All right. A sentence that has never been said before, B2B Enterprise HR Software Space is the most riveting, the most compelling SP &S story you'll ever hear.
I feel like this episode is gonna have to start with the Netflix, like da -dun!
Because this is a Netflix original level drama.
I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to.
I'll put my all in it like no days off on the road, let's travel never look the back way.
So, all right. Okay, we've got to do this story.
Parker Conrad, who is the CEO of a company called Rippleing, they do like payroll as well as other kind of back office stuff for startups, tweeted, came out two days ago and said, Rippleing sued deal today.
Our lawsuit alleges that deal cultivated a spy at Rippleing and orchestrated a long running trade secret theft, the spy search deal in our system 23 times a day on average, letting him spy on deals on customers who are considering switching to rippling and then he posts screenshots of the lawsuit.
Did you read this? Yes.
And we should preface this saying, I think you have friends at deal, I'm an investor and deal.
So I invested in deal many years ago.
It's one of the best investments.
I really like Alix.
I don't know I'm super well.
Like we're not like buddy, buddy, but like Alex the founder of deal, I think is awesome.
And I use deal. I think deals a great product.
And so that's kind of my bias and context coming in is I like deal and I invested in deal.
And when I talk about this… Everything here it's allegedly and it's also this is just what the lawsuit says.
And also it's just comedy for me.
Like I don't know about any of this and I am just like everybody else on Twitter.
This is for entertainment for me.
So please don't take this too seriously.
What's the baseline story?
Okay, so basically the story is Ripling notices… he's saying, we noticed somebody was looking up deal a lot in our systems, so then this work is good.
He's like, So we created a honeypot, the best the, the story behind this is basic.
Like I don't, I wouldn't even be smart enough to come up with the idea of this.
This is amazing. So the way it worked was, I think I read that it was rippling's founder and their legal team, and maybe one other executive were in a room one night, Saying to themselves dude deal is spying on us.
What is going on? How do we catch them?
And they said well, you know, how did they know they were spying like I don't know that they just noticed on the log This guy was searching deal a lot.
That's I don't know crazy Yeah, so there's always there, you know, no matter how thin a pancake.
There's always two sides That's what my dad always tells me.
So I don't know we Yeah, we only know this side So this side is that they had a suspicion and then they're sitting there one night and they go I got it let's make a screenshot or let's actually make a fake Slack channel that no one at the company knows about and we're gonna call it deal defectors.
Meaning all of deals X employees who now work at RipLing, they're talking trash about deal and they're spilling the beans.
Turns out that was a channel that no one at the RipLing was a part of but they emailed the deal team and they go, this exists and you would love to see it.
And then the next day after sending the letter, they notice someone tried to login in to this deal defectors Slack channel.
And that seems strange.
Since the only people who know about this are deals, three people on their executive team, and Ripling's three person executive team.
And it wasn't us Ripling.
Therefore it had to be one of the deal executives who knew about this espionage and spying situation and had access to the back end of Ripling's log in.
Is that right? I think that's right.
So that's allegedly what happens.
So they go to the local authorities, because I think this has happening in Ireland, by the way.
Like he's working at the Ireland, the Dublin office and they go to local authorities.
They get like whatever the, the ability to kind of like subpoena his phone.
So so I guess what happened is person comes in, says, Hey, you've been served.
You need to hand over your phone right now.
And he says, Oh, it's upstairs in my bag.
All right. Let's go get it.
So they go up. They're looking at the bag, just a laptop in there, no phone.
And they're like, um, okay.
Where's the phone? And he's like, I gotta go to the bathroom.
So that goes to the bathroom, locks himself in the bathroom real quick.
And then the story goes, the person heard him doing something, doing something on his phone.
And he's knocking on the door, basically shouting at him like, Hey, if you delete anything on that phone, you're in violation of the law.
The story goes that the spy goes, that's a risk I have to take.
He said that. That's a risk I'm willing to take.
He said that. That's what they wrote at this thing.
And then they hear a flush.
That's the same. They hear a flush, and then the guy flees the premises.
They don't get the phone.
And then rippling orders somebody to go check the plumbing of the building to see if he flushed a phone.
Couldn't find a phone in there.
No phone. And so that's where the story stands today.
And then that's why they came out publicly and tried to like, you know, win this in the court of public opinion instead.
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Can I give three little bits of advice to anyone listening?
If you're ever going to get in trouble, one, don't say shit.
Do not say that's a risk.
I'm going to say don't say anything.
Just say, yeah, I don't want to talk or you'd be a lawyer.
The second thing, don't write down anything that you'd be afraid to be found in discovery.
And three, do not delete messages when you think you're in trouble.
That's against the law.
Dude, I don't know if I don't know if any of this is true.
There's a whole bunch of back and forth.
So here's the here's a bit of the other side of the story.
So I think someone from deel came out and here's what a deal spokesperson said weeks after rippling is accused of violating sanctions law in Russia and ceding falsehoods about deal.
rippling is trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims. We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims. All right.
I too look forward to them asserting their counterclaims. The guy who started rippling, I was a customer.
His name is Parker Conrad.
Parker previously started Zenefits.
Back in 13 or 14 or 15, that era, I think Zenefits was the fastest growing company ever.
I think it grew to like $100 million in revenue, something insane.
and Parker from what I remember, he got fired by the board because Zenefitz was like a payroll and benefits company which means you need to be pretty uptight and I think that he was accused of being a little loosey goosey.
Like it was like people were, if I remember correctly, the articles were like, people at the parties were like having sex in the hallways or something insane like that and like.
I don't think that was, well maybe that was happening but I don't think that was the issue that got him in trouble.
But that was like a canary in the car.
It was like, dude this guy, like he does it, like not everyone has their health benefits licensed, some license like that that you need to sell benefits.
I guess in order to like be a broker, a licensed broker, you had to have it in like all every state that you were operating in.
Yes it was. There's some budget compliance things.
And what had happened was either some people didn't have it, or there was another thing which was he had created a macro, like a piece of software that would just take the tests for you.
Yeah, that's what it was.
So he'd like speed through this and gets your license way faster to keep up with the growth and you didn't actually do it yourself.
And I think that's when he got in a lot of trouble.
And again, in this case, basically he got ashamed.
He got kicked out of the company.
David Sachs took over.
David Sachs, who was his COO and big investor, I think Sachs had put in like $10 or $20 million of his own money into the company and then came in as COO, because it was like the next big hot startup.
And then this came out, and then Sachs basically threw Conrad under the bus.
But they use like the, these guys are partying.
They're banging in the hallway.
It's like... They just made it look like the whole thing was a mess, whatever.
And then he took over and he got basically the shaft. And then Ripling was sort of his revenge company.
But yeah, this guy finds himself in some drama, I guess.
Parker likes to party.
Parker, Parker's putting the PA at party.
I mean, like, he likes to get down.
And now I'm hearing about, I didn't know about this Russia stuff.
So Parker lives life on the edge.
And he's kind of the bad boy, the HR sass industry.
What can you say? He needs to go Jensen leather jacket.
Just pure snakeskin.
Bad boy of HR sass is here.
I like Parker. Parker parties, man.
He gets down. He always finds himself in a sticky situation.
Sign me up. Parker should come on to MFM and we should go hang out.
But this guy likes to party, you know?
Alright, so... Alright, a lot of uninformed speculation here.
I feel like we're going to get hit with a lawsuit.
What's it going to say?
That he does a party?
Is that slander? Parker's Ring Doorbell has shown him to be home for 8pm, every night.
This Parker? Does the man in the polo and jeans not like to get down?
We deny these allegations.
Alright, so... Okay, whatever.
So there's the deal rippling thing.
There's a bunch of funny tweets about this.
It's just good comedy.
I have actually a different angle here.
I don't know if you have anything else you want to say on this, but I have a different angle, which was, got me thinking, what are some other great examples of corporate espionage in history?
And I have some for you, Sam.
Oh, okay, cool. I like that.
All right, so check this out.
I went down a little rabbit hole and I tried to find examples of great corporate espionage cases that have happened in the past. I wanna start with the British East India company.
Okay, are you prepared for this?
So basically back in the day, we're talking about like the 1800s, the British East India Company, basically it was a trading company between the UK and India, okay?
And they did two notable things.
One, which is unrelated to corporate espionage.
Did you know they had their own corporate army?
Well, I know that they were like the ballers of the earth.
They like started in like 1600s and like, basically, like help shape global trade.
So they were so prolific that like other parts of Europe, like basically they were attacked on their trade routes and there was like a lot of security concerns.
So they formed their own corporate military, which is pretty badass.
And I think, if I'm perplexity or something like that.
If I'm like the third or fourth tier AI company right now might just spin up a corporate military just to and put some shine on me and what I'm doing, make it seem like I got some trade secrets that I need to protect, just armed guards going through Soma, it'd be amazing.
Yeah, I think that every company needs a fake enemy or a fake emergency to prepare for.
I think it's good for them.
It's like when I used to be in college and we would go out and I'd be at the bar and a lot of strikeouts was going on.
A pretty low batting average, pretty low slugging percentage, She's taking a lot of L's.
What was your cold approach, opid?
What was that cold approach, opid?
Okay, here we go. Ready?
Say I have to just turn around?
I'll be the girl, I'll be the girl.
And now you're just gonna feel my body coming close to you.
Yeah, so I was hanging out with this guy.
Wait, hold on. What, what is this?
Oh, you didn't wanna grind?
Oh, no. Oh, shit. My bad.
Totally thought you wanted to grind.
That was it? The mistake grind with the immediate apology stick?
If it was on the dance floor.
All right. If we're not on the dance floor, if we're at the bar, ready?
Yeah. So I'm just turned around.
I'm looking over here.
I'm just hanging out.
Hey. Do they do drinks here?
Question. Just taking that question.
question. That was it.
Mine used to be, hey, Salvebet how many oceans are there?
Five or seven? Oh wow, that's great.
This was, I'm talking about prereading the book, The Game.
Once I read the book, The Game, then it was, hey, yeah, you guys gotta settle an argument here.
And I just literally ripped the line from the book where it's like, my roommates girlfriend is making him throw away all the pictures of his ex girlfriend and in his apartment, is that crazy or is she, if we think she's crazy, is that crazy?
And they're like, no, you gotta get rid of that.
And it's like, oh, do you want to be my girlfriend?
No, okay, nevermind.
Do you know what the worst line is, is when I would steal all of the lines from the game and then one out of 10 times, a woman would apply and say, yeah, I read the game too.
You douche. And it was just like, you go home so sad.
That was the worst. I would have thought that worked.
We have so much in common. We love the same books.
I didn't have that turn shit into gold type of persona back then.
There's a reason I was single for, like, not just all four years of college, but even two years after college.
Like, it was it was a long, long drought.
I felt like the British East Indian company just marching through the drought.
That's not exactly a drought, because the drought implies that that's not normal.
Well, yeah, exactly.
I guess it's just a desert.
What are some other ones, wait, by the way, have you ever done this with the company?
What, corporate espionage?
You think I'm cool enough to do that?
Like my, my extent of it was like having a friend at Facebook and then like telling me like what my competitors are doing.
I've been there done that a few times.
Yeah, no, I've never done anything this cool, I don't think.
But you know, I'll tell you this British ECTA Company story.
All right, so back in the day, China had like a monopoly on tea production and this was a big problem.
Tea was super popular.
China made all the tea and nobody could figure out how to make the tea.
Nobody had the seeds, nobody had any of the stuff you needed to like try to break that.
So they were all trading with China to get tea, but they didn't have anything to trade back with China.
So there was these huge trade imbalances.
And so basically Britain, I think was trading like opium into China as this only thing I could get it into China.
And China didn't like that and it created what was called the first Opium War.
And so there's literally a war broke out because of this trade imbalance with the tea.
And so what happens is the British decide to to do something about this.
And so let me tell you this story real quick.
So the East India Company, the British East India Company hire this guy named Robert Fortune.
He's a Scottish botanist and adventurer.
And they paid him, they were like, you are going to infiltrate China and you were going to steal the tea industry secrets of China.
And by the way, Google a picture of this guy, because I don't know how he pulled this off.
He looks like a Scottish man, but he disguised himself as a Chinese merchant and went underground.
He was wearing Chinese clothing, Chinese hairstyle.
He traveled deep into China's tea region, which is actually off limits to foreigners.
And he was able to get access in any study tea production, step by step, everything for planting, harvesting, drying, packaging all of it.
He didn't just observe.
He was able to collect thousands of tea plants, seeds, this guy was supposed to be Chinese.
This guy was supposed to be Chinese.
I don't know how he did it.
But it looks like me.
He's you with sideburns like sick chops.
Wow. Not only that, then he started recruiting, like turning other people.
So he started recruiting Chinese tea growers, hiring them and persuading them to leave China, secretly and relocate to India.
China. And basically he pulled it off, he goes and he steals the trade secrets, he hires the tea growers, he smuggles them out of the country, he brings the seeds, the tools, the knowledge, the trade secrets.
He gets to India and they start growing tea.
And soon after that, India surpassed China in terms of its tea production, broke the Chinese monopoly on tea and prevented future wars, actually deescalated the conflict because now there wasn't this huge trade imbalance and opium problem.
That's insane that this guy pulled this off.
How long was he in China for?
I think this was like a multi -year thing.
How exciting. That's a life worth living.
Let me give you some other ones.
All right, so now let me give you a more modern example.
Oracle versus Microsoft. Have you heard this story?
No. All right, so two giants, two successful companies.
Microsoft, if you remember in the 90s was doing antitrust cases.
And Bill Gates, there's videos of this on YouTube.
He's like in depositions, and they were just getting hauled in front of the antitrust committees and they had to defend themselves.
So he was being accused of a monopoly?
Monopolistic behaviors.
And this really was a problem for Microsoft. It slowed them down.
I think it's called like the lost decade, where basically like for a long period of time, Microsoft couldn't acquire companies.
They couldn't like, if something got hot, they couldn't release a competitor and kind of use their distribution to win because they had just gone through this like, antitrust problem.
They had to lay low.
They had to lay low exactly.
Exactly. And so Microsoft, while it's in this situation, Oracle hires all these private investigators to go and dig up dirt on Microsoft during this period of time.
And it gets found out.
But what they were doing was pretty smart.
Instead of digging up dirt on Microsoft, they were going to all these other companies that were supposed to be independent, they were kind of coming out and providing testimonials or testimony in support of Microsoft. And Like the independent, uh, the independent Institute, the national taxpayers union, they're coming out in support of Microsoft here.
And Larry Ellison from Oracle is like, no, no way.
And so Oracle hires these private investors to go dumpster diving.
And so they're digging through the trash of these, of these independent organizations, finding links where they got paid by Microsoft and they get caught.
They get caught doing this, but they're also caught that Microsoft funded these organizations.
And so they go to Larry Ellison.
And he's like, look, I had nothing to do with this.
I wasn't made aware of it until the end and I agree this was a bit unsavory but because He goes corporate espionage.
This is a public service.
We're doing our civic duty here We are taking hidden information about how Microsoft was funding these supposed independent orgs and we are making it public We hear we're doing we're doing God's work out here and just calling it public service and it's doing his civic duty I thought was incredible spin Alright, my friends, I have exciting news for that business idea that's been sitting in your notes app.
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All right, back to the pipe.
The other day, in Elon Musk interview and an Elon Musk interview, someone asked him, I think it was like Ted Cruz was like, who do you, you know, you're a lot of people think you're smart.
Who do you consider smart?
And the first person he said was Larry Ellison.
You said that. Yeah, he goes, he goes Larry Ellison, and he goes, I think Larry Ellison is one of the smarter people I work with.
He said, remember from Forrest Gump where he says a stupid is stupid does, he like goes Smart is as smart does.
So you took the inverse of that line, which I thought was pretty funny.
Smart is as smart does.
And I think Larry Ellison might be the smartest person I know.
And so it's pretty funny that I didn't, up until Larry kinda got a little bit more front facing with some of these things, I didn't, I regarded him as like just a guy who he kinda just started early and became the best. I didn't realize how sharky, not necessarily a bad way, that he actually was though.
yeah, how elite he is.
Wow. That's amazing.
Elon, I think took some of his spin.
Remember when he like, he impregnated that woman who works with him and he was just like, underpopulation is the biggest crisis we face.
Turned it into, I'm saving the planet.
And I was like, whoa.
Playa. Playa with no R at the end, man.
That is, that is incredible.
Like, can you imagine having the balls to just come out and not just defend it, not deny it, but to claim that you're doing good.
That's about all that.
That's like a story that's like in high school when you're hanging out with your buddies, smoking weed late at night, and you're just like riffing and saying the dumb shit you're gonna do in the next morning when you're sober.
Like we're gonna go, dude, we're changing now, we're gonna get up and we're gonna like, we're gonna start working out first thing in the morning.
That's like a thing that Elon would say.
This is crazy. It's like, hey, like don't you think it's kind of inappropriate?
she works with you, she's an executive company, maybe there's imbalance of power here.
Like, are you concerned about this at all?
He's like, I'm concerned about underpopulation.
Nick Cannon, just like writing notes out there.
All right. Here's some other ones, Coke First Pepsi.
Dude, did Nick Cannon just catch a stray bullet on that one?
Yeah, he's like the icon for, to be fair dude.
Dude, it's a date so, not Nick Cannon.
So, 2006 Coke First Pepsi, another, you know, Deal Rippling, Microsoft Oracle, Coke Pepsi.
These are all just like the legendary rivalries.
So an EA at Coke who is disgruntled.
This woman, Julia Williams decides, you know what?
Screw it. She leaves her post as an EA and she steals basically some trade secrets.
She takes a new, a can of their new product that's unreleased and she writes a letter to Pepsi and she says, I have the formula for Coke.
Do you want the secret formula?
And I have a new unreleased product.
She sends a letter and she says I'll give you the formula for a price.
Guess what her price was?
A hundred grand, a million, I don't know.
One point five million dollars.
And what year? 2006.
All right. So it's about three million dollars today.
Pepsi, being the good guy that it is, says, you know what?
Not doing it. They tell Coke, they say, hey, you have this woman, she's trying to sell your formula, we don't want it.
Me, you, and the FBI, let's take this woman down.
and what they do is they set up a sting operation.
And so she comes out and she's ready to sell a formula.
They do a test payment for $4 ,000 to show that they're legit.
They record her saying what she has and that she's doing this trade.
And then they lock her up, they arrest her, and she goes to prison for eight years.
Wow. Isn't that crazy?
Wow, that's a lot. Maybe like a few, Maybe too much. Yeah, maybe like a few months.
Maybe too much. Pepsi, you guys suck.
Maybe promote her, I don't know.
Eight years in prison seems like it was a lot for that.
So yeah, she got made an example out of.
That's crazy. This was like a recent story.
2006. So it looks like her boyfriend was also in on it.
Like this was like a legit scheme.
Yeah, that sucks. I like, when I hear Joya I think of an old woman who's like, oh Coke, you didn't give me a raise.
I'm gonna get back.
You know what I mean?
Like, I think that there was more to it.
Alright, that's crazy.
What do you think about Pepsi turning down the secret formula and the trade secrets and deciding to take her down?
Because what are you going to do with that?
Pepsi's like, what am I supposed to do?
Make my shit taste like coke?
Like I don't know what you expect me to do with that.
Because like the secret or the whole thing with Coke is that like only like a few people have access to it.
I don't... There's no way that's true by the way.
Let me give you a couple other quick ones Uber and Waymo.
Do you remember this one?
Do you probably remember this?
Yeah, the main character of Waymo stole a bunch of stuff from Google and Uber was going to use it and that Uber got sued.
Yeah, so exactly. So basically Anthony Lovendowski was this guy who worked at Waymo and Travis Kalanick recruits him to Uber, wants him to set up the autonomous driving stuff at Uber.
He comes from, he was at Waymo, which is the autonomous driving thing inside of Google.
He apparently downloaded 14 ,000 confidential files on the way out, maybe a bit much, maybe a little too many, too many files and could have got away with a little less.
They have the info.
He ends up getting fired from Uber, Uber has to settle, Well, Uber settles for 0 .34 % of Uber that Google owned, which is about $250 million of stock back in 2018, which I think is closer to a billion dollars now of of Uber stock.
And he had to go to prison for 18 months.
But then Trump pardoned him early, and so he got out.
He didn't want him to serve all 18 months, I guess.
Well, I understand, that's why a pardon exists.
He's like, Anthony's a big football fan, I don't want him to miss the Super Bowls only Let's get them out.
So where is he now?
This is a good question.
I wonder, is he like a damaged goods?
Or is... Surely not?
Like some VC, he was like, dude, I don't care.
Then you were like, Michael Stewart, you're not cooler.
He's the CEO of Poland Mobile, has been for three years.
Okay. I don't know what that is.
Okay. These are great stories.
I'm in on it. Do you want to hear something that's related to security?
and also I think is almost equally exciting.
Yeah, wait, wait, before we finish, I just have one more little tidbit.
The US, this is actually baked into the DNA of the United States out of - What espionage?
Espionage. Corporate espionage.
And so America's founding father and first US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton decided that basically realized that Europe was ahead of the US and actually decided to encourage intellectual piracy.
Doesn't all crime sound better when you give it like more letters, make it sound better?" And so what he said was he advocated to reward those who would bring improvements and secrets of extraordinary value into the United States, which was instrumental in making the US a safe haven for industrial spies.
And they did, this guy Samuel Slater.
My boy, I love Samuel Slater.
What are the greatest stories of all time?
What's his story? So he brought British textile technology to the US?
What does that mean?
They claim they claim a sort of actually they claim he was like had a photographic memory.
This is like the story that you're told as a kid like in history class, which is that he had a photographic memory, but basically he was from England and he memorized and partially wrote down how factories in England worked.
He came to America and he helped reinvent American factories, which spurred the industrial revolution which arguably made America what it is.
Are we pro espionage?
Josh? I think I might be.
So by the way, this guy's nickname, top five nickname, do you know Samuel Slater's nickname?
No. Slater the Trader?
Yes, that's awesome.
That's what they called him in the UK.
Yes, but he was like welcomed with open arms here.
We loved him. So yes, Samuel Slater, sort of an American hero.
That's crazy. At the age of 21, so he literally prison -baked it.
He photographically memorized all these trade secrets and then came to America and gave it to us and spurred the Industrial Revolution and made America great again.
Main America great for the first time?
Yeah, for the first time.
For sure. The inaugural Make America.
Make America great for once?
Yeah. Those hats are out of style.
That's actually pretty funny.
He made America great.
I have another story.
So last year, there's two parts to the story.
Last year, we talked about this company, Wizz.
Wizz is a cybersecurity company.
To most of our listeners, we mostly talk about small business stuff.
These guys are not that, they're enterprise cybersecurity company.
But it has two amazing components.
So one part of the story that you talked about, and by the way, these guys whiz, remember when we did Sarah's list, they were on Sarah's list. So we kind of, I didn't exactly nail it because it was, yeah, a little pet on the back.
I don't know if the mic picker that one up.
Because they were already like kicking ass.
And I don't know what the multiple was on than when we named them.
But it was at least double.
But there's two amazing stories about this.
The first is how fast they grew.
I wanna show you how fast they grew.
But before we talk about how fast they grew, we have to talk about how they started.
And you talked about this.
Wait, right, you buried the lead.
They're getting bought for $32 billion.
Oh yeah, they got bought for $32 billion, sorry.
So this company, Wis, is getting bought for $32 billion.
The story of how they started is amazing.
The story of how fast they grew, also amazing.
It just happened the other day.
But listen to this.
You, I think, are the one who brought this up.
Were you the one who talked about this guy, Gilly?
Yes. So, Gilly is an Israeli cybersecurity veteran.
So, he's exited a few companies in the cybersecurity space and he was also part of this elite group of cybersecurity specialists in the Israeli military called 8200 I believe it's called.
And he invented CAPTCHA.
He invented like, a certain type of firewall.
He invented a lot of shit.
He's an OG, the OG is OG in cybersecurity.
And so he has this thing, I believe it's called cyberstarts.
You can call it an incubator or a VC firm, but here's how it works.
So he teams up with a lot of young ex -military 8200, I think that's 8200 is the name of the part of the military where it's the cyber security specialist. So you leave that after you finish your compulsory service and you go to Gilley.
You go Gilley, sign me up.
want to start a company." And so what Gilly has done is he has this fund and in the fund is dozens or even hundreds, I believe, of cybersecurity officers at large companies, not just Israeli companies, but America companies, and what they do, these cybersecurity officers, is, yes, they say, Here's the, here's the problems I need solved, Gilly.
So, go have your young founders create products to solve these problems and I will be your first customer and Gilly goes to these founders and goes guys I'm gonna invest in your company here's the idea to get you started I guarantee you 2 million in revenue in the first year and that's amazing because these companies will sell or get they can raise their next round of funding at 20 times 2 million revenue so with 2 million in revenue the first year they can raise money at 40 million dollar valuation that's a no -brainer now what's pretty controversial is these CISO is Chief information and security
officer. They own pieces of Gilly's fund, and anytime one of these startups does well and succeeds, they get paid out.
And so it's this very insular group of a lot of Israeli guys, so they have that bond over that.
They have the bond over being Jewish, and they have the bond that they probably all came from a very similar part of the Israeli army.
So there's this, like, bond after bond after bond, and they're like, yeah, look, we'll help you, we'll get you off the ground and then we're going to get the money just. It just flows around nicely.
And so that's what he did with these guys whiz.
And isn't that a crazy setup?
It's amazing. So I'ma read you this.
The numbers from the, from his cyberstarts fund are phenomenal.
This was about six, seven years old now.
It only has 22 companies, but the 22 companies combined value was 35 billion at the time now, whiz just sold for 32 billion itself.
So it says five of the 22 are unicorns.
So that's an extremely high hit rate.
So a normal VC fund I think between one and 3 % of the companies will become unicorns YC, which is, you know, the best accelerator in the world ever.
I think their, their number is between 6 and 10%.
And so this guy is like double YC, right?
So five of the 22 are unicorns.
Um, four of them sold in the last 12 months, uh, for a total of 1 .5 billion.
And then it says, in all three of his funds, he shows an IRR, so his internal rate return of more than 100%, which is obviously fantastic.
Not a single company in the portfolio has closed to date.
And he basically beats every VC fund in terms of his performance.
His first fund, he turned $54 million into $1 billion.
That was his stake.
Yeah. Crazy, right?
you describe the model well, so basically he's got this network of CISOs and they're called the the cyber stars cyber, cyber starts like CISO group, and they basically all talk, they say what problems they have, but they also get pitched solutions and it's like kind of the handpicked solution.
They all start using it.
They all have a share in the, in the fund.
So if those companies take off, they win, it's this kind of like, I mean, there's definitely a conflict of interest with this, let's be clear.
Um, but it's, wow, What a powerful network and what a powerful way to use a network, you know, like James Currier came on the podcast. I just did an interview with him.
I don't think it's out yet, but he's got this whole thing.
His fund is called network effects and his blog post called your life on network, your, your, your life on network effects or your life is a network effect.
And it's basically like everything you do from the college you choose, you're not just choosing a school, you're picking a network to join.
Like I joined the Duke alumni network when I picked Duke, right?
When you move to San Francisco, you're picking a network of people to join.
When you pick a company, you're picking a network of people to join and those are gonna be the coworkers and future opportunities that open up for you.
And so once you realize that your life is dictated by networks, the religion you're in, that's a network.
The language you speak, that's a network.
The country you live in, that's a network.
And so similarly here, this is like such a powerful example of this guy having this network dating back to the Israeli kind of security intelligence groups to the network of Fortune 500 CISOs.
How valuable that is.
That network turned out to be worth tens of billions of dollars.
And it's pretty amazing.
He's so precise about this.
So look at the first YouTube link that I posted in our MDB doc.
So basically, there's this video that has 400 or 800 views, less than 1000.
It has 528 views. Do you see that 528 view video?
In this video, he breaks down where he says, he goes, I've done this 35 times.
I have a 9 to 18 month journey that I use to achieve product market fit before building any cybersecurity company.
And he goes to the key phases, which is basically like exploring different pain points and how to find them.
You spend seven months developing the right solution that mere mortals can use.
And then here are the questions that you need to ask prospects.
Here's how you find prospects.
What a great find. Only 500 views on this guy who's given out like a billion dollar playbook.
And he goes, he talks about how you want to accelerate the timeline and what the benchmarks is.
He gives this whole playbook that he uses.
And he goes, I've done this 35 times.
and we've turned this into billions of dollars.
It's incredible. Now, here we are with Wizz.
So, Wizz was founded by a guy named...
What is his first name?
Assaf? Is it a Saf?
Or, his last name is Rappaport.
But he basically had a company that he had previously sold for something like $350 million.
And he did it when he was a kid still.
So, when you think what someone does that, well, why on earth are you going to join this thing?
Well, he did join this thing, And he left Microsoft and even explains, he's like, he sold his company to Microsoft and he left and he's like I'm afraid to leave Microsoft, I'm not sure what to do.
So he joins this thing and listen to the timeline that Wiz went through.
So Wiz was founded in roughly.
When you say he joined this thing, he joined what?
Gilly's Cyberstarts, sorry.
Oh, he joins Cyberstarts, okay.
He joins Cyberstarts, Gilly's thing.
And he starts the company in January of 2020 and they go through the, and because he was already successful and he was part of this gilly crew right out the bat.
They raised $21 million in funding and they are able to hire a team of 10 to 20 people.
By December of that first year, they raised $100 million.
So fast forward one year to March, so we're still in winter of 2021.
That's one year after founding.
They're only at 40 employees, but they are at roughly $100 million of AR.
Who are? Is that crazy?
That's breakneck speed, right?
Like this is, by the way, there's a lot of, we do this, but there's a lot of people who are like, dude venture money, don't raise too much money.
You know, growth, growth, growth, it's a problem.
You got a bootstrap, you got a, you know, people, there's different ways to win.
This is a great example of like, no, raise a bunch of money out the gate.
to blitz scale this thing, and keep raising money and just go for the huge prize?
And I have a takeaway on that.
But two years after starting the company, we are now in the winter of 2021.
They raised $250 million at a $6 billion valuation.
This is a handful of months after they've already reached $100 million in revenue with 40 people 18 months in.
Now we're in the year 2022.
This is the second year of business.
They are at, I believe that yeah, second year of business.
They're at a hundred employees.
And by the end, by the end of that year, they're at 400 employees.
Now we're going to fast forward each year, here's how fast they grew the revenue after a hundred million in revenue.
By year three, they're at 200 million in revenue.
By year four, they're at 500 million in revenue.
And by that same year there, they sell for $32 billion dollars.
Is that insane? How on earth Can you imagine going zero to five years in and you're creating spot between 500 and a billion in revenue with only like five or 600 employees?
I was watching a clip of their CRO talking and he was like, we were growing so fast that the only reliable benchmark we could use for how much to grow our headcount on our sales team.
and he's like, did you use pipeline, leads?
How did you do market analysis, market studies?
He goes, we just looked at how full the calendars were.
And he's basically like, for every product line and every category, we just looked at how like the calendar density of all of our sales reps.
And in areas where the calendar density was high, we knew that area is working, hire more people, just hire more people based on the density.
And we measured our calendar density of sales reps for booked calls for people looking for demos.
And that's how they knew that was the only reliable leading indicator they could figure out for growth.
And if you look at their Glassdoor review, the CEO...
People rave about them.
And you could say, Well, I don't know.
Is Glassdoor even accurate?
I'm not sure. You're the only dude who looks at Glassdoor.
They have one web visitor a month and it's you.
Man, I'm telling you, you can get so much insight.
So if you go to Glassdoor, you sort by negative and you look at the negative reviews and then you look at the positive reviews and the truth is in the middle.
And I'm telling you, you can learn so much information about what people are complaining about.
New York City founders, if you've listened to my first million before, you know, I've got this company called Hampton and Hampton is a community for founders and CEOs.
A lot of the stories and ideas that I get for this podcast, I actually got it from people who I met in Hampton.
We have this big community of 1 ,000 plus people it's amazing.
But the main part is this eight person core group that becomes your board of advisors for your life and for your business, and it's life -changing.
Now, to the folks in New York City, I'm building an in -real -life core group in New York City.
And so if you meet one of the following criteria, your business either does three million in revenue, or you've raised three million in funding, or you've started and sold the company for at least $10 million, then you are eligible to apply.
So go to joinhampton .com and apply.
I'm going to reviewing all of the applications myself.
So put that you heard about this on MFM, so I know to give you a little extra love.
Now back to the show.
Were you ever on Glassdoor with any of your companies?
Was it also on Glassdoor?
Yeah, and I didn't look because the only people that left reviews were the people I fired.
Correct. And do you think that they had an accurate view of the company?
Well, it's an accurate view of the people who disliked me.
I don't even wanna read it, but what's it say?
I'm trying to go. I don't know if we have one anymore because we haven't been in business independently for years, they could have shut it down.
It was probably like the management is good, but the CEO like moves too fast and like is not communicating well, which is like probably true.
Too handsome, too ripped, moves too fast. Well, I would like make decisions.
Intimidatingly smart.
I would make decisions quickly and I would say this is what we're doing now.
I just wouldn't communicate with my managers.
I would say this is it.
I just can't believe you like reading the reviews of whiny employees of other companies.
I just... What do you really get out of it?
It reveals so much truth.
It could say like...
But that thing you said is true about every company.
The CEO likes to move fast. It could be like, let's say there's this new startup and it says like, the market, we were gonna do like a better up.
You know what better up is, it's like a coaching platform for before Hampton, we were thinking about getting into that and I read the reviews of better up and the reviews were like a business boom during COVID but now we can't get anyone to sign up for online coaching.
So that's like an interesting like macro insight into the market of coaching like it boom during COVID.
I like that. And so you'll see that on four different coaching platforms Glassdoor reviews.
Or our valuation, if you see this in five different ones, is way too high.
I have no idea how we're ever going to grow in this.
That's not something that you want to see on four different Glassdoors of companies in the same industry.
So you get insights like that.
Or, it could be like CEO's amazing at press.
Don't believe everything you see.
And if you see a bunch of those, then I think to myself, I've been basing a lot of my insights off of public articles.
I don't know if I should actually do that.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I personally wouldn't trust it because I think you're going to get a lot of basically false negatives in this.
That would spook you.
For example, did you ever work at a company that had blind?
I didn't work at a company when that existed.
I probably had one.
You probably just didn't join it, but blind is basically a private social network.
So let's say you work at a big company, there's an app called blinds you login, you have to use your, I think you have to show that you have a work email there.
So like only people who work at the company can see it and can post there.
And it still exists.
But it's all anonymous.
Yeah, it's, it still exists and it's all anonymous and it's basically just like a back channel for people to bitch and moan and complain.
And then the upside would be that they, you know, there's kind of like a whistleblowery type of thing where you can, you could call out hard truth.
So you're not going to call out.
But the reality is that it was all just complaints.
And the problem was, it was misguided complaints.
So like, for example, at Twitch, it's like I was on the exec team, so I knew, I knew all the numbers of the company, I knew what was going on, I knew the strategy, I knew who was smart, I knew who wasn't because I'm sitting with these people every day and then you read a blind review on blind or like a post on blind from someone who's like, just like a mid -level employee, some engineering manager somewhere, they would often be like, oh, there was no way we're going to hit our numbers.
I'm like, we're hitting our numbers.
What are you talking about?
I could see the numbers.
You don't have access to the numbers, so you're just talking out your ass, basically.
And the loudest, most extreme voices would get the most play.
They would get the most attention.
And so it's the same way like when Dropbox launches on Hacker News, and the top comment is like, no one is ever going to use this.
And he can give you a highly intelligent breakdown of why nobody is ever going to use Dropbox.
And the Dropbox becomes so big.
So I think a lot of these anonymous message board type things are too biased towards negativity from people who don't have real information and are too prone to false negatives to be trusted.
So for every example you could find where you get signal, you're going to find counter signal, which means to me, I can't use this because I can't differentiate signal and counter signal properly.
Only on hindsight. No, I think if you read enough of them, I think you can start it.
Like for example, if you're trying to understand like a macro trend or industry analysis, I think you can see trends in the cluster reviews.
And I think that it could help paint a picture but not be, it's not a fact.
It's just like, is this like, is this, does this jive with other sources that I'm learning about.
So that's why I'm on board with it.
By the way, I agree to disagree.
Like I think you're right.
I think you're right.
I don't think you're wrong.
I think there's some problems with it, but there's some utility.
You're the only guy I know who uses it, which I find funny.
Well, like I wanted to learn about the CEO. And I'm like, what makes a CEO so great?
And I read an article about him and it was like, don't mistake this guy's gentleness for ruthlessness.
It said, don't mistake a soft gentleness for someone who's willing to play by the rules.
Yeah. And I was like, that's like an interesting title.
So this guy's like, must be like a really nice guy, but he's ruthless and um, he's kind of a killer.
That's like an interesting trait.
Like, is there like, is there like anything I can learn from his personality?
And I went and read his Glassdoor reviews and he had glowing Reviews as a CEO where people were like nice guy but total hard -ass and I just thought like that is a That that mix those mixes of those two traits when you mix like beat you're you could be polite and like hardcore I respect that I like that Is this a person I want to learn for let learn from that was kind of like my insight from looking at the glass door reviews and also reading interviews, things like that.
Right, right. And so I just thought, it's fascinating.
But we had Mark Loria the pod.
Mark started diapers .com, which he grew like during like the .com boom and he sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Then he did the same with jet .com, sold that for billions of dollars.
Now he's got a new thing.
Have you seen this new thing?
It's called, I think Wonder?
Wonder, yeah. And he had this thing when he came on the pod.
By the way, when he came on the pod, we could tell that he didn't have a laptop.
And we were like, are you calling from your iPhone?
and he was like, yeah, I don't use laptops.
And we were like, is that like a billionaire thing?
And he was like. He was awesome by the way, I love that guy's energy.
Like he was super positive, super energetic, super optimistic.
He was great. Charismatic, he was fun.
He was a fun guest in on the pod.
I would love to have him on. We've gotta get him back on.
Well, on the pod we asked him how he did it.
And he had one phrase that has always stuck with me because it was almost like saying, I'll explain why it stuck with me, but it was called vision capital and people.
He goes, those are the three things I care about.
He goes, I find a really big idea and a big opportunity.
I raise a ton of money, and then I go and hire the best people and I pay them all of that money that I raise.
And I sort of get out of the way and let them do the work.
And I have a bootstrap company.
You have only done bootstrap...
Mostly done bootstrap companies.
It's really hard to do that because you don't have a lot of money to pay people.
so you're doing the work, so it feels like a grind.
And this company, Wizz, is sort of a good example of the founders, they found amazing opportunity.
They raised shitloads of money and this is a perfect example of how it's done when you have a really big idea and you have a really big opportunity and you have a ton of money.
And I think it's as hard as a bootstrapped startup.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's, they're of equal challenging and stressfulness.
Equal? I don't know.
So this scaling at Breakneck speed seems a lot more challenging to me.
I think if you had a small bootstrap startup that was growing quickly, you would feel a similar amount of stress.
That's true. But there is no chance that you would have a $32 billion exit in five years.
One of the funny things about life is that if you decide to start a business, you're going to spend, let's just call it 10 hours a day, maybe 12 early on, just obsessed.
Your mind is just obsessed with this company, 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, every single day.
It doesn't matter if that's a taco truck.
It doesn't matter if it's whiz selling for 32 billion.
It's still going to take 10 to 12 hours a day of your time in Mindshare.
It's still going to stress you out pretty much equally if you are doing a thing that's one million in ARR and you're trying to pay the bills and you're trying to pay yourself and you're trying to grow, and you're trying to do all those things.
Guess what? These guys are also trying to pay the bills, trying to grow, trying to do all that stuff.
So, you're right. The stress levels are more based on you as a person than the company that you're doing, and the time is equal whether you have...
It doesn't matter how many zeros are at the end of the size of the business.
This was probably one of the most important lessons my dad taught me.
My first business was in the restaurant industry, and my dad worked in oil and gas his whole life.
He worked for BP. So, he was like, yeah, the energy industry is just like the restaurant industry.
You're going to spend the same 10 hours a day, except in this one there's three extra zeros on the end of every project.
And so, would you rather spend that same time on a small project or a bigger project?
Like that's, that's what you're deciding between here.
And I was like, Which is sort of hard to hear, right?
Like, you're like, I'm dedicating my life to this thing.
You're dedicating your life to this thing.
But your prize is so much bigger.
I didn't think it was hard to hear.
I was like, Oh, that's the truth.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Like, okay, what do I do?
And then I pretty much immediately switched and went and did a biotech thing with him in Australia.
I was pretty ready to hear the truth.
I think that most people you're right don't like to hear the truth.
I like to hear the truth because I realize that basically the truth while short -term painful is actually long -term, less painful.
And I think most people don't like the short -term pain.
They're willing to have long -term pain.
Have you been following these guys, getting acquired?
Was there anything that you liked about the story or stuck out to you?
Well, remember when we first brought this up?
We first brought this up because Wiz was rumored to be selling for $23 billion, and then something happened where it was like, no, that's just a rumor, or Google couldn't do it because of antitrust, or for some reason, the deal wasn't going to happen.
And if you remember, Asaf came out, and he tweeted this kind of like badass memo where it was like, first deal information got leaked.
They're in rumors about an acquisition for $23 billion.
Then he releases this thing and he's like, we're not looking to get acquired.
Let me be, I think he said, like, let me cut to the chase.
Our next milestones are billion in ARR and an IPO and everyone's like, yeah, that's it.
That's guys a killer.
And most of us were like, most of us on the side of the, we're like, oh, nice, negotiating, like pretty sure it's going to sell for, I dunno, 25 30 billion in the next, in the next 12 months.
And that's exactly what happened.
It sold for 30 billion at 32 billion in the next 12 months.
It like came exactly true.
what a lot of people noticed.
What was the first offer?
The first offer was like 20 or 18?
God, so we got 10 extra billion dollars.
And I don't even know the 23 billion was on the table.
Maybe the 23 billion was what he wanted at the time and they continued to grow.
This is all part of the negotiation, right?
I don't think this leaked because somebody really just wanted the world to know.
But this is part of a public negotiation.
It's a price setting, it's an anchoring, it's getting the second bidder to up their bid, there's a whole bunch of stuff happening there.
And when a CEO is like, we want to be independent, and it's like, yeah, you do.
But if the price is right, we'll see, we'll see what happens.
And almost always once the price is right, they do it.
I love hearing about this story, I'm very excited.
The time that we've worked on this podcast, this guy has built and sold a $32 billion company.
Well, when you put it like that.
Yeah, but does he have 650 ,000 subscribers on YouTube?
Probably not. And now he will try to.
I bet you this guy's going to get into podcasting.
That was the funniest tweet I saw the other day, he goes, even kings and billionaires want to be podcasters.
And I was like, it's true, dude, whether it's billionaires on the All In podcast or Bill Gurley and his podcast. Dude, Bill Gurley's podcast is cool.
Elon is tweeting and like crazy and trying to get his word out there.
You see Gavin Newsome starting his new podcast. They all want what we got Sam.
They all want what we got.
And we'll sell it to them for 32 billion.
It's always been this way.
You look at who has bought Time Magazine and with Washington Post and Bezos, once you're rich, you always want to be King.
And to be King, oftentimes is to own a media company for some reason.
It's been that way for hundreds of years.
Yeah, it's basically just like, there's three buckets.
If you're rich but lack status, you're going to chase status.
And if you're high status but no money, you're going to chase money.
And if you have rich and status, you're gonna chase power.
Those are the three, you will fill those up.
Like somebody, I have a friend who knows Elon and he was telling me, he's like, Elon gets all this criticism right now for backing Trump and Doge and all this stuff.
And the thing people say is like, you know, he's doing this to make, he's doing this to like give Tesla, whatever, an unfair advantage.
He's doing this to enrich himself.
And he's like, are you an idiot?
He's like, he's not doing this to enrich himself.
He wants status. Like not that, oh, he's doing this altruistically, but he wants status.
That's of course what people want.
When they have the money, they want the status.
And when they have the status, they want the power.
Like those are the three like things that draw people to do crazy stuff.
Yeah, he wants something, but it's not money.
Yeah, I think at this point when you have a bunch of money more money is probably boring.
His father did a good thing on DJ Vlad where he was talking about how he was like, I knew after he sold zip two that he wouldn't stop until he was number one the richest person in the world He's like, I knew that yeah He goes I he goes I knew that was that's what he wanted to do and he would never stop until he was number one I could tell he was like that since he was a kid wait, so Elon's dad didn't interview with Vlad TV Yeah, didn't we talk about this?
Um, yeah What else was in this?
This is incredible.
So Vlad TV part of black YouTube one of my favorite niches of YouTube Uh, he had, uh, what's Elon dad's name.
I don't know. I forget his name.
He had his dad on, uh, the other day.
And DJ Vlad is weird. He never just releases the horse.
So at Errol Musk, Errol.
He like releases like clips and he's been releasing clips over the past month of this interview, and he talks about what Ilan was like as a kid and how like, are the rumors true that you are rich?
and it sounds like this guy and Elon are exactly the same, where he made some money and then he's like, we're gonna spend it all buying this farm and turn this farm into a thing and it went broke, and he's like, well, I'm gonna come in with some other people and give me money, we're gonna start this new thing, and that worked.
And he went rich and bust constantly, and he was like, I loaned Elon money to start Zip2, and that turned into $30 million, and I knew when he made that money, he was never gonna stop until he was number one, and he just tells these crazy stories along the way.
Dude, we need to do a whole reacts video.
Was that enough of good?
It's pretty good. It's shocking that like if my father said any of this shit publicly, it's weird, dude.
It makes it very like they talk exactly the same the way they're doing.
All the comments are like his laugh is a DNA test in itself or they're time stamping and it says, I swear this is Elon.
The face mimics it the way he laughs, the way he rolls his eyes, I could see Elon here.
This is this is a, this laugh is a paternity test. like the spacing in words, you know how Elon talks slow.
He has like a very, like unique structure, how he talks.
It's exactly the same, and his dad is insane by the way.
Like there's like some crazy story about how he is now married to his stepdaughter.
Like he does some wacky ass shit.
He's married to his stepdaughter.
Something weird like that, yeah.
Oh yeah he has a kid with a stepdaughter.
Yeah and there's like just when he's talking, you see I understand why the children who you raised, it's just why they're insane and why they're ultra… In order to be ultra successful, you have to have some type of like weird like daddy issue.
And I see him and I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get why you have a daddy issue because you're insane.
Like he reveals stuff like he'll be like, yeah, Elon like was crying to me when he was like 23.
And I thought how weak like he like, it will tell story where he's like disrespecting his son in front of everyone.
And I'm like, Oh, you're an asshole.
That's why your son behaves this way sometimes.
It's like a very interesting interview.
And it has been totally under talked about.
Yeah this is crazy.
This is a two and a half hour interview.
Oh did he release the whole thing finally?
When did that get released.
Normally what? He normally does like clips.
Like he releases clips.
It's a two and a half hour interview or at least a month ago.
How many views does it have?
171 ,000. That's it?
Yeah. Just to put that into perspective here, DJ Vlad's most popular interview.
is where let's see who's he got here boozy boozy has six point six and a half billion views cardi B 5 .7 million Boozy's a good a good listen It's a great interview So we're gonna have to like watch the whole thing but there's like crazy good insight into all this and Like my takeaway from all this is like it's not worth being successful if you and your father are or behave this way to one another, it's very strange to see.
You don't have to be a psychologist to watch this and be like, I understand why this family screwed up.
Yeah, messed up family.
Okay, wow, that's amazing.
All right, corporate espionage stories, you got what you wanted.
Remember, everything on this podcast is allegedly, and this is a comedy podcast, thank you very much, don't come after us.
All right, that's it, that's the POD.
I feel like I can rule the world.
I know I could be what I want to Let's travel never looking back Hey Sean here quick break to tell you an Ev William stories He started Twitter and before that he sold a company to Google for 100 million dollars and somebody asked him they said have what's the secret?
man, how do you create these huge businesses billion dollar businesses and he says well I think the answer is that you take a human desire, preferably one that's been around for thousands of years, and then you just use modern technology to take out steps.
Just remove the friction that exists between people getting what they want, and that is what my partner Mercury does.
They took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has, managing your money and being able to do your financial operations, so they've removed all the friction that has existed for decades.
No more clunky interfaces, no more 10 tabs to get something done, no more having to drive to a bank, Get out of your car, just to send a wire transfer.
They made it fast, they made it easy.
You can actually just get back to running your business.
You don't have to worry about the rest of it.
I use it for not one, not two but six of my companies right now, and it's used by also 200 ,000 other ambitious founders.
So, if you want to be like me, head to mercury .com, open up an account in minutes.
And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.
Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC.
All right, back to the episode.
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