Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, joins Sam and Shaan to talk about how a $3,000/month side hustle in a San Francisco basement turned into a $100M business. They cover Noah stepping back in as CEO after his delegate stepped down, his perspective on wealth and net worth, his current obsession with DAOs and NFTs, and a candid debrief on meeting Peter Thiel. The episode closes with a wide-ranging book recommendation swap.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host, co-founder of The Hustle), Shaan Puri (host, investor), Noah Kagan (guest, founder of AppSumo)
Cold Open [00:00:00]
Noah: No, it just started as a side hustle. I was in a basement in San Francisco — it was like, yo, I have a theory about what I think will be big and I want to make $3,000 a month. Never was it like, I want to make millions of dollars, or I want to have a bunch of people, or I want to have a bunch of customers.
Catching Up — Back from Albuquerque [00:00:15]
Shaan: How are you, Sam? How are you today?
Sam: I’m good. What are you doing?
Shaan: Well, I just got back from Albuquerque. I was hanging out with my family and then I just got home and there’s back-to-back meetings before we go to the Trail of Lights tonight in Austin.
Sam: I know — I, Neville, and Neil — I’ve heard all about it. You guys are going to have some exciting times tonight. Did you — wait, you weren’t working today? Like a normal schedule?
Shaan: I actually work really best on airplanes, so I got up, worked on the airplane, landed, and just been back-to-back meetings now until 6:30.
Sam: Do you enjoy having a normal schedule now?
Shaan: It — I had some trauma, you know. By the way, Silicon Valley tech worker trauma is like: my boss didn’t give me a 20% raise, it was a 10% raise, and I am traumatized. When I worked at Intel, all I did was meetings and I was like, this is the worst thing ever. And now all I do is meetings. But I will say, today I was in some meetings and I was interacting and I was like, man, I love you people. There are some meetings where they suck and you have to figure out how to get rid of them or change the meeting, and then there are some where it’s like, wow, we’re business-forward — things are happening that are making stuff happen in the business.
Sam: So Noah — Noah Kagan’s here. Founder of this company called AppSumo, which we’ll talk about in a second. But you basically, kind of — I don’t know — do you say you stepped away? You weren’t actively running the company day-to-day for a couple years, and now you’re the CEO again?
Noah: I was active for a long time. Now I’m not active. It’s amazing. It’s the best. I don’t know — I don’t think I have it in me, at least not right now, to go back and do that.
Sam: Do you think that you have it in you?
Shaan: It’s hard. I mean, I was not working — it sounds like such an ass thing to say, but I wasn’t really working. I was doing podcasts, which isn’t really working. I was making a lot of money, and now I’m working. I actually think I’ll make the least money I’ve made this year.
Sam: Wait, what? What does that mean? You were making a lot of money from what?
Noah: So we hired this guy Eamon to run AppSumo.com. He was running it and I was like, well, let me make YouTube videos and do podcasts and build SendFox and do experimental stuff. And I would get paid. Then Eamon wanted to step out to be an advisor, and I stepped in, and now I’m having to do all his work. So yeah, I think I’ll make less money this year.
Sam: Two things on that. One — sometimes when you criticize another person, because I criticize Eamon a lot, but just productively, like, you could be better —
Noah: Yeah, like a Jewish mother. Noah, why aren’t you doing this? You could be like your cousin, he’s a doctor.
Sam: And being in his shoes definitely makes you respect him so much more.
Noah: Just a lot. Just a lot. He is a very impressive guy. But I’d say the second thing is the work now is harder, but it’s much more rewarding. I was even writing that down in my diary this morning — I said, “Dear diary, hard work is rewarding.”
Sam: Noah, you have the weirdest — you talk about having a diary, you always talk about going to therapy, which is no big deal, all these things are great. But you act like a tough guy sometimes, and then you talk about complaining to your diary.
Noah: You know, I think of myself like a Chinese dish. I’m like sweet and sour pork. You’re not really supposed to have pork as a Jew, and then sometimes it’s sweet and sometimes you’re kind of sour. It’s a mixed bag. It’s a variety. It’s entertaining.
AppSumo Revenue and Net Worth [00:04:30]
Sam: You’re — since I’ve known you, I think like eight or nine years, you’ve always been cagey with numbers. I don’t want to push you if you don’t want to be pushed. Can you talk about how big you guys are now? I mean, in your YouTube video I think you said $100 million in revenue.
Noah: Yeah, we’re not going to hit it. We actually missed our goal this year. It’s going to be less than that.
Sam: It’s weird — you said $80M in another video.
Noah: What? I think because someone doesn’t want to tell you how much they make. I think that’s fair, though. I don’t talk about a lot of stuff either. I say round numbers sometimes, or I’ll just say I don’t want to talk about that.
Sam: All right. How much did you sell The Hustle for? Let’s try these.
Noah: Round numbers. Tens of millions of dollars.
Sam: Yeah, I mean… how much do you make a year now working at HubSpot?
Shaan: Well, I get paid — I get paid a whole lot of stock, but my base salary is only $250,000. Maybe. “Only.” Well, my stock is significant. I will say — you know all these shows nowadays and crypto people are always like, “this is not financial advice” — I’m going to give financial advice: I buy a lot of HubSpot stock. I think it’s one of the most undervalued stocks on the market. When they bought us, I think they were worth $17 or $16 billion in late January. Today it’s $40 billion. So yeah, that’s gone up a lot.
Sam: And that’s why when people ask how much you sold for, I’m like — well, I got tens of millions in cash, and then I also got HubSpot stock, but it’s already up significantly since we sold. I don’t know what price you say. I don’t love exactly saying.
Shaan: Where are we going to ask — who’s wealthier, you or Sean?
Sam: Dude, I don’t know. I’ll tell you this — we did a podcast recently and I basically said my goal was to make at least $20 million by the age of 30. And I did that.
Noah: Good for you.
Sam: And that was the goal. But I also don’t — I own assets now, some real estate, I own HubSpot stock and Airbnb stock. But like, you own AppSumo, which is an $80 million business. Do you think you’re worth two or three hundred million dollars?
Noah: I think AppSumo is worth somewhere between a quarter billion and a billion dollars. Isn’t that crazy?
Sam: Yeah.
Noah: I don’t really look at that as part of my net worth. I just look at my own cash. It’s interesting — I think there are Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who think about valuation of a company, and then there’s me and you who are normal people that are like, what’s your profit? What’s your revenue?
Sam: Right, if they say “multiple” they’re Silicon Valley.
Noah: Well, I mean — if you’re going to do in the range of $80 million in revenue, I don’t know how I would value that. Five times profits or five times that number, I guess.
Sam: I don’t know, man. It’s a little surreal. My brother did ask me — he’s like, if you were to sell, how much would you sell for? And I was like, I don’t know. If it was a billion, that’s… I think people don’t realize that — I worked at Facebook, and I still remember hearing about Mark Zuckerberg turning down a billion dollar offer at 24.
Noah: Yeah, he’s crazy. Dude, you took the first offer anyone gave you.
Sam: No I didn’t! But I was — I mean, I was eager. I say that with love, dude. We had a few other offers but it was a good one, and I knew HubSpot stock was a good buy.
I’m not Zuck. I can’t imagine working — dude, do you think his life is enjoyable?
Noah: I can’t imagine it’s enjoyable.
Sam: No. I mean, I guess he enjoys it, but I just think that would be hell to me. That’s why he has to have a virtual character enjoy it more for him.
Noah: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean — we have this buddy, remember that one time we were out to eat, you don’t have to say his name if you don’t want to, but he was like, “Noah, you’re not growing at three times a year — what the hell — you’re leaving so much on the table.” And I was like, dude, I just went mountain biking on a Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I did this, and on Thursday I did this. We’re going to make like $80 million in revenue this year and I own most of it. I’m so happy. And he was criticizing you as a friend, and I was like, no — is he crazy? You’ve got it. This is perfect. Don’t change. This is perfect.
Sam: It’s how you want to live, right? I think in your 20s you’re just scrambling and wanting to — for me, I wanted to prove myself, I wanted to have status. And then in your 30s you figure out more what really gives you fulfillment. I think everyone’s got their own stuff. Figuring it out for yourself is a really tough thing.
How AppSumo Started [00:09:00]
Sam: How many people work there?
Noah: 140 now. Isn’t that crazy?
Sam: Yeah, it is. Do you like it? It just started as a side — sorry, am I cutting you off?
Noah: Dude, no, keep going. I want to hear from you.
Sam: It just started as a side hustle. I was in a basement in San Francisco and I want to make $3,000 a month. Why $3,000?
Noah: A thousand was for living, a thousand was for eating, and a thousand was for saving.
Sam: That’s funny — that’s almost exactly what I did too. It was about that number. Did you — how big did you think it was going to get?
Noah: I never thought that far ahead. There’s a quote I read by Paul Graham — it was like, if you’re so worried about what your company’s going to be in 10 years, you’re never going to make sure you can take care of your customers today, and your business won’t exist in 10 years. So don’t worry about it. And I just kind of — I guess that’s how it’s served me well.
Someone asked me what it took to become a millionaire, and I think one of the things for me was just following the curiosity. I was curious about all the stuff that me and you get paid for.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, I’m in the same boat. Having 140 employees — I don’t know if it would freak me out, but I remember — do you still look at your payroll when you pay it every two weeks?
Noah: So — do you want me to tell you? That’s literally why I was late to the podcast. We’re taking the whole team out to Costa Rica, and then there was some ad spend, like $50,000, and I’m just like — yes, we make revenue, but at the end of the day if you don’t have income and you’re not a funded business, you’re going to go out of business. So I think it’s figuring out checks and balances so I’m not stressing about it weekly. But there are definitely some net income issues keeping me up, and we’re doing budgeting projections — and the thing about budgeting is, if you budget for $100 or $120 or $150 million and you spend on that and you don’t make it, then you get kind of screwed.
Sam: I think you and I are similar in that — I’ll say, yeah, we can hit $100 million in revenue, and then they say, all right, well then we have to spend $80 million. And I look at it and I’m like, oh my god, what is this $50,000 expense? What is this $10,000 expense? Are you crazy? We can’t do this.
Noah: I think that’s the cool thing about having a guy like Eamon — he was a little bit less attached. There’s this company called NerdWallet — you know NerdWallet? Tim Chen gave me a little bit of money to start The Hustle. It was his idea — he was like, hey, can I give you some money to start this? I took it. And they just went public at like $3 or $4 billion in valuation. I went to him one day and said, “Tim, we’re spending $80,000 a month in expenses.” And he goes, “Man, it’s just an Excel number. It’s a spreadsheet. It has an input and an output. That’s all you should care about. You shouldn’t actually care that it’s $80,000 a month.”
And I still find myself freaking out about that stuff.
Noah: I mean, Eamon always cared and I have a lot of respect and admiration for him. He’s still very involved. The way I’ve tried to approach it is two pieces. Number one: when does the red flag need to be triggered? Every week we have a Monday KPI sheet — they update our gross margin, they update customers — and there’s color coding. Are there red flags in any of the numbers that I need to call attention to? That reduces your anxiety and helps you trust but verify.
The second thing is: if something is a profitable spend, how much should you spend? It depends, but if you’re spending money and making 30% profit — go all in. There’s no budget, it’s unlimited. The question with spending is where is it very profitable? Is it marketing? Development? Sales? Or is there stuff that should be more variable, like AWS, where you need to be more mindful?
Sam: How big do you think this business could get in 10 or 20 years?
Noah: I’m just trying to survive to next year. I come back to the why. On AppSumo it’s very simple: we promote great tools at great prices and we help people start and grow online businesses. We have to come back to that — we were like, in five years… and I’m like, probably helping people start and grow online businesses.
Sam: I know you’re going to be doing the same thing, but the revenue — we went to the spreadsheet and tripled numbers. Silicon Valley: double, double, triple, triple. We became a billion-dollar revenue company in like five years.
Noah: Right now, candidly, some of our mechanics — as we add partners, do we get customers, does the business grow? It’s just not adding up. We added more partners this year and the proportional amount of customers did not come with that. So we have to work on that flywheel.
Sam: I think you must follow trends. We had Trends — our subscription service — we crushed it during COVID. Now sales have slowed down a little. I think it’s cyclical. But I bet if I had to bet, COVID was the best time you ever had.
Noah: COVID was great, man. I thought it was just great in general, right? It brought people closer — there’s a lot of good about COVID, just not the death part.
I’ve been doing internet stuff since 2004 and I’ve never had a recession. And it’s not that I have some superpower — it’s like, well, the only way to not have a recession is just keep doing things that people want. One of the key things to consider is: how do you have discipline when times are good, so you don’t have to be as disciplined when times are bad?
Right now candidly with AppSumo I think we’re being a little undisciplined with our spending and our hiring because times have been better. I’m trying to get that tighter.
YouTube Team, MrBeast, and Delegating [00:18:00]
Sam: Why is your YouTube team so big? Five people?
Noah: I don’t even think that’s that big. MrBeast has like 100 people.
Sam: No way.
Noah: At least 50 full-time, at least 50 contractors.
Sam: And are they all — it’s the Jimmy show, right? So whatever he wants, you do.
Noah: I think that’d be weird to have 50 employees where it’s like, hey guys, next week I’m thinking I want to do this. The reason I’d hate that is someone goes, “Hey Jimmy, what if we had a Rolling Stones song in the background?” No. I don’t want that. Just let me do what I want to do. Just fulfill that.
So we have a head of staff. One thing I hate — I hate when someone’s like, “Hey, can you remind me about this?” And I’m like, no — just write it down. I just told you. You want me to remind you? Do your job.
But becoming CEO — which I never called myself until recently — there are times you’re like, yo, remind me. Her name’s Anna, she’s head of staff, she’s phenomenal. And then with the YouTube channel, I’m like, hey, I want you to come back with more ideas — go pitch me 10 more ideas. And they come back and I’m like, this is the best ever.
It’s figuring out what areas you like to play in and being around people that you’re consistently impressed with. Having people who’ll help you figure things out — it’s epic.
Sam: Are you getting noticed on the street?
Noah: No, not really. It varies in Austin. More people recognize me here. Even though the channel’s gotten bigger — we doubled this year — I actually used to get noticed more at the gym.
Shaan: I still get excited when people come up and say hi. I just got recognized this morning, walking down the street. It makes me a little nervous sometimes because I’m like — I love smoking cigars, I’ll just walk around smoking cigars, and I’m like, I don’t want people to see me smoking.
Sam: Don’t you think it’s flattering?
Shaan: I always feel honored — like, something I’ve worked on has impacted this person and they’re excited to say hi.
Who have you seen that made you a little nervous?
Noah: The other day — two or three months ago — I saw Logan Paul. And I respect Logan Paul. I said what’s up and just kind of pounded and kept walking. She’s huge — Logan’s huge.
Sam: Was this in New York?
Noah: I could have stopped and been like, hey, this is what I do for a living, your brother was on my thing — we probably have friends of friends. But I was honestly kind of nervous.
Sam: I’m sure you could do a Twitter thing like, hey, I want to have Logan on the show. But anyway, that’s awesome.
Did you see my Twitter thread about when I met the Silk Road guy?
Noah: No, I didn’t see that.
Sam: I posted it the other day. I was looking through old Dropbox pictures and I posted about how I met this guy named Ross at a party and we just chatted, and he got arrested like a month later. I recognized him and was like, oh my god, that was Ross — the guy we hung out with at the party.
Wealth, Happiness, and Being Afraid to Buy Stuff [00:22:00]
Sam: How much better is your life now being rich? You know that $70,000 study?
Noah: It sounds like BS to me.
Sam: It’s BS. It’s way better. It’s significantly better.
Noah: I still worry about stuff. I was just talking to my friend about this today. Neville bought this $800 vacuum and I went to his house to borrow it. I was like, I can’t buy one of these, it’s $800, it’s too expensive. And he’s like, why are you worrying about that? And I’m like, I don’t know. It freaks me out. I’m afraid to buy stuff. Do you have that?
Sam: Well — two things. One, I went to the grocery store with my parents for Thanksgiving. My mom sees grapes and she’s like, “Noah, these are really expensive today, let’s not get them.” I’m like, Deborah, it’s your birthday, I’m going to treat you — you get two of them. So I have no problems buying anything health-related.
But I think what’s fascinating on the other side of it, Sam, is crypto and NFT stuff. All these former Shopify store owners are now crypto experts, which is funny. I trade and I’ll make like $100 or lose like $1,000, and I’m not devastated. But compared to AppSumo — we’ll promote partners and do like a million dollars in a day, and the partners make like $700,000 and our customers are happy, and I’m like, well, that’s cool.
Noah: Yeah, there’s a phrase — penny poor, pound rich.
Sam: Do you buy crypto? You just bought a bunch at one time and held on?
Noah: Two things. One, I want to highlight a phrase from Chad, my business partner at AppSumo.com — he had this phrase: “Noah, don’t confuse the anthills for the mountains.” He’s like, when we’re doing work at AppSumo, is this a macro thing or a micro thing? Let’s do the macro thing. Don’t sweat the small stuff. That’s hard, man.
There’s all these productivity tools and everyone’s always asking what’s the latest — and I’m like, you’re not even doing anything. Don’t worry about the calendar and the productivity tool. Worry about doing important things. The best productivity tool is the back of an envelope.
Sam: That’s good. That gets the job done.
Noah: On crypto — I’m a boring investor. I focus on active income. I started buying in 2015 and just put it on autopilot — auto-bought every month for the past six years, and it’s made up a substantial amount.
Sam: I mean, you’ve done well with it.
Noah: I’ll tell you the number. I would guess… can I guess? I would guess between $1 and $2 million.
Sam: Not four million. But it’s four million, isn’t it?
Noah: Isn’t that nuts? And then this weekend I was like disappointed I didn’t buy Crypto Punks when my buddy was like, you should buy it. But it was like $50,000 and I’m like, that’s crazy to buy status and imagery.
Sam: It’s an investment when it goes up and gambling when it goes down.
Noah: The NFTs I think are mostly stupid.
Sam: Don’t get me started. Dude, I just went down a deep hole. I just got scammed. I lost my — I don’t even know what happened the past two weeks. Yesterday I woke up at 8 AM to buy apes. I spent $1,600 on apes.
Sam: Of the $4 million in crypto, what’s your basis?
Noah: Probably about half a million, or $400,000.
Sam: Isn’t that amazing?
Noah: I’ve always — when I started using it I was like, oh, I can see why this is going to be big. The return as an investment is pretty insane.
Sam: What else could do that? Some public equities, but you don’t even angel invest, do you?
Noah: Angel investing could do that, it just takes forever. And I think the best investment for everyone is their own business. Active income — creating your own company has pretty much the highest multiples you can imagine. And you can control it.
I talked to this guy on Saturday, biking, named Nick. He’s like, man, I gotta grind. I asked how much he makes — he makes $60K. If you’re going to grind, at least grind on something that has higher upside for yourself. It’s the same amount of work. He doesn’t work harder than me, I don’t work harder than him. I just worked on something that, from a strictly financial perspective, has a better opportunity.
Running AppSumo as CEO Again — Working with Eamon [00:30:00]
Sam: When you were working with Eamon, how often would you talk to him?
Noah: It varied. Probably once a week on Fridays, and then a little throughout the week. But they actually kept me out of Slack, kept me out of everything — because it’s kind of noise. It’s like my mom: “Noah, what’s that on the screen? What is that?” It’s better to be out.
Sam: And I think that’s probably the reason he wanted to step out — you were nagging him?
Noah: Yeah, to some extent. I don’t think anyone wakes up excited — unless it’s some weird thing — to have someone asking “what are you doing today?” every day. There was probably a little bit too much of that.
Sam: I’ve had people quit for that reason. I do the same thing — I’m like, why are you doing this? What’s going on today? What are you doing right now? What actions can we take immediately to fix XYZ? You need that urgency, but if you have a good winner, you do gotta let them breathe and get it done.
Did Eamon ever — whenever I’ve hired people to run stuff, I always freak out. I’m like, this guy’s going to figure out that I’m profiting off their work and they’re going to bail. This is so unfair. Did you freak out about that?
Noah: I used to have a lot of that. I would never post anything on social, I wouldn’t post anything about our YouTube videos or “Hell I Made My First Million” — I would never say anything about that. Eventually I got to a point where I was like, am I helping these people do their best at the company? With Eamon, I asked him: how much do you want to make? He said a number and he made more than that. I never felt guilt because that guy got more than he wanted, and I got paid too.
Within the company, people are free to work wherever. So it’s like, how do you create an environment where people are like, yo, that guy’s doing well and I’m doing well?
SendFox and AppSumo’s Future [00:34:00]
Sam: Are you interested in any projects right now? You had SendFox — did you shut that down?
Noah: No, we’re still running SendFox.com. It’s a Mailchimp alternative. The two things I’m focused on: number one is AppSumo — becoming more of a marketplace, so you can buy or sell software tools and books. And then the second stuff is NFTs. There’s just so much going on.
Sam, I think — you kind of smirk, and I get it. At first that’s what a lot of people did with it. Same with crypto when I was buying in 2015 — people were like, I don’t get it. Same when I joined Facebook — you’re gonna go work at a social network? It seems weird, but there’s a lot of interesting use cases.
Sam: What use cases?
Noah: One is called CityDAO. Basically everyone pools their money and then they buy a city. They bought land in Wyoming, and now if you own one of the NFTs or tokens within it, you get votes on what they’re going to do with the city. Everything’s public — you see who’s voting, you see what the votes are.
Another one I like is called HeadDAO. I think conceptually it’s really interesting. It’s a fund where you buy their NFTs — there are 10,000 of them — and if you hold the NFTs, the fund goes and buys stuff, and based on your NFT you get some return from whatever the fund invests in. It’s kind of like an index fund of crypto and other assets.
And then there’s just stuff like — think about housing. Right now housing is like, Noah owns a contract, it goes through the system, all this. Well, you can have a house shared by a thousand people. Or like Roblox or Minecraft — where it’s not Facebook and Twitter getting everything, but the creators and the consumers own the whole thing. Same with AppSumo — how can we create it so the whole customer base owns AppSumo? They’re incentivized to even start doing more apps.
Sam: Have you ever paid money to be part of a membership group, like Tiger21?
Noah: Not yet. There’s this thing called Friends With Benefits. The market cap is like hundreds of millions. It was basically a Soho House online — cool young New York people paid $500 to $2,000 to be part of an online group that held meetups. You had to buy an NFT or a coin to join the community, and you’re incentivized to make the community awesome because people could sell their membership and it could be worth more than when they bought in.
Sam: After the dust settles and all the junk consolidates — what’s left?
Noah: There’s a lot going on. Discord — it’s like Slack for juvenile delinquents. Dude, it’s so hard to figure out.
Sam: It’s not just that. It’s just so spammy.
Noah: I’m just trying not to rush into anything, but understand: AppSumo did a good job where people are like, I want to start businesses, I want tools. How is entrepreneurship and startups evolving? There’s something where there’s so much money and speed happening in this crypto and NFT space.
At this current moment I’m obsessed with the people setting up the town in Wyoming. How are they going to make a profit? How do they get paid?
When you mint the tokens or NFTs and sell them, the CityDAO keeps all that money and decides how much of it goes to buy land — 80% buys land, 50%, whatever they decide. And then the second thing — which is really clever about NFT stuff — is that on secondary sales, the original owner often gets a cut. So I create NFTs, and every time they’re resold, I get 5% of all sales forever. There are just really interesting variations. In the end, people have had partnerships before. This isn’t brand new — I think the medium of exchange through crypto is creating new opportunities.
Meeting Peter Thiel [00:44:00]
Sam: You and Neville and a couple other friends went and hung out with Peter Thiel a few weeks ago. One thing I think I can say is — he said something like, businesses are neat but they die, and a city — any city that’s ever been a somewhat major city has never died.
Noah: He’s apparently obsessed with cities right now. I actually invested in this one company doing gene editing. Basically, the explain-it-like-I’m-five version is: if you get a disease and something happens to your skin and it gets messed up, gene editing lets you tinker with someone’s genes and they can grow back new skin. The future of gene editing could be: if you’re an amputee, you could grow back a new leg, or grow a new liver or kidney. The issue is it’s highly regulated by the FDA.
Peter Thiel has this city in Bolivia, or somewhere in central or south America, and he’s basically the founder of this city. This company I invested in is based out of there — because there’s no FDA in that city. Which is potentially horrible, but also kind of interesting.
Sam: I think these new startup cities are incredibly fascinating. Mark Lore, the founder of Jet, has a new cities project.
Noah: I’m more interested in shared home ownership — how do I own a building with a lot of people? There are just too many people who have too much house for just one individual.
Sam: What was it like meeting Peter Thiel? What were your impressions?
Noah: I tweeted about this. He just uses an iPhone 7. Like, the guy — what are we on now?
Sam: 13 Pro, whatever.
Noah: And he’s on a 7. He had crappy New Balances, like Mervyn’s socks, regular jeans.
Sam: Really? Just normal jeans?
Noah: Just like Walmart jeans. But he also had three security guards, cameras, they checked the building, all that.
I admired that he is a thinker. I met him when I worked at Facebook. He bought into our poker game, and then he had to go meet with Zuck, and then he lost. And then he’s like, hey, can I get my money back? And then Boz — who’s now the CTO — was like, no.
Sam: Can you believe that? Also we would say no to the only major investor at the time.
Noah: The buy-in was like $10 and he asked for it back. I was like, what are you doing? But then I liked that Boz just said no. And then I busted out like 20 minutes later, went outside, and his half-a-million-dollar McLaren is sitting there. I was like, all right.
Sam: Did you remind him of that story?
Noah: I don’t think he remembers me. But I will say — the second thing about him is he’s a very deep thinker. I was just looking at my notes. He and Keith Rabois and all those guys — they read a lot of history. Deep, boring books about 1900s history that I just won’t do. I think that’s where a lot of their advantage comes from.
Ben, who’s on this podcast, has a podcast about history — he does biographies on historical figures. Right before you came on we did a whole podcast on how you can just learn from historical figures and not make the mistakes that others have made.
Sam: Keith Rabois — he comes off like such a jerk on Twitter. I’d love to meet Peter Thiel though. I love Keith Rabois and David Sachs.
Noah: Keith doesn’t respond to me as much anymore because I’ve been trying to get him on my show. But the guy’s bright. Very astute. I also — lately I’m more considerate of how wealthy people carry themselves. He’s at a level in the hundreds of millions and he’s like, that’s a dumb idea, San Francisco’s broken. I have a lot of admiration for anyone who calls it like that.
Sam: I just think you could do it without picking on people in a rude, abrupt, public way. It makes you look weak and like a bully. But in interviews I’ve seen, he seems incredibly polite. And I guess I also agree with his opinions, so I don’t mind his approach.
Noah: I’m more neutral to Miami. I haven’t spent enough time there. I really want to go to Art Basel — that’s on the bucket list, to see the art and NFT scene and just the vibe. But Miami’s never called me to live there.
Sam: I intend to stay in Austin for a while.
Noah: I think too — if you ever feel stuck in life, a little flat and frustrated, you need to change geography. I was in Albuquerque last week, I’m going to Cabo this weekend, going to the Bay or LA in a few weeks. Sometimes you just need to get out.
Sam: Tell me about Peter Thiel. What do your notes say?
Noah: Here’s a shocker. He’s probably worth like $10 billion. I asked: Peter, how much are you spending on longevity? And he’s like, almost nothing.
Sam: What? That’s crazy.
Noah: I would spend everything on that. I was like, dude — drop a billion, I’ll solve it. He does some basic stuff, but I thought he would be like, yeah, I have scientists on staff, I have an institute. He said none of that is really going to move the needle dramatically. He’s like, I eat chocolate cake at night. His assistant hides food from him when he travels so he doesn’t eat it. You think the guy who’s this genius is hyper-disciplined — he’s like, no, I’m not. But he knows he’s not, so he accommodates for it.
We talked on the podcast about Brian Johnson, who started Braintree, and he’s a billionaire guy with a whole website where you can see where he’s spending millions of dollars a year on longevity. When I saw that I’m like, this is exactly what you should do if you’re that wealthy. I’m amazed that Peter Thiel doesn’t do that.
Sam: I was shocked that he had low willpower. You watch all these videos and listen to podcasts — I wake up at 5 AM, I have celery, I take a cold shower. He’s like, nah, I like eating chocolate cake. He was drinking wine and eating carbs. And I was like, he’s a regular human. That made me appreciate him a lot.
Noah: He was also very generous — more than I thought. He stayed and talked to us the whole time, like four hours, without checking his phone, without tweeting, just very present. I really appreciated that.
I read this book about him and Ryan Holiday said something cool: if you ask Peter Thiel a question, he’ll say, well, some people believe this, other people think this — he looks at all sides and doesn’t always tell his opinion. Interesting.
He also had a lot of phrases. Do you want to hear them?
Sam: Yeah, let’s hear them.
Noah: “Look-ahead function” — basically, how far are you looking ahead when you’re thinking about a decision? How much are you thinking further out on things?
“Zombification” — he’s like, everyone has the same thoughts. I’m looking for anyone who has unique thoughts.
“Incremental versus monumental shifts.”
“Companies are mortal, cities are immortal.”
Sam: I was thinking about that. I was trying to think of a city in America that’s at least a moderately-sized city that has just gone away. And there’s nothing.
Noah: He was trying to talk about how cities — you’re kind of like a shareholder of a country. He said remote work is the worst thing that can happen to cities. People can now vote with their feet, and so the ability to work remotely hurts places like San Francisco.
Sam: Doesn’t he live in LA?
Noah: Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of weird. I get annoyed with people who are like “I’m in Puerto Rico to save on taxes.” Well, you have to actually live there. There’s no power for two weeks if there’s a hurricane.
Sam: I admire that he’s like, I’m in LA, I’m going to live well, whatever tax rate this is.
Noah: In that Ryan Holiday book — wherever Peter Thiel goes, 24 hours a day, he’s got a black Mercedes waiting for him.
Sam: That was the car outside the restaurant — was it a black Mercedes?
Noah: Yeah. He has it running at all times. And apparently he’s got some residence in New Zealand, and there’s a jet waiting for him in close vicinity wherever he goes — just in case if anything bad happens, he could bolt to New Zealand.
Sam: The question I’m curious about for myself and for the audience: if we had a billion dollars, how would we live differently? Do you still want to work?
Noah: Work is fun. People are like, oh, sit around all day. See how that goes. Not too much — I think I would just do the things I’m doing now at a higher level. I wouldn’t worry about buying houses. I’m not sure — I’ve got another year or two in this role. Then probably buy houses, and just figure out how to adjust the work to only do the areas I want.
Sam: I would accumulate large amounts of land and create nice residences on all of them so me and my friends can just go. It’s so rare that we can go somewhere and do whatever we want. Like, do we have any friends who have a lot of land where we can go shoot guns and drive motorcycles and just be 12-year-olds?
Noah: I was really hoping our answers were going to be like, you know, I’d give it to the world.
Sam: I’m not giving it to the world. But I’d take anyone with me. I felt bad about Tony Hsieh — wherever I went, I would just say: crew, who’s coming with? Greg Mercer, who started Jungle Scout, bought fancy F1 seats — I don’t know how much the box cost but I bet it was $50 to $100,000. He was like, hey, do you want to come? I had cheapo tickets. He said, we took care of everything. And I was like — how much is it, I’ll pay you. He goes, no, no, it’s fun, I like sharing it. And he brought me and it was awesome. He takes people to Telluride — if he’s doing cool stuff he’s like, hey, anyone who wants to come, come with me.
Noah: I did my will like a year ago and it was kind of surreal. I was like, I guess I’m going to die one day. But it really inspired me to live while I’m here and spend the money now. Even with my brother — I’m like, do you want to kill me and get the money now, or can I just give you some of it now? It’s exciting to start thinking about how to live like you’ve already written the will.
Sam: Do you want to have kids anytime soon?
Noah: It feels weird making a will where you have to give stuff to your mom and your brother. My brother has a kid — I was like, that guy’s going to get all this money? It’s not even mine, it’s not his. I think I’ll have kids. Maybe I’ll go to the sperm bank and donate a ton, and then each of those kids gets a million — each one gets a Crypto Punk.
Why People Listen and YouTube vs. Podcasting [00:68:00]
Sam: We’re going to wrap up here in a minute. This has been a meandering episode. I actually think it’s going to go over kind of well.
Noah: I thought it was interesting. We talked about a variety of subjects. What do people want out of the show? Why do you think people listen?
Sam: Entertainment. Empty calories. Frank business advice.
Noah: A few things: I’m shocked anyone listens. But we’re at over a million downloads a month, which is crazy. Some episodes get 50, 60, 70,000 downloads. Shockingly, people find us funny — that’s what the comments say, which amazes me. And I would say Sean’s really good. I think a lot of people listen for him. You’re good too, man. You’re just a good follow-on.
Sam: I think what it is — you’re the only ones left podcasting. Like, everyone gave up a few years ago and nobody told you, so you kept going.
Noah: It’s been so hard. But you forget how hard the last lap is. Sometimes when you just push through, you’re like, oh, I guess that wasn’t so hard. The further away you get from it —
Sam: Is YouTube easier, you think?
Noah: What does easy mean? It’s challenging in a different way. The intimacy of an audience is really high with podcasts — they’re spending a lot of time with you. YouTube, it’s harder to be successful on it. But there is a broader audience available, so that’s why I spend most of my time there.
I basically stopped podcasting — I still have my show, the Noah Kagan Presents podcast, but 95% of my content creation audience-building is in YouTube now.
Sam: It’s so hard. It takes forever. I put out a video — my first YouTube video, going to start doing one a week. It got 4,300 views.
Noah: That’s good, man.
Sam: I didn’t even remove the Descript logo at the bottom because it costs $25 and I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to even do this next month.
Noah: Did you edit it yourself?
Sam: Yeah. Good for you. There’s no editing — I just spliced clips together.
Noah: How was it for you? How was the experience?
Sam: It sucks. I hated it. But it’s cool to see the result. You know who’s the best YouTuber right now? Nick Bear.
Noah: Oh dude, love Nick Bear. He’s the best YouTuber I’ve been seeing lately. The other day he put out basically a documentary on the Leadville 100 — a 100-mile race he did. Nick Bear’s the most impressive YouTuber I’ve seen lately.
Sam: Have you had him on your show?
Noah: Yeah, but it was a little before he was really famous. Nick is just dope, man. He’s just a good dude. And when you find out he started his business at 4 AM while on base in Korea — I’m not surprised when people are successful. You put in the work, you stuck with it for a long period of time. That’s it.
Sam: Did you meet him in person?
Noah: Yeah. Is he just jacked?
Sam: Oh yeah. I’m going to work out with him next month or in January.
Noah: You should, stop with them. I think part of it is most of my net worth is from who I know. There are certain people you see, like Nick, that you’re just like, yeah, man. I hope you get there. And he’s getting there obviously. There’s just people you want to see succeed.
Sam: I think people don’t want to see me and you succeed, Sam. But they just can’t stop us.
Noah: Some do. Some are like, Noah, why do you say that? I want to see you succeed. But I think it’s just — you and I are very punchable. That’s why we do boxing. Let other people have a chance to punch us.
Sam: Let me ask you one last question. What can I learn from Nick, from you knowing him?
Noah: I would definitely have him back on the show. When he was on the show he was super — almost naive, but not in a bad way. Like he was learning as we were talking to him. He acted like he was unaware of certain things, but I’m like, dude, I know you know about this. He was just a sponge, trying to get me to tell him everything. He just felt like a student.
I’m impressed by his evolution — from a Ranger to a business operator, in what is to some extent a commoditized space. The protein powder — everyone gets it from the same place and puts a different sticker on it. But what I’ve been specifically impressed by is how he evolved from someone who was just a lifter to an elite-level content creator in terms of storytelling.
And his physical fitness is just really well-rounded. Who on earth can weigh 195 pounds, squat 500 pounds, and run a three-hour marathon?
Sam: It’s so interesting. There’s a lot of great YouTubers out there. It’s unbelievable how much great content is being created. Who do you like?
YouTube Recommendations and Favorite Channels [00:75:00]
Noah: Let me look at my homepage. Obviously Noah Kagan. Colin and Samir are studs.
Sam: Oh dude, love Colin and Samir.
Noah: You know who’s the best? Andrew Callaghan — Channel 5.
Sam: He was All Gas No Brakes!
Noah: Wait, what? He was? Watch the pickup artist boot camp. This guy used to be part of a business he bailed on — I think for Vice or something.
Sam: Yeah, he’s sick. Colin and Samir are sick.
Noah: My weird freaky fetish lately is outdoor survival. Who’s that guy in Ohio? Dave Canterbury.
Sam: I watched Dave Canterbury. He looks amazing. This is exactly how I want to look.
Noah: Have you watched the show Alone?
Sam: Oh — on Hulu, yes. Have you seen the guy who looks like he’s wearing bearskin? Looks like a Native American, but he’s a white dude?
Noah: I actually don’t know where he is. There’s the Caves of Missouri guy — there’s a bunch of weird people in there. It’s epic. I’d definitely recommend Alone.
I watch a lot of squash videos, actually.
Sam: Why are you watching squash?
Noah: I just leave it on. It’s white noise in the background.
Sam: That’s kind of weird.
Noah: Outdoor survival, architecture — of course, Neville. That’s about it.
Book Recommendations [00:78:00]
Sam: All right. Ben, what do we think?
Noah: I’ll tell you another good book I read this year. Weird one — I’ve been reading crime books. Like real murder mystery stuff.
Sam: Okay, yeah.
Noah: My favorite book this year — you’re going to like this because you do this. It’s called Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck, written in 1962. He’s like, I live in Cape Cod, I’m rich now, I’m in my 60s, I’ve been writing about middle America for 50 years and I’m so out of touch. So he drives his pickup truck around America, talks to people, and writes about it. It’s amazing. And Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump is the narrator of the audiobook.
Sam: That’s a good one.
Noah: Empire of the Summer Moon — you’d like that one.
Sam: Oh, I’ve heard of that one.
Noah: It’s about the Comanche Indians. It’s just wild — the Texans were brutal and the Comanche were brutal to each other. And then The Operator, which is basically the guy who killed bin Laden. He tells the story of finding bin Laden and shooting him in the head. It’s intense.
Sam: Some of these military books can be weak. Is that one good?
Noah: That one’s pretty spectacular. He goes in depth about hunting down bin Laden. It’s intense.
Sam: Do you get books from the library at all?
Noah: No, but either you or Neville have been bragging about how amazing it is.
Sam: Dude, I’m a huge library guy. There’s a Chrome extension called Library Extension that shows you if you can get digital or audio books for free. It shows up when you go to Amazon. You just put in “Austin library.”
Noah: How do they make money?
Sam: I just donated. I don’t know how they actually make money.
Noah: One book I read recently that I think you’d really enjoy is called Free Country. It’s two guys in Europe who try to go from the bottom of the UK to the top of the UK on bike. They start in their underwear. That’s all they start with.
Sam: Wow. What?
Noah: They have to get to the top of the UK on bike. It got crazy good reviews. And it’s on Kindle Unlimited — it’s free.
Sam: Hell yeah. I’m going to do that.
Noah: And then — since you liked that travel stuff — Little Golden America. In the 1930s, two Russian journalists from the USSR were welcomed into America and they just traveled for four months all over America. They explain from their perspective what America is about. They’re like, in America everyone is so optimistic. No one in America knows about it, but it’s one of the most popular books in Russia — like required summer reading in Russian schools.
Sam: How did you hear about this?
Noah: Goodreads recommended it to me when I was reading the Steinbeck book. I loved that one so much I got addicted and it randomly showed up. It had five out of five stars on Goodreads, 3,000 reviews — but when I Googled it I couldn’t find a thing about it. I was like, this is kind of intriguing.
Sam: Goodreads — it’s like the site that hasn’t been updated since 1960, but it’s still great. There’s nothing better yet.
Noah: The guy who started it spoke at HazelCon. His name’s Otis Chandler, and his grandpa started the LA Times. Otis sold Goodreads to Amazon for — I think it was a billion or a hundred million, like 10 years ago.
Sam: You ever blown away by how many awesome books are out there that we don’t even know about? This book existed and I’ve never heard of it.
Noah: I started thinking about this one time. I listened to Think and Grow Rich on audiobook and I loved the narrator. I wanted to remember him because he’s so good. I looked at what else he’d done and he’s read like a thousand self-help books. And I’m like — wait, you’ve read all these and you’re still making $50 an hour reading these books? This is not effective. After that I almost quit reading business and self-development books entirely.
Sam: I’d rather read biographies. I’m reading this running book right now — Out of Thin Air.
Noah: Wait, which one?
Sam: About Kenya — this guy goes and runs with the Kenyans.
Noah: I thought you meant the John Krakauer one — Into Thin Air — which is also awesome.
Sam: Someone gifted me this Out of Thin Air book and I wasn’t sure if it was that good. Is it?
Noah: Pretty interesting so far. But I’d go read Free Country first. That one — I didn’t want to read it because I didn’t want it to be over.
Sam: All right, I’ll read it. I gotta rock. This was good.
Noah: You gotta rock?
Sam: I gotta leave.
Noah: All right.