High School Dropout to Multi-Billionaire: The Relentless Drive of Rafael Vivas

Rafael “Raf” Vivas is a founding team member of AppLovin, the digital advertising and marketing company led by Adam Foroughi, where he has worked since 2011 in roles spanning business development, eCommerce and growth marketing, and co-founded the game publisher Lion Studios. He started in performance marketing at 14 working for his older brother, dropped out of high school, and at 17 built his own mobile ad platform, where Adam was one of his customers. When Adam decided to build a competing ad network, he recruited Raf as his first business hire in 2011, and Raf's one condition was that he live in the office. Raf explains how a small, unfunded team beat VC-backed rivals by going all in on technology, why he started Lion Studios to beat one of AppLovin's own partners and grew it to over $250 million in revenue in two years, and why he walked away at 28 and came back after the IPO as the stock collapsed. He also shares why AppLovin is against delegation and keeps its team small, how his mentor Mark Rosner taught him that every detail matters, and the best advice he ever received. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/rafael-vivas Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra AppLovin: https://applovin.com/senra Chapters (00:00:00) Kicked out of his house at 16 (00:06:42) Starting his own ad platform at 17 (00:09:58) “Don't be mad, but I'm going to compete with you” (00:11:06) His one condition: living in the office (00:15:40) Turned down by VCs while already profitable (00:21:00) Why he's against delegation (00:24:15) Two years of persistence to land one customer (00:30:42) Lion Studios: built to kill a Cheetah (00:38:41) Walking away from AppLovin at 28 (00:44:13) The IPO that brought him back (00:45:44) The stock buyback that made $50 billion (01:01:01) The mentor who redlined the NDA (01:03:54) “Do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods?” (01:05:46) The best advice he ever received: stay in the game Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:02David Senra?

  You have a very interesting story. One of the most interesting entrepreneurial stories I've ever come across. You're a high school dropout. You got kicked out of your house. You lived in an office and now you're a multi-billionaire. So I want to start with, how did you manage to get yourself kicked out of your house?

• 0:17Speaker 01

  I always focused on driving as much value as I could. And so I realized, you know, when I was in school, I wasn't really good at it. Horrible grades, couldn't pay attention, didn't really care about anything the teachers were talking about. But internet advertising was something that I gravitated to and kind of grabbed on to. And so for me, once I got into the business, I stopped going to classes. I was skipping school. I was working 24/7. And it came to the point where my dad was like, alright, you think you're this big guy? You think you're this hot shot making all this money online? Then just move out of the house. And literally it was like a day later. Got my stuff, moved to my best friend's house. And it was kind of funny because at that time it was, you know, I go up to my best friend's house, his mom was a really sweet lady. And she was like, hey, like, good to see you.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, can I live in your house? And I was like, but I've got a great deal for you. I will employ your son as an intern at this business. I'll help clean the house. That was pretty much it. And so that was, you know, I would say the first foray of me moving out of the house.

• 1:17David Senra?

  But you were how old when this happened?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I was around 16 years old.

• 1:20David Senra?

  Okay. But why drop out of high school? Why did you, like, how did you? A lot of people drop out of college, but like you dropped out of high school. Why did that?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  So take a step back. I started working online around 14 years old, doing performance media buying. And what I saw during that period was really eye opening. I saw, at the time, I was working for my brother, you know, these guys were making $20,000, $30,000 a day in profit advertising different products. My teacher would make $25,000 a year. So it was a no brainer to me really quickly that school, the upside was nowhere as high compared to if I were to put all my efforts into performance marketing.

• 1:56David Senra?

  And so your older brother was kind of teaching you the trade?

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00David Senra?

  Is that how it worked?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, kind of backstory. I come from a family, it's four brothers, two stepbrothers, all boys, but my parents got divorced very early. I was, you know, not growing up with my oldest brother, but I was always online, always on the computer, was building websites, did game server business for a little bit. And at one point, my brother came to go visit my dad. And, you know, he was telling my dad that he was doing performance marketing. And my dad had this brilliant idea that I would go and intern for him. I go and intern for him for a summer, which initially I was against because it was like, I'm making a thousand dollars a month, you know, selling stuff online and doing game servers. And, you know, as at that time, you know, 14 year old kid, that's a lot of money, you know, in middle school.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  So, you know, what ends up happening is he convinced me to go and join him. I start working there and I started doing, like, I would say, like, I'm below the water boy. I'm like, you know, like the boring terms of service and privacy policy, like I'm the guy adding that onto the site. Whatever work that those guys didn't want to do, you know, was pretty much foisted on to me. But through that, I got to learn a lot about the industry. So learn about, you know, what types of products people are interested in, what types of ads get people's attention, how money is made online, just in general. And so that was kind of my big foray into it.

• 3:20David Senra?

  And at the time, you were essentially, you became obsessed with online advertising, which is a funny, like obsession for like a teenage, a young teenager to have. But your other obsession was video games, right?

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:30David Senra?

  Was there like parallels that you, that you drew between the two activities?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  I was never really good at sports. I played soccer and baseball as a kid, but I wasn't good at any of them. The thing that I loved about video games for me was that it was all about based on merit. If you're competing in a multiplayer game or a single player game, ultimately it's just to outcompete the people that you're competing against effectively. And that was something that I loved. So taking it to business for me, I always had this analogy in my head of when they sent the warriors out, you know, back in the days to go get food for the tribe, the only thing that they, that people would care about back in the tribe was who brought back the food? Who killed the animal? In business for me is, I always just focused on being the most valuable person in the room, doing what I could to drive the most value for everybody.

• 4:16David Senra?

  Say more about this.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  I think titles and, you know, seniority, I think it's all bullshit. I think in business, similar to sports and similar to video games, it's just about delivering the most value possible. And that was something that I realized early on is that if you go kind of down the same route as everybody else where it's like, okay, I'm going to go start at a company, I'm going to be an analyst for a few years, you know, then I'm going to go and try to get to the next level of a manager and then a senior manager and so on. It's this linear and very boring path where actually you limit your ability to grow personally and then also the ability to deliver value to a company versus if you take this other approach of what is the most important thing to the business? And in my skill set, what can I do to deliver as much value as possible?

• 5:02Speaker 01

  If you take that mindset very quickly, it may not be a linear route, but very quickly you will be exposed to opportunities that you wouldn't be otherwise. And so that is kind of the approach I've always taken.

• 5:11David Senra?

  But this is one of the most fascinating things about you. When I tell other people about you and Adam Foroughi is you had that trait when you were like a kid. You've been working with Adam since you were 17, 17 or 19, something like that?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  My brother and Adam had worked together. So I'd known of Adam since, you know, I was 14. I met him at 15. And when I told you I was the water boy, he came to the office, my brother was like, go get Adam a water. But I knew who he was before because there was kind of this leaderboard in my brother's performance marketing company. And, you know, Adam was at the top of the leaderboard at the time and I was the guy behind him. Initially, I started building websites, I started building ads and then building campaigns. And so I already knew who he was. So that's how I got connected with Adam. And then from there, we didn't really communicate that much in the beginning. I would say when I was around 17, 18 is when we got closer. And that was because, you know, my, my road was very, was not, was not linear at all.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I didn't wait to be given opportunities, right? For example, like when I started building websites, that was one thing, but I was curious about, okay, like, how, you know, are ads made? So I just, I was starting getting on Photoshop, making ads. And then at the time, somebody showed me how to put up a, it was like a MySpace campaign and I did that. And then from there, it was like, okay, I want more traffic. And I just started reaching out to brands on my own, right? And nobody gave me the permission, dude, I just started doing it. Fast forward, I was like, hey, we started our own ad platform, right? Why are we buying from all these other ad platforms when we can just go and reach out to the publishers ourselves and we have demand?

• 6:41David Senra?

  Wait, so when you have this idea, we're going to start our own ad platform, you're how old?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  At that time, I was about 17 years old.

• 6:46David Senra?

  Okay. That's a very unusual idea for a 17 year old.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was, the reason I started the ad platform was at the time, this advertising platform that we were working with, they had their own advertisements, their own offers. And they banned us off of it because we were competitive. And I got so angry that night that I was like, I remember I went home, like pretty much cried and I was like, we're going to bury these guys. And I went to my brother and I was like, hey, I'm going to leave your company to go start my own ad platform. I want to go head to head with this company. And he started laughing so hard and he was like, you're not going anywhere. I'll give you a few engineers, go build what you want. And, you know, that was the idea at the time of Appenda. Appenda was a mobile app platform.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Around this time, Adam had already left my brother's company and he was actually done with ads and wanted to start building consumer products. And so, you know, the beginning of AppLovin actually was, at first it was a dating app and then there was a fashion app. And then there was all these other products that they kind of built. Adam was buying traffic from me.

• 7:51David Senra?

  Adam was buying traffic from your ad network for his apps that he was developing?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:55David Senra?

  Okay.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. So during this time, you know, Adam and I would talk a lot over AIM because it was effectively his account manager. But I would screw with him a lot, you know? I'd be like, hey, I'll teach you a lot about making money online, you know, I'll teach you how to run a real business.

• 8:10David Senra?

  Which is also another crazy thing because he's like 10 or 12 years older than you.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  12 years older than me, way smarter than me. Guy's a walking calculator. But ignorance is bliss and I just had this ship on my shoulder, right? That I feel like I could take on the world. And as we spent more time, you know, talking, what ended up happening, very intelligently, Adam was like, okay, this kid who works around the clock but isn't that intelligent, has built this ad platform in kind of this, this wide open blue space and that's seeing success, I'm going to go build a mobile app platform.

• 8:41David Senra?

  So he's going to compete with you?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:43David Senra?

  This is where he like pulls you in the room, he's like, don't get, he came on the show. Let me back up before we get to this because some people are listening, they haven't seen an episode. And the Adam Foroughi episode, when people are like, I think that is one of the episodes I'm most proud of because I think I titled it like the best entrepreneur you've never heard of. And, you know, it's the fact that like, at the time, it's like, whatever, AppLovin was a $150 billion market cap company. They're going to print $6 billion in cash this, this year and they're doing it with like 400 employees. And the reason I'm proud of that episode is because it goes out and all of the, like, almost like, I think the next like five or six guests that we had on the show that came on, this happened over and over again, we did this episode that'll be out in December with Mr. Beast, right?

• 9:26David Senra?

  And I've known Mr. Beast for a while. He listens to my other podcast, Founders. Like he'll send me his Spotify rap every year and it's like founders at the top. As soon as we stopped recording, he leaned forward, he goes, hey, can you introduce me to Adam? Mickey Malka, over and over again, like, who is this guy and can you introduce me to him? He was like such an unusual, like unfiltered, like hardcore person. So this is the person that we're talking about, this is the person you've been working with for like half your life.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:49David Senra?

  So now this guy is like, this fucking kid is making all this money with this ad network. Don't, I think he told the story, he's like, pulled you in the room, he's like, don't be mad, but I'm going to compete with you.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, it's funny, he was in the office and he had this shit eating grin like on his face, like, like somebody who would just like eating your food. And it was actually, now that he pulled me, I pushed him into a room because I saw this smile on him. I was like, what the hell, like, why are you so happy? What are you smiling about? And that's when he goes, hey, don't be mad, I'm building a competing ad platform. And at the time, I didn't care because I was, you know, like you mentioned earlier, I'm a massive gamer, I love playing video games. I was actually going to go join my friend's company in Y Combinator that built mobile games. And then Adam reverse inodded me and he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what do you mean you're going to go join somebody else's company? You should come and work for me. You know, you know how to work your ass off, you know everyone in the space here in mobile gaming, but you know nothing about building a real business.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  And out of respect for Adam, because even though I talked a lot of shit to him online and, you know, I always knew he was a really intelligent guy, I decided to come down to Palo Alto and meet the rest of the team.

• 10:51David Senra?

  Is this when you move into the office?

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:54David Senra?

  So a lot of people are like, oh, I'm here 24/7 or, you know, I work 996.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59David Senra?

  Raph moved into the office and then it speaks to the unique culture that you guys have. Adam built the bed.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  He did. He did. Him and another engineer. So double click into it. So what happened was this. So interviews went great. I was like, these are the smartest guys I've ever, you know, really spoken to in my life. It's a no brainer, I'm going to join. You know, we negotiate. I'm like, I want half the company. He's like, oh, somebody in your role gets a quarter of a percent typically.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  You know, I got a little bit more than that. I didn't get half the company, though, obviously. And so I was like, under, but there's one circumstance I have. And he's like, what is it? And I was like, I have to live inside of the office. And he was like, like, sure, but why? And I was like, think of this as like the Vietnam War, right? Like, we have this goofy name called AppLovin'. We have no VC funding, right? You're gonna have some five foot eight chubby kid go out there and go sell, you know, to game developers and advertisers. The only way that we're gonna win is we're gonna have to out hustle everybody else, which means I have to live here, right? Like, this is the only way this will work. And, you know, obviously, he was very happy. It's like, your first business hire, the guys are gonna fucking live in the office. Like, you couldn't ask more out of an employee.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  So, yeah, him and this guy called Furkan at the time, they went to IKEA and they built my, built me and this other guy, who's, I brought over another engineer, to come live inside the office, our bunk beds. I can tell you, the other engineer, the second he saw the bunk beds, he was like, screw that, I'm definitely not living here. When I saw it, I was like, home sweet home, you know, I'm, time to get started.

• 12:29David Senra?

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• 13:11David Senra?

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• 13:55David Senra?

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• 14:38David Senra?

  your business by going to deal.com/cenra. That is deal.com/cenra. What is the state of the business at the time you moved into the office?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  State of the business is pre-revenue. It was like an animal house. Adam had a bunch of engineers just working on different apps, and they were just trying to find product market fit. Their next idea was to build AppLovin' ad network. And, you know, for context on Adam as well, is that Adam before had ran a very successful ad platform called Social Hour. That was an ad network on Facebook. And then before that, you know, he'd been doing advertising as well. So he was very, very familiar with the space. And some of that he mentioned in your last episode, he already saw a lot of user activity switching from PC to mobile. So it was kind of like, he was the perfect person to tackle the space because he understood the problem. It was a wide, wide open field. And then also me

• 15:33Speaker 01

  coming on board, I was able to connect, you know, us at that time to the right advertisers and publishers, and the rest is history.

• 15:40David Senra?

  He also told the story, too, where he tried to sell 25% of the company to VCs for a million dollars.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:46David Senra?

  He's like, you know, you can buy 25% of the company, you should back this. You guys got in really early, this, where you just said, this transition from desktop to mobile.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:55David Senra?

  And he was turned down because they thought, they're like, gaming and ads, like, these are terrible businesses. They didn't understand that. And then a few years later, they go and fund a bunch of other competitors to you. And he said, you guys made it a company principle to put those, to drive those other competitors out of business.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  So, take us back here. So, there was actually plenty of other companies in the space that were very well funded. And, you know, they were backed by the top tier VCs at the time, so Benchmark, Sequoia, and so on. Some of them were very, very successful already. It felt like the market actually at the time was very mature. It was like, how are these, you know, at the time, it was like, this one kid is doing sales, and a few people, and Paul Alto are gonna succeed against these behemoths that already had them. At that time, it looked like a lot of the market. And also, when Adam went to go try and raise his money, we were already profitable. It's funny, because he was giving them a deal on a silver platter. Revenue, traction, companies growing like crazy month over month, very profitable, you know, world-class margins compared to everyone else in the space, and he still got turned down.

• 16:54David Senra?

  Why do you think that is?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I think what it came down to was that we have a very untraditional story and background. A lot of people that, you know, had raised money before, you know, they were doing these mobile game platforms, they were game publishers, or they were part of these big corporate companies. And so on paper, you know, they worked at Facebook, or they worked at Google, they were on the ad mob team, which was one of the biggest ad platforms at the time. You know, they worked for all these businesses. So, on paper, they looked great. Versus us, we were performance marketers who, we always ran arbitrage businesses. We'd never run an ad network that had kind of seen its way to, it took a very profitable exit. So I think that's really what it was.

• 17:35David Senra?

  How do you start, like, you guys are a smaller team, no funding, you're such a bootstrap, competing against already established players that have more money and have more people. So how do you guys start building a company? How do you start winning?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  What Adam understood better than anybody else in the space was that the tech is the most important part. Everyone else focused on sales, right? So they had, you know, hundreds of advertisers, and they had, you know, these premium publishers, but their algorithms were shit. A lot of these algorithms were people just like manually optimizing things in the background. Now, we didn't have like a state-of-the-art machine learning model that's not what existed back then, but we had rules in place, and we did regression learning around, you know, kind of deciding what to serve. And that in itself allowed us to outcompete our competitors, even though we didn't have as much demand, and even though our publishers at that time weren't as high quality as some of the other ad platforms. And so when we would go and we'd actually see our monetization, let's say we'd go head

• 18:33Speaker 01

  to head with other ad platform, and a lot of times, we would monetize at, you know, double the clip of somebody else. So the conversation of when I would run, when I'd walk into a room, or I'd reach out to a publisher was, I guarantee you more money than you're making elsewhere. It was a no-brainer, right? A lot of people, they believed it was too good to be true, actually, so they'd make us put it in writing. We had no issue doing that. And we'd really say, Adam's vision in going all in on the tech is what allowed us to succeed.

• 18:57David Senra?

  Okay. We were talking before we started recording, you're like, I think our brand is like too soft, and it doesn't represent like the insane performance culture that we have inside the company. Okay, I want to skip ahead, way ahead in the story, because this is, I spent a ton of time with you, spent a ton of time with Adam, and it does kind of remind me of like, the Chicago Bulls being led by Jordan that you see in like The Last Dance. So just talk about like, what it's like working inside of AppLovin'.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  AppLovin' is a company where we're always on, and our goal is to make sure that any dollar that is given to us, that we're driving a profitable return. And so the businesses that we partner with and we work with, we treat ourselves as an extension of their team. And that is really different than a lot of these other ad platforms where they look at it as they're just providing a service. You know, so I'll give you an example, like, we've interviewed a lot of people from some of these bigger ad platforms, and they try to come and get a job at AppLovin'. And one of the questions I'll simply ask them is that, hey, would you set up a campaign? Would you, you know, upload ads? Would you come up with creative ideas? And a lot of times, like, whoa, like, I haven't done that? Like, why would you do that? And for us, we do all of these things. And this is a part of

• 20:03Speaker 01

  like, our operational excellence, is that it's, we feel like, all of these little things, they all add up to delivering incredible returns for our advertisers. And so, that I would say is one big thing that's different. We are so focused on performance. That is actually like the cornerstone of our company. So, a lot of people may say to us, like, in customers, they love and hate us for it. Some customers say like, or well, I say, a lot of customers would say, we're very competent, we're great, we're, you know, we deliver great results for them. But they would say like, you guys are pretty arrogant, and always, aren't always the nicest people. But it's not that, you know, we're trying to be arrogant, it's that we just ultimately are trying to deliver the best returns for them. And so we are very opinionated on what they could be doing better, and always pushing them. Versus other companies out there, they would say, well, whatever the customer wants, the

• 20:48Speaker 01

  customer's always right. It's like, if our goal is to deliver more customers profitably for you, then like, there is data that you can look at, and there is right and wrong decisions. And for us, like, we're always trying to push towards the right decision.

• 21:00David Senra?

  So say more about this, like, anti-delegation take that you have.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like, we talked about this before the show, like, a lot of leaders, like, you know, and you hear about it in podcasts, is like, hire people, delegate, delegate. That's not a cloth we're cut from at AppLovin'. And the reason why is kind of like, to be a great leader, you have to be in the weeds. If you think about like, in a sports analogy, right? Like, why did Michael Jordan always get the ball? You know, or why was he, you know, effectively like, considered the captain of the team? It wasn't because he was like, the oldest person there, the most senior there. It's because when they gave him the fucking ball, he made the shot, right? And so for us, we look at it as, I'm like, if you're in the weeds, you understand what the customers want, you understand what the customers need for them to succeed, and you understand what's also important. Like, when you, when you delegate and you hire all these people, you focus on a lot of things that are not important for your business. But you've hired these people, so they need

• 21:47Speaker 01

  something to do, right? So you just go and have them work on these tasks that don't really move the needle.

• 21:51David Senra?

  Did you watch the Todd Graves interview that I did?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I did.

• 21:54David Senra?

  Where he says, he's like, delegate? He's like, what does that word even mean? He had like this, this nasty look on his face. He's like, completely anti, there's a lot of great founders that are kind of like anti-delegation.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also think it's like, it's what makes the game fun, right? Like, going back to like, video games, it's like, imagine like, you play all these levels, and then you get to like a boss, like the final boss, like, you're gonna hand the control to your friend? Fuck no. You're gonna like, go and do it yourself. Like, that's a new challenge, right? And that's what keeps the, the job exciting for me personally.

• 22:22David Senra?

  What do you spend most of your time on? Because Adam told me he thinks- Like you're one of the best deal guys in the world.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I focus on doing the highest leverage deals that we can that's possible for the business, right? So like, we have a very small team. Luckily, we're a business that's very profitable and growing very quickly. And so we try to do deals with, uh, whether it's, you know, companies that they're advertisers or doing partnerships with other companies that can bring us thousands of advertisers. That's my goal is to generate or to bring as many customers on to AppLovin as possible. So we can build the best business possible and one of the biggest ad platforms in the world.

• 22:54David Senra?

  And then you try to expand the existing customers too. Adam told this great story on this podcast where he's just like, yeah, Raft's like an animal. And he's just like, I get calls from customers all the time. He's like, what's up with this guy? This guy's a multi billionaire and he's harassing me to spend an extra $5,000 a day. And he's, he's like, this shouldn't matter to you. And he goes, it matters to us. Everything matters.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Everything fucking matters, right? It's like, if you can't do the small things, right? How can you be expected to do the big things, right? And like, you know, I, I said this online before, but like, we're just getting started. Like, you know, Adam talked about this, we're on pace for $20 billion of advertiser spend. When you look at like the two behemoths in the room combined, they do half a trillion dollars of ad spend on the platform, right? Or across their ad platforms. So like, there is so much room for us to grow. And when you're able to get into the weeds, make sure that you're succeeding for your advertisers. And, and by the way, a lot of times like, we do deliver better results for advertisers, but they may not move budget at, in the, in the beginning because like, they're not focused on us or they're focused on other things.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Like, it's important that you get in there and you make them care about your business, right? And, and that's actually one of the, I'd say, one of the superpowers I have is that when I reach out to these customers, like, what the hell is this billionaire reaching out to me for an extra $5,000? It's like, goes to show like, we're very serious about your business. Like, we really care about working with you. You're not just a number on a spreadsheet to us.

• 24:15David Senra?

  Is this just like a persistence thing? Like, um, I just read Ari Emanuel's new book and his whole thing, he's going to come on the show. And one of the things I want to ask him is just like, just literally just calling people over and over again, actually work? Cause people do this with me. They're like, hey, I want to get in touch with you. And they're like, I'm just going to email you every day to your response. It's like, you're getting blocked immediately. Like, that's just not going to work with me.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  If you just email people like non-stop, right? And just send them useless stuff, like they're just going to tune you out. And as you said, you'll block them. I think what matters is like, you're persistent, but you're always figuring out ways to deliver value for the customer, right? So like,

• 24:45David Senra?

  So give me an example of that.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  So it's a really funny story. So, you know, we're going to Miami after this and there is this guy called Nadir Khan. He ran, he ran a business, an apps business out of, out of Miami. Sold it for a few hundred million dollars. And, uh, it took me two years to get ahold of him. And every single time I had reached out to him, it was about ways that they could make more revenue, right? Whether it was like, hey, this level could be optimized or you should be showing ads here. Or like, hey, in this market, you're like, you're dropping the ball here. And there was this inside joke, uh, within their company, which was, we wish we had a Rafael Vivas at our, you know, on our team. Because this guy's always like, on top of things, trying to help us become better. And eventually he like responded back to me.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  He goes, you are one of the most persistent folks that I've ever encountered in my whole entire life. And then after that, we started doing a lot of business together and we helped them grow dramatically.

• 25:36David Senra?

  Okay. So you're, it's not like, hey, I'm going to keep bothering you, calling you, emailing you, because I want something from you. I'm going to keep getting in contact with you and delivering value. And you'll just realize after I tell you six good ideas, hey, maybe I should take this call.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. Right? And also it's not like, a lot of times like, these people don't think that your ideas are good. It's just like, they have other things going on, right? It may not be the right time. It may not have the right people. It's important to always stay in their ear. Like, uh, you said, right? If you're delivering value, like, these people will eventually want to work with you.

• 26:02David Senra?

  What do you think are some of the other parts of AppLovin culture that's very different from the inside? That you, uh, that you would compare to like some of the other companies that you may see?

• 26:11Speaker 01

  The really big difference about us is like, we are very, very hands-on. That's what I touched on before, but like, even Adam, sometimes we'll set up campaigns or like, we'll be checking in on these small clients. And, uh, I, I would say like, really just like giving a shit, like really caring is one of the biggest things for us. Uh, and then also like, um, I would say like, we lead with bad news internally. You're like, you know, a lot of companies like, you know, they're like, hurrah, like, you know, we have this, you know, we, we did this thing and it's great for our business. And like, but a lot of the internal AppLovin like monologue is like, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. Like, like, and then we just tackle it one by one to go and improve it, right? I would say those are really the two big things.

• 26:54David Senra?

  You guys seem to be like immune to the like, your stock price volatility too. Like, I remember, uh, something happened recently and I didn't, I don't pay attention to the news, so I don't even see this. But, uh, I think it dropped by like quite a bit for some reason. And I had called Adam and he'd called me back like right away. And I just had like a joke for him. It had nothing to do with anything. And like, he was like laughing and he was in a good mood. And then I found out after the fact, in fact, we were flying back from a recording. And then somebody on the plane had told me, they're like, dude, their stock dropped by like, I don't know, 20% today. I was like, you would never know, talking to them, he did not give a shit.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  We don't care about the short term, right? And we don't care about the short term because ultimately, if we feel like we're doing the right things for our business and, and growing, ultimately the stock price will reflect that, right? And, you know, you saw the company went to one point worth $3 billion. You know, or actually, sorry, $4 billion. So like, the stock dropped over 90%. So like, being cut by 20% or being cut by half is just like another day in the NFL for us. Like, it's, doesn't, doesn't faze us. As long as we know we're doing the right things and helping our customers grow, the squirrel will take care of itself.

• 28:03David Senra?

  I've heard you say in other places too, that like, one of your goals is like to, to build AppLovin into a durable business where it actually outlives you.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:10David Senra?

  Where'd you get that idea?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Purpose is extremely important in life. And for me, you know, I'm probably not going to be the guy who cures cancer and, um, you know, I, or I'm not going to, you know, build AI or robots or anything like that. But what I'm very confident that we can build is a business that will be able to help, uh, companies grow

• 28:31Speaker 01

  many, many, many years past, you know, our lifetime. And that to me, if I can do that successfully, I would say I have succeeded in my lifetime personally.

• 28:41David Senra?

  So is that what, why you're still working? Is that why it keeps you going? Cause like, there's some people, I was just, uh, at this, uh, event in, in England and one guy sold his company for like $13 billion and he's kind of like chomping at the bit to get back in the game, you know? He doesn't regret the sale, but he's just like, I can't be an employee. I have to have a, a company, I have to have like some kind of vehicle for all my creativity, my energy. And he, but he says his other co-founders are just fine. They made, you know, a billion dollars each, whatever the case was. And he's just like, they're like building houses and they're like writing angel checks and they're hanging out on the beach.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  So it's a few things. One, like when I say like, we're still early in the game, like, I didn't work 14 years of my life to like, leave before the game even got started. Like, what are we talking about? The job's not done yet, right? Like, we are so early in our life, like as a business and like our impact. Like, it makes no sense to me. I'm like, why would I leave this early? I have to be a part of, of something bigger than me, right? And bigger than me is helping businesses grow, delivering tens of billions of dollars. Hopefully, you know, someday hundreds of billions of dollars of, of value back into the economy. I think that's one of the great things that we do, right?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Is that as we help these businesses grow profitably, they can hire employees, they can invest in better products. And ultimately that gets consumers purchasing their products more and stimulates the economy. And I think that's something great that I can do for society.

• 30:05David Senra?

  What happened where you had to like, take a year off though? You were, where you were just like completely burned out? Like, tell me the story again.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, to say it's the back. So we started a games business. And the reason of starting,

• 30:19David Senra?

  The ad platform first, then the games business? Because what was the reason for the, just starting the games business after the ad platform?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  You know, we did a lot of business in Asia. China's like one of my favorite places to do business because the founders are so intense. They move very quickly. They're intelligent, just like everything you'd want in a business partner. It's no bullshit. One of our partners at the time is this company called Cheeto Mobile. And they were one of our biggest publishers. And what they would do is they would, they would just squeeze us, right? Squeeze us in every way possible you could imagine. And like, we had an agreement signed with them and they were like, screw the agreement. We don't care about it. Like, you know, and they would just break it all the time. You know, there were so many nights I'd stay up, when I was staying in the States till four or five AM to like go and manage them. And then, you know, I spent a lot of time in Asia with the leadership over there too. But throughout this journey, you know, I was thinking to ourselves like, we will never be in a position where like, we are so dependent on like one of these partners.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  And, and we'd also seen what Netflix had done at the time. And we thought, there was this great opportunity, you know, for, you know, owning the vertical really, like, you know, it would be great. We have that platform, but also having our own content as well. You know, you have better economics, you have a distribution advantage and like, overall you build more enterprise value. And by the way, this is like not an uncommon business tactic in Asia. Like, the biggest gaming companies in the world are all also distribution companies. Like Tencent being a perfect example, NetEase being a perfect example. These are companies that have other things outside of the games and they use that to distribute their games. So that's how we, we got into the games business. But, but Cheeto, you know, really pissed me off so bad.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  It kind of like, I told you the story earlier about how we started the ad platform because one of our partners fucked us. I came back to, this partner had pushed to the ends of me and I went to Adam and I said, it's, it's very simple. I'm going to leave to go and build this competitor against Cheeto Mobile, or I'm going to do it here. And I, I really want to do it here because,

• 32:10David Senra?

  Wait, wait, pause there. Why is that simple to you? Why would you leave to go build the competitor? It's Cheeto, the animal?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:16David Senra?

  Okay. To Cheeto.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Because I had so much rage in my heart that I wanted nothing but to like dominate those guys. It wasn't about like, you know, I'm a very simple guy, David, you know? And we talked, I, I stay in the $200 hotel. I'll take the, you know, the shitty, you know, commercial airline flight.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  So like money to me, like, of course, like, it's important, but like, I don't, you know, some people like, hey, I'm gonna go buy the big house. I don't care about any of that. Right? Like, for me, when I work, like, it's for purpose. And that company would push me to a point where I was like, my purpose at this point was to destroy these guys.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  And so that was really the start of, at the time, Line Studios. And, and why did I call Line Studios? Because line is the only animal that can kill a cheetah. And our thesis was, let's go work with the best developers in the world. We have one of the largest distribution platforms in the world, and we'll help to ship you their games. And within two years, we pulled that from zero to over 250 million revenue profitably. It was a great business. But throughout that, it was, it was really fucking tough. For two reasons. One, as you can imagine, when you start building games, all of our customers started looking at us as competitors, right?

• 33:28David Senra?

  Because at the time, the AppLovin is essentially, it's advertising in games, but it's, at this point, you're still just doing game installs?

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:36David Senra?

  Okay.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, we're the new kid on the block doing games. And our partners didn't like that, obviously, right? They looked at us as hostile. And in reality, you know, there was more benefit, right? We were, we were creating more inventory for the market. This data was helping improve our machine learning model. And so we're able to be more efficient and effectively driving traffic for them. And so, they worked, like, even though these partners didn't like us, they worked with us because the value we delivered. But there was just a lot of internal stress. And then also, with games businesses, they're very hit-driven. You're working around the clock. And our, our best partners that we publish games with, they were not sitting in America. They were sitting in Europe, they were sitting in Asia, you know, all around the world.

• 34:16David Senra?

  Why do you think they weren't in America?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  I think they weren't in America, really for two reasons. One, the, the cost of labor is a lot higher here. And games, like, the games that we were building at the time, you didn't need the best of the best, right? It was just about getting the most amount of reps as possible. And a lot of the games that we built, there were these games called hyper casual, there were these methodologies you would use to determine what would be a hit game. And a lot of it was just based on, like, how marketable was the game? What we saw was, like, you could get more cost-efficient employees over there. And then also, like, they would just work, they would out hustle the hell out of the American studios. So, like, you know, we'd interview these people at some of these game studios. And, you know, they'd be like, yeah, I work nine to five. I handled this, like, really small part of

• 35:01Speaker 01

  the equation at this, you know, for this game studio. They'd have these bloated teams. Versus, like, I would go meet, like, it was actually a perfect example. There was this team called Game5 Mobile. We released the game that did, you know, close to a hundred million dollars in revenue together, called Happyglass. It was a husband, wife, and little brother. And they were so poor that they all lived in the same house. And their house was also their office. And I think at one point, and I, you know, I may be wrong, or right here, I'm pretty sure they all slept in the same bed. I think this is literally how, how poor these guys were. So, so when you come from that, right, like, you can't compete against somebody like that, right? They will die before they fail. Right? And I think, you know, the, two things. One, those, like, partners, like, they're incredible

• 35:42Speaker 01

  to work with, but also drove me to work harder, right? Because I saw what they came from, and I know this was their big shot. I loved making people like that successful. They were the underdog. Nobody had believed in them. And, and actually, it was funny, this company, Game5, these three people, they worked at, I think, HP, they took this bet on this game studio. And for them, like, if it didn't work in, like, the next month, they were gonna have to go get jobs again. So it was like, make or break for them.

• 36:07David Senra?

  I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. The quote says, "The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places. And they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas." That is exactly what AppLovin has done with their advertising platform. AppLovin connects you with over a billion potential new customers in mobile games. AppLovin allows you to capture undivided attention. AppLovin ads are full-screen videos that are watched for an average of 35 seconds. That is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water. And you can launch on AppLovin in minutes. You set the goal, and AppLovin achieves it. No complex setup, no expertise needed. And

• 36:49David Senra?

  AppLovin scales quickly. They can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers. Other businesses have seen immediate results, scaled to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day, and increased their revenue by millions. So you want to get started quickly before all of your competitors are on AppLovin. And you can do that by going to applovin.com. That's applovin.com.

• 37:13David Senra?

  Your story is similar, where you've told me in the past, where it's just like, you're the kind of person that's like, I couldn't go back, I got kicked out of my house, I'm moving into the office, like, this either works or I die.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:23David Senra?

  That was literally what you said.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:25David Senra?

  Like, there is no turning back. Like, I'm going to die, I'm going to succeed. It's like 50 Cent. It's like, get rich or die trying. I'm gonna succeed or die trying.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I would, it's funny, I dated a girl all the time, and, and I told her, I'm going complete Black Mamba. And when I would work, I would listen to, like, these motivational, I was kind of a psychopath, I listened to these, like, motivational videos all day while working.

• 37:45David Senra?

  I did this every morning. When I was, like, because I, you know, because, like, you're a fan of founders, that's how we met. And, um, five, first five and a half years, I was just like, I don't get it. Like, this is a better podcast than, like, I'm obsessed with podcasts, I know what a good podcast is, this is better. No one's listening to it. And I'd have to wake up every day and brainwash myself with this stuff.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:02David Senra?

  Like, it really works.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And, and like, especially because, like, it was such an intense environment internally, right? Adam is, like, pressing really hard on me. I understand, like, the future of the company is on my back. Because at this point, like, all guns are pointed at us. We, we've burned the ships, right? Like, we are there to, like, win. There is no other option. So I would wake up, you know, at like 4:00 AM, and I would stay up until, like, midnight.

• 38:26David Senra?

  And you're in your early twenties?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  I was, yeah, I was, at that time, let's say, like, 26 to 28.

• 38:31David Senra?

  Okay.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  So, you know, I was doing this.

• 38:33David Senra?

  But no kids?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  No kids.

• 38:34David Senra?

  No long-term relationship?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:36David Senra?

  Basically, just work?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, just work. Nothing else mattered to me besides work. It was the most important thing. So, I did that for two years. And I kind of, at, at, two years in, I kind of pulled my mind up again, like, from the friend, I realized, like, oh shit, this business does, like, not need me anymore, actually.

• 38:52David Senra?

  This is the game studio?

• 38:53Speaker 01

  The game, the game studio. It was a game publishing business.

• 38:55David Senra?

  Okay.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  So, like, the, the way that I would, I would compare it to a universal music group, right? Like, we had the distribution, we'd go find talented game developers and, like, bring their games to the masses. And, by the way, we drove over 20 games to number one, over 3 billion downloads. Like, this was an incredible business. And we were one of the biggest at the time. I'd gotten to the business to a point where I was no longer mission critical. And at that same time, I started, like, reflecting on myself. And I was like, okay, so like, the business no longer needs you to succeed. Right? And we'd also done other acquisitions that I helped lead up of other game studios. So, like, what do I really want to focus on? And for me, like, making a family was really important to me. Right? Like, I was 28 when I took a step away from the business, and I was like, I need to start thinking about, like, having children. This was something that was always really important to me. I always knew I wanted to be a father. And

• 39:38Speaker 01

  so I took some time off from the business. It was funny, you say a year, but I wasn't really good at taking time off, because three, three months in, I started going crazy, just started building products for fun. But yeah, I moved to Miami at the time, because San Francisco was so depressing, COVID, everything was shut down. I went to Miami, it was supposed to be just like a, a vacation for, like, a weekend. And I was like, oh my God, COVID doesn't exist here. Like, everything's open. And then, um, you know, and then planning my roots there, and meeting the love of my life, and having a family.

• 40:07David Senra?

  Yeah, I was there during that time, too.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:09David Senra?

  I remember, because, like, one of my favorite pizza spots is Lu Colli in Sunset Harbor. And at the time, you used to go up, first of all, there would be, like, never a wait. And then there's serving a wait during COVID. And you would put your phone number. And I kept seeing all these, like, 415 and 212 area, because everybody from San Francisco and New York came to Miami at that point. So, wait, you take, like, how, how did you frame this with Adam? Was it sabbatical? Like, what did, what did you say? I'm, I'm fucking done forever?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this was, uh, I wasn't really good at breaking the news to him, right? This is like, you know, Adam's like a bigger brother, a big brother to me. And so I waited for my birthday. You know, I'd actually been, like, diarying it for a while of kind of, like, what, indirectly, I was actually just kind of, I kind of knew I wanted to take time off. I'd say about a year before, I was, I was just writing about, like, what are the things that the business, like, where am I, the bottleneck? And where does the business need to be in a place where, like, I don't exist, but here for it? So I, I kind of just started marking things off the list. And before I knew it, like, everything had been accomplished. And like, you know, I could not be around, and new games were being released, and revenue was growing.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  And so I called Adam and I was like, hey, like, you know, it's my birthday. He was like, happy birthday, of course. And I was like, yeah, I want to take some time off from the business. And Adam is not a very emotional guy. He's just like, are you sure? I was like, yeah. He was like, well, I respect whatever you want to do. And then we kind of like ended the conversation. And then what happened after that was like, a lot of people calling me, being like, what the hell are you thinking? Or what are you doing? My brother, this guy, Harold Chen, all these guys, they're trying to convince me to stay. They're trying to offer all me all these different packages. And I was like, it has nothing to do about the money. It's like, the business is going to need to succeed. And there's other things in my life I want to go and accomplish. And so I took a step away from the business. I would say like, from that conversation, probably it was supposed to be like a six month transition.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  But within three months, I was, I was kind of out.

• 42:00David Senra?

  At the time though, did you think I'm out of Apple and for good?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I thought I was going to go off to the sunset and enjoy my life and chill on a beach and never work again. But you realize very quickly that it's a very fucking depressing life. Like, there's no purpose.

• 42:14David Senra?

  We should have a fucking ad in every one of our episodes about this. It's like, go, these post exit founders that have never found something else to work on is like the most miserable souls to be around.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and to double click on it, you know, so I like, you know, I love playing video games. Would you realize that like on a Wednesday afternoon, you have no one to play games with? None of your friends are around, they're all fucking productive, they're doing things, right? So you have no one to hang out with, it gets lonely. But then I started, you know, I started working on these businesses. And actually, this double clicks, I was like, what drives me? What I realized is like, you know, I found this great tech team and we were working together and working on these products. I didn't, one, I didn't care about the products we were building with. I had no connection with them. For me, it was just like,

• 42:54David Senra?

  You're talking about the ones you're doing in your,

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my, I was like, oh, I just like opportunistically like, hey, I think this vertical is right. The KPIs look good, let's, let's go and build into it. So that was like one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that, that business.

• 43:09David Senra?

  You ran a dating show?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a love or fame. The idea was that you come and you, it was on a mobile phone and you would compete for love or fame. But imagine watching 12 hours a day of dating shows. If you want to jump out of, out of a window, so, so that wasn't for me. And then the second thing is like,

• 43:27David Senra?

  Sure, you, you take time off to go on the beach and not even on the beach.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:30David Senra?

  Just like low quality work.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that, it was just horrible. And then the second thing was, um, I like, did not truly care about the people I was working with when I started the second, the company. So I would say like, one of the things that's kept me here at Apple for so long, outside of the helping, helping our customers succeed is like, I really deeply care about the success of Adam and the rest of our team. For me, if they don't do well, it doesn't set well with me. I will, I will die, I will run myself into the ground to like make those around me like succeed. And I didn't have any of those things. And so like my journey back to Apple was, we're, New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  We're all hanging out and,

• 44:19David Senra?

  So when you go public, you're still outside of the company?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Still outside of the company.

• 44:22David Senra?

  Okay.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Great shape, by the way. So yeah, so go, you know, go there. We ring the bell and like, first day out, stock drops, right? And, um, you know, I'm talking to people there and, you know, things, they were, the company is still growing, but like, there was definitely some flaws within the business. And it was like very clear to me that like, I need to be here. Like, this is my calling.

• 44:49David Senra?

  You found your purpose.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  This is my company. And, you know, we were drinking our sorrows away. I wouldn't say partying because it wasn't like a, a, a super happy moment. You know, you, your IPO happens, your stock immediately drops after. And Adam, you know, he looked at me and he was like, hey, I'm, I'm hearing from people, you're thinking about coming. And I was like, I'm fucking in. And then I've been here ever since. I got drawn back in through the purpose of the business and I knew there was a lot more I could be doing here.

• 45:15David Senra?

  Do you think you would have made that decision if the business was ripping in a good spot and the stock price was going up?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  I think I would have because at that point, there would have been nothing else for me to offer to the company or no value that I could deliver. I mean,

• 45:28David Senra?

  So you would have stayed out of it?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  I would have stayed out of it and I would have had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me.

• 45:34David Senra?

  And this is where I think you guys go public, something like 28 billion market cap or something like that. And it goes down, I think like almost like every day for like 200 days or something like this.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:42David Senra?

  This is the legendary stock buyback?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:44David Senra?

  Which we should, we tell this story now because it's incredible.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  The company's crashing, it's funny, it's like, it's inverse, right? Stock is crashing, revenue is going up. And so like Adam tells a story better than anybody, but you know, he just doubled down on, on buying up Love and Stock. And levered up the company and it was one of the greatest returns of all time, right?

• 46:00David Senra?

  Yeah, because I think at the time, I think you went down to $3.8 billion market cap, right? Something like that.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:05David Senra?

  But I think you guys were doing like a billion in cash flow or something.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:08David Senra?

  Right?

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:08David Senra?

  And so the idea is like, let's take, no one else is going to buy our stock. Let's, let's take this billion in cash flow, start buying back our stock. And then at one point, the company reaped like a $50 billion windfall.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:18David Senra?

  On that decision to buy back the stock.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And it was funny because at the time, we, uh, you know, we were thinking if the stock continues dropping, we were just going to buy the company and take it private. Kind of like Michael Dell did with his own company, right? So that was, that was kind of, uh, one of the directories we were going to go if, if it didn't keep free falling. Because we thought it was such an incredible business and we knew we wanted to continue running it.

• 46:38David Senra?

  Well, that was going to be my next question to you. Like, when this is happening, you're like, okay, we went public 28, now we're down to 3.8. You're not like stressed?

• 46:46Speaker 01

  No, because you're talking to a guy who, my hobbies are like $15 a month. You know, like I play like a game of World of Warcraft, right? It's like a subscription. I, you know, I hang out with the same friends I did in high school or people I work with. You know, I wear clothing that's like, you know, pretty cheap. I don't have like these extravagant tastes. Like, I, I think what ends up happening with a lot of these people is that their lifestyle creeps a lot more than what they end up, you know, having. That was something that, that never had happened to me. And so I was never concerned about cash flow. I knew we had a great business and, and, you know, they were still growing. So I was just like, you know, let's, let's double down on what we have.

• 47:28David Senra?

  It's like frugality, like a company, uh, like, is that something you guys talk about inside the company? Cause like, I remember talking to Adam and at the time, the stock price was amazing. On paper, he's worth like 20 billion.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:39David Senra?

  And he's like taking JetBlue.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:41David Senra?

  And then I introduced him to my friend, Patrick. And he was like, I think doing like investor meetings. He was like flying like Southwest or something. It was like a normal like budget airline. It's like, what is this guy doing?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I think it's less about like, you know, we're, we're talking about frugality, but you know, if you look at dashboards all day and the main KPI you're looking at is return on ad spend. Like, we think about life like that, like how much return am I going to get for my investment, right? If I can get to the same place at the same time, but you know, one is 10x cheaper, why wouldn't I take that every time? I think that was really kind of the mindset of it. So it was less about frugality, but like the return wasn't there for it.

• 48:19David Senra?

  What is this relentless focus you, you guys have on the amount of employees you have in the business?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like the thing for us is like,

• 48:27David Senra?

  Is that our same situation? Like, we can hit this much revenue with half the, it's like a, almost like a demonstration of like an actual skill set of an entrepreneur. It's like, I can do twice as more with half of what you,

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Exactly, right? Because it's the distraction, right? You're, you're managing C players that are just wasting your time or you're focused on things that don't matter at all. Right? And so it's, it's actually great when you have less people, it forces you to be very focused.

• 48:50David Senra?

  Is this like something that's like talked about inside the company or does it just happens naturally?

• 48:54Speaker 01

  It just happens naturally, it's just who we are.

• 48:55David Senra?

  Because this goes back to your insane like performance culture.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd say like, you know, Amazon was maybe one of these companies where they really focused on like being frugal. But for us, and also because the company is founder led, like we spend the money like it's ours, right? We're also very data driven, right? Very analytical, we look at everything that we do, right? Like, when you look at it, if from a spreadsheet perspective, it's just very obvious the things that makes sense to double on, double down on and other things that don't.

• 49:19David Senra?

  So is there not like lots of, you mentioned earlier, like we can do, we can do every single job in the company. We can do the campaign, we can make the, they're creative. Like, there's not many layers of management inside of it then?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  No, not really. I mean, obviously the algorithms, we, we obviously can't do that. And luckily we have like an incredible team that has, uh, that's able to like build those systems that Adam and I and others can't. Like for us, like, like this goes to like the controls of our company, like there's not much red tape, right? Like, our belief is like, we're hiring smart people, right? They understand the value of a dollar and we let them go out there and do what we feel like is best with the company. It's not like there's these layers of approval to go get things done.

• 49:58David Senra?

  But is there anything else that, that you think is rare or unique in the approach? The way you guys run your company that you don't see outside the company and other businesses?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  We try to give people as much ownership and as much work as possible. And versus like, you know, a lot of companies, oh, you're overworked, like we're going to go hire a bunch more people. Our, our approach from it is like, okay, what can we build to like automate? Like, uh, your work, there's certain parts of your work to make it a lot more efficient. What things like are not important that like you're wasting time on that we just shouldn't be doing at all? There is no like peer managers in Apple. Like everyone is a doer, like even our CTO is pushing code himself, right? And he manages like 100% engineering work. Really just like being relentless on like prioritizing what we work on. And then also being very hands on are really the two, two like, um, difference makers. There is no special magic, David, it's like, Fucking work on the things that matter and do it over a long period of time, success will come.

• 50:53David Senra?

  You and I were talking about the Luca Ferrari episode that I just did. A lot of what you just said is very similar to like Luca, he has this idea, he's like, hey, I don't really give a shit about pedigree, but when I hire young people, he loves people who has no experience. And he goes, and then you find somebody who's young, talented and hungry, and you saturate their capacity, which is exactly what you just said. It's like, we're all working, like, I'm going to give you more than you can handle. Why do you think you and Adam and Luca arrived at the same conclusion? And why is that so important?

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I think it's because we weren't able, we didn't have the cash to go and hire out these massive teams. And at the time, we didn't have kind of the pedigree or kind of background to be able to hire the best talent out there, right? So we had to go get the people we could and we had to torture them into greatness, kind of like Jensen Huang talks about.

• 51:36David Senra?

  I love that idea. It's like, I don't like giving, in his biography called the Nvidia Way, Jensen has a line, he's like, I don't like giving up on people. I'd rather torture them into greatness. And you get to the end of your book and he's talking about, he wakes up every day, he looks in the mirror, he's like, why do I suck so much? And this is even after, I think he has the most valuable company in the world. It's like, oh, he tortured himself into greatness too.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would say Adam did that to me, right? So like, and I would say to this day, it's like, it's always conflict, it's always confrontation, like he's always pushing. And that just like, it starts at the top and like, it boils its way down throughout the organization.

• 52:08David Senra?

  So you described him before as like an incredible taskmaster.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:12David Senra?

  Like for somebody on the outside, explain what that feels like.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  He understands the right buttons to push for everybody, right? So if you're insecure, he's going to double click on that, right? And say, oh, you're stupid, you're not that good, you can't do it. And you're like, well, I'm gonna show this guy I can do it, right? And for other people, you know, it's like, he will, you know, be really nice to them and like, that's how you get some more out of them. Or like other people, it's like, he would just be like, oh, well, that's interesting that you think about it this way. And then that person senses doubt and then, you know, they go and execute on it. Adam is just, he's, he's hyper competitive and he's, and that's what also makes him a great leader is that he understands the things that make people tick and really pushes them to do their best work.

• 52:48David Senra?

  Does he push you further than you think you can go?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  I think there's this great quote in Andre Agassi's biography where he says, his dad tortured him and at a certain point he goes,

• 53:01Speaker 01

  I no longer need my dad, I'm probably butchering this, but I no longer need my dad to torture me. I am old enough to do it myself, right? And that's, you know, that's how I am with him now. It's like, I went through so many years of it, I don't need him to do it, right? It's ingrained in me.

• 53:17David Senra?

  Yeah, this is what I love about you guys. And I want to, the next question I'm going to ask you is like, what do you think people from the outside get wrong about this performance culture? It goes back to this idea. It's like, hey, maybe we should like, our brand's a little too friendly and too soft and doesn't like represent like this ruthless culture inside. I think I mentioned on the episode I did with him, it's like, what I like about Raph is I can call him on like 11:00 PM. And like, he picks up, you, you mentioned earlier, it's like, dude, you don't believe in scheduled phone calls. It's like, no, I just call. And that's it. Like, well, it's just like, talk now. Where do you think like you should update in terms of like, the new brand of Apple and like the communication you guys are going to start doing externally? Like what's going to be different than what you were doing?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  I think what's going to be different is that we're really going to focus on telling the story of the founders that we work with and the brands and kind of showing them from when they were this small business to how we helped them grow into these massive companies and the journey throughout it. I think what a lot of people get wrong about Apple is they say, oh, they see this ad platform and it's outperforming its peers. It must be a scam or a fraud. And what they don't take the time is really peel back the fruit and say, oh, wow. Look, these guys, they have the perfect edges. They hatch everything in great. Like if you really take time to like, look into the details of our business, we care about every single detail and you notice these little things they've add up and that's what sets us apart from our peers. And this is what Luca Ferrari talks about as well, right? Is that,

• 54:40Speaker 01

  you know, if you compare, if you look at his business or also like Long Lake as well, he'd say, oh, it's just a PE shop. What do they do? They just go in, they fire a bunch of people and then they can be more efficient. It's like, no, it's way more than that, right? It's, they have better technology stacks, right?

• 54:53David Senra?

  They're actually hiring more people.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  That's Long Lake specifically, right? Like they're hiring more people, right? They're, they're able to make their employees more efficient to get more output, right? And that's one of the things for us is that the way that we approach things are different than everybody else. We optimize on inefficiencies of these other businesses and those combined allow us to set ourselves apart.

• 55:10David Senra?

  I think telling the story of the founders of the companies you work with is really smart. I think obviously telling the story of the founders of Apple and too, and the important people in, that play a role in the company is super important. You just mentioned Long Lake, me and you had a dinner with one of the Long Lake founders. And the first dinner, you're like, oh, no shit. This is like, if that guy's involved, you remember you calling me after this?

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, I was honestly, there's not many times I walk away from a dinner, I'm like, this human is so impressive. I know he's part of the Illuminati.

• 55:38David Senra?

  Yeah, you're like, I don't understand. And then like,

• 55:40Speaker 01

  How come I never heard of him?

• 55:41David Senra?

  How come you never heard of him? And then you see, oh, of course, like then you see the other companies involved and it's like, oh, they're all outperforming. Well, it makes sense, it ties back to this person. This is something that, you know, you and I have talked about, you know, going over a lot of the biographies, same biographies I do on Founders Podcast, like, people don't understand how important and like, this really is a superpower. If you know, it's like, this is James Dyson, who both me and you are a fan of. If you know all the struggle that he went through to make his products and you read the book on him, or you listen to the podcast on him, or you watch an interview with him, what are you going to do at the end of that? You're going to be like, hey, this guy cares so much. I'm buying his product. And this is what, what has happened to me where like, a lot of people didn't know who the hell, they didn't know what Apple was. They never heard about him for a read. They listened to it like, I have to, like, if that's the guy running it,

• 56:26David Senra?

  I'm going to at least try to use this tool for my business. It's super valuable.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 56:31David Senra?

  Why is Elon out there doing all the product demonstrations? Why does Steve Jobs, it's like, the, the, the people want to back people, not companies. They don't have a love of companies, they have a love of people.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yep, a hundred percent.

• 56:41David Senra?

  Yeah. So the more you guys can do that, even this, I don't remember, did you, when I first floated this idea to do this, did you tell me no?

• 56:49Speaker 01

  I, I didn't want to do it, you know? But you pushed me, you're like, you gotta get out here and get on the podcast. And, and you know, I did it on a podcast before this as well. It's kind of like my, my media training into it. And you're like, no, we're going to throw you right in the deep end.

• 57:00David Senra?

  Yeah, I mean, because we've had a million conversations, your story, like, how did I start it? It's like, wait a minute, this, this kid dropped out of high school? What? He lived in the office? This isn't a joke? He did this? He's working for this company for 14, and when there's 14 years, he's in his early 30s? Like, how did this happen? Again, like understanding the personality, like that develops the ideas and makes sense why, you know, you have a bunch of older brothers. You have a dad that like, you know, kind of talks shit about your, your, I think he wanted you to be a doctor or something, right?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Well, he wanted me to be a doctor and you know, it's funny. So my dad, you know, doesn't, doesn't own the stock of Apple, right? So like, you have a man, by the way, you thought the internet was a scam.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Thought the internet was a scam. And he was like, he didn't take the time to like care about our business. And I don't hold that against him, but like, yeah, like I have it in, in me, like I hook in me to like prove everybody wrong, right? And the beauty is like, we've done a good job over 15 years, but we still have so much more room to go. Right? Like, I think my journey will be over when like, I walk, like if I walk down the street and everybody's, oh, I know that Apple brand, right? But today, you walk down the street and 90 out of 100 people, or 99.9 out of 100 people would be like, app? Who? What is Apple, right? Like we, we obviously, even though we make a big impact in these businesses live, like we were very early in our journey.

• 58:20David Senra?

  What's your relationship with your dad like today?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  It's good. You know, I never hold that against him because I always think about like, how was he raised? You know, my father, his dad died when he was 15 years old. He had four other siblings that he had to go and take care of and a mom that couldn't speak English, right? So they came from Colombia, my dad's from Iwagai, came from Colombia to West Palm Beach, you know, the United States. And his dad was a lawyer. He grew up in a house where like, didn't have anything to fall back on. Dad was a hard ass. And like, he became a doctor, not because he wanted to, because he needed to. Right? It was the only way to make a lot of money to help support the family. And so now like, when I think about that, I'm like, oh, of course it makes sense of who he is, right?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Like, that's why he was so hard on me, right? So like, one of the things that we talked about before this podcast is like, you know, I grew up in a nice neighborhood. I went to a nice school, but like, I was the poorest kid amongst all the rich kids. Like I had five pants, five shirts for the whole entire school year and that was it. And when I would come home and complain about like, oh, my friend's got Nikes or he's got this nice shirt, my dad's like, I don't give a shit. You want stuff? Go out there and go work for it. Like go out there and hustle. And that's like what pushed me to become a better version of myself.

• 59:33David Senra?

  I know like you have this chip on your shoulder. I would say you have like a boulder on your shoulder is the way to put it. I don't think it's a chip, it's a giant rock. I know Adam pushed you in your professional career. Did your dad push you at all? And I know you're like skeptical on the internet and everything else, but like, is there something about your relationship where it's like, you can draw back? That like some of your drive comes from him?

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Leading up to the point that I got, that I left his house was, was kind of when that impact ended, right? He kind of like sent me off to go free and the most indirect was like, when I say this couldn't fail, there was no way I could ever move back into my parents' house, right? Like Richard Branson says, like, the only thing worse than being poor is like becoming rich and going poor again. Like I moved out of my parents' house. I was living in San Francisco, I was working for my brother and then I was doing the startup. I was like, there's no fucking way that I'm going to go move back with my parents, right? Remember, I dropped out of high school. So like, you know, it's not like I could have, you know, gone into any good college. I'm pretty much un-hireable by the way, like on paper, right? Like who's going to hire this like high school dropout?

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  And like the idea of like going to work back for my brother as well would have also been like equal failure to me. Like I love my brother and like, he gave me the tools I needed to succeed. And ultimately I chipped my own, my own stone and, you know, paved my own way. So like those things all combined, you know, helped me become the best version of myself and really pushed me forward.

• 1:00:53David Senra?

  Where do you get this like attention to detail that you have from? Did like, is that innate? Did somebody in like mentor you inside of Apple?

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is a guy called Mark Rosner and he's my mentor. And before we had a lawyer, he was our in-house counsel.

• 1:01:08David Senra?

  What was his position in Apple?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  So he was our CRO and how we got ahold of Mark was, he ran, he was the point, he was the CEO of this company called Zedge, which did ringtones and wallpapers. And he like broke off on his own and he had this blog called Applied Revenue. It was just talking about like, ways to make more revenue on apps and just within the mobile app ecosystem. And I told Adam, hey, like, we want to work with Zedge and like this guy seems pretty intelligent. You should reach out to him. What turned into like potentially was going to be a consultant, we decided he would come in as a CRO. What was hilarious that when Mark first met Adam and they were doing like the sit down, Adam put an NDA in front of him. And you know, most people just sign that. And Mark says, hey, can I get like 15 minutes?

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  And Adam steps out of the room and like, Adam comes back to the room and Adam calls me in with him. And like, the whole thing is like marked up. And he's like, I can't agree to this. I can't agree to that. I can't agree here. And immediately I was like, you know, pull out of the side, right? Whispering, we can't trust this guy. There's no way we can work with this guy. Like, what type of fucking human being is gonna like redline an NDA? Like, for a company, they're interviewing for, like, what are they gonna do? Share trade secrets? Adam had a different perspective. He goes, this guy, if he was this diligent to take the time to redline the agreement and go over detail, this is somebody that we want to work with. Mark came on board. We ended up hiring him. And initially, we did not get along well at all, actually. So he was managing the supply side. I was focused on the demand side.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  I brought in the center of demand. He was working on publishers. And what ended up happening was, over time, I ended up working on his team. I'd say team, because it was only one person. So I ended up working under him. And initially, you know, it wasn't a great relationship, it turned into a great mentorship. Because what Mark saw was this raw kid who had a ton of energy, who had a ton of skill, but it wasn't honed in. He always pushed me to like, really dig into the details. Like, when we do contracts, make sure that we're very specific about what we do. And going back to like, I told you, like, we didn't have in-house counsel. Like, Mark probably did over 200 agreements himself. And we only got screwed on one of them.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Like, his hit record is incredible. When we hired our first lawyer, and he started redlining agreements, he would redline our lawyer's agreements. Like, also, the best Mark Rosner story, and by the way, he's gonna hate that I'm bringing him up. Mark doesn't hate anybody besides the one guy that he lent 20 bucks to when he was in fifth grade. He still sees a temple today. So like, you're talking about a guy that like, every detail matters to him. And actually, to kind of like, go like, further into the story. So at one point, you know, my grandmother, she had breast cancer. I had to go to the hospital. And there was this deal that we were working on that took months. It was with a company, actually, out of, a little outside of that life. And we were so happy we got the deal done. And like, you know, I was working on the agreement while in the hospital.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  And I sent it out, and they signed it, and I signed it. And Mark calls me, and you know, I was expecting him to be like, oh, how's your grandmother doing? He's like, Raf, you screwed up big time on this deal. And there was like, this, you know, one, one point that you're off, effectively, was off by like, 1% or 2%. And I was like, Mark, like, are you kidding me? We spent months. I can't go back to the client. I can't have this conversation with them. And he was just like, do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods? And just hung up the phone. And we're following up with me, following up with the client, renegotiating the deal. As you can imagine, the client's very irate. And, you know, we got the deal done. And then he called me back, and he was like, good job.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  You know, like, that was the type of guy who mentored me. And so that's why I cared so much about every single detail. Because for him, it wasn't good enough unless it was perfect.

• 1:05:00David Senra?

  Yeah, I think we're a very common trait among people that like, where excellence is their north star, they get to top of their profession. It's just like, you'll hear them say the same maxim over and over again. It's like, how you do one thing is how you do everything. There are no small details.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  Yep. And The Score Will Take Care of Itself is just a book about Bill Walsh and, you know, the 49ers. When he took over the team, it was a losing team. And then he won over three Super Bowls under his management. Was about every little detail, every little thing between now, like, how they showed up on practice on time, how they answered the phones, how the locker rooms were. Everything, it was focused on, like, every detail. All the actions that you do are more important than focusing on the scoreboard. Because if you do all the little things right, then the score will take care of itself.

• 1:05:42David Senra?

  So that's great advice that Mark gave you. What's the best advice that you've ever received?

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  The best advice I ever received is staying in the game. When it, when it hurts, when you want to quit, that's, that's when you know you're having growth in your career. And there's been many times in my career where, and this has come from my brother, where I've wanted to throw the towel, and it's, I've already won, you know, why, why am I doing this? You know, I don't need to be working this hard. And he's just like, sack up, you know, work your ass off. And like, if you're feeling this pain, that's because you're growing. And so I think that was the best advice I ever got in my career.

• 1:06:17David Senra?

  I think it's one of the best advice anybody could ever get, just stay in the game. It's awesome. Raf, this was awesome, man. I had high expectations for this conversation. You exceeded them. I really appreciate you trusting me and actually letting me twist your arm and making you do the podcast. I hope we do run this back again in the future. Thanks.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Thanks, Seth.

• 1:06:33David Senra?

  I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review. And make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.