Anthony Pompliano: Turning $50k/Year Into $100 Million

Join Anthony Pompliano and Shamus Madan as Anthony shares his journey from military service to entrepreneurship. He reflects on the impact of September 11th, handling pressure, and balancing ambition with practicality. The discussion covers business ideas for students, the book that changed his life, and Facebook frameworks that connect humanity in business. Anthony explores AI, overlooked opportunities, and insights from early Ethereum mining. He highlights common scaling mistakes, traits of successful billionaires, and offers advice to his younger self. Tune in for valuable lessons and insights from Anthony's experiences.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Anthony, you've lived in a war zone, met andinterviewed some of the world's wealthiest
people, built and sold companies, invested in100 of businesses, some of now which are worth
1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars.
What have you figured out about buildingcompanies and and building wealth that others
haven't?
I don't think it's, unique insights that reallyhelp you do anything.

(00:23):
To me, it's really just the belief thattimeless advice is actually timeless for a
reason.
If you think of most of the things that I do ona day to day basis, they're kind of like old
school ideas.
I wake up.
I focus.
I work hard.
I'm pretty persistent and dedicated.
I bring, you know, high energy.

(00:45):
I treat people, you know, well.
I have a long term orientation, and I try tofind problems and create solutions to them.
And so, you know, maybe the lack of, kind ofnew and innovative answer is just so many
people are trying to reinvent the wheel.
They're trying to find some new shortcut orsome new way of doing something.

(01:05):
But in my experience, just following thattimeless advice of, you know, kind of working
hard for long periods of time, and trying to doright by other people, has been kind of a
winning formula.
I think to understand where you are today andall the successes you've had, it's important to
understand your early context.
I was listening to a story you shared on MyFirst Million back in 8th grade when September

(01:29):
11th happened back in 2001.
Can you take me back to that moment in time andhow that shaped you and who you are as a
person?
Yeah.
I mean, I was in 8th grade.
9:11 happens.
I remember walking into, one of the classroomsin the school, and I I can't remember if I was
gonna get somebody or something or whatever.

(01:51):
But I remember that, the teacher basically,like, ushered me out very quickly out of the
room.
And I was like, what what's going on?
And she was telling her class something, butdidn't want, you know, other people outside of
the classroom to hear.
So I remember going back to my classroom and,being like, what what's going on?
And the teachers were all very frantic or orwhatever.

(02:12):
And so, obviously, not you know, we eventuallyfigured out that 9:11 happened, and the school
shut down.
And this is North Carolina, where there's a lotof, families from, kinda New York, New Jersey.
They had parents come get the kids and andbring them home.
And I remember I went home, and I was talkingto, my dad.
And I I, you know, I was in 8th grade, so Iwasn't a little kid, but I also didn't really

(02:34):
have the kind of global context.
I remember just saying something to the effectof, like, you know, what happened?
And he basically said, you know, some peopletried to kill Americans today.
And I could just tell that there was, like, agravity to what he was saying.
And he said, and America's probably gonna fightback.
And I remember thinking, I don't really knowwhat that means, but, like, you know, that's a

(02:57):
pretty, significant moment in history.
And within, you know, days, obviously, we startgoing back to school.
People all start talking about this, whatever.
It just became very apparent to me.
Like, that was the first time I think I wasexposed to, kind of true evil in the world,
that maybe there's places in the world thatthey didn't look at the American way of life
as, you know, kind of a shining light on thehill, but instead they actually looked at it as

(03:20):
a threat, as something that, you know, stoodfor, the demise of their way of life.
And, you know, from there, I I think it justkinda changed maybe the view I had of a lot of,
you know, current events as as I lived throughthem, but also, you know, gave me much more
kind of global perspective than, you know, Ihad growing up as, you know, an American in, in

(03:41):
the United States.
Is that why you eventually joined the militaryor the US Army when when you were 17?
Or what was the
I think that was a part of it.
You know, it it, when you're in 8th grade tillyou're 17, like, you got a little time to, you
know, cool off, if you will, you know, nomatter how mad you are in 8th grade.
And and, I don't even know if I was actuallymad because I don't think I really fully

(04:02):
understood the the gravity of the situation.
But, definitely, I think, that was one piece ofit.
Probably the single most, like, impactful partof me deciding to join the military, outside of
just, like, hey.
I think this will be good for me.
I actually, you know, kind of, like thepersonal challenge of, like, can I go do this
stuff?

(04:23):
There's an element of, like, they're gonna payme money.
Also, it looks kinda fun.
You know, you're gonna, like, jump out ofplanes and shoot guns and, like, do all these
things that, like, you know, I can't believethey're gonna let us do type thing, was, Pat
Tillman.
And so, you know, I was playing football inhigh school.
I know I was gonna go play in college.
Pat Tillman, had been playing in college, wasin the NFL.
He walked away from an NFL contract of a couple$1,000,000 to sign up to, to go be in, the,

(04:48):
Army Rangers.
And I remember saying to myself, you know,here's a guy who if I take kind of this
football thing to, you know, kind of the fullextent and was fortunate enough to be good in
high school, eventually be good in college andcould get to the NFL, and he basically is
willing to walk away from that, like, who am Ito not wanna, you know, at least go kinda
contribute in some way?

(05:10):
And so when I walked into, the recruiter'soffice, I just remember they were, like, pretty
surprised somebody like me would be there, andI didn't know why.
It's something that I'm really glad that I did.
But also the time I did it was important.
You know, I I'm I'm 36 now, and, there's guys Iknow that are still in the military.

(05:31):
They always remind me that next year, at 37, Iwould be retiring from the army if I had stayed
in for 20 years.
But, but, obviously, I you know, I got out.
But it it reminds you that, you know, it's avery physical job.
It's a young man's game.
Guys who are still doing it in their latethirties, early forties, even late forties,
it's pretty, pretty pretty impressive to seewhat they're doing.

(05:53):
Being in active duty can be a very dangerousscenario on the day to day basis.
I remember you sharing on Lex Fridman show thatone day you're in a convoy and one of the
vehicles in front of you just blows up out ofnowhere.
The cost of mistakes were were very high atthat time.
When you entered the business world, was therea high pressure around the decisions you made

(06:19):
when, for example, let's say, hey.
We're trying to scale this business from a 100k to a1000000 or whatever it might be.
Was there a high pressure around every decisionyou made because of that in the military, or
was it just, hey.
Let's try these things and and see whathappens?
Yeah.
You know, I've probably talked more about themilitary in the last, I don't know, 3 years

(06:41):
than I talked about the military in the first10 years that I was out of the military or
whatever.
Right?
And I think a lot of it was just, it was areally unique experience.
I learned a lot.
But I think, in hindsight, I was kinda, like,processing it all.
And so I didn't really think about it.
And, you know, there are times where it soundsalmost insane, but, like, I kinda forgot about
it.
And I was just living my life and, you know,kind of, operating.

(07:03):
You definitely take away certain lessons.
One of those lessons is I'll put more kind of alot from a leadership perspective.
If you ever hear, people talking to, athletes,and they're like, hey.
When the pressure goes up, like, their bloodpressure goes down.
Right?
They kinda get locked in a zone.
The military is that in a lot of ways.

(07:24):
You know, the the specific incident that you'retalking about, IED goes off.
The entire team that was out there that dayimmediately reacted, like the training kicked
in and it was almost like you were goingthrough emotions and you weren't thinking about
it.
It was second nature.
And so one effective training, but 2, you justwere locked in.

(07:47):
You're focused.
You weren't thinking about the danger or, youknow, anything else.
And so when you go through those experiences,it's kind of like getting exposed to an
extreme.
Everything else is pretty, you know,desensitized in comparison.
And so, I don't know if I've ever felt a lot ofpressure in, you know, kind of the business
world, but not because it's like, oh, you know,we're not gonna die today.

(08:08):
So, you know, it's not that big of a deal.
I think it's just more so, I look at, a lot ofthe issues in businesses, kind of, puzzles and
not really problems.
And so if you look at them as puzzles, it'slike, hey.
There's a solution here.
We just gotta kinda figure it out.
When you look at something as a problem, then,a lot of times, it can be like, well, I don't
know if it can be solved.
But, you know, if you think of a puzzle, allthe pieces are there.

(08:30):
You just gotta figure out the right combinationof putting them together, and so it's more a a
thing around persistence and and kind of, timeinvestment than it is, you know, hey.
Actually, we might not be able to solve this.
And so that that, kind of comparison of puzzlesearch problems, I think, really reduces
stress.
It really allows you to, kind of approach itfrom a, like, I can come up with a solution as
long as I put enough time and effort into this,and it's been something that's really helped me

(08:53):
over the years.
Yeah.
One of the guests we had on the podcast wasthis guy named Jacob Klug.
He's a 20 year old, runs a no code, developmentagency, completely bootstrapped, do a 100 k a
month in revenue.
You actually did something similar in incollege.
You built a couple of businesses, one of whichwas a website development company.
Why go into entrepreneurship, and why buildthat type of company?

(09:15):
A lot of people don't even know I did that.
Yeah.
I, I wanted money.
Right?
Like, I I I didn't have that much money, and Ineeded money.
And, I was, you know, trying to build my actualbusiness at the time, but I knew that I needed
cash flow as well, and and the company wasn't,cash flowing.
And so I taught myself how to make websites onWordPress.

(09:37):
I went to, you know, local businesses, and Ithink that, I was charging between, like, 3 to
$5,000 to build these websites.
And, you know, I got a crash course in theservice business where it's really difficult.
They're constantly trying to please people.
You know, these people tend not to be thattechno, technologically oriented.
So whenever there's an issue, they're callingyou and they need it fixed immediately, you

(09:58):
know, whatever.
But it was great because it had all of theingredients of building bigger companies, and
it was kind of a low risk way to to do that.
And, you know, I was thinking about this theother day when I was talking to a friend.
I've pretty much been building and runningcompanies now for more than 20 years.
I I think that I've probably started my firstcompanies, even though they might not have been

(10:18):
thought that way, when I was, like, 12 or 13years old.
And so you just kind of continue to increasethe ambition.
You continue to kind of build and compound yourskill set.
And so what starts out as, like, shoveling, youknow, snow off driveways, or cutting lawns,
then turns into building websites for, youknow, local small businesses, which then turns
into, you know, kind of more tech orientedbusinesses.

(10:40):
And you kinda just keep leveling up over over,the years.
It really is just this long, you know, multidecade journey of learning.
And as you acquire more knowledge, it gives youthe confidence to kinda go bigger and bigger,
which, you know, hopefully, won't be over forme for
a long time.
You've talked about ambition.
One of the things that you shared in the pastis that ambition can also kill companies.

(11:03):
Why and when do you know whether to have moreless ambition rather than more?
You usually don't know.
And I think that you have to be comfortablewith whatever the degree of ambition that you
have is determines what team you build, how youfund the company, where, the product is

(11:25):
positioned, what part of the market you goafter, who you see as the competition.
You know, all these components really areoverlays or or, kind of downstream of what is
your ambition.
So if you want to, you know, build a, websitesfor local businesses, it's actually not that
ambitious of a project.
Right?

(11:45):
And so you don't have to have a lot of funding.
You don't have to have a massive team of MITengineers.
You don't need to go after GoDaddy, right, oror whatever.
You're you're kind of positioned in a certainpart of the market.
There's very specific kind of decisions thatare off of, hey, I just wanna be able to make a
living and and kind of go and and build thesewebsites.
But then if you look at, you know, maybe acompany, that I've invested in, VARTA, they're

(12:11):
gonna go do, you know, manufacturing in space.
That's pretty ambitious.
Right?
You need a lot of money.
You do need those MIT engineers.
Right?
You do need to actually go and disrupt, right,some pretty big players.
And and so it changes kind of the the decisionsthat you make in building that company.
And so the reason why I say that ambition killsa lot of companies is because, somebody,

(12:34):
usually the CEO or and founder, has super highambition, but they actually have all the other
ingredients of a kind of lower ambition,endeavor.
And so by constantly chasing the high ambitionidea with a low ambition team funding, market
positioning, product, etcetera, those twothings don't match.

(12:55):
And so it's kind of like, you know, if you havea car and you just constantly drive it with
your foot all the way down on the gas,eventually you just wear it thin.
Right?
Like, you know, the car isn't made to run at120 miles an hour for months months on end.
And so I think that a lot of people now arestarting to understand venture capital is a

(13:16):
very specific type of business, a veryspecific, kind of financing option, to
leverage.
But there is, quite a number of businesses.
You know, we we've built a lot of businesses.
I have a lot of friends who have builtbusinesses who you can use these kind of
digital skills or or kind of, you know,Internet native approaches.
But really what you're doing is you're buildingbusinesses that are profitable, that are able

(13:38):
to, kind of be repeatable and scalable.
But you don't necessarily have to go for kindof this massive multibillion dollar outcome
that costs, you know, 100 of 1,000,000 ofdollars in funding to be able to do.
And so it's a question of, like, are youplaying a slugging percentage game, or are you
playing a batting average game?
And, I try to actually position myself to beable to play both, in in a unique way.

(13:59):
But just knowing, you know, which game am Iplaying, where's the ambition level that that I
should be kind of following for the team that Ihave?
The funding, the market positioning, is prettyimportant.
If you're back in college today, what would besome of the businesses that you would think
about potentially starting?
It depends on what your level of ambition is.
But if you basically said, hey.

(14:19):
Look.
I'm a college student who, I wanna learn.
I want to, be able to make some cash, and Iwant to be able to meet people.
Right?
I actually think in college, and kind of inyour early twenties, the single most important
thing that you can do is build your network.
Because if you do it right, those people willcontinue throughout your career as people that

(14:40):
you can rely on for information, for, you know,partnerships and deals, for funding.
And, also, you're if you're fortunate, we'll beable to find 2 or 3 people who'll be great
sounding board for you throughout your career.
And, there's this, you know, whole idea thatpeople always wanna meet their heroes, but
actually, you should spend more time with yourpeers.

(15:01):
Because if you go and you talk to your heroes,what they will talk about is calling their
peers.
And so your heroes are cool.
Your heroes can teach you some things, butreally the bulk of the time you spend in your
business career is going to be with thosepeers, so spending that time to invest in those
relationships is more important.
In terms of ideas for, for businesses, I thinkthat, a kind of creation is a key, kind of

(15:26):
theme.
So creating websites, creating blogs, creatingin you know, now podcast, creating, social
media content, being able to create videocontent, you know, audio content, anything that
you can create for somebody else, specifically,if you're a young person who understands these
digital platforms in a way that they don't,somebody's gonna be willing to pay you for it.

(15:48):
Right?
And so, you know, they have an abundance ofcapital, but they have a lack of knowledge.
You have an abundance of knowledge and a lackof capital.
As you put those two things together, andusually, you're able to unlock capital by
switching knowledge with them.
So I think that's 1.
2 is, I think young people drasticallyunderestimate how valuable, their knowledge is,

(16:09):
outside of creating stuff.
So, I've always thought somebody should createkind of a college intelligence service.
So what do college kids eat?
What do they use?
What what brands do they like?
What services do they use?
Could you put, you know, some sort of app oneveryone's phone so you could see what
percentage usage of various things, they'redoing on their phones?

(16:32):
Then you could sell that to, hedge funds orsell that to, you know, people who wanna
understand better an entire demographic ofsociety.
Right?
The that knowledge is really, really important.
And you could start out pretty simply by justrunning surveys.
Right?
If you survey all the students at a school, youget a bunch of information, then you run around
and you tell everyone, hey.
I'll sell you the results of this.

(16:52):
Right?
Probably could be able to to get some stuff.
Another idea would be, kind of research.
One of the big things on the research side isthat, again, you have an abundance of time as a
young person.
And so if you have time and you understand howto use the Internet in terms of being able to
look things up, you should be able to put thosetwo things together to do research for people

(17:15):
who don't have time.
And so whether it's executives, c suite, youknow, investors, whoever, going to them and
saying, hey.
Pay me $5,000 a month and I will createresearch reports on whatever topics you give
me.
I'll create 1 a week or something.
And they're super well done.
Make them look really nice.
Right?
Somebody's gonna pay you, to do that type ofstuff.

(17:35):
And then, one of the things I did in college,which I would not suggest other people do, but
it was a fantastic experience for me, was Istarted trading And learning how the market
works by having skin in the game is incrediblyvaluable.
Now it's not necessarily aligned withentrepreneurship in the traditional sense
because you're not building a business.

(17:56):
But understanding why does the market move?
When I risk capital, I can win and lose.
Why is it happening?
Right?
It just naturally forces you to betterunderstand so much about, the economy, about
financial markets, about risk.
And so, I do think there's an element of, whenyou're young, investing some money, but it has
to be money that you're willing to lose and beokay with because you're probably gonna lose

(18:19):
it.
Right?
So, you know, as a as a kid, I rememberthinking to myself, you know, if I'm willing to
pay for school or whatever, you might wanna payfor a little bit of self education in financial
markets as well.
So there's all kinds of ideas and and, youknow, again, I don't think that if you're a
college student being above, shovelingdriveways, cutting grass, you know, doing

(18:39):
anything like that is, is a bad idea either.
It's just kind of what what are you interestedin and what would you be enthusiastic about
doing, you know, day after day after day for along period of time and just go, start get
started.
Yeah.
I really like your idea on selling knowledge.
So about a year and a half ago, I met this guynamed Noam Bardeen, who was the, former CEO of

(19:01):
Waze.
He ended up founding this company called Post.
The company didn't end up working out, but itwas trying to be this new news app.
So I'm like, hey.
I'll survey a bunch of kids at my school.
I'll get you a bunch of data, and then you canuse that data.
Of course, I didn't have the foresight or theknowledge at the time to actually sell that
data, but I went ahead and did it afterprobably speaking to or getting in front of
maybe a 100, a 120 people.

(19:22):
80, 90 people filled out the survey, which isincredibly high.
It was a great thing.
I think it's definitely something that thatstudents, could do.
A few years after school, when you're 25 yearsold, you were on a plane in 2014, and you read
a book that changed your life forever.
What was that book, and how did it change yourlife?

(19:45):
The book was, The Art of Product Management,and, I would have never bought the book, read
the book, other than I was on the way to, aninterview as a product manager at Facebook.
I had no clue what the product manager rolewas.
I'd never been a product manager before, and Ifigured I probably should, you know, go go, be

(20:07):
prepared for the interview, which was shocking,frankly, to, my parents and anyone who knew
because I wasn't prepared for pretty much anyother test I'd ever taken in my life, in
school.
But, I knew that, hey.
This is a pretty big deal.
And if I could get this job, you know, there'skind of a trajectory change in my life here.
And I didn't know anything else other than, togo and and just read a book.

(20:30):
I got the idea, and I don't know if I've everactually even told him this.
But I got the idea because I had read that MarkCuban, when he before he started his first
company, he was working in a computer store.
And he would take the manuals home at night,and he would read them.
And he became the most knowledgeable person inthe computer shop because he was the only

(20:52):
person willing to just read the manuals.
And so he knew everything about everycomponent, every piece, every, you know,
computer or whatever.
And so, eventually, that led to, him having theconfidence to quit the job and go and and start
his own company.
And so if I wanna be a product manager and Idon't know anything about it, then I don't even
know other product managers.
Right?
So I can call up a friend and say, hey, whatwhat should I say?

(21:14):
So I bought the book, after kinda googlingaround a little bit and it's the best
recommended book.
When I went into the interview, I remembersaying to myself, the best shot I got at
getting this job is to just repeat back whatwas in that book because I don't know anything
else.
And and so, thankfully, for that book, I wasable to get the job, but it it, was a great
kind of lesson because not only had I readabout, you know, Mark Cuban doing this, then I

(21:38):
did it.
And I can't tell you how many times since thenI have, you know, bought a book and said I know
nothing about this thing, but I'm just gonnaread the book, and I bet you I'm gonna learn
about that thing.
And so, you know, there's a business, thatwe've been looking at purchasing for a while.
And, literally, they're in an industry where Ididn't know that much.

(21:59):
And so I went and I bought the 4 Dummies bookon that industry.
And somebody here at the office saw me with thebook, and they were like, why do you have, you
know, this 4 4 dummies?
And I said, well, I don't know anything aboutthat industry, but I'm gonna know a lot about
that industry after I read that book.
And it's this idea of, are you the type ofperson who wants everyone to think you you

(22:22):
you're smart and, like, you know everything?
Or are you the type of person who is willing tosay, if I don't know something, it's a sign of
intelligence to then identify I don't knowthis, and let me go get the knowledge.
Right?
And so, you know, thankfully, at 25, I was ableto do that, because it really proved to me,
like, this is just a simple kinda life hack.
Like, just go read the book, and something I'vecarried, you know, for years since, and

(22:45):
continue to do.
1 of the partners or venture capital partners Iinterviewed, which is the first in person
interview we did, was this guy named JasonSchuman.
So he's a partner of primary.
And he said that the smartest people, even ifthey don't know the the answer, they're willing
to say that they don't know the answer and thenspeak to experts in the space and get back to

(23:06):
an answer within 48 hours And I think that'sone of the things that I've noticed some of the
most successful entrepreneurs and also peoplecan do in general So if you don't know the
industry, don't know the answer, you're willingto do the research, you're willing to put in
the homework.
And that's one of the things I admire aboutMark Cuban, who is a guest of the show, is,
yes, he spent a lot of time reading the manualsfor broadcast .com, building out that company.

(23:29):
But also, he entered the pharmaceuticalindustry.
He had no experience in pharmaceuticals beforeentering that industry, but then said, hey.
I'm going to be one of the smartest people inthis industry, and I'm going to build a company
around it.
And I think people who are able to not only outresearch, but also at work and then outsell,
that is a very powerful combination.
I don't think anyone knows this.

(23:51):
But in 20 16, 2017, there was a a gentleman,who worked at Mark Cuban's, kind of investment
firm slash family office.
And I remember talking to him, and I said, whatwhat are you guys doing?
And he told me that they were, reading whitepapers and books on artificial intelligence and

(24:14):
neural nets.
And we're saying, what?
Like, Mark Cuban has got a $1,000,000,000.
What what what are you what what is he doing?
And, he's, like, yeah.
He thinks that this space is gonna be reallybig, and, he's literally reading from scratch
what's a neural net, how does it work,whatever.
Fast forward 7, 8, 9 years, looks pretty smartto have been doing that.

(24:36):
Right?
And so, I I do think that one of the beautiesof kind of being willing to go get knowledge is
that it energizes you every time you know youdon't know something.
You're like, oh, I know the playbook.
Right?
Like, I I know how to go get the knowledge.
And so just put the time in, you you go and youdo it.
It is incredibly empowering versus there'sprobably plenty of people who are stuck in

(24:57):
positions in their life where, like, I don'tknow this thing.
And they've never seen the power of just goingand reading the book or talking to the experts.
And so they're they're kind of, you know,searching in the dark a little bit.
And so my suggestion to people always is justlike, just just go buy the book, man.
Just the you know, it's a great investment.
It's $20.
Buy the book.
Read it.
You're gonna be way better off.

(25:17):
After so
you ended up getting that job at Facebook.
Were there any frameworks that you learned, atFacebook that you ended up implementing either
in your investing career or when trying tobuild companies?
There's a ton.
That that place was still is probably veryspecial.
One of the things was just incredibly highquality people.

(25:39):
The operational tempo was very fast, and therewas a focus just on kind of results.
And, you know, one of the frameworks that Icatch myself repeating over and over again to
to founders is, on the growth team, we would bevery clear about what we were testing, and then
we would focus, you know, maniacally on makingsure we ran the test perfectly.

(26:03):
And the reason why you wanna run the testperfectly is because if you run a test and it
doesn't work, but you didn't run it perfectly,then you're left wondering, is it that this
doesn't work, or is it that we just ran thetest the wrong way?
But if you always execute perfectly on thetest, then it's either works or it doesn't work
because of what you're testing.

(26:24):
And so how do you always make sure there'sclarity in kind of the test result?
You have to execute perfectly.
And so you can apply that to a lot of things inyour life.
Right?
But kind of, you know, very clear, perfectexecution is a huge one.
I would say, another thing that I learned isjust getting high quality people in a room is
is pretty powerful.

(26:45):
But also to, letting those people kind of runand saying, look.
Rather than everything be approval based,instead, what we're gonna do is we're gonna
just let you guys be great.
And if anyone kinda steps out of bounds, thenwe'll say something.
But just like, you guys know what the missionis.
Right?
You know what the North Star is.
Go.

(27:05):
1, it's empowering for the people.
But 2 is people start doing all kinds of crazystuff that you never would have thought of.
Right?
There's no kind of, you know, central braintrust that could have come up with these ideas.
It ends up being the line engineer who'ssitting there, you know, late one day, and he's
like, you know what would be cool?
Right?
Create something and all of a sudden everyone'slike, oh, that's awesome.
Right?

(27:26):
And and so I think that that's, like, been ahuge, huge thing.
And then maybe other one other one that that Ithink is, is just, like, pretty cool.
People at Facebook measured everything.
And so, there was at one point, Facebook was,trying to figure out how do we increase, like,
the NPS, right, that people had.

(27:48):
But rather than use NPS, they created their owninternal score, which was a survey question
Facebook cares about its users.
And they would ask you, you know, how stronglydo you agree with this statement?
And you rank it 1 to 5.
And so they were trying to move this metric,and they couldn't move it.
They couldn't move it.
They couldn't move it.
What was the number?
I've I've I don't know.
Maybe it was at, like, 62.

(28:09):
So they would say 1 to 5, and they wouldextrapolate it out or whatever.
But, like, it maybe was, like, 62 or something.
And, one day, they put a kind of, like, a, a acard in the feed at the top.
And, whoever was the content writer or thedesigner signed the message from all of us at
Facebook.

(28:30):
And they put it into the testing system.
It came back.
And this metric moved.
And it was like a celebration in everyone wasso excited that the metric finally moved.
We had quantifiably been able to change thesentiment that people had towards Facebook,
whatever.
And what it did was it humanized the company.
It was this very clinical you're you'reinteracting with Facebook.

(28:51):
But when it says from all of us at Facebook,you make it feel like, oh, there's humans
behind this site.
And so, I mean, I was cool and clever orwhatever.
But to me, the lesson was, man, these guys canquantify anything.
Right?
Literally anything.
They will figure out a way to measure it.
And if you measure it, you then have a chanceto move it.
And so seeing that kind of in in one of the,like, softest, least quantifiable, you know,

(29:14):
parts of business, which is this, like,sentiment and and kind of like, NPS type stuff,
really, really showed me no matter what you'reworking on, there's a way to put numbers to it.
And if you're able to get numbers on it, thenyou should be able to do a lot of testing, that
could lead to the outcome that you want.
Yeah.
I think that's something that sometimes peopleforget is that at the end of the day, we're
still all humans.

(29:35):
We still like connecting with other humans, andI think, I think that's really important.
Bitcoin is although one of the things you'reknown most publicly for, you've also done some
really cool stuff that has nothing to do withblockchain technology.
One of the more boring businesses that you'reexcited about today, are these line striping

(29:56):
businesses for roads.
Why and how big of a role do you think theyactually play in the future of our
transportation?
So let me give some context on kind of allthese boring businesses, which is in the United
States, 50% of jobs come from, small, mediumsized businesses.
You can think of these as, you know, businessesthat are, like, not in the tech economy.

(30:17):
Right?
These are businesses that are kinda more bluecollar oriented, Main Street type businesses.
And, they really are the backbone of America.
And, what would I find unique about them is ifyou're like a solo entrepreneur in, kind of,
the tech world, you basically are part of thelaptop class.
You go to a coffee shop.
You know, you drink your iced coffee.

(30:38):
You you write an email or something.
You get paid some money.
Then you go to your cycling class.
Right?
And you kinda go out with your friends.
Like, it's pretty cake, you know, life.
Yeah.
Nothing wrong with it.
More power to those people.
Right?
But the solo entrepreneur in, like, kind of theblue collar industry or in Main Street
business, like, they open their shop at 7 AM.

(31:00):
They're physically there.
Right?
Usually, their family is running it, so theirwife or their kids or, you know, whatever is
there.
They're on their feet all day.
They close at 7 PM.
Right?
They're physically moving goods around.
They're dealing with customers.
You know, if, if you run like a digitalbusiness, like, you know, let's say you have a
substack or something, when people havecomplaints, they like send an email.

(31:23):
Right?
Or they request a refund.
Like, you don't even know their name.
Right?
It's it's this very, like, impersonal thing.
Whatever.
If you're, like, a local business and someone'sgot a problem, they, like, come in to the store
and they yell at you.
Right?
And then, like and by the way, you have to,like, smile and take it and be like, I'm so
sorry that happened.
Let us, you know, correct it.
Let's fix it.
Whatever.
So it's just like a very different experience,I think, than a lot of people in the tech

(31:44):
industry.
But, a lot of these businesses also, theystruggle with things that we take for granted
in the tech industry.
Marketing, sales, product development, youknow, even internal systems.
Right?
I I recently, went and I visited a, amanufacturing type business, and we were
walking on the floor.
And it, it blew my mind because everyone had,headphones on.

(32:08):
And I was thinking to myself.
I'm like, that's the podcast audience.
Yeah.
I
don't know what podcasts are listening to,right, or music.
But these people are sitting here on thismanufacturing and kinda factory floor, and
they're working.
But for, you know, 8 hour shift, they'reconsuming audio content.
And so we don't think of that in the techindustry.
I record podcasts.

(32:29):
I don't think about the person, you know,sitting there on the factory floor, but, like,
that that is some of the people who areconsuming it.
And so when you see these businesses, there's alot of opportunity where you can kind of go in,
I think, and and and help.
Now line striping in particular, my interestthere is if you believe self driving cars are
going to be popular in the future, thenunderstanding the technology they use, some of

(32:51):
them use lidar, some of them use computervision.
The computer vision cars, they literally seethe lines on the road.
The more the lines are painted well, the easierit is to see.
The easier it is to see, the safer it is.
And so, it's a tech trend, but it is an areawhere it's really really hard to disrupt the

(33:11):
line painting businesses.
And they tend to be very fragmented, and theytend to get long term contracts.
There's a lot of elements to those businessesthat that are unique.
I've talked to a bunch of them.
It's incredibly hard to get a deal done.
We've tried to buy multiple businesses, andyou're just dealing with, you know, people who
have done a lot of deals before.
You're dealing with people who may have beenworking on these businesses.

(33:34):
One of the businesses I talked to, I think theguy I've been working on for 24 years.
Here comes, you know, idiot Internet guy,right, who wants to buy my business.
Like, why would I sell to you?
Right.
Well, you're
like, well, I'm gonna pay you some money.
He's like, well, how much money?
Right?
You know?
And and you're kinda going through this wholething.
And then you gotta figure out if you buy thebusiness, how you gonna run the business?

(33:55):
Right?
Am I gonna go and operate the line striping,you know, machine?
Probably not.
How am I gonna be able to manage the people whoare doing that?
Do we have an operating partner who goes anddoes that?
Right?
How are they gonna be able to do it?
And and so there's a lot of complexity in doingthis, but I do think there's a really, really
big opportunity there, to look at these techtrends as they're occurring.

(34:16):
And then go figure out what is the pieces ofthis blue collar manufacturing or industrial
world that plays into those tech trends.
And say, look.
I understand the tech trend because of the techindustry experience, but I also wanna be able
to participate in kind of the physical worldeconomy, in a unique way that can help support
these tech trends as they occur, wind stripingbeing one of them.
You know, many, many other, I think, examplesthat, that we've been looking at.

(34:39):
Why do you think it is so difficult to buythose types of businesses?
Well, think of, maybe the extremes.
So, in the tech world, let's say that you were,creating a I don't know.
You were, gonna make a dating app or something.
Right?
And, you said, I'm gonna go raise capital,which is basically you're gonna do a financing
deal.
Right?
You would come to me and you'd say, okay.

(35:00):
I made my nice, you know, 7 slide deck here.
I meet you.
I forget who said it one time, but somebodysaid, angel investing in, kinda, early stage
venture capital, which is young dudes flirtingwith old dudes.
Right?
Like, which I always thought was, like, ahilarious, generalization.
But, like, there's some conversation.
And then for the quote unquote documents, it'sjust, oh, we're gonna use the YC Safe.

(35:25):
So there's already agreement on it from anindustry perspective on, like, all the terms.
And then there's this element of, like, theperson investing the money is expecting to lose
the money.
So, like, they don't do diligence in an angelinvestment.
Right?
Like, they talk to the founder, like, okay.
I'm in.
Sign the document.
Wire the money.
I hope it works.
Right.
Which is very rare.

(35:45):
When you go and you buy a business, you startout literally with, why do you wanna sell the
business?
What what do I not know?
Right?
And them saying, why do you wanna buy thebusiness?
Like, what do I not know?
You know what I mean?
So you're already starting out with, like,distrust almost.
And everyone's kinda figuring out, like, whywhy would we do this?
And so there's almost like you're sitting ondifferent sides of the table.

(36:08):
Whereas, when you're an angel investor and afounder, you actually are making a a decision
to end up on the same side of the table.
Because you're gonna go forward and build acompany together.
And so I think that's one is just like the the,point at which you're arriving at the deal.
The second is there is no YC safe.
You're literally negotiating every singlepoint.
There's a lot of things in there that,obviously, become sticking points and and

(36:30):
people have to get comfortable with.
The third is you're buying control.
It's much easier to you know, okay.
Here's, you know, 50 k and and, basically, Iown such a small portion of the company that,
you know, I have no say.
If you're gonna own the business, things like,well, what if I sell you my business, what are
you gonna do with my people?
I'm not even gonna be involved anymore, butthese people have worked for me for 15 years.

(36:52):
I know their families.
I know their kids.
I literally remember when their kids were born.
Right?
We celebrate their birthdays at the factoryfloor.
Like, what's gonna happen to them?
You know, there's a business that we looked atrecently, kind of in the manufacturing space.
They're one of the largest employers in a verysmall town in Kentucky.
And so if you do something to that business,literally, that town could feel, you know, kind

(37:14):
of negative impact.
And so I think there's, you know, just kind ofother aspects that aren't included in these,
like, tech deals.
And the last thing is just, like, how do youagree on price?
You know, one of the one of the crazy thingsis, a lot of people, especially private equity
folks that, you know, I talk to and and, try tolearn from, A lot of spreadsheets.
Well, you know, here's what the business does.

(37:36):
Here's a multiple.
Here's what we think it's worth.
And frankly, there's a lot of business ownersthat just say, I don't care about your
spreadsheet.
I got a number in my head.
You either pay me the number or I'm notselling.
And so you have somebody who's trying to be arational economic actor, and you got somebody
who's, you know, more kind of emotionallythinking through they just pick the number out

(37:56):
of thin air and this is the number they want.
Sometimes those people can meet and agree, alot of times they can't.
And so it's just it's just a harder deal, Ithink, to do than, you know, maybe in the tech
industry, we're just, like, very spoiledbecause we figured out YC safe.
There's this, you know, kind of minority,investment interest.
We end up on the same side of the table.
It's very much a, like, how do I pay itforward?

(38:19):
Right?
And, and so maybe we should be fortunate, youknow, to to kind of be in an industry where
those things are true.
So you you're spending some time focusing onthe the line striping businesses mainly because
you see that autonomous driving will become abig thing.
AI is also something that a lot of people arefocusing on and investing in now.

(38:40):
Are there any boring businesses or or nichesunder that subset that people should be paying
more attention to that will also become bigbecause the AI wave will become big?
Well, back in 2016, 2017, we had a business,where we started out, first with GPU mining.

(39:01):
So, we're mining ETH, to start and, you know,start out very small, grew a little bit bigger.
My partner, Jason Williams, had a, a businessthat he was running, which takes car tires,
turns it into electricity.
And so it, you know, breaks down these cartires and gets a bunch of, kind of commodity,
outputs, and then is able to generate power.

(39:23):
That power, they could then sell into the grid.
We said, well, rather than just sell it intothe grid, why don't we also mine right here,
you know, on-site?
And so we started kinda getting a little bit,you know, kinda deeper into this.
And then my father, had been in the data centerbusiness for a long time.
And so we started saying, Well, hold on asecond.
You have data centers.
There's this mining thing.
We also see these GPUs being valuable in termsof self driving cars, you know, 3 d rendering,

(39:50):
you know, DNA sequencing, like, all this kindof stuff.
So I have a tweet back in 2017, I think it is,where I say, you know, the c p, the world runs
on CPUs today.
Eventually, it'll run on GPUs.
Probably one of my most prescient tweets, and Idid absolutely nothing.
I didn't buy NVIDIA stock.
I didn't, you know, like, like, just show

(40:11):
buy NVIDIA.
Well well, so, you know, at the time, when Iwas we were operating this business, and so,
you know, we clearly saw where the world wasgoing.
I think that, you know, if I could go backprobably, out of many of the businesses that
we've operated, run, you know, acquired overthe years, that business, I wish that we had
kind of spent more time, put more energy into,you know, and and really kind of, kind of

(40:33):
pushed further because today, what is kind ofthe physical world, you know, kind of support
of AI on the data centers?
Right?
Would be a it would be an amazing, amazingbusiness.
And so, you know, lesson learned.
Right?
You kinda you you live and you move on.
But I think that, every tech trend, youdefinitely can find these real world businesses

(40:54):
or opportunities, that that kinda support them.
How much money did that business end up making?
That business?
Yeah.
Well, we, early on, we mined a decent amount ofEthereum, and then I was real smart.
I was sort of mining at, like, $8, and, I soldit all at a 150.
So and we made a decent amount of money, but,not anywhere near

(41:18):
Yeah.
I
do.
Today, I think, Ether trades at $24100.
So, yeah, we sold it at 1.50.
You kinda you you, like, cut yourself short by,you know, whatever.
But it's also hard to predict, though, what thereal ceiling is.
Yeah.
There's 2 ways to look at it.
Right?
It's, oh my god.
Look how dumb I am, which, like, yeah, I kindathink, you know, look how dumb I was.
I sold it at a $150.
But but, also, it gave me capital that Iotherwise wouldn't have had that I then went

(41:43):
and used.
Right?
And some of that capital ended up being capitalI used to buy Bitcoin at $3,000.
Right?
And $3,000 is now
60 k.
Whatever.
60 k.
Yeah.
So, like, you know, you kinda live and youlearn, and, it it's impossible to predict what
would have happened.
So I just try not to spend any time on, youknow, that stuff and just say, look.
What are the lessons I can take from thosesituations and, you know, use them to apply

(42:05):
moving forward?
Out of all the businesses that you've spenttime with, invested in, built, what do you
think most entrepreneurs get wrong when tryingto scale their business?
There's a lot of founders who they dream, butthey don't have goals, which is really hard.
You know, if if I had to say, like, it's hardto kind of, breakthrough to where you got a

(42:29):
business.
Right?
You kinda have an idea, but but to get a realbusiness going, you you can't be a dreamer.
You really have to have kind of goals and and aplan to to get there.
So I would say a lot just from an aggregatenumber of people who wanna start a business.
They get stuck in kind of dreams, not goals.
Of those that break through and kind of get toa business, then I would say, really, there's

(42:49):
there's kind of 2 things.
1 is, can they get the right team?
And, you know, some people can kinda get itright for the first iteration of the business.
But in order to scale past that, you gotta kindof upgrade the team.
And they might have difficulty doing that or orwhatever.
So, I I think that kind of each stage of thebusiness provides, you know, new challenges.
And then another thing, I see a lot of foundersI I think, maybe it's not a a fatal mistake,

(43:16):
but it definitely negatively impacts thebusiness.
They just operate without speed.
And, that speed, you know, we even with ourbusinesses, like, I will talk with people and
they'll say, okay.
Let's do x.
And then I'll say, okay.
When do you think you can get that done?
And they'll say, you know, it's Monday.
How about by Wednesday?
And I'll say, it's 12 o'clock.

(43:37):
How about by 3 PM?
And they're like, okay.
And I'm like, why is our default that we'regonna do it by Wednesday when, you know, we
it's a 1 hour exercise.
Like, just go do it right now.
Right?
And so I fall into the same thing.
Right?
It's hard to always kind of be, you know, onedge and, hey, let's just do it right now.
But if I can instill that in the team, thenthey can instill it back in me and we hold each

(44:00):
other accountable.
You get just this, kind of speed and and andthis iteration that gives you an advantage.
But I think it also signals kind of anoffensive mindset that allows for you to kind
of fight complacency, you know, flight, any,fight any sort of degradation in your
organization.
It keeps the culture really, kind of vibrantand and alive.

(44:21):
I think that's probably the biggest thing.
My buddy, Sriram, over at, Andreessen Horowitz,he he wrote a short blog post.
I think he called it clock speed.
Like, what's the clock speed in theorganization?
Right?
And so maybe it's like, having a low clockspeed is, you know, the the big mistake that I
see a lot of people make.
And not only are you successful, but you'vealso sat down with a lot of other successful

(44:46):
people through your podcast, including MarkCuban, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks.
What do you think are a few traits thatseparate these hyper successful billionaires
from the average person?
I do think there is an element of, ambitionplays into it.
I think likability is actually really, reallyimportant, and people kind of underestimate

(45:09):
that.
So when you spend time with a lot of thesepeople, you kinda walk away and you're just
like, that person is just fun to be around.
Right?
And so if that's your personal experience,like, obviously, it probably people that
they're hiring or trying to sell to or whateverhave a similar type of experience, and they
just wanna be around them.
So that's important.
I think things like working hard is kinda tablestate.

(45:31):
Like, of course, they work hard.
I do think that they probably have good ideas.
And some of that's intelligence.
Some of that's creativity.
Some of that is just, kind of being around andin the flow of things and kind of, you know,
figuring out how to put pieces together.
And and then there's a very interesting dynamicof, like some people call it, like,
contrarianism.

(45:53):
I tend to think of it as high disagreeableness.
I know that I have a high disagreeableness.
My wife and I talk about it a lot because,being married to someone with a high
disagreeableness means when she suggeststhings, I immediately think no.
And so I have to, you know, sometimes remindmyself, like, hey.
This thing that is this amazing quality and,you know, a huge, advantage at work is probably

(46:15):
a detriment at home.
And so, like, how do you kinda, like, learn toturn it off a little bit?
But I do think a lot of them have a a highdisagreeableness that they're able to kind of
naturally just rely on.
Why is that an advantage?
Well,
if you want normal results, then you kindafollow a normal path.
But if you reject the normal path, then itopens you up for an opportunity to get abnormal

(46:39):
results.
And so the world is built to push people down anormal path with, you know, realistic
expectations, like the whole, like, berealistic.
Right?
A highly disagreeable person just tells you, Iam being realistic.
Like, we're gonna do whatever.
And and, you know, maybe Elon is the extreme ofthis, you know, if you kind of read about the

(47:01):
way he operates where he's just like, no.
We're just gonna do it in a year.
And everyone else is like, it's gonna take 20years.
He's like, we're gonna do it in a year.
And, like, maybe it actually takes 5 years.
And so everyone will critique him and be like,well, he said 1, but it took 5.
But, you know, another way to look at it islike, well, everyone else said 20 and he did it
in 5.
Right?
And but it's this disagreeableness with theconsensus.

(47:21):
It's disagreeableness with, kind of, the thestandard path.
It's a disagreeableness with the normal result.
And, also, a lot of times, this highdisagreeableness means somebody is stubborn.
And so when they try something and it doesn'twork, they kinda keep trying, right, until they
kinda figure it out.
So I think that's, like, a really importantquality that, again, positives and negatives to

(47:46):
it, but but, you know, a lot of these guys,that I've met have.
And you have a book, that comes out onSeptember 24th called How to Live an
Extraordinary Life.
For someone listening to this podcast, what aresome of the things that they can do today to
level up their life?
Yeah.
So the book is, you know, a series of 65letters that I wrote to my kids.

(48:09):
I started writing, these letters.
My wife asked me, when our first child wasborn, hey.
Can you write her a letter?
Like, she'd love to read it, you know, later.
So I wrote a letter.
And that letter was, you know, frankly, like, adad writing to his first kid just being like,
this is awesome.
I'm glad you're here.
Right?
Like, there was no life advice.
There was no any it was just like, this iscool.

(48:29):
And I was super excited, you know, whatever.
And then, I started to say, well, you know, Inever really thought that I was gonna live past
35.
And it was somewhat maybe of, like, a joke.
As I was growing up, I used to joke that, youknow, I'm not gonna live past 35, so I might as
well get everything done now.
And, as I started to get closer to 35, I waslike, oh, like, I might have a shot to, you
know, kinda live past that.

(48:50):
And so I said to myself, look.
You know, God forbid anything ever happened tome.
Like, what would I want my kids to know?
Right?
And so I I wrote one letter.
I wrote 2.
I wrote 4.
And somewhere around, I don't know, 7 or 10 ofthem or so, I said, you know, this maybe,
actually, I should turn this into, some sort ofbook so that not only my kids could read it,
but other people could read it.
And, what I tried to put in the book were ideasthat I personally had learned, and implemented

(49:16):
in my life.
And, you know, there there's things in there,such as when you're working at a job.
You know, I was at Facebook.
I spent 2 years there.
At the end of the 1st 2 years, I remembertalking, with my father.
And, he said, look.
You can, you know, keep working there.
It's this amazing place.
Just be careful that you don't work somewherefor 10 years, but you really only got 2 years
of experience 5 times.

(49:38):
Right?
If you're gonna learn 90% of the stuff thatyou're gonna learn there in the 1st 2 years,
but you stay for 10, it it you're you're dead.
Yeah.
You're dead for 8 years.
Right?
Like, you know, understand how much are yougonna learn, you know, and all this kind of
stuff.
So so things like that.
There's you know, a really good one is, I'venever seen a problem that can withstand a

(49:59):
proper workout.
So if you ever think about problems that youhave in your life, if you're really stressed
about something or really worried aboutsomething, normally, what will happen is if you
go, and you kind of put a max effort workoutin, regardless of what max effort is for you,
you wanna go run, run, you wanna lift weights,whatever, usually, what will happen is because
of the physiological changes in your body, youare better suited to actually solve the problem

(50:22):
or kind of deal with the stress, etcetera.
And so there's a lot of kind of health and and,you know, oriented type, advice in the book.
And then I think that there's a lot of stuff interms of personal relationships.
You know, one of the things that I think peoplekind of, forget about is we live in a world
where everything you do is about relationships.

(50:42):
And how do you, you know, maintain goodpersonal relationships, business relationships?
There's a whole slew of things that, I'velearned over the years, and so, you know,
trying to impart that on my children, isimportant.
But I wrote the letters in a way that, my kidsare young today.
I want them to be able to read this when theystart to read, but I also want them to be able

(51:04):
to read it when they're 25, 30, 40 years old.
So how do you kind of write it in a way whereit makes it as timeless as possible, was
somewhat of a challenge, but but, hopefully,comes through the book.
And before we wrap it up, we have a couple ofclosing questions.
One is, what's the best investment you've evermade?
Best investment I ever made is, by far, myfamily.

(51:25):
When I think about what do I get the most kindof joy out of, and happiness, spending time
with my family.
If I think about the thing that I spend themost amount of time doing, so with my family.
And it is probably the thing that, will pay offdividends, you know, throughout my entire life,

(51:46):
whereas any one individual financial investmentor whatever has kind of got a a life to it.
And so, it's a weird way to think about itbecause when people are asked about investing,
usually they think about, like, where did I putdollars?
I think about where did I put time and timebeing the kind of more scarce, more valuable
asset.
And if you look at family as kind of, like, thebest investment, it also means that, if you can

(52:11):
make your biggest investment your bestinvestment, that's like a grand slam in life.
And and so, I've been able to do that and, youknow, very fortunate to to be
in that position.
And second, what's your greatest failure, andwhat did you learn from it?
My greatest failure?
In 4th grade, I was on the plug it down plane.

(52:34):
The the soccer goal was there.
I just missed the kick now.
The kick.
Lost the game.
Championships were over.
I wish I wish I had that good of a memory.
No.
My biggest, my biggest mistake, I think when Iwas younger, it probably was just like, I

(52:56):
didn't understand the power of constantly beingthe student.
I was so desperate to want to, you know, getrespect from my peers or or or people.
I was so desperate to, you know, be in aposition where folks were like, oh, this guy,
like, he got it.
He's smart.
He's successful, whatever.
That when you're young and you don't have thesubstance yet, you you kind of puff your chest

(53:22):
out.
Right.
And you're like like, no, I I I'm good.
Like, don't like, like, I'm amazing.
And then as you get older, I I think I heardsome time, when somebody said, you know,
successful people spend all their timefeigning, stupidity because they just wanna sit
around and talk about their mistakes.
Because it actually shows that, you know,they're so wise, they're so experienced that

(53:45):
they don't have to talk about the successes.
They just spend all their time talking aboutthe failures, and that shows that they learned
all these lessons.
And so I do notice that, you know, myself andpeers, as we've gotten older, I I kinda don't
care.
Like, people think whatever they want about me.
Like, whatever.
I know what I did.
You know?
And so, if I could go back, I think that Iwould just kind of take more of a student

(54:08):
approach, you know, from, from day 1, and Iprobably would have more knowledge and be, you
know, even better situation.
And lastly, if I slid you over
a phone and you could call your 20 year oldself, would you call?
And if so, what would you say?
Yeah.
I'd definitely call.

(54:28):
At 20, I was in the desert in Iraq, and I havemy 21st birthday there.
And I probably it sounds so bad, but, like, I'dprobably call and talk shit to myself and just
be like, hey, dude.
Keep your fucking head down.
Right?
Like, you'll be okay, but, you know, whatever.

(54:48):
But no.
If I just if I had to, like, give advice to myyounger self in general, it probably would
really just be focused on, you're going tofigure it out.
Like, stop worrying about it.
Right?
Like, you're going to figure it out.
You're going to end up finding success, enjoylife.
Like, don't be so, you know, kind of, like,concerned with doing it.

(55:12):
And maybe I wouldn't have actually foundsuccess if I hadn't been concerned about it.
I don't know.
I I didn't get the chance to run that versionof, you know, kind of simulation.
But, yeah, I think just, hey, just chill out.
Right?
Just enjoy life, and and, all will be good inthe world.
Probably be the advice that, that I would'vegiven myself.
Awesome.
Well, I think that's a great way to end it.
Thanks, Anthony, for taking the time to jointhe show.

(55:33):
We'll have a link, to all of our socials andAnthony's socials in the episode description
down below.
You can follow him on x or or Twitter.
And thanks for taking the time.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for doing it.