#111 - Sam Parr Returns: The Scheme King is Back

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I feel like I could rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.

Oh yeah. I feel like— Sam, you're back. Are you okay?

What's up?

You gotta tell us.

Look, can you see me?

I can see you.

Here's my face. Ready? Here's a smile.

Handsome as ever. Look at that. So I saw in the video you, you posted on Facebook. Well, we should tell people who don't know, who don't follow you on Facebook, we should tell what's going on. So Sam was out last week.

Yeah, and I've been out for about 2 weeks now.

It sounded innocent at first. You were just like, I'm not feeling— I don't know, you said like it kind of like got worse and worse. I got more and more scared. It was like, I'm not feeling great, to like, I think I have like a kidney stone. To like, I gotta go to the hospital, to like, I have kidney failure. And I was like, what the fuck is going on?

Yeah, dude, it's crazy. So let me tell you this story. So I have a history of kidney stones. So at the hospital, they looked at my kidneys. I have about 30 kidney stones, which is a lot. And so—

Like at all times, or you've been, you've had them and passed them?

I've passed about 8. I have 30 in me as of right now.

Oh my God, that's not normal, right?

It's not normal. It's not good. It's not bad. It just means you are gonna be in pain like 30 times. Oh my God. And so the other day, like 2 weeks ago, I started getting a stone. I could feel them. I could feel them coming when— whenever they're about to come. And I go to the hospital and I pass it and they give me morphine and I'm like, I still feel sick. Like, I was like, I feel ill, right? I don't feel well. And they're like, you're probably fine. Just like, shake it off, basically is what they said. And then like 3 days later, I woke up and I had this massive rash all over my chest. And I had still been feeling sick and to the point of like, I couldn't— my legs were hurting me. I couldn't like move. I couldn't like walk one day. I was like, I'm dying. I was like, I think my— so I go to the hospital and I was like, I think I'm having kidney failure. And they looked at it. They're like, yeah, you might have an infection or something's going on with your kidneys. So they do all these tests and like, nothing's wrong with your kidneys. They're like, yeah, you, we see on the CAT scan, you passed a stone, but like you're— this shouldn't cause you pain. And then eventually they're like, oh wait, we think you have Lyme disease. And so from— I do these—

how do they know that?

They just know. So Lyme, Lyme disease is like they don't have like many tests, like so you kind of do it on symptoms.

Okay.

And so I had this like my, my, my teeth were hurting me so badly. My— I thought I had a toothache and then my arms were hurting me and my legs, like I had all these nerve pain. And that is like a Lyme disease thing. And I felt like I had a fever, just like sick.

And you get Lyme disease from a tick, right? A tick bite. Is that right?

Oh my God.

For a private doctor for me. And so I get this doctor who's like, oh yeah, dude, you got Lyme. Here's everything that's wrong. And then just coincidentally, I wake up the next day and my, my face is complete— like one side is completely paralyzed.

And that's the doctor. Like, what happened? Like when you woke up like that, what was that like?

I woke up and I messaged either you or Abreu. I was like, I feel ill. I don't know what's wrong with me. I was like, I'm just so tired because my eye— I couldn't open my eye. I was like, maybe I'm just tired. And it wasn't until 3 PM that my wife saw my face and she looked at me and she goes, why are you, uh, why are you smiling like that? I was like, what are you talking about? She's like, look at yourself. What are you doing? I go, oh my God. And I felt it. I go, I can't move my face. I can't move it. That's— I was like, I wasn't tired. I can't open my eye.

And, uh I can't believe it took you that long in the day to figure that out.

I just thought that like I was groggy. I thought I was groggy. You like, you know how you like have sleep in your eyes and like your face feels heavy? I thought like I was groggy. I was like, what is wrong with me? And she's like, your fucking face, it's frozen. Like it's not moving.

So anyway, long story short, I've got, um, so wait, what did this doctor, this like crazy doctor do or say like that was different or better?

He He— I'm on— and I have an IV in me 24 hours a day for 30 days. Okay. Um, what's that connected to? Like, um, at the end of the night, I gotta go and plug this tube, refill it or something. Okay. Yeah. And so into like an IV, and it's called a PICC line. And I, um, basically I'm taking like 30 pills a day, and hopefully it goes away.

And there's no like cure for Lyme disease, right?

Antibiotics, but it's not necessarily a cure. But I've learned all these things about Lyme. Like, I don't even know if it's true or I don't know what I believe, but they say that like, like Lyme is from, you know how like people say that a lab in Wuhan created corona and like escaped? That's what they like. They believe like conspiracy theorists. That's what they think about Lyme. They're like, yeah, so we, we used to drop ticks above Soviet Union or in Cuba and we would infect them. With this disease and somehow that made its way to us. Oh my God. So that's like the conspiracy. I don't know what's true or what's not, but I tweeted out that I had it. I've gotten literally thousands of messages from people saying like, I have this. No one believed me. I like, I was in a wheelchair, dude. It's fucked up. It's crazy.

So what is the problem?

I woke up just like, take these drugs and hopefully in 60 days you'll be better. I mean, that's pretty much it. One day I woke up and I legitimately couldn't walk. Like, I couldn't— like, my feet, um, like, I couldn't hold my body weight.

But now you can?

Yeah, but I can't exercise. I can, I can walk for sure, um, but like, the same way my face is all messed up, that's how my legs felt a little bit.

That is so weird. Oh my God.

And so like, no one can see me right now. What are you thinking? Once one side of my face just looks kind of like dead. I just look like I—

Well, it looks normal when you're doing— when you're not doing anything, but when you smile, it's more like one side moves and the other side doesn't.

It's just like creepy looking. Um, so it sucks. It just sucks.

And do you— are you like optimistic, or what do you think is gonna happen here?

I think it's gonna go away, and I think I'll be back to normal, but it doesn't feel— it doesn't feel like it's gotten better so far. And, uh, I like have have had massive amounts of anxiety. Like, you know how, you know how like when you go and get your wisdom teeth pulled or get dental work done and you feel swollen and you feel numb in your gums, right?

You don't feel right.

That's just how I—

it's like your body's not a part of you.

Yeah. And you're like, this is never going to— it's like when you're like high on weed, you're like, is this ever— like, what did this used to feel like? Will I ever feel— you're like, what? Like, is— has this been like this forever? Like, what is normal? I don't even remember normal. And it's only been like a week, but that's— I'm like, I just want this shit to work.

So should we even do this podcast or should we be like, I don't know, like going and researching Lyme disease cures? What should we be doing right now?

We definitely should do this podcast. I mean, I need to get back to work, but I would say that it's like from an opportunity. I mean, I'm always scheming like that. First of all, it's so expensive. I've had to spend a lot of money. Also, like rich people first, like this is an obvious thing, but I've seen it firsthand. Rich people like $100 million, $200, $300 million people, they totally have an advantage in this, in like in life when it comes to medical stuff. I mean, this is like an obvious thing, but now that this woman hooked it up, it's awesome having a private doctor. This is what rich people do, right?

Yeah. What do they call it? House doctor or what do they call it? Concierge doctor.

Have you ever heard of it? Have you heard of this?

I heard of this. I've obviously never done it, never really known anybody who did it, but I had heard about this. Is it like— I think it's basically just like a doctor on retainer. It's a doctor on call for you that will come make house visits when you need it, and like your treatment is done. It's like an alternative whole like healthcare system that costs like, I don't know, a couple hundred grand a year.

Yeah, I don't know if it— like, I know, I mean, it's definitely probably not as fulfilling as helping someone. I mean, like, I'm in need, but I could just go to the hospital probably. But yeah, I mean, I'm in need, but yeah, I'm not like a I don't know, it doesn't feel— I imagine maybe they feel differently, but this concierge doctor business, it's crazy. It's cool. Yeah, it's cool. And then like home nurses are pretty cool too. So I'm paying like $4,000 to have a nurse come to my house and like do all this shit for me. It's nuts, man.

Wow.

Okay, have you heard of GoodRx? All right, we could talk about business now. Have you heard of GoodRx?

I've seen the commercials for it. Yeah, well, I don't know what's interesting about it.

Oh my God, you don't even need insurance. GoodRx, the greatest thing ever.

So they get you cheap drugs, right?

Why are they able to offer these discounts?

I don't understand how this works. It's so confusing. But I imagine what they do is they make an affiliate fee from the— directly from the drug provider, right?

Yeah, it's probably very simple. I haven't looked into what, what this is, but yeah, they get you cheap drugs somehow. I didn't know if it's because they're cutting out a middleman or if they're like— they're getting a kickback for, for affiliate and then they give you a share of their kickback, or it's something like that. Um, because it's just like a new— it's like a layer on top of what exists.

That's cool. Okay, so we're just gonna do the podcast. We're just gonna do the business podcast. That's so funny to me that we're gonna do that. I feel like I only want to talk about you, but what is there?

I mean, there's not—

there's nothing to say. I don't know what to say. I just haven't talked to you in a couple of weeks and your life turned upside down.

Well, yeah, it fucking sucks. I will tell you this, that like the first part of me, and I bet this is what you felt, but more when you had your daughter, which is like everything you thought that was important, most of it isn't right. But then the second part of it was like, also, money is so important. Like, like being rich, you just are such a— I mean, I'm not gonna place judgment on it. Like, I'm not gonna say capitalism is bad or not even anything like that, but I'm just saying that like having money in this system, it's way better. Shit's so expensive to like be healthy if when you're in need, right?

You know, the— there's two quotes I always liked about this. There's one that is, you know, a healthy man has a million desires, a sick man only has one. Which is basically to be healthy, and it's so true. And then the other one I really liked, I heard from Naval. He was— I think it's like, I don't know, Buddha or Confucius or something like that, which is every person has two lives, and the second one begins when they realize they only have one. And I just thought that was like super, super deep, impactful. Like, my buddy got diagnosed with cancer, and like, he— I told him that quote because there's always, you know, a silver lining in any, you know, anything that happens. It just depends if you focus on that, if you get that out of it. And so he went, he got tattooed on his forearm the date the date that he got diagnosed, and he goes, that's the date my second life began. And he got excited about it. And he was like, you know, I— this is, this is the— this is my real birth date right here.

And I thought, well, so what's he do now? I mean, what's he feel like now?

I don't know. I'm sure, you know, he's a real human. And so it's not like, oh, what, now everything's great? It's like, still, he's like scared. So he beat the cancer. He's still scared that it'll come back, right? Like, every time he has to go get these scans every 6 months or whatever. And when he goes back, like, that's a shitty day. And he's scared as shit, like, that, okay, the scan's gonna happen and they're gonna tell me— what are they gonna tell me? And so he's like nervous about it, but then he's also trying to like, you know, live it up and also not focus on, you know, random bullshit, not get caught in bullshit. Because he remembers when like all bullshit was revealed to be bullshit when he, when he felt that. So I don't know, I don't know, he'd answer better than me. But that's what— that's the impression I've got from him.

Yeah, it's messed up. I mean, the worst thing I like First of all, I'm not dying, but I'm just uncomfortable. But like the thing that's worse after that is like actually dying. And then the thing that's even worse after that is your children dying, I imagine. So like it definitely makes you realize that like I'm not even dying and thank God I don't have children that are dying, but like, and I'm like super regretful over, I'm like, oh fuck, none of this stuff matters. And so I don't know, it's been—

I can't even hear a story about other people who have kids who are sick. I just can't even, I can't even like listen to that story. It bothers me so much. Just the idea that a kid could be sick. And then I think about my daughter and I'm just like happy she's okay. And, but I'm, it's like so visceral to me now that I can't even hear another story. And I'm not squeamish. Like I wasn't squeamish like that at all. So that's definitely like a way that, I don't know, kids changed me like very dramatically.

What's crazy is that another thing that's important whenever I go to the hospital, cause I used to have to go all the time for these kidney stones is a good nurse is the most important part of the whole sickness process. For sure.

Most important part of a hospital is the nurses. And there's such a variability between good and, like, that extra 10% where they're amazing and you just feel so good, finally, during that phase. And you love when they come in on their shift and erase the whiteboard and write their name, and it's like, "Yes, 8 hours of, like, Wanda. Wanda's amazing. I can't wait for this." A good nurse, it's just—

there's so much more. 'Cause you don't ever see the doctor. Fuck the doctor at the emergency room. But like a good nurse is life-changing. And whenever I have a good nurse, I'm like, you provide value to the world. All I do is like send this email, right? Like it makes me feel bad. I'm like, like, and I'm like, I probably make a lot more money than you. You are the hero, right? You are the person that you should be rich. I always feel whenever I have a good nurse, I'm like, you just changed my life. Yeah.

So that's very stoic of you. That's called negative vision. I'm trying to say, I can't say like the V words. Negative visuals. Fuck, my mouth done— my lips aren't moving. But what's it say?

The word visualization.

And yeah, it's like waking up from a bad dream. It's like, and you're relieved. You're like, yes, I didn't miss the test.

And you know, like I didn't get stuck. So thankful.

Yeah.

Uh, and that's actually a great trick that, um, I, I, I read about in a book, a sto— book on stoicism. It's called Negative Visualization and it's great for, um, like making you be have gratitude, which apparently— I don't know if this is some woo-woo shit, but do you know that like if you have gratitude, like if you regularly show— I mean, showing gratitude, I believe like it's actually like healthy for you. Like it can be physically healthy.

Yeah.

Have you heard of this?

I don't know about the— I don't know if any of this stuff's measurable, but, uh, the phrase I really liked was, um, you can't be— you can't be grateful and stressed at the same time. You can't be grateful and afraid at the same time. And, uh, it's like impossible. It's sort of like you can't sneeze and keep your eyes open. If you're truly feeling grateful, you're not gonna be able to feel those other feelings, which those other feelings create either a shitty quality of life or literally, you know, your body reacts to stress in a negative way. It puts you in a different, you know, different hormones get released and whatnot. So I don't know how measurable any of this shit is, but, you know, err on the side of being grateful. It won't do you any problems. Okay, let's take a minute and tell you a little bit about this week's sponsor, Lemon.io. Lemon is the perfect solution if you are a technical co-founder and maybe you just need to delegate some of the work because you got too much on your plate, or you're doing a project that needs a specific technology and you don't have that skill set in your team, and you could either try to learn it, which will take months, or hire somebody, which will take, you know, 6 weeks to find somebody. You just want to have somebody, you know, yesterday, or you're just growing super fast and your company needs to add developers quick. Lemon.io is a perfect place to find vetted remote developers in Eastern Europe. They test and interview every developer, which eliminates the risk of a failed project. And there's a zero-risk replacement guarantee. So they'll match you with somebody within 24 hours, and if it doesn't work out, it's on them. So go to, go to Lemon.io, and if you want a 15% discount for your first 6 weeks of development, any MFM fan, that's My First Million fan, can claim this 15% discount. Go to Lemon.io/MFM, as in My First Million. So Lemon.io/MFM to claim the offer, 15% discount for 6 weeks. That's not bad. That's a big chunk of change. They are much cheaper to use than hiring engineers with other outsourcing, even, even more than other outsourcing platforms like Toptal and others. So check them out, lemon.io. Back to this week's episode. Okay, so let's, let's talk about some random business stuff. Otherwise people are gonna just get pissed at us.

Wait, can I ask one thing? Yeah, really quick, which is you did 4 or 5 or 6 episodes without, without me. Is there one or two that stuck out?

What did she say? I wasn't able to listen to it.

She was basically like— she was like, it's a thing for sure in highly dense areas. And she's like, for our business, like a huge amount of their business comes from like malls and across America, you know what I mean? Like where you can't do ghost kitchens when you're not in a really, really dense place. You can do it in New York, you can do it in, you know, in San Francisco or LA. Cloud kitchens are awesome. They're kind of optimal in a way, right? Small square foot, not prime real estate, delivering into a really dense area. You can serve, you know, huge number of customers in a small radius of delivery, but that's not gonna work in, let's say, I don't know, you know, Sarasota, wherever the fuck Sarasota is, Florida, whatever that is, you know, basically it's not gonna work in the majority of places. So you can't like pin your hopes on that as the, you know, as the model. And so she was like down for it, but also not down for it at the same time.

Well, she just recognized that it's great, but not for everywhere.

Yeah, exactly. And then she was talking a little bit about, okay, well, what are the future of restaurants look like? Because they're like re-architecting some of their stores. And also she's kind of imagining like, okay, in an ideal world, how would, how would our whole footprint look after COVID? And she had some ideas around like, Basically, how do you make it so that takeout and delivery is like kind of a core part of any restaurant, not like this add-on thing? If you're gonna be coming physically to a restaurant, what does the environment need to be for you to do that? Because now, if delivery is a default, then why would you go into a restaurant? Well, it's gotta be giving you more than just the food and a place to sit. Like, it has to—

Which is good for Hooters.

Right, right, it's gotta have some kind of ambiance, as we would say.

I mean, they've, yeah, they've got that built in.

Exactly, so—

That and, like Dave Buster's, shit like that. Yeah, I feel you.

And then ironically, you know, she's president of Pretzels and Cinnabon, but she was very much like food is pharmacy. So she was like, we're going to look at food as like a health vector and it's going to be personalized to you. So she had some ideas around that. So I thought that was— I thought that was all pretty interesting from her episode.

That's good. I enjoy hearing that.

Sorry, the other one was from this guy who did— he's a CEO of Air Garage, and he listens to the podcast. He's like, this is my— I go for a walk, I listen to y'all's pod, and he's CEO of a startup. And he came on, he gave me— he sent me a list of like 150 ideas, and I was like, okay, cool, you're qualified to come on the show. And he had one— he had two ideas around USPS, which I thought were interesting. He's like, look, USPS is kind of dying, but it's like kind of important to America. So he had one which was there's these services that will do like, kind of like your change of address, because changing your address sucks. Sucks. And mail forwarding sucks. So he's like, there's these services where like, they store your— they become your permanent address, and then you just tell them if you ever want to switch, and it change— they change— everything still goes to them, and they just reroute to you now. So you kind of have one easy online place to change it in 5 minutes, and then you pay $10 a month to be able to do that, or $5 a month.

Yeah, I just signed up for one.

That's badass. Surely Google has been like, hey.

Y'all wanna do this? Come on. Right? Come on.

I wonder what the reasoning has been. I mean, I don't know, but surely they've been like, come on. I wonder, I wonder what they've said. Yeah. Did you— this isn't like an idea, so I don't really want to spend too much time on it, but it is interesting. Did you see how Oracle bought TikTok?

Yeah. Well, I didn't know if it was done. Is it done now? I saw something yesterday that was like ByteDance refuses to give the algorithm to whoever the US buyer is. And so it's like, well, then what are they going to get?

I just thought it was interesting.

And then why the fuck does Oracle want TikTok? Like, what is the—

Huh. I have no idea. I don't understand these big businesses. I don't, I don't, do you even know what Oracle does? I don't, I don't even know what they do.

It's like database software basically.

Yeah. Everyone says that and they always say like IT procurement or I'm like, dude, I don't, I like, I don't, or like human resource manager or, um, they'll say like, uh, what do they say? Uh, I forget what the, what the official phrasing is for Oracle. Whenever companies say that or people tell me, I'm like, I don't know what that means, right?

That's how I feel about SAP. I'm like, SAP is what? Yeah, what is SAP?

It's like $40 billion company, and they call it— it's called like human capital management or something.

ERP.

Yeah, what's that mean?

I think it's enterprise resource planning or something like that.

Yeah, I just thought I might be totally wrong.

ERP might be like, you know, eggs, you know, rover.

No, that's what it means. That's what it means. Yeah, that's it. I just don't know what it means. So that's interesting. And also, do you have an— have you been making any money in the stock market?

Yeah, except for— I mean, there was like a week where it was like pretty bloody, but yeah, made a killing over the last few months, dude.

I've been— I don't— I'm like not in— I don't own any individual stocks other than Facebook, and I don't buy any. Like, I haven't bought a stock in like, you know, 2 years. It's all automated, right? I almost regret it.

Not buying more, you mean?

Yeah, I'm seeing all these numbers and I'm like, oh my god, this is crazy. I have hardcore FOMO.

Yeah, I feel that way too. And then I'm like, uh, this is gambling. Okay, let me just move on with my life to something that is more meaningful to me or that I control a little bit more. But yeah, I have like Amazon.

Yeah, I see these numbers.

Zoom and Fastly. And Facebook. I think that's like my core individual stocks that I own.

I pretty much only own Facebook and S&P 500, right? Um, and then like the $500 in referral stock that I got from Robinhood for like— so which is like Sirius Radio or something, right? Um, all right, well, what ideas you got? Um, because it sounds like you, you came prepared.

where'd you find it?

Um, I just had friends talking about it. Um, I like, I'm in, uh, I forgot who, I think Kevin Lee was the first person who ever mentioned it. And then, uh, this guy Josh Elman, who's, uh, I think he's married to his wife's Asian. And so I think they order it or whatever. So I'd seen a couple of people mentioning it and I was like, What's the deal with this? And, uh, and so yeah, it's a pretty interesting company. I thought, what an interesting niche of grocery delivery that is actually pretty massive, right? If they've raised $82 million, you know, they have to be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars and they only have a few locations. It's like Bay Area, Seattle, you know, LA, and, uh, just serving a few areas to build such a big business. And I think very differentiated from the normal like grocery wars that everybody's fighting and bleeding in.

Don't know what that is.

No, what? Brocade. You worked at Brocade. Interesting. I never, ever, ever would have thought that would work.

Yeah, same. That's why I brought it up, because I was like, this is a surprise to me.

What— remember when your buddy told you about halal? Yes. What was it called? Halal loans? Is halal like the Muslim financing? Yeah. So, and I guess halal is like the— is halal like the equivalent of saying kosher but for Muslim?

Yeah, it just means like sort of this is like blessed by the, you know, the religious community. This is in line with the religious code. So whether it's halal meat or it's halal financing, it's— this is in line with our, our morals and values.

Whenever your buddy just talked about that, I was like, oh, I'm on board with just anything that like non-Muslims do or eat or drink or whatever, and then you just put halal in front of it, right?

So I just, I can't get over the fact about how I never would have thought that this, this, how do you say it?

Say we.

Say we. I can't believe that. You know, it's crazy. I went to the, I went to the website and it's, they had to translate it for me.

Did they? Oh, mine's already translated.

Like, because your URL is saywe.com. Yeah, so like, it's like they're really going after the—

look at this, just serving— they're serving 4 markets and then they just opened up 3 more. So 7 cities and they're doing, you know, according to that, like north of, north of $200 million in revenue. Now I don't know if they're counting revenue as like every item sold and they have like 5% margin, but like, yeah, okay, let's say that that is the case. They're doing, you know, 10% margin on on that. Still not bad.

So let me tell you about another grocer that's interesting. So I was— this sounds like I'm just being bougie, but I was staying at someone's house and I was walking around the Hamptons and there's this billionaire guy that I've read about. His name's John Katmeadonis. Have you heard of him? Never. Okay. He's easy to recognize because, like, if this ever gets to him, I'll just tell him to his face. But he's super ugly. Like, he's so ugly. Like, Google him. He's like fat and ugly.

So, uh, Cat, uh, how do you spell it? Cat?

Last name is the word cat and then S-I and it'll autofill.

Okay. Gotcha. Cat, right?

You see him?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, well, is this his wife with him? Who is this?

Oh my God. His daughter. That's his hot daughter.

But like, look at him. Like he's just like a big old, like, like cootie. Like he's just an ugly dude. Uh, yeah, whatever. Who cares? It doesn't matter. I mean, look at me. I don't even have, my face doesn't even work, so. He's just a big old bug. And so what this guy did was when he was only 21, he started this grocery store in New York City called Red Apple. And then using money from Red Apple, he like, he like made it crazy profitable, like $30 million in sales with like $5 million in profit. And here it says, I built it up to 10 stores and was doing $25 million and I was personally earning $1 million. Personally earning $1 million a year. So $25 million in sales and he was paying himself $1 million. And this is in 1978 or something. Then when the company had like $100 million in sales for a grocery store, he bought this other chain. Then after he bought the other chain, he started an oil and gas company. Then he started an airline business that he sold to NetJets or whatever the big guy is. So this— and now he still owns the holding company is called Apple, Red Apple Inc. or whatever. And they own grocery stores, they own radio stations, they own this oil company, they own everything. And I'm almost positive through all my research that he owns 100% of it. And I saw interviews with him. Seems like a great guy. He is trying to run for mayor of New York, worth $3 or $4 billion. Just crazy, fascinating guy and So fascinating because he said something. He was like, man, if I worked in technology, I'd be the richest man in the world. But I chose a low margin business, but I still crushed it. Just super fascinating. I think he's an immigrant, or at least his mom. Yeah, he's an immigrant. Just that hardcore hustle. Just freaking awesome. Love learning about these people instead of the typical tech folks.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. So you, you said you bumped into this guy or what happened?

I knew what he looked like because he's so easy to remember. And I think out in New York he's like a celebrity because he like said he was running for mayor. So like everyone knows who he is. But, you know, I don't— I've never heard of this Red Apple grocery store, so I don't know what it is. I seen him walking down the street and I just was like, I'm going to bring that up for our Billy of the Day.

Yeah, I like that. I like that. Just the— I sort of glazed over after you called him so ugly. I just couldn't stop laughing in my head and I only heard half the rest of story.

He also got, got in the news because he's got like a really beautiful daughter, right? And he like apparently used— he built some app to like spy on his daughter's boyfriend and do like background checks on them, and people like called him out because that was creepy.

Yeah, but Clearview AI, that's what I was reading this article just now, because he's like, I, I have infrared, you know, infrared sensors in my home in the Hamptons. I sleep with, with the same gun James Bond carried under his pillow, and I use Clearview AI to stalk my daughter's boyfriend or date or whatever.

What a character. Yeah. So that shit's weird. But other than that, this guy is so fascinating and interesting to me. Just— I love these types. I love— they just seem like the everyday man.

Okay, sounds good. What other— I don't know. Have you even thought about business ideas or have you been thinking about that at all?

No, I basically did not think about that at all. That's okay. I'm, I'm back on it, but I have not thought about that at all. Is there anything that you want to—

so I've been thinking about a lot because, so, so we successfully raised this fund to invest in startups. I've been doing a bunch of pitch meetings and each one is like super fascinating.

What, what's the total amount?

$2.5 million a year.

And was that so I'm going through that process too, though I might put it on hold, um, for obvious reasons. But, uh, was it— is it going to be good or not good?

Do you think that it's going to be a— I mean, a $2.5 million fund, unless it's like one of the best funds out there, which it could definitely become, it probably won't be a needle mover in terms of personal wealth creation. Is that correct or am I wrong?

That's correct. But it's— remember, it's $2.5 million per year. So when most people raise a fund, they raise, let's say, a $10 million fund. They deploy that. The fund takes 10 years to return, but they deploy it over, let's say, 3 years. And so, that's actually a $3 million a year fund. So this is the equivalent of, call it, a $7 to $10 million total fund. And so then you say, $7 to $10 million total dollars, the math works out where, let's say we do very well and we 4x the fund gross. So we turn, let's say, $7 million into $28 million of gross returns. And then of those $28 million, I get a 20% carry on that, so I get 20% of of $28 million.

So $4 or $5 million over—

but it's over a 7 to 10 year period.

So then you think that potentially this is going to be a—

it's not going to be a needle mover. I hope that in 7 to 10 years, $4 million is not a needle mover. That's my goal with all my other business.

Do you think— well, do you think that you're just going to raise more and more money?

I don't know. I'm going to try it. I'm going to see. Maybe I hate this and maybe after a year I tell everybody, okay, I'm not— you know, that money is deployed. Great. And for next year, I don't want any more. Money, right? Like, I don't want to do this anymore. But I think what's going to happen is there's— I sort of view this as, for me, financially it should be good, but it's not going to be like, oh my fucking God, this is how I, you know, built my kingdom type of thing. But I just like sitting front row for like people doing cool shit. And this is an excuse to— this is season tickets to sit front row, right? I'm going to get to see a bunch of entrepreneurs. So are my investors, right? I'm going to share all my updates with them and they're going to get to see what are the companies we invest in, why, why not. And how those companies are growing kind of in the private confidential side of things. And so I think it's going to be— I think on a fun level, it's going to be a game changer for fun. And on a wealth level, I hope that in 7 to 10 years, making $4 or $5 million will not be a game changer.

Yeah. So we're in the— we're— we've been in the process of doing this for a while, like you were. And obviously, 3 weeks ago, I was like, hey, let me talk to you in a little bit. And so I guess we'll go through with it. But you see, from an outside perspective, it definitely looks easy. But then you like get into it and you're like, this is going to be a lot of work. It's going to be a lot of work. Like being an investor, just like all things, once you get past that, like, like, for example, my company, The Hustle, like I worked really hard, but I definitely worked harder to get it off the ground. And so it's like once you get past that point, then it's like, yeah, this is a good life. But in the early stages, you're like, "Oh, this is— I'm just— you're just starting a business from scratch again." Yeah, yeah, totally.

Well, and even if you did it, even if you did a $50 million fund, what a lot of people realize is like, all right, you have $50 million fund, great. You better not be hiring anyone but maybe one person.

Yeah, exactly. So like on a $50 million fund, you're going to be taking your 2% management fee. So I took 0% management fees. So again, because I'm not doing this as a way for me to personally make money every year on fees. But, you know, for 2%, 2% fees, you'd be getting a million bucks a year for all your overhead, your legal costs, your fund administration, your employees, your whatever. Marketing. And so if you have two partners, that's like, let's say, $500K each. That's, that's no joke. That's not, that's not something to sort of sneeze at. But typically somebody who's able to raise a $50 million fund is earning more than that already in their current job or business, or has, or has earned more than that. And so they, you know, they're not doing it for the $500K a year of fees, net of expenses.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely a fascinating exercise to look at all this stuff. I've definitely enjoyed it though. We'll see if we do it, but it's, it's— I'm happy you were able to do that. What did all the money pretty much came from your Twitter?

Yes and no. Yeah, so half of it, basically like let's say 60% of it I think came from Twitter, and then the other 40% came through kind of like hustle. Like basically— Good. —reaching out and doing different sort of marketing and sales techniques to try to get people through the door and get them to close.

Good. Well, congratulations.

What else? Do we want to go over anything else, or we want to end this at 53 minutes? Mm, let me scroll through our list. We're gonna have to build this list out.

I had two I wanted to do today. I forgot the other one. Cool. All right, I don't remember what my other one was. We have to go back, start filling this out again. Now that you're back, we get back in rhythm.

So we'll call it here. Yes, and thank you everyone for all the kind wishes. I got like a literally 1,000 DMs. I appreciate it. I'm, uh, I don't know if I'll reply to everyone, but thank you. And we will see you next— well, in 2 days. Yeah.

All right, Sam, welcome back. Good to have you back.

All right, I'll see you. See ya.