Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland Tells Us His Next Move, Lessons Learned In Jail, and More

Most internet entrepreneurs when they get into starting businesses, they do things that are either black hat or gray hat and then they realize I gotta do things legit because I don't wanna go to jail and I can make more money doing things ethically. And not breaking the law. Like you just like make so much more money legit. How on earth did you not learn that lesson earlier? All right.

Today's pod is interesting. We just had Billy McFarlane in. He's famous for the Fire Festival thing, which basically was this like Huge Coachella type event that went viral four years ago and he ended up committing a ton of crimes that he admitted to and Was

charged and convicted of like twenty five or thirty million dollars with a fraud. We just had him on the pod. Very confusing pod, Sean, I think. Not confusing, but c but like mixed emotions. Yeah, yeah. I I mean he's an interesting guy. He's also uh complicated like most people. And uh Yeah, I I don't know. I think we I think it was pretty interesting. We talked about a bunch of things. We talked about

Kinda his Origin story, how he got to the Fire Festival and Almost like where it all went wrong. So where did he start making You know

Mistakes and then eventually committing crimes. Uh we talked about life in prison and What that was like in solitary confinement and things like that. We talked about What he's doing now, how he's trying to come back and uh me and Sam are a little bit hard. On his new idea, I would say.

If this was a normal If this was just a normal person, random person on the street, I would not have been as harsh. But I felt like I I don't know, for whatever reason I felt like I had the license to be a little harsh on this one. Um we talked about that. We talked about other ideas about what he could do or other opportun business opportunities he sees.

Uh pretty fascinating guy. Very fascinating guy. The thing that like That sits bad with me is Or makes me confused is he's very likable. He's a very likable person, incredibly charming, very charismatic.

And I want him to win. But He did a lot of really bad shit. And he seems a little a little coached in the sense that he's like Right up front we'll say.

Uh what I did was terrible. I deserve no sympathy. Uh You know, I was wrong and I was an idiot. Right. And he's very quick to kind of own that, which is great. You want somebody to own it. But it's also I think.

That's somebody who who Understands. Okay, I this is the message. I gotta stay on this message. And um Yeah, I gotta make it really clear where I stand on that. It's like when you have like a star football player, a star athlete in in high school and you see them like

doing bad shit off the field and you're like, dude, you have it all, man. You've got the talent. Please don't blow this. It it hurts us all to see someone with so many gifts do such bad shit. And that's a little bit how I felt with this. And uh Yeah, I'm I say this in the end, but I'm eager to see how this story ends. I'm gonna be following it and I think it was a good pod. Uh Ben, our pr producer Ben thought uh it went great. He was messaging us during it, but I uh I think people will like it. Yep, alright, enjoy. Alright, let's just get right into this. So

It sounds like you have like staff. Like you just asked someone to get you a coffee. So are you like are you back I mean you're you're you're in the mix again, you're working. Yeah, broke as hell. Taking advantage of Yeah. Anybody I can get to help me try to rebuild and

Start making things right. And you have like a crazy Restitution thing. So uh we should explain kind of what the So This is Billy.

Billy created. Fire festival most notably. You may have seen I don't know the documentaries or whatever. You just got out of prison, but one of the things that's associated with it is you have like More than twenty million or something that you have to pay back in restitution to

Some combination of investors, uh Creditors, people like that. How does that work? You h do you have to give them like every dollar or is it a certain percentage? Like How does that work? Because that's a deep, deep hole. Yeah, and it's brittle. And like I just can't think about that that big number because then you know I'll sort of lose track about like what's happening today and tomorrow.

So How it works is that I have to pay a percentage of all of my personal income, you know, directly back To restitution. Like after taxes. They they calculated on just like gross income. So totally pre tax income. So make like a thousand dollars this week.

I have a set percentage I have to pay on that thousand dollars. But what is it to that? Yeah. What's the percent? Is it like crazy or is it like five percent? It's more than five, I'm not sure like where it's gonna end up, it varies based on income. So I know what I have to pay right now, but I think it gets readjusted every couple of months.

And then In addition to that, Pirate's giving ten percent of all of its revenue back to restitution as well. So If Pirate gets a hundred K sponsorship deal, like it'll pay ten K right away. And then whatever I get as my like salary or income, I'll pay an additional percentage on top of that. So

Just trying to pay more than I have to. Why are you doing this right now? Why are you t I mean, like You know, you're in a different situation. I I I firmly believe that I I I listen to your pod the pods that you've done I've watched the documentary. I've read a little bit. Like you made a massive mistake. So I think that you you You deserved to be punished.

And so I don't feel sorry for that. F I don't feel sorry for you for having to do that. I think five years is or four years, however much you serve. That's a that's a lot. So my my current stance is like everyone deserves a second chance and if you p if you do the crime And you have to do the time like you

You there should be a point where it's like all right, you screwed up, you get a you can try again. I feel that. But when I see you doing this podcast push right now, I'm like Should we Is he taking advantage of us? Like why is this guy doing this right now? Why is he what what is he gonna what's he trying to sell or or is this therapeutic or are you just trying to make a living? Which

Well, you know, what what's your what's your motivation between this recent push? Yeah, so like first of all Totally deserved what I got. And Sorry, I think there's like days where I felt like I got too much time. There's days where I felt like I didn't get enough, just like based on

Everything else happening in the world. So Deserve it was coming and like Definitely not looking for sympathy. I think there's two things here. One is that by doing these podcasts, I'm getting great like inbound deal flow.

So If three or four companies are listening to this and they're like, Oh wait, he actually does know how to market, he can get us attention and they'll come and hire me like That's amazing. That's my entire purpose of like doing this small media run right now. I think it's like looking at your Twitter comments a little bit this morning before I came on the show. A lot of people and other hosts have gotten the same feedback is like why the hell would you give a con artist like any time of day?

Hm. Loved your loved your response, but I think The response to all those people is like. You said like Maybe an interesting conversation that will get us money. So like I like transparency. I like good transparency.

I said I said uh an interesting person Or uh a cu uh an interesting person that would have an interesting conversation and it will get us a lot of views. Uh I think that's cool. I think other people haven't been able to, so I think that's great, but I think to them is that Anybody who has taken life

to the extreme or too far. has learned like a lot of good and bad lessons from that. So like they can use me, right? And If there's like one entrepreneur here who's trying to raise money and he or she thinks like, shit, this is a little harder than I thought sixty days ago. And they're about to send out that monthly investor update.

Don't fuck up your numbers. Like don't don't go over the top to to raise that cash and like if I can stop one person Really cool. But on the other end of the spectrum, if there's somebody who's going about it honestly and they're scared to kind of take that leap. Like

That can inspire them to go and try to make their brand pop off. Really cool as well. So I think there is lessons to be learned and people could kind of use all of my mistakes to help them wherever they are in their Entrepreneurial journey. And you you are kind of a hustler, so you um

Uh we'll kind of go fast through it, but you You basically when you were in middle school started creating projects. I I don't even want to say company'cause like, you know I don't know how much how much of a company it is when you're in middle school, but like You were building products and uh launching them as websites, that's right. Is that right? Like in middle school. Yeah, just basically started doing super basic HTML CSS in like fifth and sixth grade.

And This is what twenty, twenty one, twenty two years ago. And it was pretty much like the wild, wild west days of the internet. And

start a couple of like web hosting companies and basic social networks and that was really my foray into the world of entrepreneurship and technology. So you You make those sites, you end up selling them. Or you sold at least one of them.

Uh for like What, like uh a a big win, a small win? Wha w would you do when you were kind of like You're probably. Yeah, these are a couple of thousands of dollars. So like life changing to You know a kid who just wants to buy candy, but

I know, at this point kind of irrelevant, but I think like kinda got me into the game. Um Start a little bit of a bigger media site called Twenty Four Scene in High School. And sold that.

Twenty four. Yes. So to a company called Buddy TV out of Seattle when I was sixteen. W what did that do? What was twenty four scene? It was a content network and I love the TV show twenty four. So was basically clipping You know.

snippets of the twenty four show and this is before streaming. So it's harder to get our twenty four? Yeah, exactly. actual media of the shows. This is all based on like, you know Fox like air it and then It really was very little media afterwards. So

I was taking like The show that Air and clipping it up. And ended up doing it for A half a dozen T V shows. And I had this business partner at the time who was in his mid thirties in Michigan.

Well never met. And he like orchestraed the sale and then he paid me out on Western Union every two weeks for like the remainder of my high school. So That was pretty crazy. How much did you how much did you make do that?

It was like tens of thousands of dollars, like but at the time It was it was wild for me. And from there is you you went to school. And you you graduated, but you never had a a a real job, did you? Went to college.

Um basically started living off of my twenty four scene capital under this little suitcase under my bed. My fresh year of college. And for the first time like started going out, like going to nightclubs, going to dinners, like Exploring what every eighteen year old I think

Man like want to see what's out there in the world. And blew all my cash in a couple of months. So I'm like shit, now I'm broke sitting in my college. And it's like small town. I can't afford to like try to find a car to take me to New York City anymore. Like what can I do?

So Got back to what I knew, which was Basic programming. And started a social networking website called Spling. During my freshman year of college.

And That introduced me to this entire world of like venture capital and angel investing. And essentially dropped out of school. halfway ish through my freshman year to to work on Spling. And then I started this whole like run of venture capital backed startups.

My um My wife. Uh, through friends of friends somehow uh had some run ins with you at Penn. Like Like a par and she was she was Like good running or you know.

Uh uh someone you m you must have dated someone or a friend of someone and she and she uh they would tell me stories about uh they're like yeah, we knew him and he would always rent like these fat cars and drive us all and pay for everything to go to New York City from Philly. Uh and like he we just thought Like he just had some business and no one knew what it was. No, it wasn't anything inappropriate. But it was just like he just like W just we all do it's this guy who must have had some money th through some internet companies and he uh He treated uh uh all of us on a regular basis.

Yeah, so went to went to Philly for a company called Dream Adventures, which is kind of like this Accelerator incubator program. And Yeah, I was dating a girl at the time who was I think I think it's a sophomore now at Penn, so I should have been a sophomore in school. So all my like peers and friends were were in college and like So I'd be like at Dream It trying to raise money by day and then like at the terrible like college parties by night and then obviously try and take them to New York.

So w what what triggered this switch from like Uh I'm a kid programmer who likes to make hobbyist websites like you know, scenes from my favorite TV show twenty four to like I'm trying to be the man. 'Cause it seems like at some point you all all your business ventures switch to like Things that were

Super cool, right? You did the black card. Credit card thing. Uh you did Fire, obviously, which was like, you know, the next Coachella So At some point you switch from like

kinda hobbyist websites. To How do I be the cool guy, you know, the big man on campus type of thing. What what triggered that that switch for you? Yeah, I think that's a good question.

And it was almost like I was living these alternative life and not really fitting in with either one. I was a college kid, but trying to raise money from venture capitalists when Yeah, at my little school, majority of the students haven't heard of the word like venture capital in their life. And then so I'd go hang out with these venture capitalists who were Titans of industry.

or as you know, successful angel investors and kind of go back to the college realm. So I was always kind of interested in merging The two worlds? So When I'm hanging out with the VCs, the college kids all want access to this and they would hire me to help like market or consult. So those kind of hustling and trying to make side income to

to fund a lifestyle and trying to kinda keep up with this new world that my basic programming had been giving me access to. And then at what point so The it was like your first kinda It wasn't a real win. Like it you didn't exit, but you

raise I think four or six million dollars. Was that the the Magnes is it called Magnesis? Yes. So Um Turn nineteen. Graduated from the Dream Adventures.

moved Spling to the second ever We work labs. Uh down on Barracks Street in New York. And I was there at We Work. Now around these like thirty ish, you know, hustling entrepreneurs all trying to make it I'm a kid.

And When I'm to dinner, but it's like a group of these friends I was starting to meet in New York who are a little bit older, a little bit more established. And one of them pulls out this black American Express insuring on card and kind of slams it on the table to show off. And I'm like, fuck, I have$40 in my Chase account. Like, how how can I do this?

So I went back to my WeWork office, went online to Alibaba before Alibaba was really like a mainstream thing. Uh particularly like in New York and the US. But He's Black metal.

Cards. and bought a credit card copier. It kinda came in the mail. took my Chase Blue debit card, copied it onto this black card. Went to the pizza place across the street from the we work.

Guy was treating me like I was a royalty, went back into the office and just sold these cards to all the entrepreneurs in the We work office. And then Magnesis is born. And how big did that business get before it uh Before it went south. So that means it did total like eleven, twelve ish million in revenue over three years.

And My biggest mistake was getting distracted by fire in the fire festival. And I understand this is forwarding like years in advance. Five. in the run up to fire festival for the four or five months. I just started trying to get money from anywhere and everywhere.

and basically milked the Magnesis customer base as much as I could. And then when fire crashed, Magnesis went down with it. So Just not seeing it through was such a fuck up. But Magnesis was just it was just literally like It's not a bank account.

It was just literally the physical car as well as some perks. Like you would get like discounts to certain concerts, I guess was where Fire kinda got inspiration from. Discounts to certain clubs, I guess, or like a discount to like a private jet service. So d you just must have negotiated the deals or probably even white labeled like some other company that hadn't found cool deals and you for three hundred dollars you got the sick uh card, like literally physically just a card with your same bank account. You had access to like a townhouse. I forget what you called it, a townhouse. Uh and you got to go to some parties and you got some perks. Is that basically the model? Exactly. Then what was really interesting though was the members were bringing all the perks and benefits.

So initially I sold these cards. And so now let's say we sold a couple hundred cards. I'm like wow, our member base is super interesting, whether they're Entrepreneurs. There are people in all these different industries that my friends don't really have access to. Like let's get a space they can all come and connect.

So went and rented. A series of lost in townhouse that I couldn't afford. Where basically members can come and hang out anytime. Then As Magnesius grew.

You just built an app. Where members would come to us saying, Hey, I work at this brand, whether it's like This plane company, this fitness studio, this fashion. Let's do something special for the rest of the members. And

It would basically pay us. To advertise and give access to cool shit to the members and the members will pay us an annual fee. to get access to these perks. So it's kind of interesting where we're making money from both sides and then relying on the actual member base.

to create the offering. Was it profitable? So I was just so bad with financial management. that we raised, you know, a a few million bucks for magnesis, but we never had more than two months of runway in the entire history of the company.

So I'd raise around and like eighty percent of that round was already spent in terms of like bills owed to employees, contractors, agencies, whatever. So it's like always a kiss of death, like okay, raise a million bucks, but fuck, I owe eight hundred grand and now we have two months to run by left. I think my biggest inability was to communicate like that problem to investors. I just kept saying like things are great, you know?

They'll raise a million bucks and we're off for the races. I couldn't just like really explain how much we needed and why we needed it. And that caused us to have to basically become profitable super early on. So just started monetizing the user base way more than I should have.

Which I think diminished the value of the brand. And For like the last year and a half to two years of magnesium, it's like We weren't profitable, but we were paying all of our bills just based on revenue. It's like try to monetize too quickly and too fast.

To keep up with my like crazy expenses. But even Magnesius Magnesis had issues. Like uh there's like stories of like you know, the the m members saying we thought we were buying tickets to blank, but turns out like we didn't actually have'em, or maybe like Hamilton tickets. I think there's a story around that. Like you even had issues then. Well What a Yeah. Wha what were the i what were those issues?

So when Fire Festival came. And I just started going down this terrible rabbit hole. I needed money from everywhere and anywhere. And that included Over selling and

Trying to overpromise things to Magnesius members to get that capital. And it just like took everything down and like I I was wrong and I was like lying everywhere. thinking I could make these miracles happen and sometimes we did, but more often than not. We we crash and burn at the end.

So I just like totally just like lost track of All the good that was happening. And I know you you feel bad. And you probably feel, you know, some shame and all all all these negative things. Do you ever just laugh at like

Wow, what the hell like what did I do? Where did this go? How great How far did this thing go? It's like There's a reason there's documentaries about it. It's it's literally like a movie. Is there any part of you That just sort of looks at this and says, I can't believe

W how far I let this thing go and how far it went. Totally. And like I was like looking at and trying through the SPF scenario, you know, for the past Couple of weeks. And I think at the end of the day, like

He's obviously in a completely different stratosphere, but It's really in his position, it's really hard to say no to someone with ten billion dollars, right? I don't care like how smart or how wealthy you are. So much of our decision making process. is based on social proof. And when you meet someone with that kind of capital

It immediately checks off all these like subconscious boxes. Yeah. create this phenomenon on social proof. And I think that like to a much larger scale, that's what happened to him. But it's also happened to me where I have thousands of customers or thousands of members and all these talent and artists who are promoting the brand.

No, I was in a position where I was just like way too young, way too immature. And People Who should've Helped me?

were almost scared to say no. And I kind of like relished and thrived off of that. And this led me down this terrible, terrible rabbit hole. And when they started saying no, I was too like in my own head, where oh You know, I pulled j pulled us off and proved you wrong before. I just like didn't know how to press that red button to stop.

And that was like one of my biggest issues. I think the reason you're interesting Because Every entrepr we have a lot of I mean, people who like listen to this pot are like entrepreneurial And everyone

Like Most internet entrepreneurs when they get into starting businesses, they do things that are either black hat or gray hat and then they realize They realize like, Okay, this is sick. I know how to make money, like I'm proficient at this skill set, but like I gotta do things legit because I'm gonna make way more money if I and I do the same thing. I used to do these like I mean I

Done criminal shit as well. And I'm like, what the hell am I thinking? I should do things the right way because I don't want to go to jail and I can make more money doing things ethically. And not breaking the law. Like you just like make so much more money being legit. How on earth did you not learn that lesson earlier? I think just craziest thing is I didn't know

really what failure was until I failed on such a massive scale. Um I think part of what let me go so far is I obviously had as many losses, if not more, than every other entrepreneur along the journey. But I was really good or I guess really bad at blocking

Out that noise. I was so focused on like this end goal of Nothing else matters, like let me put my blinders on just like keep running forward. And I just kept getting jaded to failures until the failure became so big that I'm

I'm locked in solitary confinement. And what was the end goal? Like for for for me, it's like I wanna make a certain amount of money so I can have a certain house, so I don't have to worry anymore, so I can spend my monthly however much I want. And then there's there's I mean I mean all of us have some ego thing of like I wanna prove to people that I'm legit. Yeah. Um What what what was your and but I like had a certain money goal in mind. I'm and I imagine Sean's the same way. He's like, Well, I want this lifestyle, I want this. What what's what's your motivating factor in all this? Like you say I wanna have a hundred million dollars in net worth by a certain age or I want girls to have sex with me, which is like we all obviously do. Like what's like the motivating factor?

I wanna fit in. I think I I had two big like Insecurities and drives. One is those initial investors who back me when I was eighteen. I wanted to prove to them that they were right and fire was seven.

years later from that, seven, eight years later after that. So one I wanted to prove they were right, and I was too insecure to Just show any kinks of my armor to them. And two is I want to be the guy that just like took you to wild crazy experiences. And I'm like, wow, like this whole programming thing is taking me into this world of entertainment. I'm hanging out with like rappers and models and comedians and My friends don't believe me. Like I want to be that guy who can take you from your shitty college or from your like shitty desk job.

Where the who's who of the world is Letting in their guards and having a blast. So it was partly like proving myself to investors. And two, partly prove myself to friends that like I'm the guy that made this life experience happen that you just can't get anywhere else.

We should explain the origin. So you You go from magnesis. I don't know what's in between, but at some point you create This is app called the Fire app. The Fire app was meant to like

let you book uh artist, right? So you could be like, Oh, I want uh you know, whatever, Timberland to perform at at a party. I can send a booking request. And he can accept or reject and there's no middlemen or minimal Yeah, less middlemen in the middle. And so, you know, sort of create a marketplace. For

You know, people to book. These artists. That was the core idea. And Fire Festival was a marketing stunt. To promote the app. Right, but at some point the two kind of almost flipped in importance and Fire Festival became

The the overarching thing. Fire festival. starts uh from what I understand because You meet a guy who's like, Yo, I have this little plane and I fly to these random Caribbean islands And you used to go on your weekends, you know, in this like fourth person plane.

Hang out. Come back. And you were like, wow, this is so dope. People are like, Wow, that sounds so dope. You're like, Yeah, you should come do this too. And somehow your experience of like flying to these remote islands

And having a having a good time. Became What if we fly three thousand people down to this island.

And we do this like Festival, this Coachella like festival. Did I get that right so far? I think you told the story better than me. Okay, perfect. But but somewhere along the way you get something wrong. I'm fast forwarding this because I think, you know, it's documented in other places, but I do want to explain it for somebody who's listening. So Somewhere along the way, you're like, all right, we're doing this, we're doing fire festival.

And You Start promoting this thing. And your method of promoting was what? What was the marketing game plan to promote Fire Festival? So like

It all kind of stems down to I was for all my terrible flaws, I was really good at taking a tangible asset that most people didn't have and using that to launch a business. So Magnesis had this physical card that would cost me like two dollars to make per card. And then a crazy townhouse.

So my entire target demographic. Didn't have access to a black card. They didn't have access to a multi million dollar townhouse in downtown Manhattan when they're twenty three years old. So I took these two like inaccessible things. gave it to my customers and use that to launch a business on top of.

Fast forward to fire. Now I'm trying to cater to these you know, B list rappers and comedians who need small bookings. Um, these people aren't Jay Z, they aren't Drake, they don't have their own private island. So here's where I come in. Okay.

Now guys we have our own private island. You want to be involved with me and then I use that to hopefully build the fire booking app. So all my marketing strategy came down to taking a tangible good or service. that wasn't available to a certain audience. Giving it to them.

Making them feel like it's theirs and they own it. And using that to build a business. So that was the entire logic behind like the Fire app and Fire Festival component. And as you perfectly said, the importance quickly flipped. as we launched the marketing for Fire Festival and Fire Festival became it and Fire App became, you know.

A second thought. For that period of time. It's not like a bad plan. It's not a bad idea, I guess. On the pod, I think when the documentaries came out, we were like, Honestly It was a dope idea and somebody like if it had just been done

Like and it wasn't even like it's not like Theranos where you're like That was a dope idea. If somebody had just done it right, it's like well maybe it's technically impossible. Your sh Your thing was possible. You just had shitty like logistics and operations and poor planning. You just threw a You just threw it like the the idea of the event and then the actu the actual event.

did not live up to to the to the hype. But your thing was totally possible. Um What went wrong there? Why why were you not able to to pull off what you had sold? The dream that you had sold. Well you had.

Bella Hadid and you had Fucking, I don't know, Kendall Jenner and all the all these people promoting that hey, we're going to this thing. It's gonna be, you know, whatever, the party of the century. You sold the tickets. So you got that part right. It's just you didn't deliver the party.

You know what the craziest thing is? I think Lying? And Unable to show weaknesses.

made the festival fail. And I truly believe that my backers at the time were Well connected and smart enough where I came to them and said, Hey, look, guys. We did his great marketing campaign, but I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing.

They would have found like the best festival people in the world. Come and actually execute this. But I was so scared to show that I couldn't handle it. That I kept saying everything is great and everything is perfect. And that pushed away the people that would have helped me.

It's like literally lying, I think. Doom the festival from day one post announcement. Who were the big backers? Was it VCs or or or family offices or what? Uh handful of venture funds then you know twenty five individuals everywhere from like larger family offices down to just smaller angels.

Who is the biggest font or most well known font? Uh I just don't want to throw anybody under the bus. So yeah. Oh okay. I thought I wasn't sure if it was public, but uh I I think that Some of the investor list was A good portion of the investor list, I believe, was sealed in the court files and I didn't ask for it to be sealed, I think other people did, so

I just don't wanna Yeah. Sure. Don't want to do that. Our software's the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.

And so you uh you're like okay I I could have asked for help from Uh or organized people. And this is where I think things get a little tricky. So Mm-hmm. You brought up SBF.

Um I've I brought up Theranos, we're talking about Fire Festival. I think there's always a question of like Was as intentionally supposed to be a fraud. Like oh, I'm just gonna trick people and run away. And uh, you know, like with FTX right now, that's a question like

Did something happen that you weren't really paying attention to and then things got out of hand or From the beginning. Oh, you were like, I'm just gonna trick people and take their money. Um

For you Where did it s where did it start? It like was it well intentioned at the beginning and where did it turn? At what point did you realize oh I'm I'm I gotta just say this because I gotta get to the next dollar. I gotta get to the next the next milestone. So

Truly try to execute the event. And literally up until people were arriving to the festival. I thought it was gonna work and obviously that's so stupid looking back. Yeah, how how can you say that? You you knew you had like fucking You know, tents and like grilled cheese sandwiches for for people who ordered villas. Like what how could you

How could you still believe that right up to the event. Are you sober the in this entire time, by the way? Uh at drugs, but but with like drinking a lot. But yeah, way too much. Never. Like I've smoked weed maybe six times in my life, but I think it's like a common you know, people are saying I was on Coke or whatever, never tried Coke in my life.

So Okay, so yeah, back to so you're you're you're in a sober ish mindset. And you actually think it's gonna work the day of. Or the day before. I'm like

Here's my thought process. The island is so beautiful. We have it's like a local team who You couldn't script these characters. They have the boats, they have the jet skis, they're gonna take people out like We know how to do these experiences. We have some crazy pilots, like it's just gonna be like a wild

Weekend that you've never had before. And we have thirty artists who are paid. So You're gonna have like A list talent. One of the most beautiful places in my opinion, like In the Atlantic Ocean.

And amazing group. of these like movie scripted local characters. who have toys for you to play on. So I thought that like okay they'll go back and they'll have a shitty ticket. We don't we don't have food in sheltered bathrooms, but we got nature. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He needs food when you have two big But actually like I think the craziest thing is if we market it like that It would have been amazing. It would have been better. Okay, guys.

I can't figure out the logistics. I can't afford to to build like five hundred houses. But I somehow came up with the five million bucks for the artists. We have these great people. We have this great island. Like Bring a sleeping bag and figure this shit out.

I think if that mindset shift was marketed, people would have been a more excited. And they would have been like felt like they're owning the adventure. And it would have been almost like how early Bunning Man years were. And like the marketing like killed me at the end. Like the marketing sold tickets, but It also made it fail. What would the ideal outcome had been? Let's say that like

It just so happened to work, how much revenue and profit would it have made? And like what would the ideal situation uh had had been? So I have no idea. And like my entire Are you fucking kidding me? How do you not know this? So like I I we had a budget for ten million dollars for the festival. I didn't have ten million dollars. I'm like, okay, I can reasonably

raise ten million dollars just off of this brand that we're building right now for the festival. Um Ended up spending Way more than that. And it got to the point where

I would go to sleep with no money in the bank, wake up. And know that like that day I had to raise a certain dollar amount just to survive. And some days it was fifty grand, some days it was four million dollars. So I'd wake up at you know, nine AM

And know that I have until two PM to get X dollars in the bank to then rewire it out before the before the day ended. So my life is fucking hell. And I just couldn't like zoom out. So I was stuck okay. Say he's two million dollars. I can call this guy, I can call, and like At the end of the day.

Things keep getting bigger. The brand is gonna be so big. If this festival works, everybody's gonna get paid. And I just didn't like know how to. Really run the numbers at that point. So how much did you end up spending? We raised Twenty six or twenty seven.

Um But we were making money from other sources. Like we were selling tickets on top of that. We were getting sponsors. Magnesis was making money, I was doing consulting jobs, so it's like literally like Every day we should have different

Angle for money. So you spent maybe like thirty million plus. I would say In this six month period it was probably closer to forty. So you spent forty million.

So you sold seven thousand tickets, is that right? I think It was probably Just under six thousand. It was just like around three thousand people per weekend. Some were given away for free and some were sold. So we sold a little under six thousand. What's the revenue? F five thousand times what well what's the average ticket? What what were you selling these for? So the average the

Mm the the median ticket price is like twelve to fifteen hundred. However, we sold like a handful of outlier tickets for like a couple hundred thousand dollars plus per ticket. So then five thousand times two thousand, you're uh what's that, ten million. You're at ten million yeah in sales. Uh, and then did you have another couple of million from sponsors or anything like that? Yeah. And like the issue is that

Some of the ticket money was held in escrow. Some of it was for like These yachts and boats. So it wasn't like pure ten million dollars of free cash flow. It was like everything was held up or not held up in certain ways. I think like My Stripe account got frozen with like seven hundred grand in it the day the festival got canceled. So it's like you know, money was held in a bunch of different sorts of scenarios. So the the event itself didn't make any sense, right? It was like we're gonna make ten million, we're gonna spend forty, but but the brand no sense. The brand is gonna carry the way. But you could have gotten so much more profit just by running a a sh ten million or forty million dollars of Facebook ads.

You know what I mean? Like this is just like a a better or a slightly different version of cameo or something like that. Like these marketplaces are tried and true. Uh An event would've been cool if it were like a break even or a slight loss, but that But but put it this way, like it's For as wrong as things are like I can't do this tomorrow, but

If I did Fire Festival again in three years. I think Almost all the first group as well as the rest of like pop culture would buy tickets just to be there to see how bad it is, right? Like the the brand, the brand value is there. Just like how can I do it appropriately and pick the right time to US? May I have to do it again. I just

Can't do it while I'm on probation. I can't do it this year or next year, but you know, it has to be done again. I think no matter what success or failures I find along the way in tech, like until I execute Fire five. Have you seen his new company, Pirate? Go to the website. So it's a website.

Dude, trust me, go to it. It's P-Y R T Dot com. Billy, like This is the same shit that you're doing a little bit. Like it's it's all like W you said you could program like

Like When I see what you're doing and I you had you did the Met Gallop thing where where you got in trouble for scamming people out of that, I'm like A Just do a fucking course, dude. Just create A course and make two million like me and Sean make seven figures a year from this stupid stuff. It's not stupid, it provides value, but I mean it's like insignificant c compared to an event.

Or like you said you like the program and you like content sites, like just do something like boring and straight. Why are you doing this pirate thing? It's like The same shit. There's so many things that's gonna go that could potentially go wrong. It's just the the the stakes are so much higher than just creating some boring ass software. I hear you. Um I think pirate is actually Is that what you suggest? No. Uh Billy, we have uh three thousand people coming tomorrow. I hear you.

No, y you you might very well be right and I think the thing that we're getting back to with pirate is like I'm not trying to host a thousand people on an island. It's not gonna work. I want to get back to those trips on the small planes with a dozen people or two dozen people. That did work well for a couple of years.

And If I have to be like a tour guide. for a few years of my life and like eat shit, like I'm gonna go do that, but I can give a couple of dozen people. This amazing adventurous experience.

And then while I'm doing that I'd like to find interesting ways to broadcast those experiences to all of their followers. then give their followers a way to get involved. So I'm not trying to figure out the logistics to host thousands of people. I know it can host two dozen people.

And If I can take five years to build like really interesting, like virtual reality esque tech. Yeah. allows anybody to like watch and actually influence what's happening. I think that's like a really cool win.

And way to kinda get back to it. I'm gonna This is a horrible idea. Ha Yeah, dude. It's a horrible idea. If it I think you potentially are

Uh you're um You rank so high in capability and so high in in ignorance. Like and that's like a perfect combination, I think, of starting a business, which is like this like confidence of like I think I could pull this off and I'm capable of some things. That's actually a beautiful combination. But you also have this third part of the of the pie chart where it's just like reputation and like past and owing money. I just don't understand why you're doing this. It just you can you you are Brilliant at a lot of things. That just seems like such a

Start a just a boring ass agency that makes twenty million a year and ten million in profit. Yeah, if you just did like an event like a stunt marketing Agency. Or uh So we have that. We're announcing it today actually. It's called the Pirate Collective. And that's that's how we're f that's how we're trying to fund, I guess, our tech is. So so let's walk through this. Okay, so I'm on the pirate. I'm on the pirate website.

And it says. There's a picture of a private island. So we're we're already getting flashbacks of fire. Cash. And then it says join the crew, a pirate is somebody who turns the impossible into adventure. It says give me your phone number. And then it says join the treasure hunt virtual reality. So what you're saying from what I just gathered of what you just described. is that you're gonna take

You know, six to fifteen people at a time. On those like little planes. To the islands like you used to do. Where it's not such a heavy logistical lift. Um those people are gonna have a great time. They'll pay

five grand or ten grand or something. I'm just guessing here. They'll pay a lot of money to have this really cool, adventurous experience. And then you're going to use You know. Video plus maybe virtual reality. To broadcast that experience to

Other people who can't afford to go. And or maybe their friends and their social media. Um. And they get to maybe buy a virtual ticket to kind of attend the party that way. And you're gonna do that a bunch of times. Did I describe it right or did I I I'm just guessing based on what you s what you said. Absolutely. So so the last thing that you're missing is that

The people who are basically so essentially we're gonna partner with this little hotel. They'll handle all the hospitality and logistics. Well host. Artists there on a regular basis. Well rig the hotel with these three sixty cameras.

Live stream everything that's happening. Then give the people who are watching the live stream the ability to buy in and affect what's happening on the island. So They could like have one of the artists go to the recording studio and impact the creative process when they're making their song. Or they can buy the talent like a drink, you know, and make them take it to Killa Shot. Dude, you should just have gone for being Mr. Beast. Like we we hung out with Mr. Beast and you're wired just like that in the

And uh and I feel like if you just channeled your energy towards How do I do the craest thing that's gonna make the craest video that twenty million people are gonna watch and then continually one up yourself? Uh I feel like that would work. That's my suggestion to you. You don't even have to answer. You have the charisma and you have the storytelling ability. I'm like just Dude, just do just

Just make you and like a small team Doing the crazy shit and do add dollars. But it it sounds like you're share you wanna share your screen. You could share your screen I I heard you clicking around. I bet you I don't know, I'm not supposed to share this, but okay. But uh I wanna get back to what you just said, though. I like that attitude. I like that.

So Um this was an island we were working with. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to go to the Bahamas. So this is just pure like demo purpose. But the idea is to take like A one to one. virtual representation of a property.

track where all the talent is in real time. Track where all the Toys are in real time. And then People can click into various live streams. And once they're watching a live stream.

hopefully watching their favorite talent. they could actually choose these actions to affect what's really happening there. So It could be as crazy as me swimming in the reef and the users deciding to chum the water and given the sharks in the area, I think a lot of people want to see

See that happen? Or as simple as buying somebody a drink. But what would the financials of this be like? S I mean I'm sure you've now thought about that more. You're like what would the P and L what would you do the P and L the here's thinking? No, surely he has. Like one day one day it could do this. What what's that one day? So

A million people paying twenty cents. To Ask a talent. To do something or to contribute an action towards like the real world.

So If everybody pays twenty cents to chum the water. And a million people are chumming the water, then that's kinda where the financials come in. Sorry, I I can't do that math. Just tell me like in in in five years, are are are you in your head, you're like I think we could do like a hundred million dollars in eight years? Like what what what's the Do not get me arrested, Sam. I I don't want to promise any revenue. No, sorry, don't promise. I'm just saying like when you're laying in bed, you're like I think this could become like a hundred million dollar company by doing this. I think what's

The way I think about this and my logic could be wrong is that Once again I We're not gonna be using the Bahamas, but for example, the Bahamas gets around four ish million tourists a year. And If we're doing these really interesting broadcasts, we can have more than four four million people in a single day, like virtually come to the island.

So If we can just like totally destroy their tourism members on a virtual scale. I think it's a big revenue opportunity. So okay, so where did you come up with this idea? Were you in prison or was it once you got out that you were like, All right, I'm gonna start my brainstorm?

No, I was in solitary confinement and it's like Totally, totally confined. And No, a lot of it was just like reflection and then a lot of it too was I want to get outside of these walls and just like

Get back to adventure and then Find a way to share this. So we should say, by the way, you got into solitary because You Attempted to do a podcast from inside prison. Yeah.

Uh terrible idea. First did you know that was not allowed? Was that I didn't even realize that would be such a faux pas. Like uh that that that was that would be such a big thing. I think the biggest thing is my guests are great. Dude, they read your mail and shit. And like each cryp each Inmate, you have like different rules for you, right? Like if a journalist calls you and you do an interview, is that allowed?

That's allowed. Um I was wrong. The toughest part though is like it was a gray area. I think if it was like a clear violation of the rules, my punishment would have been like less strict. I use the payphone, like they're available payphones. Um, but at the same time, like you can't cause attention to the jail, right? And that's what I did.

So I understand like why it was like so incredibly stupid, but I think if I had a clear violation of the rules I would have gone to solitary for like forty five days and not seven months. You basically had a podcast host call you on the payphone. And then you did your side of the podcast from the payphone in like Ten minute or fifteen minute increments, right?'Cause that's what you were allowed.

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Yeah, you can't. I mean I understand why you think that's grey. It's like what's the difference between prostitution and and pornography? You know, it's like I don't know, if there's a camera there, it's like you're you're safe. Like you know, I mean like you're like playing this like uh like I don't know if I would be s if I would be risking things at that moment. I mean I I've d I've uh when I was in college I did stupid stuff and I got in trouble and I remember getting in trouble and thinking like I don't ever want to come back to jail again. And more so it solitary confinement seems like I would kill myself. I I think I would Wanna commit suicide. Like that sounds like that's like the

Seven months in a box, it seems like the worst That's the worst possible outcome. Let alone like you know getting life you know, like L chop on some of these guys and and these like Florence and all these like high high level security. Mm.

What was that like seven months being in that Cell. I get anxious just thinking about it. I actually think that it's counterproductive in terms of reform.

If that kinda makes sense. And The other Time in jail. Like I don't think it's going to have like long lost long lasting negative impacts in my life.

I did ten months total in Solitary, one time for three, one time for seven. I think like that actually makes it more likely that I make a mistake in the future. And obviously if I do make a mistake, it's totally on me. But Like The mental

hangover that I have where it's like somebody out there could snap their fingers and put me into a concrete box. Like That's scary. Like that's what gives me the nightmares at night. And I think that like If anything, that makes, you know, ideas bigger or different because you're you're kind of

Fearful of that outcome. So I don't know, it's it's fucking hard. And like there are guys who have done way more than ten months and I can't imagine what they feel like, but I think that's like the worst part of the experience and actually It's just counterproductive. Did you know it was gonna be seven months or is like do do you know there's an end point or you didn't know?

No, and I think like if they said, Hey, this is seven months Then you're getting out and then you're going home. A year after that. It would have been totally different, but The fact that they kept fucking with me, basically saying, Hey, you're never getting out of here.

You're gonna get in trouble more. Like that was his biggest mind fuck. You just like wake up every morning and be like, This is never gonna end. Why like you mean the the guard were just assholes? Yeah, in the jail. They literally

In response to the podcast, they tried to send me to a a terrorist facility. Call the the C M C the C M C in Marion, Illinois. You can like look at their inmates on Wikipedia. Like I'd be one of two non terrorists in that facility. And they would come and fuck with me and like pass like program statements under my door for this communication management unit. Like, here's where you're going, McFarland. And like I thought they were bluffing. And then like

A day later, oh we submitted you there. And like They legitimately tried to send me to a terrorist facility. And it's like you're never getting out. That is fucking crazy. I I think that like Whenever I was thinking about I remember talking to my wife at the time when you were getting in trouble, and I'm like, Unfortunately, I think four or five years probably is a fair is is a probably a fair punishment. I don't think solitary is a fair c punishment. And I don't think being like tormented is fair, though. You went to jail not because you threw a bad festival

You went to jail for what was the exact Reason the lying to investors. And like And you lied what? About the financials or what did you lie about? Yes. Badly. Financials, revenue, personal, company. What were you doing? You're just literally making the charge for all. What were you doing? Wire fraud, I think, is the the main charge where there are a couple Couple surrounding charges as well.

But basically Anytime you lie to get money. It's essentially wire fraud in the eyes of the the federal government. But you you are making fake documents. Like you are photoshopping things and making fake p PDFs, I think, right? Yeah, I mean.

I just mean fake. Like Excel documents, basically. Saying hey, our income is X million this month and it wasn't close. So I was, you know, totally guilty. It was it wasn't like it wasn't a gray area. I was black and white wrong.

Right. The festival was better than I advertised, which is obviously impossible. Like When you're um So I remember being like okay, wow, that's crazy. Uh, sounds like you know, he got kinda in over his head, you know, and I I was having some sort of sympathy in a way. And then it w there was some story like When you want probation

Then you did something else. You created something called like VIP access or some shit like Gala. Yeah. And then that was also like, you know You know, f little figy in some way. What was that? And how do you defend that part, right? Because that's after the fact now. Yeah. And you're you're already on probation and and Was it just like

I just had a habit of doing this. What what was going on there? The only defense is that I was a fucking idiot. Like there's no other way to To to get around that. Um Yeah, I was totally wrong.

And I kinda gotten this mindset where it's all about the money and like That's probably wrong. Then figure it, hey. I need to find a way to pay everybody back. And let's get back to what I was doing at Magnesis at the end.

to to kind of find Firefast to which is to sell these tickets. Right. And You needed like a you needed like a like if I was your father, I would have just I would have punched you in the fucking face and I'd be like, Billy, like this is you're you're hurting me. You're like you're you're hurt like you needed like a like a like someone just to be like, dude, you are so talented, but you are fucking this up so much. It's like these are such clear mistakes. I don't understand why I don't understand. Like did you not have a friend that was like it sounds like you were trying to

Trying to To a quick fix. If I can get the money back, if I can pay people back, then I'm not gonna get in trouble about the other thing. Is that is that Accurate is what you were thinking. I w I was scared of jail, like No one was picking up my calls anymore. I'm on, you know, on bond, I guess.

And like I just couldn't once again I couldn't zoom out and understand the bigger picture where If I sat down Shut the fuck up. Yeah, sure I'll be broke for a couple of years, but I'll go to jail for two or three years and I'll get out in my late twenties and, you know have a chance to pay people back the right way. And I just like couldn't understand that. But

Yeah, I think that like going forward, a big thought process for me and it's been three months is Yeah. How do I position myself, whether like a whether it's a company or something else, like to get the help I need and Do I operate within a bigger company? Do I find like partners that you know, are senior to me in experience and age who I can like trust and defer to. So

It's just all part of my journey right now. And I think that like This time around. I think I I prefer those boundaries more and it's just trying to find it and it's been you know super early in the process. Are you gonna raise funding for this next company? I I think a lot of peop I don't know, but if I had a bet, I would say you probably actually could raise I bet you there's people that would give you money. Is that I I texted a

I texted like eight venture funds a few weeks ago. And You know. Well literally like a broken grammar, like two line sentence. Like two tell me to fuck off, like

You know, one didn't respond, you know, one asked for more questions and four just like responded in like You know, within minutes saying we're in? Um The issue is, you know, as I've as I've kinda gone through the process. I'm actually not allowed dude to an SEC deal.

Um, I'm not allowed to raise securities. So I can't go and raise money. Uh, I think the ironic part is that like it's probably gonna it would have been easier this time to raise venture money. And like no decks, like none of that shit. Like I said, I have no decks, here's all here's all I have and

Uh yeah, people want to back it. I just can't raise the funds. So And I I think that would shock people is that Yeah. You know, you just had a fifty hit rate on uh on a text message. How do you explain that to somebody who's listening and they're like, you know, there's some people who are frustrated that that's the case. I can't believe people would find him. How how would you explain it? Because it's people People are making this decision. They're smart people. They're capable people. They have other options. Yeah. Uh, how would you explain why why somebody would be willing to do that?

So I started trying to raise money for the first time almost Twelve over twelve years ago now. And you know, as with everybody, the first ex people told me to fuck off and kinda laughed at me. And like so I went through twelve years of shit, including ten month of solitary confinement like Get to the point where

Maybe an investor believes that I've learned enough lessons to focus on what I'm good at and get helpful with what I'm bad at. So It's not like it is like wake up one day and g can raise money. It was it was it's been twelve years of just like Totally fucking up to get to this point. But

Yeah, and I think that before I raised money and obviously like legally I can't do it and I'm not gonna allow to be allowed to do it. is I need the help, right? And I need like the system and a structure in place where Let me go and market and like come up with these experiences and adventures and you know drive attention. But if somebody else who could Just help me manage like financials and logistics and operations. What other ideas did you have?

If you weren't gonna do something fire festival y Uh did you have like other I I'm sure you had a lot of time on your hands to think of other ideas. Did you think about any other Potential uh potential things you could do with your time. Maybe not even businesses, just other things you might do.

Um I think If someone wants to go in and really really understand uh GPT three, like the what's kind of powering the open AI. And just become an expert on that. I think you can be like make a killing as a consultant and like teaching all these big brands like what's happening there and like what's gonna happen. I think that's like one option to kind of go and like

become a GPT three like expert and like be the go to guide for other brands. Is your experience with GBT three since Sorry, when you got out six months ago? Oh yeah, I I actually was reading about it.

for like a year in jail. Uh Didn't even like know Open AI was the name of the company or anything like that. But it's like had random books in it. So I was like, Oh, this is super interesting. And like have dozens of pages and notes on it. Maybe I'll post them, but like and c kinda come out and see what happened recently, which is pretty cool. So I agree. I think that could be a great company and I bet you'd kill it because you're Pretty good selling. Uh

By the way, you Yeah, sh I think if I was Close with with you, I'll be like, Billy, do that. Uh wha what else what else has excited you? What other ideas? I think the concept of fire app, which is providing transparency to a lot of these like

Legacy entertainment systems is interesting. Um One I think which is really interesting right now is like Performance marketing for Like social media and influencers.

So I think one the reason why the fire just take a step back, the reason why the fire festival marketing I think works so well. is at the exact same time we had four hundred people post this orange tile. But these four hundred people weren't related. Right. It was some music artists, like some comedians, some athletes, some models. So when you're in our target audience and you're scrolling through your Instagram feed.

Yeah, like Why the fuck are these five people who don't know each other all posting this right now? Like I need to go check this out. So one idea I had is that Basically creating like a marketplace. for influencer marketing where let's say like Starbucks has a new coffee.

that they want to advertise. They can go and upload all their creative assets. and set like a million dollar budget. And then anybody around the world could take those assets and post it to their Instagram or their TikTok or their YouTube. And then They basically get a score for how much engagement they get in their content.

And their overall score gets them a percentage of the budget. So if Kim Kardashian posts it and she crushes it, you know, she gets nine hundred grand. hundred thousand dollars is split up to, you know, another million people who all kinda post it. Think it's like a fun way to remove all these bullshit middlemen. in this whole social marketing world.

And then allow a brand to turn all of their followers into advertisers for that company. Without doing any of the legwork. Almost like clout. Do you remember clout with a K? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah.

They have the overall social score, right? Yeah, and it it it it they raised a a ton of money and probably sold for less than their valuation of a hundred million dollars. Or I think they sold for a hundred. Which was less, I think, than what they raised at. But I actually thought it was a a fantastic idea. For some reason it didn't work. I don't know why, but y you you'd be in that space a little bit, it sounds like. Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's like

Providing a a a score to how well your content performs and getting paid off of that. But then turning everybody into your promoters. Yeah. I think that's a really cool idea. Uh It it also flips the model on its head. Right now you have to do sort of individual manual outreach and then negotiations and then whatever. Versus just saying.

It did the reverse. Here's a giant honeypot. If you want it. Go get it, you know? Um and then basically diving it up based on the actual performance versus um you know, who can negotiate the best, you know, at the at the given moment.

Uh okay, so that's a really cool idea. What else you got? Yeah. Yeah, those are my two. So GPT three expert and then providing like an open marketplace where brands can upload their creative assets and anybody can kinda publish them and and get paid based on the And why not do that one? Yeah, and why not why why just settle on the one versus those two? I mean they they sound quite Reasonable.

Yeah, maybe I'll do them. Yeah. No you won't. I don't think you will. I think like I don't know I don't think you will. Like I don't know. I guess you just have this like You must have a fire in you where you're no pun intended, where you're like I have to go This event route. Which is which is baffling. I mean, but I guess people just p passionate people are passionate about certain things. I get it. But uh

Logically I I've just I have such I don't wanna see you fail, I guess. I wanna see you succeed and like prove people wrong and I I wanna prove that like second chances could work. And so when I see this, I'm like, Oh man You're just playing this game on hard mode. Like

Yeah, I think you're not making the same mistakes on the obviously on the uh I have no idea, but like That'd be crazy if you're making the same mistakes as far as What got you into prison, but You're also choosing a business model that's super hard. Uh, like, you know You're talking about a million people paying twenty cents to chum the waters. And it's like I I don't even know like

Those words have never even been said together. Uh so it's like you know, you're choosing to try to pull off A really, uh, really, really difficult thing. Um. And you know.

It just seems like I I guess like my philosophy is always like in In business. There's no extra points for difficulty. Um in fact you get you get docked points for difficulty. The harder something is uh you know, the less money you end up making. And and and so Now on the other side

There is one advantage, which is when you go do something cool and audacious, every day you wake up and you're motivated and maybe you can recruit people who are motivated to pull off something epic. Um, because epic things have their own d you know, motivational draw to to actually go and do your best work. Which Which she just did. I saw on your Twitter and I think TikTok you said, Hey everyone, I'm hiring for my new thing. How many uh applicants did you get? Yeah, so back to a business idea, I think it's really interesting is We partner with a company called Bounty Hunter World to hire.

And they're trying to Disrupt the whole recruiter model. But they're saying anybody can refer a friend to a job. And if you successfully refer someone, you get paid that recruiting fee. And as you guys know, like those fees could be crazy. So I think like their site is super awesome.

And then We try to like one up it. So we're saying anybody who refers a friend to pirate that we end up hiring. We take that person on one of these pirate experiences. So Trying to like

Give. The island. entertainer experience to like any of our fans. Um We've had a lot of people apply for jobs. I think the craziest thing is like

We have no money. And I'm probably like paying fifteen to twenty percent of what I was paying for the same role. Five or six years ago. And probably getting like

Better people. So Think it all goes to show like your mission and your intention is just so much more important than than anything. How big is the list of this like I put my phone number into this thing. How big is the list? How many people have have signed up to like do the treasure hunt? Around two thousand. Okay. So

Yeah. My bad. I'm shocked you didn't get more uh'cause the Nelk Boys thing that got one point five million views and I then We've been getting a lot of inbound it's like social like Instagram DMs I think are just have gone crazy. Um, I think the conversion to like a phone number through uh a platform has been a little bit harder for us, but Yeah, overall. Like how do we kind of organize all these DMs? And maybe that's a different business too. If someone can build an inbox. It takes inbound across like Instagram DMs.

Uh LinkedIn like In mail. your like your public email address and organize all of that and like kinda qualify those leads. That's something that I would pay for on a monthly basis. And you're

You're and you're building all this right now with I think you said you collected a hundred and fifty K in revenue so far from like brand deals or something like that. And so you've got seventy since November first, yeah. So you're building this bit. Oh, since November first. Well, I mean that's a pretty good run rate already. So but you're you're building this business now, you have a hundred and seventy thousand dollars just to to play with, that's kinda what your starting point? Yeah, don't worry, we spent it already. Did you really like Or just trying to try to survive. So Dude, have you ever heard of like pilot or bench dude, there's these like really good accounting like software companies that you could use. It's like a thousand a month and they'll just like tell you like

Your P and L like you should or like a or like a part time CFO. Like I don't know, man. Maybe that would be a good investment. I need all I need all of it. I need like I need help. Have you ever heard of QuickBooks? I mean like I don't know, man. I think you should like really sweat the details on this stuff. F F DX used QuickBooks and look what happens to shit. Well, um correlation, not causation, but uh I mean speaking of that, what do you think you you you know, I've been following we had um We Sean and I have both interacted a bit with Martin Scorelli. And unfortunately, you know, you're in the same vein. There's you, there's Martin, and then there's now uh uh I think Sean doesn't like calling him uh SBF'cause winners don't get ac winners don't get nicknames. He's just he's just Samuel now. But what do you think what's your take on the uh

What's gonna happen with him? Uh forty years. And then he'll get for you after like Yeah, and then he'll he'll get out after like fifteen to twenty. Do you think that's fair? That's my guess. Um

I don't know. I talked to Martin after he got out and I was like, What was it like in prison? And he had a bunch of stories where he's like, Yeah, I created a cryptocurrency study club I uh you know, I I had like you know all these like He's like, Yeah, we had the system where I was, you know, selling information, blah, blah, blah. I was reading tons of books. I had access to the internet. He's like, I would be under the covers at night, like Basically watching uh con Academy videos, learning about like calculus. And um

What what's it what do you do to pass the time? What w what was your life like I think the Hardest part about prison is it's designed to strip you of your ambition. Right?'Cause like There are great people there and I've met some really incredible people, but there also are a lot of bad people.

And you can't put bad people into an environment where they're inspired and they have ambition to act on their bad impulses. So There's this concept of being institutionalized and essentially it's meant

Just make you a human robot? And I think it's like good in a certain way that it makes the time easier. But Like naturally I was just trying to fight against like all like the set processes as much as possible. So I think it made my time go really, really slow.

But trying to fight to like find ways to stay creative in an environment meant to make you robot. Like They feed you at the same time every day. Like they turn the lights off at the same time. You can only use your phones for a certain period of time. Like just everything is like structured like this, like you have to wear your uniform to go to lunch and like You're trying to find ways where like You know, trying to find my creative periods and just not make every day the same.

So I can just like keep different ideas flowing and coming to the W what were some things you did successfully to kind of like amuse yourself? What what was the little what were your maybe little tactics, little wins you had as to to keep that creative You know, spark a line. Yeah. Uh Training a lot of boxing.

So Um I had like a s a cellmate who was a former Puerto Rican like professional boxer and he would like wrap his hands with towels and like you know Train me in boxing, which is super fun. Um We didn't have that guys would take like toilet paper rolls and wrap them in tube socks and use that like for for mitts. So yeah, it's like finding like creative ways to to go and like exercise and

For your mind and like Do little things you're not supposed to doesn't hurt anybody. Like you couldn't practice martial arts, but you know, you go in the back and Have the guy hold your mitts for you for half hour, you can kinda get away with it. It's like a good good way to escape. You look like you're in better shape. Yeah, I was bad as hell. So hard hard not to be.

What are some um stereotypes that you know we would have about your experience that either proved to be true or like that maybe weren't true, uh About the whole experience. The whole like racial Segregation. Totally thing.

Yeah. Yeah, totally thing. Um I think like Being in New York. I'm a little

naive and spoiled to I I guess like A lot of what probably exists in other parts of the world. But Literally being in a place where If you're black, you go in this line for lunch, and if you're white, you go in this line for lunch and you just can't cross over.

It's like wild. It just like feels like it's sixty years behind the times, and obviously something to like have an experience in In New York and and like Probably spoiled to that sense, but Really kind of getting over the racial

Issues or I think uh kind of The weird, hard part for me. And it's probably like what's weird about it is like When they separate by races, it's not Always out of a place of hate.

It's just like no, this is just you stay with us, they go with them. And it's not necessarily that they're they hate the other group. It's just This is just how we do things. Yeah, it's always been done this way. This is how we're gonna do it. And like there certainly are terrible racists on both sides, but the majority aren't. There's like this is the way it's done, so this is the way we're gonna do it. And like it doesn't really make sense. If you could go in and change one Way that

The prison system works. While while still, you know, achieving the goal and the the job to be done uh of of a prison. What would you change uh now that you've kind of saw saw it from the inside? I think that I would make sentencing more equal across the board.

And there are a lot of people who committed the exact same crime who had wired the different sentences. And this is almost like an interesting problem. Maybe this is a really cool business is to build some sort of like AI sentencing thing. Cause like right now it's up to one independent judge. Not judge. Like in my case, I've could have gotten nothing or I could have gotten twenty years. And like literally one person can decide The fate of your life.

Um, and I think what I got is fair for me, but many other people's senses weren't fair. So maybe it's some sort of system that takes in all the information around someone's crime in their personal life. Then studying everybody else who has had similar crimes. And seeing who was successful. And actually sentencing based on this idea of, you know, future success.

O of different Punishments or different sentences based off of different crimes or similar crimes. So I think for my situation it's a financial crime and typically your sentence is based on what the dollar amount that victims lost is.

So The more you lose, the more timish you get. I think like There's plenty of people who were from New York whose dollar amounts were Hundreds of millions of dollars, you got one or two years.

And I go out to a jail in Detroit where there's people who have lost five hundred thousand dollars who got thirty years. So it's like it's just like there's just total disparity where it it shouldn't be like that. I don't think sentences are based on future success and some judges are like I think kind enough and smart enough to do that, but but some aren't. So Almost like having this AI system that recommends a sentence in addition to the judge or is like a different data point, I think could be super interesting.

Yeah, that's that's a cool idea. Because like the j it could be like the This happens where a judge is in a bad mood. Or uh has seen certain patterns that are biased and yeah, I mean that is it is pretty wild. You know, I've had friends like go through some of this stuff and they're like, Oh, he th this person was in a great mood today. And I just or I just happen to get this person who falls under this political

party and this is what happened. It is that is pretty crazy. It's just tough. And like look at Elizabeth Holmes. She realistically could have gotten two years or she got it, she could have gotten thirty five years, right? It's like It it's up to one person to determine like what their length of time is and that's a it's like a big task. Yeah.

Some to take on. And unfortunately the system isn't fair. Yeah. So do they do do they have like a s like a like, you know, if you go to a company and you're gonna get a job, it it's not just up to the manager to just pick a random number for what you get to get paid. It's like No, we know for this job title with this many years of experience. This is the range and the range is between this and this and this. And if you're gonna go outside of that range.

You gotta have like a pretty strong indicator and it's like people have to be notified that I'm going way outside the range. The the the normal like expected range in order to make this offer. Yeah. Uh It's almost like they kinda need that or I don't maybe they have some of a version of that.

For judges who were trying to send it. They have a guideline system that gives you like a recommended range. And that definitely helps and it's good. I think the issue though is that It's really hard for the judge to get to know someone such a short period of time. And those who have access to great attorneys have an advantage because like

Your attorney's entire job in the federal system is like you're gonna lose the case. It's all about presenting who you really are as a person and why you should be afforded a second chance at some point in the future. So people who don't have access to quality attorneys just don't really have that same opportunity. To explain why they should have a second chance. And so I think that the AI probably

benefits more of your like a lower income defendant, which is most of them who can't afford their own attorneys. to to show they're more of a human. Then just like with the crime is Did you have a fancy lawyer? I had a good layer. So

Like and I just made it impossible for him, right? Like getting in trouble again on bail. There's like nothing he could have done. I was just a I was a moron. I could have had twenty lawyers, it wouldn't have mattered. I would have, you know Have Sean, have you ever seen that movie Catch Me If You Can? Course. Great movie. And so I read about that guy a lot, Frank Eb Neely Junior. And turns out Uh most of what like he he made this book about his crimes and turns out

It's likely like mostly lies. I think like they prove like he's been proven time and time again that he didn't actually do what he said he did. in terms of crimes, but he like glamorized it and then he turned it into like a pretty successful consulting business. I don't know how big, but I like I looked up where he lives and he has got like a m you know, multi million dollar home and he's always wearing these nice suits and he looks like he's he's done a good job. When I look at him I'm like Well, that guy is kind of like a good example of like what like, you know, turning shit into gold and like turning a situation around. What did you ever think about

Kinda going that route. Like that like I would just Yeah, I I'd hate to live off of Like fire. For the rest of my life.

And then there's like a short window opportunity where the attention from it Well allow my next business just to start with the springboard, but I'd much rather be known for and fail or succeed at. A new business.

And being someone who just talks about Fire Festival for next thirty years, like that's boring as fuck. But I I I do I understand why some people would would want to do that. I agree, it is boring, but when you You know are in debt of twenty five million dollars. It's like, well, you know, like I unfortunately I have to sacrifice my excitement in order to like make this work. On the other hand, he has got nothing to lose, really. W what does he have to lose? He's got like all right, well Starting back from scratch. Reputation was

Pretty tainted. And In a pretty deep restitutional hole where you gotta pay back like twenty five, thirty million dollars or something like that. Uh

Why not swing and do what you want with your life versus uh, you know Yeah, I guess I guess it is there in in a way it is it is a good idea to just go for like the mo whatever's the most sort of Exciting and fun and fulfilling thing for you. But how do you find pride, right? Like I think that talking about it like a failed

the business when I was twenty four and twenty five when I'm forty. I'm not gonna wake up. With juice to keep going. Like I think like if I see somebody else doing that, I'm like, oh what a fucking loser. I kind of want to be that person. So

I'd rather go and like try to improve and like Whether I fail or succeed is try something new and different and try to build something. So so if it all works. If life goes the way you want it and you're now sixty five, seventy years old, what Billy McFarlane. What what happened, if it all works out for you?

Yeah, he took his failures, learned from it. used it as a springboard to build something new and like whether it's pirate or something else that I I do in ten years from now. And and one for it, but like Made good friends.

And help people along the way. And if I can pay back twenty five million dollars, amazing. If I pay back a million dollars, but you know, I try it and do it honestly, like that's okay too, I think. And Yeah.

And I actually I think that a lot of the investors listening would probably Agree with that. If as long as it's kinda done the right way, I think at this point it's less about the money and more about How I change. Well, we appreciate you coming on. You know, this was like uh when we were I was preparing for this and I was like, Man, I don't know how to approach this. I don't wanna like Glamorize someone who's done something bad, but like

This was a really confusing thing to do, but I'm happy we uh we were able to talk. I I'm gonna be following your story very closely. I'm very eager to see how you pull this off. Um and frankly I want you to pull you know, I want I I want redemption to be real and and I want it to work. Everyone deserves a second chance, so I hope I hope it does. Thank you guys.

Super cool to finally be here. So Sam and Sean, thank you guys. Thanks for coming on.

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