WHOOP Founder Will Ahmed: How I Built A $3.6 BILLION Company

How big is the business now? I you guys have raised what, like four hundred million dollars? Yeah, we've raised four hundred million. Uh we We blast raised capital at three point six billion dollar valuation. Um I think there's still you know A lot of potential for health monitoring, I think.

If you fast forward ten years, I think. Um a large percentage of the World's population will be wearing. uh a continuous health monitor and it'll hook into Everything that you do as it relates to the healthcare system and

Doctors and Um and so yeah, I'm very bullish on on the opportunity in the space. Do you uh do you know what you're getting into or what? I've read the briefing and uh Uh, I'm a big fan of the podcast, so ready for you.

Alright, so like the the pod it's called My First Million. It's kinda known for Uh Sean and I have both started uh a handful of companies and sold a few of'em. And People like the pod because we brainstorm and we dive deep on different companies and we do like business breakdowns, things like that. So but we'll spend a little bit of time kinda getting to know you because you've done a lot of amazing things. Well, I know one huge amazing thing that you've done, but but I bet you there's a lot more amazing things that you've done. But we'll hear a little bit more about your background and then I'll then we'll wanna spend time like dive kinda diving deep on different opportunities in your industry. But first, like do you wanna like say like

Kinda like your your thirty second spiel of like who you are and and and the story of how you got there. Yeah, absolutely. Uh So Will Ahmed, I I grew up on uh North Shore of Long Island. I as a kid, I was kinda always into the sports and exercise. I Ended up going to uh

Harvard and and playing squash in school and I was a competitive college athlete and I felt like I didn't really know what I was doing to my body while I was training as an athlete. So that got me very interested in physiology. Did a ton of physiology research as a student. Uh I read something like that.

five hundred medical papers and uh started to conceive of this idea of how you could continuously measure the human body. And the idea was initially around athletic performance, but broadly I felt like there would be ways to Uh continuously measure. the human body for all sorts of of health implications and

Uh you know what became as a sort of a Curiosity ultimately turned into a very long research paper that I wrote and then ultimately founding a company. Uh this was would would have been Uh when I was twenty one, twenty two years old.

Uh as a senior at Harvard and And then for the last 10 plus years or so I've been uh I've been building this this business. Uh the business whoop builds wearable technology. Uh really to improve people's health.

We started with the best athletes in the world and and over time I've grown to work with. uh a large consumer population. And uh And it's a a really exciting time to be building that that technology.

Okay, so yeah, you're the CEO of and founder of Woop, uh People have seen it. It's a whoop band. You've uh Yeah. You have to have seen down people's wrists. But w you said something like we started with high end athletes, and I think I read something like this that Is this right that Lebron

And Michael Phelps were two of the first hundred Customers or users of Whoop is that Is that real? And how did how did that happen? It is real and this would have been around two thousand Fourteen, two thousand fifteen. So

You know, we spent about two to three years really on the initial V one of Whoop. And You know, I wanted to start with the best athletes in the world and really for two reasons. The first was that We were bringing sleep and recovery technology to market for the first time.

And I felt like professional athletes who. uh, you know, have to perform on a daily basis should really understand how they're recovering. That was one of the insights to starting the business. And uh and then second of all, if we could get the world's best athletes to wear uh whoop and organically like it. Then we could build a whole brand around uh performance that ultimately could could scale to

to consumers. And and I grew up very inspired by um brands like Nike and and the Jordan brand and and just how Oh like a swash on something. could make make the whole product feel completely different, independent from anything else about the product. uh just because of the the storytelling behind it or the brand behind it.

So I was interested in how health monitoring could have a brand to it. And uh and so that that was really the thesis for targeting professional athletes. And um and so in the case of getting to LeBron and Phelps, the I think the key insight was Finding people in their lives who had a big influence on them who a bunch of people didn't already know.

You know, if you go to their agent or their manager or their wife, like They get inundated with this stuff. So you have to find someone in their in their life who who other people don't know. And it also turned out back then that the personal trainer was a somewhat under rated or unknown person in a uh A professional athlete's life.

And that also happened to be the right person to go to. uh for technology like woop. So In the case of uh LeBron, I got to know Mike Mancias. In the case of uh Phelps, we got to know Keenan Robinson, both of which were personal trainers to those athletes and got them on whoop and then they got their athletes on whoop and Um

Yeah, the rest's history. How big is the business now? I you guys have raised what, like four hundred million dollars? Yeah, we've raised four hundred million. Uh we We blast raised capital at three point six billion dollar valuation. Um I think there's still you know

A lot of potential for health monitoring, I think. If you fast forward ten years, I think. Um a large percentage of the World's population will be wearing. uh a continuous health monitor and it'll hook into

Everything that you do as it relates to the healthcare system and Doctors and Um, and so yeah, I'm very boyish on on the opportunity in the space. Do you like uh being the CEO of a of a big company? Um or do you wish do you like still wish that you're in the early days of like getting in the nitty gritty?'Cause I imagine you're like

Kinda just making decisions now and managing people as opposed to Maybe getting your hands dirty on the product. Well, I've still tried to stay close to the product because I think it's something I've had a Uh a relevant perspective on even as a company has has scaled and and

Uh I've been able to see around. I think that The role of being CEO as as you guys know changes a lot with stage and scale, right? Like uh ten person versus a hundred person versus five hundred person, like at each of these inflections, your your role's definitely changing.

Um I think because Whoop as a technology gets increasingly interesting with scale, it's made my role increasingly interesting as well. So What do I mean by that? You know, the overall data set uh that you have on on a larger population makes the data much more predictive and much more powerful. The coaching as a result can get much more comprehensive.

Uh I think for other founders I've met who have been building a business for five years or even 10 years. They get to a point where they're kind of like Okay, this can run itself or I'm gonna bring in someone new or I've kind of reached the relative peak of of the mountain. And

I don't feel that way. I feel like there's still uh uh a bunch more levels to go. I feel that Uh the insights that the technology is able able to get, the number of people that that it can potentially use by. All of that feels like it's amplifying, not shrinking.

And and so for those reasons that yeah, I'm very excited about about being CEO. It's it's also look, it's a daily challenge growing into it. I feel like at every stage of the business, I've had to learn how to Uh how to be a CEO.

And It's not like this is the first just the first company I started. It's my first full time job. So You know, I'm I'm I'm figuring a lot of this out as I go. Sam always asked that question and I'm just waiting for the one person who's like, I hate being CEO. I hate my job. I hate all these people that are in this office. This is terrible. There's certain things that change a lot, right? Like

You you're The percent of time in which you think of yourself as an individual contributor versus a manager. has to shift very dramatically. Uh I think probably Around the size of

fifty people it has to shift like that. Like we've about five hundred people. But That's probably one of the most painful things that if a founder doesn't Fully appreciate or recognize. They can screw the business up a lot.

Like you have to recognize ha that you need to be shifting almost entirely towards manager and not Being an individual contributor. Well, you know what it is is We uh we we we talked to a lot of interesting people here. And

The CEO of like a five hundred person plus company. Usually looks like shit. Not always, but usually. Like they look tired and there's rings under their eyes and they're usually a little chubby.

As it takes a huge swig of coffee. Well no, they look like crap. But You're a uh You're like the CEO of a fitness brand. You you were a a a highly competitive athlete. And so you look great. It's so it's like

Yeah, you're you're You're kinda like skewing the the uh the average here. But like I mean you look pretty fit. How are you balancing like Being healthy and putting your but also putting your company first because I like when I was really in the thick of it, I was like, dude, I don't have time to work out. Like screw it, I'm just gonna eat this crap. But at uh you don't know this, but one of your competitors was my neighbor and we used to work out together in my garage every day.

And then uh And then he got promoted to CEO. He was like he was like a different exec got promoted to CEO and then uh stopped having time to work out. Like he just kept coming by while I was working out. And he was like, Ah, I gotta get back in here. And we're like, dude, you're the boss. You know you could just like rearrange your schedule, right? He's like, I got Crazy. It's crazy right now. Oh, it's crazy right now. And for like

Nine months straight? Oh, it was crazy right now. And he just stopped working out and I was like, Bro You run a health company. Like you gotta if you don't Sleep or work out or make time for this stuff. Like, you know, what's going on here? And uh I just thought that was so funny. Like the the fact that he was like, you know, no, we have to make this successful in order to do that, I'm gonna make these health sacrifices as I go.

Well, I mean. Dude, Will's got like a ch chiseled jaw, you got a nice head of hair, you're wearing a it looks like a like a like a vest. You look all you look all spiffy and you look nice and shit. Uh what what are you what are you doing to exercise right now and how are you balancing that with work? I think it look, I think it's part of the the job for me that that I'm gonna be in in good shape and healthy and Uh, I spend a lot of time around people that are super into their health and fitness, whether it's professional athletes or scientists or

Even thinking about product features that are designed to improve your health. So as a business like just thinking about Yeah. the product and technology that we build every day. That kind of orients me at least to be Uh

To be healthy. And not to mention I'm using a product that Uh is all about health improvement. So you know, for a variety of reasons, it feels like it'd be super off. Brand of it. Uh if I was really out of shape or or

What's your like sleep score when you sleep? Are your uh you know g give us your give us your stats. And also What are some things that you know a lot of this audience who listens to this, um I would say probably I would guess the majority don't regularly wear a continuous health monitor. Um, but also the majority care about Performing well, peak performance and as as an entrepreneur typically, um

Who's listening to this? So What are some things that they That you you've learned. that you know they maybe should be doing or you know some of the biggest levers that you've seen when it comes to, you know, kind of health and performance.

Well, I want to be clear that that uh I do believe Building a successful Company E. Ah, requires overcoming some level of stress. that would break most people.

So I I do think you have to Uh Really push. above and beyond what is comfortable. I think the technical is man up, Will.

Yeah, okay, may I not but W like within that I think there's a lot. I think there's a lot of techniques that you can develop for yourself. that um allow you to run at a at a breakneck.

Peace. For a long, long time. Yeah, people always talk about this analogy of Okay. It's not a spirit, it's a marathon.

But if you actually look at like world class marathoners. They're running like four minute mile. 430 miles. It's kind of a spread. Yeah. So, you know, and how do we run a mile that fast? So I think for the entrepreneur or the you know, the the business leader listening to this, You wanna figure out a way that you can be sprinting a marathon for a long time. And and

One of the ways I view that is taking care of myself and and Uh being in good shape. Uh I think we can start with Uh

Uh sleep. Which uh is is it I think a topic that's not talked about in the right Framework. Most people when you talk to to them about their sleep, they're like, Oh, I don't have enough time, I'm working to hard, blah, blah.

The thing to understand about sleep is It's all about the percentage of time that you spend in bed. Getting high quality sleep. So if If you ask your your audience or you ask a friend who's never worn a health m

Monitor. And you say, How much sleep do you get last night? They'll be like, Oh, well, I went to bed at eleven, I woke up at six, I got seven hours of sleep. Pretty good. Okay. The reality spent seven hours in bed. So of those seven hours. You were in

Uh a period of awake, a period of light sleep. A period of REM and a period of slow weight sleep. Awake and light are pretty much irrelevant. You're not getting any physiological benefit from being in uh uh awake or light stage sleep.

Rem and slow wave, that's where all the magic happens. So Rem sleep. Is And your mind is repairing. So like real cognitive repair. Um, it's when you have deep dreams. So if you're someone who can't remember dreams or you don't seem to have dreams, you're definitely not getting enough REM sleep.

Any high performing exec Entrepreneur, you need Rams sleep. Um slow wave sleep is when your body produces ninety five percent of its human growth hormone. So just think about that for a second. Ninety-five percent of your human growth hormone gets produced during this stage of sleep.

You're not getting stronger. In the gym. Right, or working out, you're breaking muscles down. You get stronger during slow wave sleep. So the more you get to that, the better. Okay.

And Let's take the person who spent seven hours in bed. That person could have gotten a total Of thirty minutes. Of Rem and Slow Wave Sleep.

Or they could have gotten a total of five and a half hours of Romen's sleep. Like that's an or like a massive, massive difference. That's a huge spectrum. The person with thirty minutes. I guarantee you has to all c Kinds of problems in our lives. The person with five and a half hours, I guarantee you is very happy, very high functioning.

What's like um what's like really strong? If if an eight hour block was, you know, I mean it bad for eight hours, what would be like a good level of REM and slow wave sleep. If you can get over fifty percent of the time you're spending in bed. To be uh Rem and Slowway sleep, like you're in you're doing pretty well.

Uh and so I I I'm in that camp and I and I'm also still Optimizing my life more to be Uh a CEO. Or uh an entrepreneur than a human.

Right, if I was just fully focused on being a great human. I would probably spend eight to nine hours in bed, right? And I wouldn't look at my phone before bed and things like this, right? Um but Because I'm still optimizing for being an entrepreneur. I uh yeah, I spend more like

Seven hours in bed or you know, seven and a half, maybe if i if I if I get a little extra sleep. But I've managed to make that time. You know, like the three to four hours, sometimes even four and a half hours of Rem and Slow Wave sleep. So I'm getting the Rem and slow wave sleep that like a A person who might be spending eight or nine hours in bed is getting.

Because I've figured some stuff out that makes me sleep better. So That's sort of a One whole category right there, which is sleep. And

Anyone listening to this should try to figure that out for themselves because It's it it'll just dramatically change the quality of of your life. I'll give you another hack. I wear these blue blocking glasses before bed. And they've got a red like kind of a red tint to them.

And Uh if you think about Laptops, uh, iPhones, whatever, all of them are emitting this light. That is telling your eyes and your brain to stay awake. And

Uh, if you're like me and you're using your phone or reading an email, you know, closely before bed. Um, because you know, you're you're doing work or you're staying on top of things. Uh It's gonna affect the way you sleep. But if you wear these glasses, it's like a get out of jail free card and you can look at all that stuff right up until the moment you go to bed.

And it won't affect your sleep. So uh so that's like one example of hack both sides of it. Have you, um you said you've been around all these uh interesting athletes and you also have access now to like millions of p uh pieces of data.

Who are some of the biggest freaks in nature that you've been around? Is there like Judy in Iowa that's getting like nine and a half hours of slow wave sleep and she's your hero? You got like a picture of her on your wall. Yeah, or like uh like all these athletes that you've been around, like is there anyone who you just like you've seen them in real life and they're like. Incredible. Yeah, well you're like when we first when we first started looking at when we first started working with LeBron James, this would have been Uh two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen.

His sleep potato was I could probably point to the one that was LeBron's. Which is kind of amazing. Like uh and it makes a lot of sense that that he was so good at uh and has been so good at recovering in his career.

Because He's taking care of that third of his life. And and sleeping great. Alright. Think it's

Maybe the most REM and slow wave sleep of anyone I I've talked to. Um named Alex Honnell. Do you guys know that name? Sound is from Free Solo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the climber. The climber, right? So this is a guy who who uh

Yeah, climbs mountains without a rope, essentially. And uh And Does these insane feats that are extremely dangerous. So

The interesting thing about uh RE sleep. Is Researchers were able to find the more REM sleep you get. The less heightened your amygdala response. So your amygdala response is is fight or flight.

Yeah, that's what signals to your body to to to be nervous or to to get animated. So it makes a lot of sense. That the guy who's capable of climbing Uh, you know, rock climbing these environments that no one's done before without a rope.

Uh has this insane Ability to sleep. Because that's probably in part what makes him so calm. uh as he's doing these activities.

I I just Googled uh Alex's name and then Rem sleep. I think we just gave you the promo of the century, man. Like this the this is the marketing this is like it should be uh it it comes up the first thing that comes up is like a TED talk. Now uh your company talking about how You sleep more. You get more REM sleep, then you're able to like take a little bit more rest and be calm. I mean that that's like a really that's like a really interesting um Uh play here.

Well take on those athletes, do you think it's a sort of like intentional thing? Like you think that they uh you know, like is LeBron or Alice are they doing something that's making their sleep that much better? Or do you think because they ha happen to be great sleepers that a that Is what allowed them to become such great athletes or such great performers.

I mean there's certainly there's certainly genetic things that make people better or worse at sleeping. But Uh There's also so many things that you the individual can do to enhance your sleep. Uh sleeping

at a very consistent time. So going to bed and waking up at a very similar time. We'll just It um we'll just unusually elevate the quality of of your sleep. Often sleeping in a very cold room, a very dark room, a very quiet room, a room of high air quality.

A athletes who are serious about this stuff will you know, measure all of that and dial it in. I still think athletes aren't sophisticated enough about sleep and recovery. Given how important it is to their overall performance. But th those are a variety of things you can do. We talked about blue light. There's certain supplements that work better or worse for people, magnesium, melatonin.

Interestingly hard harder Harder sleep drugs, like the ambients of the world. Uh the They knock you out, so your sleep latency is short. But the quality of the sleep.

Uh is never that high. So again, back to that percentage of time that you're in Rem and Slow Wave. It it is rarely you know. Maybe if you're someone who'd normally be at thirty percent, you're gonna be at twenty percent. Dude, I've uh

I was a a a four hundred meter runner, division one four hundred meter runner in college. So I used to be like fairly competitive. And I knew a bunch of basketball players. Yeah, and I knew a bunch of basketball players who ended up going to the NBA because I I was friends with them in college. And uh Dude, it's shocking how bad mo myself included, how bad most competitive athletes are when it comes to like diet and recovery. Like I didn't know anything. I just like I would eat like ranch and pizza every day.

And uh a couple of my friends who went and w Went on to play in the NBA. Like we're just eating McDonald's like on a regular basis. It's pretty amazing how like some people are still freaks, even though they don't do any of that nonsense, you know? Uh it's pretty wild. And we've worked with a lot of athletes like Oh

Yeah, they used to play video games from eleven PM to two AM. You know, you you got a game the next day in front of a million people. You know, and it doesn't occur to them that that actually is going to affect their performance. And then you look at the data and it's like okay, you're You've got a red recovery.

even though you didn't even drink alcohol because you stayed up late staring at a screen. Whereas if you You know, I've gone to bed. At the same time that you start playing video games, here's the difference in what your your performance is. Sean, you gonna make fun of me or something?

No, no. I was gonna ask actually, uh Uh this is a a personal question. Maps. Where what's the what's the word on naps? Because I am a prolific napper. In fact, one of my life goals is to be able to take a guilt free nap every single day. And uh I know athletes are pretty big on naps as well.

But I don't know if you could get to those deeper stages in a quick, you know, in a one or or one and a half hour nap. Uh, what's the word on naps? Winston Churchill if you'd have a daily nap. That would be yeah. That'd be pretty good. Yeah, that's a th that's a good way to put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ha ha I feel like he's the coolest he's the coolest person I can think of who who really pioneered the daily nap as a as a a hardcore uh Uh yeah, it's a hardcore nap. I'll I'll I like that. I think that sounds better because my my nap marketing is pretty pretty soft right now. I need to I need to up it. I need to have a church hill nap. In fact I'm gonna brand it as I'm gonna brand it as a church hill nap.

Dude, I I do it every day as well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About two o'clock for for about thirty or forty minutes every single day. And do you get in bed or you just lie on a couch kinda thing? No, I only go Sean, do you go to bed? I only go to bed for nighttime sleeping and then I I I refuse to lay in the bed. I go to a different bedroom. I have a nap bedroom and I have a a master bedroom. Really?

Yeah. Interesting. And you wear a sleep mask or anything? You just close your eyes. I I wear a sleep mask. But I get knocked out. Like I wake up two hours later and I'm like I'm a whole different human being. I feel like And you s wait, and you can sleep at night after two hours? I can't do two hours. Two hours is a real nap. Yeah. Sure show.

Is that really what you do? You do two of every day in the middle of the year. But that's my goal. My goal is to get that to be an everyday thing. Right now it's an every third day. Sean's like Here's my life advice, young man. You gotta get a solid sixteen every day and life's cream cheese. I'm not a a big nap person. personally, I I almost rarely ever take naps, but I think that there's certainly Uh plenty of research that shows that for most people getting an app versus not is gonna make them uh feel better and

Uh perform better. I certainly think a lot of athletes uh take them in the afternoon or even some will take them almost right up to the time before tip off or when they're when they have their Their uh event. So And they because I think one of the reasons for them is they also need to peak In their performance much later

in the day than most people, right? So like a an NBA game might start at seven thirty or eight. They're playing until until nine or ten or whatever. And so But whereas most people are winding down at that time. But they so they kinda need to shift their their peak performance later in the day.

Whereas uh most entrepreneurs are trying to be You know Tip top at nine AM or whatever. Yeah, I think that's right. The the challenge with naps is that the percentage of time that you spend in

in uh trying to sleep is often lower as a quality standpoint. So that's why I was kinda interested in whether you guys get in bed or whether it's more casual'cause You might up the intensity of the setup of your nap. to really maximize the the quality of the sleep.

So try things like a sleep mask or try You know, a couple of little things and you might all of a sudden feel even better after your nap. Are you the only founder? Are you are you a solo founder? Well, I I was fortunate in that I met two really talented uh engineers when I was graduating from Harvard.

So uh one is uh John Capalupo, who for ten years was our chief technology officer. And the other is Aurelian Nikolai, who's still with me and he's our Uh chief mechanical engineer. Uh and The combination of

Of Uh the three of us uh really built really built the company. Now Uh A lot of it was algorithms development.

Yeah. computer science, data science, having the right Um prototypes and Yeah, so it was it was uh

It was very technical out of the gates. Well what um Um But you're you're you were the the w you consider them co founders or just uh uh meaningful uh contributors.

I consider them co founders. I mean I I came up with the The idea for the company uh Um You know, years before I met them, but but they've been an amazing, I mean amazing piece of of the Whoop story and critical. What do you um

So you're the CEO, you're you're Uh founder of a Multi billion dollar. What do you do with Uh I assume

I don't know if you're liquid or not. Um or if you have a lot of your equity still tied up. What are you gonna do with all your money when you eventually do get liquid? Uh do you have like any big aspirations? Are you just like a boring guy who just like when I am. Secondary along the way? Any any secondary? Yeah, I have. I have. It's uh

Well look, it doesn't It doesn't actually change your your motivation all that much in building the business. That was something that I remember Someone's saying to me uh Or at various points when I had the ch the option to sell some shares.

And Uh, I think it it's really just made the quality of my life higher. You you should post your sleep before and after the secondary. Be like, Do I sleep easier at night? Now that I got fifty million in the bank. Yeah, I d it turns out I do, actually. I do sleep a little easier at night. Taking secondary, I remember when I was first getting going in my career and I heard about these secondaries and I was like, that's bullshit. I think it was rooted a little bit in envy, but I also was like you gotta be all in.

And now that I've like done a little bit of stuff, I realize having a safety net And this is like a very obvious thing to say. So I sound like an idiot here. But having a safety net, particularly like a meaningful safety net of of of Liquid net worth. I think one hundred percent makes you better at building your company. And I think taking secondaries it it changes on a scale. Sometimes it's too much, but taking secondary I think will make you a better company builder. Do you agree with that? I do.

Uh especially if you're at a like a growth stage of company. I don't I don't think I ever sold shares until Whoop was Worth at least a billion. Um And they were for rounds that were super oversubscribed. So

I but I do think that's a fair I think that's a fair lens to look at it from. I've read about people taking secondaries at the you know, series A stage or something and I don't know. Everyone's I can look everyone's circumstances are different. You don't wanna judge, but Um

I do think for a company that's at a later stage where you're trying to You're making this calculus of is this a company that's gonna be acquired in a short period of time, or is this a company that we're trying to build to be a standalone business? I think if it's more the latter You want your your founders or your key Your you know, your CEO. You want you want folks like that to be

Um not sort of looking at their bank account wondering when they're gonna cash out on this thing. You want them in a mode of And I can keep going for a while. Uh and you know, really Optimize the business. So

Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. W what do you do with your money? Do you just do like boring uh Vanguard. Uh or like index funds or or Or do you do something a little more risky and what do you like to spend spend your money on?

I wouldn't say I'm the biggest spender of money. Um But I I I mean I've enjoyed investing in stuff, investing in startups, meeting founders. I've enjoyed Uh backing stuff that my friends do. Uh or start. I

If you go out to dinner with your friends, do they just Bill comps, do they just sort of look at you and wait now or uh yeah, they got T they got T Rex arms, they can't remember. Suddenly that that wingspan shortened up. Big time couldn't couldn't even get to pocket anymore. No, I mean look, I think it's uh It's great, of course, to be able to be generous too and and uh take care of people or cover bills or whatever.

Um I I think it it just sort of creates a peace of mind for you. In in an important way. If you're gonna be Uh trying to do something for the next ten years.

What companies did you want to start uh before that? Because I'm looking at your background. So you said you're from Long Island. You live in in Boston and went to Harvard, so that's amazing. But you studied economics. Like you it didn't look like you ha and then you worked at a bank, right? Or you're just like an intern at a bank. You were I know my my wife's from a long island. It look you're going down this very typical path of just being some like banker type in in the city. Uh But you kinda like took a left somewhere.

What uh what other companies were you thinking about starting? I wasn't thinking about starting companies at all, actually. And and your observation's right. I sort of I thought in the back of my mind I would go work in finance after I graduated. Because that's what a lot of people seem to do. And Uh And I had some background in finance because my dad had worked in finance.

But You know, internships are a great thing to figure out what you don't want to do. So I worked at a hedge fund after my refreshment year. I worked at an investment bank after my sophomore year and I worked at a private equity firm after my junior year. And the question I asked myself at each of those places is

You know, did I want to be my boss's boss or boss's boss's boss or Uh you know, if I could be one day and Uh And I just didn't I didn't feel that pull. I didn't feel this like gravitational pull towards it. And uh At the same time, I was becoming sort of obsessed with this idea.

And I think I ultimately became an entrepreneur before I really knew what an entrepreneur was. It wasn't like I was choosing between three or four different ideas. It was just this one idea that I became obsessed with. Well in the last uh decade that you've been doing this You know, uh any entrepreneur, I think, cause sees other opportunities. You see things that are pain points for your business that you're like, Man, somebody should

Make this easier. Or You meet a bunch of other entrepreneurs and you realize, oh wow, there's like a whole universe of potential businesses that that can be started and be successful. Um A lot of people listen to this podcast to try to get ideas to think about oh what what's what's possible.

What's possible. What could I be doing right now? And um so do you have any uh business ideas that have come to you, you know, as you've been running Whoop? That you're not gonna go do'cause you're running whoop, but like, you know, maybe somebody else could go. I have a lot of sort of funny tangential like Business that are

uh sort of silly business ideas that you you know think of. Uh in the shower or whatnot. Uh, and so we can we can riff on some of those. And then I have you know I have some

That are more Don't don't tell us which ones are the serious or the silly. We'll we'll uh we we probably will get'em all mixed up ourselves anyway. So d take one off your list and let's let's hear it. Okay, this is a very funny one. So the the idea for the company is is car pipes.

And it's uh It's Vocalist lessons while you're commuting in the morning. So you're in your car. And you've got someone who's teaching you how to sing.

And you know you're you're uh Yeah, car pipe. Yeah. You're in a safe space. So you can you c you can belt it out. Exactly. Those are the types those are the types of ideas I feel like that I think of a lot.

I'll I'll give that one a I'll give that one a B, Sam. Uh F. I think I I always wanted to sing. Look, dude, you You you have so much d listen, you have so much data

So I both have carb pipes. No, it's stupid. You're you're You're a brilliant man and you just had one dumb idea. I'm allowed to say that. You both Sean and I have both invested in uh continuous uh glucose monitor companies. Um, I don't know, sh I don't know if you ever I I think I had an opportunity to pass on your company, Will, or somehow a a deck made it my way and I And I was a a fool and I didn't do it. Or maybe I just didn't have any money. I think that's what it was. I think I think I just didn't have any money. I think I was just I just didn't have enough cash.

Um I mean I wanna know like which of these wearables do you think are gonna be awesome and which wearables in the future are going to be uh Are gonna be a thing. You know, on the pod what we've talked about. I don't have

a background like you. So I'm I'm just kinda riffin here. But I've always thought it was ridiculous how you can have like a cancer or something bad inside of your body growing. And Uh, you know, I've had family members who have passed away and it was like, you know, had we just gotten this MRI or CAT scan. Like six months ago, you would have been fine.

And I've always thought it's very strange that something can be in your body And it's just a matter of you just didn't get it measured. Uh otherwise you would have been you could have been fine. I've always thought that to be quite strange, and Whoop actually told me one time when I had Covid, and I thought that was sick. And I'm like

Well sick, you should tell me if I have like cancer as well. You know what I mean? Uh th that's that's a that's something that's always fascinated me. Yeah, and I would put I would put all that sort of in the category of like Uh Obvious innovation that's coming.

Um the combination of Body scans, blood work, and continuous monitoring. Through a non invasive wearable. Um We'll ultimately be able to predict a lot of things that

That uh you know, our our disease states or or um leading indicators uh for death. And so I'm I'm very optimistic about how profoundly Uh The healthcare space, the relationship with your doctor.

I mean, all of that'll change. It's which show up. So obvious. And then the other thing is And and Artificial intelligence is a very popular expression these days, but AI will be enormously valuable.

or uh analyzing A lot of uh a lot of these somewhat complicated scans. uh to look for things inside your body that might be off. Which Which otherwise required, you know, an expensive radiologist to look at or something.

Which startups do you think that are at like the sub one hundred or sub fifty employee count and maybe sub three hundred ish million m uh market cap or uh val valued Uh like below that. Do you see in the health health and wellness and anything related to that category.

that you think is gonna have a similar trajectory as you guys and has a bunch of uh meat on the bone for for growth and upside. You know, it's funny because I I think I've spent so long with thinking about health and wellness, it's almost like the bar to invest in a health and wellness thing is is is Too high. So I actually find that I don't invest in all that much related to health and wellness. Like I'm racking my brain right now, I think of something that I'm involved in that's an that's directly health and wellness. A related company that I think quite

Quite powerful is called Whisper. Which I am an investor in. And It is Uh they've essentially built technology that allows you um that can transcribe

Uh your thoughts. Which is is Pretty powerful technology if you think about it. uh the ability to sort of think something and and it gets written out. Uh so I I really like deep tech stuff like that that feels

Feels like magic. Feels like the future. And how the how wait how does it do that? You're wearing a like a brain scanner device type thing and then you L you literally think something and it writes it? How what happens? I don't want to butcher this, but the the the short of it is it it looks like

You know, an old jawbone. Fight up. Uh one of those Bluetooth uh sets. And And that's Yeah, that's what the technologies form factor looks like. You literally just think something.

And it writes it or you have to like sort of whisper it. Ha ha. Uh uh I believe it's using your your brainwaves. What's the URL of this?

Uh it's Whisper.ai. Oh okay, I just saw it. It looks like a little uh it looks like a like a hearing aid. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. How much money have they raised, do you know? Uh I wanna say

Something in like the Fifteen to twenty million range. Wow, that's pretty fascinating. This data is wrong every freaking time.

Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the clients whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and Here's a test from three days ago I totally missed. Spot grow better. So here's a category of work.

That's a little more serious. Obviously you guys have seen uh everything that's come out. In terms of deep fakes and this ability to create videos of people that are almost indistinguishable from

Uh from a real video, right? I think that there there's gonna be like Uh A talent agency of sorts that's for non living People.

So You know, imagine if you're uh If you're Tom Cruise. Towards the end of your career. The same way Justin Bieber just sold like the rights to his songs.

Maybe Tom Cruise sells the rights to Tom Cruise. And you can keep making movies with Tom Cruise for the next Hundred years. Or Another version of that is you can have

Uh an actor Like Tom Cruise, who's completely artificial. Have you seen the Tom Cruise Deep Fake on TikTok? Totally. It's it's inc it's incredible.

It's Sam, have you seen this thing? Yeah, it's amazing. You know who did that, Sean? We talked about it. Uh fucking uh The South Park guys. Is that Deep Voodoo or that somebody else? I thought it was Deep I thought Deep Voodoo did the Tom Tom Cruise one, am I wrong? Miles Fisher.

Miles Fisher. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh I think it's him and this other guy. Because he kinda looks like Tom Cruise, but there's a whole technology I think that doesn't even need a human involved. Which Yeah, it would just

Essentially take the fact that Tom Cruise has made fifty movies and be able to Yeah, but that's interesting. You're like instead of selling your back catalog, sell your future catalog, basically. So But sell your likeness. Too. You could like you could create a a AI likeness and just license it out to Whoever wants to to kinda use it. Which obviously has some Yeah, some potential like, you know, ways it can be misused, but

Seems valuable enough where people would figure that out. Have you guys heard of Michael uh I think her name's uh is her name Mikaela, the Instagram influencer who doesn't exist. You don't talk about Lil Yeah. Yeah, it's like a model that is completely made up, right? Yeah. Yeah, but now but now she's got like a boyfriend. I don't actually know if they're together or not anymore, but she's got like a whole cast of characters now, and I've been getting into it. And they raised uh a bunch of money.

And like she's getting ad deals. It's super fascinating, dude. It's super fascinating. And what's more fascinating Is I think that if I if I had to guess, the way that they're making the w the way that she looks They're using AI to come up with like the ideal uh like the ideal person that both men and women are attracted to or like want to like follow and be into. And I follow her boyfriend and he's super skinny.

And he's little And Andra like Andragonus and I'm like Fuck. They don't like yoga boys anymore. Like, you know, these and so it's kinda funny to see like what they're like making as like the ideal person. It's very fascinating. But the business is making a lot of money, I believe. Well, uh on this pod a while back, I had said uh somebody needs to create a deep fake OnlyFans model.

So I was like, Oh, you could just have a virtual OnlyFans model that even kinda looks a little virtual. That's okay. And now this is just a moneymaker for you, right? You're like basically like some sort of virtual pimp if you created these These AI OnlyFans characters. And a guy did it. So so a guy reached out. And um

And so he created it. He's like he basically used his girlfriend, who's like a model or whatever, as the model for it. And then created a a AI clone of her. And now we're like setting it up and we're gonna see how it goes. So I'm really curious to see if this thing like takes off or not. So are you actually interested in this business? Are you are you gonna be How am I not in this business? This is uh so interesting to see if this works or not. Yeah. But like How do you work with like

Softcore porn all day. Okay, I'm not doing anything. I'm just like getting the update. He just DMs me and says, Check this out. Or he'll be like, you know, we got the account made or we're gonna you know, and he'll start sending me updates on how much money they're making, right? I was I just wanna see how it tur how the experiment turns out. I don't have to sit there and like train her. Think about the uh investor updates that Will sends. He's like, you know, here's like screenshots of our new prototype. You know, like we've effectively we've we've gotten uh people's REM sleep to improve by five percent by just adding this little feature. Here's a mock up, and then like what what's it gonna look like to you? It's gonna look great. I don't know what I don't see what the problem is. Yeah.

Well that's that's actually it. So a theme that I think about is like Okay, fifty years from now. Or things that But

The future generation will look back at our generation. And say, Oh, that was so crazy that that was happening then. Like there's a lot of easy versions of that for us. Today. Right, it where it's.

You know, you can say smoking on. Uh you know, smoking on airplanes or Um You know, the number of people that died. Giving birth.

Or Uh you know, uh people dying from just traveling across the country, right? Like so there's all these examples of that. And then if you try to to pull it forwards, what what would they say about things that feel sort of A little too normalized.

Today. And what what are things that your grandkids will say, like really, grandpa? Like, you know, slavery? And you're like, I don't know. It was just the norm back then, right? Like what are those what are those things today that fifty years from now will seem Either like crude or rude or what in some way, right? Like I think the health monitoring is an obvious one. It's like you just didn't know

How you were doing? And it's like, Yeah, we just didn't know. You go to the doctor once a year, maybe? And like Yeah, they just randomly measured my blood pressure once a year. Right. That was that was my checkup. That's that's to me the most obvious one that will seem like wow, you guys were really c you just Rolled the dice with that one, huh? Your whole li your whole health thing and that that's just gonna be so different in the future.

The number of people that die from car accidents. Seems like it would be on that list. Dude, I was driving last night on a late night, like two one lane road and a huge truck went by me. And I And it shook my car and we were both going eighty miles an hour, like, you know, passing each other and it does seem s it

In a f in about twenty years it's gonna be so archaic. We're like Can you believe That we are basically one sneeze away from like an eighty miles an hour like car crash all the time. Like just just literally ten feet away, five feet away sometimes. It it it that is gonna that's gonna be that's gonna be our Generations.

Smoking section in restaurant. That that that cars two cars go it that's really it's gonna be like smoking or non smoking. Okay. You used to drive these cars going And opposite directions and you were ten feet away from each other. That's what it's gonna be like, I think.

And like my wife is vegan and she's like, Yeah, like the that the thing that's gonna be You know, the fifty years from now it's like you just killed animals and ate'em? Like what why why? Like that you just thought that was like Will's got a the total opposite take on his own. Vegan, carnivore, plant based you know, all these different, you know, ver uh more extreme versions of diets. Have you seen anything or

Where where's your head at it? What's the data say around that? The data says it's highly personal. Uh so You could put two people on identical diets and they could have literally the exact opposite effects on those on those people. I remember

Uh I mean take professional athletes, for example, that Do you guys remember when LeBron got really skinny? It was like around the Olympics. Yeah. And he it was he had been playing with Ray Allen. So Ray Allen got him to go on the paleo diet. And 'Cause Ray Allen was obsessed with the paleo diet. And again

An example, it was amazing for a Terrible for LeBron. Like terrible. Uh and so there's every version of that for uh For the rest of us.

For me personally. I Uh I eat three meals a day. I try not to eat crap. Uh I eat carbs. I I you know

I would say I'm like a Mediterranean type diet, a lot of meats and fish and vegetables. Um I don't really drink that many calories, mostly drink water and coffee. So So

That's my diet. I also think Diet is easier if you like the right things and then you can kinda eat as much as you'd like or as much as fills you up. versus having to Count calories in part'cause a lot of the calories you consume are really bad calories.

So those are my quick perspectives on diet. Dude, have you seen well, have you seen um Brian Johnson. Do you know who that is? Yeah, the uh Uh he created a really cool or is creating a very cool company.

That measures brainwaves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But have you seen Blueprint? Well that's his whole age reversal. Uh he's like a human he's like a human whoop band. Yeah, yeah. Well he wears a whoop. And uh and so that's how I know him. And uh He's come on the Woop Podcast before. I think he's coming on actually soon.

Is he like in the t is he in the top like one percent of of data?'Cause if not He's doing a hell of a lot of shit with his lifestyle. If that doesn't work, if that doesn't give him some off the charts readings on his uh on his sleep and his tr his his strain, then uh I don't know. Well, I want to be clear that I don't have access to every single person on Whoop's data, but but uh I think some of the stuff we went over'cause he he was on a Whoop podcast maybe a year or two years ago. And he was telling me some pretty good stats then. And it sounds like he's dialed it in even more since so. I'll definitely listen to the podcast you guys did with them.

Well, so listen to this, Sean. This just happened, I think this morning it was r released. So basically he was on our pod. And he looks like a freak, you know, like he's like chiseled. He looks awesome. And I don't know how old he is actually. I think he's at forty. Yeah. Yeah, but he like he's he's looks great. And but you know, he does all this insane stuff that you'd expect a billionaire to be able to do. He's got like a thirty doctors like helping him do all this. He's he he

You know, whatever. Well, it just released that or it was just released that you can spend I think like A lot, like a h uh one point five or two million dollars a year. And you basically can he's gonna like Anyone can use his doctors and go through his system in order to what he's trying to do for the listeners is he's basically

It's kind of like this thought exercise, but he's taking it seriously, which is he's trying to reverse his age, which you can do through like improving your blood and losing weight, things like that. So re reverse his Biological age. faster than his chronological chronological age goes up. Because in theory, if you do that, you live forever. Obviously that won't happen, but it's like an interesting like thought exercise. But now anyone can sign up and apply to use like all the crazy shit that he's doing. You gonna you gonna do it, Sam? It's like two million dollars a year, no.

Um also like I have a here I have a thing with all the fitness people. And Brian I I called Brian out for this and he actually answered it well, but I'm like the Do you ever experience joy? Like.

Like Like Yeah. Like so I don't drink alcohol and a lot of people say, like, Oh, I've been wanting to do that and I'm like, Well, do you have a problem? And they go, No, it just thin what like it sounds dope then just get drunk every once in a while. That like you know, that's like a that's like a life worth living, is like when you have things to celebrate and like you can build camaraderie with your friends. Like, yeah, just do it. You might live a little shorter, you might be sick for a few days, but like you know, like experience joy. That's good. And so

with Brian I was like ha do you ever like have birthday for your kid's birthday? Like do he's like, No, I've only cheated like once one meal over like Two years or something like that. And I was like, Well, are you happy? And he said, I'm happy I'm so my opinion of that is okay, great, you're winning. But for most people I don't know. Experience joy a little bit. Like be healthy and also like

Get F up every once in a while. I think that's good advice. Well I have a I have a similar thing that you'll dis you'll you'll hate slash disagree with, which is uh On my Twitter I have this tweet that's pinned that just says, Here's some semi controversial things that I believe.

And one of them is um You don't need a sleep tracker. Great sleep is obvious. And uh I think you would Probably disagree,'cause it's kind of the premise of your life right now. But

You gotta admit. Pretty catchy. And there there's some nugget of wisdom in there. There's some nugget of truth in that in that belief. Just because it sounds good doesn't mean it's true. Yeah, I I mean I think that might be true in like extremely binary terms.

You know, oh I had to wake up for a four AM flight. Or uh You know, uh the the alarm kept going off last night. Like yeah, okay, those are bad nights of sleep. But I I think it's it's a Profound lie in the sense of

If you're actually Trying to understand your nightly sleep and routine. Like I think there's just a lot. It's Think about it this way. It's a third.

Of your life. That is a complete black box. You have no idea what's happening during that third of your life. And And science has proven

That's a third of your life that dramatically affects the other two thirds. And if you're good at sleeping, it decreases every form of potential disease that you can have. Like it is the magic pill. So I don't agree with your tweet.

But I respect that I probably got a lot of great tweets. Tons of retweets, right? We do it for the reach meets around here. Ha ha

And uh I I I do think that that Sam's point's a good one. Good one though is it applies to the tweet, which is If you make all these things seem You know, like discipline in spite of joy.

Or or sort of soulless. Uh Then then of course there's some kind of a rebellion against it, right? And so

I've heard people talk about sleep tracking in a way that makes sleep tracking seem profoundly not cool. And I and so I understand it through that lens. But I think the reality is you can measure things about your body passively. That give you a great insight into your into your life and can make your life Better.

Right. Yeah, okay. What do you think's gonna happen, Well? Ten years. What's your what's the what's the vision here? You gonna go public? You you're gonna sell this for ten billion dollars. What do you think's gonna happen?

I think Whoop will ultimately go public. Uh I think that it'll probably be sooner than that time frame that you gave. And I think we're gonna build technology that's able to predict a lot of massive life events uh as they pertain to your health and And along the way provide a twenty four seven coach that

Um helps people meet their goals well beyond hell. You know? psychological goals, professional goals. Uh just because of the the value that Understanding your body can provide.

Dude, you've stuck it in the face of all the finance bros. You're saying I didn't have to go that route and I still crushed it. I think that's awesome. I've got so many New York friends and they just and uh Long Island friends and they do the same thing over and over and over again. I'm like You're selling your soul, man. This is the worst. And uh it's so cool that you kinda saw that route is not maybe for you and you you you're gonna just crush it. Uh, we're big fans of W

Um I've never tested the aura ring, so I've been loyal to to my warp. Uh I've been calling it I call it whoop and womp. So my apologies. I actually didn't know the right way to pronounce it. Yeah, what is the right way?

Oop. Not gonna lie, I kinda like whoop too. Like I would never say I'm whooping ass, but I would say I'm a whoop ass today. So you know, like I kind of I don't know. Yeah. I don't know who I agree with. The founder of it or Sam? What do you know? If you wear it inside out, it's whoop Yeah I never knew how you pronounced it, but my wife and I have our are paid subscribers. How much do we I think we pay you three hundred dollars a year. I don't even remember what we're gonna do. Dude I paid you for two years and I just didn't have my band. I lost my band and then I just kept the subscription going. So you know, you're welcome.

on that one. But now I got my band back and now I'm getting the value. Yeah, yeah. If you reach out to membership services, they'll send you a ban, no problem. If you're a subscriber, the hardware's included. I mean that was one of the more That was like re more recently.

Uh in two thousand eighteen, we we changed the whole business model to being a subscription. Where the hardware was included. How much D was that like a huge I mean, did your economics drastically change?

All the way. I mean We used to sell the product for five hundred dollars one time fee, everything included. Then we went to You can sign up for as little as thirty dollars.

Like picture the Just all the cash implications, gross margin implications, everything that happens almost overnight when you do that. And it was also about the business moment because Okay, companies founded in 2012. If you're changing your business model that profoundly six or seven years later, you're also admitting you haven't figured out the right business model six or seven years into building a company.

So uh Yeah, that was all that was all quite Quite uh painful and concerning. But we, you know, we created a really cool business model that that now has been amazing. Yeah. Now you're gonna get Maybe you can make you're gonna make an argument.

I don't know if you're gonna get it, but you're gonna make an argument that you get those SAS multiples. Yeah, and I I think there's a fair case for that. Yeah, I I don't know what your churn is, but that'd be that'd be badass because I mean that's a You know, five times more valuable company.

Um Well, dude, this is awesome. Yeah, thanks for coming on. We we took you a little over time. Sorry about that. But uh But thanks for coming on, Will. This is This is fun and uh Yeah, everybody go get some sleep.

And by the way, Sean. Well I I said great sleep is important. I just said great sleep is obvious. Uh uh you know. Directionally you know which way you're going, whether you track it or not. And then once you get once you get going on the right direction, then Start measuring it and optimizing it.

Did you have a Twitter thread that was killing uh Clubhouse? Damn. That blood is on my hands, yes. Wow, that's Yeah. How's that?

On point. And all the Clubhouse investors who blocked me'cause they thought I was just being a hater. You know The um my door has a a little mail slot for apologies and uh they're welcome to go ahead and slip the slip the apology back in. Yeah, I know I'm I'm connecting the dots on some tweets of yours that I've uh read now.

Uh, because I also remember that sleep one now that I think about it. That was my version of the of the clubhouse thread for you. Uh, I don't know that business very well, but it certainly seems like it's uh Not doing as well as it was in the middle of COVID. Well I think what a hypocrite Sean is, by the way. He's got he owns a whoop.

Yeah. He owns a he owns a whoop and he's still saying you don't need a sleep tracker. That's bullshit man. Call him out, Will. Yeah. Well I uh uh I definitely will now.

Well, I'm waiting for the version that like just auto charges or just like stays charged for like two years. So I can just leave it on because uh I'm a notorious lose shit guy, so you know. I'm on my eighteenth AirPods. I uh you know, I've gone through three whoop bands and uh It's the charging that gets me every single time.

Same. What's the plan, dude? Is a thirty day charge gonna happen anytime soon. How hard is it for a guy to get an infinite battery around here? Yeah, just do better. And but and by the way, the the modular battery pack I think was a good innovation, at least. So you don't have to take it off. But but but uh You know, originally I was hoping we'd be able to do it like watches, where there's certain watches for movement. Yeah.

Keep it alive. The reality is that because we collect so much health data. We're driving the battery pretty hard and the sensors pretty hard. So Uh, in some ways it's great that we've gotten to four or five days, but

But uh customer feedback heard. Okay, we'll we'll work on the two year model for both of you. No, that's been my same thing, which is that's why I don't wear an Apple watch, is I think it's so stupid that you gotta charge those things all the time. I think I lost my wedding ring on my honeymoon because I just lose everything. Same. I had a I got mine tattooed on my hand because I lost it so much. Same. I think I but like I'm not smart enough to get away with this absentminded professor shit where it's like oh he's so messy, but he's brilliant. It's like

Please. Yeah. It's like that doesn't have the same doesn't have the same uh, you know, excuse power for me. That's all right. You're you're you're good enough that you can screw up every once in a while, but uh

Yeah, the battery thing, man. You guys gotta figure that out. But we have I think we have Will's email in the calendar invite. So Sean, you're just gonna you're just gonna message him. Hey, Will, lost my band Please hook up, thanks. Right. I'll delete tweet.

We don't have that many people losing it because they wear it all the time. So you must be taking it off too. I got also got little kids and my little kids are like, Oh, bracelet. Toy. You know, they just think it's the theirs. And so they just steal it when it's charging on the counter and they they now I th I lose it. So, you know. Whatever.

Well, dude, thanks for doing this. Um I gotta give it. Your uh your PR guy, John, is my good buddy. John g uh hooked us up with um Uh Ariel Hawani. U you like UFC uh Ariel and John are good buddies and Ariel's like the face of like UFC journalism. He hooked us up with that. He made the introduction to you, so

Uh We o we owe him a shout out. Uh I appreciate you coming on. This is awesome. Are you a big UFC fan? Oh yeah, we both are. Yeah, we're both huge into it. Are you? Uh, I'm not a huge fan, but I I mean I observe it uh from a distance. I I think the athletes are like

You know, some of the more uh impressive physical specimens in the world. Yeah, beh besides the whole brain thing. Besides that. Yeah, and the slap league thing. They gotta put that away. That's the stupidest fucking thing on earth. I hate the slap league. What? I hate the slap league. Dude, that is the dumbest thing.

What? That is so I watched three minutes of the preview and I was like Yeah. Just when I thought I was out, Dana White, you got me back in the case. Are you really a fan of that? No one's saying it's a horrible And they get knocked out. So for those listening who don't know what it's basically I think they have weight classes, but it's usually always like the big old fat guys looking like they're supposed to be strong, but they look huge. And they just stand in front of each other and they smack each other five times.

Right, is that the rule? It's five slaps and but they almost always get knocked out, it looks like. Yeah, you just take turns open hand. Slapping each other. But the slap is like a Thud. It's not like a slap. It's a basic a punch.

And uh Yeah, it basically results in a brutal knockout like every every single match, which is pretty crazy. It's and their faces are so swollen. Have you seen the like when their jaws are so swollen? Dude And they wear earplugs because they will rupture your eardrum, you know, if you've ever gotten hit in the ear. It it was horrible. Sam, did you see the trailer for it? Like they released the the preview that was like supposed to hype you up, introduce the league, and they're like These people come from you know everywhere. They come from nothing. This guy was doing this. Now this has given him this opportunity and he's the battle guy. And then one guy goes I just want to change the world, man.

This was your plan to change the world? One slap at a time. Brother, what are you doing? We're democratizing slaps. Chris N w Nowitsky, who's done all this concussion research, uh Uh at Boston University is one of the the key guys from for doing concussion research in the NFL. Uh

He was in the W W F, wasn't he? He was like a professional wrestler. Yeah. And he had a bunch of concussions. And uh and he's like it's it's just half a step from um having people just stab each other on live TV and then saying. Who makes it? Yeah, we we should also get get ratings. Right. There's this idea of painfultainment. Have you ever heard this term?

It's basically from Yeah, it's a great great name for that reason, right? Which is we love entertainment of people suffering, you know? And and so like whether this is TV shows like Survivor or Naked and Afraid or whatever, where they have to suffer in that way. Or it's somebody suffering uh in an emotional way when you're watching Doctor Phil or Jerry Springer and somebody finds out they got cheated on or their Maury tells them they are not the father, whatever. There is a You know, they used to have executions publicly and people would come and watch the execution. Literally like

You know, whatever in France in the old days. And so there's this long history of people enjoying Suff watching suffering uh as a form of entertainment. And uh It's this crazy thing, but it's it's something that That does exist. I'm not saying that's it's good or bad, but like uh

I do think it's a I do think it's gonna work for that reason. There's some darkness there. Yeah. Well thanks for making this happen, dude. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys.

Yeah, well uh We'll be in touch because uh w you know, I'm gonna be emailing you all my complaints about my warp. But uh and maybe I'll be one of your investors whenever you IPO. But this is awesome and we appreciate it. Do you uh you can give a shout out, by the way. What's your Do you do you use social media at all? A at Will Ammet or are my uh handles. Well thanks for th making this happen. We really appreciate it.

We'll talk soon. Talks. Cool.

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