Kevin O'Leary: Every Time You Get Paid, Do This! It 10xs Your Income Without Having To Work Harder!

That is the stupidest thing you can ever<br>do.<br>What is the most important thing for<br>someone who's just trying to grow their<br>money?<br>So, I learned this from my mother and I<br>actually built a whole company around<br>it. Yeah, there she is. So,<br>I haven't seen that picture in a while.<br>Damn. I mean, what she did, the<br>performance was extraordinary. And with<br>that, she put my brother and I through<br>college. She took care of her family<br>when they fell on hard times. When I saw<br>the results, I said, "That's it. That's<br>how I'm going to invest for the rest of<br>my life."<br>So, talk me through this. I want as much<br>detail as possible.<br>Okay, let's start with this.<br>Kevin Oly aka Mr. Wonderful, is the<br>self-made millionaire and investor<br>who's built and sold companies for<br>billions. There's a lot of people don't<br>like me for my blindness. I don't care<br>because there's people that don't think<br>ahead and find themselves mired in debt<br>but then pissing away money spending $28<br>for lunch. I mean that's just stupid.<br>What about a house?<br>The mistake that people make is they buy<br>too much house. Never let the mortgage<br>and the cost of maintaining the house be<br>more than 1/3 of your income.<br>Now how much does the person that you<br>fall in love with have an impact?<br>You kidding? It's everything. And I did<br>some research and most marriages can<br>survive infidelity. They can't survive<br>financial stress. But if everybody<br>that's listening does this one thing,<br>you will have over a million and a half<br>dollars.<br>Kevin, can anybody be an entrepreneur?<br>No. Only a third of people can become<br>successful entrepreneurs because there's<br>a couple of things that you must achieve<br>to be successful. First,<br>[Music]<br>Kevin, I'm going to ask you to do<br>something which is quite difficult<br>because I'd find it quite hard if<br>someone asked me to do this. But before<br>we get into the detail, can you give me<br>a 30,000 foot view on your<br>entrepreneurship and investing career?<br>Just the just the three bullet points<br>that are most pertinent before we dig<br>into those specifics.<br>Every entrepreneur I've ever talked to<br>um that finds himself where I am today<br>has has a defining moment where they are<br>pushed into this path. It's it's<br>something they can remember and they<br>remember it in perpetuity. And I'll<br>remember my moment getting fired in an<br>ice cream store. That simple. First day<br>on the job, asked to serve and scoop ice<br>cream. And um I did that all day. But<br>when people sample ice cream, they get a<br>taster and they take their gum out and<br>they throw it on the floor. Somebody's<br>got to scrape the gum off the floor at<br>the end of the day. I only took that job<br>because I was very interested in a girl<br>who's working in the shoe store and I<br>figured<br>I could, you know, hang out with her<br>afterwards. And uh I saw her waiting for<br>me and the woman who owned the store<br>said, "You've got a scrape to come off<br>the floor." And I didn't want her to see<br>me on my knees with a scraper. Bad for<br>my brand. I was in high school. And uh<br>she said, "No, no, you have to do it."<br>And I said, "You know, you hired me as a<br>scooper, not a scraper." She said, "Um,<br>how about you're fired?" And I didn't<br>know what that meant. And it was the<br>defining moment for me because I<br>realized there's two kinds of people in<br>the world. There's people that own the<br>store and there's people that scrape the<br>[ __ ] off the floor and you have to<br>decide who you are. And I'm not saying<br>being an employee is a bad thing. Not at<br>all. But for me, um, it it hit me. It<br>just hit me.<br>Kevin, there's a present for you. We<br>give a present to all of our guests.<br>Really?<br>Underneath that black<br>Can I open it?<br>You can open it.<br>I just take this off.<br>Oh, look at that.<br>You've heard the story.<br>That is exactly how it looked except it<br>was black gum and that was exactly the<br>tile. It was just like that Mexican<br>tile. That's really freaking me out.<br>So you were asked to scrape gum off a<br>Mexican tile<br>just like that. And in order to do that,<br>you got to get down on your knees and do<br>it. And um I just couldn't do it. And I<br>and I and then you know the rest of the<br>story. I eventually could afford to<br>bulldoze the whole mall if I went to.<br>when we went back to meet her and thank<br>her for her pushing you off the<br>treadmill into that direction and she<br>was gone and there was a bodega there<br>instead.<br>You said there that you realize that<br>there's kind of two people in life.<br>There's the entrepreneurs, the person<br>that owns the ice cream parlor and<br>there's the person that scrapes it off<br>the floor.<br>Yeah.<br>That provoked a question in me which is<br>do you think anybody can own the ice<br>cream parlor? I do you think anybody can<br>be an entrepreneur?<br>No. I've tried to teach it. Um and I<br>mentor out it all the time to the CEOs<br>that I work with. Uh there are some<br>attributes of people that can do this. A<br>certain element of risk tolerance, uh a<br>certain element of focus.<br>And then the other element which I've<br>really started to believe in of late is<br>karma, luck. You need to be lucky. You<br>need It's like Napoleon was once asked,<br>"Who are your favorite generals?" and he<br>said, "My favorite generals are lucky<br>generals. My lucky generals." And I'm<br>starting to think that in life, um,<br>particular entrepreneurship, you look at<br>the difference, the path of success and<br>failure, and I nobody's exposed to it<br>more than I am in terms of how many<br>investments I may have made over the<br>decades.<br>I think if you want a percentage, you<br>know, I teach these cohorts at Harvard.<br>I'm an executive fellow there. I'm very<br>proud of that work.<br>You get a class of 120 people in a room,<br>twothirds of them want to become<br>consultants. That's why they're there.<br>And lead a life of mediocrity and never<br>make a decision of consequence in their<br>lives. And after 24 months, they are<br>tainted with that disease forever.<br>They'll always be good consultants, but<br>they will never achieve greatness in any<br>way. In life, only a third of people can<br>become successful entrepreneurs. That's<br>it. And the rest can be very successful<br>employees. And there's nothing wrong<br>with that. You can have a fantastic<br>life. You won't be shackled to the, you<br>know, the the ups and downs of<br>entrepreneurship, the challenge of it,<br>how hard it is, but you'll never be<br>free. And that's the debate. That's it<br>right there. Do you want personal<br>freedom? It's the only path. That's it.<br>It's the only path.<br>It is the only path. I mean, you can't I<br>I've always said it's not about the<br>pursuit of money. It's not about the<br>pursuit of greed. You will fail if you<br>do that. It's it's the undying love of<br>freedom.<br>So that one-third of people that you say<br>will be successful, they'll pursue their<br>their dreams, they'll build a business,<br>whatever it might be.<br>Yeah.<br>Do you think it's possible for us in<br>this conversation to increase the<br>probability of their success? You said<br>you don't think you can you can make<br>someone an entrepreneur,<br>but is there things you can do to<br>increase their probability of success?<br>Yes, there are a couple of things that<br>you must achieve to be successful. And<br>let me explain what they would be. And<br>this is not some academic study. This is<br>real data from real situations of real<br>CEOs I've worked with and learned from<br>because I used to work for guys like<br>Steve Jobs and others in my career.<br>Let me um let me give you one that I<br>think is very important. We'll start<br>with this one. I used to work for Steve<br>Jobs in the early 90s making all of his<br>educational software. I mean it was just<br>Oh, there they are. My goodness, you<br>guys do good research. Those are the<br>kind of things that we did for him, you<br>know.<br>Yeah. Yeah. All of that. It's hard to<br>find. Those are senior realms. But, you<br>know, in developing that software,<br>we used to go quarterly. Um Heidi Rosen<br>was there in the room. She's still a a<br>very famous venture capitalist.<br>And I would say, Steve, you know,<br>we got to do some market research on<br>Oregon Trail. I mean, it's a huge title.<br>It's in 110,000 school buildings. We got<br>to do an update. It's going to cost you<br>12 15 million bucks. We want to find out<br>what the students want. We want to find<br>out what the teachers want. Want to find<br>out what the parents want. Steve would<br>say, by the way, not a nice guy. Not a<br>nice guy. He would say to a room full of<br>people, Kevin, I don't give a [ __ ] what<br>the students want or the parents think<br>or anybody thinks. It's what I want.<br>They don't know what they want till I<br>tell them what they want.<br>And I said, "Steve, you sound like such<br>an [ __ ] You have no idea what that<br>sounds like." He says, "No, no, that's<br>how it is, Kevin. Now, are you making<br>money with me? Are we Are you Am I your<br>fastest growing OEM? Have we not been<br>wildly successful and continue to be?" I<br>said, "Yes, Steve, that's true." He<br>said, "Then [ __ ] shut up and do what<br>I say."<br>That's how he would talk to you.<br>100%.<br>And here's what I learned.<br>Look how wildly successful he was. But<br>here's why.<br>There's a concept that he understood<br>that very few people focused on back<br>then in the early 90s of signal to noise<br>ratio.<br>What was so brilliant about Jobs<br>that I tell every CEO now and I don't<br>care if you're an S&P 500 CEO or you're<br>just starting a business.<br>His vision of Signal was the top three<br>to five things you have to get done in<br>the next 18 hours. Not your vision for<br>the business next week or next month or<br>next year. Just the next 18 hours you're<br>awake. You're going to get those three<br>things or those five things done that<br>you have deemed critical for your<br>mission. They must get done today.<br>Anything that stops you from doing that<br>is the noise.<br>So this signal to noise ratio to be<br>successful for Steve Jobs was 8020. 80<br>signal, 20 noise. And I knew that to be<br>true with him because he would email me<br>at 2:30 in the morning expect me to get<br>back to him because back then we didn't<br>have texts. It was all email.<br>He was right. He was right. And the only<br>other person that I've seen that has a<br>higher ratio than that<br>is Elon Musk. He has no noise. He does<br>not deal with noise. He is 100% signal.<br>24 seconds of, you know, every cycle. I<br>mean, the guy is just 60 seconds of<br>every minute, 60 minutes of every hour.<br>The 18 hours he's awake, it's all<br>signal. And look what he's achieved.<br>Now, it's very awkward for him socially.<br>Because noise is dealing with your<br>family sometimes or noise is saying hi<br>to a friend or noise is is is listening<br>to some doom scrolling on you know some<br>social media app that just takes your<br>mind or maybe playing your guitar but<br>very few people on earth and if you go<br>back in history you're going to find out<br>that the geniuses of their time we're<br>close to 100% signal<br>and so I can really sort of summarize<br>this for my audience signal is the most<br>urgent thing you should be focused on<br>right now and noise is bas basically<br>everything.<br>No. The goals you set for that the the<br>weight the that you were awake if you're<br>going to be awake 18 hours.<br>Yeah.<br>And you've determined that there's three<br>things you have to get done. You're<br>going to get those done. No matter what<br>it takes, you're going to get those<br>done. And you're not going to let<br>anything distract you from those three<br>to five things. If you're a CEO and you<br>achieve that and you can get those done<br>with 80% of your time based on that,<br>you're extraordinarily successful. You<br>are absolutely and you're Steve Jobs or<br>you're an Elon Musk or you're somebody<br>if you if you even talk to Bezos I don't<br>know him personally but I've heard in<br>many interviews like I knew you know<br>I've I've met Elon just a few times I<br>spent a lot of time with Jobs but they<br>say the same thing Bezos will not make a<br>decision after 1:00 in the afternoon<br>because he felt that the noise was too<br>high the signal for him was in the<br>morning hours it this is a crucial<br>aspect of success<br>that that I now understand to be the<br>ability of of of it defines an<br>entrepreneur. A man or woman that<br>understands a signal noise ratio that<br>focuses on that, they'll be successful.<br>The ones that can't that get down to a<br>50/50 signal noise, they'll fail. It's<br>that simple. And it's a very simple<br>concept.<br>You know, you made one of your things<br>today this interview. You're going to<br>get it done. You're going to all these<br>people around and everything else. This<br>is one of the three to five things<br>you're going to get done. I have five<br>things today. I'm going to get them<br>done. I'll do the same thing tomorrow<br>and the day after that. And you have to<br>decide how much signal you need to get<br>those three to five things done. And for<br>jobs it was 80%.<br>What's the opposite of that? Sometimes<br>looking at the opposite helps us to<br>understand something. So the opposite of<br>having you know<br>I hire managers and CEOs that have a<br>balance in life between the discipline<br>the binary aspect of business which is I<br>make money I lose money and the chaos of<br>the arts or some other pursuit dance<br>painting photography collecting crystals<br>whatever it is that that they that they<br>have that balance you you need you need<br>the ying and yang in your mind to make<br>correct decisions. It doesn't mean it<br>takes you off the signal. The signal is<br>you got to get stuff done. But how do<br>you live your life? And so I spend a<br>fair amount of my time practicing my<br>guitar or working with my photography or<br>my my watch, you know, up tonight, very<br>late tonight, I will meet a master watch<br>maker and we will deal with the design<br>of a new piece unique he's going to make<br>for me and I'm going to love that<br>moment. That's going to be something<br>completely different to what I did all<br>day long. And we'll start our journey<br>together over the next two years to make<br>this piece unique. And that's something<br>that just takes me away from all the<br>[ __ ] I'm going to be dealing with today.<br>And I also tell successful entrepreneurs<br>in the same day you will get a and this<br>happened to me today. It happens every<br>day. You're going to get a call from<br>some aspect of of your what you you call<br>it your empire, whatever you want where<br>your this company's going bankrupt. It's<br>just going to go bankrupt and you're<br>going to lose<br>I don't know 10 million bucks on that<br>deal.<br>And that's a piece of information you're<br>dealing with. Half an hour later, this<br>actually happened to me today.<br>One of my companies going public. It's a<br>450x for me.<br>The stock will get unlocked sometime in<br>the fall. But<br>how can how do you how do you fit that<br>together? Utter catastrophe,<br>destruction, woe, loss, utter euphoria.<br>half an hour later. That's<br>that's what my life is like.<br>That's entrepreneurship obviously on a<br>different scale for most founders.<br>Well, the founders deal with the same<br>thing. They get disastrous news. They<br>lose an account like a Costco or<br>something if it's consumer goods or<br>service and they get something else. The<br>the the eb and flow is is the management<br>of expectations and your ability<br>emotionally to navigate those ups and<br>downs is part of what entrepreneurship<br>is. But it goes back to the signal. It<br>can't take you off the signal. This is<br>what Steve taught me. Yes, it's great<br>news. Yes, it's bad news. But focus on<br>the signal, O Liy. Focus on the signal.<br>That's it.<br>Where does this analogy come from of<br>signal and noise?<br>It was his genius of of of making it so<br>simple. What are the three things you<br>got to get done today? What are they?<br>What are they?<br>How do you know what they are?<br>They will make themselves apparent. They<br>will definitely make themselves<br>apparent. They will make themselves<br>apparent and you will realize I have to<br>deal with that. You may have them set up<br>from the day before. I actually still<br>use sticky notes on my mirror. Got to<br>get these three things done and or five<br>whatever it is. But then something else<br>will hit. That's the skill of<br>understanding is that noise hitting me<br>or is that signal? There is the essence<br>of the great entrepreneur, the great<br>manager, the great leader. Is that<br>signal or is that noise? What is it?<br>That's what you're looking for. You're<br>hiring somebody that can actually<br>distinguish signal and noise because it<br>could be noise. It could be irrelevant.<br>You have to determine only you makes<br>that decision. That's the key right<br>there. This is what I teach<br>entrepreneurs and engineers and<br>this is the most important thing. It's<br>that judgment of prioritization but then<br>the sort of force of execution to get it<br>done.<br>Can you interpret signal and noise and<br>can you keep the noise away from from<br>the things you got to get done? That's<br>one. The other which is something that<br>I've learned over the last 5 years<br>and this uh you might find this<br>interesting but most of my particularly<br>the naent startups and you're you're<br>involved in the same format I am. You're<br>dragon stand in England. I'm a shark<br>tank in the US.<br>I you know you put up 500,000 or a<br>million bucks into somebody's business<br>eight out of 10 is going to fail maybe<br>six out of 10 depend you just don't know<br>and I love it when people tell me oh I I<br>know when I make an investment it's<br>going to work<br>so full of [ __ ] they have I'm talking<br>about startups they have no idea what's<br>going to work and you won't know for 5<br>to seven years which is why you need<br>divers diversification in the portfolio.<br>But<br>I would go as far to say now, you know,<br>when I meet um venture capital firms and<br>young analysts that work there and they<br>think they're so damn smart. They've<br>never operated a business, they know<br>nothing. They have no idea what they're<br>doing. They're going to hope that one or<br>two of their portfolio uh is going to<br>work out in seven years and pay for all<br>the other mistakes. But the<br>serendipitous nature of success in<br>entrepreneurship is brutal. It is. So<br>that does that mean though that it's I<br>guess I was going to say does that not<br>mean that it's highly luck? Investing is<br>highly like entrepreneurship must be<br>well I said karma you know I call it<br>karma but you need executional skills<br>but here's another skill that I think we<br>should talk about um<br>when you look at at least my experience<br>over decades of making these<br>uh naent these early stage investments<br>these around investments remarkably and<br>I've done them in all 11 sectors of the<br>the economy the majority of the<br>successes five to seven years later are<br>companies run by women. Why is that? Why<br>is that?<br>And so they don't know each other.<br>They're in different sectors. They never<br>meet each other. Why is that? And I have<br>come to the conclusion um<br>two things. They set goals that they can<br>achieve so that in the early stage of<br>their businesses, they put growth rate<br>targets like 15 16% versus men at 30%.<br>Very often men hit their targets 65% of<br>the time. at least my portfolio and<br>women 90 [ __ ] plus percent of the time<br>and that keeps the the the team very<br>sticky. They want to be part of a so<br>they don't have a lot of attrition when<br>they're small. They don't lose the head<br>of financing and marketing that that<br>works but they have another attribute<br>and this was pointed out to me by one of<br>my female CEOs a few years ago to me.<br>She said, you know, Kevin, you talk too<br>much. You talk too much. Um you talk<br>two/3s, you listen one third. Why don't<br>you try reversing the ratio?<br>She said that to you.<br>Yeah. Yeah.<br>[Laughter]<br>I'm very thankful actually because I<br>tried it and um she's right. If you<br>don't talk and you listen, you become<br>far more effective as a manager or an<br>investor in my case by getting<br>information that you weren't going to<br>get by talking. And so if you go into a<br>room,<br>I just did this a few minutes ago before<br>I came here. I'm involved in a<br>litigation and we decided to attempt<br>settlement talks which is why I was a<br>few minutes late and um<br>you know we knew we were going in there<br>to settle and it it's long protruded you<br>know long it's a long long long<br>uh litigation<br>and I remembered her as we sat at the<br>table like this there were other people<br>in the room but the two uh you know were<br>across from each other. I just looked at<br>him. I understand<br>for a long time,<br>a long time. And it gets uncomfortable<br>and no one else is talking,<br>you know, just looking.<br>And um<br>maybe after 90 seconds, he blurted out<br>something he shouldn't have said.<br>And I knew exactly what the price was<br>right there.<br>That was the end of it.<br>You learned that as a podcaster.<br>You learned that there's actually<br>something going on in the silence.<br>There is something going on in silence.<br>And it's it's it's the number that he<br>was going to settle at.<br>He showed his hand.<br>So, we saved ourselves two hours. You<br>know, it's a it's an attribute that many<br>people can't do because they can't stand<br>the social uncomfort of it. I have no<br>problem with it. I could sit here and<br>look at you for 10 minutes. it wouldn't<br>matter to me. And I've actually found it<br>to be a very useful piece of<br>information. It's not just a<br>negotiating, but to listen to employees,<br>listen to investors, listen to<br>financeers, listen to alternative ideas<br>to yours<br>and become more powerful from it.<br>You're in the very business of people<br>selling to you and pitching to you. We<br>both sit on a similar show where people<br>come in and pitch to us. You're seeing<br>at times 10 to 12 pitches a day. So<br>you've developed this muscle over the<br>last couple of decades now almost this<br>instinctive spidey sense of when an<br>entrepreneur will be successful at least<br>in the context of securing investment.<br>What have you come to learn about the<br>the attributes of the ones that are<br>successful? Is there is there anything<br>one can take from that<br>in the moment when that entrepreneur<br>comes out onto the carpet in the context<br>of Shark Tank or Dragon's Den even<br>they need the setup shot of the product<br>with the entrepreneur and they have a in<br>our case a steady cam or a jib that<br>comes down and shoots it. So the the<br>stage director,<br>Eric, uh is his name. I've worked with<br>him for years. Says to the entrepreneurs<br>I've never met, usually it's a team or<br>it's a family or it's whatever. Three or<br>four, two people, whatever. Hold.<br>Hold. Don't speak. Hold. Hold. Don't<br>mind the camera coming into your face.<br>Hold. Hold.<br>Maybe for two minutes.<br>And I'm right there in front of them.<br>I'm 12 feet from them. And I just look<br>at them. Not smiling, not blinking, not<br>frowning, just looking at them.<br>And before they say a single word, I<br>know if they're winners or losers. Just<br>like that. And why is that? Why is that?<br>When? And I'm right probably 99% of the<br>time. Maybe I get it wrong one out of a<br>hundred. I doubt it though.<br>You walk in a room, even though you've<br>practiced, you know, you in the context<br>of of Shark Tank, 20 plus cameras, a<br>billion plus dollars in in the five<br>chairs there. You've been practicing for<br>months your pitch, but it wasn't the<br>real deal. Here you are, cameras are<br>rolling, tape is running, you know,<br>you've only got so many minutes.<br>This is your moment. And you're on<br>national television. 100 plus million<br>people will see you in syndication. It's<br>all in your mind. It's all in your mind.<br>It's going through your head.<br>Can you project<br>who you are with your eyes and the way<br>you're standing? Can you project your<br>confidence? Are you looking at the<br>ground? Are you looking away from me<br>because you can't stand me looking at<br>you directly without saying anything to<br>you? Or do you push back? Or did you<br>say, "I'm gonna I'm gonna stake my aura.<br>I'm gonna stake my ground here. I'm<br>gonna show you I'm ready."<br>You see what I'm getting at?<br>Yeah.<br>And I can feel it. I can see that<br>they're ready to do battle. They're<br>ready to answer. They're ready to<br>present. They're ready. Ready. Ready.<br>Ready. Or they're not. And I've taken<br>that out of the Shark Tank. I see that<br>every day in life. I see it. So you have<br>to learn how to project yourself in<br>front of your peers or who's who you<br>want to you want to lead or teach or if<br>you're a general or a preacher<br>that is maybe<br>an innate something you're born with or<br>maybe you can learn that I don't know I<br>don't care but if you don't have it<br>you're going to fail and you're just<br>that's before a word is spoken<br>before the first word is spoken. And so<br>then what has to happen?<br>Then Eric says, "Go. You're on." And<br>everybody's just sitting there looking<br>at you.<br>Can you articulate your idea in 90<br>seconds or less? Can you whatever props<br>you have or whatever you're going to<br>say, can I get the big idea right away?<br>The ones that had that aura generally<br>get there. 30 seconds later, I get it. I<br>get what they're here for. I understand<br>their product. Okay, that's good.<br>Unfortunately, great ideas are a dime a<br>dozen. I mean, there's millions of them.<br>The next phase begins. This is after 90<br>seconds. Can you explain why you're the<br>right person to execute on this idea and<br>create a business from it? Because you<br>know something about this space? You<br>worked for a competitor. You've tried<br>three times before and failed. You<br>figured out what you did wrong. What is<br>it about you or your team that can take<br>this<br>idea and make it happen? Now, when you<br>get those two things together, you can<br>feel the aura of the room. The isotope<br>is sizzling because you've derisked a<br>great idea. You got an operator in and<br>they But then the third thing, this is<br>the killer. This is the killer. I've<br>seen it so many times in real life and<br>Shark Tanks real life it is. it.<br>You got to know your numbers. How big is<br>the market? How fast is it growing?<br>What's the gross margin? I mean, I've<br>said this a million times to people. I<br>teach this every day. How many<br>competitors are there? When are you<br>going to break even? What month? If you<br>get the first two right and you don't<br>know your numbers, you deserve to burn<br>in hell. And I'll put you there myself.<br>I mean, you wasted an opportunity for an<br>entrepreneur that did know their numbers<br>that could have been in that spot that I<br>could have invested in. You don't know<br>your numbers. I take you out behind the<br>barn and shoot you. You should have<br>brought somebody that understands the<br>language of business because those three<br>together are the definition of<br>leadership right there.<br>I've never heard someone talk about aura<br>in entrepreneurship quite like that. And<br>I was I was just trying to for the<br>people listening that are either trying<br>to figure out if they have an aura or to<br>grow that aura. What does it what does<br>it look and feel like? Is it physically?<br>Is it shoulders back? Is it you said<br>it's eye contact? Or is it<br>indescribable? And do you think you<br>could take someone who doesn't have that<br>aura in business and teach them it? Does<br>business give you that aura?<br>I think you can teach it. I certainly<br>try and teach it to my children. Um I<br>try and teach it to my students.<br>And the best way to do it is to look at<br>yourself in the mirror sometime. You<br>know, just what do you look like to<br>yourself? You know, if you're going to<br>go make a presentation to take down a<br>million-doll line of credit or<br>something, you want to dress the part,<br>obviously, but you're going to walk in a<br>room with, you know, a loan officer and<br>maybe an assistant, maybe one other,<br>depending on the size of the deal, and<br>they'll have never met you probably, and<br>you're going to have to project yourself<br>in those seconds as you're walking up to<br>shake their hands.<br>What does that take? It takes an aura of<br>confidence. And it's in the eyes. It's<br>in the way you're you're standing. It's<br>in how the way you're dressed. It's it's<br>not a joke to be dressed for success,<br>you know. It's it's um<br>it's<br>but it's it's something about presenting<br>yourself and keeping your eyes focused<br>on who's talking to you so that they<br>know that you're absorbing the<br>information, that you respect the<br>information, that you're about to get<br>into a narrative with them of respect<br>even though that there may be<br>disagreements. All of this is happening<br>in the first 60 seconds. And it's<br>setting up for the rest of your life<br>with that person. It could be who you're<br>going to marry. It could be who you're<br>going to work with. It could be your<br>partner in business. It could be your<br>banker. It could be anybody. It could be<br>a soldier that's going to give up their<br>life for you. It's sort of who are you?<br>That's it.<br>Just closing off on the point you made<br>about women being your most successful<br>investments and the companies that have<br>given you the greatest returns tend to<br>be<br>led by women. Does that mean that you<br>focus on hiring women into executive<br>roles?<br>Yeah, I'm practically all women. Um,<br>particularly Asian women. I am a uh, you<br>know, this whole thing about DEI and all<br>this stuff. I've always had diversity<br>because I only hire on merit. I don't<br>care if what sex you are or what you<br>call yourself or what where you came<br>from or the color of your skin or what<br>planet you were born on. I couldn't give<br>a [ __ ] Can you execute?<br>And the way I hire people, and that's<br>why I have such a diverse staff in my<br>operating company, I don't hire you. I<br>say, "Look, you sound good, and you look<br>great on paper, but that doesn't mean<br>anything if you can't work within the<br>team. So, I know you want a job and you<br>want benefits and all that stuff, but<br>I'm not going to do that. If you want to<br>be part of my universe, you're going to<br>work for four to six months as a<br>contractor at a much higher salary.<br>because you're not going to get any<br>stock options, you're not going to get<br>any uh benefits. But I just want to see<br>what it's like for you to work with all<br>of the people that we deal with every<br>day. All the lawyers, all the bankers,<br>all of the, you know, the CEOs that we<br>have investments in and and your<br>co-workers because I don't do 9 to5<br>anymore. I do projectbased work. I don't<br>care where you live. We have people<br>working in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, uh England.<br>I mean, everywhere. everywhere and and<br>you know we meet we try and find an hour<br>every week where we can see each other<br>but we're just constantly communicating<br>using modern day tools today but<br>you know can you actually be given a<br>mandate and execute on it that's it I<br>don't care when you do it if you have to<br>get the financials out let's say you're<br>running in finance you got to get them<br>out the 15th for taxes I don't care when<br>you do it but if you miss the 15th I<br>care so I I need to find out if those<br>people can fit into that kind of an<br>environment. Some of them make it, some<br>of them don't. Some sometimes we know<br>right away after 90 days, let's hire<br>them, bring them in the team, and you<br>know, let's give them the whole package.<br>And sometimes after a month, we say,<br>"No, it's not going to work. Here's<br>like, you know, that's it." I think I<br>think more companies should do that.<br>Actually, it's more like the Swiss<br>apprentice system. They bring you into a<br>lot like, you know, my stepfather's<br>Swiss. I've been going to Switzerland<br>for 50 years. So if you're a giant<br>company like a Fiser or a Nestle, you<br>pull them out of high school at 14. You<br>give them a job in the afternoon. They<br>become an apprentice. They want to<br>learn. They want to work. They want to<br>understand what it's like and then you<br>find the the winners at while they're<br>still in high school. Then you give them<br>summer jobs and then you bring them into<br>the company. That's where I got the idea<br>from. The Swiss are genius that way<br>because you're sort of mitigating the<br>risk. I guess you're taking less of a a<br>risk on No, but you're also finding out<br>if their their DNA is going to fit with<br>your I mean, I want my team to make a<br>ton of money. I I just I want them to be<br>successful. I want every person to be<br>proud to work with the other and and<br>just we're almost invincible. We're so<br>damn good at what we do. You have the<br>same thing here. You you don't have<br>people that don't work for you. Well,<br>you get rid of them. You whack them. I'm<br>more just formal about it. Boom. You're<br>gone.<br>With with the investments that you've<br>made, how many investments How many<br>offers have you done on Shark Tank now?<br>probably like 800<br>we know we don't even count it anymore<br>we look at the portfolio rolling over a<br>5 to sevenyear period<br>a lot like a lot and and the thing is<br>the thing what I've learned is you get a<br>you get an exit like uh base pause from<br>five years ago or something<br>remarkable woman<br>that was the the cat DNA thing<br>the cat DNA thing I mean nobody saw that<br>coming I thought the thing was a joke um<br>I was so wrong I mean that's the whole<br>point and and She she had the highest<br>IRA I think in the whole format's<br>history. Nobody's made her She was<br>around for 36 months and taken out at<br>such an extreme number in all cash that<br>there was an NDA signed between Sony and<br>the the pharmaceutical company. I can't<br>even tell you what it was. It was<br>extraordinary. It was extraordinary.<br>Was it nine figures?<br>Believe me, it's a tough NDA because and<br>I understand why they did it. They<br>didn't buy it for the cat DNA testing.<br>They bought it for the data<br>with AI didn't really wasn't emerging<br>then. It existed but it wasn't with the<br>data they have now. They can develop<br>products for animals that are<br>extraordinary in terms of feeds and<br>medicines.<br>Yeah.<br>And nobody had that much data on the 110<br>million cats in America because she got<br>it all during the pandemic. thousands<br>and thousands and thousands of of of you<br>know it was it was never about it was it<br>was a data company. It's like my son<br>telling me when he got his internship at<br>Tesla, "Hey dad, it's not a car company.<br>It's a data company."<br>Buy the stock. I said, "I'm never buying<br>the stock. It's a joke. It's so<br>expensive." He said, "You're an idiot.<br>It's not a car company." So I bought the<br>stock and he was right. It became my<br>most successful investment. I I had to<br>keep selling it down to 5%. My cost base<br>is zero on Tesla now.<br>[ __ ] hell.<br>Yeah. Before it split and he worked<br>there for 5 years.<br>One of the personas that I have that<br>watches this show a lot are young<br>people, not always young, but that are<br>on the sofa thinking about being an<br>entrepreneur and they talk about it a<br>lot. You know, they they come up to me<br>in the street.<br>Twothirds will never do it.<br>Twothirds will never do it.<br>That you you might as well do it when<br>you have less burdensome risk like a<br>mortgage in a family. You might as well<br>do it in your 20s. You're going to fail<br>the first time, maybe the second, maybe<br>the third. You only need one success.<br>You I had plenty of failures and I I<br>still have failures. I mean, it's just,<br>you know, that one I talked about this<br>morning. It's, you know, when I I you<br>know, I I said to the largest<br>shareholders as was I was in the car and<br>your assistant was, you know, at looking<br>at me in the limo. I was telling the<br>other two shareholders, "Listen, guys,<br>it's it's a binary decision. As soon as<br>I get out of this interview, we're going<br>to make a decision.<br>This company's going bankrupt." Oh, on<br>the bankrupt company.<br>Yeah. Yeah. And so if we want to save<br>it, everybody's going to have to pony up<br>x million. And um we're going to own the<br>whole thing. We're just going to own it<br>all. We're going to we're just going to<br>do a cram down round at a fraction of a<br>cent. We're going to own the whole<br>thing. You want to do that or you want<br>to let it go bankrupt? You guys choose.<br>I'm onethird of it. So it's going to<br>have to be, you know, two against one.<br>And I'll do whatever they want because<br>that's how I am. But it's, you know, you<br>want to get yourself in a position in<br>life. I think most CEOs understand this.<br>You are going to have bad outcomes.<br>There are going to be bad outcomes. But<br>never put yourself in a situation where<br>one bad outcome defines who you are. I<br>mean, for those shareholders, they're<br>going to be unhappy. But then I got the<br>call on the IPO. Those shareholders be<br>very happy. They're going to make 400<br>400x. So it and that was one of my<br>deals. And so it's sort of like<br>learn to live with the idea that<br>you're going to fail. You're going to<br>lose money by taking risk.<br>Will it change relationships<br>permanently? Maybe. But if there if<br>you're respected and you're honest and<br>you're transparent, probably not. I<br>think there's a lot of people don't like<br>me for my bluntness. I don't care.<br>I think a lot of people respect me for<br>my blindness. They may not like me and<br>you know it's sort of um it doesn't<br>matter because the only people that<br>really matter to me are probably my<br>20iest closest friends in my family.<br>Do you think if you hadn't worked with<br>or known Steve Jobs you would be a<br>different person?<br>100%. Steve changed my life. There's no<br>question.<br>I didn't like him. But<br>I feel so bad that he he didn't have to<br>die that way.<br>He just wouldn't go with the modern<br>medicine at the time is my view. Guy was<br>a freaking genius.<br>He was so smart in terms of keeping on<br>track to get getting stuff done and look<br>what he achieved. But he was<br>difficult<br>difficult because he wasn't always<br>right. But he was right so much that the<br>mistakes just didn't matter.<br>And I thought, you know, the people that<br>spent enough time with him know what I'm<br>talking about. Um,<br>you know, it occurred to me because I<br>know Waznjak too, not as well as Jobs,<br>but they really needed each other. They<br>really needed each other because W<br>understood he was he understood what the<br>let me draw an analogy here for you. I<br>think it's a good one.<br>take the situation going on right now<br>with<br>Nvidia, AMD, to a certain extent Intel,<br>um maybe Broadcom,<br>where policymakers in Washington have<br>decided that we can't sell those chips<br>to countries like China or Russia or<br>whatever the list is of adversaries.<br>That's bad policy.<br>And here's why. What I learned from<br>from jobs was<br>the the computer, the chip is the queen<br>bee. It's it's the it's the queen bee.<br>But it has no value without the<br>honeybees, which are the programmers<br>around it that form a community that<br>spend all of their energy<br>writing code that works with the queen<br>bee, which is the chip that pushes out<br>its influence. Because every coder that<br>becomes familiar with that firmware,<br>that Bosnjak computer, writes to that<br>platform, is part of the honeybees.<br>Jobs understood that. He said, "I've got<br>to get every honeybee writing for the<br>Mac,<br>writing for the OS of Apple."<br>It's the same with<br>the Nvidia chip.<br>We need to sell it to everybody. Every<br>even adversaries because within<br>that country of Russia or China is some<br>genius kid. You don't know who he is or<br>she is that's going to write the next<br>piece of firmware or advanced AI<br>from the queen bee,<br>the chip, the American queen bee. The<br>minute you shut down a market and you<br>don't, your adversary sends their queen<br>bee in, which is Huawei.<br>We can't let that happen because I don't<br>think the lawmakers understand what jobs<br>understood. You create the hive with the<br>queen in the middle. That's the chip.<br>You convince every bee around<br>to make the honey, which is the<br>software, and that is the AI in this in<br>this case. You make it off that chip.<br>And when you advance the chip, again,<br>everybody knows how to take that set and<br>stay within the American chip that<br>you're advancing.<br>Maybe you keep them one generation<br>behind. Maybe maybe that's the policy.<br>But you don't ever let an adversary put<br>their queen bee in the middle of the<br>hive. You see what I'm saying?<br>Of course. I mean,<br>and that is what Jobs did. That was the<br>war between Gates and Jobs on the OS, on<br>the operating system.<br>Yeah. I was thinking about the app store<br>and yeah,<br>it's the same thing. It's exactly the<br>same thing. And so, so when I see this<br>policy now,<br>I go out of my mind. I mean, the first<br>thing I do is get on a plane, go to<br>Washington because AI is so important<br>for all the investments I've made. I do<br>not want to be putting Chinese honey<br>into my companies at all. It's that<br>simple. So for that person that's<br>stewing over their ideas now, if they<br>had just a couple of minutes with you<br>and they and they asked you the<br>question, Kevin, I'm about to start this<br>business. I'm about to go on this<br>journey of trying to go from zero to<br>something in my life. Is there anything<br>else that I need to know as I set upon<br>this sort of next 10 years of my life?<br>I'm 21 years old. What what are because<br>I think every entrepreneur has like<br>their principles. You you talked about<br>one which is the signal versus noise<br>thing. Are there any other foundational<br>principles that you think are conducive<br>with success<br>that you might have learned?<br>Yeah, I mean I what I'm telling 20 21<br>year olds now is look,<br>go work for 24 months in a sector you<br>love that you're passionate about. Even<br>if they don't pay you, go in there and<br>be an apprentice. Um, if you're that<br>passionate, you're going to be able to<br>convince some manager to go work for<br>free in there. you're just they're going<br>to recognize your passion and they're<br>going to bring you in. Do that first.<br>Most young entrepreneurs say, "Nah, nah,<br>I don't want to work for anybody." I<br>said, "Yeah, you do actually. You you do<br>want to work for somebody. You want to<br>just understand how all the cogs move.<br>Just 24 months and after that launch.<br>The first one will probably fail. You're<br>going to start with your parents giving<br>you 10,000 bucks or whatever it is,<br>friends and family. But you will have<br>the baseline knowledge of your industry.<br>You will know who the participants are.<br>You will understand how it works and<br>you'll have a much higher probability of<br>success. But the key is to launch sort<br>of in your in your mid to early 20s<br>because you need to burn a few years<br>failing and and that that matters.<br>On the point of how to lead people, when<br>people hear about Jobs's approach, they<br>sometimes assume that you also have to<br>be an [ __ ] And this is the this is<br>the conflicting thing because the world<br>has changed since Jobs was in a<br>leadership position. Things have gone a<br>little bit more soft shall one say.<br>Have you seen all all types of<br>leadership win out in that regard? The<br>direct you know signal focused kind of<br>brash approach but also the kind<br>approach.<br>I don't think kind works. I think<br>respect works. I I the same number of<br>[ __ ] are out there being successful<br>now as they were back in the 90s. Um<br>it doesn't matter um whether you're an<br>[ __ ] or whether people like you or<br>not. I mean, people get so stuck on this<br>stuff. It it's<br>the team you're building are not your<br>friends. They are the team you're<br>building to execute on a mandate. Your<br>customers come first. They're more<br>important. And then of course the<br>employees and how are they respected or<br>not. There are people that work for me I<br>don't like. It doesn't matter. I respect<br>them. I respect their ability to<br>execute. And that above all is the most<br>important thing. If you start getting<br>into interpersonal relationships, you<br>will fail because you may have to fire<br>that person one day. People that hire<br>family take huge risk. Nepotism is a<br>horrible disease. It's it's uh some of<br>the greatest uh private companies on<br>earth never let the kids run them. They<br>just put them on the board and they hire<br>professional management. That's how they<br>keep wealth multigenerational.<br>Think about a tetropac for example.<br>People may not know that name but it's a<br>massive successful company. IKEA I mean<br>you know it's sort of you have to learn<br>those lessons. It's it's um<br>it's about respect<br>in both directions. It's not about<br>likability or softness or some social<br>met metric. It it really isn't. And<br>trying to redefine leadership that way<br>because it's on trend, it's not going to<br>work.<br>I started my first business at 12 years<br>old and I started more businesses at 14,<br>15, 16, 17, and 18. And at that time,<br>what I didn't realize is that being a<br>founder with no money meant that I also<br>had to be the marketeteer, the sales<br>rep, the finance team, customer service,<br>and the recruiter. But if you're<br>starting a business today, thankfully,<br>there's a tool that wears all of those<br>hats for you, our sponsor today, which<br>is Shopify. Because of all of its AI<br>integrations, using Shopify feels a bit<br>like you've hired an entire growth team<br>from day one, taking care of writing<br>product descriptions, your website<br>design, and enhancing your products<br>images. Not to mention the bits you'd<br>expect Shopify to handle, like the<br>shipping, like the taxes, like the<br>inventory. And if you're looking to get<br>your business started, go to<br>shopify.com/bartlet<br>and sign up for a $1 per month trial.<br>That's shopify.com/bartlet.<br>What about finding the definition of the<br>word company is group of people. So in<br>terms of finding great people, is there<br>anything that you can offer to<br>entrepreneurs that are listening about<br>how you've done that and what you've<br>learned over time, the mistakes you've<br>made with assembling your group of<br>people.<br>Yeah. Hiring them without testing them<br>first. I've made that mistake.<br>So So you now test them first.<br>Just because someone says they can<br>execute doesn't mean they can. I mean<br>it's of course you're in an interview.<br>They're not going to say I can't<br>execute. You know, you're looking at<br>their past. You're saying this looks<br>terrific. Looks like you can fit in, but<br>it's on a piece of paper. They haven't<br>been road tested. They haven't been put<br>in a situation where they have to make<br>individual decisions that that have<br>consequence. The people you want are<br>able to make decisions that have<br>consequence. Good, bad, good<br>consequence, bad consequence. You don't<br>know yet. But they have to have be able<br>to make that decision on their own<br>without calling you up because you gave<br>them that mandate. Maybe you put a set<br>of parameter you could spend a million<br>bucks no more without calling me. But<br>whatever it is, I don't want to hear<br>from them. I just want the outcome.<br>What about resilience and hard work? How<br>much does that matter to you? Cuz I know<br>you said they can work when you know<br>they as long as they get the job done.<br>But are you trying to figure out if they<br>are a bit of a psychopath in terms of<br>hard work, if they're possessed,<br>obsessed?<br>I don't find the ones that are<br>psychopaths hard work are actually the<br>most successful. It's not the case. I<br>find the ones that are eclectic people<br>that have other pursuits that are<br>nothing to do with the business they're<br>in that<br>do crazy stuff. You know, maybe it's<br>riding motorcycles in the desert. I<br>don't know. You know, these are the<br>examples I'm just using because I'm<br>living with them.<br>And say, "Look, I've got to go and ride<br>a bicycle across the the desert." Okay.<br>How many days you going to be gone? I<br>don't know. Maybe three. Okay. Is there<br>anything that is immediate? That tells<br>me that<br>if you look at if you look at the years<br>outcome from that person, you're going<br>to find that they probably outperformed.<br>You you you want you want you want the<br>eclectic ones. You want the ones that<br>are not just robots working. It it's<br>going to be cheaper to get a robot if<br>you want a robot. I'm going to buy those<br>too when they come available. But I want<br>people that have creative<br>and<br>unusual solutions<br>that you know just think outside of the<br>box.<br>It's it's really interesting that way.<br>The other thing that um everybody wants<br>to hear from you about is how to keep<br>and grow your wealth because you know<br>making wealth. I kind of understand<br>through the lens of entrepreneurship,<br>take a big bet, um hopefully have an<br>exit or you know draw a dividend or make<br>profit from a company you've started.<br>But in terms of what you did and your<br>relationship with your money, what is<br>the most important things for someone to<br>understand who's just trying to grow<br>their money?<br>Yeah. Yeah. Know I learned this from my<br>mother and I actually built a whole<br>indexing company around it when I was<br>very young. I found out something uh<br>that um so she um was fiercely<br>independent. She's one of three<br>daughters uh of Lebanese descent. Myth's<br>father, my my father, my original<br>father, biological father was Irish.<br>She didn't Yeah, there she is. Geette.<br>So,<br>I haven't seen that picture in a while.<br>Okay.<br>She was very independent<br>and<br>she never ever wanted a man to control<br>her life. So she started at an early age<br>when she was working for her father.<br>They paid the girls. the family all<br>worked there and she worked in the<br>accounting department<br>and billing, but she got paid cash and<br>so she<br>would take 20%<br>of that cash each week and<br>she would put it into two asset classes.<br>Stocks that paid dividends, large cap<br>stocks and telco bonds.<br>7-year Telco bonds paid about 6 and a<br>half to 8% back then. She bought the<br>long bonds and she had that portfolio<br>for 55 years.<br>Wow.<br>Um she never spent any of the principal,<br>only the dividends and the interest. She<br>put my brother and I through college,<br>you know, she took care of her family<br>and her sisters when they fell on hard<br>times. But her rule is very simple. No<br>more than 5% in any one stock or bond of<br>the portfolio. and no more than 20% in<br>any one sector ever. Ever. So when a<br>stock ran up past five, she'd sell it<br>down. This is not genius. This is just<br>diversification.<br>And<br>when she passed and I I was the older<br>brother and I saw the portfolio cuz the<br>lawyer said, "Listen, you got to come<br>down here. You're the executive of<br>Will." And I said, "Yeah, but you know,<br>my mother was middle class."<br>He said, "No, you got to come down<br>here." um she kept her account secret<br>from both of her husbands. She wanted<br>her own independent money and back then<br>you could do that<br>and um damn I mean what that portfolio<br>did the performance was extraordinary.<br>It was beyond any hedge fund guy or<br>anything 55 years.<br>When I saw the results I said that's it.<br>That's how I'm going to invest for the<br>rest of my life. Exactly the way Geette<br>did. No more than 5%<br>in any one stock ever. No ma no matter<br>what it is and no more than 20% in any<br>one sector with the exception of real<br>estate which is a very large part of<br>what I have in net worth and I it's a<br>it's a third. So that's broken the rule<br>but there's reasons for that and I'm<br>very happy with that portfolio. But um<br>that if she if if everybody that's<br>listening to this does that they will<br>maintain and grow their wealth. But it's<br>people bet. They make big bets. They<br>just they think they're so damn right.<br>They put half their net worth into one<br>sector or one stock and they get wiped<br>out. That's what happens.<br>So would your mother pick the stocks<br>herself or would she invest in an index<br>fund or<br>she indexed?<br>She used Okay. So you can even back then<br>you know they didn't have ETFs but they<br>had mutual funds that said their own the<br>only stock in this mutual fund is it<br>doesn't have any debt and it pays<br>dividends you know whatever they were<br>very rudimentary back then they were<br>just collections of stocks I think she<br>had like<br>28 names or something like that in the<br>portfolio but if you looked at them they<br>were really boring large cap names but<br>they were sectorally diverse there<br>wasn't 10 sectors back then there was<br>only there there There wasn't 11, there<br>was 10. So, they didn't have real estate<br>as a sector. So, but you know, I looked<br>at it saying, "Wow, at least they're<br>really boring."<br>You learned a lot about money from your<br>early upbringing, right? From your that<br>early context.<br>Yeah. Because what she said to me was,<br>"Look,<br>you know, I I even do this today with<br>wealthy people call me up all the time<br>and say, "Look, um,<br>you know, they get divorced. this really<br>this a very wealthy woman got divorced<br>recently and she said look I you know<br>divorcing and she was a billionaire she<br>was divorcing she was more<br>multi-billionaire and so she said look I<br>I'm getting everybody's calling me up um<br>to be my advisor because I'm separating<br>from my husband it's all his guys that<br>did all the management of our family<br>wealth would you be my adviser I said no<br>I don't do that um but you know I can I<br>can just give you some basic advice and<br>you and hire people that stick on the<br>mandate. And I gave her Georgette<br>strategy, but she I I had her do<br>something else, too. I said, "Let's get<br>a piece of paper. You're a billionaire.<br>Let's put everything on this piece of<br>paper on the last 90 days that you've<br>spent on whatever the hell it is. I<br>don't care. And let's put on no<br>computer, no spreadsheet on this. Let's<br>look at all the income that you've made<br>off your portfolio as it stands now,<br>whether it's gold you have or land or<br>stocks or bonds.<br>Let's just do a a gut check on do you<br>outspend yourself.<br>She said, "Why would I give a shit?" I<br>said, "Wouldn't you like to know how<br>much money you're burning living your<br>lifestyle the way you live it just out<br>of interest? Maybe you have enough for<br>the rest of your life, but maybe you<br>want to give some of it to your family<br>one day or give it to charity. Wouldn't<br>you like to know?" Because one of my<br>rules is never outspend yourself on any<br>30 or 60 day cycle ever.<br>Just ever. I don't have any debt. So, so<br>I'm very careful about that. And we went<br>through this little thing.<br>She freaked out. She was pissing away<br>money. Just bleeding<br>hundreds of thousands of dollars a week.<br>I mean, I don't care how rich you are,<br>you don't want to be stupid. And I said,<br>"Does that shock you? One of two things<br>has to happen. I mean, you're you're<br>losing millions of dollars a quarter.<br>Like,<br>why? Why? Like you don't you you've had<br>nobody restrict what you do with your<br>money because you're going to have to<br>sell stocks at some point or sell gold<br>or sell land to keep this up and are you<br>really that happy? Like what do you<br>what's all this [ __ ] you're buying? Like<br>what is all this crap that you don't<br>need? It was a eye openener for her. So<br>I'm my point is most people don't do<br>that exercise. I don't care if you're<br>only making 56,000 a year or 68 the<br>average salary.<br>So, are you in the camp that you<br>shouldn't spend money on the small<br>things like the coffee? If you don't<br>need it, you should make the coffee at<br>home. Is that kind of<br>I I just I can't stand it when I see<br>kids that are making 70 grand a year<br>spending $28 for lunch. I mean, that's<br>just stupid. It's just think about that<br>in the context of that being put into an<br>index and making 8 to 8 to 10% a year<br>for the next 50 years.<br>What's an index for someone that doesn't<br>So, okay. I mean, you know, I even have<br>it. I even built an app for this purpose<br>just so I could There's many apps out<br>there. You don't have to use mine.<br>Mine's called Bean Stocks, but you just<br>allocate 15% of your salary and it<br>automatically puts it into two buckets.<br>Some stocks and some bonds. The stocks<br>are ETFs, exchange traded funds that<br>just track the S&P 500. Very simply,<br>mine's a little<br>The S&P 500 is the top 500 stocks.<br>Yeah. So, it's just, you know, people<br>tell me, "Oh, I can beat the S&P. I can<br>pick stocks." They're so full of crap.<br>not over the long period they can. So,<br>it's better you might as well just own<br>ETFs. I have a version of the S&P that I<br>designed with other people that strips<br>out all the crappy balance sheets. But<br>that's just me. You can just buy the<br>index that you want. You know, the ETF<br>and then you pay low fees and then over<br>time it appreciates and then if you buy<br>some treasury bills or what fixed income<br>you get that you should have less of<br>those when you're young and more of them<br>when you're older. That's just<br>diversification. But you you know the<br>best test I do with my kids' friends<br>too. Go into a closet. Go into your<br>closet and look at how much [ __ ] you<br>have you don't wear because you either<br>bought it because you thought you were<br>going to wear it and never wore it or<br>wore it once and you end up wearing 20%<br>of your portfolio all of the time and<br>80% you you pissed away. I mean that's<br>really stupid. And so for a young<br>person, a young woman or man, don't do<br>that. Start putting and just buy the<br>minimum stuff. And another thing I<br>learned from my mother, this is<br>interesting because I saw it happen at<br>her death. She,<br>you know, would buy two Chanel jackets a<br>year, really expensive Chanel jackets,<br>handmade Chanel jackets. I do business<br>with Chanel because of, you know, the<br>legacy of my mother and the whole Coco<br>Chanel thing and watches. I love those<br>guys. And<br>her theory was this will never get old.<br>And it never did. A classic vintage<br>Chanel jacket from the 50s that's<br>well-kept<br>is worth a fortune today. The classic,<br>it still wears beautifully. They're so<br>well made. So, she wouldn't buy crap.<br>She'd buy really good stuff, but a<br>little just small amounts of it. And<br>over the years, she'd built up this<br>portfolio of amazing clothing. And when<br>she died, the women in in our family had<br>a cat fight over her portfolio.<br>Unbelievable.<br>Is that in part why you have so many<br>watches? I've noticed you have a watch<br>on either wrist right now.<br>Yeah, I'm pretty big in watches. I mean,<br>but but watches to me, every piece I<br>have marks something in my life that was<br>important. A deal, a child, graduation,<br>um, you know, something. Every piece.<br>I've got a lot of watches.<br>How many have you got?<br>I I don't even say anymore because of<br>the insurance policy I have. I got a<br>lot.<br>Do you invest in You're talking about<br>your your mother's investing strategy,<br>and one of the things you said is she<br>invested in dividend stocks.<br>Yes. What is a dividend stock and should<br>I be investing in dividend stocks?<br>Yeah, I mean, you know, a company if<br>it's profitable and it's operating, it<br>business plan is working and it's<br>growing market share at some point says,<br>"I'm going to distribute some of the<br>success of our profits to our<br>shareholders." That's a dividend. And so<br>they send that cash to you and you can<br>either redeploy it in other ways or live<br>off it or whatever. Many tech stocks<br>until recently did not pay dividends.<br>But now the behemoth tech stocks do pay<br>dividends because the demand of an aging<br>population is I need to eat and so I<br>like to own the stock for growth but I<br>also want to get some of the profits and<br>so dividend paying stocks uh used to be<br>utilities uh but not so today. Every<br>every sector has dividend paying stocks.<br>So I prefer to own dividend paying<br>stocks div payers and then I also own<br>fixed income products. I also own crypto<br>now and I own alternative assets like<br>gold and watches. My watch collection's<br>actually done quite well even though<br>there's been a correction. There's<br>volatility, but I have some watches that<br>have, you know, I bought for<br>200,000 that are worth over a million<br>today.<br>Crypto. So, are you still bullish on<br>crypto as an investment?<br>Yeah, I am actually, but people get<br>crypto confused with its real potential.<br>Um,<br>uh, let's talk about digital payment<br>systems because what's about to pass<br>first, we're days away from this<br>happening, is the Genius Act, which is<br>actually the Stablecoin Act. It was just<br>passed by the Senate 48 hours ago. It's<br>going back to the House. I I actually<br>worked on that bill two years ago. So,<br>if that bill passes, it's really nothing<br>to do with speculating on crypto. It's a<br>new form of payment. So, if I wanted to<br>order a watch in uh from Simone Brit,<br>who's somebody I buy watches from. He's<br>a master watch maker. Right now, I have<br>to take US dollars, I've got to get<br>through a know your client um<br>prerogative. Um I'm treated like a<br>criminal by transferring $100,000 over.<br>Turn it into Swiss Franks. Takes about a<br>week. I get screwed for about 200 basis<br>points in the whole thing. If I if he<br>accepted USDC, which is actually a<br>stable coin back with the US dollar,<br>just went public, very successful IPO. I<br>was a shareholder in that company, too.<br>That's one of my best IPOs in the last<br>two years. The transaction would happen<br>in less than a second and the fees would<br>be at hundth of what the costs are right<br>now. So it's a digital payment system.<br>The price doesn't it's not it's no<br>speculation on it's backed by the US<br>dollar treasury bills. So it's sort of a<br>new form of of digital payment. That's<br>different than Bitcoin which is a<br>speculation. It's if you believe in<br>Bitcoin, you think it's a digital gold<br>and you live through the volatility. I<br>believe in both. I believe that that<br>crypto will be the 12th sector of the<br>S&P in some period of time because it<br>provides productivity to all 11 other<br>sectors. So the way I own it is I own<br>the exchanges. My exchange in one called<br>Wonderfy up in Canada just got acquired<br>last week or two weeks ago by Robin<br>Hood. I'm happy because I think Vlad who<br>runs Robin Hood's great and now he's got<br>a million plus accounts in Canada and<br>market that he never participated in.<br>But the point is this is never going<br>away. It's going to stay forever. So how<br>do you participate? You can buy some<br>Bitcoin just like you can buy gold, buy<br>it in an ETF or actually own it<br>yourself. You can buy the exchanges. You<br>can use um you know you can buy Circle<br>stock now it's public. You can Circle<br>makes USDC. you can buy USDC in in an<br>account and make 4.1% interest on it<br>right now. So, there's a lot of ways to<br>participate, but yes, I'm here to stay,<br>but I've g I've grown up. I was around<br>during the period where the crypto<br>cowboys lived and and I survived that<br>all and I even testified in front of the<br>Senate and the House and whatever else<br>the testimonies were during the the<br>tumultuous period and most of those guys<br>went to jail.<br>Your portfolio in terms of Bitcoin<br>allocation or crypto allocation, what is<br>it now?<br>It's at about allin. Uh we we marked to<br>market last month it was 19.1%.<br>19.1%.<br>Yeah. We have to keep it under 20. It's<br>a sector. So but remember in that is the<br>cryptos itself, Bitcoin, the USDC and<br>the shares of the infrastructure<br>companies like Circle and everything<br>else. I've got you know it was a very<br>successful IPO. One of the first things<br>most people do when they get a bit of<br>money, usually from their their job, is<br>they get a mortgage on a house because<br>we're kind of taught as we grow up that<br>the best way to make or the the not<br>maybe the best, but the most obvious way<br>to create wealth is to buy your first<br>home.<br>Yeah, there's a very basic rule for that<br>and I understand it and I did the same<br>thing. But what I made sure again from<br>my mother was never let the mortgage and<br>the cost of maintaining the house be<br>more than onethird<br>of your income. Onethird of your income.<br>If it's more than onethird, you bought<br>too much house. So it's better to buy a<br>house that's maybe it's only going to be<br>1,900 square feet to start in a<br>neighborhood that you may not want to<br>stay for the rest of your life, but<br>start to acrue the benefit of real<br>estate from that point of view. Learn<br>how to manage it. Maybe you rent part of<br>it out or whatever, but it can't be more<br>than a third of your income. The mistake<br>that people made, and they're starting<br>to suffer from it now, is when money was<br>so cheap, mortgage mortgage rates were<br>under 4%, they were 3.2% some of them,<br>they bought massive houses. And now<br>they're running into having to refinance<br>those houses at much higher rates, more<br>than 7%. And it's becoming 60, 70, 80%<br>of their income. They're screwed. They<br>bought too much house. So, it's about<br>making sure that you can manage that.<br>And also you want some diversification.<br>Yes, a mortgage is okay, particular if<br>you're having a family because you're<br>going to pay rent or you're gonna pay a<br>mortgage, one of the two. But you want<br>some diversification in starting to<br>build up that investment account for<br>when you retire so that you have<br>something to live off. If you only put<br>aside 15% if you're you're making 70,000<br>a year and you put 15% aside from when<br>you're 25, you'll have over a million<br>and a half dollars if you just invested<br>it in the stock index in the S&P 500.<br>That's what that's what history has told<br>you.<br>In what time frame?<br>Your whole career. I mean, you're going<br>to be 65, you're 25, 65. You just stick<br>with that protocol and you'll watch it<br>grow. You'll watch it grow. You go up<br>and down as the market goes up and down.<br>Some years it'll go flat, whatever. But<br>it's the people that don't even think<br>ahead and find themselves at 45 mired in<br>debt, including a mortgage. You want to<br>get rid of your mortgage in your 40s.<br>Most people's primary investment asset<br>is the house they buy.<br>Is that<br>Yes, it is. But it's also the debt they<br>own. It's a primary asset. How much debt<br>does it have on it? It's only the equity<br>value is the asset. So, if you're buying<br>a house that's too big and it's you've<br>only put down 10% and it's 90% mortgage,<br>what do you really own? you really own<br>the 10%<br>at whatever price it is. Sometimes<br>housing goes flat for a while. It's it's<br>okay, but it's not okay if it's too much<br>house.<br>If you're a 25year-old and you're on<br>that 70k that you talked about, and your<br>objective was to make money, you don't<br>have kids, you don't you're not in a<br>relationship,<br>would you buy a house?<br>No. No, I wouldn't because why do I need<br>a house if I'm only unless I'm renting<br>as an income property? I'm buying a<br>house because I'm getting married. I'm<br>going to raise a family. I need a house.<br>I mean,<br>is that the the use case for buying a<br>house? You think?<br>I think it is. People, but it's not.<br>There are many people that say, "I love<br>real estate. I'm going to buy three<br>houses. I'm going to rent them out."<br>That's a different business. And I know<br>people in their 20s that do that. In<br>fact, they're successful. That's all<br>they do. And so, that their job is to<br>find houses, buy them, fix them up, and<br>rent them. And they manage that<br>geographically tight portfolio. It<br>happens a lot in student housing. for<br>example, got a good friend who's<br>involved in student housing. He's very<br>successful. He just focuses on one<br>aspect, buildings that rent to students<br>and he manages it and he, you know,<br>raises a family. He's successful, but<br>that's one thing he does. That's not the<br>same as saying, "I'm going to buy a<br>house cuz I'm I just got married and I'm<br>going to raise I'm going to have a child<br>in the next 24 months." Then you should<br>have a house. But if you're you said to<br>me, "I'm single. I want to make money."<br>I wouldn't buy a house. That's not the<br>number one asset class. I think I'd get<br>a diversified portfolio and just ride<br>the pony with that for a while until I<br>meet that special person I'm going to,<br>you know, raise a family with and then I<br>have a little nest egg I can work with.<br>I mean,<br>wealth creation<br>comes down to one word, discipline.<br>That's it. The ability to look at<br>something and say, "I'm not going to buy<br>that. I'm going to keep that money<br>working for me." Not many people have<br>that discipline.<br>Wealthy people have that discipline. You<br>meet them later in life, you realize<br>when they were young and had nothing,<br>even the ones that were employees their<br>whole lives that are now financially<br>free had the discipline to say no.<br>There's so much stuff you don't need.<br>And you should never buy a watch unless<br>you can afford it. Ever go on debt for a<br>watch because people hear this stuff<br>say, "I'm going to buy watches like with<br>red bands." No, you're not. That's why I<br>wear watches now that cost under $500 to<br>show kids you want to get into herology.<br>You don't have to spend, you know,<br>$50,000. Here's a here's a Timex for<br>$265. It looks beautiful. Get that.<br>You said, uh, you know, don't buy the<br>house until you meet your partner, etc.<br>How much does the person that you fall<br>in love with have an impact on your<br>finances, your money, your chance of<br>success in your view?<br>It's everything. Are you kidding? I<br>mean, it's it's everything. If you read<br>I mean, think about this.<br>You you need to find somebody if you're<br>an entrepreneur. So that's for the we're<br>talking about the third now that want to<br>go on the rocket ship ride. You better<br>find somebody that's willing to tolerate<br>the fact that you're never home for the<br>first 10 years. They're going to raise a<br>family by themselves because there's no<br>balance in life. That that idea of<br>balance is complete [ __ ] I mean,<br>it's just [ __ ] You have to work so<br>hard to compete globally these days in<br>every sector. you're going to work your<br>ass off and it's not going to happen<br>over I mean Anna Sky did it in three<br>years but she had worked much harder<br>previously it was not her first deal but<br>she was just lucky I mean she<br>was this the cat DNA<br>cat thing I mean she's she she but she's<br>you know she's she's working again she's<br>back she wants to work I mean that's<br>what happens you never stop working but<br>the thing is<br>that partnership<br>and this is what people don't get about<br>marriage<br>marriage Marriage is a business. I know<br>people go nuts when I say that, but it's<br>a business. And the first child you're<br>going to have is money. It's going to be<br>the first child, and it's going to sit<br>at the table with you every day. It's<br>it's there sitting there. If you don't<br>have money, you don't have a marriage. I<br>mean, the reason people get married is<br>to form a form of financial stability so<br>that they can afford a family. And you<br>have to figure out,<br>you know, I'm I'm I've been with my wife<br>a long time and we've been separated for<br>a couple of years, but you know, family<br>is very important to me. So, I we got<br>back together again. We you know, our<br>daughter got us back together. I'm very<br>happy we did it. But it's<br>we make financial decisions together. We<br>we always check in, you know, anything<br>that's material,<br>you know, if we're going to do a<br>renovation or something. And and I<br>respect her for that. I have a lot of<br>respect for her because she doesn't just<br>spend money. We didn't have any money<br>when we started. We had nothing. And so<br>that's why a great marriage can work<br>because you build it together. You<br>really care about it. You care about<br>your family. You also care about what<br>you you've created in wealth. And I<br>consider my money her money. You like<br>because she was the family that let me<br>go and do this stuff. Now I don't have<br>the same relationship with our kids that<br>she does because she raised them. But<br>that's the thing you give up and you<br>have to give something up. That's it.<br>You can be a great father, a great<br>provider, but you're never going to have<br>the closest that she had reading them<br>stories when they were young. I wasn't<br>there. But, you know, the outcome has<br>been good. I think everybody looks at<br>that and says, "All right, that's<br>great."<br>But my mother never believed in<br>entitlement. And so, I don't believe in<br>it either. I'm not gifting my kids a ton<br>of money. You know, I I want them to<br>launch, and they've done that<br>successfully. They got to they got to<br>work. You know, they got to do their<br>thing. I've heard you say before that<br>the most important financial decision<br>you'll ever make is who you'll marry.<br>Yes.<br>Why?<br>Because think of the geometric loss of<br>wealth. Every time you get divorced,<br>you pay the woman that you divorced or<br>man and you pay the government<br>a third often through capital gains and<br>liquidation because you can't separate<br>all the assets without liquidating them<br>sometimes. So, you've got the government<br>sitting there. You've got the other<br>spouse sitting there. This is the<br>stupidest thing you can ever do. It took<br>your whole life to<br>to actually create this nest egg.<br>Could be, you know, you're 45 or<br>whatever. You you've got a comfortable<br>life and all of a sudden you don't like<br>your wife or husband. Think about that<br>for a while because you are going to<br>wipe out up to twothirds of your wealth.<br>You better really like somebody else a<br>lot. And frankly,<br>sometimes it's not the other person that<br>you're divorcing. It's you. You're the<br>problem. If you're getting married for<br>the third time, you're a guy or woman.<br>It's not them. It's you. There's<br>something wrong with you. And you should<br>probably not get into another economic<br>union. You should probably just date<br>till you drop dead because it's stupid.<br>Marriages are tough. I mean, they're<br>tough. Anybody who's been married for<br>more than 20 years knows exactly what<br>I'm talking about. But they have they<br>acrew more benefit than than you know<br>anything. So if as long if you're happy<br>51% of the day with your wife, stay with<br>him or her husband or wife. You that's<br>very important. How often do you think<br>divorces are a result of money issues?<br>Well, you may be shocked at this. I<br>wrote a book um about this and I decided<br>uh men and women of money a long time<br>ago, 10 years plus. Right there it is.<br>And I did some research and I I uh went<br>to meet some of the top um divorce<br>lawyers in North America, in New York,<br>in Boston, and other cities.<br>And I said, "Look, I I want to kind of<br>do a pie chart of reasons for divorce<br>that seemed 50% seem to end divorce<br>within 5 to seven years."<br>Every one of them, they didn't know each<br>other, said, "It's not infidelity.<br>Nothing to do with it. Most marriages<br>can u survive infidelity.<br>they can't survive financial stress.<br>And so what happens invariably is you<br>fall in love, but you didn't do any due<br>diligence on that person's spending<br>habits or their financial history<br>because La More is so wonderful in the<br>early days. You didn't do any diligence<br>on their family or them or their brother<br>or bankruptcy in the past or whatever it<br>is. And then you get married and you<br>know the euphoria starts to wear off and<br>you notice that the other is outspending<br>you<br>just buying a lot of stuff<br>beyond your means.<br>And that starts the first friction. And<br>then that credit card comes in with<br>$100,000 on it at 23% interest and<br>another<br>purse was bought or whatever the hell it<br>is.<br>and you're you're starting to sink<br>because you may have married somebody<br>who can't stop spending. This is just a<br>typical<br>there are people that can't have no<br>discipline. They just can't. They got to<br>have the boat. They got to have this.<br>They got to have that. And they pressure<br>their other to say, "Look, I want to<br>keep up with the Joneses next door, even<br>though they may only each have a salary<br>of 100 grand each. Can't do it." And<br>they have kids and they're trying to put<br>them through college.<br>That's divorce. That's why almost 90% of<br>of unions break up is is is that classic<br>financial pressure and divorce gets them<br>out of that mess because they can no<br>longer spend on your credit card<br>anymore. But it's a horrible way to go.<br>So I, you know, I'm an investor in a<br>company called Hello Prenup that does<br>divorces for does um uh prenups for<br>women and prenups forced during the<br>euphoric period diligence.<br>It's that simple. You're going to find<br>out if that person has a financial<br>problem going into the marriage. They<br>have to disclose<br>their financial background.<br>So, you talk about these five love<br>languages of money. The mooch, someone<br>who won't pay for anything,<br>right?<br>Should I date someone like that?<br>It's a warning signal. It's a problem.<br>It's a problem. So,<br>or they don't really want you for<br>companionship. They just want you for<br>financial support.<br>The spender holic. Someone who always<br>offers to pay for everything to appear<br>popular and successful.<br>Bad morning sign. Huge. I mean that<br>isn't that is insecurity measurable by<br>cash outlay.<br>The loafer. Someone who has no ambition<br>and drive for money.<br>A void with extreme prejudice.<br>The thief. Someone who steals.<br>You can have no tolerance for that.<br>And the meanie. A balanced spender who<br>lives within their means.<br>Love that. Marry a meanie. That's it.<br>That's That's the Those are the<br>marriages that last an entire life.<br>That's it. That's what you're looking<br>for. That's great advice right there.<br>Whatever the book costs, that's that's<br>the best value right there. And then ask<br>yourself, am I dating one of these or<br>not? You know, you know, you should talk<br>about money on the third date. Think<br>about a date. Think about dating. First<br>date, oh my goodness, this is a really<br>interesting person. Um or not, then<br>there's never a second date. second<br>date. I want to learn more. I'm really<br>interested. You're going into a third<br>date. There's something going on.<br>There's something going on. You both<br>want to meet again. That's the first<br>time you should say, "Look, I know this<br>is crazy, but we're here together a<br>third time because something's going on<br>here, and I'm just wondering what are<br>your long-term goals? I mean, it's not<br>about our marriage or anything else<br>other than we're having a great time,<br>but what are your ambitions? I'm really<br>interested in you. I'd like to know what<br>you think. And the maybe the woman says<br>or the guy says, "What are you checking<br>me out?" You say, "Yeah, yeah, I'm<br>really interested in you." It's a form<br>of finding out if the connection, you<br>know, I I should be a marriage<br>counselor. That's what I think. I mean,<br>it's it's really dating is is the is the<br>dance, but it should involve exploring<br>where we're going financially.<br>For many years, you've probably seen<br>this iPad sat in front of me. You've<br>probably wondered what's on it. and I'm<br>going to tell you today because they're<br>now our show sponsor thankfully. It's an<br>app called GoodNotes and it's where I<br>store all of my research, all of my<br>information, but also where I take notes<br>in real time when the guest is speaking<br>to me. I love this app because it's so<br>dynamic, but also because of this new<br>feature which is called Ask Goodnotes.<br>It's basically my AI companion. I can<br>search the 200 pages sometimes of notes<br>and information that I have in front of<br>me in just seconds. I can type into the<br>ask goodnotes feature, what was the name<br>of Kevin's mother? I'm speaking to Kevin<br>Olio on the podcast. He starts talking<br>about his mother. I have a couple of<br>seconds to figure out what she's called<br>so I can ask him a question about her in<br>a polite way. Ask GoodNotes looks<br>through all of my notes, responds back<br>to me in seconds. If you're someone that<br>loves taking notes, but your notes are a<br>mess and you can't read your own<br>handwriting, i.e. me, I think GoodNotes<br>might be the solution for you. and ask<br>GoodNotes, which is their new AI<br>feature, might just be the tool that<br>turns you into an organized person.<br>That's certainly how it feels for me.<br>So, I asked GoodNotes if they would give<br>my listeners a 30-day free trial to try<br>it out. And they've given us one on iOS<br>and Mac. So, if you want to use that<br>30-day free trial, go to<br>goodnotes.com/doac<br>or sign up now for your yearly<br>subscription for just $9.99 per year.<br>That's $9.99 per year. Go to<br>goodnotes.com/doac.<br>I've built companies from scratch and<br>backed many more. And there's a blind<br>spot that I keep seeing in early stage<br>founders. They spend very little time<br>thinking about HR. And it's not because<br>they're reckless or they don't care.<br>It's because they're obsessed with<br>building their companies, and I can't<br>fault them for that. At that stage,<br>you're thinking about the product. How<br>to attract new customers, how to grow<br>your team, really, how to survive. and<br>HR slips down the list because it<br>doesn't feel urgent, but sooner or later<br>it is. And when things get messy, tools<br>like our sponsor today, Just Works, go<br>from being a nice to have to being a<br>necessity. Something goes sideways, and<br>you find yourself having conversations<br>you did not see coming. This is when you<br>learn that HR really is the<br>infrastructure of your company, and<br>without it, things wobble. And Just Work<br>stops you learning this the hard way. It<br>takes care of the stuff that would<br>otherwise drain your energy and your<br>time, automating payroll, health<br>insurance benefits, and it gives your<br>team human support at any hour. It grows<br>with your small business from startup<br>through growth, even when you start<br>hiring team members abroad. So, if you<br>want HR support that's there through the<br>exciting times and the challenging<br>times, head to justworks.com now. That's<br>just.com.<br>One of the big uh protagonists in the<br>story of many things we've discussed,<br>money, investing, building businesses<br>now is this thing called artificial<br>intelligence which you mentioned<br>earlier. Yes.<br>It's like entered the room.<br>Yes.<br>And it's changing lots of these<br>equations in a really profound way.<br>Again, for that person who is maybe at<br>the start of their career or even, you<br>know, they're they're a lawyer right<br>now.<br>How are you thinking about AI? What<br>should they be thinking about? Because I<br>don't think we've seen something quite<br>like this. Not certainly not in my<br>lifetime. I've not seen disruption of<br>this scale. I wasn't around for the com<br>boom. I was too when I was 10 or<br>something. I was eight.<br>Yeah.<br>So, so how should we be thinking about<br>this moment? Is it a huge opportunity<br>for wealth creation or<br>Yeah, it's immense. It's bigger than the<br>internet. And I'll tell you why. I want<br>to keep it down to earth. Uh because um<br>I'm actually using it now in use cases.<br>There's every sector of the economy,<br>every aspect of research, every aspect<br>of business has a huge opportunity here.<br>But let's just take use cases that you<br>would understand, everybody listening<br>would understand.<br>In today's post pandemic world,<br>most businesses have developed large and<br>small direct to consumer strategies<br>where they try and build relationships<br>with customers and sell them product<br>direct. Yeah, they still use retail. Say<br>you're Nike or something. And um you you<br>were 27% uh you know direct to consumer<br>before the pandemic. You're now 50%. And<br>direct to consumer gets you higher<br>margins, but it also gets you data. Gets<br>you information about the preferences of<br>your customer base. What they like, what<br>they don't like, the flavors, and what<br>they buy, when they buy, where they buy<br>it, all that stuff. And it's very<br>interesting that data. And let me give<br>you an example. Wine business. If you<br>think about<br>the wine business, the challenge of a<br>thousand-y old business, you don't know<br>what the weather's going to be like. you<br>don't know what varietals to to to grow<br>because you don't know what the<br>preference of the customer is because<br>you're selling it through multiple tiers<br>of distribution. During the pandemic, 43<br>states in America opened up direct to<br>consumer sales from the wineries in the<br>West Coast. For the first time ever, the<br>wineries found out, what people buy,<br>where they buy it, when they buy it,<br>what they drink, what varietals. And I'm<br>in the wine business. I sell three<br>million bottles a year of wine. One of<br>my companies, actually, a Shark Tank<br>company. Um, and we partner with a<br>company called uh QVC. We sell online<br>and and so I can tell you today,<br>this month, this week, the number one<br>varietal in Southern Florida for women<br>ages 44 to 64 is Mosscato, a sweet wine.<br>I think it tastes like [ __ ] I don't<br>care what I think. It's the number one<br>wine right now. And I knew that to to<br>make that varietal available six months<br>ago so that I would be able to ship it<br>and put the inventory, the capex in the<br>right place at the right time to support<br>that demand for the rest of this summer.<br>A sweet cold Mosscato wine. That means I<br>spent a lot less money, a lot less risk.<br>I don't have any varietals they don't<br>want this summer. I have exactly what<br>they want. That was AI.<br>It cost me virtually nothing to get that<br>data. Five, 10 years ago, it would have<br>cost me a million bucks to go do all the<br>market research. I got that for $18,000.<br>So that's using an AI tool. Here's<br>another example. So do I use that tool?<br>100%. And there's many tools. You don't<br>have to just use chat. There's many<br>different competing platforms. So we use<br>them all. We check the assumptions by<br>checking it all on all of them. See the<br>little variances. Number two, I have to<br>shoot an ad. I have to shoot a<br>commercial.<br>I'm going to shoot it here in LA. I'm<br>going to do it in a studio like this<br>with a green screen. And um I'm going to<br>spend, you know, $250,000 for a 30, you<br>know, 15, a 30, and a 60 out of the same<br>shoot. And I'm then going to go into<br>post with the green screen and I'm going<br>to spend more money in post. I'm going<br>to add whatever I need, whatever<br>background I'm going to need. Or I could<br>fly to Dubai<br>where they have a giant studio with a 6K<br>digital wall<br>where AI links up your script<br>to the background. There is no<br>post-prouction. You basically shoot the<br>commercial<br>in 4 hours and it's done. The<br>background's perfect. The imagery is<br>perfect. Your script is perfect. And I<br>did that two weeks ago for the first<br>time. I'd never seen that before. We did<br>it for a fraction of the cost of what it<br>would have cost to do it in the old way<br>in post-prouction. But then I'll tell<br>you what freaked me out.<br>They reshot the commercial without me<br>there using Kevin agent<br>an AI view.<br>I wasn't even there. and just to show<br>that they could produce a new commercial<br>with the same background<br>for $9,000<br>that would have cost 400,000 from<br>scratch. So there's going to be a lot of<br>job disruption then because as you said<br>you don't say but on the other hand I've<br>now got content for that particular<br>business I was shooting that you know<br>I've got content for that particular<br>business I was going to shoot that<br>commercial for and I said guys<br>let's tweak it and shoot it again. He<br>said yeah we'll do it in two seconds.<br>We'll send you the the 15 seconds back.<br>I said I I I don't like what I said<br>there. Can I change what I said? Yeah.<br>Well do you want it in Spanish? You want<br>it in Japanese? You want it in Arabic?<br>That's the power. The productivity that<br>we're going to get, we're going to our<br>budgets for producing content are going<br>to drop dramatically over the next<br>and software and everything else, right?<br>Creating everything is going to get<br>Now, full circle to your your thing<br>about the chips that all came from<br>Nvidia chips<br>that not that's not from Chinese chips.<br>Whoever controls the chip and the<br>honeybees that the honey bees are those<br>guys are all Indians and Pakistanis.<br>They're genius mathematicians. That's<br>the team over there running off that<br>platform. If we had let anyways I don't<br>want to I'm just freaked out that we got<br>to control that. We we need democracy to<br>control that.<br>Your children, what are you saying to<br>them though about their professional<br>ambitions in a world where creating<br>stuff like that and you know whether<br>it's who do you want to do your your<br>taxes an accountant or an AI? Who do you<br>want to do your legal documents? Who do<br>you want to do your any sort of like<br>white collar job your make your videos<br>edit your videos? I I tell them, you<br>know, everybody's got a lot of angst<br>with AI. I I tell them, listen,<br>everybody chillax. It's a tool. You<br>know, it's the same classic thing where<br>radio was going to be displaced by<br>television. Radio's bigger than it ever<br>has been. It it just it doesn't matter.<br>The one thing I concern myself with with<br>AI is warfare. And I think the country<br>that has the best AI and data centers<br>and the most advanced chip technology<br>will win the wars of the future, which<br>will be fought by drones and robots. I<br>know that sounds kind of crazy.<br>No, it doesn't sound crazy. That's where<br>it's happening now.<br>That's where it's going to go. So, so<br>when I when I solicit the ear of a<br>senator, I try and explain to them my<br>honeybee analogy saying this is about<br>defense. I don't want to live under<br>authoritarian. You know, I know we<br>debate the whole political environment<br>these days, but I don't want to live<br>around Chinese honey. I just don't. And<br>those are going to be the two<br>superpowers. You both you're in one<br>vertical. Either you let the Chinese<br>make the honey on AI or we make the<br>honey and let the Chinese buy some honey<br>from us. I know where I want to live. I<br>know what I want to do. And I think I<br>can convince a lot of senators the same<br>idea because you got to understand the<br>Wnjak jobs analogy that we that you<br>brought out earlier. That was the genius<br>of jobs. Make the honey but know who the<br>queen bee is.<br>The genius of jobs brings me to a<br>question I've wanted to ask someone like<br>you for a long long time which is do you<br>think Apple is dead?<br>No. No you don't.<br>No. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you<br>why. You know it's so interesting. uh<br>people don't understand the genius of<br>Apple because this is again came from<br>Jobs you know he used to say to my team<br>over and over again and I mentioned it<br>earlier they don't know what they want<br>until I tell them<br>and I always just just as close as you<br>and I are right now you're Steve<br>say Steve<br>how the [ __ ] do you know that how do you<br>know that you don't know that you don't<br>know what you don't No. He said, "Show<br>me where I'm wrong. Show me one instance<br>of us working together. I'm wrong." I<br>said, "It hasn't happened yet, Steve.<br>Doesn't mean it won't.<br>Get back to work. Don't worry about it.<br>I'll worry about it. You make the<br>software. I have the chips. Make the<br>software. Go make the honey. I have the<br>queen bee. Don't worry about it." And<br>that<br>is pretty interesting because you got to<br>prove it that he was wrong. Let's take<br>let's accelerate. He's dead now. But the<br>philosophy of Apple and I'll give you<br>the the way you win at you look at it. I<br>can go buy a $330 laptop right here<br>with the same processing power of this<br>$1,800 Mac laptop.<br>Why would I been spend 1,800 when I<br>could buy this for 300? Why brand? I<br>want to be part of this universe.<br>This honey right over here, the Apple<br>Care, the fact that the OS works on all<br>the platforms and the messages are shown<br>on all platforms simultaneously. All the<br>OS, all the honey,<br>that platform is the power of brand.<br>It's I'm not leaving this universe and<br>Apple is one of the world's largest<br>companies. And you may say, "Oh, an<br>innovation is going to make everybody<br>leave that platform." I don't think so.<br>They let other people sometimes bring in<br>a new market and then they take it over.<br>And I saw Steve do that multiple times.<br>He did it um with the phone. I was<br>around for that. That was crazy. I mean,<br>he had the vision that we would someday<br>run our software on the phone. I said,<br>"You're out of your mind. The screen's<br>too small." He said, "No,<br>you're going to go vertical. You're<br>going to rewrite all this crap<br>vertically."<br>I mean, I can't fault him on anything.<br>Although I kept telling him, "You're<br>going to get it wrong one day. You're<br>not going to be right all the time." I<br>can't find when he wasn't right. That<br>that's that's the frustration because I<br>teach this you know to a har bunch of<br>really smart kids at Harvard of which by<br>the way a third are international<br>students and<br>they say well when did you catch him? I<br>said he didn't<br>what was he doing was did he have a<br>practice or or principles that allowed<br>him to see around the corner? He spent a<br>lot of time at night um<br>you know<br>even studying fonts and looking at art<br>and um focusing on the signal. I think<br>his wife talked about that a lot. He I<br>mean she spent more time with him than<br>anybody else. Although W talks about a<br>lot because those guys spent countless<br>hours together and<br>but but<br>Jobs defined<br>he would take<br>instances from nature<br>into his head or from Japanese,<br>you know, scripture or text or imagery<br>and redefine it into technology in a way<br>that no one else was doing. And that's<br>the idea of the honey and the bee and<br>the queen and all that stuff. It kind of<br>comes from his view of the world. And I<br>don't know if you can understand this,<br>but because it was so<br>it came from nature, it was easy for<br>people to assimilate it. It wasn't<br>foreign. When they looked at the imagery<br>and the design, he he tried to pull from<br>from pleasing images from nature like<br>the fonts on the first Max. I remember<br>when we were writing the code for that<br>saying, "Steve, this is not what people<br>are used to seeing on a computer<br>screen." He said, "No, it isn't. That's<br>why it's going to work." He, if you<br>think about the very first scalable<br>fonts,<br>I saw that first. And I said, "See, this<br>is this is almost foreign." He said,<br>"Well, how's it make you feel?" I said,<br>"Makes me feel pretty good. This looks<br>like it's on a piece of paper. If you I<br>don't you weren't even born when this<br>stuff was happening but it was it he was<br>so far ahead<br>and this is the same way Elon is<br>redefining whether it's you know SpaceX<br>or whether it's what he's doing in<br>neurosurgery or Tesla or you know all of<br>these initiatives uh you know his<br>satellite technologies they are the same<br>those guys except you know Elon's 100%<br>signal I said that earlier they are the<br>same and they should be their treasures,<br>their national treasures. It doesn't<br>matter if you like them. It doesn't<br>matter what their politics are is<br>irrelevant the contributions they're<br>making to society and to America,<br>frankly, and the competitive competitive<br>nature of of of countries. That's why I<br>thought it was so important that Trump<br>make up with Elon. The the most powerful<br>man on earth should have a a very good<br>relationship with the most the richest<br>man on earth because he's the largest<br>industrialist on earth. Maybe there's<br>like an inherent inability by way of<br>them being who you just said they are<br>the most powerful.<br>But they know they're smart enough to<br>know. It's the same way I felt about<br>Jobs. I'm getting back on the plane this<br>quarter. I know he's going to beat me<br>up, but it doesn't matter. It It's the<br>greater good is that we get this<br>software out there advancing ma math and<br>reading scores.<br>Was he happy, Steve?<br>I don't know the answer to that<br>question.<br>Do you think he was a happy person?<br>I don't know. He I've never I never saw<br>him happy. He was always barking at me.<br>I never saw him happy. I don't think I<br>ever saw him laugh.<br>I don't He may not have been, you know,<br>that I mean that's probably something<br>his wife would know, but he looked like<br>a tortured guy to me, but um<br>you know that may have been his curse. I<br>you know some some you<br>do you love him?<br>Yeah,<br>I can see it in your face<br>100%. I saw a lot of emotion in your<br>face the first time you spoke about him<br>and I thought that's surprising for<br>someone that barked at you.<br>Well, he respected me, that's for sure.<br>He wouldn't execute on my ideas. He<br>expected me to execute on his, but he<br>was never wrong.<br>Where did the emotions stem from?<br>Oh, you know, it brings me back into<br>that room with Heidi Rosen and all the<br>crazy crap. I mean, it was just nuts.<br>And you know, the you know, I'd have to<br>spend a lot of time. The only the only<br>meeting I really remember um the the one<br>that's really sticks in my mind when we<br>were in Certino and we were just I think<br>I don't know we were going after him for<br>18 million or something and Heidi was<br>there.<br>Who's Heidi? Heidi Rosen. Um, she's a<br>famous um, venture capitalist, but she<br>was also kind of the muse, the person<br>that could actually deal with Jobs all<br>day long at Apple and bring him back to<br>Earth when he was out of his mind. I'll<br>give you an example of how that would<br>work. And I've seen her since, you know,<br>it's it's it's I don't even know if she<br>remembers this particular. Anyways, we<br>leave. He's barking at me. He's and he's<br>got one of my product managers in tears<br>because she wanted to do the market<br>research and he said, "No way. I we're<br>just going to do what I say." And she<br>just felt like her job was useless. And<br>and for him it was. I mean, he just<br>didn't give a [ __ ] what she thought.<br>Although she ran the universe of the<br>Oregon Trail or something. It's a<br>massive title, like a huge multi-million<br>dollar title on the Mac in every 110,000<br>schools in America.<br>And he he was so pissed that you know in<br>these old buildings they have the little<br>window where you have a little knob and<br>it only opens up four inches so you<br>can't jump out of it in a hotel or<br>something. So we were we had a Herz<br>rental and we're the whole team's going<br>out. I'm going to drive the car back to<br>San Francisco. I'm going to fly back to<br>Boston and he he undoes the window and<br>he's got his head stuck and there's<br>yelling at me from from<br>I'm looking up at him saying, you know,<br>what the [ __ ] Like what? Like what what<br>more can we we you already kicked us<br>out, you know? And then on the way, we<br>had these old brick the earliest cell<br>phones, these brick phones. Heidi calls<br>me, says, "Okay, he'll do it for 12<br>million." I said, "Heidi, why do we have<br>to go through all that [ __ ] Like, why<br>do we even have to get abused?" She<br>said, "Why is the sky blue?" you know,<br>just get back on the plane and go do it.<br>It was a huge hit. Like it just, you<br>know, it's a huge hit. Like it's just<br>the guy was if you looked at it like uh<br>he he he could he could write the hit<br>songs. That's what he did. He write the<br>hit songs. So you don't even if you hate<br>the producer, you want the the guy that<br>can do the hit songs, right? If you're<br>an artist, you put up with a crazy<br>producer.<br>Could he not have been nice? Do you<br>think?<br>Not in his DNA.<br>No. Do you think if he he was a nice<br>person he wouldn't<br>you know what he would say about that<br>that's noise<br>he gives a [ __ ]<br>yeah he doesn't give a [ __ ] noise being<br>nice is noise that for him I mean we<br>spent a lot of time talking about him<br>but I think there's a lot of lessons<br>learned from him that I think managers<br>today parents today certainly CEOs today<br>uh you know you're you're about this<br>show is about CEOs um<br>I wish every CEO had spent the time the<br>minimal time that I spent with jobs had<br>such an impact on me. I mean, it it I I<br>I owe a lot of my success to him because<br>I think I always think, what would Steve<br>have done?<br>And I make decisions like that. It's<br>amazing. The guy's still around. I bet<br>you if you talk to, you know, any of the<br>management at Apple, they they have that<br>ghost in those rooms for sure,<br>including the current CEO who I think<br>was doing a phenomenal job. He he spent<br>so many hours with Jobs. He knows<br>exactly what I'm talking about.<br>Nobody spent more time in business than<br>that guy for sure.<br>I asked you a second ago if Steve Jobs<br>was happy, but are you happy?<br>I get happier the older I get because um<br>I've I'm very comfortable. I found a<br>place um you know uh that I'm and I this<br>may be just what aging does. I mean, it<br>just, you know, in and when I was in my<br>30s, I had a lot of trauma and turmoil<br>and and just, you know, um hard time to<br>find trying to figure out who I was. And<br>I also suffered from dyslexia, which<br>I've come to think of as a superpower<br>now, not an affliction, but it it was<br>kind of like it's hard to know what<br>journey you're going to be on until you<br>find it. And then I found it, and then I<br>started on a new journey. and and<br>you know it's um<br>it's something where you know you ask<br>yourself every day goes by and you know<br>this the noise and signal thing and how<br>much of this day was I happy doing the<br>things that I wanted to do and I am very<br>happy if if I measure it by<br>is there anything that I spend my time<br>doing that I don't want to do today the<br>answer is no because I don't have do and<br>so I don't waste my time. I do, you<br>know, even coming here to spend two<br>hours with you. When I first, you know,<br>heard about it, I went online and said,<br>"Oh, yeah. This guy, this guy's great.<br>I'd love to work with him." You know,<br>that kind of thing.<br>You you allocate your time. This is this<br>is I'm happy to do this. I want to be<br>here. And I think, you know, we had a<br>very interesting couple hours together.<br>But that's the definition of happiness.<br>What concerns me, and my wife often says<br>to me, "We don't need any more money.<br>Why are why are you flying 300 hours a<br>year on an airplane? What are you<br>doing?"<br>I said, "I'm happy." Like,<br>you know, I'm I'm happy doing this. I<br>want to do this stuff. You know, I<br>sometimes I do five cities in a day.<br>It's freaking crazy. And it's the<br>wonderful thing about, you know, air<br>travel today. You can do that. But it's<br>it's sport for you. It's it's it's so<br>interesting. I get so many interesting<br>opportunities. I can't turn them down.<br>They're just such,<br>you know.<br>Are you driven or are you dragged? You<br>know, you use the word trauma there. And<br>I often ask myself that question because<br>I I came from a all-white area. I was<br>the black kid with the strange hair and<br>the strange family. I was insecure. And<br>I think that resulted in this this force<br>of will to try and correct the<br>insecurity or to prove something to<br>myself which then resulted in success. I<br>I think there is no drag. There's only<br>driven. I don't understand being<br>dragged. Dragged insinuates that you<br>don't care about performance. You don't<br>care whether you succeed or not. You're<br>just being sucked into the void of<br>success. You might be able to say that<br>for a rock star that gets a hit song,<br>but um most of them doesn't last. I you<br>need massive amounts of of drive. And I<br>love the most the most exciting thing I<br>like to do is when someone tells me<br>you can't do that like watch insurance.<br>You will never launch a watch insurance<br>company. It you will never do that. You<br>will never get around the compliance<br>state by state. You will never launch in<br>the Middle East. You'll never launch in<br>England. [ __ ] That's exactly what I<br>did. I found the right team. I found the<br>right partners. I figured it out. I I<br>was passionate about it. And I think I'm<br>going to kick ass. I think I'm I think<br>in two or three years from now you won't<br>be able to catch up with me. That's what<br>I think.<br>I'm 32 years old. What What is the<br>advice that you wish you got at 32 years<br>old? Kevin,<br>what I have learned and this is<br>something that you should really think<br>about for yourself.<br>Your real value, your real brand<br>are your followers. this army of people<br>that have decided to invest their time<br>in you. You know, you've cut across a a<br>vast swath of people. So you influence<br>very successful managers, CEOs, and a<br>lot of young entrepreneurs want to hear<br>what you have to say because they<br>they're expecting you to deliver<br>valuable information<br>across<br>multiple sectors and you also have your<br>own data, but men and women. And so<br>where do you take that? Because you know<br>it's do you want to launch a clothing<br>line? Do you want to sell burgers? Do<br>you want to do consulting? You know,<br>it's it's you have all those<br>opportunities, but what fits your brand?<br>And so,<br>I have and you'll get to do this. You'll<br>get to do this. You'll be approached by<br>a lot of people that want to ride that<br>network you've built. And my advice to<br>you is<br>because this has really worked for me.<br>Is is this a product or service that I<br>personally would use that I would<br>actually use?<br>Because you'll get offered a lot of<br>money to talk about one brand or another<br>brand. They will. And you may be weak<br>and take it. But<br>the minute<br>anybody in your network, in your<br>community thinks you're not authentic,<br>you're [ __ ]<br>And you know that.<br>Yeah.<br>And so you better be authentic. You<br>better be transparent. You better be<br>honest. Even when turmoil hits, whatever<br>it's going to be, I found that saved my<br>ass so many times by just saying,<br>"Here's what I know. Here's what<br>happened." And that actually bonds them<br>even closer to you. And and that's<br>that's the difficulty you're going to<br>have is how much do you want to take ne<br>because you're going to have that<br>opportunity. But if you stay authentic<br>and say I'm going to do I'm going to<br>support this brand because I use it.<br>Every single brand or commission I have<br>in supporting a business I use myself.<br>I'm a shareholder in it and I believe in<br>it and I use the product or you know<br>whatever like the wines I make myself<br>with my wife we drink them at our family<br>and everybody knows that. So you<br>if it's I wouldn't drink it if it's [ __ ]<br>wine. Yeah.<br>So it's it's sort of like<br>that's my advice to you because I meet a<br>lot of people but you're very rare. you<br>what you've built maybe by<br>happen chance that it occurred. Whatever<br>alchemy occurred, you have it now. It's<br>yours to lose. Don't [ __ ] it up.<br>No, everything you said is so true. And<br>um obviously the things that I uh the<br>things that we talk about in the show in<br>terms of brands that I promote, pretty<br>much all of them I've invested my own<br>money into. Yeah.<br>And this is like super important. So I<br>talked about my Whoop. Yeah.<br>Um,<br>if you look at the investments I have<br>and the things I talk about, there's a<br>really clear through line through them.<br>So, there's a really clear through and<br>it's actually reflective of just where I<br>am in my life. There's actually a<br>sponsor I used to have on the show that<br>I was very big on. And I just stopped um<br>I stopped consuming the product. They<br>offered me £6 million<br>which is about what $8 million to<br>continue for another year and a half.<br>And I said like it just wouldn't I'm<br>about to basically start<br>um<br>talking about and investing in the<br>antithesis of what you do.<br>Yeah. So, I had to turn down that $7<br>million, which is a lot of money for<br>anybody.<br>Yeah.<br>But it's because my life shifted and I<br>shifted in a different direction. People<br>don't see those things. They they don't<br>see that the this foreign government<br>comes along and offers you $4 million to<br>go and talk about their country or to go<br>do the dario in their country. They<br>don't see those decisions that you make.<br>But I think hopefully if you listen to<br>me long enough, you'll see a through<br>line between the things that are<br>authentic to me.<br>Yeah. And I think that so you've already<br>figured it out. And the other thing that<br>I would do and say anybody your age and<br>because I wish I'd done it is start<br>focusing on longevity in your 30s. Start<br>thinking about what you eat and what you<br>drink and how much sleep you do and how<br>much exercise you have. You're you could<br>live to 120 years old. I mean<br>crazy,<br>you know, it's sort of if if you<br>understand if you're wearing a whoop,<br>you know what I'm talking about. It's<br>sort of I am very very uh focused on<br>what I do and exercise and what I eat<br>and all that. Um, but uh that makes you<br>feel healthier and more and just better<br>about the your day as you go through it.<br>But the fact that you figured that out<br>at your age because most people your age<br>would have taken the 7 million pounds or<br>whatever it was, that would have been a<br>huge mistake because now the next<br>product that you do endorse, I will know<br>with certainty that you use it because<br>you told me this.<br>We have a closing tradition on this<br>podcast where the last guest leaves a<br>question for the next guest, not knowing<br>who they're leaving it for. And the<br>question that was left for you, funnily<br>enough, I feel like I might have asked<br>it, is where do you believe happiness<br>really comes from?<br>You know, I think the answer is very<br>simple. Consistently achieving your<br>goals because happiness is not a<br>destination. It's a journey. That's what<br>it is.<br>So you have to set those goals whether<br>it's noise to signal going full circle.<br>talked about or long-term, whatever it<br>is, it's consistently achieving those<br>goals, you will be happy. Consistently<br>not achieving them, you'll be unhappy<br>because it is not<br>a destination. Happiness is not a<br>destination ever. It's a mistake that's<br>so elusive. I mean,<br>it's just not a destination. It's a<br>journey. That's it. This is one of the<br>great things you've taught me today and<br>reaffirmed for me today is this idea of<br>like signal and noise and radical<br>prioritization because kind of<br>dovetailing into what we were just<br>talking about. When you have a lot of<br>opportunity, it gets even harder, I<br>think, to know which ones should be<br>taking your 18 hours a day. This is<br>something I struggle with.<br>You should feel it. You know, you're<br>you're kind of a weird dude because<br>you're like a 70-year-old man in a<br>30-year-old body. Like you've got you've<br>got the intellect of of experience,<br>which most people don't have at your<br>age. But deals<br>There's a certain feeling that you if if<br>you should feel that it's a good deal.<br>It should it should be in your gut. And<br>I've learned this. There's many deals<br>that sound great that when I just do the<br>gut check, I don't participate in. They<br>just don't give me and that came from<br>experience. But you seem to have that in<br>some weird way to avoid that one we just<br>talked about. That's it. It's it's it's<br>an intuitive feeling that you generally<br>get by having a lot of winners and<br>losers over time.<br>But you seem to have accelerated that<br>somehow. It's an intuitive nature of<br>where you want to get to and what it's<br>going to take to get there. And there's<br>going to be sacrifice along the way.<br>It's never about the money. Never. It's<br>not about the money. It's, you know,<br>it's do I want to achieve that goal?<br>You know, I'm having a it's it's just a<br>weird thing because I I had a similar<br>situation just a couple of days ago,<br>you know, when somebody approached me<br>and said, "Look, can you get behind this<br>and and back it and I'll pay you a ton,<br>like just a crazy amount of money." And<br>I thought, "Do I actually want to spend<br>one hour pursuing that?"<br>And I went back and said, "Look, um, no.<br>I I just it's just not interesting. I I<br>just I don't I can't see my I can't see<br>myself getting involved in that<br>narrative, which was it was a<br>complicated situation, but<br>and then he said, "Look,<br>how about I give you two and a half% of<br>the company?"<br>I said, "No,<br>I I just don't want to be associated." I<br>you know, it's just it's the same idea.<br>It would intuitively<br>It was noise.<br>Yeah. And what that would do is some<br>opportunity you don't know about down<br>the future that you you you you pursued<br>some goal that somehow tainted your<br>brand and that opportunity never comes<br>to you. You you're you're the you're the<br>captain of your brand. You got to you<br>have to define yourself right through<br>the journey. It's hard. It's really<br>hard, you know. It's it's uh<br>it's really hard. and that and that if<br>if there's going to be a downfall for<br>you, you will have chosen unwisely<br>somewhere. But it better not be from<br>money. That's there should never be an<br>amount that you would take because if<br>your gut says no, it doesn't matter what<br>the money is. Not after what you've<br>achieved. I mean, you don't need to buy<br>a guarantee anymore. You got it. I'm<br>assuming you've put some away. I mean,<br>it's very simple.<br>If you've got five million bucks in the<br>bank, you can do whatever you want. Now,<br>I mean, it's may sound I want more, but<br>that is enough under cat. Always have<br>always I have an account that just sits<br>there with 5 million bucks in it in T<br>bills. I never touch it.<br>That's my nest egg.<br>Kevin, thank you. You go.<br>[Music]<br>[Music]