4 dumb ideas that made people rich

Summary

My First Million – “4 Dumb Ideas That Made People Rich”

Hosts: Sam Parr & Shaan Puri
Date: January 23, 2026
Episode Theme:
Sam and Shaan dissect so-called “dumb ideas” that have unexpectedly birthed million-dollar businesses. They break down why these ideas worked, what makes a successful “dumb idea,” and share lessons on seeing opportunities in simplicity, virality, and relentless execution.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sam and Shaan riff on four “dumb” business ideas that turned into money-printing machines, proving that brilliance often hides behind simplicity. Drawing on real-world examples—from viral foam hats to naming a star after loved ones, and even playing 10-hour crackling fireplaces on YouTube—the hosts break down the mechanics, virality, and business models that turn these quirks into success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Viral Foam Hats: The Cheese Grater Craze

• Background: Shaan recounts the recent viral explosion of silver “cheese grater” hats for Chicago Bears fans—a play on the Green Bay Packers' iconic cheesehead hats.
• Business Genesis: FoamPartyHats.com, run by Grace Rojas and her son, initially started as a side-project for birthdays and parties. After going on Shark Tank and making a deal, their hats went viral when a Bears player wore one during a post-game celebration (DJ Moore dancing with a cheese grater hat: [03:45]).
• Viral Moment: A locker room video gets 2.2 million views in days; the small operation receives 10,000 orders in a week, leading to a $500,000 sales week and multi-month waitlists.
• Key Takeaways:
  • The power of “fast following” meme moments with custom merch.
  • Novelty and speed matter in sports merchandise.
  • Quote – Shaan [05:26]:
    “There’s a million dollar business sitting in oversized foam hats, which is pretty wild.”
• Lesson: Virality loves physical, shareable gags—and if you can produce quickly, there’s money on the table.

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2. The Star Registry – Selling Space Nostalgia

• Recollection: Shaan recalls operating BirthdayAlarm.com and learning about the International Star Registry, where customers pay to “name” a star after a loved one ($25)—with no real official legitimacy.
• Why It Worked:
  • Purely a marketing-driven product.
  • The company “legitimized” itself with claims like storing records in Swiss vaults and the Library of Congress.
  • Referenced culturally (e.g. movies like “A Walk to Remember”) [09:00].
• Copywriting Power:
  • Sam draws parallels with Joe Sugarman’s legendary copywriting, using technical truths (“space grade aluminum”) to confer prestige on an ordinary product [10:27].
• Quote – Shaan [11:38]:
  • “He made it value.”
  • On product legitimacy and perceived value.
• Company Story: The original operator was an ad exec; later, a “mom of 12” bought the business and ran it as a family operation [12:17].
• Marketing Insight: People value emotion, story, and small bits of artificial exclusivity.
• Notable Exchange:
  • Sam: “Snake oil salesman says other guys oil is terrible for you.” [13:32]
• Lesson: Products can be pure marketing if you nail the story and emotional resonance.

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3. BirthdayAlarm.com & The Birth of Virality

• Story: Michael and Zoe Burch pioneered virality with BirthdayAlarm.com—offering birthday reminders and e-cards well before Facebook. Over 25 years, they generated ~$75M in mostly-profitable revenue [07:11].
• How It Started:
  • The original idea was digital address books (“LemonLink”). The side feature—birthday reminders—became the main business due to user demand [13:39].
• Lesson: Watch what users actually latch onto; pivots can create giant outcomes from small features.
• Quote – Shaan [16:36]:
  • “Because he was doing customer service and finally faced reality…nobody wants my idea, but they do seem to want this. Then, overnight, he creates birthdayalarm.com.”

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4. 10-Hour Fireplace & Ambient YouTube Channels

• Observation: Shaan directs Sam to type “10 hour fireplace” into YouTube, revealing a single video with 157 million views, uploaded by one Romanian creator [19:20].
• Why It Worked:
  • One simple, evergreen piece of content: a looping fireplace.
  • No follow-up content, just steady, automated income.
• Quote – Sam [20:19]:
  • “Bro is a millionaire.”
• Ambient Channel Trend:
  • Explosion of “ambient” and “lo-fi” music channels, often tagged with specific themes (“Old Money Brazil,” “Classical music that goes hard”) featuring AI-generated thumbnails and viral niche appeal [22:13].
  • Massive channels like “Lo Fi Girl” pulling in $100K/month.
• Lesson: Simplicity plus repeatable utility (or background vibes) can create massive passive income streams.
• Quote – Shaan [20:34]:
  • “I admire this. I admire the restraint maybe more than I admire the ingenuity.”

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5. Larry Jolton—the Championship Mindset in Shoe Sales ([27:09])

• Video Highlight: A 1983 CBS clip of Larry Jolton, “Cy Young” of shoe sales, who hand-sold $400K+ of shoes a year in Pennsylvania.
• Attributes:
  • Hustle, humor, signature lines, and relentless commitment.
  • Serving 5 customers at once, making home deliveries, never taking lunch breaks.
• Quote – Shaan [30:52]:
  • “Just his overall energy…this is a very inspiring video about just like being the best, championship mentality in anything you do.”
• Lesson: Excellence is not about being “nice” but having a process, persistence, and never getting bored with the basics.

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6. Process, Consistency, and Leadership Philosophy

• Sales Truth:
  • Sam & Shaan riff on how true greats in sales (and life) combine talent with relentless process—not just charisma.
  • Quote – Shaan [32:14]:
    “Guys like you and me actually suck at sales…because we want to use charm, charisma, talent. The best people use process.”
• Life Analogy & Coaching:
  • Shaan compares his commitment to daily, painfully-boring leg routines with legendary sales discipline.
  • Quote – Shaan [34:08]:
    “You can’t get bored with doing the thing that leads to great results. Even if it’s the same thing you’ve done.”
• Leadership Stories:
  • Sam’s high school cross-country coach: “Tradition doesn’t graduate.”
  • Shaan: “Feedback is a gift.”
  • Both share stories about how daily discipline, even in “small” things, leads to bigger personal and team success [38:26–41:19].

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7. Billy of the Week: John Catsimatidis—New York Grocer, Aviator, Oil Refiner

• Profile:
  • Greek immigrant, started with a corner grocery, expanded to regional chains, branched into private aviation (helped seed NetJets), bought and grew oil refinery—and now owns radio stations and ran for mayor [44:19–54:22].
• Attributes:
  • Unrefined, salt-of-the-earth energy, folksy charm, and “capital man” willingness to fully commit (sometimes over-leveraged) to new ventures.
  • Quote – Sam [55:11]:
    “This guy’s juiced to the gills, leveraged to the tits…You have to pay the price to do this stuff.”
• Controversies:
  • Some questionable public statements noted ([53:32], [56:07]), but episode focuses on his relentless, generative energy and business instincts.
• Lesson: Drive, hustle, and relentless reinvention matter—even if the business looks “boring” or the “dumb” idea seems beneath notice.

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Memorable Quotes / One-Liners

• Shaan [05:26]:
  “There’s a million dollar business sitting in an oversized foam hat, which is pretty wild.”
• Sam [20:19]:
  “Bro is a millionaire.”
• Shaan [32:14]:
  “Guys like you and me actually suck at sales… The best people use process.”
• Shaan [34:08]:
  “You can’t get bored with doing the thing that leads to great results.”
• Sam [55:11]:
  “This guy’s juiced to the gills, leveraged to the tits.”
• Larry Jolton (via CBS Archive) [30:06]:
  “The worst thing in the world is someone leaves without a shoe. That’s not going to happen on my watch.”

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Notable Moments / Timestamps

• [01:12]– Cheesehead/cheesegrater origin story and FoamPartyHats breakdown.
• [08:23]– International Star Registry: How to “sell” the stars.
• [13:39]– BirthdayAlarm’s accidental pivot to birthday reminders.
• [19:20]– The “10-hour fireplace” YouTube millionaire.
• [21:30]– Explosion of ambient and lo-fi YouTube channels, the future of passive income content.
• [27:09]– Larry Jolton – the best shoe salesman in America.
• [38:26]– Learnings from high school sports, coaching, and leadership mantras.
• [44:19]– The saga of John Catsimatidis (Billy of the Week).

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Final Lessons for Listeners

• Simplicity sells—sometimes being “dumb” just means seeing what most overlook.
• Spot the viral loop—and fast-follow meme moments with compelling, easy-to-share products.
• Excellence is routine—boring process, done consistently, opens the door to brilliance and scale.
• Embrace “boring” or throwaway features—they might be your goldmine if your users latch on.
• Anyone can start—especially if you’re willing to hustle, listen, and adapt.

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Episode Tone:

Playful, conversational, occasionally irreverent, and grounded in real talk about how simple ideas or relentless execution can trump “big genius,” as long as the angle and commitment are right.

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For aspiring founders:
Next time you see something that seems beneath you, too basic, or “dumb,” ask yourself—what if I just did it really well and with relentless speed? There could be your million-dollar opportunity.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Sean]

Sam, I have a list of what I'm calling dumb ideas that made a million dollars. These are obscure lists that really only people like you and me would ever even keep. But I have a list of dumb ideas that actually worked. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

[Sam]

I put my all in it.

[Sean]

Like, no days off on the road.

[Sam]

Let's try.

[Sean]

I say dumb, not because I think they're dumb. I actually think they're genius, because I think being clever and doing simple things is actually a form of genius.

[Sam]

But.

[Sean]

But I think other people would call these dumb ideas. So I want to run through them with you, and I want you to give me your reaction to each one.

[Sam]

All right, let's hear it.

[Sean]

All right, first one came up. I was watching the NFL playoffs, which were on this weekend. I don't know if you've paid any attention, but, like, the Chicago Bears, who have sucked for a long time, are in the playoffs, and Chicago has this rival, the Green Bay packers, and the packers have been great for a long time, and the Bears have sucked for a very long time. And so it's like kind of a rivalry just by, like, location, but they're not really. They're not really, like, close rivals. And so I'm watching the game, and I look, and in the crowd, I just see a ton of people wearing, like. I don't know how much you know about football, but do you know what the packers fans wear on their head?

[Sam]

Yeah. Cheese heads.

[Sean]

Cheese heads. So what do the Bears fans wear?

[Sam]

I don't know. Helmets, cheese graters.

[Sean]

And so I see all these fans wearing this, like, silver cheese grater hat, and I'm like, oh, that's clever. Like, we're about to shred the. The. The green B package. I'm going to shred the. The cheese heads. And I'm like, this is really smart. So I've started looking at what's the story behind this? And the story behind this is kind of crazy. So if you go to foampartyhats.com this business started in 2017. So Grace Rojas and her son Manuel Rojas, they. They create this thing. And they had actually for like, you know, 15 years, they had just for fun, been making, like, fun party hats. Like, I think for their own daughter's, like, party. They made fun party hats for all the guests. People loved it, and they kind of gave it up, and then they moved, and then they, like, started again, and they're like, we're going to make these Foam hats for special events, parties, occasions and sports. And so they've been kind of like trucking along. They got on Shark Tank and they got a. They gave up 25% of their company for 100 grand. Right. So like you know, Mark Cuban. Yeah. And you know, birthdays, wedding, corporate events. They had all these like novelty hats. And then came the boom. So this greater head thing has just taken off and become this like viral frenzy. So like basically the Bears, they have this coach. I don't know if you've seen this guy, Ben Johnson, he's kind of got like, if Sam Par was into football energy a little bit. He's just basically this young coach who's supposed to be really, really smart. He, he's super like ripped. So every time in the post game he'll like in the locker room he just like rips off his shirt, which like most of the old like 70 year old coaches would never do. And he gets his team like really fired up. But he gives the game ball to this guy who comes out and I don't know if you can see this, but he's this wide receiver, DJ Moore. He's wearing the hat and so he's, he's wearing this, this guy, DJ Moore. And he starts, Dan, the whole, the team starts chanting, Go dj. Go dj. There's a Little Wayne song. He starts dancing. This clip goes viral, right? This has 2.2 million views and suddenly these hats are flying off the shelves and they, they do like 10,000 orders in a week, which is like half a million dollars in a week. They have this huge wait list now, huge backlog. Cause they make these by hand apparently. And this idea of like team specific novelty merch. Cause like if like sports fans, like when I went to that warriors game, I walked out, I bought my son a jersey, a little ball, but it's like all so like vanilla. It's all cookie cutter. It's like the same things over and over again. But with social media, the teams now have little like trends, little meme moments. And if you could fast follow those meme moments and create stuff that's going to like kind of make somebody laugh or be worth sharing on social media you can actually get a lot of spread. And so that's what this company's been doing with these hats and going viral. So they've built basically a you know, million dollar plus business now off of these like novelty foam hats. Isn't that wild?

[Sam]

They do a really good job of making me into the story. Like it looks like it's A like a Hispanic like family and looks like the son is kind of the CEO and the mom is like one who is the brains and kind of came up with the idea and originally made it. Yeah, it looks pretty awesome.

[Sean]

Yeah. But I think if somebody takes this idea. There was another company, like a T shirt company. I can't remember the name, but they were doing this for sports teams where they. They realized like the drop shipping infrastructure has become so good that if anything happens in the game, like last night, within an hour after the game, they can have the store up for that product, for that slogan, for that thing, Linsanity happens in New York. And then they go, they have like the Linsanity like line ready to go. And so I forgot what the name of this company is, but they're basically like rapidly, like much faster, like orders of magnitude faster than the typical like merch industry creating team specific moment specific merch. And I just think that's like a. It's not the. It's not the best business, not a business I would want to be in. But it is like a simple man's business. Like anybody can understand what they're doing and be able to like try to replicate that. And if you niche down, even all the way, forget T shirts, like, to giant oversized foam hats. It's like there's a million dollar business sitting in oversized foam hats, which is pretty wild. All right, ready for the next one?

[Sam]

Yeah, that was a quotable last line. There's a million dollar business sitting in an oversized foam hat. All right, so a lot of people watch and listen to the show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. And really a lot of people who are listening, they have a full time job and they want to start something on the side. A side hustle. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, all right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea? And again, what they're really just saying is just give me the ideas. Well, my friends, you're in luck. So my old company, the Hustle, they put together a hundred different side Hustle ideas and they have appropriately called it the side Hustle idea database. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas. Frankly. I went through them, they're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them. Things like that gives you a little bit of inspiration. So check it out. It's called the side Hustle idea database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link, click it, check it out, let me know in the comments what you think.

[Sean]

All right, here's the next one. So, as you know, a long time ago, I was running a business called BirthdayAlarm.com. this was a business started by Michael and Zoe Burch. It had been going for 20 plus years printing, you know, millions of dollars a year. It was one of the earliest viral businesses ever. So I think Birthday Alarm has had like 50 million plus members with zero marketing spend because Michael is one of the pioneers of viral marketing. And so he understood how to. How to get this business to grow virally.

[Sam]

How much revenue has this done over the course? It's 20 years. It's 20 years old.

[Sean]

Yeah, I think he is more than that. It's probably 25 years old now.

[Sam]

And so has this done like a hundred million over 25 years?

[Sean]

Probably not a hundred. Probably like over 50. So maybe 75 million is my guess.

[Sam]

Wow. So.

[Sean]

And hyper profitably, by the way. Like, that's like, that's not just revenue is profit for a business like this.

[Sam]

So 3 million every year for 25 years? Ish.

[Sean]

Not exactly, but yeah, average. Let's say average. 2 to 3.

[Sam]

Okay. Wow. Amazing.

[Sean]

Because the business model is very simple. So it's reminders for your friends and family's birthdays. Fantastic. And then I was like, but that the reminders are free, so you make the money when people pay to send a card. And I remember when we were trying to like grow the business or revitalize the business, I was brainstorming ideas with them and I was like, you know, I try not to be too smart. So I always just like, what's already working or has worked in the past or is working for other people? And so that was my first question. Before I tell you any of my bad ideas, tell me about some things that are already proven to work. And he goes, you know, at the beginning, these guys approached us with this goofy idea that I thought was a total scam. He's like, but I think they've actually made even more money than we did without the 50 million members. And I go, what is it? He goes, it's this thing called the international Star registry.

[Sam]

Oh my gosh, I have heard of this.

[Sean]

So he goes, they let you for like a special occasion for your friend, you know, friend's birthday or whatever, you can gift them their name on a star. You can name a star in the universe after your friend. It'll tell. It'll show you the star, it'll tell you the location of it. And for the low price of $25, that star is yours. Technically, not technically yours at all. Not owned, not even officially named. Just named in our book that we're gonna keep in our office. And so these guys have been printing millions of dollars for also 20 plus years, just naming stars after people. And this got popular. It was like, it's been referenced in movies. It was like in A Walk to Remember, they, like, someone is dying, they name a star after her. Like, it's this emotional, sentimental thing. And I love it because the. It's a pure play marketing product. There is no product. Like, you don't get to have the star. They don't. You know, there's nothing. Nothing changes hands. It's literally not even officially naming the star after them. It's literally just, we are going to write it down in our book permanently. It's like something I would trick my kids with is this.

[Sam]

Dude, what's really funny is if you Google star registry, you could see they're buying ads against each other. There's like dozens of these companies, which begs the question, like, you know, like, whose book is like the more permanent book? But is this the one that was founded in 1979?

[Sean]

Yeah, 1979, when like, kind of space was hot and the moon and all that. So you get a, you get a certificate, you get a map of where the thing is, and you get to have that forever in their book. And so the funny thing is, like, they are like, kind of the details of this, which I think are, like, pretty funny. You know, think about it from a marketing point of view. How do you legitimize this, you know, frankly, illegitimate thing? And what they did was they basically, like, they made their book so official, they're like, it's placed in the Library of Congress. And we store the official book in a Swiss vault. In a Swiss bank. In a vault. And you write like, just leveraging, like, prestige.

[Sam]

And are any of those things impressive? Like, how do you get a book into the library?

[Sean]

Like, you probably donate a copy.

[Sam]

Like, one of my favorite copywriters, Joe Sugarman, wrote this famous ad for Casio watches. And he asked the guys who made the watch, he was like, explain to me how this watch is made. And they say, well, we use a quartz movement, and then we use this type of aluminum. And he goes, hold on, did you say quartz movement? And they go, yeah, it's like a movement that every 10 watch uses. He's like, but tell me more about Quartz. And he finds out what quartz means. And then he's like, tell me about the steel. He's like, yeah. Or this metal. He's like, oh, it's just aluminum. It's just like, you know, we use it, this pen company uses it. Hell, even like, NASA uses it. Did you just say space grade aluminum? And so if you read this old ad for the Casio watch, he was like, made with the same aluminum that space grade or is like, it's space grade aluminum. It is called that because NASA uses it on their rocket ships to make it so strong with the.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sam]

With the. With the quartz movement, which is the most precise movement. It's the same thing that Rolex uses or like, something like that. And so he, like, took like a truth and made it sound a lot cooler than it is. Sort of like in a Swiss bank account.

[Sean]

Fact. And he made it value.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

By the way, I think this is the. What's that thing called the Rorschach test or whatever, The. The ink blot. And you're like, is this a buddy rabbit or a serial killer? Right. Like, to me, that's what you just described is the thing for this podcast. It's like, if there was like a speakeasy and you had to come in and, like, we had to decide who gets in and who gets out, I'd tell this Joseph this Sugarman story, and I'd be like, do you find that amazing or repulsive? They're like, well, that's bullshit. And they're like, cool. You should. You should just head to the next bar. And if they're like, that's amazing. How do I do that? Like, come on in. Welcome to mfm.

[Sam]

That's pretty good. How long do you. Did you ever look up who owned this company? Do they have, like, some crazy story, like, Michael Burch?

[Sean]

Yeah. So it was owned by this Canadian advertising executive, but only for like a year. I think he, like, passed away two years later. And then this mom of 12 who gifted a star to her husband, loved it, finds out that, like, the business is, like, you know, for sale. She buys it, and then they've grown it as a family business. Now her son is the operator of it or something like that. So this mom of 12 did it. Which, by the way, if you're a mom of 12, you're hired. You're capable of doing anything. If you can be a mother of 12. I don't know what Navy SEAL training is like, but it does not compare to being a mother of 12.

[Sam]

Dude. On their. On their, it's called starregistry.com on their about Us page. They explain how they're democratizing the cosmos and all this stuff. And then they have a line that says, do not be fooled by the imposters. And it's this, and it's those other guys. It's this big paragraph that says, in the vast experience of celestial naming and there are also imposters seeking to capitalize on the allure of Allure. Allure of the stars. Numerous companies have attempted to copy us. And they go on to say why they are the more official one. Right. It's pretty funny.

[Sean]

Snake oil salesman says other guys oil is terrible for you.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Did I tell you how he came up with this idea?

[Sam]

No.

[Sean]

Michael had a. They were, they were both, I think, working at an insurance company. And he's like, we were making really good money because he's like, computers were new and like not many people knew how to do programming for computers. The Internet was new. Insurance companies needed somebody who could do like database programming or whatever. So he's doing that. I think he told me they were making like a really good salary, like maybe like 200 grand a year, maybe combined, maybe the two of them, I don't know, they're doing well. So the Internet boom starts kind of like 1998, 1999. And he's like, what am I doing sitting here at an insurance company? I got to be a part of this. Which I'm sure today, many people feel that way about AI and you know, the way the robotics and the way the world is going. So he said his friend sends him a site, a link to, you know, some, some friendster or something like that. He's like, wow, this is incredible. I gotta get, I gotta get in there, I gotta start doing things. And so he decides I'm gonna create a self updating address book. So like, you know, today this is still an unsolved problem. By the way, Sam, you move. I don't have your new address. I have to keep asking you for your address. I don't know when you move. So he had this idea. Well, the way it should work is when Sam moves, he changes his address once and it changes automatically. And anybody who he's already accepted, like to have his address, it changes for everybody. A great idea. Still a great idea. This is an idea that he had many, like Sean Parker, you know, who's famous from the social network and you know, Facebook. He tried to start a company doing this too. Like a bunch of smart people have been like, we're going to solve this problem. It just turns out people don't really care enough to do it. But he's building this thing. It's called LemonLink. He's like, you know, the best thing that ever happened was he's like, we had no money, so he's like, I'm the programmer. I'm the designer. I'm the product manager. I'm customer service. I'm the janitor. I'm everything, right? Because there's nobody else. And he told his wife when he quit his job, he's like, give me three months to try this computer thing and, like, this Internet thing. And, like, if it doesn't work in three months, I promise, like, we'll. We'll go back to having a job. Because I think they were, like, pregnant with their second or third kid, and so it was like, you know, not. Not super, like, stable time to just quit your job. Well, two years goes by, and he's like, I'm so close. I've just. Just keep. I need another three months. I just Let me keep going. So he's still trying. He's doing customer service. And Lemon Link is not growing. He's like, the only thing I'm getting in customer service is basically like, shut down my account. I don't need this. Or, hey, thanks for that birthday reminder. You saved my butt. You know, because he's like, I added this one feature in addition to the address thing. Like, oh, by the way, like, save their birthday, too, and I'll tell you when it's their birthday. That's a good feature. And he's like, I kept seeing that. And this was pre Facebook, so people didn't have an easy online way to know when their friend's birthday was. And so he realized, oh, this is a thing. And that's. That was the. Because he was doing customer service and because he finally faced reality, which is like, nobody wants my idea, but they do seem to want this. Then, you know, overnight, he creates birthdayalarm.com and within a couple of weeks, he gets, like, 10,000 members. And he's like, oh, my God. He's like, this was because he figured out a viral loop. And he's like, there's. He's like, to this day, you know, that was still the best feeling. But even before we made any money getting to 10,000 members, like, that was. That was crazy.

[Sam]

It's pretty crazy. He had the audacity to stop working on that and work on Bebo. Like most everyone else would say, all right, birthday alarm. How do we make anniversary alarm? How do we do this? How do we do that?

[Sean]

It's working. And it starts making a little bit of money. Not much, but a little bit of money. And his friend Morgan sends him a link to Friendster at the time, and he's like, oh, of course people are gonna want to, like this Internet thing. It's not just looking up information. They're gonna want to, like, talk to their friends and post photos about each other. You know, like, stuff like that. Like, that makes total sense. So he created a. Before Bebo, he created a Friendster like, product. It goes viral again because he really understands virality. But he's losing money because the more members that sign up, the more his bandwidth costs. And at the time, social networks didn't have any way of making money. Like, today, Facebook is known for, like, Facebook ads. There was no ads at the time, and so there was no ad network. Nobody had ever done that before. Nobody knew how to make money off of those things. So he went to a meetup, and he sold the business to James currier for, like, 2 million bucks. And he was like. And he went and worked for them for a year. And then kind of like, as social networking was. Was maturing, he's seeing what MySpace is doing. He's like, oh, okay, I think I know what I should be doing. I learned even more about virality here. Now I'm gonna go start Bebo. Then he started Bebo, and that was.

[Sam]

The one that took off. And that was, like, in two or three years, he grew it from nothing to, like, a $800 million exit. Right?

[Sean]

I'm not sure how many years. Yeah, three, four years.

[Sam]

Probably, like, very short.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sam]

What a baller. Damn. And now he's just the sole proprietor of littlebirthdayalarm.com.

[Sean]

Just a mom and pop shop. Yeah.

[Sam]

Just trying to make it make ends meet.

[Sean]

Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out 4/5 of the pages. Point is, you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference, because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com I have one more very dumb idea that I admire for its simplicity. So you probably are a subscriber to this YouTube channel. Can you just type in 10 hour fireplace?

[Sam]

Of course. I mean, everyone is, aren't they?

[Sean]

So what you will see. Describe what you see when you type in 10 hour fireplace and then click their YouTube channel.

[Sam]

They have done a very good job of naming it. So I see. Oh my God. I didn't realize it was that big. Okay. Holy moly. Okay, so obviously it's what you guys expect. It's a 10 hour video of a fireplace with 157 million views.

[Sean]

Exactly. There's how many videos on this channel, Sam?

[Sam]

So they posted this 10 years ago and shockingly, they have 120,000 subscribers and there is one video. And it is. It's so funny. There's like points in the video that. You know how when you scroll over YouTube there's points where it spikes? Like where the viewers are like, why is it.

[Sean]

The viewers are just loving it.

[Sam]

Yeah. Like why is it.

[Sean]

So I look at the most replayed section.

[Sam]

Like, oh, they don't even add logs. They don't even add logs to the fire. So it must be like a 30 second loop just done over and over and over again. Like there's parts where it spikes. You see this, the part at five hours and 55 minutes.

[Sean]

Thrilling. Everybody knows about that part.

[Sam]

Oh, the top comment. Bro is a millionaire.

[Sean]

Bro is a millionaire. Because this guy is a. This channel was started by one person in Romania. It's a channel with one video. So this guy just hit it and quit it. This is the one hit wonder.

[Sam]

Did you just quit?

[Sean]

He posted one video of a 30 second loop of, of a fireplace or I don't know if it's like but a 10 hour video of a fireplace crackling. And this guy made a million dollars in Romania. And did he try to follow it up with another video and then turn it into an empire and then create. No, he just put the video up. Let it run, baby. I admire this. I admire the restraint maybe more than I admire the ingenuity.

[Sam]

Dude, have you noticed on YouTube what's been going on with these types of things? So, I don't know, I guess we can call it an ambient channel. Let's call it these. Let's. Let's categorize them as ambient channels. I like. I love ambient. Ambient channels. I listen to like the weird white noise. Yeah, it starts. It started as white noise. There's this company called Brain fm. Do you know Brain fm? Yeah, I love Brain fm. So they make some of My favorite noise. Just great noise. I was a paying subscriber to Brain FM years ago.

[Sean]

Oh, my God.

[Sam]

So I love Brain fm, but then I started going down the rat hole of, like, other music. So there's like. They call it, like. Like, is it like, Lo Fi Mac Miller? It's basically just Mac Miller for some reason. I don't know how I got. I like Mac Miller, but not enough that I would think he'd start popping up on my channel. So it's tons of, like, Lo Fi Mac Miller, which I love. But what I've noticed is that there's basically like a quadrant or, like, a huge graph where it's like, let's do old money. Let's do 1980s. Let's do this. And then it's like, now select country. So, for example, I keep getting targeted with Old money Brazil or 1980s finance, or, like, it's like. And they create the best AI thumbnail. So type in old money Brazil music.

[Sean]

Old Money Brazil.

[Sam]

Trust me, it's so strange.

[Sean]

All right, I see this gentleman in this nice suit with a cigar and Old money Brazil. Elegant bossa nova. Timeless luxury instrumental playlist. 74,000 views.

[Sam]

I get targeted with so many of these. There was another one where it was like, you get targeted, or you.

[Sean]

You select you. You. You beg for them.

[Sam]

You make the algorithm. So, yeah, like, if I see that image, it might get.

[Sean]

First shape our algorithm, then our algorithm shapes us. The old Winston Churchill.

[Sam]

But then. But then there was like. There's even crazier ones where it's like, greedy American Revolution. Like, I don't, like, like, locked in American Revolution or something like that. Like, it's like. It's crazy how, like, specific they get, but they basically just take like, like, you are joking.

[Sean]

This is real 90 minutes of American war revolutionary music, Liberty Song playlist.

[Sam]

And they like. It's like, do you see, like, a good. A good one?

[Sean]

Oh, define good, bro. I'm never gonna click any of these.

[Sam]

Like, the thumbnails are so funny. Like, I'll have to find a different one. But the. The thumbnail. I. I tweeted out the other day, I was like, the thumbnail gods have been smiling on me. And it's like an American Revolution like music, but the best thumbnail ever. And I keep getting targeted over and over and over again. These guys are. Are. Are. Must be doing well.

[Sean]

You.

[Sam]

You. You've never seen these?

[Sean]

Well, I've seen just a normal loi. So, like, Lo Fi Girl, for example. Lo Fi Girl, I think, is probably the Biggest channel in this category. 15 million subscribers. Two and a half billion views on the channel. Making about a hundred grand a month on this channel right now. And that's just. That's, like, my channel right now. She's live. There's 30,000 people just listening to this right now while we're recording this.

[Sam]

It's the best. So look at the. Look at the.

[Sean]

Why don't we just do this?

[Sam]

It sounds awesome.

[Sean]

Why are we talking?

[Sam]

Look at the thumbnail that I sent to you.

[Sean]

Oh, this is incredible. What is this?

[Sam]

Explain what you see.

[Sean]

I mean, I don't even have a word for this. It looks like, you know, like that. What's the painting at the top of the Sistine Chapel where, like, the naked man's reaching out to, like, God and their fingers are about to touch? It looks like that guy, but he's got his dukes up, like he's about to fight. And he's like a hairless naked man with, like, half a mullet. And it just says classical music that goes hard.

[Sam]

Yeah, or I'll see them where it looks like paintings like that, and they're giving, like, the shocker sign. And so I just get, like, so many of these. And I think it's just. There's, like, this weird underground world. There's that underground world, and there's the underground world of the comments. So if you look at MFM comments, people can't see this. But on the back end, we've tried to ban them, where it's like, I can't believe no one has been blessed. Why hasn't anyone blessed me before? Like, they've just blessed me after. I read this book called, like, you know, Millionaires are Us. Like. Or they'll be like, I totally agree with this video. And it's so funny that this video that you guys are making these points, because I read. I read about this exact thing in the Millionaires R Us book by this person who's a total saint.

[Sean]

Dude, this is. Those guys are, like, the bane of my existence, by the way. I just sit there and, like, manually try to get rid of them. Have you seen this guy, Yang, man, on Instagram? It's like an AI monk, and he's got this, like, healing guide. He's got a million. He's got, like, 1 to 2 million followers. And it's a monk who's just doing, like, talking head advice videos. And then he sells a healing guide. And again, it's like, you know, it's a guy who's like, you know, it's a kid who's 17 with like the broccoli haircut, who had just moved to Miami and he's in a house with seven other guys. And they're all creating these accounts that are like, dude, it's sold on Whoop.

[Sam]

You know, what's that thing called Wop or whoop where you buy like financial newsletters. If you go to his, if you go to Yang Mon's link tree, you click on.

[Sean]

Because that's what a monk would do, right?

[Sam]

He would be on, on wop, the ebook.

[Sean]

Time to heal, young man.

[Sam]

It's like things you might love and then it's like newsletters that it's like 10x your wealth with this stock tip.

[Sean]

Yeah, but people are doing this, they're doing this with fake grandparents. So they have like an account that's like wisdom from like grandparents, but they're all AI and it's like what I wish I knew when I was younger. Like the one thing, you know, the love that got away. And they just post content like that. They're just printing views right now.

[Sam]

Dude, this stuff gets me every time. It sucks. I love this stuff. I fall victim to this worse than like a grandparent falls victim to like buying the top listing on an Amazon. Like, like every birthday for every, like, for every gift giving experience at my house right now from grandparents. It's like you guys all just typed in kids bike and bought the exact same thing.

[Sean]

I got to show you one more. This is the best one. All right, so I, I'm on YouTube the other day and you know when the algorithm just like has a commission, five star, you know, experience for you. So this is one the most intense shoe salesman you'll ever meet. It's a CBS News archive from 1983. Shoe store here in Sharon, Pennsylvania is just, you know, a shoe store. Oh, no. That's the playing field of a champion. Here he comes now out of the bullpen. The hottest pitcher of a retail shoe game today. Big number one, Larry Jolton. Let me see. Coming up. All right, so this video, it was of this guy Larry Jolton, who was the number one shoe salesman in America. And he sold this is back in 1983, he sold 400, $400,000 worth of shoes at this physical shoe store himself by hand. It's in Pennsylvania. It's some like rayers or something like that. It's a famous shoe store. And so he was the number one hustler. And this video is amazing because they.

[Sam]

Just play a clip on him. I want to see the Hook is great. I'm in. I'm. I'm bought in.

[Sean]

Here you go.

[Sam]

I wouldn't go any bigger than that.

[Sean]

That's a nice ratio.

[Sam]

It's 20 off. Like a light.

[Sean]

Better. I do too. Especially in the summertime.

[Sam]

Listen to me.

[Sean]

You order the two shoes whatever color you want. If it comes in, it don't fit. You don't like it, you're not obligated. Big day. Clean it up. Larry Jolton is the Cy Young of his time. The best of the big league shoe pitchers. There are only 38,000ft in Sharon, Pennsylvania. Last year, Larry Jolton sold $423,000 worth of shoes. Going busy today, fellas. I can feel it. I can feel it. It's going to be busy. His stats make him the mvp. The officially recognized champion shoe salesman.

[Sam]

It's not bad.

[Sean]

All right, so watch this. So they show him doing his thing. And there's a couple of amazing parts. There's, there's. I said one is. He's like, I'll. He's like. He's like, the worst thing in the world is someone leaves without a shoe. He's like, that's not going to happen on my watch. So he's serving like four or five customers at once. And he's like, he's basically like selling them on. Like, it's about. Not about the size, it's about the fit. He's got all these like go to slogans. And he's like, that's a good looking shoe right there on you. And then he'll, he'll like deliver them to their house. He's like, I'll deliver to your house, I'll deliver to your office. I'll find you on the street. I'll give you the shoes. Don't worry. And he's like, if you ever have a problem, you just give right back to me. I'm Larry. And then he, they show like, he never takes a lunch break. So they show he's eating a burger. You have to keep up your strength because sometimes the game goes into extra innings. He's just eating a burger in the back, like stores in. In the shoe rack where he finds the sizes. He just takes bites as he's running back and forth to get customers the shoe size.

[Sam]

This guy's awesome.

[Sean]

He's like. And then he's like, you know, he's. He's like his sales philosophy. So he's like, you don't want to be the nice guy. He's like, you know, you gotta. You. Some people Just want to be told. They want to be told what. What they need. And he's like, you know, they come in, they think their shoes, size eight and a half. They. They walk around with cramped feet all the time. He's like, you got to give him a size 10. He's like, he tells the story about this guy, like, didn't know what he wanted. He's like, the customer doesn't always know what they want. You got to help them. And he's like, yeah, that's. That's the artist. Shoe sales. But just his overall energy. And when he's like, walking around the bullpen, like, he's like, got to be a big day today, boys. Got a lot of shoes we got to move today. And like, all the other shoe salesmen, like, clearly don't care. And like, this is a very inspiring video about just like being the best, just championship mentality in anything you do.

[Sam]

Dude. So he. He died this year, which is. He died this year. His obituary, it goes in depth about how he was on that show and a bunch of other shows, and he said he was. The National Shoe Retailers association named him salesman of the year in 1983. 84, 85. They say he was a larger than life figure. This guy's awesome.

[Sean]

He's incredible, right?

[Sam]

I love this man.

[Sean]

I love this man.

[Sam]

Larry's a salt of the earth type of guy.

[Sean]

If you're going to do anything today, you bring that Larry Jolton energy, that championship mindset to whatever you do. You. You sell whatever you sell the way Larry sold shoes today. All right, that's. That's the final word here.

[Sam]

Have you ever studied sales? Like, I. I imagine if I had to guess, you did something. You. You and I have behaved similarly, which is like, we're pretty charismatic, so we think that's all it takes. But then I've hired salesmen before and sales women before, and I've like, seen the difference between a really, like, a winning one and a pretty good one. And it's just like a total. Like the greats have both the talent and. And this thing that I'm going to describe. But the second thing that they all have to have is process, where, like, they know that saying this gets that it's like such a. A mouse in it. Finding a cheese type of energy where it's like the really good ones just kind of blindly. Oh, that worked. No ego. I'm just gonna do that. Oh, I just threw that thing out there that caught that. Got a laugh doing that one. Like, they follow like this process.

[Sean]

Guys like you and me actually suck at sales. And the reason we suck at sales is because we want to use charm, charisma, talent, whatever. And they, you know, people, the best people use process. And even the reason we actually suck isn't even because we can't adapt that because over time we're like a problem solver. Like, it's a puzzle, Oh, I gotta do this. And then that gets me the solution I want. We would get bored doing that. The most impressive thing of this guy isn't that he sold $400,000 shoes. It's that he just kept doing it year after year after year. He never got bored of it. I have this phrase I say now because every day when I do my workout, we start with this 10 minute routine where I basically like loosen up my IT band. It's like do like a fascia release on my it band, which is painful. It's boring. It doesn't look cool. You don't feel like you're getting any stronger or more athletic. It's like the opposite of what you want when you go into a workout. But I need it. I need it because, like, I've had knee injuries and I gotta keep doing this. And you can't do it once, twice. You can't do it for two weeks. You basically have to just constantly do this if you want to stay healthy. If you're like, if you're got sort of my, my leg condition and now every day when I go in, I said, all right, boys, we're not getting bored of greatness today. Let's not get bored of greatness today, right? The Larry mentality of like, you can't get bored with doing the thing that leads to great results. Even if it's the same thing you've done. You can't get bored. You can't become sort of nonchalant about it. You can't become autopilot with it. You can't like cut the corner or cut it short because you already have done it before. Like, you have to do this. And that's when I'm coaching my team. It's the same thing. Like we played a game the other day and the warm in the warmups, I knew we're going to kick this team's butt because their warmup was so sloppy. I was like, if they warm up like this, they're not going to be able to play at some high level because they. This tells me everything I need to know. I don't need to do a scouting report. It's over. And sure enough, we beat them by almost like 50 points. And it was. Yeah, they didn't have a lot of talent, but they were shortcutting the process and so. And like, I just feel like that, like, getting bored of what gets great results is a real problem. It's been a real problem for me in my life. And I know that, like, for other people, if you're sort of like smart and talented, you get off on solving new problems and new puzzles. It could become an Achilles heel.

[Sam]

Dude, I'm always. I'm the biggest victim of these stories where it's like a company does the small things, right. And it like levers up or levels up to the big things. So, for example, have you heard of Rakuten?

[Sean]

Yeah, I. I know them well.

[Sam]

So Rakuten's a Japanese company. I think they're like the Amazon of Japan, right? Ish.

[Sean]

Yeah, it's. It's kind of. It's retail, but then there's also like a big, like, discounting kind of component to it that I think, like deals component to it that I think that Amazon doesn't really have.

[Sam]

Yes. But it's just like a multibillion dollar, huge, massive thing. Whatever.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And for some reason I came along, the founder and I started reading about him and they have a book because they're famous for having a culty culture. So the culture is like, like super into it. And he released a handbook on what their culture and what their values is. It's one of these things were supposed to be internal and it was a hit. So now everyone reads it, or a lot of people read it. And like he has like 30 rules or something of Rakuten. And like, rule number one is every Tuesday from three to four, everyone at every office throughout the world, you stop what you're doing. And we clean. And we refuse to have cleaners hired cleaners. And his reasoning was that if we keep our desks clean, it's the same thing. You can. You already know what's going to. I'm going to say you keep your desk clean and you have a clean desk. You're going to have a clean mind. It's going to keep you disciplined. Same thing. Like, you know, general. I forget what the general is who had the famous speech make your. Yeah, yeah. Was make your bed. And then there's all these other famous stories of like a coach of Indiana basketball or something like that who turns around the team and he's like, I started by teaching the front desk how to answer the phone.

[Sean]

The shoelaces yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

It's like these stories over and over and over again. I love all of them. I'm always, I'm always, I, I'm always into these. I, I don't know how often they are true, but I buy into it. Do you, have you ever tried one of these things with your, I mean, it sounds like you're doing with your basketball team, warming up, right?

[Sean]

Yeah, we try. I mean, the hard part is have the courage to, to actually live by it. Right. You could read the story back, ah, that's great. And that makes total sense. Then you get into an environment where you got all these people who, they're not as bought into it. They don't, you know, they don't really care. And are you going to really force and are you really going to enforce it? And how, how much of a standard really is it? And how many exceptions are you going to create? And are you going to let your best player not do it or are you going to let a meeting get in the way of it? Right. Like, it's all the compromises is where things get interesting and it's, I have never gone to the extent where I'm like, truly hardcore about it because I think it takes like just a different level of leadership and courage that I personally don't possess.

[Sam]

Let me reframe it for you. So in high school, I tweeted this out the other day, but in high school, my freshman year of high school, first practice, I went to an all boys school, first practice for cross country, the coach gets up and he goes. And it was like, I remember the Titans moment. He was like, I'm going to teach you guys something. We're not gonna, I'm not here to teach you how to be the best runner. What I'm here to do this year is I'm gonna teach all of you boys how to become men. And we're gonna do it by learning how to run better. And he goes on to say, like, you know, we're gonna like show up earlier than we anticipate. We're going to like, run when we don't feel like it. We're gonna like, go through the pain no matter what. We're gonna stick around until the last person's finished because that's what we do with our teammates, you know, that whole thing. And at the time I kind of like laughed a little bit about it, but then I started buying into it and it brought us all together. Our team did. And the cross country team, my high school slew, you know, it's a nerdy sport. But we won all the time. We always won. And he used to have this idea of like being great and how you're going to be a great man just via running and we're going to teach you how to do all these little small things. And it totally worked on our team and it was awesome. And because of that, this coach has a very cult personality. We used to have this phrase, it was tradition doesn't graduate. That was like, I still remember, like tradition never doesn't graduate. You know, like, like he was like, he's like, I've been doing this since the 80s. Tradition doesn't graduate. You guys are going to graduate. But we've been doing this the same way and it works. And I just remember all of these like culty lines. And we're talking high school cross country. Nothing like significant, but it like meaningfully impacted me and it was awesome. And so this type of like inspire you to be a better human being by teaching you how to work better or clean your desk better. I love that story.

[Sean]

My buddy Jason told me an amazing story like this. So Jason Hitchcock, I think you know Jason, he used to work at Bebo and I was pretty hard on J or like I would give him feedback all the time, like, hey, you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do this. And like, maybe it's because he was one of the non engineers. So I felt like, you know, there's only a few non engineers. I'm going to tell you what I think the engineers, I don't really have as much to say because that's not my domain. And I noticed he took it really well. Always like incredible attitude. So I was doing a one on one with him and I gave him credit for that. I was like, man, I think that you have just like a 10 out of 10 attitude at life and at work. And I just really respect that. And I know that like I give you a bunch of feedback but you take it so incredibly well, like, you know, whatever. And he was like, I receive it. I go what? And he goes, I don't take it, I receive it. And he goes, can I tell you a story like where that comes from? Said, yeah, sure. He goes, my freshman year I go to high, I mean I'm a high schooler and I wanted to play water polo. My brother was the like captain of the water polo team, my older brother. And I was, I thought I was like as good as him, are going to be better than him. So I feel I'm Feeling myself a little bit. I'm like, a hot shot. And he's like, we get in the pool. And I guess, like, for water polo, like, you're basically treading water while you're playing the sport, right? So it's kind of a hard sport. So during the warmup, you're probably not going as hard. So he's being a little sloppy in the warmup where he's treading, but he's, like. When he's throwing the ball, his, like, arm is, like, skimming the. It's, like, in the water still. It's not out of the water like you would want it to be if you were really playing a game. And so the coach, the varsity coach walks by, and he goes, jason, get your arm out of the water. Keep your arm out of the water. And Jason's like, yeah, yeah, thanks. Coach keeps going. A couple minutes later, he's like, you know, being a little lazy again. Does it again. Jason, keep your arm out of the water. And he said, yeah, coach, sorry, I will. I'm just getting warmed up. He has something to say back to the coach. Coach blows the whistle. Everybody comes over. He goes, hey, everybody, I'm coach. I just want to introduce you to Jason. Jason is a freshman. Jason is too good for feedback. Jason takes the gift of feedback, and he does not care. He doesn't want your feedback, all right? And he basically pulled him aside. He, like, embarrassed him in front of everybody. Like, Jason is too good for feedback. And he's like, look, Jason, feedback is a gift. If I'm going to give you that gift, you got to receive the gift, right? Don't just throw the gift away when I give you that gift, because think about what it takes to give somebody feedback. You have to be kind of vulnerable. You're risking conflict. You have to care about making that person better. These are what it takes to give that gift. And so he was like, feedback is a gift. And so, like, at the whole company, that became, like, you know, a mantra for us, which is, like, feedback is a gift, which is really important, because otherwise, you can create a kind of defensive mentality, or people shy away from saying something to somebody else. They'll only do it as a last resort, and that's not good. And so the feedback is a gift thing, like, changed us. And it was a lesson from his high school water polo coach. But the story with the lesson is what we needed for, like, people to get it.

[Sam]

I love stories like this. They always, like, get me going. I. You know, I distinctly remember we did A podcast a year ago where we were talking about. I think I was actually like, motivating you. I think, like, you had said something like, I haven't done anything like, world changing, but I've been doing this thing and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you saying that? Like, who cares? Like, if it's world changing? Like, you know, just. Just creating a small game that makes someone just a little bit happier is worth it. Like, that's not. It's not necessarily less meaningful than anything else. And I sort of have grown to believe that to like, work where high school sports are very insignificant, and yet it's like such a world changing experience for many kids. And I think that we need to take that same energy to work, which is like, you know, we're making a podcast, that's fine, but like, let's even go something way less glamorous for making, like B2B software. Like, it's not that special. But, like, you can, you can, you can learn how to be excellent here. You can learn how to follow through here. Like, you can learn how to, like, say you're going to do what you say and whatever. You can learn how to have this unearned pride where you make these tough decisions when no one is looking. And so I think that, like, that has carried over to, like, employees and how I've been working with my team.

[Sean]

That's cool. I like it. Sam's in his leadership arc. That's definitely the season you're in. You start. You got to like, start going by, like, Samuel or something. I feel like we need to upgrade the name, everything. I think, I think you need to re. Reinvent yourself here, actually.

[Sam]

Father. Just Father.

[Sean]

So work. Everyone calls me Father. Call me, call me Sam.

[Sam]

The. Just the same way the stargazing thing exists, there's this thing called universalministries.com where you can sign up and get ordained as a minister. And I've had to do that. I've had to do that to like, because I've. I've officiated a couple weddings before and it's all obviously a crock of bullshit. But I am a minister, so we could, if we could go by minister. I am a legal witness. So.

[Sean]

All right, let's take a quick break because I gotta tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank. And you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form, and it was open only during business hours, and I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction. They locked my account. They put me on hold for 45 minutes, and then they told me I got to visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury. And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies, and so do 200,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.

[Sam]

Bank.

[Sean]

The services are provided through Choice Financial Group column NA and Evolve bank and Trust members. Fdic.

[Sam]

All right, Sean, I want to show you someone who's in the aviation business, in the grocery store business, and actually had a pretty important character in a movie, Marty supreme, which recently just came out.

[Sean]

Okay. I haven't seen the movie yet.

[Sam]

Okay, well, you know what it is, right? It's like the biggest movie going on right now.

[Sean]

Timothy Chalamet and ping pong. I don't really. That's literally the only two words I know.

[Sam]

Or as Adam Sandler says, timothy Chalamer. Like, he. Like when he does that. So good. Okay, so Google John Cat, Mia Dandis.

[Sean]

All right, John the big cat. Here we go. Who am I looking at? American. Okay, here's just a quick description. American billionaire, businessman and radio talk show host. He's the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of grocery chains Gris Deeds. I've never heard of that. D' Agostino Supermarkets in Manhattan. Okay, go ahead. $5 billion net worth.

[Sam]

Yeah. Have you never heard of this guy? Have you?

[Sean]

No. He's a. This guy, the famous actor. Like, why do I. Why does it look so familiar?

[Sam]

He's a familiar face. He's one of these guys. He's sort of like the character in the Dark Knight who plays the police chief, where, like, you're like, I've seen this actor everywhere. What's his name? He's. He sort of has that type of energy. So here's his story. So I think he's 80 now. So he was born. I. I guess that would mean sometime in the 40s, and he immigrated as a baby from Greece. He came to New York. I believe he moved to Harlem. And then he was an okay student, went to Brooklyn Tech, which in, I think New York is A pretty good school, but eventually actually got into West Point. So he's clearly smart, but didn't go. Didn't. Decided not to go to school and instead he bought a small grocery store. So at the age of like 20, he. He convinced a failing grocery store to sell it to him at like an owner financing type of setup where he didn't have to come up with a lot of money. But do you know anything about grocery stores? They're like the hardest business to run.

[Sean]

No margin business, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, it's a commodity. There's like, it's. There are no margins. So if you look at like the biggest grocery stores, or at least some of the midsize grocery stores, like the, the regional giants, they do like 3% margins. It's incredibly challenging. You have food that's going to spoil. And particularly back in the 70s when he was doing it, you don't have the most like, the best systems to like, make sure your food's not going to spoil very hard. But he's a. He's a dog. He's got that immigrant hustle and he's able to grow this business. I think it's something like seven years. So by the time he's only 32, he has this cool quote that I found in newspapers.com in this old article where he grew the business to the point where he was making something like 40 million a year in revenue. Had like 12 or 15 locations. And. And he goes, I'm now paying myself at the age of. And this. Actually, he said this at the age of like 28. He was like, I'm paying myself a million dollars a year. So through like just hustle and grind, like, he kind of makes it work. And he does like a lot of like, stuff that we take for granted now. Like his grocery stores, they were called Red Apple. They did free cash checking, they did free delivery. It was a discount store. Like a lot of stuff that isn't particularly groundbreaking now, but he just like provided like a pretty simple service. But he did it really well. Now, Red Apple, which is. I think they have like a hundred locations in the city. They own Gristeedis. Have you heard of Grassidis? No.

[Sean]

Is that like a New York thing?

[Sam]

Yeah, these are all, it's all. These are all local things. But here's where it gets weird. So he does two interesting moves. So at the age of 32, I think it is. He was like, well, I was going to get into West Point. My dream was to be a pilot. I've never been able to do that. Gets his pilot license as an activity just for being. For. For fun. And he does this move that I've actually heard Richard Branson do as well. He buys a jet, and it's, like, kind of interesting and kind of fun, but then he's like, I got to turn this into a business. I got to do something. And so he buys one plane, like, a relatively small plane. He has a biography, and it was just a Cessna, like, nothing fancy. And he starts allowing customers to charter his plane from New York City to Atlantic City. And this is like, in the 70s and the 80s. So, like, the airlines are still a little bit nascent, but it's still, like, pretty complicated. But he pulls it off, and he's able to. So now officially, he's in the aviation business. And, like, one thing leads to another, and it grows for, like, eight years and eventually becomes like, a fleet of like, 40 planes and jets, which eventually he sells to Warren Buffett or. Yeah, Warren Buffett. And that is, like, one of the beginnings of NetJets, which is one of Berkshire Hathaway's, like, crown jewels, I believe.

[Sean]

And so he was doing it as private charters, not like an airline, like Branson.

[Sam]

No, private charters. But he tried to get into the actual airline business, and I don't think it worked out. Now, while all of this is going on, he's still only like 33, 34, 35 years old. He does another crazy thing. He hears about an oil refinery going out of business in Pennsylvania. And the grocery store business, it's a commodity. Lots of unions, very low margins, 24 hour. Like, you have to be working 24 hours to make it work. And sometimes somehow, which I never would have thought this would have been a thing. He made the leap that they are comparable. And he gets into the oil business and he finds an oil refining company, which do. Do you know what that means?

[Sean]

I mean, not really. They are a middleman in the oil process between drilling for the oil and selling it to the end customer is my guess.

[Sam]

But what. Not exactly. It's. It's. It's. So these are all very vague terms. So I had to, like, figure out, like, what exactly is oil refining? Basically, if I had to dumb it down, they do two things. One, they have a massive pool or tank in the ground that can store tons and tons and tons of oil. So you drill the oil, it goes to this thing, and it's not particularly useful. You can't use it. And so there's this process where you have to refine it, and you could take parts of that crude oil and turn it into oil that you could use in cars, oil that you can burn as kerosene. You know, oil can turn into multiple products along the way. And that's what he did, was he bought a business that did that, which is actually kind of ridiculous. Like, you never would have thought that that would have been a thing, but it works.

[Sean]

And by the way, when you're reading about this or watching whatever you watched for this is it. Is he just like a gunslinger? Like, why is he going into all these different spaces? He can't help himself. Does he have some aspiration? Is he just, you know, he's just wired that way? Like, what did you get as a sense of like the. Why is this guy doing all. Why is he bouncing from. From totally different hard thing to totally different hard thing?

[Sam]

This is why I wanted to bring him up. And so I think you and I will get a kick out of like people like him. But let me just add that the last thing he. He does two things now in his sick. I think he's close to 80 now in his 60s. He does two other wild things. One, he starts an AM radio station, political like weekly radio show which he still is the host of. You can't find it on YouTube and you can't find it on Spotify. You literally only get this on AM radio. And he records every single Sunday. And I've like listened to it and like his co host is this like Long island guy who's like, hey, John, what do you think about this mom Donnie guy? Like, it's hilarious. Like he's a very unrefined billionaire, I would say. And I mean that in a cool way. And the second thing, the reason or the second thing that he did was he ran for mayor in 2012, I think, and he almost won. And he was like, I'm going to be a mayor for, for the people in Harlem and the people on Wall Street. So he's this very like sort of salt of the earth, immigrant energy type of billionaire guy. But the reason why he's interesting is a. What did that. What's that word that you have been obsessed with? Generative. Yeah, he's very generative. But he does this in a way, you know, like the charm that. When Donald Trump is being like a nice guy, you know, like the charm that he has where he's like, ask, screw it, let's just do it. You know, what's money amongst friends? This like old timey, like, right? Like, what's a little like you know, I'll take a little. You take a little, we all win. Like, this type of energy.

[Sean]

My word is my bond. My word is. My word is stronger than oak.

[Sam]

This guy is actually that he. He has that energy with him, but it's not. He, like, he doesn't. He's not hateful at all. So he's a Republican, but he talks very fondly of Obama and Hillary. Like, he. He's. He's not. He's not a hater at all. And he's got this very folksy types of vibe. And when you hear him talk, he's got this thick New York accent, but it's very much a, like, spit on my hand, shake your hand type of energy. And I have found him very fascinating because that. And also now his company, it's called Red Apple Holding Company. I think they have like eight or nine thousand employees. His family runs it. And I believe him and his kids, they all. They own a building in New York City. They all live in the same building. They run this company together. And he's still, like, incredibly active, even at the age of 80. And he's just constantly doing stuff. He's very interesting to me. And also, he looks very funny. Like, he looks.

[Sean]

He was just an actor. He just had a cameo. Was he playing himself or.

[Sam]

He was. Listen to this. So Marty supreme, which is the hottest thing going, I went and saw it the other day.

[Sean]

How is it? Like, must watch. Okay, where are we at?

[Sam]

Did you see Uncut Gems?

[Sean]

Loved. Uncut Gems, Loved.

[Sam]

Then you'll like this. So if Uncut gems is a 9 out of 10 on the stress scale, Marty supreme is an 8 out of 10. And for people like me, if you're in Mutt, if you're in my boat, you'll hate it. I hated Uncut Gems, and I hate Marty Supreme.

[Sean]

Too much stress.

[Sam]

Yeah, all the characters are pretty evil, and there's no, like, redeeming qualities of any of them. But. But he. This guy John has like, a pretty, like, interesting, like, not minor character in Marty Supreme. And so I was like, this guy is everywhere. He's a man about town. He's just always doing stuff. And he just seems like sort of in that Jesse Itzler category of people who have fun while winning and doing well. And he's just a really fascinating guy to me.

[Sean]

Dude, I'm reading this guy's Wikipedia and I'm like, wow, that's really amazing. Oh, that's really amazing. And then it's like he gave a speech at the Stern School of Business. Expressing his unease about his daughter's graduating class. He said 480 of the 580 kids are Asian, including Indian. And that's scary when you think about it. We're going to deport most of these kids. So then I was like, oh, well, that may not be so amazing for, you know. Yeah, kick me right off this podcast.

[Sam]

Did he really say that?

[Sean]

I mean, I don't know. It's on the Wikipedia page.

[Sam]

I didn't see that one, but I did see other things where I'm like, I couldn't tell if you were trying to be funny and it reads stupid or right. Yeah, it does. He does seem like he's an 80 year old new Yorker who has a little bit of a big mouth. But my vibe, my read on him was that he was an all right guy, but maybe.

[Sean]

This list of what you call capital men. And I feel like he would be one of the capital men where he just takes money goes into these, you know, sort of mavericks into new spaces, creates new investments, new entities and whole new, and a whole new industries and you know, wins more often than not, doesn't win every time that you actually can't be a capital man. If you have a perfect record, it kind of means you did not, you know, you weren't playing as, as, as rough as you should have. But, but wins more often than, than not. I feel like this guy's in that bucket.

[Sam]

Yeah, I was reading his book and it's. There seems like a common theme. A lot of these guys, there's one point in their life where they're just, what. What was the phrase we used? They're, they're leveraged up to the tits. Like they're just like, they have crazy amounts of dads.

[Sean]

What's the scientific.

[Sam]

Derek, for more plates, more gates, more plates, more dates? He always says this guy's juice to the gills. And when I was, when I was reading about old Johnny Katz, I was like, this guy's, this guy's leveraged to the tits. He's leveraged to the gills. And so yeah, there's, you have to pay the price to do a lot of this stuff. But I love these young guys who are like, have this gunslinging energy.

[Sean]

So he is your, your Billy of the week.

[Sam]

Yeah. So the whole anti Indian thing, I didn't know about that when I got into this. So this is a little, this is.

[Sean]

Sort of throw you.

[Sam]

Yeah. So I should have done a little capital J journalism. Otherwise I was going to say we should have invited him onto the pod. But I think that probably won't be happening.

[Sean]

Hey, we can still invite him. Let's see. Let's see what happens.

[Sam]

You should ask him about that quote.

[Sean]

We'll just make sure we do it remote. I don't disclose my location.

[Sam]

I didn't realize he said that. So did he say. What other dumb stuff did he say? He said.

[Sean]

He said about like, there's something about Hitler. I don't know.

[Sam]

Classic blunder.

[Sean]

He compared raising taxes on the wealthy to how Hitler punished the Jews, which is.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's probably not the best place.

[Sean]

To go to a trap we've all fallen into.

[Sam]

Yeah, I did read that line and I was like, dude, like we have seen time and time again that type of comparison. People have tried to make it. Literally, not once has it ever worked.

[Sean]

Dude, I might end up being the richest man in California. Have you heard about this billionaire tax?

[Sam]

Yeah. So is the gist of it that net worths will be taxed at 5%?

[Sean]

Yes. One time tax of 5% for billionaires. So all the billionaires are leaving, which will mean they'll just be like, okay, we'll move to the next class of people soon enough. I'll be the last man standing in California.

[Sam]

Yeah, I think that's a pretty stupid law. But at the same time I'm like, isn't it crazy how little power a billionaire has if they have to leave their home?

[Sean]

If Rohana can bully you.

[Sam]

Yeah, like, do you really have that much power? It's like another Dark knight reference. Have you seen when Bane is talking to the guy doing construction and the little guy's like, I'm in control. And Bane puts his hand on his shoulder, he goes, do you feel in control? Cuz like Bane is about to like snap his neck. That's sort of like that's the 850,000.

[Sean]

Votes it takes to put this on this on the bill.

[Sam]

That that's sort of the energy that I'm feeling right now, which is like these billionaires being like, you know, we're the big shots. It's like you don't look like the bill big shot if you have to leave, if you have to flee your home. That said, it is kind of a stupid rule because so like the analogy that I always use is let's say that you buy a Picasso painting for $5 at a garage sale and turns out you didn't realize it, but you bought like, you know, a one of one rare piece of art. Now your net worth is hundreds of millions of Dollars or whatever the painting is worth. How are you supposed to pay taxes on that assessed value?

[Sean]

Yeah, it's. It's complicated. I mean, you don't even have to go as far as the finding a Picasso at a garage sale example, which is, you know, that's more of an edge case. But like, you're a founder of a startup in San Francisco. Your on paper net worth is $200 million. But that's just because you just got a. You have an AI company that was hot and you raised around. That doesn't mean you have that money. That doesn't mean that that money is anywhere close to guaranteed for you. But you would be on the hook for the taxes the following year, which is, which is pretty wild. I mean, all it'll do is just obviously going to drive the wealthiest people out, obviously drive the startup founders who want to get wealthy out. Because why would you start here and literally, like, you know, strangled the golden goose of California. It's like, oh, yeah, you know, what did you achieve? What did you accomplish with that?

[Sam]

I read that, like, it said, like 20 or 30 families have left, like prominent families. You should make a, like a public announcement. The 31st. Yeah.

[Sean]

Oh, what a great idea. That's hilarious. That's like that one time that I tweeted that I was buying bitcoin and then it somehow got picked up by all the bitcoin magazines and newspapers and they were like, executive Sean Puri says he's moving 20% of his net worth into bitcoin. And I'm like, I don't think y' all know how small that net worth is. You know, like, that's not magazine worthy. This has escalated far too quickly for me.

[Sam]

I saw some guy online announce that he was leaving and everyone was making fun of him and they're like, you know, you're not. You're not important enough to like, for us to care.

[Sean]

Yeah, you own two duplexes. You didn't qualify for the bill.

[Sam]

All right, is that, Is that what it is, by the way? A billion?

[Sean]

Well, there was a proposal for 50 million that didn't make it. Then they went to the billionaire tax because it's like, who's going to not vote for that? And so that's the one that's currently proposed. But people have done the math. Like, even if you tax the billionaires, even if you took all the billionaires money, it doesn't like, plug the hole of the California spending. It's like, basically it's setting precedent for. It's kind of like income tax, Right? Income tax I think was supposed to be this one time. What was the first one, like 3%. It's like there's a one time only 3% tax on income. Like, don't, don't worry guys, it's okay. And now like everybody pays income tax, you know, 20, 30, 40%, 50% of your income every year now. And so the idea would be once they set the precedent that they could just tax you on your property that you have not realized any gains on, then that's a problem. And if they can set the bar at a billion, then they could easily change it to change it or add, well, also if you're over 100 million, then you pay this. And also if you're over 40 million, you're going to pay this. And you know, they could sort of just continue on from there.

[Sam]

I've always found it interesting how they people come up with round numbers to make as the threshold. Like so if I remember correctly, like, I think like in the 1910 or 1920s, this idea of a millionaire kind of came to be where like people were using the phrase millionaire. Like, you're a millionaire, you've made it. And it's kind of funny that a hundred years later we still use that as like a threshold because the a millionaire in 1920 would be something like 20 million. Today I think it was 18 or 20x or something like that. And then billionaire, like people are like, billionaires shouldn't exist. And I'm like, okay, but why 1 billion? Why not 800 million? It just, I've always found that to be interesting how we like have settled on this perfectly round number.

[Sean]

Dude. So yesterday I took my whole basketball team, like the team I'm coaching, to the warriors game. And I like wanted to make like a special thing. So like after they won their last game in the locker room, you know, normally we're just sort of like saying like, you know, you did this well, you did this poorly. And then I was like, want to do something for you guys. It's your birthday coming up. You guys want to go to a Warriors game? And then we went as a group and they got to go courtside and see Steph Curry. Like, it was cool.

[Sam]

And you just ruined all of their eligibility for going to ncaa.

[Sean]

Providing I accidentally violated like hipaa.

[Sam]

How did you get courtside? You just knew a guy, new guy.

[Sean]

I don't, I don't know if he wants me to say so I won't say his name, but yeah, no guy who's, who's with the team. Ex player. And so he, he was like, he just literally like waved his hand. He's like, I'll. I'll let them come down. And the security guards, like, I guess if he's waving his hand, you can go. And I was like, yeah, me and these other 18 guys. And so we all went. But the. Anyways, it's part of a story of tech. I. I had one extra ticket. So I took my son, who's four and a half years old, and you know, taking a kid to a game like this, like his first basketball game, you know, we have to leave after the, you know, second quarter because it's like bedtime and I gotta drive him back home. But on the drive back, so I'm hoping I'm gonna have this amazing father son time bonding and like, I'm like wanting him to love him. Like, watch. That's the greatest shooter ever. Steph Curry. Like, that's the closest we've ever been to God right here, this five feet away. And he's like trying to care, but he doesn't really care. He's like, can we get candy now? And I'm like, okay. I had got him some M and Ms. And I'm like, every time the warriors make a shot, you get an M and M. Now he's like locked into the game. And so then finally we leave. And of course the drive home was this like amazing moment. I basically, I put Tesla like self driving. I just talked to my son for like an hour and it's like a one on one because I have three kids, so normally it's not one on one, but I got to talk to him. So he was my. He told me, he goes, you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be a builder. And I was like, amazing. Builder of like, what? And he's like, do I have to pick? And I was like, no, I guess not. And so I'm telling him about builders. Like, somebody built this bridge, somebody built this building, somebody built this car. And I'm. And somehow I start explaining to him who Elon Musk is. And I basically took a podcast episode for him and I'm like, you know, rockets. This guy builds rockets that land themselves. And he's like, what did they do before they landed themselves? And I was like, honestly, I don't know. Maybe that's actually hype because like, people went to the moon and came back. So I don't know. They like, you know, they come back. They do come back anyways, don't ask too many questions. So I'm telling him about Tesla, and he's like, did he start it? And I'm like, no, I'm not technically, but let's not get. Let's not get into those details. So I'm telling him about Elon Musk, and I tell him he's the richest man in the world. He's got, you know, money. He's got the most money in the whole world. And he's like, how much money does he have? And I was like, he's got, like, $300 billion, $400 billion, something like that. He goes. He's like, quiet for, like, 30 seconds. And then I'm like, did you hear how much money he had? Are you still there? Did you fall asleep? What happened? He goes, can it even fit in his wallet? And I was like, no. He goes, so we used to use a grocery cart explaining the concept of banks. And so anyways, I have this long conversation with him about. About money and about, like, you know, these, like, the sort of the builders and the prolific people that. That sort of make all this happen. And it just reminded me, like, I don't know.

[Sam]

By the way, did your son have a take on the simulation?

[Sean]

We didn't get there. That'll be the next time. He does have a lot of questions similar to that. Like, you know, like, where did the Earth come from? And then I'm like, yo, honestly, like, we're very much past the edge of my understand of, like, I don't know, to be honest. And, like, who's older? The Earth, the sun? There's a lot of questions that are pretty tough, but the cool thing is, in the car, they have, like, AI built in. So you just, like, if. I don't know, we just turn on AI and ask AI and then AI tells us anyways. So that's that.

[Sam]

All right. That's the pod.

[Sean]

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

[Sam]

I put my all in it.

[Sean]

Like, no days off on a road.

[Sam]

Let'S travel, Never looking back. All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcast.