari as Nintendo was kind of like. - And this is how they courted. - And Nolan, that's how they courted. - Yeah, so that's how Warner Brothers courted Atari and Nolan, and then how they tried to court Nintendo was the private jets. - There was Clint Eastwood. - They put Clint Eastwood on the private jet with a total of five coast to coast. - So was it taken by the company? - History doesn't repeat human nature doesn't it? These founder dudes are running technology companies now, and they're like, "Yeah, oh yeah, I'm not gonna name who." They're like, "Oh yeah, he picked us up in Manhattan in his private helicopter, and we landed at his Hampton State." Do you think he got the deal? He got the deal. - Yeah, yeah. - This guy said, "Hey, what are you doing? It's Friday night. What are you doing Saturday morning? Okay, come on my private jet and we're gonna take you to California with me." - Yeah. - "Hey, you want to stay with your girlfriend at this mansion that I'm not using in XYZ?" - So Jeremy's explaining this. - It's like the equivalent of like a luxury suite at a sports arena, like it's for getting deals done. - So, but they're operating at a different level where it's like, "Oh, these influence." - And some founders, the smart ones, don't let Sam Walton, you know, he's like, "Don't give us, don't give me a freaking gift." - Right, just understand it. - That's what, like, the whole, everything in Bentonville is like, "You can't like come in here and like-- - 'Cause they know it works." - Yeah. - If you give a Walmart salesperson, like a bottle of gin or something, it's going to influence him where he's just like, "I want your price." You guys did a great job on your episode. It's like, "Tell me your lowest price, and then I'm gonna go to your-- it better be your low price." - Because I'm going to this guy, "If you tell me a dollar, he sells me 98 cents. Don't waste my time. I'm going-- you're not gonna hear from me again." - I have an obligation to the customer to do this, to find the lowest price for them. - Yeah. - Because everything, his entire thing, the low cost structure thing. That's a Walton thing, that's a sole price thing, that's a Jeff Bezos thing, that's a Farakah filler thing. That's the most common theme in the history of entrepreneurship. Every single thing, Jeff is like, "We're gonna have a low cost structure, we're gonna have a low cost structure, we're gonna be efficient, we're gonna be efficient." Somewhere along the line, 25 years later, now the technology startup is like, "We can just spread money all the time, because there's no interest." There's just money coming back, you know? - He built Amazon in a pretty different time than founders today. The business laws of physics were different, with their were interest rates, versus when there weren't. - Well, he started when there were none. - That's true, and then the environment changed, as he was building it. - Yeah, but like, you know, that while it would have been stupid for Amazon to spend $100 million on something, on like crazy marketing activities in 1997, like you could imagine that in 2018, if all of your competitors had raised a billion dollars and were, you know, trying to chase market charists fast as possible, you either have to exit that market, because you're gonna lose, or play that game on the field. - Even better find a different way, like be more resourceful. But like, be more resourceful, it's easy to say, but like, when all your competitors are hiring all the best engineers by throwing a million dollars a year at them, like, you're just not gonna be able to build a good product, if you don't try to play that game also. - Yeah, for sure, but like, the whole thing, like when Peter Tiel says this in his blog, Paul Graham says it, it's just like, sort of, don't have the advantage, right? You're not gonna outspend Microsoft or Netflix on it, so you gotta find underdeveloped talent, right? You gotta find these people that if they work the credentialed, or if they were the well-known, then they're gonna go take, you're gonna work for me $80,000 in some stock options, or go make a million dollars a year at Netflix. Like, they're gonna, so that's the whole thing, it's like, you're not gonna win unless you're capable of finding underdeveloped talent. Silicon Valley used to be able to build a high-growth and profitable startups. - Well, the rule used to be you couldn't go public until you had over $100 million in revenue, and you were profitable. Like, if you didn't hit both tech both of those boxes, you weren't gonna IP out. - And in 2021, of all the companies that went public, it had to be single-digit percentage that were profitable with them. - Right, you know what I mean? I don't know. - It's crazy. The game just changes. - Well, to your point, if you have free money, you know, the money supply, grass like a span, it's raining down, that's going to build. - Did you listen to Doug Leone on, I knew you guys had him on your show, but did you hear him on "Investig the Best"? - Yeah, he was great. - Like, he said, he's like, this is, he was telling crazy stories. I loved everything about that guy. I loved him when I heard him on your podcast, too. There's like that tough love, this is what I'm into, right? - He still has, I think maybe my favorite quote of all, favorite quote said live on an acquired podcast of, you could burn cigarettes in our arms if you wouldn't flinch. And then he has a great line. He's like, I want you to know we were killers. - We were killers. - We weren't killers to make the most money. We were killers to get the job done. But he made the point, and you know, very few people probably know more about the venture industry and that guy, right? I want to, I want to, I would imagine he's up there. And he's like, of course, like, you're money raining down, he didn't use that words. He's like, it's just crazy bad habits. - Yeah. - It is crazy how many things in my life I falsely attributed to something that were not just interest rates. Like, so many things, the answer is just like, oh, it is that way because we live in a zero interest rate environment. And I, the human brain likes to tell stories. And at the end of the day, it's like, things are the way they are because of mean reversion and what the current interest rate climate is. - I wish, I'm going to pull up something like, this is what I mean, goes back to Buffett. Like, if you just, we should have, I wish I knew this, I had read this, I didn't remember it though. This is Warren Buffett on interest rates, right? He says- - Oh, is this from Loss of Gravity? - The log in Snowball? - No, this is from his, uh, uh, uh, shareholder letters. - Oh, okay. - And he said in '84, '88s. - Because I think the intro to Snowball, I think the scene that opened up in yet, that opens it, is Sun Valley, right before the bubble, the tech bubble burst. - Oh, no, this is like, decade and a half before. - Oh, okay, okay, okay. - This is why it's like, so it's like, God, like, you could have made, you such better decisions, I could have made such better decisions if you had just known this, and he had known it for 40 years before it happened. I posted this on Twitter, and I opened up the next day, I'm like, "Why does this have two and a half million views?" It's like, Elon, reply to goes, "Yep." I was like, "Oh, okay." I was like, "What the fuck?" Like, what the, like, damn, you people really like interest rates. - I read it, I read it. - Sun steroids. So, I go, Warren Buffett on interest rates, and the headline is, they power everything in the economic universe. So, that was what Elon was responding up to. And this is Warren, writing in the '80s. The value of every, exactly what you're saying. The value of every business, the value of a farm, an apartment house, or any other economic asset, is 100% sensitive to interest rates. That's because all you're doing when you're investing is transferring money to someone now in exchange for a stream of money, which you expect to come back in the future. And the higher the interest rates are, the less that present value will be interest, this is fantastic. Interest rates are two asset prices, sort of like gravity is to an apple. - Yeah. - When interest rates are low, there is little gravitational pull on asset prices. We just lived through this, right? - Total. - When interest, when interest book. - Yeah, when interest rates are low, there is little gravitational pull on asset prices. Interest rates power everything in the economic universe. Because, I found that because, all this, remember, this flation went crazy, like the year or two ago, whatever. And I was like, "Okay, everything that happens, all I do is, you can buy the Kindle version of Buffett shareholder letters for like two bucks." - I know, it's great. - And I search it for interest rates, inflation, and I just go and I read, "Okay, this is what you need a billion dollars off that two dollar purchase." There you go. And so, like you'll say, "Okay, this is what you said inflation, and then you see what year you said it." And that's where I found that. I go, "What do you say about interest rates?" Boom, 1980, whatever. And he just laid out. - It's so funny because what he also did right there is for every college finance sophomore that's having to go through a class to do DCFs. And they're like, "I don't understand this. This is complicated." Like he just explained conceptually a discounted cash flow model there in a way that was unbelievably digestible. He's so good at that. - The clarity of thought. - Because he wants the microphone. - But also, like he just educated you in a way that makes more sense and is interesting and you're entertained by and you might build a business off that, and then you might want to sell one day or whatever the case is. - This is like, this is where I'm spending a lot more time of like really trying to work on storytelling ability and condition, right? - Yeah. - The value is in the compression and the distillation, right? If you could listen to like an audio book for 25 hours, but if I can give you the best idea or one idea that changes your life and I could do it every week or whatever, like in a couple minutes, like that is going, that some of that value is going to be brought back to me. - And all that comes from is, what I realize is all my heroes have, like what they have in common is like the unbelievable clarity of thought. Like Steve Jobs, Charlie, like you're not going to be like, "Oh, what does that mean?" They take unbelievably complex things, like you're not advertising to a standing army or advertising to a moving parade, make it in a memorable way, and then you carry that maxim with you forever. How do you get better at that? You said you're working on it. - Reps. - Just straight up reps, like thinking about it. And then hearing yourself back, so the advantage I have of that edit is you can say something and like, "Oh, that was so good." And you hear it back. And sometimes it's even better or many times it's worse. - Yeah. - Oh, I lost it. I was, I know what I'm saying. - Yeah. - But you miss this part that doesn't make any sense. And so normally it's a cut. I don't think I've ever re, I don't think I've ever re-recorded. - Ooh. - We only did that for one episode ever. It's really hard to do. - What, re-record? - Yeah, do you know which episode we did it for? - No, it was recent. NFL, David and I got on and re-recorded 40 minutes of material over maybe 15 different parts of the episode. - The original recording of that episode was really. that the NFL episode was too long. It, when we started, it took way too long to get to the interesting part, the Pete Rosell era. And so we had this massively bloated beginning. And then we had a story arc that didn't cleanly resolve. And we had a bunch of concepts where we didn't nail the explanation. And so we went in, we cut like half of the first epoch of the story. We recorded new bits to like create nice rising action and resolution on the Rosell era. And then we recorded another like 10 areas where we were just like, this wasn't said super tight. And I'm really curious if people noticed because we had to like, we basically had a voice act. Like we had to listen to the way that we sort of came into that segment, get that in our heads. - This is your theater background we're coming in. - And then like pick it up from there. But yeah. - Your editing is so good. We've talked about like back catalog sponsorship and you told me what you're doing with like Zoom info. And I've been listening to your back catalog. And it's like, dude, so like it sounds like it was there the day you did it. It is perfect. And I know because we talk about this, that that ad was not there. But it sounds like it's there. - That's the goal. - The NFL episode is what I meant over like, it's a crazy story, but even there is like a lesson where like you guys, I text us to, like totally changed the way I think about things. Or maybe we were talking on Zoom about this. We're like, I never thought of that. The NFL is like the largest media company. - Yeah, yeah. - And the funny thing is, that's like, that was the David Rosenthal insight that like, the NFL is the single largest media property by value. And the funny thing is, if you go look at the, because we did this for the Nintendo episode, you go look at the largest media properties. They list Mario, they list Pokemon, and I think if you sort, the list includes like video games and movies. And so there's like the MCU in there and their Star Wars in there. But like they don't think, the NFL is way bigger than all of those, but it's not on the list 'cause people don't think of it as like a media property. - That's a little looking for stuff like that. Both to do episodes on Andesum for investing too, is like what is something that is just so like in the air that people don't even realize on what it is? - Or what's a comparison we can make that is super eye-opening, but people haven't thought to compare those two things before. - Yep. - Which is why I tie things in to past. 'Cause it's like, oh, the idea behind this is like, we've seen this before. - Yep, yeah, yeah. - I reread like the show notes on like the Johnny I episode I did. Johnny said something was great. And he said, he goes, one of Steve's talents was identifying markets full of second rate products. And so like, he would be like, oh, there's the opportunity here. And we're both, we're all podcasts addicts, right? And the reason that we get along is-- - And it's a market full of second rate products. - And because you know how hard it is to do. - Yeah. - And when you go and listen to other business podcasts, and like, I had a friend, his friend has a podcast. And he's like, hey, these three guys, they have large social media followings, but it does not translate to episodes. - Where? - People don't understand. - Yeah, really well. - And they're like, would you listen to their episode and give it feedback, right? And we went to, like, so I was like, yeah, let's do it. And I go, it's three guys sitting around talking in whatever happens to pop to their mind. What did you expect to happen? - Which is kind of what's happening here. - I was thinking the same thing. I was like, what we did to all listeners, we apologize. - No, no, no, no, no. - There's zero chance that people aren't, do people interested in entrepreneurship and investing are not finding this interesting? - Yeah. - Because the prep for this is not three guys that have a million other things to do. It's three guys that do this for the last eight years, doing this, yeah. - Over and over again, that's gonna cop up naturally in a conversation that you can, but oh, I didn't know about this. Maybe there's a bunch of people probably like, I didn't know who everyone was. I didn't know what would be. I never thought about the NFL as a, do the large media comments, like, so, no. But their problem thing is like, there's no value proposition. - This is actually something that I think ties into much of what we've talked about over the last couple of hours. People are gonna do what they want to do. And if people can do what they wanna do and are given unfettered freedom to run it, they can do great things. If people are forced to do things that they don't wanna do, they're not gonna make great things. Or either forced to or choose, put themselves in a situation for whatever reason, whether they're doing something, they don't want to be doing. They're not gonna be very good at it. - I think that's one of the reasons why we find ourselves so attracted to episodes that highlight craft is 'cause that's sort of like how we think about acquired. Like if LVMH, Benchmark, it's like, people who do few things but do them exceptionally well are just so entrancing to study. - I think this goes back to what you were just saying, like, and I wanna go to the craft thing. It's like Charlie again has these simple ideas. Like most of the problems are that you're just not intensely interested in what you're working on. And he's like, I don't care how smart you are. And Charlie's smarter, no matter what he goes, I was not successful until I moved myself into a position where I worked on something that was intentionally interested in. That's just these like small rules carry most of the weight. It's like, how bad do you actually want it? And if you're not willing to do those things, then there's nothing wrong with that. Like, entrepreneurship is for a very small percentage. I'm not one of these people who think everybody can be an entrepreneur. I would like to see more of them, but there's no safety net. It's like, no one's telling you what to do. No one had to tell you guys, "Hey, you should buy microphones and do a bunch of research." - People who didn't buy microphones to start. - All right, I think the most interesting thing is that like, I think we talked about this concept before on here is that if someone's gonna advise you on starting a podcast, they would say, do a 30 to 40 minute episode and like, do it weekly. And you release it at the same time all the time. Have a guess, so that way that person promotes it too. And we're like, okay, well, we do the opposite of all of those things. And I think it's like, the conclusion I've come to is, advice is an average. And reality is a distribution. And average is suck because they hide the distribution. You kind of want to know the shape of the distribution. And you kind of want to know like, things that apply to your specific data point, not like the average thing. And I think like, advice is always an average that hides the distribution. And if you know that you're actually an outlier in some way, then you have to sort of like, selectively follow advice because it may not apply to you. - Charlie told me a fantastic story about this, where he's just like, he was singing the praises of BYD that they're kicking ass. Like, he told me, like, the, not just me, I mean, it's a group of people. They make batteries for cars. - And they make cars? - He started out like doing like knock off cell phones in career or something. And then like, he, I forgot the guy's founder's name and I apologize, but like, he was telling the life story. But he was saying that the founder, that Charlie and Lilloo, Lilloo gave the founder advice and he ignored it. And he was right. He's like, don't go in electric cars or whatever it was that he did. And he, you know, selling, I think he said it like, two billion cars, like, I forgot what two million cars meant. There's no way he sold two billion cars in a year. So, like, he's like sold two million cars in China. - Yeah, so it's just like, and he did it. And he gets all the credit because Lee and me told him not to do it. And he's just like, same to your point. - It's game tape. It's just like, when Kobe is watching this particular, particular play of Michael Jordan, that may never appear in his life. - Yeah. - And maybe the move he did wasn't the right move for what Kobe did, but maybe it influences his other thing. It's just like, the life is complex and messy. And like, you can think you're really smart and until you have a two and a half year old and they ask you, why is that the way? And you answer the question. And then their follow question is going to be why. And eventually you're going to get to a level where like, I don't know. - Yeah. - Like, I don't know why. - Everything ends and I don't know. - Yeah, it's like, I don't know. And so, like, of course there's no certainty. Like, that's why if you have to, if you crave certainty, you've got to get a job. But there wasn't even Facebook when I was in college because I had to work full time. I went a night, but my college did not have Facebook. It was just coming out. So we had MySpace. And my MySpace, you could put a quote right at the head. - That's right, yeah. - And I've always thought like this for my entire life was like, there's no security in life only opportunity. And I think that's what we do. So investors and entrepreneurs are going for opportunity at the expense of security. And if you need security, you can get a job. But we see like, everybody's like going to tech, going to tech, going to tech. - Oh man. - Look at all this money. - I think this is a super misprice thing. I think people who crave security, which I get, like all humans crave some level security, misprice security because no jobs are as secure as we think they are, but they definitely cap your upside. And people, it's like, is founding a company or going into business for yourself as an entrepreneur, extremely risky? Yes it is. But is it actually that much riskier than a job where you could get laid off where the sector could go through a downfall or like, there are a lot of things about having a job they're not nearly as secure as people think they are. Steve was the heck in jobs. They're like, worst case scenario. This isn't work. Was it go get jobs? We broke anyways. - Right. - Let's just try and he like sells his van for like 50, Steve sells his van for like $1500. He's like, oh, I'm just all in on Apple. Like, that's, to me that's like, again, I think a lot of this is like, people are asked it's like, it's entrepreneurship, like a Nate, it can be taught. Can there be a school of entrepreneurship? And I was like, well, as Charlie Munger, if he taught a business class, what did he say? He's like, I would just teach the history of, what do you guys do? He's like, I teach the history of a hundred companies. And I would talk about what went right and what went wrong. - Yeah. - There's no security. He's not saying, yeah, take my class and on the other end, you get this degree that guarantees business success. That doesn't exist. - Well, that's what's quite like, they have been teaching entrepreneurship for the last 50 years. So I was an entrepreneur, so I went to New York. which is this like diploma mill essentially. And they was in the pilot entrepreneurship program, right? The very first year. And it's a two year program. - Take us back to that. - Yeah. Were you thinking about, what was your relationship to entrepreneurship before starting the Founders Podcast? - So like I have never been on a job interview. I've only had two jobs in my life. But I was like, there was no entrepreneurship, there was no entrepreneurship like community, there was no entrepreneurship industry, right? So like my first business was, this is a long story but like I had been accustomed to, I was talking about the Chiche. By the time I was 17, I had been accustomed to working full time and going to school, right? So like people were like, oh, you work a lot on Founders. It's like, I don't have to go to school. I've been like, do this all the time. - You're looking halftime as part of this. - Yeah, it's like, there's a long story here, like that would take me like 30 minutes, but like my dad sat me down and I was like 15. He's like, listen, you don't have to pay rent, but like, I don't have any money for you. So like, if you want something, you gotta go get it, right? And the good thing about my dad, he's a Cuban immigrant, not educated, but like, the best piece of advice that he ever gave me and my brother was a maximum. He's like, don't half-ass things, right? So he does it in like a blue collar, he's a truck driver or like, you know, that kind of thing where he's like, he prized himself on the fact that like, like he'll work 72 hours straight, right? But he never made a lot of money and never had an education, like his mom wasn't good, whatever, and they had escaped Castro's Cuba. My dad was born in Cuba. - Wow. - So it's like, imagine like, I talked about this on, 'cause you know Patrick's at the end of, invest like every investment in the best episode, he says-- - Yeah, the best episode. - Yeah, he's like, he's like, what's the nicest thing everybody ever did to you, or for you, did to you. For you. And I was like, man, like, something that it was a decision that happened way before I was born. And like, my grandfather is in Cuba in 1959. And he, again, not an educated man. He worked as a butcher and worked in a factory that made shoes. He's married, and he's got a baby. That baby is my dad. And Castro comes to power. And he doesn't have a lot of money, doesn't speak English. And yet he had some kind of insight that I need to get out of here, right? And he goes to a country, picks up, loses everything. Not that you had a lot anyways. Goes to a country, knows nobody, doesn't speak the language. When I sat down, the first thing me in Sam Zell talked about, and I think helped bond us. That's the point where at the end he said he liked my energy and everything, but so hopefully he liked me. I don't know, was in his story, I was like, 'cause I had obviously read his autobiography. And one of the first things me and Sam talked about was, Sam, I understand and empathize with their story because Sam's story is his dad being Jewish, getting the last train out of Poland before the Nazis bomb it. Literally the last train out. 18 members of his family, his dad went around to saying we gotta get out of here, this is not good. So I'm like, no, we're gonna stay, they're all dead. Sam, Sam's dad and his mom have a daughter, they get to America, his mom's pregnant. Sam is born in America. And so in that book, Sam's dad's always telling him, you don't understand how lucky you are to be born here. And I was like, I understand that mentality because I grew up meeting, Cubans had this thing called Notcherwenna, which is, they don't celebrate, my wife's gonna wanna meet, so they'd say, I married into a Colombian family, they did this too. They don't celebrate Christmas on Christmas day, they do it the night before, it's a Christmas Eve. And so I grew up, for as long as I can remember, I was like, eight, seven, 10, 10 years old, meeting people that came over on rafts. And you would see these things, I've seen these in person. All right, it's just like the rafts. Think about how great, how bad it has to be. - It's like 50 miles, right? - 90 miles, right? I'm gonna go over to the study of the University of Miami, just sit on this. 90 miles, you're, you're a parent. Hopefully you might be a parent one day. Like, you love your kids way more than you love yourself. There's people that came, hundreds of thousands of people went to the edge of the island and put their kids on a raft. Just hopes that they get to America. And so the problem is, is like, you don't make the announcement to everybody's like, hey, tomorrow we're leaving on a raft, could you get caught? - Right, right, right. - Prisoner killed or whatever case is. And so the University of Miami did this study, was like, well, how many people did this? We know hundreds of thousands survived. - Right. - And they estimate that at least I think it's something like half a million people perished, never got there. There's a conversation with, there's this UFC fighter named Jorge Mosvidal, who was in Miami's Cuban guy. And his dad was one of the ones that escaped. He went on a, their raft was made out of like a truck tire. Like, you know, like, think of like a, size of like a bulldozer tire, right? - Wow. - It's his uncle and two 14 year old boys. They get off path, right? They run out, their water wind up being like contaminated. So you can't drink, you'll die. - How do they propel it anyway? - Like, how do you make sure it gets to Florida? - You have like, they, some have ores and some have like, like, you see that blanket over there? Like, you try to make a, a sail. A sail out of like a blanket or something, you know. There are, some of these are unbelievably in, in like the, the level of ingenuity is like. - Yeah. - For uneducated, they don't have the internet. Like, they don't, it's an unbelievable. And so they're, in his case, they, I know they had ores. I think they had a, a sail. They get close enough to the Bahamas. They're, they haven't drink water for like three or four days. Some, a pigeon lands on the ore. They wind up killing the pigeon, opening it apart and drinking the blood. That's the only thing that's saved. And so now he's, so he gets to America. And she gets to go from the Bahamas to America. Now his son is like, you know, makes millions of millions of dollars. - Wow. - Like as a professional fighter and a celebrity and, and, and all this other stuff. So anyways, long story short, the one thing like I, my dad's still alive. I told you my mom passed away. But like, I really think like my dad or just, like he did not baby me at all. He's just like, you gotta like, figure out how to go to the job. - Yeah. - And so I worked at, back then, this is something that Paul Graham made the point of, right? He's like, dude, when I was a kid, the only job was available. He's like, he had a scoop ice cream or something. And like, you probably met them. I met some 17 year old founders and a bunch of founders. You talked to them, they're on their second company. I'm like, what? They're like, oh yeah, when I was like ninth grade, I like, did this like Gmail plug in or like. - Right, yeah. - And it's like, I made this staff tool. - Yeah, I made $40,000 a month. And like, my, my music is so much money. My parents let me drop out of high school so I can do this business. And I'm like, I worked at a car wash, dude. I made $4.65 an hour, you know? So anyways, long story short, I would go to school year round, right? 'Cause I had figured this out where it's like, oh, most people in summer school, they were forced to, I went to public school and all that, right? And so like, people would go to public school, they would be forced to because you failed something else. But if you elected to do that in six weeks, you get a full semester's credit. And there's two, six week. - Yeah. Many professors. - So I always, even when I was in college, I did this. I would go to school year round, right? And so in high school, I went to school so much that by the time I got to my last year as a high school, I was in this program called OJT, which is on the job training. So instead of having six periods, you leave after the fourth period and you'd have to have a job and you'd get to your other credits. Dude, your employer would have to like fill out paperwork. Like his David, you know, cleaning cars. And like, oh, there's a baby that came in and threw up. He did a good job with that, I was disgusting. But the benefit of that was being able to work full time, full time, make enough money where I could like buy, I bought like a new car with my own money, like all that and other stuff. And so like, then I realized, like, oh, like I think I was making like 400 or $500 a week in high school, which is freaking really good. This is like late 90s, early 2000s. And then I was, got promoted to being a detailer. That's like, you have client list. And then you started to film relationships. And it's like every other business. Like, right. And they're like, hey, I love what you do. Would you do this at my house? Or would you do it on my boat that you don't do? Or like whatever. And so my first business was just detailing cars and boats and taking out other stuff where I was like, okay. I spent an hour waxing this guy's car. I might make 20 bucks. I do it at his house. I make $150. And so like, I've always just had that like, and again, there's not like, this is a story. You guys read in the books and the stories. It's like, there's no master plan here. It's like, hey, I need to make money. - See opportunity. - All of my other friends were working at McDonald's Chick-fil-A, where you just said something like they capped. - Yep. - I never had a capped upside. - Right. - And then so I did all these other businesses I started in college, 'cause I thought it was gonna be a lawyer. And this is so silly. 'Cause everyone, while my friends are lawyers, hate it. I thought I should build it there, right? - Well, this is, that's the dream. Like the immigrant dream is for like, the kids to become lawyers and doctors. - No, not with my parents. So my parents never said the word college to me once. Not one time, 'cause they're both high school dropouts. So like, they never, like I was one of the only kids in high school and they never have a curfew. Like my parents knew I was independent and left me. They gave, that's the best thing they get. It's like, oh yeah, you can take care of yourself. They thought, my mom told me, she's like, I just thought you were a lot smarter than everybody else in our family. So that like, we trusted you, right decision. - Well, I was also driven too, but she, 'cause you have to accept that, like being smart in this family is not like being, like the bar is low in the sense that like, they're both coming from multiple generations of people that did not prioritize education or self-improvement. So that's why I'm so like ferocious in this, because I didn't see that, you know? - And so, this demonstrated when my mom was dying of cancer. So like, you know, HIPPO has this thing where like they're not gonna share paperwork or information unless like it gets permission from the person and like My mom could choose whoever she wanted to she could have chose her husband, right? They had a bad relationship. They should have got they got divorced in a remarry. They should have stayed divorced, but whatever and She you see that with actions. We said actions express priority. She's like we're in there and she's like who do you want the paperwork or who do you want us to communicate? She's like David not her other kids not her husband not her sister not and she trusted me implicitly And so I Essentially like they never met your college. So I just kept us routine. I was like people are like oh So like what do you want to do for a living and like I'm watching TV when I was younger? I was like well, I want to be rich and you think when you're younger You know anything like who's rich on TV like I like to fresh friends of Bella I was like I can't see blood like that freaks me out. So that will be an attorney. Okay, so I went to school And I worked full-time and I was trying to do hustle anything I could do And so the idea was like okay, I'm just gonna go undergrad for business because I'm interested in business anyways And but I'm only doing that till I get to I go to law school, right and This point of the story was not to go on this deviation But I was in the entrepreneurship program the pilot one right because I was already interested in trying to make money in any way possible and This is how bad the entrepreneurship was and this is why I'm kind of jealous of these young kids Where now you actually have an entrepreneurship industry and there's stuff you could learn from The head the main the what is it called like the main subject entrepreneurship 101 right the curriculum Yeah, but there's all these other classes, but entrepreneurship 101 is run the teacher, right? What is her credentials her dad started a An AC company in Florida. You're gonna make a lot of money. Yeah, that's a good one and he died on the job because he got a electrocuted death Okay, and she inherited the company and then she ran it and so she's the teacher and so like the curriculum It's terrible. It's terrible the best thing and this relates to what all we do for living now Which I couldn't ever predict it is there was a guy that This is kind of like Charlie monger says you should read if you want to learn about incentives and a really difficult business Read less swaps autobiography, which I did because Charlie told you did it like episode long time ago And he's like this guy made a ton of money in a really hard business, which is like tires and like all changes and stuff like that And so the guy was coming into the class. He was gonna donate like three or five million dollars to have a building name after him And he had one career. I could say because I want to talk to your entrepreneurship students before I give you this money and I learned more in one hour from that dude than I did in two years on entrepreneurship because he would talk for like 20 minutes And then he's like open up for questions. Yeah, and I lit him up with question after question after question And I remember to this day just like the simple way this is like, you know, he was building his business in the prior that 80s and 90s and he's like How did you know where to expand and he's like we would pull the car registration data from the DMVs, right? And we would know how many Car owners there were in this specific radius and it would have to hit like let's say we need 40,000 car owners in Three mile radius. There's other any other stores put a store right there and they did that over and over and over and over and over again Yeah, and so like he had ideas like that and just like Again, you learn through experience like that guy could teach us way more because he actually did this compared to I Think probably all three of us have a like unintended impact of college entrepreneurship programs on us I mean, you I have a minor in entrepreneurship. Yeah, really? Yeah from Ohio State similarly only ever went to public school Yeah, I Was a little different like I I was really into computers like and I when I was 10 my dad and I found a PC on the side of the road and he was like do you want to install it X and I was like what's Linux and like Terminal like I was really lucky dad is an engineer and and so I went to college for computer science, but you'll wait for me back up You found a PC on the side of the road I'm willing to bet that thing is just old. Yeah, he's like because we're looking at the you know, you like that at that point You could open computers, so we're like looking at it and he kind of like Pooks it apart looks and size like scallop pieces like this is just an old computer and throwing away That's amazing. I keep going so you major in computer science. Yeah, but I like went in thinking like I want to have some kind of like I want to do business and tech, but I know what that meant and so I found my way to a Club called the business builders club and they were like oh, there's like a real like an actual minor that you can take and so sort of like through Student organizations found my way to actually doing something in the college of business, which like I go back and forth on whether Undergraduate business stuff is useful because on the one hand, but he got complained that you're not working all your buddies You guys have all done amazing. We just came back to my bachelor party and half the crew is the business builders club Ohio State friends that I made there the content sucks, but yeah, but the relationship is everything but the relationship That's what you know, and it's not the stuff you're learning is actually super important But you don't have the context for why yet. It's like you're working on a DCF model and you're like I don't this is useless to me Or you're like learning about depreciation and emeritization. You're like This is awful because I have nothing whereas my face is classes were awesome like there's labs like I can touch and feel the things and understand Mechanical advantage and how the free-body diagram works, but in these business concepts are like super abstract and it's I they weren't useful to me then But like I went and took a Coursera class last year or two years ago on accounting because I was just like okay Like I want to actually understand accounting In part because we talk about it on acquired all the time and data understands the stuff more than I do and I keep it but like It's so much more useful when you understand Where the robber meets the road in the real world. It like it would just be beneficial just like go out and try to sell something Like yeah, like in like get real-world experience like what what did Charlie? I just read you guys read the towel of Charlie Munger? No, I've heard it's good. I can't really look at it for the episode or not. I might have I own the hardcover the Kindle and the audiobook That should tell you like it's worth it By the way, I own the audiobook and the Kindle of almost every book that I own. Yeah, I Including the hardcover too. No Because you can also switch yep, that's the whisper sink or whatever And all the time I actually hate that they sink and they because it like my common workflow and doing acquired research is I listen to the book and Then I'll take some notes and apple notes of like like half quotes where I'm like I got to look this up later And then I go back in the Kindle and I search for the actual quote and like pull out the data to be able to use it in the episodes I think listening to the audiobook before reading the book is very helpful if I give you a basic overview It's almost like me in a Wikipedia page before you read the biography It's not enough detail, but like you have okay, yes I'm like watching a movie for the second or third time you know how it ends and it gives you pick up on things You miss the first time yep in the tale of Charlie Munger though Charlie was talking about this where he's just like I learned about business at the Buffett Grocery store right from the cash register It's like because that money is the lifeblood of all I think the quote in the book is like money is a lifeblood of all businesses And that's where the cash that's where the money was at this point. Yeah, and it's like you just learn and he says like you learn the Imports of like showing up on time how to work with people you don't like like how to service it like take care of your customers Like these are things that are all like universally applicable yeah that there is another form of education like that's the Biggest the key of experience and why it's so important. It's the most valuable Form of education because it's education of life. Yeah, yeah, like I love to read like more than almost anybody else Like you guys obviously love to read There's there's just so much things you can't learn from books. So this is like it's not enough David What was your college entrepreneurship? Well, it's funny. It's more thematic than an actual impact, but I can remember I've talked about this before Princeton had and then just one entrepreneurship class It was like one class in the Department of Electrical Engineering. I was not an electrical engineer But people knew about this because like oh, this is cool, and I so senior year I had already The recruiting happened in the fall so I was already like had my job investment banking job That was gonna go do yep A whole other kid of worms, but I was like, oh, you know, I'll take this class. It's supposed to be good I'm gonna go work on Wall Street. I should learn about high-tech entrepreneurship. It wasn't the name of the class and It was like all you know guest lecture. It was it was case-bass case method and Ed shall the professor would have guests come in One of the guests I thought I had the last or like the second the last class was Tim Ferris Before he published the four-hour work He gave he asked Buffett a question He totally hustled this he like traded on that name for like years before he made it as Tim Ferris because he just went in for one class It was one class. Yeah It was one one day of one course and that was like this case study class and I think he had taken the class when he was Princeton and and the professor like liked him and kind of so you and I are then our guest lecturers at Columbia Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we're the yeah So he came in and and so he was working on the book But it was like done but like was about to get published and so he came in and the whole like class was like Basically telling his story and then like she'll in the book. I remember in my notes like for the class I titled them. I haven't still somewhere on my on an own computer. The title was supplement guy Do what you love. Yeah, do oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, and then I'll be at afterwards Telling about missed opportunities He was older than me, but he's not that much older. He's not only been out for a couple years. So, class ends and he was like, "Hey guys, anybody want to hang out?" Like, I'm gonna go hang at terrorists. Like, if you want to come, Princeton has eating clubs instead of, they do a fraternities, but like, one of them is terrorists, and Jenny was actually in terrorists. And, basically, I'm gonna go hang out and have a good time with anybody who wants to come along and I was like, "Yeah." (laughing) Now, I'll see on the podcast a second later. (laughing) I love how this just was uncovered in random conversation, right? It was just like computer science, investment banking, law. No, but like, no common denominator. No, and like, and look where I am. I use theater more than I use computer science. Like, that was what, yeah. Like, the idea of, like, from venture capitalists and podcasters, right? I went and my daughter asked me to go speak at career day. Oh, hell yeah. And, this is last year, so she would have been-- That's the greatest thing, yeah. She would have a fourth grade, right? I can't wait. And, so she's like, "Well, daddy, you have a weird job." Like, when you come in-- You come in a weird, too. Yeah, she's like, "Will you come in and give it talk?" And so, you mentioned her, like, entrepreneurs are like, odd ducks and crazy people. They don't, like, they see rules. I was like, "Oh, that's just words down on paper. Like, I'll just do my own thing." So, I show up. I'll see how, do anything for you, like, whatever you want. And so, I show up, and there's two, each class at the school she has has two teachers, right? And so, they're like, "Oh, well, we didn't-- "Hi, Mr. Center, we didn't get your email. "Did you bring like a thumb drive?" I'm like, "What was I supposed to email? "Why would I have a thumb drive?" And they're like, "You're a PowerPoint presentation." And I go-- Have you ever made a PowerPoint presentation in your life? And I go, "No, but they're nine. "Why would I make a PowerPoint presentation?" And so, I go there. And I was like, "I wasn't like, listen, "I'm fine, like, I got this." Like, they're like, "You're gonna wing it." They didn't use the word wing it, but I forgot what it was. So, you're like, "No, really? "I got this." I show up, right? And they're all like sitting on the floor. And it's like, 39-year-olds. Like, you're like, "Stand up." No, no, no, no, no, no, okay. And so, I want to see some energy. And I was like, "I talk for two minutes, right? "I have 30-minute slot." I go, "I talk for two minutes." I was like, "Listen, don't listen to your parents. "Don't listen to your teachers." I go, "Follow whatever you're intensely." I just came Charlie Mungers, my younger brother. What are you interested in? Keep following that. Even if it doesn't, there's not an obvious career path. It's, and I use the word, I go. It's highly likely that the job that you're gonna have has not yet been invented. I was like, "There was no such thing as a podcaster." Like, I couldn't go to school for podcasters. - Yeah, they're all gonna be prompting you. - Or would I, I think, go. Or whatever. And like, so that was like the two-minute summer. And I said a little bit more than that. I go, "Okay, now what questions do you have for me?" And so, I spent the next 28 minutes. I told them the importance of reading. I was like, "Listen, your friends are all gonna be "these stupid apps." I was like, "You're gonna have no attention span, "learn how to read and read whatever you're interested in." - You know what, your daughter's probably like, "Oh my god, I'm saying the funny thing." - So then 28 minutes. And then they're telling me about books they love. They're like, "Oh, I like Harry Potter." And I like this. And I like travel. And we had the greatest time, right? So, I come back, there was like nine in the morning, I leave, and my daughter gets out later on in the day. And she goes, "Gatti, thank you very much." And my friends thought your talk was the best. I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." That's, I'm glad they liked it. I go, "Well, let me ask you a question. "Who came after me?" And they're like, "Oh, is it John's mom or something?" And I was like, "Oh, what is John's mom do?" She's like, "Uh, I go, well, first of all, "is she to a PowerPoint?" She goes, "Yes, everybody to a PowerPoint." And I go, "What is John's mom do?" She goes, "Oh, she's a corporate attorney." I'm like, "Yeah." - So you, like, they're nine years old. - And you know, "Also, that's like the alternate future for you." Like it was like, "You would have had a PowerPoint." - It was like, "Bizarro, David, going after you." - It would be interesting, like, what you would, yeah, but then again, I was living in Florida and like, the law there is not a lot, like you'd have to move to like DC. Like, the law there is like insurance. Like, so I'm at the San Francisco Airport, right? Which is way nicer than Miami International Airport, by the way. - I've never been to Miami International Airport. - Oh, it's like, third world, man. - It's real, like the scenelings are low. They have the new, they built like this new part, but SFO was way nicer than mine. And I see this billboard of, it says, "The worlds are the America's largest personal injury attorney." That guy was in Orlando. I was going to school in Orlando at the time. His name is John Morgan. He was famous back then. And now he has. So like that, I would probably work for him. Like I'm like chasing ambulances or whatever. - No, no, no, no, no, no respect, like whatever you gotta do, to pay your bills, like I have no problem with that. But yeah, I just thought it was funny. I was like, you also have to think independently, like they're nine years old. Like they don't want to sit through. I don't even want to sit to a PowerPoint. - It's certainly nobody wants to sit through a PowerPoint. - No, you should try to, like I would have just brought a video game console or something. I was like, that's my video case. You know? - Maybe it's a Bible career. - That's a Bible career. - Blake and Mitch, Blake Robinson, Mitch Laskey, made the point in one of their gamecraft episodes. I never even thought of. They're like, you know how hard it is, how few peer software companies are that do over, they sell over a billion dollars a year in software. And how many game companies, they said on the podcast, like there's so many video game companies that make so much money. - Yeah. - I think I say this bigger than, the video game is even bigger than music, movies, and books combined, or whatever. - Has been since the '90s. - Yeah, that's the, that was the interesting thing we uncovered on the Nintendo episode. Because that stat gets bantied around, bantered, bantied around a lot right now, which is, it's very interesting, because like the video game market has done this. But the video game market has basically always been larger than TV and movies combined, but has never gotten attention, or like been thought of. - It's one of the secrets that's been out there for 30 years that people have paid attention to. - Yeah. All right. I'm afraid of these memory cards filling up. This has been wonderful. - Yep. Thanks for having me, guys. - Listeners. - Thank you. - We almost never say this, but I think we got to do this again. - Let's do it again. I'll be here next week. No. - Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time. - All right. Bye. - All right. Listeners. Now is a great time to talk about one of our favorite companies, Statsig. - Yes. There is a reason why the best product teams rely on Statsig, whether they are iterating on their core product features or shipping AI-powered experiences at scale. Yep. In the crazy speed of today's AI world, shipping fast is just table stakes now. It's basically trivial to build and deploy your app constantly. The real advantage is how quickly you learn what changes actually created value for customers and how fast you can use that signal to guide what you shipped next. - This is where Statsig comes in. It brings experimentation, feature flags, and product analytics into one unified system so teams can ship safely, test rigorously, and directly link what they changed to how users actually behaved. - So, if you want to make learning your competitive advantage, whether you're building new AI experiences or just evolving your existing core product, go to Statsig.com/acquired to get started. - Well, listeners, thank you for going on the journey with us with David. We would love your feedback on the session's format as we sort of continue to refine it. It's obviously very different than our LVMH Nintendo style episodes and getting your thoughts on how we can continue to improve it would be hugely helpful. Also, go check out the Founders podcast, search Founders in any podcast player. Also, if you want to go deeper, you can become an acquired LP to come closer into the acquired kitchen. We have bi-monthly Zoom calls and we just announced that we will be asking our LPs to help us pick future episodes so you can join at acquired.fm/lp. You should subscribe to our second show, ACQ2, formerly the LP show, for expert interviews with Founders and Investors, just search ACQ2 all one word in any podcast player. Also, join us in the Slack, discuss this episode, and all the others. There's now over 15,000 smart, thoughtful kind members at acquired.fm/slack. It's pretty cool. I think David that represents only like 5-10% of those of you out there who listen every month. It's funny, I literally texted Ben yesterday and I was listening to the Nintendo episode that we just released and I was like, the way we talk about the acquired Slack, it kind of makes it sound like only 15,000 people listen to acquired. No, that is 5% of the people that listen to acquired. Yeah. All the rest of you come join us in the Slack acquired.fm/slack. I don't know. It's just a great way for us to get a better pulse on. All of you who you are and what you like or don't like or want us to improve about the show. So that's all we got listeners. Thank you so much. [BLANK_AUDIO]