He Sold For Over $40M. Here’s His Exact Cut.

Summary

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Moneywise – Episode Summary

Episode Title: "I Turned Down 8 Figures at 27… It Cost Me Millions"

Guest: Jesse Puji

Host: Daniel Burke

Date: July 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this transparent and candid conversation, Daniel Burke interviews Jesse Puji, a serial entrepreneur best known for founding Ambush, a digital ad arbitrage business. Jesse details his journey: from a high-paying job at Goldman Sachs to bootstrapping his own company with friends, turning down a life-changing acquisition offer, ultimately selling the business in a multi-million-dollar deal, and reflecting on wealth, fulfillment, and legacy.

Designed for the high-net-worth Hampton community, this episode focuses on the real numbers—burn rate, net worth, spending, and the psychological aftermath of financial success. Jesse breaks down his actual asset allocations, describes how sudden wealth affected him (and didn’t), and shares the methods for raising grounded, values-driven kids in a wealthy household.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Background and Bootstrapping Ambush

• Entrepreneurial Roots

  • Jesse grew up in an immigrant, small-business household in St. Louis; “bootstrapping” was part of his DNA.
  • Ran multiple small businesses throughout adolescence and college – snow shoveling, DJing, T-shirts. (02:08)

• Leaving Wall Street

  • Walked away from a half-million-a-year role at Goldman Sachs at age 25 because it was unfulfilling.
    • “I would rather make half of my future expected earnings and do something that I feel excited about.” (07:14)

• Founding Ambush

  • Pulled together $33K each with college roommates; no outside funding, just Amex cards.
  • First major breakthrough was "cracking" Facebook ads—shifted margins from near-zero to 70%.
    • "In one month we did $2M in revenue, $800K in gross profit, and like $600K in EBITDA." (03:53)

2. Growth, Offers, and Turning Down Millions

• Early Offers and Decisions

  • Two years after founding, Ambush received a $25M buyout offer; the founders declined, instead taking a $3M dividend—Jesse bought his first house in SF. (08:10, 08:40)
  • “We were like a bunch of 27-year-olds. And we were like, damn, this seems worth way more than we thought.” (08:24)

• Chasing Bigger Numbers

  • Company rapidly scaled: 3M to 30M in net revenue over ~4 years—driven by ad tech boom.
  • Later market downturns deflated valuations (Rocket Fuel & Marin went down 99%).

• Partial Sale & The ‘Magic Number’ Trap

  • Sold 20% stake to Red Ventures, hoping to push for a $150M exit—ended up with minority liquidity event.
    • “We made up a magic number in our head, which I don’t recommend to anyone.” (10:10)
    • “If I could do it all over again, I would have just sold the whole business. Mostly because we were just tired.” (10:28)

3. The Emotional Aftermath of Wealth – "The Day After"

• Life-Changing Wire

  • First significant liquidity ($5M after-tax): “The day we got it was one of the most exciting days of my life. The next day was one of the most disappointing… I thought I would get wings or superhuman strength—and then nothing changed.” (10:55–11:05)
  • Realization: Having money didn’t fundamentally change how Jesse felt.

• True Fulfillment

  • Money and success were far less fulfilling than expected.
    • “From the time I was 15 until 31 or 30, money and success were the number one priorities for me and they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be.” (16:04)
  • Spent years post-exit working with coaches, focused on identifying his “zone of genius”—leading to Gateway X, a venture studio.

4. Selling the Whole Business & Net Worth

• Final Exit

  • Full acquisition by private equity in 2022 for "mid-8 figures" ($40 - $60M). Jesse’s final stake: 35%+. (14:51–15:02)

• Net Worth and Asset Breakdown

  • Does not reveal exact net worth; notes significant dividends taken before exit along with large final payout.
  • Asset allocation (24:09):
    • 50%+ in public markets (70% indexed)
    • 20% in private equity (PE funds including New Mountain, Silver Lake)
    • 20% in real estate (own homes, funds, some project investments)
    • Counts illiquid company investments at zero for planning purposes: “The numbers look silly when they’re illiquid…let’s worry about it if something comes from it.” (23:42)

• Burn Rate & Lifestyle

  • Family spends ~$500K/year “as normal course stuff,” jumps up for special occasions like milestone birthdays or home renovations. (25:29)
  • “It’s kind of hard to spend money beyond a certain level… how do people spend more money than this?” (25:48)

5. Family, Parenting, and Teaching About Money

• Regimented Schedule for Family Balance

  • Strict routines to balance work and family; travel is a key “indulgence” where he spends more freely. (28:13)
  • Kids are in public school; have three children, ages 11, 9, and 2. (27:55)

• Teaching Financial Values

  • Kids get allowance via Greenlight app; must allocate into spending, saving, and giving.

  • Regularly runs “business case” exercises with his children in real life (ex: Starbucks P&L).

    • “Every time we interact with a business and I’m with one of my kids, I’ll be like, let’s put the P&L together for this.” (31:05)

  • Jesse believes actual work builds true money understanding: “Our big thing is they are definitely going to get hourly jobs when they're 16.” (32:34)

• On Inheritance & Die With Zero

  • Torn on legacy—admires the message of “Die with Zero.”
  • Wrestles with how much money (if any) to leave to kids. (34:59)
    • “Money doesn’t ruin kids. Lack of values does.” (35:54)
    • Core: Teach values—service, hard work—above all.

6. What Brings Meaning After Success

• Evolving Motivation
  • Focus shifted from money to creativity, helping founders, launching and mentoring new ventures (Gateway X). (21:14–21:26)
  • “The thing that drives me, my energy, is no longer I need to be a success and make money… it’s like, man, this is fun.” (21:19–21:26)
• Service and Legacy
  • Aspires to be remembered for serving others and helping them realize their potential: “I think being someone who served others and helped others be the best versions of themselves… that’s probably the best gift I can give to anybody I know.” (36:47–37:03)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Deciding to Leave Wall Street:

  • “I would rather make half of my future expected earnings and do something that I feel excited about.” — Jesse (07:14)

• On Turning Down $25M at Age 27:

  • “We were like a bunch of 27-year-olds. And we were like, damn, this seems worth way more than we thought.” — Jesse (08:24)

• On the Emotional Reality of Wealth:

  • “The day we got it was one of the most exciting days of my life. The next day was one of the most disappointing... I thought something was going to change about me. And then nothing changed.” — Jesse (10:57–11:05)

• On Money and Fulfillment:

  • “Money and success were the number one priorities for me and they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be.” — Jesse (16:04)

• On Parenting & Financial Education:

  • "They’ve gotten all the fruits of the grind without actually observing the grind… our big thing is they are definitely going to get hourly jobs when they’re 16." — Jesse (30:00–32:34)

• On Legacy and Family Values:

  • "Money doesn’t ruin kids. Lack of values does." — (Quoting a family business mentor) (35:54)

• On Net Worth Calculation & Illiquid Assets:

  • "Count it as zero until something comes from it… Because you put sil. The numbers look silly when they’re illiquid." — Jesse (23:42)

• On Venture Building Post-Liquidity:

  • "My dream is that I’m the Paul Graham and Gateway X is the Y Combinator of seed scrapping. We like to say we’re going to build camels, not unicorns." — Jesse (39:06, 39:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jesse’s Background & Bootstrapping Start: 02:08–04:24
• First Major Growth—Cracking Facebook Ads: 03:53–04:18
• Leaving Goldman Sachs—Why: 05:54–07:29
• Early Buyout Offers & Decision-Making: 08:10–10:28
• Liquidity Events & ‘Day After’ Reflection: 10:55–11:09
• Asset Allocation Breakdown: 24:09–25:19
• Spending & Lifestyle Numbers: 25:29–27:36
• Family, Parenting, Money Education: 28:11–33:15
• Views on Legacy, Inheritance, and Values: 34:43–36:14
• Service, What Brings Meaning Now: 36:27–37:03
• Gateway X & Ambitions Beyond Money: 39:00–39:52

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Episode Takeaways

• Wealth does not guarantee fulfillment; chasing “magic numbers” can be a trap.
• Bootstrapping and having “skin in the game” foster discipline and independence.
• True financial transformation is as much psychological as material—clarity comes with having enough.
• Parenting among abundance requires deliberate effort to transmit values, not just money.
• Jesse now aims to foster a new class of durable, profitable “camels” in entrepreneurship, championing models outside the classic venture-funded archetype.
• “You can spend it, give it to government, give it to charity, or your kids. The only thing that really survives is the values you pass along.”

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Transcript

[Jesse Puji]

I actually walked away from a pretty lucrative job at Goldman Sachs.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

I would love for you to introduce yourself and really tell the story about Ambush.

[Jesse Puji]

We pulled together 33 grand each and some Amex cards and said we're going to bootstrap this thing. And in one month we did 2 million in revenue, 800,000 in gross profit, and like 600,000 in EBITDA.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So within like two years, when we

[Jesse Puji]

cracked the Facebook channel, we were, it was like minting money. Money and success were the number one priorities for me and they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be.

[Daniel Burke]

All right, Jesse, thanks so much for

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

joining us today on Money Wise.

[Daniel Burke]

Quick thing before we start. My guest today made his money arbitraging ads. Buy click for a dollar, sell it for 50. Subscribing to this show is the same trade except it costs you $0 and pays out an episode like this every week. He would tell you to take that

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

deal and so I'm asking you to take that deal as well.

[Daniel Burke]

Please subscribe to Moneywise wherever you're listening. Okay, now today's guest, Jesse Puji. At 25, he was at Goldman Sachs making half a million dollars a year.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And he walked away.

[Daniel Burke]

He started the company with his college roommates, 33 and some AmEx cards. And he never raised a dime of outside money. In this episode, he tells me about the day the first life changing wire hit his account and why the next day was one of the most disappointing days of his life. He walks me through exactly where his money sits down to the percentages. And he tells me the number he turned down at 27 that most people would have grabbed with both hands. There's also a game he makes his kids play at Starbucks.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

We'll get into that.

[Daniel Burke]

I get to talk to founders just

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

like Jesse inside of Hampton, a private network for high growth founders who are

[Daniel Burke]

doing 25 million a year on average. If that's you, you need to check it out. Join Hampton.com now let's get into the show. I'm Daniel Burke.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Here is Jesse Puji on Moneywise. How you doing?

[Jesse Puji]

I'm doing great, Daniel.

[Sponsor Voice (Anthony Monica or ad narrator)]

How are you?

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

I'm doing well. Technical difficulties are always fun, but we got through it together. I would love for you to introduce yourself and really tell the story about Ambush. Most interested in the bootstrapped angle of ambush. And from day one, I know you started with an Amex credit card and some co founders. I mean, tell me the story about how all that came to be.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, quick story, you know I was, I was born and raised in St. Louis.

[Jesse Puji]

I grew up in an immigrant household. And I think you know, early on that shapes your perspectives on money. I think you know, you kind of saw, you know the kind of. My dad was a classic. Like came here when he was 17 with a dollar in his pocket and grinded and he was a small business owner and so I got to work inside those businesses early.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But you, you know, really early on

[Jesse Puji]

understood entrepreneurship and business and probably shaped my perspective on bootstrapping which is like a business is one where you, you know, your revenues are higher than your expenses and you generate a profit.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But I was a kid who, you

[Jesse Puji]

know, I had a, a snow shoveling business in middle school, I had a DJing business in high school, I had a T shirt business in college and

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I spent a few years working consulting

[Jesse Puji]

and then a few years on Wall street and I actually walked away from a pretty lucrative job at Goldman Sachs. And I can talk about that decision a bit as it relates to money,

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

but started ambush with my college roommates. And you know, we, we really wanted to, to bootstrap. I think we looked around like what

[Jesse Puji]

are industries and markets that you can like make a dollar, you can kind of get in. Realized digital marketing was kind of similar to Wall Street. There's number crunching in data and you know, learned about, okay, there's like performance marketing where someone pays you a $50 CPA and if you could buy an

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

ad on Google for a dollar per

[Jesse Puji]

click and it had a 5% conversion rate, that's $20 cost and a $50 revenue, like you can arbitrage ads.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And we're like hey, we know, we know that word arbitrage.

[Jesse Puji]

Like let's try it now.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was way harder than we thought.

[Jesse Puji]

It took us a year to even get to kind of make any money.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But we, we pulled together 33 grand

[Jesse Puji]

each and some Amex cards and said we're going to bootstrap this thing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And you know, our real break came

[Jesse Puji]

in the first year when we actually started running ads on Facebook. And you know what was barely basically 0% margin on Google Ads. We started making like 70% margin on Facebook ads. And you know our, I actually remember this very distinctly.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Our revenue and profits In June of

[Jesse Puji]

2010 pre, pre trying Facebook were 100,000 in gross revenue, maybe like 40,000 in 30 or 40,000 in gross profit and basically break even, maybe made 5 or 10,000 dol the following August. 14 months later we did, in one month we did 2 million in revenue, 800,000 in gross profit and like 600,000 in EBITDA.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So within like two years when we

[Jesse Puji]

cracked the Facebook channel, we were, it was like minting money. And that kind of got us off to this bootstrap direction.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Do you think the ambush success is because you were one of the earliest to do the Facebook arbitrage?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I think we were super early to it, but like we had to take

[Jesse Puji]

the, we had to try it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So yeah, sometimes I tell people you

[Jesse Puji]

got to do sandbox entrepreneurship. You like get in the sandbox, you play around and you find the thing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so we found it that way. I think from there, you know, we

[Jesse Puji]

increasingly took it more seriously. But around that time when we were, we were sort of grew the business a bunch, Facebook called us and was

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

like, who the hell are you guys?

[Jesse Puji]

You're one of our top 100 advertisers. Come meet us. And then we became one of their early most favored nation partners. And then our, you know, we were able to go get clients. They were all startups at the time, but it was like uber dollar shave, club, peloton. And then from there the business just ripped. It grew to about half a billion a year in ad spend. 250 employees, never raised any outside money. We did a couple M and A deals where we bought businesses. We were doing cash flow and distributions, which I could talk about. And then you know, we sold a

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

minority investment, we sold a minority interest

[Jesse Puji]

in the business for the first kind of first liquidity event was 2015. And then we sold the whole business around 2022 to a private equity firm called New Mountain Capital. So all in all it was like a 10 plus year journey. But, and I went from 26 years old to 36 but you know, learned

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

a ton about entrepreneurship, growth, marketing, all

[Jesse Puji]

the things during that journey.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Wow. And walk me through year to year how that journey actually started to grow with Ambush. Up until the list too. Really there's a, there's a partial acquisition and there's a, a full acquisition. Tell me how that looked year to year.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, yeah, let me go, I mean, I know this is money wise. Let me go back one second. And I, I, I was, I think it's an important thing.

[Jesse Puji]

You know, I was working at Goldman Sach, like in this investing group just

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

thinking about money and, and well actually I even go back even further than that. Like I, when you come out of,

[Jesse Puji]

I went to Penn, I went to Wharton.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

You know, it's, it's like one of the most lucrative Job paths like you,

[Jesse Puji]

you get immediately get six figure jobs. Like I had a six figure job at Citadel out of college and instead I went and I worked at McKinsey

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

and, and you know, it's kind of

[Jesse Puji]

my first sign to myself that money wasn't the most important thing to me. Like, I wanted a little bit more of a wide perspective. I wanted an optionality versus kind of jumping right into the, the hedge fund world.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then I ended up working in

[Jesse Puji]

an investing group inside of Goldman. And, and I think when I was 25, I made like half a million bucks that year. And despite that, and, and by the way, my boss was 29, she was making 2 or 3 million and the head of our group was, he's probably 40 something and he was making 20 million bucks a year.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So like, you get on Wall street

[Jesse Puji]

and you see how much money people make and it's, it's crazy and it's, it's real. Right.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But I sort of had this moment where, you know, I was a public markets investor. You know, to be fair, I was

[Jesse Puji]

the middle of financial crisis, but I

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

was like, man, this job is 40%

[Jesse Puji]

reading, 40% excel, 20% meetings.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It didn't feel dynamic enough to me. It didn't feel, I didn't feel happy.

[Jesse Puji]

And I had this really specific moment

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

where I was like, I would rather

[Jesse Puji]

make half of my future expected earnings

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

and do something that like, I feel

[Jesse Puji]

excited about, which was starting a business, rather than like stick in this corporate job for the next X amount of years, even though it's incredibly lucrative.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so for, you know, as far as money goes, that was sort of

[Jesse Puji]

the first, sort of first sign to me that it wasn't all just about money for me.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah. And so when you decided to sell, you sold about 20% originally. What was the thinking behind the 20% stake to Red Ventures? Correct?

[Jesse Puji]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I mean, you know, we originally wanted to sell the whole business and you know, if I could do it all

[Jesse Puji]

over again, I probably would have sold the whole business. And not because again, of a financial decision, but we were just tired, you know, and, and we had it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was kind of a crazy thing. Like we had figured out the Facebook

[Jesse Puji]

channel By 2012, we were growing over 100 a year. The first part of our business, we divested.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So, you know, we had a lot

[Jesse Puji]

of interesting little bites at the apple. Like I mentioned earlier, we did, we were doing profitability in our first year. So within two years of starting, we got an offer to buy the company for $25 million. And we were planning on selling, but

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

we were like a bunch of 27 year olds.

[Jesse Puji]

And we were like, damn, this seems

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

worth way more than we thought.

[Jesse Puji]

And we actually went out and considered

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

it and nobody was giving us any

[Jesse Puji]

credit for this, like, Facebook thing that we had figured out. They were like, yeah, it's too small.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So we were like, all right, we don't want to sell the business, but let's do a $3 million dividend.

[Jesse Puji]

Basically a million each to each partner. And that's how I bought my first house in San Francisco, which I still own.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So it was good to get like a little bite after having that run

[Jesse Puji]

and deciding not to sell.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then at that time, you, you may not remember this, but Marin Software,

[Jesse Puji]

Rocket Fuel were billion dollar market cap publicly traded companies.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And we were growing over 100% a

[Jesse Puji]

year running ads on Facebook as kind of a tech enabled service.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And everyone was like, man, if you guys grow this thing, keep growing like that, like you're gonna sell for five times revenue. And so we did that and we

[Jesse Puji]

went hard and it was bootstrap.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We put all the money back in

[Jesse Puji]

the business during that period and we

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

went from 3 million in net revenue

[Jesse Puji]

to close to 30 million in net revenue over four years. Three or four years.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so then we were like, all right, we like ran really hard and

[Jesse Puji]

we're like, we gotta sell this thing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And we were hoping for $150 million check, but during that time, Rocket Fuel and Marin had.

[Jesse Puji]

Their market caps had gone down 99%. Like ad tech was in a total.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so we went out and we got 60, 70, $75 million offers. We got, we got one $90 million

[Jesse Puji]

offer, all stock, which I'm glad we didn't take from Marin. Marin ended up kind of going, going out of business.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But we, but, you know, we had a few offers and, but we were like crestfallen.

[Jesse Puji]

Like, we were depressed because we, in

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

our heads, we thought the number was way bigger. And so we ended up doing this deal with Red Ventures. And you know, I think partially because we were like, you know what, we

[Jesse Puji]

got to take some chips off the table. That's important. But it also gave us a chance to keep growing the business, to kind of hit the magic.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We'd made up a magic number in

[Jesse Puji]

our head, which I don't recommend to anyone because it's, it just hurts. But, but we made up. We, we gotta have a nine figure exit. And like, we weren't, we weren't quite there. We're like, all right, but we'll sell 20.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Then we'll keep growing it and then we'll get the nine figure exit, which

[Jesse Puji]

didn't end up happening.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But that kind of gives you, you know, we, we were smart enough, I think, to take some chips off the table.

[Jesse Puji]

But I think if we, if I could do it all over again, I would have just sold the whole business. Mostly because we were just tired. We wanted to be done with it.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

At what point did you start personally to feel like you have a life changing amount of money access for you personally?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, I mean, look, I. I think that first deal with Red Ventures was

[Jesse Puji]

life changing for us. You know, we. I got about 5 million bucks after tax and I'd already bought the house with the previous distribution I had. I was living in SF. I bought myself an M5.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I always tell people the day we got it was one of the most

[Jesse Puji]

exciting days of my life. The next day was one of the most disappointing days of my life because

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I thought I would get wings or superhuman strength.

[Jesse Puji]

Like I thought something was going to change about me. And then nothing changed. Everything was the same.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

That was the same year my first

[Jesse Puji]

son, my son was born. My first kid.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So there was definitely like a feeling of, of like, okay, we're good.

[Jesse Puji]

You know, this is going to be good.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Because we still had the rest of the business too.

[Jesse Puji]

And then the business was profitable and so it was like a nice mixture.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But it was also like disappointing because I thought it was. I thought it was going to be

[Jesse Puji]

way more of a. I don't know, I thought I would feel different, and I didn't.

[Daniel Burke]

$5 million after tax in his account. And Jesse's review was that it was the best day of his life, followed by one of the most disappointing. He thought he'd wake up with wings. He woke up the same guy. Quick context on what happened here. That was a minority sale. Selling a piece of your company while

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

you keep running it.

[Daniel Burke]

The business stays yours. But the founders finally get the real

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

cash off the table after years of

[Daniel Burke]

putting every dollar back in. This is the type of stuff I hear inside of Hampton constantly. Not how do I get the number, but what do I actually do now

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

that I have money that I haven't really had before?

[Daniel Burke]

Almost nobody talks about the morning after. Jesse just did. Check out. Join Hampton.com if you want to be

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

in rooms just like this one to talk about those questions. Yeah, walk me through. When someone offers you $25 million. How did that feel? Personally, you've never seen that amount of money in your life at that point Was that difficult to turn down?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

That one was not that difficult because I think we were only two years into the journey. You know, we. We were early to Facebook. It was. It was an exciting moment of validation, I think, for leaving Wall street and choosing to do entrepreneurship. So it was. That was definitely the case. We didn't love the personalities at that time, like the people who were offering us that.

[Jesse Puji]

So I think we were.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We were all just. We're still so new that we.

[Jesse Puji]

We weren't thinking that much about it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was harder to not do a

[Jesse Puji]

full deal in 2015 when we. We ended up doing the Red Ventures deal because we had some. Some real, full. Full offers we could have taken and kind of been done with it.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And then Fast forward to 2023. That's when the full acquisition took place.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was really 22.

[Jesse Puji]

There were some dynamics of the.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, a bunch

[Jesse Puji]

changed between 15 and 22.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I mean, by 2017, I was like,

[Jesse Puji]

burnt out and I was like, I'm not having fun. Why am I still running this business? I want out. And a bunch of mentors were like, you should go start working with a coach. So I hired this amazing coach, Dave Cash in. And it was very life changing for me. It really, like, opened me up and shifted my perspective. So that was one thing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We had really changed the business model with Red Ventures. So we actually went from 60 clients

[Jesse Puji]

to 20 clients, but profitability doubled. So we went deeper with fewer customers. And it worked.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was. It was a little. It was like redoing the business again,

[Jesse Puji]

which was tiring, but it. But it worked from a profitability standpoint. We acquired a business. We actually started investing off the balance sheet.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We went into like, Holdco mode.

[Jesse Puji]

We're like, we're gonna make this thing a Holdco.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It generates cash, whatever. And then, you know, right before COVID

[Jesse Puji]

my wife and I wanted to move back to St. Louis. And as I kind of got more clarity on what I wanted to do is like, I didn't want to keep running that business. And so I actually. We promoted the head of our New York office, John, to be the CEO of the business. Me and the co founder, other co founder, stepped back. And then he kind of took the business forward. And, you know, there was a lot of volatility with COVID There was like the COVID bump and then there's a Covid down. And then he kind of did a great job of growing the business. And then eventually we, you know, then we sold it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But it was, it was a cool Experience selling it because we handed the keys and we didn't go with the deal. We had no, I have a little

[Jesse Puji]

bit of a non compete, but we didn't have any real like we didn't have to do anything. We literally got a huge check and walked away from the business.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah. And I've seen the public figures are all mid eight figures. But you've never, you've never said the number to my knowledge. Is there something stopping you from saying that number?

[Jesse Puji]

The acquirer never wanted us to say it, I guess.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Can you give a range?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It was like 40 to 60, 40 to 60th. Yeah. I was like, yeah.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And then what was your personal stake in the company at that point?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Probably a little bit more than a third.

[Jesse Puji]

35 plus percent.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Okay, so let's say 50. A third of 50 would be. Was that just under like 18 million.

[Jesse Puji]

My son with me.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, I know. Where does that bring your, your total net worth then?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Today I'd rather not share total. I mean there's a lot of dividends

[Jesse Puji]

we took out along the way, plus

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

the original like so we had. But, but we're so, you know, we're

[Jesse Puji]

good, we, we, we're good on money.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, I'm fine with ranges. Can you give a range for the net worth as well?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, it's hard to. I mean now I've got, I've got

[Jesse Puji]

Growth Assistant, a bunch of other businesses. I don't know what it would be. I don't actually look at the number that closely.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, that's fine. What does like, what does someone in your shoes do then? Still in an operator seat on the one hand, but also now in kind of high growth venture mode with some different investments through your, your own agencies.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah. You know, I think one of the

[Jesse Puji]

realizations I had when we did the Red Ventures deal and got the first sort of life changing number was, you

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

know, from the time I was 15,

[Jesse Puji]

I think until 31 or 30, like money and success were the number one priorities for me and they were far less fulfilling than I expected them to be.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then once I knew that, then I was like, oh, like well so what matters to me? Like. And that was actually probably took me half a decade to really put my

[Jesse Puji]

finger on what mattered to me. And so, you know, to paint the picture we were, we'd moved back to St. Louis. It was the middle of COVID you know, I was probably 36, 37, the

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

company had sold, I didn't have to go with it. So I'm like sitting in a room

[Jesse Puji]

by Myself now I have a ton

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

of money that more than I'll ever need.

[Jesse Puji]

And, you know, I don't have to work anymore.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And I'm like, well, now what do

[Jesse Puji]

I do with my life?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And I was working with my coach

[Jesse Puji]

and I was like, let's go.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, I want to figure out. I. I didn't feel like retiring at all. And I also didn't want to, like,

[Jesse Puji]

do something just for the sake of making more money.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So I was like, I gotta figure out what it is that really drives

[Jesse Puji]

me and motivates me and. And you know, there's a lot.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, I had been very fear motivated. So I was like, I want to

[Jesse Puji]

be motivated by creativity and the things that will energize me endlessly. So there's exercise around what's called zone of genius.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so the framework is like, you

[Jesse Puji]

know, zone of incompetence, zone of competence, zone of excellence and zone of genius and somewhat obvious zone of incompetence. Like, I'm.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I'm a horrible cook.

[Jesse Puji]

Like, that's a really obvious one to stay away from. Zone of competence is like driving. I'm a reasonably good driver. I'd probably be a decent accountant.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Zone of excellence is where most people get stuck.

[Jesse Puji]

It's things you're really good at, but they, they don't bring you energy, so they deplete your energy over time. So for me, that might be like

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

analysis or selling or even being the

[Jesse Puji]

CEO of a company like that. I'm actually pretty good at it, but like, it. It depletes me over time.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And zone of genius are the things that you're really good at and they

[Jesse Puji]

energize you, which means, like, you can have an endless amount of energy.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so I kind of spent the

[Jesse Puji]

better part of a year with my coach. Like, what's my.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Why, what matters to me?

[Jesse Puji]

And like, and then what's going to keep me energized endlessly.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And where I landed was like, I

[Jesse Puji]

love helping other people learn and grow. Like, I love learning and growing myself. And I love, like, stretching people, especially entrepreneurs, because those are kind of my

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

people and the things that enter that

[Jesse Puji]

are my zones of genius. Like, I love coaching and teaching.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So anytime I'm like, imparting knowledge or

[Jesse Puji]

learning or it doesn't even have to be knowledge, it could be an experiential learning. Like, I love doing that. I love relationship building.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, I just, you know, you and I know each other. Like, Sam, like, one plus one gets up, he's equal to three.

[Jesse Puji]

And it's like, one of the coolest parts of life. It's part of the journey.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then from like a venture standpoint, as I reflected, you know, by the time I, I was done with Ambush, 10 years in, like, I was not having fun. The only things that were fun for me were the net.

[Jesse Puji]

New things were the experimentation things like.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And I realized I love the, you

[Jesse Puji]

know, negative one to one parts of the journey. That's kind of like the. You spot an opportunity.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Is it real?

[Jesse Puji]

Ooh. Like, let's, let's try it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Oh, my God. It worked. Like, let's get the domain name. Let's get the first, you know, set of employees or clients. Okay, now we've got a business.

[Jesse Puji]

And I love the creativity associated with that.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so that was kind of the clarity I got after, after the exit.

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[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And I was like, well, what should I do then? And, you know, looked around at a

[Jesse Puji]

few different things, like, I don't want to just be an investor.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I don't want to be a CEO now.

[Jesse Puji]

And like, basically, that's when I started Gateway X, which is a venture studio.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And if you think about the venture studio, you kind of get to do all those things.

[Jesse Puji]

You get to coach and mentor some CEOs, you get to be involved in the creation process, and you launch. And so in that, you know, in the last four years, we've. We've launched six businesses. Two we've shut down, two are still kind of in the middle, and then two have really broken out. And those two this year will do 35 million revenue and 10 million EBITDA combined. They're growing at 50% a year. And so. And, and, you know, I'm not the CEO of either of those, but we've been able to kind of get those off the ground. And now we're, you know, we're trying to figure out how to take it to the next level with what's going on with AI and some other things.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So. But I would say the, the thing that drives me, my energy, is no longer I need to be a success

[Jesse Puji]

and make money, which is really what drove me for a really long time.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's, it's like, man, this is fun. Like, I'm enjoying this. And like, even if it doesn't make

[Jesse Puji]

any money, I'll have a lot of fun doing it.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

When you finally did arrive to the point where you could kind of look in hindsight and retroactively decide, like, what do I want? What gives me energy? Is the money that you got from those early ventures something that actually brought happiness, or was it, like, a little bit disappointing?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

You know, it's, it's such a good question. And to be clear, like, I would not say I'm like, post money scarcity. Like, more I would say, like, you know, out of eight days from age 15 to 31, or nine days out of 10, I was like, I got, you know, and now it's probably the opposite. Like, one day out of 10, I'm still like, oh, maybe I should be making more or. So if I'm being honest, it's not like it just disappears completely, but it's, it's far less of a thing. You know, it's. It's. It's a question I don't know the answer to.

[Jesse Puji]

I've done a ton of, like, spiritual work, meditation around letting go of scarcity and that.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But also, like, to your point, I

[Jesse Puji]

have money, so it's like, it's a.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Sometimes I'm like, am I really, like. You know, my coach one time was like, what if you lost all of it?

[Jesse Puji]

Would you still be okay? And I was like, oh, no, that. That sounds scary to me.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So, you know, I think it would be disingenuous for me to say that. Not like that it hasn't had a

[Jesse Puji]

big impact on my sense of security and stability, and it's allowed me to go pursue the passion type stuff that I'm doing.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah. What is. What's like, one fun example of something you've bought that you wouldn't have been able to buy before the acquisition?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I mean, I think the thing is, I think the top thing we've done

[Jesse Puji]

is we bought like a condo in Deer Valley. And I think I could have, but

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I wouldn't have bought it prior to the full acquisition. And mostly because, like, and, you know,

[Jesse Puji]

my wife generally doesn't care much about money, but she's like, man, we're going to make so many fun memories with the kids there. And we really have. I mean, now we're out there several weeks a year and the kids, it's

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

like, you know, and it really.

[Jesse Puji]

I didn't understand why people buy vacation homes, and now I understand it because it becomes like a really special place for the family.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

It's yours. Yeah. Is that where the money sits now? Is it kind of spread across real estate and other different cash public equities? Yeah.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

My general allocation, there's. So if I think of my total

[Jesse Puji]

net worth, like, there's a bunch of illiquid. The stocks in these companies I've started that I own, obviously, right.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I don't even count it. Like, I tell my. My financial advisors first, like, put it

[Jesse Puji]

on my balance sheet. I'm like, no, no, dude, I don't

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

like, that's zero until. Until there's something that comes from it. And they're like, that's too conservative, Jesse. But I'm like, I just. Because you put sil. The numbers look silly when they're illiquid, you know, or like I was an early investor in Figure Robot. And like, again, if you looked at

[Jesse Puji]

that on the balance sheet, it looks absurd. Right? And it's like, well, let's. Let's worry about it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So there's a bunch of that kind of stuff. But in terms of my, like, liquid assets, I. I do roughly, let's call

[Jesse Puji]

it 50 plus percent in the public markets, of which more than half. More than half is index.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I'd say 70% index.

[Jesse Puji]

And I do some stock picking. Most.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I'm.

[Jesse Puji]

I'm decent at it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Stuff that I'm like, like, especially when

[Jesse Puji]

there was this Covid pullback like meta went down to 80 or 90 bucks a share. And I loaded up on a bunch of it and now it's like, it's like 600 bucks a share. Same Shopify was down to 30 or 40 bucks.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So things are, I'm like, I kind of understand this.

[Jesse Puji]

And then I do probably about 20% in private equity, including I'm in a couple PE funds. So new Mountain, who bought Ambush, I put some money back into their funds and it's done really well. Silver Lake. So I'm an LP in a few big, well known private equity funds.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And then so when you say lp, is that through a direct access or is it a special purpose vehicle or how does that.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Through my financial advisors.

[Jesse Puji]

So I work with this firm called Matter Family Office who I highly recommend. I can. Happy to talk about them and how they've been helpful, but they, and then the last 20% is real estate stuff.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Those are personal homes.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

No, that includes like we still have

[Jesse Puji]

our place in sf. We, we have this place in Deer Valley, but then also real estate funds and other random.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's, it's mostly funds or it's like

[Jesse Puji]

individual project based stuff that I've invested in.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah. And what's your personal spending look like? You can share monthly or annually. I mean however you kind of track that.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It ebbs and flows a lot. And I've like experimented with a lot of it.

[Jesse Puji]

That's probably half a million bucks a year as like normal course stuff. And then if you do something special like I had a big 40th birthday party or we like redid our basement, then the number goes up a little bit.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But then you know, there's nothing that

[Jesse Puji]

we want for that much. I'd say beyond, beyond that. Like we have a nice house, we live in St. Louis.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's kind of hard to spend money

[Jesse Puji]

beyond a certain level. Like I was asking my financial advisors once, I was like, I was like,

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

so how do people spend more money than this?

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, you know, I'm private is the answer right here.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

The answer was like you know, flying private. And if you, you know, you actually,

[Jesse Puji]

for your net worth and income. Jesse, you're a conservative on the number of homes you have.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like they, they told me that most

[Jesse Puji]

people that have whatever, like they're, they're a, they're owning like six homes and they end up having huge carrying costs and all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, that doesn't, that sounds like work to me. I'm not interested in that.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

To me that's like, it's not as illiquid as Private equity. But man, with selling a house, I don't know, that always sounds.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It sounds like a lot of work, dude. It does.

[Jesse Puji]

Like the last thing I want is more work.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so, I don't know, we, we've like it. It really is hard to spend more, I think, I think staff is the other one.

[Jesse Puji]

So private, privates, lots of homes and staff.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We don't have any of those things.

[Jesse Puji]

We charter every now and again, but just like for a fun occasion or something like that. We'll do it as a splurge, but. But there's nothing beyond that that I think you can actually spend that much money on.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, I've heard a number of times that you know anyone under the hundreds of millions of net worth who flies private, it's the fastest way to lose all your money. It's just extremely. That makes sense. So we're looking at like, I don't know, what is that, 40, 45,000amonth, give or take. And that's probably across mortgage or do you own your houses outright or.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

No, we have a mortgage. Yeah, I mean mortgage, travel.

[Jesse Puji]

Kids are in public school, so that's not a big one. Cars, finance, like, you know, finance, financial advisors, an accountant, like just. There's some of that. What else? Food shop. We're not big shopper.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I mean, you know, it all adds up.

[Jesse Puji]

Amazon, Bill, whatever.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But like our primary residence is probably all in.

[Jesse Puji]

I mean we have a pretty good interest rate, but it's probably 10 or 10, 12 grand a year, a month, not including if we're gonna add a pool or whatever to it.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Right, right. I like that a lot. And you have kids, right? You're a dad?

[Jesse Puji]

Yeah. 11, nine and two.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Out of some of this story, you said how old are they?

[Jesse Puji]

11, 9 and 2.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

11, 9 and 2. How does being an entrepreneur and really having basically a family office, investing in different companies, starting different companies, how does that affect your life as a dad?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, I mean, I think one of

[Jesse Puji]

the reasons I probably am doing this the way I'm doing it now is because I want the flexibility to be spending more time. And I'm not sure if you could be the a startup founder, CEO and still have the time for your family. And so I'm pretty regimented about my schedule. Like two nights a week, Tuesday, Thursdays, like I don't see my kids before bedtime usually because I'm gonna either work late or take a dinner. And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like I do bedtime. That's been the case since my son was born. 11 years ago. Friday nights and Saturdays I'm usually all family mode. And then Sunday afternoons I'll work a little bit and maybe work out and get some, just some personal time.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So I have a pretty, like the only way I've been able to do

[Jesse Puji]

it is I have like a pretty regimented schedule.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then I think we travel, I don't know, we travel probably six weeks

[Jesse Puji]

a year, maybe more than that. So that's the other place I probably indulge more than I would otherwise of just like we'll go on vacations and that'll be all. Like, I don't, I'm known to turn off. Like I delete my slack and email.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, I like give the team my hotel phone number. I'm like, this is where I'll be.

[Jesse Puji]

If you need me, call me. And they never call. So that's the other place where I, we probably like as a family, we, we bond and hang out a lot.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

How do you think about some of this building? And even when you think of legacy leaving some to your family or not leaving any to your family, what is that?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, that's such a good question, man.

[Jesse Puji]

I listen to this podcast a little bit on it because it's helpful to get the perspective from like Dr. Becky and, and that other person.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

You know, I, I, I'll, I'll tell you a few different, I'll jump around

[Jesse Puji]

to a few different things that I, that I think are, have been helpful for us.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

You know, one is like it is, I think one of the hardest things for me is like we, my kids didn't see me grind and I still

[Jesse Puji]

work 50, 50, 60 hours a week.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So I still work reasonably, you know,

[Jesse Puji]

not, it's, I'm not working 20 hours a week.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So they see me working and you

[Jesse Puji]

know, I'm not always home or whatever, but they didn't really see me grind

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

and so they've gotten all the fruits of the grind without actually observing the grind.

[Jesse Puji]

And like that has some danger just in their heads of shaping how things might play out and, and what they might be.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then so that's just always on my mind.

[Jesse Puji]

Like I kind of wish they had seen the grind.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I think my thing for, for like

[Jesse Puji]

getting the kids first of all to understand money. Like we do the allowance thing of their, their age every week. They have like we do it on green Green light. Now the Green light app has been amazing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I think Dr. Becky said it is like we make, they have to make trade offs. Like they don't just have an unlimited

[Jesse Puji]

spigot of money where they're going, oh, if I buy this, and I can't buy this.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And, like, they're young. They're old enough and young enough to

[Jesse Puji]

kind of start that thought process and understand how it matters. We do. The one third goes into spending, one third into savings, one third into giving.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So, like, would like to create more

[Jesse Puji]

of a flint, you know, philanthropic orientation.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

As an immigrant son, you know, the

[Jesse Puji]

focus was making money. There wasn't actually any of this philanthropy or giving. It was like, dude, we're trying to survive here. And so, like, that's been in my ethos. But now I'm like, okay, that's not their ethos. Like, we got to give them a different ethos.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so I think just making that

[Jesse Puji]

money savvy has been, like, teaching them about investing.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

We'll talk. Like, I literally. This is kind of nerdy, but, like,

[Jesse Puji]

every time we interact with the business and I'm with one of my kids, I'll be like, let's put the p. L together of this.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, we just ate at Starbucks. Like, how many. How many cups do you think?

[Jesse Puji]

Like, it's like a consulting business case.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I'm like, how many cups of coffee do you think they sell a day?

[Jesse Puji]

And then if they give you a weird answer, which they're pretty smart, but

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

if they're like, I think they sell a hundred a day, I'll be like, oh, really? How many do you think they sell in an hour? Like, how many people were just in there? And then they're like, oh, no, okay, okay. Yeah, they probably sell a thousand a day, right? And I'm like, okay, how much do they charge for that? Like, I said to my daughter the other day, okay, six, seven bucks. Okay. Do you think they. It's a high margin product or, like, they know what that means? They're like, I think it's high margin. It's coffee. And then how many workers and how much they pay in real, like. And they, like, they start to develop this perspective on business that I think is valuable. And then the last thing I'll say is, like, I don't think you can actually teach anybody the value of money. As a parent, I don't think I knew. I grew up middle class, but I don't think I knew the value of money. I'll tell you, you and I learned the value of money.

[Jesse Puji]

I was 16 years old.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I got my first job at JCPenney in the men's sportswear section, and I worked eight hours during a Saturday blowout sale. And I My feet were hurting. I had a headache. I was staying on my feet all day. And then I got my check, and

[Jesse Puji]

it was like, $63 after tax.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Nice.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And that's when I was like, oh, my God, dad, thanks for buying me a plane ticket for 200 to go to camp. Oh, shoot, dad. Thanks for dinner the other night. Like, and I just don't. I don't think no matter what you do to your kids, unless, like, our big thing is they are definitely going

[Jesse Puji]

to get hourly jobs when they're 16.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Also, nothing made me want to be

[Jesse Puji]

an entrepreneur more than that.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

My. I started my first business in college after I worked at the gym, swiping. I thought it would be a great. It was in the basement, and there were. You have to take someone's card and swipe it to give them a towel. And I'm like, oh, who's gonna come to the basement to get a towel? I'm gonna do my homework all day.

[Jesse Puji]

It was my work study job in college.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Turns out lots of people come to the basement to get a towel. So all I did was swipe for. And I was like, dude, this is horrible. Like, it was $12 an hour. And so I think. I think the best way you can do this is my opinion is, like,

[Jesse Puji]

teaching kids is actually making them work and then understanding how work translates into money. And then from there, they'll go forward.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then. So that's. That's that. And then on the giving side, man,

[Jesse Puji]

you know, again, it's a conversation. I'm on the find my financial advisor.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And it's the most. Well, you probably have heard this, but the financial advisors go, there's four things

[Jesse Puji]

you can do with your money in the long run. You can spend it, you can give it to the government, you can give it to charity, or you can give it to your kids or family.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And, like, when I first tell people

[Jesse Puji]

that framework, they go, what do you mean, I can invest it?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I go, yeah, but in the long run, it's got to go into one

[Jesse Puji]

of those four buckets. It just. That's the only four places it can go.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So nobody really wants to give money to the government. You know, I mean, I pay my

[Jesse Puji]

taxes and stuff, but, like, that's not my goal, right.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Charities. I've struggled with charity, to be honest. I mean, I. I made a rule that if anybody asked me, I'll just

[Jesse Puji]

give them a few thousand dollars, because I'm like, I've been given a lot

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

and I want to give, but sure, you either really have to dig in

[Jesse Puji]

and understand what they're doing. And most charities unfortunately are like government. I mean they're just one step above government.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

This is the unfortunate reality. You're right. Yeah.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And maybe at some point we're going

[Jesse Puji]

to start incubating charities out of the Gateway X platform because we think we

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

can, but anyway, and then you give it to your kids. But like up until recently I've been

[Jesse Puji]

like, man, I don't know if I

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

want to do that.

[Jesse Puji]

Like, it doesn't seem like a, you know, a way to set them up for success.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And then every time we leave these meetings with my wife, I'm like, let's just go spend some more money. Because, because none of the other options are very good. But for the kids, you know, I think I love the book Die with Zero. Have you read that book?

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

It's a good one. Yeah, that's a great book.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So I think, I think there's some way to support them while we're still alive to have them if they're aligned to kind of like the, you know, the goals of growing themselves, being better

[Jesse Puji]

persons, adding value into the world. Support them in the ways they need to be supported.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I don't, I'm still, I'm still on

[Jesse Puji]

the fence of whether or not to leave any money or create some kind of a family office thing.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah. And I mean, you know, unless happen chance you die before you're old or you have a long time before that really matters. Right. It's in theory your kids are young and I think there could be, there could be a number of different unique ways even that exist that we are not even aware of right now.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

In 34 years I'm becoming more oriented towards like rather than playing defense around

[Jesse Puji]

it, maybe play offense around it. Like my kids are bright, they're good people.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like what would, if they could actually soar as high as they could.

[Jesse Puji]

What, what, what could I do to enable that?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I was, I'm on the board of

[Jesse Puji]

a family owned grocery store here in town called Schnooks.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's multi billion dollar revenue business owned

[Jesse Puji]

by the family still. And they're almost, I think they're on the 4th gen, 3rd or 4th generation. So they like really stood the test of time.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And one of the brothers, I was

[Jesse Puji]

talking to him about these kinds of questions and he was like, you know,

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

money doesn't ruin kids. Lack of values does. And so they've done a really nice

[Jesse Puji]

job of like they pass down values around service, hard work, other things. And so that's something that's really on my mind, especially now. My kids are getting to that age where it's like, let's talk more about what we stand for, what our values. And if we do that right, then the money shouldn't, one way or another, shouldn't affect them too much.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

That's very cool. I want to bring the plane in for a landing and ask what you, Jesse, want to be remembered for after all is said and done, some of the companies you've built, the acquisitions, being a dad, a husband, what do you want to be remembered for?

[Jesse Puji]

That's a great question.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I'm somewhat new in my relationship to service, but I think I ultimately believe that, like, serving others is the only

[Jesse Puji]

way to, like, serve the universe and serve God and serve. Because everybody, you know, that's.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so I think being someone who served others and helped others be the

[Jesse Puji]

best versions of themselves, and that that

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

could be my wife, that could be my kids.

[Jesse Puji]

Like, so my funeral is like, man, this guy. Like, my game is better because of him, or I am a better person, or I have learned something because he existed. I think that's probably the best gift I can give to anybody I know and what I'd want to be remembered for.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Yeah, Jesse, what are you up to now?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Yeah, so, you know, as I mentioned, we've been incubating companies the last several

[Jesse Puji]

years, and I had this, you know, as it relates to money, a powerful

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

session with my coach where he said, or, you know, are you a 10

[Jesse Puji]

out of 10 in your life, Jesse? I'm like, I'm an eight out of 10. I'm loving it.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

He's like, well, what would be a

[Jesse Puji]

10 out of 10?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And, you know, then he was like, well, if you were a billionaire, if you had all the money, none of it mattered, how would you. Just, how would you spend your time? Not what would you buy, but how would you actually spend your time? And I think that's one area of money we could talk about more is actually a lot of times my financial advisor, like, well, how do you want

[Jesse Puji]

to spend your time?

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Like, get a better office, do things

[Jesse Puji]

that are just going to make you happy.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so I. My answer to the question was like, I'd love to have more density of

[Jesse Puji]

entrepreneurs around me, like, scores of entrepreneurs

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

physically around me, working on the latest companies and basically doing what I've been

[Jesse Puji]

doing at more scale and more volume and density.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so, you know, I can't share too much just now, but that's what we're doing. So now we're looking to Attract lots of entrepreneurs funding them.

[Jesse Puji]

You know, we almost want to create, like, a.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

One of the big things that I

[Jesse Puji]

think is missing in the world is,

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

is funding for founders who want to seed Strap. So if you think about the narrative today, there's two narratives.

[Jesse Puji]

And, you know, Hampton knows a lot about this.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's like, oh, I can either raise venture money, and I have to raise round after round after round, and, I don't know, 1% become unicorns, and, you know really well, but the rest of

[Jesse Puji]

them are like, I got too much

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

money on my cap table. I'm. I'm stuck. I'm a zombie. Or you can have this lifestyle business, which is totally used as a pejorative, and someone, like, puts their nose down

[Jesse Puji]

at you and goes, oh, lifestyle business.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But again, Hampton more than anyone is like, there's so many founders who are building ambitious big companies, but they're doing it profitably, and they don't want to

[Jesse Puji]

get into the venture game.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And that's what I've done my whole career. And so what we want to do is we actually kind of want to institutionalize that. So we're. We have, you know, we want to put 1 to 2 million dollars in the company. That's the only round of capital you

[Jesse Puji]

ever take, and we help you get profitable.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

It's almost like a, you know, my dream is that I'm the Paul Graham

[Jesse Puji]

and Gateway X is the Y combinator of seed scrapping.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And we like to say we.

[Jesse Puji]

We're going to build camels, not unicorns.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So camels can work in any weather.

[Jesse Puji]

They're not.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

Maybe not as pretty, but they're more.

[Jesse Puji]

Much more common.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

And so I think with AI, by the way, that white space in between

[Jesse Puji]

venture funded and lifestyle is going to become much, much bigger.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

So we think there'll be a lot more companies who go, yeah, I need a million or two to kind of get going.

[Jesse Puji]

I want a few people around the

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

table, but then get profitable that first

[Jesse Puji]

year and then grow profitably and. And kind of control your own destiny. So that's now how we're spending our time.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

And.

[Jesse Puji]

And it came from an exercise around assuming I had an unlimited amount of money, because it gave me clarity as to how I wanted to spend my

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

time and maybe how I wanted to

[Jesse Puji]

change what I've been up to, which

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

I've been loving what I've been up to.

[Jesse Puji]

But.

[Jesse Puji (continuation or elaboration)]

But I was like, I can make

[Jesse Puji]

it even better this way.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Very cool. That's awesome. Well, Jesse, this has been a great episode. I really appreciate you Coming on Money Wise, sharing some of your thoughts. I love your values, I think.

[Jesse Puji]

Thanks.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

Working in service of other people, I mean there's, there's really nothing more serendipitous, I think. And you know, just giving, generosity. What goes around comes around. I think you're making the world a better place. I appreciate that about you.

[Jesse Puji]

Appreciate it, man.

[Daniel Burke]

Here's Jesse's whole situation. He counts every illiquid asset at zero. His advisors think he's crazy. 70% of his public portfolio is indexed and he spends about 500k a year. His kids are in public school and all three of them are getting hourly jobs at 16, non negotiable from 15 to 31. He says money was the only thing

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

nine times out of 10.

[Daniel Burke]

Now it's one out of 10. It took getting the money to find that out. People in Hampton always talk about what

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

to do with kids and how much

[Sponsor Voice (Anthony Monica or ad narrator)]

money to leave them, if you leave

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

them any at all.

[Daniel Burke]

Hampton has conversations just like the one we just had on Money Wise.

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

But all the time, Hampton's a private

[Daniel Burke]

network for founders and CEOs doing on average 25 million in revenue. If you're doing 3 million or more or have exited for 10 million or more, you need to go check it

[Interviewer (possibly Sam)]

out@join hampton.com and that's money wise.

[Daniel Burke]

I'm Daniel Burke. See you next week.