3 Stories Of People Making Millions In Weird Ways

Sam Parr

Alright, Sean. There's a documentary that Ari and I were texting about. Did you see it? It was called *"Martha."* It was on Netflix — it was about Martha Stewart.

Shaan Puri

I haven't seen it I actually don't know really anything about her

Sam Parr

great this is so great because martha stewart was a

Shaan Puri

Beast — I really couldn't tell you five things about **Martha Stewart**. So was she kind of the first influencer? Was she a celebrity influencer who then started launching products, or what's the story?

Sam Parr

**Martha Stewart was a killer.** She was a total shark. She was way *sharkier* than her put-together image—the housewife who cooks everything—would suggest. What I'm going to say is going to blow your mind because she was a total shark. I'm going to give you a little bit of her background. She was born and raised on the East Coast. She went to Columbia University. While she was in school, she became a model because she was a cute woman when she was young.

Shaan Puri

yeah yeah wow she was fantastic yeah good

Sam Parr

Very, very pretty woman. Yeah—go *Martha*. She gets married at a young age, like 19 or 20 years old, but graduates from Columbia. Her father-in-law helps her get a job as a stockbroker. By the way, she studied architectural history (or something like that) at Columbia—nothing to do with stocks. So, at the age of about 24 or 25 she gets this job, and you're probably wondering, "How on earth did *Martha Stewart* become a stockbroker?"

Shaan Puri

well I am wondering

Sam Parr

when her father-in-law first met her he was like you have this like it factor like you are so charming you are so put together because she had this vibe at a very young age in her twenties like she dressed it fantastically she was very charismatic she was clearly driven and hardworking and this small like 10 person operation that was a stock broking company brokerage they needed a saleswoman a salesperson and it was all men at the time I think this was in the sixties it was all dudes it was a very male dominated industry but she comes into this interview and eventually works there and they comment on how her she's dressed like perfectly it's like so perfectly that you're sort of intimidated when you first meet her because she's like perfectly put together but then she's like really charming and warm and you're like oh I I like you and so she starts like as a salesperson basically at the stock company basically working at with with with clients and getting them to like trust them and things like that and she kills it and so listen to this at the age of 26 according to this documentary she said she was making a $135,000 a year which equivalent today is $1,000,000 a year at the age of 26 as a stockbroker pretty crazy that she went from being a model to a stockbroker in that short amount of time and she kills it and she does it for like 6 or 7 years like it's like a legitimate career for her and she suggests that one of our clients buy this stock that was like a dollar and it went to like $10 so it killed it then they bought a little bit more and it goes something huge like to 50 it was like this massive stock and it made these clients all this money but then the $50 stock goes right back down to like 8 or $10 and so technically her client had still made a bunch of money but that roller coaster ride of like making a little bit of money then making a ton of money than losing a ton of money it like left her kind of distraught and so she bailed because of that like journey and so she quit and so in the when she's like 30 years old or late twenties she moves out to actually where I'm living now westport connecticut she was like you know I wanna have a kid I wanna like try this housewife life whatever and do this thing and she moves out here and she sits around for a very short amount of time and she's like alright I gotta do something like I can't just sit here and so they buy this like kinda shitty house that she like totally turns around and redoes the whole thing all by herself she paints it she builds this beautiful garden she learns how to raise goats and chickens and like plant her own garden and like creates this amazing like a state out in westport connecticut which now it's fancy back then it wasn't particularly fancy and so eventually she gets really into this and she's like you know I kinda like this housewife life what if I start hosting some dinner parties and she creates these lavish amazing dinner parties and eventually all these rich guys who come are like hey do you wanna like cater my party and so that's what she starts doing and so she builds a business as a caterer that she said made her a millionaire and her whole shtick back then for this catering business was she goes I'm gonna make everything by scratch and so west fork connecticut we're about an hour and 10 minutes from new york city at this time people start realizing that she could actually operate on like 3 or 4 hours of sleep and so she would go to like catering the catering business by the way it's like that's like the hardest thing on earth right you know it's brutal it's a really hard business to pull off and so she was famous for going to the farmer's markets in new york at 4 am getting all of her produce and then going in the morning and baking all of her food and so her famous saying as her catering business was basically I make everything from scratch and not only does she just make stuff from scratch one time she saw this brochure that like was doing a recreation of like the pilgrim's thanksgiving and there was like a basket of fruit that was like overflowing and she was like that's what I'm gonna do and so she was famous for creating these like charcuterie boards of like overflowing meats and fruits and she said something that was actually really inspiring she was like I wanted to turn this into experience and like I wanted to make this like fruit board she was like it sounds trivial but that was my art and I was gonna make like these baskets of fruit overflow with strawberries to show that this table is where like generosity like like you know like in abundance and all this stuff and it's a massive hit she builds us into a big business to the.

Sam Parr

A few years in, she caters a party for— I think— Penguin Publishing, or something like that. It was one of these publishers' parties. She caters it, and it's a really big deal. You know, she's doing the Met and all these museums and art museums in New York. This is a big deal for her catering company. They start talking to her and say, "Dude, you are amazing. Do you want to write a cookbook for us?" So she agrees, and it takes her a few years—three or four years—because she's super hands-on writing the book. They told her, "So what you do is, for the cookbook just put in a bunch of recipes and some black-and-white photos." She was a nobody, and she replied, **"Not a chance."** "We're doing color photos, and we're actually going to do, like, 500 photos. Just give me the budget. I'll go ahead, hire a photographer friend, and we're going to organize all these photos and take all these lavish photos at my house that I made, because we're going to make this like the *Martha Stewart* cookbook." At the time, cookbooks typically just had recipes. She said, "No—we're going to add in my lifestyle. We're going to have these photos." One of the photos is of her kitchen: "Look how lavish that is. What do you see?"

Shaan Puri

"The most full kitchen I've ever seen. There's literally 9,000 pots and pans hanging above her. She's surrounded — her kitchen looks like a *charcuterie board*. It looks like an overflowing *charcuterie board*, but she's like a *piece of salami* in the middle."

Sam Parr

And that's, like, her whole *shtick*, basically. She says this: "**I'm gonna sell perfection,**" because she was a perfectionist. She was actually a pain in the ass to work for.

Shaan Puri

and the first book was called entertaining and it was about like entertaining guests basically

Sam Parr

Yeah. Creating an atmosphere of warmth and things like that. It was a massive hit — it sold **650,000 copies**. What—what do you think I see?

Shaan Puri

I feel like **Nick Gray** is the new **Martha Stewart**. I'm just gonna put that out there. What Nick Gray is doing with the two-hour cocktail party—I think he's just a… he's just a young Martha Stewart right now.

Sam Parr

Yeah, well, she was one of the early influencers because this was in the Eighties. This is when mass media was really becoming a thing, and it was a massive hit. These women bought these books because it wasn't just about cooking; it was about being better, being aspirational, and perfecting a craft. She **sold the shit out of this lifestyle** — it was her lifestyle. And she basically said in the documentary, "I had visions early on of creating this Martha Stewart media company all about me because I'm great." She was very confident about that, opening up the business plan: "Alright — Martha Stewart's media company."

Shaan Puri

Opening up the business plan like, "Alright — Martha Stewart's media company. *It's about me.* Next page, because I'm great. Next page."

Sam Parr

But she—I mean, she was so... There's a lot of bad stuff that has gone on. Basically, her husband cheats on her, and she cheats on her husband. Her daughter is like, "Dude, she was a cold mom." People complain about working for her; they're like, "Dude, she's just a fucking asshole." Throughout the documentary, they catch her on camera being rude to her employees. So, yeah, she's a **perfectionist**, and she was like, "I'm not—I'm not sorry for that. I'm a perfectionist."

Shaan Puri

wait so this forward through the business side so she does the cookbook cookbook's a hit

Sam Parr

She had a massive hit, and eventually one thing led to another. **Kmart**—which, at the time, was considered a lower-status store—partnered with her to create a bedding line. People were shocked and asked, "Why would this upscale woman do this?" It turned out to be a great move. Then she partnered with **Time** and created a series of magazines. She was the editor, and it went really well. But she said, "I want to own this son of a bitch," so she raised $85,000,000 and bought the magazine. Three or four years later she took it public. I showed the financials of her business. I think it was called *Martha Stewart Omnimedia*. By year three it was doing $130,000,000 in annual revenue (1997). It was a behemoth—TV shows, tons of magazines, merchandising like the Kmart deal. It crushed it, went public, and she became the first-ever self-made female billionaire in America and just annihilated it. But then something really bad happens.

Shaan Puri

Hey — let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about this report that **HubSpot** just put together. They spoke with **500 entrepreneurs**, everyone from solopreneurs — one person crushing it on their own — to two-person teams that are scaling up. They wanted to create an entrepreneurship trend report, so they asked about the strategies entrepreneurs are using, the problems they're going through, and how they're overcoming them. It's a data-packed report that they're offering **for free**, and you can check it out. If you're looking for a little help on the entrepreneurship side, some inspiration, or better insight on how you could do better, check it out. The link is in the description below.

Sam Parr

So, basically, she's worth like **$4,100,500,600,000** at this. Because the stock was going up and down, apparently she calls her stockbroker. She's like, "Hey, I want you to sell this one stock." He sells this one stock and she made like $30 off of it. Turns out a lot of people thought that it was insider trading, so the **DOJ** interviewed her, figured out this whole thing, and did this massive investigation. It turns out the charges of insider trading were dropped. They're like, "You did not insider trade, however..." [original transcription trails off here]

Shaan Puri

so sorry she sold her own stock or she sold a different stock

Sam Parr

just a different just a a stock

Shaan Puri

and only 30 k so why was it a big deal anyway

Sam Parr

it was a so it was a big deal because we're just we're we're basically there was like enron and a bunch of things like this were happening at the time and the doj was like any insider trading any like corruption we're gonna go we're going like really hard against all this and so she like sell some stock it's suspicious turns out that the the ceo of this of the company whose stock she sold he was in fact corrupt and they're like but you knew him what was going on you knew that this drug wasn't gonna pass you sold the stock whatever the doj investigates her and they're like you actually that looks clean it looks like you didn't know anything however when we interviewed you you told us some small fact about how you were on a schedule to sell this stock turns out you weren't on a schedule and so you lied to us and so we are gonna put you in federal penitentiary for 5 months for lying not for insider trading but for lying about this like somewhat not that big of a deal fact and so kinda bullshit kinda not like she did lie but like she got 5 months in the federal penitentiary and she's like 50 years old and at the time when all this trial shit happens that's when we realized that martha stewart she's she's kinda bad she's she's she's she's she's bad because there's all these stories where the it comes out she's a little rude and so for example her stockbroker has this assistant who would talk to martha mostly and like there's examples of like of the stockbroker's assistant being like dude she was the meanest person ever for example one time she called and I had to put her on hold and I go back to talk to her she goes hey if you don't change that waiting music that tacky waiting music by the next time I call I'm gonna have you fired and just hung up just like hung up like there's like repeatedly like a bunch of stories where she just didn't she was not like very kind to people and that kind of swayed public opinion of her she goes to jail for 5 months and it sucked it sucked for her it was not good she gets out of jail and she ends up doing justin bieber's roast which again changed public perception of her because at this.

Sam Parr

Everyone was like, "Man, it's kind of fun seeing Martha Stewart's kind of downfall, because she was the perfect woman. *Fuck her.* It's kind of nice — it brings me up to see this person push her down."

Shaan Puri

so perfect yeah

Sam Parr

She **roasts Justin Bieber** and she's just hilarious. She talks about how she "shanked bitches in prison" and how she made a shank with just a piece of pencil and some bubble gum. "You could do one too at home—I'll show you how." It kind of humanized her. It was pretty cool. But her getting arrested decimated the stock. On the documentary she says: > "I think I would have been worth $10 billion, but when I got arrested my stock went way down." They ended up selling the company for $300 million. It could have been a great company, but it kind of wasn't. However, throughout the whole documentary, **Martha** has shown time and time again that she's a **bad, bad woman** in every sense of the word. She's brutal, she's smart, she's conniving.

Shaan Puri

Her stock is only going up in your books — that's all I'm hearing. All I'm hearing is that. Let's just summarize: **Good-looking lady**, already off to a good start. Then she goes from **model to sales/stockbroker** — alright, amazing. One interesting thing? That's cool. Two interesting things? You have my attention. Third interesting thing: **self-made** and the first kind of major **"trad wife" influencer**. She does the cookbooks, does it her way, is **ruthless with the details**, has a **no-nonsense attitude**. She's a **stickler**. These are all — I mean, these are your safe words, dude. These are all the things that you enjoy, so this is really up your alley. How do you feel about **Martha Stewart** right now? It sounds like even when she's bad, it just made her more good in your books.

Sam Parr

Sort of... I mean, she paid the price. Basically, her husband left her, and she has a bad relationship with her children because of the way she behaved. She's 83 now, by the way — I didn't realize how old she was — and she hasn't had a relationship since her husband and she broke up. So she paid the price. There's a *cost to be the boss*, you know, and she paid it. But she is, in fact, the boss. I do have a lot of respect for her. I also think there are downsides to achieving what she achieved. But I'm shocked you didn't know that. Did you know any of this? Like, how she's, like, not really...

Shaan Puri

"I knew she had a cookbook, was on TV, and that she sold things for women. That's kind of the extent of what I knew about **Martha Stewart**."

Sam Parr

Dude, she's great. Another big takeaway — and I'll wrap up here — is how big of a company you could start and have just off the back of one person. Like the **Martha Stewart** brand: she was into that. A lot of people would be fearful of having that burden — literally 1,000+ employees and $1,000,000,000 of value — but she was totally into it and she loved it. I love those types of personalities.</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Right, but it sounds like this company wasn't that good. Your numbers table here—by 2001 it says total revenue $295,000,000; net income $21,000,000. Which is obviously good; it's not nothing, but it's not a $10,000,000,000 company to make, you know, $21,000,000 a year of net income. Then it says from 2003 to 2015—which is like three presidents—it lists consecutive annual losses every year except for one year. **So was this really a good business, or was this actually just a lot of work for nothing?**

Sam Parr

No, it was good. I mean, you have to think of a few things. 1. It was making **$300 million** a year in revenue, and a lot of it came from publishing. Publishing means subscription magazines, so that's pretty good. But then the internet came and completely obliterated that industry. Magazines are probably the worst industry to be in. The timing was such that she got arrested, and also—Amazon and the internet were created. So, yeah, there are a lot of "what ifs."

Shaan Puri

I feel like she was about **30 years too early**. If she had the internet, she could have become a *juggernaut*. It sounds like her talent and her ruthlessness—the combination—would have served her well. She just needed a better medium. If she could have owned her own **Instagram** and **TikTok** channels and built everything off the back of that, I think she would have been the number one sort of women's or "mom" influencer. She arguably was that in her era anyway, but the market was **100x**.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these big celebrities... it was a little bit easier to be a big celebrity in the eighties, nineties, and early 2000s because there were fewer of them. Now *anyone with a cell phone* can become a celebrity in six or twelve months, so it's hard to say. But, by the way, her businesses still do about **$1 billion** a year in sales.

Shaan Puri

Okay, gotcha. You have something in your notes here: **"Typical day of 60-year-old Martha Stewart."** </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

yeah read that

Shaan Puri

It says she's 60, but she looks a decade younger. She's been up since 4:30 a.m. She answers her email at 5, takes a 3-mile walk with her trainer at 6, and she tours her garden at 7. When she tours her garden, she's thrilled to discover a duck and 13 ducklings in the swimming pool. By 7:30 she's whipping up corn gruel for the visiting waterfowl. I don't even know what any of these words are — "an animal, an animal building a wooden ramp to help them get in and out of the pool": a duck. Okay, she's doing all this stuff for a duck. Her TV crew arrives at 8, hair and makeup at 8:30, and then she's shooting her TV segment by 9 a.m.

Sam Parr

yeah dude she's crazy

Shaan Puri

"Dude, I *literally* woke up 19 minutes ago. I rolled out of bed, put on this hat, and then I clicked play. **I don't think... I don't think I'm built for this.**"

Sam Parr

**She's a machine.** You know how people tell stories about how **Trump** can only operate on three hours of sleep? That's a real thing, by the way. There's... I forget what the name of it is—it's like a thing. She's another person who's famous for only sleeping like three hours a night.

Shaan Puri

Perfect segue. Can I tell you what my best topic was that I wanted to talk to you about? Yeah — **Ozempic for sleep**. There's a guy; his blog is *Isaac.net*, and he wrote a post about sleeplessness. He basically says that there is a set of famous people who have the short-sleeper genes: a set of genes where about four to five hours a night is a full night's rest for them. He mentions Mozart, Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, Margaret Thatcher, Obama... and he says even his lab mate — this guy's a researcher — has this thing called *short sleeper syndrome*. People thought that *short sleeper syndrome* would mean you sleep less and maybe you're able to operate that way, but surely it's bad for you. Sleep is one of the best things for you; it restores the brain and the body and all your function. So these people must be dying younger and have more disease, right? But no — actually they don't. These people simply have the benefit without the cost. They need about three hours less sleep than the rest of us, but they don't pay the price in terms of health consequences. And so he goes on in this post and he basically outlines that we who... [transcript ends abruptly]

Sam Parr

who are these people by the way in this photo

Shaan Puri

He says, "My favorite family is this family called the Johnsons from Utah." The Johnsons from Utah are a set of researchers, and I think a bunch of them have this *short sleeper* genetic makeup. They've been researching this for a while. It's about, you know, **1%** of people who have this trait: they don't need as much sleep, and it does not seem detrimental to their health or productivity. They've studied why this is — is it one gene or not? — and they've basically found four kinds of protein changes. They've noticed variations in the glutamate receptor, **GRM1**, and a few others... They've done tests in mice and other models where they do knockouts. They'll knock out one of the genes and see if it makes the mouse sleep less or sleep more, and they try to understand the mechanisms behind it.

Sam Parr

Can you do that, like—when you say "knockout," does that mean you're referring to a living being, or to when they reproduce? </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

a living being

Sam Parr

you could that's how the body works you could just like

Shaan Puri

I said that with so much confidence for somebody who has no idea. But I think that you could do that. I'm a bio major—you could check that; that's a fact, Jack. I don't know if you could do it, though. I don't know if it's done at the embryo stage or in the living organism. They've tested this in mouse models. Mouse models don't always apply to humans, so there's some question there. The researcher sort of points out, actually: usually when things that work in mice don't work in humans, it's because they tried it and it worked for the first time in mice, and then it takes a long time to even try it in humans, and maybe it won't work. He's like, in this case we're observing it actually in humans, and then we went back to mice and tried to recreate those genetic mutations or those genetic changes. So this is *really exciting*. What he's talking about is, in the same way that we found drugs like "Ozempic," which can modify your appetite — it can change your need for food in a way that had all these downstream health benefits. You change your need for food, you reduce your need for food; now you eat less, obesity goes down. They've seen that it helps with things like addiction to alcohol, and there are all these other things people are noticing with these — that's the Ozempic case. This guy is saying you could do the same with sleep, like if you...

Sam Parr

agree guy isaac is he the researcher or is he just blogging on this

Shaan Puri

he's a researcher who is blogging about this

Sam Parr

wow got it

Shaan Puri

He's basically saying that, potentially, we could create something that does the same thing that Ozempic did for appetite—reduce your need for sleep. We could make you mirror the people who already don't suffer the consequences of less sleep. You do the math: if you're saving three or four hours a night, it's basically the world's best longevity trade. What most people try to do with longevity is push the tail end of poor health further out—if I'm living to 80, can I live to 90; if 90, can I live to 100 or 110? They're trying to delay that last marginal decade of poor health, when you can't walk as much, see as well, or you're in pain. This would instead make you actually live better: you have more healthy days, you're awake for more of the time, and it's the equivalent of an extra ten years—but you get those ten years not just at the end of life, you get them throughout your best years. That would be the promise. How exciting is that? It seems possible someone will make "an Ozempic for sleep" that allows us, instead of needing eight hours, to sleep five and feel just as good as we would on eight.

Sam Parr

He says, "This is like adding **10 more years** to your life." An 80-year lifespan with 8 hours of sleep per day compared to an 80-year lifespan with 4 hours of sleep amounts to 10 years. *This is amazing.*

Shaan Puri

And on top of that, by the way, there are people who suffer from **insomnia** and **narcolepsy**. There are also actual conditions like **sleep apnea**—these are all things that affect people's sleep. Maybe you could alleviate those along the way, right? If you know, there are thousands of Americans who have those problems. Could you also improve those? </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Okay, first of all, this is *amazing* — this is a great find. I'm reading his blog; his writing's really great. It doesn't read like a researcher's [writing], so I was shocked that he's a researcher. I think there's a quote where he goes, "This is crazy," and then he...

Shaan Puri

doesn't they don't they don't normally say things like that

Sam Parr

yeah they don't have personalities usually

Shaan Puri

This has profound implications. By the way, he's 22 years old and a PhD student at MIT, exploring **brain simulations as an alternative path to beneficial AI**. In the past, he skipped out of high school in rural Austria to graduate early. In his gap year, he created a $1,000,000 nonprofit and ran the most viral tech conference of the year that had Sam Altman and others come. He self-taught Mandarin last year and completed his undergrad at Berkeley in two years. Guy's a winner — doing well.

Sam Parr

andy owns isaac.net good like great domain name

Shaan Puri

you did isaac with ak

Sam Parr

This guy is great, man. But what I was gonna say is this: I've never — I've heard of, you know, that gene a little bit that you're discussing. It's just funny that there's some kid, a 22-year-old with a personal blog, and this is the first time I've ever heard about this... Is this — that's...

Shaan Puri

what I'm saying it's fascinating

Sam Parr

But if he's just talking about his blog, is this something that *actually* matters? Why isn't there more press—or press releases—on this topic? Is it actually legit?

Shaan Puri

There is... now we just broke it, dude. This was the **tipping point**. You're gonna see other people working on this. You're gonna see people talking about this. There's gonna be misinformation everywhere. It's gonna be great.

Sam Parr

The story is awesome, just because I like Isaac. Also, I would like to not sleep. "Would you rather be skinny, like on *Ozempic* and eat less, or be heavier, or whatever?"

Shaan Puri

"I could sleep only five hours instead of eight. I don't give a shit — I would be the fattest man on earth to do that. I was joking, but that is a way better *superpower*: needing less sleep and getting back three hours of time every day."

Sam Parr

That's debatable. I think that people will always prefer to be skinny over sleep. *[Meaning: they'd choose being skinny even if it required less sleep.]*

Shaan Puri

"People are dumb. *That's so dumb.* If they prefer to be skinny over having an extra 3 hours of life every day."

Sam Parr

If the average 25-year-old is like, "look hot" or "live to 90 versus 80," they're going to choose "look hot" over sleep any day of the week.

Shaan Puri

well this is why we don't ask 25 year olds questions the the the brain is not fully formed yet

Sam Parr

This is a *great find*. His blog, according to *SimilarWeb*, just shot up to **125,000 visitors in October**. Whoa—what was it like before? It was nothing.

Shaan Puri

He published this in November, so that's kind of cool. Ben found this and sent it to our friend. Our friend invested in a company that made a GLP-1 drug and sold for $1,000,000,000. Ben sent it to him because he was like, "You did that early Ozempic thing before Ozempic was a known thing" — seven years before he invested in this company that was going to work on that. It paid off in a big way. The guy replied, "I don't know how you found this — this is the best thing I've read all year. I'm so excited about what you just sent me." It was such a great example of **Ben being Ben**. On one side, he has a really curated feed, so he'll find interesting things like this. He doesn't follow many people, but he'll follow a guy like Isaac, and then he knows who to route the information to. He's like a **FedEx** guy. He doesn't touch the package. When I get something, I immediately start doing research, write notes, and go talk about it — trying to pass it to someone smarter. Ben is different: the package comes off the conveyor belt, he grabs the box, tosses it in the truck, drives it to the address, drops it off, and doesn't ask any questions about what's inside. He just knows, "That's useful for you. I think this is useful for you," and he does that all day. I had him add me to all these group chats. He was always texting people, so I said, "Yo, just add me — I just want to be a part of these." Now I'm in probably 60 group chats with Ben and a mutual acquaintance or friend. He's just doing this all day — routing packets to different people about things he thinks they'll be into.

Sam Parr

**That's ridiculous.** How is he going to monetize it? Can he ever monetize this? Yeah.

Shaan Puri

Dude, we monetize this phenomenally. This is the secret of **Ben**: he just tries to be useful. He’ll be like, “Hey, remember that guy you met a year ago who you then didn’t talk to ever again?” I’m like, “Yeah, I think so. I think I remember that guy—he was cool.” He’s like, “So I’ve been texting him, you know, we text daily, and he’s got this new thing and it’s taking off. He’s not letting anyone else in.” Then we invest in it. It’s incredible how this **karma** just comes back tenfold for Ben. He never asks for anything. He never asks — it’s amazing.

Sam Parr

He texts me a fair bit—like, "saw this thing, you might like it." So I'm the recipient of some of these things. **I hate texting.** I hate being at my computer and constantly having to go back and forth with ten different people, which is how a lot of people's computers look right now. It's between Slack and messages; you're going back and forth with fifteen or twenty people at all times, and you're like, "What did I do all day today? I just chatted, I just chatted." It's so... I don't like doing it. Do you fall into that trap throughout the day where you're like, "Dude, I just texted people all day"?

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I like Slack because I like the projects I'm working on. I don't text much—I’m a very bad texter. If anyone out there has texted me, I really apologize; I probably haven't texted you back. I'm prolifically bad at it. Ben is prolifically great at it, and that combination has really helped. Now people just bypass me altogether and go to him. It hurts my feelings sometimes. I'm like, “Wait, I thought I was friends with this person.” But now I understand why—he's just a better person, he's a better texter. In fact, he was like, “I need to make a shirt called ‘I reply.’” He goes, “That's my thing, dude. I reply.” He's like, “I say it's pretty easy.” I told him he should write the modern-day How to Win Friends and Influence People, because that's what he does: he wins friends and influences people with the most basic things. You couldn't sell the thing he does, even though it creates tons of value—tens of millions of dollars of value for us—because if you said what he does out loud, people would be like, “That was it? I showed up for the seminar for that? That's basic.” It's basic as hell, but that's what he does, and it works.

Sam Parr

That's insane. I think it's funny. By the way, *Google Isaac Freeman* — a very good-looking, young, stylish Black dude. This guy's got it all; this guy's got it all. If he just becomes an astronaut, he's basically the modern-day James Bond.

Shaan Puri

Oh man — he's got *cool glasses* and a *jawline*. Yeah, give him over.

Sam Parr

what you said you had a bunch of exciting things you wanna do all the way

Shaan Puri

"You know, we don't judge a book by its cover—so, like, looks do matter. Let's be clear: we try not to judge people by their looks at first. But once we take a look at what you do, we then take a look at how you look. It either is like **+100** or it's **-100**. It's a huge multiplier on my opinion of you and how much I'm going to remember you afterward. I will never forget this guy."

Sam Parr

"Yeah. If he were dorky-looking, I'd be like, 'Yeah—makes sense, *checks out.*' Then I see what he looks like, and I'm like..."

Shaan Puri

aw right

Sam Parr

It's tough to be looking at—*by the way*, most people who have an avatar as their **Twitter** profile do so because they're goofy-looking. The avatar is, *yeah*, better looking than that. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

It's making me question everything. There's a reason I have a **cartoon profile picture**. Alright—look at me. If you're on YouTube, look at me: this is why I have a cartoon profile picture. Okay, that's the rule. It's like, when someone quotes "revenue," they would have said "profit" if they had it, right? If somebody talks about "users," they would have quoted "revenue" if they had it. Normally, if somebody's got the looks, they're going to put their face as the profile picture. This guy defies all convention.

Sam Parr

I asked someone what the revenue was recently, and they were like, "eight figures if you include the .00," and I...

Shaan Puri

was like I was

Sam Parr

"Like, that's pretty funny. That was pretty good. You wanna do another thing?"

Shaan Puri

yeah alright I got some cool stuff

Sam Parr

oh you gotta do this poly market whale

Shaan Puri

Okay, yeah. This is alright. So, this is the **Billy of the week**. [Cue the music.] "A $1 million isn't cool. You know what's cool? A $1 billion." So you've heard the story, I think, but can I just explain a little bit of the detail here? Amazing.

Sam Parr

I read I read about it a little bit do do we even know who this person is

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so the election was happening — what, ten days ago or so — and the big news was, sort of, there was a battle going on: **Republicans versus Democrats**. There was Trump and Kamala; they were supposed to be head-to-head, but there was an *undercard* to the pay-per-view. Who was the undercard? If Trump and Kamala were the main event, then the undercard was a lot like **mainstream media versus social media**. You had Twitter and blogs versus MSNBC and other traditional outlets, and they were giving different narratives. For example, Trump and Vance go on Joe Rogan, while Kamala goes on Saturday Night Live and appears on shows like The View or 60 Minutes — those are the traditional media channels. So that was one battle that was going on.

Sam Parr

By the way, who would have thought... you've seen **Theo Von** swinging the election, being a *"needle mover"* — insane, right? I... </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

I was saying this the other day: I think that going on **Theo Von** needs to be part of the national standard for an election. I need to know if my president's gonna be "a good hang" or not, and I think Theo is the one who could save us there.

Sam Parr

yeah that was insane

Shaan Puri

So under that, you have the billionaire backers. You've got **Elon** on one side and **Mark Cuban** on the other. They're going around, promoting — using their money and their voice to do what? One of the other battles was polls versus crypto prediction markets. The polls were telling a story at the time (pre-election): the polls were saying a razor-thin margin, a toss-up. These swing states were too close to call. "It's a 50/50 election right now; it's too hard to tell who's going to win." The prediction markets — people betting money — were saying something different. They were saying **65/35** that Trump was going to win. They're different things. A poll is: you go out and ask people, "Who are you going to vote for?" A prediction market is: "Who's going to get the most votes?" So they do tell different things. But the reality is still the same: if the polls were accurate that it was a 50/50 toss-up — that it was going to be a razor-thin margin — then the betting market shouldn't have such a big spread. There shouldn't be a big favorite versus a big underdog.

Sam Parr

and what was the poly market spread I think it was like 75 25

Shaan Puri

No, it was a little less. It was about 63% for Trump, but then it got to 65%. And then, as the election started—when the news was saying, "We're still... still too early"—the odds were just jetting in Trump's direction. They knew earlier than the exit polls or the news was willing to report how much of a landslide this was going to be for Trump, which it was. So, before it happened, there was a question: is the *prediction market* actually predictive? There was some legitimate skepticism. So the pro side was...

Sam Parr

the betting market versus the poll market

Shaan Puri

The betting—well, it's just like... even just alone. Should we be—should we care what *Polymarket* says on one thing?

Sam Parr

market being the platform where

Shaan Puri

You could take bets, exactly. The plus side would be to say, well, these are people betting their own money—*skin in the game*. If you see a lot more action coming in on one side, that suggests the wisdom of the crowds and the actual free market believe the odds are this or that. That might be better than polls, where people say what they're going to vote and it's a small sample. Maybe they're lying. Maybe it's too small a sample to know. Maybe it's not indicative—there's no skin in the game. On the other hand, you would say Polymarket—never heard of it—was banned in the U.S. All the betting action was international. Over $3 billion was bet on the election, and none of this was Americans because you can't use Polymarket in America. Then there's the crypto angle: Polymarket is a crypto betting platform, so maybe there's a bias. Crypto holders tend to be more libertarian or more right-leaning, so they might be betting for what they wish would happen, not what actually will happen. That raised some question marks. Then the news came out saying, "we can't trust Polymarket because it's manipulated." Manipulated how? Well, a couple of whales were betting heavily on Trump and swinging the odds. So it's not really what the crowds think—it's a few whales influencing the market, and they saw that.

Sam Parr

And you can see on **Polymarket** — like, "Can I size it?" Like, "Oh, someone just put this **$1,000,000** bet in."

Shaan Puri

I can go on **Polymarket** right now and look at the top 10 **bettors**: what they are betting on, how much volume they've bet this year, and how much their **P&L** is—are they up or down? </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

So, **Theo 4** — I think he's the biggest one on the platform. He has made a profit of **$22,000,000** this year.

Shaan Puri

Exactly. So that was one user, but you can go user by user and see: this guy's just betting on everything, or this guy has one huge bet, or whatever. You can look at anybody's P&L on Polymarket. What they found was that there were a couple of bets in the tens of millions on Trump, and it all came from the same guy. They thought there were four big accounts that bet $28,000,000, but after the fact the guy came out and said he had 11 accounts. He had bet around $40–$50 million and made about **$80 million** in profit in the end. (Sorry—I don't know the exact amounts, but I know he made $80 million profit.)

Sam Parr

a french guy I think

Shaan Puri

A French guy, so they're like, "Who is this **French whale**?" The story behind it is pretty interesting because this guy was a trader—he's in finance. He lived in the U.S. at one point. But basically he's like, "I'm trying to remain anonymous. I'm trying not to buy..."

Sam Parr

the way how would on earth would a journalist find this person that seems really hard that's a great scoop

Shaan Puri

So on **Polymarket** you can see the bets. You can go, see "wow, there's a huge bet," then you look at the account and try to figure out whose wallet it is. Because crypto has a public ledger, you can actually trace it back and try to find them. There's a company called **Chainalysis** — do you know Chainalysis?

Sam Parr

I've heard of it just like as a headline

Shaan Puri

They're basically— the government goes to **Chainalysis** and says, "We need to know who owns this wallet." **Chainalysis** can then perform forensic analysis of every transaction that wallet has made, trace back to the root wallet, and try to determine who owns it. And this is like a $10 billion company, **Chainalysis**. [Chainalysis: a blockchain-forensics firm]

Sam Parr

to do a breakdown of this company this sounds fun

Shaan Puri

Yeah, they're a *fascinating* company. They came out and did this analysis, and there's a web of the accounts — so, take a look.

Sam Parr

This is, like, all the best stuff — **crime and crypto stories** are the best stories. So, working at this would be super exciting.

Shaan Puri

so so

Sam Parr

oh I know but you know what I mean

Shaan Puri

Totally. So they come out and they say, "Alright, well—dude, how did you know? Why did you make such a **massive bet on Trump?**" This is where the story gets really interesting. He says, "I didn't trust the polls, but I trust polling." When they ask, "What do you mean?" he goes, "I commissioned my own polls. There's a French guy who commissioned polls in America to inform his own bet, and what he did was he paid a polling company and he said, 'I want you to go and I want you to ask them—but don't ask them who they're going to vote for.'"

Sam Parr

because that's what polls often ask the is what what do traditional polls ask

Shaan Puri

Are you likely to vote? If you're going to vote, who are you likely to vote for? Are you certain of that? You know... is there anything that's going to change your mind?

Sam Parr

Would you be doing something that's going to also ask, "Who do I think they..."? They ask it in a weird way as well. I think they also ask, "Who do you think your friend is going to vote for?" No. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

That's what this guy did. What he called the **"neighbor method"** works like this: he says, *don't ask people who they're going to vote for.* People are indirect and don't want to reveal their own preferences. But if you ask a specific question — **"Who do you expect your neighbor to vote for?"** — they will indirectly reveal their own preferences and what they believe is going to happen. He believed the neighbor method is a more predictive approach. When he tested it, he commissioned a poll: he paid a major U.S. pollster to run these polls for him. Just like the DNC and the RNC sometimes pay pollsters to run internal polls that aren't reported to the public, he wanted this pollster to measure the neighbor effect. What he found was, in his words, "mind-blowing" in favor of Trump. It showed a Trump landslide. He thought the race was mispriced: the media was portraying it as 50/50, razor-thin, but his polling suggested a major landslide for Trump. Seeing that, he placed a huge bet on Trump — and it turned out he was correct. His final quote was: "Public opinion would have been better prepared if the latest polls had measured using the neighbor effect." He didn't just bet on overall victory. He bet on specific swing states where he thought people believed the state was closer than it actually would be — states that, according to the neighbor method, would be more in favor of Trump. It was, he thought, just insane. [Sentence cut off / audio ends: "and now of course the French government's not..."]

Sam Parr

banned the

Shaan Puri

poly market

Sam Parr

this guy had nailed that

Shaan Puri

like just two words bonjour my friend

Sam Parr

Yeah—fucking—first of all, what I respect about this is everything. Well, I don't respect everything about it. I don't love gambling like this, but I respect people who have **conviction**. They do their own analysis and they're like, "No, this is the answer," even though all the so-called smart people—the establishment—are saying otherwise. He did his own research, and then he did the big part: he bet **$30 million** of his own money. I think that is—those types of people fascinate me because that takes so much conviction.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, exactly. It's the— the brains and the guts. That's kind of the theme of the year. You see someone like **Elon Musk** who basically swings the election, who catches a rocket — out of, you know, catches a rocket with some chopsticks — is working on self-driving cars, helped co-found **OpenAI**, which is changing the world. The guy is just, you know, *firing on all cylinders*. It's like, what is different about this guy? It's the combination of the **brain** and the **balls**. There are other people as smart as Elon Musk. There are other people who have the risk-taking guts of Elon Musk, but the combination is rare. Then you add on top of that the willingness to absolutely work to the bone as well... and then you add on top of that

Sam Parr

like sacrifice your own life

Shaan Puri

Yeah, so he's, you know, top 1% in like five things. And then it's like, "If you just multiply 1% five times over and over again, you end up with **1 in 10,000,000,000**, which is like, 'Oh—that's actually the ratio: we do have one Elon out of the entire human population.'"

Sam Parr

Dude, I thought it was impressive. I was like, "Justin Timberlake — you can sing, dance, and act, and you're funny." You know what I mean? *Superbad* — **Eli** just really... he stepped it up.

Shaan Puri

it's a great call

Sam Parr

is polymarket gonna sustain after this of course not right

Shaan Puri

Okay, so I've been a big **Polymarket** fan. I was using Polymarket before they banned it — like, you know, way back in the day.

Sam Parr

you're also a little bit of a degen

Shaan Puri

yeah but I think a lot of people are okay I think

Sam Parr

much money have you in you've first

Shaan Puri

By the way, you called this gambling. **I don't believe that this is gambling** — *betting, just by the definition.* Well, like, for example, you own stock. Do you believe that you're gambling when you buy a stock? I guess... what are you doing when you buy a stock, right? Like, on... [trails off]

Sam Parr

Yeah. I guess—you would have to say that it's *not as binary*. There are levels; it's a *scale*. So, yeah, you're just, like, if you buy cars...

Shaan Puri

You and I — it exists on a spectrum, yes. So, with a stock or a share, the old-fashioned way of looking at it is: "I'm not gambling; I'm buying a piece of ownership in a company that produces goods." For a lot of people, it's like, "Yeah, alright, cool." But nobody really treats it like that in practice. You aren't sitting there waiting for dividends. You're not owning this piece of a company because you think it's going to exit at a later date when it's already a public stock. Basically, you're saying, "I believe the future earnings of this company are going to be X," and that's why owning the stock is good — because the share price is going to go up as their earnings increase. Maybe those earnings will grow faster than the current price of the stock indicates. That's what you're supposed to buy: a stock you think will appreciate over time. I think **Polymarket** has the ability to do that in a bunch of interesting ways. First, there are the speculation/betting/gambling use cases — speculating on prices of things, speculating on sports outcomes, etc. Sports betting is obviously a huge deal, so those use cases exist. There is an interesting thing: I'm guessing you didn't read **Vitalik**'s blog recently about this — that's an accurate guess. Vitalik, who is the creator of **Ethereum**, wrote a great blog post. Vitalik is one of my favorite entrepreneurs and thinkers on the planet.

Sam Parr

So, the blog post is called, I guess, "From Prediction Markets into Finance."

Shaan Puri

In finance, he's—he's like, "You know, I have written a lot and I've supported Polymarket." Many of you who know me might be surprised by this, because **Vitalik** is sort of notoriously not into the crypto‑casino side of life. He's not price‑based; he's not trying to get rich as his primary motivation.

Sam Parr

he's kinda like a prude

Shaan Puri

He's a purist, and people ask, "Why do you care so much about these prediction markets? Just people gambling — who cares?" He's like, "I don't see it as that. I actually think that there's another category here that's overlooked, and it's called **info finance** — information finance." He gives examples. He says Polymarket was two things at once. On one hand, it's a betting site for the few people who want to bet and gamble. But for the rest of us, we could look at how the gamblers are betting, and for them it served as a news source. It was like, "Oh wow, Trump is doing better. Trump is improving." In the same way that polls are supposed to be part of the news, the prediction markets were actually better news information. So it was *information finance*. That's the first level: even if you're not participating in the betting or trying to make a buck, it's very useful that other people are doing that because it's another source of information. He emphasizes it should not be the only source of information, but it should be another one. He talks about the elections in Venezuela — how he was watching how people were protesting and how it was getting manipulated — and how Polymarket was actually a very useful source of information for him in understanding what was going on in Venezuela from an informational perspective.

Shaan Puri

Of view. Alright, so that was one. Then he's like, "Okay, what's the other use case?" He's like, "So imagine a company... so, like, you know, I don't know if you saw—like *Chipotle* or *Starbucks*. *Starbucks* just hired the *Chipotle* CEO. Did you see that?"

Sam Parr

Yeah, and the headline is that "he's working from home," even though he's making everyone else go back to work, right?

Shaan Puri

yeah he's like private jetting in and out but like this guy is kinda famous for like he trims the menu he cuts costs and he like he basically improves margins that's what this guy is known for and so the amazing thing was that guy he's that he's that guy and so like he's him when it comes to public markets because when he switched teams they paid him a bunch of money and I was like wow what a huge stock package for a ceo it was like a $100,000,000 or whatever whatever the number was but the stock jumped like $20,000,000,000 or something like it was like a I'm making up numbers here because I I didn't plan to talk about this but like the stock jumped in a disproportionate way based on just the news that this guy was coming over and so like it was a great trade for them to overpay this guy this talent because it immediately improved the the overall value of the company just the news of him joining and so vitalik actually was like just like there's today we're looking at these as prediction markets you could actually use this as a decision market meaning a company or a group of people could set could basically in the way that that guy theo paid for a private poll to get information you could actually set up a prediction market and set a decision market and say should we hire this ceo or what will the that should be what will the share price be in 6 months if we hire brian nichols and if the share price expectation is really high it tells you in advance without having to hire him yet what the market reaction is gonna be to making this decision does that make sense and so you can actually create decision markets and it would be worth basically paying to paying participants to go pick a side and make a bet in order to gather information that will help you make a better decision about what you're gonna do and so he's like there's you can actually improve judgment if you were to if you were to make this decision and so I I thought that was pretty interesting and he talks about he goes through you know how this might how info finance might affect all these other things so for example scientific peer review so right now in science you submit a paper and he's there's something called the replication crisis which is that famous results that end up being you know go into books and in the news or whatever then they can't be reproduced that study can't be reproduced it's like is it even like the definition of good science is that it's a reproducible experiment but that's not happening and in fact there's not really a big incentive to go reproduce these because the incentive is come out with a new finding you get published you get the glory you get the funding for your lab spending your resources to reproduce a a somebody else's science somebody else's big news it's not really a good use of time and he talks about how prediction markets could actually create incentives for people to go and try to reproduce these studies because you could have people betting on if this is reproducible or not and so you you'll be able to profit off of knowing that this this is gonna be reproduced or not so this is pretty interesting to see how that might be applied in all these other ways

Sam Parr

I haven't read this other than what you just told me and skimming it here. First of all, this is an *amazing* blog post — I need to go read it. Second, if you go to his blog and look at his other posts, he publishes an in-depth post about every three days. How amazing is it that we have access to a *genius* who just shares his thoughts? And by the way, if you read just the headlines and then click the articles, they are not just half-assed blog posts; these are in-depth pieces that he's publishing — a shit ton. How special an era do we have where we can go and just read his thoughts?

Shaan Puri

That you get access to this, yeah. The **beautiful thing** about his stuff—which is, I think, hard to... because I was thinking about this with podcasts—is that it's amazing now that there are podcasts. When we started this, I felt like there was a slight differentiator in the business podcast space because we were not just journalists, nor were we like... never has been. We had, like, done it. We had started many companies.

Sam Parr

or were not sales

Shaan Puri

We had failed, and we had... sold companies. We had done real things. So that was kind of interesting. "Oh, what if you actually had a podcast with entrepreneurs who are **more successful than the average podcast**?"

Sam Parr

I think you're looking for the term for us by us

Shaan Puri

We *poo-pooed* it. Yeah, but now... you get to see billionaires doing this. **Reid Hoffman** has a podcast; **Zuck** is going on podcasts—it's like, who doesn't have a podcast at this point? I think that's really cool. The same thing's happening in sports. Current and past athletes now have sports podcasts. Whereas before, the only sports podcast you'd get was a hardcore fan in his mom's basement ranting about his team, or a journalist. Now you have this *"third thing"*—somebody who's actually been there and done that and gives their perspective. Not to say it's always better, but it's interesting that that's now happening.

Sam Parr

another good one now

Shaan Puri

To us, yeah. But the problem with something like—let's say **All-In** or other podcasts like that—is you always have to parse the agenda. For example: "Wow, this guy's really bearish on nuclear and really pro-solar." You go look into Shamash's profile and it's like, "Oh wow, he's made enormous bets on solar." That's him "talking his book," in a way. And that's okay—it's fine to talk your book—but you have to constantly do that underwriting yourself as a listener: what's the bias here? The beautiful thing about **Vitalik** is that the guy is such an uber-nerd that you can actually *take him at face value*. It's so nice to have somebody you can take at face value. Other people might disagree; I don't care—I take him at face value. I've followed this guy for, you know, eight years straight now, and he's done nothing to make me think he's just trying to pump his bags. In fact, he actively does things against his bags—he's not pumping Ethereum. We're talking about where it lacks or what's slow about it, and underpromising what it's going to be. I think that's great: we have access to someone who is not trying to take something from us in the process.

Sam Parr

That's a very good speech on this guy. I'm — I'm gonna... I don't even think you could subscribe to him. There isn't even an email form on his blog. He publishes a lot. Alright, so listen: **October 29th**, **October 26th**, **October 23rd**, **October 20th** — he's been writing these posts a lot. Those posts that I just mentioned, I put them into a word counter. One of them was **6,000 words**. Now, I don't know... like, I don't know how Bitcoin

Shaan Puri

The *dramatic look* you just gave me when you said that... I was supposed to audibly gasp?</FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

Dude, that's so much work. I've written a lot of blog posts. A 6,000-word blog post would take me probably 40 hours. It's so much work. Would you — you're this guy and you created **Ethereum**. Is it one of those things where you've created it and can now walk away? Or is it like a house, and you have to maintain it?

Shaan Puri

no he's actively working on it

Sam Parr

like I don't know is it like a thing where you're like

Shaan Puri

I mean, it's **bigger than just him**, obviously. But yeah—he's, you know, **actively dedicated to life**.

Sam Parr

reroof it every once in a while I I don't know how these things work like ethereum I don't know like did you just

Shaan Puri

**Ethereum** was like a 10-year roadmap. So it's not even like reroofing it—it's like building a hotel one floor at a time, and people are staying in the hotel. But you told them from the beginning, "This is a 50-story hotel," and I haven't even built all those other things that we're going to need in order for this to work. Like, *there's no elevators yet*. I know we're going to make elevators; for now, we take the stairs. That's like the transaction fees and all that.

Sam Parr

The reason I'm asking is: **how on earth** is he writing this much stuff while doing a full-time job?

Shaan Puri

Because Ethereum doesn't work like that. It's not like he's sitting there coding all day or managing people. It's not a company; it's more like a nonprofit foundation—an *open-source project* of which he's a steward and a champion. But he doesn't have, like, 25 direct reports, you know what I mean?</FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

does he have a girlfriend or wife yet

Shaan Puri

I'm not sure. I've seen a bunch of pictures, but it's so hard with him to tell what's a meme and what's reality, because he's so *memeable*. When Bitcoin or Ethereum's price goes down, they post pictures of him and they're like, "Goddamn it... it's because he has a girlfriend, by the way."

Sam Parr

like is his girlfriend just gonna be like which way is it gonna go

Shaan Puri

So it's **November 13th**. We're recording this. Exactly one month ago, I came on this podcast and I said, "Tim, can I give you my one-minute case for Bitcoin?" You literally rolled your eyes and audibly groaned at me and said, "Haven't you already done that? Like, are you—are you talking about why you like Bitcoin again?" I just want to say the price is up **47%** since I did that rant.

Sam Parr

Alright, well—are you like that? Are you like that French dude? Are you the French guy? Were you smart, or ballsy—were you smart and ballsy, or just smart?

Shaan Puri

Go back and listen to it. It's in the episode called *"Did the Creator of Bitcoin Get Unmasked?"* at the 30‑minute mark.

Sam Parr

20 seconds not debating

Shaan Puri

if you said that I'm saying did you make sure go listen to the case and say did I get lucky or was I smart

Sam Parr

did I have something that

Shaan Puri

I have a reason

Sam Parr

asking what I'm asking is did you make the bet

Shaan Puri

oh of course what do you mean

Sam Parr

"Well, what I'm saying is: did you just say it was going to be good, or did you *actually* invest your own money into it?"

Shaan Puri

oh dude I'm polymarket bro I was skin in the game

Sam Parr

does and does gambling on polymarket mean you have bitcoin

Shaan Puri

Well, it's like **Polymarket** versus a poll. A poll is just saying what you're going to do. Polymarket is putting your money down and saying what you think is actually going to happen. I put my money up and said what I thought was going to happen.

Sam Parr

Yeah, I mean, it's had a hell of a run—almost as good as *Palantir*. Everything's fucking crazy right now, though... like, everything when I look at it now.

Shaan Puri

too crazy

Sam Parr

"Everything's too crazy. I don't know anything about any of this, but it seems like it'd be a good time to make the opposite prediction. So, yeah—*you were right*. It's just... how long are you going to be right for? Right now, everything is just *insane*."

Shaan Puri

Yeah. And of course one-month fluctuations are nothing. But the reason I thought it was bullish was the same reason it's pumping right now. There were a whole bunch of big developments. For example, the government was going to be pro-Bitcoin — which was always Bitcoin's biggest risk. People used to say, "Even if the technology is better, the government will never allow this." The guy who is going to become president is saying not only will he allow it, he's effectively bought and sold by crypto donors. Both sides are moving in that direction. I don't know if you saw Congress and the Senate, but there are about **140 pro-crypto people** now in active government — that number was zero seven years ago. I felt like these things were not priced in properly. Now they're talking about a **Bitcoin strategic reserve** for the country itself. Once you go in, it's almost impossible to unwind these changes. I thought that when a top two or three risk gets *de-risked*, that should change your underwriting on the price. I thought that wasn't happening — the price was flat and people weren't paying attention to that one fact. What a world. So, in summary: I was right. Thank you.

Sam Parr

You were right. You absolutely are right. **Everything is insane at the moment.** I hope your prediction will be true for many, many, many more months and many more years, but it's definitely making me nervous at the moment. **Everything is insane.** Is that where we...

Shaan Puri

"End. That's where we end. This has been a fantastic podcast — to Martha Stewart, to Bitcoin, to the Polymarket whale that's called... **Thank you for your service.**"

Sam Parr

**Hot, hot heat.** The hot, hot heat was served. "You're welcome." Alright, that's it — that's the pod.