#67 - A Very Random Episode

Sam (@thesamparr) and Shaan (@shaanvp) are back to chat about Thrasio Amazon FBA Rollup (4:11), what they like and don't like about the podcasting life (10:04), Sam's obsession with Bees (22:18), Comedian streaming platform (27:17), Carta CEO sharing his laying off message to staff publicly (32:27), Why journalists write about people they may hate (44:40) and haircuts at home (1:00:46) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  Okay, we got a friend of the show, Jordan Harbinger is here. Jordan, how are you doing, man?

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me on, man. I'm just chilling, self-isolating, you know, the usual.

• 0:09Shaan Puri?

  We are all isolating, but I like, I appreciate you dropping in on the show, just parachuting in, just for a couple of minutes. It's always fun to have you. You know, this is a crazy time, 2020 has been a crazy year. We got coronavirus and we also had, you know, the sad, tragic passing of Kobe Bryant, who was a guest on your show. How did, how did that happen? How did you get Kobe?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what was funny is I was pitching a publicity team for a different guest that I can't even remember now because he was about 1% as famous as Kobe Bryant. And they booked it and it was, it was like some comedian, which I of course was really excited about. They booked it and they canceled it and I got really annoyed and they said, "Well, would you consider interviewing Kobe Bryant instead?" And I said, "Yeah, of course I would consider that. Let's do that." So, we set it up and I flew down to Kobe's office and went over there and hung out for a while and did the interview right there. And it was, it was incredible. It was a really interesting experience to be there with his team as well for that day. And honestly, it was probably September of 2019, so the timing was, was

• 1:13Speaker 01

  interesting. You know me, I asked him all kinds of questions that had nothing to do with basketball, including about creativity, business, hiring and firing, because you wonder how a guy like Kobe Bryant decides who to hire and how he lets people go. I don't know if I'd want to be on the wrong side of him. And I, I did end up asking him about his life and what he's going to do for his second act and if he ever, creepily, I asked him if he ever thinks about what he's going to do if he were gone because he has kids. And, and he was really, really honest in the interview. He was really, really straightforward and I admire that. It was a really good interview, in my opinion.

• 1:48Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that is intense, high stakes interviewing, to say the least. And was he like an idol of yours before you did the interview?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  No, man. Honestly, I, look, who doesn't love watching basketball? But I wasn't even, I'm just not a fanboy of athletes in general. So, it was a great, unique opportunity, but I wasn't nervous because of that. I was more nervous because you- You just never know if your audio equipment's gonna screw up. So I was more nervous, like, make sure it's recording than I was nervous to be sitting in front of Kobe Bryant. Honestly, he was so friendly and unassuming and not very loud. In fact, we even had audio issues recording it because we're like, hey, we gotta turn him up really high. And I said, "You're really quiet." And he goes, "Yeah, I'm just not a loud guy, man." And I was like, "Oh, my God, can you be loud for like the next 45 minutes?" So it was a really unique experience. I'll be thankful for that for a long time to come.

• 2:39Shaan Puri?

  That is amazing. You know, when we started the show, we were doing the interview-style thing, and I made a bucket list, a wish list, of all the guests that I would want. You know, Kobe was on there. And when I look at your show, and I've been going, I've been plowing through the archive of episodes that you've got, you've had a bunch of them. So you've had Tony Hawk, you've had Kobe Bryant. Who are some of the other awesome episodes that people should check out if they do binge your show like I'm doing?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah. Howie Mandel was really good, the comedian. He was very open about things like mental illness and how he doesn't shake people's hands. I've had Dennis Rodman, Malcolm Gladwell. And I also had Frank Abagnale, which a lot of people haven't heard about or from, but he-

• 3:18Shaan Puri?

  Is that the Catch Me If You Can guy?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  He is the Catch Me If You Can guy. So he's the real guy that was played by Leo DiCaprio. And we talked about the psychology behind how he was able to trick so many people. And now he teaches, of course, FBI and intelligence agencies how that's done as well.

• 3:35Shaan Puri?

  That is amazing. So if you're one of the listeners to the show who misses when we used to do the interviews and bring in guests, well, this is my recommendation for you. You should go check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. He's got tons of interviews from guests that we were, you know, hoping to one day have on our show. He's already had him on. Check him out on iTunes, on Spotify, wherever you can find it. Jordan, appreciate you as always, dropping in on the show.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for having me on, guys.

• 4:11Shaan Puri?

  We're on, we're back. What's up? Me and Sam are here. Sam, you wrote something at the top of this. I want to hear what you have to say, which is people's reply about what we talked about last time. Thrasio, let's jump in with that.

• 4:23Sam Parr?

  All right, you want to, I'm going to read just word for word. I have it pulled up on my Twitter. Okay, you ready? I'm not going to read the guy's name. He goes, "I'm a modest-sized, mid-seven-figure Amazon seller in a network of guys that range from 1 to 2 million to probably 50 million plus. We have a few guys in our network that actually sold their company to Thrasio." How do you call it?

• 4:42Shaan Puri?

  Thrasio?

• 4:42Sam Parr?

  Thrasio? Thrasio. "I'm happy to chat about Amazon e-commerce sometime." Okay, so I'm going to read his replies. Now, for those of you listening, the background is that on Tuesday, Sean and I talked about Thrasio. It's a company that raised money. They raised 100, 200 million at a 750 valuation. I don't remember.

• 5:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, close to 100 million at a 750 valuation.

• 5:07Sam Parr?

  A big company. You can, they're only two years old. What they're doing is buying Amazon fulfillment, fulfilled by Amazon company, fulfilled by Amazon companies, and they are making the brands better and just owning them. They're doing a bunch of stuff.

• 5:27Sam Parr?

  And so I had a guy reach out to me, and I go, "That's great. Tell me, what's the..." I asked him, "What's the cash flow situation like?" For most guys, sub $10 million, they're probably working with zero to a handful of US employees, still actively involved in the day-to-day, large team in the Philippines and in cheap locations, and are probably netting between 10% to 20% a year.

• 5:50Sam Parr?

  And so the typical size for 3 to 5 million, the typical size is 3 to 5 million in revenue, and they're probably pulling in 500 to $1 million a year for themselves. But the problem is, is that it's getting harder and harder. In 2013, you could sell almost anything and scale a seven-figure business. Now, there are a lot more dominant, more sophisticated players, and it's incredibly hard to enter in the business. The Amazon algorithm is much smarter and it makes ranking incredibly expensive and difficult. Also, Amazon treats their sellers like trash. So it's kind of a mixed bag. I could take a month and do nothing and let my team run it and it can go perfect. Or I can get an email tomorrow saying my account has been suspended or killed and I need a

• 6:35Sam Parr?

  lawyer to reinstate everything, or I'm just crushed. So, anyway, Sean, I wanted to fill you in on this because I thought it was cool insight. I didn't know about that.

• 6:45Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's a good insight. So a couple of thoughts on that. So the first is, I think he's right. You know, back 2013, 2014, it was a lot easier to do it than it is today. That seems consistent with what I've heard. In fact, it seems like the formula is build a successful Amazon business in 2013, 14, 15, then start teaching other people how to do it because it's too hard to do anymore. And so now you start giving away the sort of secrets and you become a teacher for the next three years. So I think that's the career path right now. The other thing that comes to mind, we were talking, I was talking to Andrew Wilkinson about this and he was saying, he used the, I think it's a, I think it's a Charlie Munger quote, which is, oh, no, no, it's a Nassim Taleb quote, which is,

• 7:29Shaan Puri?

  it's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. So, you know, there's a high probability you can make a little bit of money, you know, consistently, every single time you reach down, you pick it up. And then there's, you know, a low probability of complete death. And that's what he's talking about when he says, you can get a letter tomorrow that says your account is suspended, goodbye. And that's it. Or, Amazon cuts the rates of your category. Like I have a friend who was doing millions of dollars of book sales as a third-party bookseller on Amazon. And then Amazon was like, you know what? Now our take rate on books has, you know, not 10%, we're gonna do 25%, thanks. And that like killed the whole.

• 8:06Sam Parr?

  That happened to me. That happened to me the other day. So in our, we, in the trends group, someone was like, just so you know, Amazon changed the fee. So basically, I have various blogs, like my personal blog or something like that. And it makes just like small amounts of money, like three to $5,000 a month off Amazon affiliates. And I don't even check it. It just runs because I've just written a lot of content over the years. They changed their rate and someone told me in the group, I think that, I forget what I was earning. I don't even check it. I think I was earning... 6% to 9% for affiliate revenue and then they changed it to they like halved it.

• 8:46Sam Parr?

  So that money just halved and it's no big deal because it wasn't it wasn't like a big income stream for me. But if you're a wire cutter or if you're BuzzFeed and you made a hundred million dollars from this, it's a huge deal.

• 8:59Shaan Puri?

  Right. Yeah, that 20% cut makes a really big difference. Okay.

• 9:03Sam Parr?

  No, no, no, no, it wasn't a 20% cut. It was way bigger than that.

• 9:07Shaan Puri?

  Okay.

• 9:07Sam Parr?

  It was like a half, they have.

• 9:10Shaan Puri?

  Ouch. And what category are your links mostly in? Is it electronics? Is it some cat? Is it one category or is it just across the board?

• 9:20Sam Parr?

  They rate, they lowered it across categories, but across the board, it's close to half. My categories were probably personal care and electronics. I mean, just anyone who, yeah, or books, a lot of books.

• 9:33Shaan Puri?

  Right. Okay. I want to know another topic. So we're good on Thrasio? You want to add anything else?

• 9:40Sam Parr?

  No. Do you not want to?

• 9:43Shaan Puri?

  No, I think it's it's consistent with what we thought. You know, I like when people fill in the gaps with information that we don't have, right? I'm not a FBA seller. I don't know the ins and outs of that market. I just think it's interesting. We talk a little bit about it and then people fill in the gaps. And the next episode, we come back a little smarter. That's a nice little formula we have going. So I appreciate that. If you ever talk about stuff you know, tell us, tell us more about what you know that we don't.

• 10:04Sam Parr?

  Before we go deep into serious stuff, do you want to talk about, I want to give you feedback that I got from, from listeners, Sean. You ready?

• 10:12Shaan Puri?

  Am I prepared for this? Is this harsh, critical feedback? Do I need to?

• 10:15Sam Parr?

  It's good.

• 10:15Shaan Puri?

  Okay, great.

• 10:16Sam Parr?

  No. Okay. So what I'm noticing with this podcast is we have a similar amount of views each week. And I think it's the same people over and over. I think we're like part of people's routine, which is cool. And the, I think that one of the secrets to growing a podcast is you have to have guests. So when we had Andrew, he shared it. So all the people who like him came and listened and I hope we've got them hooked and they're going to listen from now on. And so the way that we're going to do this is we're just going to get more guests. But here's what people keep telling me, and this, they weren't saying this about Andrew, but they like it when it's just you and I riffing it and just making shit up on the fly.

• 10:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, I've, I've felt that. And I think it's even more on these Zoom calls because the Zoom call pace is a little slower. When we're in person, it's a little bit better, I think, to have that third guest on the seat. And it definitely depends that their guests got to bring the, bring the energy. You can't just be successful and smart. That is not enough. You have to bring energy. You got to know what people want to hear about and get to the point. And so, you know, that's the, the rubric for guests, which is hard when you're also trying to find famous guests because they help the show grow.

• 11:20Sam Parr?

  And just for the record, Sean and I have recorded with, I think we've done a bunch of times. I personally have done it a bunch of times. And it was wonderful people who I like, and it just turned out to be bad and we just don't publish.

• 11:32Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, we throw it away.

• 11:34Shaan Puri?

  And we don't even tell the guests.

• 11:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And I've done it a couple of times with like for throughout the years for whatever, I don't even remember what I was recording stuff for. I've interviewed someone who was like an amazing operator and the content was whack and I'm like, nope, trash.

• 11:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Sam Parr?

  And so anyway, the feedback that we're getting Sean is that people like us because they say that I'm more optimist and you're more like down to earth and that we riff and they love that and that they can't get that anywhere. But you and I are like, let's go get more guests and people don't like the guests. Unfortunately, that helps us grow.

• 12:14Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Well, we'll keep mixing it in. Uh, dude, I had a call yesterday that I was like, if I had just recorded this, this would have been like one of the dopest podcasts ever. It was just me and Furcon, we have a call every once a week now that's just called Cool Shit. And he lives in like the edge of like technology. He's like in the dark web, basically, not in a legal way, but sort of like he's on the forefront of what's interesting going on.

• 12:37Sam Parr?

  He's just like a, he's just a nerd. He's just like a very typical Silicon Valley engineer.

• 12:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Sam Parr?

  And but he knows. Who's out of touch of reality in a good way.

• 12:45Shaan Puri?

  He knows me well enough and also he loves money enough where he knows how to take that stuff and bubble up the, the bits that are interesting, the bits that are relevant and not just get lost in the weeds of technology. So, uh, that convo was amazing, but unfortunately it didn't record. The other thing I was going to say about the guests is, um, being guests on other people's podcasts is the other way to grow. So I had Sean let yesterday reach out to like 50 podcasts and just be like, hey, I'll go on and talk about it. Right? Like I'll go on, I just sold my company. I can go on and talk about that. Hey, we built a podcast that did a million downloads in the first six months. We could talk about how we did that. And so I think guessing on other people's podcasts might be a good way. You did this with Gary Vee, with Pomp, so maybe we could do.

• 13:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I've probably, so there's a caveat there. I've, I've probably been a guest 100 times. And there was a period like over the trailing six months, I had it set on my calendar from three o'clock to five o'clock. That's only guessing a podcast and I would do it and some of the small ones just drove nothing.

• 13:42Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 13:43Sam Parr?

  Like it was total hit or miss. And so I would spend like three weeks doing it and it's almost like, and you probably liked this. It's like being the comedian. You just say the same shit over and over and you kind of figure out what hits. And it's fun. It's almost like therapy. You just talk about yourself. It's cool. But it definitely, it gets a little repetitive and it, the results are not always there, but they are sometimes.

• 14:03Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. And you know, the thing you said at the beginning, which is for podcasting, you get this base and it's the sticky, sticky base of people who want to, who, who listen to it all the time. It becomes a part of their routine. They start to really love you, that sort of thing. It's very different than other products I've built where I'm like, all right, I want to get millions of users to just visit this page. Or like just use this once a week or subscribe to this and kind of forget about it. Like that's been a lot of the products I built. This is the opposite. It's like an army of a hundred thousand people who will like go to war for you. I think there's people in this group that would, if I said, hey, I need you to beat this person up, they would go beat that person up. Like there's people who really have your back. And when I started this, I remember I was talking to Suli, who was the very first guest on the pod.

• 14:49Shaan Puri?

  And he was like, you know, what are you thinking next? You just sold the company. And I was like, you know, I really like this podcast thing. He goes, okay, like, is that a business? Like in some ways it's a step down, right? It's like, I'm going to make way less doing this than I did my last business or any other business I want to do. And I was like, look, I want to just be in like a million people's ear balls every morning. If I did that, I just know that that's a good thing. And I don't know how to get there, but I'm going to do that. I'm going to get into a million people's ear balls every morning on their way to work and the way to work. I think that's powerful.

• 15:19Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I mean, it may or may not be a business, but it definitely will lead to way more opportunity. I've had, I've had a lot of, I mean, I've been doing the content thing a little bit like before the podcast. So I kind of understand it, but the podcast definitely is different. I remember I went to New York, Sean, and I just tweeted, I was like, I'm, we're gonna be over, I'm gonna be over here. Cause I was there for a hustle advertising crap. And I just tweeted, I was like, yeah, I want to be here. I had 200 people want to come and so we only let maybe 20 come. And because we're in people's ears, dude, like these people, this kid, Ryan, said something to me and he's like, yeah, you know, cause you said how much you like this thing. And I was like, I don't remember what you're talking about. And like, they, they think they know you.

• 16:01Shaan Puri?

  Right. And you know, the other thing I like is that people are, the people who listen are actually pretty, they're really smart and successful. You know, I think a lot of podcasts that are about business, they cater to kind of lowest common denominator. So it's like, oh, the wantrepreneur is their core market. And you know, in our Facebook group for this podcast, I posted something saying, hey, I'm doing something cool for people who have a business that does over a million dollars a year. And there's like a hundred plus replies just in that Facebook group, people who have businesses doing over a million dollars a year, right? So these are not like, kind of like the wantrepreneur who's, you know, at their nine to five job or a college kid or something like that. Like, of course there are people like that, but the audience also is mixed with a lot of interesting, successful people. There's a bunch of VCs that listen to this, it's crazy.

• 16:45Shaan Puri?

  So anyways, enough about the podcast, let's give people some, some other topics or ideas.

• 16:49Sam Parr?

  Let's talk one more thing about the podcast, which is, my house looks like, is crazy right now. I've, I had to go and buy this mic, I've had to like set this all up. Dude, it's been so hard to set up like a Zoom thing and it's hard. I hate this shit.

• 17:06Shaan Puri?

  I know you want, you want that business to exist, which is push a button and give me like a dope podcast, like turnkey.

• 17:13Sam Parr?

  Yes. Oh, and for anyone who's listening, this is podcast related a little bit. I promise I'll finish up with this. But this is awesome. So my friend Neville Bedora, he sponsored last podcast, copywritingcourse.com, I'll plug him. He, I did like a happy hour with him. I mean, I don't know, a dinner where we just, we're just shooting the shit because we haven't been able to see each other because of this stuff. He used a DSLR as his webcam.

• 17:36Sam Parr?

  And it was awesome. It was so, it looks amazing. It made him look like a Greek god. It looks like he's like, it's all like, it's like, does that, I don't know about cameras where it does like your blurry in the background.

• 17:47Shaan Puri?

  It's called like bouquet or something like that. So, so I saw on YouTube, there's this guy Gary Tan, he's an investor in Silicon Valley. He's like, you know, one of the wife's accommodator partners. And he did this YouTube video that was like, how to look like a fucking amazing on Zoom. And I was like, dude, this makes sense. This is the new like, this is the equivalent of wearing a suit to work now, right? Like is sitting on Zoom and not looking like shit with your room looking like shit. And so this video only had 1500 views, but he's like, look, this is the camera I use. This is the mount. This is the lens. Here's how you get the, that blurred background look. And like, he looks amazing. And then when I saw that photo, you, the screenshot you had of Neville, I was like, I bet you he watched that video.

• 18:27Shaan Puri?

  And there was only 1500 views, but I was like, anybody who's watching this, and the other guy who, who did it was Neve Drawer, who's the, the founder of, he was at Product Hunt, now he has Shrug Capital. And he does it too. And it really does look amazing. And when I saw that, I was like, I should do this. I should, I should invest.

• 18:42Sam Parr?

  So I, I'm gonna do it. I didn't, I didn't know about this video. So last night I bought $700 worth of stuff. I bought, so I already have these Philips Hue light bulbs. You know what those are?

• 18:51Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 18:53Sam Parr?

  Uh, where you, I just say Alexa, turn the lights on. Watch, it's gonna turn the lights on. Um, so I bought those, but you see back here, behind the couch, I'm gonna put them there. And so it's gonna like shoot up and it's gonna, I hope, it's so like, I, I, we have like our room, oh, I, I forgot, I'm not using that camera. We have a room clean. Anyway, you'll see it. Uh, so I'm into, I'm in on this. I like it.

• 19:13Shaan Puri?

  So this guy reached out from Twitter who, um, he's done a couple of e-commerce things that are kind of interesting. And so I was talking to him and that's his new thing. So he, he's basically, he initially was targeting Twitch streamers because he's like, look, Um, when you're a streamer, you're basically broadcasting from your bedroom and streamers invest in all this like artwork, cool lights, wall panels, smart speakers, all this stuff um to make the room look good. And he's like, I'm gonna make an e-comm store that's like just gonna do that. Uh, it's gonna be.

• 19:43Sam Parr?

  What's it called?

• 19:44Shaan Puri?

  Uh, I'll find the name of it. I don't know if he wants me to kind of out him. So we may have to bleep this if uh if he's not into it, but I'll say it right here. It's called Visual Candy and uh this guy's smart. I like this guy a lot. And so um so anyways, but now with the room, you know, work from home, I think this extends a lot past where his initial market was, which is YouTubers and Twitch stars. And now it's, you know, any professional who's gonna spend some amount of time in a home office. And just think about the amount of home offices that are being built out right now. Um, because people are needed infrastructure for this, but that's gonna stick around once COVID goes away.

• 20:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I I I have loved, I I'm really into it. Um, I've like gone to Amazon and I've tried buying like all the stuff. And it's it's kind of complicated because I didn't know which batteries do this. I was like, how do I just, I was like, where does the camera need to be? So I'm doing this. There's another thing called a Cam Link. I just looked this up.

• 20:39Shaan Puri?

  Elgato makes it.

• 20:41Sam Parr?

  El Elgato. Yeah. And it I I went and looked at it and it was, they built this entire thing for streaming for gamers.

• 20:48Shaan Puri?

  Yep.

• 20:48Sam Parr?

  And uh it looks awesome. I'm gonna, I definitely am gonna start buying this stuff. I'm probably gonna drop two grand on all this crap. Um, I'm, I think we'll turn our, uh, we have a, I have another bedroom. I'll turn that into an office. So I'm, I like all this crap.

• 21:01Shaan Puri?

  Dude, I love buying shit. When you buy, and when I just get on a buy streak and I'm like, yeah, you know what? I deserve this. I need that. And like, you know, what's the problem here? And and actually, buying stuff is not, um, I don't know, there's something like cathartic about it. Like just the act of buying it feels fucking great and I love it.

• 21:23Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but for me, I've been having to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK and having to spend like if I buy like a new desk, the boxes are so big, I gotta pay a hundred dollars just to get rid of the box.

• 21:34Shaan Puri?

  The box problem is insane, especially here in San Francisco, the box problem is insane.

• 21:37Sam Parr?

  I fucking hate it. I hate it. It's one of the reasons why I moved. I live in a house now. I used to live in a building. And one of the reasons was is because I didn't have to worry about the trash.

• 21:46Shaan Puri?

  Right. Well, no matter how much space I have, because I thought, oh, I got this new house. I was like, now I have a garage. I got this like tradesman alley. I got this extra closet. But it's that same principle. I think it's, I forgot like the Parkinson's law or whatever, which is uh, time will, uh, work will expand to fill the time you give it. So let's say you have a week to do the project. Guess what? It's gonna take you a week. If you had a day to do that same project, it would have only taken you a day. And um, in the same way, like junk, your shit will expand to fill the space you have. And uh, that's.

• 22:17Sam Parr?

  So here, let, let me, let, I've, I've thought about this a lot. Let me get wise here. Okay. I'm a amateur beekeeper. So I have bees. Do you know this?

• 22:26Sam Parr?

  You know this?

• 22:26Shaan Puri?

  It's your house right now? You have bees?

• 22:29Sam Parr?

  The, right now, so they actually uh, went away, but uh, since 2013, I've kept bees. So I've always, for the most part.

• 22:39Sam Parr?

  So listen, I'll tell you all about this. For the most part, in my life, or in my San Francisco life for 10 years, I've lived in uh, Glen Park. It's a nice neighborhood in San Francisco. It's like residential though. And I've always had a backyard. And I wanted a hobby that was uh, not expensive and I didn't want it to turn into a business. And I just wanted something fun that I could be outside. And I like, I made a list of hobbies that I could pick.

• 22:58Shaan Puri?

  You just picked the lamest one.

• 23:00Sam Parr?

  And no, beekeeping came up on top because it doesn't cost a lot of money to start. If you want to, you can just leave it alone and not do anything. Or if you wanted to, you could poke around with it and like be active with it.

• 23:10Shaan Puri?

  So low maintenance.

• 23:12Sam Parr?

  Low maintenance. It does, it only costs three to $500 to get into the hobby. You don't have to buy a bunch of shit to keep up with it. Um, and it was allowed me to be outside. And so I, I became a beekeeper in 2013, I think.

• 23:24Shaan Puri?

  Yo, how long do bees live? Like, do you still got a bee that's around from then?

• 23:29Sam Parr?

  No, no, no, no. They uh, they, I think they might only live for like a few months. They, they could cycle through. And so I bought about 10,000 bees and I get honey from them and I just give it away. And I uh, I call it Southern Sam Sticky Icky. And uh, And so I've had bees for years. And when I lived in Soma, I only lived in Soma for a year. And then I went back to Glen Park and I just kept it on the roof at my office. So you can have bees, I would have 10,000 bees just on the roof of our office and no one would know. They stay themselves mostly and they go out and get honey or get pollen and they turn it to nectar and it turns into honey. And anyway, but here's the interesting thing that I learned. See, this has been like, this is where the wisdom comes in.

• 24:12Sam Parr?

  Here's the interesting things that I've learned with bees is bees fill the space that they are given with honey. So if you give them a lot of space, they will always fill it. If you don't give them a lot of space, then they just won't make it.

• 24:23Shaan Puri?

  Right. It's the rule of the sticky icky.

• 24:26Sam Parr?

  And so I've learned this through bees that humans are the same way. If you give them a lot of space, then they will fill it with a ton of stuff. If you give them not a lot of space, they just won't buy stuff. You just won't, you just won't get stuff. And so that's the important thing. So when you think of like, I'm gonna get this huge house. So I'll have a ton of room and I'll have more space. You're gonna fill it to the brim with crap and you will no longer have space. It always works that way.

• 24:51Shaan Puri?

  That's amazing. I love that story. Didn't know you were a beekeeper. I've known you for like six years, had no idea. By the way, we both studied abroad in Sydney and I took a class. Cause when you study abroad, you're trying to have a good time. You're not trying to learn. And so I took the easiest class I could find, which was a bee, a bee class. And so I learned all this shit about bees and bees have some crazy things, like just two quick bee facts. If I remember correctly, from 10 years ago, I learned that when, when the queen bee goes to mate, she leaves on an expedition and she will mate with as many male bees as she can along the way. And she basically has sex with them and then kills them right afterwards. Breaks their back and they die. And then she, she sort of gets impregnated by all these bees. And then there's this other thing, which is really interesting that, that people have learned from bees,

• 25:36Shaan Puri?

  which is like a big evolutionary learning, which was in a beehive, many of the bees could be fertile, but they choose to be sterile and they choose to just take care of the queen bee's kids. Cause they're all related by like some 25, they're all like quarter sisters or something like that. They're all like 25% related. And it turns out like in a Darwinian sense, you are better, your genes are better off surviving if you just tend to these half sisters and quarter sisters that you have, rather than trying to have your own kids and survive. And so that's the crazy thing about bees.

• 26:10Sam Parr?

  Bees are awesome, man. It's a great hobby. You can get into it for $250. All you gotta do is go to Amazon and you type in beekeeping kit and someone will send you the kit and then you go on your local Craigslist. You might even be able to buy them online, but that might take like a few weeks. But if you go on your local Craigslist, you type in bees, there's a farmer nearby who you can pay a hundred dollars and they'll give you 10,000 bees and they'll set it up for you. It's so, it's super easy to get into and it is so fun. Bees, uh, you could eat, I get, fuck, I mean, I'll get like, I gotta think about this, like probably five to eight gallon milk jugs. Like what's the, how big's a, is that a gallon of milk? Like that, that worth of honey, maybe five to eight a year.

• 26:52Shaan Puri?

  They're producing. Okay, cool. I want some honey. Um, also related to this idea of like people buy stuff, uh, and people love stuff and people will fill their space with stuff and bees will fill their space with stuff.

• 27:06Shaan Puri?

  If you want a good five minutes, go on YouTube and type Chris D'elia, girls love things and you will have a great time for five minutes. Okay. And now that brings me to a random startup idea. So I don't think this would work, so let me start with that, but there's something interesting here where. So Netflix recently, Netflix in the last few years started going heavy into comedy. So comedy used to be like HBO kinda owned the space, uh, where they would do, you know, HBO specials. Um, and then that kind of dried up and comics are like cockroaches. They'll always survive. It's like, okay, we'll go play in the dingiest room.

• 27:44Shaan Puri?

  We'll go on stage, we'll get a Netflix special, we'll get a HBO special. Okay, we're back to the dark room again. Like they won't quit because they're like degenerates. And now podcasting has been a huge boom for them. Um, so Chris D'elia, who also just had a Netflix special come out, um, these guys make tons of money, right? So Netflix started cutting like 10, 20 million dollar checks, I believe, to these comedians because they know that comedians have these like rabid followings. And the content is good. It's unique, sort of proprietary content. But I think that there's a product out there, sort of like a crunchy, what Crunchyroll did for anime. I think somebody could do for the mid-tier comedians. I think you could make a sort of five dollar a month, seven dollar a month subscription

• 28:26Shaan Puri?

  to the comedians that are not going to get Netflix specials, right? So not Chris Rock and not Seinfeld and Chappelle and all those guys, but like the next tier down. Like even, you know, one level below like the Whitney Cummings of the world, right? Because they are still getting Netflix specials. And I think you could add them up, and it doesn't even have to be the hour-long special. It could be like a 10-minute set or 20-minute set or something like that. And I think you could get, I think each of them have a few thousand fans that would pay to be able to access that exclusive comedy content. And so if you just aggregate all the comedians, then it's a sort of all-you-can-eat pass where as a viewer, I can discover other comedians too.

• 29:08Shaan Puri?

  So anyways, I think that there's a business potentially for a mid-level Netflix for comedians where you aggregate them. What do you think?

• 29:16Sam Parr?

  Great. I'm looking up information so I can, my brain's rolling and I'm gonna, let me, let me tell you what I think. So first of all, Quibi, I imagine is trying to do something like that. So Quibi, is that even fucking how you say it? It's pretty stupid. I mean, look, I think with Quibi, it actually can be great because the people who are running it are like super smart, but it does not look like a good bet now, but it still might be. Anyway, they're trying to do something like that. Second, I think that that is a great idea, and I think the way that I would find out how to do it is I would look up Quello. Q E L L O. Have you heard of Quello?

• 29:53Shaan Puri?

  Never heard of it.

• 29:54Sam Parr?

  Okay, Quello's cool. So what Quello is, is it's a, it's, I think it was started way before its time. It's an app on Apple TV and all they have is live concerts. And so it was started in 2010 and it's available and it's like, it's an app for your phone, but I think it's best on Apple TV. And you could download it and you pay 10,000 or is it maybe $10 a month?

• 30:18Shaan Puri?

  Sometimes $10,000 a month.

• 30:21Sam Parr?

  I think it's $10 a month and you just get access to a library of live concerts. Have you ever wanted to do that or is that just me?

• 30:29Shaan Puri?

  I kind of do this on YouTube, but YouTube like has enough free, like I listened to a bunch of like Red Rocks concerts, right? Cause there's a concert venue called Red Rocks, which is awesome. And like anytime a musician goes there, they film it in like epic, with epic cameras and sound. And they're just like available on YouTube for free, but this is cool. I like this.

• 30:46Sam Parr?

  It's awesome and it's, it's, it's better than YouTube, but YouTube is great. And the reason it's better is because like if you buy like a concert DVD, the camera works a little bit better and the sound is a lot better. And I love live music and so I am a big fan of this. And they have 70,000 paying subscribers. They were recently acquired by Stingray Communications, which is a publicly traded company in Canada. It's a cable company. So if I were you, Sean, and I wanted to launch this, or if I was a listener and wanted to launch this, I would look up Stingray Communication and I would go and read the, the filing for that company. And I would figure out exactly what Quello does. That's what I would do. Um, and I would learn about how they did it because it's a relatively niche thing. They only have 70,000 subscribers. It's not huge and they've been at it for 10 years.

• 31:31Sam Parr?

  So it's not a big number and I think it is incredibly viable business. Uh, and I think it's great. Another thing, another thing that I would do is I would look up Discovery Channel and then National Geographic. Are you familiar, you're familiar with National Geographic, obviously, right? Okay. National Geographic is still a huge company. And it, uh, uh, Disney recently bought into it at a billion dollar valuation and they still make, they still make hundreds of thousands or um, hundreds of millions of dollars a year from their magazine subscription. Is that crazy?

• 32:00Shaan Puri?

  That's insane.

• 32:00Sam Parr?

  Uh, and so I would, but they, but here, National Geographic was a nonprofit. And, uh, and so the good thing about nonprofits is you can go and see all their numbers. And so what I would go and look at, I would look at Discovery and I would look at National Geographic and I would look at Quello and I would see what they are doing because those are relatively niche, um, subscription companies that crush.

• 32:20Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 32:21Sam Parr?

  So, long story short, great idea.

• 32:23Shaan Puri?

  Okay, cool. Uh, all right. What else we got? You wanted to talk about this Carta thing.

• 32:27Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So, um, I am a user of Carta. I, I think the product's only okay. It's still quite frustrating to use, but Carta laid off.

• 32:38Sam Parr?

  A bunch of people the other day.

• 32:40Shaan Puri?

  A hundred sixty seven people.

• 32:42Sam Parr?

  Yeah, and they raised money. And their CEO, Henry, wrote this message that he made public. And he said something like, it was not your manager's fault for laying you off. It was 100% my fault. In fact, it was the opposite. Your managers tried to help you, and I'm the one who reviewed every list. And I said, we're going to fire this person. So blame me. And I think that was great. I thought it was a great message.

• 33:06Shaan Puri?

  So high level, he was basically saying, hey, we laid a bunch of people off, and I'm going to

• 33:12Shaan Puri?

  publish the announcement I made to the company so that presumably other CEOs and other companies can kind of learn from this, use this, or take solace in the fact that I did this too. I don't know, whatever the purpose was.

• 33:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 33:23Shaan Puri?

  Content marketing.

• 33:23Sam Parr?

  And he and and he published this, and I typically am fall into the category of all press is good press. Go ahead and do it. I thought this was kind of lame. Do you agree? And I tweeted at Henry, and I want him to come here, and I'll say this to his face. I think he seems like a cool guy. This move, I think, was kind of lame.

• 33:40Shaan Puri?

  Right. I would agree. I've kind of followed this guy for a little while, like I've read some of his other stuff or seen some interviews. Seems like a good guy, seems like a smart guy, and I think Carter's a good product.

• 33:51Shaan Puri?

  And I like some of the other stuff they've done, like they have a next chapter program, basically to help people who want to people who want to leave the company. They don't make it this like awkward exit. They like celebrate it and whatever, you know, in theory. So I thought this was lame, mostly because

• 34:06Shaan Puri?

  I thought two things. I thought it was tone deaf. And secondly, I didn't think the actual statement was very good. So I thought just the premise of what he was trying to do, like, what is the upside and what is the downside? It to me, it looked like he was trying to pat himself on the back, and I know he would never, he would say, that's not what I was trying to do, blah, blah. I think he was trying to pat himself on the back and also like, you know, give a little bit of sort of, you know, put Carter's name out there again, like just by, it's kind of like the buffer way of like publish everything and the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you get attention. But I just thought it was tone deaf. And also, it seemed like what he wanted people's reaction to be was like, wow, great leadership, way to take responsibility, great CEO ship, and

• 34:51Sam Parr?

  And he got that.

• 34:53Shaan Puri?

  And both, not from me. When I read this, I was like, this was a pretty horrible way to do the announcement. And I'll tell you why. He started, okay, so here's like, I'm just going to bullet point the summary. So he goes, Over the last few weeks, we're talking about recession planning. I said layoffs were likely, and today is the day. I can't delay it any longer. Okay, weird start, but all right. Then he says, "I'm sorry if I apologize. If I sound robotic, I'm reading off a script, because I don't know if I can get through this without something to lean on." Okay, you're not the victim. Don't say that.

• 35:26Sam Parr?

  That's also kind of, yeah, that's, that's pretty lame.

• 35:28Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, lame as fuck. Then he says, "Okay, let me start with the details. We're gonna lay off 161 employees. That's 16% of our company. It's gonna be different across the company." All right, whatever. Then, this was weird, I thought. It was just like, "If you are one of those affected, you'll receive an invitation from your manager. If you do not receive a meeting invitation, you are safe." And I was like, "Okay, Hunger Games, little odd way to do it, but you know, in a Zoom world, I don't know if there is a better way to really like, kind of mass do this, where you can't have the information come out until it needs to come out." But I just thought like, it's anxiety. That's a very like anxious feeling thing. And also, you gotta know, if you're the CEO and you say that, people's minds just start racing in that direction. They're just imagining what the next hour of their life's gonna be. They're not even gonna hear the next three paragraphs you say.

• 36:11Shaan Puri?

  Like, their mind is gone. They checked out. It's thinking about themselves. And so whatever the next three paragraphs are, ignore it. So then he goes, "All right, the moral conflict." This is the part I thought was whack. So he's like, "In a couple of town halls ago, I said there was two perspectives around layoffs. The first is the shareholder perspective, we're reducing costs and protecting cash are what matters. The second is the employee perspective, where nothing matters more than saving jobs and helping employees in a, you know, in a time where it's like unemployment at levels of the Great Depression. So each of these are clear, they're unambiguous, and they're correct from their perspective, but they are diametrically opposed. This creates a conundrum for CEOs. CEOs sit between shareholders and employees and wish that they could do both. For every CEO, they have to deal with this conflict."

• 36:56Shaan Puri?

  I chose to manage this conflict by taking the shareholder perspective and deciding who should leave and taking the employee's perspective on how to help. To me, I was like, what is this paragraph? Like dude.

• 37:07Sam Parr?

  Yeah, what the fuck dude? It's all the same. Like you're just trying to build a company that makes profit and does work with good people. That's the same thing.

• 37:13Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, and like, think about, you have to think about your audience. Do you think your audience gives a shit about the shareholder perspective? And the dilemma you have as a CEO and how you've chose to straddle this as a CEO is not even about you. So I just thought this was the part that was really odd to me that like, it seemed like, I don't know, I wouldn't have included this in the statement. And I thought that this made it look quite bad. And I would not want other CEOs emulating this part of the statement. Because what matters is your audience is your employees and you need to know, hey, this is really hard for us. We tried to analyze every situation, cut every other dollar we could before we cut anyone's jobs. And we did that, but this is the, this is the path we have to go. You know, this is, I'm terribly sorry. Like I did not manage the company in a way where we had enough buffer.

• 37:59Shaan Puri?

  This is a failing on my part. This is the worst, you know, the worst day in my, my, my time as a company and it is for all of us. And so like, here's what this means for you. And like, all you have to say is like, this sucks. We tried everything we could do. This was the last resort. And you know, here's how we're gonna make it right by you. And not like this theory about how shareholder value matters and the CEO has to like straddle these things. It's like, nobody cares.

• 38:22Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I, I think that, and I think that that's, not only does nobody care, I think that that is just a silly way to look at it, which is when you're building a company, like, step one is, uh, create something that people want.

• 38:35Shaan Puri?

  Yes.

• 38:35Sam Parr?

  And get it in, get it into the hands, get it into their hands in a profitable way. Okay, that's step one. Like, that, that is just the, that's the basics of a company, which is, you make something that someone wants to give you money, or you make something and you make a profit off of it, right? And. If I was

• 38:55Shaan Puri?

  I don't think that's step one, but that is the fundamental premise of the company.

• 38:58Sam Parr?

  That's the fundamental, that's the fundamental premise is what I mean. And so if I was him, I'd be like, look, here's the deal, like, we expect, we expected to grow a lot faster and we are investing in this and the plan would have worked. But this thing slowed everything down. And so we just have to cut things that are not profitable.

• 39:15Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 39:16Sam Parr?

  And that sucks. And I'm sorry that that sucks, but that's what's going to happen. And I think that if you just say that in a more straightforward way, instead of all this shareholder value shit, like, people already know that.

• 39:27Shaan Puri?

  Already know, like, they're all adults in the room. They understand this fucking crazy virus is happening in companies across the board are having trouble. Some companies have no revenue now, like, people get that, that that's happening. And it's just like, okay, so what's going to happen at our company? Oh, at our company, we've, they tried everything they could. They're making the, the sort of, this is, what he needed to say was, this was our last resort. We did this in a way where we're not going to have another round of layoffs because that creates, you know, a ton of

• 39:54Sam Parr?

  I wouldn't say that. I would, I would say we're going to try not to.

• 39:57Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like, you know, that is our goal and how we did this. But even then, that's speaking to the people who are staying. You know, really, at this point, you just have to speak to the total group and just say, some of you are going to be affected. Here's how it works. Here's how we're doing our best to, to make it right, to do right by everybody who's done right by us. This is no fault of your own. This is a fault of ours in running a company that was not, um, did not have the, the margin of error to deal with.

• 40:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I think that, like, what I would just say, if I had to do this, which I hope I never have to, but I probably will have to one day. Not like I'm saying at our company, but, um, well, I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying one day, if I have, if I have a long career, which I will.

• 40:37Sam Parr?

  That you got to say, look, I have a hundred percent of the flock that I have to manage and take care of. And sometimes that might mean that I have to fire.

• 40:50Sam Parr?

  30% of the flock in order to take care of the other 60 and that is just how life works and this just sucks and I'm trying to make this in such a way that the 40% are not completely hung out to dry but this is just what I have to do and I'm sorry that this is is the situation and if you want to blame someone blame me and that's that and that's pretty much all you have to say.

• 41:14Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly like you don't need the epic speech and you know right now we're kind of like look I think we're clear that hey personally for us this didn't like come across great and we weren't like oh wow that was epic on the other side you know we're just kind of off the cuff coming up with what a what a better speech might be but the reality is that in this case like you basically have a speechwriter you have a multi-billion you have a billion dollar company and you have time to think about this and this is the what we're reading is his output after thinking about it and so that's the part that I thought was a little.

• 41:46Sam Parr?

  Also, I wouldn't have published it. I wouldn't have published this because it's like dude take this fuck it take this on the chin like and by the way I know I'm criticizing this guy I don't know him he and I will tell this to I will say this to his face and I'm sure he's actually a good dude this is just a big miss but I would say like dude you gotta take this one on the chin and just like this is a loss and and say be a man and say what you want to say to your people which that's your fault that's wonderful I wouldn't publish this.

• 42:14Shaan Puri?

  I didn't understand that and also I'm not yeah I'm not sure what the what the sort of upside of was of that was now on the other hand I think they did some things great right so like the actual actions that they were taking for people I thought were great they're like look we're gonna extend the Cobra Health Insurance till the end of the year because health insurance is super important especially right now and so they didn't have to do that but they did they removed people's cliff and they invested their shares they didn't have to do that but they did you know they they gave them I think a bit of severance didn't have to do that but they did and then they have this sort of alumni network where they're trying to help people get jobs cool I like all of that like I liked all of that action I just didn't like the preamble and I didn't like the sort of pad on pad seemed a little bit like.

• 42:57Shaan Puri?

  Pat me on the back, please. Can I show you my leadership during this adverse time? So you could like, tell me I did a good job and that's the part I didn't like. I liked a lot of the action. And like you, I don't know this guy, so you know, there's no, no personal thing against him.

• 43:11Sam Parr?

  I've, I've, I have friends who work with them and I've heard a lot of positive stuff. Um, I just think that like, and I, I, I value, I applaud Carter for raising this money and going big and trying to make something happen. And I applaud them from over, for over hiring in hopes of like it working. Like I, I applaud the risk-taking and I want people who are listening that just because Sean and I are criticizing this guy, you gotta take risks still and you gotta try this big shit. And it's not gonna work all the time. Good. I mean, not good, but like whatever. That's just, you gotta, it comes with the territory and I just wish he would have took it on the chin a little bit more.

• 43:46Shaan Puri?

  Right. Okay. I got another, I got one more topic that's on a, a more positive note. Okay. So, uh, um, I gotta wash, I feel like I gotta, I had some haterade spilled on me there. I gotta wash that off. Uh, so this is-

• 43:58Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And by the way, Sean, you and I typically are, I'm rarely a hater.

• 44:02Shaan Puri?

  Exactly.

• 44:04Sam Parr?

  So we're rarely haters.

• 44:05Shaan Puri?

  It feels very weird.

• 44:06Sam Parr?

  And I, yeah, so I wanna add this by saying, I hope these guys crush it. I hope they do wonderful. I believe and think they actually will. Um, I just think that this one move was a stupid move and a probably a very long and positive journey.

• 44:21Shaan Puri?

  Right. Um, and, and look, you know, there's a big difference of, of criticizing a person versus criticizing an action or criticizing a, you know, something that was done. And this is definitely like, didn't like the message, not the, don't know, don't even know the messenger.

• 44:36Sam Parr?

  Can we just say, by the way, that a lot of people, um, in media, like in, who have these podcasts and newsletters and they're all fucking haters of the people they're covering.

• 44:47Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 44:48Sam Parr?

  Is that not the craziest thing ever?

• 44:50Shaan Puri?

  Well, I think it's like, um, it's like a fair trade. Uh, so, so, so there's this guy, Eric Weinstein. Have you heard this guy's podcasts? It's called the

• 44:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I like it.

• 44:59Shaan Puri?

  It's called the portal. Smart guy. I don't know too much about him. He runs like Peter Thiel's fund. And so he's been talking about this concept lately that's called kayfabe. Have you heard him talk about this?

• 45:10Sam Parr?

  No.

• 45:11Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so he's like, hey, there's this wrestling term called kayfabe. K A Y F A B E. And he's like,

• 45:17Sam Parr?

  Okay.

• 45:17Shaan Puri?

  What kayfabe is, is like, you know, in wrestling, it's basically wrestling is a fake fight, right? WWE, it's like a prearranged sort of agreed upon fake fight where I'm the hero and you're the heel, or I'm the good and you're the bad, whatever. And it's like, the dialogue is sort of an agreed fight for both of our betterment. Like, the more we feud, the more popular we both become. And the fight itself, like, okay, we agree, we sort of agree to do this. And so he talks about how this happens in the real world, too. Like, right now, I see this whenever Trump goes and does his briefing. And then there's that one guy from CNN, Jim Alcosta, I think is his name. And

• 45:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Shaan Puri?

  Always there. And he, Trump's like, okay, you're next. And then he asks his question and Trump like rips him. And then that becomes like the seven minute YouTube clip and CNN talks about it all day. And like, you know, on one hand, it's like, why doesn't Trump just kick this guy out? Or like, you know, revoke his press, you know, credentials here? Or on the other hand, why doesn't this other guy, you know, either, you know, fight back or start, or like, take some other action? Every day, the same sort of thing plays out. And I think in reality, it serves them both extremely well, where CNN gets awesome content that people want to watch because it's juicy to see the president fight with somebody. And Trump also loves the attention on the left, on the right, good and bad. And then he drums it up as,

• 46:39Shaan Puri?

  dude, those liberals are always trying to say this. And then the right supports him more because he has an enemy that's attacking him.

• 46:45Sam Parr?

  Right.

• 46:46Shaan Puri?

  And so there's like this dance that they're doing.

• 46:49Sam Parr?

  So I get that.

• 46:50Shaan Puri?

  Intentionally.

• 46:50Sam Parr?

  I get that. But here's what I don't get. So I'll give you a very specific example. This pissed me off so much. There's this woman named Natasha T. I forget what her Natasha, I don't know how to pronounce her last name, but I forget it, though. It's like, tis, anyway, she was a blogger for Valley Wag, which Valley Wag was pretty funny, but they took it too far. All they did was make fun of Silicon Valley. And then she worked at BuzzFeed and then Wired Magazine. And now she's at Washington Post. And she had this article that says, Silicon Valley now deems luxury housing an essentials, an essential.

• 47:31Shaan Puri?

  Good or whatever.

• 47:32Sam Parr?

  Uh, good. And so people are still building multimillion dollar condos. And in the first fucking line of the article, it says, the mayor has deemed luxury housing as well as all other types of housing, including housing projects and this other stuff as essential. And it was in the technology section of the Washington Post. Oh yeah, here it is. Natasha Tikku, Tikku, T I K U. And I've met her before. And, uh, and I was like, what the fuck? That's like saying like, I'm going to write an article in TechCrunch and be like, can you believe this? Billionaires are able to buy one million dollar cars.

• 48:13Sam Parr?

  And then in the article, I'll be like, but also anyone can buy any car, including a $1,000 Mazda, including a $20,000 Honda Civic, including a $50,000 Mercedes. It's like, what? And then why is it in the tech section of, of Washington Post? Oh my God, this pisses me off. And so I looked this woman up and she's very educated. She went to, uh, NYU and then like Columbia Journalism or like, uh, just like Ivy League, just really smart woman. And I'm like, why would you study for eight years or however long it took and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars when you're just gonna.

• 48:49Shaan Puri?

  To do this.

• 48:50Sam Parr?

  Hate, you're just gonna hate the people who you write about.

• 48:53Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 48:53Sam Parr?

  I don't understand it. Why not just go and write about something that like you want to celebrate?

• 48:57Shaan Puri?

  Of course, they'll say, we don't hate them. We're just, you know, we're reporting on that. We're reporting the stories. We don't, we don't hate them. Um, so there was a really interesting thing, uh, that happened recently where before coronavirus, um, there's this guy Balaji, who's on Twitter, pretty popular guy. He was at Andreessen Horowitz and a bunch of stuff. Uh, he was at Coinbase and things like that. So he's kind of one of those like on the forefront of things guys. So back in January, he showed up at a crypto meetup and he was wearing gloves and a mask. And this was January, when nobody in the US was really worried about this and everyone's kind of laughing like, what are you doing? He's like, well, you know, I think that there's a, you know, you know, maybe small probability, but that this coronavirus thing that's happening in Wuhan is going to be like a major, you know, global pandemic.

• 49:41Shaan Puri?

  And people are like, okay, Balaji, all right, thanks. And so this writer came out. And wrote a

• 49:47Sam Parr?

  To do at Vox?

• 49:48Shaan Puri?

  Uh, the Vox, uh, Recode Writer, yeah. So Recode Writer.

• 49:51Sam Parr?

  The Recode. Oh, my God. This infuriates me.

• 49:53Shaan Puri?

  So, so the quick story here is the Recode Writer reaches out to Balaji and says like, hey, uh, I want to get your comment on a story we're doing about, you know, Silicon Valley's, uh, reaction to the coronavirus. This was again, early on. And he was like, yeah, I'm not interested. Why don't you report on like, who cares about Silicon Valley's? What the Silicon Valley elite think about coronavirus? Like, you should report on the state of testing, the state of the, the, you know, the, the spread of the virus and all these other like, kind of like important facts that should be reported on.

• 50:24Sam Parr?

  And he tweeted out that he, that that happened.

• 50:26Shaan Puri?

  Screenshoted her DM and tweeted it. And then all the journalists were like, dude, she was just asking for comment. Why are you putting on blast? This is why people hate Silicon Valley. And he was like, no, no, no, no. I know this game. And he, he, so he talked about this. He's like, uh, this is a strategy called befriend and betray, where the journalist comes to you and says, hey, Balaji, you're an expert. I would love to get your take on this thing. And all they're trying to do is write the story. And what the headline of the story came out was something along the lines of like, you know, why Silicon Valley's not doing handshakes anymore. And it was like laughing at Silicon Valley sort of for overreacting to the coronavirus. This was early on before all the lockdown and stuff.

• 51:03Sam Parr?

  And he said, he goes, I promise you, the headline's gonna be Silicon Valley nerds refuse to shake hands.

• 51:10Shaan Puri?

  And that's pretty much what it was. Now, the body of the article, I went back and read it, was actually, you know, somewhat fair. It was just reporting what was going on, how, you know, whatever. Uh, but he was right about the, the headline. And the headline's often written, not by the journalist, but by the editor, because editor needs to drive clicks, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so this is a pretty interesting feud. If you want to hear more, the Jason Calacanis did a podcast with Balaji that I thought was pretty awesome. So.

• 51:32Sam Parr?

  I can't, I can't stand that. Particularly given like, me, like, people are always like, oh, you're a tech bro. And like, a lot, some journalists will say that. I'm like, you work at Vox. If I'm tech, so are you. Like, what does that mean, tech? Like, like, I had a journalist from the New York Times come and interview me. She's like, so what did you and your, like, tech bro friends?

• 51:49Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you to do this. So, so tell the story, your New York Times story. This is an amazing story. You've told me before.

• 51:55Sam Parr?

  Yeah. So first of all, like, I, I made sure I recorded it and I had, because I knew, so I knew that this person was gonna take me out of.

• 52:02Shaan Puri?

  So what was the context? You went to New York or how, how did it go down?

• 52:05Sam Parr?

  No, she came here. She goes, hey, you seem like an insider. I, I want to come and learn all the things that people are gonna, are talking about.

• 52:12Shaan Puri?

  And betray.

• 52:12Sam Parr?

  And. Yeah, and I go, okay, fine, come. I know what you're doing. Come on. And, uh, but maybe it could be positive. Like, maybe we'll become, like, we can exchange cool information. Maybe you'll write something positive about me. Maybe I'll just, whatever. And maybe it'll turn out good. And she comes, she goes, can I record this? I go, yeah, I'm gonna record it too. And, uh, and, uh, because I didn't want anything to be taken out of context. And she goes, so like, you're like a tech bro. Like, what do you and your tech friends talk about and your bro friends? And I was like, first of all, why are you calling me a bro? Like, what do you and your tech chick friends talk? Like, why would you ever say that to me? You don't know me. And that's just rude to say. Anyway, and I, and she, I go, well, I don't know. You, I go, you're a tech. You tell me.

• 52:57Sam Parr?

  She goes, no, I work at New York Times. I was like, you guys just announced that most of your revenue comes from digital. Like, you're a, why am I tech and you're not tech? Like, you are tech. And she goes, well, it's just different. I was like, well, you tell me. What do you, you, you and your tech friends talk about? And she goes, well, we're not, whatever. She like tried to dismiss it. I was, I was like, and anyway, I go, well, we talk about, uh, just like, you know, sports and I was like, I don't know. We just talk about normal stuff. Like, cool diets or like cool food, like all types of weird stuff. And, uh, it was just so odd. She was just so trying to like, it was so much like an other. Like, I am an other from you. And I'm like, I don't, I don't understand this, this, this, this dichotomy here.

• 53:40Sam Parr?

  Like, we are actually in the same industry. I work in publishing. So do you.

• 53:45Sam Parr?

  We both make most of our, most of our money from the internet. Like, why are you calling me this tech bro? I, you don't even know me. And she's like, what? You don't listen to Joe Rogan, do you? I'm like, well, yeah, I do. I listen to a lot of cool stuff. I, uh, I, I read, and this is true. Every morning I go to CNN and then I go to Fox News. And then I go to HuffPo and then I go to Breitbart. Cause those are all like, uh, kind of the opposites. I read all types of stuff. I like Joe Rogan. I like Oprah. I, I do all types of stuff. Why are you trying to like, set me up for this gotcha moment? Right. And it was horrible. I hated it. Yeah. And so, to sum this up, the headline, by the way, we have it. Multi-million dollar mansions, high-rise waterfront condos and a stately Victorian.

• 54:28Sam Parr?

  All deemed, quote, essential under public health orders in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. That was the headline. Right. And then in the first paragraph, it said, It said it restated the headline and then it added as well as housing projects and low income housing all deemed essential.

• 54:46Shaan Puri?

  Right. It's crazy.

• 54:48Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God, I can't stand it. I'm like, why would you cover this?

• 54:51Shaan Puri?

  When we bought Bebo back, so we had bought Bebo for a million dollars out of an auction. And we were gonna relaunch it as something. And so nobody knew that we had bought it back. It was like done in a courtroom. It was like kind of on the low. And there was I knew a reporter and, you know, we were kind of friendly, I guess. We had friends of friends that were mutual. And so I was like, OK, hey, you know, I want to give you a scoop and, you know, on the embargo and like come do an interview and whatever. So she was like, great, comes over, does an interview, explain the whole thing. We talk about what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. Next day, the article comes out, and this is the person we gave the scoop to. We could have given it to anyone. Next day, article comes out headline was,

• 55:35Shaan Puri?

  remember Bebo? Yeah, that Bebo. It was like, it was something like, you know, remember Bebo? Yeah, it's dead. But maybe, you know, it was like something like Bebo is dead. Remember Bebo? Literally, it was like LOL was like in the headline. It was like making fun of it. And then the whole article was our conversation we talked about was like legit. And so I text her, I was like, what the fuck? What is this headline? And she was like, I'm sorry, like, I don't get to do the headlines. My editor does the headlines and he just like, you know, he's gonna do what's gonna drive the most clicks. And like, he decided the thing that would drive the most clicks is talking shit about the buyback. I'm like, yeah, right. Like, it's like buying MySpace back and trying to relaunch it. And so I was like, you know, that's, that's fair.

• 56:18Shaan Puri?

  But wow, what a shitty move to pull when you're sort of given an embargo. You and you have all these other elements of the story that you could have like, used as the lead.

• 56:29Sam Parr?

  Sean, I but I don't blame, I don't blame her or him because like, I think that if you, just because you gave her an embargo, like she should be, still say the truth.

• 56:40Shaan Puri?

  Sure.

• 56:41Sam Parr?

  And say her opinion, like, and she shouldn't hold back. If she thinks you're stupid and what you're doing is stupid, she, just because you gave her that, she should say it.

• 56:47Shaan Puri?

  That's true. The two things that I thought were weird were, uh, number one, the headline and the story were so disconnected. The story was what she actually thought and the content of our interview, which was positive.

• 56:58Sam Parr?

  That's frustrating.

• 56:58Shaan Puri?

  And then the headline was just something completely different that was written by a completely different person and just shows kind of like the way the inside of those, uh, organizations work. The second thing I thought was just kind of whack was like, um, no heads up, like there's a sort of a human connection to this too, right? Like if I, uh, done you a favor by giving you an exclusive piece of news, even if you're gonna write something that you know I'm not gonna like when you're like lol. This thing is dead. Yeah, right. It's not gonna come back. Then, um, you know, to surprise the person, I think is an unnecessary extra slap versus like.

• 57:32Sam Parr?

  Oh, I just, I so disagree with you. I totally agree with your first point, but I don't agree with your second point, which is, um, if I'm gonna say something negative about you, I'm not gonna give you a heads up. I'm just gonna say it.

• 57:41Shaan Puri?

  But that's dumb, dumb business, right? You, you cut yourself out then going forward, right? Like we had a bunch of other stories that came out in the coming years and guess who like never got a word, right? Her. She just cut herself out for no reason.

• 57:53Sam Parr?

  Yeah. I mean, I think it's a, it's definitely, it's a hard thing to balance. And this is why some people, like for example, if someone says that they're a conservative news site. Well, the reason, and one of the reasons why they probably could keep giving conservative people a good look is so they can get positive, they can, yeah, so it's definitely hard.

• 58:09Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 58:09Sam Parr?

  But me personally, if you, if like, if someone comes on this podcast and they go like, I'll, like, will you make me look good? I'm like, no, I'm not gonna make you look good. I'm not gonna make you look bad. Like we'll talk and if I think you say something dumb, I'm gonna just gonna tell you it's stupid.

• 58:23Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 58:24Sam Parr?

  Like I'm not, uh, so I, I, I, I think that, um, I think that if I agree with that game, I've gotta suffer the, the, both the positive and the negative consequences. And the positive consequences is maybe they're gonna think I'm great and they'll tell the truth. And also as a quote journalist, or I don't know what you wanna call me, or both of us, we're gonna like find the truth. But also if someone thinks that about us and it's negative, we gotta live by that.

• 58:47Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I don't mind getting negative press. I did mind the sort of dissonance and also, I don't know, like, I just think like, it is again, bad business for that person because you burn your own bridge. Whereas if you're like, hey, look, like, just want to let you know, like, the article's gonna talk about this and it's gonna mention this, right? It's gonna be, there's gonna be some negative parts which we're skeptical about, and there's these, cool, could have kept that relationship, didn't, lost the relationship, that like, doesn't affect me, it affected them.

• 59:15Sam Parr?

  Maybe telling you ahead of time it's gonna be negative is not bad, but like, if I think that what you say is bullshit, I'm gonna say it no matter what.

• 59:23Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that nobody wants the other side, right? Otherwise, nobody will read the shit if you're not telling it like it is. If you're not telling your actual opinion, then the, you know, the whole ecosystem doesn't work. But, all right, anyways, we have any other ones we want to talk about? You have one?

• 59:37Sam Parr?

  No, we, well, I was gonna say, didn't someone come on the show and I was like, I'm gonna tell this person, I think there's, that, that, that, what they're doing is really stupid, and it's definitely awkward. When did that happen? Do you remember that?

• 59:48Shaan Puri?

  Um, I don't remember that, no.

• 59:51Sam Parr?

  Ah, man. I think Henry was here.

• 59:54Shaan Puri?

  Oh, I know what it was. It was the, the woman from Everlywell, I think. She came on with the, the tests, and-

• 1:00:00Sam Parr?

  Oh, I know. I, I was like, I think nutritional testing is bullshit.

• 1:00:04Shaan Puri?

  Right, and you said it straight to her face, and then she kind of answered you.

• 1:00:07Sam Parr?

  I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. I'm trying to say like, I don't even remember, like, did we call her out?

• 1:00:11Shaan Puri?

  No, no, you literally said it to her. I, I kind of, I kind of stirred the pot. I was like, Sam, why don't you tell her what you think about this?

• 1:00:18Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's like, dude-

• 1:00:21Sam Parr?

  Tell her what you were saying, like, you know, just go ahead, say it.

• 1:00:24Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, definitely set it up, but-

• 1:00:26Sam Parr?

  It's definitely awkward, like, before and after. You're like, I'm being nice to you, but like, I'm definitely gonna roast you right now. It's super awkward, but I think if you do it a certain way, it's not that bad. It's like, because, and they should understand.

• 1:00:37Shaan Puri?

  Okay, one last thing.

• 1:00:38Sam Parr?

  Dude, we, we totally went off the rails here. Go ahead.

• 1:00:41Shaan Puri?

  One last thing, but yeah, we did go off the rails. This podcast was about like beekeeping and like all kinds of other shit, but whatever. So I'm gonna take my hat off and so I clearly need a haircut. My friend Greg launched this company or it's not a company. He just created a website called youprobablyneedahaircut.com. And it's basically surfing quickly off the, the, um, the quarantine stuff where people are locked at home. Everyone's hair is growing out. Nobody can go get a haircut. You shaved a mohawk. Uh, what he's doing is he's barbers who are also out of work. They're at home. They can do a zoom consultation and basically help you cut your own hair. And so, uh,

• 1:01:17Sam Parr?

  That's awesome.

• 1:01:17Shaan Puri?

  If you need a haircut, go to you probably.

• 1:01:19Sam Parr?

  Your hair looks good. Did you cut it?

• 1:01:20Shaan Puri?

  No, I'm gonna cut it. Dude, it's awful. It's, yeah, it looks good right now. I agree. Actually, it does look good right now, but I looked at it before this hat was on it and it looked awful. So I'm gonna go cut my hair.

• 1:01:29Sam Parr?

  So I've, I've, I've been cutting my own hair for 10 years now. I have, I've had the clippers. I could tell you all about, I know how to do a fade. The other day I did shave it completely bald because I

• 1:01:37Shaan Puri?

  How do you do the back?

• 1:01:38Sam Parr?

  My, um, Sarah, my wife will help me, but for years I would do it on my own and admittedly it probably didn't look great, but I watched videos on how to like give a fade. And I, it's, it's not that hard, but, uh, I, I've been doing it for years just because for a long time I was poor and I didn't want to pay money, but now I do it because I'm like, oh, I don't want to like drive there.

• 1:01:59Shaan Puri?

  It's annoying to go. And plus they always make me take my headphones out and I'm like, well, now I'm bored. Like you don't understand. I constantly have information going into my eyes or my ears and now you're making me just sit here? Like this sucks.

• 1:02:10Sam Parr?

  Yeah. And also I just don't want to talk to them. I don't want to like, so, so what I do is I close my eyes and that's like the sign for not, not talk. But I, but I wish that there was like an app like for, at a certain barber's where it's like click, like do not talk to me or talk to me. Because like for weird, like

• 1:02:26Sam Parr?

  people like me, I'm like, I'm just super, I don't like the confrontation. I just don't want to, I don't want to talk. Just leave me alone. I'm like that at grocery. Dude, I'm like that at fucking grocery stores. You know, Jack, Jack Smith, he, he, we're like the same way. We go to grocery stores and I'm like, if I don't see what I don't want to, if I don't see what I want to buy, even though they probably have it, but in different sections.

• 1:02:45Shaan Puri?

  Not asking.

• 1:02:45Sam Parr?

  I just won't fucking buy it. I just won't buy it instead of ask. Or if I'm with Sarah, I'd be like, Sarah, will you go ask for this? I like, I don't even want to talk to anyone.

• 1:02:52Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it's awful.

• 1:02:53Sam Parr?

  I think a lot of people are like that.

• 1:02:55Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the, the, I think, did they add this into Uber where you could get in and be like, yo, let's not, let's not do that thing where we talk.

• 1:03:02Sam Parr?

  Yes, yes. Uh, and it's awesome. I just don't, I'm just like uncomfortable and I don't want to fucking do it. But more barbers, you know, the last thing that know what they need at barbers is they just need like six different haircuts for men and you just feel like, give me the four.

• 1:03:16Shaan Puri?

  But they do have that. I feel like.

• 1:03:18Sam Parr?

  A lot of, a lot don't. And you say the same thing, like, short on the side, a little bit up the top.

• 1:03:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:23Sam Parr?

  Everyone says the same thing. It's like, it's like, dude, just like, show me a picture of like five people and I'll just point.

• 1:03:28Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 1:03:29Sam Parr?

  Um, a lot of barbers don't have that.

• 1:03:30Shaan Puri?

  Or dude, it could be unspoken because everybody just wants short on the side, a little less short on top, but shorter than it is currently. And you should only have to say anything if you want some other shit. Like, oh, I'm going for this other look. I want to do a look. Okay. Then it's on me to tell you about the look. But if not, I just want to sit down, no words, just do the short on the sides, a little short on top.

• 1:03:54Sam Parr?

  Same. Just like, give me like three options, like completely bald, uh, like, uh, just a, whatever the three are, and I'll just point at one of them. And by the way, just don't talk to me unless I initiate conversation.

• 1:04:07Shaan Puri?

  And do my eyebrows because they're getting a little long. I got long eyebrows. Everyone knows that. Don't make me ask.

• 1:04:11Sam Parr?

  Well, that's the number.

• 1:04:12Shaan Puri?

  Don't make me ask.

• 1:04:13Sam Parr?

  That's the number, that's the number four. And also they say like, do you want your, you want the back of your neck rounded or squared? I'm like, I don't know. I don't care. Like, I don't see it. You, you be the judge.

• 1:04:24Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And I've, I've, at one time I asked him, I was like, what's the deal with this question? Because I don't know. And like, is there a difference? What's the deal? And then someone told me, actually, one of the barbers actually taught me, they were like, look, if you do square, when it starts to grow back out, it's going to look shitty. So it looks good initially, but then it looks, it'll look obviously not square after it starts to grow up. He's like, do the round, because then even as it grows back, it's like blends in. It's not so bad. That's all.

• 1:04:51Sam Parr?

  Dude, this sounds like a Larry David episode. Like, uh, like, so what's the round and square? What's the difference? Like, I mean.

• 1:04:57Shaan Puri?

  We try, we try.

• 1:04:59Sam Parr?

  So um, this one went off the rails. I, I, I think people, this is gonna hit with some people. So tweet at me and Sean and let us know if this like.

• 1:05:08Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, just tweet like, yo, stick to the script. Uh, if you want us to not go off the rails as much. Or just say, go off the rails if you want us to go off the rails.

• 1:05:16Sam Parr?

  Well, the good, the good news is Sean is we don't have to do that much work to research for next Tuesday. Cause I actually had some stuff to go over.

• 1:05:23Shaan Puri?

  All our topics are still there.

• 1:05:24Sam Parr?

  Because we got stuck on journalists and uh, beekeeping and a bunch of stupid bullshit.

• 1:05:29Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I'm mad again about that article from 10 years ago now. I'm like, still pissed.

• 1:05:33Sam Parr?

  Uh, me too. I got mad. Uh, I'm friends with the woman who I talked about. I'm friends with her on Facebook. And I like called her out and uh, it never fucking wins when I argue with people online.

• 1:05:43Shaan Puri?

  I'm gonna go decompress.

• 1:05:44Sam Parr?

  I end up looking like, I look like an asshole and it just doesn't work and I do it all the time.

• 1:05:48Shaan Puri?

  All right, man. I'll talk to you later.