Is The Rock Going to Make $1B+ From Tequila? + Placebo Water, STR Update, and More

He tells me he's like, You know, I just expanded the vision for for what I'm doing. He goes Um Yeah, but this is eventually gonna be b the next Black Rock, bigger than BlackRock. I think I can be a trillionaire in the next fifty years. Oh my gosh. Alright, um

What's going on? Uh not too much, dude. We um Is the last episode the Ryan Holiday one? Yeah, what did you think? I wanted to debrief that real quick'cause I thought he was um

Really great. Yeah. I s I think I said this maybe I don't know if it was on air or if this was afterwards, but he um He felt to me like one of the happier, more calm and peaceful people that we've ever had on the show.

Uh, he just had this vibe about him, like he wasn't um Like a lot of people come on the show and they try to put on a show. They are trying to perform or they're trying to kinda play up something. They're doing trying to sell you on something. They're trying to uh present themselves as bigger than they are. And that's not just on the show, this is life. And uh or you meet somebody and they're kind of like, you know They have the disease of more, more, more, more. And I know it because I I have it myself in many ways where I kind of want uh

You know More success, more whatever. Um And I just felt like he was a guy who w was curious about certain things, liked to do certain things, but didn't have this like He didn't seem like an itchy person. Didn't seem like there's all these itches all across his body that he's trying to scratch. He seemed at ease. And I thought that was just like one thing that I don't know if it comes across in a podcast because you're listening to it or you see the guy, you don't get necessarily pick that up.

But that was the one thing that stood out to me. I think he's really like that. I've uh I've been friendly with him. I wouldn't say we're like close friends, but friendly for a couple of years now, but Neville and Noah are all really good friends with him. And they said that like he pretty much just stays at home most of the time. And like if you wanna see him, you gotta drive out to his farm and like he's a home body and he like just knows what he likes and he and he does it. Yeah, and I I thought it was interesting because it's a good thing.

His reputation, at least for me in my head, right? The image I had in my head was This guy's like this internet marketer. Growth hacker, which is like usually one breed of person. Uh right. Like there's like the that comes with a certain k certain package usually. And then You know, w have this like kind of he's an author and then he has like uh but his books are all about like kind of interesting things, right? He does he's not writing boring normal

calm books. He's writing like conspiracy and how the media is messed up. And then like, you know, trust me, I'm lying, write like these provocative books. And then he had the Daily Stoic and I was like oh okay reminded me a little bit of like you know, like Tim Ferris, I think is kinda like this where Tim Ferris started off. you know, selling brain supplements, which is again like an internet marketer type of thing. You know, it comes with a certain package to to create a brain supplement company. Uh then second to that was like an author

And then, you know, now is like extremely zen and like into mindfulness and detoxification and digital detoxing and moving away from San Francisco and you know, was just trying to get away. But like even peop usually when I find people who are gravitating towards things like meditation and stoicism and Um, microdosing psychedelics. They feel like they're still on the search for that calmness. He felt like he found the calmness and that was kind of the distinction. I think I was envious of him for two reasons. The first was he said

That he dropped out of college because he wanted to be a writer. And he is a writer. I was incredibly envio that he had found what he loved and he Found very early. And he he actually with his wife. He said he met his wife and he sh was twenty. They've been dating since they were twenty, or something like that, right? This guy fell in love early. I was envious of that. And the second thing was

He did a not maybe not envious, but what I learned was he did a really good job of basically You know, you and I talk about ideas and all this stuff and we know a lot of successful people, but at the end of the day, once you get past a relatively low point, it's about being happy. And he did a really good job of putting that into perspective. You know, even I would say, like Yeah.

It's one thing to say it. We all say it. It's another thing to actually do it. And uh, you know, it's like, Oh, so okay, you got this money you made this money doing this you know, you made this money, are you using that to parlay your fame and whatever into more and more more it's like no, I like writing, so I keep writing. Right. And it's like Um, do y okay, you t you know, you what do you do with your investments? Are you in crypto trying to hit the next big home run? I bought a bookshop. It's like oh shit. This guy's extremely grounded. So Rob Deerdick made one line on our pod that always kinda

Stuck with me. So he's like this happy guy, but then I made a comment like Yeah, I think like I didn't know that you were gonna be this big and he goes, Yeah, like I'm on my way to becoming the billionaire, like I deserve. And I thought it was funny that He's like

He definitely had a chip on his shoulder and he was like more. Which isn't bad. That's very human. But that was interesting and I almost felt like Ryan didn't necessarily have that. We have a buddy who texted me yesterday. Uh he's uh y you you you don't know him as well, but uh I think we can mention him. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say his name'cause it's a funny funny quote. Say it. Say it and then say his name then bleep him we'll bleep it out.

And he goes, uh You know, I he he tells me he's like, You know, I just expanded the vision for for what I'm doing. He goes, Um This is eventually gonna be b the next BlackRock, bigger than BlackRock.

I think I can be a trillionaire in the next fifty years. Oh my gosh. And I was like he says it with a straight face. He's not like joking, which is uh, you know Amazing. And delusional and amazing again. Right. That's like those that's my br that's how my brain goes. I'm like, wow. Then I'm like, wow, that's delusional. Then I'm like Well, you know. Great. You know, good for you. That's what gets you excited.

Is he capable of pulling it off? Yeah. Like I I said this early on. I met him when he was like nineteen or twenty. And I said, Of all the people I've ever met, if I had to bet my life Which one of these people who today is worth less than, you know Five million dollars. We'll be a billionaire.

I would have put my life on the line on him.'Cause I was like he's singularly focused on just that. So it's like, you know, Michael Phelps woke up every day and swam like for fucking three hours and then eight eighteen thousand calories and then did that for like twelve years straight and didn't take a day off. So it's like yeah, when you devote your life singularly to a pursuit, whether it's swimming laps in a pool or it's becoming a billionaire. Um you know that already cuts you away from ninety nine percent of the population that wants to be wealthy, but also wants to be

You know, in her good relationship and also wants to be this and also wants to have fun with her friends and go out on the weekends it's like He cuts out all that. So, you know, I think it gives him the odds into on top of being A very smart, capable guy, right? He's already amongst the like high IQ people. Then within that he's got an obsession on money.

that very few people have. Let me let me play play devil's avocate or uh as my other favorite podcast calls it, Devil's Avocado. Let me play Dou Let me play devil's avocado here for a second. Who says that? So uh Michael Bisbing. Double double double avocado. Yeah. So uh two of two things. One.

I'm reading this book or I already read it called sport recently called Sports Gene, and they basically talk about genetics. And they're just like, look, like The closer you live to the equator. the longer your limbs are and the shorter your torso is. And that just makes you like fifteen percent Better runner. And what that means is like if your legs are longer and your is that just means that if if we all work the same and the best people front who don't have long legs and short turso, some of them definitely can compete.

But like you have a fifteen percent edge and when you're talking about gold medals and being the best in the world, that fifteen percent is like a world that's tenths of seconds on things, you know, that helps. Yeah, they're like that that's just a it's like it's like it's like a giraffe versus a hippo or you know, something like that. Like that that just matters. And So one Becoming like a billionaire, which is an outlier Like I actually think that like you can kinda sweat your way to like maybe five or ten million in a lifetime.

But becoming a billionaire and this huge outlier, I think it takes like a particular type of skill. Like you just genetically predisposed to have it in your favor. And I think that matters here. Not saying this kid does or does not have it, but I think that it's more important than just like training for twelve hours a day. I think that just being G gifted genetically is more important than hard work.

Uh to be the best though you need both. Second. You you know like I all I definitely believe like the whole pull yourself up by your bootstrap thing. But in order to be like let's just call the threshold a billion. In reality it's probably like two hundred million, a hundred million. Like there's so much luck that needs to be involved.

It on a macro level it's like uh which country are you born in, but on a micro level it could be just like Well, like did you just meet happen to do h do a good random roommate in college, you know? Yeah. Or are you able to stay healthy? Um, did you not fall in love and meet someone? Like you know what I mean? Like there's all these tiny like Lock things. That really matter. Like Jeff Bezos like

Did his mom I think wasn't he adopted? Yeah, he's adopted. So like that is like a Oh uh uh it's a big decision, but it's like a relatively small like decision. It's a yes or no decision that changed everything. Totally. Or did you decide to go to Princeton versus Stanford? Like it's a bezos would have been successful no matter what, but there's a difference between

uh this guy made ten or thirty million dollars in his lifetime versus became at one point the richest man on earth or the richest man ever to walk the earth or whatever, you know, like there was a The variance so to me success is very success has success itself The yes or no has very little to do with luck. The magnitude of success has a lot to do with luck. But that's why I was saying, you know, I'm I'm creating a a a funny hypothetical, which is of people who already are not already in a good position financially, like under five million net worth, let's say. They they're not they don't have some edge there.

Where they're just gonna invest their way to success. Um Of those people who haven't already made it. Who would I bet is most likely to make it? Well I agree with you that if it was the field versus him

I take the field. But uh What am I gonna bet on? Like for example, I think you could say like our buddy Jack Smith. I think you could say You know, Jack is a quirky, curious guy. who's actually not obsessed with money at all, but just is like really into what he's into, and it's usually off the beaten path. That's gonna usually win in a way and he's super smart also, right? Like they're still in the top one percent IQ or whatever.

Um That's gonna have a good outcome. I believe that. But um But you're kind of betting that this guy's luckier. This his magnitude of uh success is gonna he he's gonna have more luck than this guy. And I think you can kinda tell who's gonna get luckier or who's not.

But it's really hard to play place. Like who would you bet? If I s if I told you that same situation. I don't know if you have a name. But before somebody had A bunch of money. Who in your life did you run into that you're like Alright, if I had to say who's gonna become a billionaire in my life

This is who I would pick. I mean, when I met Moy Zali, he didn't he had sold a company and he probably was worth less than five million dollars and immediately took a few days of meeting him like oh Uh, you're a shark. And what what was it? Yeah, shark is a good word. What what made a shark?

Um He was had a singular focus. I mean he was customer focus, but singular focus. He's like And Really high intensity. Very high intensity, singular focus focus. Uncomfortable intensity. I'm uncomfortable.

Yeah, uncomfortable. And also he like He was a lawyer from Harvard. So like top of the top of the top. Yeah. And then his brother is uber successful. So I'm like, there's no reason why you should screw this up.

He said something that I thought was hilarious. He has these great one liners. Um You know, like I don't know. Some people were put up you see Usain Bolt and you say that guy was put on earth to run. Um you see this person, they were put on Michael Phelps, you see his body, he was put on earth to swim. I was put on earth to do one thing. Increase earnings per share.

He always uh he he Like what time he told me he goes You know my worst the worst phrase I hate on earth is a When I hear it, it it makes me cringe and I run the uh run the other way. Blue chip stocks.

He goes, you wanna talk about words that I love? Uh what did he call it? Distressed assets. Distressed asset. That's what he said. He goes he goes, the two most beautiful words of the English language. Distressed. And he said that. I was like, oh my God. One time I heard him Uh one time we met with this person who has this vitamin company that's doing really well and he was being really cordial. And nice and everything and just saying hi. And then this person walked out the room and he looked at me and he goes

That person's business is one Google search away from me ruining it. Yeah. It's like that's one Google search away from me copying their company.'Cause he's like the formula is nothing. And he that was like that was the first line that he said. He he is really he he's a poet. Um I've got an idea. So

Andrew Wilkinson texted me because he's in my S T R group. S TR stands for short term rentals, my latest obsession. We'll see if it sticks. But very interested in it. And I create. I need to rebrand that, by the way. Way too like STD, you know, like does anybody know what a STR is? No, why don't why don't I just say like Only Doric. You know, my like real estate or Airbnb, you know, or whatever vacation rentals group. Dude, here's the truth.

I made this group when I was going to the bathroom. And I just tweeted it out. And you'll notice the picture is just a boot. That's just because I just like Googled as like I Googled something. Yeah, it's just a shoe. I don't remember, but that was that picture was available. Which goes back to your uh your point you did a long time ago that people got really upset with you, where you were like Don't Think about a name or don't buy a domain name a good domain or something. You said something like that that people got really pissy about. And you were basically saying Don't let that don't let figuring out the branding and the name hold you back from the the thing, which is like getting it out there.

Yeah, so that's what I did. I like did it like Literally when I was going to the bathroom. This was like a a literally a two minute thing. And it just it's what's it called? Sam's S T R Crew. No, I I keep wanting to say STD. So twelve hundred and or fifteen hundred people. You know what I think I could do? I'm not sure if I'm gonna do this, but you know what I think I can do? I think I could turn this into a newsletter business.

And I think it could be Like a really good business. And I'm gonna explain why. Have you ever heard of Oc Davis? The headphone. Daniel Ock. No.

Okay, so uh look up Daniel Ock. Uh I think he's like probably worth eight or ten billion dollars. So Ock Davis is like a famous hedge fund. This guy like It's I think that um I'm almost positive that when

Elon Musk got shorted. This guy was one of the guys and he sent them like a pair of shorts, if I remember correctly. And so it's this billion dollar, multi billion dollar, maybe forty billion dollar hedge fund. Anyway. It got started because the Davis was this guy named Zif Davis who started um Sorry, his name was Bill Ziff, who started Zif Davis Publishing Company. Have you heard of Ziff Davis? No. Okay, so Ziff Davis was a basically at this point, it's still around. It has a five billion dollar market cap. It does over a billion dollars in revenue. It's been around since Probably the sixties.

It's got it it got its start because it owned magazines in a ton of different Super specific. But uh high end industry. So for example, they owned the most popular magazines on popular popular of electronics. Failing. Flying. They own this thing called Mac Week. They eventually started CES, which or they started um

It was called one thing and then it now is be has become C E S. I think Massa Sun sort of CS no. Massa Sun bought it from Ziff Davis. Okay. And So he like it it was all niche publications and it's still a business. And I think I could do something like that for STRs, where you create an empire based on like

things that aren't exactly side hustles but have like serious money going into them. For example, this industry probably isn't big enough, but I've met a bunch of people that have like they've bought like Ten cars. Just for Like Toro. And right.

And all that kind of thing. And I've also uh and so that's kind of intriguing to me. Like Uh I just think that like something can be done here. There's this company called the Penny Hoarder, which just sold for like a hundred plus million dollars and they basically wrote blog posts on this and they drove drove traffic to it and made money. But anyway, I just thought that was interesting. And let me tell you one last thing. Have you heard of this website called Speed Test? Speed test, like the uh internet speed test?

Yes. Yeah. I go to the time. Alright. That's owned by Zif Davis.

Oh no way. So check this out. On similar web it gets a hundred million visits. Uh A month.

And there if you scroll all the way to the bottom and you click a button that says advertise That's what you always want to click for these types of websites and it tells you all about their traffic. According to their website, it says they get ten million visits a day. I am and so it it it says they get t it says they get uh Uh.

I think it says. Forty or fifty million monthly uniques, but ten million total visits. Right. Now go back to that home page, Ben. Well, I've I always have ad block on, so I'm uh this is my first time seeing it with ads. Dude, it's like so there's a button that says go, like t touch your speed, and it is Oh. It's like it's like it's like an army is surro it's like you're surrounded. There's nowhere to go. You are gonna look at these ads. There's a MailChimp ad up top and on the right and on the bottom and on the left there's a UFC ad So look at this. That's one, two, three, four, five ads right there. I don't know what like the current CPM is on Google.

But let's just say that all of those because this is like a relatively high end potentially market, let's say that's fifteen dollars per CPM. It could be ten, but I bet you it's between ten and fifteen. On ten million visits a day, that's fifty million dollars a year. just on on this these ads. Plus Go to the top right then and click where it says developers.

They also sell all these solutions. So you can like test the internet speed of I actually don't know like why anyone would use this. There's a world where like this is a two or three uh maybe two hundred million dollar a year business just from the simple ass webpage. That's wild. And then there's also I think who who came out with a competitor? I think Netflix did or somebody. Speed dot com. Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, somebody came out with that as well, but I think this one's like pretty entrenched. It's it it this

W I I looked up if you like there's some websites that they're called um I forget what they're called, but Ben if you google speed test dot net or whatever the URL is And then the word revenue, there's all these websites that tell you how much your traffic is worth and like they're not really that Interesting, but they kind of are.

This one, it says a billion dollars. It says there this URL is worth one billion dollars. Um By the way, like a mobile version of speed test, like is there an app that just you open it up and just tells you how fast your internet is right now? And like with iOS widget, you can just leave that open all the time. Great question. So I in order to get all this information, I went and read a lot of Z to um Zip Davis's annual reports. And they just acquired a company that they want to integrate into this company that does that for mobile. So they're working on it, but clearly there's opportunity here. Yeah, that's funny. Um

Yeah, the thing with speed test is is like any uh It like s they get free customers because any time somebody Like if you call your Comcast or whatever, they're like, Hey, can you go run a speed test? Go to a speed test and they like send you the link and so it's like It's like every troubleshooting IT person like sends you this link. So that they're not like paying for customers. They get it for free that way. Which is an interesting which is interesting. But you kinda said two things. So you're the so it's Ziff is interesting, but then you were saying

What could I do with STR? So there's kinda like let's say three paths. There's um Default, do nothing. There's Path two, which is

Okay, I keep this Facebook group and I just actually do the short term rental, which would be like the equivalent of the Alex Hermosy guy or whatever doing Like building out more gym. Right. So it's like Well, you can actually make a lot of money if you just do the short term rentals and just use that information, put your energy there. Or you can put your energy towards building the community and the content around people who are interested in short term rentals and there's clearly appetite. You're things that like a thousand members and there's like super valuable, interesting content being shared there. So clearly there's value in either a paid community

or a paid newsletter plus a paid community or something like that. Um, how do you think about which one is like a good thing to do? Well I might do the first one, which is do nothing. I didn't create this to build a business. I did it just'cause people were reaching out to me. I didn't want to talk to everyone and I needed a way just to like communicate.

But If and maybe if I want to, but also maybe if I never want to. I think the way that you go about this is you do like a I I would do one of two things. I would create either a weekly or a bi weekly newsletter that explains the news that impacts this business and regulations. Followed by I would do what you do, which is take like the five most interesting tweets from the week of STRs and I'll explain my opinion of them.

I would do that. And then I would also create a um a uh uh a a paid tool. So I would create the best sheet. So like whenever you like look at these properties, you create like a sheet that like you put your inputs in. Yeah. And and then and then it would say like look, like a lot of people right are current What we've noticed is that currently people are are getting twenty percent cash on cash return. So if above

You know, do that it below, don't do it. And here's like how your math should look. So I think you could create something like that and and and sell it for maybe three to five hundred dollars a year. And then if you wanted to, you do a higher end thing like ten thousand dollars for people who already have three or four Airbnbs. And it just you talk to all the experts who have scaled this up successfully to like ten and twenty units and done it relatively hands off. And I think you could charge

Two to Five thousand dollars for that. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a ton of options. Um So yeah, I I think you you've stumbled into a very

a very cool niche that you're genuinely interested in. So I think you know, it'll play out how it plays out. I think that'll be it's cool, right? It's very cool. Yeah. It's one of one of the more interesting little things that uh Yeah, I think it's intriguing. I have two silly ideas for you. So silly idea number one. Um

So I was looking at so remember the guy from Liquid Death came on? And he w he came on I don't know when that was, maybe like a year ago or less than a year ago. No, I think it was like two years ago. And and'cause I I I've been doing this thing. Two years? Well, you're right. Uh but I still had an office. And uh And We close the office.

A while ago. But he And we were I thought we were late. He had raised like twenty or thirty million dollars. I think the other day you raised like a hundred or like something crazy. So it's it's just continued to do super well. And uh and I've just seen a bunch of like kind of like

different water water beverage companies. By the way, did you see this this funny thing that happened this kind of tangent? Did you see this, uh so Austin Reef tweeted out, um the guy the guy from Morning Brew, he tweeted out uh You know, hey, you know, the Rock is gonna become a billionaire off of his tequila. Did you see the tweet? Yeah, and then the Rock replied. So I'll explain it. Yeah. So he goes, The Rock's gonna become a billionaire from uh From this tequila.

And um he goes, you know, Ryan oh who is oh no, George Clooney. George Clooney's Cas Amigos was sold for one point two billion and was doing like a hundred and seventy thousand cases. The rock is already doing like uh whatever I don't know, th it was like three and a half times that. So uh you know, the Rock's doing whatever, no public math. X X more uh cases, he's gonna become a billionaire off this business.

And the Rock replies, which is kind of amazing'cause the Rock is one of the most Um famous people on social media, period, like in the world. So pull pull Ben pull that tweet up. Um by the way. This Ben screen sharing thing.

Uh In the words of Sam Parr, can you say game changer? So make that a little bigger. And we we need a name, you know, like powerful young Jamie. We need uh, you know, like powerful Mormon Ben. We need like some s some killer nickname for you. Can you uh Just make the font bigger, so I can see it. All right there we go. So you guess so Dwayne Johnson replies and says uh the following. Let's scroll that down.

Okay. Cheers, Austin. Emoji of a tequila glass. I don't know about that first line, L O L. But I can speak to part to the parts to I can speak to the other parts of this tweet.

blushing smiley face. Like the rock is flirting with him. And then he goes, uh our projections to one million cases is pretty mind boggling. And expedient. Which I'm just f like when he said expedient, I thought it was so funny. I was like about a left field and he goes big exciting big comic exciting terramana. Uh announcement coming next week. Stay tuned, man. Picture good emoji of the earth and then emoji of a fist brown. Which I don't is that the symbol of Teravana? I don't know. Uh so funny to me.

Uh like I lost it. Wait, what what were you even talking about in the first place? Wait, let's Austin texted me and he goes, Hey, some kid that we just hired at the Morning Brute said he listened to your podcast and he said Because Austin asked this new guy, like all right, now who else shall we hire? And the kid goes, uh Why in their in their employee onboarding they they say we just hired you, who else should we hire? Which is like a record.

Yeah, and this kid raises his hand and he goes. I listened to this podcast with this guy named Sam Parr. I don't know what he does for work. We should hire him. Yeah. Like he's the he goes, the he seems like a pretty good podcast ho podcast host. Maybe we should hire him. And just the other day Sean got an offer to be or like an uh asked to interview for the head of digital for Playboy Enterprises and I'm getting offers at Morning Brew. Like to be a staff writer. Yeah, to be a they want me to be a junior associate writer at Morning Brew or I could uh become head of digital at Playboy Enterprises. Who comes out on top?

Uh what's your reaction to the uh to the job offer? What do you think about that? You know, like I I'll have to talk to my family. We'll have to talk to my family and off to see what we can do. Excited to announce my next chapter. That's so funny. But um, by the way, at one point I remember uh when I was uh running my startup, this was one of my like

I thought this was fair game, all's fair love and business, but uh but I think other people would think this is like completely unethical. I told people on my team I was like oh yeah, you should uh go interview or maybe even just f go work at one of these companies like, you know, g while we're building this thing for the next three months, like go just find out some information about these other companies that like Or like they're not like our direct competitors, but like If I knew information, it would be quite valuable to me.

And uh I remember To me, I literally I literally didn't even think twice about it, which is like, you know, maybe where my moral compass is broken, but Um I remember and m and like half my team was like, Oh, great idea. And then one person was like, you know I don't know if that's the best idea. And I was like, What why? What did I say?

And then I like realized I was like oh yeah, I guess that could be seen as kinda like, you know, dirty, I guess. So you know. Um I was like whoops. My bad. Never mind. If I uh if I ask you to do anything that is considered bad, cancel uh cancel the play. Well the other tactic is you just um try to recruit the other people's team not intending to hire them for a particular role and you say like super high salary. Yeah, and they're like well Why would you consider leaving this company? Oh, you don't like how it's run? What what don't you like about it? Right. I definitely talked to ex employees, so I've done this twice. I

Found somebody who worked at a place before or call them up. And usually like somebody who's like, you know, left the company, they don't really mind sharing they're not sharing like confidential information, but like they'll tell you like You know, we thought well initially we thought about things this way, but then we learned this. It's like I c I saved I remember once I just pivoted my business'cause we were gonna do this one thing and then

Um I talk to this guy. And uh actually it's funny'cause it this actually played out. I was building a thing that was getting really popular amongst teens doing group FaceTime. So this before the iPhone let you do groups. And um

And so it was like we kinda started to grow really fast amongst teenagers, and I was like How has nobody thought of this before? This is not like a new idea, just like uh is that a FaceTime group FaceTime. And so I went back and I talked to the I forgot who it was, like there's some app that like had blown up Seven eight years before that. Before house party. So we did this And House Marty was just starting to do the same thing.

And I went and talked to somebody from like Voxel or I forget what it was called. There's like some app like that that like had done this before. And they had gotten pretty far. Like they had raised like tens of millions of dollars They had millions of users. They were like sponsoring concerts that like teens were going to and be like, Oh, download our app and then group face time. Yeah, group face time when you go home. And like it was like the thing. And it like didn't work. So I asked the guy, I was like Hey, I'm kind of building group FaceTime now, like What went wrong for you guys? And he's like

Buddy, let me tell you here here's how your future's gonna play out. And he basically described kinda like word for word a bunch of things and I was I was like So in my head I'm thinking. Just good input. It's good feedback. Uh a good like Real world data.

Do I in my mind, do I have a compelling counterargument to why my fate is gonna be different than this person's fate? And I did not. And so I was like Yeah, I think the things he's saying I have really no like I think basically his like main thing was It'll grow.

But it won't stick and you'll never make money and it won't be Which was like the whole whole point of the clubhouse thing. Yeah, which is very similar to what ended up happening with Clubhouse. Before Clubhouse House party. So the guys who created Meerkat, they pivoted to House Party. House party blew up. VCs are funding it, tens of millions of dollars, doing group FaceTime. And I remember telling one of the VCs who did it, I go, Hey, here's why we pivoted away from this like just a couple months ago. even though we kinda had similar like pretty explosive growth was I saw some problems with churn. I couldn't think of what I would do to mitigate it. And then I talked to this guy and he was like

Yeah, here's the problem. They'll come home from school. He's like he's like there's a s there's a sweet spot in age Where They have friends, but they don't have a car. And so they come home and they're like trapped.

So they just want to group they'll just like go home, go to the room, and they'll just call their friend for like six hours straight. He's like, Let me guess in your data, you're seeing six hour sessions. I was like, Yeah, we are. And he's like, Yeah, cool, you that's normal. And I was like, Oh, I thought we were special. He's like, No, that's that's exactly how they use this. And then they go to car and then they'll go to college. And when they go to college, their freshman year, they'll use this ton with their friends from high school. And then they'll never use it again. Because

They don't they stop talking to the friends from high school. Then in college their friends are all around them. They don't need group face time and then they become an adult and they never need group face time. He's like so why why why did these get funded then? Oh, because you see the chart. You see Growth like we were saying, you see six hour sessions and you say, uh, is this the next big social network? Maybe this is the next Snapchat, next TikTok. And so you bet. And like sure enough, House Party sold for not a lot to

to Fortnite basically in the end as like a team and technology acquisition and that would never saw the light of day again. Like it didn't work out. Um But you know I I think other people should do what I did, which was talk to the p pass competitors and they're always gonna have like They're always gonna be jaded. So y you know, they're never gonna say this will work because their shit didn't work and they think they're smart.

But when you hear their argument for what went wrong, you say, Does that match my data and experiences? And then secondly, do I think anything has changed as the why now any different? Um, and in my case it was not. Damn. That's crazy, man. We gotta we gotta like uh when I see some of these things get invested, I also get intoxicated. into them as well. I'm like, Oh wait, this is not gonna work. Yeah, and then it's still a fine bet. Like somebody was saying this when when I did that clubhouse thing and I was a a bunch of people were like, Oh, I think that's true, that I think that's how it's gonna play out.

A couple of smart people point it out like look Um These guys invested I think they invested like a hundred million dollars. I think I think Andreas invested a hundred million dollars at a four billion dollar valuation for Clubhouse at its peak. And like since then the chart just shows it going down, down, down, but They were like you know

Their fund is this big, so this is like It's not It's not a s it's not a like major it's not like they're betting the house on this. They're betting like their normal size bet. It's just a big number to you. Secondly. It's a pretty binary option. Like this is either gonna go big and this is gonna this price is gonna look cheap or it's gonna go to zero.

And if it goes to even if it goes down. they're gonna be able to sell this for something and they have preference. So they're gonna make back, you know, if this thing sells for fifty million dollars eventually to Twitter or whoever Um You know, they're gonna get the whole fifty because they have like So the they get the money first. So they'll make back their money first. And so like

You know, like On the whole, it's not that bad of a bet, even if it doesn't work out. And if it does work out, you know, you're a genius and great you're you know, everything worked out great. So Um So yeah, it's whatever. I was gonna tell you an idea. Yeah. So my ideas are on a beverage company. Okay. So I was thinking about I was like, damn, everybody's done every variation of this that's like Bottled water, boxed water.

Liquid death is water in a pan that looks like a beer. There's vitamin water, there's nonvitamin water, there's flavored water, there's sparkling water, and then there's like ten of each of these, right? I was like, what what haven't people done? What's the And so I came up with this brand and this is free for anybody to run with. Um just catch up what's it, like hot dog water? Catch your boys in. Catch a boys in uh if you do this. I'm calling it Felix Felicious. Um Which is I don't know if you ever read Harry Potter, but it's basically this

potion that Harry gets. He wins this thing and the professor gives him this potion and it's like You get one drop of this. And it's g it's gonna give you great like good luck for one day. Twenty four hours you're gonna have everything's gonna go your way. And uh the potion was called Felix Felicious or something like that, or Felicies, I don't know how you say it, but like in my head when I was reading it, I called it Felix Felicious. So we're gonna go with that. So Basically it's

It's good luck. Felix Felicious and it's like your one lucky cat. I don't know. I bet I'm just butchering the pronunciation and I don't know what it is. What a great slogan that you just came up with as we build this brand in public here. You're one lucky cat. And um And the you know the brand it's and the the basically it's water That's infused with

Things that give you good luck. I don't know what that is. It might just be good vibes. It might be like some crystal, uh like you know that gold slogger liquor, like there's like some flakes at the bottom that are your little good luck charms. Um This comes from you know the Himalayas. No it comes from whatever the luckiest place on earth is. I don't know what that is. We'll find out. That's the idea. It's just placebo water. And it's openly placebo water.

But you know what? I like when I feel like I had a little good luck charm at the start of my day. I like the idea that hey, you know Got that big test today. If I what am I gonna go grab? Vitamin water or lucky water? I'm gonna go grab the lucky water if I got the test, just in case. Just in case we've got I've heard a lot of ideas on this podcast, and that is definitely one of them. That's what I would say about that. Okay, my second silly point. My second silly idea is

Again. Another great name. It's called Gallimone. What's Calimone, you ask?

Gallimony is alimony for your girlfriend. So here's the deal. Let's say you're a girl, you're you're dating a guy who's super into crypto, right? You're he keeps talking about Ethereum and Bitcoin and Z cash and the next big thing. He he keeps telling you that web three is the future and you know, smart contracts and the dollar's gonna crash and he never needs to talk to a lawyer again because of smart contracts. You say, Oh That's cool. Actually I have a great smart contract idea for us. And she he's like, Oh, I'm so glad you're finally getting into web three. This is the future. You're like, Yeah, yeah, it's the future for sure.

Um Hey, why don't you just use your MetaMask to log into Gallimony? And what you do is you put up one ETH. And if we break up. I get half. And it's a it's basically a divorce.

For non married couples. Where the boyfriend is obsessed with web three and you're the girlfriend and you're like, How do we profit off of this guy's annoying obsession with Gallimony. That's good. Smart contract that would go viral and uh you just both lock up your you both lock up your ETH or maybe he locks up your ETH. He locks up the ETH and it's actually actually here's okay, let me make it better. Let me just riff with myself here. This is a one man brainstorm. Okay. He puts in the ETH.

The ETH is never at risk. So'cause you know, maybe he's like, Why why would I take this deal? You say, The ETH is never at risk, my friend. If we break up, you'll always get your ETH back. But while we're dating This is gonna be automatically yield farming interest. And I get to keep the interest. on this thing because I'm putting in this time dating your schmuck ass who's obsessed with web three. So

Put a little collateral up. It's gonna be farming. We get to have a web three experience. This is the future, am I right? That's what I would be doing if I was dating web three bro. So how does she get paid? She like clicks a button and says we're going to have a little bit more. Actually, maybe it's tied to like your Instagram account. I don't know. We you maybe maybe both sides have to confirm that you're broken up. Uh yeah, but why would I ever confirm that I'm not sure. I'm just gonna send her this link that says he signed in with a cryptographic signature that only he could do with his private keys saying, we are not broken up. And so, you know, you kinda need that proof of proof of relationship to be accurate, otherwise you're leaving a little liability out there by saying With the utmost truth truth.

that you are in a relationship. So he's gonna have to he's gonna have to be true. Have you heard young kids what they say now is the r receipt? Yeah, these are receipts. Yeah, like show me the receipt. And that's what we're talking here. I I just learned that on that T V show that you Uh discovered for everyone else called Cheer.

Yeah, you know, I'm just like, you know, such a I basically like at like these indie festivals, just finding these hidden gems like cheer. Yeah, so Gallimony I'm on board with. I think that's cool. That is a viral idea. Ben, uh young, powerful Mormon Ben, can you come out here and tell us Give me your rankings, one to ten, ten being I'm quitting my job and I'm going starting this, one being I can't believe you just said that idea. Give me

Felix Felicious Where you at? Um I'm honestly at like a nine or ten. Thank you. Thank you. Placebo water.

Which I also think is like a separate brand, maybe, for like science nerds, but like same idea. At least we admit we're full of shit. No, no, it's it's no it's it's actually placebo water is actually part of the category. I'm a category creator in addition to a entrepreneur, designer, and fashionista. So the category here, it's like plant based. But it'll just be called placebo based. uh beverages. And these are placebo based beverages of which we are you know, we launched the first one. Okay, and what about

On board. And Gallimone, that one Not quite there. Not not quite to the level of uh Felix Felices. I'm gonna say that's more like a Uh six. Like there's something there, but you need to develop it a little bit more. Okay. I don't know. Anything less than an eight is a zero, by the way. Can I tell you about one

So have you heard of the Twitter handle Elon Jet? Elon Jet No, what is that? Dude. There's this young kid who created Is it just basically Elon's jet, is that the guess? Who just tracks Elon's jet?

And so as of now, he's near where our friend Jack lives in Hawaii. That's so funny. And so basically when you have a job. How many? Eighty three thousand.

And so it's a twenty million. Zip to eighty three thousand followers overnight. It says something like um Alright, took off from Canalou. Kalua.

Hawaii. Now going to Austin, Texas. Arriving in six hours and seventeen minutes. Landed in Austin, Texas, approximate time six hours and twenty one minutes. It's pretty pretty wild, I mean.

Um this uh y you're not a big sports guy, uh like a uh mainstream sports guy, but This became a big deal every year for uh NBA free agency. So basically, you know Kawhi Leonard becomes a free agent. He just won the finals. He's the finals MVP. He's like the hottest free agent. And nobody knows where he's gonna where he's gonna sign and all the reporters We're trying to like work their sources, but like their sources are basically like

Teams leaking information that makes them look good and the agent leaking information that just like is a negotiation in public against other teams. And Reddit actually solved the case. They were like, Hey We can just track Kawaii's jet. Oh look, he's going to LA. I bet he signs at the Clippers. And sure enough signs at the Clippers like what type of jet did he have? Uh like why so I I I w how does jet registration work? So they could sh so they could track basically any private

f uh private flight has to go through air traffic control. That's how these guys do all the stuff. So they they had the just figure out once what they don't you don't know who's the passenger, but you figure out whose jet is it. So for example, this is Elon's jet. What they were tracking for Reddit, I think, was the owner's jet. So they knew um They knew which owners, which teams were going to pitch him. So be like, oh, a flight from Miami to Toronto just left. That's pri that's the Miami heat owners jet. So that's them going and pitching their case. Oh, they got a second meeting. So that means they're doing better than the next week didn't get a second meeting. And they were tracking that and then the I forgot how uh uh I think what it was was like the Someone had lent basically like they they know who the billion they know who the billionaires' jets are and you can't like shake that. Once that's tagged, it's tagged. And so from there they knew and somebody was like letting him use their jet. It wasn't Kawai's jet, but like something like that was going on where

w a rich guy was letting Kawaii use his jet for this purposes. And so they knew before the professional journalists knew where he was gonna sign. This is badass. I've never heard about this. This is awesome. I knew that like jet tracking was was like that, but I didn't realize it was that good. That you could Like for basketball traits.

Right. It's really scary. I feel like you shouldn't be able to do this. Dude, what's crazy is like My head automatically goes to like crazy stuff, like J F K shit, like Yeah. I'm like, oh I could go kill Elon.

Yeah, some kidnap or some like you know. Just w with a with a good enough shot, you know, I got this. Right. He needs Harrison Ford flying with him Air Force One style. If we're gonna put Elon on a jet, he'd be a little bit more. Wow, I'm impressed. Um at the top of the hour. I think you got a jet. So uh we'll track where you go. Oh, Jim Market. Yeah, right. Yeah, can someone make one of these for us and just leave like a southwest?

I'll send you my Southwest anytime flight details, I'll just give it to you and you can just post it. Yeah, does Hurt's car rental like uh they put an air tag in my four torus. Yeah, Sean's still in the burbs. He went to the parking too. Still there. Oh, Chick-fil-A. Oh my god, it's so stupid. Alright, we're done.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.