From High School Dropout To $952 Million At 33

All right. This is gonna be a special episode. I think that the best episodes we do are the ones where we highlight a business or a person who is Amazing that you've never heard of. And that's what today's episode is. The person that we have on Jess Ma, she has built herself, uh, I don't know, ten companies that have combined, you know, they're worth

Nine hundred and fifty million dollars. She um And not only that just has she made a bunch of money or been successful with business, but She's just a force of nature. Uh people that I respect. think she's one of the best entrepreneurs in the world.

And that's kind of amazing for somebody who you don't know her name, you've never really seen her do interviews. Uh, you know, Paul Graham when when he met her and she was at YC, put her on the very short list of a couple people with Sam Altman and a few others. As The most impressive people. The people that he thought thirty years from now will have done Done the most and gone the furthest.

Uh I was at a dinner, that's how I met her, and a friend of mine pointed out, he goes, That woman over there is the best entrepreneur I've ever met. And he's lived in Silicon Valley for fifteen years. And to say that, that's high praise. Uh, so I had to have her on the podcast to talk about Everything from her beginning.

Where she was Basically uh a a loser amongst loser uh losers in school. She talks about like You know, not only was she not cool, but Even in the computer club she got bullied and didn't really fit into school, didn't get good grades. Really like

was just kinda like school wasn't for her. She ended up dropping out of high school. Because school wasn't for her, she's But she started a business and it started off as a very And you know, when she was a teenager, she ended up making hundreds of thousands of dollars on this little server business that she was creating. just paying for her own video games. We talk about that.

All the way to where she is today. building these biotech companies that are doing crazy stuff. Uh and I asked her, I was like Were you like A science genius? How did you know to go with this? How did you have the confidence to go into a space like that?

I think we all I think there's a part of all of us That wants to go do the big, bold, crazy change the world thing, but we're f afraid. Like Who am I to go do that? At least that's a thought I've had. And uh It was kind of amazing to hear her talk about she felt the same way. Like she's like, I got a C minus in biology and now I have like a

nine figure, you know, a hundred million dollar plus bio company. Like that's crazy to do that. And and how she approached that. How did she meet these scientists? How did she put the funding? How did she actually talk herself into doing that from rock bottom where she was completely depressed. And didn't know what she wanted to do with her life to now you know, living the kind of life she wants.

The other thing that's in this episode that I think you're gonna like is She talks a lot about the lifestyle. And financial stuff. that come from people who are already really successful. So she know, like I'm gonna give you a trigger warning now.

Uh she talks about like, you know Yeah, I just like I hop on my jet, like you know, and I bought this jet. I bought it for this reason. Here's the tax write off that I got. She's very open and very um clear about this stuff and and I think for some people who are at the very beginning, it's gonna feel unrelatable. Or it's gonna feel like oh yeah, you know, the the classic YouTube comment guy who's like easy for you to say you're already rich.

But I think the important thing to figure out is She successful because she always thinks this way. She she talks about her mindset and that's why she was able to do this. And also I love when people talk about money stuff. I love when they're open and honest. I hate the billionaire who downplays it and pretends like

you know, their flying coach and oh you know, money's no big deal and I oh yeah, I don't I don't really do anything with my taxes. No, I like to hear what people actually do, how they use money to improve their life. How they architect their businesses. She does that. She's very open about it. So that's all in this episode. I think you're gonna enjoy it. Uh, this is an episode with Jessica Ma.

Yeah. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my law in it like my day song on the roll. I wanna tell people the story of how we met, which is not like this extravagant story, but it is one that um

I don't know. It's like it it's this thing that happens. That Is like I would have bet anything that you're an interesting person just on the way that this meeting went. So we got a dinner together. So that's like signal one. Uh you know, uh a friend hosts a dinner And it's like only friends inviting friends to this thing that's gonna be like a you know, some sort of founder, investor type of dinner.

So already you got filter number one. Filter number two is I'm sitting at one end of the table, you're sitting at the far end of the side of the table, but our mutual friend Sieva tells me He's like, uh I was like, Oh, what's her name? And he's like, Oh yeah, that's Jess Ma. He says, uh He's like, Yes, she is

Um the most impressive entrepreneur I've ever met. And I was like, Okay, I didn't even ask. And I he just says that and he's he gave basically gives you this extreme compliment. And I was like That's extreme. And he's like, Yeah, she's extreme. And I was like, Okay, I gotta know more. So already I got a signal. Next thing I noticed that you had your dog in the restaurant, and I was like, Okay, that's awesome. Love dogs, dogs here. And later I was like, Is this like a service animal?'Cause it's kinda like a nice restaurant. And you were like

Yeah, uh Amazon. You could buy this for ten dollars, this vest, and like look, and you flash me like an FBI badge that was like a um service dog thing. And I was like Did you buy that? And you're like, Yeah, this is great. And I was like, Wow, this person is just r you know, so there's all the little signals. Somebody rolls by their own little rules, my friend telling me that you're you know, one of the most baddest people that he's Ever met literally in the game of entrepreneurship? And uh

And then when you did your intro, you said something, you go Uh yeah, I'm working on Like I started this thing in Denero, which I've heard of, and you were like, uh, you know, it started that and now I've I sit on the board like, you know, whatever, ten companies. And uh we do like bold science bets.

And You didn't even explain it and I was like, Okay, well You have my interest. What's a bold science bet? You're like You know, like Curing cancer, but not like the typical way, like this other path to curing cancer. You like you like kind of nonchalantly gave me some answer as to what a bold science bet would be.

And I was like, okay, say no more. I need to meet this person. I need to get to know this person. And I've gotten to know you a little bit now. And uh, yeah, you are just that impressive. So this is my build-up. Um, that is my perception and Tell me what that feels like to hear, because that's People never tell you their actual perception, first impressions as they remember it, uh, you know, in their own head. That's amazing. It was super fun to have that dinner and meet you.

That night I just had a good feeling that We were gonna have a fun time. And normally I don't go out um kinda like a loner. I like to be at home and You know, just take it easy after work and uh you know, it's a lot to deal with with. Ten companies we're gonna add more companies this next year and

Trying to figure out like where do I wanna spend my time as an entrepreneur? And that's an ongoing question. I'm sure we'll talk about that. But I've heard about you, um, you know, I've I've seen your podcast and you're famous, so it's Kind of an honor to get to be friends with you too. Well the other thing that's cool is you have a hold co and like, you know, uh if I was gonna say what are some of the themes of like tr on almost like entrepreneurship trends. Like there's fashion trends, but now there's entrepreneurship trends. One of the entrepreneurship trends is This whole personal hold co model.

But what most people are doing with the personal hold call, I would say is kinda like small boy stuff. It's like we acquire this little SaaS app or like, you know, I'm gonna I I'm gonna buy this this plumbing business and I'm doing this hold co to roll these up. Um And you kind of have a hold code, but you also have the big venture

change the world kind of thing inside of it, which I find really fascinating. So you're like Yes, I'm doing a hold co. But the hold code's gonna be all sort of game changers type of like go big or go home type of bets. I find that really interesting. I also think that another entrepreneurship trend is doing hard stuff. So I think Elon really popular popularized like,

Yeah, you can create the next kind of app, and that's cute. But I'm gonna make rockets and electric cars and then you know, then you have AI and Sam Altman and that's like, you know, the kind of cutting edge science. Do hard stuff movement. And I think you're a part of that too. And so I really like

That you're here because you represent you know, some intersection of these trends and there's very few people that really play that game and uh That's what I wanted to to learn from you today is is why do you play that game and how do you do it. But let's give people like I guess the quick

background. Um of you. So can you give me kind of like your how do you introduce yourself when you're trying to brag a little bit Um, about you know, why anybody should pay attention to what you have to say. Oh. I'll be honest, I'm really shy and it's hard for me to talk about these things because everyone I meet is so impressive. So no matter what, I feel like

The dumbest person in the room. And the least successful person in the room. And um and so that's really hard for me to talk about still, but Um Just to catch everyone up.

I'm an entrepreneur. I've started so many companies now. My first company was called ended arrow. And in and air is a financial SaaS company. We do accounting, tax, building management, software and services for businesses. And our customers were companies like Slack, right, Pinterest, DoorDash, Instacart. Point base.

And I started that straight after college. I studied computer science at U C Berkeley. And When I was a senior at Berkeley I was running the computer science club and uh I brought in these speakers and Uh, one of the speakers I brought in was this kid named Sam Altman. He was building a company called Looped.

And I'm like, hey Sam, what should I do after college? And he said, Oh, you should do IC and You help review my application and uh And then the rest is history. So I did that for ten years, screw that to a few hundred people. Um valuation and the hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the way I built that business was I didn't raise uh traditional venture funding. So I didn't bring in V C capital. I I only brought in some angel investors. I was able to retain most of uh the ownership in the company. And uh and it's uh cash flowing, you know, profitable business to this day. So That was kind of my first

Uh, for reign of business. And uh lots of ups and downs and like you know being weeks away from insolvency multiple times over and I think it's because we were undercapitalized and I always Rand things a little too close to the edge there. And um and I was pretty public about that. I mean if you Google search me you'll see that I've

survived a bunch of near death experiences with that business. And Eventually I I realized I didn't want to be a CEO anymore.

I grew up with this mindset of you have to be the operator. And if you're not the CEO and make a company a unicorn, you are a failure. And I just didn't that didn't land well with me. I

I Google searched you know, the world's billionaires. And I'm like, How do these people become billionaires? And most of them No companies, a lot of them were diversified holding companies, and they held on to these companies for decades. And a lot of them they weren't the CEO or the operator.

They were more like investment manager. And um I mean Warren Buffett's a great example of this. Um, but there are many, many more like that. And so that kinda got me thinking. My doing this wrong. I might just listening to Silicon Valley. Rhetoric.

That's pointing me in the wrong direction. And um And then a few years ago I went through a really tough experience where um my boyfriend who I I was living with uh died very unexpectedly.

And I was going through a really dark period after that. Where I was not able to work. I just couldn't I woke up in the morning and I'd be super depressed and I didn't want to do anything.

And I thought What would I do? Yeah. If um I was gonna die this year. If this was my last year here because I'm so depressed and I have to make myself happy, what would I do? And running a company was not on the list.

So I immediately hired a CEO for Nanero. I had another company that I had started that I brought in a friend to run. It's a litigation fin tech company. And Um, that company originates and funds lawsuits. So, you know, like the personal injury uh billboards you see on the side of the road.

We do that in a very sophisticated way. Um lot of details I I really would Wish I could talk more about, but uh you know, I don't wanna invite competition there. And then I've started a bunch of other interesting businesses like that, which also, if you go look at my website, modwe.com, I don't go into much detail. Actually I don't mention any of the detail on these businesses for the same reason.

Um I'd rather build quietly. And come up with these really interesting ideas. Find someone to go build those businesses. And

A good chunk of them are businesses that would just print cash. But a lot of them are more bold. And that's why I got interested in the biotech stuff. I just thought, what would I do if I wasn't scared of failure? And after my boyfriend died, I thought a lot more about that. I thought Like

I shouldn't be scared of trying and failing because I'm seeing Rock Bottom. I can't my life can't get any worse than it is today. So I might as well try something. You know? And uh

That's that's where I landed with that. That's an amazing story. And uh that question of like what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failing. Is Like up there in the pantheon of great questions, I asked myself that same question and it changed. I wouldn't be doing this podcast if it wasn't, because I had three paths I had written out. I remember I made a Figma file and I was like drawing like a flow chart of my life.

And I was like I could start a company. Maybe it'll be this, maybe it'll be this. And that was like you said, the Silicon Valley rhetoric'cause What gets written about is the visionary CEO founder who creates the next big thing. And that's the movies are about h social network and uh, you know, the the Tech Crunch articles are about that. The VCs want you to be that'cause they're like Yeah, it's sweet. I get to write a check and chill and like you go do the like

You go win the lottery and do all the hard work at the same time. Like Do the low odds. hardest thing you can do, you know, uh over there. So I was like, I could go start a company. I could invest in just kind of like

Yeah, on the other side. That's I don't know if that would be the most fun thing that I would do. And then I was like And I literally wrote, or I could be Tim Ferris. And I was like, I think I want to be Tim Ferris. I was like, Well, why don't I just do that? I've been thinking about this for like seven years in the back of my mind. I was like, Well, because what if I'm not

What if it doesn't work? Then I'm just a guy with a podcast. It's cool to be Tim Ferris. It's not cool to be the guy with a podcast, like a podcast, just normal podcaster with a hundred views or listens per episode or something. And I was like, All right. So am I just gonna not do it because I'm afraid that I might fail at it? Like What's the worst that could happen I kinda had this whole

Talk with myself. Yeah, the most important talks are not with mentors, they're the talks with yourself. And it sounds like you had one of those two where you were like What would I do if I if I wasn't afraid to fail? Can you just talk a little bit more about that talk with yourself? Cause I think Everybody should have that some version of that talk with themselves. Yeah, I I think just to expand on that.

A big question I asked myself was also Um How will I deal with the insecurity of feeling like a beginner? and terrible at something, despite the fact that for the past ten years, I got pretty good at being a CEO and running a business. I'm sure you felt the same way, right? Where you're

a great entrepreneur and then now you're getting into you know, building content and interviewing great folks. And that's the new skill set that you had to become good at. But for a while It's awkward and like the Your I'm sure your first videos were not nearly as good as the ones that you posted over the past few months, right? And so that's a lot of the self-talk. It's like oh my God, I didn't do a good job. I still don't know what I'm doing. People don't take me seriously.

Do I even take myself seriously? And meditat on that and thinking, you know what? It doesn't matter'cause I'm having a great time. I'm learning a lot. And the outcome will work itself out. That's how I deal with it, but how about for you? Like what's what are your other best practices?

Yeah, so being a beginner Uh, it being okay, like that mental prep for yourself of I'm gonna be a beginner at this, I think is Also a very important part of that conversation. I'm glad you said that, because It's one thing to just say Um

What would I do if I wasn't afraid? But then like The fear's still gonna be there. It's not just gonna disappear when you ask that question. And the fear is what? The fear of Being wrong, being failing, looking dumb, all those things. And so that beginner conversation. is important, which is Cool, if I go into this, I'm gonna start as a complete beginner.

I'm gonna get better at over time because I'm good at learning and I'll try. And um You know, if I don't need to become the world expert at this, but I need to become competent at this, and that might take me six months. That's like a reasonable expectation if I really put my mind to this. Um, it reminds me of the story I've told on the pod before of Moise Ali who created native deodorant.

And deodorant's not. curing cancer or whatever, but it is uh You know, still it's a totally different space. And so when he told his friends, he's like, I think I'm gonna create a deodorant brand. And they were like Cool. Uh

Random. You know, do you do you even wear deodorant? Like do you know anything about deodorant? And he's like Today I know nothing about deodorant, but in six months I'll know everything I need to know about deodorant. And that idea of like writing yourself a blank check. I think is really important to uh to starting anything. And you told me this when I was like

Dude, you're like working on crazy science stuff. I like that idea and I wish I could do that, but it feels above my intellectual pay grade. Uh Are you just a science genius? And you were like, No, I got like it's you were like I got like a C In biology in school and then like you know what you're like I hired a tutor to like

w as an adult to like learn about this and I watch TE Talks and podcasts and and then I flew out and I met the scientists and talked to them. You just did all of the like normal blocking and tackling, I feel, with like just a Is that how you would describe it? Totally different for me. I just put you on a pedestal, like, Oh, maybe she's doing it'cause she's

Just smarter than all of us. And that's why she can do this and nobody else can. No, I still have major insecurities that uh About this. Again, this is a recurring nightmare where I am uh getting uh Cs in school and I I'm very close to

Flunking and having to repeat a grade. And I got seized And bye. And Also in biology when I was in high school. So

I thought I could do a lot of things with my life, but anything related to biology is not one of those things. And then when I was Um, so I was on the cover of Inc Magazine. Um, a bunch of years ago. And uh

There was a woman who who was on the cover a month before me. Her name's Elizabet Holmes. And you know, obviously we all know what happened. And so when she got Uh, you know, when thirdos went under and

The whole thing happened, I thought, Wow. Bio's really hard. And I would be so paranoid and scared of doing anything in biotech'cause I don't want to go to prison. Now obviously, you know, there's more to the story there and I don't think I'm gonna go to prison. But like the thought crossed my mind, like should I even

Risk. My life and my career. If everything's Okay, like why? Do something hard and we're the last woman who tried to do something here You know, got

You know Totally destroyed by the media and it is now in prison. Like that's not really good inspiration. For me to p try to be the next Elizabeth Holmes, but

Fuck up is that, you know? That's So that went through my head. And I had to overcome that. And then eventually I decided you know what? Fuck it. I wanna give it a try. I'm wanna

you know, just learn and so I hired a biology tutor, I like Dash. Digested all the information. And I brought in people who Then

running biotech companies and who had been part of uh big bio. So That's that's really how I operate. It's just bringing other people smarter than I am. Another question. I would want to ask you. And it's something I ask a lot of my

Best friends is what would you do if You were a billionaire. Um, and if you had like billion in hard cash in the bank account. And uh You are not allowed to do what you're doing today.

How would you devote your life? And it's so fascinating to hear the answers that that I I get from my friends. And I'd say occasionally it's I I'm doing what I'm doing. Today I would just keep on doing that. I I hear that from my more successful friends. But some people who hadn't made it per se.

It's very thought provoking. That is a great question. I can tell a quick story and then I'm gonna answer that question. So the quick story version is when we got acquired by Twitch I grabbed, I was like, first day, what do I want to do? I was like, let me go find my people. Cause I went into this all of a sudden I'm in a company of two thousand people.

who, you know, each are doing their little function in this company. And I was like, Where are my entrepreneurs at? Like where are the people who like to like, you know, make shit happen? And so There was a company that had gotten acquired a few years earlier. And uh three years earlier. And they got bought for like I don't know. I wanna say like a hundred million dollars. And the founder was one of the founders was still working there. And so I

We go out to lunch and I was like, Hey, can we meet? He's like, Yeah, let's go to the cafeteria. I was like, No, I just need to leave this building. I'm having like big company folk claustrophobia. They need to get out of this building. So we go to a lunch and I say, um, why are you still here? And he's like, Oh, what do you mean? Like it's going great. We're working on stuff. I'm like, Yeah, but like uh You know, is this what you wanna do? Like you're here you're three years in and I'm looking in the mirror thinking Uh, you know, do I want to be here in three years? There's no way I want to be here three, four years from now. You're going on to year four.

And uh you're drinking this company Kool-Aid. What it what happened to you? What w why are you still here? And he was like, you know, slightly offended, but he was like, uh, no, it's great. I'm having fun. I'm learning a bunch. I go. Let me ask you the question differently. It sound uh sounds like what you're saying is you don't want to be doing anything else, right? He goes, Yeah. And I go.

So let's say that I had put a hundred million dollars in your bank account. Tomorrow. Would you show up to work? And he's like Well

No, like I'd be I'm like, Okay, so you're doing it for the money. Okay, well now we've established that because if I all I did was I changed the money part of the equation, and now your answer is very different. He's like, Well, I would Buy a ranch. And I would you know, I have four kids and we'd be outside all day, but then on the side I'd be building this type of project. I was like okay, so that's what you Really wanna do.

I'm not saying you have to go do that, but uh let's at least be honest. I didn't like the part where you were telling me this is exactly what I want to be doing with my life. And I can say today there's things there's a part of my life, like this podcast part of my life. That is exactly what I would be doing. regardless of what the number is in the bank account.

Um And there's a part of my life where like We spin up companies, but like we spin up companies like for example, we just spun up a company that is I would say it is opportunistic. It's not the most fun sexy company in the world. I don't want to operate it forever. I'm like, oh This business will work.

It'll be successful. It'll have a great exit, it'll provide a great return. It'll you know Uh it it'll But You know, millions of dollars in people's bank accounts.

in the next three to five years, and that is Good. But if I was Totally post economic. There's no way I would spend an ounce of my energy doing that company. Like just the reality of the situation. So I'm like You know, partially

following that that philosophy, but not all the way yet. And I'm kind of honest with my at least I'm honest with myself of like Yes and no. But the my answer to the question of if I was totally post economic You know, I have more money than I'll ever be able to spend Uh the thing that I would do is I would

Teach and I would either just teach in the way that I do today, like Podcast, write a book, uh You know, just basically be curious, go learn something and then explain what I learned to people who don't have the twelve hours to go down the bioelectricity rabbit hole. Um, you know, you know, but that's what I would do. Or I would extend that if I wanted to be a little more ambitious and I would actually create a campus and a school.

for people like me and be like, cool, let me create the ideal school that I wish I had when I was younger. And do that. Um I just don't know how much I don't know how much that would be fun for like the kind of reward versus extra effort that that takes versus creating content online and doing the same thing, but not having any of the like

students and physical campus and stuff that I need to deal with. We should talk about that sometime because I've thought about That as well. I wish there was a better school for me. And for people like us who are you know we're creative, entrepreneurial, quirky. And the traditional school system does not

Like satisfy your needs. Um And what's cool about it is You know If let's say we came up with an a concept for how we would do this, like I would just put my whole team behind it and then we'll find a way to find the money and then it will just manifest. Like

These things don't have to wait until you have a billion dollars in cash. Is the point. And but I asked you the question because I I found that bio was on my list. Like, oh I would do more bio stuff. I'd just fund it and like what but I know people who could fund it. So I could just call them and have them fund it and I I don't need to fully fund it.

And I'll manifest. Um And I think I think a lot of us Um

Have so many of these things that we want to create in the world. And It's dangerous to wait because Life

Parities change. And I think that I see this with many of my friends. We go on to get married, have kids. They get comfortable, they're building their ridiculous house and then Life goes by and they never go through this list and it always stays a dream or an aspiration. And I I just couldn't allow that to happen to myself and I'm so glad that you're Yeah, doing most of the things on your list.

That's a a great phrase. It's dangerous to wait. Um 'Cause I think most people feel like it it'd be risky to go do it. And I think they vastly underestimate the risk of Allowing yourself to just wait. on the things you really want to do in life. Cause actually what happens is you accrue this like

Um It's not like by waiting you get closer to the goal. By waiting you actually get further away from the goal because you add all the space that gets filled up with other activities, other responsibilities. Thoughts yeah, uh you train yourself to not take action on the shit you actually want and to like go down this like long winding path.

I remember When I was um Back to when I was working at Twitch, there's a guy, Dan, uh who's now the CEO. At the time he came in as like, I don't know, chief project officer or something. He was he became my boss.

So we go into this like one on one and um He's like, So like what are your like career, you know, what's your like goals for yourself here, you know, at the company? And I was like Um Well I have two options here. I'm either gonna lie to this guy and say, Oh, I can't wait to get promoted from

L seven to L eight to the L ten, like you know, like the that's like the ladder. Literally, it's a ladder, and you that's your goal. I was like, I'm either gonna lie about this to him, because He's my manager, and I guess that's what I'm supposed to say. Or I'll tell the truth. And so I told him the truth and I was like Uh yeah, I can't wait to go build another thing or just go on my own and like I don't see myself being here. And uh long term.

And he was like, Okay, well That But he didn't he didn't get I thought like that's gonna put him in an awkward position, but he was like, you know, he's an experienced guy. He totally, you know, rolled with it. He's like, Okay, great. Uh now that I know that, and I was like, You know, I don't want you to totally write me off because I said that. Like I do think I'll be here to earn out this part of the deal.

I think I can do good work while I'm here. Like, you know, I think you'll You you'll get value from somebody with my talents being here. Um, so I hope you don't just like, you know, say, Oh, this guy's not here for the long haul, like write me off, but that's the truth. And he was like Done. I appreciate that.

Now let's talk about the thing you really want to do. What is it that you really want to do? And I was like, Oh, I wanna do this, this, this, but Yeah, before I do that I need to kinda like You know I'm trying to get you know, uh save up, you know, enough capital because I'm gonna that's gonna require a lot of capital and I'm gonna uh learn some things, I'm gonna build my network and And he's like

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the like I wanna do X. So I'm gonna go do A, B, and C before I do X. He's like, You're better off usually just Going ahead and trying to do X.

And I was like All right, you're right. That's true. I don't need like I you don't even need to say anymore. You're right. I was bullshitting myself a little bit. Um thank you for saying that. That's actually a really valuable piece of wisdom. And um it reminded me of um there's this Tony Robbins TED Talk. Have you ever seen the the one time Tony Robbins went to Ted? Yeah. He's like on stage and he's like um What stops you know, I've been s I spent my whole life basically studying like what stops people from having what they want in life. And he's like

You know, um What do you think it is? What holds you back? And people are like, Oh, like, you know, for whatever it is you want. You want a better relationship, you want a better career, you want more money, you want better health, whatever whatever it is. And people are like, Oh, I don't I don't have the time. And other people are like, I don't have the the knowledge, the skills. I don't and the people in the crowd are saying it, and Al Gore is there. And uh this was like right after Al Gore had lost

uh the presidential race to Bush. I think there was like a runoff, like they had to recount the votes in Florida or something. Yeah, like They it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled that whatever Bush won. And so He hears this voice that says I didn't have enough

Supreme Court Justices. And he's like, What the hell what do you mean? Like who's oh, Al Gore's here and Tony Robbins gives this like one minute thing that like actually kind of like bitch slapped all their answers. He's like Uh, you know, everything you guys just said is a resource. You lacked Money Time, capital, Supreme Court Justices, that's a a thing you lacked. Supreme Court Justice, yeah. That's

The most hilarious example. Uh. He's like the only thing you actually need is resourcefulness. He's like, that is the master skill, the ability to go get the resources you need when you need them for the thing you're trying to manifest. And he's like If is it not true that if you are motivated enough

Charismatic enough, playful enough. convincing enough, um, you know, like determined enough and and charming enough Can you not get everything that you want? Like Is it like is it really anything that is outside of

You if you really Put your all into acquiring that resource. Could you not have gotten the time, the money, the the network, all of those things? Like Al Gory, if you were not more passionate when you were on that stage in that debate, would it ever, ever even come down to the Supreme Court justices? No, right? Like you would have just won. In a landslide.

uh if you had acquired the things that you actually needed to get there. And that's kind of what you're saying of your little manifestation studio type of concept. I love that because it's like You are completely striking out from the thought process of an entrepreneur the like

Do I have what it takes either personally or financially or Uh, you know, knowledge and skill wise you're like Well, if I want to start a bio company, I'll go recruit the best biopeople. And then I'll go raise the funding. Exactly. We say like we don't have enough time or money.

Those are always the excuses, but You create the time by hiring other people to do the work who are better experts at whatever that thing is. And you manufacture the money by raising the money. And in my case, I've got a multiperson investor relations team. They have connections to tons of billionaires and family offices and We're trying to like

Please these deals with our family office connections. And that's gonna be You know, within the next year that's gonna be a four person team. And a keepability I had. So Instead of being a full cow.

Let's read manifestation codes. That's what I'm talking about. Right? I I mean uh you coined it. It's the manifestation cut. And uh'cause Now if it could be a profitable endeavor, great. Sometimes it won't be. And but the point is all of us have that thing we want to clean our Our life.

And we wanna have the ability to do that in a way that's Painless. Fine. And exciting for uh us as the Ivy Eater.

What about like um you know, crazy science dreams you have. You said you have ideas or you're talking to scientists all the time. What are some things that are, you know, in the future that you're excited about? That It's not just a pipe dream like

There might actually be a pathway to do it. Like, you know, I don't know if the the grow test tube baby in a vat type of thing. Like I don't know if that's like Just a dream or there's actually people working on the That that might be scientifically. Pra possible or practical. Can you tell me about some parts of the future that I should be excited about or my kids might get to experience? I actually think that is very viable, the test two babies.

Um I know, um I've talked to several scientists who are doing the portion to Like For example, let's say you wanted to be the mother of a child.

Not the father. And we could take your genetic material and treat an egg out of that. I think that we're gonna see that within the next five years. And And uh

Converting, you know, having a artificial embryo generated avatar style. That's a little harder to do. I I've met scientists who've been able to Um That's maybe six weeks before the whole thing falls apart. And that will get better and better over time. Um

But the implications there are huge. Like for women, imagine not having to Deal with this. And uh not having to do egg extraction. Um If you're you know, if you're having trouble conceding.

And then What's also realistic. I think is extending your lives by Thirty percent. I think we need to be prepared to live till we're a hundred twenty.

Or longer. And uh Right now the upper limb in our head is Oh, I'll probably die when I'm ninety. We're not thinking about the exponential rate of change here. And I am talking to a lot of longevity scientists. I'm seeing the data.

It's compelling. I think we're gonna live longer, uh, we need a plan for that future. What's the short version of how we get that extra thirty percent? Is it drugs? Is it Uh diet lifestyle changes. Is it Reversing aging, is it you know Uh getting blood from young uh you know, baby seals. Wha what are we gonna do to to make that happen?

Yeah. It's probably gonna be a combination of multiple factors. And you all these projects fall under what you call bold science. Could you Define. Old science. What does that mean?

Yeah, there are just so many uh companies working on very incremental Uh Yeah. companies where it might extend your lifespan by three months or six months. That's not a great outcome.

Like you're gonna be going to the hospital and taking chemo drugs for another six months before you're dead. What do you do? That's Like I'd rather go to h a hospice than For all my suffering. But if you could

Said patching the problem Like putting a band aid on a gunshot wound is the analogy. Um what if you could get to the root cause. And reverse cancer, for example.

So right now everything we do within cancer is about Um, trying to kill the cancer cells through chema, radiation, surgery, CAR T therapies are super hot and trendy. But that just basically involves using your immune system. To target and chill your own cancer cells. But what if killing cancer is the wrong approach?

And actually cancer happens because your cells are trying to protect themselves in some way. And if you could train them and coach yourselves so killing them, let's rehabilitate them, get them to integrate back in with their surroundings. Then he could Dicks cancer. And so we're working on a company around that.

Um That's Science. That's That's uh that's right. So it's basically

Non non incremental. A big leap in function or leap in quality of life. So like you know, a s a step complete step change. And usually that's gonna come from taking a different approach than like, you know, uh or taking a different uh point of view on the problem, looking at it through a different lens. And um

You've You what you do is you partner with scientists to make that happen. One of the things you said that I liked uh when we were talking before was You're like, I get on the plane. I get on the plane every time, yeah. And um I don't know ex exactly what you mean by that, but talk about that, because I think that's just a entrepreneurial As part of the manifestation studios, you gotta just get on the plane sometimes. What what do you mean by that?

I have a real example. I have uh there's the successful entrepreneur who I'm sure you've heard of. Um, maybe you even interviewed him. Mm. Lives in Vegas, I live in LA and I just said, Hey Tell me.

A time and place on Sunday and Monday. And I will fly to Vegas and I will meet you. I'll literally take my plane and fly there just for the meeting and then fly home afterwards. And then Tuesday, same thing. I have um Patrick Collison from Stripe asked me to hang out with him and have dinner. And like, all right, cool. So I'll just get on my jet and Go see him and then fly back and be back in my bed.

After dinner, you know? And does it does that only work if you have a jet? No, just buy a Southwest ticket. I mean just get creative about it. I do it so often though that it is really nice to have my own airplane, but like I think that

Um it doesn't matter. Like if I have to fly to London and see someone, I will I'm glad we No book a ticket and do that. And uh I think that it really

You know, I had a billionaire do this for me where he literally flew in From South America and he went straight from the airport. To dinner with me. And That was the first time I had a one on one meeting with this person.

And it really made an impression on me. I'm like, wow, this guy went out of his way. He was planning to go to some other city. Instead he came to LA to meet me just for dinner. And And he's more important than I am. Bye. Why

A million miles, he's so much more important than I am. That made me want to be friends with this person. And um you know, I have another Billionaire who I hit it off with. We hung out from drinks. Um, we were part of a bigger group.

And we had two hours where we just talked about the meaning of life, all of his regrets. All the things he do different. He's like this seventy something year old dude and he's like, Yeah, everyone wants me for my money, but no one Just ask me these questions that you're asking me about life advice. I'm like, you know what, we should continue this. Where do you live all visiting? He says, I live in the Bahamas. I'm like, Great, I'm visiting you

And we booked the time. I'm seeing him for dinner in three weeks and I wanna literally go there just to see him. And he's so happy about it. And I wanna get four hours of downloading this man's wisdom. And uh It's it's super cool.

I think it's massively underrated. Uh we'll Uh, my uncle calls it meeting belly to belly. He's like, You gotta meet belly to belly in business. And uh he's in the real estate game. It's a totally different game, but I loved it. I was like Not face to face. We're going belly to belly. And uh I just think that that was like created such a good visual in my head. If you were gonna score it. Let's say if I gave you one point

Of like Trust. productivity, relationship building For a Zoom call. versus um

Meeting belly to belly. If one is a if a one is the is the call. How much is the in person? Well I mean, I would think about it the other way. I mean it's it's it's just it they're totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Like a belly belly like flying out to see them is the ultimate ten out of ten way to engage with someone. There is no better way.

than to say I'm flying five hours out of my way to see you and to spend You know, dinner with you. And a call is definitely a one and a swim call is maybe a two. It's like that's how wide the delta is. Right. And uh oh the other thing I wanna mention Is that we didn't

I think a lot of people think, Oh, but Jess, like you you've already like meeted a bit. So of course people want to hang out with you. Well, I was getting meetings like this. When I was sixteen and I knew nothing, I cold emailed The red it guys. I called emailed Justin and Emmett.

From Twitch. I guess it was Justin.tv back then. And I said, Hey, I'm this idiot sixteen year old. I think you just put it on the table. Like I'm an idiot. And I think you are brilliant and I'm willing to fly to you and I just want to be a

Um I'll fly on your folder and see you do your work. And just like You know. Just follow you around for a day.

And so if you pull up the Justin.tv archives, you will see me driving him around San Francisco and going to a poker game with him and like all this random stuff just because I was willing to do that. Mark Benioff replied to me also. Yeah, I'm an idiot sixteen year old. That's amazing. This is when you're a teenager. You also told me'cause I asked you'cause um I think one of the m valuable things in life is to study, like to become a good evaluator of people. Like if let's say you're an NBA general manager, you need to be able to spot talent.

Um, I think any business person or investor needs to be able to spot talent and ideally spot the difference between good and great. great and the best in the world. And um When I met you, I really felt like Oh, this might be somebody who's

one of those like elite best in the world at what they do, and they're gonna just do special things that are beyond even what Really great smart. you know, intelligent people are gonna do just because they seem to be operating differently, but I need to understand them a little more. So I asked you a question when I was getting to know you and I I was like I was like, If I met you when you were younger Like

Thirteen years old. What would I have seen and would I would there be have been any signals for uh for this? And I I said you know, and I will say um on my side, I was a totally unimpressive thirteen year old. You know, um You know, I there was no signals that I was gonna do anything out of the ordinary, um, you know, forget like being great at something, just like out of the ordinary, beyond average. And um

So I wasn't that way, but I've met a lot of people who were, you know, they're like teenagers, they were flipping things like you know on eBay or they were Building a product of some kind or you know, whatever. You have an amazing kind of backstory. Uh can you tell it? What were you doing? What was like your first Yeah. Interesting little business you were doing when you were you were a teenager.

When I was thirteen I started a dedicated server and collocation business. Because that's what I thought you did. In high school, that's just I don't know why, but I thought it was kinda normal. And I grew that so I've had a few hundred grand in revenue. Did you know somebody else doing it? Why would you think that's normal? I don't know. I was like the internet forums, you know, there are lots of people who do this. So I thought, Okay, this is like a commodity business, but I could probably figure out how to do it and make a few bucks and offset my

Gaming server expenses. That was the goal. I just wanted to make like ten thousand dollars a year to offset my own costs. and buy some clothes and not have to like go work at the shopping mall. Or like rate lean sort or shuttle stuff. I'm playing video games. I want to scratch my own itch, be able to play my own video games and n and like, you know, pay the pay off that, buy some clothes. Were you cool in school? Were you like a smart popular kid or wh who were you? Total geek loser. I was so lame. I

So I had no friends. I went to the computer club. at my high school Um, which is all the nerds who also had no other friends, so you have to be friends with each other. They were making fun of me and they were bullying me. I was literally on the bottom of the bottom. What I'm all

Like that's how I knew it was really bad. I'm like, Okay, I had to get out of here as soon as possible. So I ended up dropping out of high school. Uh half way through my sophomore year. But I got it's this really cool.

College program called Simon's Rock. Contra Yeah, Simon's Rock and going to college early. It really saved me because I was born in high school I wasn't doing well. I was

I was getting turbo. Greeds because I was uninterested, and because I had no friends, and I felt like I couldn't relate to anyone. All other girls. Um and guys just like were interested in things that I had no interest in. So when you said, Hey, I would love to create the school for people like us I just thought, holy cow.

I wanna create that school too. We can make this happen. Let's do it. Let's brainstorm it. Let's set aside some time another day. Let's just go meet up for dinner. I'll come wherever you want, any day you want. I will I will fly to you. And we will put together You know, like you can plan for what this would look like and how we would manifest this without having to wait till we're, you know, sitting out a billion in cash.

Yeah. Okay, done. Uh love it. Belly to belly, booked. Um You the the server business, uh did you make the ten grand off that? I was making like hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off of it. I was making more money than my teacher. I remember in biology class it's eight EM and I can't pay attention and I'm like doing Uh like

The biology teacher clearly doesn't like me. She knows that I'm high potential that I wasn't doing well. 'Cause I was up till three in the morning. Answering customer service and sales emails. So of course I only had like five hours of sleep. And when you're thirteen and you're operating on five hours of sleep, you're not gonna do well.

And but to make myself feel better, I thought, Well, at least I'm making more money than my biology teacher. Yeah. Well honestly moral victory. Uh so when you were meeting these people because you were like I'm a I'm a dumb sixteen year old college kid, you're college because you're sixteen because you dropped out of high school and like just went to college. Um You met Justin Cahn, you met Mark Benioff, you met uh, you know, these different Y C founders. Did you do you learn did you learn anything? Did anything stick with you? Was there a story that like you remember

Uh like what'd you get out of those meetings? Yeah, what I got out of it was that holy cow, there are other people like me who are a little crazy. Yeah. Are willing to approach life and entrepreneurship in an unconventional way. And who are willing to do

Uh Yeah. The hard thing. So when I saw Justin And when I saw Steve Hoffman Reddit. I

I realized wow, like I don't need to wait till I'm ol older to start doing this today. And I also don't need to have money. I don't have to have like a job to demonstrate success first. So it's more of the mindset, I would say it's always mindset in psychology more than tactics. Um when you're meeting these people that

I focus on. Yeah. Yeah. And you you also told me you had met these other people like when I was like, Oh, what's um Uh, I forgot I was like I think I was asked you like what you do with your money and you were like, Yeah, I uh you said one interesting thing, you were like You're like, you know, uh taxes um People we w I think I was asking you something about taxes and you were like, people don't spend enough time on taxes. So can you tell me

Um, we'll put this in the bucket of Billionaire secrets. Uh you you said you've met a bunch of successful super rich people. And the way they think is a little bit different than the way everybody else thinks. And I'm interested in that gap. What's different about the way That

Most successful, the richest people that you know think. What is it that they're Thinking about differently. Um One of the things was taxes, but you had a few more. Can you tell me the taxes point and anything else you kinda remember on that? Yeah, top tax optimization is a really big deal.

Because if you think about it, if you're spending if you're if half your money is going to Uncle Sam, it's really going to impact your compounding. Like do a you know, compound interest uh calculator and you'll see the delta is very wide if you're starting at age say thirty. And uh these billionaires employ the best tax strategists in the world. So eventually I said, Hey, could you introduce me to You're a tax person.

And that person, of course, works with like thirty other billionaires and has saved them, you know, collectively a hundred billion dollars in taxes. And then I I've gotten enough of these tax professional intros where now I have a whole collection of them. I call And I compile the advice from Multiply. tax professionals and merge it all together.

And I think that's the next level. Most people just pick one person they say, Oh, I've been working with Betty is my tax accountant for the past ten years. Well Betty doesn't work with billionaires. It's time for a new tax account. I literally had this conversation. conversational with someone over lunch last week and He texted me right before we got on this call saying, Oh my God, like this is going to make me millions of dollars more over the next few years.

Like Well th this is so true. Uh I feel when I uh like I have like A lawyer and a tax person. And if I feel like I t if I talk to another tax person or a lawyer I'm like Kind of cheating on them.

And it's like that's so silly. That's so dumb of a way to think about it. Like First of all It's your job to get the best opinion possible. It is. To get the best answer. the best answer is not gonna come necessarily from the one person you know Who you picked one time.

Five years ago without vetting anybody else. Um, they may also not specialize in other stuff you're doing. Oh, now you're doing real estate deals. Well, they don't know anything about real estate deals, or you're doing uh you have an exit, an MA, they don't know anything about MA. So you know, you should be talking to people who really understand that stuff. Um A team multiple opinions is better than one. Uh specialties matter.

Um Also When you said that it reminded me, I was like Oh yeah, the person who I have doing tax strategy stuff They stopped giving me strategy after year one.

Like We you know, like the bulk if I if I had a pie chart of ninety percent of the like strategy convo set convos we had were at the very beginning, and then like No, I'm just like the client that they you know stamp the the the thing on like every year, right? Like that happens naturally. Same thing with legal legal stuff. And so you kinda need to keep dating in order to have like fresh ideas or advice coming in.

Uh from that perspective. And you also said like There's a certain amount of time you think people should spend on Or like you know. Maybe you not should, but like

The math tells you you should be spending a certain amount of time on taxes and actually the what people actually do is maybe less than one percent of their time. Yeah, exactly. Less than one percent. Way less than even Point one percent. 'Cause if taxes impact half your income potentially. If you invest just

even five or ten percent of your time this year to finding five amazing tax strategist, get all their advice and figure out how to apply it. Ten percent of your time. Is the Up up or down here. You're making like way more money as a result. It pays for itself like a hundredfold. It's the highest IR investment you can make.

And it's way better than like investing in the stock market with the money you're paying these tax people. That's so true. Your taxes always your biggest expense. Uh and if you're a business person, you have your you know, your business tax, then you have your personal tax, you have like Investment tax, capital gains tax, you have all kinds of taxes every single year. You know, the same dollar gets taxed a bunch of times. Um

So you're right. Basically it's the biggest It's the big biggest expense. Even ten percent sounds absurd because I'm like, Oh, that's thirty six days out of the year. It's over chill. You don't need that much time. I mean, even five days in the year to do this gets you a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit on the math, like You would be justified spending thirty six days out of the year. You would be justified spending ten percent of your time in intellectual mind share.

On some on your biggest expense. That's gonna compound. Every year for the rest of your life. Like of course that would make sense. So that is a kind of like aha moment for me. Right. What about like um coaching or uh, you know, some sort of like What is your like basically if the studio the manifestation kind of like vehicle here is An extension of you.

And your brain and your dreams and your desires. And then like getting the brain To be like functioning well. Seems important. Do you do anything whether it's Therapy, nutrition.

morning routine, like do you do anything like that to like Make sure you're The psychology, the you know the the the the little voice in your head is saying the right stuff. Yeah, for sure. I have Um I had

Two different coaches I talk with each month. And I think of it as like going to the gym or taking a shower. Even if I think I'm happy or in a good mindset, I need to still go see them to make sure that my head is read on properly. And Yeah, it cost me a ton of money, but it pays for itself right away.

I also have my CEO group I visit once a month. It's kinda like alcohol sana. Alcoholics Anonymous for CEOs. I'm in like the uh young presidents organization, but there's also entrepreneur organization and This stage

The list goes on and on. And There, yeah, you think, Oh, I don't have time for it, but I actually think you don't have time not to do that. Mm. That's a good way of putting it.

Um we don't think about that. What if you could optimize Through better nutrition. And Neutropics. And through Ives your

Not only your longevity, but your mental acuity. So I work with five Puncierage doctors to Come up with my own custom plan. And I'm actually gonna put something together that I could share with all my friends so anyone I love can get on the same program. Um

And it includes The supplements, custom compounding my own supplements into you know, just two pills. Um, so it's a little easier. Um, and then doing the excessome I D once a quarter, which I'm I'm a huge fan of And what what is that? What is that word you just said? What what are you doing? Exome IVs.

And uh So it's still the signs on it's still a little Um You know, up in the air. So I just want to be You know.

Good on the disclosure there. Um So it's not necessarily the fountain ease. But There's the belief that, you know, if you're

If you're doing if you're bringing in stem cells. You know, through an IV. Um it will help you Uh lower your Biological age.

Give me more energy. And help you with Um with your autophagy. So basically your body's ability to get rid of Uh old and dying cells.

If you do that, then the thought is you're gonna have more energy. More energy means more brain power, more brain power means more ability to manifest and create Great things in the world. And so this is another area where let's say you were able to improve your mental function and your energy by Twenty five percent.

By the way, if you do all these things, like you could probably do like better than twenty five percent. Is that worth Fifteen thousand dollars a year. Which is roughly how much I spent on this. Maybe I spent twenty or twenty five grand on it. It's not a lot of money. You don't need a pull of Brian Johnson where you're spending a million dollars a year to get eighty percent of the results. This is the eighty twenty rule of Brian Johnson.

Yeah. Uh yeah, that's what I need. Uh good. I I I'm gonna hit you up for some recommendations on there. And um And then yeah. I I'll I'll eventually

Coolest all this feedback to make it So that we could share it publicly. And for free, so you guys don't necessarily need to pay for your own. I think it's ridiculous that Like all the work I'm doing here, I'm spending this money on it, like this should be like a public

service that's offered. Yeah,'cause it's not so personalized to you basically. No, it's not that personalized. Ninety percent of what I'm doing, like anyone else. shouldn't just be able to do on their own. It's just not

This whole longevity optimization. Arena. It's so new. And in order for other folks to monetize on it, it has to feel bespoke and unique to you when So uh g uh give me the quick rundown. So you sp

Spend this money, you have this this program that you're doing. You said you do this exosome I Vs. Uh, okay, great. What are like if you were gonna go from like most impactful to like, you know, whatever fringe, you know, stuff. What's the most of the most impactful stuff you're doing? Again, I'll be super honest, it's hard to know where the impact is. Of course.

Like on the just what you what you kinda believe in or what you would recommend to your cousin or your your your friend who you you know who you're like, look we all we get all the disclaimers, you're not a doctor, this is not the you're this is not, you know. Bulletproof science. Cool. Okay. Amongst friends, yeah, just to kinda tell me what your opinion is. Yeah. Uh I'm a friend of the easy one. I'm sure people have talked about that on your pod before.

Um I'm a fan of uh adding in other there's this whole list of supplements and neutrophics that I can't even recite the name of for you, but I could publish the list for you if you'd like. And then having them all again put together in, you know, a few compact pills that you could take. Um, and then I have a friend who And who does that? You you like go to a compounding pharmacy and you're like hey, d can you make these pills for me? Pretty well. Cool. We'll have like thirty two pills delivered. Like how how does that work? Yeah, I have a friend who actually has his own. So I did it at cost, but my plan is to work with him to create it so that he can make some profit and then my friends will

Um basically what I take. And not have it be marked up too much like all these other scumbag internet. Companies are trying to do. Shout out to the scumbags out there. Keep keep doing your thing. And then there's also

Um Yeah, I mean they're a bunch of peptides as well, if you wanna do the more advanced thing. Um And on the peptides. You know, some of them are injectable.

Um So You know, that I would consult a doctor on But the supplements you could probably just do. Right. And I wouldn't benchmark. I would take um the true diagnostics.

Um By last fall. Yeah, each test. Just to see how you're doing before, middle, and after. And um

Yeah, so that's another area. So taxes Hell. Um Coaching and mindset. What are the other categories for, you know, billionaire secrets we haven't covered?

Um, I think those are the big ones. The I mean the other one is what you talked about, which is Um being non operational. Non operational, yeah. Create a vehicle that's gonna create all your other vehicles. Um and and be able to recruit talent that's gonna be able to put the pieces together. The way I look at it is like Every project needs kind of like a vision.

It needs capital. It needs an operator. It needs you what you know, what are what does it need? Okay, I'm gonna be able to create those packages. And so that's I think that's what a lot of them do is they They get out of I'm gonna go every day and work on this one business and toil away like Turning the crank myself. And you know, that's the the the higher leverage way that they they operate is is like that. Yeah exactly.

Yeah, I think that's great. And um I think also billionaires have a different mindset when it comes to buying expensive things. So you think, Oh, they have so much money that why would they waste that on the boat or the plane or the exotic cars? And it The truth is

Um, on a lot of that it's taxes. So I have a friend who's buying a thirty million dollar yacht right now and he found a way for it to give him a thirty million dollar write off. He's gonna charter it out for a bit, but like He save's more money. On taxes than all he's spending on the yacht?

And his bank will finance eighty percent of the yacht. He's only putting twenty percent down, so it's net net cash flow positive for him to buy the yacht. Ironically. And the operational costs. are offset largely by the charter.

And you don't think that but it pays for all his costs. And um People do this with airplanes too. I did this with my airplane. I mean I hadn't bigger right off from buying the airplane then when I put down in cash to buy the airplane. So Can you give the quick math on uh it doesn't have to be your specific plane, but just like j just the general math so people don't know like

How does the buy a plane work from a tax perspective? Yeah, well it the rules are changing, but I I closed online about a year ago. And Um let's say you buy a plane, it's Five million bucks and your being swimming to finance most of it. So you put a million dollars down.

Um, but you get a five million dollar write off on the plane. And it's a year one write off, right? That was a accelerated bonus depreciation year one. Um, but now the problem is this year it's only eighty percent you could Deduct up front next year at sixty percent and then forty and then twenty. Um yes, it's getting worse and worse.

But Um But the point is you do get a tax benefit for buying these assets. They are financed. And then also if it enables you to do more what you want, then there's that like incapitable benefit. That you receive.

Um Same with excited cars. Lot of people I know who have excited cars. Their side cars are worth more than what they pay for them. So they buy the car, they drive it for a year, and then they sell the car. At the same cost or a higher cost than what they paid for it because

Other people can't they want to have access to that car. But they don't have a relationship with the manufacturer and they weren't willing to wait four years on the waiting list to get that car. Yeah, I was surprised to learn that that the um There's just a whole class of really expensive cars that you basically get to drive for free.

It's like putting a deposit down. So you go buy this car Uh I don't even know if this would classify, but like our f our friend had a McLaren and he's like, Yeah, it's great. I driven it, you know, for a few years and I'm gonna sell it for exactly what I bought it for. It doesn't depreciate. Or it's up, you know, I'll I'll make ten, twenty grand on this thing. For the privilege of driving this around.

And uh there's a whole bunch of these like Rich Get Richer uh style setups, like you know Where If you if you once you start to play the it's like a snowball. It's like you use the money to buy something that's gonna make you more efficient and have more fun or uh you know, do better business.

And then that also is gonna save you on taxes today and then it also gonna hold value because it's a rare asset. So You're gonna You know, if you ever sell it, you didn't lose anything just for holding this. So you know, y you get all these like gains and then they start to accumulate once you start to get there. And I think that's a Um

A real advantage. And you know, some people I who I think are on the other side of that hate that and they feel like that's so unfair and unjust. Uh, you know, I don't really give a moral opinion either way. It's just that's is what it is. And uh, you know, you could choose to either Um benefit from that. You can choose to ignore it, or you can choose to be upset about it. You have many choices on how you're gonna react to uh, you know, a bunch of these things that that come with you know the s the snowball of we of of you know wealth.

Yeah, I think I think it's easy to heat on it. But what's cool is that people could learn about mindset and how to get there. And that's what you're doing with your pod. Like you're very specific about like how to do these things. I've noticed.

And this was not available to people five years ago. So um Well well, it's funny'cause like money is this uh It's taboo thing. It's like we're all supposed to not share anything we know about money, how much we make, what we how we invest, what the returns are, what taxes, what do you do with your taxes? Like Everybody plays, you know, close guarded on that.

And uh that's a real shame'cause it means it's very hard to learn uh until that gets cracked open and somebody starts sharing, and then more people start sharing, then you start to learn faster. And uh there's this great Conor McGregor quote where he talks about like Connor McGregor went from Plumber.

To highest paid athlete in the world in a span of five years. And along the way, he was higher paid than any UFC guy ever was, faster than anybody was. And there was a lot of guys who had been pay their dues for 15 years. Fighting for you know going out there and like fighting in a cage match for twenty thousand dollars.

And then they have to pay for their flights or hotels, the medical bills, and they're left with two grand at the end of it. And they were very bitter. And uh someone asked him in an interview, they go Connor, you know, do you ever think about kind of toning it down because Uh, yeah, there's so many people that are, you know, get upset when you talk about

You call your shots, you say how much you're making, you wear the nice watch, you wear the nice clothes. And he goes, um No, that says something about them, not me. He goes Some people see this and they take inspiration. And that's who I was. I saw people doing things and I took inspiration.

And other people see things and they get bitterness and they will end up bitter. It is not my job. to figure out, you know, they get to decide if they're gonna go on on the bitterness path or the inspiration path. Um, you know, the right people will get inspired. And uh that actually kinda freed me up in this podcast to Do things that I think you know

Ask questions or talk about things that I think are You're supposed to downplay everything. You're supposed to not talk about, you know, certain stuff. Um Well fuck that. Yeah, that doesn't seem like I know I I when I was growing up, I couldn't wait to get a little more information or inspiration or hear You know, that somebody, oh, this guy has a private chef. Damn, that'd be awesome. I don't feel bad that I don't have one now. I now have a new thing that I've decided that would be really awesome.

fun to work for and a and a great like Uh I d a way to improve quality of life that I had never even thought about. And um thank you for putting it on my radar. Thank you for putting it in my in my uh you know in in front of me that I now wanted to go go do that. I love that. Yeah, like

I think it is difficult to struggle with the feeling of jealousy and aspiration. And Another crick that I'm not sure if this came from Tony Robbins or someone else, but If you're surrounded by people who are

Uh, more successful than you instead of envying them. Um Weedy could interpret it as hey, this is a great sign'cause this means more success and more happiness is coming my way. Now that I'm able to surround myself and track these people into my life, how awesome. And um I remember I'm gonna deal with that a lot, especially when I was

a up and coming entrepreneur and I knew absolutely nothing and I have You know, Drew from Drawbox and Sam Altman coming to speak to me and these like Yes. students, right? Like We didn't know anything.

And um and the gap felt very wide by just having them there to spend time with us and to say, Hey, we're open to Like just email us if you have any questions about what it's like to be a founder. We're gonna be there for you. Just feeling like all of them were approachable and accessible. I think made it easier for me to focus on the education instead of the energy. Right. That's a that's a great way of putting it.

Can I ask you one thing before we go'cause I know I took too much of your time. Sure. Uh Sam Altman is now like this Extremely interesting. Public character. Um, very few people actually know him. Sounds like you've had interactions with him in the past.

Uh, can you give me your impressions or any story you remember of Sam Altman? Um Because I remember reading Paul Graham's essays like ten years ago where he's like Of the five most impressive people I've met, it's like Bill Gates or whatever, you know, Larry and Sergey. And Sam Altman, you know, and it's like

That's when he was doing looped and nobody you know, there was no There was no tracker could he he sort of was was like It was just very apparent in meeting him at that time that this guy's gonna go on to do great things. Did you get that sense or um I don't know how much interaction you had with them? Yeah, I actually

I mean this was probably thirteen years ago now, but I I had a one on one with Polygram. And I asked him Share, like who do you think the most Um

you know, successful people you've ever met. Like who will who will that end up being thirty years from now? If we have another one and one like this. And Sam was on the list. I'm not gonna share who others were on that list, um, but They're all also doing extremely well.

And um What a question by you, by the way. Fantastic question. Yeah, and I asked Paul, what are the things in common with these people? What What did by the way, he put me on the list. I'm the worst one by far. So I'm embarrassed and I felt like I disappointed him.

But we'll see that for another day. Uh And I asked him for like what are personality traits you find in these people? Like Aw. You know, what do you see and

For him it it was less about the intelligence, actually. It was not about the it It goes back to this common theme we've had throughout the past hour and a half here on like Right. And being willing to be unconventional and to try different approaches and to You know

to collect ideas from multiple species and merge them together to come up with something even better than what a domain expert in any one field would be able to come up with on their own. Um And just like how they show up and what they're willing to do to meet the right people was a big part of Um What me so that's w that also reinforced my wanting to

have this policy of just get on the plane. Because that's a treat that successful people Perceive Well lean to

You know, you being destined for greatness, so to speak. So all right, well I don't think I'm destined for greatness, but what if I could manufacture making other people think I'm destined for greatness? Then maybe I'll actually maybe I'll treat that. Reality somehow. Yeah, eventually, you know, it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck. Hey, it became a duck, you know, by the end of it, actually. So so those traits you said just now, sorry to recap was Um

grit or resourcefulness. No. Like you know the the the willingness to make things happen. You said um Uh going into mul being being able to collect ideas from multiple spaces and s and synthesize it so that you actually might create something more than any domain than the than the individual domain experts had been able to reach. You get to a new

A new ceiling. Um, from that. That was like the second thing you said. Third was Uh Wanting to meet the right people, ask the right questions, and being willing to go to certain lengths to to kind of meet them, right? That was that was the third one. Did I miss one that you said? Yeah, just to build on that third one it's that how can you meet yourself

Interesting enough at a dinner party. So that they would want to invite me back to spend more time with them. How do you broaden your field of knowledge? To be able to be an advisor, uh You know, the someone that

You know. a king or president would want to call upon for feedback. And You know, you have a program's task, or this was years ago before you left for the UK. He has a huge library of books and he's read most of these books.

And And he's just Fascinated by so many topics. And that also left an impression on me. Okay, like we should just learn about random things that have nothing to do with our day to day business.

Because they'll help us with category number three on that list. Right, right. Yeah, that's such a good call. I went to a farming conference last year, like two years ago, like for just like for farming. And it was the best conference I had been to in like five years. I've only been going to tech conferences. And You know

I'm not learning anything at these tech conferences, or you know, like I'm adding the same incremental knowledge and it's the same thoughts and philosophies and same types of people. in that bubble. And there's nothing wrong with that, but like there's definitely like you want that twenty percent like Total changeup. that is um completely at a left field that's like Wow, these guys talk about different things, think about different things, have a different perspective, live in a different I was in Kansas City, right? Like it was like

Uh, you know, you go to a different place and you have a totally different perspective. And I literally started a company while I was there because I was like, piecing together like two ideas, one from the tech world and one from this like farmer that we had met. And like It you know, that was uh you know, when we created the Milk Road and we even the name Milk Road was like 'Cause we're at a frickin' farming conference and there's like a dairy farmer next to us. Uh, you know, like it all kind of played into to to having that.

If you know we hadn't stirred the pot in that exact way. You know, maybe you would have come up with a different answer. Yeah, that's super cool that you did that. And uh I I'm curious So

Download from me, what is also on your list of like the next areas you would want to learn about and Um, I think it's actually a good exercise for me to think about. Because for me it's been bio lately, but I I would like to broaden it even more. So give an example of one of the bio companies that you founded. What it you know, the give us the high level of like

the problem, the solution you guys are trying to do, and like, you know, the the rough stage where it's at. Yeah, the high level is I set up a holding company Uh for biotech. Uh venture creation.

Centered around a scientist named him Mike Levin. If you search Mike Levin, he has A TED Talk. He has a three and a half hour interview with Les Friedman that I highly recommend you watch and you will get sucked in because He's a scientist who studied. He got he got his PhD in genetics at Harvard.

And then now he's devoted his entire career to basically proving the fact that genetics are actually not that relevant in the whole scheme of things. And that it's this other thing, bioelectricity that dictates How long we live. Um, whether or not we get cancer.

Um How our limbs and body shape forms. It's actually not as much genetics as you think, and genetics is like the hardware level of biology. Whereas he says biologicity is Like the software.

So you you told me this, you you were like, uh we have one company's uh Astonishing Labs, it's about bioelectricity. And I was like, what's I've never even heard this word. And you said it in a in a really interesting way. You go Um you know, people think that it's like genetics is kind of like What your genes say or your DNA says is kind of like what ends up manifesting. And you're like, turns out it's not that at all, which already I was like, Oh, that's a kind of narrative violation. What is what do you mean? I that's all I've ever heard. So what is the answer? Um

And you were like, Yeah, there's this idea of bioelectricity. And I went and I watched his TED talk. And he talks about like, you know They're able to like, you know, grow a arm on something's on an animal's back. They're able to like th grow a third eye, right? They're able to do all these like show all these amazing like phenotype outputs. Without

Any genetic modification. And um so can you just like explain that a little bit more about like, you know The layman's version of it. Yeah, well I I'll be honest, I don't even fully understand the science of it, but that's everything you said is correct. Like

It if you manipulate the bioelectricity on an animal Um, you can Create weird outputs like this. So When they saw that a tadpole was growing an eyeball The bioctric.

signature of the cells in that area changed. So the question was, Oh What if you Created that same biologic signature, but on another part of The body, what will happen? Will it grow an eyeball?

Not only does it grow an eyeball there, but it grows Connection to the spinal cord. Um And so you don't have to micromanage biology. If you try to change that through

modify the genome, how would you do that? There'd be no way to do that. Is the answer. And so if you just think about it logically. Genetics are there for not the and all be all. So anyway, I heard of this, it blew my mind and I said this

This is brilliant. Like Is he does he have a commercialization partner? What's the status of it? And the answer is It's still in the lab and there is no one commercializing this yet.

And Paul Allen was funding the whole lab. And then Paul Allen tragically passed away and then the funding dried up. So he needed money. He needed people to help him make it a real biotech h company. So I come in and I say I know nothing about bioattack.

I know a lot of rich people who would love to fun crazy stuff like this. And wait, wait, wait, when you say I came in, that means like I cold emailed him, I I call him, I I met him, what what did you actually do? I met him through a friend. So I had a friend who was telling me about my over lunch and I thought this is brilliant, this is amazing. Could we fly out and we like

Like next week. Like I'll literally clear my calendar and I'll spend a few days and I will get to know him. And Figure out what we could do with this. And so I met Mike, spent some time with him.

and realize that this is really compelling. And We could do something cool out of it. So Um, so I hired this guy named Tom. Um, had taken a drug called Elsonrisse from lab all the way through FDA.

Approval. Full approval. For sixteen million dollars. Which is Absolutely crazy. And

The Doug World. Like normally it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get something approved by the FDA. But his drug actually worked. It was putting patients in full remission, the first eight out of nine patients. Normally they would be dead within months.

With this drug they were They were going into remission. So I brought him in to go do Uh due diligence on all my clevins.

Five. And figure out a strategy for turning these into real biotech companies. And so my contribution was I have eighteen. I have twelve people who work with me.

At my holding company or whatever you want to call it. For me, I don't really think of it as a holdco or a venture studio. For me it's just an extension. Of me. Where if there's something I wanna manifest in the world, I have A team of brilliant people.

will figure out how to help me make that happen. That's amazing. And so um So you do that. What is the like uh You know, what's the product or what are you guys actually building?

We are building Uh several companies under this whole show. So the first company we created Um Is called Seljadu. And it's essentially a company that will help overcome drug resistance.

And Um How do I make this more concrete? If you're taking uh drugs for your leukemia. Or you're taking chemo drugs.

It might be effective and work for well. We have lots of drugs that Are effective in Work. But then one day they stop working, and when they stop working Um, unfortunately

There are sometimes no other viable options for the patient, which means they're gonna then die, but One monthly. A month earlier the jugs were working. And they were fine, right? So that's one company, there's another company that's developing

Um programmable human biobox, and in fact it's got Yeah, there's article about this. And nature as of today. And that company is called AndroBots. Wow.

So I'll send you more info on that if you're curious. Um That is really cool. I think CNN's gonna post Their interview with Mike. Today about that as well.

And so is all your st all your bio stuff under the the this lab with Mike Levin or is there m are there other bio bets too? Cause like you've talked to me about Uh, you know, at that dinner we were talking about um I don't know, like pregnancy or something like that. And you said something kind of in passing, you're like, Yeah, like In the next I don't know.

ten years, uh, you know. Yeah, you know, you'll be women may not need to birth a baby. Like it you know, you'll be able to just essentially grow a baby. And I was like what? Um how cool would it be if you could see like a baby growing in like a fish tank. And all you have to do is I could swab your map. And swab my mouth, put it in the machine, and then a bee will start to grow out of it.

Yeah, just get the genetic material, no sperm egg. No sperm, no egg, just Raw genetic material and uh Yeah, I think that will eventually be in the future. I don't think that's gonna be the next ten years. Probably not even the next twenty years, but I I have random ideas like that. This And I think how cool it'd be

Define who's doing that research. And And if F I find people who are then I might support their work and fund it. If not, then I'll have I'll put together my own team and go

Try it ourselves and it's likely gonna lose money and fail and not work, but like This is fun. Like Not everything has to be for the profit. I know your your whole pot is all about making money.

And all the old shows are about how to like compound fast flow and blah blah blah. But like what if We could have fun doing this and By having fun, being mission oriented. You think bigger, you think more grand about what the world could become one day, and then you're more likely to end up like Elon or whatever. Like that's kind of the direction I'm going with.

With my company here. Um which I realise it's not as sexy, it's not as compelling as saying You know, we're you know, making money. You know

Maybe it's more sense. I don't know. Uh like you know, when when Facebook was uh going public, Mark Zuckerberg wrote this letter to like the potential shareholders that were gonna buy the stock. And it was like I think it was called the Hacker Way. It's a really great thing. I you know, I know people are very skeptical of Zuck, but I think a lot of the stuff he does is is pretty awesome, including this letter that he wrote. And he described the way that they do things. And one of the things he said is like, you know, we don't build products to make money.

Uh you know you know Uh we don't we don't build products to make great money. We we make money to build great products. Like that is the the core of what we're doing. I think Google had said a similar thing when they went public and You know I don't think it's one or the other, but there is a

First order bit and second order bit, meaning like If the first order bit is We are trying to fund bold science that might Change everything. Um

Even though it has a high likelihood of failure. Even though it might take many years and a lot of money to get there. Uh, but we think that advancing the research and ultimately trying to commercialize the research is the way. Um That to me is the version of like, we don't do that to make money. We make money so that we can do that. Uh, so I think it in a way it's it's a lot.

More attractive and sexier to to To most people. I think if they step back for a minute, a lot of the like Money first comes from the insecurity, right? Like um Just the the sort of wanting wanting that success, wanting that win under your belt, wanting that safety in the bank account. Um, you know, that's where a lot of that comes from. I don't think anybody really

If they looked at their life would say, I'm so glad I devoted it to maximizing, you know, how much money I made. That's a very unlikely scenario. I think a lot of people would actually be more. Um, inspired by, you know, the way you're doing things now, which is like what's fun, what's interesting, what gets me up out of bed in the morning that's exciting. That will If done well. um can like, you know, change change change the world. Uh in lead in the non cliche way, because the stuff you're doing actually is more change the world than like

Then you know, the end and arrows of the world where it's like, We're gonna change the world one set of books at a time and it's like, Well Maybe. Maybe you're just doing bookkeeping, actually. Yeah, exactly. That's how I felt. I I literally had this nagging feeling in my soul that I was wasting my capability, and I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. Awesome. Well, sounds like we got another couple of conversations to have. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me.

Go find you, reach out to you, where where where do you want to direct people? Yeah, um, I mean I'm on You know my website's Maway.com. And I've got a Twitter.

Ah, just come on. Um at Jess Maffish on uh Instagram. And If people all wanna reach out. We said uh

Either guess my email address, which is what I've done with Mark Benioff and everyone else. That's a good filter, actually. You don't want the inbound that's easy. You want the inbound of a at least you're at least able to guess an email address. It's not that hard. Just like I had like I literally emailed like Mark Uh Salesforce, Mark. Benny Off, M Benny Off, uh, you know, like every permutation I could come up with. And most of them bounced and one of them works.

So That's awesome. Uh thanks for doing this. You're awesome. And uh yeah, that was a great episode. Yeah, great great time hanging out with you. Thanks for having me. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song On a road less travel never looking back

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