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What’s Truly Going on Inside DOGE?

My First Million

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  • Iron Mountain’s Origins
    • In the 1920s, a mushroom farmer bought a cave.
    • Facing competition, he pivoted to storing bank documents, creating Iron Mountain. Transcript: Shaan Puri And so I went down a rabbit hole and I had to figure this out. So can I tell you a little story about not just this mine, but this whole company that operates around this? So basically in the 1920s, there is this guy who grew mushrooms. And I guess in order to grow mushrooms in the part of America where he was growing mushrooms, he had to grow them in a cave. And so he was the mushroom king of America. At one point, he was the largest creator or grower of mushrooms in America. He was this German immigrant. And he was kind of like this funny guy where his advertisements, he called himself the mushroom king, whatever. And he had to rent a cave and grow mushrooms. And eventually, he bought a cave. And that’s where he grew mushrooms. And this cave that he bought was massive. It was a huge cave. And for some reason, starting in the 1950s, post-World War II, those damn Europeans started undercutting them and selling cheaper mushrooms. And he was like, my mushroom business is going to go under. This is not going to work. I got to figure out what to do. And so he bought a bank vault door that was $20,000 in 1950. And he installed it in his cave. He took out the mushrooms and he installed this bank vault door. And he went to a local bank and was like, hey, you guys have a lot of paperwork. You’ve got a lot of files that you have to store. I have the safest place on earth to store this paperwork you want to like make a make a business deal and so he’s changed his business and he started this thing called iron mountain and It was called iron mountain because it was literally in like a a mine that was like they would use the i don’t know how this all works but they would use like the the rocks to make like iron And he grew this thing like crazy and basically this company, it’s called Iron Mountain. (Time 0:01:43)
  • Iron Mountain’s Value
    • Iron Mountain, a document storage company, is worth over $30 billion.
    • They store various items, from Princess Diana’s will to Sony’s master recordings. Transcript: Shaan Puri Google Iron Mountain Market Cap. Iron Mountain Inc. Is a $30 billion company. Wow. Do you guys remember when marketing was fun? When you had time to be creative and connect with your customers? With HubSpot, marketing can be fun again. Turn one piece of content into everything you need. Know which prospects are ready to buy and see all your campaign results in one place. Plus, it’s easy to use. Helping HubSpot customers double their leads in just 12 months, which means you have more time to, you know, enjoy marketing again. Visit HubSpot.com to get started for free. So this company, I looked it up since the year 2000, they have created a billion dollars at least, or roughly per year in free cash flow. And they now own something like, I think it was something like 80 million square feet of storage. And so they have everything. So it could be like Princess Diana’s will is in there. But it’s like Sony, the music company, Sony, the record label, Sony, has all of their masters recordings, like literally like the tape stored in Iron Mountain. But their biggest customers is like an insurance company in Connecticut who had been in business for 100 years. They, for some reason, legal reasons, they have to keep their paper files. They have to save them for something like 75 years. Sam Parr This is nuts, dude. So they’re just a giant, they’re just like a physical vault for documents. It says Enterprise Information Management Services, founded in 1951. So it’s just a giant vault. And they’re like, we will protect your files, we’ll protect your paperwork. (Time 0:03:26)
  • Government’s Use of Iron Mountain
    • The US government uses Iron Mountain to store physical retirement paperwork.
    • The process involves manual retrieval and review, taking up to 90 days. Transcript: Sam Parr Now. So this is the thing that stores the government stuff or no, a separate business? Shaan Puri Yes. So let’s get to the government stuff. So he said there’s a limestone mine where this is all stored. So he kind of dismissed it because it was a mine, but that’s actually important. But the federal government is a customer of Iron Mountain. And so here’s how this works. This part is absolutely insane. So starting in the 1950s or the 1960s, the federal government became a customer of Iron Mountain. And to this day, it basically operates the exact same way. And so right now, the federal government is retiring around 100,000 people a year. And when let’s say you work for the FBI or some agency, federal agency, the Postal Service, whatever, and you need to retire, because of 100 plus years of laws, there’s a lot of complications. And so when you retire, you’re supposed to get a pension. Let’s round numbers of $100,000 a year. But some people might get $98,000. Some people might get 108,000. And the reason they will is because let’s say this federal employee was a cafeteria worker for a federal agency. That requires a different set of rules. Let’s say this person was a retired vet. Let’s say this person was an amputee. There’s like a million rules about what you are going to be earning after you retire. However, this is all done on paperwork. So every single federal employee, not just the current ones, but the past ones, they have a manila envelope in this mine in Pennsylvania that Iron Mountain runs. And so when you want to retire, you have to file a piece of paperwork. You literally write up on a piece of paperwork. You give it to your boss at your federal agency. The federal agency has to mail it to the mountain or to the mine in PA. And it takes roughly 60 days because one of the 600 employees at this mine needs to physically have the file in hand, needs to walk to your file in the mountain, which this mountain is 200 Football fields or 200 acres. They had to literally hand, like by hand, go and get that file. And they got to look at your file. They got to say, all right, Sean looks like he’s 65. It looks like he actually retired at 59 years old. Then he came back. So that gets a different thing. Turns out he served in the Iraq war. So he gets this thing, this thing, this thing. And then they close the file and they put it back and they send the paperwork back to your agency to let them know, here’s what Sean is going to be paid for his pension fund. And that process takes something like 90 days to do that whole thing. And since the 1980s, they have spent hundreds of millions. It’s approaching billions of dollars to digitize this. It’s failed every time. And the New Yorker in 2004 wrote this amazing article. They’re like, we tried it in 1980. We’re trying it now. We tried it in 1995. Sam Parr Why can’t they digitize too much or it gets rejected? Shaan Puri It’s a huge task. But this mountain, it’s in rural Pennsylvania. And these Pennsylvania folks, they were literally mine workers. That’s what they were, this mine, when it was an active mine. So it’s like generations of miners who are now doing this thing. So it’s not like these 600 employees aren’t exactly like computer experts. They’re like physical laborers. So they don’t exactly have the labor there to do it. But also just the bureaucracy, the same thing that uh when obama launched was it healthcare.com or whatever like it’s just really hard within a government within the four years that Sam Parr A president is president to make this massive change and so this nobody and you’re not going to get huge pat on the back for like digitizing this process you know what i mean people who Shaan Puri Work at the mind they interviewed a couple of them they were like it’s a pretty miserable miserable place to work in the winter time when we arrive at work, we’re there when it’s dark. And then when we come home at night, it’s still dark and you can’t have a flame in the mine. So all of the food has to be delivered for us every day. And it’s like fried food or pizza. That’s like our two vendors. But they let you have unlimited overtime if you, if you want. And it’s an eight to five job, and no one leaves. The retention is 100%. They’re like, it’s just a good, stable job. These guys need a podcast. Sam Parr I want to be listening to Iron Mountain Pod, where there’s just these miners just talking about paperwork and eating pizza. It’s like an ASMR channel of the limestone mine. Shaan Puri And the New Yorker did an article, and they talking to these people and they were like, if you guys want to see taxpayer waste, you should see what happens when a federal worker retires, Goes back to work and then retires again. One guy they interviewed, they go, I’m working on a case now that’s taken me 120 days to figure out how much pension this worker is owed. And it’s just a nightmare. (Time 0:07:01)
  • Iron Mountain vs. Tech
    • Iron Mountain’s physical storage business model has surprising resilience.
    • Its market cap surpasses tech companies like Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter. Transcript: Shaan Puri And so it’s like literally a physical labor job to walk around and find all these files. Sam Parr Dude, this mining company, this vault, this giant filing cabinet is worth more than Snapchat. It’s worth more than Pinterest. It’s worth more than Twitter as a company. Isn’t that crazy? The $30 billion company? (Time 0:11:42)
  • Elon Overshadows Trump
    • Elon Musk crashed a Trump press conference, discussing Iron Mountain.
    • Trump reacted with surprise, showcasing Elon’s dominance. Transcript: Shaan Puri Is that what you want to talk about? Sam Parr Well, there’s one other I want to get your read on. What’s the one other? Doge as a whole. Shaan Puri Nine. Nine or ten. Yeah, let’s go in that order. Okay. Sam Parr Okay, so start at ten. Shaan Puri Yeah. So you sent me a text last night and you said, rule number one, never outshine the master. Elon Musk, and you’re referring to the 48 laws of power, how to be powerful. You never outshine your master. Elon Musk 100% outshined Donald there. That was so emasculating to have Donald just sitting there and Elon standing up sort of behind him. He was going to come and put his hands on his shoulders. You know what I mean? Sam Parr Yeah, he hijacked the press conference and just started giving his own speech, a wordy speech, while his kid is there rambling also. And Trump is just sitting there like a goon at the table. And it was just so interesting. I’d never seen anyone who’s not the president give their own press conference from the Oval Office while the president sits there. What they were even talking about just that was like whoa hold on this is like uh you know like if you watch the bachelor sometimes they do a two-on date it’s like whoa hold on it’s not a one-on It’s a two-on oh there’s gonna be some drama here that’s how it felt it felt like a bachelor two-on because when elon told the story of iron mountain trump like look back at him and he goes Shaan Puri Huh no shit really like he was like like he was learning like he was being entertained at that moment as well. Do you know what I mean? Sam Parr I also love how Trump sometimes is like, we’re going to send Elon in. Elon’s going to go in. He’s going to, he’s going to do great things. He does great things. And he’s just like, that’ll be the plan. But honestly, that’s actually not a bad plan. It’s like, if I was going to say one thing, it’s like, we’re going to send Michael Jordan on the court and he’s going to shoot. He’s a great shooter. It’s like that’s kind of what he does with things. He’s like we’re going to send Elon in there. He’s going to take care of things. That (Time 0:14:57)
  • Doge’s Unlikely Success
    • Sam believes the current political/economic climate made Doge’s success improbable.
    • He finds the alignment of Trump and Elon Musk in cutting government spending fascinating. Transcript: Shaan Puri It was pretty good. It was a very, that had a lot of promise there. What about the Doge stuff in general? I have a, I have a very opinionated take. Do you? Sam Parr I have a big picture take and then I have just like small things that I wish, wish more stuff would come out from. So here’s my big picture take. I cannot believe we’re on this timeline. So if you just rewind the clock like a couple years ago, here’s what was going on. I was reading this Ray Dalio book. Did you ever read the Ray Dalio, like, I forgot what it’s called, Rise and Fall of Nations or something like that. It’s basically how empires like fall, right? No empire lasts forever. Shaan Puri Honestly, the title scared me and I was like, I just kind of want to be ignorant. But I read his first one, Principles, and I know that he comes off historically as a pessimist, right? Sam Parr No, no, no. He’s a realist. I don’t know. He’s just an observer of how things are. So if you’re going to watch one thing, by the way, watch on YouTube. But it was alarming. He’s got this thing called the how the economic machine works it’s a 20 or 30 minute youtube video which sounds long but it’s amazing it’s an animated video where he just explains how The economy works in a way that even a you know bozo like me could understand and it’s it’s it’s amazing go watch that like you should just pause this podcast and go watch that kind of thing Shaan Puri It’s called how the economic machine works the bridgewater office by the way is literally 1.5 miles from my house. If you want to go and just talk to them. Yeah, we should. We just walk right in. Sam Parr Yeah, we absolutely should. So he wrote this book about the rise of fallen nations. And he basically talks about, like he studied all the empires, the Dutch empire, the Roman empire, the Chinese empire. And basically, why do the empires end? Why don’t they just keep going? They have all the advantages. They got the power. They got the best military. Like, where do things go wrong? And he saw that over time, things go wrong in a very predictable, cyclical fashion. And then because he studied history, he could see that, okay, even if it’s not going to be the same, it’s probably going to rhyme. I should look out for some of these signs. And one of the signs that he talks about is around the big debt cycle. So there’s like a short-term debt cycle. There’s a long-term debt cycle. It’s like an 80 to 100-year debt cycle. And what happens is, you know, the countries or empires will end up going into too much debt, which the U.S. Is in right now, like $35 trillion of debt, like just an absurd number. And then the interest payments are really high. Then because people lose faith in their ability to pay off that debt, you know, they lose at some point their status as the global reserve currency, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So Ray Dalio makes this argument. It’s an interesting book. You should read it. Shaan Puri Now. Does he mention a mukbang? Where on the timeline is, do you know what mukbang is? Sam Parr Listening to people eat? Watching and listening to people eat? Shaan Puri Incredibly fat people just stuff their face with ramen. Sam Parr Yeah, it’s like a governmental Mukbang is what he describes. Shaan Puri Does he mention when the decline is when Mukbang gets popular? Sam Parr There were signs. Shaan Puri So… My friends, if you like MFM, then you’re going to like the following podcast. It’s called Billion Dollar Moves. And of course, it’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the number one audio destination for business professionals. Billion Dollar Moves. It’s hosted by Sarah Chen Spelling. Sarah is a venture capitalist and strategist. And with Billion Dollar Moves, she wants to look at unicorn founders and funders. And she looks for what she calls the unexpected leader. Many of them were underestimated long before they became huge and successful and iconic. She does it with unfiltered conversations about success, failure, fear, courage, and all that great stuff. So again, if you like My First Million, check out Billion Dollar Moves. It’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Again, Billion Dollar Moves. All right, back to the episode. Sam Parr So as he’s talking about this, it’s like, oh, okay, shit. You look at the kind of the current world, you’re like, oh, shit, we got inflation. But then, you know, to fight inflation, they got to raise rates. When they raise rates, that slows down the economy, which slows down spending, which creates this other problem. Then you get stagflation. You get like all these, oh, man, this could go poorly, right? Oh, they’re printing too much money. That could hurt the dollars. You know, they’re debasing the currency. That’s what he says that they do. This is what’s going to happen. And it just seemed inevitable. The problem was you looked at, he’s like, but who’s going to go and fix this, right? It’s not like a company because a company has to face reality. So what a company has to do is ultimately the company needs profits and the shareholders are going to demand that the company stop this excess spending. But the problem with the government is the government can sort of go infinitely in debt until it can’t. It could just print money, right? Like imagine if you or I just had a little machine in the closet. It’s like, well, I could solve this problem with hard work, cutting back, tightening the belt, you know, or I could just go in the closet, push this button. I’ll just do it this one time, just this one time. Okay. And like, that’s what just keeps happening. You go and you push the button, you print the money. And so, so that’s the problem. Okay. And it just seemed like there was no solution to this because anybody who wanted to get elected, right? The leader, first, the leaders were not business people, right? So problem number one, the people who run the country were lifelong politicians typically, and they were not CEOs or executives who had that as their core skillset. To get elected, it’s like middle school all over again. You’ve got to go promise we’re going to have free pizza every Friday. It’s like, who’s going to pay for that? I don’t care. I just got to say it and promise it. We’ll deal with the consequences because that’s what gets me elected. So the presidency is never about, hey, I’m going to cut back all your favorite programs. It was always going to be, we’re going to do more for you. We’re going to cut your taxes. Okay. So less revenue for the government. How’s that going to work? We’re already in debt. We’re We’re going to cut your taxes. And you know what? We’re going to spend more on this. We’re going to invest in education. That sounds great. We’re going to give you free health care. We’re going to pay off your student loans. It’s like, wow, we’re just going to, where’s the money coming from? And the money was coming from that magic money printer in the closet. Okay, so it just seemed like, dude, there’s no way. And somehow this insane situation has occurred. And I’m not saying that it’s going to work. And I’m not saying I agree with everything about these people. I don’t agree with everything Trump says. I don’t even, I didn’t even vote. Okay. Look, you can’t even hate me. Okay. I didn’t vote for the guy. I didn’t vote for anybody. So, so you can hate me for other reasons. I don’t agree with everything that Elon does, but he’s an impressive, ultimately impressive entrepreneur. I think he’s the greatest entrepreneur of all time. Okay. So, but I also, yeah, don’t think he, I agree with, I don’t agree with everything he says. Great. My caveats are out of the way. I cannot believe we ended up on this timeline where Trump gets elected. Elon Musk, the greatest entrepreneur of all time. And if, even if you disagree, okay, he’s second, right? Shaan Puri Like he’s close. When did Trump, was it January 20th? Is that, or four? 20th is the in… (Time 0:17:01)
  • The Human Cost of Doge
    • Shaan acknowledges the positive impact of Doge’s spending cuts.
    • He criticizes Elon Musk’s lack of grace in laying off government employees. Transcript: Shaan Puri Right, let me give you, let me give the audience a counterpoint. And I’m going to get flamed for this. You’re going devil’s avocado on me? I’m going hardcore devil’s avocado on you. No, not exactly. Because I’m on board with like what a lot of stuff he’s doing. But listen to this. Let’s just say that you’re 45 years old. You got two kids in high school. You got a mortgage and you’re thinking like, you know, life’s pretty good. And then all of a sudden you get a message that says, look, we appreciate you, Diane, for working for the government for so long, but you’re done. You got to get out. And you’re thinking, how the hell am I going to pay my mortgage? How am I going to like provide for my kids? You want to go to college? And then you look online to learn about your situation. And you’re like, wait, the guy who just decided to fire me changed his Twitter handle to Harry Balls. And he put in his description that he’s offering circumcision for 69 cents. And did he just call a guy a retard on Twitter? Sam Parr Dude, someone yesterday sent me an advanced search. He knew you, Twitter advanced search. It was just like a single link I could click that was just Elon Musk saying the word retard. And bro, you could scroll for days. It was unbelievable. It was an unbelievable link. Shaan Puri It’s sort of like a really successful entrepreneur CEO doing layoffs because money’s short from his beautiful chalet in Aspen with a beautiful view behind him on Zoom. And for Elon, I’m like, do what you got to do. But can you not be so smug about it and have some fucking grace when you’re doing some of these things? Even if those things are good, and I agree with him, I just that like the maturity level would go up because at the end of the day it’s cool for like these tech guys to say like cut them cut Them let’s make the government smaller whatever but it’s at the end of the day it is real people’s lives and half of these people they’re not like hungry power people they’re just fucking Guys who are working nine to five and they just want to play softball on the weekends you know what i mean and that that that bumps me out i wish that he would show a little grace uh when he’s Slashing you know what i mean like i think you bring up great points i think he’s uh it’s like i’ve been told many times you’re not wrong but your delivery sucks what do they say in the big Lebowski you’re not wrong man you’re just an asshole yeah that’s like That’s like what’s going on here. (Time 0:25:50)
  • Government Contract Side Quest
    • Sam helped a friend secure a lucrative, low-effort government contract.
    • He now fears Doge will expose this contract as wasteful spending. Transcript: Sam Parr So I think you’re absolutely right on that. I will say they did offer eight-month severance. I will also say this wasn’t like an optional or flimsy thing. It’s not like somebody’s just messing around. Shaan Puri But that’s what it seems like when you changed it to hairy balls. Sam Parr He made it seem like that. You’re absolutely right. It certainly seems like he’s messing around. The style is bad. I think the substance is good. The reality is the way that the government works is actually like a financial terror attack on all American citizens. And so as much as Diane, I don’t like that Diane is going to possibly lose her job. The reality is she shouldn’t have had that job probably in the first place or this old, maybe not her specifically, but the overall system is spending so much. It is going to tank the entire economy. Like you look at all these crazy stats about how much of job growth is just federal jobs. How much of spending is just going to federal employees. It’s like, you know, a wormy, like the game of snake when you start to eat your own tail. It doesn’t even make any sense. I’ll give you, I’m going to tell you something. I have a friend who was last year or two years ago. They had an unlucky break. They wanted this promotion or this job. They didn’t get it. They didn’t really know what to do. Didn’t look like they had a great, you know, like upside. I thought that they deserved a little bit better. So let me just see if I can help this person out. And around this time, I had met some people that were some fat cats who were doing well with government contracts. And I’m talking about like, you know, one company, for example, they just, they’re a web dev shop. They made websites. Shaan Puri They’re a fat cat. We got to bring that back. Great usage. Sam Parr Fat cat. Yeah, exactly. And what I mean by that is they were making websites, which you can go on Fiverr and get a website for five bucks. You can go on Upwork and get somebody to do it for a couple hundred bucks. You can go on Squarespace and do it yourself. You could, there’s a whole bunch of things you could do. They’re getting 19, $20 million contracts to build simple websites. It was unbelievable. And there were multi-year contracts to do things that literally I have interns that could do them in three, four days. These aren’t like high traffic, not complex apps, not super sensitive data. Just like a Squarespace. Shaan Puri Informational websites. Put your menu online. Sam Parr Yeah, exactly. So I started noticing this. So I go to my friend and I say, let’s get you a government contract. And I can’t say too much specific stuff. We got this friend a government contract to do something that probably takes four hours. Not even high-skilled time. Anybody could do it. My sister could do it. My cousin could do it. Anybody could have got this contract. It’s been going for two years. And now it’s a hilarious game of hide and seek. Because I’m like, yo, Doge is going to find this contract. And when Doge finds this contract, they’re going to publish this thing. It’d be like, we paid for this. And I’m glad that my friend got like, you know, a great job, a lifestyle. However, it’s the, what is that thing called the free rider problem in society? It’s like, I forgot, there’s like some social term for this where it’s like, you can abuse public parks and public transport because nobody’s kind of like on the hook for it. And like, well, I’ll get mine. I’ll get mine. And when everybody tries to get theirs, we all get (Time 0:28:11)
  • Distraction as a Tactic
    • Sam suggests distracting your competition to gain an advantage.
    • He likens this tactic to a “honeypot,” diverting their attention. Transcript: Shaan Puri The possibility. I’m uneducated on the topic, but I know a little bit about stories. That just seems too, that won’t. I’ve watched Game of Thrones. They’re going to die before they do that. Okay. Yeah, that story won’t happen. Sam Parr So he’s, so it’s possible. Right, do you agree? Possible, not probable. Yes. And it’s possible, not probable only because of the egos and personalities involved. Sam Altman would fight to the death to not have that happen. That would be him losing and getting checkmated by Elon. And Elon is doing it because he wants to checkmate Sam because he feels like he got wronged and betrayed because he funded the first 40-something million dollars into opening AI when It was a nonprofit and he owns nothing of the for-profit today. Shaan Puri Would you put money on either of them? Winning this? Or just like in terms of just like the battle of the wits, like a chess match? Or do you think that it’s too hard to… Sam Parr You know when we watch those UFC pay-per and it’s like sometimes you get the ones where it’s just like, oh, I just want to see Khabib do his thing. He’s going to win, but I just want to watch how. And then there’s other times where you’re like, I have no idea who’s going to win this fight. I have no idea. You got the unstoppable wrestler versus the guy who’s amazing at jujitsu and striking. And like, I could totally see it going either way. I got to pay $90 pay-per I got to watch this. That’s how this one is because I agree for as many people who say you never bet against Elon, there’s an equal number of smart people who say you never bet against Sam Altman. Right? And so you don’t know which way it’s going to fall. Now, and there’s also, it’s the highest stakes thing. Like AI is the highest stakes game. And this is the crown jewel asset is OpenAI. And it’s going to be a fight to the death. Okay. So the second possibility is he just wants to make it more expensive for OpenAI. Because like I said, the implied valuation they were talking about was about $40 billion for the assets, non-cash contribution. Or maybe it was a cash contribution, I’m not sure. And this would up the price. So if nothing else, you go to your enemy and they have to pay double for their car. Shaan Puri But do you think like… Maybe that’s satisfying enough. Maybe that’s a win. In the board meeting, can you just imagine all these suits that are like, well, do we look at this offer? And then everyone just like, no, it’s just Elon. He’s just being a dickhead. Okay. Like, do you just like, do they just like collectively agree that he’s just being an asshole? Or are they like, guys, we got to like look into this. Sam Parr They’re collectively because I mean, that would be a very low price for the for the assets of OpenAI, right? Like literally on the open market they’re raising at a 240 billion dollar valuation so to sell the assets at a 97 billion dollar valuation wouldn’t really make a lot of sense right so At the very least he’s upping the price or just slowing it down making life more complicated for his competitors so if i if we’re competing in a race but i know i can distract 15% of your Mind share. Right? It’s like a honeypot. Like, you know, like people used to do this, like send in a pretty looking girl. And it’s like, this is just a nice little distraction for my competitor that I can send in. Like they will do that. So there’s multiple levels this might be playing at. Shaan Puri I don’t know which one it is. This is just like the nerdy Kendrick Lamar versus Drake thing because now they’re going after their personalities. They haven’t gone after family yet, but I honestly would not be surprised if that happens next. Sam Parr Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I’m not paying a whole lot of attention to it, but I mean, it is interesting to watch like a sort of real life, you know, rap beef or a Game of Thrones battle going on. (Time 0:35:29)
  • Valuing Your Time
    • Only price things you dislike; don’t put a price on enjoyable activities.
    • Value activities like relaxing or doing chores without assigning monetary worth. Transcript: Sam Parr People can actually sustain it. And I’m not one of them. So back to your question of like, how does he do it? This is a legitimate question. How does he do it? So one of the reasons my interest in Doge is top of mind right now is I just had my most viral tweet ever. You did? Yeah. And it was me. All I said was I would pay stupid amounts of money for someone to follow around the Doge team for the next six months, Hard Knocks style. Like, have you ever seen Hard Knocks, the show on HBO where they follow like an NFL team through training camp? I would, and it’s true, I would pay a ridiculous amount of money for that. What was the reach on that? I mean, the tweet got like 50,000 likes or something crazy. Shaan Puri Oh, that’s so funny. I didn’t see that. Sam Parr It went like really viral for some reason. A lot of people felt the same way. Like there’s a fascination around this. And part of it is I would really want to see. Like I want to know what it’s like. Like I’ll give you two things. So one, I want to know what Elon’s like, but not because I’m like, oh, Elon, he’s the best. I just want to see. I literally want to understand like, so this guy’s running $6 billion companies that want logistically. Yeah. And then there’s shit like where he’s like, he’s also tweeting 10 times more than me. So it’s not even like, oh, but he just doesn’t waste time on social media like you. It’s like, no, I actually waste more time on social media. It’s like, yeah, but he doesn’t just waste time playing video games like you, you asshole. It’s like, dude, he’s bragging about being a top 100 ranked Diablo player. And it’s like, something’s cap. The Diablo thing, I’m certain is cap. Like, I am certain that he’s paying people to do that. Are you allowed to say that? I thought it was pretty fluid. Was that not? It was actually so fluid. Thank you, dude. I was like, what did he just say? I I said it in the mirror the other day. I think that works. I think I can add that to my bag. There’s another one. Shaan Puri I can’t believe you downplayed having audacity to do Trump. To have the audacity to say cap is so fluidly. Like that was really… I’ve been on the internet for way too long. I thought you meant cap like a cap to his energy, not cap like no cap. Sam Parr That was really good dude i’m gonna start saying cap as in our limit that’s cap that’s the cap that’s the maximum cap i’ve reached my threshold is what i’m saying what are you saying i didn’t Shaan Puri Say i lied what did i say on mfmM earlier this year? Let him bake. Let him bake. You were like riven and I was like, let him bake. I try to be cool. They’re like, wait, is it bake or cook or microwave? What is the phrase? Have you met anyone who’s worked with him? I haven’t. Yeah, I have actually. I talked to that one guy who recently he said, he goes, I had a meet with Elon and his assistant gave me the heads up in advance. And he goes, just so you know, Elon’s companies are making something like $20 million per hour or something like that, or $20 million per half hour. So if you are going to have a conversation with him, it better be a $20 million conversation. And that $20 million number, by the way, that it’s more now. It’s more now if you think of Doge. So it’s just like every… Can you imagine that? Actually, that’s kind of an exhausting way to live because do you ever hear when people say like, well, that’s just not worth my time? And when I would think about that for a long time, I’m like, does that mean I should always be doing something that is of more value? And I’m like, well, how much am I valuing just laying on this couch? Or how much am I valuing just like mowing my grass because I want to actually mow my grass? And I thought that was kind of an exhausting way to look at life. Sam Parr It totally is. By the way, there’s a simple solution to that, which is you only price things that you don’t want to do. If you want to do it, you don’t put a price on it. If you enjoy, if it’s therapeutic to you or what’s it called? Like whatever. Like it feels good just doing nothing. If it feels good to do the dishes or to like trim the bushes in your garden or whatever, like go do it. You have at it. You don’t need to be like, oh, this is an inefficient use of my time. You only price the things you don’t want to do to say, you know what, am I wasting my time on stuff I don’t even enjoy? Well, (Time 0:42:10)
  • Cody Sanchez Story
    • Cody Sanchez’s mentor advised against her doing tasks like pumping gas to maximize efficiency.
    • Sam disagrees, emphasizing the importance of staying grounded and in touch with reality. Transcript: Shaan Puri When we had Rob Dierdick on the pod, he said that he places that number at $1 million per hour. Sam Parr Yeah. Dude, I watched a Cody Sanchez clip, and I don’t mean to knock on Cody. She’s always been nice to me. But she was on a panel, and she goes, I was talking to my mentor, Bill and he always, you know, tells me you are as, you are as low as the low, like something like that. It’s like, you are as low as the lowest tasks you do. And she was like, you know, I, I feel like I was dropping something. I had to, I was pumping. Oh, he goes, do you still pump your own gas? And she goes, at first I thought, how pretentious. Of course, I still want to be a person who pumps my own gas. And then he did the math for me about how much money I’m wasting pumping my own gas. And he said, are you still buying this? You should not be buying that. You should not be going to the store to do that. And I just thought like, and this video had like whatever, tens of thousands of likes. And I think that’s a totally valid way to think. She might be right. That might be the right answer for her. It’s not the right answer for me. Shaan Puri Dude, I went to Whole Foods last night at 9 p.m. Just to walk around. Sam Parr Totally, totally, totally. I think underneath a lot of that, like, oh, I gotta be so efficient with every second of my day is just some underlying feeling of lack. What do you think you lack in your life that you have to optimize every minute of every hour of every day and that you are like above doing certain things? And by the way, also, when you stop doing things, you lose touch with reality. So there’s a price to that too. And so I just think like there’s a, my takeaway was not even about Cody or her idea that if it works for you, more power to you. I just think, I just thought to myself, you know, you know how much bad advice is out there? Like whether this was bad advice or other, like one of the great skills in life is just playing hopscotch and not, not stepping on the like landmines of terrible advice that exists on The internet. Our podcast included, by the way, we say some dumb shit and we say some things that don’t make sense. They don’t make sense for you. Maybe it makes sense for us, or maybe it just doesn’t make sense at all. But there is a skill to how do you block out the 98% of awful advice that sounds smart? Shaan Puri New York City founders, if you’ve listened to My First Million before, you know I’ve got this company called Hampton. And Hampton is a community for founders and CEOs. A lot of the stories and ideas that I get for this podcast, I actually got it from people who I met in Hampton. We have this big community of 1,000 plus people and it’s amazing. But the main part is this eight-person core group that becomes your board of advisors for your life and for your business. And it’s life-changing. Now, to the folks in New York City, I’m building an in real life core group in New York City. And so if you meet one of the following criteria, your business either does 3 million in revenue or you’ve raised 3 million in funding or you’ve started and sold a company for at least $10 million, then you are eligible to apply. So go to joinhampton.com and apply. I’m going to be reviewing all of the applications myself. So put that you heard about this on MFM so I know to give you a little extra love. Now back to the show. You want to hear something funny? So I met this guy who’s a billionaire, a multi-billionaire. He’s probably 65. And I talked to him for like an hour online for something. And at the end of the call, for some reason, he started talking about his family and his kids and how he has like, I forget, five kids and they’re each married with children. And he’s like, oh, I’m always around the grandkids. I just love this. And he was explaining his life philosophy. And at the end of the call, I go, hey, we don’t know each other. We only know each other for this hour. But do you think I could come over, me and my wife, and stay with you and your family? And I can just watch how you interact with your family because you seem really happy, man. And you’re successful. You’ve won. And he goes, I would love that. And so tomorrow at 7 a.m., I am flying to Park City to go to this guy’s house for three days. And he was like, my whole family’s going to be there for this weekend. And I was like, great. Can I come and just hang out with you guys and be part of the family for a weekend just to see how you’re interacting with everyone because you are awesome. And he was like, yeah, I would love that. So I’m going to his house tomorrow till Sunday, just to like learn how to be when I met him. I was like, you are just such a warm person. And you’re you’re rich and successful, which is one attribute that’s amazing. You seem happy. You seem fit. You have a lovely family and they seem like they love you. I got to download what you’re doing because you are amazing. He’s letting me come over. Dude, (Time 0:46:13)
  • Go In Situ
    • Observe people in their natural environment (“in situ”) to understand them better.
    • Short visits reveal more than interviews about lifestyle and values. Transcript: Sam Parr That’s great. I’ve always enjoyed doing that. I have a word for it. Can I throw some jargon at you? Stalking? Is that it? The word for it is in situ. So like. What’s that? Wait, is this a made up word? I’m a biology major. So at one point I did a biotech company. And one of the things you learn when you do any biotech company is there’s a huge difference between the lab environment, which is a sterile controlled environment. And you see this data come out and it says, wow, this thing really works. We produced this many milliliters of this, or this many grams of this substance or whatever, right? It had this much, this much energy, this many kilowatts generated, whatever, whatever the thing you’re doing in lab. And then you’re like, oh my God, it’s amazing. We’re about to change the world. And I was like trying to high five and nobody else was excited. I was like, why aren’t you guys excited? They’re like, well, like it’s the lab. I’m like, oh, does the lab mess up? They go, no, the lab’s great. So what do you mean? What’s the problem? Lab, it’s a test. It’s a scientific test. How much more proof do you want? They go, oh, everything changes in situ. I go, in what? And like in situ basically was like, you take the thing, in our case, we were working on these microbes. We had this company where microbes would eat coal and basically fart out natural gas. So you could get natural gas without burning coal. Kind of amazing. Natural microbes, real microbes that just exist on the planet, right? And so they were working amazing in the lab. They were producing so much natural gas. It was amazing. We’re about to change the energy industry. Shaan Puri What’s that word in situ is like in a situation? Yeah. Sam Parr I don’t know exactly what it’s, I don’t know what the technical definition, but yeah, it’s kind of like in the situation or in ground. And so what we did was you take the bugs, then you have to actually go to the field where the coal is buried 200 meters underground or whatever. And you’re going to pump the microbes in and you got to pump them in with some water and you got to like see what happens. And then there’s cracks in the ground. It’s not perfect. And then the blah, blah, blah, the weather, everything, everything is different. The temperature is different. The other microbes that are there, they’re interfere, right? Etc. And always the in situ was, you know, not only worse, but like just dramatically different to the point where it was like, why are we even doing these lab tests? And they were like, well, look, if it fails in the lab, it’s for sure going to fail in situ. But just because it succeeds in the lab doesn’t mean it works in situ. And so it was a really long-winded way of saying, I have this little word I tell myself, which is like, go in situ. So for example, it’s like, you might have a theory, but go test it. You might have an idea, go test it. You might think your Donald Trump impression is good. You got to say that shit on the mic and see what happens. Another version of it is this person might look like they’ve got it all together. They’re happy. They’re successful. God, they’re saying all the right things on this podcast. Go in situ, go to their house and you’ll know within like 15 minutes, you said three days, three days, massive overkill. You’ll know within like 90 minutes for sure, everything you need to know about this guy. And you’ll, you’ll pick up all these nuances just about like the family dynamics and the house and their schedule, their level of overall like busyness and rushing through their day Versus like, wow, this person really seems at peace or like, you know what? They just seem like their baseline mood is really high or, you know, their, how their kids relate to them shows me that they have a great bond, an underlying bond, you know, versus what They say. And so you pick up so much. And this is why people are like, oh, what happened to you and Sam aren’t doing this interview together? And it’s like, yeah, because I actually wanted to go to that dude’s house and he lives near me or he lived where I was traveling and Sam was traveling somewhere else at the time or whatever. But I pick up so much more, not from the interview, but the like hours we spend before the interview just hanging out at their house. I pick up so much more in terms of lifestyle. And I’ve talked about this before, but like we went to Austin. Who’s one person who you hung? Shaan Puri Sorry, well, go ahead. Sam Parr I’ll give you the example. So we go to Austin and we had four interviews scheduled. It was Joe Lonsdale, a billionaire who started more billion dollar companies than anyone else in America. Shaan Puri And like a hard-hitting, get-after type of dude. Exactly. Sam Parr I go to, and so there was him, there was Monish Pabrai, an investor. So he was a value investor from the school of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. There’s Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss, a guy I’ve admired for many years, author, experimenter, investor, et cetera. And then the fourth one was somebody else. I’m forgetting. This was like a year ago. So we go and we do the four. Now for each of the four, I hung out with them. Tim less, but the others like Joe Lonsdale, I went to his house at eight in the morning. I did a morning workout with him. We had breakfast together. We did a cold plunge together. We talked and then we did the podcast. I saw his family, met his wife, you know, et cetera. Toured his house, saw where, you know, where, where does he work? Where does he play? What do you know? He’s got this land center, like literally like a gaming land center for him and his cousins to just come play video games, like six computers. Shaan Puri Oh, L-A Okay. Sam Parr Yeah. He’s got like a basketball court. He’s got old, like artillery gun at the top of his thing. Right. When we were leaving, 10 senators were coming over for lunch and Elon Musk showed up while we were leaving the house. It’s like, whoa, okay, that’s what your day looks like. Got it. You know, he had like a, it was amazing. He was so hospitable, by the way. He’s got like, he was so nice and generous with his time. Then he had Monish Pabrai. I go over to his house. He’s like, yeah, come over whenever. My day is clear. I go to his house. He doesn’t have a staff that answers it. He opens the door. He’s wearing basketball and he’s barefoot. He’s like, yeah, what do you want to, let’s just sit. Let’s have some tea. You want tea? And we have tea. He’s got no clock, no assistant telling him you got to move the next thing. He shows me his nap room. He’s like, oh, I nap every day. It’s great. Napping is great. My whole job is thinking. You know, I have to make great decisions. Keeps me fresh. It’s like having a second day. You know, I was like, whoa. And then he’s got all these books in his library, but it’s also kind of alone. I was like, you don’t have a team? He’s like, no. Investors make their decisions not as a committee. Investors make their decisions as an independent thinker. And so, no, I don’t have a huge team. I got like a researcher or two, but like, you know, they don’t come over every day. Shaan Puri So he has how many billions in his fund? Sam Parr Two, I think. Something like that. Shaan Puri And it was really just him and a researcher? He was the only guy there. Sam Parr He didn’t have like a… Shaan Puri But like-ish, a five-person staff generously? Generously, yeah. Sam Parr I could be wrong, right? Don’t quote me on these, but that’s what it… I’m 90% sure. Tim Ferriss, I was like, he shows up, and I was like, so what you been up to? And he was like, oh, I just came back from Europe. I was like, oh, cool. Like vacation, ski, what are you doing? He goes, no, I spent three days with the guy who’s the best in the world at making board games. And I wanted to understand, I want to learn about board games. So you, so you pick up like lifestyle flexibility, ability to indulge in yo… (Time 0:50:41)
  • MFM Field Correspondent
    • Sam proposes an MFM field correspondent to visit interesting companies.
    • He offers $100k/year for filming content like TechCrunch Cribs. Transcript: Shaan Puri I think we need like a, like a tobacco pipe or something. Today is like philosopher hour on our, on our rocking chairs, just like riffing on what makes a good life and what doesn’t. Sam Parr Yeah, we started at limestones. Shaan Puri We should go, by the way, check them out. It sounds sick. Sam Parr Yeah, yeah, exactly. I would love to go uh go see it i think it’d be pretty boring but it would be mind-blowing at the same time you know i mean i think it would be nothing nothing would be thrilling but the whole Shaan Puri Thing would be mind-blowing that that’s what it that’s what it is so that’s what we almost need to do like mfm field trips because i the timing was horrible when you were doing the monish Babraya one because i was moving that day and we couldn’t make it work because i had like a six month old and it was like a huge whatever but i am so envious i’m like fuck i just wanted to like See i just wanted to like get a feel i wanted to do a field trip of just sitting in his living room and watching him interact totally that’s like i get so much joy doing that exact same thing Sam Parr You know what i would want to do so there’s like your boy Brett who’s doing robotics. I want to go see that shit. I want to go see humanoid robots and the factory and just be inspired by that. There’s another one that I think would be really cool. Have you ever been to a Cisco Foods? Shaan Puri Like Cisco is the company that like makes the food that goes to all the restaurants. Like they make sauces and shit. Yeah. What? No, I’ve not been. What is that? Sam Parr It’s I went once because we had a restaurant and it’s the most wild, like huge scale operation. You don’t realize it. You’re like, oh, I guess. Yeah. The company that supplies all of the materials to all of the restaurants grocery stores, I guess they got to be pretty big, right? The bigger than anything you’ve ever seen. And it was like a tour of that facility. And then you see the automation, like there’s these little like hockey pucks. You know, there’s like scooters are like the butt scooters where you just like sit down on this thing, like an old PE thing, where you sit down on this little four wheel flat thing and it Rolls around. That’s like little robots like that that that fly around this warehouse picking up pallets and moving them places and so it’s this incredibly sophisticated operation to move like Cans of tuna i’m looking at their factories it looks so large that you could like see the earth curve you know what i mean it’s like it’s it’s huge another one would be like like i’m probably Not allowed but like Anduril or like one of these companies just making like lasers and like, you know, like war machines. Also just like the crypto house and just go see all these like degenerate 19 year olds. Shaan Puri That’s actually a good idea. Sam Parr It’s like you don’t know it till you see it, till you feel it. Right. Like it just leaves an imprint on you in a different way. Shaan Puri Going to hacker houses in San Francisco was amazing and seemed like their kitchen. And I’m like, who cooks? What? How do you guys know? Sam Parr It’s like you’ve seen the barstool like one bite pizza reviews we just do the one sniff hacker house reviews the odor just and they’re all in san francisco they’re all in like these warehouses Shaan Puri So they all got walmart feet so everyone’s walking around barefooted with like dirty dirty ass bottom of their feet it’s like disgusting and i had so much fun doing it i remember i felt That same way walking around Facebook. Have you walked around Facebook’s campus? Sam Parr Yeah, Facebook’s one of those. Shaan Puri I remember walking around like, why does a webpage need so many employees? What are all these fucking people doing? There’s so many people walking around. And you’re like, I can’t, like I would make fun of Facebook constantly because I thought it was a soulless job. But you walk around and you’re like, oh my God, this is like a beehive. Sam Parr You know what we should do? Do you remember TechCrunch Cribs? Did you ever see this show? Yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. And they discontinued it, just like they discontinued Cribs. But I think that needs to come back. And okay, realistically, we’re like, we should do this. And then both of us are going to like, look at our kids and then like, just not travel. Shaan Puri Sorry, I’m going to go to a Cisco factory. Sam Parr Yeah, I really want to go see the… I’m going to go learn how hot fries are made. Yeah, exactly. So realistically, let’s be honest, absolutely not going to do this idea. But we need a field correspondent. Every great show has got a field correspondent, right? That’s actually kind of funny. I’m going to throw down the gauntlet right now. 100K a year. Be the MFM field trip correspondent. We’re going to send you to different awesome places. You’ve got to film it like the old TechCrunch Cribs or MTV Cribs episodes. And you’ve just got to go to funny, epic places, interesting companies where they’ve got a crazy office life, crazy factories and shit like this. And that could be your job. Travel around, film content. We’ll put them up on MFM as episodes. Shaan Puri I want to see these, like, there’s, dude, these AI, we got to talk about this next week, but these AI companies that have like 20 employees, but 100 million in revenue, I just want to see What they’re doing all day. You know what I mean? Sam Parr Absolutely. To audition, email me, Sean at SeanPeru.com and just email a audition tape. So do an episode of any business near you. Go to your coffee shop and just film it just so that we can get a sense of how you are on camera. (Time 0:58:10)