A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast | Founders

So I'm about to do something that I've never done before.

I've been working on this podcast for over six years.

Read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs well over 100000 pages.

And in that entire time, you have never heard another voice on this feed besides my own.

But I want to make sure you don't miss this conversation with David and Ben from The Acquired Podcast.

So right after my dinner with Charlie Munger, I flew directly from Los Angeles to San Francisco because David and Ben very graciously invited me to be a guest on their world-class podcast.

It's their life's work.

They're dedicating almost every waking hour to do so, to finding great ideas from the past and then sharing those ideas on our podcast.

So future generations of entrepreneurs, founders and investors can benefit.

And, as you already know, I've been obsessed with David Ogilvie ever since I was reading Warren Buffett shareholder letters.

And Warren Buffett said that David Ogilvie was a genius.

I then went and found every single book that he ever wrote or was written about him and read it.

And there's a line in one of the biographies of David Ogilvie that says David Ogilvie was building his first class business in a first class way.

Ben and David of Acquired are doing the exact same thing.

I believe that acquired and founders are perfect complements to one another.

I focus on the founder, the actual individual and the person through biographies.

They do these hours long, really in-depth company histories that are just absolutely excellent.

If you do not already know Follow Acquired in your favorite podcast player.

Please do so right now and start with their episode on the history of LVMH.

It is one of the best episodes that I've ever heard, and I've been obsessed with podcasts for over 13 years now.

I would listen to that episode first, but their episode on Walmart is excellent.

Their three-part series on Berkshire Hathaway, excellent.

Their episode on the NFL, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, Amazon, the list goes on and on and on.

And regardless of what episode that you choose to listen to, what Acquired and Founders has in common is the fact that we both do an insane amount of research.

And we do this so that, when you press play, you're guaranteed a good return on the time invested listening to every episode.

And one more thing I want to tell you about before we jump into this conversation is the presenting sponsor of this episode is Tiny.

Tiny is the easiest way for you to sell your business.

They provide straightforward cash exits for founders, and they can do deals of all sizes.

In the past they've bought businesses for as little as a million dollars and some businesses for well over 100 million.

And, as we've learned over the last two episodes, Bernard Arnault is the buyer of choice for family luxury businesses.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are the buyer of choice for family businesses of all types.

And Tiny is well on their way to being the buyer of choice for founders of businesses worth anywhere from a million to over 100 million who want a hassle-free cash exit.

If you have a business that you want to sell now or in the future, make sure you email hi at tinycom first.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation and I hope you follow Acquired in your podcast player, like I do.

So David, do you want to tell us who you had dinner with the other night?

I had a three-hour dinner with Charlie Munger.

That is awesome.

Where I can ask him any questions that you want.

Well, first of all, I guess we should back up.

There's a reason that he's so admired by so many people.

But for me particularly, you get to meet a lot of really interesting people because of the work that we do.

And so that's a blessing and something that I know we've had conversations in the past that we deeply appreciate.

But Charlie's a different level for me.

I literally think of him like the wise grandfather I never had.

I met all kinds of people.

I don't really get nervous or starstruck.

I was legitimately shaking the day before.

I was like, I cannot believe.

I didn't want to tell that many people because there's no way this is going to happen.

I won't believe it until it actually happens.

We do very similar work, right?

Where it's like how many people have spent six, seven years, tens of thousands of hours reading hundreds of books about the history of entrepreneurship and investing, and then not only reading it taking notes on it?

It's us and Charlie and Warren.

Yeah.

And so the reason I bring that up is because you think about all the different companies and founders.

You guys have studied all the different companies and founders that I've studied right.

And even amongst the rarest group of people, Charlie still stands out.

And the crazy thing is he's 99%.

Right?

And so I get there and we start off in his library, which is like the best place for me that you could possibly see.

Set the stage more.

How big is the library?

Like how many books are we talking about?

So one of his family members was there too.

And she's like, oh, this is...

Like nothing.

This is like the front room.

Wait till you see the back.

Yeah.

So it's like it's similar to like the room we're in.

Like, you know, very similar size.

And, you know, floor to ceiling shelves.

And so I'm with a small group of friends.

In fact, mutual friends for us.

The people that set this up for us, or for me, was Andrew Wilkinson and Chris, from the founders of Tiny.

Our mutual friends.

And so we're sitting there.

And there's actually a funny thing where it starts out, and they know both Warren and Charlie.

They've talked to them before.

So they go right into it.

And then I'm sitting there, and I had this whole list of probably 25 questions.

I was going to ask if you prepared in advance.

I know you did.

I never got the chance to open my phone.

Because I was just sitting there.

I was like, I'm looking at him.

And he's, you know, very close.

Like, you know, maybe a little bit further from me.

Oh, that would feel super disrespectful to, like, take out my phone.

Yeah, that too.

And I had, you know, read every single book on Charlie.

I watched all of his videos.

Like, I have studied this guy forever.

And so every time he had said, hey, read this book, I go and read the book.

And then I see a bunch of the books that he has recommended.

Behind him.

So people are like, oh, was he as you expected?

They say, hey, be careful.

Don't meet your heroes, right?

He was unbelievably gracious.

I was like, hey, Charlie, you mind if I take a look at your bookshelf?

He's just like, do whatever you want.

Just unbelievably polite.

Still biting intellect, ferocious intelligence.

At 99.

So we were talking earlier downstairs where the scary thing about Charlie is.

I remember asking a question about Henry Kaiser, this guy that was super famous when Charlie was younger.

He built like 100 companies, built the Hoover Dam.

Like he was as famous in his time as like Elon Musk is today, right?

But no one knows who he is.

And I was asking questions about Charlie in the book.

And his recall is just insane.

So the point where I asked him, I go, how do you know all this, Charlie?

He goes, I knew his partner.

And then he starts telling stories about having a relationship with Henry Kaiser's business partner.

And then all these three hours of just unbelievable stories.

And then I go, Charlie, how do you remember all this stuff?

Do you take notes?

Do you reread the books over and over again?

He's like, nope.

And all I could think of was like, imagine.

Wow.

That guy's mind at 99 is still so sharp.

I had brought a gift for him because he talks about Rockefeller all the time.

I bought him this special edition, centennial edition version of Henry Flagler's biography.

Oh, Flagler.

So I live in Miami.

The guy, Les Sandiford, I think is the author of that book.

He is good friends with – there's only like one local bookshop in Miami called Books and Books.

And so Les is a local author who's good friends with the owner of that bookstore.

So they did a – you can't get this book anywhere else.

It's a special edition book.

Because Flagler moved to Florida later in life.

After the Standard Oil thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

He's got a fascinating story.

We can talk about that, where he's unbelievably wealthy because of Standard Oil.

He's 50, 60, 70 years old when he's doing this.

And he's just like, oh, what am I going to do now?

I'll build an entire state.

When he gets to Miami, Miami is a little less than 500 people living in a swamp.

Because you can't live there.

There was no AC at the time.

And so then he builds the world's first railroad connecting the Florida Keys.

Essentially, when you read that book, you're like oh, humans have no limits other than the ones we put on ourselves.

And so that's what Flagler does.

He stretches it.

And he does some terrible things, too, where it's like... wanted to find a way to divorce his wife.

So he literally moves to another state because he couldn't be divorced in New York.

Bribes the government of Florida.

They create the Flagler Law, which allows him to get a divorce.

Then he does that, like, I think a few times.

I think he's, like, in his 70s.

He marries, like, a 30-year-old.

Like, so it's not all good.

But that guy's like, oh, your rules don't apply to me.

Like, I will build whatever I want.

He built infrastructure hotels, everything else.

This is like one of my the things that i keep learning from founders podcasts, and i'm curious if you do it intentionally or, if you like, try not to do it, but like every single time i'm like oh, people aren't perfect like, none of your heroes are perfect, and do you find yourself like because we, we run into unacquired a lot, we're like it's not as fun to tell stories about terrible people, and so you you, you like don't want to show someone's negative side as much because it doesn't Like it's just well we, we like, we fall in love with them too when we're doing that.

And you're like, wow, they're the most extraordinary person on this one axis to ever live.

And we, we should talk about how they're a flawed person in many ways, but it's not fun to dwell on.

Like you kind of want to like move through that and be like, yep, yep.

They were flawed.

Here's the next amazing thing that they did.

Like, how do you handle that?

Like, you know how a normal biography is written, right?

It's like way too much family history.

Like, I want to know some family history.

I don't want five generations back.

Stop.

Like, I don't want to know the origination of their last name.

I don't need that.

And you're like the most qualified person in the world to critique a biography writing style at this point.

So why we're reading it is like, everyone wants to know the climb, right?

It's like how did you?

You guys, I just went through your entire to get part of the prep, for Charlie is listening to all of your Berkshire episodes, right.

Where you guys do a fantastic job on this because, like the first two, is like the young Charlie, the young Warren.

So I would literally, and I've done this forever.

It's like I don't when you take a Warren Buffett or Ben Franklin or George Washington or anybody that's super famous.

When we see them it's like oh, who's the Ben Franklin on the 100 bill right?

Or who's Washington on the dollar bill?

Or who's Buffett at the meeting in Omaha?

It's like no no, that's the guy that is enjoying the fruits of the person that actually built the empire.

I go and stare at pictures like a freak of young Charlie Munger, when he was like 38, or young Warren Buffett.

They were like us.

They were young people once.

In our Berkshire series, did we end the first episode without even getting to Berkshire yet?

I think we might have.

It was the Buffett partnership.

You mentioned it on the Walmart episode, where it's like everybody says oh, Sam Walton didn't start Walmart until he was 44.

Yeah.

Yeah, but he was doing 25 years of practice and learning and he wasn't just sitting on his ass.

Starting a bunch of stuff that looked an awful lot like Walmart.

Yes, learning from that.

And so the- Which is totally like, I mean, aside, but we have no agenda here.

That is like-

I think, both an advantage that we have all three of us and kind of a secret that we have, which is that we did Walmart because we wanted to do Amazon.

And so we were like, how do we do Amazon, right?

We've got to do Walmart first.

People want this.

This is the right way to study things.

I'm glad you brought that up because I think this is why people get a lot of value.

And I don't want it to make us about, hey, this is an acquired founder show.

The reason that some of the people in our audiences are the most successful people in the world.

They're all reading biographies.

They're all studying the history of business.

I told you guys a few weeks ago I was very lucky to have a two-hour one-on-one lunch with Sam Zell.

That I didn't think was possible.

What I realized in that conversation is like you don't make, you don't?

Sam Zell sold his company for almost 40 billion right.

$38 billion, whatever it was.

It's like, you don't build a company, sell it for $40 billion, and then learn all this.

It's like he was doing this since he was young.

We were talking in his autobiography, he talks about-

I think my favorite episode of your podcast is the Kobe Bryant episode.

Yeah.

Because, like, this is what these guys are doing.

They're like Kobe Bryant.

They're watching game tape.

They're working on the fundamentals from the time they're 12. through the time they die.

They don't stop.

I think that's what we're listening to.

Acquired and Founders is is you're watching game tape of history's greatest entrepreneurs?

Sam did this when he was younger.

But this ties together where Bill Gurley had a fantastic quote about this, a tweet about this, when all that crypto was going crazy and the run-up and people were getting rich.

He's like, I don't like that these younger people denigrating the people that came before them.

And he's like.

He made the point that none of history's greatest entrepreneurs and investors did that.

They had the opposite perspective.

All of them had idols.

You just made the point.

You can't understand Jeff Bezos until you study Sam Walton.

You can't understand Sam Walton until you understand JCPenney and Sol Price and all these guys.

And even their contemporaries.

Like the point that Walton always made was I don't think my competitors are stupid.

I want to go shop my competitors and get all of their very best insights and then bring them into my store.

Yeah, 100%.

They're learning machines.

And so you get to Charlie's tying this all back to this.

You get to Charlie's bookshelf and it's just biographies I've never even heard of.

And I do this for a living.

I do it for a living.

I was like, what is this book?

And then I started looking.

I was like, oh, I'm just taking picture after picture after picture.

I was like, I'm ordering every single one.

So we're talking about this idea that the way to get truth is to weave together the tapestry of all of history's stories, of things that are adjacent, to understand how this opportunity to start some business came to be.

And you always have to, like all history is revisionist and all history is biased.

And so I think one of the hardest things about making an acquired episode is figuring out, like when we're looking at a source, like someone giving an industry talk, who works at a company, or like a biographer who chose to dedicate, you know, two years of their life to writing this book after working at Newsweek and covering the sector forever is like trying to mentally account for and discount for, from whatever bias and perspective they're coming in with to create whatever the source material is that we're using to then incorporate into our version of here's how this thing happened, which is that's like.

I think it's the hardest part about what we do and I'm curious if you ever think about that.

I think about it all the time because people are like oh, like survivorship bias or revisionist history and everything else.

It's like, here's the problem.

Like we humans don't see things as they are.

We see them as we are.

So like we could have this super long conversation between the three of us right now, then go into the other room and write down.

You know what just occurred.

And every single version is going to be different because it's viewed through all of our experience, the way we think, the words we use.

And so what I'm looking at is like when I'm reading about Sam Walton, right?

It's just like the story.

We both hit on all the podcasts, because I've done a bunch of podcasts on Sam too.

Where it's like the guy's pissed off.

He's driving from store to store on these mountain roads, taking forever.

So he buys the plane and he realizes oh, this is a massive advantage because I'm doing something.

My competitors aren't right.

I'm flying over, and you guys mentioned it too, which I thought was hilarious.

Sideways.

And then he just lands, and he's like, who owns that?

Let me land, and then he buys for action.

So he's like, we're going to negotiate right now.

I want to buy it from you.

And so my point is, OK, yes, that most likely occurred.

But what is the idea behind that?

You can have an advantage by doing something your competitors are not doing.

Right?

And this ties together what you just said.

It's like they all learn from somebody else.

When we're reading these books and listening to these podcasts, it's like what's the idea I can use in my life?

We're not building the next Walmart.

There's no way if we read Titan that we could tell, did this actually happen?

I don't know.

But I'm looking for the ideas behind it, not oh, I'm going to verify for every single word in this book.

That's ridiculous.

Right.

And the truth is always.

It is always the case that a clean narrative is grafted onto a fact pattern.

And it's like okay well, what I care about is the lessons I can learn from the clean narrative, not does the fact pattern.

If you had all the facts in totality, did it necessarily mean that this was premeditated?

It's like, whether it was premeditated or not, the facts are the facts, and maybe I can duplicate it in a different realm.

For what we do, I mean...

I think, on Acquired more than you, especially because you will do multiple episodes of different books on the same people.

And multiple episodes on the same book.

Yeah, and multiple episodes on the same book.

Your format is better.

We're doing a narrative weave.

We're shooting the moon a little bit more in this respect.

Your format lends itself to.

So, if anyone is listening, Founders is more about.

Hey, I just read this book and I want to tell you what I learned from this book.

And it's always a biography.

And, like, sometimes you'll do five different biographies on Edwin Land.

And, like, if Acquired was going to do Polaroid, we would do Polaroid.

The episode would be Polaroid.

Maybe it would be, like, Polaroid part one and part two.

Or like maybe at some point we'd have like someone on to like talk about the story.

You know, in addition to our one canonical episode.

But, like...

We would be shooting the moon on, like, let's make sure that we get the Polaroid story as right.

It's almost like how do we find the correct average of all of the other stories to create the canonical version.

I wasn't expecting to quote Bill Gurley two times so far, but...

This is how you know this is going to be a good episode.

That fantastic talk he gave, which to me is the best talk for entrepreneurs and investors on YouTube.

It's called Running Down a Dream, How to Survive and Thrive in a Career You Love.

And he says this.

He's like, listen, in the age of the internet, you don't have to be the smartest person.

Charlie Munger, after talking to him, whatever mind that dude has, I don't have that.

And I'm cool with that.

I could not imagine trying to compete against that guy 40 years ago.

He would destroy me.

He's got a super mind that I don't have.

But what Bill says is you don't have to be the smartest person, but you can collect the most information.

And he holds you to a high standard in that talk.

Bill's like listen.

In the age of the internet, all the information you possibly need is right at your fingertips.

You have no excuse not to do this.

And so he gives the example of if you want to be a domain expert in whatever you're doing within two years of intense study.

If you're doing that and you're focused on it, you're going to get to the point where you know more than maybe anybody else.

And so that's my whole thing was like, When you talk to, You've never met a founder or an entrepreneur.

That's kind of into entrepreneurship.

It's like, no, it's our lives.

So, of course, the reason why so many of them listen to both of our shows, it's because they're building machines where they literally can turn knowledge into profit.

I've become close friends with the guy through the podcast.

He's a young kid.

I don't mean to call him a kid.

He's not a kid.

But he's a lot younger than I am.

And he's like 28 years old.

And we were on the phone the other day because...

He had a very serious offer for a company he owns like 95% of.

They were going to give him $100 million, right?

He winds up saying no to it.

But the point is, when you talk to him, he's listened to all the episodes.

He's read like 60 of the books.

He'll text me a picture of like, he won't even tell me what the book.

And I'm like, I'm pretty sure I read that.

He's like, oh yeah, it's from this episode.

It's like, oh, why?

What if he finds one idea in a book, one idea in a podcast and it gives a 10 improvement on his company?

It's a $10 million idea.

Yeah.

We were talking about this earlier, like this dinner that you have.

It sounds like Charlie is just like a very curiosity-driven machine.

But we know there's lots of folks that have regular dinners and have groups of people often geographically dispersed.

Why do they do it?

Why is it worth their time, their money, their effort?

It's that.

They get one idea.

The leverage that they can get on that is astronomical.

Charlie tells a story.

He's like, yeah, I made $400 million from reading Barron's for 50 years.

And you're like, what the?

What are you talking about, Charlie?

And Charlie's like, well.

And how do you quantify that?

Because he does.

So he goes, I read.

This isn't something he said at dinner.

I've heard him say it publicly.

He's like, I read Barron's all the time for 50 years.

I found one idea that I can act on.

I made $50 million on that deal.

And then I took that $50 million and I gave it to Li Lu.

Is that the?

Oh, yeah.

I think.

In Seattle.

I gave that $50 million to Li Lu, and Li Lu turned it into $400 million.

That's how I made $400 million from reading Barron's.

Wow.

And listen, I'm not.

And this is another thing where I feel like everybody's like oh, this time is different.

This is new.

It's like human nature has never changed.

It will never change.

This time is not different.

You're just experiencing.

The difference is, if you don't study the history of the people that came before you, you're just ignorant and making mistakes that people already saw in the past.

Learning from history is a form of leverage.

Hmm.

He has billions and billions of years of collectives like human history.

This guy spent 70 years and there's thousands of them.

And like Sam Walton's book, how many people spent 50 years in one industry, in the retail industry?

And he distilled it down to the most important.

And then wrote a book about it.

And then you could read it in a week and then you could listen to Acquire's episodes.

You can listen to David's episodes on Sam.

Okay, this is good.

In addition to that.

So the question is then, do you have 90% of Sam's wisdom or do you have 0.1% of Sam's wisdom after?

There's no way you have 90%.

Right.

Because like the time.

Instincts.

I was just rewatching Peter Thiel's talk at Y Combinator.

He says, competitions for losers.

Oh, yeah.

And he goes.

One thing that we do in Silicon Valley is we overrate, overvalue growth rates and undervalue durability.

And he's like that doesn't make sense for a technology company because all your profits, the vast majority of profits, are 20 years in the future.

And so if you're trying to optimize for growth and that overoptimization can cause your company to go out of business, you're never going to collect that.

You optimize for durability first, dummy.

Like that's to me, like my interpretation of what he's saying, right?

Yeah.

So you're going to get, you know, 1% probably, maybe 5%.

But that's still enormous leverage because you read it in five hours and he took 50 years to accumulate everything.

And it's Sam Walton's wisdom.

And it's what you do with the idea.

I know you've talked about this before, but like what was the moment where you're like I'm going to start this podcast?

Like, it's crazy, right?

What you do.

You talk to a microphone yourself every week.

Yeah.

My friend.

Not that I think you're crazy.

Oh, I definitely am.

You are, but in a good way.

No, I definitely am nuts, for sure.

And that's going to be like we could talk about.

Did you guys read Jeff Bezos' last shareholder letter before he?

Yeah.

One of the best lines he has is at the end.

He's like, differentiation is survival.

And so they think about that, like, how hard.

They say, let's say somebody says, damn, I love what Ben and Dave are doing.

I'm going to do the exact same thing.

They can jump in and try to do that, right?

But you have six years of experience.

You have 600 hours out there.

You have to counter position against us.

Or address a different audience.

Exactly.

Which, by the way, they definitely should.

Every time I talk to somebody who wants to – without – I'm always like you absolutely should do this.

Yeah.

And you will – even if you never succeed in terms of any like numerical success.

You will succeed because you are learning.

Yeah.

So being a nut job and completely crazy is, I think, makes you harder to compete with.

And it's also, we're going to go all over the map here, but it's impossible not to be that.

Like think about how seeped you guys are in the same information that I am, where it always says oh, you're the sum of your five friends, or whatever, right?

Well, it's also like what you, you're the sum of your podcasts you listen to and the books you read.

Oh, it's your five friends, including your parasocial relationships.

And so now what happens is, like you mentioned dude, like you won't even read like one book about him.

You'll go crazy.

And so what happens is when I'm really interested in somebody, I will, I listen to Bill Gurley.

Again, I just take advice from people who are smarter than me.

Bill said, go collect everybody, everything you can.

Okay, good.

I'll do that.

This is very, these are simple ideas.

And so I'll find somebody that's interesting.

I'll read everything about him.

And so with Charlie, I have like a little Charlie Munger on my shoulder.

I have a little Steve Jobs, a little Edwin Land, a little David Ogilvie, Estee Lauder, Coco Chanel, all these people that have been heroes of mine.

James Dyson.

And so now I'm presented with the situations like what would they do?

And if you read and spend everything that's out there about these people like, you'll have an idea of like how they would respond.

Did you guys ever read Ken Kosienda's book, Creative Selection?

Uh-uh.

About that?

Oh, that's shocking.

He worked on the original human interface for the iPhone.

So he made the keyboard for when it was still Operation Purple or something.

The keyboard.

He made Safari before the iPhone.

He has this excellent book that I've read like three times called Creative Selection.

I think how Apple designed products in the golden age of Steve Jobs might be the subtitle.

But he talked about that because he demoed to Steve, right?

And you're not going to describe it to him.

You're going to demo and you're going to hand it to him.

And so they iterate.

You guys already know this.

They iterate through a series of demos.

And it's based on Steve's taste.

He is not, oh, let's talk about this.

It's like, nope, do this, do this, that.

And so Ken has a great line in the book where he's like demoing for Steve is like asking questions to the Oracle of Delphi, except the Oracle of Delphi would respond with a riddle.

And he's like, no, no, Steve was unbelievably crystal clear.

You understood him.

Out of every single person I've ever studied, Steve Jobs is by far the clearest thinker I have ever come across.

He's just gifted at that.

Charlie is like the Oracle, and it's crystal clear.

You are not like you are going to understand the idea he's trying to get into your brain for sure.

But my point being is, like, all of the people that we study, they don't denigrate the past.

Steve Jobs, the reason I'm so obsessed with Evan Lin...

I read in a biography when Steve was in his 20s, Edwin Land is in his 70s.

He goes and meets Edwin Land and he goes visiting Edwin Land was like visiting a shrine.

He's like, he is my hero, more people should try to be like that.

And then you guys made the point that Jeff Bezos took a lot of ideas from Sam.

Who took a bunch of ideas from Sony too?

Steve and Jeff.

So you always find these people where you're like, oh, I thought this was a Steve Jobs idea.

No.

It's an Akio Morita idea.

Yeah.

Or an Edwin Land idea.

Like when we used to watch the presentations that Steve would give where he's like oh, we're building at the intersection of technology and liberal arts.

He put it up on screen.

He ripped that off wholesale.

Edwin Land. said that exact word, but that's the point.

It's like you're never going to find anybody gets to the top of their profession without doing the work like studying the people that came before them and learning from them and admiring them.

This is a good, like sort of personal pivot.

And it's like, I've never asked you in all the hours we spent.

It's crazy.

This is the first time we've met in person.

Yeah.

Like we spent hours and hours and hours on zoom.

Uh, how did you like decide that this is what you were going to do with your time on this planet?

And like, how did, what led to this?

Okay.

So You know our mutual friend Jeremy from Formula Tiny.

I just spent like a bunch of hours with him.

He was in town.

In one sentence.

He psychoanalyzed me better than anybody else ever has.

He goes, you didn't have any mentors growing up.

Then you took it to this extreme.

And he said it much more eloquently than I am.

But he's like, you didn't have any mentors.

So I view your career as this psychopathic search for mentors that can help you.

And so to answer your question, I don't want to go into too much detail here.

I've only had one habit my whole life, and that was reading.

I was reading for as long as I can remember.

My mom passed away from breast cancer a couple years ago, and we didn't have a lot of money.

Long story, but I was the first person, not only to graduate college, but high school in my family.

I came from a family unfortunately both sides of the family no education, a lot of just bad habits.

I identify a lot with what Charlie Munger says, because he essentially observes bad behavior and then tries to do the opposite.

I was just, let me give you an example.

I was just up in Canada actually at an event Andrew Wilkinson was hosting for a bunch of entrepreneurs.

Me, Shane Parrish from the Knowledge Project and Farnam Street was up there, Ben Wilson from How to Take Over the World, and we were doing this panel together.

And Shane's the moderator, and we don't know what we're going to talk about beforehand.

And so Shane asked the question.

It's like oh, what did you learn most from your upbringing?

Or something like that, right?

And I go, I learned not to do cocaine and to graduate high school.

So that kind of thing, right?

And so there was just a bunch of anti-models.

I thought about this as I was walking through the tenderloin this morning in San Francisco.

And I was like, I should do this walk with my daughter as the best.

Like, hey, this is why you don't do drugs.

Like, this is the perfect example.

Like, you observe bad behavior and then you do the opposite.

So long story short.

I've always been obsessed with reading.

One of the best things my mom ever did was, even if we didn't have money for books, she would take me to the bookstore and just sit there.

Bookstores are so cool because they just let you read.

No one comes here and is like, hey, you've been reading for an hour.

You've got to get out of here.

And just read and read and read.

Was there anybody who introduced you to reading and books?

There was just something about you.

Sounds like his mom.

Yeah, but no, she wasn't a big reader.

The only thing she read was the Bible.

There was no books in the house when I was younger, ever.

So how did you be like, mom, take me to the bookstore?

I can't answer that.

All I can say is my wife has known me for 15 years and her thing.

What she says is she likes my family and gets along with them, but she goes.

How did that happen?

Come from that.

It sounds like you have a classic, like, you're the one who made it out story.

Sam Hinckley, our mutual friend, actually gave me the way to think about this.

And it's called The Founder of Your Family.

And it's the person that like and I used to call them, and it was a terrible name, but generational inflection points.

Because you'd read this in the biography, where you have like generation after generation of just not good things happening.

And then one person just says, it stops now.

That's what Rockefeller did.

Rockefeller.

I always think of Sam Bronfman, the guy that did Seagram's.

Oh, yeah. and he's in Canada growing up.

Their parents had lost so much money.

They think they were Jewish and they had to escape from persecution in Russia.

I can't remember where they came from.

But they go and they have to start all over and they're in Canada and there's no heating and they're freezing and like.

So he has this like psychopathic drive to change, but that stays with you forever.

So, like once you know, he builds this massive company and literally changes the trajectory of all of his descendants.

And his daughter's an adult.

And she tells a story in the book where Sam is sitting there in like a mansion next to a fire, like shivering, thinking about how embarrassing it was to have to go to school with tattered clothing.

That guy's never going to go back to that.

And he never loses it.

So I've just always been a reader.

That's the only thing I've ever... The only one unbroken habit I've always had.

And so I just had this idea.

I was obsessed with podcasts forever.

I was obsessed with audio before there was such a thing as a podcast.

I would listen to talk radio when I was a kid.

And at that time, it's...

There's no on-demand anything.

You would listen to sports talk radio, politics talk radio.

It's embarrassing.

There was this woman that used to be on at night.

People would write in advice for their love life, and I'd listen to that.

Just the idea of there's all this information.

Oh, man.

I used to listen to Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.

Do you ever listen to this?

Like it's when all the other radio programming sort of expires and then you enter the like one in the morning AM radio stuff.

And it was like, you know, aliens and like tons of paranormal stuff.

But it was like if you listen, like, you know, the Cavs game ends.

I'm from Cleveland.

And so like then you listen to, like the sports post game and then it goes into like the politics hour.

And if you still can't fall asleep, then you're into like aliens.

And it's like four hours of that stuff.

Do you have a radio in your bedroom?

Oh, yeah.

I'd be able to.

I don't.

I imagine my parents probably came and turned it off, but like would leave it on while I fell asleep every night.

And then remember like I remember, so you have the jump up from that and then the AM radio stations would then start streaming to your browser internet.

It still wasn't on demand.

So if you're not listening at three o'clock or 12, like you miss it.

And then once I saw- Wasn't this what Mark Cuban's company was?

His was like broadcasting audio for sports games though, I think.

Hmm.

I don't actually know.

It's kind of funny.

It's like an era of the... It's broadcast.com, right?

Yeah.

And it was competitive with RealPlayer, which also wasn't on demand.

That was just streamed radio.

No, the first on demand was... The first time I saw this, I was like, this is insane.

Like, especially for people that are, like you know, learning machines using Charlie's, where it's like I can go to even today, like they did.

You can go to any podcast player type in whatever you want to learn about, and then you can hear somebody that's usually spent hundreds of hours teaching you about this stuff.

You can also find intellectual high-quality content more easily now.

Because all content, because there were a limited number of channels and a limited number of time slots.

Everything had to be produced for the lowest common denominator.

And now you can opt into your niche and find the highest quality content in that niche.

Yep.

And like the only way to do that before was books.

Like there wasn't an audio way to – there wasn't content.

There wasn't niche audio content broadly available.

There aren't like several million authors out there.

Right.

But there's several million podcasters.

Right.

But you made a good – I think you were getting to a good point.

It's like because the business model didn't support that.

And so now- And there was no distribution.

Yeah.

And now with podcasting, it's like you guys.

I'm sure I think like 50.

I don't ever look at analytics, but I think last time I looked it was like 50 of my audience was in the United States, but then everywhere.

And so I was doing the early days of Founders.

I was just.

I remember it all changed because I couldn't figure out the business model.

So you would do like affiliate.

At that time, I remember-

When I first started... Yeah, you went through a bunch of business models.

Yeah.

So when I first started they were like hey, you contact the few podcast advertising networks there were back then.

Because you guys started your show in 2016, right?

15.

Okay, so I started in 2016.

You contact them.

They're like, yeah, we can do ads for your show.

You know, you need, like, 25,000 downloads an episode.

And at the time, we're like, I'll never get there.

Like, obviously, we've skyrocketed past that.

But, like, that's impossible.

That's, like, as many people as in a basketball arena.

Oh, when you start visualizing the audience it's like oh, two and a half NFL stadiums show up for every Acquired episode.

Like, that's an insane... Yes.

But do you guys think... So, do you guys think about that?

Only in adding to the pressure in a good way, like it's a good motivator.

I never think about it really.

You know what I think about it.

How my show's set up is why I say you and I yeah yeah, I like how you treat the audience as like the person you're.

It's one person, so like one, and I've done this forever.

It's like I.

It's funny.

I remember it's one of my friends that we were met up one day and I was like man I think I'm gonna try to make like a business around the fact that I read so much and he's like, and he called me like a year, like six months ago, a year ago.

He's like I can't believe you did that, Because he's like I thought you were.

That was the dumbest thing I ever heard.

But I just picture him when I started.

It's like oh, the whole idea behind the show was like what if you got to meet up once a week with your friend?

That reads a lot.

And he just tells you the stuff that he read that week, like interesting ideas.

Did it even cross your mind to like try and convince him to do the podcast with you or somebody else?

Or do you always just like, no, I'm going to.

So one thing, we don't have like a bunch of prepared stuff.

But one thing us three talked about was like hey, why don't we talk about like who was your influence on why you do what you do?

And so I feel the greatest podcaster of all time is Dan Carlin from Hardcore History.

That's like my – I think he's like – I can't believe what that guy does, right?

You and him are like the only successful monologue podcasters.

Like I think it's the hardest thing to do in this medium.

And I can't – I mean there's – everyone else either has a guest on or a co-host.

Yeah.

Well, there's another guy that was – that.

So I took Dan Carlin.

I was like I was obsessed with him.

I've listened to all his episodes.

For like years, you talked about falling asleep.

I did that too, but I fell asleep to Dan Carlin.

So I'd over and over and over again, to now where I listen to him, I'm like, it's like, it's like.

Pavlovian.

Yeah, it's like, no, don't wake, it's not nighttime, bro, wake up.

But there was another one that a friend of mine put me on.

There's this comedian named Bill Burr.

He does the Monday morning podcast.

He used to do it every Monday.

Now he does, I think, Monday and Thursdays, right?

He is one of the first podcasters.

When he was podcasting his first episodes.

At the time he would call into a number and record right.

And then there was a service that would transform that recording from your phone into audio.

An MP3.

An MP3 that you could publish.

You could download and put on your iPod.

This is way before, like, anything.

It's so wild how things have changed.

I mean, you know, we're here now, in this recording setup that we have here, you know, with thousands of dollars of gear.

Yeah.

I remember when we first started.

I don't think you let me do this, but I was like well, why don't we just talk at the computer and like set up QuickTime.

Dude, when I listen back to our first few episodes like Pixar, I'm like it sounds like we were just talking at the computer.

We basically were.

Yeah.

That's when people like I have a lot of psychos, that they're like I'm, I started number one, I go all that's like oh, like.

Please don't I Used to, because that way, at least by the time you get to one, you like you you, You're a fan.

But if you if you start at one, you're like, oh these guys just suck.

Yeah, but like that it's almost like There's great pleasure in hearing something that you think is excellent and fully baked and like, especially when it's been long running, you're like oh, this has always been immaculate and perfect.

And then you get to go see some of the early work and you're like, oh, it's so rough.

You want the early Charlie.

I can see where the magic was, even though they didn't know yet.

It's the same thing you see in the books that you're reading, though.

Like Sam Walton, when you tell the story where his landlord screws him over and he goes, he goes.

I'm not whipped.

I found the store.

I'll do it again.

Right?

Yeah.

And it's like, Yes, Walmart is a huge success.

You guys made the point that there was a great point where it's like you're never going to think 25 years in the future, when there's watermelons and donkey crap on the ground, that this is going to be the richest family in the world, right.

And the most standardized form of retail.

Yeah.

And so you see like oh, that same guy that became the richest person in the world, that his now family has a rich family, or whatever.

It's like... he's imperfect too, just like I am.

And so that is the only benefit of listening to an early acquired or early founder is like oh, you see the improvement.

Just like in the books, you see the improvement.

Well, it's fun too.

I like going back and listening to some of your old episodes.

I get to see your journey.

I'm proud of you.

But I've been thinking about, and I was thinking about ahead of our conversation here.

I used to say all the time people are like oh, I go back.

I listen to the early episodes.

I'm like, no, don't.

It's so embarrassing.

I actually think, like, we always want to be embarrassed by our last episode.

We've just constantly kept, like, every episode, like, we try and just notch it up.

Because we keep picturing the stadium.

Right.

That's why I think about the stadium, because I think about the like, the pressure of like.

We got to do better next time than we did this time.

And it's not just filled with Seattle's NFL fans.

It's filled with hundreds of thousands of the smartest people.

That And this gets to the psyche the deep insecurities that at least I have of like.

I want to impress those people.

I want those people to think I'm smart.

And so I have to produce something unbelievably worthwhile of their time and the minute that i don't.

I'm like literally walking out in front of an nfl stadium full of people that i want to impress and like i didn't used to have that pressure, but like once we found content market fit for acquired with like people that i've always thought highly of that, that that is the driver now.

There were a couple years where we kind of drifted.

There wasn't that pressure to keep amping the bar.

You're right.

It's like the 2017 era.

I think you're never going to be embarrassed about your latest episode at the time we're making.

This is LVMH.

You're never going to be embarrassed about that.

That was excellent.

It doesn't mean you can't keep improving 10 years from now.

No, I look back and I think yes, that's certainly an episode I don't know how you feel that I'm proud of.

But at the time... So we didn't know that was going to be a super popular episode.

Yeah, that was totally unpredictable.

It's our... Because we haven't shared this publicly yet.

It's our number one episode by a huge margin.

40,000 more people have listened to that episode than the next highest, which was Amazon.com.

That's incredible.

I probably could have told you... Actually...

I was like David no one's going to listen to Amazon because everyone already knows this story, which was super wrong.

But I either thought like no one will listen to this one, or like this will be our most successful episode.

With LVMH.

Even after we recorded it, I was like or after we edited it, because we had to like, edit a lot of stuff.

This is how much we didn't know.

But it's not, like, our best ever.

I think it might be my favorite episode of yours.

And I heard from a ton of other people how much they liked it.

Well, thank you.

It's really good.

But to the conversation, there's a bunch of stuff that we could have done better in that episode, like a whole bunch.

So I do this all the time where I'll go back and listen to old episodes, because people are like that's weird, you listen to a new podcast.

It's like, no, this is a tool.

That's how you get better.

Game footage.

No, we didn't even try to get better.

I was like, oh, I haven't read that book in like two years.

I'll just listen to my episode on it.

It's a tool for me.

That's how I know it's good for other people, right?

Right.

And so I was like, and then I'll listen to it.

I'm like, oh, wow, I forgot that.

I need to keep that idea in my mind.

But I'll hear myself like, oh, you said that in two paragraphs.

That could have been one paragraph.

Cut that part.

That doesn't make sense.

And so, yeah, I understand the improvement.

But what I'm saying is your quality is already super high.

Like it can increase and get better.

Don't get me wrong.

But like you're never going to be embarrassed.

You're just like oh, I could probably do it 20, 30 better, which is still excellent from the perspective, like the level you're at.

So the way that we edit is, our editor takes the first pass and he's unbelievably good and we're so lucky to have him and then he sends us a rough cut.

I upload it to Descript and then we listen like and read while we're listening, word for word, sentence for sentence, and try to cut every unnecessary sentence and we end up pulling out 20-ish minutes of just fluff.

It's just like, okay, we could have been tighter in that point.

Is there a way to get tighter in it without re-recording it?

And I think that has dramatically contributed to episode quality, because by the time we ship it, neither of us feel that there are extraneous sentences.

So I don't know if I'm like that.

You're still a one-man show, right?

I do everything.

No one touches anything.

Everything.

Soup to nuts.

I'm going to answer your question, but I also think like we should – this is a perfect point to like how we became friends and why.

Like I'm putting this out on my feed and no one – you're going to be the first non-David Senra voices that ever heard on Founders.

And I only agree to do it with you guys is because, like this goes back to like why I want to be surrounded with, first of all, people that have like interest, super smart people, but also people that have like positive, some thinking right.

Yeah.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy has this gigantic successful show, Invest Like the Best.

He's got Colossus Podcast Network.

His fund is called Positive Sum, and that's how he acts.

I joined his network.

This is like months later.

And they're like, hey, we have editors, whatever.

He has this empire over there.

And resources, he's like, what do you want?

And I was like I just want you to amplify my audience and then connect me with first rate advertisers.

Because like, I think Acquired is a luxury podcast.

Maybe not luxury, premium.

We got to go over the distinction there.

But like, we're saying, no, no, this is like, we're trying to set the bar here.

But anyways, he's like, hey, do you want editors?

Do you want any of this stuff?

I was like, no, I don't want, no one gets to touch my stuff.

People think, oh, do they tell you what books to read?

No, Patrick liked my show.

And he's just like, why would I tell you?

Just whatever you're doing, just do it to more people now.

And so to answer your question, no.

I pick the books.

I record them.

I edit.

I'm still a one-person show.

I don't know if that'll happen forever.

But I do think the fact that I spend so much time with the material gets it in my brain.

But the reason that I want to talk about the role you guys played in that, where we were getting on Zoom.

And for, like, the background here is, like, you know, we had known of each other.

I talked to Ben a long time ago because he was running this private podcast.

This was, like, years ago.

And so anyways, we're like you're.

It's also funny to think back, like all the dead ends that we went to.

Like, we went down a ton of them.

You went down a ton of them.

You're about to talk about some of them.

Like, there's so many dead ends.

But they're in the books, too.

Yeah, but they're in the books.

That's exactly it.

Merrill, won't we change the name of the show to Adapting?

Oh, my God.

That was a dead end.

That was...

That was on me.

That one was on me.

Tell the story.

COVID happened and we were like, no one wants to hear these like stories of like extreme capitalism.

Like we're like the X Games of capitalism.

And like this is a moment where like everyone is hurting.

Zero business.

And like this isn't that the stock market trough to where you're just like, wow.

Like you know, all businesses are gonna go under.

No one's ever gonna have jobs again.

This is, you know, this is scary.

And so we were like, well, like, what story should we tell?

How about businesses that are adapting to make it through this tough time?

And to like show how serious we were about it, we changed the name of the show.

It was like our three least listened to episodes covering pretty amazing stories, but we just branded it wrong.

Like Canlis is like the most interesting restaurant story you could ever hear about.

And like- We did Intel.

That's the only time we've ever done Intel.

That's the only time we've done Intel.

But because it was adapting, not quite, it was stupid.

So stupid.

But there's no way to learn rather than screw up.

Do you want to know the first name of founders?

You know, like in your RSS feed, you can change the name, right?

But you can't change the link.

Like it'll still say.

So you look at it from mine and it's Autotelic.

The worst name.

Autotelic comes from this book called Flow.

How do you even spell that?

A-U-T-O-T-E-L-I-C, maybe.

I don't know.

I can't spell for it.

I can't spell, pronounce.

I have no grammar.

So people are like, you read so much.

I was like, I don't pay attention to any of that stuff.

Is that the Mihai?

Yes.

The Guide to Flow.

Yes.

It is an activity that you do for the sake of itself.

Going back to your question, it's like, why?

Like, I just love to read.

I'm going to do this if no one listens.

Like, that's how I know I'm going to win.

Because it's like, people are like, oh, would you do it for free?

It's like, no, no, I paid to do this.

For like a long time.

For a long time.

Like, I literally said I'm going to quit.

And I'm going to, I have the savings.

I have a wife and a baby or a daughter to support.

Now I have a son, a wife, a daughter and a son.

And I was like, I bet you, I just put trust in myself.

It's just like I'm going to.

If I focus on this seven days a week, I'll figure out the business model.

I know, like, I don't think I'll ever get rich from it.

But I will at least pay my bills, right?

And so like every month I'm like, oh, less money there.

And like, so I paid to do it.

So the idea where, like you know again, people get I think Steve Jobs talks about this like the older he gets, he says something like the older he gets, the more he realizes why people do things matters.

And so he's always asking those questions.

Like I always say, it's like, how do you know that you found what you love to do?

And people are like, oh, because I wouldn't sell my company.

It's like, OK, there's another level.

It's like, how much would you have had to pay Steve Jobs to stop working at Apple?

The answer is, he wouldn't take all the money in the world.

How much would you have to pay Charlie Montgomery?

A lot of people tried to stop Steve Jobs from working Yeah, but think about that.

The idea is he's not doing it for money.

He's in a different game.

He's doing it for the sake of itself.

And so I went through a bunch of different names.

History's Greatest Men, History's Greatest, History, all these terrible names.

And I just started narrowing it more and more and more to founders.

And I was like, oh, that's perfect.

There is a question.

Because you weren't even, like, you weren't coming from the tech world.

You weren't, like, this wasn't content marketing.

No, no.

It was just like the idea I had known about, like Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and all these other people.

And I remember you had Kevin Rose on your show a long time ago.

So you guys remember his.

Again, not that long ago.

Maybe a year, year and a half.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just time flies.

Because it was post.

It was during COVID.

He was pretty much already fully web three by the time we.

So do you guys remember Foundation?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It was like one of the first high quality.

Yeah.

Imagine if he would have stuck with that show.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, it would have been a monster.

Right, and it's like the only episodes that ever came out was like here's me interviewing Elon Musk.

Here's me interviewing Sam Altman.

Here's me, and like these people, and also before they became like icons of our time.

Elon had the Model S. That's it.

Elon had the Model, that was the only thing.

He was just about to release the Model S. He had the Roadster.

No, no, they were in the factory because I watched it all the time.

They were in the factory building the Model S. That's right.

So it was, I don't know if you could buy it yet, but it was like coming or whatever.

And Elon looks way younger and like, you know.

And then in 2015, Tim Ferriss, I was a big fan of his podcast.

I'd read, like, you know, 4-Hour Workweek.

I remember the way I discovered— Dude, 4-Hour Body changed my life.

Did it?

Yeah.

With the slow carb?

Yep, slow carb diet.

I did that, too.

Slow carb diet, cold showers.

Like I did—and the funniest thing is like this whole cold punch thing.

That's like becoming a thing now.

I'm like, was nobody, like, reading Tim Ferriss in 2011?

Like, that was a huge part of— Yeah.

Well, it goes back— It's just only our demographic was.

Yeah, actually that made me think of something.

Let me interrupt this story because I think it's really important.

You're like oh, is anybody going to listen to our like no one's going to listen to our Amazon episode.

They already know it.

And so this is something that like, and then it becomes the most successful.

Are you going to quote Ogilvy?

Yes.

I've listened to enough founders to know.

Yeah, because it's like, this is so key that people don't understand.

It's like, you're not advertising to Standing Army, you're advertising to Moving Parade.

And so like I will literally get on calls with like media company founders that are like selling ads or building companies.

And I'm like, oh yeah, you must have read Ogilvy.

They're like, what?

And I was like, these are not new lessons.

And again, this comes from the humility to realize, hey, Warren Buffett's smarter than me.

So if that dude in his shareholder letters is saying David Ogilvy's a genius, I'm like wait a minute.

This dude, how many businesses has Warren Buffett looked at at that point?

How many founders and managers has he looked at when he's like, this dude's a genius?

This is not rocket science, guys.

Just go and like, let's search David Ogilvie on Amazon.

Five books?

Good.

Order them all.

These days, it's search David Ogilvie on your podcast player of choice.

I went to three.

Wait, but explain the standing army versus.

So you're not advertising to standing army.

You're advertising to moving parade.

But what happens is like even when you put on the Sequoia episode, right?

Me and David went on a hike in Stanford and I was like, dude, you have this crazy back catalog.

Every single day you have more people following your podcast feed than you had the day before.

I was like – because I knew this because I was a subscription podcast, right?

Recount briefly your business model journey.

So –

I'll give you a shorter breakdown because I went through so many of them.

I just put a hard paywall.

Listen to the first 30 minutes.

You want to listen to all of them.

Then you pay, right?

And this is when we had that chat that you were talking about.

We got to go back to that.

We were like, dude, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, because there's been times like this one where we're like, what the hell are you doing?

But there's been other times where you come to us and you're like Do you know how good your Sequoia episodes were?

And like the fact that you have four times the audience that you have now and none of the 75 of those people have ever heard the Sequoia episode.

What are you doing?

And so you guys, we had this hike.

This is an Ogilvy idea.

Remember, not my idea.

I don't, like, everything has already been done, guys.

I'm speaking to the people listening, not you.

You obviously know.

It's like, it's already been done.

Just go see.

Hey, that person's smart.

He learned from 40-year career.

Like, you're not going to pick up on an idea you can use as silly.

So I told David.

I was thinking about this.

There's some cases where it's not true but I think, most truly iconic world-changing businesses and founders.

They stand on the shoulders of giants, but they have one or multiple things that is novel that they come up with.

It's the combination of these ideas.

Like Sam Walton, taking Sol Price's ideas and his competitor's ideas and like hey, what about?

You guys are kind of ignoring these like 4000 person communities.

I'm pretty sure like the thesis behind Walmart is like will they just drive far distances just to save money?

Right.

The answer is yes.

Right, right, right.

Five hours.

Right, right.

But that isn't a novel idea.

Yeah, exactly.

That's the whole thing.

It's combining like one big novel idea with a bunch of other things that you can learn from history.

You guys combined David Ogre's idea by republishing your Socorro podcast, and then you text me and you're like oh my God, like the downloads are crazy.

Yeah.

And because the vast majority, because you're not podcasting to a standing army, you're podcasting to a moving parade.

And so I had known this because, through my experimentation, I would take an old episode that I had done, do a preview, throw it up and you'd get conversions every time because it was new to them.

And that was like, so Ogilvy, I credit Ogilvy for that idea.

That's an idea he got from Claude Hopkins and Albert Lasker, who were building advertising businesses 50 years before him.

Is this Scientific Advertising?

Yes.

Yeah.

Also a good Founders episode.

Yeah.

He's excellent.

That book, Scientific Advertising, sold like 8 or 10 million copies.

They kept it in Albert Lasker.

So Claude Hopkins worked for Albert Lasker.

Albert Lasker thought that book was so good, he stored it in a vault.

He wouldn't let, and he's like, he built.

Because it was like the secrets of the industry, right?

Like don't publish this because we don't want this getting out.

I learned that because in Ogilvy and Advertising at the very end of the book, David's like here.

These are the six giants that I learned from.

So I was like, okay, well then I'm going to Google search.

Who's like, I'm going to read the book.

This is not rocket science again.

So then he's like oh, Albert Lasker made more money than anybody else in the history of the advertising business.

I was like, hold up.

What?

How?

Also, none of us know this guy's name.

Yeah.

And so then you realize it's like he says in the book.

He's like his estate outside of Chicago was so big he had 40 full-time employees.

I'm like, what?

Like, what are you talking about?

Like, make these words make sense in my mind.

That doesn't make any sense to me.

So you read Albert Lasker, and then he tells you about Claude Hopkins.

He's like, yeah, the information was so good that, like, I stored that in my vault for 20 years.

And then, once he sold his advertising or I think, he gave it away like a token, like 100000, you know, to the people working there.

And then they released it, and Claude went off on his own and everything else.

These are not like Okay, so you were doing the 30-minute hard cutoff when we had that famous.

It's so unsatisfying.

It's like I'm going to listen to 30 minutes of this episode and then I'd have to get Someone's asking me to pay for the rest.

But you probably had pretty good conversion, right?

The conversion rates were higher, but you guys said this is where... You were at a local maximum.

This is where you were very helpful.

David, first of all, you guys are nice.

This is not the language you use.

You're like, you idiot.

But you guys are so nice.

It's like, dude, you're doing it wrong.

Listen for every one person I think it was Ben that said this for every one person that would buy a podcast.

There's 1000 or 100 that would listen to them for free.

It's about 100 yeah, probably even more than that, you know.

And so then you guys would show me, like you open the kimono.

You're like this is, these are our downloads, this is who we advertise with, this is what we charge for advertising.

You're just like.

Well, the other, the other really key insight is uh, so after spending a bunch of time with originally kimberlite, then glow, which got sold to libsyn, and still what powers the acquired lp program?

Uh, an interesting learning is most podcasts should generate about 50 of their revenue from direct monetization some kind of membership program or paywalling their feed and about half from advertising.

And the math should sort of work out where that's going to be the case.

For the type of podcast that we are, where you have lots of founders and CEOs and hedge fund managers and the sorts of people listening, you could never ask someone to pay you in membership what they are worth to the most valuable advertiser for that slot.

And so the way it sort of works out is like you're massively hamstringing your monetization potential if you make it membership only, because you'd have to be like yes, please pay 2000 to 5000 a year in order to get access to this private thing, versus if you were to take that same piece of content and open it up to advertisers.

You made the good point earlier, and we can elaborate on that, right?

Why you're so psychotic about this.

Sentence needs to get out of here, like these two sentences.

Let's remove it.

Because if you could factor in the average hourly rate of the people in your audience, it is unbelievable.

So even I think, if you make what?

A million dollars a year and we know people obviously in our audiences make a lot more than that but I think a million dollars a year is about 500 bucks an hour or something like that.

I don't know the math.

I'm not a good math person.

But like so you're asking if they listen to an hour long podcast of founders.

It's like That's 500.

You cannot waste these people's time.

So I never answer your question when you're like, hey, how do you guys think about this?

Do you re-edit or do you cut them out?

I use Descript as well.

I actually think the way I listen to founders is obviously listening to it and listening and reading.

The superpower of podcasts is you can listen to it when you're doing something else.

But when you're editing.

But I think I'm going to put all my podcasts up on YouTube.

I don't have any video.

But I think I'm going to use Descript.

Some people have success just putting up the audio on a static picture.

And you can listen to it on YouTube.

But I also think, I was like, well, if I'm going to do that, I might as well just have this.

And that's kind of cool if you want to use it but don't have to.

We did not find success doing that.

Like, this episode will be the first episode this year that's on YouTube.

Because we basically said, if there's not interesting video, then it's not a video podcast.

And you can go find it in a podcast player.

I'm using it just for search.

Yeah, that's smart.

I don't think I'm ever going to do video anything.

Because it's just like, it's so much simpler to do.

Literally, what I'm saying is like, I'm going to upload the MP3 to YouTube.

Like I'm not making a video just because it is they're eventually going to have.

They're not stupid?

They're eventually going to have like the podcast player inside of YouTube.

Like did you, they released this like 40 page document I read on their podcast goals on YouTube.

Did I send it to you guys?

No.

I'll send it to you guys.

So right now I have YouTube premium so you can listen to them in the background like a podcast player.

Which is great. but they need to have podcast functionality.

It's still like a video.

So anyways, the way I do it is like, yes, I'm very aware that who's listening.

I'm not ever gonna waste a lot of their time.

And what I've found with the more practice I have for the podcast is I'm able to edit on the fly.

Like I don't have a script, right?

So like I'll go through the book.

I highlight, then write down whatever pops in my mind.

I don't like just, am I, first of all, the highlights are like, am I excited about that?

Oh, that's interesting.

Highlight just go off instinct right, and then write down something that oh, that's like this or that made me think of this, and I just write it down, right.

Then I'll reread all these highlights the night before I record, so it's like the second time.

You're doing this in physical books, right?

Physical books, yeah.

But you're putting your notes into ReadWise?

That happens after.

OK.

That happens after.

So the fifth time, every single book I do, I think I read the highlights five times.

And the fifth time is me actually taking pictures of the physical book and putting it in Readwise.

So I was thinking about this yesterday because I'm also slightly obsessed with Jeff Bezos and he's slightly obsessed with a lot of founders.

That's why we were like you're like we're sitting in chairs like dude, i'm gonna be forward.

Yeah, we were setting up the camera angles before because you know what i love like um, we're like we gotta move david's chair back here a little bit.

Do you ever, if you ever, watch the old jeff bezos interviews when he's like first starting amazon?

He's like skinny and bald, like bald one.

That's like in that field outside the conference?

Yes, I think this is the one.

He's like sitting, like you see grass behind him.

I don't know if he's in a field.

But he like leans forward.

And he's like, we're going to be the most customer obsessed company ever.

He's got that look on his face.

That's how I am about founders.

I'm like, you know.

You're like, that dude's a psycho.

But Jeff says something that he is.

But Jeff says something in Invent and Wander, which is an excellent book.

Because it's all of his shareholder letters and transcripts of his speeches.

Walter Isaacson did that, right?

Yep. and all of his transcripts of his speeches.

And he goes do you really want to live in a world or to compete against somebody that's as good as you?

Like, I certainly wouldn't.

That's what he states.

And he's like, if you read his shareholder letters and listen to him talk, he's like he's constantly looking for unfair advantages.

And I think part of the fact that I have now Over 20,000 highlights from hundreds of books.

And I still have like 50 or 60 or maybe 80 books I haven't put in there yet that are in my library.

So it's like that's... My Readwise account is an unfair advantage.

Because anytime somebody's talking, it's like I can immediately... Oh, you said something?

I search for that term and it pulls up.

And it's like, oh, and then I see my highlight and I see my note.

It takes...

So long, like so long to do that, but it's worth the extra five or 10 hours.

And that's integrated into your process of making.

Yes, because I'm reading something.

I remember, no, I know I've seen this before.

I can't remember it.

Type in that term and it pulls up every single instant.

Wow.

Instance.

It's an unfair advantage that I have with me all the time.

And.

What I'll do is, whenever I'm waiting for an Uber today, just pull up Readwise, and Readwise has the highlights feed.

And I'll show you guys what it looks like.

It looks a lot like a Twitter feed, right?

Completely random, so I'm not choosing this.

And instead of me reading Twitter all day, which is not a good use of your time, It's this highlight from the Dodge brothers.

Uh, I haven't read that book.

You know that was like episode, you know, probably like the one 15th Billy Duran, who's the founder of GM uh, Sam Colt.

And so are these ones that other people have liked a lot?

So therefore, no, it's just repopulating your own.

Yes.

Oh, so it's my form of practice.

So you've got, so let me give you a healthy Twitter. there on your phone.

How many times a day, how often are you just pulling up Readwise?

Almost every day.

And if I'm not doing it on Readwise, I'll go to my bookshelves.

So what will happen is you can pull a book off my shelf.

And I'm thinking about this for my kids long after i'm gone.

My kids can like what was my dad into, you know?

And they can go back and see oh and, when he was 35 or 38, this is the podcast he made.

Let me go find that book.

And then he could pull off the shelf like oh, this is the line he thought was interesting.

Oh wow, you see dad's handwriting here.

And like so i use this for myself, where i can pick up a book and quote unquote, read it, reread it in 30 minutes by rereading my highlights and notes, and now i'm like it's back in back, like in front of mine um, and then what happens is like You can do this anytime.

Like people are like, oh, I'm running late for lunch.

Like I'll just do this or I'll answer DMs or I always have stuff to do with me.

But I use it as a form of practice.

The reason I said this is like it sounds stupid.

People think it's maybe they think it's silly.

I don't know.

But I read this book.

It's episode 212 of Founders.

It's called Michael Jordan, The Life.

It's a 600-page biography.

And in that book You just have, like this encyclopedia, knowledge too of the numbers of your episodes, which I'm so impressed by.

I don't.

It's only because I reference that all the time.

So if you look up something over and over again, it's repetition.

Everything in life is repetition.

Sam Walton's career is repetition.

You know?

Like, it's like, I just think you're trying to... This is what I asked Charlie.

Like...

One of the most interesting things he said he's like one of the best things that ever happened to me is I got rich later in life.

He saw the time and how difficult it was.

He was talking about.

Imagine you being super famous or rich when you're 21 or 25, and how disorienting.

He's like, I was a full-grown man with life experiences with a wife and kids.

He had a child who died.

I did not mention that.

He had a full life experience and therefore also the main problem that happens is people don't know.

They're like, I was the son of a poor man.

Now I'm rich and my kids live an unbelievable amount of wealth and privilege.

How do I deal with that?

That comes up in the books for hundreds of years.

The answer is no one knows, right?

And so with Charlie though, the benefit is he didn't have a famous last name or a lot of wealth.

His kids were like grown.

Right.

They wouldn't have to deal with that when you're five or seven or 10.

He also gave me some advice that was fascinating.

You do that.

Like you got to pay that bill eventually though.

Like his grandkids have to.

Well, so how do you deal with this, though, right?

Like, he's a multi-billionaire.

Like, that's an insane— Right.

This is a five-generation problem.

Not only is he a multi-billionaire, he's, like, people like us talk for hours about him.

He's, like, a celebrity.

So I just read this fantastic book.

I like reading obscure books because, go back to what Jeff Bezos said, differentiation is survival.

So, like, I'll find, like, weird books.

Like, me and Sam were in this weird—I was searching for books for you guys yesterday.

I couldn't find any.

I will order them and bring some to you because I always bring books.

And I was really—we went to three different bookstores.

I'm not kidding.

Yeah.

You brought energy drinks instead.

But no, bless Sam and his patience with me.

And drove me all around Menlo Park and Palo Alto yesterday going to bookstores.

I was literally looking for you guys.

You had specific books in mind.

No, no, no.

I like going to used bookstores.

And I think of...

My interpretation of you guys in my mind, and I just know if this book is good for that person.

Like, the Henry Flagler book, I knew that was good for Charlie Munger because of what he said.

So I don't know what's going to happen.

Now I do have two books picked out for you guys which I'll send you, but they're like newer books.

But anyways... That sounds like a great day, driving around with Sam Pinky and going to bookstores.

Like, what better day could you spend?

Also, the peninsula is, like, beautiful, so, like...

Yeah, and Sam's unbelievably intelligent, and he's got a weird alien brain, as I always tell him.

Our mutual friend, Mitchell Baldrige, that all three of us know, says Sam has a giga brain.

I think is what he said, his description of it.

But I like obscure books.

I read this book that's very hard to find.

It's like 300 bucks.

It's called The Invisible Billionaire.

Daniel Ludwig was the richest person in the world in the 80s and no one knew who he was.

He paid a public relations firm to keep his name out of the papers.

Do what your competitors don't.

Yeah, so he's just like I don't want to be known and a lot of his was like it's like shipping and oil and refining And mining and and and all that stuff.

But the author makes the point in the book like how different a million and a billion is.

Going back to Charlie Munger, right.

Yeah, and he goes.

A stack of million dollars in a second hundred dollar bills is like 40 inches, you know.

Billion dollars in the second hundred dollar bills would be taught would be three times taller in the Empire State Building.

Oh Yeah.

And so, like, for us, like, oh, that guy's kind of rich.

It's like, no, the billionaire and millionaires are not in the same category.

It's so disorienting.

This is also a thing where, like the English language has done us a disservice by naming two things that are a thousand times different, very similar words.

It sounds similar.

Yeah.

They're not similar at all.

What was?

A lot of people were asking like think about all the wealthy people that Charlie talks to.

And they're asked like, okay, what do I do with like this wealth with my kids?

And it's like, you know, if you give your kids a bunch of money, is it gonna demotivate them?

And Charlie goes.

Of course it's going to.

He's like but he's like you know it's like again, like this should be obvious to you.

So he says I don't try to steer his kids or his grandkids into what they should do for a living, which is Charlie Munger's one of his best piece of advice that I took to heart.

It's like follow your natural drift.

Yeah, like how I pick books.

There's been like 15 or 20 that I've read completely or half and it's like I don't like this book.

I'm not making an episode about it.

I go to my bookshelf And I have like probably 80 or 100 books I haven't read yet.

Most come from the audience.

And I was like, what am I most excited to learn about now?

And that's how I pick it, right?

Which is also more or less how we pick episodes, too.

We have a little bit more planning because now, like, there's such long lead times.

But it's kind of like...

What's interesting to us right now?

100%.

Very emotional.

So he's like, don't try to steer them too much.

And he definitely feels that some of them are going to be less motivated because they're born rich.

But he said this was the most surprising thing.

But he goes, you have to give them the money anyways or they're going to hate you for it.

And I was like that's like because my answer before this I've read so many like family dynasty stories.

And I'm not saying I'm trying to build a dynasty.

Where they decide we're not going to give them money.

Or no, they did and it ruined them.

Like, did you guys, you guys haven't done an episode on- That's the common case.

TCI, John Malone.

Not yet.

That's like, that will happen this year.

For sure.

So, you know why?

Why?

That was one of the books that was recommended the most.

They're like, you gotta do Cable Cowboy, you gotta do Cable Cowboy, you gotta do Cable Cowboy.

We both have read the book, it's awesome.

It's excellent.

And so you know the story.

I'm about to tell you where the crazy thing is, like I'm always thinking about.

I didn't understand this before dedicating my life to studying history, right?

Where it's like, oh, wow, the decisions I'm making now can reverberate through the generations.

That's a crazy thing.

Where Bob Magnus, which is the founder of TCI, he doesn't have any monies.

And rural Texas wants to jump into this new industry cable, full of cowboys, literal cowboys.

And he doesn't have money.

So his dad gives him a $2,500 loan.

So Bob takes that 2500 loan and then, Let's say, 40 years later Bob dies and he's got to pass on his money right, that was created from the company he created to his two kids.

And he winds up giving them, I think, I don't know the numbers.

I want to say like $200 million each.

Two sons.

So think about that one decision.

I think I talked about it in the episode.

And if I didn't, it's a big mess up on my part.

And I stopped in that part.

I'm pretty sure you did.

I was like, hold on.

Think about that.

Like, what if his dad didn't give him the $2,500?

Yeah, we can talk about that.

Yeah, so his $2,500 turns into $400 million, let's say $200 million each for his grandsons.

Changed his grandsons' lives.

Right, so that means rule of thumb you take like I don't know.

You probably have three more generations after that of wealth guaranteed.

That wealth is gone because I think it went up their nose.

Like, that was... It's pretty hard in one generation to... I don't know.

Like, the point was, it's like, that wasn't good for them because they were not motivated.

They did a bunch of drugs.

I think they went to jail.

Like, that kind of stuff.

And you see that so much.

So my thought was like, oh like, get them a little bit, but not enough, that they don't have to work or whatever.

And Charlie's like... they're gonna hate you.

And like, what's the point?

It's such a good insight.

It's just like human nature.

This is my biggest takeaway from Charlie and, I think, the biggest benefit that people that listen to Founders and Acquired and then hopefully read a bunch of the books and do studying on their own, are gonna realize.

This is like, Charlie, I said it at the top of my notes and this is the first thing.

This is like, It's comforting.

The conversation I had with Charlie was comforting, the same way that people tell me listening to founders is comforting.

It's like Charlie has an almost complete indifference to problems.

Troubles from time to time should be expected.

This is inescapable, so why would you let it bother you?

And the difference, and if you think about, that's the main takeaway from this three hour dinner I had with him, right?

And if you think about how does he avoid this?

He avoids it by great things have less problems.

You're never gonna escape problems, but if you're around great people they're not gonna throw up just like a great business doesn't throw up.

Big problem after big problem after big problem.

Your wife, your kids, your friends, your coworkers.

His whole thing is aim for the highest quality you can get.

And then that's going to solve 99% of your problems.

And then when you have the problem, the inevitable problems are still going to come.

OK, you just deal with it.

He talked about when he lost the money on Alibaba.

He brought that up that people try to make fun of him for, or whatever.

It's like, you guys are missing the point.

You're not going to escape, get through life without making mistakes.

The founder of IKEA has this great quote where he says making mistakes is the privilege of the active.

Only those asleep make no mistakes.

The version of the man in the arena.

Yeah, the Teddy Roosevelt idea.

Okay, so what do you think is the ideal way to handle it if, at 35, someone becomes very wealthy, and so when their kid's memory starts around age three, so for their entire kid's memorable lifetime they've grown up in wealth and privilege.

How does one handle that?

I have no idea.

Me even giving you an answer to that is like there's this guy named Charles Kettering.

I don't know how to pronounce his name.

I read his biography.

I think it's episode 127 or something like that.

So he invented the electric starter.

He founded ACDelco.

That gets acquired by GM.

He is the head of research and development at GM when GM is the most valuable company and the cutting edge of technology company in the world at the time.

There's a story from his wife and his daughter in that book saying hey, when he dies, there's only going to be three words on his tombstone.

I don't know.

Because that's what he would say over and over and over again.

He's having this conversation.

Same thing.

He was the son of a poor man.

He is now a rich man.

His kids are rich.

He's talking to other people that have the same experience, his peers.

They're like, what do you do?

And the answer they came up with, I don't know.

Yeah.

Because it's so dependent on who the person is.

Maybe you give them money going to Bob Magnus' grandsons.

Maybe they're like Warren Buffett's kids, where they run foundations and they want to give the money away.

And I don't think they're coke addicts.

I don't know.

But it's just dependent on the person.

So if there was a simple, if there was a correct answer, I think some of these guys would have figured it out.

Well, that's the thing about humans, right?

Like every person is different.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's, I have no idea.

Really, and that's the biggest thing, where I think this is one of the lessons I learned from the podcast, where you know you mentioned this at the beginning, Ben where most of these people are just so they're like best in class in this one dimension in the world.

And of course, to get that they had to be poured.

They couldn't optimize all other areas of the life at what they did, for like their work right.

Mm-hmm.

Sam Walton is one of the rare guys where he gets to the end.

He knows he's dying because he's got cancer all over his body when he's writing that book.

And he's like, listen, if I could do everything again.

He's like, yeah, I missed some of my kids' childhood.

They worked in the stores and he took them with him.

But he's like, I'd do it again.

I had to do this.

I had to get after it.

I had to improve.

A lot of them, you know, get to the end of their life and like, oh, I regret.

The founder of Ikea has the best words on this.

He said, you know, I had three sons growing up.

He started Ikea when he was like 17, worked on it till he was like 80 something.

And he's like, I sacrificed my three sons' childhoods.

I regret it.

He goes, anybody that has kids knows that childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered.

Um, and so like we were hanging out today, we were going to do a recording, go to dinner.

And I was, my plan was, I was, I want to see my son.

He's like, and my daughter, it's like, I'm going to take the red eye.

And then I realized it's like, yeah, but I want to spend time with David and Ben.

So I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, but it's like, I'm doing this as fast as possible.

And if I had to, I'd like fly back and forth because, like Your kids are think about, like the relationship you guys have with your parents.

Are they still alive?

Yep.

Okay.

So you get to talk to them, see them, but you have your whole life, right?

Right.

When your kids are small, there's like this tiny window when they're like two to five, to six, where you're everything to them.

Oh, yeah.

You and I have talked about it.

I absolutely feel this way.

Even my 10-year-old daughter, like right now, she wants to spend time with me.

Like it was the cutest thing ever.

I was leaving, going to LA to see Charlie and then coming up to San Francisco to see you guys.

And she texts me.

She goes, I'm wearing your sweater because like it makes me feel close to you.

Like while you're gone.

You know what I mean?

But if you ask her, do you want to spend movie night with dad and mom or do you want to go play Roblox with your friends?

Everything they're friends and she loves me, don't get me wrong but like their, their friends are way.

They're really important to them.

Yeah where, like every day, i miss my son's about to turn three.

It's like i'm not gonna get back that day and there's only like a thousand of those days.

Yeah, and my wife won't have any more kids.

Even though i was like i don't want a bunch of kids, like i want a bunch.

It's like no way.

I say hey, i don't have to get pregnant, so that's fine.

Something that Buffett and Munger did with the Graham Group that was way ahead of its time that now anybody can do is they formed their social networks outside of geographic barriers.

Yeah.

And they found their most compatible, most like-minded, highest level of talent peers.

Mm-hmm.

And then they just got on planes and got to go see them.

And that was really hard to do back in the day.

And now anybody can do it.

It's kind of like the Bill Gurley.

You have no excuse not to do that.

But here's the thing.

What people get wrong is they're like, oh, I want to meet this guy.

You have to do the work necessary to make them worth your time, right?

Which is like, the unfair advantage that the three people sitting in this room have is that it doesn't matter.

That's why in the last six weeks, I've gone to lunch or dinner with multiple billionaires.

And the people that you get to talk to and all this other stuff is because this dude is crazy.

He's read 300 biographies of entrepreneurs.

There's no way I'm going to have dinner with him and not pick up one idea.

And then now I've built this machine where like, oh, that's an interesting idea.

I'll just plug it into this business.

And it's not a financial transaction by any means.

But there's no the reason.

It's not that, like Charlie was the first person I met that I was actually nervous about, and it's the reason I'm not nervous, because I know I've done the work.

Like you can't put me in a room with anybody on the planet and I'm not gonna be able to tell them at least one interesting thing.

It doesn't mean I'll be the most the best dinner they've ever had in their life.

That's not what I'm saying.

It's just like they're gonna hear something that's like oh, that's interesting and like goes through their own brain.

And it's only because I've spent six years and same with you guys.

It's like oh, you should feel comfortable.

Like you guys mentioned earlier.

It's like um, your audience feels like you know two football fields and like oh, it's a little bit of like uh, You didn't use the word insecurity, but a little nervousness.

I want these people to like me.

It's like a fear pushing you from behind.

But you know, you've most likely read... You know more about the subject than they do.

Sure, I do.

But I need to make something worthy of their time.

Yes, that is an admirable... It's like, who cares?

I could spend all the time in the world and fail to synthesize the narrative and the takeaways and all of a sudden then I've, just then I've failed them.

Regardless of how much work I did, the product wasn't good.

So that's the thing.

It's hard to not have the product be good because you did the work.

I guess that's my point.

Yeah, I think we now have a process that means that when you and I put in the work, the product is good.

But it took a long time to arrive at that.

It's almost like, you know, this is another Sam Hinckley thing.

Trust the process.

Yep.

I guess the point I was making there, though, is...

Like because you guys do so much preparation and like it's now your life's work, like it's just so much – it's going to be so hard not to add value to the people in your lives.

Whether it's like friends that never show up on a podcast or friends that, like you, don't have a business relationship with.

It's like – and like you're just going to add value because what you do is so rare.

Like I – Naval Ravikant has this – he's influenced my thinking a lot too.

And he has this thing in The Almanac of Naval by our friend Eric Jorgensen.

And he's just like, if you read an hour a day, that puts you in the .0001% of humans.

And I'm like, that can't be true.

No, that's the dirty secret of acquired and founders is that people don't read books.

So if you just read them and then tell people what's in the books, you're going to 100x the market for books.

And I couldn't believe that.

I was having dinner with the same friend that was telling me like.

I told him.

I was like oh, I'll try to build a business around my reading.

This is like a couple months ago.

And he's like, you vastly overestimate how much people read.

He goes, how many books a year do you think the average person reads?

I was like, I don't know, 12?

It's one.

It's like 0.5.

It's zero.

I remember asking a book publisher, and he said, America reads a book a year.

Well, he quoted some other study.

I said 12.

He's like no, not 12.

He's like it's zero.

They average is zero.

Yeah, it's crazy and yeah to your point.

I've become friends with a bunch of writers, some of them I met through the podcast, and they've been telling me, like teaching me about the publishing industry and just breaking down, like 98 of books ever published sell less than 5000 copies.

It's parallel everything.

The book business is the venture business which is so interesting to me.

How the advance model works.

It's quite similar to a seed financing.

I mean they put out 50000 for an advance on your book, which covers your cost of living while you're writing it.

They kind of don't care about recouping it, because the whole business is about.

Did I sign up, James Clear, this year?

And you know when you have Michelle Obama on your hands and you have to pay for it, but you don't know when you have a James Clear on your hands.

And when that becomes the book that America reads this year, you better make sure it's in your publishing house and not one of the other three big or four big, whatever it is, publishing houses.

Yeah, seed funding is better because their advances are recoupable, right?

So it's like this.

I was having this long conversation.

It's the most preferred stock.

Yeah, we were.

We were talking before it's participating preferred.

We were talking before we started recording.

I was like man, jimmy sony would be great to do a sessions with, just because he's got this historical knowledge of paypal paypal being so important to like silicon valley history and he we were talking about this and he's like no, like i have to pay that back through sales.

I'm like oh, because the thing is um going back to like um, you guys listen to gamecraft, blake robbins oh yeah, every episode.

Yep, So excellent.

So good.

Like unbelievably good.

And what I loved about it is how they focused on the business model innovations and how one decision by some random group of programmers in the 1980s affected a business model decision 10 years later or whatever.

And I was talking to Jimmy about this.

I go, the books are fantastic.

They're the best products in the world.

There's a great quote in Poor Charlie's Almanac which says that there's ideas worth billions in a 30 history book.

For Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, that is literally true, right?

And what I don't understand is you guys have such a high-value product and you haven't innovated on the business model at all.

And so I was telling Jimmy, I was like, do you know the deal?

Think about this as an entrepreneur.

You're not a writer, you're an entrepreneur, and your product just happens to be a book.

But you can make money off that any kind of way you want.

You can just get creative.

I go...

People think it's crazy where I'm like, I'm trying to be the Jay-Z of podcasts.

And people are like, what the hell is wrong with you?

And I did like that.

Have you done episodes on Jay-Z?

That episode I did on Jay-Z's autobiography is one of my most popular.

People listen to it two, three, four, five times.

I love Jay-Z and I love you.

So I can't believe I haven't listened to that episode.

Jay-Z has the founder mentality and he had it since he was a kid.

And you just see everything his whole career.

And people look at him like oh, like.

This is another thing about.

Intelligence manifests itself in vastly different ways.

It's not always like credentialed in many cases it's not right but like jay-z is a straight up genius.

If you listen to him and what he did and he looked at, he's like yeah, he says it from the get-go.

He's like i thought i told you characters, i'm not a rapper.

He's like i'm a businessman and rap just happens to be my product and so i'm going to think about it like that.

I go jimmy, you should do that.

I go why don't you just find a deal like jim?

Like jay-z did with samsung.

He's like what are you talking about?

Well, that's like true Founders entrepreneurs, whatever you know.

Founders in your case is the title you want to put on them.

They care about ownership.

Like, they own their work.

And realize that the business model matters, which is why I brought up GameCraft.

So what Jay-Z did, this is years ago.

This is his Magna Carta, Holy Grail, probably came out in 2013.

So he goes, he goes, you know, I could record this album and then I could sell like normal.

You know, stream it and then sell it for $10 if you want the physical copy, et cetera, et cetera.

He goes...

He goes, what if I just want my money guaranteed?

So he goes to Samsung and says Samsung, you're launching this new app, this new phone, and you have your own app on it.

I'm going to sell you, I will sell you a million copies, $5 each.

You give me $5 million guaranteed for my album.

I'm still going to own it, so he gets the streaming rights.

He goes, and so what I'll do is say, you pay me $5 million.

The first million people that get access to my album are going to be Samsung, whatever phone was coming out.

You download it for free if you have this device.

And so it's advertising to Samsung, and it's guaranteed money to him.

I go, dude, you're writing about technology founders.

I was like, there's these venture capital funds that have $80 billion of assets under management.

It's like, hey, will you pay me a million dollars to write this book?

And then you say, hey, this book is now presented by whatever firm.

This is why me and you have talked about this privately.

You guys already know this.

There's been something like 15 acquisition or investment offers for founders.

I said no to every single one.

A lot of them are like this, where it's like, oh well, you have the attention of people that are valuable.

You just said the worst thing that could happen to a venture firm is they miss the hit of that.

So they have to expand.

They have to make sure they catch that, right?

So it's like, hey, We'll pay for founders or whatever, give you X amount of money, pay you to do it.

You do exactly what you do.

The only difference is essentially they're trying to buy up our inventory forever.

It's like, hey, founders is presented by X company.

If you're going to raise money, email here.

And the response I have when I get these pitches is like if I did that.

That means I'm not actually learning the lessons in the books, which is like you never give up control.

It's like, no, why would I ever do that?

Let's dive into a deal structure on that.

So what if you weren't giving up control and what if you weren't giving up economics forever?

You're just doing a period of time buyout of all your ad inventory.

This is the intelligent thing.

This is what tigas is doing with invest, like the best.

And this is why, like it's crazy to me when i talk to people and they don't understand this.

I had a conversation uh, with the founder and he's like it's really weird i'm not gonna say who it was he's like it's really weird.

This company is running ads on that podcast every single episode forever.

And i'm like not at all and i go, oh see, that's just standing moving parade, not standing.

I go, i go.

David Ogilvie ran the same exact ad in the same magazine for 30 years and it was still effective.

And so I went, I was like, this is, I go, what do you think Coca-Cola has been doing for a hundred?

This is not new ideas.

Either Coca-Cola is really dumb or.

Exactly.

And I don't think they're dumb.

Apple has the prime billboard in every major city in America to advertise whatever the latest iPhone is.

Forever.

So I talked to Michael Elnick, who's the co-founder of Tegas.

Tegas, yeah.

Oh, yeah, we all know each other.

Great team.

And we talked about this.

And this is another example, because this somewhat affects our business because when there's a decline in overall economics, ad markets usually shrink a little bit and ad rates come down.

And it's like, oh, you're doing exactly what investors do.

What do Charlie and Buffett do when there's a crash?

They don't.

Deploy.

You read Izzy Sharp's fantastic autobiography, The Founder of Four Seasons, right?

And he says this.

He goes.

He's building what didn't exist at the time the only chain of five-star hotels at the time.

And he says, I grow.

And this is every founder does.

It's Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Kelly Frick.

When they have recessions, that's when they grow.

So what he would do is his competitors would pull back on advertising.

He would spend more.

And he says, he claims, I think in the book he increases market share by like 25 or 28, using this over and over again.

Because human nature is, oh, crap, things are small.

And they cut.

This is what Ogilvy said.

Ogilvy's like, if you need advertising, To sell your product, it's not a marketing expense.

It's a production cost.

It's actual cost of manufacturing your product.

And so what, Tegas?

What Michael Elnick did that was such a genius move was, first of all, he knew something was working right.

And he scaled up through podcast ads.

And He knew it was effective.

And then he's like, oh, okay, well, now you have all these people in the tech industry.

Their stock's creating.

Everybody's running a retreat.

What does he do?

He goes like, oh.

There's probably available inventory.

And so he goes.

Hey, Colossus Network, I'd like to buy up every single ad inventory for 2023 on every single one of your shows.

That's how you know that likelihood that guy is going to win.

Like, I don't know the details of his business.

It's private and everything else.

It's like, that's the right decision.

The same decision.

That's what Ogilvy would have done.

That's what Buffett and Munger do when they put money in.

Like, that is, that's what Coca-Cola does.

It doesn't matter the economic climate.

You ever can see less Apple billboards.

You can see less Coca-Cola.

No.

It's interesting to think about this in the... venture business right like uh which obviously as we record this here in mid-march you know 2023 there's a lot going on in the venture business so dynamic right now that i feel like we don't know the last two iterations of what have happened because we've been recording and i haven't checked my phone like that's how fast the world is moving right things are happening very quickly as we speak uh But I think a consequence of that, to your point about you should advertise heavier during recessions, I think customer differentiation among venture firms is just declining rapidly.

What is- Well, no.

It was until interest rates went up.

No, but I think both the up and the down cycle is both, I think, are commoditizing.

I totally disagree with this.

I think when capital was a commodity and money was free, it was extremely hard to differentiate yourself as a venture firm or any financial firm.

But it should be easier than ever to differentiate yourself, because the thing— Okay, so how do you differentiate yourself right now?

You guys are doing it.

You can.

I mean well, one of them, like let's, let's abstract away, like speaking to the acquired audience as as one of them, or as a gigantic means of differentiation.

Your X, Y, Z average venture firm out there.

Having money and writing the checks.

Right.

But yes, having money.

Right.

But like a year from now, it's like six to 12 months from now, that's going to be differentiating.

So I have a thought on this.

One, I don't know anything about venture investing.

Two, I don't know anything about investing, period.

I get to talk to super smart investors and I'm sure the questions are like hold on, you had to find that for me.

And I'm sure they're like, this kid's an idiot.

But when you guys were talking a little bit about your business and the venture game in general, I just think of one of my favorite things that I heard Jeff Bezos say is, for years people were like hey, when are you going to do physical retail?

When are you going to do physical retail?

And he said something that was crazy.

He's like, physical retailing is an ancient business.

And I love that term.

He's like, it's an ancient business, so I'm not going to do it until I know.

It's so hard to improve on an ancient industry.

It has to be completely differentiated.

You mentioned.

I heard you on one of your podcasts where you went to the Amazon Go store, just as pure curiosity.

It's not like you needed something.

And so you guys have probably read that story too, where it's like at one time they were going to do like meat and like all this other stuff that you'd have to like talk to somebody.

He's like, no, you have to redo this.

This doesn't make sense.

The key, the differentiation here is that you walk in, you walk out.

Not walk in, talk to some guy.

He's like cutting salami for you.

You got to get that out of there.

And so I've had this thought because I've read a bunch of biographies on investors too.

And like investing is an ancient business.

Like, and we're just doing it in different ways now.

And so I was like, well, if you wanted to invest, right?

Let's say you wanted to invest in private companies, which people have been doing forever.

I always think of like...

Like, where did J.P.

Morgan get his deal flow?

And you know, like, you've read through the history.

It's like, people are like, oh, that was J.P.

Morgan Bank.

Like, no, no, there's no retail bank.

Like, you're not going in there.

There's no ad, like, sign on the door.

It's like, here's J.P.

Morgan Company.

It was a relationship-based.

It's like, you got in if you knew somebody, right?

I read this biography that's incredible.

I highly recommend people read it.

It's episode 103 of Founders.

It is the richest woman in America, Hetty Green.

I can't remember the subtitle.

I love how he denies that he knows every number of every episode and then busts out three more.

It's only because I reference this all the time.

So Hetty Green, right?

It's only because you reference every episode all the time.

Okay.

One day it's just going to be a recording of just all the episode numbers.

You are an algorithm.

You are your Readwise app.

That's how I get it.

So the Hedy Green, though, was so wealthy that she bailed out the city of New York.

Like that book has unbelievable stories.

What?

I've never heard this person's name and they bailed out the city of New York?

Yes.

Her family, so the richest when she was alive, the richest city in the world per capita was like New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Oh, yeah, whaling.

Bingo.

So her family made so much whaling.

And the way they looked at the family fortune is I am a steward of this money.

My job is to make it grow so that the next generation has more.

And then she's like the third generation of these whaling.

And then whaling decimates.

It died out, I think, the generation before her.

So they had to figure out how to make money.

The technology stocks of her day, railroads.

She made a ton of money in railroads.

And then she'd buy land, like real estate in New York and everything else.

But anyways, my point being, and I had this conversation with Patrick one day.

I was like, think about it.

Investing is an ancient business, so you wouldn't do what Hedy Green did.

Where did she get her deal from?

People knew her.

They knew she was wealthy.

They knew that she was the first person to go to in financial panics.

They called financial panics what we call recessions and depressions now.

And it was like every three years back then.

Yeah.

And so what she would do, she had a desk in Chemical Bank in Manhattan.

So the advantage there is geography, physical location.

You're at the center of finance in America.

You need to be here.

You build a reputation.

So literally, there are stories in the book where there'd be a line of people in financial crashes waiting at her desk.

She's like, OK, I'll sell you my railroad stocks, pennies on the dollar.

Cornelius Vanderbilt did the same thing.

She invested with him and a bunch of other people, right?

And I was like, but what would you do today?

Like you're an, you're, you want an edge.

Everything we're talking about is like, you need an edge, right?

You can't play, Ed Thorpe has a great, the great quote in his book.

He's like, I've been a manager, money manager for 50 years.

One thing I know is you the surest way to get rich is only play games and make investments where you have an edge.

Right.

Which is another way of saying, do something your competitors don't.

Aren't or can't.

Or Edwin Land.

So Edwin Land plays a huge role in my life.

Founder of Polaroid, Steve Jobs Hero, because he said, I have a personal model.

It may not fit anybody else.

Don't do anything someone else can do.

And so I was like, okay, I don't think anybody else could do founders the way I do it.

So I'm just going to do this, right?

So my point being is like, how would you do it today?

Well, you would.

It would look very much like what i think you guys are building and i'm not an investor, so i don't know anything about your, your world, but it's just like i'd spend my time reading and learning about business history.

Charlie munger and warren buffett did that.

Every single investor you guys have probably read about does that all the time.

They read constantly.

Right, i would share what i know.

That's going to build my network of other people.

Those people are eventually going to sell me deals.

Then i have this huge advantage that you couldn't even do 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because there's no such thing as a podcast.

Right, it's like now i could record all the stuff i'm learning, Which we should say there have been iterations of this.

This is how Union Square Ventures became Union Square Ventures.

Our foundry group became foundry group.

Blogging.

Blogging and then Brad and Jason writing the book on venture deals.

Venture hacks with Naval and Rivi.

I have two other examples.

It's not even venture.

What is the most successful content marketing of all time?

Michelin.

No, Berkshire shareholder letters.

No, totally, of course.

Berkshire shareholder letters.

Because this is how you know G is a genius.

It is the greatest act of salesmanship because you never even see the sale happening.

It's like hey, and they spend.

You know you guys have probably done this research how much time they spend on those letters.

It's like half a year, seven, eight months for every letter.

This is not like, oh, I just jotted down what I learned this year.

And the crazy thing is like he's... Old Uncle Warren.

How many people have.

This is something Charlie talked Oh, so this is a great thing that this came up here.

Did you talk about the letters with him?

No, I asked him about like... So I was explaining to him.

I was like Charlie I'm literally in the middle of like reading about you when you were like around my age.

So every time I read a book, I'm like, okay.

First of all, I know what year they're born.

So every time as I go through the books, I'm like, how old are they?

And I write down, okay, he's 24 here.

I want to know what they were doing in and around my age.

And so I was like, Charlie, I'm thinking about you guys.

Like, you just started.

Like, your fund starts when you're, like, 41 or something like that.

I don't remember what it was, right?

And I was like, then, like, 50, like, you start out.

You're trying to figure things out.

You could see them kind of figuring it out, making mistakes.

You guys did an excellent job on your episode, like, talking about what they learned from.

Getting to, like, get away from the Ben Graham, like, get to excellence.

Great businesses are rare.

We should be in there.

And then just let time do all the work.

And I was like, and now, like you guys put up the greatest – investment record the world's ever seen is like, are you surprised he goes?

Of course he's like.

Of course i'm surprised, like how could you not be like we want to be successful?

And we were like had, we were ambitious and driven, but there's no way you could say hey, i'm gonna be worth what's?

What's berkshire's market cap right now?

I don't know?

Like 500 billion yeah, whatever it is.

But he said um, but uh the the, the reason that popped my mind um, When I was asking him these questions.

Let me actually get the exact note because I don't want to mess up the way he said it, because his lines were just excellent.

And so he goes.

He's surprised how successful him and Warren turned out.

But how could you not be surprised?

And then he says something that was fascinating.

He goes, I think we get too much credit.

And I was like, whoa, that's interesting.

Like, why do you think that, Charlie?

And he's like, it's very, he goes, I find it odd to be so wealthy and loved.

That's not, these are not exact words.

These are my interpretation of his words.

Let me just be clear here.

I find it so odd to be wealthy and loved.

That's not a usual human reaction.

And then my note tied to why I think the Berkshire Letters are the greatest content marketing of all time.

He goes, and I go, I wonder if this is because they spent so much time teaching others.

So what is, when you listen to Choir, you guys are teaching, right?

Berkshire, I'm going to go to Paul Graham too.

Berkshire.

They're teaching like you could just not read a book and just read Berkshire's Letters and you're going to get a fantastic education right.

And then in there it's like, oh, by the way, we'd like to be the buyers of choice.

So, if you happen to know of this business, Like this business that you want to get your hands on, like you know and you care about it and he does this excellent product differentiation.

Call me.

Yeah.

The greatest content.

What are the, what is like, how much money do they make off of that?

And obviously.

And I think this is probably I don't even know if it's on the list of things that they care about, but like it's also marketing for their businesses.

Like.

Totally.

I have Geico car insurance because it's a Berkshire Hathaway company.

This is how we talked.

I'm drinking these.

I feel an extra kinship for Brooks running shoes.

Absolutely.

I'm wearing Brooks right now.

I'm wearing our arena shoes.

There you go.

I changed out.

I was in a polo hoodie right before I came over.

I watched a documentary on Ralph Lauren.

I just did a podcast.

I just listened to your episode.

Yeah, I think it's episode 288.

I wonder if I'm right.

It is good.

Let's see if I'm right, though.

Let's see if I'm right.

I could be wrong.

I could be full of crap.

It's 288.

Okay.

But before that I had watched a documentary on him years ago and I found out that he did the.

I always go to Ben for the proper pronunciation.

We'll do the same podcast.

I say Akio Morita, and then he's like, Akio Morita.

I'm like, all right.

I'll go with Ben.

I will give you the correct American pronunciation of something and it's unclear if it's actually right or not.

So he did the same thing that Akio did.

You know, like they were struggling in the early days of Sony, they get this huge order like we're gonna take 100000 units or whatever it is, but take off Sony and put on our name and Akio's, like We have no money.

Yeah.

But he refused to do that.

Because he's like, I'm not building your company.

I'm building mine.

I love that entrepreneurial, bullheaded tendency.

Same thing with Ralph.

Ralph was broke.

Him and his wife are living in a house, an apartment with a train running over on top of them.

They're sleeping on a mattress.

And he's making ties.

And Bloomingdale's like, well, take them.

We love them.

Take that name off.

You're going to be our house brand.

Yeah.

And he packs up his ties.

He's like, I'm not here to build your brand.

I'm here to build mine.

Like, that...

Which is funny because later in life, he would make so much money on just licensing out his brand.

He's like, I don't even make any of the products.

I literally just license the brand.

Hearing that made me buy more polo clothes.

Hearing your affinity for Geico makes you buy Geico.

The advertisers you haven't acquired because they love you.

Your audience, if you... I know you guys vet them and like...

You have a ton of people that want to advertise that you don't let.

It's like that goodwill that you're building up, the goodwill that Buffett built up.

Another, the second maybe most... And by the way, there's a litmus test for that.

It's does the acquired Like.

I want to only work with sponsors that I want to so full-throatedly endorse that I feel the acquired brand gets stronger by working with them.

And if you can actually just keep doing that durably, I think that is an amazing way to build a brand.

And we try.

It doesn't always work.

And sometimes we just don't sell ad slots because we're like, well, the bar's here.

It's long term.

Like, okay, I miss a week on advertising.

Doesn't matter.

I'm doing this for you.

When we get on the phone, the first time we ever talked, do you guys love podcasting?

I love podcasting.

You're going to do it forever.

We're going to do it forever.

We say the same thing.

It's like one week.

We could do this for another 40 years.

So the same thing.

It's like the same goodwill that you're talking about.

It's why I'm drinking.

I don't even drink energy drinks, right?

You showed up with five Jocko goes.

This is the only energy drink I found and I only found it because I was driving home on Thanksgiving and all the coffee shops are closed and I heard Jocko's podcast and I know he has this and he's in Wawa's and I was like wait, there's a Wawa on the turnpike.

I was like, I can just go there.

Like, they're there, and I bought them, and then I was wired for the whole drive home.

I was like, oh, they work, man.

This is fantastic.

The point there is.

It's not like when I went to the energy drink aisle I was like oh, maybe I'll do Rockstar or Monsters.

No, they didn't make a podcast that I love.

Jocko made a podcast I love.

You were not evaluating energy drinks at that point.

The format for our founders I got from Jocko.

I found his podcast because he was on Tim Ferriss'.

His podcast at the very beginning was just him reading books for an hour hour and a half saying oh, I like this section.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, he does it for autobiographies for military people.

I was like, oh, I should do this for biographies of founders and everything else.

So it's a combination of ideas.

The second best version, and you guys know this more than me, because it's your world and I don't know anything.

I had spent three weeks reading Paul Graham's essays.

Paul Graham's essays changed my life.

Also, content marketing.

Totally changed my life.

So we're going to get there.

The reason to finally jump and dedicate my life to Founders came.

My wife was sleeping in bed next to me.

I'm up late at night.

I read Paul Graham's essay, How to Do What You Love.

I talk about this on episode 275, 76, and 77.

Those are right.

I know that for sure.

Are the three Paul Graham episodes I did.

I talk about this snap, how that episode changed my life, or that essay changed my life in 275.

So I spent three weeks going through every single one of his essays.

So something his new essays lack that they had before.

He used to have this bright orange box at the top.

It says, do you want to start a startup?

Apply to Y Combinator.

Yeah.

And so I was like, think about... So again...

It's not like you went, I thought about this, like what is the founder's version of Y Combinator?

What is the acquired version of Y Combinator, right?

You have to be very careful like who you partner with and what you're doing.

So I was like, what is the orange box, right?

It's not like you go to Paul Graham's and he's got like 10 banner ads.

He's just like, no.

Yeah, he worked for Yahoo.

He knows that doesn't work.

Your attention is here.

And it's like he didn't know that starting white comedy.

You can go back and read his essays about it.

Watch his interviews.

He had no clue.

Just like Charlie told me.

He's like, no, I did not expect to build one of those.

It was called the Summer Founders Program.

You know it wasn't even.

That's the best thing about learning about the company and founder history.

It's like there's no way when you could interview Sam Walton when his shoes, the bottom of his shoes, has watermelon and donkey crap.

He's not gonna be like, hey guys, I'm gonna be the richest man in the world.

And so I love this idea of hey, all of these discussions about The business benefit all comes from, it's the byproduct of educating people, sharing people.

That's why people love Charlie and Warren White.

All three of us love them.

How much have us three learned from them?

Right.

So much.

Yeah.

This is such a good point.

I wanted to cry when I met him.

Because of their content marketing.

I mean, it sounds trite, but like.

His lessons changed my life.

They're going to change the trajectory of my kids' lives.

Yeah.

Like that is, and you know, he probably hears that a million times a day, but it doesn't matter.

It's like, I got a chance to tell him that.

That's it.

It is crazy.

He educated America on investing while still managing to do it better than anyone else.

There was some funny things about that too, where he says like you know they get.

He says something like well, you know they're completely.

He says you both in your episode you talk about Snowball.

Snowball has that quote from Buffett in there.

He talks about it's really important to have an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard.

Inner scorecard is his dad.

It's like, I'm doing this because I know it's good.

Outer scorecard is like, I'm doing this.

What are other people gonna think about me?

Newsflash, no one's thinking about you.

They think about themselves.

So out of scorecard people cannot have.

It's almost really hard to have a happy life having an out of scorecard.

I like Charlie's description of that better.

He says... I think it was Andrew that asked him the question.

Maybe Chris asked him the question.

It's like, were you driven to succeed to impress your dad or your mom?

It's a great question.

He goes...

No.

He goes, I had an interclock.

He goes, I have an interclock and I always had an interclock.

I did this because I wanted to do it.

And he goes... And they're like, do you think Buffett's like that?

He goes, Buffett has an interclock too.

And it's just like this idea where they did it their way regardless.

They don't care what other people think.

He said this about the fact that they keep some of their wholly owned businesses and like oh, the profits are less, or they kind of just let them run out.

They'll just keep the cash.

And then people are like, oh, you should invest the cash.

And he's just like...

No, because we're opportunists.

We're individual opportunity driven is the line that he has about that.

Right.

You were going somewhere David, earlier with the discussion of being a professional investor and how it's less differentiated than it's ever been before.

Well, where I was going with it was, I bet.

Look at the reaction on Twitter and elsewhere, and I think, in much of the country, to what's happened with the Silicon Valley Bank situation.

Not that this is a current events podcast, but like It's also, by the time this comes out, going to be two weeks.

Going to be old news, right?

Hopefully things will just be calm and settled down and there'll be no more impending crises.

Yeah, right.

But another one's coming eventually.

Right.

Just like Charlie says, you're going to have another unintended problem a year from now.

Yep.

I think you are right Ben, that just having capital to invest will be differentiating going forward.

However, I think the aggregate brand and reputation of the venture industry has taken a massive hit massive hit over the last several years.

And you're not holding up SVB.

And it just keeps going down.

SVB is revealing to how other people think of Silicon Valley.

What I'm specifically referring to is VC's behavior and reactions on Twitter over the past week.

But that's just emblematic of the direction things have been going for years now.

And part of it's related to tech in general, but I think there's a specific...

Maybe hatred is strong, but brand decline of the venture capital industry.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Tie it to differentiation among venture firms.

So yes, as the market goes down, having capital will be differentiating and the number of participants will go down in the industry and whatnot.

But how do you stand out in this market as like if, in aggregate, your industry is thought less of and people don't want to work with you?

How do you turn that tide?

Right.

Yeah.

If the next Sam Walton has the opportunity to raise venture capital dollars and he's like you know what.

I think I would rather just figure it out another way and not build in that ecosystem.

I think there are a lot of people out there right now who want to start businesses and are like I'm not going to raise venture capital because F that and I don't need to.

And it was a lie that I needed to.

Right.

Can I tell you from the founder's perspective, because I talked to a ton of founders?

Yeah.

I'm going to go down, I think, well, we'll see, talking to more founders than any non-VC, right?

I get offers all the time like, hey, you want to invest in my company?

I've said no to all of them.

Just because I'm like, dude, I'm focused on founders.

I don't care about anything but my podcast.

Right, right.

And so we have these conversations and it's just like what VCs don't understand is like how much founders hate them.

Yeah.

They like, yes, they hate them.

And it's not they hate the good ones.

They love the good ones.

Right.

Like, I'm not going to say some of the brands that I've heard about.

They're like, oh, no, like we raise money from a bunch of people.

They're good.

They don't mess with us.

But if we ask a question or we need something, they jump on it, you know.

And the problem is, it's a natural distribution of any industry.

There's going to be crappy founders and great founders.

There's going to be crappy investors and great investors.

And so I really think it ties back to the principle that Buffett and Munger built their business on is only associating themselves with the best people and the best companies.

And that solves so much other problems.

My issue is, there's a lot of VCs in my audience too, and they're nice people, don't get me wrong.

Some of them I've talked to, I was just like, Who gave you money to invest?

What is going on here?

But what I don't like is the best ones.

This is what I like about Patrick.

If you talk to the people that Patrick has invested in, he doesn't say here's a list of 10 things I took two minutes to think about.

He's asking questions.

He does exactly what he does on his show.

He asks questions.

And if you need something, like, I'll do whatever I can because he's got a good network and help.

No, but he's certainly not.

He's like, if I have to tell the founder what to do, then why did I invest in it?

Like, that doesn't make any sense.

So what happens is, like, I'll get these emails.

Like, I love your show, et cetera, et cetera.

He was like...

10 ideas for you and it's just like you read.

You read them.

It's like you hired like an assistant or a researcher.

Maybe you wrote this yourself.

You thought about this for 30 minutes.

Like i think about this all day.

I've thought about this every day for years.

Man, like that's not helpful.

Like what are you doing?

Like you're just making i have a lower opinion of you because, like this is a dumb idea.

Yeah um, And the only way about that is like do you know who Bryce Roberts is?

Yeah.

Okay.

So he has, this is, again, I've never raised venture capital.

I've never made a venture capital investment.

But I talked to a ton of founders.

And he has the greatest description.

He's like, what is the product that founders are buying from VCs?

It's not money.

Because everybody's got money.

Well, you used to have money.

Yeah, I guess you used to.

But still.

There's still a lot of people.

There's still going to be. investments made in markets.

Compared to venture in the 70s, yes.

He said two words, improved odds.

That is the best, from a founder's perspective, that is the best description.

It's like if I take investment from you, as opposed to this other guy over here, this other girl over there like who is going to be founders, all they care about is can you help my company succeed?

Is it more likely that my company succeeds?

I'm dedicating my life to this, man.

This is not a game.

Like, can you make my company succeed?

And sometimes you can do it with money, sometimes you can network.

There's other people sitting right across from me that could probably help with distribution.

That is actually value-added.

That is the difference.

If I was going to be a venture capitalist and God knows I would not be I would just start a podcast.

And then I would do it for six years and I would get really valuable.

And then my inbox is full of people.

I don't have deal flow.

This is what Patrick is doing.

Yeah, it comes inbound.

I have a friend, Chris Powers.

He syndicates real estate investment.

You know, rich people like to invest in real estate.

There's all these tax benefits.

And he's got.

He says David, even with like, and this guy's done like.

I think he's got either a billion or 2 billion of industrial class real estate under management right now.

And He's like, even, he's like, David, I just was interviewing and doing my podcast.

Again, same thing.

Educational.

Interviewing people operating in the real estate industry and interviewing founders.

And just doing it because he liked to do it.

He wanted to talk to those sort of people.

Happened to press record.

Put it out there.

Never really promoted it.

You know, got, he's like, even with my small audience.

He goes, I've raised, he goes, it changes the dynamic from, hey, I'm Chris.

I'm sitting on Outbound.

Hey, I'm Chris.

This is what I do.

This is like, can we talk?

Can we set up a meeting?

To, oh, Chris, love your podcast.

How can I get five million in your fund?

Yep.

It reverses it because, you know, they get to know you as a person.

This is what I don't like also.

It shortcuts the relationship.

But it's, you just said, it's a relationship, right?

Which I think there's too much of this, like calendar, like Tetris that, no offense, that venture capitalists play because they try to do it with me.

Where our founders do this too, where they're like hey, love your show, love to get to talk to you.

Can we talk?

And I reply back, yeah, let's set something up.

Then I get like, then I'm like routed to an assistant and then it's like, Oh, you know.

How about six weeks from now on Thursday?

Mr. Joe Smough has 30 minutes three weeks from now.

And I've done this like once or twice.

And now my response is, that's no way to build a relationship.

Here's my phone number.

Just text or call me when you're free.

I'm not a 30-minute block in your calendar.

And dude the inbound that all three get.

It's like I'm already almost hitting a limit to how many deep relationships I can build.

So I'd rather, instead of talking to a million people I'm not a fester instead of talking to a million people for 15 minutes, I'd rather talk to five or 10 people over and over and, over and over again.

That's what Charlie.

You and I have talked a lot about this and you've rubbed off on me a lot on this.

I have changed my mindset and my daily behavior hugely because of our conversations.

Charlie and Warren.

It's just like they built relationships.

They found people they like, admired, and trust.

They repeat like, admire, and trust over and over again in the letters and their talks.

And then they just did business with them forever.

It's not this wide but shallow.

And that's where you get the bad behavior.

And anybody that's high quality can see through it and it's not going to work with you.

And you're only going to succeed.

Like you guys, your business is parallel.

You're only going to succeed if you get the very best ones.

It's interesting though.

Man, just like so much in life.

Like Warren and Charlie...

Really, like, they're just so often right.

And if you think about like, if you buy the premise that the aggregate opinion of the venture capital industry has declined a lot, it may continue to decline, whether it does or doesn't.

It's meaningfully worse than it used to be.

What have Warren and Charlie done?

And to your point about the best content marketing ever, what is what they do?

It's a combination of a hedge fund and a private equity firm.

What is the aggregate opinion?

Public opinion of hedge funds, managers and private equity firms over the last 50 years.

Nothing but down.

What is the aggregate opinion of Berkshire?

Nothing but up.

It's amazing.

This is one advantage that I have, the fact that I'm not an investor.

So I don't have to keep up on like.

To some degree, venture capitalists have to like know what's going on, right?

And I close myself off.

Like I was having dinner with Sam and his wife and they were asking me, like his wife was asking me like hey, do you know about this person?

Oh, no.

Do you know about this?

And Sam's like, he's got a very limited, like, he said it nicely.

He's like, you can ask about, like, books, but this dude's not watching TV.

He's not doing any other stuff, right?

We keep him in a you know hot out back, and the good thing about that though, is somebody actually.

So essentially, the way I use like Twitter or any social media is like I put out little snippets from my podcast.

You put out a lot on Twitter in text, though form right yeah, which has been really working for you.

I'm going to read something that has over a million views in 24 hours because everything's going on and because I just had dinner with Charlie.

So I'm going to read this and then I'll go back to the benefit.

This is an amazing tweet, by the way.

So I go, Charlie Munger tells a story about human nature.

Now, I didn't put this because of the bank run.

I was just thinking, oh, I was reading the highlights.

Wait, you didn't post this with regards to the bank run?

No, no.

Remember I reread my highlights every day?

Yeah.

And so when I reread my highlights, what my Twitter is is.

When I reread highlights, it's like oh, that's a good one.

I just put it on Twitter.

Oh my God.

They have like just the greatest timing in history.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, like it wasn't intentionally, I knew it was going on, but it never said oh, let me, I need an SVB tweet.

Like I don't have any money in SVB, like whatever.

So it goes, Charlie Munger tells a story about human nature.

And then this is all Charlie speaking.

One of my favorite stories is about the little boy in Texas.

The teacher asked the class, if there are nine sheep in a pen and one jumps out, how many are left?

And everybody got the answer right, meaning eight, right?

Except this little boy who said, none of them are left.

And the teacher said, you don't understand arithmetic.

And the little boy said, no, teacher, you don't understand sheep.

And so... So effing good.

Okay.

When you were in the room with Charlie for several hours, how did, like in natural conversation, are they just pulling out these like parables and these fables, like you know?

Let me answer that question.

The best response to this tweet, I missed it myself.

He goes, was the child Charlie himself?

And I'm like, oh my God, that's exactly what he would have done.

He would have been the kid.

So the reason I think it's so powerful, like the storytelling ability you guys have, how I try to break down things to aphorisms.

You asked like, why is this guy on my phone, right?

I only think in stories.

I think people only learn through stories and then one-liners, right?

That's why Charlie, David Ogilvie, that idea, it's like he says it in a creative way.

Yeah.

And you remember fur.

Charlie Munger says hey, if you don't learn probability, you're going to go through life as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

So good.

So you laugh, and then you think about it.

It's like, oh, I'm going to get my ass kicked.

So that's the way.

This is here because it's Ernest Shackleton.

His family motto was, by endurance, we conquer.

So we're in the podcast business.

People are like, you can't do podcasts.

There's like 2 million of them.

It's like, dude, there's like 70% or 80% of them that have quit.

98% in the business podcast right now. me and Patrick were just talking about this.

I just saw him in person in Miami and we were talking and I showed him this.

It's like dude uh, for podcasts like me and Patrick's and yours, uh yeah business, categorize in business.

Uh have at least 10 episodes and, I think, release at least once a week.

You guys, I think are really scheduled less than that.

All right.

Two weeks, every two or three.

Uh, so those three categories is like, but in terms of minutes of content per week, where we're the same as everybody else, but like that was one thing, like they release once a week.

Right.

Um, 18,000.

And the business category is the second most popular, like the second most populated podcast category.

Behind.

Do you know the first?

Spirituality.

Faith.

Yeah.

Oh, true crime has fallen off then.

Yeah.

Thankfully.

I'm going to start.

So there's a thing about that where I heard somebody said they're like, Founders is like church for entrepreneurs.

And I might start dropping podcasts on Sunday.

No, no, I'm not kidding.

And if I do video, I swear to God, I went and looked.

I looked at pulpits.

I was like, I'm not gonna get off.

I swear to God, I swear to God.

You went crucifix shopping.

I'm not gonna get a desk.

Think about my mom was fundamentalist Christian and stuff and I had to go to church my whole life and it's just like this is pretty crazy.

Not in a bad way.

I don't mean that to the majority, but it's like they're learning from the same book every week, over and over again.

The stories you can tell are limitless.

It's one book.

I can do the same thing.

I have access to all the books in the world.

I can do that, so I do think there's an element of.

Totally.

Five years from now, people are gonna be like, this is the moment where David started the cult.

It's right here on video.

We're documenting.

Colts are the best businesses, though.

100%.

If you listen to my episode, In-N-Out, episode 244.

Oh, yeah.

There's no way I got that right, by the way.

Oh, now we get it.

I did that.

You keep talking.

I'll look up if you got this right.

I did that episode because...

It's 2.4.

Of course.

Is it?

Oh, my God.

I read that book because the best businesses in the world are cults.

That's what the founder of Trader Joe's, he wrote his autobiography, he said that.

Trader Joe's was a cult for the overeducated and underpaid.

Right.

And it's not to say that, like... cults are amazing businesses.

That's not what you're saying.

You're saying the very best businesses are cheerful.

Develop a cult.

In-N-Out calls them, they use this terminology in their business, cheerful cult.

It's a positive cult.

I'm not talking about Jonestown, let's get together and freaking drink mass suicide.

No, no, I'm talking things that, hopefully you're building a product that's good for the world.

We had Gary Tan on back in the day and he was talking about Palantir at the very beginning and he was like oh, Palantir was a cult.

That's why it worked.

Well, this idea also influenced me.

Zero to One, Peter Thiel's book, It's like, you know, he says that.

It's like the best businesses, startups look like cults.

You have to inspire emotion in people.

Otherwise, you can't stand out in the world.

And you certainly can't have repeat behavior and, in a sea of choices, for someone to keep choosing you over and, over and over again.

It's like how founders have to be weird.

Nothing interesting was created by ordinary people.

But I have to be intentional about this.

I'm glad you said oh, this is where we get it on camera and on recording that David started his cult.

I go crazy.

People start talking about me.

A bunch of them say, David's too obsessed with podcasts.

And I'm like, I'm glad they say that because like even now.

You're like, thank you.

That's a compliment.

No, it's like I see an opportunity that other people don't, which is the same thing in the book.

So I think podcasts in general are just fun to make and I'm obsessed with it.

But they're also going to be wonderful businesses because they're prone to be cheerful cults.

And how do you know that you have a cult?

You just Google and see if the people have tattooed themselves with the brand.

How many people are walking around with a Joe Rogan face tattoo on their skin?

A ton of them.

Really?

Yes.

How many people have tattoos of the Apple logo?

A ton of them.

There's an insane number with Mario.

We learned this in the Nintendo research.

Mario, Tesla.

In-and-out there's a ton of dude.

I like cheeseburgers in my favorite meal I'm not tattooing a in-and-out logo on my arm, dude You take another level and you see this over and over and over again And so when I analyze businesses, I'm not just doing this like it's not a game to me I was like, oh can I use these ideas in building my business?

And, like Warren Buffett says, the greatest thing and this is, I think, speaks to why you guys are so like hey, We know how big our audience is and we're gonna take this seriously seriously, Warren goes.

A brand is a promise.

That's the best description of a brand.

I talked about the fact that I stayed in this hotel brand.

I'm not going to say what it is.

In Austin, I loved it.

I stayed in Santa Monica.

I loved it.

I found out they had one in San Francisco.

I didn't check the reviews.

You came here and they broke their promise.

I told you to stay with us.

And that's the biggest thing.

A brand was a promise.

I know this is going to be excellent.

The hotel is fine.

It is in like...

It's in the Tenderloin.

Not a place you want to stay.

No.

If I wasn't traveling alone, there's no way I'd let my wife in.

This is the major misconception about San Francisco.

Many people who don't live here think that it's an absolute hellhole and wasteland.

A specific part of it is yeah, but like there are other and unfortunately that part is mostly where the hotels are yeah, which is not good for the city, because i'm like i'm not ever staying, i'm staying with you, or i'd stay in uh, like i'd stay out in silicon valley, like i've stayed at the rosewood, which is really nice yeah, but that is the most expensive hotel, which is good.

I didn't pay for it, so no one ever does.

I didn't.

That's the whole business model.

Okay, I didn't know how much it was.

It was really nice, though.

Thank you.

I gotta thank that person.

Yeah, so, like, again, I don't mean it in, like, but I am very intentional.

Like, hey, I'm not gonna break my promise.

I want you to know, and you guys do the same thing.

It's like, if I press play on an Acquired episode, this is why I like Dan Carlin, is...

I read one book an episode.

He reads like 30.

He only does two a year or one a year.

But I know there's no way I'm going to press play.

It's going to be good.

And he didn't do the work necessary.

That's what we feel.

We all feel.

In our own ways, we all definitely feel that about what we're doing.

Can I get some feedback?

How can we make Acquired better?

Or have you ever had moments where you paused an episode and were like oh, I want to talk to Ben and David about this right now because I have some feedback.

No.

You'd probably just text us if you did.

No, but, like, I would... First of all... Or the model.

Not necessarily just the content, but, like...

No, what you guys said on your Benchmark Dinner episode, I think, was like you know, there's a few podcasters.

I was having this conversation with Sam yesterday.

It's like, there's a few podcasters that, like, they know what they're doing.

And they know by, like, what their position in the market is, like, how they're thinking about it.

And I'm not going to say who.

But, like, you guys hit it.

Like, what makes you special?

It's the Edwin Land thing.

Don't do anything somebody else can do.

Right?

Where you said it's like your marquee thing is these super like?

Blake made the funny um.

Blake Robbins said the funny thing on Twitter.

I loved it.

He's like, only a choir could say, all right, let's bring this home.

And so an hour and a half left.

That's your brand.

People know it.

Totally.

Yeah.

And I think what you're doing here with, like the sessions, is like a way to also it's like there's no, you can't increase your the amount of episodes that you can do because they take so much work to do.

But you also have a way to surface all this information that you guys have that's valuable to other people in different formats.

We were talking about this a little bit before, which I hate saying we were talking about this before we were recording, because why didn't we just record?

But you were also thinking about potentially doing something similar.

Yeah.

And there's like... Not now.

Not now.

Years from now.

Yeah.

But for the core episodes...

We spend so much time preparing.

But then for stuff like this, we don't prepare at all because our whole career is preparing.

Does this make sense?

What is the right number and format of sessions?

Because this is the second session.

We're still figuring sessions out.

In your dream world as an acquired listener, what do sessions look like?

I mean your sessions should be replace your interviews, anything that's a non-acquired, like long deep talk.

Just make them a session.

There's enough people interviewing founders and investors, but we need more conversations.

So if I ever did, people are like, if you ever do an interview show, I was like, first of all, I wouldn't do an interview show because, like you, interview is a skill.

It looks easy.

Like i always tell i tell patrick patrick, you're world class at this dude, like you have you wield because you've been every weekend, now twice a week for eight, nine years and he's just it's for.

I like to read, he likes to ask questions, so therefore our formats match the personality right yeah, and so what i tell him is like i've been on the other side of it.

It's like you can tell it's not.

He doesn't have a list of questions in front of him because you can hell, his good question just came off of response of what like a lot of people like um, And it's fine.

But like the Tyler Cowen thing where he just like he has his questions and you just said something interesting.

He's not going to follow up and he's going to go on the next question.

It feels very odd because you're like, are you guys not having a conversation?

No, they're not.

That guy like left you an opening.

And how did you not take that opening?

They're not.

But Tyler, you have to do.

Let's tie this to Jay-Z and J. Cole.

And the answer question also about like, I'm glad you guys are so much nicer.

We're like, do you have any feedback?

Because like.

I can't stand feedback.

We're, like, not in the sense of... Like, I told you, I texted you guys this one time.

We're like.

One guy was like hey, I don't like that you reference.

Like the superpower of the show is that I tie.

It's not like The episode on Ralph Lauren is gonna tell you how Ralph thinks, like Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller and Bezos.

And it's, like... You literally know all your episode numbers.

By heart.

To me, it's just one large conversation on history's greatest entrepreneurs.

That's how it is to me.

It just happens to be separated.

And so I text you, and this guy's like, could you save that at the end and just carve out acquired?

And I was like, don't listen to acquired.

No, I'm not going to.

I have a singular vision for how this is going to go, and that's why I own and control and operate the entire thing.

It's even further than that.

It's like, I'm not putting on a show.

I loved Anthony Bourdain when he was alive.

I read his books.

He had a huge influence on me.

Anytime I traveled to a place that he went to, I'd go and watch it.

Have you done an episode on him?

Yeah, 219.

There's no way that's right.

There's no way.

Keep going.

There's no way that's right.

Fact checkers.

It's called The Oral Biography.

That format should be done more where his assistant had interviewed an assistant friend, had interviewed a bunch of people who actually knew Tony and were there in his last days.

And then she organized that interview into this biography called Bourdain, the Definitive Oral Biography, I think.

And is it 219?

It's 219.

Yeah.

And so, like, where was I going with that?

I went on a digression.

Oh, so there's a line in the book that I love.

It says the line between Tony and the show is nonexistent.

Yeah.

Right?

That's why people, like, I hear a lot of people talk about podcasting.

It's like, oh, you don't actually know what the superpower of podcasting is.

Right?

Where it's like, to me, one of the superpowers of podcasting is it's authenticity scaled.

Right?

Yes.

When I meet with founders, I listen to founders.

And we have a three-hour dinner.

They all say the same thing.

They're like, this is like a three-hour episode of Fowlers.

It's like the same person there.

And I think that that is a thing that you did really well and we sort of accidentally did well.

But I realized over time why that makes both of the things we've built as durable as they are.

A lot of people play characters on the internet.

Which in other mediums is an easy trap to fall into.

And, like, it's a way to catapult growth.

If you adopt a polarizing character, you can get a bunch of followers.

There's a lot of dividends that pay to it.

But it's exhausting to maintain over time.

And it has a conflict where when people meet you in real life, they're like, oh, weird.

Like it would be horrifying to live as a, a polarizing character that you play on the internet in real life also, and so you have this more like slow, organic growth path um, but like it is, there is this cool byproduct now where like, i sit down with someone and they're like yep, exactly the same as i expected.

This is why i said have blake robbins on here, because he gave me the dynamic, that spectrum that he talks about.

Blake is a super smart person in general, but he's like The way you think about this is there's a spectrum.

This is not my idea.

This is Blake's spectrum.

He goes, on one end of the spectrum... It's like, how much time do people spend with you, right?

He's like, on one end of the spectrum, you have these 30-second TikTokers that dance, right?

And then all the way on the other end of the spectrum.

As you move down, they spend more time with you.

All the way on the end of the spectrum, you have the Twitch streamers, right?

Which he helped incubate 100 Thieves, 40 Thieves, 100 Thieves where they're spending like 40 hours or 50 hours a week with you, right.

He goes David, you're like one, you're not.

They don't spend 40 hours with you, but you're one click, one click to the left yeah, and they're gonna wind up spending 10 20 100, 200 hours with you.

And you keep moving down and like, let's say, you do 10 minute youtube videos.

You know it's like the deeper you go down there.

It's why, when i think the guy's name is nadeshot, when like 100 thieves has a new product and he announces it, you'll see a line down the block because Hundreds of thousands of people have spent all their time with them.

And so it's like, oh, Nadeshot has something to all come down here.

And you see this over and over again.

And then Blake says you could have like a TikTok that has a TikTok that has like 10 million followers, yet they can't even get 3000 people to show up somewhere.

Right.

And so I think that is the way to think about it.

That's algorithmic throttling, too.

TikTok is almost a zero signal if somebody follows you.

It's all views.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't actually matter.

Or YouTube.

It's like, oh, they subscribe to your channel?

Maybe that'll come up in one of the top eight videos that shows up at the top of the screen of what they should watch next, but maybe not.

Yeah.

So my point in all that is, if they're spending a lot of time with you and I love – this is my flip of what Charlie Munger says that you need to learn the big ideas in the main domains like physics psychology, because they carry the most freight.

I flip that to time carries the most weight.

As long as what we're doing – you said we're not playing characters.

We are passionately interested in this.

We're not going to quit. then we do this over a long period of time.

You'll get what you deserve.

You'll get the audience you deserve.

You'll get the business opportunities and everything else.

It's like time carries the most weight.

I know I'm not going to quit.

You're going to have to pry the microphone from my cold dead hand.

And I'm just going to let the chips fall where they are.

And that doesn't mean I'm like lollygagging here.

Like I'm on it seven days a week.

I'm going to try to work myself into a position.

So it's something I learned from Steve Jobs when he came back to Apple, right?

And he's like people hear that that that speech he gives, which he's fantastic, he's like wearing shorts and he's like and it's like i don't even know if he's in the polo, the the turtleneck yet, but he mentions like, what they're gonna do.

And everybody focused on the fact that he's like we're gonna, you know, there's no sex in the products anymore and we're gonna do the four quadrant thing.

A lot of people in the technology industry particularly know that speech and like yeah, let's cut the fat.

And like put all of our A players, fire the B and C players, put all of our A players in these four products that we're going to make right.

Desktop, laptop, high-end.

Yeah, consumer and pro for both laptop and desktop.

Those are four categories, right?

They missed what he said earlier when he talks about Nike.

He's just like, marketing.

He's like, Apple sucks at marketing.

We have to be a great marketing company.

And so he said something where I read the quote and then my reinterpretation of this, right?

And people don't know that.

It's in Ken's, no, it's in this book called Insanely Simple.

I think that guy's name is Ken Siegel.

And he's like, he was an ad guy at a company for Apple.

And he's like- TWBA Chiat Day.

It was the ad agency.

So he goes, and every Wednesday- uh, actions express priority.

So there's another maximum, right?

He's like, I don't care what people say.

I care like what they do.

So when people ask me like first people, you talk to the founders, like Hey, like what would you do about this?

I never answered.

I was like, well, David's son would do this.

I'd say, Hey, well, Charlie Munger would tell you this, or Steve jobs would do this.

Or like, Hey, I heard a story about here.

Cause like my opinion is useless.

It's used to know my opinion on business building and how I build my business.

It doesn't matter what I say.

It's like, how is he approaching founders?

Like, why is he making decisions?

That's the important part, right?

And so Steve told you that marketing was important to his actions, because every Wednesday at like 3 o'clock or I forgot the time they had like a three-hour meeting.

He would approve have to approve every single piece of advertising and marketing that went out for Apple.

There's not a billboard in Kentucky that went out without him saying yes, it's going to go out, right.

And so in that speech, if you actually listen to what he's saying, he's like listen.

I feel that the products we're making in Apple make people's lives better.

He says this line.

He goes, I want everybody in the world to own an Apple device.

We know that's not going to happen because it's so expensive.

But he goes, and to do that, we have to get really good at marketing.

So my interpretation of that on the podcast, what I said, is like, if you feel your product can improve people's lives I think you guys already know, because you get thousands of messages just like i do that yes, listening to acquire, listening to founders, will improve people's lives and work right, then you have a moral obligation to get good at marketing.

When we got that, all that means is not get good at marketing so our ad rates are going to go up or that we can be celebrities during that.

It's no.

So these this, these messages for all these of history's greatest entrepreneurs that are dead, that they don't, those ideas don't die with them and then therefore acquired and founders can gather these ideas and push them down the generations.

So that's why I mean, it's just like I'm not dilly-dallying.

Yes, I'm gonna let time carry all the weight, but I'm gonna do everything I can so more people at least know.

And if you try, founder, you say, oh, this sucks or whatever, whatever.

I'm cool with that.

But I just want you to have the opportunity to know it exists.

And me and you have had these.

Us three have had these conversations where it's like guys, I'm telling you right now I've said this to you there's millions of people that would benefit from listening to Choir.

They just don't know it exists yet.

So we gotta come up and find ways to make sure that people know it exists, because they will love it and it will make their lives better.

Amen.

I think there's also this may be an area I'm curious what you think about this where our shows and approaches are a little different.

I'm also curious what you, Ben, think about this.

A lot of these stories are just incredible stories too, that are just worth telling just for the sake of the story.

Yeah, it's interesting how sometimes I'm like I'm not sure that we came up with a lesson that I would advise a founder to follow, but I know this was very entertaining and as true as we possibly can make it.

Yeah.

And so, like... No, every single episode I've listened to, there's lessons in there.

Oh, yeah.

I'm not saying there's not lessons.

Of course there are.

But, like sometimes, we'll do an episode like I always feel this way about the most recent episode, but we just finished making the Nintendo episode.

I'm just like, you cannot...

Like if you put the best fiction writers in the world together and you said, come up with the best like corporate-ish story that you could imagine, you couldn't write something this good.

I guess the thing I was referring to is a little bit the survivorship bias where, like someone did something that I would not recommend anyone do and it still worked.

Yeah.

But it made for a great story.

It's like Morris Chang in TSMC.

It's like he invented the notion of a Fabless semiconductor company before there was any demand for that.

And then it turned out that his timing was exactly right, that within a couple of years a whole ton of Fabless companies spun up and wanted to use his foundry.

Uh, but like he created a solution in search of a problem and like no founder should do that.

But my God, did he pull a rabbit out of a hat?

There's a good number of acquired episodes where I'm like, we should be crisper.

I think about pointing out where like, I don't, this was inadvisable, but amazing that it worked.

I think that goes back to the game tape analysis where we talked about Kobe Bryant.

Jordan did this too where it's like – I read this like 600-page biography of Kobe.

And in the biography, they interview his high school girlfriend.

And they're like, what was it like to date Kobe Bryant in high school?

I'm surprised he had a girlfriend in high school, right?

Well, not for very long.

It's like, what was it like to date Kobe Bryant in high school?

She's like.

Well, our dates consisted of me going to his house and watching tapes of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson.

We're not leaving.

I'm not taking you out to dinner.

We're literally going to watch this thing.

And so I think the game tape analysis of that is just like it is helpful to realize that a lot of this stuff it's impossible to plan in advance.

I mean, Steve Jobs has a ton of great quotes.

Oh, the Stanford speech.

The commencement.

It's impossible.

You're only going to connect the dots looking backwards.

So you have to put something, faith in something.

You can call it karma, religion, God, intuition, but you have to do something.

I just did a rewrite of Ray Kroc's autobiography, the guy from McDonald's.

Again, and it hit me.

Yeah, I've been thinking about the Steve Jobs quote too.

And this is why it's so important, valuable to read.

You mentioned this in the in the mcdonald's.

If you think about this, like he's a perfect illustration of what steve observed.

50 years after reg dies, for god's sake, he's just like.

He goes to selling paper cups.

Paper cups leads him to selling multi mixers which are like uh, make milkshakes right.

Multi mixers goes like why the hell are you have eight?

Why does these mcdonald brothers out in san bernardino have eight of my machines?

Like you, He'd had a hard time selling one.

That goes to the franchise system, which he didn't even do well.

Then he meets Harry Sombor, and then Harry Sombor is like dummy you don't even know what business you're in.

He's like, you don't build an empire off a 1.4% cut of a 15-cent hamburger.

You build an empire by owning the land upon which that hamburger is cooked.

Those five things.

There's no...

He sold... From paper cups to real estate.

He sold paper cups for 17 years.

Yeah.

But he's just like, hey, I have to go in my gut to the point where he got divorced over this.

His wife was like, you can't do this, Harry.

And he's like, you have to trust my instincts.

That's one thing.

To what Ben said way back in the beginning of the conversation that you're really good at highlighting, Ray Kravitz.

He was a terrible person.

And he didn't try to hide it.

Most people in autobiographies are trying to hide it.

He's literally like thank you very much, June Martino, my first employee, for missing every single one of your kids' birthdays.

You're going to get some stock at McDonald's.

It's going to get you rich.

But 20 years later, I'm going to fire you.

Yeah.

And you don't have to put that story in there.

He chose to put that.

That's crazy, dude.

I said on the podcast, I was like, listen, it's interesting.

I'm glad he persisted.

Interesting ideas for business.

But not only do I never want to do business with this guy, I wouldn't even want to be his friend.

I wouldn't want to do business with Steve Jobs, but I want to be his friend.

Oh, yeah.

He'd be a very interesting person to be friends with.

Oh, I feel like the opposite.

What's that?

Like I'd want to do business with Steve because you could create incredible things together, but I'm not sure you'd want to be friends.

I think the difference is from like a founder's perspective, like there is no working with Steve Jobs.

It's working for.

You hear the stories of how he even treated like his subcontractor or not, like the owners of the companies that contracted.

It's like these guys are empire builders.

Like they're literally building worlds.

They're not used to being like they're –

Charlie was talking about this because he loves Li Lu, the new guy, the BYD guy, Du Wan I don't know his name, something like that.

Those guys.

He loves Lee Kuan Yew from Singapore.

And what you realize is it's like.

It's like these are founder types.

But you can't be Like founders are benevolent dictators or, in some cases, they're dictators of their own company.

And like, some people call Lee Kuan Yew, you know, a dictator.

It's like, oh, you can't do that in America, even if that would be beneficial.

But...

All of them.

There's no working with them.

They're going to be in complete control of the situation.

Even being in the room with them.

I'm not saying they'd be rude or mean, but you're a subordinate to them.

Ray Kroc, he says in the book, perfection is difficult.

I'm demanding perfection at McDonald's.

I will constantly keep expanding this empire until I die.

If you get in my way, I will run you over.

He says in the movie he's like if my competitor was drowning, I'd walk over and put a hose in his mouth.

And he goes and he was on the other end of the call as McDonald Brothers, because they're fighting over this.

He goes, would you do the same?

And the stated thing is it's like you're going to have to compete on my level or else I will literally destroy you.

Yeah.

So Warren and Charlie are so interesting.

I'm trying to decide if they are the complete opposite of that or if they actually are like that, just in their own ways.

What do you think?

Every single person has some kind of, like, their public persona is for that level, right?

It's not like a podcast where they're going to listen to Joe Rogan for 1,600 episodes.

Like, you know who Joe is.

He's doing three-hour shows three days a week for 15 years.

You have probably a good idea who he is.

You see flashes of, like, you know, imperfection like we all have.

I don't think you, just you don't get to that level without having he's got sharp, they all got sharp elbows.

Like, you ever heard, read stories about how Warren negotiates?

It's like 1250 bid.

What about 14?

1250 bid.

What about 13?

1250 bid.

Well, it's because he's already.

He spent 10 years analyzing your business and he knows exactly the price that he's going to buy it for.

And so now he's telling you the price he's going to buy it for.

Yeah.

This wasn't like a new consideration that popped up and he's like, oh, look at this, a business.

It's like, no, at the scale he's operating at, like he knows all the businesses.

Yeah.

And this is from Jim Clayton's autobiography where he buys Clayton Holmes.

Right.

And he even said, like, he wanted to sell Buffett.

He idolized Buffett.

And he talks about like he wasn't insulting him by any means, but he's like.

Warren wants the microphone.

And if you're in an area where Warren doesn't have the microphone, he is not interested.

And I've heard that about Warren a lot.

They're world builders.

He runs everything.

You think you're going to go from being poor to having 200 billion and not distort your perception of the world?

Yeah.

It's impossible.

Say more about Warren wanting the microphone.

What does that mean?

Like literally in person.

Like they would do – I think they were doing – Jim Clayton was at either like an event to talk to the employees or whatever the case was.

Like he – like Jim wanted to have input.

And he's like Warren would not allow it.

Like he monopolized this.

And I've heard that about Warren.

Like same thing.

We're like – There's got to be an element of him that – you know, loves the shareholder meetings.

Of course.

But he didn't need to do that.

He didn't need to do that.

He created an event around it.

He loves having a million people come.

Yeah, you know how he loves it because he's still doing it.

Right, right.

Like, he doesn't have to do anything in the world that he doesn't want to do.

Right.

And that's how you know he loves it.

Like they're beyond.

I told you we talked about earlier how like, just how disorienting it must be to like have and I would love to know this feeling, don't get me wrong like have a 200 billion net worth.

It's like you're living life on like God mode.

Right.

It's insane.

Like, I was watching this video.

I don't know if it's true, but it's like, Jeff Bezos' private jet has its own private jet.

Well, his new yacht has a chase yacht.

Yeah, so his new yacht has a yacht.

I think it's like a guest yacht.

Like I think it's so that I mean, he now owns the biggest yacht in the world and there's a yacht that will sail behind it.

This may be.

I don't know.

I don't imagine having a yacht is actually not additive to your life.

Oh, so this is a fun Ralph Lauren thing.

I think that's more problems than... Yeah, so I think it was Ralph Lauren sold his yacht, and it's now a charter yacht, because he was like, this thing was more work than any of the businesses I've ever run.

One of the most interesting ideas I've heard and it comes from our mutual friend Jeremy, who I think we mentioned earlier in the podcast.

Hopefully we did give him credit.

I actually was talking to him and David Perreault and I'm pretty sure Jeremy said this, not David, but he's like I would actually make the argument because everybody's like oh like, what does Charlie talk about?

Call the Berkshire jet the indefensible.

The indefensible, yeah, right, right.

And then wasn't there a second one, the indefensible two?

The indefensible two.

Before they bought nap jets and now it's like we should be on.

So you look at those like how could you possibly spend?

Like you know, these yachts cost 25000 an hour to operate and fuel or some crazy number that planes are the same, like you know how expensive they are.

And Jeremy makes the point.

And Jeremy knows because he's been buying businesses forever and he's exposed to like great wealth people.

You know unbelievable amount of wealth.

He goes, he makes the argument that they're actually underpriced assets.

Yeah.

And I was like, ooh, tell me more.

That's not what I would expect to hear.

Yeah.

I'm going to tell you this book that just proved his point.

I actually got to text him and tell him this.

So he's like, they use it not for, you're not like yachting, sitting there sunbathing, right?

He's like, they're using it for like customers and potential.

And so I had heard this.

I'll tell you about how this relates to Invisible Billionaire.

So I had heard this, because again, I've never raised money.

I don't pay attention to the venture industry.

I don't know anything about it.

I just have a bunch of founder friends.

And founders tell founders everything.

And so I'll have these discussions where they're like.

They describe the courting process that they get from some of these well-known, super famous people.

And it's like The process you just described to me sounds like an old, rich dude that wants to sleep with a young woman.

What would you do, right?

We actually didn't put it in the episode, but there's a bunch of this in Nintendo history, because Warner Brothers bought Atari and so Warner Brothers was running Atari as Nintendo was kind of like.

And this is how they courted Nolan.

That's how they courted yeah, so that's how Warner Brothers courted Atari and Nolan.

And then how they tried to court Nintendo was the private jets, the.

What was it?

It was Clint Eastwood.

They put Clint Eastwood on the private jet with Atari flying coast to coast.

So what does that tell you?

History doesn't repeat, human nature does.

These founder dudes are running technology companies now and they're like yeah, oh yeah, I'm not going to name who.

They're like oh yeah, he gave us.

He picked us up in Manhattan in his private helicopter and and we landed at his Hamptons estate.

Do you think he got the deal?

He got the deal.

This guy said, hey, come, what are you doing?

It's Friday night.

What are you doing Saturday morning?

Okay, come on my private jet.

I'm gonna take you to California with me.

Here.

You wanna stay with your girlfriend at this mansion that I'm not using and you know X Y, Z.

So Jeremy was explaining to this man.

It's like the equivalent of like a luxury suite at a sports arena.

Like, it's for getting deals done.

But they're operating at a different level where it's like, oh, these influence.

And some founders, the smart ones, don't let, like Sam Walton, you know he's like don't give us, don't give me a freaking gift.

Right, right, right.

That's why, like the whole, everything in Bentonville is like you can't like come in here and like wound me.

Because they know it works.

If you give a Walmart salesperson like a bottle of gin or something, it's going to influence them where he's just like I want your price.

You guys did a great job in your episodes.

Like tell me your lowest price and then I'm going to go to your.

It better be your low price, because I'm going to this guy.

And if you tell me a dollar, he sells me 98 cents.

Don't waste my time.

I'm going, I'm not, you're not going to hear from me again.

I have an obligation to the customer to do this, to find the lowest price for them.

Yeah.

Because everything, his entire thing, the low cost structure thing.

That's a Walton thing.

That's a Sol Price thing.

That's a Jeff Bezos thing.

That's a Rockefeller thing.

That's the most common theme in the history of entrepreneurship.

Every single thing.

Jeff is like, we're going to have a low cost structure.

We're going to have a low cost structure.

We're going to be efficient.

Somewhere along the line.

25 years later now, the technology startups is like we can just spread money all the time because there's no interest rate.

There's just money coming back.

He built Amazon at a pretty different time than founders today.

The business laws of physics were different.

There were interest rates.

Yeah.

Versus when there weren't.

Well, he started when there were none.

That's true.

And then the environment changed as he was building it.

Yep.

In 1997, like you could imagine that in 2018, if all of your competitors had raised a billion dollars and were, you know, trying to chase market share as fast as possible, you either have to exit that market because you're going to lose, or play that game on the field.

Or find, even better, find a different way.

Like be more resourceful.

But be more resourceful.

It's easy to say, but when all your competitors are hiring all the best engineers by throwing a million dollars a year at them, you're just not going to be able to build a good product if you don't try to play that game also.

Yeah, for sure.

But like the whole thing, like when Peter Thiel says this in his book, Paul Graham says it it's just like startups don't have the advantage right of.

You're not going to outspend Microsoft or Netflix.

So you've got to find underdeveloped talent, right?

You've got to find these people that if they were decredentialed or if they were the well-knowns, then they're going to go take you're going to work for me 80000 in some stock options or go make a million dollars a year at Netflix.

So that's the whole thing.

It's like you're not going to win unless you are capable of finding underdeveloped talent.

Silicon Valley used to be able to build high growth and profitable startups.

The rule used to be you couldn't go public until you had over 100 million in revenue and you were profitable.

If you didn't check both of those boxes, you weren't going to IPO.

And in 2021, of all the companies that went public, it had to be single digit percentage that were profitable.

Or any of them.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's crazy.

The game just changes.

Well, to your point, if you have free money, you know the money supply.

Grass like it spans, it's raining down.

That's going to build.

Did you listen to Doug Leone on?

I know you guys had him on your show, but did you hear him on Invest Like the Best?

Yeah, he was great.

Like, he said, he's like, he was telling crazy stories.

I loved everything about that guy.

I loved him when I heard him on your podcast too.

It was like that tough love.

This is what I'm into, right?

He still has.

I think maybe my favorite quote, favorite quote, said live on an acquired podcast of You could burn cigarettes in our arms and we wouldn't flinch.

And then he has a great line.

He's like, I want you to know we were killers.

We weren't killers to make the most money.

We were killers to get the job done.

But he made the point and very few people probably know more about the venture industry than that guy right.

I would imagine he's up there.

And he's like, of course.

You have money raining down.

He didn't use that word.

He's like, it just creates bad habits.

Yeah.

It is crazy how many things in my life I falsely attributed to something that were not just interest rates.

Like so many things.

The answer is just like, oh, it is that way because we live in a zero interest rate environment.

And the human brain likes to tell stories.

And at the end of the day, it's like things are the way they are because of mean reversion and what the current interest rate climate is.

I wish...

I'm going to pull up something.

Like, this is what I mean.

Goes back to Buffett.

Like, if you just, we should have, I wish I knew this.

I had read this.

I didn't remember it though.

This is Warren Buffett on interest rates, right?

He says.

Oh, is this from Laws of Gravity?

In Snowball?

No, this is from his shareholder letters.

He sent it in 84, 88, something like this.

I think the intro to Snowball.

I think the scene that opened the vignette that opens it is Sun Valley.

Right before the bubble burst, the tech bubble burst.

Oh, no, this is like a decade and a half before.

Oh, okay, okay.

This is why it's like so, it's like, God, like you could have made such better decisions.

I could have made such better decisions.

If you had just known this and he had known it for 40 years before it happened.

I posted this um on twitter and I Opened up the next day.

I'm like, why does this have two and a half million views?

It's like elon replied.

He goes.

Yep.

I was like, oh okay, I was like, what the like, what like?

Damn, you people really like interest rates on steroids.

So I go Warren Buffett on interest rates and the headline is they power everything in the economic universe.

So that was what Elon was responding up to.

And this is Warren writing in the 80s.

Exactly what you're saying.

The value of every business, the value of a farm, an apartment, house or any other economic asset is 100 sensitive to interest rates.

That's because all you're doing when you're investing is transferring money to someone now in exchange for a stream of money which you expect to come back in the future.

And the higher the interest rates are, the less that present value will be.

This is fantastic.

Interest rates are to asset prices sort of like gravity is to an apple.

When interest rates are low, there is little gravitational pull on asset prices.

We just lived through this, right?

Totally.

Textbook.

Yeah.

When interest rates are low, there is little gravitational pull on asset prices.

Interest rates power everything in the economic universe.

Because I found that, because all this remember this inflation went crazy like a year or two ago, whatever.

And i was like okay, every time that happens, all i do is i have um, you can buy the kindle version of buffett shareholder letters for like two bucks.

I know it's crazy and i search it for, like interest rates, inflation.

And i just go and i read okay, this is what you need, a billion dollars off that two dollar purchase.

There you go and so like you'll say okay, this is what he said inflation.

And then you see what year he said it and it's just like and that's where i found that i go what do you say about interest rates?

Boom 1980, whatever.

And he just laid out.

It's so funny because what he also did right there is for every college finance sophomore that's having to go through a class to do DCFs and they're like I don't understand this.

This is complicated.

Like he just explained conceptually, a discounted cash flow model there in a way that was like unbelievably digestible.

He's so good at that.

The clarity of thought.

Because he wants the microphone.

But also he just educated you in a way that makes more sense and is interesting and you're entertained by, and you might build a business off that, and then you might want to sell one day, or whatever the case is.

This is where I'm spending a lot more time of really trying to work on storytelling ability and concision.

The value is in the compression and the distillation.

If you could listen to... an audiobook for 25 hours.

But if I can give you the best idea or one idea that changed your life and I can do it every week or whatever in a couple minutes some of that value is gonna be brought back to me.

And all that comes from is What I realize is all my heroes have like.

What they have in common is like the unbelievable clarity of thought.

Like Steve Jobs, Charlie... Like you're not going to be like, oh, what does that mean?

They take unbelievably complex things.

Like you're not advertising to a standing army.

You're advertising to a moving parade.

Make it in a memorable way.

And then you carry that maximum with you forever.

How do you get better at that?

You said you're working on it.

Reps.

Just straight up reps.

Like thinking about it.

And then hearing yourself back.

So the advantage I have of that edit is...

Yeah.

You can say something and like, oh, that was so good.

And then you hear it back.

And sometimes it's even better or many times it's worse.

It's like, oh, I lost it.

I know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

But you missed this part that doesn't make any sense.

And so normally I have to cut it.

I don't think I've ever re-recorded something.

We only did that for one episode ever.

It's really hard to do.

What, re-record?

Yeah.

Do you know which episode we did it for?

No.

It was recent.

Hmm.

NFL.

David and I got on and re-recorded 40 minutes of material over maybe 15 different parts of the episode.

The original recording of that episode was really rough.

The NFL episode was too long when we started.

It took way too long to get to the interesting part, the Pete Rozelle era.

And so we had this massively bloated beginning and then we had a story arc that didn't cleanly resolve and we had a bunch of concepts where we didn't nail the explanation.

And so we went in, we cut like half of the first epoch of the story.

We recorded new bits to like create nice rising action and resolution on the Roselle era.

And then we recorded another like 10 areas where we were just like, this wasn't said super tight.

And I'm really curious if people noticed because we had to like, we basically had to voice act.

Like we had to listen to the way that we sort of came into that segment, get that in our head.

This was your theater background right coming in and then like pick it up from there.

But yeah, your editing is so good.

We've talked about like back catalog sponsorship and you told me what you're doing with like zoom info and i've been listening to your back catalog and it's like dude, it's like it sounds like it.

It was there the day you did it.

It is perfect and i know, because we talk about this, that that ad was not there, But it sounds like it's there.

That's the goal.

The NFL episode is what I meant.

It's a crazy story, but even there is a lesson where you guys I text this to you totally changed the way I think about things.

Or maybe we were talking on Zoom about this.

Where it's like, I never even thought of that.

The NFL is the largest media company.

I hadn't either.

And the funny thing is that was a David Rosenthal insight that the NFL is the single largest media property by value.

And the funny thing is, if you go look at, because we did this for the Nintendo episode, you go look at the largest media properties, they list Mario... they list pokemon and they and then and i think if you sort the the list includes like video games and movies and so there's like the mcu in there and there's star wars in there but like they don't think the nfl is way bigger than all of those yeah but it's not on the list because people don't think of it as like a media property i'm looking for stuff like that both to do episodes on and as um for investing too is like what is something that is just so like in the air that people don't even realize what it is or what's a comparison we can make that is super eye-opening but people haven't thought to compare those two things before yep which is why i tie things into past because it's like oh this episode 244 the idea no but the idea behind this is like we've seen this before yeah yeah yeah i reread like the show notes on like the johnny ive episode i did Johnny said something that was great.

And he said, he goes, one of Steve's talents was identifying markets full of second rate products.

And so like, he would be like, oh, there's the opportunity here.

And we're both, we're all podcast addicts, right?

And the reason that we get along.

And it's a market full of second rate products.

And because you know how hard it is to do.

And when you go and listen to other business podcasts and, like I had a friend, his friend has a podcast.

And he's like hey, these three guys.

They have large social media followings but it does not translate to episodes which people don't understand.

Yeah, rarely will.

Yeah.

And they're like, would you listen to their episode and give it feedback?

Right?

And we went, like, so I was like, yeah, listen to it.

And I go, it's three guys sitting around talking whatever happens to pop to their mind.

What did you expect to happen?

Which is kind of what's happening here.

I was thinking the same thing.

I was like, oh, we need some self-awareness.

To all listeners, we apologize.

This episode lacks craft.

There's zero chance that people aren't Do.

People interested in entrepreneurship and investing are not finding this interesting.

Because the prep for this is not... three guys that have a million other things to do.

It's three guys that do this all the time, over and over again.

That's going to cop up naturally, in a conversation that you can be like oh, I didn't know about this.

There's a bunch of people probably like, I didn't know who Evan Land was.

I didn't know Ogilvy.

I never thought about the NFL as the largest media company.

But their problem thing is there's no value proposition.

This is actually something that ties into much of what we've talked about over the last couple hours.

People are going to do what they want to do.

And if people can do what they want to do and are given unfettered freedom to run in it, they can do great things.

If people are forced to do things that they don't want to do, they're not going to make great things.

Or either forced to or choose to put themselves in a situation, for whatever reason, where they're doing something they don't want to be doing.

They're not going to be very good at it.

I think that's one of the reasons why we find ourselves so attracted to episodes that highlight craft is because that's sort of like how we think about Acquired.

Like if LVMH, Benchmark it's like people who do few things but do them exceptionally well are just so entrancing to study.

I think this goes back to what you were just saying, and I want to go to the crafting.

Charlie, again, has these simple ideas.

Most of the problems are that you're just not intensely interested in what you're working on.

And he's like, I don't care how smart you are.

And Charlie's smarter than almost everybody else.

He goes.

I was not successful until I moved myself into a position where I worked on something I was intentionally interested in.

These small rules carry most of the weight.

It's like, how bad do you actually want it?

And if you're not willing to do those things, then there's nothing wrong with that.

Like, entrepreneurship is for a very small percentage.

I'm not one of these people who think everybody can be an entrepreneur.

I would like to see more of them.

But there's no safety net.

It's like no one's telling you what to do.

No one had to tell you guys hey, you should buy microphones and do a bunch of research and pick a name.

We didn't buy microphones to start.

Oh, yeah.

I think the most interesting thing is that like I think we've talked about this concept before on air is that if someone's going to advise you on starting a podcast, they would say do a 30 to 40 minute episode and like, do it weekly.

You know so there's, and you release it at the same time all the time.

Have a guest.

So that way that person promotes it too.

And we're like, okay, well we do the opposite of all of those things.

And I think it's like my.

The conclusion I've come to is advice is an average and And reality is a distribution, and averages suck because they hide the distribution.

You kind of want to know the shape of the distribution and you kind of want to know like things that apply to your specific data point, not like the average thing.

And I think like advice is always an average that hides the distribution.

And if you know that you're actually an outlier in some way, then you have to sort of like selectively follow advice because it may not apply to you.

Charlie told me a fantastic story about this where he was singing the praises of BYD that they're kicking ass.

He told me, not just me, I'm with a group of people.

They make batteries for cars.

Yeah, but he started out doing knockoff cell phones in Korea or something.

I forgot the guy's founder's name, and I apologize, but he was telling me the life story.

But he was saying that the founder...

That Charlie and Li Lu, Lu Li.

Li Lu.

Li Lu gave the founder advice and he ignored it and he was right.

He's like, don't go in electric cars or whatever it was that he did.

He's like, and he, you know, selling, I think he said like 2 billion cars.

Like, I forgot what, 2 million cars.

There's no way he sold 2 billion cars in a year.

So like, he's like sold 2 million cars.

China is a big market.

Yeah.

So he's just like, and he did it.

And he gets all the credit because Lee and me told him not to do it.

And he's just like, same to your point.

It's game tape.

It's just like when Kobe is watching this particular play of Michael Jordan that may never appear in his life.

And maybe the move he did wasn't the right move for what Kobe did, but maybe it influences his other thing.

It's just like the life is complex and messy.

And you can think you're really smart.

And until you have a two and a half year old and they ask you, why is that the way?

And you answer the question.

And then their follow-up question is going to be why?

And eventually you're gonna get to 11 where like, I don't know.

Like, I don't know why it's like that.

Everything ends at I don't know.

It's like, I don't know.

And so like, of course there's no certainty.

Like that's why if you have to, if you crave certainty, you've got to get a job.

But there wasn't even Facebook when I was in college, because I had to work full time and went at night.

But my college did not have Facebook.

It was just coming out.

So we had MySpace.

And my MySpace, you could put a quote, right?

Like at the header.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah.

And I've always thought like this for my entire life.

It was like there's no security in life, only opportunity.

And I think that's what we did.

So investors and entrepreneurs are going for opportunity at the expense of security.

And if you need security, you can get a job.

But we see like...

Everybody said, go into tech, go into tech, go into tech.

Look, you make all this money.

I think this is a super mispriced thing.

I think people who crave security, which all humans crave some level of security, sort of mispriced security, because no jobs are as secure as we think they are, but they definitely cap your upside.

And people it's like is founding a company or going into business for yourself as an entrepreneur extremely risky.

Yes, it is.

But is it actually that much riskier than a job where you could get laid off or the sector could go through a downfall?

Or like there are a lot of things about having a job that are not nearly as secure as people think they are.

Steve Wozniak and Jobs.

They're like, worst case scenario, if this doesn't work, we'll just go get Jobs.

We're broke anyways.

Right.

Let's just try.

And he, like, sells his van for, like, $1,500.

Like, oh, I'm just all in on Apple.

Like.

To me that's like again.

I think a lot of this is like people are asking like is entrepreneurship like innate?

Can it be taught?

Can there be a school of entrepreneurship?

And I was like, well, ask Charlie Munger if he taught entrepreneurship. uh, a business class.

What, what did he say?

He's like, I would just teach the history of what you guys do.

He's like I teach the history of a hundred companies and I would talk about what went right and what went wrong.

There's no security.

There's no.

He's not saying yeah, take my class and on the other end, you get this degree that guarantees business success.

That doesn't exist.

Well, that's what's cool.

Like, uh, They have been teaching entrepreneurship for the last 50 years.

So I went to UCF, which is this diploma mill, essentially.

And I was in the pilot entrepreneurship program, right?

The very first year.

And it's a two-year program.

Take us back to that.

Yeah.

Were you thinking about...

What was your relationship to entrepreneurship before starting the Founders Podcast?

So I have never been on a job review.

I've only had two jobs in my life.

But I was like, there was no entrepreneurship community.

There was no entrepreneurship industry, right?

So my first business was, this is a long story, but like...

I had been accustomed I was talking about this yesterday.

By the time I was 17, I had been accustomed to working full-time and going to school right.

So people are like, oh, you work a lot on Founders.

It's like, I don't have to go to school.

I can do this all the time.

You work at halftime, as far as you're concerned.

Yeah, so it's just like...

He's like, listen, you don't have to pay rent, but, like, I don't have any money for you.

So, like, if you want something, you gotta go get it, right?

And the good thing about my dad.

He's a Cuban immigrant, not educated, but like the best piece of advice that he ever gave me and my brother was a maximum.

He's like, don't half-ass things, right?

So he does it in like a blue collar.

He's a truck driver, like you know, that kind of thing where he's like, he prides himself on the fact that like like, he'll work 72 hours straight, right.

But he never made a lot of money and never had an education.

Like his mom wasn't good, whatever.

And they had to escape Castro's Cuba.

My dad was born in Cuba.

Wow.

So it's like, imagine like I talked about this on, because you know Patrick's at the end of every episode he says he's like what's the nicest thing somebody ever did to you or for you did to you for you?

And I was like, man, like something that, it was a decision that happened way before I was born.

And like my grandfather, is in Cuba in 1959, 1958.

And he, again, not an educated man, he worked as a butcher and worked in a factory that made shoes.

He's married and he's got a baby.

That baby is my dad.

And Castro comes to power.

And he doesn't have a lot of money, doesn't speak English.

And yet he had some kind of insight that I need to get out of here, right?

And he goes to a country, picks up, loses everything not that you had a lot, anyways goes to a country, knows nobody doesn't speak the language.

When I sat down, the first thing me and Sam Zell talked about and I think helped bond us to the point where at the end he said he liked my energy and everything.

So hopefully he liked me, I don't know was in his story.

I was like because I had obviously read his autobiography and one of the first things me and Sam talked about was Sam, I understand and empathize with your story because Sam's story is his dad being Jewish, getting the last train out of Poland before the Nazis bomb it.

Literally the last train out.

18 members of his family, his dad went around to saying, we gotta get out of here, this is not good.

They're like, no, we're gonna stay.

They're all dead.

Sam's dad and his mom have a daughter.

They get to America.

His mom's pregnant.

Sam is born in America.

And so in that book, Sam's dad's always telling him you don't understand how lucky you are to be born here.

And I was like, I understand that mentality because I grew up meeting.

Cubans have this thing called Nocho Bueno, which is they don't celebrate.

My wife's Colombian, so I married into a Colombian family.

They do this too.

They don't celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day.

They do it the night before.

It's a Christmas Eve.

And so I grew up.

You know, for as long as I can remember, I was like 8 7 10, 10 years old, meeting people that came over on rafts.

And you would see these things.

I've seen these in person, right?

It's just like... The rafts.

Think about how bad it has to be.

It's like 50 miles, right?

90 miles, right?

I'm going to go over to the study the University of Miami just did on this.

90 miles, you're...

You are a parent.

Hopefully you might be a parent one day.

You love your kids way more than you love yourself.

There's people that came.

Hundreds of thousands of people went to the edge of the island and put their kids on a raft, just in hopes that they get to America.

And so the problem is you don't make the announcement to everybody.

It's like hey, tomorrow we're leaving on a raft because you get caught, imprisoned or killed or whatever the case is.

And so the University of Miami did this study.

It was like well, how many people did this?

We know hundreds of thousands survived right, and they estimate that like half at least i think it's something like half a million people perish.

Never got there.

There's a conversation with um.

There's this ufc fighter named jorge masvidal who was in miami.

He's a cuban guy and his dad was one of the ones that escaped.

He went on a.

Their raft was a made out of a like a truck tire, like you know, like think of like a size of like a bulldozer tire right wow, It's his uncle and two 14-year-old boys.

They get off path, right?

Their water wound up being like contaminated.

So you can't drink.

You'll die.

How do they propel it anyway?

Like how do you make sure it gets to Florida?

You have like – some have oars and some have like –

See that blanket over there?

You try to make a sail out of a blanket.

Some of these are unbelievably ingenuity.

For uneducated, they don't have the internet.

It's unbelievable.

In his case, I know they had oars.

I think they had a sail.

They get close enough to the Bahamas.

They haven't drank water for three or four days or something.

A pigeon lands on the ore.

They wind up killing the pigeon, opening it apart and drinking the blood.

That's the only thing that's saved.

And so now his, so he gets to America, eventually gets to go from the Bahamas to America.

Now his son is like you know, makes millions and millions of dollars, like as a professional fighter and a celebrity and all this other stuff.

So anyways, long story short, the one thing like I, my dad's still alive.

I told you my mom passed away.

Um, but like, I really think like my dad for just like, he did not baby me at all.

He's just like, you gotta like figure out how to get a job.

Yeah.

And so I worked at, um, back then this, this is something that Paul Graham made the point of, right?

He's like dude.

When I was a kid, the only jobs available were, like you know, scoop ice cream or something.

And like, you've probably met them.

I met some 17 year old founders, a bunch of founders.

Um You talk to them, they're on their second company.

I'm like, what?

They're like, oh yeah, when I was like ninth grade, I did this Gmail plug-in.

I had this SaaS tool.

Yeah, I made $40,000 a month.

I was making so much money, my parents let me drop out of high school so I can do this business.

I'm like, I worked at a car wash, dude.

I made $4.65 an hour.

You know?

So anyways, long story short, I would go to school year round, right?

Because I had figured this out where it's like oh, most people in summer school they were forced to.

I went to public school my whole life, right?

And so, like people would go to public school, they would be forced to because you failed something else.

But if you elected to do that, in six weeks, you get a full semester's credit.

And there's two six-week terms.

Yeah, like mini-mesters.

So I always, even when I was in college, I did this.

I would go to school year round, right?

And so in high school, I went to school so much.

That by the time I got to my last two years of high school, I was in this program called OJT, which is on-the-job training.

So instead of having six periods, you would leave after the fourth period and you'd have to have a job and you would get two of your other credits through your employer.

So your employer would have to fill out paperwork, like, is David cleaning cars?

And like, oh, there's a baby that came in and threw up.

He did a good job with that.

It was disgusting.

But the benefit of that was being able to work full time, make enough money where I could like buy.

I bought like a new car with my own money, like all that other stuff.

And so like then I realized like oh like, I think I was making like 400 or 500 a week in high school, which is freaking really good.

This is like late 90s, early 2000s.

And then I got promoted to being a detailer.

That's like you have client list.

And then you start developing relationships.

It's like every other business.

And they're like, hey, I love what you do.

Would you do this at my house?

Or would you do it on my boat that you don't do?

Or like whatever.

And so my first business was just detailing cars and boats and taking out this other stuff where it's like okay, I spent an hour waxing this guy's car.

I might make 20 bucks.

I do it at his house.

I make $150.

And so, like I've always just had that like and again, there's not.

Like, this is a story.

You guys read in the books and the stories.

It's like, there's no master plan here.

Yeah.

It's like, hey, I need to make money.

It's the opportunity.

All of my other friends were working at McDonald's Chick-fil-A where you just said something like they cap.

I never had a capped upside.

I did all these other businesses.

I started in college because I thought I was going to be a lawyer.

This is so silly because all my friends that are lawyers hate it.

I dodged a bullet there.

That's the dream.

The immigrant dream is for their kids to become lawyers and doctors.

Not with my parents.

My parents never said the word college to me once.

Not one time because they're both high school dropouts.

So, like, they never – like, I was one of the only kids in high school to never have a curfew.

Like, my parents knew I was independent and left me – they gave – that's the best thing they did.

It's like, oh, David can take care of himself.

Yeah.

They thought – my mom told me.

She's like, I just thought you were a lot smarter than everybody else in our family.

So, like – We trusted you to make the right decision.

Well, I was also driven, too.

But she –

Because you have to understand like being smart in this family is not like being Like the bar is low, in the sense that, like they're both coming from multiple generations of people that did not prioritize education or self-improvement.

So that's why I'm so, like, ferocious in this, because I didn't see that, you know?

And so...

This demonstrated when my mom was dying of cancer.

So, like you know, HIPAA has this thing where like, they're not going to share paperwork or information unless, like it gets permission from the person.

And, like, my mom could choose whoever she wanted to.

She could have chose her husband, right?

They had a bad relationship.

They got divorced and then remarried.

They should have stayed divorced, but whatever.

And you see that with actions.

We said that actions express priority.

She's like, we're in there.

And she's like, who do you want the paperwork?

Who do you want us to communicate?

She's like, David.

Not her other kids, not her husband, not her sister.

She trusted me implicitly.

And so I essentially, they never mentioned college, so I just kept this routine.

I was like, people are like, oh, they're like, what do you want to do for a living?

And I remember watching TV when I was younger.

I was like, well, I want to be rich.

And you think when you're younger, you don't know anything.

Who's rich on TV?

I liked Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

You could be a judge or a doctor.

And I was like, oh, I can't see blood.

Like that freaks me out.

So now I could be an attorney.

So I went to school and I worked full time and I was trying to hustle anything I could do.

And so the idea was like okay, I'm just going to go undergrad for business because I'm interested in business anyways.

But I'm only doing that till I get, till I go to law school.

And the point of this story was not to go on this deviation.

But I was in the entrepreneurship program, the pilot one, right.

Because I was already interested in trying to make money in any way possible.

And this is how bad the entrepreneurship was.

And this is why I'm kind of jealous of these young kids, where now you actually have an entrepreneurship industry and there's stuff you can learn from.

The head, the main, what is it called?

Like the main subject, entrepreneurship 101, right?

The curriculum, yeah.

Yeah, but there's all these other classes, but entrepreneurship 101 is run the teacher, right?

What is her credentials?

Her dad started an AC company in Florida.

You're going to make a lot of money.

Yeah, that's a good one.

And he died on the job because he got electrocuted to death.

Oh, God.

And she inherited the company, and then she ran it, and so she's the teacher.

And so the curriculum was terrible.

It was terrible.

This is kind of like Charlie Munger says you should read.

If you want to learn about incentives in a really difficult business, read Les Schwab's autobiography, which I did because Charlie told me to.

I did it like episode a long time ago.

And he's like.

This guy made a ton of money in a really hard business which is like tires and like oil changes and stuff like that.

And so the guy was coming into the class.

He was going to donate like $3 or $5 million to have a building named after him.

And he had one prerequisite.

He goes, I want to talk to your entrepreneurship students before I give you this money.

And I learned more in one hour from that dude than I did in two years in entrepreneurship, because he would talk for like 20 minutes and he's like open up your questions.

And I lit him up with question after question after question.

And I remember to this day, just like the simple way this is.

Like you know, He was building his business in probably the 80s and 90s.

And he's like, how did you know where to expand?

And he's like, we would pull the car registration data from the DMVs, right?

And we would know how many car owners there were in this specific radius.

And we'd have to hit, like, let's say we need 40,000 car owners in a three-mile radius.

Are there any other stores?

Put a store right there.

And they did that over and over and over and over again.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah.

And so, like, he had ideas like that.

And just, like... again, you learn through experience.

Like that guy could teach us way more because he actually did this compared to...

I think probably all three of us have an unintended impact of college entrepreneurship programs on us.

You definitely do.

I have a minor in entrepreneurship.

Really?

Yeah, from Ohio State.

Similarly, only ever went to public school.

I was a little different.

I was really into computers.

When I was 10, my dad and I found a PC on the side of the road and he was like do you want to install Linux?

And I was like, what's Linux?

And like, touch.

I mean, he's a terminal.

I was really lucky to have a dad who's an engineer.

And so I went to college for computer science.

Wait, wait, wait.

Back up.

You found a PC on the side of the road?

100%.

And you were like, let's install Linux.

And my dad's like, I'm willing to bet that thing is just old.

He's like because we're looking at the.

You know you're like at that point you could open computers.

So we're like looking at it.

He kind of like puts it apart, looks inside.

He's like, it's got all the pieces.

Like this is just an old computer that someone's throwing away.

That's amazing.

All right, keep going.

So you majored in computer science yeah, but i, i like went in thinking like i want to have some kind of like, i want to do business and tech.

But i didn't know what that meant, and so i found my way to a um, a club called the business builders club, and they were like oh, there's like a real, like an actual minor that you can take, and so sort of like, through student organizations found my way to actually doing something in the college of business which, like I go back and forth on whether undergraduate business stuff is useful because, on the one hand, But it got you plugged into your network.

All your buddies are like... It's all about people.

You guys have all done amazing things.

We just came back from my bachelor party and half the crew is the Business Builders Club Ohio State friends that I made there.

The content sucks, but the relationships are everything.

But the relationship that's what, And it's not The stuff you're learning is actually super important, but you don't have the context for why yet.

It's like you're working on a DCF model and you're like, I don't... This is useless to me.

Or you're like learning about depreciation and amortization.

You're like... this is awful because I have nothing.

Whereas my physics classes were awesome.

Like there's labs, like I can touch and feel the things and understand mechanical advantage and how the free body diagram works.

But in these business concepts are like super abstract and it's.

They weren't useful to me then but like I went and took a Coursera class last year, two years ago, on accounting.

Cause I was just like okay, like I want to actually understand accounting and in part because we talk about it on Acquired all the time and David understands this stuff more than I do and I hate it, but it is so much more useful when you understand where the rubber meets the road in the real world.

It would just be beneficial to just go out and try to sell something.

Yes.

Get real world experience.

What did Charlie, I just reread, have you guys read The Tao of Charlie Munger?

No.

I've heard it's good.

Okay.

I can't remember if I looked at it for the episode or not.

I might have.

I own the hardcover, the Kindle. and the audiobook.

That should tell you it's worth it.

By the way, I own the audiobook and the Kindle of almost every book that I own.

Including the hardcover too?

No.

You're not a hardcover person.

Because you can also switch.

That's the whisper sync or whatever it's called.

I actually hate that they sync, because my common workflow in doing acquired research is I listen to the book And then I'll take some notes and Apple notes of like half quotes where I'm like oh, I got to look this up later.

And then I go back in the Kindle and I search for the actual quote and like pull out the data to be able to use it in the episodes.

I think listening to the audio book before reading the book is very helpful.

It gives you a basic overview.

It's almost like reading a Wikipedia page before you read the biography.

It's not enough detail, but like you have okay, like watching a movie for the second or third time, you know how it ends and it gives you, you pick up on things you missed the first time.

Yep.

In the tale of Charlie Munger, though Charlie was talking about this where he's just like I learned about business at the Buffet grocery store right from the cash register.

It's like because money is the lifeblood of all.

I think the quote in the book is like money is the lifeblood of all businesses and that's where the cash, that's where the money was at this point.

And it's like you just learn and he says you learn the importance of showing up on time, how to work with people you don't like.

How to take care of your customers.

These are things that are all universally applicable.

It's another form of education.

That's the key of experience and why it's so important.

It's the most valuable form of education because it's education of life.

I love to read more than almost anybody else.

You guys obviously love to read.

There's just so much things you can't learn from books.

So it's just like, it's not enough.

David, what was your college, entrepreneurship?

Well, it's funny.

It's more thematic than an actual impact.

But I can't remember if I've talked about this before.

Princeton had then just one entrepreneurship class.

It was like one class in the Department of Electrical Engineering.

I was not an electrical engineer.

But people knew about this because it was like, oh, this is cool.

So senior year.

I had already the recruiting happened in the fall, so I was already like, had my job, investment banking job that I was going to go do.

A whole other can of worms.

But I was like, oh, you know, I'll take this class.

It's supposed to be good.

I'm going to go work on Wall Street.

I should learn about high-tech entrepreneurship was the name of the class.

And it was, like, all, you know, guest lecture.

It was case method.

And Ed Chow, the professor, would have guests come in.

One of the guests either the last or like the second to last class was Tim Ferriss.

Right before he published the 4-Hour Workweek.

No way!

He asked Buffett a question at the annual meeting.

Oh, he totally hustled this.

He traded on that name for years before he made it as Tim Ferriss.

Because he just went in for one class.

It was one class.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was one day of one course that was this case study class.

And I think he had taken the class. when he was at Princeton.

And the professor liked him and kind of took a shine to him.

So you and I then are guest lecturers at Columbia.

Oh, yeah, totally.

Oh, yeah, we're guest lecturers everywhere.

So he came in, and so he was working on the book, but it was done but was about to get published.

And so he came in, and the whole class was basically telling his story and then showing the book.

I remember in my notes for the class, I titled them.

I have them still somewhere on an old computer.

The title was Supplement Guy.

Do what you love.

That is the moral of the story.

Oh, my God.

And then, oh, man, afterwards.

Talking about missed opportunities.

He's older than me, but he's not that much older.

He's only been out for a couple years.

So class ends and he was like, hey guys, anybody want to hang out?

I'm going to go hang at Terrace.

Princeton has eating clubs.

They do have fraternities, but one of them is Terrace.

Jenny was actually in Terrace.

Basically, I'm going to go hang out and have a good time with anybody who wants to come along.

And I was like, Now I'll see you on the podcast circuit later.

I love how this just was uncovered in random conversation, right?

It was just like computer science, investment banking, law.

No common denominator.

I use theater more than I use computer science.

The idea from venture capitalists and podcasters, right?

I went and my daughter asked me to go speak at Career Day.

Oh, hell yeah.

And This is last year, so she would have been.

That's like the greatest thing ever.

She would have been in fourth grade, right?

I can't wait.

And so she's like, well, Daddy, you have a weird job.

You have a weird job.

Yeah, she's like, will you come in and give a talk?

And so you mentioned earlier entrepreneurs are like odd ducks and crazy people.

They see rules.

It's like, oh, that's just words written down on paper.

I'll just do my own thing.

So I show up.

I was like, yeah, I'll do anything for you, whatever you want.

And so I show up and there's two – each class at the school she has has two teachers, right?

And so they're like, oh, well, we didn't – hi, Mr. Senator, we didn't get your email.

Did you get like – did you bring like a thumb drive?

I'm like, what was I supposed to email and why would I have a thumb drive?

And they're like, you're a PowerPoint presentation.

And I go – Have you ever made a PowerPoint presentation in your life?

And I go, no, but this is – I go, they're nine.

Why would I make a PowerPoint presentation?

Yeah.

And so I go there, and I was like, listen, I'm fine.

I got this.

They're like, you're going to wing it.

They didn't use the word wing it, but I forgot what it was.

You're like, no, really.

I got this.

I show up, right?

And they're all sitting on the floor.

And there's like 39-year-olds.

Are you like, stand up?

No, no, no.

No, never.

I want to see some energy.

And I was like, I talk for two minutes, right?

I have a 30-minute slot.

I go...

I talked for two minutes.

I was like, listen, don't listen to your parents.

Don't listen to your teachers.

I go, follow whatever you're intensely.

I just gave Charlie Munger's advice.

I go, what are you interested in?

Keep following that.

Even if it doesn't, there's not an obvious career path.

And I used a word.

I go, it's highly likely that the job that you're going to have has not yet been invented.

I was like, there was no such thing as a podcaster.

Like, I couldn't go to school for podcasting.

Yeah, they're all going to be prompt engineers.

Or whatever. or whatever.

And like, so that was like the two minute summary.

And I said a little bit more than that.

I go, okay, now what questions do you have for me?

And so I spent the next 28 minutes.

I told him the importance of reading.

I was like, listen, your friends are all going to be these stupid apps.

I was like you're going to have no attention span.

Learn how to read and read whatever you're interested in.

Meanwhile, your daughter is probably like, oh, my God.

So I'll tell you the funny thing.

So then 28 minutes, and then they're telling me about books they love.

They're like, oh, I like Harry Potter, and I like this, and I like travel.

And we had like the greatest time, right?

So I come back.

There's like 9 in the morning.

I leave.

And my daughter gets out later on in the day, and she goes –

Daddy, thank you very much.

My friends thought your talk was the best.

I was like, oh, that's, like, interesting.

Like, I'm glad they liked it.

I go, well, let me ask you a question.

Who came after me?

And they're like, oh, it was, you know, John's mom or something.

I was like, oh, what does John's mom do?

She's like, I go, well, first of all, did she do a PowerPoint?

She goes, yes, everybody did a PowerPoint.

And I go, what does John's mom do?

She goes, oh, she's a corporate attorney.

I'm like, so you, like.

They're nine years old.

And also, that's like the alternate future for you.

Like it was like... You would have had a PowerPoint.

It was like Bizarro David going after you.

It would be interesting, like what you would Yeah, but then again I was living in Florida and, like the law, there is not a lot Like you'd have to move to, like DC.

Like the law.

There is like insurance, like.

So i'm at the san francisco airport right, which is way nicer than miami international airport, by the way.

It's like i've never been to miami.

Oh, it's like third world man.

It's like the ceilings are low.

They have the new ver.

They built like this new part.

But sfo was way nicer than mine and i see this billboard of it says the world's are the america's largest personal injury attorney.

That guy was in orlando.

I was going to school in orlando at the time.

His name is john morgan.

He was famous back then and now he has, so like that i probably work for him.

Like I'm like chasing ambulances or whatever.

No disrespect.

Like, whatever you've got to do to pay your bills, like, I have no problem with that.

But, yeah, I just thought it was funny.

I was like, you also have to think independently.

Like, they're nine years old.

Like, they don't want to sit through.

I don't even want to sit through a PowerPoint.

Nobody wants to sit through a PowerPoint.

No, you should try to, like, I would have just brought a video game console or something.

I was like, that's my video game console.

You know?

That's a viable career.

Blake and Mitch.

Blake Robbins and Mitch Lasky made the point in one of their GameCraft episodes that I never even thought of.

They're like, you know how hard it is?

How few pure software companies are that sell over a billion dollars a year in software?

And how many game companies?

They said it on the podcast.

There's so many video game companies that make so much money.

I think they say this is bigger than...

The video game industry is bigger than music, movies, and books combined or whatever.

And it has been since the 90s.

Yeah, that was.

The interesting thing we uncovered on the Nintendo episode is that stat gets bandied around Bantered.

Bandied?

Bandied, yeah.

Bandied around a lot right now, which is It's very interesting because the video game market has done this, but the video game market has basically always been larger than TV and movies combined, but has never gotten attention or like been thought of.

It's one of those secrets that's been out there for 30 years that people haven't paid attention to.

Yeah, all right, i'm afraid of these memory cards filling up.

Um, this has been wonderful.

Yep, thanks for having me.

Guys listeners, thank you.

We almost never say this, but i think we gotta do this again.

Let's do it again.

I'll be here next week.

Thanks guys, we'll see you next time.

All right, bye.

[The Art of Mastery: A Deep Dive into Founders and Acquired]-[A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast]

📋 Summary

The Intersection of History, Business, and Mastery

The Power of the "Moving Parade"

Learning from the Oracle: Charlie Munger

The Philosophy of Craft and Ownership

The Unfair Advantage: Information Synthesis

Why Quality is the Only Strategy

Conclusion

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Art of Mastery: A Deep Dive into Founders and Acquired]-[A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast]

📋 Summary

The Intersection of History, Business, and Mastery

The Power of the "Moving Parade"

Learning from the Oracle: Charlie Munger

The Philosophy of Craft and Ownership

The Unfair Advantage: Information Synthesis

Why Quality is the Only Strategy

Conclusion

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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