This guy sold 3 YouTube Channels to Blackstone for $3B

- March 25, 2025 (about 1 year ago) • 47:46

Transcript

Start Time	Speaker	Text
00:00	Shaan Puri	I gotta tell you about a YouTube story. Okay—this is a story of how a guy found an underrated opportunity in the YouTube market and turned it into $3 billion. So there's this guy, Renee, and Renee discovers an opportunity. Sam—do you know what the "most-viewed YouTube channel" is? The most views on YouTube—do you know?
00:30	Sam Parr	The obvious answer would be MrBeast. The second: MrBeast.
00:33	Shaan Puri	"Number 13—why, why are we talking about number 13? I'm not talking about number one, Sam."
00:37	Sam Parr	Okay. Do I do the "bro move" where I under-guess till you quit? No... I'm gonna say some type of "Indian thing," probably like a "correct." [unclear transcription of final phrase] </FormattedResponse>
00:45	Shaan Puri	Indian number one is T-Series. It's Indian music, so it's just like all the famous Bollywood songs. But do you know what number two is?
00:51	Sam Parr	I don't know. No idea. Cocomelon. Cocomelon — yeah, God.
00:55	Shaan Puri	Does your kid watch Cocomelon, or are they too young, maybe?
00:57	Sam Parr	"I refuse to let her watch Cocomelon because it's crack."
01:02	Shaan Puri	It's so baby, by the way. Number two, number five, number six, number seven — those are all just like Cocomelon. They're basically kids' entertainment channels. A couple of them are Russian and Ukrainian in the top 10 of all views. Cocomelon was a channel that actually started back in 2006–2007. This dad was an animator/filmmaker and his wife, who I think was a cartoonist for children's books, noticed there was nothing good on YouTube for kids. So they started creating very simple animations for kids on YouTube. If you go to their channel and sort by oldest, the very oldest one — I think it's about eighteen years ago — is a video that's like the "ABC Song." It's a forty-second video. Crazy. If you look at all the old ones, it doesn't look like Cocomelon today. There's no character, no kid "JJ," no crazy, sped-up animations — nothing. It's literally just nursery rhymes: "ABC," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Baa Baa Black Sheep" — all the hits. Those started getting a lot of views, and for about 10+ years it was just them doing animations: no sponsors, no merchandise, no gimmicks — nothing. They were just living off YouTube ad revenue. They built a small team, about 20 people. Ten-plus years — wow. That's a grind. They did that. There's another story: Blippi. I don't know if you're familiar with Blippi. Blippi is
02:41	Sam Parr	"Sort of a guy who sings, but it's like many guys now."
02:45	Shaan Puri	Yeah, they've switched out the character. Basically, it's a guy who wears a blue suit with orange overalls and a bow tie. He says, "Yeah, it's me, Blippi," right? Basically, he goes to—well, not abandoned, I shouldn't say that—kids' play places [children's play centers] when they're closed. He goes and plays in them, films himself playing in the play place, and he teaches you things. It's a slightly educational, slightly fun channel.
03:08	Sam Parr	Wait, were you going to say Blippi is exploring abandoned places—like abandoned warehouses? Like... is... </FormattedResponse>
03:14	Shaan Puri	Abandoned play places — There's no one there, but they're not abandoned.
03:17	Sam Parr	I thought you'd be like, "Today's special word is tetanus," like... if you did.
03:25	Shaan Puri	Did you say "rabid, rabid"? So, Blippi—this guy basically sees that his, I think, niece or nephew or something like that, is watching these really low-quality videos of tractors. You know, kids love trucks and tractors.
03:39	Sam Parr	I do.
03:39	Shaan Puri	He's like, "Oh man, my kids love this. My nephew loves this tractor video." So he goes and he makes one. "If you get the same thing, go to the Blippi channel. You click oldest, you'll see it's a video of a tractor going through a field." His next one is another tractor video, and he's on green screen with it. He's not even near a tractor — he just green-screens himself on top of it. So he starts creating this and starts getting a lot of views. What happens is there's this guy, Renee, and what Renee does is he decides to create a pre-roll ad around these kids' YouTube channels. The opportunity is that Renee worked at a company called Maker Studios. Do you remember Maker?
04:13	Sam Parr	Yeah, it kind of ended up being like they were the hottest thing going. They raised money at a multi-billion-dollar valuation. It didn't exactly live up to that, but it kind of created—like, it was so innovative that a lot of the employees went on to do amazing stuff. Is that right?
04:27	Shaan Puri	Kind of, yeah. So, basically, they were early on to the YouTube professionalization. What they were trying to do was create what's called an MCN (a multi-channel network). It's sort of like an agency—like a CAA for YouTube talent. For some of the channels they would own the channels and the talent would operate them; for others, the talent owned their own channel and the network would handle the brand deals. But instead of you, the one YouTuber, negotiating your brand deals, they would go to, you know, Coca‑Cola and negotiate it for all 30 channels on their network. It’s like creating a television channel but on YouTube. This idea sounded really good; it just wasn't a really good idea. It's been tried and failed many, many times. It was one of those startups you have to be very wary of because it's reasoning by analogy. If you ever hear Elon talk about "reasoning from first principles"—which is basically you take solid truths, like logic, and build one logic block on top of another, like a stack of Lego blocks that all click together in a chain of logic—reasoning by analogy is to say, "Yeah, we're CAA but for YouTube." You don't really understand the underlying assumptions about how YouTube works and how Hollywood works—they're totally different. There actually doesn't need to be a CAA for YouTube, or it wouldn't be that valuable if you were the CAA of YouTube. But it raised money and it was a very hyped thing at the time. They actually ended up with a good exit to Disney. I think Disney bought them for $700 million or $900 million—something like that. A big exit, but it was kind of a failed company; it failed inside of Disney.
05:56	Sam Parr	But it could be an okay business—just not a good business that requires, yeah, hundreds of millions in funding.
06:05	Shaan Puri	There are plenty of these—like agents and creator agencies on TikTok and Twitch—that are bootstrapped and do a few million dollars a year in profit. Good for them. So, Renee—he's at Maker. He didn't start it, but he works there. When Disney acquires Maker, he goes to Disney and becomes the head of digital content internationally. He realizes an opportunity and says: > "When I was at Maker, I realized that kids' YouTube videos were getting tons of views but were overlooked by traditional private equity and media companies because they basically looked too janky to be taken seriously." He noted that of the top 100 most viewed children's brands online, none of them were owned by big studios. At Disney, he saw that the top 100 kids' channels on YouTube weren't owned by Disney, Pixar, or any of the major studios. His co-founder—who was at Paramount at the time—added that none of those YouTube channels that are getting all these views had streaming deals. Streamers want exclusivity, and the YouTubers say, "YouTube's my bread and butter—why would I take the content off YouTube?" So they weren't doing deals. They got together, stack-ranked channels, and created a simple set of criteria. They looked for two things: high views and a quality IP—meaning a recognizable brand or character people might associate with and love, something you might someday buy a plush or toy of. If a channel had both, they were interested. Straight out of the gate they raised about $150,000,000 and said they were going to do this roll-up. They did three deals. Shout-out to the Rollup Europe / Beehive newsletter for the detailed breakdown—traditional media only had surface-level details. Because these companies are based in Europe and listed in Companies House, the newsletter author could see specifics like CEO pay. The headline of the story is: they took that $150,000,000, started buying up these channels, and four years later they exited to Blackstone for $3,000,000,000. Technically, they exited to Candle—Candle was backed by Blackstone, which is where Candle got the money—but the sale price was $3,000,000,000.
08:26	Sam Parr	Alright, so a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. A lot of listeners have a full-time job and want to start something on the side—a side hustle. Many people message Sean and me and ask, "Alright, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea?" What they're really saying is, "Give me the ideas." Well, friends, you're in luck. My old company, The Hustle, put together 100 different side-hustle ideas and have appropriately called it the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's a list of 100 pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them—they're awesome. The database shows you how to start them, how to grow them, and provides a little bit of inspiration. Check it out—it's called the Side Hustle Idea Database. It's in the description below; you'll see the link. Click it, check it out, and let me know in the comments what you think.
09:18	Shaan Puri	So they break it down: they bought Cocomelon for $103,000,000 — $92,000,000 upfront and $11,000,000 contingent. They paid $70,000,000 for Blippi, of which only $26,000,000 was upfront and $45,000,000 was contingent. The third big one was Little Baby Bum (which also included nursery rhymes), and they paid $65,000,000 for that. They had raised more money — equity and debt — about $400,000,000 in total to create the $3,000,000,000 exit. So roughly a 10x return on the capital they used to buy these channels. Wow — and in four years, literally through M&A, they were able to create $3,000,000,000 of value. Their holding company is called Moonbug. Here's what happened with revenue: 2019 is sort of like a $20,000,000-a-year business. $20... 2020 it's about a $50,000,000-a-year business. Then it goes to $1.50 [unclear — possibly $150,000,000], and then it goes to $230,000,000, with $100,000,000 in EBITDA before they got taken out.
10:20	Sam Parr	"Holy shit! It was doing 100,000,000 in EBITDA in only four years."
10:24	Shaan Puri	Exactly. And the founders of this thing—each of them cleared: Renee makes $300,000,000 for this four years of work. His co-founder makes $300,000,000. The head of M&A made $60,000,000, and the CFO made, like, $20 or $30,000,000,000 in the roll-up. The rest went to the investors.
10:41	Sam Parr	When they bought these companies, did they need to be great at operating YouTube? Or were they so good at incentivizing Blippi—or whatever—that they were like, "Just keep going. You're doing fine. You get this much of your payout if you hit this and that"?
10:58	Shaan Puri	So, these businesses are simple and complex at the same time. What do I mean by that? One: a lot of the views are just going to come from the back catalog. So, you know, it's still "Wheels on the Bus" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"—that is racking up views every single month. You don't have to do anything to those videos.
11:13	Sam Parr	I'm not sure if you're referring to "Wheels on the Bus" as an analogy for running a company, or if you literally mean the song "Wheels on the Bus."
11:20	Shaan Puri	Yeah — the song... and so the back catalog gets a lot of views. What they did, which is smart, is that Cocomelon wasn't originally called Cocomelon. It was originally called "Checkgate," which sounds like a baggage company.
11:33	Sam Parr	Dude, it reminds me of... it sounds like the cult. Remember the cult where they all killed themselves? It was like Heaven's Gate—"checkgate."
11:40	Shaan Puri	Okay, so yeah — not familiar with that. I need to brush up on my cults. Yeah. They started as Checka and then rebranded to ABC Kid TV. If you watch the early videos, it'll still say "ABC Kid TV" and then start the song. Then they rebranded to Cocomelon, but that was around 2017 or something like that. It was a long time — about ten-plus years into the company — when they rebranded and introduced JJ, the characters, and the colors. Basically, that's where you get the characters. Same thing with Blippi. They had Blippi, then they took out the original guy and replaced him with a rotating actor because he was ready to move on. They also introduced Mika, a more diverse character who could appeal to a wider audience. So they're making moves in the content. The other moves they made were getting it on the streamers. They got it on Netflix; Cocomelon is now the most-watched kids show on Netflix. Then they went into the toys business — millions and millions in toys and licensing. They built out the full suite of business around these brands. They do "Blippi the Musical," a live tour going around the nation that's selling out. My family and I went, and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. These things become really successful businesses. They kind of use the Disney playbook: create massively loved IP and then monetize it through everything — except they just didn't do theme parks.
13:09	Sam Parr	Have you seen on South Park where Mickey Mouse, you know, comes off as this nice guy, but behind the scenes he's trying to convince the Jonas Brothers that they better wear their "virginity rings" or their "chastity rings" because they're wanting to have sex, and he's like...
13:23	Shaan Puri	"You better put that fucking ring back on." First of all, incredible impression. Yeah, like — what'd you feel three seconds before you did that? Before you committed?
13:38	Sam Parr	You know, when you're taking a risk, you cannot paint a world where it's only upside. You have to accept that there is potentially downside. These are the things I tell myself before I'm ever taking a big risk, and I thought about that.
13:53	Shaan Puri	"I'm a risk taker."
13:54	Sam Parr	Yeah, I'm a risk-taker.
13:55	Shaan Puri	"I do impromptu impressions sometimes that I've never done before."
13:58	Sam Parr	But that's what I imagined Renee to be. He's like, "Listen, Blippi — I need you to put that fucking tie on, and I need you to get out there and dance." Like when Blippi's asking for a raise: "What's the hard part about this business? Is it convincing people to sell?" </FormattedResponse>
14:15	Shaan Puri	No, I don't think that was that hard because they had a huge check, and the huge check helps. At the time, I think Cocomelon had done like 80 million in revenue or something like that that year, and then they bought them for 100 million. So they bought them, you know, probably at a 5x or 6x multiple of profits or something like that. I don't know exactly the multiple, but I'm guessing. They probably offered them something like, "Hey, here's a bunch of money that you could have. You've been running for years doing this on a treadmill — what if we could help? What if we could take you to the next level?" You don't know those people. "Oh, I golf with the guy from Netflix. Oh, I used to be at Paramount. I was at Disney. I can help you get to the next level, break down doors that didn't seem like they were open." The hard part was picking up the gold on the ground. This happens a lot in business: these ideas are just sitting on the ground. The hard part is somebody taking a very simple idea very seriously, so to say. Like, "That silly nursery-rhyme channel — I'm gonna go raise $150 million from whoever, Goldman Sachs, to go and acquire these." You have to say that with a straight face when there's no track record of that; you have to really pitch a strong case.
15:29	Sam Parr	I also wonder — and you would actually have good insight into this because you worked at Twitch — what opportunity looks like. For example, when you described Renee's inner dialogue of, “Hey, look at all the top 100 channels — none of them are owned by PE, or they're all just kinda like these mom-and-pop shops,” that seemed so obvious. I wonder what that inner dialogue actually was, with uncertainty in the same way where I don't know anything about streaming but you used to work at Twitch. I also know there were a couple of new video platforms — Kick [Kick, the streaming platform] and another one I forget. I wonder if a Twitch employee could have looked at them and said, “These present an opportunity; here's a gap, because I can see the data, therefore we should support this.” What was the other one called — Kik?
16:16	Shaan Puri	There was Mixer. There was Kik. There was YouTube. Facebook too. There was a time, before Twitch acquired us, when we were building a tool in the ecosystem. We were getting to know a bunch of the streamers who were using our tool. We realized: this tool kind of caps out at about $100 million if we win. The size of this is about $100 million, we think. The problem is the platform is worth about $5 billion. How do we do the $5 billion thing? We figured we'd have to create another platform. The technology part is hard but doable. The hard part is getting the streamers and getting the network effect to shift. How do you break the network effect of something like Twitch? What you realize is that a very small number of streamers drive a huge amount of the viewership. In theory, you could get those streamers together and say, "Hey, we're coming over here." I actually went and pitched my investor — no, I shouldn't say "pitched," because I wasn't fully committed. I wasn't sure this was a swing worth taking. I was like, I think what we would need to do...
17:22	Sam Parr	> "Wouldn't it be neat if we did this?"
17:23	Shaan Puri	I was like, we need to throw some sort of event where we get the top 100 streamers in a room together. Basically, we need to make them an offer they can't refuse. We need to overpay the top 100. The thing is, with the top 100—even if they're making $5,000,000 a year—if you're offering them 3x or 4x, you'd need about $500,000,000 to do this. They'd still have to say yes, which is hard. But if you had $500,000,000, you could create a platform that's going to be worth $5,000,000,000. It's not that much more complicated. Once you have the streamers, you've got the hard part. You could build all the other stuff: the chat, the streaming technology, the Bits, the subscription feature—everything else you would need. You'd have to get the main feed creators to come over. You have to make the sentiment be: this is where you need to be, not Twitch. That's the really, really hard part. So we thought, "I don't know, that's kind of a crazy idea," and we didn't end up doing it. When we got acquired, Emmett took me out to drinks the night the deal closed. We met in this bar in the Mission and were talking. I said, "You can put your cards on the table now the deal's done." I told him one of the things I had thought about was paying streamers enough that we could get, I think, maybe 70% of them to come over, and that could have caused waves. He said, "Yeah, actually we've thought about that." What they had done was make sure that none of their top streamers' contracts all expired at the same time. Unlike YouTube, on Twitch many top creators have multi-year agreements. Emmett said, "We just made it so that they don't expire at the same time." They aligned contracts so the top streamers' deals were all ending at different times. That way, nobody would ever feel safe in numbers to move to another platform as a giant group—because they could never get their contracts to align.
19:17	Sam Parr	That's why Emmett is Emmett.
19:19	Shaan Puri	Yeah. Actually, I think, in reality, that wasn't the case. In truth, the streamers could have just moved over, and there was nothing Twitch could have done about it. The contract wasn't "you have to stream here." The contract was "you only get this deal if you stream here," meaning you get this ratio, this split, or this minimum guarantee. But the reality was if Twitch went and started suing streamers, that would have been horrible for their own business. They would never do it. That's why multiple streamers took money from Mixer, Kick, and others and left—and Twitch didn't do anything about it. A more high-agency version of me could have actually tried that, and it probably would have been more worthwhile than what we did with the tool, because the tool never had the upside.
20:04	Sam Parr	This is a great story. I want to know the update. I want to know what happened, and how did you know how much money he made?
20:11	Shaan Puri	I told you, my guy on Beehive. He basically went to his L. Renee's LLC—or whatever, the equivalent of an LLC on Companies House [UK company registry]—and you could see that $280,000,000 hit the bank in a certain year. They had to report that. So he kinda did all the math, and he also had their cap table—like their waterfall. It was actually kind of nerdy and interesting. The way they structured the deal was that the founders who were doing the roll-up were entitled to somewhere between 22% to 28% of all proceeds of the roll-up. That was their profit participation at the end. So whatever we sell this for, we get between 22% to 28%; investors are gonna get the rest.
20:48	Sam Parr	"Wait — that's insane. That's different from equity."
20:52	Shaan Puri	No, it's like equity, but it's basically—you have equity, and then you can have, let's say, preferred equity. You can have liquidation preferences. You can have rules; you can have strings attached to equity. </FormattedResponse>
21:03	Sam Parr	So, for example—wow, I did not know that.
21:04	Shaan Puri	"What they did — you did? Because in venture this happens all the time, right? When a company raises money, they issue preferred shares. Preferred shares mean they get their money back first. So even if I own 25%, I don't necessarily get 25%. I might get zero."
21:14	Sam Parr	I guess I just assumed that if this is a PE firm [private equity firm], the rules are different. For example, it was tied to the carry or something like that.
21:21	Shaan Puri	So what they did was base it on the multiple of invested capital — the MOIC (multiple on invested capital). If the return was under a 3x return, and they had raised 400,000,000, they were going to get only about 9% of the proceeds (or a lower percentage).
21:37	Sam Parr	Got it.
21:37	Shaan Puri	But they hit 10x, right, so they hit the highest tranche, which was basically they got their 10% sweat equity + 11% profit participation, so they got like 22% or something.
21:47	Sam Parr	Did they use any of their own money to start this?
21:50	Shaan Puri	I think Renee was an investor, but I don't know how much.
21:53	Sam Parr	Yeah, this guy's great — that's a good story. I have a life update for you. Okay, let's do it. I wanted to share because I think it's fun, but I also think a lot of people can learn from the situation I'm in, because I think they're in similar situations. The life update: my partner, Joe, and I are now the CEOs of my company, Hampton. The update is basically that I'm going pretty much all in on it. I wanted to explain a quote I read that made me want to do this. So we — or at least I — like Palmer Luckey. Do you like Palmer Luckey?
22:25	Shaan Puri	Yeah, sure—why not?
22:26	Sam Parr	Palmer Luckey — we had him on the pod like three years ago, maybe two — and I've been fascinated with his way of thinking. He had an interview come out (I linked to it at the bottom of our document). It was with Tablet Magazine, and I think it came out in 2022. I want to read it to you. Palmer Luckey is the CEO of Anduril, a $13 or $20 billion company — something like that. He also created Oculus. > "In business and in life and in romance, you have to commit to a path. A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this philosophy. They're always pursuing everything with optionality: 'Oh, I need to be able to raise money from anybody. I need to be able to sell my business in any way. I need to have liquidity in any way. I need to make sure that I'm not closing myself off to future romantic partners. I need to make sure that I've got my options open. I need to make sure that I'm not gonna buy a house and lock myself in or having children — I don't know, I'm not ready. I don't want to commit to that path.' By keeping their options open, they ensure that they're going to jump from option to option, and if they don't commit to a path they're going to fail at it. You have to commit to make it work. And I think marriage is the same way: you just have to commit to it. You have to say, 'This is the path that I'm on, for better or worse, and I'm going to double down.'" I thought that was a great quote that really stuck with me when I read it. I realized that with my business, Hampton, I had hired a CEO for it, and so I wasn't able to, like, really...
23:59	Shaan Puri	From day one, right? I think that's the important thing.
24:01	Sam Parr	[unclear phrase: "day month eight"] I got it to $1 million in revenue. He scaled it to eight-figure revenue, and I am now taking over. Because of that, I wasn't able to put my influence on it. You have to respect your CEO; you have to respect the manager in charge. I hated that. I was not a fan of it. I think on this podcast we talk a lot about that. It sounds cool, and I'm sure it's great for a lot of people, but it wasn't great for me. The reason I wanted to bring this up on the podcast was because a lot of people you see doing this call it a "hold company"—a holding company—or whatever, where they're doing lots of different stuff. We glamorize it. If it works, I'm sure it's great if that is your main thing. I was starting to think, "Oh, that would be great; I would like to do that." I realized I don't want to do that. I just want to do one thing. This quote really inspired me — that's really what I care about. </FormattedResponse>
24:58	Shaan Puri	Now let me ask you a couple questions. You weren't doing a holding company, though, right? You were just doing Hampton already, yeah? So why the switch? Where did you go from being a founder/chairman‑type person to saying, "I want to be the CEO" — or actually co‑CEO, not even be the CEO? Why that?
25:16	Sam Parr	I realized that I wanted to have full control because I wanted this to be a legacy-creating company. I wanted to just put my texture on it. But also, when I realized I hate remote work—I hate it more than anything—I wanted to create an office where I live and an office culture, because those are some of the greatest memories that I have. You and I used to work across the street from each other at the corner of Bush and Montgomery, right? I loved that intersection: just walking out, seeing the action, seeing my employees upstairs, being able to go for lunch and just shoot the shit during breaks. I loved it, and I felt that this was a really good way to make all of my selfish wants come to reality.
25:59	Shaan Puri	Alright, yeah — that's great. I think a lot of people are probably feeling this right now because everybody went remote during COVID, and now we're, what, two or three years into that full-remote decision. At first you have the honeymoon of remote: "Ah, look at this — I don't have to commute. I don't have to even get dressed. I don't have to wear pants; I just have to put on a top." You know, "this is great, I can see my kids." Then you're like, "God, I can't get away from my kids. I haven't left the house in weeks," or whatever. You start to see some of the consequences — the negative side — of those decisions. I think the biggest one for you and me, at least I felt this, is I miss just being creative and serendipitous with my team. So it's like: a) have a team, and b) be able to just whiteboard, sticky-note, go for a walk, go to lunch. I brought Diego out here. Diego was living on the other side of the country — he's living on the East Coast, in Baltimore.
26:59	Sam Parr	How long has it been now?
27:01	Shaan Puri	Diego's been out here for a couple of months—two, three months, something like that.
27:04	Sam Parr	How has your life changed?
27:05	Shaan Puri	For the better, dude. Way better. First of all, I get to kinda still do basically what I do, but now I just have a buddy to do all of it with, right? I kept the same schedule: in the morning he comes over. The first two hours of my day are my creative block — I don't do anything else. I just write, podcast, or read. I only do things on the creative side. It's like a creative gym session — like going to the gym, but for creativity. We do that together now, and it's great. Then my trainer comes over and we work out together. He's working out with my trainer now, so it's great. We do a hard workout, then we go grab tacos. And while we're grabbing tacos, dude, you guys...
27:43	Sam Parr	They're like a prison gang, man. That sounds exactly like a prison gang.
27:45	Shaan Puri	You wake up, need some enemies, dude. Yeah, I promise—there's just, like, old retired people around us. If they go start a beef... Actually, I do have some neighborly beef. I could—I could actually just double down.
27:57	Sam Parr	On that.
27:57	Shaan Puri	Now that I think about it.
27:59	Sam Parr	Get blown.
28:01	Shaan Puri	"I'm sorry — I don't control the wind." But then, where we go... what I told him was: "Go notice this, dude: our best ideas — how many of them have come while we were at that taco shop?" There's something in the creative process like what they used to call the bounce in the pickup-artist world. In the book The Game, they talk about this technique called "the bounce." The idea is: you're at a club or bar and you meet someone. If you really want to accelerate your connection, don't just stay there for another hour. Say, "Hey, let's go grab a bite to eat — I know a great place." If you spend the same hour together but in two different places, the connection goes up. There's something similar with creativity. We're working on a problem, we get slightly stuck, or we come up with a solution that doesn't feel right. So we take a break and change the environment. We walk or bike to a taco place, and once we've taken our minds off it and changed the setting, that's where the idea comes. Notice how often that happens. If we were just remote, none of that would have happened. I would have gotten off Zoom and taken a break, and you would have done the same, but we wouldn't say, "Hey, let's just leave our phones on" — that would be a little weird. We wouldn't have had those next ideas. If you're in a creative line of work, those ideas are gold. That's what you're in it for, unless you're in a factory-type job where it's all about output. For us, creativity is productivity — it is the new productivity — and being in person was pretty massive for enabling that.
29:35	Sam Parr	Yeah, it's funny. We're both craving the same stuff, and I think a lot of people are. And I... yeah. So, like, I went and looked at apartments this weekend. We have our— I think my lease starts May 1. I'm going all in on this in-real-life stuff. Like, I need...
29:53	Shaan Puri	Do move, or you're gonna... split. </FormattedResponse>
29:56	Sam Parr	I don't know yet. I'm still working in logistics. I went and looked at this apartment building. Have you ever been to— I don't know if this is happening in San Francisco—but the new thing in New York is that there are these apartment buildings. It took me a long time to realize what they are, but I've nailed it: they're "cruise ships." So basically what they are is—they're really cheap... I mean, they're super expensive—but the build quality is kinda crap. All the units are basic builder-quality apartment units, but then the actual lobby has a bowling alley.
30:27	Shaan Puri	Oh, the amenities are amazing.
30:29	Sam Parr	Yeah—like a rock-climbing gym, and it's literally all in the basement. Then it has the best gym you've ever seen in the world, a playroom, a golf simulator. It's basically built to be a mall—built for 35-year-old, two- or three-kid families with kids all under eight. I went and looked at an apartment like that. I was sitting in the building and thinking, I don't know if I can go to bed here at night in these tight-ass walls, hearing honking in the city. I haven't decided if I can put up with that. I'd rather commute, but potentially I would move to the city. Here's what I did: I sat down and asked, "What's my dream day?" My dream day is: I get up at 7:00, I work out, and then I get coffee with Austin Reef, who lives next to my in-laws—or I would get coffee with my in-laws. Then I go to work at 9:30, my wife shows up at the office to do some work, and we're both home at 5:00 to have dinner. Maybe at 7:00 or 8:00, after the kids go to bed, I would go for a walk outside. That's the perfect day. So how can I create that? I'm still working backwards on how to create it. The problem is I forgot about going to bed at night—I need a huge ceiling because I get claustrophobic. That's going to cost $60,000 a month because New York City is crazy when it comes to renting an apartment. I'm still trying to figure out some of those logistical details—how on earth I could pull this off.
31:49	Shaan Puri	It was super relatable—walking and doing whatever—until you're like, "But I need 16-foot ceilings to sleep."
31:56	Sam Parr	No. I just—at your house. A lot of apartment ceilings are eight feet tall, and I don't know... you feel claustrophobic, dude. The rent in New York City is outlandish. When we were younger—do you remember the idea of when we were 25? I think I spent $800 a month. A $10,000-a-month apartment nowadays in New York City isn't nice; it's like a shit two-bedroom. It's crazy how expensive Manhattan is. Yeah, that's wild. I gotta figure out all the logistics, but that's my spiel. I'm going all in, and I'm gonna go all in in real life. I need it—my soul is aching.
32:30	Shaan Puri	How much were you working on Hampton, anyway—hours a week?
32:33	Sam Parr	Forty hours a week, like it was...
32:35	Shaan Puri	Like, what's gonna change? You're CEO now.
32:38	Sam Parr	Well, I can't. Like, before it was: "How can I convince this person that my idea is the right way? How do I respect the boundaries?" You know, I was a very respectful boss, I felt like. But now it's like, I'm not really gonna be respectful. I'm just gonna say, "This is what I want to make. I need you guys to help me make this." That's the energy I'm bringing. Versus before—I think I was a little bit more hands-off and I was thinking a lot. Now I'm actually operating.
33:07	Shaan Puri	Yeah. Oh no — that's just funny. I feel like I was just reflecting. You know, I think Andrew has a good gift for this. I do this too, which is: we tell these great stories. You're like, "I was reading this article about Palmer Luckey; he said this beautiful quote," and you have this quote and you're like, "I decided I, too, need to commit and choose a path." It's a great way to frame a story — and it's true. But I think the truth in a lot of these situations is that it's irritating to be out of control, to not have your hands on it. I like to be in control and do things my way. That, however, is a less fun story to tell. The more accurate take is: I really feel like we all chase optionality, and we're better off to commit.
33:54	Sam Parr	That is the truth.
33:55	Shaan Puri	It's like... I think it's the truth, but I don't think that's why you're the CEO now.
33:59	Sam Parr	Usually... discovery read.
34:01	Shaan Puri	This Palmer Leckie quote.
34:02	Sam Parr	No — usually discovery, for me (and I bet it's the same for you and for many other people), is that you feel a certain way and you're like, "This freaking sucks."
34:09	Shaan Puri	Someone puts.
34:10	Sam Parr	"Words. Then someone puts words on it, and you're like, 'Oh, that's normal to feel,' or 'This person said this,' right?"
34:16	Shaan Puri	I guess what I'm saying is: you weren't choosing multiple options; you just weren't in control. The quote that Palmer Luckey should have said is: "If you're the founder, put your fucking DNA in the company and just go—be hands-on, be a micromanager. Go in there. Do it."
34:29	Sam Parr	I was going easy. I was in the dad phase, so I wanted to be available at noon. Now I'm more like, "Look, I can be there in the morning and in the evening." I think that's—gotcha—I'm still being a good dad. Before it was like, "I have to have X amount of hours of FaceTime." Now I'm out of the honeymoon phase of being a dad, and I'm like, "Look, I could be with you for breakfast and be with you for dinner. I think I could still be a good father." And so that was partially it.
34:58	Shaan Puri	Gotcha. Yeah, I was talking to somebody recently and they were like, "You know, I just want to — I'm working, I'm working hard on this." They're chasing some projects, some deal. I was like, why are you doing this? You've done so many deals. You're post-economic; you've made so much money. Why go so hard at this? They said, "I just really want my kids to see their dad working." I don't — I don't even think he was lying. I think he genuinely believes that. But I'm like, dude, you're doing this deal because you like doing deals. That's all you've done. You've done deals for thirty years. You're amazing at doing deals. It's a rush to do a great deal. It's fun to win. It's fun to dunk the basketball, and you're trying to dunk. You don't have to be like, "I just want my kids to see a hardworking dad." Dude, you're sitting on your laptop sending emails. It's not like they see their dad, you know, sweating it out in the soul.
35:47	Sam Parr	Not chopping down the wood, dude.
35:49	Shaan Puri	Yeah, so I was like, "People tell themselves all kinds of stories," and I just find it hilarious—because, of course, I do the same thing. When you see it in other people, it's much easier to spot. You think, "Oh, you've told yourself a story," and that's fine. Whatever gets you to do the things you want to do is fine.
36:03	Sam Parr	"Would you want your children to work with you? Is that even in your wants?"
36:08	Shaan Puri	I would think that would be really fun or cool to do. I worked with my dad for about a year, and it was actually a lot of fun—much more fun. Working with my dad was more fun than just hanging out with my dad and not working. I learned more that way, and I saw him differently. He acted differently in work mode than he did in home mode, so it was kinda cool. I think it would be really fun, but it's not something I'm trying to gear up for right now. I think I've told you this before: my new sort of dad ideal is Ben's dad, Andy. He did a very simple thing—which might sound like nothing—but I personally think it was quite profound. The way I initially was trying to be a dad (and how many other people are dads) is this: you have things you're into. I love basketball, so I keep trying to buy little basketballs and put them near my son. I buy the hoop, take him to a class—I’m really trying to get him into basketball because I want him to love the things I love so we can share that and bond over it. Whereas Andy was like: he finds out Ben is O negative [the universal donor], and he has one son who's into stand-up comedy. Andy's response was, "Great—I'm now into stand-up comedy." Yesterday he knew nothing and didn't care; today everything he does is eat, sleep, and breathe stand-up comedy. He bought books, watched videos, went to shows by himself, started practicing, and began giving his son feedback on every single thing in a helpful, supportive way. He made connections and did whatever he could. He was like, "I'll meet you where you're at." Ben loves the Phoenix Suns. Guess what? Andy now watches every Phoenix Suns game, is a hardcore fan, and is always talking about the Suns—because he's committed to meeting his son where he is. I just thought that was a really selfless, amazing thing he did, and I hadn't seen a lot of dads do that. I think my instinct—and many dads' instinct—is to try to get them to like the stuff we like. When they don't, we're like, "Alright, I support you, but at arm's length." I thought it was much cooler to go all in on what your kids are into. I hope—and I'll expose my kids to business and be totally open to them working with me—but I really want to do the Andy thing. If they're into whatever—musicals—then do "Do Re Mi," you know what I mean?
38:25	Sam Parr	That's awesome. That almost makes me emotional here about Ben's dad. What a—what a great dude.
38:33	Shaan Puri	He really is.
38:34	Sam Parr	Do you want to end there, or do you want to keep going? </FormattedResponse>
38:36	Shaan Puri	I have one quick one. This is actually kinda cool. This guy Josh on Twitter—Joshua Ogundu—tweeted this out. It was cool. He tweeted about a company called Shotzi. Have you ever heard of Shotzi? It's an app.
38:50	Sam Parr	No. Yeah, didn't we talk about Shotzi?
38:53	Shaan Puri	No. So Shotzi is an app for tracking your Ozempic injections. Oh — that is funny. It just crossed $1 million in ARR [annual recurring revenue]. All it does is basically act as a shot tracker. So, you know... I guess — I don't know, maybe you could tell me — like, I guess it's somewhat cumbersome to keep track: maybe I don't know if it's when you did it, or how much your dosages are, or a reminder for when it's time for your next shot.
39:19	Sam Parr	By the way, how about that little jab of, "I don't know, maybe you could tell me—like, how do people use this?"
39:23	Shaan Puri	You've talked about it. You took it.
39:25	Sam Parr	I know I'm joking with Ozempic, but you have to increase the dosage a lot. So, let's say you start with 5 mL. After two weeks, you have to go to 7 mL, and then to 10 mL. It's not incremental... you...
39:37	Shaan Puri	So, when you heard this idea, were you like, "Yeah, that was a pain," or, for you, "Nah, I don't understand"?</FormattedResponse>
39:42	Sam Parr	I didn't take it enough to be a pain. But it's very clear. It's just sort of like—imagine taking vitamins: you have to add a pill every two, three, or four months. It is easier to track if you want to follow it by the book. I'm more of a "eyeball it, see how I feel" type of guy.
39:59	Shaan Puri	Look in the mirror. Yeah... like.
40:01	Sam Parr	Do we want to party today or not? That's, like, you know... that's kind of—they call it "vibe coding." I was a "vibe o zepic" guy [unclear]. It was just how I felt that day.
40:11	Shaan Puri	Yeah, so the woman who made this—I think her name's Aja—she was an engineer at The Athletic, like a software engineer at the media company The Athletic. I guess on the side she just built this for her own pain. Then I think it took off in the Reddit communities, and off of Reddit and some TikToks about it. It's been downloaded something like 100,000 times, and it's got this paid subscription—crossed a million in ARR. What niches and riches, man. Like, this is niches and riches—it's just such a simple problem-solution app. Somebody realized, “Okay, if Ozempic is the next big thing, if these GLP-1s are the next big thing…” I don't know how many people take them. I think it's like 40 million people or some really big number of people who now all are on some schedule. Realizing that you could build an app just for that population is a smart idea.
41:02	Sam Parr	Have you seen the Oscars, the Grammys, and events like that? Everyone looks great... everyone.
41:09	Shaan Puri	"Looks like everyone is losing weight quickly."
41:11	Sam Parr	Is it... Are they illegal in sports?</FormattedResponse>
41:15	Shaan Puri	I don't think so.
41:16	Sam Parr	No, I mean, it's kind of... kind of like a— it definitely is.
41:20	Shaan Puri	You lose muscle mass, right? So I don't think athletes would really care too much about this.
41:25	Sam Parr	You cannot—I'm not a scientist, but obviously you can. If you eat enough protein and you lift weights, I think you can maintain it. Basically, it just makes you not want to eat. So if you can say, "Yeah, but I'm going to eat and I'm going to hit my protein and I'm going to lift weights even though I don't want to eat today," then yeah—you could. You could keep the protein; it's just that you don't want to eat because you're full.
41:49	Shaan Puri	Let me ask you a random question. I was watching a video today about somebody who was speculating that LeBron—LeBron does, like, whatever PEDs [performance-enhancing drugs]. </FormattedResponse>
41:58	Sam Parr	I saw the Lance Armstrong thing about it.
42:00	Shaan Puri	So, Lance Armstrong was talking about Chael Sonnen. Chael just talked about it. Chael's like, "Yeah, we have the same drug guy. I know — I know what he's taking. I'm not gonna say it, but I know what he's taking." Chael's also, like, a professional troll, so you don't know when he's being facetious.
42:11	Sam Parr	Also was a drug cheat.
42:13	Shaan Puri	Yeah, but also—did he use, you know, performance-enhancing drugs when he competed? He was basically like, "he's on EPO." If you wanted to do what he's doing—tomahawk dunks at age 40 in the NBA, playing 30 minutes a game and averaging 27 points or whatever—you would do this. I actually was thinking about this in the world of business: are there PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) in business, and how would you feel about people doing that?
42:43	Sam Parr	Have you ever taken Adderall or Ritalin?
42:45	Shaan Puri	"I've never taken it, but I know I have several friends who do it to focus—to be more productive."
42:50	Sam Parr	I don't do any drugs, but ten years ago—before I got sober—a doctor gave me a Ritalin prescription. I have no idea why; I don't remember how or what happened, but I got it. I took it for about four days. On the fifth day I had a mental breakdown. It made me too speedy and anxious; I felt like I was going crazy. I thought, "This is horrible—I'm never taking this crap again." But during those four days I was on fire—laser-focused—and I felt on top of the world. So, obviously, a lot of people take this, and I would not feel bad if my competitor took it. Is that what you're asking?
43:30	Shaan Puri	I just... I don't know. In sports, it's definitely seen as— I think for most people, when they hear about an athlete doping or cheating, it's literally: "You're cheating and it's a tainted record," right?
43:42	Sam Parr	But I think—I think those drugs should be legal in sports, a little bit. </FormattedResponse>
43:46	Shaan Puri	Do you?
43:46	Sam Parr	"Think that."
43:46	Shaan Puri	Okay, so... would you think, in business? I guess there are two questions. Do you think a lot of people are taking this type of stuff? I remember Sam Bankman‑Fried had, like, the patch. I think a huge, huge amount of people are taking it.
43:58	Sam Parr	Dude, I think there was a joke on Reddit. There was a guy who was like, "I'm naming my daughter Vyvanse because I love this drug so much." Yeah... I think there's—yeah, I think, I think if you're under the age of 30, I would assume that you're taking it.
44:13	Shaan Puri	"Oh, wow. You think it's that popular?"
44:17	Sam Parr	Yeah, I think that I am now a very wholesome, straight-edge person. I think you have always been that way. So, I think perhaps we don't... I'm [sentence trails off].
44:25	Shaan Puri	Just naive, dude. I didn't even—like, nobody, nobody offered me any. Not like I'm morally superior; I just didn't.
44:32	Sam Parr	No, I'm not saying that it's morally superior to be this way. I just think that you and I have never—well, since I've known you—I have never partied, and you have never partied, or at least been part of the drug or alcohol scene, really. And I do think most people... it's like getting weed, you know. Like, "Oh, I can't sleep," but the doctor's like, "Gotcha, I understand." Do you know what I mean? Like, waking—right? Yeah, that's how I think it is.
44:55	Shaan Puri	The closest thing I have to that is calling my dog a service animal so I can... you know... take her into some place. </FormattedResponse>
45:02	Sam Parr	Dude, so when we were younger, our parents—my parents gave me Ritalin because, like, every boy who couldn't sit still in fourth grade, they were like, "Oh, you have an illness, son, and we need to keep you from standing up from the chair. You have to take this pill." I remember taking the pill in fourth grade. After a few months, I didn't have the vocabulary to explain to my mother, but I felt, "This is making me sad." Something was going on. She was like, "Oh, this is crazy—what are we doing?" But I remember taking it. It changes you. I do think that when I took it as an adult, it felt like I was on EPO and I was having to do the Tour de France. It felt... I'm like, "Oh, I understand how this is a PED." Did you see how Chamath wants to come up—which I don't really respect a lot of what he says—but did you see how he said he wanted to have the "PED-free poker"?
45:55	Shaan Puri	Oh, yeah—yeah. He was saying, like, a "no Adderall poker tournament," basically.
45:59	Sam Parr	"Yeah, yeah. That's... that's sort of intriguing. That's, dude."
46:02	Shaan Puri	I must just be sleeping on this. I didn't realize this was... I have a couple of friends who—well, they told me, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna stop doing that." I was like, "Oh, you've been doing that? What is that? Why? For what?" It didn't even really occur to me. I guess, as you guys are saying this, I'm realizing that I've probably just been foolish about that.
46:21	Sam Parr	Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Okay, so, like, what do you call the listeners of this pod? The "yuppie class"—like the white-collar class or whatever. I would bet that 30% of the people between the ages of 22 and 35 who are in this white-collar, yuppie, or HENRY class are on ADHD medications. My prediction: 30%. It's a lot, right? If you're...
46:48	Shaan Puri	On that — "addy" in the comments. Let us know. We're going to poll the YouTube comments right now: Natty or Addy? I have...
46:59	Sam Parr	Friends that would buy on the Silk Road — can you even buy it online? You don't even need to buy it online anymore; you just go to your doctor, but...
47:05	Shaan Puri	There's probably, like, an Adderall toothpaste at this point. And if not, it's a great idea. Yeah, that's—yeah: "brush in a rush."
47:13	Sam Parr	Let's go — 10 out of 10.
47:17	Shaan Puri	10 out.
47:18	Sam Parr	Of 10, you nailed that one. Alright, that's it. That's a pot.

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This guy sold 3 YouTube Channels to Blackstone for $3B

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