Transcription
[gasps and sighs] >> So, you're going to be a dad?
>> I'm going to be a father, hopefully everything works out. Yeah.
>> Tell me about it.
>> To be honest, I haven't really given it a tremendous amount of thought. Um, I kind of deal with things as they enter my queue. Um, Layla is the one who gets, she, her life is changing significantly more than mine is in the short term. I think once the baby comes, I'll, I'll adjust when it comes. Um, yeah, I mean, new information, new priorities. I, I, I'm really not that worried about it. Um, I mean, I think big picture, there's been what, 100 billion humans? 85% of humans have a child by the time they're 45. Um, or after 40, whatever. By, by the time they finish their ability to have children, it's like 85%. So, it's not something that's like really that rare of a thing. And so, I think I'll deal with it the best I can. And, you know, my dad gave me a pretty good example of what being present looks like. And so, I'll take as much as I can from that.
>> You're kind of known as the guy who optimizes everything.
>> I would say maximizes.
>> Maximizes.
>> [laughter]
>> Optimizes is get the most for the least. Maximizes is get as much as they possibly can.
>> With a kid, what are the inputs you can actually control as a dad? And what's the output or outputs that you've already accepted is out of your hands?
>> Well, I think the question is the nature nurture question,
>> [sighs]
>> which is, okay, you know, how much of it is going to be genetic? And I don't know. I think most of the science is 50/50, half genetic, half is, you know, your upbringing, etc. Um, so, then we get into the question of how does a child learn and how does behavior get shaped? Um, which, you know, the primary ways are going to be modeling, like me doing something and getting good outcomes in front of the child. Um, and the second would be teaching the child directly, which I would say through demonstration, role playing, practicing, training, repetitions. Um, and that can be from like say please, say thank you, all the way to learning more complex skills, you know, over time. Um, I mean, I like teaching. And so, I look forward to teaching the child the things that I know and what it will teach me about things that I don't know.
>> I guess in a different way. Like, how do you decide uh, like these are the things I'm going to teach, these are some of the things that are unimportant. Um, like what's a framework for thinking about that?
>> Um,
>> cuz you always talk about like well, this is what I would do or like this is uh what I would do in my own life. So, like when you have a child, kind of creates this different dynamic when you're you have responsibilities in some way, but you also want to allow a kid to have freedom, you know.
>> I think a lot of people derive you to uh, you know, purpose from utility. And so, I would want the child to have as many skills as possible so that it could navigate the most diverse number of conditions it's exposed to. So, there's a lot of, I mean, life presents a lot of different variables. And so, it's like if I can prepare it for those variables so it makes choices that are aligned with getting what it would want, then I see that as a W. I mean, I think the, the hard part, like there's two things that I've, I would say that I've, I've struggled more with defining, which is one is what is the, what is the measure of parenting? How do you know if a parent is good? And so, I'll give an example of both extremes. So, it's like there's many stories of entrepreneurs and others who had terrible upbringings and then succeeded. And so, do we say that those parents were good if it created the outcome that was good? If we judge it by its outputs, kind of interesting. Like, would Michael Jackson have become Michael Jackson if he didn't have that upbringing? I don't know. I don't know if he knows. I don't know if we can ever know. Um, and so I think that's an interesting one. And the other is what do we define as a successful child? Um, I would say that modern society defines success mostly as happiness. Um, they like to do what makes you happy. I just want my kid to be happy. Things like that. Um, I'm not sure if I'm 100% sold on that. Um, because I think that when you have somebody who tries to optimize or maximize happiness, it's a very selfish worldview. And I think that when you, it's one of those things that if you seek it, you never find it. It only happens as a consequence of other things you do. At least that's been my experience. And so I mean, I've, I've talked, you know, plenty of times about this, but like I, I have gotten more fulfillment out of being useful than I have out of trying to be happy. And I, and having it happen as a consequence of like helping other people has helped me more than me trying to help myself. And so I think, you know, a lot of things we gain by giving up. It's like in a, a lot of religious texts, it's like you gain your, you gain your life by giving it up, giving it away. Um, and I think those are like those two questions, how do we define a successful parent and how do we define a successful child? Um, I think are the hardest things to define because once you define those, then the rest of the actions are fairly straightforward. And I think that getting alignment on that is probably the hard part. And again, it's like, can you have a parent that has an unsuccessful child that did everything perfectly as a parent? I don't know. We don't have any perfect parents. And so the, I would say what I have settled on, um, is I will do the best I can with the resources that I have available to me, um, to equip the child with as many skills, life skills, as I possibly can so that it can succeed in the most diverse set of environments.
>> What's the one skill you hope your kid has before they turn 18?
>> Courage. I mean, I think it's kind of the, the, the, the gateway trait to all other traits. And also, if you have no courage, the other traits become neutered because you can't do anything with them cuz you're too afraid. And so, I think teaching the child to act and do the right thing or act in accordance with its values despite short-term consequences that could be aversive or bad or painful would be what I think would be the hallmark thing of, I mean, it's very hard to look at somebody who is courageous and not, I see that as a pinnacle trait. I would be proud of a child if they always did what they believed was right in each circumstances despite what other people thought, despite the short-term consequences. And I think that that core trait is something that generalizes to basically every domain. Like, how do you learn something? You have to have courage. You have to be okay with failing. You have to be okay with being wrong. You have to be okay with being made fun of. Um, all of those things are come from courage. And so, I think that's probably why I would put it at the core.
>> Is Layla excited?
>> Yeah, of course. Layla's thrilled. Hm. Layla's, I'm, I'm very happy and excited. I know it's Layla's even more happy and excited. And I think part of that is because she has an actual human inside of her and I do not.
>> [laughter]
>> And so, I think she, she thinks about it more often than I do because it reminds her that it exists. Whereas, I, you know, just like you have your phone buzzing in your pocket, you don't have something kicking your stomach. And so, like it, I, I'm very always, I'm very aware of my phone existing. I'm less aware of the, you know, the baby existing. And so I think that's just partially just the logistics of it. No, she's stoked though.
Now, the world your child will be born into is very different than the one you grew up in. Uh, the value of college degrees has changed. Jobs are being eaten by AI. And young people are lonelier than ever. Mechanically speaking, what's changed in the system that makes it challenging in a different way for young people to make money today?
>> [sighs]
>> Um, well, today versus when my child is an adult, I would say we're are different situations. I would say for today, it's never been easier to make money because we have these tools that are giving tremendous leverage to people who have work ethic and skill. Um, and so barriers to entry are getting completely flattened, which is amazing. It's democratized access, but what it's really done is also just made it more competitive. And so one of my favorite lines in The Wire is uh Cutty who's was a hitman comes out of, you know, prison after 15 or 20 years. He's an older guy, doesn't know what to do, goes back into the game. He then is told to like go do a hit with some other guy. And uh it goes, you know, the wrong way or or and they're sitting in the back of the car and he says, "Man, he's like the game's changed." And uh Slim Charles looks at him and says, "No, man." He's like, "The game hasn't changed. Game's the same, just more fierce." And so I see that in a lot of ways. Just the way that the economy, the way that business, the market has hasn't changed. The fundamentals are still going to be the same. It's supply and demand. Scarcity is still going to drive behavior. Um, it's just that the variables around the core fundamentals will change. And so that's why I think like adaptability is a core thing to learn, which I just see that it's like being able to change behavior quickly when new conditions arise. Um, and so today a lot of money can be made digitally without nearly the amount of labor as before and you can run it a lot more efficiently which I think just there are more people entering entrepreneurship than ever before which I see as largely a good thing cuz the most efficient organizations are single, single person run. Like if you just take like there's so much uh waste in large organizations because of coordination of people. And so you know like a perfect world of efficiency would be that every single person has a business that reports to no one else. That everyone have their own freedom. Everyone, you know, delivers uh, you know, valuable services to other people. That's awesome. I think there's a world of more and more of that that will happen in a world where, you know, humans have no, no inherent value, um, from a quote utility perspective that a robot, you know, cannot do. Um, I think that we'll do what we've always done. Like we'll figure out something else.
>> You said 18 years from now it'll be radically different.
>> Mhm.
>> If you had to guess.
>> What might that look like?
>> Dude, I have no idea.
>> I think my guess is is it would be the same as me making up a reality and I don't think I don't think there's too many variables. I mean, let alone like it's like trying to predict like what stocks are going to go up tomorrow. There's so many things that are that can happen between now and then. Um, and there's also some things that I don't think are necessarily going to change. Like for example, like what it's, I think basis is a question which I like thinking a lot about which is rather than saying like what is going to change, I think it's, it's more viable for someone today to ask what is going to stay the same. And so I think that humans will still fall in love. I think that humans will still value stakes. So give a simple example. Like if Mr. Beast makes a video and he's, you know, puts $5 million in the middle of an island and invites 10 influencers to go compete for it. Those influencers can't be AI influencers. They can't be fake. And if that $5 million isn't actually $5 million and and you just have cartoons competing for fake money, I don't think anyone cares. And there's also some things that people want to see humans do. So, like we have cranes, we still want to watch who can lift the most weight. We still have, you know, robo chess that can beat any chess player on Earth, and chess has never been more popular. And so, we will still be attracted to human things. Drama, story, narrative, stakes, things like that that I think that humans want to see how humans are reacting to those things. Um, so, I don't think that's going to change. I think humans are going to need to eat. I think they're going to need to sleep. They're going to have to, they're going to have shelter. Um, all of these things I think will will remain relatively unchanged. Um, will there also be AI entertainment? Absolutely. Will there be our first Star Wars epic? I mean, we're seeing it. I think you've probably been attuned to this, like there've been three big box office hits that are like 100 million plus movies that have come out from just like YouTubers. And that necessarily isn't all AI, but it will be. Like these tiny, tiny um teams being able to generate huge blockbuster, quite literally, um outcomes. Uh, and so, it's like again, it's just going to have, I think Naval said this, but it was technology democratizes consumption and consolidates production. So, if you get, if you're the best in the world, you get to do it for everyone. And so, AI will, will YouTube-ify a lot of things. So, what I mean by that is when mobile phones had videos, video making used to be a luxury thing. And then everyone was able to make a video. And then YouTube gave everyone a platform to post those videos on. And so, it's like, oh, everyone can vibe code. It's like, well, yeah, but everyone can make videos, but not everyone's Mr. Beast. And so, just like always, like it will still have like quality, like we'll have when there's more supply, we will end up having quality. And so, what are the human things that are the non-replaceable things, which I think are stakes? I think it's narrative. I think it's reality. And reality creates the stakes um for any of this type of stuff. That's why reality TV is still a thing cuz we know it's real, you know, you know, to the degree that it's real people, right? And there's some sort of money or whatever that's on the line. People still watch. But yeah, I think there's, there's a world where there's a robot that cuts your lawn. For sure.
>> Right.
>> That's something I was thinking about was this idea of like reality TV for some reason has the highest moat in the next 10 years as far as content, uh, because it just seems as though AI is able to amalgamate education type content so well and like documentary type content so well. Like do you have any thoughts on that specifically that the info business content creation is going to be limited?
>> I think it assumes that people didn't already have infinite access information. People already have that. Um, so I think that when people buy, if like sure information, yeah, tough. I think everything that comes around that, again, that's stakes. Like people, people know to, like you just recently lost weight, right? So, people know they need to, whether you know any like anything about fitness, you know you need to stop eating [ __ ] and move more. Okay, great. Your version of eating [ __ ] and moving more will be different, but fundamentally you have an idea that you do that. People still don't do it. Why? Cuz they don't have enough stakes or don't have enough motivation around it. And so like there will still be plenty of IRL and I would say human-based interventions that will still work to drive those stakes and drive that motivation um, for people.
>> You said the richest you ever felt in your life was when you and Leila hit your first $100,000.
>> Mhm.
>> I you've since talked about a goal that you have where you want to help 100,000 young men make $100,000.
>> I think that's small. I think it will do a lot more than that, but yeah. You might have already done that.
>> [laughter]
>> I'm being real. The difficulty is how do you measure it? Right? Um, if I were to give a meal to every person, I give a meal, you check a name off, and that's it, right? You can ship them out, and it's done. If I have to teach someone to do something, and then have to have them make money, and then have a way to know that they've reached past this point, like um, when I announced that, I've gotten so many DMs to people like, "Dude, I'm one of those people. I made a million dollars cuz of you. I made 10 million dollars cuz of you. Um, I'm one of those people. I appreciate it, man. Um, awesome. Thanks, man. Um, glad to hear that." Uh, that's cool, man. Like, I mean, School has 27 million users. So, 100,000 is like a rounding error. I think we'll do a lot more than that. Um, I have a lot of other things in the works, too, that are that will come by the end of this year that will make that more evident. Um, but yeah, I mean, I meant what I said. I, I think that in order to change the world, you have to start with changing a generation. I don't think old generations change. So, you have to start younger. Um, and I think that the best system we have right now is capitalism. It is flawed,
>> But it is just the best flawed system we have.
>> And so, in order to get people to buy into something, you need them to be reinforced by it. So, they have to have a good outcome as a result of it. And so, I think, um, all you have to do is look at every other country that has not had the system, look at their outcomes over a longer period of time to be like, "Okay, well, that system doesn't work." And to think that it's somehow is going to like this time it'll be different is ridiculous. It's like the, you know, the abusive, the abusive husband and the and the wife and then, you know, he hits her and he says, "I'm sorry. It'll be different next time." It's like, "No, man, that's the pattern." And so, we don't need to like wait for a dictator to take over to to know that that's how it's going to end. Um, and so, I'm a big believer in free markets, and I'm willing to deal with the downside consequences of free markets because I see them as superior problems to the downsides of communism, socialism, and dictatorship. Which are not necessarily all the same, but
>> Right.
>> often.
>> I like that a lot. Uh
>> I mean, if money exists, it would make sense to me, at least, that capitalism is the best system. Um, what is capitalism? It is a system that allocates capital most efficiently. So, it would make sense that it is the best at generating it.
>> I know this is something you've probably been asked before, but things are so different now. If you had to go from zero to $100,000 in the next 3 months, how would you do it? Maybe if you could break it down for me in five steps.
>> Sure. Um, so, 200,000 total? Or 100,000 a month? Or 10,000 a month?
>> 100,000 total in 3 months. Uh, no employees, just you.
>> But, it's not me though, right? It's my skills, but not me.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> [laughter]
>> That makes sense. Right. And I don't have, and I have, and I have no network, and I have no connections, and I have no any of that. I don't, I don't have my phone with me.
>> You can use Claude.
>> Um, I, I, so, when you were starting out,
>> you want every customer to be worth it. And so, I think one of the mistakes that happens when people are earlier is they don't sell expensive enough stuff. And so, like if it's very hard for you to get a customer, then you better make sure that customer is worth it, which means instead of thinking about scalability, we think about how basically potential money made from every person is what you want to maximize. And so, that means that potential value created has to be maximized, which means that we might do unscalable things in the short term in order to generate cash flow. And so, I'll give you an analogy, and then I'll give you the steps, but or not an analogy, a story, but when I, when I started my first gym, I did personal training with one client, and that client came 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week, which is a super, like a super client. And I ended up making, I think it was like four or five thousand dollars a month in total from that one client. And that client and that model of me just doing one-on-one like that obviously doesn't scale. But, I was running my gym, the business, all around that. And the gym, I would just take the cash and basically reinvest it in more equipment or I'd, or I'd spend more on ads to get more people in, whatever it was. But, like I lived on the $5,000 a month that I was getting from the personal training client. And so, the fastest way to get to $100,000 is not the fastest way to get to a million or 10 million. And so, this is the big misconception with the question. And so, like if I wanted to get to $100,000, I would go to a business and say, And the thing is is like, I have already done this cuz I've already lost my money before and had to go do this. So, I, this is what I did. I went to a local business and I said, "What are the packages you have?" And then I said, "What's the cheapest that you're willing to do deliver these packages for?" And I said, "Okay, if I go get your customers and I sell it, can I keep this percentage of what I sell if I go get them and I sell them?" And then you get the customer for life after that. And as soon as I had some businesses that said yes, I then got them customers and I kept the money, and then they delivered the services and got customers for free. And so, when I lost everything, I made $100,000 the first month after I lost everything. And so, within the example, it's like I did that in 30 days. And so, you can absolutely do that. It's just that you have to work like a maniac and fundamentally, it was I had an offer that worked that I knew worked for a specific local business, which was a gym. So, I knew I could run a weight loss challenge and I knew I could spend money on the ads and I didn't have to spend a lot because, you know, if you can get 10 to 1, you spend 100 bucks, you have a thousand. And then after you have a thousand, you spend 10, now you're, you spend one, you make 10, and you're good to go, right? Um, and so, that was, so then I would just be limited by the facilities' ability to handle customers. So, I would try and find the most empty facilities because I knew I could sell them till they were full, usually within 3 weeks. And so, that is literally what I did. So, step-by-step, I had an offer, number one. Number two, I had ads that I could record with my phone. Step three, I posted those ads and pushed them to a landing page. Step four, the landing page, this is at the time, just went to a Google Sheet. Uh, step six, I called the leads on the Google Sheet to make sure that they got scheduled. And then, uh, I think I'm on step seven, I would meet with those leads and I would present the offer that I advertised to them. And then I would get them to give me money for that offer. And then I let the business handle the delivery of the services and I kept the cash. It's the easiest business that you can run. It's one person. It's functionally an affiliate business.
>> If you were going to think of the easiest offer right now, what might it be?
>> Uh, I mean, cuz I think a lot about winners effect and how people, I, I like to give people, I don't know, those tactful gems even though they're not useful long-term because long-term is just the fundamentals, but to establish some type of winners event.
>> Well, the nature of the offer is going to have to be some. So one is you have to decide whether you're B2B or B2C, right? So am I going to sell to consumers or am I going to sell to businesses, right? If I had no knowledge of anything, um, and I just knew just basic AI stuff, it's not that difficult to go into a normal business to say, "Hey, can I observe your business for free and come with an AI plan that saves you at least $100,000 and would you be willing to give me a third of the savings or 20% of the savings that I get you if I can demonstrate that it will save that amount of money?" Most businesses would say yes. And this is like, it's nothing up front. I just need these commitments. Like I don't, I don't think like, and then someone might say, "Okay, well, how do I get in touch with those businesses?" You've got two feet and two hands, you can knock on a [ __ ] door. Like you have a phone with, you know what, you've got two thumbs, you can text people, you can DM them, you can call them, you can email them, like you can post content about it. Like there's a hundred ways. You just got to let people know about it. And the thing is is like, is that an in-demand service right now? Yes. And so the issue is more that people just don't have any skills. Like if you have skills, making money's not that hard. You do something for somebody else that they don't know how to do. So that means you need to learn how to do [ __ ]. So learn how to do stuff. And then do it for somebody else who doesn't want to learn how to do stuff. Which really just comes down to like, you have to be willing to work.
>> What's the one thing people waste most of their time on that doesn't actually make them money?
>> I mean, everything that is not the work. Like I have one plaque on my on my wall that says focus is subtraction. Like everything that is not the thing is a distraction. So if we define commitment as the elimination of alternative, people are not committed. And so the most focused person in the world, most focused video game player in the world would not eat, would not sleep, would not drink water, and they would only play video games. And anything that is not video games would then be less focused. So if you drink water, you're less focused than the guy that plays 100%. Now, is that sustainable? No, but for the period of time that person was playing, that person would be the more focused person. And so there are a very small number of activities that generate money. And most of everything else is just noise. Like you have to let people know that you exist. You have to make them an offer that solves a specific problem in exchange for money. You have to get agreement from them and you have to exchange money for services. And then you have to deliver that product or service to them. Like it's, it's, I don't even, I don't know what else there is. Like I don't know how it gets that complicated. Like that's it. And people get, I think I think really what it is is like people get paralyzed by trying to pick perfectly. They try to think like I want to have the perfect business. Well, like unless you're Bezos or Zuck who actually started their first business and are still in their first business as a gazillion dollar company, the vast majority of entrepreneurs that I know your first business is not your last business. It is your first stepping stone. And so I just try to get people to concentrate on, on, get a stranger to give you money to do something or for something that you make for them. That's it. Like that's, that's all of business. It's literally just accepting money from a stranger. So you, like you need a way to process money. You need an LLC if you want to use credit cards. You could do it for cash and not have any of that [ __ ]. Like I actually, I struggle with the question cuz I'm like, what part are we missing here? And I think it's because there's so many people saying a lot of words that they don't understand and confusing a large percentage of people. It's like, well, you have to start with a morning routine. It's like, bro, you don't need to do any of that. You need to let somebody know that you can do something for them and ask them if they want you to do it for them for money. And then do it. I, I, I don't really have a
>> [laughter]
>> Yep. And but like to your point, it sounds about right. Yeah. A lot of it gets distracted. I think about, I, I think about like
>> business because um I know it's not the typical business, but I think people focus on similar things. Like with my business, I sell to advertisers, right? And a majority of my time is spent on building the product to sell to them in a way, which is the content, and building like, oh, this is the data, this is the data, this is the data, here it is, and we spend so little time on selling because it's so important to present the good data.
>> So how do you go about selling it? Let's do this. How do you go about selling it right now?
>> Reach out to every single person at the company I want to sell to, set up a call with them, show them the data.
>> You run ads on your podcast, right? You don't do any ads, but how do you make money right now? Just ads?
>> Oh, oh, you meant, I, I thought you meant like, uh, advertise like advertising the podcast. Yeah, yeah, we do a bunch of ads.
>> Yeah, yeah. Can I give you a little trick? Run an ad for yourself. After this, say, "Hey, by the way, if you or join this podcast and you would like your business and an offer to towards whatever products and services you have, I have this available. Um, we get this many views per month and this is our demo. Uh, reach out to me here. Would love to connect."
>> Fair play. You sell media.
>> [laughter]
>> Use it.
>> You already have it.
>> Right.
>> You have something that's free. You don't have to spend money on ads. You can literally just advertise on your own platform.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> You can advertise to people who want to 1 million to 5 million from that one. What else we got?
>> [laughter]
>> Why is it so important to build a data-centric business in the age of AI?
>> Well, you can't have AI without a data layer first. Because like AI is trained off of data. And so if you want to have a unique mode in some way to a business and not be obviously like the frontier models are all trained on all of the free available information. And so in order to have any kind of edge on those models, you need to have proprietary information. You have to have data sets that they don't have access to or that they don't have, like call it clones or similar data sets. Cuz if you have a unique data set but it creates the same outcomes as a different data set that is not the same as yours, it actually does not have the same edge. And so you need to have unique data. Um, that's if you wanted to have some sort of AI, you know, call it product as as a thing that you would sell. If you want just to use AI within the business, which I think is 95 or 99% of businesses out there, um, it's more in order to have, let me zoom out. If I wanted to have an employee come in, right, and do a job, I would have to train the employee on that job. In order to train the employee, I would have to document steps to doing the right behaviors. The documentation of those steps and the, the when done right, it looks like this, that is all data. And so the more documentation you have around the processes you have in the business, which is what are the inputs and what are the outputs and what is the basically the manufacturing process step by step that takes inputs and turns them into outputs. And how do we know output is good versus bad, which fundamentally is just reinforcement training, which works for humans and works for machines. Um, we need to have that so that we can get the most out of the tools. That is all. Like it's just so that you can get more out of the AI versus having a generic out-of-the-box AI, we have a, this is how Jack likes to run the AI. Do you record yourself? Like all the time? Um, not all the time. I would say that I record myself, I mean, I don't record myself. I have a team that records me technically. Um, and yeah, when I do stuff, I, I record it.
>> Huh. I was just thinking like every single meeting, every single conversation I have with people just documented data.
>> Yeah. Turned into the model.
>> I think that so if you think about like the digital world and the real world as two different places. So if you have a Zoom call, emails, everything that's digital is almost already pretty recorded. So your email's already recorded, your Slack message is already recorded. The only thing you have to add is for your meetings, your Zoom meetings, those get recorded and transcribed. If you do that, especially if you're a remote business, almost all your interactions are already recorded. So that's not that difficult to have access to. When you have an IRL business, you have to have more effort that goes into the recording. That being said, I think a lot of times the data can be a little bit richer. Um, but yeah, so I would say that when, when if I'm interacting with customers, then it is recorded. If I'm interacting with my team, it is recorded. If I'm not doing either of those things, I'm hanging out not with a camera on.
>> [laughter]
>> What's the real reason most businesses die?
>> I think it depends on how we define businesses dying. Because most businesses die because the entrepreneur quits. Because if an entrepreneur doesn't quit, then it's very common for businesses to evolve and change models and change structures and change pricing. Um, I can't remember, but I, it's, you know, there's a number of examples of like, um, I want to say it was like Mitsubishi or Samsung. It might be Samsung. Like started as something completely different from like electronics, but it started there and it just has continued to evolve. And so, I think it depends on how we define businesses dying. If we say like this is bankrupt, it like it like it's it's more like I, I would almost, I'd rather almost have like when do like why do entrepreneurs quit? Is almost the question because like businesses come and go. Products come and go. The market changes. Technology changes. Like it's normal for those things to occur. But if it's more like if the question is like why would someone start and not succeed? Most of the time they don't persist. And their definition of starting is what most people who are, you know, successful entrepreneurs would be like, "You didn't even start." You know what I mean? Like I, um, I had a, this is a couple years ago, but I was, I had a dinner with a friend of mine's kids and they were all college aged. And uh, they said they liked entrepreneurship. And so, I, you know, I, I razzed them a little bit. Um, and they were like, "Okay, you know, I'm, I'm going to uh, we're going to start this business." And I was like, "Awesome, man." And so, I think 6 months later, um, I saw him again cuz I was hanging out with the same friend. And I was like, "Hey, how's the business going?" And they were like, "Oh, you know, I'm, I'm just working on getting the, you know, the LLC set up." And when I heard that, I was like, "What? Like the LLC? I was like, "That's like 30 minutes, man. Tops. Like go online, go on LegalZoom, go on whatever the hell you want. Like it's all automated. And then like take the LLC, start a bank account. Like you're okay. Now what? Like that's Saturday. What else did you do for the last 6 months? Nothing. And so, it's like the vast majority of business owners fail before they start because they never start to begin with, which is why I think courage is such an important thing. Like you have to start. And a lot of times it's like a lot of newer entrepreneurs convince themselves they did more work than they really did because they sat in front of a computer and messed around. But like, did you figure out something to sell? Did you let people know about it? Did you ask them for money to do it? Where do you fail there? Like, and if you have a service business, which is 70% of the US at least, you can always collapse service business down to just the person who started it. And so like there's no reason for a service business to ever really fail. Cuz your, your main thing is headcount. That's going to be your main cost. You might have some capital expenses for equipment, maybe. Right? But like the vast majority is person doing thing for other person. Okay. So like you can collapse all that down. Like if you, if you got in trouble, it could still be you doing [ __ ] for money. So did that business die? Might downsize, but it might not die. It dies if you stop. On the physical product side, uh, you might have hard costs in order to sell something. That one is where like the core economics of the thing matter a lot. Um, and so it's like we have to sell it for not just a profit, but enough profit to fund the rest of the business and growth. And that's where pricing can be a problem. Obviously really important and branded distribution things like that. But that's a little bit further down the road and that's not really why most people fail.
>> Right.
>> Most people just give up because I, I, you know, to be honest, like I, I don't even know that many people who have failed at business. Realistically, I don't. I know people who have changed businesses many times over the years, but like they, people don't really give up. Most people just don't start.
On August 16th last year, you launched your book 100 Million Dollar Money Models, uh, which teaches various systems people can use to build nine-figure businesses.
>> Not nine-figure businesses. I never promised that. Um
>> To potentially build.
>> No, just build a business. Yeah.
>> Right.
>> What's the smartest thing you did when you launched your book that almost no one talked about?
>> We added 70,000 users to School in a weekend.
>> How?
>> See, don't talk about pretty soon. Um, I gave a bunch of all my stuff away and also showed how to use money models in School cuz a lot of people who follow my stuff um do have businesses but also there's plenty people who don't have business who want to start a business. And so School provides a very easy platform for you to get started in business like you can accept payments in 30 seconds and you don't have to like even go through the LLC stuff at all and it processes the payments for you. So like you can literally just like start one about whatever the whatever you like whatever you're passionate about and then invite other people like you'd invite them to a party, it's just online. And you have a bouncer at the door which is a checkout page that collects cash. It's very simple. And so um I just put all the stuff from the books applied it to that specific business and said anyone can get for free for 90 days, try it out if you like it you can keep it for 9 bucks a month and that has all the software you need to run an entire business with nothing else. And so 70,000 people grabbed that.
>> 70,000 users like uh consumers or like people
>> No, people starting communities.
>> People starting communities.
>> Yeah.
>> This is a rumor, but did you break TikTok shop? I heard this internally.
>> [laughter]
>> Um, so we, so basically TikTok shop um had a feature in how it did payouts that miscommunicated when a refund occurred. And so we had, um, there was I think there was an influencer, I mean, it was obviously it was happening across all accounts but I'm just somebody that people can attack. Um, there was an influencer that I think had had made like $47 in total sales, something like that, and the sale that she had had, which was of the book, somebody had refunded it or something like that. And the, she got a deduction from her, which by the way, this is all TikTok for, like I didn't build TikTok shop. I used it just like everyone else does. But she had a deduction uh, in I think commissions or she didn't get paid a commission cuz she, she basically had a debt on her account, which is like, okay, we paid you 17, but you owe us 17 in this next commission that was going to go out goes against this debt or whatever. There's some reconciliation that happened. But the way that TikTok communicated it to her was Alex is not paying you our $17 commission. And so then she made a video saying that Alex is trying to, you know, take money from me or whatever. Mhm. But no, what they did do though, is that this went all the way to the top of TikTok.
>> That instant?
>> Yeah. Um, and they, they corrected the the mistake. So they actually changed it so that it was clear that like this, what, like this deduction occurred because a customer, not the business, uh, refunded and that is what's being held against the commission.
>> Mhm. It's interesting.
>> Yeah. That
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, so I don't know if I broke TikTok shop, but um, the volume that we did exposed a flaw that, um, they were able to fix.
>> Huh. How much volume did you do?
>> Um, when I had it, I stopped doing it after that because I was like, it's just not worth it for me. Um, but I think we were doing like 300 and like 350,000 a week the last week, I think. In just book sales. But no, it was just, it was one of those where like, it's not worth my reputation to have anyone think that I would not like, I always pay my debts. Like it is something that I, like I will always [ __ ] pay my debts. I do not want to owe anyone anything. Um, it's very, like I just, it's just it's so core to who I am. I hated that. Um, I like in my Offers book I talk about this, but I had $23,000 in my account. I had a salesperson who did $100,000 in sales. I owed them 20%. I paid it. It was like $22,000, something like that, out of my account when I had 23 before I received the $100,000 that ended up almost all getting removed. Um, because I, I never want someone to think that I, I do not, I do not keep my commitments.
>> Mhm. Let me see.
>> What's the biggest downside of building yourself into the type of person who can become a billionaire?
>> I think it's very common that the pattern of behavior that creates financial success, uh, can create life dissatisfaction. Because the, what you are looking for when you are building a business is what's wrong. How can I, how could this be better? How can I fix it? And so it's a constant raising of the bar so that the business can grow. But when you do it that way, it often creates this constant sense of deprivation of never achieving what you wanted to achieve. Because by the time you do, you realize
You could have done better. And so, um, I have a guy on my team who I'd say suffers from this. Um, and we joke that like, uh, hey, you know, if you go do this thing, if, uh, if it's great, um, you should have gone harder. And, uh, if it's not great, well, there's all the reasons you messed up. And so there's basically like no good outcome. Um, but I think that that's that's just a big part of it. Um, and I think it's learning when to use that pattern of behavior and when not to. And so it's like, what conditions is this pattern, uh, useful, and what conditions is it, uh, hurtful? It's just hard.
>> Do you think you should ever meet your heroes?
>> Um, why would you not want to meet your heroes?
>> Dissatisfaction. Uh, like you have an expectation of what someone is. So, would the question be, would I rather live in a dream world than reality?
>> Mhm. Yes.
>> No. I live here. And more information about reality will always help me better understand reality, which is where I live. I can understand. I mean, this is fundamentally the question of the Matrix, which is, I mean, my favorite movie. Um, you know, Cypher decides to unplug and wants to go back to the dream world. Um, I think it's very difficult to know that there is reality and decide or opt out. I think I think some people do though. I think like, and I also put no moral judgment on that. If, if you want to keep living in a dream world, go for it. Uh, it's just not for me. It has not been what has proven useful. Like, if you live in a dream world, you are constantly surprised because your model for predicting how reality will work is flawed.
>> Do you feel as though there's like an opposite of that? Because I think a lot of people live in this optimistic dream world, like, I'm the best. I'm a 10 out of 10. I'm going to make a million dollars. But there's also people that are like, never enough. Uh, never going to be rich. It's never like going to hit like. Are there two sides of the same coin, and then there's reality in the middle, and you constantly try to adjust to that?
I think it's more, what do you want to have happen? And then what actions do you need to take in order to make that happen? If you saying you live in a dream world makes it more likely that you take actions that align with what you want to have happen, then do that. If you living in what you call base reality, these are super vague terms, but if that's what you know, we say I want to understand truth. So that by understanding that, I will take better steps towards getting what I want, then you should do that. But I mean, at the end of the day, the only thing that will matter is what actions you take and whether those actions have high likelihood of getting what you want. I think that they are less likely to get what you want if you do not have a model of the world that is accurate.
>> Would you want to win the lottery?
Really interesting question. Um, I, I do have the answer to that. Um, so, I bought a Powerball ticket when I was 20, 20. And I remember I bought it with my like, you know, college girlfriend at the time. And it was, it hit over a billion at the time, when a billion dollars used to mean something.
[laughter]
Um, and I remember when the drawing was going to happen, and then I felt this incredible feeling of dread of like, oh my god, what if I win? I don't want to win. Because the thought that I had was, if I win this billion dollars, I will never have been able to prove to myself that I could do it. And that was truly horrifying for me because it would literally be opting out of the one thing that I really wanted to do, which is to prove to myself that I could do it. Um, which I know, uh, the zillion people will make their comment about how that's ridiculous, and I understand, but like, you live your life, I'll live mine, you know? Um, I want to do things my way. And I think it's the same.
>> [sighs and gasps]
It's the same as, and this is, I mean, actually the question that you asked is really, really timely for me because for my child, they're going to have been born into winning the lottery. And it's something that I'm acutely aware of. And I'm thinking, I'd say like, that is actually where the majority of my thinking has gone in relation to parenting, which is what you started with this with. Which is like, how do I, how do I give them the opportunity to feel as though, hey, they have earned their place when they already are born into just such extreme material, you know, situation success. And so that's something that I think I'm thinking a lot about. How am I going to manage this? Are we also going to change our lifestyle so that they have a more realistic world? Uh, cuz I think that also a large degree of like why people who are born into wealth, don't, don't succeed as much as because their view of reality is actually not accurate. And so like the vast majority of millionaires are self-made, not inherited. And I think it's cuz they have a better view of base reality. If you're born into wealth, you think the world is different than it is. And so you act as though the entire world is like you, and it is not. And so I think it's like, people who have traversed worlds have the most accurate view. They see heaven and hell together as one thing and they're like, "Okay, these are the different conditions that exist, and I need to be able to navigate all of them." And so that's what I'm, I'd say like, what I'm thinking a little bit about. And also, um, you know, if I have a son, um, trying to make sure that he doesn't feel like he has to beat me to be worthy. And making sure that he would know that I am proud of his effort above all. And that if, to be fair, it means I'll still have super [ __ ] high standards for effort, but that that is how he wins in my eyes. Um, and shows courage and shows persistence and consistency and things like that. Um, those are the things that I'm thinking about right now.
But, uh, to loop around to the original question, that is why I don't want to win the lottery. And it's also, I think, a bit of a worldview question because if we see life as the path we take and who we become along that path, then it's like saying, "Would you like to have a video game, and as soon as you open the game, it says you won?" That would be a bad game. And so it's like saying, do you not want to play anymore? That being said, in my current condition, if I were to win the lottery, I already have the credibility that I can build things and I know how to make money and all that stuff. And so it would really just act like a, you know, just a, a lump sum, you know, call loan that I don't have to pay back from the universe for me to just like move, you know, five years forward. Um, which would be nice, which I'm totally fine with. But at that moment, when I didn't have it and I didn't have the proof, I didn't want it. Now, if anyone else to hand me a billion dollars to walk into in cash, totally good with it. But it was just because it serves, it serves a different objective now. And it doesn't prevent me from walking the path that I have to walk to get here. Because a person who wins the lottery who has nothing is very unlikely to have the skills. Like, there's a magic card that I have that's my favorite magic card of all time. It's called Burning Wish. It said they wish for a weapon, but not for the skill to wield it. And so like, just getting a billion dollars, that's why whatever it is, 80% or whatever of lottery winners have lost all the money by the time, by five years or something. It's because like, it's just potential. But if you don't have the skill to wield it, it's nothing.