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6 Trends You’ve Never Heard of

My First Million

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  • Alcohol Use Is Being Substituted
    • Alcohol consumption is declining broadly, shown by spirit inventories rising as a percentage of sales.
    • People substitute alcohol with nonalcoholic drinks, nicotine pouches, psychedelics, or screen time, not necessarily just behave better. Transcript: Shaan Puri Alcohol is in the gutter. So I sent you this tweet. So it says, spirit inventories are soaring. And it shows Campari and a bunch of other spirit brands that honestly I don’t know how to pronounce because they’re kind of French. But basically from 2011 to 2025, there’s this up and to the right trend. It’s basically a measure of inventory as a percentage of sales. And so it goes from like what used to be under 20% to, in some of these cases, like 60%, 70%, 80%. It’s a crazy, crazy rise. And this lines up with, I guess, my lived experience in our social circle, our age group, drinking ain’t cool anymore. Being healthy is cool and drinking isn’t cool. Sam Parr What are you going to learn that when you see me do something health-wise, you should just expect that it’s going to be popular in three years? I gave up booze in 2013 or 14, I think 14. So yes, I didn’t actually think this was going to be that popular. I did not think that this was going to be a trend. But we actually wrote about this. We had a, my old company, The Hustle had a newsletter called Trends. And we wrote about the rise of non-alcoholic beer. And it was actually Steph Smith, who we all know is an amazing person, very smart. She pitched me this idea. And I was like, I don’t buy it. I think this is insane. I really don’t believe it. But go ahead, write the article. So a lot of people have been calling this. And I actually, even though I’m sober, I did not think that this was going to be as real as it is. Shaan Puri And so I think there’s an interesting question, which is, I don’t think people fundamentally just become better (Time 0:00:28)
  • Voltra Demo: Brick-Sized Gym Power
    • Sam described Voltra fitness devices as a tiny, brick-sized resistance machine that delivers precise eccentric and concentric loads.
    • He said it could replace bulky gym gear and enable powerful home setups with much less shipping and footprint. Transcript: Shaan Puri You seen this company called Ultra? I think they’re kind of like a Zen type company. So Ultra, founded in 2025, which is last year, just raised $11 million to scale non-nicotine focus pouches. So they basically take in the nicotine thing, but they’re branding it as like a focus tool. And they’ve already sold 1 million cans in six months and claims the position number one amongst nicotine-free pouches globally. While Zinn dominates the nicotine pouch market, Ultra is targeting a different segment. High performers who want cognitive enhancement without addiction. It’s a $16 can. Their round is led by blah, blah, blah. I think Austin Reif maybe is in this or he think he was bragging about it. Sam Parr He’s very bullish on this company. The website says, Powering Top Performers at Facebook. Goldman. Sequoia. It’s pretty funny that that is considered cool now. (Time 0:03:26)
  • Eccentric Load Changes Training Physics
    • Eccentric loading matters because muscles handle higher load during the lowering phase and typical dumbbells undertrain that phase.
    • Devices that modify eccentric vs concentric resistance can accelerate progress if the science holds up. Transcript: Sam Parr Yeah, so basically, if you’re looking at it, it looks like it’s the size of a red brick. Like for building a house, it looks about that size. And so if you imagine you have a home gym or any gym and you have a squat rack, imagine having this brick that you could attach to various points of the squat rack and then you could attach A pulley or a handle to it. And it’s sort of like a portable cable machine, except instead of a cable machine, it’s just this brick size pulley that I imagine is magnetically creating resistance. So you could say, make this 400 pounds worth of weight and you pull, but it’s special because it’s very precise, I believe. Shaan Puri Right. So there’s a couple of things there. One is you nailed it. It’s a bow flex. That’s the size of like a shoe box or even smaller than a shoe box, which is pretty cool to put a cable machine inside of such a small thing. So there’s first point is small, small footprint. That’s a big deal because most gym equipment is enormous and bulky. The second thing is that you can change the precision you’re talking about specifically is you can change where the resistance happens. So let’s say I go pick up a pair of dumbbells. If it’s 60 pounds, then it’s 60 pounds on the way up of my curl. It’s 60 pounds on the way down of my curl, right? There’s no difference there. But the way your muscles work is that the, let’s say the curling up, which is the concentric part of the motion, and the eccentric, which is the bringing it back down, you actually have Totally different strengths. So your eccentric can typically have like, I don’t know, somewhere between 20 and 60% more load than your concentric. But if you’re picking a pair of dumbbells, well, you just got to pick the one, you’re sort of limited by your weaker part, which is your concentric load. So what’s actually happening is that the more important part of the movement, the eccentric load, you’re actually under training because you’re limited by what you were able to curl. Now, what this machine does, which is kind of great, is that it lets you change the weight. So you could say, hey, on the way up, give me 100 pounds, but on the way down, make it 150. And so that precision of changing the curve of where the resistance happens in the movement, apparently you get like incredible progress and gains from this. Now, I don’t know how real that is. Like, I don’t want to make a claim that I can’t back up. I’ve never used this device. But in theory, that makes total sense to me. And I think this is kind of a game changer on multiple fronts. So that’s, it’s a game changer in size, because now you can have a piece of equipment anywhere. Sam Parr Well, you still need an anchor. So you still need like a squat rack. But it could be a wall. Shaan Puri It could be a tree. Sam Parr It could be like anything. Shaan Puri It doesn’t need to be a squat. Sam Parr It could be a tree. Yeah, as long as it could hold like 300 or 200 pounds worth of force. Shaan Puri Yeah. I think it goes up to, I think the max resistance is like 200, I think, on their main skew. Sam Parr Yeah, but if like you could use this in lieu of a bench press. So you could actually use this as a bench press, but you would need two of them, one on each side. Right. So the size is a big deal. Shaan Puri The potential gains you could get by changing the eccentric and concentric loads. And then the third is the weight of it. (Time 0:09:46)
  • AI Moves Off The Screen
    • Physical AI means embedding AI into toys and devices, turning static objects into interactive tutors and recorders.
    • Early products are janky but show the puck is moving toward AI-enabled physical goods for education and convenience. Transcript: Shaan Puri Next trend, physical AI. All right, so I think you’re going to hear this phrase a lot. And I think people, when they normally say it, they’re saying it for robots. They’re talking about Optimus. They’re talking about the figure robot. They’re talking about like human robots. I’m talking about something different. I’m talking about almost like these gimmick devices where you, can you just put AI in anything? So here’s an example. Have you ever seen ads for this thing called Plaud? No, no. You could use a better name, P-L I bought this thing. I don’t use it. This is like an anti-endorsement. I don’t use it. I think it’s kind of junk. But this company has done $100 million in revenue on this device. Oh, I have heard of this. The promise of it is amazing. And maybe it’s better now. I maybe ordered the early version and it was definitely like the wish.com type of experience. But the premise of this is it looks like a business card almost, or this is what it did. It looked like a business card, but it basically is like a physical meeting recorder. So you could bring this to any meeting, you could put this on the table and it’ll record your conversation. It’s something you could use for your own notes, just talking out loud at your home office. Or again, if you’re at a meeting with somebody. I think the big use case actually that they say is student notes. So students bring this to class lectures. And I think that’s where they found like really fast growth was, oh, cool. If I go to class, this thing will record it. It’ll transcribe it. It’s like what Fathom and some of these other like meeting recorders are doing for the business world. They were doing for classrooms. So this thing kind of took off. And I think there’s a lot of things in this genre. So there’s teddy bears where now your teddy bear comes with essentially like chat GPT inside. So I have a couple of these like for my kids. Again, still all in the janky state. Nothing that I would be like, this is good yet. But it’s definitely where the puck is going. Sam Parr Wasn’t one of them incubated in your buddy’s? Shaan Puri Yeah, F-Ink has one that was being incubated there. Sam Parr It had the best launch video I’ve ever seen. It was basically this like nerdy engineer type guy sitting there, and the bear was saying, Farcon, you’re such a nerd. You’re always talking to a bunch of robots, and he’s this nerdy guy having a conversation with a robot. It was hilarious. Shaan Puri Yeah, that’s the idea. So it’s a talking toy. I think Fatim is the guy who’s behind it. It’s called MagicalToys.com is the name of theirs. They gave me like a really early prototype of this thing. Like you could literally, it’s like the bear on the front. And then there was like a control board, like dangling out the back, like open wires. So, you know, I got like the earliest prototype. So I don’t know how good the newest one is. But again, this is where the world is going, where your toys are going to be able to talk to kids, to teach your kids. They’re going to be interactive in a open world way. So a lot of toys today are interactive, but it’s just hard coded. Like you push this button, it sings It’s a Pitsy Spider. You push this button, it’s going to say hello. Well, these toys can do anything. And so once this works, it’s going to be kind of amazing. (Time 0:16:18)
  • Record Meetings With Physical AI
    • Try recording meetings and lectures with physical AI devices to auto-transcribe and save notes for study or work.
    • Use purpose-built recorders like Plaud as a starting point while products mature. Transcript: Shaan Puri Have you ever seen ads for this thing called Plaud? No, no. You could use a better name, P-L I bought this thing. I don’t use it. This is like an anti-endorsement. I don’t use it. I think it’s kind of junk. But this company has done $100 million in revenue on this device. Oh, I have heard of this. The promise of it is amazing. And maybe it’s better now. I maybe ordered the early version and it was definitely like the wish.com type of experience. But the premise of this is it looks like a business card almost, or this is what it did. It looked like a business card, but it basically is like a physical meeting recorder. So you could bring this to any meeting, you could put this on the table and it’ll record your conversation. It’s something you could use for your own notes, just talking out loud at your home office. Or again, if you’re at a meeting with somebody. I think the big use case actually that they say is student notes. So students bring this to class lectures. And I think that’s where they found like really fast growth was, oh, cool. If I go to class, this thing will record it. It’ll transcribe it. It’s like what Fathom and some of these other like meeting recorders are doing for the business world. They were doing for classrooms. So this thing kind of took off. (Time 0:16:44)
  • Podcast Volume Outpaces Listening Time
    • Podcast supply has exploded while total listening hours stayed limited, creating a shelf-space problem for shows.
    • Podcasts will become clip farms where short clips drive attention while long-form audio remains rare and valuable. Transcript: Shaan Puri Okay, so my next trend is too many podcasts, too little time. So I don’t know if you’ve seen… Is that what a trend means? This insane explosion in the number of high quality podcasts done by high quality people. So there’s one that this guy did with his, he, the podcast was from this guy, T.I. Morris. T.I. Morris. And it’s a podcast called Relentless. So just shout out to him. I don’t know him, but I thought it caught my eye. Sam Parr I’ve had so many people like reach out. There’s a guy named Mark Brazil who I like. He’s got a podcast. And he was like, does everyone know how much money can be made in podcasting? All these people are discovering this about how strong this medium is for engagement. Shaan Puri All right. So look at this podcast. Do you see what I’m looking at? Sam Parr Yeah. I’ve got a Cybertruck tonight. If you can get a training run on these GPUs in 2014. Shaan Puri So this guy, just describe what you’re seeing. Wow. Sam Parr He’s actually recording a podcast outside on a huge building. Yeah. Shaan Puri And I think, by the way, it’s not that hard. Like I think what he’s doing is, you know, like these apartment complexes in San Francisco where like there’s like a, oh, we have like a rooftop thing with like a shuffleboard and like A grill that nobody’s going to use because it’s like cold. But if you had friends, which you don’t, but if you did, they can hang out here, but they won’t because it’s cold. Sam Parr Our version of that, when Sean and I like started making like a podcast, it was let’s just make our love seats bright red. Shaan Puri Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. We were like cavemen in the podcasting game right now. So this guy basically has this like fireside chat, literally by the fire. He’s talking to some, like a technical staff member at XAI. The guy’s sharing a bunch of like Elon stories. So you know what? I’m in. Guess what? Guess what? I’m definitely in on that. And so I’m listening to this. And then the next podcast I see is Joe Lonsdale, who’s a billionaire and, you know, probably going to be like in the 10 richest people on earth at some point. Like Joe Lonsdale is talking to Joe Gabby, the guy who created Airbnb, and they’re in like a warehouse and it’s well lit. And they’re talking about, you know, Joe’s time at the White House now because he’s the chief design officer of America. And I’m like, there’s been this absolute explosion of podcasts. And it’s in every industry. In the sports industry, this is the same thing. You know, I grew up, the first podcast I ever listened to was Bill Simmons. I used to listen to him back in 2007, but in college, when he used to like have to like download from the RSS feed. And, you know, he had like Ronald Jenkins doing his intro music type of deal. And now sports podcasts are like, well, here’s LeBron has his own podcast called Mind the Game, where he’s sipping wine, talking to JJ Reddick, the future Lakers coach. And they’re just talking X’s and O’s. And then, oh, guess what? You know, Max Kellerman, he’s not on TV anymore. So Max Kellerman, who goes from the number one TV show to now he creates a podcast with Rich Paul, LeBron’s like longtime friend in sport, like the number one sports agent in basketball. They’re going to talk shop. So like the amount, the type of people who are getting into this industry, the quality of production and sets, like our friend Chris Williamson is doing like IMAX 4K, like, you know, Your phone starts rumbling when an insight happens. I don’t know what he’s doing with his production value. And then you have the volume, the overall volume that comes from this. And I think it’s because of what you said. Podcast went from niche and nerdy to now kind of cool. Cool people do them. People think you can make a lot of money doing them, which I think is not as true as people think. And I think there’s this big problem, which is what I call the shelf space problem, which is that a podcast is great when you have listeners because it’s like an hour in their ears and it’s Habitual and it becomes a part of their day when they’re commuting or they’re at work or they’re doing chores or they’re going for a run or the gym. And I’m glad we’re that for some number of people. But the reality is like, you only have so many idle hours where you’re going to listen to podcasts. And so the number of podcasts might 10 X 50 X and has over the last, you know, 10 years or so, but the number of podcast listeners and listening space hasn’t gone up in that same way. And I think that dam has broken. And now what’s happened is, I think a couple of things are going to happen. There’s going to be too many podcasts that are bad and boring. So that’s happening already. I think there’s going to be a disillusionment when people realize how much time, money, and effort goes into podcasting well, and you don’t get fame and money back. And then I think the trick and what’s happening, the savior in this case is clips. And so I think podcasts are just becoming clip farms. That’s not where real engagement is. But I think that’s what all these people are going to use as their moral victory, which is, oh, look how many people liked that clip on Twitter or TikTok. And they’re going to make a, the pod is a clip farm. And whether anybody listens to the pod or not doesn’t really matter. This is, I mean, TBPN, I think is doing the best at that. But, but that’s where I think all this is going. (Time 0:23:20)
  • Build Habit With Consistent Audio
    • Prioritize audio quality and consistent episodes to build deep listener relationships instead of chasing flashy video production.
    • Use clips as a growth tool, but treat long-form audio as the primary way to build habit and trust. Transcript: Sam Parr And we, we have, I think made mistakes on this path a lot as well. I think a lot of people think that just because you see the video and that’s what gets your attention because it is cooler. The reality is, is that you just said that it’s hours and ears and that a lot of the shiny stuff really doesn’t matter. The content just needs to be good and it needs to be consistent and it has to have a unique perspective and it is all in your ear. It’s audio is what matters more than anything. And like there’s been times where we’ve talked about something like in minute 55 of this podcast, and people on the streets will bring it up. And they didn’t watch that on YouTube. They’re listening to it while they’re working out. If you’re working out, in fact, if you’re listening to this on your ears, go to Spotify right now and just tell us what you’re doing right now. I’m curious in the comments. But people aren’t watching these things. What do you mean people aren’t watching these things? Shaan Puri People are definitely watching these things. Sam Parr No, no, they’re not watching it. And if you look at the time spent, if you look at our, for example, if you want to on our megaphone and you look at time listened versus timed watch. So the average engagement, the average time on YouTube versus Spotify or some other type of feed, it’s significantly longer. Shaan Puri So we’ll put numbers around this. Our average time on a YouTube video is about 15 minutes. Yeah, 15 minutes. And on audio is about 40 to 45 minutes. Yeah. So you need three views for every one listener of audio if you want an equivalent of time spent. Now, even that’s not exactly right because that one person who listened to 45 minutes has a deeper sense of connection and trust and fandom than three people who watched 15 minutes each. Now, here’s the downside. Sam Parr For anyone listening, YouTube, it’s very simple to grow. It’s not like there’s a formula behind growing YouTube. It’s still challenging, but it’s simple. Growing an audio feed, very hard. It’s very hard. We have tried so long to do it and we’ve hit so many plateaus multiple times. Growing audio is so challenging, but it is significantly more consistent in listenership, but it does not grow fast in most cases. Shaan Puri I think you’re right. I don’t think you’re right though, that like clips and stuff don’t matter. Sam Parr No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say they don’t matter. They matter significantly less. Shaan Puri Right. I guess what I’m saying is I think that the people who are going to play that game are just actually playing a different game. And they can do very well in that game and have like all the results that they want out of it. But it’s very different. It is like literally just like a new game. In the same way that I think if seven years ago, you’re making prestige TV or movies and you looked at like Ryan Trahan and Mr. Beast and you’re like, what? He painted a circle and these six strangers have to stay in it and every three seconds something changes on the screen. Like that’s not art. No, that’s not Breaking Bad. That’s not Game of Thrones. You’re not going to get the, you know, you could say all those things. No, but I’m not criticizing it for that reason. I’m criticizing it because of the physics, the mechanics of it. Sam Parr Oftentimes the equation of influence involves time spent. And so the amount of time you’ve spent with someone. Shaan Puri So meaning the, so I wonder if it’s going to flip, or I wonder if volume is the other variable in this, and if you just said, okay, but you’re going to see my face 30 times for every one time You’re going to see that. It could be. I wonder if that works. It might work. Sam Parr You just need to do it a lot. So, like, Clip’s are 60 seconds. Our podcast, you said the average listen time is 45 minutes, and there’s two a week. The volume has to be the game. You better be Walmart. You better be turning that shit out. (Time 0:28:20)
  • Peptides Are Poised For Mainstreaming
    • Peptides are moving from niche biohacker use to mainstream interest, shown by GLP-1 adoption (Ozempic) and risky sourcing.
    • Easier, trusted access and consumer-friendly forms will likely normalize peptides like supplements over the next decade. Transcript: Shaan Puri Peptides, peptides everywhere. I think peptides are going to be here, there, everywhere. I think you’re going to put peptides in your nose. I think you’re going to put them in your mouth. I think you’re going to put them in your butt. Peptides are everywhere. And it’s the classic, like what the nerds are doing on the weekend, everybody’s going to be doing soon. Arguably, they already are because Ozempic and the GLP ones, those are peptides. But I’m just seeing people I would not expect, people I don’t count as biohackers, who are very interested and jumping through a lot of hoops to get peptides. Because you can’t just get peptides easily and in a trustworthy, frictionless way. And so a great proxy for demand is like, are you willing to break the law and do something sketchy for the thing you want? Well, that’s what’s happening with peptides. I have cousins, brother-in I have people who are not like- Dude, just outing him? God. Yeah, he’s like, I got shoulder pain. Did he do BP-157? I don’t know which one he’s on, but yeah, he probably doesn’t even know which one he’s on. He’s like, I got pain. This guy gave me this acronym, and my shoulder feels better. I feel younger. I got friends sending me pictures of themselves just absolutely ripped on the new version of the Wolverine stack. Sam Parr Yeah, what’s that one called? For research, we should find out what that is and start putting it in our bodies. Shaan Puri Yeah, exactly. So I just think peptides are this thing that’s going to be a big deal. And if you use proxy for demand as people who are willing to jump through hoops, go to untrusted sources, imagine once somebody makes this easier to access, more easy form factors, like Get it to gummies, get it to pills, get it to different form factors. As that happens over the next 10 years, I think peptides will become a normal part of everyday life for people in the same way you take protein supplements and vitamins and medicine when You’re sick. I think you’re going to have enhancements through peptides. I’m shocked that you’re so interested in this. And I think that you will never take this, right? Sometimes I’m a user first and I become an investor. Sometimes I’m an investor first, I become a user. In this case, I’m an investor. I’m looking at it as an investor. I haven’t made any investments yet, but I’m hunting. (Time 0:31:54)
  • Prediction Markets Beat News For Signals
    • Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi scale into sports betting volume and can outperform news as real-time probability signals.
    • Their incentives differ from journalists because money-weighted bets reveal conviction and update odds with new information. Transcript: Shaan Puri The sixth one? Okay, sports betting and the consequences. This is a trend that is in plain sight, but I think people underestimate how big and how bad this is going to be. Sam Parr I’m shocked to hear you say that. And also, I’m very happy to hear you say that. So basically, I think there was an article in The Economist, and they talked about how sophisticated sports betting companies are. And basically, the headline is, whenever you make your first bet, they know to a high degree of certainty what type of customer you’re going to be. And they manipulate you and the rest of their customers down to like an amazing science in order to get the most amount of dollars from you. Right. Shaan Puri One gambling consultant told the economist, by the time a customer places his first bet, first bet on the sports book, they are 80 to 90% certain they know the lifetime value. They know how big of a sucker you are from the first bet. And they mathematically monitor players, create new risks every six to eight hours. Basically, they’re trying to figure out, is this customer going to become profitable on us? How do we monitor, keep the profitable players out, keep the unprofitable players in? And okay, so what else is interesting about this? There’s new data about like Kalshi and Polymarket. How are those two different, by the way? So they’re both in the same category, prediction markets, right? Prediction market basically just says you’re able to wager what you think the outcome of an event is. And they’re markets, meaning unlike a sports book where there’s a house that defines the odds, the way a market works is the question is posed and then you take the yes or no side. And based on the volume of dollars that go into the yes or no side, you’re basically competing in a free market against each other. And there’s been some incredible things that have come from this, right? Like it is more accurate than the news, right? So a lot of people go to the news to try to get a sense of what’s happening or what’s going to happen. But the news is far less accurate than just going and looking at with skin in the game, what the poly market says of what is actually going to happen. What are the odds say is going to happen? And the odds change in real time as new information goes in. And so here you, you know, let’s just take the incentives as an example. The incentives of a journalist who’s writing for the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, these extremely prestigious, you know, supposed truth-seeking platforms. Well, their incentive is, how do I get as many clicks as possible on this headline? How do I make sure that nobody unsubscribes because I said something that they don’t like, right? That they canceled their subscription because I told them an unpopular truth. And so those, fundamentally, my incentive loop is that. Now you take the incentives of Polymarket. Somebody who’s betting yes is saying, I’m gonna win or lose money by being right or wrong. And so, you know, and the more conviction I have, the more money I would place on this wager. And the conviction, if I’m taking, if I have conviction based on, you know, gut and superstition, over time, I’m going to lose all my money. I’ll be out of the market. But if I have conviction based off of research or insider information or, you know, in-depth analysis, I will make money and I’ll have more capital to bring to this market over time. So that’s the category. (Time 0:37:00)
  • Anticipate Harms From Sports Betting Boom
    • Watch for regulatory and social harms as sports betting integrates into mainstream apps and youth culture.
    • Consider advocating regulation and harm reduction because betting creates addiction, threats to players, and destabilizing incentives. Transcript: Shaan Puri They’re now doing over $2 billion a week in just sports betting volume. Poly market? The comment, both of them. Both of them together. And what percentage of the revenue do they get? They’re taking, I don’t know, it’s less than like a, it’s like a point whatever percent. Point one point two, I don’t know what it is. Some very, very small VIG that they take on the transaction. And how much are they doing a week? Two billion on just sports. And so like, what’s happened is that these things started where they were doing, you know, like, who’s going to win the election? And are we going to end up in a war in Ukraine? And that those were very like, informational things in order to inform like, you know, it’s or in some ways it’s a signal or a hedge against, you know, your maybe a stock market performance Or whatnot. But sports betting is just so popular that like as a percentage share of action, it’s just taking over these platforms. And they’re essentially becoming sports betting apps apps that are just like in this like loophole of regulation where you can’t make, you can’t do sports betting, but you can do prediction Markets about sports. And this is legal in all 50 states? Yeah. Or sorry, I shouldn’t say that. I’m not as well versed in it. CalShe, based on the way they’re regulated, because like prediction are regulated by commodities or something like that, the commodities market. And so they are, and that’s why, if you open up the Robinhood app, you can just bet on any game right now, and it’s powered by CalShe. And I think they’re going to switch off of CalShe at some point, because why are they giving CalShe so much volume? Sam Parr If you were a politician, and you could, if you were the dictator, what would you do? Shaan Puri Oh, God, that’s a lot of power. What would I do? Yeah. I’d have people feeding me grapes. And I’d have, now about this, you know, this is pretty dangerous. Like there’s like my, you know, I’m coaching this high school basketball team. And like, you know, it’s interesting because you’re around teenagers. You get to see like, what are they interested in? What do they do? Do they talk about it all the time? They’re talking about it all the time. They’re like over-unders. That’s crazy. You know, they don’t just watch the games. They bet on the games. They’re probably betting very small amounts, maybe on their dad’s account. I don’t even know how they’re doing it exactly, but it’s definitely something that they love to do and that they’re doing a lot of. And the problem is it’s one, sports betting. And I take this as somebody who’s wasted far too much of their life gambling, whether it’s poker or sports betting. Sports betting is one of these things that it’s dumb to do, but it’s easy to look smart. So it’s a dumb activity to do, but if you cherry pick a good bet, you can share it, you can tell people about it, and you get to look smart for a moment. And the real gains in life come from things that look dumb to do, but are actually smart to do. Those are like, that’s where all the real alpha of life is. And of course, there’s the obvious things, things that are smart to do that look smart to do. And you should do those too. That’s like, you know, the sort of highly competitive things that people do, like going to college or, you know, like trying to get a good job, right? Like sound smart is smart. And so I think the problem is sports betting falls on this one. It’s obviously super addictive. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of people who lose a lot of money, waste a lot of time, get addicted to this stuff. There’s NBA players that get death threats constantly because some guy’s got a $200 parlay on them getting 11 rebounds instead of nine. And every day he goes home from basketball. If you talk to any player, like their DMs are just filled with angry voice notes and death threats from a guy who needed them to get an extra rebound for their parlay. And you could do this for college sports too? You could do this for college, which is toxic now at the younger level, right? It’s crazy. Like I put this in my 5-2 Tuesday. Some guy’s rooting for World War III because he’s going to win $390 on Polymarket, right? I think it’s, so I tend to, I would say I’m a very moderate person politically. Sam Parr I disagree and agree with people on both sides. And also I would say I’m very pro-capitalist. And this is one of the few times where I’m like, no, I’m definitely not in favor of the market just doing what it wants to do in this case. I definitely think that regulation would be nice. I don’t exactly, I’m an idiot. I don’t know how it needs to be done. But this seems very dangerous. I think what will happen is I think that like a college or professional sports player is going to be murdered. Or there’s going to be like something crazy that happens in politics where the person made the decision just to get the payout on the bet. Yeah. Shaan Puri And there’s already been players who have lost their, whether it’s college scholarships, there’s NBA players that are getting fined or boot banned from the league permanently because They told their homies, hey, I’m out today. It’s not reported yet. Or worse, right? There’s been guys who like owe people money in the mafia from their poker losses and poker games. They’re like, hey, to make it back, I’m going to pull a hammy in the first quarter. Just bet my under. You’ll make it back. But it’s too obvious because somebody suddenly slams $50,000 on this obscure players under. And then, you know, the NBA bans that player. They lose their $30 million contract. (Time 0:40:17)
  • Victory And Defeat Are Liars
    • Sam relayed a coach saying “victory and defeat are liars” to teach emotional steadiness after big swings.
    • The message: treat wins and losses as temporary to stay effective and focused over time. Transcript: Shaan Puri And it was like my roommate in college, Trevor, he had this, his dad gave him this gift when he went to college. And like, I went to Duke. And so there’s a lot of rich kids with rich parents who’s, you know, they give them this like air conditioning device and this like, you know, like their, their rooms were like tricked Out. And Trevor’s parents were both PE coaches in Wyoming for their whole careers. And so when they drove him out to what they drove him out to college and then his dad gave him this, like this and had a poem on it. And it’s this poem called If. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it. It’s If by Rudyard Kipling. And on it, it has the same line. And I stared at this thing like every day in college because it was just the only thing on our walls. And the line from it says, if you can meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. And the last line is, you’ll be a man, my son. And his dad gave him this poster, and I kind of by proxy got this poster from that. But it’s this idea that like, the highs and the lows are liars. The wins and the losses are liars. Victory and, you know, triumph and disaster, they’re imposters. And once you recognize that, then you’re free. Then you can actually do what you need to do. And so like, you know, when you’re talking about Hormuzi and being happy and success and all these things, I think, you know, the challenge is that we think success is something that’s Real and final and lasting. And that was the meaning of this whole thing, of all that effort. And then if it’s failure, that it’s real and going to be lasting and that it means something. And once you realize that, like, no, they’re neither real nor lasting, nor were they the meaning in the first place, then you’re actually playing the real game. (Time 0:53:23)