Just found out my neighbor’s business sold for $450M

Summary

Podcast Summary: My First Million – "Just Found Out My Neighbor’s Business Sold for $450M"

Host/Author: HubSpot Media
Guests: Sam Parr, Shaan Puri, Ben
Release Date: January 14, 2025

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1. The Muscle Milk Success Story

Overview:
Sam Parr shares an inspiring story about his neighbor, Greg Pickett, who founded the now-famous brand Muscle Milk. Starting as a small family business, Muscle Milk grew into a household name and was ultimately sold for an astonishing $450 million.

Key Points:

• Founding and Early Days:
  The Muscle Milk journey began in 1998 when Greg Pickett purchased a sub-brand called Cytomax. Although Cytomax didn’t achieve significant success, it laid the foundation for what would become Muscle Milk.

• Family Business Model:
  Muscle Milk was a true family endeavor. Greg, his children, and other family members worked collaboratively from their homes in a cul-de-sac, fostering a strong familial bond and unified vision.

• Product Innovation – Flavor Development:
  One of the pivotal moments for Muscle Milk was the realization that flavor was crucial for mainstream success. Initially targeting hardcore bodybuilders who preferred unflavored supplements, Greg identified the need to create dessert-like flavors to appeal to a broader audience.

  Ben (03:59): "It's a total life goals story. Build a killer brand. You stick with the thing. You build it with your family."

• Scaling and Market Penetration:
  By focusing on flavor innovation, Muscle Milk transitioned from a niche supplement to a widely recognized brand. This strategic pivot led to exponential growth, with revenues surpassing $200 million before the eventual sale.

• Sale and Legacy:
  The sale of Muscle Milk for $450 million was not just a financial triumph but also a testament to the power of family collaboration and strategic product development.

Notable Quote:

Sam (03:36): "They create Muscle Milk, sell it for $450 million. That's almost half a billion dollars off Muscle Milk."

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2. Investment Strategies and Lessons Learned

Overview:
The hosts delve into sophisticated investment strategies, highlighting how recognizing opportunities during crises can lead to substantial gains. They discuss real-world examples involving prominent investors like Scott Galloway and Bill Ackman.

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a. Scott Galloway’s FTX Claim Investment

Key Points:

• Understanding Bankruptcy Claims:
  When FTX collapsed, leaving $10 billion in customer funds lost, Scott Galloway saw an opportunity in purchasing bankruptcy claims at a significant discount.

• Investment Analysis:
  Galloway identified that despite the collapse, certain investments made by FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), had the potential to recover value. Specifically, his stake in Anthropic, a leading AI company, was undervalued.

• Outcome and Mistakes:
  While Galloway's strategy initially appeared successful, the actual returns were a mix of correct intuition and flawed underwriting. His assessment that Anthropic’s valuation would surge did not entirely pan out as expected.

  Sam (46:15): "When you're right, you feel like such a goddamn genius. And when you're wrong, you chalk it up to, you know, whatever."

• Lessons Learned:
  The episode emphasizes the importance of thorough due diligence and recognizing the fine line between luck and skill in high-stakes investments.

Notable Quote:

Sam (47:07): "He's using the Anthropic investment as a downside protection where he was like, doing the math."

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b. Bill Ackman’s Four-Hour Decision During the 2008 Crisis

Key Points:

• Context of the Financial Crisis:
  During the 2008 financial meltdown, major banks like Bear Stearns were collapsing, creating widespread panic in the financial markets.

• Ackman’s Strategic Move:
  Amid the chaos, Bill Ackman evaluated Wachovia, a bank teetering on the brink of failure. Within four hours, he decided that the panic was overblown and that Wachovia was a sound investment.

• Swift Decision-Making:
  Ackman’s ability to remain calm and assess the situation objectively allowed him to invest confidently in Wachovia, which was soon acquired by Wells Fargo, resulting in substantial returns.

  Ben (58:35): "Bill Ackman bought 178 million shares at $3.15 a share, spending $560 million, and the next week, Wachovia was bought at about $7 a share."

• Outcome and Impact:
  This decisive action during a tumultuous period underscored the value of courage and informed risk-taking in investment strategies.

Notable Quote:

Ben (58:35): "That's insane. All right, well, that's cool. Bill Ackman's great."

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3. Growth and Innovation in Business Models

Overview:
The hosts explore how focused innovation and understanding market needs can propel businesses to remarkable heights. The conversation highlights the Headway app as a prime example of successful business scaling through targeted service offerings.

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Headway Book Summary App

Key Points:

• Concept and Founding:
  Headway, founded in Ukraine, offers concise book summaries, allowing users to grasp the main ideas of popular books in under 15 minutes. This approach caters to busy professionals seeking to enhance their knowledge efficiently.

• Revenue and Growth:
  With 1,500 book summaries and features like AI-generated audio, Headway scaled rapidly to $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with a 30% profit margin. The app's success led to a $2.3 billion valuation during its latest funding round.

• Marketing and User Acquisition:
  Headway employs strategic advertising on platforms like TikTok and Facebook, emphasizing personal development and time-saving benefits. Their ads often highlight how users can appear more knowledgeable effortlessly.

  Sam (27:06): "The way this business grows, they run ads on TikTok, on Facebook, whatever."

• Comparison and Inspiration:
  The hosts discuss how Ben’s earlier venture, "The Hustle," could have followed a similar path. Emphasizing subscription-based models and leveraging personal strengths like simplicity in communication could drive substantial growth.

Notable Quote:

Sam (25:34): "It's called Headway app and it is a book summary app. [...] People pay a simple 12, 13 bucks a month for this, and this has become an absolute juggernaut."

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4. Additional Insights and Anecdotes

Key Points:

• Flavor Technology in Business:
  The conversation briefly touches upon the importance of flavor innovation in products like Muscle Milk, underscoring how minor changes can lead to significant market acceptance.

• Behavioral Strategies in Business:
  The hosts discuss heuristics from business magnates like Warren Buffett, emphasizing the importance of filtering opportunities and focusing on clearly advantageous or disadvantageous options to minimize risk.

  Sam (51:51): "I'm obsessed with being transparent about money, particularly with ultra high net worth people."

• Personal Productivity and Readiness:
  Anecdotes about meal selection and decision-making illustrate the hosts’ philosophies on efficiency and focus, aligning with broader business strategies discussed earlier.

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5. Conclusion

The episode of "My First Million" intricately weaves stories of entrepreneurial success, strategic investments, and business innovation. Through the Muscle Milk narrative, the hosts highlight the power of family-driven ventures and product differentiation. Discussions on investment strategies with examples from Scott Galloway and Bill Ackman offer listeners valuable lessons on navigating financial crises and recognizing opportunities amidst chaos. The exploration of the Headway app exemplifies how focused service offerings and effective marketing can lead to explosive business growth.

Overall Takeaway:
Success in business and investment often hinges on the ability to innovate, remain steadfast during tumultuous times, and strategically identify and act upon opportunities that others might overlook.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Ben (03:59): "It's a total life goals story. Build a killer brand. You stick with the thing. You build it with your family."
• Sam (03:36): "They create Muscle Milk, sell it for $450 million. That's almost half a billion dollars off Muscle Milk."
• Sam (25:34): "It's called Headway app and it is a book summary app. [...] People pay a simple 12, 13 bucks a month for this, and this has become an absolute juggernaut."
• Ben (58:35): "That's insane. All right, well, that's cool. Bill Ackman's great."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the discussions, insights, and conclusions presented by Sam Parr, Shaan Puri, and Ben. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or an investment enthusiast, the episode offers valuable lessons and inspiring stories to guide your journey.

Transcript

[Sam]

I talked to my barber, and he tells me this story that's pretty crazy about muscle build.

[Shaun]

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road. Let's try.

[Sam]

He's got my hair, and he knows I have the podcast. So every time I go in for a haircut, he just gives me research and it's great, dude.

[Ben]

My handyman knows, knows I have the podcast, and he always asks me what stocks he should buy. And I'm like, that's not the point, bro.

[Sam]

He thinks you're Jim Cramer.

[Ben]

Yeah. He's like, so what stocks? What stock should I buy? I'm like, I. I don't know. I don't know. Don't ask me that. Just change the light bulb, please.

[Sam]

If he asked you, like, you know, what's the best way to increase my testosterone right now? Using an illicit drug, I feel like that is what he should be asking you.

[Ben]

Clearly, he's not a listener.

[Sam]

What can I buy from a forum that will make my tendons stronger? Sam has answers to those types.

[Ben]

Yeah. I'm like, do you want to know some really cool subreddits or an illegal place to download books? I got you, bro. All right, go ahead.

[Sam]

I talked to my barber and he's like, dude, you know whose hair I was cutting? He goes, he's your neighbor. My neighbor. And he goes, yeah, the guy lives just down the street from you. It's the family that started Muscle Milk. So they started back in 1998, and it actually started because he bought a sub brand called Cytomax from his employer. It's not ended up. It's not what ended up working, but I think it's a hilarious starting point. Yeah, it's sort of like how SpaceX started because he wanted to send, like a small plant to Mars, and now he's like, you know, build like a trillion dollar company doing this, you know.

[Ben]

What's the colostrum? I get so many ads on on Colostrum.

[Sam]

Good stuff, dude.

[Ben]

Is it like, from a animal or a human?

[Sam]

It's from a cow. Yeah.

[Ben]

Damn. So I'm like, depriving some newborn cow from, you know, like, her fresh milk.

[Sam]

Well, that's how all. Have you ever seen how milk is made? It's pretty insane.

[Ben]

No, no, milk is made.

[Sam]

It's messed up.

[Ben]

Is it just tons of devices that hook onto you like an alien?

[Sam]

All right, this is. This is my wife's vegan, so she's forced Me to, like, go down this road to, like, acknowledge what. What goes on. Here's how a lot of milk is made. I can't say all, but I think this is like the mainstream way. They impregnate a cow artificially. Literally. A dude sticks his hand in and like artificially inseminates a cow. Gets the cow pregnant. Cow has a baby. Baby is then ripped away from the cow, but placed nearby so that the mom could hear the crying and will produce more milk. And then they take the milk.

[Ben]

Yeah, I mean, that's.

[Sam]

That's sad.

[Ben]

Fucked up.

[Sam]

I hate that. What kind of podcast is this?

[Ben]

Yeah, dude, I literally drink a sad.

[Sam]

Ass vegan podcast is this.

[Ben]

I drink a glass of whole milk just last night and now I regret it.

[Sam]

Back to Muscle Milk. Yeah. Okay, so Muscle Milk, not actual milk. It's a supplement. And it starts out as powder. You put in a drink and he's like, cool. I think bodybuilders are into this. They're willing to drink this kind of chalky, nasty drink and he buys in. And basically it's a family business. So it's Greg Pickett and his. It's. His kids are involved with it. And what's cool about this business is years later Muscle Milk becomes a household brand. They end up selling the thing for $450 million. This. I'll make almost half a billion dollars off this Muscle Milk thing. The guy lives down the street. They basically started this as a culdesac company, meaning he lives in one house, the son lives in another house, the sister, his daughter lives in another house, and they all just live in one Culdesac.

[Ben]

Sounds awesome.

[Sam]

And like, the kids play together and then they just built this behemoth that way. Like, like, isn't this insane? That is badass. That is badass. That was like, inspiring to me. It's just like a family. Like you've heard of a family business. But dude, just imagine the culdesac business. I'm kind of inspired by this. Very much in the vein of thinking of find the people you love and do life with them. Like, so. Okay, how did it win?

[Ben]

Wait, really quick. Have you seen Landman? The oil show?

[Sam]

Hell yeah, I've seen Landman. I might have wore a cowboy hat yesterday. Just feeling a little Billy Bob Thorton myself.

[Ben]

I haven't seen it, but this clip I just saw makes me want to watch it. But basically, Jerry Jones comes on and Jerry Jones, like, gives this, like, amazing acting performance where he talks about the importance of working with his family. And how he's proud of his wealth and his real estate, and he's proud of his. The cowboys. But you know, what he's proud of most is that I got to spend time with my kids and we work together, right? And that's why they're here at my deathbed, because they loved me, and we got to spend a whole bunch of time together. And I heard that speech, and I was all in. For one, I was all in. And two, Jerry Jones, who would have thought he, like, had tears in his eyes? I did not think he could act.

[Sam]

Like somebody was saying. They're like, I don't think. I think this is such a good performance because he's not acting. I think all of this is just true for him. And he just said the truth, which. Which is great, by the way. Landman, fantastic show.

[Ben]

Yeah, it was such a good scene. All right, so tell me about Milk and Muscles.

[Sam]

Milk and muscles. All right, so they start the business. Pretty humble plan. They bought this, like, kind of supplement, and it's powder you mix into drinks. And they were like, look, if muscle bodybuilding enthusiasts drink this, this would be great. We think we can make this more mainstream, but we don't really know how. We just kind of are believers in the general idea. And they were like, look, if this thing ever got to, like, 18 million in sales, that would be like, imagine that. That would be crazy. And that was like the dinner table talk. By the time they sell, this thing is doing over 200 million in revenue at about 60 million a year in profit before they. They sold. So they. They had built, like, a really, really successful company. How do they do it? They eventually. And what I love about these stories is you hear about the story and you're like. You nod your head, you're like, yeah, that makes sense how that happened. But then you look at the timeline, and sometimes I'll force myself to literally draw out the timeline. So it'd be like, all right, 1998, they start the company, and then I'll draw 99, 2000-2001-2002-2003, 2004. It's like 2004 is when they actually made the product that hit, which is the. Ready to drink. Like, we've all seen, you know, the muscle milk carton. And so you. When you hear that, you're like, okay, cool, 2004. Then it really took off, and you just sort of read the numbers and the revenue ramp, and it looks good. But then you think, you zoom in and you. You force yourself to look at that like five or six year time period and you're like, there's not. They don't even talk about what they were doing during that time because it's just like the forgotten. The forgotten grinding out years of trying to make shit happen and staying in the game long enough to get lucky.

[Ben]

And what were they doing?

[Sam]

They were just selling. They were just trying to sell. And they were selling to like really small niches but ever expanding out of that niche. And eventually he has an insight, the dad has an insight and the insight is basically like, hey, you know what flavor matters? And he's like, if more people are going to drink this, it's going to be because I, I can I get this to taste like dessert. And he realized that the initial market they were looking at, which was bodybuilders, they took pride in drinking nasty shit. And so anytime you tried to make like a fruity, better tasting thing, sweeter thing, they almost kind of rejected it because it felt less hardcore. And they were super hardcore. And that's who the market.

[Ben]

You know, there's a lot of people who like take testosterone or steroids or oic, and a lot of doctors will offer you a pill, a cream or a syringe. And I've asked the doctors and they go, they all want the syringe because it feels more like this works better. It's going through my veins, I can feel it. Right, so exactly.

[Sam]

And, and I think that's true for the early markets, the hardcore markets. You know, Ben is like this. Ben is an early adopter of every product. As soon as a product gets popular, his interest like completely drops in it, right? Because the fun part was doing the hard thing, getting the edge, being ahead. And so same thing for bodybuilders. So what the genius of the business is that they saw that, hey, okay, the market we see today, the people who are buying it today actually is different. If we want to reach this other market, we got to like ignore all the signals we're seeing today. So he goes in the lab and he starts doing small batch production. And everybody else was so big that they could only test flavors in basically bigger batches. And so that meant slower cycles. It meant kind of like getting less like tight feedback loops. So what he did was he goes to LA and he starts testing flavors in like 15 gallon increments. And he pours it and he gives it to people and they're like, ah, too chalky. And he gives them another one, they're like too sweet. He gives another one and he finally makes this vanilla flavor that they're like, this tastes like dessert. I love this. And so he brings those flavors into the ready to drink beverage and it just takes off, it goes nuts. And eventually, like, Walmart starts knocking. And Walmart's like, hey, we want to carry this? He's like, dude, we can't even fulfill Walmart. He's like, all the specialty stores, the GNCs, it's flying off the shelves. And for like the first year, they're like so inventory constrained because he nailed the flavors. So what my barber was telling me, which is fascinating, what caught my attention about this, he goes, so this dude down the street, they created Muscle Milk, sold it for like $500 million. But the cool part is he goes, he didn't sell the flavors. I go, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, there's some story. He goes, it's not out there, but the guy is like, cut my hair. I've got to tell you.

[Ben]

The story is barber on blast.

[Sam]

It's not like insider trading. He's just telling me it's a really cool story. But he's like, you know, when you go and research, it's not. This part's not as reported. So maybe he got some of the details wrong. That's my, my caveat. But here's what, what he explained, which was basically the. When they did the sale, they sell the brand Muscle Milk, they sell the operating business, they sell the distribution. And then the buyer was like, cool. And the flavors. And they're like, actually, we have our own separate company that does flavors and we're not going to sell you that company. And they're like, well, we need the flavors. Like, cool. Yeah, we'll do a licensing deal. Like, we could provide flavors, but we won't sell the flavor company. And again, this is where the details are not reported. So either that's what happened, or right after they sold, they started a new flavor company. Because now this is what the family does. They have this flavor house that they created. And they were like, we're not going to do any brands anymore, but we will do flavoring as like, that's our. That's what made Muscle Milk successful. And that's what we're going to do now as a service. And now they've got a bunch of customers for this flavor brand that are this flavor house that they've created. And if you look at their facility, it's like this insane, like, you know, huge facility with like a vacuum sealed room. And they're like, oh, we do this technology, like Spray flavoring where you can add flavor to things that doesn't add any calories. And they're basically. It's all about flavor tech and I'm just like fascinated by flavor houses and flavor technology.

[Ben]

It's called flavor Insights. It looks awesome. And I see like the. They have a video with the father and his son and on the about page it's the whole family. This is my dream by the way. This is.

[Sam]

How can I tell you why this is even more your dream? While he's building Muscle Milk, he's got a hobby. And I know that you love a man with a real hobby and his hobby is racing cars and he has his own racing team that he created and then he himself races in. I, I don't know about racing but is it Le Man La Man?

[Ben]

Yeah, it's like. It's like a, a famous I guess lul track but it's like a. The famous thing is like it's a 24 hour race and so like Ford versus Ferrari and all these things.

[Sam]

I think he like won the race or he performed really well. How impressive is that? Is this like just rich guys doing it or is he competing? It's like real racers.

[Ben]

I'm not a real race enthusiast so I could be wrong but yeah, it's like dude like the story Ford versus Ferrari. It was about the time that Ford beat Ferrari at le Mans. Like it's like a big deal. Yeah, it's like a movie worthy deal. You know like Rudy style movie off underdog winning lama.

[Sam]

Right. So dhh. The guy, the Jason Fried's co founder.

[Ben]

He competes in out. Did he. I don't think he won. Did he?

[Sam]

He won. Yeah, he won. I think he, I think he won the race. And he said he's competed in it 11 times.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's sort of like. And oftentimes like the company that wins, they win for some innovative reason. And then like 10 years down the line that car part that helped them win becomes like the norm.

[Sam]

Gotcha.

[Ben]

Gotcha.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So that's like a big deal.

[Sam]

Isn't this a. It's a total like life goals story. Build a killer brand. You stuck with the thing. You built it with your family. You do it in the culde sack. I just think it's, it's amazing.

[Ben]

Sell the thing for none of his kids are yolked. Right. Like these guys, they don't look very yolked. I'm looking at the family now.

[Sam]

Well, as they're part public defender, here's what I have to say. About that. One of the things they talked about with Muscle Milk is they go, we wanted to build a product that everybody would look at it and see a different thing. So they go, women see it as a weight loss product. Men see it as a muscle building product. Some people see it as a snack. Some people see it as a meal replacement. Our goal was to build a product that you. That would basically, you know, solve multiple problems for different people at once.

[Ben]

I'm just saying that I want to see some bigger buys and tries on this family photo. They look great. They look very healthy. More importantly, they look happy. The founder's teeth are beautiful. Like, he's got a really nice smile. I just think that we should see a little thicker neck.

[Sam]

Can I tell you one other thing? So this company that bought them originally and now they're owned by Pepsi. Pepsi owns it now, but before that it was bought by something called Hormel Foods. It's one of these companies that you'd never heard of. This company does $12 billion in revenue. They do like a billion and a half dollars of profit a year. And if you go to their website, the headline, like, tagline for them is like, we sell more pepperonis than anyone on Earth. And they're this like, food holding company. They own Skippy Peanut Butter, they own.

[Ben]

Planters, they own Spam.

[Sam]

They own Spam. And then they sell just a shit ton of Ronis, dude. They just sell Pepperonis worldwide.

[Ben]

They own Applegate, they own Justin's, they own Planters, Skippy. Chi Cheese. I don't know.

[Sam]

Chi cheese, is that black label bacon? They own a lot of. I mean, literally, Spam is like, on their homepage as like their, like their, their pride and joy. Like, the way my parents pin, like, pictures of me up on the fridge. That's what this company does with, with.

[Ben]

Spam, which is like, it's pretty, pretty good. Horrible for you, but. Oh, dude, yeah. Hormel pepperoni. I know them. That's one of my snacks. One of my snacks is like eight pepperoni with a little bit of mozzarella cheese on it. Microwaved.

[Sam]

It's a pizza without the. The pizza.

[Ben]

Yeah, I just caught like a Hold the dough.

[Sam]

Just.

[Ben]

Just redneck and redneck fitness food.

[Sam]

This should be your brand. A line of, of not that bad for you. Redneck snacks. It's like, it'll. It'll make you farm strong.

[Ben]

Yeah. Or do you know like PB dip? You know, I call it dip, but you know, PB powder.

[Sam]

The powder. Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. You get a spoon of that and you straight, and you chuck it up on your. The top of your roof of your mouth, and you suck on that thing for 60 minutes. I call it like fitness dip. So, like, instead of, like, having, like, a fat lipper in, you just have a PB dip. You're just in your tongue. Just rub it against that dehydrated nut. Ooh, boy.

[Sam]

Ooh, boy.

[Ben]

You want to have a good time? Put a little PB dip on the roof of your mouth.

[Sam]

All right, we got our. We got our cold open for the episode.

[Ben]

By the way, let me show you one thing. You said something that I do religiously. I just sent Ari a document that I. I just sent her one of the tabs. I have dozens of tabs on this. Ari, can you share your screen? So whenever I read a book, I have this Google Doc that I've used since the year, like, 2010. All right, so check this out. Whenever I read a book, I do a few things. One, I make. Whenever there's like a year and a money term or some type of milestone, I write it down in a sheet. And the reason why I write it in a sheet is because a lot of times when you're building a company or doing anything that's, like, really challenging, you'll read about someone else and you're like, that was easy. And so I like to do timelines, and you'll see, like, okay, like, they went four years with nothing happened. And so for those listening, I have got a timeline of Koch Industries, which is like the largest privately held company in America. I read the biography of their family, and I, like, did a timeline where every. Everything major happened in their life. And then I converted the dollar amount into $2019, which is when I made this particular one. And it's really fun to do because you could see that things took, like, in this case, like, 30 years.

[Sam]

Right?

[Ben]

And so if you, like, if you scroll all the way to the left, I did this with Kirk Corian, another one of a guy who I love. And every biography I read, I create one of these.

[Sam]

Just another man you love. Can I just point out a couple things about this, what we're screen sharing here, that are just fantastic? It's just a peek into the mind. First of all, it's a Google sheet that's just called Sheet, which is just a great title. Okay, scroll over, Ari. Here's some of the milestones that Sam wrote down. All right, so starts for Koch Industries, 1900. Fred Koch, born 1924. So 24 year gap, big break. Finds Mentor. Okay, so then it goes 1927. Just a quick update. Still broke. Then it goes 20, 19, 29C success. 1931, big success with two GS. Just a big double G success right here. It's amazing.

[Ben]

And then 1940, he buys a company, and that company, he buys it for $4 million.

[Sam]

You also should just have pictures on here where it's them and the calves, and it's just your calves, just for reference. And you're just comparing calves. Because I feel like. Tell me that's not part of your research process, is it? Looking at photos and judging their looks.

[Ben]

Yeah, particularly the Koch brothers, because they're like these tall, WASPy guys, and I definitely am sizing myself up to them.

[Sam]

Yeah. The total picture of success includes a picture for sure.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's like tennis sweaters. It's like, oh, they're into tennis sweaters, therefore, I will wear tennis sweaters. But, yeah, definitely, like, two guys that are both six'two from the Midwest with blonde hair, blue eyes. Like, we. There's definitely, like a. There can only be one of us in this room.

[Sam]

Dude. There's this girl who keeps going viral on Twitter, and it's the same tweet she does every time. And she just goes. My dad goes to a bar with his friends every Friday, and he makes a list of topics to discuss.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Sam]

And then she. She put. She has a photo of him holding a printed out agenda. And I'll just read you one of them. Ted Perry's fun Capital story shown on Fox News 6. Next one. What's going on with the Bucks? Question mark. NFL overtime rules. Take ball first or second, question mark. Bahama breezes. How close is too close to an alligator? Do you think people that throw garbage out of their car window are the same people that don't pick up their dog poop when walking through my subdivision? That it read at the bottom goes, please be on time. As you can see, we have another week of a packed agenda, and it goes super viral every time. There's like, 100,000 likes. And I think who sees this is like, yeah, that's part of the winning life. I'd like to go to the bar with my friends every Thursday and have, like, an agenda that we print out and we talk about while wearing our New Balances.

[Ben]

Do you know who does this? And he's not joking.

[Sam]

I already know because you're talking about a legend, a social legend, and I know it has to be Nick Ray. Tell me I'm. No, I'm wrong. Is it Not Nick Ray.

[Ben]

The second time I hung out with Nick Ray, we went to a bar called Lazarus. Sarah and I came and he goes, hey, guys, I would love to hang out. This is our second time hanging out. I thought it'd be nice to have an agenda so we could stay on track. And There was a 13 point agenda list where it was like, ask Sarah about her job, figure out how that's going on, explain my dating life and get opinions from it. Like, it was a. And we stuck to that agenda and he took notes and it.

[Sam]

Was it thrilling? Because I think I'm gonna absolutely start thrilling doing this.

[Ben]

It was thrilling. You know how like, you know how.

[Sam]

Like, was it the agenda that was great or the fact that he had an agenda that was great? Which. Which of the two was the second one?

[Ben]

Here's why. So look, in a world, everyone wants to be a tough guy. It feels good to be a leader. But you want to know something? Everyone likes getting led. And, like, we like the assertive person.

[Sam]

I'm just a leader who loves being led.

[Dharmesh]

Yeah, that's me.

[Sam]

Like, that's on my LinkedIn.

[Ben]

I. I like leading some stuff, but then there's other times where it's like, just tell me what to do. And small talk is one of those things that no one just like, tells you what to do. And when there's an assigned leader who has something outlined for small talk, I'm just like, yes, sir, I'll do whatever you like me to do. And thank you. May I have another, sir? Like, it's like the best way to go about doing stuff. And that's what Nick Ray does.

[Sam]

Okay. By the way, that's how we do this podcast, actually. We both bring some agenda items and then we discuss in bullet point form.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think it's good. And he's done that for years and it's awesome.

[Sam]

All right, we're going to normalize having conversational agenda hangouts with an agenda. All right, let's take a quick break because I got to tell you about a friend of the POD who's got their own podcast. If you know Steph Smith, she is a legend. She's been on MFM many times and she's got her own podcast called the A16C podcast. And it's all about technology. If you think about it, technology has evolved like crazy. I mean, I grew up in the 90s. I had CDs, phones had cords. You couldn't use the Internet if your mom was on the phone. And now there's like 3D printers, and there's rockets that can go up into space. AI. There's so much crazy stuff going on, and you gotta have a place that helps you stay ahead of the curve. And that's what the A6.6Z podcast is trying to do. It's a podcast from the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, and it's trying to give you an inside look at the trends that are shaping our future. They've had guests like Mark Cuban and Neal Stephenson on, and they talk about topics like deep fakes or the science behind GLP1s or autonomous drones. No small boy stuff at all. Steph is the host. She's awesome. I think you'll enjoy the podcast, so check it out. It is the A16Z podcast, and I like this tagline. They say it's like eavesdropping on the future. That's pretty cool. That's a good tagline. So check it out. The A16Z podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts. I have a business that's pretty cool. Can I tell you about it? Here's my opening for this business, Sam. I found the business that you should have started instead of wasting your goddamn time with the Hustle.

[Ben]

Okay, I like that.

[Sam]

So you built the Hustle. And if you recall, one time, you came to me, hat in hand, absolutely begging for an investment. You needed the money, and you got that idea.

[Ben]

I got to piece.

[Sam]

And you said, please, sir, invest in my company. And I looked at it. I flipped through the business plan like it was a flip book. And I just said, no, thanks.

[Ben]

No, that's not what you said. You said, look, Sam, you're coming to a knife fight with a knife. I don't even want you to come to this knife fight with a gun. I want you to come to this knife fight with a magic wand. And that clearly, I turned away on.

[Sam]

My heel with a dramatic spin and.

[Ben]

I left the room. And then you tried to pull the door to open, but it was really a push door. Exactly.

[Sam]

Totally blew it at the end. Did not stick the landing.

[Ben]

Like, you clearly had just read that on a. Whatever the equivalent was of Twitter. And you're like, that is now my line.

[Sam]

Yeah, exactly. Back when I was like, I had it written on the inside of my palm, and I was like, peter Thiel says this magic wand. They say that to somebody totally owns them no matter what they're doing. So. But, you know, the reality was I looked at the business, and you were like, here's what I'm doing. I am creating a media company. So every day we're going to write the news. So every day you had to recreate your product?

[Ben]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Sam]

Oh, that sucks. It's like, do you get any. Is there any benefit of all the work you did in the last three months? It's like, not really. We got to recreate it again. We got to bake that cake every morning. Okay, sounds good. And then you said. And then I was like, cool. So then people pay you certainly for this service that you're doing that's free. Oh, okay. But then the advertiser, then we have to do a separate business basically to a separate customer selling advertisers. I was like, okay, but certainly they're on retainer and it's going to be recurring revenue that's going to stack up. You're like, no, no. They're just gonna. If they feel like advertising, they will. If they don't, they don't. Every month we're gonna start back at zero.

[Ben]

Yep.

[Sam]

And I thought, damn, this is a tough business to win. And that's when I hit you with the knife and the knife fight and blah, blah, blah.

[Ben]

Which it is tough. Ish to. To do well.

[Sam]

Yeah. And by the way, the, the best punchline, the whole thing is five years later, after you successfully sold the business and got rich doing it, I then copied your business model and did the same thing for crypto and. And was like. Came back to you basically be like, how do you. What was the business plan again? How do you do this? So. So that's the end of that story. Now here's a better business that somebody created five years ago that has the following profile. They don't recreate the product every day. People pay them for the product on a subscription. It's in a hobby that you love doing, and it's a thing you were doing anyways for free. So I think you would have been great at it. And also it uses your gift, which is making things simple, summarizing things, making them easier to understand, saving somebody time doing it. And this person has bootstrapped this business to 200 million in revenue with 30% profit margins.

[Ben]

I have no idea what is this.

[Sam]

It's called Headway app and it is a book summary app. So this guy in the Ukraine created this company where he takes popular books and he summarizes them. And the promise is basically instead of reading the book, I already read it. I summarized it. I could tell you main point 1. I could tell you main point 2. I could tell you the main point 3. And in under 15 minutes, you can get the gist of what's in this book. You'll get, you know, the big ideas and you'll get them explained to you. You could either read it, or we have AI that turns it into audio and you can just listen to like a 15 minute summary of this book. And we've done it for 1500 of the most popular books and people pay a simple 12, 13 bucks a month for this. And this has become an absolute juggernaut. So I did not think that these book summary apps could get this big, but damn if that's impressive. 200 million in ARR. 30% profit. Built this thing out of the Ukraine.

[Ben]

They just raised funding at a $2.3 billion valuation.

[Sam]

Right, right.

[Ben]

Holy crap.

[Sam]

You could have done that instead. And I think you would have been great at this, by the way. You know, here's why I said that this, like you could have done this. Because when I went and looked at their ads, right, the way this business grows, they run ads on TikTok, on Facebook, whatever. And the hook of their ads, tell me if this sounds familiar. My boss thinks I'm a genius and thinks I read 150 books a year, but actually I just use Headway.

[Ben]

That's their ad.

[Sam]

It's not word for word. I just wanted to really bait you with that one. But it's basically the. It's basically the gist of their ads. It's the same.

[Ben]

Invented that ad. I invented that ad. I stole it from someone else and I invented that ad. That's my ad.

[Sam]

That's the ad. That's my ad that I took.

[Ben]

Yes, I stole that from the sim and I invented that ad.

[Sam]

Their ad is a little bit more like. It'll be. The average CEO reads 52 books a year. How many do you read? Right. So they're basically making you feel like a shitty CEO. Or it'll say, everyone thinks I went to Harvard with the amount of books that I know, but actually I just use Headway. Or it'll be meet the app that all the intellectuals are using, stuff like that. And so those are the sort of hooks that they use to get people to do this, where they're not saying, here's a book summary. They're basically saying, be a smarter person and be seen as a smart person because you seem so well read. And here's your hack to seeming so well read.

[Ben]

So what's interesting is thrive. Thrive.

[Sam]

By the way, we should do this for the podcast. It's like my boss thinks I'm kind of retarded, but know a lot about business. The secret is I just listen to.

[Ben]

My first million, but I still sound a little retarded.

[Sam]

My boss is so impressed that I know all these numbers, but then he wonders.

[Ben]

But then he fact checks me.

[Sam]

My boss is wondering why I have pepperoni in my mouth.

[Ben]

This is ridiculous. These guys, so they raised money from Thrive, which. Thrive is a big VC investor in ChatGPT. Are they not worried that Chat GPT just does all this?

[Sam]

Well, they are themselves using AI for a bunch of stuff. Like if you go look at a bunch of their ads, they're all like AI generated ads. I think, you know, businesses like this that are like super laser focused on one thing. You know, even if you can use ChatGPT to generate a summary, that's not the same thing. And I think, you know, dude, they're not even old.

[Ben]

They started in 2019.

[Sam]

I know, right? Super impressive. They also have done this other app. So there's this one ad that was like so frustratingly good, it made me pissed that I didn't think of this. It's this simple looking puzzle. Tell me if you've seen this. I don't know. I don't know how much you use these. Like, it's like in a lot, a lot of games, this ad pops up or TikTok. It's this like, it's like a maze. Imagine a maze and it's like you're, you start on this dot, you have to get across without picking up your pen. And it just shows somebody trying to do it and they're messing up.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

And it's like, try see if you can solve this. Only 5% of people you know can solve this, but 50% of fifth graders can do it or whatever. And you're like, ah, I gotta see if I could do this. You download the app. By the way, that puzzle is actually impossible if you. There's. There is no solution to it. They just put it in. They put a thing that looks simple but you can't figure it out. You can't figure it out because it is actually an optical illusion. It's actually impossible.

[Ben]

But they use it.

[Sam]

Yeah, they have this other app called Impulse that's done like 70 million downloads. And it's a brain training app. And the framing of that is basically keep your brain sharp with these little like mini mini mind games. And my mom likes a lot of these things because she feels like, oh, I'm getting older, I should, I should have these little things on my phone that you know, keep me sharp. So she plays Sudoku and crossword, and she. She downloads apps like this.

[Ben]

So there's a skill set. They're just, like, crazy good intermarketers, Internet marketers, and really good, like, creating apps that retain apps that first and foremost.

[Sam]

Get you to convert and become a subscriber. And then, yeah, obviously, you know, the retention helps. And, you know, this guy talks about. He frames it as microlearning. He's like, microlearning is this. How do you get somebody to spend five to 15 minutes a day getting smarter? What if you use your phones to get smarter instead of just to waste your time? And so he makes it sound like this grand, noble mission, and at the same time, on the back end, it's just this ruthless funnel that is like, buy now, buy now, get the download, convert, convert, convert, convert, convert. And, like, that's the game. That's what you gotta be.

[Ben]

We talked about. Was it. Remember the period, apparently, or Flow. Were they Flow. Were they Ukrainian as well?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ben]

So these guys all have, like, a.

[Sam]

There's, like, these Eastern European app makers where they have these family of apps, and you go look at their website, and they're like, no raise, no funding. And then they'll have, like, 300 employees, and then their apps will do, like, you know, 100 million downloads a year. And it's, like, based out of Kiev or whatever. Right. Like, this just seems to be a pattern. I think there's, like, a. Just a very high density of talent that knows how to build this specific type of company.

[Ben]

Yeah, they're just, like, all homies, and they all have this, like. I don't know, this idea of, like, it feels fun to get one over on someone, but then they're like, all right, if we're gonna have that attitude, we should also, like, provide value so we stick around for the long time. Which is like, what every Internet marketer ever has. They're like, I'm gonna do something shady and they win. And they're like, oh, but it'd be a lot cooler if the customers came back to us or if we didn't have to refund people constantly. So let's just, like, do the shady stuff, but do it for something.

[Sam]

Like, if I could tell my mom what I do without shame.

[Ben]

Which is like, what every Internet marketer ever has done. But this is badass. How'd you find this?

[Sam]

How did I find this? Actually, that's another good story. Have you seen this Twitter account? Arthur Rock.

[Ben]

Arthur Rock. Arthur. I know that Arthur Rock was no, it's a.

[Sam]

It's like a parody account. It's Arthur Rock is his. His account. Have you not seen this? This thing is amazing, bro. Just you try to spell Arthur and naturally and just see what happens. You'll land exactly at the right thing. It's A R F U R fur. Okay, so it's this guy who's this, like, anonymous. He's like this anonymous vc, and what he did is he just created this Twitter account where he just tweets out numbers from companies that are raising money or trying to sell. And he's just like, leaks information. And so he's this. Just this giant leak. And so he tweeted out the numbers for Headway Apple. But if you just look at his feed, his feed is like pure signal because it'll literally just be like. It'll be like, post hog 13 million in ARR growing 2x year over year. They're currently raised.

[Ben]

Crazy.

[Sam]

It'll be like. Or like somebody will be like, you know, the. The founder will be like, we're. We're pleased to announce that we've raised our series C from Excel. It's a huge milestone and we feel so validated. And then he'll just tweet out. He'll read, quote, tweet. It would just go 50 million ARR as of November, up 1.8x year to date. Congrats.

[Ben]

Or there's like another one that, like, they raised that $400 million post. They did $6 million in 2024. Congrats.

[Sam]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like, how amazing is this? This is like the best Twitter account. Right?

[Ben]

This is really good. And you know what's funny? And we've seen this again and again and again. These meme people, anonymous meme jokers are like, right. A lot. You know what I mean? It's sort of like how Esquire or what was it called? American. What was the tabloid that, like, is in the grocery store? Inquirer. National Enquirer.

[Sam]

Yeah, the national car.

[Ben]

Like, they say a lot of bullshit, but they also, like, predicted like, the Bill Clinton scam or Bill Clinton stuff before everyone or like the John Edwards affair. And so, like, I do love following these Anon's accounts. This guy's great.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Like, dude, he says, hollow, a Catholic prayer app doing 60 million ARR growing 3.5x a year.

[Sam]

Yeah. Like, he did. And he also post updates. So in May, he'll be like, Suno, the AI music app just closed around 15 million ARR in the first year. LightSpeed invested at 500 million post congrats. And then he'll then, you know, that was May and then in October, right. So like you know, five months later he just wrote at 40 million. ARR. Now this guy's just providing. I don't know, you're not, you're not as big of a like a basketball fan. But like in basketball there's these two guys who were like famous on Twitter for just like this has sources everywhere. So it'd be like shams and it'd be Woj and they would just always have intel and there's all. Their entire Twitter feed is literally just inside info and be like, you know, sources say Jimmy Butler wants trade. His list of teams that he wants to go to are these four. Or it'd be like, like during the NBA draft, like you know, 45 seconds before every pick, they just say they're taking this guy and it would just spoil the draft.

[Ben]

If I'm one of these Ukrainian guys, like I don't have the skill set to do this. I'm not technical. But I wonder if you like, do you ever wonder why aren't there more people just copying fast growing companies? Like we'll just.

[Sam]

There are.

[Ben]

That happens a lot, it doesn't seem.

[Sam]

But I think you're. I think my answer is actually pretty good which is why aren't there more? So actually I think I answered your question wrong. I was like, no, some people do do that. And I think your question is actually correct, which is why are more people doing this?

[Ben]

Because like, I think I don't want to do this because I kind of have a reputation and I don't really want to do it. But if I was a little bit younger and if I had the skill set, which I don't like, if I see a company that's going at like 400x a year, which this guy does, he's like, here's some app that was only doing 5 million in revenue, but they're set to grow 4x. I'm like, yeah, just go to their website and copy that.

[Sam]

Yeah, I mean it's not so easy, right? Like you could copy a product that doesn't get you to the customers. And so you have to not only copy the product, you have to figure out how they grow and be as good at growth as you grow.

[Ben]

You can figure that out. You can use all this technology. Like here's what their ads say. I'm just going to do that exact same ad.

[Sam]

You can, but most people who have that ability, if you're that Good. You're also able to create new things from scratch. And I think also what ends up happening is that a lot of things look similar, but they're, you know, they're 80% the same and they're 20% different. But that 20 difference is actually a huge difference, right? It's like if you've ever looked at, we were talking about flavors earlier, it's like the difference between two flavors is like a 0.1% change in a certain, you know, certain chemical. But it'll change, you know, from vanilla. That's how, that's the difference between, you know, vanilla and orange soda or whatever, right? It's like, it's not that big of a difference on the whole, right? You're doing 80% the same, but it's 20% that's different. And so I actually advise this and talk a lot about this, which is if you see something that's working not as a company maybe, but like, let's say a trend or a business model, like, let's say E commerce or whatever, try to figure out what's working better or worse in a category. And then, you know, if you're going to go into that category, you're probably going to end up, even if you're trying to be super original, you're probably going to end up with 80% of the things the same, because that's how business is. You're not 100% different. But the key is to figure out what is your 20% difference going to be and how well can you execute on that 20% innovation. And I think that's a more humble, honest way of going about things versus I think most people believe they're doing everything 100% original and unique. And that's just not true. Right. Even this is also for content or wisdom. Right? Like, how many truly original, wise things. You know, I love Naval, but how many of Naval's things are 100% homegrown, not inspired by anything, not, not, not similar to anything else that was out there. It's very, very rare, right? Like, that's not how anybody does things. Tony Robbins talks about this. He's like, yeah, I, I learned under Jim Rohn and Jim learned, learned under Zig Ziglar or whatever. And like, it's the same school of thought, but like me putting my twist on it is the is what makes all the difference. Then you have people like Rocket Internet, which are literally like pixel for pixel clones, but even they operate in different markets. So they'll be like, cool, we're building.

[Ben]

Amazon And Thailand, Amazon for.

[Sam]

For Brazil or Thailand or whatever. And turns out once you try to do that, you're gonna, like, over time, a lot of things are gonna end up different.

[Dharmesh]

So I'm obsessed with being transparent about money, particularly with ultra high net worth people. The reason being is that there's not a lot of information on this demographic. And so because I own Hampton, which is a community for founders, I have access to thousands of young and incredibly high net worth people. We have people worth hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars inside of Hampton. And so every year we do this thing called the Hampton Wealth Report, where we survey over a thousand entrepreneurs and we ask them all types of information about their personal finances. We ask them about how they're investing their money, what their portfolio looks like. We asked them about their monthly spend habits, we ask them how they've set up their estate, how much money they're going to leave to charity, how much money they keep in cash, how much money they're paying themselves from their businesses. Basically, every question that you want to ask a rich person, we went, and.

[Ben]

We do it for you, and we.

[Dharmesh]

Do it with hundreds and hundreds of people.

[Ben]

So if you want to check out.

[Dharmesh]

The report, it's called the Hampton Wealth Report, just go to join Hampton.com, click our menu, and you're going to see a section called Reports, and you're going.

[Ben]

To see it all right there.

[Dharmesh]

It's very easy. So again, it's called the Hampton Wealth Report. Go to join Hampton.com, click the menu, and then click the report button and.

[Ben]

Let me know what you think. All right, let me tell you a story really quick about some investment thing that I heard about that I would never do.

[Sam]

You would do.

[Ben]

But it's a thrilling story.

[Sam]

Okay, let me guess. It's obscure, overly complicated, doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, too much risk, and will end up netting less than the S&P 500 in the long run.

[Ben]

No, this one, he came out on top, actually. So the story is this. First of all, like, I was just listening to Scott Galloway's podcast while I was driving somewhere. I think it was like, over Christmas break. And something happened at the very end of the podcast. And I was with Sarah, and I literally pulled over to the side of the highway and I was like, are you listening to this? And she's like, shut up. No, but I'm like, all right, but this is actually amazing.

[Sam]

Can we get an instant replay on YouTube of your wheel diagram? You just did. How big is your wheel, dude, you're like literally driving a school bus. What was that?

[Ben]

It's like a ship.

[Sam]

It's a ship fully outlined. Like a tractor that you're driving.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's a ship. I pulled the ship over and I literally had to sit down because she yells at me when I use my phone and I had to like type this out. So I had this note, I remembered it, but Scott Galloway had Michael Lewis on. So Scott Galloway is an investor and podcaster. Michael Lewis is an amazing author, wrote about FTX's downfall and he was with Sam Bankman Fried when this all happened. And so he, he, you know, he has a unique perspective. In the 45 minute part of this, like 50 or 55 minute episode, Scott Galloway just mentioned something where he's like, yeah, I bought some of the, the, the bankruptcy claims against ftx. And Michael Lewis started talking about something else. And then Michael Lewis goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? You made a good investment where you bought the FTX claims. What was that about? And Scott like just casually throws this out there. But the story is actually pretty amazing. So the background is this. So in 2022, FTX goes bankrupt because, or, sorry, FTX goes bankrupt because sbf, Sam Bankman fried, he's over leveraged and he spent all the money and whatever. It didn't work out because of a bunch of different reasons. And because of that, $10 billion in customer funds are lost. You know, they're just gone and people are distraught, they're freaking out. But when a bankruptcy happens, one major thing happens, which is the person who had the money in FTX. So let's say I stored $1 million in FTX, I now am gonna have a claim against that company for $1 million. So it's gonna go to court and we're gonna figure out how do I get my money back somehow. And in a lot of cases you get no money back. And so what happens is these kind of vultures, I mean, I don't know what you want to call them, but they come along and they go, hey, FTX owes you a million dollars. You're probably not going to get that back. You might get that back, but I'll tell you what, you have a million dollar claim, I will buy that claim from you for 100 grand. So you get the 100 grand today, whereas the other outcomes are potentially you eventually get nothing, or maybe you'll get a little bit more like 100 grand, 200 grand, 300 grand. But it's going to be in like four or five years and you don't even know for sure, so just let me buy your claim. And so, sure, you could do that. So it creates a market when that happens. But Scott Galloway, he's kind of a. He's kind of a strange guy, and he had this quote on this podcast where he's like, when I see fire, I run towards it, because when. Because I've known enough, seeing a lot of bankruptcies that when there's. When a bankruptcy happens, there's opportunity. And so Scott Galloway, he reads the paperwork about the claim or about the bankruptcy, and what he notices is that Sam Bankman Fried, unlike a lot of different Ponzi schemes, a lot of times with Ponzi schemes, they're spending this money on coke, hookers, planes, like party shit. SBF maybe did a little bit of that. But you want to know what? He was real degenerate about venture investing. He loved investing in companies, and one of the companies, he invested in a few, and I think a lot of them didn't work. But one of the big ones that he invested in was he invested in Anthropic, which is like the number two or the number three best AI company. And Scott looks at the numbers, and they don't actually say what the valuation was of what s. Of what the. They didn't. They don't say the valuation of Anthropic when Sam Bankman Fried invests in them, but what they say is that he invested $500 million. And Scott does a little math, and he's like, I think the valuation was around $5 billion, meaning SBF owns 10% of this company, and this was happening two years ago. He's like, I think Anthropic is going to raise money at a $10 billion valuation, and then eventually one day at a $60 billion valuation, which, by the way, as of today, there are rumors that that's happening. And because of that, I think I can buy a claim for 20%. So $1 million claim for $200,000. And if you do all the math, I think I could actually triple or quadruple my money based just off this venture return, let alone if we ever are going to claw back any of the crypto that was lost. Well, turns out a few things happened. One, Bitcoin exploded. And because of that. Well, but not because of that, but they were able to recap or claw back a lot of the money, and bitcoin exploded. And so a lot of these people are going to be getting back a lot more money than they actually had in there, because the Money, you know, the bitcoin was just sitting there growing. And also Sam Bankman's freed investments, one of them killed it, knocked it out the park. And so I think now the people who lost money, they're getting something like 125% of their money back, which is not bad for a Ponzi scheme that you were a victim of. Scott said the numbers, he goes, I bought $250,000 worth and I sold. I bought a million dollar claim for 250 and I sold it for 90% of the million. So he like tripled his money. And Scott, like goes through the story and he explains, like, his reasoning on this podcast. And it was amazing, to be honest, like, how on earth you could find value in this way.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's, that's super impressive. I actually happened to hear this segment too and had the same, you know, I wasn't driving a bus, but I had the same sort of like neck snap reaction where I was like, what, what's funny is you said a couple of things, but I don't think a couple of things, but I think we have to correct a couple of things. One, it wasn't a Ponzi scheme.

[Ben]

No, I meant like a lot.

[Sam]

He stole customer funds.

[Ben]

I guess I wasn't mean that this was a Ponzi scheme, but it's in that category of, like, schemes where, you know, a lot of people are like, how do I get my money back?

[Sam]

Scammed. You lost your money. Yeah, exactly. The other thing is that he was saying, you know, I valued FTX Estate in anthropic at 4 billion, but that's not really what happened. So they sold their stake for 800 million. So they put in 400 or 500 million and they sold it for 800 or 900 million in the liquidation. And so it wasn't the anthropic investment that really paid off.

[Ben]

He was using the Anthropic investment as a downside protection where he was like, doing the math, where he was like, all right, that gets me. That gets my investment up just a little bit to like a safe zone. But then what else can there be?

[Sam]

Yeah, exactly. So I, but I, I think his math was wrong. So he said in the thing, he goes, I valued the Anthropic based on the anthropic stake, I thought it was worth 4 billion. The total claims were 9 billion. So I thought anthropic was giving me 44 cents on the dollar for every dollar of claims that I would buy. Claims were selling for 22 cents on the dollar. So he says to me, this is the easiest trade I ever made. But the reality is that the anthropic stake ended up being worth less than 1 billion, right? So it would have been 10 cents. So he got it right, even though his logic was wrong. And we had SHIELD on the other day and he basically said his two best investments kind of worked out the same way. He's like, I bought Nvidia in 2017 because I thought that crypto mining was going to take off. And Nvidia took off, but not because of crypto mining at all. It turned out it was AI and kind of like I was wrong, but I got massively right. He goes, same thing with bitcoin. He's like, I bought bitcoin early on because I thought it was going to be this fast peer to peer transfer thing. Turns out that was all wrong. But bitcoin went up anyways because of this other store of value gold, you know, digital gold use case. And so I think what ended up happening is that he made a great investment, but I think his underwriting was wrong. I think that's one of the hard things about doing this. Like what? You know, the smart money investing is that when you're right, you feel like such a goddamn genius. And when you're wrong, you chalk it up to, you know, whatever. You sort of either mentally block it out, you either say you were wrong, or you think maybe one of your assumptions got. Got a little off. But this, there's also this weird state where you can end up right even though your underwriting was wrong. And you conflate kind of like luck and skill. And I guess the question is, I guess, like that's one of my, my observations I've had in this process of, of like as I do my own investing and to get some things right, get something wrong, I talk to other people. It's very humbling to realize how much of this, even your wins aren't your, aren't yours. They're not your wins because you got so much of it wrong.

[Ben]

Well, and there's another learning that I had, which is finding value and crap. Like this story. Like this was the worst, like this was the worst asset, the worst company. Like you don't want to touch this because A, it's like a scam. So like there's a no go there. And B, it's like a reputational ruiner. Like who wants to be involved in this guy? And then it's like, I have so much better things to do. Why would I waste my time with this pile of shit. And what was interesting was seeing Scott walk through his reasoning on how he can still capture value from a horrible situation. And I thought that that was really intriguing because that is not how I tend to do things. Like, what did they say? Trying to catch a falling knife. Like, when something's bad, it's just going to get worse and just stay away. But that's not always the case.

[Sam]

Dude, when I went to Mohnish Prabhai's house and we've recorded that podcast together, we did the podcast. And then at the end, he's kind of just, like, touring me around, and I go to his desk where he works. I like seeing, like, literally where you sit when you work. I think the environment kind of tells a lot. And he has this placard on his desk. Like, the way you would have a. Like, if you walk into a bank or whatever, it would be like the name tag of the. Of the bank manager or something like that. But instead of a name on it, it just said, trouble is opportunity. And literally, he was reminding him he wanted this on his desk because in those moments where there's panic, where there's trouble, he wanted the reminder that trouble is opportunity, and not all trouble is opportunity. Right? Like, one of his isms that he took from Charlie Munger and Buffett is he puts things in what he calls the too hard pile. So he's like, yeah, you know, I look at a hundred opportunities, I could probably tell you the three obviously good ones, and I could tell you the 10 obviously terrible ones. But then the other, whatever, 77. I'm. I just put in the too hard pile. And I'm sure some of them are really good, but I just throw things in the too hard pile when they're too hard. And so, for example, you know, I was asked him, like, what's your thoughts on crypto? And he was like, well, I think there's a case for. I think there's a case against. He's like, but I just don't do anything because I put it in the too hard pile. So I don't need to win in that. It's too hard for me to figure out, so I'm not going to bother. And I think the concept of the too hard pile is so valuable because I used to be very black and white about everything. Like, either it's good or it's bad. And if I thought it could be good, I would smash my head against the wall trying to, like, make it work. And if it was bad, it had to like, stand out as bad for me, to like, to throw it away.

[Ben]

So you said a hundred ideas.

[Sam]

The story is this. He's at lunch with Warren Buffett and he goes, warren, I think one of your great gifts is you're a great judge of people. He was talking about like, you know, Warren Buffett hired that guy Ajit who like runs their insurance business. He's like, I just think you're a great reader of people. Judge of people, how do you do it? What's your secret? And he goes, I don't think I'm a great reader of people. And he's like, but I'm not trying to be humble. He goes, I just approach it differently. He goes, it pays to be a harsh grader when it comes to people. Meaning the cost of being optimistic about somebody who turns out to not be great, to let them into your circle of friends, or to do business with somebody who turns out to not be great is so costly that I just rule a bunch of people out. He goes, if you put me in a cocktail party and you let me have five minutes with 100 people, in that five minutes, I could probably tell you the five people who are really outstanding. I could tell you the five people who are really lousy and I just don't want anything to do with them. They just obviously came off super bad, like in, in a five minute interaction. But then there's 90 people that I just can't make a judgment on in five minutes. And I. Because so I just put them all in the bad pile. They're all the too hard to know pile. And so I just rule them out because it's not worth the brain damage to try to figure it out on a case by case basis just so you don't miss a good one. Because the cost of a bad thing is worth way cost me much more than missing out on a good thing. Because there are more good things that I could just filter for and I'll find those good things, like over time that'll be obviously good. I'll just focus on the obviously good things. And he does this with investing, he does this with people. And it's just a very useful heuristic because I think most of us try to be. If there's a hundred, we try to be accurate at the hundred level. It's like I want to have an accurate grade on all hundred and I'll spend all my time on the hard to judge things and I'll get a lot of them wrong, but I'm trying to get them Right. And therefore I'm taking too much risk. Whereas his take is don't take too much risk. Take the obviously good and act on it obviously bad. Throw them away, and everybody else put them in the too hard pile and ignore it.

[Ben]

Can I dumb this down? Let me explain why I'm a genius. When I go to a restaurant, there's like two columns of entrees. I start at the top and I skim down, and the first one that I see, that's a seven out of ten. I go, oh, that's it. Menu over. I don't look at the menu for the rest of the meal. I don't second guess it. I just say the first one, that's a seven. That's, that, that's done. And I'm able to do that right away.

[Sam]

Does this apply to everything? Is this marriage advice? Is this. What other things does this apply to? Where does this not apply?

[Ben]

I mean, yeah, I think, like, it could apply to marriage. Like, the idea of, like, settling is, like, good. Like, you settle for something that's pretty good and you can, like, make it great. I don't know. Like, is there any, like, data on, like, Indian couples who have been.

[Sam]

Yeah, like, arranged marriages have, like, the same quote, unquote success rate as, like, American marriages, which are, like, involve dating and selection and courtship and then eventually, you know, engagement and then marriage versus, like, the way that Indian couples do it is very much the menu that you scan the listing like, that'll do. Engineer good. Family, full set of teeth. Seven out of ten. Let's go. Yeah. I will see you at the altar for the first time.

[Ben]

Yeah, no, I, I, I just think that's how I order. Like, I've done that for years. It's just, I just don't want, I want less choice. And I think what Warren Buffett is actually saying similar, which is like, I know for certain that these three are fine enough. Therefore, I don't care about the rest.

[Sam]

Yeah. You know that book, the Mark Manson book, Subtle Art of Not Giving an F? Like, I think that book, it got so popular that it sort of got written off. You know what I mean? Like, do you ever hear a smart person being like, man, I learned so much from this book, the Subtle Art of Rocket. Like, it's not like, it's not like a cool intellectual thing to reference because it's pop. It's like, pop so popular. It's like, if I'm like, oh, I really like Justin Bieber's music, it's like, okay, what? That's like a low status thing to sort of say. But there, you know, he brings up one good point in the book. The book is basically around one point which is life is not about caring about everything or not caring about everything. It's about choosing. You know, assume you have a limited set of, you know, Fs to give in your pocket, like you got five to give. Choose wisely, choose the things you're going to care about. So like, you know, the menu, you, you just don't have to care to get that right. And that's kind of like the Warren Buffett. Like you could just throw a bunch of things that there's a too hard pile and ignore them. And then like there may be a few decisions where actually getting it right really, really matters. And then you have enough bandwidth to actually care about those things because you're not caring about everything.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think that's good. What do you want to do now?

[Sam]

I want to give you one other story. Have you heard this Bill Ackman story of his running into the fire when everybody else is running out story? His, his four hour investment decision? Do you know this?

[Ben]

Oh man, I thought it was like literally a fire.

[Sam]

Well, kind of. It was the 08 crisis, which I think to people on Wall street felt like, you know, the giant fire.

[Ben]

Oh, you mean Bill Ackman, the famous Twitter influencer? He invests. Wait, he's an investor?

[Sam]

We're joking. I hope you're still coming on later. All right, so he tells the story of it's 08, the financial crisis happening. Banks are failing like Bear Stearns fails and then this other bank is going to fail and people don't know what's going to happen. Widespread panic. And the bank Wachovia was on the brink. And basically what he did was he did a four. He's like, I had four hours. I spent four hours just looking at the business of Wachovia and came to a decision in four hours that the panic was overblown and that Wachovia would be saved. And that Wells Fargo, which ended up buying Wachovia, was far healthier than the market believed in that moment of panic. And so he made a huge investment and it was one of his most lucrative investments ever. It was a four hour decision and it was made at a time of extreme panic, when trouble was opportunity and when everybody else was just running out, you know, screaming. He was calm and basically looked at the situation and assessed the risk return differently. It was just sort of like what you're talking about with the Scott Galloway when. When FTX just feels taboo in every way, and it feels like, you know, the worst possible situation. And he's like, cool. It's the worst possible situation at a price. And there's a price for everything. And the price, you know, for him to buy Those claims at 22 cents on the dollar turned out to be the right price.

[Ben]

Dude. Bill Ackman's also, like, six four, I think, which is pretty cool. We should create an index for CEOs above 6:2. And I bet it'd be. I bet it'd do. All right.

[Sam]

All right. So he bought, let's see, 178 million shares at $3.15 a share. So he spent $560 million after four hours of thinking, and his estimate was that it was going to be worth more than double that. And the next week, Wachovia bought it at about $7 a share. So he basically doubled 500 million in a week.

[Ben]

That's insane. All right, well, that's cool. Bill Ackman's great. All right. Great story.

[Sam]

Great story. All right.

[Ben]

I think that's a pretty good podcast. What do you say?

[Sam]

I think that was all right. All right.

[Ben]

That's the pod.

[Shaun]

I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could me what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road, let's travel. Never looking back.

[Dharmesh]

Hey, everyone, a quick break. My favorite podcast guest on my first million is Dharmesh. Dharmesh founded HubSpot. He's a billionaire. He's one of my favorite entrepreneurs on Earth. And on one of our podcasts recently, he said, the most valuable skill that anyone can have when it comes to making money in business is copywriting. And when I say copywriting, what I mean is writing words that get people to take action. And I agree. By the way, I learned how to be a copywriter in my 20s. It completely changed my life. I ended up starting and selling a company for tens of millions of dollars. And copywriting was the skill that made.

[Ben]

All of that happen.

[Dharmesh]

And the way that I learned how to copyright is by using a technique called copy work, which is basically taking the best sales letters. And I would write it word for word, and I would make notes as to why each phra was impactful and effective. And a lot of people have been asking me about copy work, so I decided to make a whole program for it. It's called Copy that, copy that.com. it's only like 120 bucks, and it's a simple, fast, easy, way to improve your copywriting. And so if you're interested, you need to check it out. It's called Copy that. You can check it out@copy that.com.