How this dumb doll makes $2M per day

Want Sam's Playbook to Uncover Billion-Dollar Business Opportunities? Get it here: https://mfmpod.link/rve Episode 724: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) break down $1B+ product crazes and why they worked. If you want to help those on the inside, donate to The Last Mile (https://thelastmile.org/donate) and Inside Circle (https://insidecircle.org/) — Show Notes: (0:00) Labubu (3:19) The "gotcha" mechanic (10:53) The lipstick effect (12:53) The lalapalooza effect (15:17) $1B+ crazes (20:48) Tony's Chocolonely (31:10) Sam goes to prison (37:18) The Larry story (41:26) Shaan joins a prison gang (51:15) Sam vows to quit the internet and money (54:52) Pomp's SPAC — Links: • Pop Mart - https://www.popmart.com/us • Tony’s Chocolonely - https://tonyschocolonely.com/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

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

• 0:00Shaan Puri?

  The stock has grown in the last year from a $7 billion company to now a $44 billion company. Forty-four billion.

• 0:06Sam Parr?

  Okay.

• 0:07Shaan Puri?

  You know what I mean? That's what Elon bought X for.

• 0:11Shaan Puri?

  This guy's selling Labubus.

• 0:12Sam Parr?

  It's insane. It's crazy.

• 0:22Shaan Puri?

  All right. Dude, Sam, do you know what one of these are?

• 0:26Sam Parr?

  Oh, my gosh. Ramon will not quit talking to me about these things. Okay, so those, all right, so for the listeners, Sean's showing me.

• 0:34Shaan Puri?

  What am I holding up?

• 0:35Sam Parr?

  They look like dolls, basically in the same vein as a troll. But I have gotten texts from my friend, our friend Ramon, who says, have you heard of this thing? It's worth, and he says the number, and I'm like, oh, it must have been a typo. So what's the deal with these things?

• 0:51Shaan Puri?

  Do you know what they're called?

• 0:53Sam Parr?

  I don't, Super something?

• 0:55Shaan Puri?

  No, this, this is a Labubu. All right, Sam, get yourself educated. This is a Labubu doll, okay?

• 1:02Sam Parr?

  Does it have a Prada sign on it?

• 1:05Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's part of the, part of the shtick here. Okay, so what's the, what's the story with these things? This is basically the most viral toy in the world. It's one of the biggest crazes since, you know, Bebe Babys and things like that. And so the story behind this thing is pretty crazy. I just wanted to tell you some of the things that I know about it. Of course, my wife put me onto this months ago, and I just ignored it as the, the stock of this company is up like 7X in a year. Because this thing is going crazy.

• 1:32Sam Parr?

  Chinese company, right?

• 1:34Shaan Puri?

  Chinese company, yeah. So this is made by, this, these dolls are produced by a Chinese company called Popmark. And the maker for this guy, Wang Ning, he is now the 10th richest man in China. And like, he's adding like a billion dollars to his net worth in the last, you know.

• 1:48Sam Parr?

  But he's like 30, right? Or, or like he's?

• 1:51Shaan Puri?

  He's, he's really young. Like, dude, look at this picture of him.

• 1:55Sam Parr?

  Yeah, but Chinese guys always look really young until they don't.

• 1:58Shaan Puri?

  Until they don't.

• 1:59Sam Parr?

  Yeah, haven't you ever heard, like, all of my Asian friends, they're like, we always look young and then we fall off a cliff.

• 2:04Shaan Puri?

  All right. Did you see this guy?

• 2:06Sam Parr?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, he could be 12 or 50. I don't know.

• 2:12Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so this guy is behind this company Popmart. But it's kind of fascinating what's going on with this craze, right? Like, it's it's really taken over. So somebody gave these to my kids as like a gift. And I didn't really understand the significance of it. I was like, oh, cool. Thanks. I didn't realize that we were just gifted like a really important thing. This is like one of the more valuable items in my house right now. Like, these things sell for thousands of dollars. The top ones can sell for six figures. That's how crazy the the craze is for this.

• 2:43Sam Parr?

  OK, so tell me the story, because this is this sounds like a good good stock to short, because that's typically how these like collectibles kind of tend to go, right?

• 2:52Shaan Puri?

  Yes, I agree with you. We'll get to that. All right, so the story of the Labubu dolls is there's a guy who's an artist around 2015. He's he's in the Netherlands. He gets inspired for to create like a kind of like a toy world. So like a a character world based on where he's at in the Netherlands. And he designs these dolls, these kind of like, like, look at their teeth, like the little like gremlin looking doll. And there's hope for us, OK? Because the experts are describing this as ugly cute. And it's succeeded because it's ugly cute. And I just thought like our podcast, I just feel like that just gave us like some wind in our sails for what we could do as well on YouTube.

• 3:31Sam Parr?

  It's worse for us because we're not particularly ugly, but we're not particularly good looking. Is there like a eh, cute?

• 3:39Shaan Puri?

  What the kids call mid. Yeah. All right, so he creates these in 2015. Not a lot happens from there, but in 2019, so four years later, he partners with this company Popmart. And Popmart was started about a decade ago because this guy Wang Ning had this insight, which is he thought that this kidult trend, we talked about this before because you're into Legos. So he's like this kidult trend, this like kids toys for adults.

• 4:05Sam Parr?

  Like minis. Yeah.

• 4:07Shaan Puri?

  And so he creates this store and the store to really takes advantage of this like style, this business mechanic called blind boxes, which I don't know if you've seen LOL dolls or mini brands where you buy the box, but you don't know what's inside, similar to like Pokemon card packs. You buy the pack, you don't know what cards are inside. And so this mechanic, which I think they call like the gotcha mechanic, creates a lot more spending, right? People will, will keep buying because it's a little bit like a treasure hunt and you want to see what you can find, what you can get.

• 4:37Sam Parr?

  And this used to be a scam. Like I remember Logan Paul or Jake Paul was sponsored or did business with a company called Mystery Box and that was like a rage, like a very trendy thing for like three months. Do you remember that? Like 10 years ago?

• 4:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, like these loot boxes are in games and people know that, okay, this is kind of not, it's not a scam per se, but it's basically manipulative, right? It gets people to buy a lot more. People get addicted to this thing. And especially when you're targeting kids, which is why Logan Paul and those guys got in trouble was, hey, this is targeting kids. The beauty of this is it's not targeting kids. So the way these blew up is through celebrities.

• 5:10Sam Parr?

  Wait, can I ask a question about the company Popmart? So he had a, Popmart, he had just a, it was a toy company for a long time? Or what was the, the origin?

• 5:19Shaan Puri?

  So the story is 2010, he opens up a small designer store in Beijing and he's trying to build it off this Kindle collectibles brand. He starts selling blind boxes. This Labubu is not in play at this point. There's other blind boxes that he's trying to sell. And in 10 years, they grow from one store to, you know, 300 plus stores, 2000 vending machines where you could just like, it's just, you know, you just buy one of these boxes right, right out of a machine. It ends up going public in 2020. Stock doubles on the first day. The stock has grown in the last year from a $7 billion company to now a $44 billion company. 44 billion. You know what I mean? That's what Elon bought X for.

• 5:57Sam Parr?

  So that's so insane. So the, before it became, when it was just a four or seven, I think you said billion dollar company, they just sold like dolls that people liked? And it's so, which, which a $7 billion toy company is, is, that's already a mega success. So they sold other people's stuff?

• 6:12Shaan Puri?

  That was over four years. But yeah, yeah, they're, they're, they're selling collectibles of different brands, different IP. And this is one of the IP that they have. And this doll alone, like these, these Labubus did like 700 million last year. So they're like now like almost, it's, it's, it's getting close to about half of the revenue of the company overall because the trend has exploded.

• 6:32Sam Parr?

  And then they connect with this, with this artist. And so that's brings us to where we are now?

• 6:36Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, so the question is, how did this explode? Where does a? The thing that fascinated me is like, where does a trend like this even come from? How does this happen? Because it's totally irrational, right? Like, why this doll? Why not another doll? Who is it? The teeth? Is it the outfit? Is it what? What is it behind it? So there's some, I guess, learnings to have from this about like the psychology of a winning product. So just want to tell you a little story about how this happens. So check this out.

• 7:03Shaan Puri?

  Exhibit A, 2023.

• 7:06Sam Parr?

  Okay, so this is a photo that you clearly can tell it's just Rihanna like getting coffee or leaving a hotel.

• 7:13Shaan Puri?

  She's going to an airport.

• 7:14Sam Parr?

  And she just looks like she's it's not sponsored. She's just being a lady and she has one of the toy bebops or boo boos or whatever they're called hanging off of her bookbag.

• 7:24Shaan Puri?

  Bookbag?

• 7:26Sam Parr?

  Is that what it is?

• 7:27Shaan Puri?

  It's a Louis Vuitton purse.

• 7:28Sam Parr?

  Okay, it looks like a book. I'm looking from far away. It looks like a bookbag.

• 7:32Shaan Puri?

  Okay, so she's spotted with it. Hmm, interesting. At the same time, another trend is happening in Thailand. In Thailand, people are starting to see these labubus, for whatever reason, as possible good luck charms. And in Thailand, people are quite religious and they started to view these as like, almost like a spiritual, like a little guardian that they could have with them. And so that's that rumor starts to spread. And then what happens is, do you know the band Blackpink? Have you ever heard of this band?

• 7:59Sam Parr?

  No.

• 8:00Shaan Puri?

  It's like a Korean pop band. Faces like one of the most popular pop bands in the world. So it's a girl band like Spice Girls.

• 8:07Sam Parr?

  Oh, I know it. Yeah, I like I like those guys. I see their music videos. They're very eye catching. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. But it's just like, it's a sensation. You'll go on YouTube and you're like, what is this thing with a billion views on YouTube? It's sort of like the sensation of like the BTS thing.

• 8:22Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. Okay, so, okay, so this is right here. This is now we're talking about Blackpink. So Lisa from Blackpink goes to Thailand to visit her friend. Her friend says, hey, what do you want to do today? They decide, let's go shopping. She thinks, okay, we're gonna go shopping clothes, bags. What are we gonna go buy? But no, she wants to go to Popmart. And she says, what? I don't know what Popmart is, but they go to a Popmart store. At the pop mart store, the friend really wants a Labubu. And Lisa says, honestly, not into it. Don't, I don't get it. Don't, don't care about it, blah, blah. But the friend gets super disappointed because they're all sold out. And the lady at the store is like, listen, it's impossible. You're not going to get one.

• 9:07Shaan Puri?

  And that little memetic monster inside Lisa starts to roar, the one in her stomach. And she's like, you know what? If I can't have it, I must have it. And she decides, actually, I think I do like Labubus. And I think I do want to go get Labubus. And she starts to collect these. Now, she starts getting obsessed with pop mart. She goes, she buys blind boxes. And she starts collecting these. This becomes her de-stress type of thing she does from the, the stressful life of being a world famous pop star.

• 9:33Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 9:34Shaan Puri?

  Now, she gets caught having a Labubu. Why? Because she posted on her Instagram. So now we're fast forward 2024. This is the photo that created the craze. It went from just like, you know, how a hurricane starts and there's like some, some sweeping winds. Maybe a, a casual storm, a casual rainstorm. And then, then comes the hurricane. And this, this Instagram story started the hurricane and it's her hugging her Labubu.

• 10:00Sam Parr?

  Can I say something? I kind of get it. That looks pretty cool.

• 10:05Shaan Puri?

  It looks pretty. For you too, this photo?

• 10:07Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's a, it's like an old white guy in overalls. It's kind of what it looks like. It looks like a farmer.

• 10:12Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, this does look like a Midwest farmer, actually.

• 10:15Sam Parr?

  This, I kind of like, I, I, and it's big. It's about two feet tall. I kind of think that's neat. I understand.

• 10:22Shaan Puri?

  This is a big one. Yeah. So they, they come in different sizes. The, the one that sold for over a hundred thousand, that was like a, a human sized one.

• 10:27Sam Parr?

  Okay.

• 10:28Shaan Puri?

  Okay. So this is the stock since that photo was taken. And you can see the stock is up seven X since then.

• 10:34Sam Parr?

  Oh, my God.

• 10:35Shaan Puri?

  Crushing. And so the Labubu craze starts and what, you know, what's interesting about this is why? Okay. So celebrities started posting about it. That's it. Okay. I get that. But what else? So here's some of the other things that I found kind of interesting from a, I don't know, behavioral psychology point of view. The first is the lipstick effect. Have you ever heard of the lipstick effect? I don't think so. So there's an economic theory that basically says that whenever people are under financial pressure, so maybe the economy is a little bit choppy, maybe there's, you know, there's inflation, there's wage pressure, whatever it is, people will opt, people think that you'll stop spending, but what actually happens is you shift the spending.

• 11:17Shaan Puri?

  And so instead of buying a new bag, you'll just buy some lipstick, you'll buy a new lipstick. And so lipstick sales will explode at the time during economic pressure because you take away from bigger luxury purchases and they go into smaller luxury purchases. So instead of a $200 outfit or a bag, you're going to buy a $20 item instead. And so people think that this is part of what's behind LaBubu, which is that this thing, you know, initially started where these are like, you know, a $20, $25 box that you buy and you get a LaBubu. But the thing with these, the smart thing of these is I showed you the doll. This is the most important part, this little ring, because most stuffed animals, you just keep them at home. So there's no virality to it, right? You just have it at the comfort of your own home. Nobody sees it.

• 12:03Shaan Puri?

  You don't get to show it off. It's not a status symbol. By just having the bag clip attached to these things, they suddenly became like luxury accessories. And so that's why Rihanna had it attached to her bag and this Blackpink lady had hers. And then David Beckham is posting that and Kim Kardashian posts that she has 10 of them and she starts clipping them to her bags. It becomes this add-on to your luxury bag, this cute little add-on that you could put on your bag. And then each one of these has an outfit. So I can take this off and I can buy new clothes for this and I can upgrade my LaBubu. So now you have all- Can you spell LaBubu? L A B U B U. Oh, okay, I see. By the way, LaBubu is actually only one of the characters, but that's just what it became called.

• 12:45Shaan Puri?

  The character structure is called the monsters, but nobody, that didn't stick. Oh my gosh, I'm on their website.

• 12:52Sam Parr?

  I think it's kind of cool.

• 12:53Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. And so, and so what, what I think is interesting here is that you have this kind of what Charlie Munger calls the Lollapalooza effect. So maybe you have the lipstick effect, causing people to look for little luxuries. Then you have the kidult effect where you have adults looking for, you know, maybe comfort and pleasure, because when there, that's another economic theory here, which is that when adults face stress from work and global events like wars and whatnot, they find emotional relief in collecting toys and things that connect with their childhood. So you have that effect kicking in. You have the lipstick effect kicking in. You have the status symbol effect of this, where you can attach this to your bag. You have the ugly cute effect, which we are just, we're just crushing with right now.

• 13:38Shaan Puri?

  And so all these come together to create the phenomenon that is Le Boo Boo.

• 13:42Sam Parr?

  Great, great, great job. Good find. I, I've been hearing about this, but I didn't exactly dive deep. So that's cool that you did this. This is not sustainable and this is definitely going to go away in the next five years. But let's get it while the getting's good.

• 13:59Sam Parr?

  All right. So I've built a few companies that have made a few million dollars a year, and I've built two companies that have made tens of millions of dollars a year. And so I have a little bit of experience launching, building, creating new things. And I actually don't come up with a lot of original ideas. Instead, what I'm really, really good at, what my skillset is, is researching different ideas, different gaps in the market, and reverse engineering companies. And I did invent this, by the way. We had this guy, Brad Jacobs, we talked to him on the podcast. He started like four or five different publicly traded companies where tens of billions of dollars each. He actually is the one who I learned how to do this from. And so with the team at HubSpot, we put together all of my research tactics, frameworks,

• 14:40Sam Parr?

  techniques on spotting different opportunities in the market, reverse engineering companies, and figuring out exactly where opportunities are versus just coming up with a random silly idea and throwing it against the wall and hoping that it sticks. And so if you want to see my framework, you can check it out. The link is below in the YouTube description.

• 14:59Shaan Puri?

  So I started thinking, how do I make money on this? All right. So the first way I should have made money on this was when my wife started telling me about this, which was, I don't know, six to eight months ago. I should have either bought the stock, I should have looked, I didn't even think it was going to be a stock. I just thought it was like a stuffed animal. I didn't even think it was a public company. Should have bought the stock or, you know, you could have, could have tried to collect and flip. Okay, that's too much effort. So what's the play here? So I went and looked up, I asked AI, I said, tell me the last five crazy toy crazes as crazy as La Booboo over the last 50 years and compare them.

• 15:30Sam Parr?

  What were some of the other ones? So it would have been cabbage?

• 15:32Shaan Puri?

  Cabbage Patch was the first one that it came up with.

• 15:35Sam Parr?

  Beanie Babies?

• 15:36Shaan Puri?

  Beanie Babies was the second.

• 15:37Sam Parr?

  I think trolls were popular for a minute, but I don't know if they were a craze.

• 15:40Shaan Puri?

  Then it gave me Pokemon, Pokemon cards, which had two bumps. There was the one when we were kids where buying a collected packs reached about, about the same revenue, about $2 billion a year. And then it died down for about 20 years. And then recently with like kind of Logan Paul started collecting them again.

• 15:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah, the video game.

• 15:58Shaan Puri?

  Another peak and it had 1.6 billion in it sales on the cards recently. So Pokemon. And then the last one I gave me, which was, I thought kind of interesting as AI, but actually is a good point because I was thinking maybe Furbies or Tamagotchis. I didn't, I didn't know what it was going to give me. Those were smaller. It gave me Stanley cups, which actually makes total sense because it's the same thing. It's the exact same thing. And so it gave me those. And the funny thing about these is on a, on the scale, La Booboo is actually still small. So this doll did about 700 million. Those all at their peak were kind of like 1.6 to $2 billion in sales. So I actually expect that over the next year, this thing goes even, the star kind of goes

• 16:43Shaan Puri?

  viral now, it burns out and it hits a 2 billion or 3 billion in revenue. And then it's going to crash because the funny thing with all of these is they all had about a two to three year peak tops. And so I think the actual play, if you want to make money on this thing is to short Pop Mart stock, starting around, you know, end of 2026 and, you know, maybe, maybe through 2027. Now, shorting is dangerous because you can lose your shirt because shorting has sort of asymmetric downside. But if you, I think if you were a betting man, the odds are that, you know, by 2027, this thing is not a $44 billion company anymore.

• 17:21Sam Parr?

  What was the name? Okay. So you had a friend, Michael, Michael Smith, Michael Atkins Smith, he had a. The guy who created calm.com, before he created calm.com, the meditation app, he actually had a toy, a stuffed animal toy company called like Minnow Monsters or something.

• 17:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, that's right. What was the name of this?

• 17:41Sam Parr?

  And

• 17:41Shaan Puri?

  So his company was called Mind Candy and it was Moshi Monsters.

• 17:44Sam Parr?

  Moshi Monsters.

• 17:45Shaan Puri?

  Minnow Monsters was a mobile game. Moshi Monsters was his.

• 17:48Sam Parr?

  If I remember correctly, this is all 15 years ago, so it's harder to remember everything. But he raised lots of money as a technology company, almost, or at least from tech VCs. And he was like, I'm gonna build a massive toy business. And I remember reading at the time, this is insane. You're stupid. But now that I think about it, there's been many examples of where that is not stupid. And this is yet another one of them, where you could actually build a really cool IP toy company. And he was, it sounds like he was on the right track. It didn't work out.

• 18:16Shaan Puri?

  He was, dude. It was big in the UK. So in the UK, it was like, I don't know, one out of every three kids is playing Moshi Monsters. It was like insane. It was like 90 million users globally. And I remember meeting him, I think it was still during the, kind of like, it was kind of like the tail end of the peak. So it was big, but it was, it had stopped exploding. And he was like, that's okay, we're gonna like, try to turn this into a thing. And he was telling me, they're making Moshi shampoo and body wash. And you know, it's going into every category, but unfortunately that one didn't work out. We have to get Michael on, by the way.

• 18:51Sam Parr?

  By the way, I was gonna say that. We have to get Michael on the pod because

• 18:54Shaan Puri?

  Have you met him? He is one of the coolest guys I've met. He's such a nice guy, first of all, like total genuine, good dude. Super creative, really creative genius. And then also like a rock star, kind of. Like, if you meet him, you're like, oh, I'm talking to Russell Brand's, like, you know, cooler brother.

• 19:14Sam Parr?

  You should, everyone should Google him. His name's Michael Acton Smith. And I remember back at 14 or 13 or 12, where, I mean, I'm still interested in this, but I was like, I want to be like, I was like, looking for a person I wanted to be like. And it was like him.

• 19:27Shaan Puri?

  He would be one.

• 19:28Sam Parr?

  Because there was like photos of him, like, holding hands with like Paris Hilton. Or like, he was like, if you Google like Michael Acton Smith, like he

• 19:36Shaan Puri?

  But they're not even dating. That's the best part. Just holding hands.

• 19:39Sam Parr?

  He was like, he had like paparazzi photos of him because he had this like tech angle, even though he wasn't exactly in tech. But if you guys Google him and see what he looks like, you'll understand. He looks like a

• 19:48Shaan Puri?

  The Daily Telegraph described him as a rock star version of Willy Wonka. That's his Wikipedia page.

• 19:54Sam Parr?

  It's great. This guy was so cool. And now he has since started Calm, which I have no idea how big it is, but it's hundreds or hundreds of millions or billions.

• 20:02Shaan Puri?

  A multi-billion dollar company.

• 20:03Sam Parr?

  He's the man. This guy's absolutely the man. And he's been the man for 20 years.

• 20:08Shaan Puri?

  He has. He has. He is. He's amazing. Okay, I'm gonna call him after this and be like, I will fly to you. Let's do it episode because.

• 20:14Sam Parr?

  Where's he even live now?

• 20:16Shaan Puri?

  I think he was in the UK. He was kind of back and forth between like, you know, US and UK. I think he's in the UK now.

• 20:21Sam Parr?

  He's just like a rich guy now? He just like does what he wants?

• 20:24Shaan Puri?

  Well, I think he always did what he wants. That's why he was, that's why he was our hero.

• 20:28Sam Parr?

  That's the difference between. That's the difference between guys like me and guys like him, I guess, like he.

• 20:38Shaan Puri?

  Money and money chased him.

• 20:40Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 20:42Sam Parr?

  He didn't run very fast. This guy's the man. Cutting your sales cycle in half sounds pretty impossible, but that's exactly what Sandler Training did with HubSpot. They use Breeze, HubSpot's AI tools, to tailor every customer interaction without losing their personal touch. And the results were incredible. Click through rates jumped 25%. Qualified leads quadrupled, and people spent three times longer on their landing pages. Go to hubspot.com to see how Breeze can help your business grow.

• 21:16Shaan Puri?

  Okay, I have another one for you. Can I give you another one? So we did kids toys. I have another one. You might know the story of this one. Have you ever had one of these before?

• 21:23Sam Parr?

  Okay, what's this?

• 21:26Shaan Puri?

  Oh, I'm holding up.

• 21:28Sam Parr?

  No, it looks like, what is that bubble gum?

• 21:29Shaan Puri?

  A box of Tony's Chocoloney.

• 21:32Sam Parr?

  Hell yeah, brother. I love Tony's Chocoloney. Do they have some that have Pop Rocks in them?

• 21:37Shaan Puri?

  By the way, I've been saying it wrong for a long time. It's not Tony's Chocoloney. It's Tony's Choc-a-Lo-ney. Do you know that?

• 21:43Sam Parr?

  I just call it Tonys. I love Tonys. I learned, I have always bought them. And then when we hung out with Mr. Beast, I kind of, he told us the backstory. I didn't realize how amazing they were. I love Tonys.

• 21:56Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah. And their backstory is even better than I thought. Because when we were hanging out with Jimmy, he was like, oh yeah, I am. You know, he for Feastables really wanted to get Feastables to have a supply chain that had no child labor. He's like, you know, most of the cocoa farms in Africa have child labor. All the big chocolate brands, you know, Hershey's, et cetera, they all buy from them. When I learned that, that was effed up, I went over there and we try and we've basically been spending, you know, a couple of years now trying to fix the supply chain so that that doesn't have to be the case.

• 22:26Sam Parr?

  He was like, every company, I don't like this, this or that thing about them, but there's one company that I really admire that seems to be doing something well. And I think that's how he like phrased it. And he said, Tony's is the one they do things right is basically what he said.

• 22:37Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And he actually called the founders of this and learned from them of like, okay, what do I need to do? Which is cool because they were the ones who were who initially made the push. But do you know the backstory of why they made the push into doing this?

• 22:49Sam Parr?

  Wasn't it started by an actor or a famous person in Holland or something like that?

• 22:53Shaan Puri?

  A journalist.

• 22:54Sam Parr?

  A journalist. Okay. It was like a non business person who started it. And they started it with, it's one of these cool stories where they didn't so much care about chocolate. They cared about like helping the earth or human rights or something. And we're just so happened to be doing it via chocolate. Like it was something like a story like that, wasn't it?

• 23:08Shaan Puri?

  So the story is, um, these, I think there was two, uh, Dutch journalists, but these two Dutch journalists, they're covering the chocolate industry on their TV show. And, um, they hear about, you know, that the chocolate companies are all, all the chocolate, all the cocoa comes from West Africa. And that there's a lot of child, yeah, slavery and child labor. So two separate things, right? Slavery and then child labor happening, uh, happening on the farms there. So they want to go and, uh, investigate. So they go down there. They investigate, they find that it's true. And, um, they put, you know, they put out a story to try to help. And, um, I think the story, the exact story is that at one point, all the big chocolate companies signed like a treaty.

• 23:53Shaan Puri?

  They signed like a pact to say, we're gonna stop this. And I guess like years later, they had gone back and they had gone to investigate. And it was like the exact same situation. They saw that it kind of nothing had really changed. And so these guys are pretty disheartened by it. So they decide like, this is where the story gets crazy. Because a normal person, even a normal, a great journalist would just report the story. Maybe use some, some, some choice language when they, when they talk about it. And then they would shake their finger at them and move on. But these journalists went and did like, you know, took the exit off of High Agency Avenue. And we're like, no, no, no, watch this. And so the guys, they come back and they do, they decide to do a publicity stunt.

• 24:35Shaan Puri?

  So he eats the chocolate and he calls the police and the police come and they're like, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm eating chocolate that was made with slave labor and child labor. And they're like, that's what? That's not a, you're eating chocolate. That's not a crime. He goes, no, no, actually, according to statute, blah, blah, blah. Knowingly consuming this product, knowing what I know, that this is the product of child labor and slave labor. That's actually illegal. Arrest me, boys. And so they lock him up, they take him to jail, and that becomes this viral sort of news stunt that brings even more attention to this. Now prosecutors end up dismissing the case because they're like, we're not going to prosecute this. But they decide to go in and create their own ethically made chocolate brand.

• 25:18Shaan Puri?

  And they decide to call it Tony's Choco Lonely because they're like, the guy's, the guy's name is Toon. And but in the, that's his Dutch name, but the like, Americanized, westernized version of, of Tone, I guess is his name, would be Tony. So there goes Tony's and instead of, and he said, it's going to be very lonely to build a chocolate company that's actually trying to be like ethically sourced. So we called it Tony's Choco Lonely. Okay.

• 25:41Sam Parr?

  Great.

• 25:42Shaan Puri?

  And that's how they felt in their fight against the cocoa, you know, industry. And it becomes a hit pretty much right away. They, they sell 20,000 bars in two days because of the public like resonance with their story. And it becomes the best selling chocolate brand in their market, which is the Netherlands. They get like 20% share in the, in the Netherlands. Uh, it passes up Mars and Nestle and other, other competitors there. And then they start expanding and they keep expanding and then they start finding like-minded brands. So they're, you know, I don't know if you know about Ben and Jerry's, but Ben and Jerry's is also one of these like very, uh, sort of like strong ethical.

• 26:17Sam Parr?

  Yeah, opinion driven. They, they stick to what they want to do.

• 26:20Shaan Puri?

  Good people corporations. I actually saw Ben or Jerry, I forgot which one, talk at an event I was at, uh, like 15 years ago. And I remember being pretty blown away by the like, how genuine it was for them and how the extent that they had gone, right? So for example, I don't know if it was like, they have this one flavor that's like their brownie flavor. I forgot it like, you know, I'm so fucking fit now. I can't even remember the name, dude. It's insane. It's chocolate fudge brownie.

• 26:51Shaan Puri?

  That's so my past, I just can't even remember.

• 26:53Sam Parr?

  I barely remember how that felt last week.

• 26:56Shaan Puri?

  By the way, meanwhile, I'm holding up this Tony's Chocolate Lonely, three bars are missing from this pack. Blame it on the kids.

• 27:03Sam Parr?

  My wife gets pissed off at me because whenever we bring like a treat to like a friend's house, we bring dessert, they cook dinner and like, it's like already open. And she's like, what the hell? You can't like give like a pack of ice cream when there's like one, I'm like, why not? We're gonna open it anyway, like half an hour. Why can't I open it now? That's sort of what, that's sort of what happened.

• 27:28Sam Parr?

  She's like, I'm a, she's like, I'm a, she always compares me to like a bear looking in the cabinets for honey and I get my fingers stuck in the jar.

• 27:36Shaan Puri?

  My brother in law, Aaron, he's, he's one of these people that like, you know, doesn't, doesn't eat a ton in general, like food's not a big, he's not a big foodie.

• 27:43Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Shaan Puri?

  But if you leave like a snack, he's like a bear. Like if you leave a treat in their house, it's gone by the morning and you're like, did you wake up? And so like, he'll eat the whole bag, right? Of anything. And so my sister calls it like with Oreos, like, uh, like we got a pack of Oreos, right? And she's like, oh my God, Aaron's doing a line right now. And doing a line to her, Matt, you eat the entire row of Oreos, like he did a whole line. And I just thought that was so funny.

• 28:10Sam Parr?

  Aaron likes to party.

• 28:12Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. Uh, we gotta have him back on. Brother Aaron, the OGs, the real OGs now, he used to, he had two guest cameo experiences, like way back in the first 30 episodes. It's hilarious. Anyways, Chocolate Company. So Tony's Chocolate Lonely, what do they do? Or Ben and Jerry's, finish the Ben and Jerry's thing. They opened up a factory, I think somewhere like in upstate New York or something like this. And they, they, it was after they met, um, what's it called? When you get out of jail and like you're in a program, but you like, don't want to go recidivism. Like they, they wanted to reduce recidivism, like people go back, end up back in jail.

• 28:45Sam Parr?

  Which is traditionally incredibly high.

• 28:48Shaan Puri?

  It's really high and one of the big drivers of why do people who after a long sentence get out and go back, it's not because they're like kind of morally corrupt at their core. It's like they couldn't get a job and then they didn't have any money and they didn't have a social life.

• 29:00Sam Parr?

  And previous friends were losers or they left prison without knowing anyone, but only had $50.

• 29:05Shaan Puri?

  Exactly. And so a big, one way to decrease recidivism is if people can get a job, but nobody wants to give them jobs. So they created a whole factory, their brownie factory is all brownies made by ex-cons, basically. The Ben and Jerry's flavor. They like wanted to, they, they, they met some guys who had a good, good recipe and they like built a factory around them essentially. So they're, they're do-gooders. Um, so Tony Chocolonely to break into the US starts partnering with Ben and Jerry's. Um, and the revenue has just grown and grown and grown. And so like last year, I think they did 200 million in revenue and they made this like a legit chocolate company that started with two journalists, just basically trying to make a stand against the man. How cool is that?

• 29:44Sam Parr?

  This is awesome. This is so cool. I, uh, do they run the company now?

• 29:49Shaan Puri?

  No, so they're out now. Um, there's like a CEO, they, they, like, you know, it's just kind of run by like, you know, normal suits basically at this point. And they get some flack because like, um, their supply chain is still not perfect and, but they're very transparent about it. So the crazy thing is like they'll report that they had like, you know, 11 issues this year of like child labor discovered in their supply chain. And people are like, see, you're not totally free. And they're like, what? We're trying to like, we're trying to be transparent and say, you know, we, we're way less than anybody else. We're, and we're also honest about this and we're reporting it so that we can keep improving this, but they get some flack as like, you know, I guess like skeptics say that maybe they're just greenwashing at this point now since the founders left.

• 30:31Shaan Puri?

  And even I think the founder has sort of alluded to like, it's not the same since we left. I don't know the exact story. It's like, I'm trying to read these like Dutch translations of articles and decided that like, I'd rather just eat the chocolate and chill. Um, so I'm not sure of the exact story, but I think there's maybe a little controversy around that.

• 30:46Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I, I've known about this brand for a while and this, and I didn't know the, I only knew what Jimmy had said, which wasn't in this depth, but that makes me like them way more. The product's awesome. I mean, I love the brand. They also, and I, I eat the shit out of them. I mean, it's, it messes me up, but that's cool.

• 31:06Shaan Puri?

  Maybe you could be the influencer that blows them up even more. Sam Parr, I eat the shit out of them.

• 31:13Sam Parr?

  It's just like, most of my guilty evenings start with a bar of Tony's.

• 31:19Shaan Puri?

  Where do they end?

• 31:21Sam Parr?

  A jar of honey? How much time we got? The issue is, they would sell their candy, like, it used to come in like, the extra K size. It was a huge bar. They only sell in bulk. By the way, did I ever tell you about the time, we were talking about recidivism. This is not entirely related to business, but I think you'll get a kick out of this. Did I tell you about the time? Do you know that I've been to like, I think we've talked about this. I've been to San Quentin a few times in Indiana State Prison.

• 31:46Shaan Puri?

  You've mentioned that you did, but I don't know the exact story. What's the story?

• 31:49Sam Parr?

  I have to tell you the background of this. So, I've gone to, I have a friend, who I'm gonna, this is the story, it's gonna be him. But, I've been to Indiana State Prison a couple of times, or once, I went to San Quentin a few times. One time, I went to Indiana State Prison, so we go because my friend has this charity called The Last Mile. And the idea is like, when you commit a crime, particularly murder, you're not always sentenced to life. You're inevitably going to get out. And it's better for that person, if they get out and have a job. It's better for society if they get out and get a job. And it's better for the taxpayer if they get out and get a job, because you don't want them to go back to prison, because that's bad for everyone. And so, it's, we are all incentivized, it's totally bipartisan, to get this person to be trained and to get a job.

• 32:30Sam Parr?

  And so, this company, The Last Mile, started by my friend Chris, they help you learn, I think, when I went, I think they were learning WordPress. I don't know what they learn now, but this was a while ago. They were learning WordPress, or they were learning like, some front-end development, so you can get a job at like, an eBay, or like a huge company.

• 32:46Shaan Puri?

  Vibecoding now?

• 32:46Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I don't know what they do now. Yeah. They have like, some like, weird like, hot or not app.

• 32:53Shaan Puri?

  They're just minting NFTs?

• 32:55Sam Parr?

  Yeah. I don't know what these guys are doing, but my friend Chris started it. And he was a prominent venture capitalist. He helped, he was the first investor in Wish, he was an early investor in Snap. He did Boom, he did all these other like, cool startups. And for some reason, one day, he went and volunteered at San Quentin, at a prison. And he was like, I think this is my life's mission to like, help reduce recidivism. Meaning, when you get out of prison... And you don't go back. And so he created this thing called the last mile. They now have hundreds of employees. They've had thousands of people who have gone through their program. And I, up until recently, I, he told me this stat a couple of years ago. So I don't want to like jinx someone. I don't know the update.

• 33:38Sam Parr?

  But of the thousand or 2000 people who graduated, not one had ever been back to prison. And that's like a huge thing. And, uh, and so it's really interesting that this tech person has, uh, like he quit. So he doesn't invest anymore. This is all he does. And I talked to another guy, Mike Novogratz. He was on the pod, uh, two weeks ago, and that's his thing now too, is, uh, reducing recidivism. So reducing the rate that you go back to prison. But I know a bunch of people who have given up their careers to go pursue this.

• 34:09Shaan Puri?

  I'm on their website right now. Pretty crazy stats. So it says, since the seventies, the prison population of the US has increased by 700%. Which is not what you would expect. Uh, you know, that's not just like, oh, that makes sense. It should grow every year. It's like, no, no, the prison population should not necessarily grow at that rate. It says that every prison, every person in prison has an annual cost to the American taxpayer of $70,000, which means we pay about $50 billion a year is spent on state and federal prisons.

• 34:41Shaan Puri?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 34:41Sam Parr?

  That's, it's, it's amazing, right?

• 34:43Shaan Puri?

  The last miles, participants in the last mile who, who go through their, I guess it's like an education program as they get out, have a 75% employment rate when they come out, which is

• 34:52Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I wonder what the non, I wonder what the baseline is. It's gotta be half that or less. Well, so basically what happens, and I, and I talked to some of these guys when they were in there, they were like, look, when I got out, I had been in for 10 or 15 years. I was a thug. Like I didn't want to associate with my old people and like my family had either died or was it around? And they basically gave me a bus ticket and 50 bucks. And I was like, sir, where do I go? I'm not sure where I go to right now. What do I do? And so they're like, that's why I came back here is I just started going back to how I used to behave.

• 35:21Shaan Puri?

  By the way, why does he have a, um, this guy Chris looks awesome, Chris Redlitz. Why does he have a Sirius radio show? What, does that get broadcast into, in the prisons in some way? Or like, is that just a, a external thing?

• 35:33Sam Parr?

  Both. So he had, so Chris is interesting. So we had Michael Harris on the pod. Michael, uh, Harrio is his nickname. Harrio is the founder of Death Row Records. Chris is kind of, he, I joke, he's an OG. He's an, he's an original gangster. So he knows all of these guys. So he's friends with Dr. Dre, Snoop, the founders of Death Row, all these cool guys. And they all have this like blend of like hip hop, but also like crime, like interests. And so he decided to have a show with Sirius where he would get, get some of these cool guys on the radio show and they would talk about what his issue is, but also it was like wrapped up in like, kind of cool stories. Cause it's kind of like, like hip hop and like celebrity. And so he had a show for Sirius where he would talk about it.

• 36:16Shaan Puri?

  This guy's living the dream. Got rich, decided to do good in the world, has a great podcast. The triple threat. I love it.

• 36:24Sam Parr?

  He's cool. And so he actually, so I became really close with him. He invested in my company when I was a, a 25 year old or 26 year old in San Francisco. Very coincidentally, we both moved to this small town in Westport, uh, Connecticut together and we hang out all the time. And his wife, her name's Beverly, she's a 95 pound woman. And I've been to San Quentin and we, we were walking on the yard with these guys doing like bench press and sit-ups and whatever, whatever. And I walked with this little lady through the yard and the Red Sea parted. And she just walked through and she's like, Tyrone, how are you? And she would go, Ms. Bev, nice to see you. It was the craziest thing that I've ever seen. It was like, I'm telling you, she like ran this prison yard. She was the only woman there and it

• 37:09Sam Parr?

  was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And they have a joke that says, if it glow, you may go. When you walk in to San Quentin, they stamp your hand. And so when you leave, you have to show them your stamp underneath, underneath a black light in order to get out. And they would do jokes where she would wink at the guy when I'm walking in and he didn't actually stamp me. He just pretended. And I would go to scan my hand to leave and my hand didn't glow. And they're like, sir, you cannot leave. We have to get this figured out. And I was like, I'm not staying here. So like they would pull like tricks on you. Like when you go and see this place, it was wild. But, uh, Chris and Bev, uh, are two people. When I think of how to live life, it's them. That is the way to go.

• 37:48Shaan Puri?

  That's dope. Can I tell you a related story? So my buddy Trevor was writing a book and he did this great, very smart move, which I'd never really heard anybody else do, but I thought it was a good idea. He goes, hey, man, uh, check your email. I checked my email and there's like a plane ticket and it's a plane ticket to go see him. And he's like, um, I'm gonna do, I want to write this book and I want it to be great. And I could sit here and brainstorm this on my own, but I really want to do something that I'm calling a bookstorm. And he basically decided to fly out the five kind of smartest, most interesting people he knew to hang out with him for a day and just help him flesh out and brainstorm the book together. And he's like, I will owe you one for life, but I just really respect you, trust you, and I really want your

• 38:32Shaan Puri?

  help with this because I'm trying to make this great. I go and in the room is basically my buddy Trevor, his brother, and then there's the head of like the women's volleyball, uh, the US women's volleyball team, uh, which is like way outperformed in the Olympics and won like a bunch of gold. And there was one other person, and then there was this guy Larry. I'm like, oh, I'm a professional brainstormer. This is literally what I do. I'm like just ready to rock and roll. But I'm just blown away by this guy Larry. Every time this guy Larry opens his mouth, he says something that's super wise, super smart, on the nose, just a few words, but he's always on point. And so after about an hour of the brainstorming around the book, I was like, dude, I gotta ask Larry, I missed

• 39:14Shaan Puri?

  the intro. What's your story, dude? Cause you're incredible. And Larry tells the story where Larry's like, you know, I, um, my name's Larry, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I was incarcerated for the past 22 years. And I think he had just gotten out. I don't know how long it had been, maybe a year or two, something like that. And he goes, yeah, from the age 18, he's now 40. He's like, at age 18, I was arrested and I was, I was in for whatever, 22 plus years. And I was like, Larry, no offense, but you just got out a couple of years ago. How are you so smart? How do you know all this stuff? Cause he would, he would have these amazing polls or whatever we're talking about. He would reference this thing in this book and this quote, he could just recite by memory. So Larry, I'm like, Larry, how do you know all this?

• 39:58Shaan Puri?

  Eddie goes, I was incarcerated at age 18. They lock you up and throw away the key, right? Like, you're basically like the lowest man on the totem pole for society. They don't, nobody invests in you at that point. You're, you're a sunk cost. And so he's like, I was, you know, getting in trouble and it was a rough place and it was not a good time. And he's like, I made a decision. I'm no longer in prison. I'm in university. And he's like, so every day I just studied. I just decided to go to university for the past 20 years. He's like, I decided to read all the books and learn and write and better myself. And he's like, I would literally change what I saw. I would walk in the prison yard and I wouldn't see the barbed wire. He's like, I saw roses. He's like, I literally just re-brainwashed myself that I am not in prison.

• 40:42Shaan Puri?

  I am in university and I carried myself like that and I acted like that. He made the most of what was, you know, otherwise a very bad situation. I just remember being so blown away and inspired by this guy Larry, uh, when I heard that, heard that story. Cause I was like, you know, if Larry can do that at a life sentence in prison. This sounds stupid, but like, then I can be bored in a line at Starbucks for it out or, you know, whatever. Like I, you can change where you are. You don't have to be in the situation that it looks like you're in. Like you can literally just decide, no, no, I'm in university right now. No, no, I'm in a spa right now. No, I'm in, I'm in the brainstorming session right now. Yeah. I mean, I am where I want to be.

• 41:19Sam Parr?

  That's so cool. Yeah, it's really challenging because on one hand, for some reason you start, you feel like sad for someone. Like, cause you meet someone, like a lot of the guys I met, they, I think they kind of had a tone for their sins a little bit where like they've changed. But you're like, oh, I feel so bad for you. Like that sucks. You didn't deserve this. And then you like learn about what they did and you're like, ah, actually no, uh, like consequences exist for a reason. Like that sounds fair to me. Uh, and it creates like a, you get, whenever I've done these things with these guys, I get so many mixed emotions. It's a very challenging thing. It's a very hard thing to be part of too. Uh, but it is a no brainer, right? You want someone to like, not go back.

• 41:58Sam Parr?

  So you guys know this, but I have a company called Hampton, joinhampton.com. It's a vetted community for founders and CEOs. Well, we have this member named Levon and Levon saw a bunch of members talking about the same problem within Hampton, which is that they spent hours manually moving data into a PDF. It's tedious, it's annoying and it's a waste of time. And so Levon, like any great entrepreneur, he built a solution and that solution is called Molkku. Molkku uses AI to automatically transfer data from any document into a PDF. And so if you need to turn a supplier invoice into a customer quote, or move info from an application into a contract, you just put a file into Molkku and it auto fills the output PDF in seconds. And a little backstory for all the tech nerds out there. Levon built the entire web app without using a line of code. He used something called Bubble I O.

• 42:42Sam Parr?

  They've added AI tools that can generate an entire app from one prompt. It's pretty amazing and it means you can build tools like Molkku very fast without knowing how to code. And so if you're tired of copying and pasting between documents, or paying people to do that for you, check out Molkku.ai. M O L K U dot AI. All right, back to the pod.

• 43:03Shaan Puri?

  Did I tell you my embarrassing prison story?

• 43:05Sam Parr?

  No, but that sounds so awesome.

• 43:10Sam Parr?

  This can go so many ways.

• 43:12Shaan Puri?

  So I go, I go with this.

• 43:14Sam Parr?

  Were you making dad jokes at your first day in?

• 43:17Shaan Puri?

  So I moved to Silicon Valley and I'm working with this guy, Michael Birch. And Michael Birch is this wonderful guy. Michael's built a successful career in Silicon Valley. He's basically like a billionaire. So one day he messages me like, pack it like, pack a bag with enough clothes for a day. I got two days and meet me like at like whatever, like meet me at like 8:00 AM at the spot. You're not going to work today. I'm like, all right, I don't know what's gonna happen. So I go and we start driving.

• 43:44Sam Parr?

  You had no idea where you were going?

• 43:46Shaan Puri?

  I think he tells me on the drive that we're going to, he's a part of this group called the Inside Circle. And Inside Circle was where they take guys from the outside to go meet guys on the inside. And it was at the prison, Folsom, was it called Folsom Prison?

• 44:03Sam Parr?

  Yeah, Folsom.

• 44:04Shaan Puri?

  And so we go drive there. It's a maximum security prison. And I'm basically just a huge wuss, right? So I don't know what, I don't know what I'm getting into. I don't know what, I didn't actually sign up for this. Michael's just kind of like, trust me, you'll like, this is good. You should do this. I still don't really understand what we're doing. I, I think it's like a, you know, like dare where they like scare you. They like take you in. Yeah, like you're scared straight, like you're like. Yeah, I thought it was scary. Are you gonna discipline me? I thought we were just gonna observe from like behind this like really thick glass. I'm like, oh, cool. We're gonna be like, watch. And I'm gonna be like, wow, I learned so much today from observing. It tapping on the glass. And then they open the door and they're like, all right, guys, come on in. I'm like, what? And so we go in and they're like, all right, uh, you know, pick a buddy, pick a, pick a partner.

• 44:47Shaan Puri?

  And so I'm like, uh, and I like pick this guy and, and the, the program starts. It basically, it's like a men's group. So you sit in a circle, you talk about your feelings. Oh, and by the way, when I walk in, immediately my eyes are drawn to one person. Cause it was so obvious to me like this was the hardest guy in the prison. Somehow this guy had sunglasses and I don't know why he was allowed to have sunglasses. He had a walking, he had a cane, which I thought like, you're not allowed to have like a, like a, something that could be like a weapon. But he's got a cane and he's got sunglasses, but he's not blind, by the way. What? He has the sunglasses like up on his head sometimes. What, white guy or black guy? Black guy. And he had like an entourage, like he had like two guys with him who were really big and like, but they deferred to him.

• 45:31Shaan Puri?

  And he was kind of older and I was just like, I don't know who this guy is, but I've seen enough shows. Was he a somebody? To know that this guy is somebody here. And maybe somebody on the outside, I don't know, but he's somebody in here. Anyway, so he's in my group and his two like entourage guys. So we get in the circle and I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Am I giving advice? Is this a mentorship class? What is this? And it's like, no, no, you're here to talk about, you know, it's a, this is a safe space. Unpack your feelings. I'm like, oh God. And so first guy starts and he starts talking about how he's feeling pissed off. He's feeling pissed off cause like. I mean, crazy story, but like he's locked up in here and his sister outside is having, she's being abused by her boyfriend. He just wants to kill this guy, but he's on the inside. He can't get to this guy. He feels powerless.

• 46:16Shaan Puri?

  And he's sharing this heavy emotional, real life problem.

• 46:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Shaan Puri?

  A grade A real life problem. And I'm, I, of course, because I'm horrible. I stopped listening. I'm just like panicked thinking of what am I going to say? You know, when you're like supposed to be listening, but you just actually just planning what you're supposed to say? I start doing that because I'm like.

• 46:39Sam Parr?

  What are you gonna like retell a fake movie? So you sound hard like.

• 46:42Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. So I'm like, my, my startup doesn't have product where it fit. It's just really grinding my gear. What the hell am I going to say? I don't have real world problems, right? Like my life's pretty good. And the, we're going around the circle and it's just one crazy, like real problem after another. And then, um, and then it's getting to me and I'm just like, what am I going to say? And so I'm like, all right. I guess I go deep in the bag. I'm like, all right, I do have, there is something that's like pretty heavy. I don't really talk about this normally, but like, I guess. Thank God I have this because this is the time and place to unpack this story. And so I start unpacking this story and in my mind, and also I'm like, I'm talking kind of slower and dramatically because I'm like,

• 47:25Shaan Puri?

  let me really ham this up a little bit. Like, let me not, let me not be me and laugh during this. Let me, uh, you know, try to be serious here. And I think I'm doing a great job and the guy with the glasses just midway through is like, man, I don't believe none of that shit.

• 47:43Shaan Puri?

  I'm like, no, and I immediately, I'm like, no, it's true. He goes, I know it's true. And I'm like, so what? Just to clarify, you said still.

• 47:53Shaan Puri?

  Are we cool? What's going on? And he was like, and he was like, man, that ain't your truth though. And so he's like, it's true, but that ain't your truth. And I'm like, what is this puzzle? What is this riddle? I don't know what this means. And then, um,

• 48:07Shaan Puri?

  Creates like really intense moment where I had to stand up. And he's like, they're like, all right, it's time to do the work. I'm like, what? Beat up. And so he's like,

• 48:21Shaan Puri?

  he's like, what's your truth? And I'm like, what? I just feel, uh, and I'm like, I'd like, I'm like, no, but that is a real situation. That has happened to me. And they were like, no, what's your truth? And I was like, all right, the truth is. I'm just trying to say what I think you guys want me to say, cause I just want you to like me. And I put it to the guy. I'm like, I just want you to not hate me. And he looks at me, he just stares at me. He stands up, he gets in my face. He goes, that's your truth.

• 48:52Shaan Puri?

  And then we sat down and then for the next hour, I was like, I don't know what the hell just happened, but I think I'm in a prison gang and this is awesome. I think I've accepted. It's felt amazing.

• 49:02Sam Parr?

  That's called a breakthrough.

• 49:04Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, I had a breakthrough. So that was my prison story.

• 49:07Sam Parr?

  That's great. Did you, uh, how did it end? Did you guys like? Exchange information? What do you do?

• 49:14Shaan Puri?

  Have you ever taken ecstasy? I haven't, but I assumed that's what it felt like. Cause for the rest of the time I was just like, the weight of the world was off my shoulders and I just enjoyed myself enough. And I realized like, oh, I could just be my insecure neurotic self. And that's fine here. Okay, cool. I don't have to pretend. Great. And then they were like, cool. He ain't pretending anymore. We like this guy. Uh, whatever you, whatever you say now, we don't really care, but we just know that you're not pandering to us.

• 49:39Sam Parr?

  What value do these guys get?

• 49:41Shaan Puri?

  What a lesson learned.

• 49:42Sam Parr?

  What value do these guys get?

• 49:45Shaan Puri?

  Well, I think, you know, they live a pretty hard life. No, I think it's just in general, they live a pretty hard life and they go to this meeting every week. So they have this kind of like two hours a week where they get to go and kind of like, as they would say, like, take the mask off, put the armor down. In fact, like, it would be a mix of like the Hispanic guys, the white guys and the black guys in this session. But then they would like openly say like, yeah, but like he, his friend like shanked my friend. And so it's on, but here it's not on, but as soon as we get out, it's on again. And I was like, this is like a pretty bizarre dynamic, but they all agreed like, all right, when we're here, it's whatever. But when, when we're out there, it is what it is. That's the way, that's just the way things are. I remember like, that's insane. But you know, understandable in a way. So they have this as a space where they can like

• 50:29Shaan Puri?

  deload kind of emotionally, mentally, which is important and feel like a human being and be able to like express themselves. I think it's a pretty dehumanizing feeling, right? When you're again locked up, throw away the key and you know, anybody who comes in, they just see you as your label, right? But like in that environment, for those three hours that we were there, you know, nobody was, there was no status. Nobody was better than anybody else. Or like, you know, there was us, but I was worse than everybody else. I guess it's probably the more accurate way of saying it. But like, there was no, they got to like be treated well and be help and be just talked to, one man to another man. Um, at least again, these are my, my, this is like my interpretation of it. I'm sure that people who do this more have like a more sophisticated way and a better way of saying it.

• 51:07Sam Parr?

  By the way, now that we're talking about this and we can wrap up, but Jack Smith, I forgot. This is his big philanthropic cause as well. So Jack Smith, if you ask him what he's doing on a regular basis, for a long time, I would say, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm, I'm pen pals. With like people who are locked up and they, I have a system where they can order any book and I'll get it for them.

• 51:26Shaan Puri?

  Isn't he giving books? Isn't it a book program?

• 51:29Sam Parr?

  Yeah, where he created a website. I forget how he did it, but uh, where they can order a book and he'll buy them any single book that they want.

• 51:37Shaan Puri?

  Dude, most generic name, Jack Smith. You can't find anything when you Google for Jack Smith.

• 51:42Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Shaan Puri?

  Okay. Well, maybe we do this. So there's the last mile, which you could donate to. So go to last mile, the last mile.org. You can donate there. There's inside circle foundation where you could donate there. Um, so maybe do a little good. So if there's anybody who's listening to this and is inspired either to start your own uh, thing or to attend one of these or to donate, uh, go do it, man. Cause it's a, seen it firsthand, does a lot of good and um, I think doesn't get the type of attention that it would ever want. By the way, the inside circle guys, they also made like a movie, a documentary about the program.

• 52:15Sam Parr?

  And Chris Redlitz is the guy who um, who I, who's kind of my mentor and someone I look up to. And you could find him on Twitter. He's um, he's super low key, but he's been the seed investor of like probably five to 10 different unicorns, hugely successful. And now it has dedicated his life to this. So just DM him if you're, want to do whatever. He's, he's pretty open minded.

• 52:35Shaan Puri?

  Do you think you're gonna do something like this, by the way?

• 52:37Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I haven't found my cause for a long

• 52:39Shaan Puri?

  Do you have like a career arc in mind where you're like, cool, I achieve, I climb success mountain and then I parachute over to like, you know, save the world.

• 52:51Sam Parr?

  I told Sarah that at the age of 40, I'm going to stop the getting of money. So I said, by 40, I will no longer pursue any money. And we will have a cause and that's what we will dedicate ourselves to. That's what I, that's

• 53:06Shaan Puri?

  Wow, you've also told me that you're gonna disappear off the internet. I think this is badass and you should talk more about this.

• 53:11Sam Parr?

  I said at the age of 40, yeah, I wanna get off the internet and I wanna not pursue any money making things ever again. I don't want it to like ruin my perspective and just be a shallow capitalist and only care about that. And just delete the internet and just focus on like doing something good. That's, that's what, that's the current, that's the current plan.

• 53:32Shaan Puri?

  How old are you now?

• 53:33Sam Parr?

  I turned 36 a month ago, so I'm 36.

• 53:38Shaan Puri?

  Four years away, dude.

• 53:40Sam Parr?

  Do you think that's a crazy plan?

• 53:42Shaan Puri?

  Of course it's a crazy plan, but it's a pretty cool plan. I think it sounds pretty cool.

• 53:45Sam Parr?

  I said by 40.

• 53:48Shaan Puri?

  I mean, what's your level of seriousness about this? Is this like, that's what's happening or like, I'm just testing this out, seeing how these words sound in my mouth.

• 53:55Sam Parr?

  No, I just think that, I think that, um, I think if you only pursue making money, I think that you become a very shallow person. I think that there's more to life. I think that there's been so many times where I've seen something inspiring and beautiful. And in my head, I think, oh, then we could do this and turn it into this. And then like optimize by doing this as opposed to saying this is beautiful. This is wonderful. I want to experience, let's keep it small. Uh, and so I wanna like force myself to appreciate that. One of my heroes is this guy named Felix Dennis. He wrote the book, How to Get Rich. Felix Dennis was a publisher in England where he founded a bunch of companies, a bunch of publishing companies. Eventually was worth six or $700 million. And he wrote that he was diagnosed with cancer, something like at the age of 60.

• 54:36Sam Parr?

  And then at the age of like 61, while he was like learning about his cancer or something, he got into poetry. And he was like, I'm obsessed with writing poetry. Why on earth did I not discover this sooner? And he quit business partially because he was dying and because he fell in love with poetry. And he wrote in his book that if I could do it all over again, I would have quit at the age of 40 because I had enough and I would have pursued poetry because that was my calling. And I always found that to be amazing because I think that oftentimes when we're doing what we're doing every single day, we get caught into the make more, do more, optimize more, when it's like, kind of, I want to be in the present and I want to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy regardless if they make money. Because how many hobbies have you had where you're like, well, I would only do it if I could like,

• 55:19Sam Parr?

  make like, oh, I want to like, buy these toys and like, maybe I could buy like 10 of them and turn it into a money making thing. Now, what you're doing is actually pretty cool. You, but you still have a capitalistic mindset to it. You are playing the piano and you are live streaming it, which I think is amazing. But in my head, I'm like, I want to do that, too. It's like, well, I only want to do that because I want people to see me learning a hobby. Do you know what I mean? And I like, that's like tainting

• 55:42Shaan Puri?

  Well, I only livestreamed it once.

• 55:43Sam Parr?

  No, I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing, I, I was inspired to do it because I want glory. Do you know what I mean?

• 55:50Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:50Sam Parr?

  And

• 55:51Shaan Puri?

  Well, I, I learned pretty quickly when I started playing the piano that, um, nobody gives a shit if you can play the piano, by the way. It's not like a thing. Like, uh, if somebody plays the piano well, it's like, oh, cool. You can play the piano well. They don't want to listen to even one song. Nobody wants to listen to somebody play a five minute song on the piano. That's a very like, clear thing to me since learning to play piano, but it doesn't matter because playing the, playing a five minute song is incredibly fun. In fact, I was, I sent Ben a text message. I'm gonna read you this text message because I think it's very relevant to what we're talking about. So Pomp did a SPAC recently. Did you see this?

• 56:25Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I, I, I saw it, but I don't entirely know what that means. But yeah.

• 56:29Shaan Puri?

  So our friend, uh, Pomp, Anthony, they SPAC'd a company and the company's goal was to do the kind of Michael Saylor playbook, which is, it's a Bitcoin acquisition and finance company. And so what they're doing is they, they raised, I think, $750 million. They SPAC'd it. Um, it's now public, you know, it's going to be a public company and they basically bought $750 million worth of Bitcoin. Then they're going to raise debt and buy more Bitcoin. They're gonna

• 56:51Sam Parr?

  Because companies can, companies or pension funds can own Pomp's stock, but they can't own Bitcoin. So this is how they get exposure to it. Is that right?

• 57:00Shaan Puri?

  That's one, one aspect to it. There's others, which is like, it's levered. So like, you know, you can, for every dollar you put in, let's say you buy Bitcoin directly, you could buy $1 of Bitcoin, but like their thing might, they're gonna borrow and buy more than a dollar of Bitcoin for every dollar of equity, you know, for example. They also want to eventually turn it into like a full financial services thing. So essentially like a Bitcoin backed bank. I think that's a part of the vision. Anyways, I don't know exactly what they're doing. There's, you know, they're only allowed to say certain things, but point is, it's like Pomp, this guy who's very much like us. I think he's the same age, similarly.

• 57:34Sam Parr?

  I hang out with Anthony all the time.

• 57:36Shaan Puri?

  Creator on the internet, good dude, and he's, you know, he's not like some Uber, Uber, Uber genius. That's like, but he's like relatable. That's what I'm saying. So he's like, he's like one of us. And it's clear that like, you know, this didn't just happen. He's been working on this for, you know, some period of time, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years. You don't know. So he, it's like, oh, wow. Pomp raised $750 million. Has this public company now. I think he owns 8% of it. I saw from the filing. So like, you know, theoretically Pomp has like $80 million of value from this, right? Some creators make courses. Pomp's gonna make like, you know, probably hundreds of millions of dollars from this thing if it goes well. Okay? And that's clearly what he put a lot of energy and focus on and did a great job fundraising for.

• 58:18Shaan Puri?

  And I was texting Ben. I was like, wow, wow, that's incredible. I was like, meanwhile, I've logged 120 hours on the piano in the last six months. And I go, honestly, no regrets, though. Fucking love the piano.

• 58:29Sam Parr?

  Dude, so listen, you tweeted out, you said, "I used to think jealousy was a bad thing, like a sin, and I try to avoid it, but jealousy is a wedding crasher. It shows up uninvited. And recently I started using jealousy to my advantage. Jealousy is an incredible signal. It tells me at a very primal, no logic level, what my subconscious wants. It's a heat signal for taste. I don't obey the signal, but I do observe it and it helps me now." And so this sounds very strange, but when I saw what Pomp was doing, I was like, that's so badass. Congrats to him. But then very weirdly, when I saw you streaming, you played the piano. For some reason, I thought that was oddly one of the cooler things you've done in the last year or two. And I felt stronger. And I'm like, well, why do I feel that? Why do I think that that is cooler?

• 59:12Sam Parr?

  I don't know why exactly, but it relates to that tweet where I'm like, what's the signal there that that's sending? So anyway, I thought that was really cool. I thought that was significantly cooler. And I said this as well, when you were contemplating making a play or starting a business or something like that. It's like, I don't know, for some reason, the play is so much cooler. So I think I would pursue those like artistic things over the money thing. And this sounds like a very trite, you know, like not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that. But I do think that like it's better for your soul that way.

• 59:41Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could already, you know, hear the comments. Oh, must be nice for you. You don't have to work. Another version of it is tech bros discover hobbies. There's more to life than money. But also, by the way, both true. Yeah, both, both, both very valid points of view. I don't think it's the important point of view, but I do think they're valid points of view. I think the important point of view is like, try to figure out what you actually want to do and then pursue it. Like in a relentless sort of un unashamed way. And I think it's very cool. When you said that thing, I think you told me like in five, seven years, I plan to delete my social media, disappear from the internet. And now you're talking about like, you know, and you know, stop, stop pursuing the getting of money.

• 1:00:21Sam Parr?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Shaan Puri?

  I really hope you stick to that. I don't know if you will, because I think it's a very hard thing to do. It's like, hey, could you turn down like, it's like being like, I no longer eat sugar. Right. It's like those people who like, like, I'm going to stop, I'm a diet. Right. It's hard to stick to a diet. But if you actually did that, you would like shoot up in the rankings of like most badass people I know. You know what I mean? You're already top 10, but you would shoot up.

• 1:00:44Sam Parr?

  I've got four years to go. I better get all, I better get all of it while I can. But I do think that that it's also.

• 1:00:51Shaan Puri?

  Give me a percentage. How certain are you you're going to do that at the age of 40? I just need to know. I'm gonna hold you to this.

• 1:00:56Sam Parr?

  60 to 70%. I mean, look, I feel this, a lot of it has to do with family too. Like, I feel like when my little kids start like talking and having personalities, I think I would fall in love with them even more. And I just want to like, be a good example that there's more to life than than just the getting of money.

• 1:01:16Shaan Puri?

  Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally washed. When, when, kids are so cute. I'm just washed up now. I can't do, I can't do anything, dude.

• 1:01:22Sam Parr?

  I'm just hooked. The more personality she shows, the more where I'm like, oh, nothing really matters except our health and being around each other.

• 1:01:30Shaan Puri?

  Right, right.

• 1:01:31Sam Parr?

  I don't know. Is that, does that stay linear like, or does it like, like, does it keep getting higher the more they talk to you?

• 1:01:38Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, it is. But I think, at least for me, like, there's a, there is a cap. It's not one of these unbounded things. It's not like I want to spend every waking moment with you.

• 1:01:45Sam Parr?

  Sure.

• 1:01:46Shaan Puri?

  You got, like, you're too annoying. I'm too tired. This is too much. But it does, I do, I do have like a, it became my favorite thing for like three hours a day. Like, for three hours a day, my kids are my favorite thing in the world. That's three hours a day that my favorite thing used to be working, it used to be, you know, reading. There's other things that were in that spot of like, that three hours a day of like voluntary time I could, I could direct towards anything. And now my kids are that, right? Like, we're just like jumping in the pool with them and doing stuff or playing a game or whatever. That's like, it is super, super fun. But it is capped at like a three to four hours a day. Beyond that, I'm like, like, how dare my wife make me raise my own children? This is too much. I need to be helped and saved. Who's, who's here to save me?

• 1:02:29Sam Parr?

  This is the softest episode we've ever had.

• 1:02:33Shaan Puri?

  All right, we should get off before we start crying.

• 1:02:37Sam Parr?

  All right, that's it. That's a pod.

• 1:02:50Sam Parr?

  All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Camayo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.