From Coder to Cartel Boss - The Jeff Bezos of Organized Crime

Alright, let's do some topics. What do you got? I got I got a couple. Let's pick one of yours. Let let's do the Satoshi and the Paul LeBreux thing because they're both really interesting. Um Do you know let's do let's do which one do you want to do first? Pa I don't know who Paul Larue is. You don't know who Paul Larue is? Okay.

Fucking great name though. Dude, listen to this. How much more would I be worth if I was Sean LaRue? He's also African. He's from uh South Africa, I think. Uh so Ben, you you're nodding a little bit like you know who this is, is that true? Uh yeah, I know Paularoo is. He's kinda like um

Uh, who's the guy we were talking about that you knew Ross. He's kinda like If if Ross had been As crazy as everyone thought, but actually like ten times crazier, that's Paul Larue. Paul Who Yeah, yeah.

I don't know. Paul Rue, he's this big old fat, disgusting guy. He's like like Imagine top of the hut. Yeah, imagine like have you seen South Park where they're like playing video games and there's that fat guy on the computer who's like eating Cheetos and like He kinda looks like that. He's just a total slob. But he's this computer whiz. Yeah, Google him. He's like disgusting.

And It that kind of fits the personality of of of the whole story. And there's this great book uh that I'm reading uh it's called Mastermind. It's about him. And basically this guy always like kinda wanted to take over the world. And in around like two thousand two, two thousand three, two thousand four, he started this company called RX Limited, which basically sold Viagra And a couple other like schedule two drugs. So like no like Um

He was able to sell some opioids, but not like the famous ones, things that are considered schedule two, which is just one below b between schedule one. And he created this company called R X Limited, and in like three or four years, it neded him hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. And the do you remember years ago when you would get an email And it said, like, hey, we sell prescriptions. Click here. Like do you remember that? Like years and years ago when you're in high school and grade school?

Not really, but come on. Let's uh say let me say yes. Go ahead. Well basic and then like maybe you remember like going to like these websites where it like just showed tons of drugs and like you'd get text that says like buy drugs online. Well, basically he created this website, R X Limited, and then eventually he started like creating so many domain names that he created his whole his own domain registration system. And then eventually his network got so big he created his own email system because he didn't want anyone to uh hack into his stuff. And at one point he had like two or three thousand employees. working at this place, mostly Filipinos, mostly working call centers and he had in Philippines and in Israel because he said the Israeli guys were the hardest working for the cheapest, you know, the cheap the the cheap rate.

And he uh It was it was wild and he and he had basically Hundreds of different stores selling drugs. And the way it worked is He would somehow convince a doctor that he was like doing everything by the book, and technically he kinda was doing everything by the book, but it sh really quickly warped into not.

But basically he had all these doctors in America in like Minnesota, Kentucky, Florida. like these relatively small doctors and like hey, we're a telemedicine service. Can you fill some of the prescriptions that we're doing? Um, it's all legal and We'll just send you the uh the prescriptions that we need and you just sign off. And we're gonna send it to a pharmacy. So we would send it to a pharmacy and these local mom and pop pharmacies would be like Oh, okay.

Doctor X Is um just f called in this prescription, I'm gonna ship it to the patient. No big deal. And so both the doctors and the patient uh doctors and the pharmacists, they all thought that they were mostly following the law. They're like, this is kinda weird that I'm now shipping out. I'm like a mom and pop pharmacist and I'm shipping out like two thousand orders a week. Like that's weird, but I have no reason to believe this is illegal. And

Eventually it did become highly illegal where like he uh it was just like You you didn't need it to see any doctor to get any of these prescriptions. And at one point he was selling like Eighty percent. of all online drugs in America. It was something large. Ben, am I missing anything? And throughout doing this, this is where things get even crazier. So like this story in itself is already interesting.

Literally, uh it made I believe four hundred million dollars in profit. in four years. One employee went to his apartment in Manila in the Philippines and he said that he saw a hundred million dollars in cash. In the house. And he this guy like didn't want the IRS to see anything, and so he would just transfer it into gold,'cause this was before before Bitcoin was really around. He lived in the Philippines? He was uh an African guy, so I believe he was born in like Cambodia and then moved to South Africa and then moved to the Philippines. Or maybe he was like Zimbabwe, uh something like that.

But this guy had this like grandiose thinking where he w thought that he like he's like I owe it to the world to run the world. Very grandiose thinking. And so he hires these ex Israeli guys. to run the call centers. Eventually he hires these ex Israeli army guys to be his bodyguards And in doing that, he starts learning a little bit about like arms dealing.

And so eventually he buys Thousands of acres of land in Zimbabwe and Somalia. And he was like I'm gonna raid an African nation and I'm gonna set up like a country and I'm gonna have my own I'm gonna be the leader of of of a small African nation and hopefully eventually

Uh Like some crazy shit. And it it expands to the point where he's now An arms dealer. So he's selling guns. to different parts of Africa. He gets in trouble for selling missiles to Iran.

Like this guy gets into some crazy stuff. He's killing people along the way. He makes relationships with Columbia drug lords and trades drugs. Uh Hills. for cocaine and he starts selling a hundred millions of dollars worth of cocaine. And he was doing all of it almost. Almost all of it behind a computer.

And eventually he gets caught. Now he's got he recently in like three or four years ago was sentenced to twenty five years in prison. Uh and that doesn't include what he's uh convicted for in The Philippines. So after he gets out, if he gets out he's gonna go straight to the Philippines. He's in the US, but because he's like basically a drug lord They won't say where he is. And so you can only online, you can barely find any pictures of him other than one picture of his mugshot. And that's the only pictures that you could the one where he looks like really big. That's his mugshot. That's the only picture that I've really seen of him recently.

And uh the guy w it it it's just this is it's one of the craziest books I've ever read. And What I I start talking to about Satoshi because They're like, Well, we don't I don't n I don't really there's not a ton of evidence to show that he uh invented Bitcoin, but he was talking about like creating a digital currency early on. When he was arrested, Satoshi quit blogging. And you can read a lot of this guy's emails, and that's really interesting. And that's kinda how I got to the other topic of Satoshi, where you can like read all of his old blog posts. But this guy, it's incredibly fascinating. He would have been an awesome business person had it not been for

You know, going the wrong route. But it's a crazy book. What was in the emails? You just see him commenting with people. So he was actually like a really good writer for a little while and he even uh this guy is so interesting. He wrote guest posts, I believe for the Washington Post under a pseudonym. Talking about like the future of money and like all these weird economic stuff. But he uh he was somewhat eloquent.

And But in person he was uh brutish. He was an asshole. He was disgusting. He would just they would go to McDonald's and he wouldn't even talk to his employees. He would kind of tell them to F off. He wasn't very pleasant to be around. And uh but in the emails he wrote pretty pretty nicely, actually. What are gonna say, Ben?

They found five hundred Pounds of cocaine on his yacht when it crashed. Which was worth like a hundred million dollars. And he also owned a logging business in Somalia. At one point he was like, I'm gonna create a business. That will fend off

So basically all the Western countries driving through Somalia, if they want the pirates not to talk to them, I'm gonna be the go between. And I'm gonna get money from them and I'm gonna pay the pirates off and take a little bit of profit. He owned uh he owned that business. He also was in the mining. This guy did like at one point the DA, the district attorney of I believe New York said, We think this is the most dangerous and powerful man in the world. And all of it was done on computer any He his his he was very early in all this, like he's very kinda in the same ballpark as a lot of the crypto guys and like

Some of his ideas, even though he was a criminal, were like Totally on point with the bitcoin stuff. So it's super fascinating. Yeah, there there's an article that says how the case for why he might be Satoshi. I haven't read it yet, but I d when you're talking, I just pulled it up. You say he did it all behind a computer, but I and my research on this is old. I I I was looking at the story like a year ago. Um but didn't uh d don't I remember a story about him like throwing someone off his yacht and having people shoot them in the water or something like that?

Yeah, but it i in that particular story he wasn't there. But he did kill uh a lot of people think that he did kill one so Throughout the Sean, he has hitmen. He had hitmen that are now arrested and they like kinda are spilling the beans. He had hitmen that would kill people. And there are a few occasions where they think he actually is the one who fired the bullet. So he and he did travel. So he would go to Africa. He would go here But he the guy had like three thousand employees and most of the employees had no idea who he was. And even there'd be times where he'd be managing um so basically he had two Israeli brothers

running this call center in Israel with like three hundred employees and they had never met Paul and Paul would talk to them via email, uh You know, as employees. And it's kinda like interesting'cause like anonymous work is something we've talked about, but that's pretty much how it was. So Some of his employees had no idea who he was. So in a sense, it wasn't all behind a computer, but a lot of it was behind a computer. This uh this article I pulled up about him, it says

Uh he's the Jeff Bezos of of organized crime. And it says he's the uh he's the digital El Chapo uh because he was moving so much weight. He was He was given up for adoption by his birth parents, that rejection haunted him, and then it says Um He was, you know, transformed himself into a programming genius who developed encryption software like E four M in the nineties. He found R X Limited, which was the black market for pharmaceuticals. He was ranking in two hundred fifty million dollars a year selling drugs, weapons, and murder for hire on the dark web. Yeah, well the I think that ac the dark web thing is actually confusing because a lot of the stuff that he was doing was before Tor was even around.

So a lot of the stuff he would do it wasn't even on the dark web and like This whole thing about spamming email, he was actually one of the originators of that. And so He uh somehow hacked into a farm uh a pharmaceutical company and stole something like hundreds of millions of email addresses. And he would spam these guys like crazy. And the reason why he bought all these domain names is a domain would get banned, then you would switch a domain so it was uh incredibly complex what he did.

And he Uh before he turned to the dark side, he founded a uh or he built like a small open source product That helped encrypt things. And uh it eventually turned into this thing called True Crypt, which I actually think that thing is big.

But uh so like the guy was pretty genius. He he was amazing. It says his first murder was he took his head of security, he said, Hey, come to my house in the Philippines And dig a hole. I'm gonna bury a safe filled with millions of dollars. And then the guy dug the hole and then he shot him with the machine gun right after that. That was the first his first taste of murder. And then there's another there's another story where they they took a guy out into the ocean and they go, Well, let's have a uh a talk on our yacht. And they throw the guy in the ocean and they drive away. So he gets he freaks out and then he comes back. And he shoots.

all next to the guy and and he goes, Oh no, no, just so you know, I didn't miss I'm just trying to keep the sharks away. Because I wanna talk to you and I need to know, are you stealing from me? And if you tell me quickly, I'll kill you now. If you don't tell me, I'm just gonna shoot you in your leg and I'm gonna drive off. And so like you the guy was h really hardcore. Yeah, he makes, you know, whatever, the wolf of Wall Street look like a a small puppy. Um this guy's insane. Okay, wow.

Never heard of this guy either. How'd you hear about him? How do you how'd you find out about it? So uh when I I tweeted out that I love like crime books and I I think I I had just finished uh I forget what I had just finished. But someone suggested This book called Mastermind. And it's by this journalist that worked at Wired magazine and I've been reading this book and it's

Friggin' crazy. And Even though this guy what he did was wrong. It does like actually inspire me to like live a more adventurous life. Well, I'm like reading this and I'm like why I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I'm like, why am I so fascinated by this? Like this is why I don't like watching a wolf on Wall Street. I'm like, why does this excite me so much? Like I I'm beginning to normalize this in my head and think this is okay. I can't watch this anymore.

But I do think that there is a thing where like I can I need to have a little bit more adventure. I y you know, you could use it for good, but you know, I read it and I'm like intoxicated by it. Do you get that way? Yeah, I think that's why people love movies about, you know, prison you know, prison breaks or they love it about bank bank heist and like why people play act you know, video games that have violence in them. It's like There's

Definitely like a part of us that you know this stuff appeals to. And like, you know, if you can get that outlet by just reading the book or watching the movie or playing a video game, like good,'cause you you know, you didn't tr it didn't translate in That that kind of deep rooted desire for like, you know, either adventure, thrill, power. Um, you know

Doesn't have to like Spill into your your normal life then. Yeah, and it it it like inspires me a little bit in the sense of like Man, living life on the edge is crazy. I don't want to go to prison, but You should just add that to your bio. You know top inspiration is Pablo Escobar, Paul Rue. And one of the reasons why it's interesting is The the the cool thing about criminals online is that you can read their correspondence.

So like they got they the when they arrested him he had his computer open. And so they were able to like see a bunch of stuff. And that I really love that this era about criminals. And uh how you can like see it happening. And that got me interested in these Satoshi posts. So basically If you go to like Uh, if you just Google like Satoshi, you know, the guys created Bitcoin, if you go to Satoshi blog post, you can act I was reading all of his blog posts.

And the What what what I found to be really fun is you go to his first blog post where he talks about introducing Bitcoin and you can go to the the forum is still up. And you I I w spent about an hour looking at all the people commenting on it and Googling all of them and seeing what they're doing and what they're up to. And you could see them like reply like Hey Satoshi, you know, this is actually a really good idea. I've been tinkering with this. I went ahead and purchased five hundred bitcoins just to try it out.

You know what I mean? It it's really fascinating. The first few comments I think weren't uh like I think if I remember correctly. The original comments like it's not like this thread blew up and people were instantly like Genius m you know, this is a breakthrough, this is a genius idea, right? Like that's not what uh No, it was like this is cute. Right. And so like like literally the first comment. So um so so you know there's

Yeah, Sap Halsberger says Great stuff. This is the first real innovation. So this yeah I recognize it for what it is. This is the first real innovation. uh in money since the Bank of England started to issue promissory notes for gold in the vaults, which became banknotes. I believe in open source currency has great potential, a bit like Google has become the default search engine for many of us. And then like then there's some people who are like, you know, I have questions about how it works, and then there's like Hal Finney who

I think Halfinny got the first transaction, like um Satoshi sent it to him and I think he had the most questions About it. Which is why some people think Halfinny was Satoshi Nakamoto. Um, and I think he was also the first one to like write out the like

the total addressable market for it. I remember reading that one time where he's like Well, if this got adopted, like, you know, each one of these coins is gonna be worth like over a million dollars, right? And he like broke down why, which is like You know It's hard to even discuss that now. Today that sounds weird. Imagine two thousand nine, you're on a forum and you know Somebody posts this thing about how they're creating, you know, the new world money.

And you're like, Well, you know. That means this little the random thing that I could go mine on my computer, you could just send me five thousand of these right now, like Yeah, that c each one of those can be worth a million dollars. And to me that was really impressive. The people who saw it for what it is, which is like a you know a true innovation, something that's great, something that could catch on. I'm pretty blown away by that.

Me too. I think it's amazing. When I read it, I I feel inspired. And I think that's why I got obsessed a little bit with Paul LaRue is like Just these people who just have the self belief and vision, even if it's like a horrible vision. And go out and like do it. It's in there in the depths of the internet. It's really interesting. And this and and I've been reading all of the uh Satoshi's forum post of just seeing these just like you can click and see these guys' profiles. Like they're wearing fedoras and like crocodile dude hats. Like they're the nerd the nerdy, the nerd, the guys who like I would dismiss and be like, Oh, what do you know like

Okay, nerd, like you you're smart, but like you're just outlandish. I can't believe anything. Uh that you're doing You read this and they're incredibly thoughtful and they like are taking it seriously right off the bat. And I admire that and uh it's a really, really fun thing to read. Yeah, I think it's on the you know who

I think it was like a forum at It was called the P to P Foundation or something like that was the The original forum that this was on. It was like a Ning forum or something like that. And so, you know The people who hang out in these types of forums, right, they're obviously like pretty hardcore either into peer to peer, into cryptography, into the these different subjects. And so, you know

Um hanging out at the fringes, hanging out. I gave a talk recently For um A bunch of people in the Midwest. They like zoom me in and they were like We just want you to talk to our group. And one of them asked, they go, you know, you said something about like surrounding yourself with interest, you know, like interested people. How do you do that? Like what do you actually do to do that?

And I basically told him I go Um I'm a pretty like normal person. Like I like catchy songs by Katy Perry. I don't have like great music taste. I like if something's in the top forty, I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. You know, like it's not like I have this like this nose for the next big thing, but there are people who who have that. That's their superpower. And so I used to make fun of those people because every time they would do something weird, I would be like ah weird and then I'd point out how weird it is and I would kinda laugh at it. And they didn't really care because they weren't trying to be cool anyways. Um

Like I remember my in college, the guy who lived next door to me Uh his guy Tofique. He was I walked in, he was like playing a video game, like Starcraft or something like that. And he like turned to talk to me and the game kept going and I was like Are you even playing? Like are you just are you just This is a computer? And he was like

He's like, Yeah, I'm just wa he's like, No, I'm watching uh the match from last night in Korea. I'm like what? You're watching somebody else play video games is back in you know, it must have been two thousand and uh Six or something like that. He's like, Yeah, I'm watching a recording of his game, this match that happened in the Korean server and I'm like

Dude. Say five l more lame things like you know than that. Like I'll I'll give you a hundred dollars if we can say. Tell me you're a virgin without telling me you're a virgin. Exactly. I was just like oh okay, like never coming in this room again. And then later, like you know, fast forward Ten years or whatever. So so our our company gets acquired by Twitch and all of a sudden my title's like director of esports or something like that.

And he calls me, he's like, You motherfucker. He's like, Oh, Mr. Esports now, huh? And I was like, Yeah, dude, it's a big thing, you know? Uh you uh you were on top of it. And like I sort of, you know, was embarrassed because like it was so true. I was making fun of that behavior and then Sure enough, that becomes like such a you know, like a billion it's a multi-billion dollar idea was watching other people play video games. And so I've I've kinda learned the hard way many times of of making myself making a fool out of myself on that. Or like now when I hear something weird, I'm just immediately like, Let me pull up a chair. So tell me, like, why do you do this? Do other people do this? How often do you do do you do this? Like and the weirder it is, the more I wanna lean into that phenomenon because I know like It's just a matter of time until I discover that this is

A like a totally normal behavior. It's like oh you only drink Soylent for all your meals? Like oh interesting. Are there is there community people who do this? Yeah. We're called, you know, whatever, biohackers. There's a subreddit with like tens of thousands of us like oh interesting. You know, you can start to see that the f you know, the future is is already here, it's just not everywhere. And like how do you how do you get closer to the future? You just find people who already live in the future do weird stuff and then you

Don't judge them. In fact you just like Complete have the opposite reaction I used to have. And this exercise of reading these old blog posts and all the commenters is I I think you just kinda put it in a little more eloquent eloquent way, but that's exactly what's happening is like you're seeing like I'm trying to Pattern recognition is kind of a stupid buzzword, but like you're trying to like see like, well, I know for sure that A, this sounds silly at first.

And B, it worked. So like what does this like pattern of like people dismissing and like coming up with like and how do I not make that same mistake? The guy that you talked about, uh What was the form called? The P uh Yeah, I I so I on the very bottom of the forum it says like about and you could like read who the owner is, and he's just a professor in Berlin or something, like

He's just a guy. And uh It's pretty fascinating. I'm like, man, like All these people were It's it's

It's like you know they They they this kind of weird to say, but they're like they they were around when Jesus was around. Like you know, like they like saw this like thing that like potentially changes want the next thousand years or the next five hundred years of history and they like saw it.

And I think that's really fascinating. So dude, uh I put this in the milk road. I don't know if you saw this thing about like So Peter Ch the big Bitcoin conference just happened in Miami? Yeah, yeah, that was a really that was really good. Uh on Friday you did that, right? Yeah, I did that one on Friday. That was a rated one. Yeah, that killed it. That was so good. But did you w I don't know if you saw the clip. I think I had linked to the clip in there of

So Peter Teal goes, he gives a talk at the Bitcoin conference in 2022. Just happened, and he It the before he comes out, they played on the on the big screen this video that I had seen before. I think I even talked about it on here once. But there's this video I I've watched a ton of old Peter Teal videos. There's a video of him giving a talk in nineteen ninety nine. And he's talking about the idea of A currency not owned by uh by the government.

And basically this like this two minute clip of Peter Thiel basically describing Bitcoin without saying the word Bitcoin. And he didn't know how it would work, but he's like You know. The world needs a currency that's not controlled by, you know, the central banks of different countries, blah, blah, blah. And I think PayPal originally that was their vision was to create They used to have shirts that said one currency to rule them all, or something like that. It was like this I the original idea of PayPal was to create one global virtual currency. And they shifted away from that later.

Like And he sa he at this talk he goes. Yeah, we went to something that was more practical and it kinda worked, but like it was less ambitious. And like you could tell you kinda like regretted it. Which is like we w before we wanted to create our own financial system. And then like

We settled. And we settled on Oh, PayPal, it's a payments network that like it works with your existing bank, with the existing dollar currency and with your to send to somebody else's existing bank. So we're just like a funnel to like funnel the money through. And like, yeah, that was cool, but like Um Man, this other thing was the big idea. And Bitcoin kind of proved that that was the big idea, you know, later on. But him giving that talk in nineteen ninety nine to me is so crazy.

Like that's one of the greatest like calls I've ever seen. Of just calling it of what's gonna happen, why it's gonna happen. And in that talk he's like He's like, uh you know, the this currency will live on your cell phone outside of a bank. Um sm you know, smartphones are gonna be a thing. And you think about it, it's like oh nineteen ninety nine, man. iPhone came out in two thousand seven.

So he's predicting smartphone, he's like We're already seeing the adoption of smartphones in Finland, Japan. He gave a five year term and you're like Yeah. It was ten, but he got it right.

Yeah, he's like a billion he's like there will be a billion devices in the next five years. It took ten years, but like A billion device like there was never a there was never a billion user product. Like There weren't a billion people who had computers ever. Um

There weren't a billion people, I don't even think that used televisions. I think the cell phone was the first thing where it was like A smartphone was like the first thing where A billion people had this product. So of course if you launch an app that works. Your addressable market is a billion people who could download your app like immediately. Like it's kind of an overlooked

fact about why mobile was so big. It's just like, well, there wasn't ever a billion people who could have used your product before this. Like your restaurant could never serve a billion people. Your store could never serve a billion people. Like McDonalds couldn't even serve a billion people, no matter how many locations they opened. Like The cell phone was really the first thing that was able to do that, you know, that quickly. And um And so he's you know, when he was talking about like

Smartphone adoption is rising in Finland. I'm like Who even Pays attention to what's going on in Finland, dude. Like if I ask you right now if I say point to Finland on a map, could do you think you can point to Finland on a map right now? Like I mean either. And so like Finland, Denmark and like Holland and Sweden are all the same thing. Yeah, exactly. You're clean and you're nice. I get it.

It's and so like I s thought about that. I'm like, oh no wonder the people who were hanging out with Peter Thiel Went on to do like Wait, sorry, hold on. What?

Hey Mayor. My bad. There's some like random guy like knocking on my window. All right, sorry, go ahead. So I'll say that you know the It's no wonder that people hanging out with Peter Thiel ended up going on to do amazing things, right? Like if you've ever heard of the PayPal Mafia, it's like Yeah, like

People who worked at PayPal went on to create YouTube. And LinkedIn and Tesla. And SpaceX and Yelp and Affirm and like I think there's like over ten billion dollar companies that came out of the PayPal mafia. And um like Kiva, like one of the be best nonprofits came out of that. And so it's like

Dude. Why is that? It's'cause you're hanging out with a bunch of people who are already thinking about the future and living in the future. They're all weird nerds. And I remember. the the one of the co founders of PayPal, Max Levichen, he had this thing where he's like He was interviewing somebody and the guy started like talking about how like he's like yeah, I love to play pick up hoops.

He's like, We're not hiring this guy. He's like why he's like Oh my God. He's like he's like no no great programmer I know plays pick up basketball. Dude, well that's what we said about the guys who were doing ICOs. We're like, dude if your teeth are really white and you got abs and if you have a Ferrari and If your last name is also a first name, that's four out of four. You out. Like if your last name is John, like you're out. Like no St. John's. Exactly. And so, you know, these things like I mean, you get canceled today for being like, I'm not gonna hire somebody who plays pickup hoops. Um But like and I think they even said something back then, they go, Your goal as a startup is to basically build a cult. And they're like the more cult like you can make your company, the better. And like that's not popular. I think they've all they don't say that stuff in public anymore because now they're like, you know, bigger public figures. But like I think that startup advice is actually fantastic startup advice.

Now the cult doesn't need to be all people of the same race or gender or anything like that. It's like People who are all believe like religiously in the mission. And then people who kind of b behave in a way that's like They're willing to work way harder, sleep in the office, like, you know, they're they're willing to go to bat for this thing because You know, they're like members of a cult. They sort of have lost them their own personal identity to the greater identity of the group.

That is like a pretty hard force to bet against and beat. Dude, this gets me inspired. How How do you think This was actually a a third topic I was gonna ask you. How do you think Guys like Peter Tiel who

I I don't know his background, but I think it was pretty modest. Uh, how do people like him Well How are they right so often? Or I mean I do they just make a ton of guesses and they're only read a couple times? But it

I I don't understand like that idea of think I think I think big and then I like talk to s or I listen to him, I'm like, Oh, I'm like I'm I'm nobody. Yeah. Oh dude, t when you hear him talk, it's like when you're in a plane that takes off and all of a sudden the houses start to look like little toys and the people start to look like ants, the cars look like, you know, little flecks. It's like that's all that's how my brain feels when I hear Peter Thiel talk. I'm like, oh

I am a small simpleton, you know, I'm a single cell organism compared to this guy in terms of just like w Where my brain goes, how how much conviction I have around my own original thoughts. Because like that's his thing, right? Like he's all about being a contrarian. And um You know.

I I think Jeff Bezos said this about Peter Toole, he goes Yeah, that's the thing about contrarians. They're usually wrong. You know, and uh somebody else said like you know, Peter's constantly predicting sort of like the end of the world in the market crash. And like you just remember at the two times he was right in the twenty years, and like the four times he was wrong, it just seemed like he was a little bit late on his prediction. And um so so I think there's definitely something to like, you know, being wrong a bunch. But it's like when you're it's more like when you're right, you're right in a major, major way. And I think he was right about PayPal in a major way.

I think he was right about Uh Facebook in a major way, right? He was the first investor in Facebook. He bought a five hundred about a ten percent stake at Facebook for five hundred grand. Right. So like that was The best investment of the decade, I think, you know, like a at that time. And so, you know He was right in a major way about that.

Um You know, h the last time he kind of went on tour, he was right about two very contrarian things. One was Trump. Where all of a sudden like He was the only guy in Silicon Valley that was like publicly supporting Trump, went, spoke at the at the convention, was like

We need Donald Trump to be president. And at the time it was sort of like Donald Trump was the underdog. He was not supposed to win. And like Peter Deal picked that horse pretty early. I thought that was kind of impressive. And like also

He gets off on it being contrarian, you can tell. Uh and then the the The other one that he was right about was c uh when he created the Teal Fellowship. So he basically When on the Which was laughable at first. And he had he had this talk where he goes and he goes

Uh university you know, college education is a bubble. It's the greatest bubble since the housing crisis. This is right after the the housing bubble uh popped. He's like the next bubble is college education. And people are like, Who goes against education? Like, go ask a hundred out of a hundred politicians. Parents, anybody who's not pro education. And like he was the first guy to be like College education is a complete bubble.

And he explained why it was a bubble. that like, you know, people go for basically this like certificate. This he goes, it's a he goes, it's an insurance product, partially. He goes, uh you know, it's an insurance for you know parents to buy for their kids so that they don't fall through the cracks of society. He said it's like a uh A certification product. You know, you don't go there to learn, you go there to get your certificate. Um, and it so he's he's was calling out college and then he created the Teal Fellowship Was kind of a genius move because

He put up, I think at the beginning, two million dollars. But that two million dollars was like two hundred million dollars of free publicity for himself because he he made it bold, but he's like not just like here's an alternative to college for people who don't want to go. He's like, Well it explain what it is. It was he came out, he goes, I will pay you$100,000 to drop out of college. And it's like, Oh shit, you know, like keep this man away from my children, like, you know, it was like a Seem like a not good thing to do. And then he explained why. He's like college is is you know a complete bubble. But then how did he get his money back from that again?

I think he invested in the projects. I'm not sure. Well, for example, Ethereum came out of that, which is a three hundred billion dollar product. Uh, which is kind of ironic'cause he doesn't he never claims victory on it. And in fact at the Bitcoin conference he kinda shit on Ethereum. Just a bit weird. Um So, you know, I I don't know why he's I I I would think he'd be taking a victory lap'cause like Vitalik being a a Teal fellow was like

The total validation of the the teal fellowship. But I think Figma can do that too. Owner.com. You know owner dot com? Did you ever see that company? He's a he's one of those guys. I and and about two or three more. I've invested in about three of them, maybe. Yeah, um yeah, I heard kind of mixed things about the project the the program itself, but like there's no doubt like good stuff came of it. Like if if just Figma came out of it, the program was like a a win, you know, like I'd say ten billion dollar. Figma came out of it? Yeah.

Damn. And so you know, and there's many others. There's there's a bunch of other winners that have come out of it too, but like So this guy's like been Uh, you know, contrarian and right many, many times. It's very impressive to me. It's more impressive to me than People like obviously he's very successful, so it's not even like

That or success. But if you just showed me one person who's very successful and another another person Who has like an original thinker who's right when they go against the grain. Damn, I'm more I have a lot more respect and admiration for the person who was went against the grain and had an original thought that was right. Yeah. And then uh

It's inspiring. I um I was reading today and it said that uh This is like kind of a weird A weird tangent, but Jared Cushner. All right. You know Jared Cushner?

Uh Yeah, so who so who is he? He's m he's married to to the Trump or his brother's married to the Trump? Uh so there's Jared and Josh. Josh is the younger one. I think he's like thirty five. He's married to a model and he runs Thrive, which is a VC thing that's like immensely successful. His brother is Jared. who I forget his title in the White House, but he was like Trump's right hand man.

And he's married to Ivanka. Yeah, and like a lot of people think he's evil. Probably is a little bit. He kinda has like a skeleton vibe to him, like a skeletor the the villain and he man or whatever it was. So he's like kinda has like a a vibe to him. But he just announced that

Uh like a few months after leaving the White House Uh he F he he founded a three billion dollar private equity fund. And

Like regardless, you put politics aside. Um Like it Crazy that that's just like your thing. Like you you ended that you you ended one, like Like when I end a job I take like a a lot of people take like a three week vacation and they go start another job that's like twenty percent higher in salary and a little bit better title.

And like he just like was like oh you know, I'm like I've got some free time now, I'm gonna like You know, beep bop boop, just do this thing, it's just a three billion dollar fun. And like I find that to be It's the same thing of like I feel like an aunt and you are not that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. Um I I know exactly what you mean. It does beg the question of like Yeah, why why do I not go bigger? And also Um

You know, is there a reason that I don't go bigger? Like is there a reason, Sam, that you don't go Create a three billion dollar private equity fund? There's there's two reasons. The first is fear. So like it is scary to do that to like raise like for Failure.

Yeah, to raise outside money and Fuck it up. That's bad. But number two, I do think that there is I don't know if Peter Thiel has this, but Elon Musk for sure has this. Did you read that article in the New Yorker or New York Times where he describes his life? He's like basically He was talking to the interviewer and he was starting to cry in the interview and he's like He's like you don't want to be me. Yeah, he w basically said he's like I miss my brother's wedding. I or he was like I was about to miss it, but I flew in at the last minute. I saw it, immediately got on the plane He was like

There was like a time a few weeks ago where for five days I didn't leave the factory. I didn't see the sunshine. I don't see my children. Uh I had a birthday but no friends came and said happy birthday to me'cause I was running a around uh the factory and like I'm lonely and I'm pretty sad to be honest. And frankly, death, I look forward to it as a way of relief. That's like what he said. He said all that? Yes. Take a nap. Just do it. Just try it. Well, and it's like So I think there's one aspect where it's like, Well I don't want to like

B this like uh the slave to this computer and the machine, like F that. Um And I want to live life, but I do think that they're And I I I I haven't formulated this entirely this thought entirely. I do think there's a world where you can go big and have some work life balance, though, actually.

So Do you think that's true? Yeah, of course. Of course it's true. Uh you just gotta decide your terms, right? Like Um

And then and then as soon as you decide those terms, watch you'll figure out a way to make it happen or you'll find people who make it happen. I I am so anti there's one way to win. Or there's even one definition of winning. Like that is if I if I can Just be more the anti one thing, that's the thing I'd be most anti because I used to fall into a trap. I'd see somebody doing something w one way or I'd hear advice that makes sense.

And then I'd kinda like And it's like later in life I found the counterfactual. It's like wait, but this guy doesn't do that. Wait, this this this that lady did both, right? Like so hold on. If both is an option. Then I'm taking both every day of the week. It's only when I accept that both is not an option I fall into this trap of misery of around picking one or the other, right? Of like

lifestyle and and uh and like you know ambition. So Um So I definitely think you can do both. I play this game though. So I have two games that I play about any project that I'm doing. This is kind of like my I kind of exec coach myself. And I r really always ask two questions. I go

I go for the first question is If And I asked this other founders too, which is If I was to meet up with you, you know, if we hung out twelve months from now, we're grabbing a beer. And I'm like what?

What happened with that thing, man? What happened with trends? That was such a cool idea. Like what went wrong? What do you think is the most likely thing you're gonna say in that moment where you're like, ah, dude Here's what you know, here's where we've we messed up or here's what was we turned out here's what We thought that we turned out we were

Turns out was wrong. Um, so you it helps you identify the riskiest part of your business, either the riskiest assumption you're making, the thing you need to go validate. Or risky path that you're going on where you're cutting off other options or you're not you know you're really leaving yourself, you know, one move away from failure. So I always ask that question and the way I don't know why like

If you just ask somebody straight up like What's the biggest risk in your business? They answer it one way. It's like But there's other way which I think people can relate to, which is like If I see you a year from now and we're just grabbing a beer hanging out, it's like And just let's just presume already it's gone wrong.

What was the cause of death? You know, like what do you think was the reason that that so that's one. The second one, a game we played yesterday with the milk road. Um It was. It's called the the Why the Fuck Aren't You game. And it's basically it's like

It's like either why the fuck are you or aren't you? Which is like What part if I was just an objective person looking at what we're doing, would I say, Why the fuck are you guys doing this? Like Why aren't you hiring somebody to do that? It's taking you five hours a day and like you should Totally, you could tell could you not find somebody to do that part or like Why aren't you

Like, why aren't you at this Bitcoin conference? Like aren't you building a crypto product? Like shouldn't you be at this event? Um, like there's just like this series of like why are you or why aren't you? And it's like why the F aren't you which kind of distills it down into like What's the obvious Good idea or bad idea, like good idea we're not doing or bad idea that we are doing.

Um that I would criticize about ourselves and we both came up with a list of like three things and it became like oh Wow, we should just correct those now. Uh rather like. So then what's your answer? Why aren't you going bigger? Assuming that you're not going big, which is not a a fair uh a fair assumption, but for the sake of discussion.

Yeah. So I I wouldn't say why am I not going bigger like the Jared Kushner question you mean? Or the questions I was asking just now? The Jared Kushner question? Um because I wanna have You know.

I know. Meaning I wanna have a I wanna be able to know what is enough and I want my vision of success to be bigger than just what's going on in my business. So it's like To me. If you said paint a picture of what winning looks like It's not just a number in an account or a number in my sales dashboard.

It's like Uh like I I talk about this all the time. It's This perfect Tuesday. It's like my normal day is Perfect for what I want.

And that includes like just Like right after this, I'm gonna go work out with my trainer in my home gym. Like that's a part of my perfect Tuesday. And if my business then requires me to not have time to do that and I'm like

Get me fat or whatever, or it doesn't provide me enough money to be able to afford that. Then it's not winning, right? Um it's like you know being able to like take my daughter to swim class, like things like that. Like those are part of what winning looks like to me. And so I'm just not gonna like

deviate from that. I'm only gonna the only thing I question is not why don't I go bigger. It's Is this picture the picture I really want or is this outdated and do I need to update it? You know, and like that's the thing I find myself being like, Oh man, I haven't updated this picture in a while. Or there's just like a gap over here where I don't know what I want. Mm, what would it feel like to know what I want? Okay, let w

Let me get let me figure that out. Ben Wilson tweeted out. Uh it's a superpower to know what you really want. Right, Ben? And that w was that the tweet?

Uh yeah. Uh what did you see or hear that made you tweet that? Um So what I saw is that I uh had a bunch of people reaching out to me recently. And the people who are like, Hey, I'd love to connect, I get so annoyed with I'm like, You just

Dump something on my plate. for me to like figure out, which I just don't want to do. Whereas the people who are like Hey. I really love what you do.

I'm also a podcaster. My podcast is this size. I wanna get it to this size. I am having trouble in these two issue areas and I'd love to talk to you about it. I'm like Great. You know exactly what you want. I will I will gladly give you that.

And uh it's just uh it applies almost everywhere in life. Like the guy who comes up to you and is like, Hey do you have any spare change? No, I don't have any spare change. Hey, I need two dollars and fifty cents to get a ride home on the bus. Do you have two dollars and fifty cents? All right, I guess I got two dollars and fifty cents. Like it's a superpower in every way. So Uh so so I like that you said that. There's a a tweet that my cousin put out yesterday. My cousin he's on Twitter rotten to her. Uh he great guy. According to Twitter, he's killing it.

I don't I don't I haven't talked to him in forever, but like he his updates of like at looking like he's killing it. I don't know if he's actually killing it. I haven't caught up in it. I don't want I'm not disrespecting him at all. I'm saying like his Like w his updates are amazing. He just bought like twenty thousand square feet of something, like He's on top of the game. Yeah, and actually he did a good job of figuring out what he wants. Bro, you just called out your cousin. You should take that back. What? I love my cousin. He's great. But I I actually met that as a compliment. There's this skill

There's a skill, especially in his line of business, which is real estate. There's a skill to Putting forward your like putting your either your brain on brain forward, like sharing ideas. Like he put out a thing of like how I do diligence on properties. It's like a great checklist. It's like oh

You're just putting out great on point information. It makes me trust you. Makes me think this guy knows what he's talking about. Or if it's like Like our friend Nick Huber does this too. It's like he'll send us a picture of him smoking a cigar, you know, playing golf at you know, one PM It's like wow, this guy must be killing it. Like you don't you don't get to go out, smoke a cigar, and play golf, you know, 1 PM regularly unless you're doing really well. It makes me more likely to invest in Nick Huber's storage company.

That I know that he's doing well in life. Like some people take it as an anti signal, like, Oh, why why isn't he working hard? To me, I'm like, no, if you're If you're able to like do well in life, that means you're doing something right and like your cousin type more trust. He goes. I'm looking for like a car, like a new SUV. It's like kind of a general vague thing. And so what he go and he then he like defined it right afterwards so specifically he goes

The experience the the ex user experience of a Tesla. The size of an escalade. The um He goes with enough room for three car seats and a pair of golf clubs.

And I was like, first of all, isn't it just a more fun way To look for a car? Like just to kind of imagine really what you want and like sink into the vividness of like Just having it. And not like worrying about the world, Tesla doesn't make a big car like an escape. No, fight that. I'm not I'm not grounded in reality. I'm living over here in my reality of what I want.

He's only he's got one kid, so I'm like, you know, three car seats, all right, he's planning ahead, like that's good. And um and I just thought it was a great example of like specificity. So so to me, a lot of people are vague in general when they should really be being Specific. And then the opposite is also true. Sometimes people are like

I don't know what I want specifically, and they get tied up in a knot because of that. And my trainer had a great framework for that. He goes, You gotta know when to be general and when to be specific. He goes if you Uh, like sometimes it will tell you you need to be more specific with what you want. That means like The type of description my cousin gave about like, you know, the lifestyle that

That what do you describe as a car is not just a car, it's a lifestyle. And um and then the second thing is like when do you be vag when you be general. So he so my trainer, I was like Well what if I don't know what I want, right? Like If he said what you know, what's your body goal, right? He's a personal trainer. I'd be like, well I don't really have a picture of like I don't know if I want to

Like I could say, Oh, I just want to have like a twelve pack, but I don't even know if that's true, right? I'm like I don't know exactly what I want. And he's like, Cool. Just imagine satisfaction. He goes just first get to a place of Feeling satisfied.

about it where you don't stress you're not stressed about it anymore. It goes He goes, you know, relief is a very powerful emotion. Satisfaction is a powerful emotion. He goes Most people feel relieved one time a day and it's when they poop. He goes and now people bring their phone in and they're not even paying attention. They miss it. They miss out on the one moment of relief they were gonna have that day. He goes, so I get good at

feeling relief. I wanna practice feeling relieved and satisfied. Because once you get good at feeling relieved and satisfied, you know what things you want. You're you're faster to figure out what things you want that will lead back to that emotion. And like you're just better at ha at being satisfied from a meal or a workout or whatever it is. These Daily things in your life.

He goes, let's he goes and so we made a deal. It's like I'm I'm gonna be relieved more times than I poop today. And it's like that's the goal. That's the first goal. The software trainer. Yeah. What a smart ass dude. By the way. To talk about the real est what your cousin's doing on real estate. I've talked to a bunch of these real estate guys so and I'm friends with a lot of them. Keith Wasserman.

Um Uh Chris uh Fort. Is that his name? Fort? I think so. Uh Nick Huber. Moses Kagan.

Your cousin's getting in there. The strip mall guy. So there's like ten of them that are like really popular, maybe twenty. And I see the returns. They're really good.

And the fees that they charge. are crazy high. Or but like, you know, who cares? It's uh I I'm in Nick's Hoover's thing, it's a a huge fee, but like I I'm getting good return, so I don't care. It this is one of the coolest things that's happening on Twitter right now is these real estate people are just crushing it. All through Twitter. It's pretty amazing. I think some of them have shared that they bring in like

Tens of millions of dollars of investor money just off of people who are like, I'm a fan of your Twitter. Yes. Uh which is like that means if you're in real estate like Do what my cousins doing. Do what these guys are doing. Like Up your Twitter game because It is gonna lead to more deals and it's gonna lead to more investors in your fund that you don't have to go knock on doors for. It's way easier to just tweet out stuff than it is to go like do one hour calls and seminars and webinars and

In person meetups trying to like schmooze for a buck. Well, I have no idea how big Nick Huber this is Nick Huber from Sweaty Startup. I have no idea how big his portfolio is. But I wouldn't actually be surprised if it was over nine figures. And I bet you if it is, most of it came via Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't know. I don't know if that's I don't know exactly, but I agree with where you're where you're headed there. And also um Th that's also the one reason I haven't invested in a lot of these guys is because the fee structure like which might be to my detriment, but like one thing I don't fundamentally like about real estate fees

Is that they all make this like Two, three percent Like acquisition fee. Yeah. Which like you know, you will buy like a fifth dollar thing and it's like Ah, so you just

banked a million dollars in your pocket just for buying the thing, which leads you to an incentive, which is Go buy more shit. Instead of being like really um discerning between like a great property and a good property It's like just go accumulate. And like I think Nick has a little bit of a different strategy because he's got a like a Kind of like a template now of like

He buys the so self storage thing. It cuts out a bunch of the labor, he adds in these automations. It's like he like has a playbook. of how to add value that I think not every investor says they have. I don't think they really have it. Um, I think Nick actually does a great job of that. But like in general I would say One reason I've shy away is because I dislike this incentives

This incentive mismatch where like your You're incentivized to take my money and go buy something because you get money today that's guaranteed. That doesn't r it does not linked to your returns. It's only linked to your returns over a long period of time, and by then you've already banked these acquisition fees. Fifteen times over by the time we figure out if these were good deals or not.

And I have no idea if they're killing it because they're skilled, although many of the all the people I've named I I've talked to, they s appear skilled, but I'm a novice. But also they just happen to be in the game like starting six years ago and we're gone to like the greatest like Boom in real estate. Yeah, so like of course they're killing it. Uh, but uh the numbers are d I mean, I I'm investor of Nick. I see the returns. I'm like, Oh yeah, dude, I'll give you more if but I have no idea. By the way

If I was thinking I would I would do exactly what he's doing, I'd charge the highest fees I can and be like You're still getting a great return, correct? All right. Fantastic. If you can go beat that return somewhere else, I invite you to do it. Um, which is like you know, he I'm not as up front about that, but like That's I would do exactly what he's doing, so I don't knock him for that. I think that's a It's what I would do if I was in that position where I know I could generate great returns.

Um, but like on my side I just I hesitate as an investor in that sort of thing, but maybe it's not that's to my detriment. Um Do you wanna do more topics or do you wanna save yours for Wednesday? Let's do let's do a couple ideas. Uh I think people people like ideas. If you made it to the end of the episode Congratulations. All right. So Let me pitch you two

Ideas real quick. One is called one I'm calling Copy my trip. Okay, so I'm booking a vacation right now. Taking the family on a vacation. Great idea. I

Thank you, came up with it myself. Yeah. Oh, even with a business idea. So I'm like I'm like Googling, I'm like, Okay, I'm say I wanna go to Hawaii, for example. So I'm like all right, wanna go to Hawaii, all right. Which island? I don't fucking know. Okay, uh which resort? Oh god, here we go. Gotta figure out which resort and like It matters, like it's gonna change my experience if I go to the wrong place to the right place.

But like and then I'm like and then all the details in between, like, okay, so if I take my kids What do you do I rent a car? Do I get car seats? Do I take the shuttle? Uh Do we go on this activity? Is that age appropriate? And so what I want is My wife follows all these influencers on Instagram that are like mommy influencers.

And when they buy something, she's like, That's a good thing. I'm gonna buy that thing too. And like 'Cause she's like, look, we have the same taste and like These people they're not qu like they kind of are promoting things that they that are like they have a good track record. Like so she's like Bought a couple of the things that look good and they paid off. So she's like now has more trust in them. I don't get why they can't or maybe they do this, I don't know, but like I don't get why they're not just saying, Copy my trip.

You wanna go to Disneyland? Literally click this and like here's the like full itinerary of like We fly into this airport, we take this transportation to this hotel because it's great for families for these reasons. We buy this thing, this thing, whatever, and like I just get their whole trip.

that I can copy and that they have basically like a a TikTok or like Instagram story version that I can just browse it to be like, Oh yeah. This looks fun. I wanna do this. Like when I went on Expedia and I'm like this is awful experience. Here's an overwhelming list of a hundred options ranked in five different ways that I clicked the fucking thing. I don't know if the reviews are real or not.

I'm looking at the photos. They don't have all the photos. It's like a photo it's like static photo from like a fucking airplane above the resort. It's like, dude, I just want to see like Someone walk into the room and be like, Oh, this is really nice. The bed's good, the you know, there's space over here and like Oh this is cool, they give you breakfast every morning. Like check this out. You're like Like an Instagram story, right? So I just think that there should be an instr uh a thought copy my trip that anyone could do.

It will create a profession of Basically professional travelers, like people who They go find the best path of how to have a trip to Yeah, Bali or whatever. And like Sam, you might follow who's got like a fitness oriented angle. It's like, Oh yeah, they wanna like

Go they this person likes Airbnbs versus hotels. So I like aligned with them and then it's like They went and trained at this gym and got Muay Thai classes when they went to Thailand. Like that's awesome. That's the type of trip I want to have. So I'm gonna just copy their trip. Dude, I'm more about the springboard.

We could do it we uh uh do it for trips and weddings. Whenever I like saw my wife like working so hard at this wedding, I'm like Dude, just find someone else and just do the exact same thing. No one will know, who cares. Or younger sisters get married and I'm like Dude, just do exactly what we did. It was great. It was an awesome wedding. And of course obviously they don't like that, but just do the exact same thing. It was we all had a great time, right?

Bachelor parties. Exactly. Birthday parties. I wanna I wanna copy your I wanna copy your work, which is like It's Pinterest, but just like the whole thing strung together. So ha and like lifestyle. You would just do it where like uh someone upload an itinerary and then you and then you people rate it and you pay them money and buy it. Yeah, exactly. So um so you uh you don't even have to buy the trip. Like just by doing the trip, those people get paid mad money from affiliates. Like If I book that resort because this person said this resort is awesome, I'm gonna get a kickback of like all the things that they recommend. Now it's some perverse incentive, but like

Everybody kinda offers a kickback. So I think you can basically through affiliates you could monetize this pretty heavily. for the for the creator themselves. Which you which you what you could do is you could say it's not about But Creator, you just recommend what you genuinely recommend. We're gonna take the entire pool. Of affiliate fees? And then pay it out based on whose trip got copied, even if

That hotel doesn't have to pay you to like promote them. You know what I mean? I would do something like that. Where are you going? How I. Oh, that's cool. And you haven't found like a real example. And you haven't been able to find a A

No, like it. So first I went on whatever expedia and I was like oh god miserable don't want to do this Okay, what else can I do? Okay, I could tweet this out, then I'm gonna get a bunch of recommendations. All right, that might work, but that only works for me'cause I got a big following. All right. I was like, how do how do people do this? And I was like, Okay, let me go to I was like, Let me go look at like you know, an Instagram person I follow, but like

They're not gonna happen to post about it that day. So like It needs to be saved somewhere, like a link in the bio of like or like, you know, one of their Instagram story highlights, which is like Take one of our trips. And it's like You know, they always do this. Like uh they do this with fashion. It's called like um I like, I buy like or some shit like that. It's like if you like my outfits, you can go here and like

You can buy any of the items for my outfit and they get a kickback. like that for trips. Um And then I went on YouTube and I was watching like, okay, you know. watch this like f family vlog at a at one of the resorts and I'm like

They're okay when it's like this eight minute video and it's just that one aspect. It doesn't tell me about all the other shit that I could go do when I'm there and all that stuff. So anyways I I just think that There's elements of this happening. It's just somebody should make this like an explicit thing, I think. I uh Jack Smith uses uh uh VAs to do stuff constantly. And he w he's like

Uh at one point he even had some VAs going into hotels into different countries and like taking pictures and sending it to him to let him know what it was. But on a on a lighter For real. On a lighter level. It's crazy. And on a lighter D Wait, did he pay for them to go on vacation? Like he found the local VA near. Yeah, he like he would find a local person, he's like, Hey, can you go to these three hotels and take pictures and let me know? And then he would like show them to his wife, like, All right, which ones do you want? Uh It was pretty easy. I'm calling him Jack LaRue from now on. That's so crazy. Dude, he just sent me a picture

Uh and it was him and Andrew Wilkinson and he's like look I uh with Andrew and they have their TED Talk badge on. And so they're clearly a uh Ted together and I was like, Oh, how funny. And uh Uh yeah, and anyway, he uh does this all the time and it's actually really interesting and There's this company called Trr Flight Fox. Do you know what Flight Fox is?

It's c is that like where you'll just Is it like somebody will book it for you? It's like a tr is it a travel agent or is it the one where you're like I just want something. Give me like the best deal I can get which one is. It's amazing. So I have no idea how they make this work. So basically you go to Flight Fox and you always have to click the button that says you're traveling for business.

And then a person You select like I wanna go around this I wanna go this day. And I wanna come back on this time, or you can even say, I wanna go around this time. Um and then you like leave like notes like I've got a budget a blank or I only want first class or uh I have to be back for a wedding. So I uh I have to make sure there's backup flights.

And someone on the other end pops up and goes, Hey, what's going on? I'm with whatever, I'm here to help you. And it's a real person. And they go and they find five to ten different flights that fit what you want. And then you finally say, All right. This itinerary looks good.

Or you'll you could even reply and be like, uh, this one actually I had a change of plans. I've got to change this, this, and this. And They'll go and find flights for you and they find the cheapest ones and they know where to search for them. And they only get paid until after you book the flight and they just take a fifty dollar fee. I have no idea how they make money. And then like when I was in Portugal, my flight got canceled. So I just logged on and I go, Hey, the flight you book got was canceled. Can you you know address it, please? And they

call for you and they wait on hold for you and then you just pay'em fifty bucks. It's amazing. I have no idea how this makes money or how they can make that work. Get it while it lasts. It's awesome. That's amazing. Um that's like I I th I think I told you about this thing I did once, Mo Points. Mo Points.com. It's our It's our butt it's our good buddy Ramon's good buddy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was like one of the best things uh I did. I was like I booked this call with him. And so you go to Mo Po Mo Points.com, just like M O Points.com. And

Basically it solves the problem of like what credit card should I get? And so you just call this guy and he's like, All right, look, like again, you could just Google what credit card should I get. Guess what you're gonna get? Like The most SEO optimized blog post in the world because they they can make so much money off referring credit cards. And you don't know if you're really getting the real deal. And so I just called this guy thirty minutes and he was like, All right Tell me about what you spend on.

And tell me what you want. Do you want to travel like a baller? Like... He's like, Look, I travel first class worldwide. Just off this, he's like, I'm not rich, I just but I use points to do it. Here's how. And I was like, yeah, I want that. And so he's like

Cool. Get the Amex gold. Like you're gonna get four X points on all your Facebook ads for your e commerce thing. You're gonna get one for you, one for your wife. So now you're gonna get like two million points or whatever, like in the next year. He's like then to travel, you just do this, you trans you get transfer points. Like don't book within their points portal, because that's what I used to do. I used to go to my points thing and be like

Uh rewards, flights. Oh man, I get like Half a flight for all my chase points? Like no, you need to transfer to travel partners and then there you need to like Check this out. You use like KLM to fly, you know, here, here, and here. And he's like just Call me when you want a book. He's like, for now?

Buy the M X goal, start racking up your points. When you want to book first class worldwide. Just call me again. And I was like, dude, I feel so taken care of. This was like the m best money I've ever spent, um, just in terms of the the again. The relief. Of like, ah, I'm in good hands, right? Like the real all state I'm in good hands is fucking Mo from Mo Points. Dude, I'm so

I'm a fan of the five. I and I like the model of These things are typically monetized to affiliates, but instead you're just gonna pay and I'll give you a more honest answer. I actually I I like that idea a lot.

Yeah, exactly. Uh me me too. I think it's great and um And uh yeah, people should go sign up for that thing. Cause if if you spend a significant amount on your business. It's like I mean it just makes financial sense to like optimize that. So you're either gonna get the best cash back Like you know, I found out oh If I use this Bank of America Platinum Honors cashback card, I get

Two point six percent back cash back, which is like way higher than anybody else gives you. Does that mean it basically adds two percent to your bottom line? Yeah, exactly. Like I I take it. Two point six percent. Yeah. So if you're spending, you know uh a hundred grand a month on ads, which is like very common for e commerce, just use a a round round number here.

Now you're getting twenty six hundred dollars a month back. Um Just Straight to your bottom line, right? Like that just makes sense. Or you can reinvest that. A five thousand person company or like B C who sends people all around the world Do they just have like a bank?

Full of like points. I I don't know what they do. I actually asked my previous startup this, I'll go I go, w what do we do with all the points we collect? Who gets to use those? And I I think they said that they just cash them, they just do the ca cash back, basically, or they just convert them to cash, which is like not the most efficient way to use it. But like, you know, for simply the fair way to do it.

And they just like, you know, keep it. Uh who keeps it? Yeah. Where's this money? I kept I used our points at the hustle and I I flew first class like twice a month. It was sick. And then when I sold a company I didn't have that perk anymore. I was like, damn, I gotta pay for a flight for the first time in four years. It sucks. Yeah, so you gotta negotiate that in. I well I kept'em. I got to keep all the points. We had like a million points, but I didn't get to uh I didn't get future points. Gotcha. Alright, uh that's it. I'll save my other ideas for the next one. And you got a crime baby.

Yeah, I know. Um all right, thank you.

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