Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.
Transcript
Note: This transcript was auto-generated from YouTube captions. It may contain errors and lacks speaker identification. A full Gemini audio transcript will replace this.
Kind: captions Language: en we’re on we’re back what’s up me and Sam are here Sam but you wrote something at the top of this I want to hear what you have to say which is people’s reply about what we talked about last time Gracia let’s jump in with that all right you wanna I’m gonna read just word for word I have it pulled up on my Twitter okay you ready I’m not gonna read the guy’s name he goes I’m a modest-sized mid seven-figure Amazon seller a network of guys that range from 1 or 2 million to probably 50 million plus we have a few guys in our network that actually sold their company to throw up well how do you call it gracias yeah they’re a co happy to chat about Amazon ecommerce sometime okay so I’m gonna read his replies now for those of you listening the background is is that on Tuesday Sean and I talked about the ratio it’s a company that raised money they raised one hundred two hundred million at a 750 valuation I don’t remember yeah close to a hundred million a dog - a big company you can they’re only tears old there and what they’re doing is buying Amazon Fulfillment and filled by Amazon company fulfilled by Amazon companies and they are making the brands better and just owning them they’re doing a bunch of stuff and so I had a guy reach out to me and he I go that’s great tell me what’s the I asked him what’s the cash flow situation like for most guys sub ten million dollars they’re probably working with zero to a handful of US employees still actively involved in the day-to-day large team in the Philippines and in cheap locations and are probably netting between ten to twenty percent a year and and so the typical size for three to five million the typical size is three to five million in revenue and they’re probably pulling in five hundred to a million dollars a year for themselves but the problem is is that it’s getting harder and harder in 2013 you could sell almost anything and scale seven figure business now there are a lot more dominant more sophisticated players and it’s incredibly hard to enter in the business the Amazon is much smarter and it makes ranking incredibly expensive and difficult also Amazon treats their sellers like trash so it’s kind of a mixed bag I could take a month and do nothing and let my team run it and it can go perfect or I can get an email tomorrow saying my account has been suspended or killed and I need a lawyer to reinstate everything or I’m just crushed so anyway Sean I wanted to fill you in on this because I thought it was cool inside I didn’t know about yeah that’s that’s a good insight so a couple of thoughts on that so the first is I think he’s right you know back 2013-2014 it was a lot easier to do it than it is today that seems consistent with what I’ve heard in fact it seems like the formula is build a successful Amazon business in 2013 14 15 then start teaching other people how to do it because it’s too hard to do anymore and so now you start giving away the sort of secrets and you become a teacher for the next three years so I think that’s the the career path right now the other thing that comes to mind we were talking I was talking to Andrew Wilkinson about this and he was saying he used the I think it’s a it’s a Charlie Munger quote which is it said Nassim Taleb quote which is it’s like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller so the you know there’s a high probability you can make a little bit of money um you know consistently every single time you reach down you pick it up and then there’s you know a low probability of complete death and that’s what he’s talking about when he says you can get a letter tomorrow that says your account is suspended goodbye and and that’s it or Amazon cuts the rates of your category like I have a friend who was doing millions of dollars of book sales as a third party book seller on Amazon and the name was almost like you know what now our take rate on books has you know not ten percent we’re gonna do 25 percent things and that like killed that happened to me this that happened to me the other day so in our via in the trends group someone was like just so you know Amazon changed the feet so basically I have various blogs like my personal blog or something like that and it makes just like small amounts of money like three to five thousand dollars a month off Amazon affiliates and I don’t even check it it just runs because because I write just written a lot of content over the years gay changed their rate and someone told me in the group I think they I forget what I was earning I don’t even check it I think I was earning 6% to 9% for a affiliate revenue and then they changed it to they like halved it so that money just haft and it’s no big deal because it wasn’t a it wasn’t like a big income stream for me but if you’re a wire cutter or if you’re BuzzFeed and you made a hundred million dollars from this it’s a huge deal right yeah that’s what that 20% cut makes it makes a really big difference though it wasn’t a it wasn’t a 20% cut it was way bigger than that it was like half they have out and what category are your links mostly and is it electronics is it some cat is one category was just across the board they rate they lowered it across categories but across the board it’s close to half my categories were probably personal care and electronics I mean just anyone who yeah or books a lot of books right okay I want to know another topic so we’re good on Thor a CEO you want to add anything else no you do not want to know I think it’s it’s consistent with what we thought you know I like when people fill in the gaps with information that we don’t have right I’m not an FBA seller I don’t know the ins and outs of that market I just think it’s interesting we talked a little bit about it and then people fill in the gaps in the next episode we come back a little smarter that’s a nice little formula we have going so I appreciate that before you ever talk about stuff you know tell us tell us more about what you know that we don’t before we go deep into serious stuff do you want to talk about I want to give you feedback that I got from from listeners Sean you ready am I prepared for this is this Harshal critical for you that’s good - okay great no ok so what I’m noticing with this podcast is we have a similar amount of views each week and I think it’s the same people over and over I think we’re like part of people’s routine which is cool and the I think that one of the secrets to growing a podcast is do you have to have guests so when we had Andrew he shared it that’s all the people who like him came and listened and I hope we’ve got him hooked and they’re gonna listen from now on and so the way that we’re gonna do this is we’re to get more guests but here’s what people keep telling me and this they weren’t saying this about Andrew but they like it when it’s just you and I rip in it and just make it [ ] up on the fly yeah yeah I felt that and I think it’s even more on these zoom calls because the zoom called pace is a little slower when we’re in person it’s a little bit better I think to have that third guest on the seat and it definitely depends their guests got to bring the bring to energy you can’t just be successful in smart that is not enough you have to bring energy you got to know what people want to hear about and get to the point and so you know that’s the the rubric for guest which is hard when you’re also trying to find famous guests because they help to show grow and just for the record Sean and I have recorded with I think we’ve done a bunch of times I personally have done it a bunch of times and it was wonderful people who I like and it just turned out to be bad and we just don’t publish yeah we throw it away and we don’t even tell we just throw it away yeah and I’ve done it like four throughout the years for whatever I don’t remember when I was recording stuff for I’ve interviewed someone who was like an amazing operator and the content was wack and I’m like well trash exactly so anyway the feedback that we’re getting someone is that people like us because they say that I’m more optimist and you’re more like down-to-earth and that we’re if and they love that and that they can’t get that anywhere but you and I are like let’s go get more guests and people don’t like the guess unfortunately that helps us grow yeah well we’ll keep mixing it in dude I had a call yesterday that I was like if I had just recorded this this would have been like one of the dopest podcasts ever it was just me and for a con we have a call every once a week now that’s just called cool [ ] and he lives in like the edge of like technology he’s like in the dark web basically that not in a legal way but sort of like he’s on the forefront of what’s interest like an he’s just a nerd he’s just like a very typical Silicon Valley engineer just yeah he knows a reality a good way he knows me well enough and also he loves money enough where he knows how to take that stuff and bubble up the bits that are interesting the bits that are relevant and not just getting lost in the weeds of Knology so that comet was amazing but unfortunately to record the other thing I was gonna say about the guests is being guests on other people’s podcast is the other way to grow so I had he Sean let yesterday reach out to like 50 podcasts and just be like hey I’ll go on and talk about it right like I’ll go on I just sold my company I can go on and talk about that hey we built a podcast that did a million downloads in the first six months we could talk about how we did that and so I think guesting on other people’s podcast might be a good way you did this with Gary Vee with pomp so yeah I probably so there’s a caveat there I’ve I’ve probably been a guest a hundred times and there was a period like over the trailing six months I have it set on my calendar from 3 o’clock to 5 o’clock that’s only guessing a podcast and I would do it and some of the small ones just drove nothing right like it was total hit or miss and so I would spend like three weeks doing it and it’s almost like and you probably like this it’s like being the comedian you just say the same [ ] over and over and you kind of figure out what hits and it’s fun it’s almost like therapy you just talk about yourself it’s cool but it definitely gets a little repetitive and it the results are not always there but they are sometimes yeah and you know the thing you said at the beginning which is for podcasting you get this base and it’s the sticky sticky base of people who want to listen to it all the time it becomes a part of the routine they start to really love you that sort of thing it’s very different than other products I built where I’m like alright I want to get millions of users to just visit this page or like just use this once a week or subscribe to this and kind of forget about it like that’s been a lot of the products I built this is the opposite it’s like an army of a hundred thousand people who will like go to war for you I think there’s people in this group that would if I said hey I need you to beat this person up they would go beat that person up like there’s people who really have your back and when I started this I remember I was talking to Sully who’s the very first guest on the pod and he was like you know what do you think it makes you just sold the company and I was like you know I really like this podcast thing it was okay like is that a business like in some ways it’s a step down right it’s like I’m gonna wait way less doing this than I did my last business or any other business I want to do and I was like look I want to just be in like a million people’s ear every morning if I did that I just know that that’s a good thing and I don’t know how to get there but I’m gonna do that I’m gonna get into a million people’s ear balls every morning on their way to work and the way to work I think that’s powerful yeah I mean it may or may not be a business but it definitely will lead to way more opportunity yeah I’ve had a lot of I mean I’ve been doing the content thing a little bit like before the podcast so I kind of understand it but the podcast definitely is different I remember I went to New York salon and I just tweeted I was like I’m we’re gonna be over I’m gonna be over here because I was there for a hustle advertising crap and I just tweeted as like yeah I want to be here I had 200 people want to come and so we only let maybe 20 come and because we’re in people’s a years dude like these people this kid Ryan said something to me and he’s like yeah you know cuz you said how much you like this thing and I was like I don’t remember what you’re talking about and like if they think they know you and you know they are like is that people or the people who is this our actual pretty really really smart and successful you know I think a lot of podcasts that are about business they cater to kind of lowest common denominator so it’s like oh the waltrip renewer is their core market and you know in our Facebook group for this podcast I posted something saying hey I’m doing something cool for people who have a business that does over a million dollars a year and there’s like a hundred plus replies just in that Facebook group of people who have businesses doing over a million dollars a year right so these are not like kind of like the want reproduce you know at their nine-to-five job or a college kid or something like that like of course there are people like that but the audience also is mixed with a lot of interesting successful people there’s a bunch of VCS that listen to this it’s crazy so anyways enough about the podcast let’s give people some some other topics or ideas Allen says my video looks good now and yeah one other thing you have you kind of have the mic to the side of your mouth and when you turn so your voice goes in and out so just keep it like just talk directly into the mic let’s talk one more thing about the podcast which is my house looks like it’s crazy right now I had to go and buy this mic I’ve at it like to set this all up dude it’s been so hard to set up like a zoom thing and it’s hard I hate this yeah I know you want you want that business to exist which is push a button give me like a dope podcast like turnkey yes oh and for anyone who’s listening this is podcast related a little bit I promise I’ll finish up with this but this is awesome so my friend Neville Medora he sponsored last podcast copywriting course calm I plugged him he I did like a happy hour with him I mean I don’t know and dinner where we just were just shoot the [ ] because we haven’t been able to see each other because this stuff he use a DSLR as his webcam and it was awesome it was so easy it looks amazing it made him look like a Greek god it looks like he’s like it’s all like it’s like does that I don’t know about cameras where it does like you’re blurry in the background it gets cold like this bouquet or something like that so so I saw on YouTube there’s this guy Gary tan he’s an investor in Silicon Valley he’s like yeah one of the Y Combinator partners and he did this YouTube video that was like how to look like a [ ] amazing on zoom and I was like dude this makes sense this is the new like this is the equivalent of wearing a suit to work down right like yeah hang on zoom and not looking like [ ] with your room looking like [ ] and so this video only had 1500 views but he’s like look this is the camera I used this is the mount this is the lens here’s how you get the that blurred background look and like he looks amazing and then when I saw that photo you’d the screenshot your head of Nevel I was like I bet you he watched that video and there was only 1500 views but I was like anybody who’s watching this and the other guy who who did it was a Neve drawer who’s the founder of he was that product now unit Shrunk capital and he does it too and it really doesn’t look amazing and what I saw that I was like I should do this I should so I was gonna do it I didn’t know about this video last night I bought 700 for the stuff I bought so I already have these Phillips you light bulbs know what those are yep yep where you I just say Alexa turn the lights on right there like smarsh yeah it's gonna turn the lights on so I bought those but you see back here behind the couch I'm gonna put them there and so it's gonna like shoot up and I hope it's so like I we have like a room oh wait I forgot I'm not using the camera we have a room clean anyway you'll see it so I'm into aemond on this I like it so this guy reached out from Twitter who he's done a couple of e-commerce things that are kind of interesting and so I was talking to him and he his new thing so he's basically he initially was targeting twitch streamers because he's like look when you're a streamer you're basically broadcasting from your bedroom and streamers invest in all this like artwork cool lights wall panels smart speakers all this stuff to make the room look good and he's like I'm gonna make an e-commerce store that's like just gonna do that look at all I'll find the name of it I don't know if he wants me to kind of out him so we may have to believe this if if he's not into it but I'll say it right here it's called visual candy and this guy's smart I like this guy a lot and so said it was but now with the work from home I think this extends a lot past where his initial market was which is youtubers and twitch stars and now it's you know any professional who's gonna spend some amount of time in a home office and just think about the amount of home offices that are being built out right now because people are needed infrastructure for this but that's gonna stick around once kovat goes away yeah I have loved I'm really into it I've like gone to Amazon and I've tried buying like all the stuff and it's it's kind of complicated because I didn't know which batteries do this I was like how do I just I was like where does the camera need to be so I'm doing this there's another thing called a cam link I just looked this up it's got Oh makes it Elgato yeah and it I went and looked at it and it was they built this entire thing for streaming for gamers and it looks awesome I'm gonna I definitely go to start buying this stuff I'm probably gonna drop two grand on all this crap um I think we'll turn our but we have another bedroom I'll turn that into an office so I'm I like all this crap dude I love buying [ __ ] when you buy and when I just get on a buy streak and I'm like yeah you know what I deserve this I need that and like you know what's the problem here and and actually buying stuff is not I don't know there's something like cathartic about it like just the act of buying it feels [ __ ] great and I love it yeah but for me I've been having a call 1-800 junk and having to spend like if I buy like a new desk the boxes are so big I gotta pay 100 just a box problem is insane especially here in San Francisco the box problems insane I [ ] hate it I hate it it’s one of the reasons why I moved I live in a house now I used to live in a building and one of the reasons was is because I didn’t have to worry about the trash right well but no matter how much space I have because I thought oh I got this new house I was like now have a garage I got this like tradesman Ally I got this extra closet but it’s that same principle I think it’s like the Parkinson’s law or whatever which is time will work will expand to fill the time you give it so let’s say you have a week to do the project guess what it’s gonna take you a week if you had a day to do that same project you would have only taken you a day and in the same way like junk your [ ] will expand to fill the space you have and so here let me let I’ve thought about this a lot let me get wise here okay I’m a amateur beekeeper so I have bees do you know this no you know this okay sure how they don’t have your bees the right now so they actually went away but since 2013 I’ve kept bees so I’ve always for the most part so listen I’ll tell you all about this for the most part in my lot in my San Francisco life for 10 years I’ve lived in Glen Park it’s a nice neighborhood in San Francisco it’s like residential no and I’ve always had a backyard and I wanted a hobby that was not expensive and I didn’t want it to turn into a business and I just wanted something fun that I could be outside and I made a list of hobbies that I could pick and pick the lamest one and top because it doesn’t cost a lot of money to start if you want to you can just leave it alone and not do anything or if you wanted to you could poke around with it and like be active with it so low maintenance low maintenance it does it only cost three to five hundred dollars to get into the Hobby you don’t have to buy a bunch of [ ] to keep up with it and it was allowed me to be outside and so I became a beekeeper in 2013 I think and so how do bees live like do somebody that’s around from then no no no they make I think they might only live for like a few months they cycle through and so I bought about 10,000 bees and I get honey from and I just give it away and I I caught southern Sam sticky icky and and so I’ve had bees for years and when lived in Soma i only live in someone for a year and then I went back to Glen Park and I just kept it on the roof at my office so you can have bees I would have 10 10 thousand bees just on the roof of our office and no one would know they say to themselves mostly and they go out and get honey or it get pollen and they turn it to a nectar and it turns into honey and anyway but here’s the interesting thing that I learned see this has been like this is my board the wisdom comes like here’s the interesting things that I’ve learned with bees as bees fill the space that they are given with honey so if you give them a lot of space they will always fill it if you don’t give them a lot of space then they just won’t make it right so it’s the rule little sticky icky and so I’ve learned this through bees that humans are the same way if you give them a lot of space then they will fill it with a ton of stuff if you give them not a lot of they just won’t buy stuff you just won’t you just won’t get stuff and so that’s the important thing so when you think of like I’m gonna get this huge house so I’ll have a ton of room and I’ll have more space you’re gonna fill it to the brim with crap and you will no longer have space it always works okay that’s amazing I love that story didn’t know you were beekeeper I’ve known you for like six years I had no idea by the way we both studied abroad in Sydney and I took a class because when you study abroad you’re trying to have a good time you’re not trying to learn and so I took the easiest class I could find which was a bee a bee class and so I learned all this [ ] about bees and bees have some crazy things like just too quick be facts if I remember correctly from ten years ago I learned that when a when the queen bee goes to mate she leaves on an expedition and she will mate with as many male bees as she can along the way and she basically has sex with them and then kills them right after which breaks their back and they die and then she sort of it gets impregnated by all these bees and then there’s this other thing which is really interesting that that people have learned from bees which is like a big evolutionary learning which was in a bee hive many of the bees could be fertile but they choose to be sterile and they choose to just take care of the queen bees kids because they’re all related by like some 25 they’re all like quarter sisters or something like that they’re all like 25% related and it turns out like in a Darwinian sense you are better your genes are better off so if you just take ten to these half-sisters and quarter sisters that you have rather than trying to have your own kids and survive and so that’s the crazy thing about bees bees are awesome man it’s a great hobby you can get into it for two or fifty dollars all you got to do is go to Amazon and you type in beekeeping kit and someone will send you the kit and then you go on your critical Craigslist you might even be able to buy them online but that might take like a few weeks but if you go on your local Craigslist you type in bees there’s a farmer nearby but you can pay 100 and they'll give you 10,000 bees and they'll set it up for you it's so it's super easy to get into and it is so fun bees you could eat I get [ __ ] I mean I'll get like I kind of think about this like probably five to eight gallon milk jugs like what's the how BIG's a bug is that a gallon of milk yeah like that that worth a honey maybe five to eight a year they're introducing okay cool lots of money also related to this idea of like people buy stuff and people love stuff and people fill their space with stuff and bees will fill their space with stuff if you want a good five minutes go on YouTube and type Chris D'Elia girls love things and you will have a great time for five minutes okay and now that brings TV to a random startup idea so I don't think this would work so let me start with that but there's something interesting here we're so Netflix recently left hooks in the last few years started going heavy into comedy so comedy used to be like HBO kind of owned the space where they would do you know HBO specials and then that kind of dried up and comics are like cockroaches they'll always survive it's like okay we'll go play in the dingy estroux meeee we'll go on stage we'll get it Netflix special we'll get HBO special okay we're back to the dark room again like they won't quit because they're like degenerates and now podcasting has been a huge boom for them so Chris D'Elia who also just had a Netflix special come out these guys make tons of money right so Netflix started cutting like 10 20 million dollar checks I believe to these comedians because they know that comedians have these like rabid followings and the content is good it's unique sort of proprietary content but I think that there's a product out there sort of like a crunchy crunchyroll did for anime I think somebody could do for the mid-tier comedians I think you can make a sort of 5 a month 7 a month subscription to the comedians that are not going to get met flick specials right so not Chris Rock and not Seinfeld and Chappelle and and all those guys but like the next teardown like even you know one level below like the Whitney Cummings of the world right because they are still getting Netflix specials and I think you could add them up and it doesn t want to be the hour-long special it could be like a 10-minute set set or a 20-minute set or something like that and I think you could get I think each of them have a few thousand fans that would pay to be able to access that exclusive comedy content and and so you would act if you just aggregate all the comedians then it's a sort of all-you-can-eat pass where as a viewer I can discover other comedians too so anyways I think that there's a business potentially for a mid-level Netflix for comedians where you aggregate them what do you think great I'm looking up information so I can my brains rolling and I'm gonna let me let me tell you what I think so first of all kwibi I imagine it's trying to do something that so kwibi is that even [ __ ] how you say yeah it's pretty stupid I mean look I think with kwibi it actually can be great because the people who are running it are like super smart but it does not look like a good bet now but it still might be anyway they're trying to do something like that second I think that that is a great idea and I think the way that I would find out how to do it is I would look up quelle au q e ll Oh have you heard of Cuomo I've never heard of it okay hello is is it's a it's I think it was started way before its time it's an app on Apple TV and all they have is live concerts and so it was started in 2010 and it's available and it's like a it's a app for your phone but I think it's best on Apple TV and you could download it and you pay ten thousand or because it may be ten dollars a month and sometimes does about Elizabeth I think it's ten dollars a month and you just get access to a library of live concerts have you ever wanted to do that or is just me I kind of do this on youtube but YouTube like has enough free like I listen to a bunch of like Red Rocks concerts right cuz there's a concert venue called Red Rocks which is awesome and like anytime I musician goes there they film it in like epic with epic cameras and sound and they're just like available on YouTube for free but this is cool I like this it's awesome and it's it's better than YouTube but YouTube is great and the reason it's better is because like if you buy like a concert DVD the camera works a little bit better and the sound is a lot better and I love live music and so I am a big fan of this and they have 70,000 paying subscribers they were recently acquired by stingray communications which is a publicly traded company in Canada it's a cable company so if I were you Sean and I wanted to launch this or if I was a listener I wanted to launch this I would look up stingray communication and I would go and read the the filing for that company and I would figure out exactly what quello does that's what I would do and I would learn about how they did it because it's a relatively niche thing they only have 70,000 subscribers it's not huge and they've been at it for 10 years so it's not a big number and I think it is incredibly viable business and I think it's great another thing another thing that I would do is I would look up Discovery Channel and then National Geographic are you familiar familiar with National Geographic or obviously right ok National Geographic is still a huge company in Disney recently bought into it at a billion dollar valuation it may still make they still make hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions of dollars a year from their magazine subscription is that crazy and so I would put date but here National Geographic was a non-profit and and so the good thing about nonprofits is you can go to see all the numbers and so what I would go and look at I would look at discovery and I would look at mass National Geographic and I was look at koala and I would see what they are doing because those are relatively niche subscription companies that crush so long story short great idea okay cool all right what else we got you wanted to talk about this card I think yeah so I am a user Carta I think the products only okay it's still quite frustrating to use but Carta laid off a bunch of people the other day more than 67 people yeah and they raised money and their CEO Henry wrote this message that he made public and he said something like it was not your man managers fault for laying you off it was 100% my fault in fact it was the opposite your managers tried to help you and I'm on the one who reviewed every list and I said we're gonna fire this person so blame me and I think that was great I thought it was a great message so so high level he was basically saying hey we laid a bunch of people off and I'm going to publish the announcement I made to the company so that you know presumably other CEOs and other companies can kind of learn from this use this or take solace in the fact that I did this - I don't know whatever yeah content marketing and he published this and I typically and fall into the category of all press is good press go ahead and do it I thought this was kind of lame did you do you agree and and I and I tweeted that Henry and I want him to come here and I'll say this to his face I think he seems like a cool guy this move I think was kind of lame right I would agree I've kind of followed this guy for a little while like I've read some of his other stuff we're seeing some interviews seems like a good guy seems like a smart guy and I think Carter is a good product and I like some of the other stuff they've done like they have a next chapter program basically to help people who want to people want to leave the company they don't make it this like awkward exit they like celebrate it and whatever you know in theory so I thought this was lame mostly because I thought two things I thought it was tone-deaf and secondly I didn't think the actual statement was very good so I thought oh just a part the premise of what he was trying to do like what is the upside and what is the downside it to me it looked like he was trying to Pat himself on the back and I know he would he would say that's not what I'm trying to do blah blah I think I was trying to Pat himself on the back and also like you know give a little bit of sort of you know put card his name out there again like just like it's kind of like the buffer wave like publish everything and the good the bad the ugly and you get attention but I just thought it was tone-deaf and also it seemed like what he wanted people's reaction to be was like wow great leadership way to take responsibility great CEO ship and he got that and both not from me when I read this I was like this was a pretty horrible way to do the announcement and I'll tell you why he started okay so here's like I'm just gonna bullet point the the summary so he goes over the last few weeks we're talking about recession planning I said layoffs were likely and today is the day I can't delay it any longer okay weird start but alright then he says I'm sorry if I apologize if I sound robotic I'm reading off a script because I don't know if I could get through this without something to lean on okay you're not the victim don't say that that's also kinda yeah that that's pretty late yeah blame is [ __ ] then he says okay let me start with the details we're gonna lay off 161 employees that's 16% of our company it's gonna be different across the company all right whatever then this was weird I thought it was just like if you heard one of those affected you'll receive an invitation from your manager if you do not receive a meeting invitation you are safe and I was like okay Hunger Games a little odd way to do it but you know in a zoom world I don't know if there is a better way to really like kind of mass do this where you can't have the information come out until it needs to come out but I just thought like it's anxiety that's a very like anxious feeling thing and also you got to know if you're the CEO and you say that people's minds just start racing in that direction they're just imagining what the next hour of their life is gonna be they're not even gonna hear the next three paragraphs you say like their mind is gone they checked out it's thinking about themselves and said whatever the next three paragraphs are ignore it so then he goes alright the moral conflict this is the part I thought was wack so he's like in a couple of town halls ago I said there was two perspectives around layoffs the first of the shareholder perspective we're reducing costs and protecting cash or what matters the second is the employee perspective with nothing matters more than saving jobs and helping employees in a you know in a time where it's like unemployment at levels of the Great Depression so each of these are clear they're unambiguous and they're correct from their perspective but they are diametrically opposed this creates a conundrum for CEO CEO sit between shareholders employees and wish that they could do both for every CEO they have to deal with this conflict I chose to manage this conflict by taking the shareholder perspective in deciding who should leave and take the employees backed it on how to help to me I was like what is this paragraph like dude yeah what the [ __ ] dude it's all the same you're just trying to build a company that makes profit and does work with good people that's the same thing yeah and like think about you have to think about your audience do you think your audience gives a [ __ ] about the shareholder perspective and the dilemma you have as a CEO and how you've chose to straddle this as a CEO it's not even about you so I just thought this was the part that was really odd to me that like see it seemed like he I don't know I wouldn't have included this in the statement and I thought that this made it look quite bad and I would not want other CEOs emulating this part of the statement because what matters is your audience as your employees and you need to know hey this is really hard for us we tried to analyze every situation cut every other dollar we could before we cut anyone's jobs and we did that but this is the this is the path we have to go you know this is I'm terribly sorry like I did not manage the company in a way where we had enough buffer this is a failing on my part this is the worst you know the worst day in my my time as a company and it is for all of us and so like here's what this means for you and like all you have to say is like this sucks we tried everything we could do this was the last resort and you know here's how we're gonna make it right by you and not like this theory about how shareholder value matters and the CEO has to like straddle these things it's like yeah I I think that and I think that that's not only does nobody care I think that that is just a silly way to look at it which is when you're building a company like step one is create something that people want and get it and get it into the hands get it into their hands in a profitable way okay that's step one like that that is just the the that's the basics of a company which is you make something that someone wants to give you money or you make something and you make a profit off of it right and if I was I don't think that's step one but that is the fundamental premises that's the fundamental that's a fundamental premises what I mean and so if I was him I'd be like look here's the deal like we expect we expect it to grow a lot faster and we're investing in this and the plan would have worked but this thing slowed everything down and so we just have to cut things that are not profitable right and that sucks and I'm sorry that that sucks but that's what's going to happen and think that if you just say that and a more straightforward way instead of all this shareholder value [ __ ] like you already know that you know they're all adults in the room to understand this [ __ ] crazy virus is happening in companies across the board or having trouble some companies have no revenue now like people get that that that's happening and it's just like okay so what's gonna happen at our company Oh at our company we they tried everything they could they're making the sort of this is what do you need to say was this was our last resort we did this in a way where we're not gonna have another round of layoffs because that creates you know I wouldn't say that I would I would say we're gonna try not to yeah like you know that is our goal and how we did this but even then that's speaking to the people who are staying you know really at this point you just have to speak to the total group and just say some of you gonna be affected here's how it works here's how we're doing our best to to make it right to do right by everybody who's done right by us this is no fault of your own this is a fault of ours in running a company that was not did not have the margin of error to do yeah I think that like what I would just say if I had to do this which I hope I never have to but me I probably really will have to one day not like I'm saying our company but well I'm not implying anything I'm just saying what if I have if I have a long career which I will that you gotta say look I have a hundred percent of the flock that I have to manage and take care of and sometimes that might mean that I have to fire 30% of the flock in order to take care of the other sixty and that it's just how life works and this just sucks and I'm trying to make this hat in such a way that the 40% are not completely hung out to dry but this is just what I have to do and I'm sorry that this is is the situation and if you want to blame someone blame me and that's that and that's pretty much all you have to say yeah exactly like you don't need the the epic speech and you know right now we're kind of like look I think we're clear that hey personally for us this didn't like come across great and we weren't like oh wow that was epic on the other side you know we're just kind of off the cuff coming up with what a what a better speech might be but the reality is that in this case they you basically have a speechwriter you have a multi-bit you have a billion-dollar company and you have time to think about this and this is the what we're reading is his output after thinking about it and so that's the part that I thought was also I wouldn't have published it I want to publish this because it's like you take this [ __ ] it take this on the chin like and by the way I know I'm criticizing this guy I don't know him he and I will tell us - I'll say this to his face and I'm sure he's actually a good good dude this is just a big Mis but I would say like dude you got to take this one on the chin and just like this is a loss and and say be a man and say what you want to say to your people which that's your fault that's wonderful I wouldn't publish this agreed I didn't understand that and also I'm not sure yeah I'm not sure what the with this world upside of was of that was now on the other hand I think they did something's great right so like the actual actions that they were taking it for people I thought were great they're like look we're gonna extend the Cobra health insurance till the end of the year because health insurance is super important especially right now and so they didn't have to do that but they did they remove people's cliff and they invested their shares that didn't have to do that but they did you know they they gave them I think about a bit of severance didn't after that but they did and then they have this sort of alumni network where they're trying to help people get jobs cool I like all of that like I liked all of that action I just didn't like the preamble and I didn't like the sort of pat on pepper seemed a little bit like pat me on the back please can I show you my leadership during this adverse time so you could like get tell me I did a good job and that's the part I didn't like I liked a lot of the action yeah and like you I don't know this guy so you know this is not no no personal thing again I I have friends who work with them and I've heard a lot of positive stuff I just think that like and III value I applaud Cardiff for raising this money and going big and trying to make something happen and I plod them from over for over hiring in hopes of like it working like I I applaud the risk-taking and I want people who are listening that just because Sean and I are criticizing this guy you got to take risk still and you got to try this big [ __ ] and it's not gonna work all the time good I mean not good but like whatever that's just you got it comes with the territory and I just wouldn't she would have took it on the chin a little bit more right okay I got another one more topic that's on a more positive note okay so I'm gonna wash I feel like I got a had some haterade spilled on me there I gotta wash that off yes by the way but Ron you and I typically are I'm rarely a hater exactly we're rarely haters no I really like yeah so I want to end this by saying I hope these guys crush it I hope they do wonderful I believe I think they actually will I just think that this one move was a stupid move and probably a very long and positive journey right and and look you know there's a big difference of criticizing a person versus criticizing an action or criticizing a you know something that was done and this is definitely like you didn't like the message not the dono don't even know the messenger can we just say by the way that a lot of people in media like in who have these podcasts and newsletters and they're all [ __ ] haters of the people they're covering it's not about the craziest thing ever yeah well I think it's like it's like a fair trade so so there's a guy Eric Weinstein have you heard this guy's podcast yes I like it it's called the portal smart guy I don't know too much about him he runs like Peter Till's fund and so he's been talking about this concept lately that's called kayfabe have you heard him talking about this no okay so he's like hey there's this wrestling term called kayfabe ka y fa b and he's like what kayfabe is is like you know in wrestling it's basically wrestling is a fake fight right WWE it's like a pre-arranged sort of agreed-upon fake fight where I'm the hero and you're the heel or I'm the good and you're the bad whatever and in it it's like the dialogue is sort of an agreed fight for both of our betterment like the more we feud the more popular we both become and the fight itself like okay we agree sort of agree to do this and so he talks about how this happens in the real world too like right now I see this whenever Trump goes and does his briefing and then there's that one guy from CNN gym off cost I think is his name yeah and he's always there and he Trump's like okay yeah you're next and it he asked this question and Trump like rips him and then that becomes like the seven-minute YouTube clip and CNN talks about it all day and like you know on one hand it's like why doesn't Trump just kick this guy out or like you know remove revoke his press you know credentials here on the other hand why doesn't this other guy you know either you know fight back or start or like take some other action every day the same sort of thing plays out and I think in reality it serves them both extremely well where CNN gets awesome content that people want to watch because it's juicy to see the president fight with somebody and Trump also loves the attention on the left on the right good and bad and then he drums it up as dude those liberals are always trying to say this and then the right supports him more because he has an enemy that's attacking right and so there's like this dance that they're doing so I get that and I get that but here's what I don't get so I'll give you a very specific example this pissed me off so much there's this woman named the Natasha t22 I forget what a Natasha - I don't know how to pronounce my last name I forget it though it's like his anyway she was a blogger for Valleywag which Valleywag was pretty funny and all but they took it too far all they did was made fun of Silicon Valley and then she worked at BuzzFeed and then Wired magazine and now she's at Washington Post and she had this article that says Silicon Valley now deems luxury housing and essentials and essential good good and so people are still building multi-million dollar condos and in the first [ __ ] line of the article it says the mayor has deemed luxury housing as well as all other types of housing including including housing projects and this other stuff as essential and it was in the technology section of the Washington Post yeah here is Natasha - tea - yeah Tiku tik you and I've better before and and I was like what the [ __ ] that's like saying like I'm gonna write an article in TechCrunch and be like can you believe this billionaires are able to buy 1 million dollar cars and then in the article humble but also anyone can buy any car including a 1,000 Mazda including a 50,000 Mercedes I think what and then why is it in the tech section of Washington Post oh my god this pisses me off and so I looked this woman up and she’s very educated she went to NYU and then like Columbia Journalism or like just like Ivy League just really smart woman and I’m like why would you study for eight years or however long it took and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars when you’re just gonna to do this hey you’re just gonna hate the people who you write about I don’t understand it why not just go and write about something that like who you want to celebrate of course they’ll say we don’t hate them we’re just you know we’re reporting on that we’re reporting the stories we don’t have we don’t hate them so there was a really interesting thing that happened recently where for coronavirus there’s this guy Balaji who’s on Twitter pretty popular guy he was at Andreessen Horowitz a bunch of stuff there’s a coin base and things like that so he’s kind of one of those like on the forefront of things guys so back in January he showed up at a crypto Meetup he was wearing gloves and a mask and this was January when nobody in the US was really worried about this and everyone’s kind of laughing like what are you doing he’s like well you know I think that’s just a you know you know maybe small probability but that this coronavirus thing that’s happening in Wuhan is gonna be like a major you know global pandemic and people okay Balaji all right thanks and so this writer came out and about box bought the Vox of RICO writer yeah so Rico Dreamcoat oh my god this imperious me so the quick story here is the recode rider reaches out to Paulo G and says like hey I want to get your comment on a story we’re doing about you know Silicon Valley’s reaction to the corona virus this was again early on and he was like yeah I’m not interested why don’t you report on like who cares about Silicon Valley’s what the Silicon Valley elite think about coronavirus like you should report on the state of testing the state of the the you know the spread of the virus and all these other like kind of like important facts that should be reported on and he tweeted out that he did that that happened he screenshotted heard E and tweeted it and then all the journalists were like dude she was just asking for comment why are you putting on blast this is why people hate Silicon Valley and he was like no no no I know this game and he so he talked about this he’s like this is a strategy called befriend and betray where the journalist comes to uses hey Balaji you’re an expert I would love to get your take on this thing and all they’re trying to do is write the story and what the headline of the story came out was something along the lines of like you know why Silicon Valley’s not doing handshakes anymore and it was like laughing at Silicon Valley sort of for overreacting to the corona virus this was early on before all the long time he said he goes I promise you the headlines gonna be right lookin Valley nerds refused to shake hands and I never what it was pretty much what it was now the body of the article I went back and read it was actually you know somewhat fair was just reporting what was going on how whatever but he was right about the headline and the headlines often written not by the journalist but by the editor cuz editor need to drive clicks blah blah blah anyway so this is pretty interesting feud if you want to hear more the Jason Calacanis did a podcast apology that I thought was pretty awesome so I can’t I can’t stand that at particularly given like me like people always like oh you’re a tech bro and the odd some journalists will say that I’m like you work at Vox if I’m tech so are you like what does that mean like like I have a journalist in New York Times come and interview me she’s like so what do you and you’re like tech bro friends talk about yeah I was gonna ask you to do this so tell the story your New York Times story this is an amazing story you’ve told me yeah so first of all like I made sure I recorded it in a head because I knew so I knew that this person was gonna take me out of context what was the context you went to New York or no she came here she goes hey you seem like an insider I want to come and learn all the things that people are gonna are talking about befriend yeah and I go okay fine come I know what you’re doing come on and but maybe it could be positive like maybe we’ll become like we can exchange cool information maybe you’ll write something positive about me maybe I’ll just whatever it may be it’ll turn out good and she comes she goes can I record this I go yeah I’m gonna record it too and and because I didn’t want anything to be taken out of context and she goes so like you’re like a tech bro like what do you and your tech friends talk about and your bro-friends and I was like first of all why are you calling me a bro like it what are you and your tech chick friends like why would you ever say that to me you don’t know me and that’s just rude to say anyway and I and she I go well I don’t know you I go your attack you tell me she goes no I work at New York Times I was like you guys just announced that most of your revenue comes from digital like Europe why am i tech and you’re not tax like you are attacking Jews well it’s just different I was like well you tell me what you you you and your tech friends talk about and she goes well we’re not what ever she like reddit I was like anyway I go well we talk about uh just like you know sports and I was like I don’t know we just talk about normal stuff like cool diets or like cool food like all types of weird stuff and it was just so odd she was just so trying to like it was so much like an other like I am an other from you and I’m like I don’t I don’t understand this this this this dichotomy here like we are actually in the same industry I work in publishing so do you we both make most of our money from the internet like why are you calling me this tech bro I you don’t even know me and she’s like what you don’t listen to Joe Rogan do you I’m like well yeah I do I listen to a lot of cool stuff I I read and this is true every morning I go to CNN and then I go to Fox News and then I go to HuffPo and then I go to break part because those are all like kind of the opposite I read all types of stuff I like to orokin I like Oprah I do all types of stuff why are you trying to like set me up for this gotcha moment right and it was horrible I hated it and so to sum this up the headline by the way we have it multi-million dollar mansions high-rise waterfront condos and a stately Victorian all deemed quote essential under public health orders in San Francisco and Silicon Valley that was the headline and then in the first paragraph it said it said restated the headline and then added as well as housing projects and low-income housing all deemed essential right oh my god I can’t stand it I’m like why would you I love those we bought when we bought Bebo back so we had bought Bebo from me out of an auction and we were gonna relaunch it as something and so nobody knew that we had bought it back it was like done in a court room was like kind of on the low and there was a new reporter and we you know we were kind of friendly I guess we had friends of friends that were mutual and so I was like okay hey you know I want to give you a scoop and you know on the embargo and like come to an interview and whatever so she was like great comes over doesn’t an interview explain the whole thing where you talk about what we’re doing blah blah blah next day the article comes out and this is the person we gave the scoop to we could have given it anyone next day article comes out headline was remember Bebo yeah that’d be but it was like it was something like you know remember Bebo yeah it’s dead but maybe you know it was like something like Bebo is dead remember Bebo literally it was like lol was like in the headline it was like making fun of and then the whole article was our conversation we talked about it was like legit it so I’d text her I was like what the [ ] what is this headline and she was like I’m sorry like I don’t get to do the headlines my editor does the headlines and he just like you know he’s gonna do what’s gonna drive the most clicks and like he decided the thing that would drive the most clicks is talking [ ] about the buyback and like yeah right like it’s like buying my space back and trying to relaunch it and so I was like you know that’s that’s fair but wow what a shitty moved to pull when you’re sort of given a embargo you and you have all these other elements of the story that you could have like used as the lead shut eye I don’t blame I don’t blame her or him because like I think that if you just because you gave her an embargo like she should be still say the truth and say her opinion like and she sent the hole back if she thinks you’re stupid and what you’re doing is stupid she just because you gave her that she should say it that’s that’s true the two things that I thought were weird were number one the headline and the story were so disconnected the story was what she actually thought in the content about interview which I posits frustrating and then the headline was just something completely different that was written by a completely different person and just shows kind of like the way that those organizations work the second thing I thought was kind of whack was like no heads up like there’s a sort of a human connection to this - right like if I’ve done you a favor by giving you an exclusive piece of news even if you’re gonna write something that you know I’m not gonna like when you’re like lol this thing is dead Yeah right it’s not gonna come back then you know to surprise the person I think is an unnecessary extra slap versus like just I so disagree with you out I totally grew at your first point but I don’t agree at your second point which is if I’m gonna say something negative about you I’m not gonna give you a heads up I’m just gonna say it but let’s dum-dum business right you you cut yourself out then go on forward right like we had a bunch of other stories that came out in the coming years and guess who like never got a word right her she doesn’t cut herself out for no reason yeah I mean I think it’s a it’s definitely it’s a hard thing to balance and this is why some people like for example if someone says that they’re a conservative news site well the reason one of the reasons why they probably could keep giving conservative people a good look is so they can get positive they can yeah so it’s definitely hard but me personally if you if like if someone comes on this podcast and they go like oh like will you make me look good I’m like no I’m not gonna make you look good I’m not gonna make you look bad like we’ll talk and if I think you say something dumb I’m just gonna tell you that’s stupid right like I’m not so III think that I think that if I agree with that game I’ve got to suffer the both the positive and the negative consequences and the positive consequences is maybe they’re gonna think I’m great and they’ll tell the truth and also as a quote journalist or I don’t know what you want to call me or both of us we’re gonna like find the truth but also if someone thinks that about us and it’s negative we got to live by that yeah I don’t mind getting negative press I did mind the sort of dissonance and also I don’t know like I just think like it is again bad business for that person because you burn your own bridge whereas if you’re like hey look like just wanna let you know like the articles gonna talk about this and it’s gonna mention this right it’s gonna be there’s gonna be some negative parts which were skeptical about and the disease cool could have kept that relationship didn’t lost the relationship maybe doesn’t affect me it affected them maybe telling you ahead of time is gonna be negative is that but like if I think that what you say is [ ] I’m gonna say no matter what yeah that no but nobody wants the other side right otherwise nobody will read the [ ] if you’re not telling you like it is if you’re not telling your actual opinion then the you know the whole ecosystem doesn’t work but all right anybody do we have any other ones we want to talk about yeah well I was gonna say didn’t someone come on the show and I was like I’m gonna tell this person I think there’s that that that what they’re doing is really stupid and it’s definitely awkward what did that happen you remember that remember that no man I think Henry was here oh oh I know what it was it was the the woman from Everly well I think she came on with the tests oh I know I was like I think nutritional testing is [ ] right and you said it straight to her face and she answered I’m gonna trying to Pat myself on the back I’m trying to say like I don’t even remember like did we call her out you literally said it to her I kind of facility pot out oh yeah you did why don’t you tell her what you think about tell her what you were saying like you know just get it say yeah definitely set it up it’s definitely awkward like before and after you’re like be nice like I’m definitely gonna roast you right now it’s super awkward but I think if you do in a certain way sound that bad it’s like because and they should understand okay one last thing we but we wouldn’t totally went off the rails here go ahead well I think what yeah we did go throw this bike can talk about like beekeeping and like all kinds of [ ] but whatever so I’m gonna take my hat off and so I clearly need a haircut my friend Greg launched this company or a text night company he just create a website called you probably need a haircut calm and it’s basically surfing quickly off the the the quarantine stuff where people are locked at home everyone’s hairs growing out nobody Erica you shaved a mohawk what he’s doing is he’s barbers who are also out of work they’re at home they can do a zoom consultation and basically help you cut your own hair and so that’s awesome if you need a haircut you prop your hair looks good did you cut it no I’m gonna cut it dude it’s awful it’s yeah right now I agree actually it does look good man but I looked at it before this hat was on it and it looked awful so I’m gonna come I’ve been cutting my own hair for ten years now I have I’ve had the Clippers I can tell you all that I know how to do a fade the other day I did shave it completely bald because I wanted to feel about Sarah my wife will help me but for years I would do to my own and admittedly it probably didn’t look great but I watched videos on how to like give a fade right and I it’s not that hard but I I’ve been doing it for years just because for a long time I was poor and I didn’t want to pay money but now I do it cuz I’m like aha I don’t want to like to drive they’re annoying to go and plus they always make me take my headphones out and I’m like well now I’m bored like you don’t understand I constantly have information going in through my eyes or my ears and now you’re making me just sit here like yes and also I just don’t want to talk to them and I’m like I don’t know like so so what I do is I close my eyes and that’s a sign for now but I but I wish that there was like an app like further out of certain barbers words like click like do not talk to me or talk to me right because like for weird like people like me I’m like I’m just super I don’t like the confrontation I just don’t want I don’t want to talk to leave me alone I might have a conversation dude I’m like that a [ ] grocery stores you know Jack Jack Smith he we’re like the same way we go to grocery stores and I’m like if I don’t see what I don’t want to if I don’t see what I want to buy even though they probably have it but in a different section I don’t buy it I just won’t buy it instead of or if I’m with Sarah be like Sarah we go ask for this like I don’t even want to talk to anyone right I think a lot of people are like that yeah add this into Eber where you could get in and be like yo let’s not let’s not do that thing where we talk yes yes it’s awesome I just don’t I’m just like uncomfortable and I don’t want to [ ] do it more Barbara so yeah you know the last thing to know what they need at Barbara’s is it just need like six different haircuts for men and you just like give me the four but they do have that a lot of a lot don’t and you say the same thing like short on the side a little bit off the top like everyone’s like you just like show me a picture of like five people and I’ll just point a lot of barbers don’t have that yet or dude it could be unspoken it’s because everybody just wants short on the side a little less fluid on top but shorter than it is currently and you should only have to say anything if you want some other [ ] like oh I’m going for this other look I wanna have a look okay then I told me to tell you about the look but if not I just want to sit down no words just do the short on the sides a little short on top same just like give me like three options like completely bald like a whatever the three are and I’ll just point at one of them and by the way just don’t talk to me and once I initiate conversation and do my eyebrows because they’re getting a little longer I got long eyebrows everyone knows that that’s number four and also they say like do you want your you want the back your neck around it or squared I’m like right I don’t know I don’t know there yeah like I don’t see it you you be the judge right exactly and I’ve at one time I asked him I was like what’s the deal with this question because I don’t know and like is there a difference what’s the deal and then someone told me actually one of the barbers actually taught me they were like look if you do square when it starts to grow back out it’s gonna look shitty so it looked good initially but then it looks it’ll look obviously not square after it starts to grow out he’s like do the round because then even as it grows back it’s like blends in it’s not so bad dude this sounds like a Larry David episode like a like so what’s the rounded square what’s it like I mean we tried right so this one went off the rails I think people this is gonna hit with some people so tweet at me and Sean and let us know if this like random [ ] yeah just tweet like yo stick to the script if you want us to not go off the rails as much or just say go off the rails if you want to sell the goods the good news is Sean is we don’t have to do that much work to research for next Tuesday because we I actually had some stuff to go over because we got stuck on journalists and beekeeping and a bunch of stupid [ ] yeah I’m mad again about that article from 10 years ago now I’m like still me too I got bad I’m friends with the woman who I talk to my own friends with her on Facebook and I like called her out and it never [ ] wins when I argue people online I’m gonna die end up looking like it I look like an [ ] and it just doesn’t work and I do it all the time okay [Music]