PodClips Logo
PodClips Logo
My First Million
#103 with Tai Lopez - Tai Lopez Opens Up About His Past and Addresses Critics
#103 with Tai Lopez - Tai Lopez Opens Up About His Past and Addresses Critics

#103 with Tai Lopez - Tai Lopez Opens Up About His Past and Addresses Critics

My First MillionGo to Podcast Page

Shaan Puri, Tai Lopez, Sam Parr
·
55 Clips
·
Aug 21, 2020
Listen to Clips & Top Moments
Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
0:00
What's up, everybody? All right, this episode is going to be a doozy. We had Tai Lopez the guy who's sort of Internet famous for being a marketer. Some people think he's a scam artist. He basically built a super viral YouTube campaign that started off with him in his garage with a Lamborghini that you know, he said he owned he said he least some people think he rented it, you know, there's all kinds of controversy around it. So we brought tie on and we had a conversation about three things first. We
0:30
Kind of press them on a little bit of his history and the criticism that he gets and how he responds to it. The second thing we did was we talked about what he's doing now where he's buying out old Brands like pr1 and Dress Barn and taking them turning them from brick and mortar to e-commerce Ventures, which actually think it's really smart. But you know some of the things that he was saying, you know, we wanted to understand his model and then at the end, you know, the conversation gets all over the place we talked about, you know, Sam started asking if he smokes weed
1:00
Or does LSD and he started quoting a bunch of things from books that he's read and conversation wandered a little bit and at the end the very end, if you can make it there's a long podcast, but at the very end, he asked us he's like, what were your listeners think of this and we said, well, it's gonna be a mixed reaction. Some people are going to be mad. We even had you on the podcast. Some people are going to love it. They're gonna think it was interesting and a lot of people are going to say. Oh you guys were too easy on him. You didn't ask him about X and so he's he just told us he said, all right. What's the hardest hitting question? You gotta ask me and he
1:30
Wanted us to press them. And so we press them a little bit on some things. And so I think you're going to like it as a long podcast with Tai Lopez. All right, enjoy.
1:48
I'm here in my garage. I got my lamb but I got Ty Lopez on the podcast. I had to do it
1:54
Ty and by the way, we're going to be respectful for you. I'd be we're respectful to everyone. We're definitely gonna like be as on and I record on for you guys so that in case the back of audio good we don't hold back and it always comes from a respectful place though. So we try to be pretty Straight Shooters here. So
2:13
yeah, we're not journalists like, you know, I'm not like some researcher.
2:17
A journalist. We're both Founders were both entrepreneurs and we just like talking to interesting people and you know today when we tweeted out. Hey, we got Tai Lopez coming on the podcast. I knew that people have like mixed feelings about you or whatever but man my Twitter blew up and it seems like Text slash the Silicon Valley Twitter. They're just kind of our audiences. At least that's my audience. They don't like you and a lot of people there were like very I thought there was two reactions that one I expected one. I didn't expect.
2:47
The one I expect it was sort of like oh Ty Lopez, I roll I've seen the guys adds isn't he kind of like one of those internet marketer dudes, whatever. I thought that would be the kind of the reaction what and we've had a bunch of different type of people on this podcast, right? We've had some people that are super successful entrepreneurs billionaire types that investors we've had, you know, social impact entrepreneurs poker players, whatever. So we've had a wide variety. I didn't think people would really get too hot and bothered I think some people got hot and bothered some people were really passionate about it and so for me,
3:17
It was an unusual day on Twitter. I try to be controversial but I can't get this kind of reaction for you. This has to be like the norm. Is this a normal day on Twitter for you where you get this type of polarized? I love them or hate them
3:28
reaction a lot of that Silicon Valley. I'm popular I always say I have a friend he from Stan I said tie your popular in the streets. I actually kind of grew up a little bit ghetto I grew up in a mobile home and and things like that and so, you know Silicon Valley a lot of virtue signaling. There's a lot of
3:47
People sure that what they're doing is ethical and what I'm doing is in that's fine look, you know at the end of the day.
3:56
People who actually get to know me or always surprised 100% of the time every single hater. Yeah, no people because I think of it this way one. I'm a big fan of evolutionary psychology what bothers most people is displays of things now Silicon Valley is all full of people who want to accumulate wealth, but they realize in their own way in that mobile, you have to virtru signal that that's not really what you're doing.
4:24
I always say if somebody's wealthy says they don't care about money at any point in time. You can write a check to a homeless person and go from the richest person in the world to you know, a truly virtuous Gandhi Mother Teresa people who truly give you know, I live with the homage for two and a half years. They're truly non-materialistic. It's against our religion to accumulate a lot of money. Sometimes they do a little bit with land but Silicon Valley is a place and why I get that reaction is because
4:54
It's a place that doesn't want to admit that they're more like me than they think and so not everybody that's fast generalizations. Also number two. There's a big misunderstanding. For example, people say tie cells get-rich-quick schemes. The biggest thing I ever sold was two different programs one was called the 67 steps.
5:16
Who's literally 67 things that a mentor taught me an hour a piece. I charge a dollar each.
5:23
Now it was mine set. Anybody who's ever been through that program. I mean I got at the first video has about 75,000 positive comments out of about a hundred fifty thousand people who went through so a pretty good rate word-of-mouth traffic was massive on that and it didn't really talk about how to build a business or anything. It was just what my mentors taught me about how to think through life, you know, like the first principle the 67 steps is from Charlie Munger to get what you want. You have to deserve what you want.
5:53
World is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people meaning the mindset Charlie Munger brings with Berkshire is that in general when you see people successful they deserved it much more than you think as opposed to the proverbial this person stole to get what they want person had an unfair Advantage. This person was just lucky. So that was the first course in the second one was called smm a social media marketing agency. I told people, you know, you see all kinds of people out there like Gary Beadle.
6:23
Of a social media marketing agency that does a hundred million Revenue. I showed everyday Ordinary People how to start their own agency 40,000 people went through that program has a four-month certification taught by myself and twenty people who own profitable agencies the testimonial success rate that I would put it against any University anyone. I know a girl going to NYU bachelor degree.
6:48
Three years in and I said to her we were talking about interested in digital marketing degree. I don't know. I'm I just memorize stuff. I have no idea what I'm learning. I said well how much you paying for this? Those are 30,000 30,000. I said wow thirty thousand and four years of your life. It's a lot of money and time. She said no, that's annually so $120,000.
7:11
There's a lot of money and much more close to a scam than a program that taught you from legitimate agency owners any no cost 500 bucks or something like that. So I think I'm gonna bid that course cost.
7:24
The first came out we had it was always under a thousand bucks. There was a there will receive done promos where it was like 497 was between for 97 97 one time payment. No recurring nothing like that. So I think what happens is Silicon Valley types, they see ostentatious - which is like, okay a Lamborghini living in Beverly Hills having an enjoyable life it bothers them because you're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to virtues.
7:53
signal
7:54
Even though you're just as ruthless and materialistic as anyway, there is nobody on the top of the Forbes list. I know five of the top Forbes list people personally, they all love money love money. They don't like to say it because they realize there's a power inverter signaling which makes you less of a target for the world that they love money from JD Rockefeller to Jeff Bezos people who make money are ruthless average person makes fifty to eighty thousand dollars a year silicon Valley's above average is full of Ruthless People, but
8:24
I said maybe they're smarter than me. Maybe I should virtue signal more. I can never do it. You know, I got my first nice car.
8:31
First exotic car in 2006. Now I didn't put a car on social media until 2014. So I had Ferrari Maserati eight years before so one social media got bed. I'm like, I'm just going to show my life. I was already living in the Hollywood Hills from 2009 didn't post it on social media. And when I posted that at 20 it really like 2015. It really like evoked a visceral thing. Like how dare this guy?
8:59
Like these things but I think it's a misunderstanding like I own some of the biggest organic farms in America. One of them. I still farm with horses. Like I'm not as materialistic as people think but certainly sometimes that came off because those are the videos I did. Well, I can tell you all my videos weren't Lamborghinis and girls and that but those are the ones that get a lot of views. So inherently, they become controversial but nothing was ever fake.
9:28
The house that I was in I moved out to California to years ago. Yeah, man, Miami, Miami, London Puerto Rico New York. Now, I kind of live on a Jet right now, but doing a lot of deals but I think in hindsight would I do it differently? I mean I had this I don't know if I would I don't know if I would see in the results from the people who actually went through the program's there's no negativity there almost all this negativity comes.
9:58
People who just got a visceral reaction. Dr. David Buss and evolutionary psychology Professor one of my mentors. He told me Ty men have always been bothered by conspicuous status of other men. It's a glass Bay in Australia. They call it tall poppy in Sweden. They call it for young gentleman in Scandinavia. You're not supposed to show yet Sweden has the most billionaires per capita. Let me ask a question. But Ty what year were you?
10:28
And everybody's trying to figure out my age. I'm left out of the left that
10:33
as a controversy for a long time just to because I'm
10:36
like, it's good. It's a good I don't know you people have no idea. I don't know that people are trying to guess that the reason I'm trying to wonder is because you've lived you keep telling these stories of like owning Farms living with the Amish. I'm like, that's a full last life. Yeah, you got a big ol full head of hair. I've had like like what you've experienced a whole lot for someone who doesn't look very old. I'm not young and
10:58
Not old in Dom, you know, I've been an adventure Seeker my whole life. There's like three things that have been true from a whole life one. I like cars from two years old. My grandma just died sadly. She was a hundred and two and I was like Grandma you love people talking about my car is I'm like did I always liked cars because I was like as long as I remember I was in love with car. She's like, yeah, you always loved card number two. I love travel and number three is soon as I really experienced getting out of a city. I was born kind of in the ghetto Long Beach, California. My dad was in prison.
11:28
Isn't my mom was a single mom, right when I saw that I was like truly connected like most of this year. I lived on my Farms. So one of them I have about 750 acres and Shenandoah Valley all inorganic form. I live with Joel salatin for two years and I went who's kind of the pioneer of like grass-fed beef and pastured chicken pasture-raised chicken. Then I live with the Amish for two years actually longer and I still have one of my main forms that I can post on my social media is in the middle of the Amish community the Amish a
11:58
He run my form believe it or not. They're the best people I've ever met and I go there a lot and I have a relatively simple life. Thereby like Adventure, you know, so it makes me more controversial people want to pigeonhole you they want to be like, that's the lambo guy. I'm like, what about the farm with horses guy? I just planted, you know, massive amount of land with horses. No tractor ultimate ultimate fuel-efficient ultimate save the world.
12:25
I can tell that you get the same sort of criticism a lot and I think you have
12:28
Good counter points like for example. Hey, look, I sold a $67 course you can say, you know, not providing value or whatever. I'm scamming people but like the hypocrisy of let's say, you know what the university system where people walk out with 50,000 hundred thousand dollars of debt. And why do I wasn't even question the value that they drive I think your good points. I'm curious. Do you think there's a fair criticism of you like, you know, rather than being on the defensive the you know, what something that somebody says you say, you know what that's a fair criticism.
12:58
There's
12:58
Two sides of story everything people say has an element of true. I mean some things are blatantly wrong. Like people say I rented a house for a day or a car. Those are factually incorrect. But to the main points, certainly everybody has a point and I see them, you know, in fact like going back to Charlie Munger Warren Buffett, you should not hate, you know, I believe in their concept of you should never hold a belief unless you can argue both sides better than the other side. So I think I could argue the side against me which
13:28
which is, you know looked I if you show a Lamborghini to kids or teenagers or adults some of them actually think that's the endgame that you have and I think it's not as simple as that. I think if you look at personality types are very fixed. There's greedy people that will latch onto greedy things. No matter what so, I'm not sure that we I'm not sure that I can manipulate people as much as people think they're like God's a great marketer and he's manipulative and I see that
13:58
Angle because all good marketing is manipulative. For example Apple which I get the biggest kick out of San Francisco, you know, really a steam Steve Jobs and apple largest company in history and makes great products, but it's certainly well. I mean, it's the largest corporation in history that was built with Blood and Tears like an Empire. It's built with child labor in Asia to then they charged a thousand two thousand dollars for a phone.
14:28
On that cost them three hundred dollars. They're one of the most profitable companies very roof. And and so I guess what I'm saying is my thing is yes, I can argue against myself and I can rip apart every company name somebody Zuckerberg ruthless in the monopolistic way. Let's take somebody that's not so well-known an everyday ordinary person. Just driving their car to a 9 to 5 job.
14:54
You know live in the wild putting their kids into college drinking Coca-Cola giving their six year olds Coca-Cola. I mean this thing of trying to pick people apart. I'm not diminishing people's arguments to me, but I'm saying I've never held myself as an angel and I never will and I as a saying or anything like that but unethical no, I don't believe that I do not and I'll tell you again ethics is a hard one. Some people think Joe Biden's unethical some people love all the people there.
15:24
They Donald Trump is great. It's very don't in same Clinton and Obama and it goes all the way through when you become well-known people put their fears and their traumas into you, right and often people who are most mad about something. It's because it's an inner reflection of them the greediest people in the world are those that often say well tell her you're being greedy, but I will tell you this look at the substance of what I do. No one's gotten more teens to read books than me you what do you think? It's a teenager to read a
15:54
Business book show it telling them to read it put it in front of them as homework or saying the truth. Hey guys, Charlie Munger Warren Buffett Peter Drucker me reading these books took poor kid born to a single mom and they are causative not correlated. Those books like Warren Buffett says the more you learn the more you earn by showing Lamborghini for that and that pisses off some snow flakes or virtue signaling Scott Silicon Valley. I it doesn't even bother me. Alright, today's episode is brought to you by 10:00.
16:24
Low-tempo. Fit is the website. I actually use this I've used this for a few months now and it's this machine that has a touch screen in this 3D sensor and what it does is they give you wait. So like a hundred fifteen pounds of weights and it's for strength training. So what it is is it measures your body and it sees how much weight you're lifting it sees how many reps you're doing and how much effort you're putting in what your heart rate is. It's pretty amazing and then you have a coach on screen walking you through what to lift. How many to lift what we're about to do whether you want to do a 20-minute.
16:54
10-minute 50 minute workout. It's pretty amazing. But the best part is the leaderboard the other stuff all the features that they have that's cool. But I'm obsessed with the leaderboard because it measures how many reps you're doing and how much volume you're doing and you can compete with other people who have taken the same class. So it's made me want to work harder lift more weight or have more endurance. It's just pretty freaking fun. And the whole point of working hard is to have money so you can spend it on stuff that will make you live longer and this product Tempo it checks that box for me. So they're our sponsor today.
17:24
If you use the code Tempo hustle, you'll get $100 off. So Tempo dot bit is the URL and Tempo hustle one word. You'll get $100 off. So check it out. I use it. If you look me up on Twitter, you'll see I'm always filming videos where I'm talking about company say I'm trying to crush their employees on the leaderboard because I actually love this thing and I use it all the time. So check it out. Number two, you know, I have businesses.
17:48
Farmers cart now and a business doing organic food to the masses. I think that's not so bad of a business. So when we have Mentor box has 60,000 members paying members, I built a business with my partner Alex and what do we do? We do we put books in book summaries got hundreds of millions of minutes wash across my platforms. I'm actually in the billions a lot of it's about great books drafter Monger. I mean, these are just like Titans and so
18:17
I think you should look at the substance of people because if you try to pick apart people's motivations, I can pick apart any person bring me somebody bring me one of my critics. I was looking at some of those tweets. How was looking I was like, are you important to the world? Are you important to the world? Sure, he built some sass stuff. Are you important? I think it's important to make people read I think is important to save the environment. We form an entirely I'm growing non-genetically engineered corn and soybeans right now on.
18:47
Form in Staunton Virginia with yields that are approaching genetically engineered corn and they say you have to use genetic engineering herbicides Roundup in order to feed the world and we're disproving it piece by piece. I think that's important. I do think there's entrepreneurs that are important. I think Elon Musk is important in the sense that you know, you can get rid of fossil fuel and still have a cool car that people won't buy but you think Elon Musk has always were
19:17
choice and I just let's talk about your on one man. Yeah, I that tween it got out of your skin a little there was a like yeah, you know what? I mean? I want to talk about business right now because you have a lot of cool shit going on look like even if people disagree with you.
19:41
There's something interesting here. So can you give any type of scale as to how big your Empire is right now? I don't really want to be I'm Adventure man. I mean I own five major American brands when I say major American brands the smallest of it did 500 million in Revenue the now these are before I bought them just saying the scope of how many customers these businesses have that I'm acquiring pr1 last year 1.5 billion.
20:10
In Revenue too many stores too. Many Lisa's got them in trouble. But tremendous amount of cash flow huge customer base eight-figure significant figure customer base. I own PR one.
20:24
So let me ask you we talked a little bit about this on the podcast and we said hey, I think this guy Alex Maier and Tai Lopez, they've created this thing called retail as rev. What does it retail something e-commerce Ventures retail e-commerce Ventures and what they're doing is they're buying up well known but
20:40
Kind of outdated my business model. So Brands like pr1 or Dress Barn and it seems like you're not buying the company but you're buying you know, the rights to do e-commerce or what do you actually buying or not buying period we get the
20:53
whole thing. We just don't assume I try to buy the whole thing. I started buying my bot small business back like 2012 try to buy American Apparel all of these in general. If you're buying the stress, you want to bite intellectual property. You don't want to do it asset purchase. You don't want to do entity purchase you want to do asset.
21:10
Aegis so in effect, you're getting the whole thing I could do is recreate
21:14
you on the 500 retail stores of pure one
21:17
I could do it. No, we did not assume Lisa's hell no. Yeah, that's why they went brother, but I can't now in fact, I have a real estate guy that's going out and we're going back to landlords and we're saying can we rent on variable Lisa's? You can't do fix Lisa's anymore. That was the way you got to adapt so we can put pair one back to precisely what it used to be. We own the whole thing all the rights all the
21:40
Mark the whole kit and caboodle but most likely will switch it to an 80/20 model 80% being e-comm 20% being stores. And so I also educate me on that. I build big organizations people think I'm not a good businessman. I love it. You know, it's funny my business partner has much more credentials in me. Dr. Alex Maier. He's he's just exited last July for 300 million dollar exit for business. He co-founded Zoosk. It was the second largest dating network in the world after a match group.
22:10
Open tender his Ph.D. And we became friends many years ago because same kind of thing at first she thought I was this party guy and then he got to know me and was like, wait a second. This guy's sharp and not to toot my own horn, but what I was saying because I hear the surprise in your voice.
22:35
It's just hard. It's just hard that find people to run shit. It's not you. I'm just say in general buying a company and installing operators. That is hard. No matter who you are, right? I hey, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it but we have you so I have pure one Linens and things I bought that was sold Apollo in 2006 for 1.3 billion cash. I own Linens and things now is a massive at its peak. It was doing 2.7 billion got run down by the last private Equity people that had it. All right.
23:04
Umm, Franklin Mint what used to be a largest direct marketing Collectibles company. It was the largest direct marketing company in the world. Wait till you bought Franklin Mint. Yeah Island Franklin Mint Google Tai Lopez Franklin Mint I oh I know the original founders of that are the founders of wonderful brand right now within the founder, but that was they owned it. The resnick's owned it for many years. It was founded by the guy who started the Home Shopping Network. I forget his name. He started it in the believe the 60s. So appearing weather.
23:33
So Ty let me ask you a real. Sorry.
23:35
You're talking about Pier One. They did over a billion dollars in Revenue explain to a listener. Who's like wait, how are you buying this business for thirty 1 million? So what is the hair on the business? Why is a business that's a well-known brand that has all this data that has this IP that has this brand that made a billion dollars in Revenue last year. Why is it selling for 31 million
23:52
dollars at a time to buy stuff takes business skill to do the things that we're doing and some of its luck and some of its skill and some of its the hair on it and some of its if you can convince the bank
24:04
Anchors and some of it if you can act very quickly like during covid. I mean it's a skill game
24:11
that's not a currency cancer. Right? Like just you know, if you're talking about pure one
24:18
specifically that one came into a chapter 11 scenario pre-coated. I was involved in it pre covid post covid it collapsed the auction disappeared the bankruptcy court in Delaware. No longer existed all other bidders disappeared they begin to do a liquidation that was
24:34
He of inventory, but the Liquidators was Gordon Brothers was doing well. I came into the bank or Guggenheim. So I don't know if you know Guggenheim whatever eight billion dollar fund Bank in New York. I negotiated way down from the original price. Got it. All the way down was declared this became the stocking horse bitter negotiated a crafty APA asset purchase agreement using a lock. I mean you have to have the right lawyers.
25:04
As you have to know how to structure it in your head. I know how to do that. I'm the deal maker. Alex does other stuff on the dealmaker. He's the more on the capital side raising Capital when we use our own money and investors. So what I'm telling you is, it's Torah, that one was public but I bought Franklin and mint and linens and things directly off Market convinced a publicly traded company to sell it to me. So when I say it takes skill on the serious and go out and try it. I've got other deals going right now. That's what I said.
25:34
Arms, since you sound defensive I'll be defensive for this often use this podcast as a defensive talk because I rarely am defensive. So I'm like I should be more defend. I was actually talking to my right hand man. Could I was like, I think I should be more offensive. I was too. I never cared that much but order of War when strong appear weak. I never thought I never bothered me that Silicon Valley Valley people thought I was an unintelligent huckster. It's great. In fact the problem that's beginning to assail me as we speak.
26:04
Talking to a couple investment bankers people are pouring in to these deals because they're like wait a second. I watched I Lopez some people like me and some people don't and they're want to get in on the deal. So I wish I could appear more week. I probably shouldn't be on this podcast. I should probably like. Oh, yeah. I was just luck and you just kind of go there and you win an auction against Sycamore Partners at 15 billion dollar fund. It's like super easy guys. Just go for it man. I'm just typed by Lopez can do it. You can do it. You guys are brilliant silicon.
26:34
We people I'm a College Dropout man. I don't know that's right. So you've had dozens of companies before this how much Capital have you allocated of your own money to like before you decided to take this on. I mean where you're like, I'm gonna throw up. I mean, I have no idea. Like are you saying you're gonna throw 20 million of your own money at these projects. Did you have like a hundred million safe? I have no idea. Well, I'll tell you I'll tell you this. My lawyer is always like don't say one time I said,
27:04
Something about Network. I was on Jay Paul's broadcast. Somebody more controversial. They know Paul Logan Paul. Yeah, and I said to them about my net worth in my lawyers afterwards. I like don't talk about that. It just causes trouble but I will say this we use a me and Alex use our own money and in 2015. I saw the writing on the wall. I said I'm going to build an accredited investor base. I started using 2013 Obama changed the law that you can generally solicit for.
27:34
Credit investors. I was the first guy to use social media first people was doing those YouTube ads. I was also running investor ads. I got my first investors in 2015 literally within a month's of the here in my garage video. I was leveraging that into other things behind the scenes much less seen videos targeted at people with high net worth. Now. I've built an investor pool all these deals. I've done fuck two-and-twenty funds me and Alex own almost all of these deals why because
28:04
We build an investor base that trusted us. That's not institutional all these guys raising in Silicon Valley. Look at the founders of lift. These dudes have sub four percent of their business left.
28:15
So yeah, I mean maybe Silicon Valley full of brilliant people, but you also have to maintain equity and what you own so me and
28:21
Alex, but if you're raising an investor based in you're not going to own a hundred percent, right? That's the definition if investors
28:27
coming we use debt and warrants. No, we used any
28:31
warrants. So these are not Equity
28:32
investors. We have just occasionally we do that we'll do some Equity kicker. No, we're do I like that better and then we'll either refine the debt or will let people convert will convert.
28:44
Equity at higher valuations. I can tell you this like a fund by Imperial one those fund managers going to work. They're going to have 20% on the kick their carry. I told Alex fuck that. I don't like the first rule if you really want to build some it's not just about being greedy and Wealthy, if you look at companies that do well the founders maintain a large percentage of the business. So they stay motivated Bill Gates own about 65% of Microsoft. If you look on Zuckerberg if you look at Jeff Bezos if you look at
29:14
Elon Musk, even you got to maintain that so you have to have foresight. There's the old saying do what's difficult when it's easy. So I raise capital. I started building a pool in 2015. I would just do little but I'd be like, hey $200,000 note with me. I want to build a relationship with you so that when bigger deals come 2016, I didn't see deals. I saw overpriced deals 2015. I tried to buy American Apparel. It's sold for too high of a price at that point. It was about 82 million Gildan bought it then.
29:45
Barnes & Noble came up 500 million cash and I thought Mentor box the company me and Alex built was already doing more e-comm book related Revenue than all a Barnes & Noble. We have built it in 18 months. So I said Alex we should by Barnes & Noble. It's too high. You have to buy it, you know, sometimes people are like time memorize this formula. And what's this? I'll tell you this my low sell high. I'll make you rich my friend and it's a very unsophisticated strategy that few people fault. Most of Silicon Valley is predicated on
30:14
The greater fool. I'm going to exit to someone's stupider than me. Well the businesses were buying they have real value pure one is a monster Brant. You're talking 30 40 million Americans have bought their that's 1/10 of the largest GDP country in the world. So going back to our original question. I could just virtue signal and say I'm not that smart and it's just luck and you just show up at auctions, but it's not it takes for site years ahead. It takes practice. I tried deals. Like I said, I tried American
30:44
When I couldn't pull it off and I took my practice for five years. I got practice mine Minecraft a little bit, you know, and there's luck. All of life is luck. We're lucky to be healthy and in America man could be born in North Korea. Then you don't have a chance. How big is the fun now? I'm having fun. I don't like but we may form a fun to do land Acquisitions Farmland to and 24 anybody listen who actually admits that they like money. I'll tell you this if you ever stare at the Forbes list, it will revolutionize.
31:14
Has your life the nobody makes money on the top of the Forbes list from Real Estate number one of the first American that shows up on the Forbes list from real estate's number 102 102. In fact most correlated activity with Building Wealth is brand acquisition or brand founding but brand Acquisitions massive, if you look at Zuckerberg has really been an acquirer in without Instagram, he would been WhatsApp Facebook would be worth a third at best. And so
31:45
Fund managers are all on the bottom if you want to make money don't fucking start a fund name one guy that's mid-to-high Forbes list from a fun. You don't have enough equity even Larry Fink BlackRock eight billion dollar fund. These guys are sub 10 billion. And that's great. Let me like I said, this is for the part of you of your podcast that doesn't virtue signal and will admit that they care about wealth creation. So I'm a bluff that guy man. I've been going to Berkshire Hathaway meetings for many many years. I've actually my mentor
32:14
I was a teenager 19 years old. He's the one who got me on bird tribe and following Berkshire since I was a teen and no no fun. It's a holding company man. It's so anteye. I love-- Warren Buffett's anti Silicon Valley. He does nothing. And by the way, he smoked the returns of all the Silicon Valley with less risk risk adjusted return and absolute returns at 19 and a half percent Silicon Valley is an underrated or overrated place. If you allocate enough capital,
32:42
I don't think you could say that when the you know, sort of the
32:44
Valuable companies in the world are all from Silicon Valley right not technology companies are making for vast majority. If you look at the S&P 500 right now sp500 the top 5 tech companies a fan companies essentially not really Netflix. But if you put Microsoft in there, they generated all of the returns in the past, you know, six to eight months where they're like this and the other, you know, 495 companies that S&P 500 are below. If you look at the most valuable companies in the world, whether it's Amazon, whether it's
33:13
Apple whether it's Google
33:14
Google Facebook Microsoft Tesla, you know, I don't think you can quite say that it doesn't work it clearly it works but it's a very different game and it's a
33:23
very different model. Look at Capital allocated my friend if you allocate enough Capital to Raleigh North Carolina, you will produce people will move their Jeff Bezos, right? So
33:32
is Jeff Bezos right now is the greatest
33:34
Capital allocators. This is not Silicon Valley to be by definition. What technology yeah.
33:42
I mean well is Elon Musk Silicon Valley is worn by look at the
33:47
stop. Of course he is.
33:49
How is he on muscle what we're saying? I separate that out. I mean if you're going to throw anything that's tech-related and call that Silicon Valley than you. I mean Tesla
33:58
Mustang raised Venture Capital, right? And Elon Musk is you know, he's from PayPal is from the PayPal days, right? Like that's pure bred Silicon Valley, but of course, you know, that doesn't mean that's the only way to make money. I just think it just like people would knock you.
34:11
For for making money in a different way that they don't sort of understand or that's not their playbook. I think it would be not right. That's your question with the other way either.
34:19
So let me ask you a question. What's the Returns on Sequoia? And these VCS? What's been actual return for share her investors?
34:28
I'd have to look it up the top percentiles of VCS like the Sequoias. What do you have the numbers of top your head
34:32
last I've seen is 12 and a half percent built
34:36
Warren Buffett. That's not that's not correct.
34:38
I've seen I'm just saying it's not public.
34:41
There's quite a bit of info buffets done 19 and a half percent from the 60s. Now you can say it's a different business model and buffets is not as important in Silicon Valley what I call Silicon Valley to clarify is would you consider SoftBank Silicon Valley? No,
35:01
I mean it's a it's a foreign company but it is a technology holding company.
35:04
Yeah, I mean, you know is that we're not going to buy geography then. Well, I think there's
35:11
a mindset there. I think you should look at the numbers. I think why does have why does it have a strong feeling but you should know what the returns are. You're sure they're better than 12% Well
35:21
I'm talking about I'm talking about from an entrepreneurial perspective. I'm not saying start a fund. That's not my
35:26
but I'm saying are you sure that that model because we have media bias. We only show the people who succeed always sure that that model is producing better than any other given model you did. I mean, that's a tough question man causation and correlation.
35:41
Action is one that stumps even the
35:43
greatest I'll give you my two cents, which is just that there's a million ways to win. I Know Rich real estate guys. I don't Rich private Equity guys, you know Rich stock Traders. I Know Rich technologists And I Know Rich entrepreneurs and of rich people who own gas stations, right? There's a million ways to win. I don't think the Forbes list is necessarily the best way to look at it. If you're that, you know average person trying to figure out what's right for me or what are my goals and whatnot because that's usually about an accumulation over time and the internet is 30 years old. So it's not going to stack up against something that's in.
36:11
Mystery that's 200 years old or wealth that's been compounding 420 200 years. So I think there's many ways to win and I think you're right that you do have to look at the numbers before you sort of just assume that this is a good path. But I think the numbers would back up that technology companies and internet companies do phenomenally well and including yours you are buying that their brands you're buying big Brands and you're bringing them online. You're trying to take an old failed business model brick and mortar and you're going to do e-commerce that's internet. That's technology that you may not be using Venture Capital to fund it, but I think
36:41
We're on the same page that hey the area of opportunity right now one huge area of opportunity is the
36:46
internet some of this is semantics but yes, there is I guess what I'm saying past the semantics is those things that the institutions that get venerated inevitably become the institutions that are outdated and so as Silicon Valley everything creates its opposite. I find there's many inefficiencies there. I was bringing up some of them with this.
37:11
Structure some of them with the somewhat of a Ponzi scheme to the reason that we work floats is because you can convince SoftBank to put money in at that valuation. There's certainly tremendous. There's a tremendous amount of people leaving San Francisco and there's various reasons why they're leaving that go beyond just beyond political some of them are structural. So I think if we say alltech is Silicon Valley yet Sand Tech has changed the world, but I guess I had a different definition. Can we talk about
37:42
What was your cash cow to fund all this was it meant or box? I mean you said you sold 40,000 courses at 500 bucks of pace. I mean that's 20 million dollars over a couple years that had to be incredibly profitable. But what has been your cash cow wasn't Mentor box, you know, I'm always had multiple streams of income actually learn that from the Amish every Amish guys, like a farmer he milk some cows he could does would work. He does carpentry on the weekend. I don't know. I like that because Adventure so yes certainly courses made money, but I was making big money.
38:11
Me before I ever posted one video on YouTube.
38:14
So so the name of the podcast is my first million and actually the way it started before we started brainstorming. I would just bring in interesting people and I would ask a start at the top. You know, how did you make your first million bucks? Because I remember as a kid I was a kid and I thought a million dollars was fucking all the dollars and I was like man if I was a millionaire and we used to play what if games would you cut off your pinky for a million dollars and so a million dollars was always this mythical thing and then you know, so I always thought that was good. I'm sure there's a whole generation of
38:41
Who still dream like that? And I think it's great. I'm like you we get knocked also for being money minded, even though we talked about a whole bunch of different things. But hey, we love making money. It feels freedom and our lifestyles and we enjoy that so money is freedom to me the question. I asked all the guess was you know, how did you make your first million and often it's not their big win that everybody knows them for it's like actually I did this thing beforehand. I was affiliate marketer and I did this other thing so for you, what was your first million? Was it before everybody even knew you
39:12
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I started my first business and 2001. I went to work for GE Capital G Finance or didn't have a college degree. I believe it or not. I started on 9/11. I'll always remember the first day I started I went into the office and it there like a plane has crashed. It was literally September 11th 2001 and I got thrown in like a wealth management company. It was through I tell this story in 67 steps. I wasn't homeless but I was sleeping on a couch and a mobile home with nothing. I mean I had like
39:42
No car no pain. No, no bathroom. I just shared a bathroom with other people and I would go to sleep on this couch. And I remember what change my life and started this quest to my first million. My mom who always liked books and you should read this book by Tony Robbins. Another controversial person is awaken the giant within I don't remember everything but I remember one sentence when you succeed you party but when you fail you Ponder and all greatness come from pondering and so I
40:12
I began to go. Wait a second. Okay, I'm stuck on a couch. I got nothing. I had come from living with the Amish. I literally was milking cows by hand. So I had nothing no guy had given up my driver's license. It was a great event greatest time in my life in hindsight, but I'm back on this couch couldn't get a job because I didn't have a degree in my uncle said hey, Todd, you don't have any money. You should go either sell cars or working Finance like sell insurance or sell Investments.
40:42
Sounds like I don't want to sell cars. So I went in the Yellow Pages of that mobile home and I flip through and I saw the largest ad this is in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I called the guy I made an appointment as secretary and I showed up his name's Mike staying back and I walked in and said hey, you don't know me. But if you teach me you must be successful you got this ad in this office. I've never met somebody who even made a hundred grand a year growing up. I said if you teach me what you know, I'll work for you for free. And I remember he had this big like Tom Selleck.
41:12
Mustache and he turned around and he said I've been looking for somebody like you for 20 years said show up in the morning and I give you a job and he got me in with that that time GE was the largest company in the world and they had GE Capital new Financial. So September 11th, I start from the job. He put me in a little room with file cabinets. And at that time I was making I had whatever less than 50 bucks in my bank account and this is going to be a funny for at people don't know this story. I've told a little bit but
41:42
I couldn't get any customers. I was super young in a business where the average guys 50 or 60 years old. Hey you want to invest wealth with my like I couldn't do that. So I was flipping through an ad. Google is Google was just starting his 2001 2002 and I see an ad up a picture of a guy laying on a couch on a chair in Hawaii. And he said I'm a $28,000 click here and I'll tell you how I did that laying on the beach in Hawaii.
42:12
And I clicked in those guy named Corey rudel and he sold courses he died tragically. I always wanted to thank that guy he died in like 2008 in a car crash. He had like all these nice cars like a portion stuff. He died in San Diego, but I bought that course. I remember it was like 300 bucks. So working for this mic stand back. I got like my first paycheck was like $200. I took all the money that I bought that course and it came in a three-ring binder two weeks later. And again, I don't remember much of it, but it's
42:42
There's this new thing out called Google AdWords use it for lead generation and I'll show you how to make a single landing page interstitial. So I was one of the first people to ever make I may have bought a domain name the simplest thing for me to sell then before I got into Investments, which I eventually got into was life insurance. I made a website life insurance 12 secrets to buying life insurance something like that and all of a sudden Google AdWords. I was buying clicks on the light on the keyword life insurance.
43:12
For 15 cents and I remember being like that is so high right now. Those clips are 18 bucks. You got to get in early man. I've always been lucky at getting in early. I got in early for Facebook. I was in their beta ads YouTube. I was one of the first people to use it. But and now I'm one of the first people to see the opportunity to bind distress Brands and flipping them in and put in a mini cam. So 2001 to I buy that and I went so quickly my income went to six figures.
43:41
That the CEO of GE Financial that was divided in four companies. John mcgilchrist called me up and he said I don't know me but I'm the CEO of this division name and or would I forget I think it was CEO and he said tie are you doing something illegal because you're submitting about sixty to eighty thousand dollars worth of commissions potential not all deals closed per week. And we got guys been here 20 years in know everybody that do like 3040 thousand a week and
44:10
I didn't want to tell him what I was doing because I thought other people would steal it. So I just said no, I'm not doing anything illegal. I just got a way to get leads and all my thing did was add value is like a book online. It was 28 pages that I copy rope in 2001. So I got to six figures in under a year. And so that was the beginning of making whatever you call it your first million. Then I always like to do two things at the same time. I had gotten into like becoming a professional salsa dancer. I went to a night so I was from the Amish.
44:40
Went to a nightclub for the first time in my life in my early 20s because I have basically checked out a planet Earth for five years. I lived in see one movie. I live in a 12 by 20. There was no running water and it was an outhouse. I put it on my social media. I went back there two months ago with the Amish and so I went to a nightclub.
45:02
And I bought a drink was like 15 bucks and I was like, wait a sec. I'm on the wrong side of this bar here. You know, one of my mentors had told me a farm men towards that tie if after 20 minutes you're in a room and you don't know who the sucker in the room is you're the sucker. So I was like, wait a sec. I gotta get in the nightclub business and I built a company called triangle Fiesta at the same time. I was doing GE and financial stuff. And so I spilled two streams of income that were
45:31
They weren't seven-figure combined, but they were pushing and I did that for many years. Then I moved back to California sold those businesses to my best friend and visit and the co-founder on the wealth management company and so by then I was pretty much you could call a millionaire. I don't remember I didn't record it as much as I should have been more materialistic and been like
45:53
well why not just release a tax return from 2005. I just shut everybody
45:58
up.
46:00
Nobody ever asked me
46:02
that it's not been a controversial thing. What's been controversial is do you own these cars or lease them? That's been like a tree a
46:10
tree made this video. We've kind of become friends and I was like, I was a good ass video that that was a great video which one the one where he came to my house.
46:19
Yes, it's funny that all the way with it people actually thought that I had my lawyers following him around I'm like dude. This is Hollywood baby. I know how to Hype stuff up because I was like, you know what he had this first video that knocked me a lot and I was like when he comes to the second video, let me make sure it goes viral. So I did little funny stuff people to this day are still like do you have lawyers follow you around our house? And what do you think use your brain? But I I showed him the title to the cars now. I leased them because I don't know.
46:49
Buddy who actually buys Lamborghinis and Ferraris. I had six exotic Court you lease them so you can turn them in and tax the but that was a big controversy the very the world very illiterate. So they're like haha ties abroad because he leases an advise where any wealthy person is like well who the fuck would buy a depreciating asset so I haven't returned my tax returns because literally the first person ever to ask me a question. That's it. People are much more fixated on bizarre things.
47:19
Like okay, you know what? Let's talk
47:21
about that ad for a second because Dad's fucking iconic. I think I've seen that add a bunch of times people don't know it's the ad where you know, he starts in his garage with a Lamborghini behind him and they start but you don't start talking about books. It's not like you're sitting here saying I don't get rich but like I think you know, whatever it caught people's attention. So I wanted to things first from a marketing point of view, you know, was that ad like very well thought through or did you just grab your phone that day and shoot it? You didn't really realize what you were doing or were you calculated and thinking okay, how am I going to grab?
47:49
Was attention and how am I going to transition this and let's light this room tell me about the making of the dad.
47:55
Yeah good question. So in 2012, I was living in the Hollywood Hills. I had a Maserati I think at a Ferrari then and I was like, I'm getting too materialistic. This is the ironic thing. So I sold my cars and for two years from 2011 or 2012 to 2014. I had no car that by the way is when I realized Hoover was a good service because I used to have to walk down the hill because sometimes taxes wouldn't come.
48:19
So I didn't then 2014 dating this girl and I was like it's time to get a car and so I went and got a Lamborghini for Halloween because she wanted a dress up like Batman about woman and I was like, let me get a black Lambo. It wasn't until six months later that I actually deserve three months later. Sorry that I was like wait a sec. This is a great prop. So one of the things marketing people should always realize you need props in there and a prop can be anything from a book to a person in the 1984 Steve Jobs come.
48:49
So he has like these mannequin cyborg looking robot things. And so I had been on the street of Sunset Plaza eating sushi. I was with two guys and beautiful women walk by and at the same time a Lamborghini had driven by the only thing that got those guys to not look at the women was the Lamborghini so fast forward to January 2015, and I was like prop I need a prop for this and I was like, let me shoot a video. I shot a video in December.
49:19
It's still on my social media. It didn't do that. Well, it wasn't my friend Jeremy. We drove around and just talked in the Lamborghini January 24th, 2015 and I spent like $30,000 in made like $1,000 back on that first December at it. You have to iterate. So to answer your question. Our first attempt was not amazing it did but I mean I didn't work have any Roi so I said let me do some permutations. I went in the garage the reason all those books were in my garage is because I
49:49
Own so many books. I was in France for 2014 New Year's my assistant Nathan Ramos calls me tie. You got a whole bunch of new books in and where do I put up? There's no more bookshelves space in the entire house. I said by bookshelves and put it in the garage. So when I came back in January and thought about this prop at first, it was just about the lambo and I forgot that I had those bookshelves in there. They're just a whole extra books, so I grab that and at shot
50:19
About four takes and the fourth one was all tucked in. It went viral like you I mean in 24 hours. It was nuts. It was and back then if you get in early, you got to catch things ahead of the curb cost per Impressions on Google you on YouTube was insanely low. How much money did you spend on that action?
50:42
That's a good question. Probably not in figures, but I would say, you know, upper seven figures Maybe.
50:51
Brian Natalie, I mean that I would have thought way more I would have thought way more. Well, I had other permutations. I did one with another car and then I moved from the Hollywood Hills down into this big house in Beverly Hills. I shot a commercial there that one got a lot of views, you know, when that here my garage went viral on like everything my friend called me who I think is the best marketer in the world, but he's a super secretive guy. Nobody knows him. He does any kind of business you see where you
51:21
Figure out who owns it on the Internet. It's this guy he was making six million a month at one point. Anyway, he called me. I think I'm his only friend. He's like this hermit in New York. He goes did you do this controversy on / he's like you this controversy on purpose right? I was like, not really I didn't realize so many people will be butt hurt that I had a Lamborghini and he's like, whatever you do stoke the fire of this shit. You're going to become a fucking household name two years later by Google reps. I have Google rep for YouTube they flight.
51:51
Down some time for sensitive. They said time we did a poll for you. We have inner mechanism and 75% of men in America between 18 and 35. If we show your picture they know your name and I was like man stoking a little controversy. So that's why by the way, you see hate because I never really defended it that much. So there was a right away. It was like there was on the keychain. There's
52:21
Sticking people think that that proves it's a rental. So that was the first controversy for like six months, but the more people posted that on Reddit and stuff the more people went and watch and intelligent people throw rocks the four-minute video and like this fucking guys talking about Warren Buffett this there's actually substance to this and so it became that 67 steps program in terms of people coming up to me on the street that in the social media marketing. There's not one place in the world. I can go and walk without people being like to change my life. So,
52:51
Remember negativity bias on Twitter and other places. It seems that a lot of people hate me but I've had at least 10,000 people come up to me in a round the world walking around in the last six years. I mean, I'm in something I've never had somebody come up and say you ruined my life. So I think it's just a
53:08
small rented that limbo you rented some guys gonna come up to you about a rental.
53:13
No, not that just- I'm just saying and maybe the negative people just don't come up to me so it could be biased and at this point like you and you
53:21
Okay, so you did that night club and financial thing and you there's a gap and then you like came up with this idea for this book The 67 step book and then you promoted the shit out of that and that kind of was like a pretty big win before that. You're doing like some dating sites. Yeah. Yeah, baby, but I was also doing I had a Consulting business. I was doing masterminds. That's when I really started testing kind of educational stuff. I started doing more public speaking in 2007-8. I did affiliate stuff I messed around with Affiliates for a
53:51
A while I bought a company. I bought a dating education company from two partners who were fighting. I bought one of the partners had done Ayahuasca and decided he didn't care about money anymore and the other partners like no I want to make money and they asked me to mediate and I bought half of it and you know that made I flip that thing for seven figures in like eight months, so I became from between I like to do a lot of stuff. So I was in the dating World social networking. I was doing a lot of Consulting.
54:21
And I became pretty well-known. It was funny until 2015. I did a podcast starting like 2011 kind of like what you guys have like a serious business one. I was super respected. It was pretty funny. And because I didn't show anything. It was kind of like a Tim Ferriss thing like yo, I'm Zen and I don't care about money and blah blah blah and it was great. I had a cult following I remember at one point. I was like Tim Ferriss 4-Hour workweek and blah blah blah and Tim Ferriss was
54:51
into me and it was just when I was starting out in Social so I dip my hands in a lot of stuff. I started buying real estate in 2006. So I had passive income from that. I still own the wealth management company and the nightclub business. I still got passive income from that for many years. So yeah, there was a period of time where it's not like I was doing one thing. I started really to branch and experiment a lot and that led into the education side,
55:18
right? And so we told you at the beginning what we do on the
55:21
Gasps typically when we bring somebody on even when a guest comes on we actually don't usually interview them about their life and litigate it and all that. We just brainstorm about what school what's interesting. What opportunities are seeing. That's why people like it right because me and Sam were just idea machines. I think you're probably the same way where you have a little Notes app in your phone as just full of half-baked ideas. Sam's got his company to run I think to do already. So we just give away the rest of the ideas for free. Yeah, and that's why people like the podcast is it gets the wheels turning on? Okay. I already know what I want out of my life, but I don't have
55:51
of that first kind of idea to hook onto and I don't have that muscle in my brain to spot opportunities to break down businesses and understand where oh, wow this business you never heard of has a ton of value. So I'd love and last for fun and it's fun.
56:04
It's about you or you're working on stuff. We're working on it. Yeah, it's super cast to have a cups like a paid grab just say this. I mean people if you bring value charge money, there's so much stupid stuff. McDonald's makes twenty five billion.
56:21
Incidentally diabetes to people and Coca-Cola and so it's like hey man, one thing my mentor told me if you have value never be afraid to charge in the people who get Charlie Munger says of 10% of people don't complain about your prices. You're too cheap.
56:36
So yeah was it so we have some stuff coming, but I would love for you to try to you know, become one of us for the last five minutes here, and I'd love to brainstorm a little bit about what opportunities do you see, they you may not be pursuing or you see adjacent to what you're doing. I'd love I don't know if you prefer.
56:51
You prepare for this if you have anything off the top of your head, but spit out a couple of half-baked ideas of things. You know, if you're a young entrepreneur what you would be looking at, what would you be going and doing
57:00
well with a two-year-old tie you about 20 to go straight service-based to start out if you can after a tech whiz you can build SASS and things like that girl. I'm going to talk to Everyday ordinary people like what I grew up with you go service-based business. I think the simplest one is still social media marketing agency. It's obviously a little bit different with covid, but you can pivot into for example
57:21
Be calm agency where you manage people get help all these restaurants help all these brands of mom-and-pop transition to a Shopify store and so on and you can charge them one to ten thousand dollars a month based on what you do for them and you have four or five clients in your in six figures. That's a no-brainer for most people again, the Mark Zuckerberg listening you can bypass what I'm saying from there. You always want to move into product based at some point. So half-baked ideas that I
57:51
For myself, I think I look at the Tam of things. You know, what's the Tam of verticals? There's about 12 verticals me and my business partner Alex have identified we want to go into and all of them are have to be trillion dollar dance. So the food eight point seven billion a trillion in Global Food consumption. Everybody needs it. I think there's a real opportunity for more entrepreneurs whether it be to start a small urban farm and do a CSA delivering.
58:21
Healthy food to people I think that's a great that's a badass business. What's that called? Like Misfits free or ugly fruit.
58:28
That's because vegetables right? It's produce. It's something produce. Yeah imperfect. Yeah.
58:34
I'm not familiar with them. But it's I like where you're going with that, huh. The whole shtick is like shit that wasn't pretty enough to set the pepper. That was not pretty enough because it's Miss shaped itself the grocery store they put in the box and reality. It's perfectly good looking but that's little stick and there's to those companies and I believe there are between 50 to a hundred million.
58:51
You're in sales, it's blocks that you get vegetables. I love that business. So food is a great vertical. I think another vertical that people neglect a little bit is simple things like building houses like construction is a great. I saw you had on your Twitter some roofing company. Yeah that was worth ability. Like a lot of boring things. Don't be afraid. I started with life insurance my first time out of the iPhoto milking cows by hand.
59:21
Which is people think of boring but it builds up. There's a lot that happens there and I think that so things that people really need food shelter water food shelter right now is the place to be I think because of covid all the brands were buying whether and I didn't even talk much about this but pr1 and dress porn. I bought another company that did 740 million Revenue last year Dress Barn, that's a brand that you know, women need still closed at
59:51
My Bob Modell Sporting that people want soccer balls at home. So you really got to think if people are trapped in home for prolonged periods of time. What did they want? They want food? They want Home Improvement and they want those Basics. I would stay away and from a lot of the things that people Envision Hospitality business rest either crushed businesses that have a permanent shift on the curve and I don't know how there was a travel a lot of stuff that people get into but you know, what keep that service business going and put a CEO in place.
1:00:21
Ace so that it continues to run there's much too much talk about exiting. I'm not an exit guy. Like I said Buffett says the exact time you should hold a fan a good brand is forever. That's the ideal time. So I would also encourage my 22 year old self to build things that last and a real a great food based business with a product. There's the products you can go tangentially are huge. You can come now with like scar.
1:00:51
Later Waters, you can come out with we launched the beef jerky line with grass-fed beef in there. So many paleo people and so and then you can go vegan. We have a hemp protein line on Farmers card. So I think you go into these huge cam simple markets that are home-based and then you can just shoot off for the rest of your life. Can you name the 12?
1:01:14
That's a good question. Okay, so you have in the u.s. GDP finances number one. So finance-related. Me and Alex are trying to buy a bank. That's there's distress Banks people don't read as a hundred banks at any given time for sale in America. We almost bought a bangle us to thank Louisa in Kentucky too much regulation. So Finance food clothes fashion is about one and a half trillion globally then construct real estate obviously, but real estate.
1:01:44
It's into molds that you can have real estate and then you can have construction I think mining is in there and then you start getting into a commodity side of things some of those 12 break out there. But one that I think I and then service-based there is a service-based trillion-dollar barely trillion-dollar but it's so fragmented. I don't like that. So on the 12, which I wish I could remember all 12. I only focus on like the top six because as you move down that
1:02:14
Tack it becomes very fragmented. Like I was saying like do you really want it like Hospitality? It's it's harder. It's fine. If that's your passion and you've always wanted to run a hotel that changes the game, but I tell people start on Maslow's hierarchy at the bottom. Like what do people really need and the in the top which is this kind of, you know Enlightenment phase on the Maslow where you really that part is what loses money and covid all
1:02:44
Stop here, and people aren't going to nightclubs up here because that's where you like express your wealth, you know called marks would be angry. But at the top of the matter years where you going to be I mean you want to be this old gray hair guy who's got all these CEOs reporting to you. Are you gonna be running shit? Are you going to have sold out and you're just going to be reading and being Amish? What are you gonna do? That's a great question man, you know, it's hard to predict the future. I would say I think their forums to motivation, and I'm number three, so I hope I'll be
1:03:14
Be in that money mating movement / Freedom Mastery / status that drives most humans one of those four and I'm strong on the third one. So I hope in 30 years that I'm kind of a mad scientist. Then I always tell people you should reverse engineer your life what you want on your Tombstone and I hope my Tombstone says so here's a map to your want to be Howard Hughes.
1:03:41
I don't know if I mean it could be in his category. I hope I'm not peeing in bottles and keeping them next to me or whatever. He did weird. You going to be you want to be a wild guy? I think I already up I you know, what if people can figure you out you're I think it's too boring for me. That's what I would say. So I'm hard to figure out and maybe I'll get harder to figure out. I don't know. What did you want to do? This is a good question. What's your 30 years from now, man. I've maybe you have you don't have kids do you?
1:04:10
Okay, I have some kids. I want to I you know similar to you. I think me and Shawn are similar to you and that we want we like to have our hands and lots of different things. I own my own company now and it's a similar business maybe than what you had. We have one and a half million daily users night. I just want to make cool shit for them and invest in the cool companies and by cool companies the same thing as you, you know, at different times of my life the old tap dancing rule do tap dance out of bed where I'm at right now is fun man. It's
1:04:40
Fun because a lot of its high level if you look at Myers-Briggs, if you believe in personality types, I'm an entp which they call the Visionary whatever. I don't know if that I wouldn't necessarily call myself a Visionary but I like high-level architecture. I like cracking the code on. Okay, we're buying company brands at the pace of one a month. How do we build a c-suite in 30 days every 30 days? It's a tough one to do but you know, I've built an algorithm that uses actually hi.
1:05:10
Don't do it with dr. David Buss a complex personality algorithm that uses very Advanced psychometric testing things that they call like the hexaco score the you look at NPI, you look at the mock for all these little known academic ways of quantifying talent. And then of course, how do you structure it where you can test people? There's a good book on this by Laszlo Bock called work rules. It's how he was the chief hiring officer going through three million applications for Google.
1:05:40
So I think there's a hope I'll be reading a lot. By the way. That was a good thing. You brought up man. I get to read now more I will tell you that if I can talk to my 20 your two-year-old selfie. It's not just working hard. It's working smart. And I think you should look to the Titans. There's a lot to learn even people that people think are unethical like Rockefellers and the Rothschilds you read their biographies and all of a sudden you go. Well, there was a method to their Madness they weren't, you know, if it wasn't for
1:06:10
Rockefeller, you wouldn't have the monk modern-day interstate commerce system used to not be able to do businesses across state lines. He retooled the United States into what we benefit our benefit. But if you break Rockefeller down, he was a you know, trust Not only was breaking every modern antitrust law, but he called himself he believed in the trust like it was God. So I think that for every person listening and for my 22 year old self, it's like man do
1:06:40
lots of stuff it 10% of people ain't mad at what you're doing. You're probably doing something wrong.
1:06:46
And what about the opposite? What would the 22 year old self? Tell the 40 whatever you are. You're old Tai Lopez.
1:06:55
I walked into the doors like you know, this is my life. This is what you do. Okay, interesting. What would 22 year-old you tell you
1:07:01
that's a smart question never had someone ask that. It's hard to answers without sounding cliche.
1:07:10
Respect the seasons of life when you're 22.
1:07:15
Don't just lock yourself in a room your body's strong and young get out there. That's why I said build a dam Construction Company get sweaty. My mentor island nation said also respect the phases.
1:07:28
So that's what I think could tell me like in your 20s is when you try a lot of stuff 30s is when you focus on something 40s is when you profit 50s is when you begin to Mentor so that 60s you can hand off. So respect the seasons of Life spry. One of the reason I'd spent so much time on the form. It gives you a deeper understanding of patterns in you know, we're all and I think I'm in the summer of Life approaching fault and it's not just chronological is not just like a
1:07:57
at this age you hit that right like winter is when you plot and and Ponder and spring is when you plant seeds I think the last five years I've been planting a lot of seeds summer you go to work in the Harvest comes in the fall and I'm kind of on that track and that's why I said when strong appear weak when I'm in the spring many people saw the spring and they go all this guy's not that talented. Well in many ways. I'm not talented. I mean the game of business is so multifaceted that I've
1:08:28
Met one person that has full encompassing body of knowledge. But like Tom Watson the founder of IBM used to say, I'm smart in spots and I like to spend a lot of time in those spots. So I think another thing my 22 year old self would say tie on certain things. You're a moron and other things you have tightened potential stick more around the Titan potential type. You know, I think that's for everybody. What's that damn super power you have and it should be very tangible my superpowers.
1:08:58
Or persuasion and the reason I got a lot of hate and why you ask me that question of okay, is this tie guide you think any of the accusations against you have married he will yes when you're highly persuasive. It's a strong tool. It's like a pit bull. I mean does a pitbull good or bad? Well, it depends if you're not careful the pit bull can bite you so I have to be careful with persuasion that I'm not doing crossing the line, but now my super power when I flip it in I can buy I know how to talk to people.
1:09:28
Selling me their brand it by the numbers came out on some of the Acquisitions I've done however would be doing a case study on it right now. I don't say the numbers because I don't give a shit about that. Now some of them are public, you know, like I said pure one was 31 million. It was an auction against Sycamore. I can't keep that private but find your super power man in some people said I meet I don't even have a superpower. Well, maybe your superpower is finding somebody with a superpower Mary's.
1:09:57
Somebody with the super
1:09:58
power, you know, that's a No-No superpower in and of itself
1:10:02
self-awareness to be like yo, I don't know if I'm a tight-knit anything is okay to be intrapreneur not everybody has to be entrepreneur richest guy I've ever had a long conversation and dinner with was Steve Ballmer. He just shot up the like number seven wealthiest guy and he's an intrapreneur. He didn't drop out of college with Bill Gates. He was more scared or more conservative. He told me but you know intrapreneur he respected that super power that he had.
1:10:28
Build off somebody else's vision and I think that's a another problem with what I call Silicon Valley is this spot that looks down on simple people starting social media marketing agencies that that's a scam. Well, what's wrong with that business is my dentist sucks at marketing. He's happy to have somebody to his email marketing. He's 60 years old. He don't want to learn email marketing. So I think Silicon Valley should realize that there's this huge need for everyday Ordinary People to be able to tow that entrepreneurial line without thinking they have to build a SAS.
1:10:57
And understand the stack and all this things, you know, so someone will look
1:11:03
I appreciate you coming on the Silicon Valley podcast
1:11:24
and like research like crazy and we come on and we just fuck.
1:11:28
Bang bang bang bang bang we bang it
1:11:29
out. Give me my bank. Give me the things you didn't get me. Come on. Let's go. Let's just knock this out because so many people are going to be like, what's the hard-nosed question you want to
1:11:38
ask me.
1:11:40
No, no, we got to my with Samsung is usually we come out and we have Idea Idea opportunity opportunity. Here's a business you never heard of or hey, these guys are buying, you know old school Brands and flipping it for e-commerce. That's what we usually do on the podcast. This is more like, you know, hey, look, you know, I wanted to do three things. I wanted to know your perspective on people's opinions about about you and what the criticisms are in a dress, you know, those add my own just Curiosities of like, yeah, why doesn't he just say this or why doesn't he do this or how is he doing that?
1:12:10
And then the other side was look I wanted to talk about what you guys doing. Right? Because I actually think that's a really good idea. Like there was an investor today in the Twitter thread is guy named Gary Tani's, you know comes from Y combinator which is like our Harvard here, you know, he's done some interesting things, you know, he built postures which kind of failed but he's invest in some good companies. He had his Pitchfork out right away and I was like look. Yeah these guys, you know, this guy's never built anything. I think what the fundamental thing for Silicon Valley is they respect Builders and for all delusions around pretending that they don't
1:12:39
Well, that's absolutely true. We totally guilty of that virtue signaling totally guilty of that. But the one thing I think is true is if Silicon Valley respects Builders who make something I think the problem is that overlooks people who teach like fundamentally you were teaching and it's like, oh he didn't he didn't you know, why is he telling other people how to be successful? That's not a valid way to make your money and it's like well, first of all, you don't know if he's built anything before this. I didn't know a lot of your background you shared something here, but the second thing is even if you had done none of those things,
1:13:09
but you were teaching the right information to people you're actually helping people read more books and think about how to build a little business. Why is that a bad thing? Right? So I think that is a genuine flaw of Silicon Valley and I think what I replied to Gary was look whether you love him or hate him. He's doing some interesting shit with rev right now and you got to acknowledge that like, I don't care what you think about the guy but a good idea is a good idea to buy it. What's the you there's 25 cognitive biases once humans
1:13:35
decide this guy is something wrong. That's why politics with people don't like
1:13:39
Trapper Joe Biden, who are you persuading? All that hate on Twitter. Is this everybody who hates Donald Trump follows each other and everybody the echo chamber boy. It's like my and people don't like black. They like black or white
1:13:52
and by the ways, can I smart
1:13:53
people? Can I do one thing?
1:13:55
Yeah, what's up?
1:13:56
Okay, so I'm not going to mention anybody's names, but I was like, you know what I never done this before.
1:14:04
Let me respond. Let me bring up some of the people so Andrew Wilkinson was a criticized you he's a great friend of mine. He's a great friend of Sean. He's a good guy and I would actually say this was I going to say by the way, I live in San Francisco. I'm from Missouri. This is where I am now, so like and I bootstrap my company sort of stunt people strike out at those things. They subconsciously seeing themselves. I have a friend who loves attention we went to a party there was a guy Life of the Party in the middle of party, my friend.
1:14:34
We walk in two minutes and he looks and he goes look at this guy fucking wants all the attention himself. I said That's you bitch you wish you
1:14:40
wouldn't like me. I don't have to be that guy. So I
1:14:44
don't criticize them people criticize what he's or some sort of reflection. Yeah, what you want to pull up? Yes, so, you know Andrew says the same shit you
1:14:54
say he but he buys Enterprise profitable internet company. So he bought like dribble which is the largest, you know designer web design websites like a top 1000 website.
1:15:03
But he bought he owns like 20 of these
1:15:05
and so there's a building so I know he will listen, here's what he started because he had a he has an agency that just surfaced million in sales a service business it Canada his whole group does about a hundred million in sales. It's a lot of software but some agency but it's called meta lab they make apps and stuff for people.
1:15:24
So he started with a service business. He then bought a bunch of brands that he thought were undervalued and grew them and then he did it with his own money and didn't use it. He doesn't have a no-fun.
1:15:34
Backing how many owns most of it himself and with one partner and he sits in Canada and he laughs at a lot of the stupid stuff. That's Silicon Valley does and so it's so it's so funny that you guys are
1:15:44
it's like test. Where was it Das PFC that said, you know all unhappy families are unhappy all happy families are happy in the same way and all unhappy families are unhappy in a million different ways meaning to succeed to y'all y'all doing about the same thing. It's like everybody's more similar to fail. There's infinite.
1:16:03
Mutations on we're gonna I wasn't even gonna bring up it I mean he was
1:16:08
he was going to tweet that Andrew. I think that's what he was gonna
1:16:11
do. Okay. So here was how do you sleep at night duping for people with a get-rich-quick scheme? So what I would tell them it how much this is agency make
1:16:21
32 50 million dollars. I took that money that concentrates in his hands and I showed people how to do it to every day ordinary man and woman, so don't get on your high horse with me. If you want to talk about what benefit Society is it concentrating 32, 50 million or helping a whole bunch of business everyday ordinary people across the world have an agency to make $100,000 a year. I got it. Then Gary Vee at one point was banging on me for don't buy question. You got to run 50 million let everyday Ordinary People man.
1:16:51
That's why I never get hate from everyday ordinary people people on the street people from the ghetto people from you know, service bus boys. They're like hangman these old people.
1:17:03
In this scenario, they call it a get rich quick scheme, but the reality is they're the ones who got rich on something and I break it down and let other people do that wasn't even the main one. I want to talk about but I'm glad thank you for bringing that up.
1:17:15
Yeah, it's funny. Like, you know, Warren Buffett would shit on. Let's say Bitcoin and which Bitcoin has been, you know in the last 10 years. It would be the absolute best investment. You could have made it better than any Silicon Valley startup. If you had just bought Bitcoin 10 years ago, you would have done better, you know, he doesn't understand.
1:17:33
Any kind of knocks it Elon Musk knocks, Warren Buffett. He says, oh, that's kind of boring. He's just a capital allocator. I'm out here building rockets and and you know electric cars that are going to clean up the Earth and so he knocks Warren Buffett and then, you know, the next person comes in and sits on somebody else and I think there's a sort of really toxic idea of judging other people's business in this way. I'm guilty of it too, but it's kind of like you said if you spot it, you got it the thing you resent in other people is a part of yourself that you don't quite like and
1:18:03
And and I don't think most people would agree with that. I think a lot of people listen at this will disagree but from my life experience that has turned out to be true the things that really annoy you and other people things are really bother you. It's because it's a part of you that is guilty of some of those same things. Maybe it's suppressed. Maybe you don't act on it, but that's why you're noticing it and that same
1:18:21
way if you want to go down real rabbit hole that will blow your mind. If you go down evolutionary psychology route and you understand the dark Triads or so dark Triad is the three most
1:18:33
Two traits that human share. So it's psychopathy machiavellianism and narcissism. So I've administered a test across the Internet. It's all my site. It's I built a separate site light Compass. It's called it's free. I don't monetize it at all. And I've tested more people in any psychologist in the last two years in history. I tested like 500,000 people just went through this free quiz, I can tell you entrepreneurs have some of the worst dark tryouts course the fact that they're angry so machiavellianism is
1:19:03
A complex psychological ailment and it's basically if you were bullied and a kid who always kind of sucked and you didn't get the girl when you finally get a little power and especially with Twitter and YouTube comments. They did a study psychology. I think what Psychology today did a study most people who leave comments that are negative score extremely high on a dart dyad worse than the dark Triad sadistic score. There's lots of that's why I never took them.
1:19:33
Don't people don't comment man. So when people go tie two people hate you I'm like not the real ones. These are people with actual psychological ailments. Now, I'm not writing off anybody who criticizes me. I'm telling you the most blatant people who make a living on YouTube on critiquing other people. If you do their Dyke try its course, these are people you should never have in your life exploitative at a level. That's unreal. There's a good book on this called the h factor personality by the guy who developed the hexaco score, which is the most accurate.
1:20:03
Accurate personality tests psychometric tests by four. So one of the things that I do, do you smoke a lot of weed? You know what I don't have super high anxiety and anybody that I know that loan it's just like anxiety and I don't have much so I never do LSD because you're kind of like weird in an interesting way like you go like
1:20:23
that's what we call a Sam compliment. Thank you do LSD. You're weird in an interesting way. You
1:20:28
know what well, so I'm completely sober I'm completely sober don't do anything.
1:20:33
I would love to take LSD one day but I'm a little nervous to do it. But you like talk about some weird ass shit that I find incredibly fascinating and it seems like it's helpful. But is this coming from a sober place or do you like to get fucked up? Sometimes they get inspiration? Last time I got high was in 2014. I remember my brother smoke a lot to my brothers have high anxiety. They smoke they love it. They swear by Mike. Mom. Always she's a hippie. She thinks I should smoke more and LSD. You know what man I have other ways that I think I struck my brain. I'm not a
1:21:03
Against weed but I do it acid or anything. Now. I'm in my dad was like a big drug dealer that would think to prison and I guess I just like any was an alcoholic and all that and he was like, yeah, I mean, I'll drink when I go out but I don't have addicted to chemical I never was I got that from my mom thing. I thought was gonna be like my dad my grandma thought to be like my dad addicted everything I think as I told you the videos that I'm known for just the ones that the masses wanted to see so they got the viewed count, but the real me that's why I said people used to follow my podcast.
1:21:33
Or like wait a second. This dude ain't who? I thought he was and it's not because I was projecting false. It's just a video of the Lamborghini and girl people going to see you know, 50 million views there and a video of me talking about dark dyad and dark Triad scores, which by the way should be mainstream education system so fucked it doesn't teach you how to read people one of my great superpowers. Not that I was born with, but luckily I bumped into like, dr. David buses and active man Mentor mine and like it's insane.
1:22:03
I mean the things that people think are weird that I talked about like never go on a date with a girl without sending her to dark Triad test. I've saved more
1:22:11
dudes from Death. I have a friend of Silicon
1:22:14
Valley. I sent him watch my 67 steps at the end of the 67 steps if that was worth a sushi dinner $67 this after Self see if the value was there because I developed the 67 steps in 2004 for an
1:22:33
rating manual to run companies. I begin to realize I needed to be able to build CEOs and I said, how do I get everything? My mentors have taught me and I built this manual back. Then it wasn't 67 steps. It was like 14 things. I still have the word doc operating manual. So it's important to have Frameworks. I can't tell you how I give you an example. How does it make sense? You don't talk about business that I was the only one going to buy.
1:23:03
Pier 1. Okay is Sycamore hadn't come in in the last two weeks. I would have pulled that off her 20 and a half million dollars. This is a business doing 1.5 billion with 30 million customers. It has 99% brand awareness. Where is all the Geniuses in Silicon Valley and they say well we only build we don't want to be asked can't bullshit will then build it into a better text at company know people with high IQ. There's a recent study and book that came out. I forget the name.
1:23:33
Why intelligent people make more mistakes? It's because they have these cognitive loads on their brain in San Francisco has the most cognitive loads I've ever seen. I don't think the clear-thinking is always there. There are some outliers, but I think why a lot of people you re like Tim Ferriss, why did he leave? He's like the mentality. It's become a toxic mentality and I could have told him you stick a whole bunch of dark Triad people in one city and give them money and a little Cloud. This isn't going to be a place you want. This ain't going to end. Well, my friend
1:24:03
And up in Austin and then often not going to end. Well
1:24:08
nicest people I've ever met with the lowest dark Triad people who live on a farm and things like that, but some of that's adverse selection. For example, what 1 to 10. What do you think your followers will think of this podcast? Am I going to be a here's what's going to happen? They're going to say that we didn't press you enough and they're kind of right because I don't agree with everything you've ever done and I think we can have a respectful conversation about that. But I'm pleasantly and I bet Sean's the same.
1:24:33
I'm pleasantly surprised and I think that you're a much your much. I think that you are more ethical than I thought. I think that you are more badass than I thought you're super weird. And I find that to be amazing and cool because I'm weird. I think so. I think what's going to happen is tens of thousands of people maybe hundreds of thousands of people going to listen to this and they're going to criticize me and Shawn for not pushing you hard enough, but I think in general everyone's going to like it and I hope that you will come back on again so we can get into more business stuff. And and we I want us to come on there one thing you would push me on so I can
1:25:03
Make sure that this podcast you don't get accused. You can say I don't you do it in chronological order you going to cut it where you can
1:25:10
know we usually do it in chronological order, but it's fine. Like I don't ever think about this in terms of what are people going to say. Like if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't even have done the podcast. I did the shit for fun and I did it because I need
1:25:22
want well, let me say that looks look Ty all great men are also bad men. Right like everyone great has done something that people like I think that some of the dating stuff was definitely scammy.
1:25:33
Me and you I don't know maybe like I don't think that there was necessarily a victim but it's there's some blatant like fake profile
1:25:41
shit. The main knock on you is actually not about the dataset that may knock is this guy was teaching people how to be rich and successful. He was showing a rich and successful life and he wasn't rich and successful. He only got that way because of his I'll teach you to do it and that's how he got his money. That's the criticism right? I think we talked a little bit about okay. How did you make your first million bucks? Was it that or was it before then now? I don't know.
1:26:03
The same is true, and I'm not even going to try to like go back take it because to me it's irrelevant. But I know for some people for survival they're going to really care about the shit. I don't lie. Even if I wanted to live people fact
1:26:14
check my stuff my LG Financial which is now called retirement Geeks my business partner John to war he gets calls daily going to tie really start his business. Joel salatin who's been on Joe Rogan twice probably the most famous agricultural food guy that wrote a book Omnivore's Dilemma in great part him Jose.
1:26:33
Thousands farm and swoop. Virginia gets calls where people like did I really spent two years living with you because they respect Joel and Joel respects me, but they don't some of them know like me. So right nothing I told you I mean if a date was a little bit off but there's nothing that's it's not that's that's
1:26:50
fine. So there's the two knocks are going to be. Well, some people would be like, I can't believe you gave this guy y'all platform. I think that's fucking stupid. Like I think Polly out. How would that would that happily with homes on that? That would be
1:27:03
Very interesting conversation. Yo, why did you do that? And so so my test is if I was sitting next to this person what I want to strike up a conversation to have questions. Am I curious what I want to form my own opinion? Yes. Absolutely. I would so I happen to record it here. So other people can benefit from it, but that's I do this with what conversation I want to have right? So this is the second knock will be. Oh you didn't push him on this one factoid because they've done a bunch of you know, sort of Internet research about, you know, something you said that wasn't true or whatever so but I think we already kind of cover that the third one which is actually probably not
1:27:33
not what any of the audience says but it's more of my own what the what the thing I was most questioning of was I think you talked about I bought this brand I own this company and there's something that doesn't quite add up there where it's like you're telling me this is a company that that's you know, doing 70 million dollars that quarter you're buying these buns but probably straight month. It's publicly
1:27:54
traded you're making his point even further. So I guess my
1:27:57
point is businesses in some ways like there's laws of physics and of course, there's outlier.
1:28:03
But you know you're doing this repeatedly with Brands and what you're trying in a way you're telling me that you know, two plus two equals one meaning strong brand with huge revenues or depositing 70 million dollars in the bank account. Meaning, you know, actually either, you know profits or even or whatever and I'm buying these things for three ten twenty Thirty million dollars. Something doesn't add up there. Right and I believe that you know, you might be one of the few people who are bidding on these things or maybe one deal has this exception but
1:28:33
But that's the only part where if I was really sitting down with you. I'd be like, all right, I you know, okay walk me through this because I know business and I know that there's no free lunch. If a business is really really healthy. You're not getting it for cheap and if a business has some hair and you got to do some work, that's why you might get it for cheap, but I think you were kind of painting things as healthy that you wouldn't get for that price. And that was my that's my perception. I might be wrong, but
1:28:55
that's a good point.
1:28:57
So is there a free lunch I will say there's one time where there's free lunch. It's where thin something's inefficient and not everybody sees it yet. So, for example when I got into Google AdWords in 2001 2002 it was 15 to 20 cents a click a lead cost me let's call it, you know, whatever it took 10 color. So you got leads for two dollars. And so it cost me $100. I remember doing them.
1:29:28
A hundred dollars to generate a deal that on average my commission was 1500. So is 15 x now, you know, it was back then why you know much about business and I didn't scale it as far but there was free lunch there when I launched with Google Adwords by YouTube ad words more than a decade later anything. I put up not just here in my garage. You could sell anything. Okay,
1:29:51
let's use the one example you talked about which was Dress Barn. I think the health is that that was good news.
1:29:58
That's what one question here. So let's say it's inefficient. Nobody else is fishing where you're fishing you you recognize that you go, but the business owner themself would not sell it for less than what they're making in a month so I could the business owner there are efficient. They know what they're getting in their bank account. Why would they sell their business from going to tell you something
1:30:17
and I shouldn't tell you this because it's going to imagine the great questions. That's why well, no, I'm going to tell you something that I know that very few people they may understand it, but they don't
1:30:27
Fully long-term leases that brick and mortar companies have have ten year Horizons 5 to 10 years. So they signed these leases in 2015 17 18. All sudden Amazon has slowly been eating away plus covid. It's so all of a sudden now.
1:30:47
The way the u.s. Bankruptcy law, which is very sophisticated. The best bankruptcy law in America in the world is the American bankruptcy really and it says no problem a Cena. You're a publicly traded company you own dress barn and Taylor law all these Brands will let you can get out of those leases with dress for me.
1:31:07
But you'll have to declare bankruptcy and somebody else gets your brand America has an outlet somebody else get your brand. Now that was not a bankruptcy situation, but it was similar Dynamic. So the reason you would sell because what the US Bankruptcy Court forces you to do now attracted. Some of them are chapter 7 Tremor chapter 11, even Within Chapter 11, you can do what's called a 363 sale, which is what I've done on Sundays, but man, like I said, I always go.
1:31:37
- were nobody fishes and my business partners from Silicon Valley and he exited for 300 million dollars and he thought dislike you even eight months ago. And I said Alex you'd be surprised. I'm gonna put it in Sam's words. You should be surprised what a weird framework of thought will end up handing to you and I'll tell you on Pier One. It was such a steal that we were what's called a stalking horse. I don't know if you know what a stalking horse is but some of your listeners will which means basically
1:32:06
we have protections and also nobody shows up at the auction where the automatic winners and until one week before everyone was so scared of covid that only Sycamore cane even now 20 more people would show so the other thing that comes into play is just like Muppets s when the world is scared. You should be grief and when the world's greedy you should be scared. You ask me where I accumulated cash and how did I get ready for this? I've been getting ready.
1:32:36
Everybody else was continually buying and flipping and selling in it. What I call the greater fool expansion era period I was waiting and so I think that great things come to people who wait sometimes and there was never a bad. I'm the only thing I'm pissed out. I mean, I almost bought American Apparel in January that was 2.5 billion dollar. I'm sorry Forever 21 by Simon ABG beat us but for a large amount, but
1:33:06
But man should have got American Apparel. Yeah, only 15 those expansionary that was where it wasn't deals right now is deal. So I think what happens and something even my critics realize about me American Apparel is worth 80 American apparel's worth 80 now for sure. Well, I can tell you there's something about that. But yet I agree you'll Dan owns it and realizes it and they're smart, but I've never been afraid to do stuff that other people thought was weird and anybody listening, you know, a lot of your listeners already know that but
1:33:36
Even weirder than people think my mentor island nation said time if you have a good idea and you tell your neighbor about it, and they're not suspicious. It's too late. So the fat you're a smart guy and you're kind of suspicious of dressbarn. It's beautiful. In fact, I'm like do I convince you because now I have a hundred thousand people that are smart businessmen that I don't know that I want to convince but I will tell you what I told you about dress born is extremely accurate when we bought it and relaunch it. It's e-comm. All the metrics are better than we
1:34:06
ought not worse and I think that
1:34:11
the window will close it may have already closed for the great deals. But luckily we bought five and we did another one in the UK a smaller company called the book people. It was like one of the largest book companies in Europe and I bought that and so we pulled off six Acquisitions and eight months and I'm not sure the window will be there more people are starting to show up at auctions on other things that I'm coming too. So
1:34:37
Be quick, maybe the quick see around corners will tie. This has been a really good podcast. What's going to happen is it's going to go live and I think you're going to get a lot of feedback from this. That's my prediction. I hope if you're listening go tell me Sean and tie give us feedback. I think you're going to like this Ty I would love for you to come back. And if you want us on to yours, we would love to do that. I'm speaking for Sean, but I imagine I'll say the same thing. This was awesome.
1:35:07
Well, I appreciate you guys are great and your audience, even though I was on the Twitter fighting back with them. I love that. I don't I don't mind it. I would like to the doctors and I was like, oh got shit to do. I'm going to reply 50 times he can do we could do another one. If you get a whole bunch of response. You should have pressed them on datings. I mean that the whole dating thing we can talk about that that but so we can come back on the show. We can go down a Ting thing we can go down and I we want to do that. We won't I
1:35:34
mean yeah tweet tweet at us.
1:35:37
I'm Sean P P. That's the sampar and then at Tai Lopez Twitter's what you think I'm actually curious about this. I don't know what people are going to say. I know my opinion. I know people are going to hate us they're going to say oh you guys were light on them or there's gonna be like you were defending them, but honestly, I'm just telling you what I think and I also know this like, I have a poster of Conor McGregor here, you know behind me that guy's not fucking perfect and punching old guy in a bar. He's been accused of rape. He's also a UFC champion and has shared a lot of great wisdom and also has contributed martial arts and
1:36:07
Great way, I actually love Tony Robbins. I've been to his events people in Silicon Valley think this guy's a you know, a complete cult leader, / you know, so, you know con artist there. I've met the, you know famous Tech CEOs and I've hung out with him. I've gone to dinners with them. I've been to parties with them and yeah, they're not as great as you would think, you know, they do a whole lot of shit behind the scenes that just doesn't come out and you know, I've just lived my life in a way where I'm curious and when I meet somebody I try to figure out what is this person if you're a remarkable enough
1:36:37
Me to like take an interest in you that means you know something about something and I'm going to focus on that and not like Focus all my fucking energy on the things. I dislike about you or the things that you've done poorly are the flaws of your character and that just helped me a lot because then I don't worship people and think that they're Flawless, you know, Elon Musk has had you know, three wives Let's go ask them. You know how he is as a guy maybe they don't have the nicest things to say, but people totally respect him as a builder because he's fucking amazing at building and I just encourage anybody who's like, you know on hater.
1:37:07
Mode like forget Tai Lopez, but just in general much better way to live life is just a you know, look at people and figure out what can I learn from this person? What's the gold that they have? Otherwise, you know how they even get on your radar and don't put so much energy into you know, the flaws that they have because
1:37:21
everybody's got them.
1:37:23
That's like Nietzsche said the mind is an impenetrable Fortress. You only learn about yourself through friends and enemies. I always say he's compliment me on a few things. I don't like that guy but he's good at marketing. So I'm like whoop. Well, I can buy Brands and turn around through marketing. You really learn from people compliment you you know, so I got why I never thought father died the amount of criticism. I've God has truly allowed me to hone in on. Yeah, they're doing like I know a guy that was like
1:37:54
The white tie but that dude knows a lot about books and I was like, well, thank you. I'll double down and read a little more books and see if I can leverage that into actual accomplishment. So, you know at the end of the day, dude, well, I'm a big history fan. They're not one of us.
1:38:12
Possibly that will be remembered in a hundred years in the scope of the blip in a thousand years. You will bring a people I was out on a date with a girl and I was like somehow I brought up like Elvis or something. She was like, who's that and I was thinking this is she won't even that choosing her 20s. I'm going how quickly we forget the most popular man in the world. It hadn't even been, you know, 40 years or 50 years since the guys dead and I'm just like at the end of the day.
1:38:42
I hope it says he was a mad scientist. I hope it doesn't say he tried to say he was you know virtue Man Mark Twain said all men are like the moon they got their Dark Side boy. Imagine if you could take everybody's thoughts that are on your podcast and put them up on a projector shit. The people we esteem slide. There will be stuff running through their mind. Maybe they're too pussy to act on that Alamos demon like devilish.
1:39:11
Thing so been good. I gotta run tie. This is awesome. I appreciate you very much. We appreciate you. Have a good day. I appreciate you guys and we'll connect. So, thank you man.
ms