Howard lensing is the founder and general partner at Social leverage all opinions expressed by Howard and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of social leverage or stock twits. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for decisions. Guess May maintain positions and securities discussed in this podcast.
fomo Friday
Is it really that great tweet from my friend Morgan goes we've gone from 1929 to 1999. We were panicked on the downside now everybody's wishing they own stocks. Yeah as United as I was telling you when we started the show. This is like something going on here. It's probably a by it's probably you know, I was trying to calm people down a month ago. And here we are 30% higher 25% higher as and now people are like, oh I gotta get in. I wish I'd cash nannies are are correct. We are somewhere in between as I said today if you think you understand the
The medals you did the line. We're trading on like ether no one knows whole new territory whole new territories to please enjoy these this rally but like be responsible and let's think about Community speaking a community today who's just been focused on community since he dropped out of the tech scene a little while ago is working on a lot of new stuff today. We're going to talk to Chris. Sacca Who full disclosure is an LP and social Leverage.
But we don't know each other that well, but obviously from investing in Tech together for I don't know 10 12 years. We know each other and he's traded he's started out of Google's from Buffalo or is Cowboy shirts been on Shark Tank for a while first investor in Uber first Ambassador Instagram, one of the best funds of all time and also early at Twitter Ambassador yada yada yada working on telecine working on new low carbon.
Kind of a global climate fund and with that talk about that because he's living in Wyoming off the grid for the last little while raising his kit so really interesting story. And so we're going to get on the phone right next. But first, can you you have a PSA? Is that a prostate thing? Yes it is. You have a small announcement for everybody, right? Yeah, I do. Okay, let's take it away and we'll be then we'll get going. Hi everyone. This is knut just a quick word before we get started as we all know.
Covid related supplies are so hard to find these days. Not just for regular people, but also for the big buyers even state governments can't get their hands on PPS applies mostly because the federal government is Al bidding them. I mean, that's crazy right through my best buddy Steinbeck in Norway. I know of a large Chinese supplier or FDA approved PPE gear that's ready to supply big quantities. So if you know someone or know of someone at the state level in need of critical PPE supplies, please have a me.
Tell me at this address covid that Stein at gmail.com that COV ID dot Ste IM at gmail.com and I'll give him the contact info and list of available supplies. Just so you guys know Panic would friends is not making any money from this. This is purely a way for us to help put people in contact with each other. It's social leveraging at its best.
Thank you. Kanoon. Thank you. Doc. You got a voice? You should do the show and I should just read you lines. Like Cyrano de Bergerac. I think the ratings are still write a script and I'll do it. Yeah. No, I'd have to just talk from the other room into your ear and you would have to delay a talk. I think it would sound smarter. I sound like an ass like I listen to him and I'm like cringe and thank God. I don't have nobody my lungs. Nobody likes their own voice coming out of it now so insecure, okay.
I have a face for bed. All right, so Chris sacca, he's great. We're gonna get him on the phone. He's just going to he doesn't hold back. So I have to kind of hold him back because I don't want to cause them any aggravation. He's a manscape guy in my opinion. He's rugged outdoorsy. So let's go manscaped where investors and manscape they have a special offer the lawn mower 3.0 cutting-edge ceramic blade to prevent manscaping accidents and we all know what that's like you can't afford it.
You can't afford a centimeter. So the lawn mower is the place take my advice go to manscape.com and many ma nsca pe D dot. I think I spelled it wrong and try the lawn mower 3.0 you social leverage our fun name to get a 20% discount and free shipping. Let's get Chris on the phone.
Chris Chris. Sacca, what's good, man?
What's good is sounds like Wyoming is good. What is the temperature?
I thought I had a number on block absolutely weird this call got
through 80% of the people. I know have me on block out of that or mute 20% mute 80% block or their
kids and he's like, yeah, it's like 48 so fishing season
started. Well me I'm going to have to come fish with you. I'm a big fisherman.
What I fish for there. Are you flying
like worms and chunks of corn dough and stuff like that or you know, I don't try
I find Arizona is known for lightweight explosives. So what I did, why waste why kill animals like why kill the animals to kill the animals just a lightweight surface explosives and they float right to you. The he that's how Judaism Phoenix fish the
what just a little meth on the end of your lure.
Yeah, just a little just that's
Testing to so tell me you're in Jackson, Wyoming. Yep. And how big is the family now, you have three kids. Yep, and everybody's quarantined and working from
home. Yeah, Google Google sent me my location based activity update today and it says I've traveled eight car miles and the entire month of March.
There's going to be the lowest deaths in this country of all time and obviously covid is a disaster, but I think people are going to be dying less because no one's driving.
I mean look, they're all they're all these threads about. Hey, it's great because carbon emissions are down and stuff. And so I don't obviously I don't think anyone should be celebrating a pandemic but this is an epidemiologist dream like you can imagine what's going to happen to the Actuarial tables. It's just this is one of the greatest data experiments in history and that's not to be insensitive about it's just we are going to be learning from this for decades
second. We're going to of hindsight bias up to yeah.
Like this is a wall of worry that this market and you're not a market sky, but I am but it's a wall of worry that any kind of economic Traction in New Directions, which is going to get you back in the game. I know and we'll talk about that is going to create this wall of worry first for for hardworking people that's going to be epic. Well. Yeah, I mean ultimately
we have to realize this isn't a Black Swan event. This was entirely predictable
even tell us that's not a Black Swan event.
Now this was gonna happen. It was inevitable.
And so but I think it's wild it's to look at the kind of the second and third order functions of what's Happening Here. So, you know like you shut down all the factories in China and it turns out your no.2 emissions come way way down and suddenly and suddenly people stop getting all the respiratory ailments and still against the look you look at how many millions of people in China?
Ty from from Michigan Air Pollution are permissions and yeah and suddenly we've got the situation where you know, they got some respiratory relief and you don't have people driving around so nobody's getting drunk and crashing their each other on the other hand. I have a feeling that domestic abuse cases are way up. And so it just kind of be Fascinating People are probably getting less exercise. So we probably accelerated our obesity curve.
I don't think of that I'm gonna be awful. So right now but that's
Ting but not that I haven't thought about killing somebody so yeah on
the other hand, they might be eating less restaurant food. So sodium intake might be down who
the hell knows it's just going to be fast. So it's an expensive test of the emergency broadcasting system like globally over and and physically it's ridiculous. It's like you said like I have never had the opportunity to watch a panic from my desk with no interruptions. I don't have two three kids at home. I have two kids that are, you know call out of the house. So it's literally been
Zen a month of Zen were actually have done 40 podcast with friends and people like you would never even call you to bug you but you actually found some time because there is a little bit of time that you have now to think about this stuff right because you can't do podcasts anymore. I mean you used to be so busy every
minute.
I mean, I'm busier than I've ever been. That's why I'm pretty busy anymore. Yeah, but I mean right now we're doing 80 hours a week of relief efforts philanthropic and then operationally we're getting PP into the country and distributed this morning. I've been Distributing antibody test Frontline caregivers to see if we have any indications of this underlying mass population of folks. They have bodies so far not seeing it but
Just crossed so doing you know, I mean look, I think we're at the beginning of the curve of the destruction for Main Street America in terms of you saw those job losses, but that stuff takes a long time to trickle
through and it would argue Chris. So those numbers were there. They were just under the I would call them underemployed. I would say we were at 15 percent underemployed now or 30 percent unemployed, maybe 20% per year. We
got some like that of course, right?
I mean, that's just how this economy is one involving. Yeah, and so yeah, those numbers are going to get nasty. I mean here, you know, we're in a tiny little mountain town but it's dependent upon tourism and obviously the new tourism all the hotels restaurants bars. Everything is shut down the resorts but the local food bank last week served eight times as many visitors in a week as they did in all of last year and it's just the need is just going to be bonkers.
So we were obviously focusing on the health care need. How do we get people into these facilities? How do we get them tested? How do we get keep them safe the you know, the caregivers as well as the patient's how do we even research what's going on? I think you saw you know under the leadership of the Collison Brothers at stripe. We want to sink on Fast grants, which was we just launched a couple days ago. It's a 48-hour turnaround to anyone working on peer research in academic institutions.
Ocean related to covid-19 and so really hoping we see some some benefits out of that stuff academics are super fascinated by it because nobody's ever granted money that fast.
No I got us some Trend Griffin was telling it on my on the podcast yesterday because this is like going to speed up medicine like you can't it's a miracle. It's like it's a miracle some levels because yeah 15 years becomes two years.
Yeah, I also I you know, I mean like they're a bunch of PCS. You stay just dumb dumb horribly and sensitive shit all over Twitter and then just get barked out of the room on the stuff. But what I do, like is that a wider swath of people are turning their attention to these issues learning the details learning what the operational hurdles are learning? What's frustrating? I mean, you know guys like Peter Pham who normally don't get involved in issues like this.
You're staying up all night long trying to figure out how to navigate getting millions of units of PPE and protective equipment into this country. And I love it because it's representative, you know, Flex Port dedicated a ton of their corporate resources over this project through their support dot org initiative that we helped fund and it's I love when smart operational mines are moving in this direction. I love that a lot of people are learning some of the basic biology right now. I mean
three weeks ago. There are very few people in this country. You could tell you about IGG and IGM and the difference between those two types of antibodies and how they might be reflective of current or past infections. And now they're in much more common parlance among people who are trying to solve problems and I appreciate that. I think that there is no downside to more Minds being focused particularly on these diseases, you know, you can't escape them. That's one of the wildest things about this pandemic is there's no
no no way.
I'm kind of tired of knut everyday like there's nowhere to go. No, not even
fact the rich people try to go to all their ski towns and they just fucked up those towns.
So yeah, they're the ones that spread it to those towns,
right? And so there's nowhere to fly to and I think you know as much as we are seeing it disproportionately impact communities of color and and places where kinoma you can yeah, we're people don't have the freedom to miss a day of work and I kind of stuff that's a disaster but there is a slightly Democratic aspect.
Of this versus a normal economic contagion where you know, you just can't get away from it rich people have to quarantine to and so the more of the nation and the world's Brain Trust that we can get invested in thinking about Solutions and treatments, you know diagnostic supportive Care at therapeutic area cures the
better. Yes. Well said, can I dumb it down for a minute and ask about Shark Tank? Yeah course.
How long did you do that? I was a little bit jealous. That was fun. Was it fun or not? I mean I couldn't do to you in the mood for fun. Oh, come on. Did you do it?
I was their season seven and eight and then they played some of my stuff and season not and they took some episodes off The Cutting Room floor and gentlemen season audience wanted more me
so quick question true. Mr. Wonderful has bad breath.
I've never heard that I will tell you that I said that
I don't know if I heard it anywhere else body was mr. Wonderful's like he has bad breath.
I haven't experienced
that. Why don't you just um, I mean, obviously you wouldn't but I'm just saying he has that heavy smell about them even though I've never seen them. So you're saying you liked it. Yours is a nice guy. He's the only one on the show who
plays a character and so in real life and
realize it loses people money on TV.
By talking about gold and bad
investment dude, who hurt you
like you just looks like an ass. I know he's playing a character but stop talking about money when you're playing a cutter take the money for you. Seriously,
he is I mean, we don't see out of politics whatsoever. Right? I mean, he's a let's poke holes in the in the tundra and drill the fucking oil kind of guy and his campaign and and in Canada for prime minister's hate it
Well, yeah, but I will tell you this if everyone on that show he is the one who he wears that morticians suit and looks like mr. Burns. Yeah, but when they stop rolling he changes into a flannel and some ripped jeans and plays guitar. He's totally happy and drinks wine and hangs out and of everyone there. He was always the very nicest to me and trying to help me do well on the
show. This is the worst part of the interview. I hated hearing that the but now, okay, whatever.
Ever I only know the character. I only know the
character. Yeah, that's the thing everybody else in that show. Please
himself. Yeah, Marx himself. It's always been nice to me. I don't know the other people but marks
Mark is a genuinely nice guy. I also think Mark genuinely likes to read and learn and and so, you know, and I he really does get involved in those companies Mark has the quickest email response time of a human alive. Yes. I'm
scared him home because I must it's important. Why email we do it's been six years
we did.
Is where we put like 30 grand into a company and they call, you know, the email with a question mark is back to them at five minutes. Yeah, like they don't you have like players to trade and stuff. This is amazing.
Yeah, he was he was like that in the day. I'm sure he still is
yeah, he's obsessive should know the show is fun. I mean the show is perfectly authentic. It's all our own money. They don't tell us what to say. There's no quota of deals or anything like that, right? You know, the only thing about it is they take an hour-long pitch. That's what a lot of people don't realize and come on.
Down to eight minutes of television, but they're not tricky about that ending and so it was real and I appreciate that a
lot. Did you have a winner out of that? It was there anything you investment that work? I've got a few. Yeah. Give me one tell me one
right wheel is a company that does it's basically billing and attendance taking four independent pre schools and kindergartens and stuff like that as well as it's kind of an individualized Instagram feed for just your kid.
Schools, so when your kids in preschool, you know the teacher great idea you want to have daily updates, you know, a lot of these three schools but webcams up but you can't tell what the hell's going on. So teacher could really easily and they've been doing this with all these really high friction ways, but our teacher could really easily be like this kidnap this kidnap this kidnapped or oh my God. This is cute. Look at the kids got paint all over space or something and just and then those are going to feed for just you the parent about just your kids. So privacy is protected excetera, really really fun. Stop that
She is killing it another company's hatch so and crazy why I started this company that originally was this hypersensitive baby-changing table where you could tell how much your baby nice English. They wait.
Yeah true Ventures an investor in the may be
exactly that sold really well, but then she moved into this thing called the rest light and the rest light is just as programmable nightlight for your kid's room that place sounds changes lights and we use it as a red light green light.
To tell our kids when it's okay to come out of their room downstairs to make sure they get enough sleep. But and then she's launching a new product for adults this year to help adults sleep better. It's just kind of amazing but sleep
in Japan category. I'm just as I can't fascinates me. I
can't remember if she's saying this number I'm going to go ahead and say it. I think it's public but I think she's going to do 60 million this year.
So I remember seeing that at the beginning so she kind of pivoted she just
smart. Yeah, but it's just awesome.
Just a great one of the great entrepreneurs. Yeah, but no that shows super fun. If I were still investing in regular consumer products. I would absolutely still be on that show. It's it's a
blast. Yeah, you were a consumer product questions. They were you not washed up. You are a consumer investing Legend. I guess that's how we came across each other. So you were born in Buffalo.
Yeah outside of Buffalo little town called Lockport.
Yeah Lockport and so dear but yeah a lot of arson he grew up in
No and night news I would just run through this
load one buyers and lack of while Lackawanna Cheektowaga and
watch the Bisons plan to go see Joe Krebs dude mattress commercials when I was a kid, I think you're younger than me. So you may not even remember that.
No. No, absolutely you remember Irv Weinstein though. That
was the guy who can her for lunch so much sauce, that guy was Sauced every night and ricochets are and man. I mean dong loose I used to go to the Sabres leave scams and then I used to go, you know, that was my team right like this.
The bills were my team because I had the Toronto Argonauts where every team in Canada named the same so it wasn't very original. So and then I and then Bob McAdoo used to come play for the Buffalo Bill know the Buffalo Braves their basketball team used to play
occasionally Braves is definitely before my time. Okay and everything else I was hanging in there with you.
So why did you leave Buffalo? When did you run away?
When did I sleep? Yeah, I loved growing up in Buffalo. By the way people who you know
people who are going back now
for sure. Yeah. No, it's bubble is doing really well. Yeah, my brother made a movie called buffaloed. Yeah that was in theaters this year. And now you can see on demand at home while you're doing your
quarters always a creative kid.
Yeah. Well when we were kids I my mom was a university professor and she borrowed the university had one VHS camera that she
Bar on weekends to bring home and my brother and I would make movies and so I would shoot and he would be the star and yeah, he went to NYU Tisch and went on he was in Wolf of Wall Street. He was one of Leo's
Poison every is went to Leo's boys. I remember the day it's about that. That's cool. And where's he living now Lala,
he's in La. Yeah. He's a he's a big writer and actor and produces the industry's Gonna Change for feature won't it? So don't be
making movies in the congestion of
it all and who
if they can just reduce the paper friction, which it seems like that's kind of happening.
I mean I had Tom Cruise had to do dude is to say let's do this instead. He pushed it to December like the fucking weasel that he is. I'm sure it's smart guy, but he needed to be the guy saying we're releasing this we're going to cut a deal with Disney Netflix Hulu and we're going to get this fucking movie out on time. You know Top Gun 2 instead now, we'll wait till December.
She's like that it does make it easier for you to just pay for it. Yeah. That's the funny thing. Right? I mean the hard work Tom you'll make
Hansel times drives me bonkers. Like I don't want just take my money just don't make me fall out of goddamn
form and I start giving me links that are fake like, you know show a little tit like give us a little give us a little sip Financial tip the show edit that out
this canoe. I was going to say just can you push a button?
Yeah. Yeah. Can you does he does he go to a dump? I just can't I just can't stop my eyeliner look like my wife, but Norwegian he we went part we partied at Su together with
I was like DeVry business school. You're in the class. You're in the lab the first day the we went we met at ASU. There was a Norwegian Exchange program and we both showed up at first a MBA with like fucking ink on our arms from all the places we had been to and that we just hit it off. So he's been my friend since then good times perfect. So so Bob, so you'll eat buffalo story in the end up at Google. So what's the path to get to Google quickly?
Oh, no, I went to the school Foreign Service at Georgetown. Okay.
And spent a lot of that time studying abroad doing all that kind of stuff and then ultimately realized I didn't have any job prospects. I hadn't signed up to do anything and joining the Foreign Service wasn't an option because you don't make enough and back then he didn't make enough to pay back your student loans, so I was screwed and so I decided to just Punt and go to law school. Let me see what what better way to get out of loan debt than to rack up some more me I
dropped out of law school. That's how I met canoe.
I was at ASU logs. Which better? Yeah, so you finish law school.
Yeah. I want you to Georgetown law school, but when I got to school I told the school of my loan checks hadn't shown up and I cashed them and I threw him into a bunch of online trading accounts and I just created
those you yakked up some wins and then you got fucking upside down. So that was your first
Peg reg T wasn't a thing yet. So that's the lever drag right where you have to go to 50 percent leverage. So these are all brand like deal.
Jay direct and CSF B and E Trade and contact one sales tax. I had accounts everywhere because for a thousand bucks you can just get unlimited leverage. It was like the Robin Hood bug recently, right? And so I would just tell him and just kite huge huge trades triggering an immediate Margin Call, but I would have days of just sitting on that call just and I would soak up any of the aggregate upside across that position and settle the call, huh?
And
today lot Robin Hood will cut me off for day trading for three months. Really. Well. Yeah, if you if you if you didn't know this because I don't trade that often but then the virus head and I have a little my kids and we were farting around and I was like too many trades and broke some limiters something. I don't even know the rules because I don't trade the so you so the market was down up. This is 99 or
98.
The started 98 and so you don't cut that up to 20,000. Yeah. Yep, but when you do that you are convinced that you're a
genius you got cry on the way down.
Yeah, so and so but I mean it was because it wasn't just me. It was like I put my buddies into I had to stocks literally and I put my buddies into those stocks and then they would sell and buy a boat and be like, you're a genius man. Like thanks for the boat, you know. Thanks for the cabin and you know because my buddies were like bartenders and limo drivers.
The guys are grew up with and and so it just became this reinforcement thing like you're right. I am a fucking genius. I deserve this money and then and then when it all goes south very very soon. And I was margin to the hill. I went from 12 million of the good to 4 million of the bad in like a matter of 72 hours or so and and when it all went down I convinced myself. Well that was just unlucky and I think that's one of the most damaging
Things that any of us can do whether it's in trading business Etc is like we can assume that all the upside is causal. We created that and all the downside is just outside of our control. Yeah, and I
think so they could he wants to be right because it happened so fast. So the oh, yeah. I remember hearing the story once a you were
sold out for their own
account before their own
accounts. I was yeah and so I was able to get some of those trades reverse because they didn't give me the best price at the time.
I'm but I didn't really have much of a leg to stand on overall because I was the one absolutely breaking the rule leveraging all their money and the market as it has these particular stocks fell apart due to you know, what I think at the time would have been easy to explain its Black Swan events. I don't think we're using that term yet just left me destitute and you know, the only thing I had going for it was that I wasn't married and didn't have any kids and was just broke on my own luckily.
But that was a that was a gnarly period. I mean, I owed four million. I was able to negotiate it to 2 and 1/8 and then I had to work it
off. And when did you start a Google so that just good that turn like Fred Wilson those guys got turned off well markets and Brad Pitt just because of those moments, you know, where that it just they weren't even Market guys, but it just was so ugly for so long that I said fuck the stock market so you've never cared since then.
Well for me for me
the stock market sucked because there was nothing I could do to alter the outcome, right? I'm not Bill Ackman. And so, you know if I can't like load up on a bunch of shit and then go talk my own book on CNBC and move the needle then it's not worth it. And so when I was a Trader quote-unquote I use that word very Loosely as just someone who had lots of like Reckless positions, but I would just sit there with a pit in my stomach because I would stare at the screen. It was red or green and I was nothing I could do so true and
And my personality is one of let me get in the car involved in a company that one I think is already good. So that's a screen you use for stocks is something that's already good but to where I think I personally can impact the outcome and I know that I can't assure a positive outcome for my company's but I know that the ones I choose to get involved with our ones or I personally can move the needle and increase the probability of success and then that way I'm playing a rigged game whereas in the public markets.
I can't do this. I can't play a rigged game. And in fact, I think it's rigged against me. Yeah, wait,
isn't that what you have people have
more information than I do. Yeah. And so that's why I'm a private markets guy.
Me too. I mean, I love the public markets just for the behavior and the game because I don't play regular games, but I never allow myself to get cut too badly because it's like it's like the NFL football except instead of concussions. You just get fucking cut really deep into your soul and into your heart and you can't you that.
To you and 2000 and 2001. So the first big investment you made was yourself going to Google and what were you doing at Google because as
well just to be clear when I when I lost it all I I mean I lost it all plus Millions more right? So I'm 25 years old I owe millions of dollars. I've nothing to show for it and I'm like, well, I better take a job as a lawyer now sign up at Fenwick and West Nile Valley grinding it out. But I've got a Services debt. So in addition to final going west during the day I'm doing
A thing I can to try and make money picking up any side hustle. I can not even a full year into that or maybe it was like 13 months into that. I get laid off for days before September 11. So for 4 days, I had lots of job prospects. They laid off basically my whole first year class at the law firm and then September 11th happens, and that was it the jobs dried up and you know, the Silicon Valley had just had emptied. In fact there were you couldn't
A U-Haul to take your stuff home to your parents house because they'd all gone one way. And so there I was I was unemployed complete crash. I owed millions of dollars and I was freaked out and so I started doing anything I could find on Craigslist on Elance for 50 bucks here and a hundred bucks there. I was the first lawyer on Elance. I was I was literally writing contracts or 50 bucks. I was writing terms and conditions.
For porn sites for a hundred bucks just like literally anything I could find to try and make rent let alone service of debt. It was it was an absolute disaster man. I was writing business plans for companies and exchange for a little bit Equity here and there, you know originally I was going to I sent out over seven hundred resumes out here in a response and I started I'm like, alright, I you know, I've got this hostile spirit and so I was going to every business networking meeting I could
And then I had a business card said Chris sacca attorney at law and everyone would like tussle my hair and be like, you know, you're a smart kid something will come together for you and I'm like, I need something by like Friday man, like not not by like end of the year like I need something right now. And so I eventually came up with this thing called the Salinger group. I had my good friend who is now my wife Crystal design a business card for me. I had a website that said a lot of nothing and we had a ventures division of
Consulting Division and media division just so I could kind of cover all my bases for any possible job that would come my way and I just went to these meetings that I would sneak into because I didn't have the 25 bucks to get in. I was going through the kitchen usually and I would just hand people my business card and say we instead of I and people are like who the sound your group? Yeah. I know you guys you guys do good work and it just sounded familiar in
Anza. It's like a dance. Yeah
100.
And that and so I eventually got a fought my way back into it trying to service debt along the way and it was I went to a company called spit era Akamai suit us 13 times. We countersuit down seven or eight the the FBI came broke down our door and arrested our CTO for Computer Fraud and Abuse Act one day and I remember speed an exciting time where they live It ultimately Akamai bought us. Yeah after trying to sue us out of Oblivion. Yeah into it.
Living they had to suck it up and by us but but along the way there I buddy sent me a job description at Google and it was so perfectly suited for me. They're like, we want a guy who's a business person and a lawyer and understands IP Transit and transport and electrical power and tax regimes and all this other stuff and it was so on point for what I did. It's been era that I wrote back to the Buddy. Fuck you. This isn't a funny joke and because
Thought he had just kind of cut and pasted that they're kind of the HTML into an email and then he sent me the live link. He's like no, this is a real thing. And and so I cuz I tried to socially engineer my way into Google for years. I didn't mean I figured out I figured I'd David Drummond's fax number and had spent time on the phone with his assistants and But ultimately he finally finally finally had the job that fit so I did 17 interviews and two days and at the time
it was their fastest higher and so that was great. It took me until Google went public to finally get back to zero and I had a BYOB party to celebrate and and ultimately I think you've heard me tell us before but I actually overpaid my last Sallie Mae check by twenty seven dollars and 82 cents actually ate that check used to be on my fridge. I haven't seen it in a
while meeting.
Thank you. You bailed me and so I didn't cash it. I was just like fuck it Sallie Mae owes me money. And so
shut up. That's worthless now. Yeah. Sure.
I mean I tell that whole story because
my audience will love this on stock to I mean that was a
pure panic situation. Yeah like and and I'll say one other thing. I don't think I've talked about out loud, but I start seeing I've seen a bunch of people right now tweeting. Like now's a great time to learn new skills and stuff like that.
Like, you know and it is like always I mean funny. No, I'm gonna hang up with you and I'm going to take a violin lesson with my kids, but I'll tell you this when you don't have a fucking job. You are so freaked out that no, you don't eat right? You don't fucking work out. You're not learning a new skill. You're not fucking painting. Yeah. It's okay to just be fucked up and miserable right now. Yeah like that is that is the natural human reaction and it's like that for smart people for entrepreneurs.
Slurs for all these people who will go on eventually to do great things. It is perfectly reasonably to be self-destructively unhealthy and fucking panicked right now. Hi guys people don't say that. They're like a great, you know, all these great books are written during the black plague and stuff. I'm like fuck
you mine are already rich or they are already destined to be a great creative person this whole idea Panic with friends. It's just that people like yourself tell a story about Panic if they're willing to do
it. Yeah. I'm just out here to tell people if they are fucking bong hit.
It's deep into a can of Chef Boyardee. They haven't even put into a
bowl and I'm rich and I do
that. That's my problem. They're just freaking the fuck out right now. That is the natural response to this and they should feel fine.
I told my son this honest I've been arguing with my wife about the she's like, why isn't he working at least fucking this may be the last party month of his life meaning by stress him out like go get outside because he's going to be back working the rest of his life. Luckily. He has that but for other people who
Have to be freaking out like give people their space like this is not a pleasant time for 80% of the country.
Yeah. I mean, we're already we have so many people who are already at the edges of the economy. Right? And so just teetering check to check. I mean, we obviously we're really lucky. So we've we've continued to just pay everybody in our orbit, you know, whether it's people who clean houses we tried to pick up salaries because we know not all our other peers are doing that. So we tried to supplement, you know,
okay Aunt supplement. We gave paid sick leave to everybody who's working on construction projects that were for us or our companies, but that we you know that we're not there directemployers. We've we've been coming up with projects for people to work on that are safe that are one at a time or spread it out or something like X exterior painting and stuff like that. Just trying to keep people employed to the extent possible and safe ways. You know, we've been trying to help local businesses and I
Is launched ubereats here in Jackson
LeBron here. Are you driving
around? We know I just I call it the company. I was like, can I just be your local launcher and ice or Sawyer? I'll navigate the legal stuff. And then I'll Source the local restaurants. Like I know it wasn't on the road map but these restaurants are just getting hammered and ubereats is a strong wiring. So yeah
the for because we want of time to go through all this and I'll have you back one day but the for Uber Twitter Instagram
Am I think of that of those three like Jack and have and Travis and kind of having a brain fart on Instagram. I just Kevin who who impressed you the most when you first met him because you were invested in all
three. I think you got I think you left out
strike forces that play
the Allison Brothers. They're
just calm and fucking like they're like, they're like the Gracie Brothers. They're like Grapplers of of
Entrepreneurship. I met take everybody to
A
trick I met Patrick when he was 14, so he came over the United States Paul Graham was hosting him. He might have been 15, but he brought him over to Google and he introduced us and by that point that kid had written most of an operating system over a dial-up connection from Limerick. I mean just fucking Bonkers small and at that point, I hadn't even met his brother John who's just as
smart as John has other yeah.
It's
He's younger. He's a couple years younger and
more stringent quality time.
Yeah, ultimately I sign there. Oh to Visa letters. I think when they were 17 and 15 respectively to get them into the country and they were co-founders on a company where where they were partnered up with her G and cool the beer tiger or cousins that I'd met at Oxford who are business guys, but not coders and so the cost is our coders they built a little company called octave.
Like which was a front end to Ebay that we sold to some company live something up in a in Vancouver. I forget wasn't a huge exit but I do remember, you know, the brothers made a couple million dollars doing that and the Articles back home in Ireland. They were national heroes. They're like me they took their first communion money bought a computer at our millionaires now and but those are the two smartest human beings on the planet Earth and I said is someone who
who absolutely adores looks up to Larry Page who has you know, I've spent time with most of the Great's I mean, I'm inspired by Bill Gates and think he is just punishing Lee smart and apathetic.
Yeah, empathy is really showing up in the last 5-10 years. Uh,
yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was raised to hate that guy work grown right me to confirm a plan to
send my software to get flying Windows on my box. I fucking thought they were the devil right? Like we remember a fucking egg.
We get never ever from Egghead after fucking sending my software to Microsoft to peruse for a month to send me back the rights to put a flying fucking window. So Egghead could never pay me was a great system back then and people are mad at Apple for taking 30% for magic. You know, like it's right fucking people is out. Remember how even Microsoft was Microsoft.
Well, they were talking evil. They were tough on a future episode. Let's talk about what it was like to compete with Emma cool because we were they were we
Add them in the sights but but Patrick and John never forget a single thing. They read neither of them. And in fact remember, they one of the first things they built as a side project was a downloadable Wikipedia and they've remember at all. It's nuts. They have huge Hearts. They yeah, you know, you know, they're very exposed to The Human Condition and and they're just like they're just Relentless and you know everything they do their incredible.
They're great athletes. They're just incredible people and I think so so of everyone I've worked with I think they're the most magical. Okay. That's what I said. The one common thread among all these guys and so I'll take like ev-every Williams Travis Kevin Systrom. Japhet to Leo.
Oh, yeah
the Common Thread across I'll throw in I'll throw in
I'm trying to think of who else Shivani at tala. So tall is it's like microfinance microlending the developing world you install an app. She looks at your Android phone and instantly tells you how credit worthy you are and makes you a mobile money loan on the spot and her repayment rates are higher than then any FICO loan even the people who are who don't have a permanent address Etc. She's she's an absolute beast. And and I'd say the Common Thread among
Of them is that when I met them or I'd known Travis a long time and I know never long time. But when I when I when I talked to them about their companies, they were never trying to sell me. There was never like this their heart rate didn't change and they weren't trying to get me excited about it instead it work the other way around where they just spoke with this inevitability of the success of their thing and I got drawn into that. So Kevin Systrom would be sitting all alone. One night Travis kalanick was actually
We pitching Uber to Jason calacanis is Angel forum, and it was in one of those co-working spaces in San Francisco.
That is a handful of bad breath. But yeah,
and they had turned all the lights down. So that like Travis could be on you know, I can improvise stage and in the shadows of that room, Kevin Systrom is building Instagram and and I had which was
right because it wasn't that
yeah bourbon. Yeah, sure. But and so and so Kevin said I just said hey man, what are you working on is like
I'd love to sit out and tell you about this thing and so we sat down we caught up and you know and at that time by the way the central areas in retrospect but I had already made money on Photobucket flicker had already been sold I'm like man photos are a done thing you can make one of his photos this is kind of silly but but Kevin would just speak and he's like yeah and when we get to 10 million users would probably be a good time to roll out this feature oh my God I'm just sitting there like looking around the room like
dude it's like you and Mikey and you're talking about 10 million users but he talking about and yet you know in the earliest days of uber when Travis is at my house up in Truckee and pacing around the kitchen as he always does you know we would be talking about how we would just be using bits to deliver Adams and we would have more information about Transportation Logistics than any company in history and we could deliver people sure we could deliver packages and food and you know when we started going down
List of cities to launch in You Know Travis made Paris like number three, I think I
remember where I was open web and Luke made. Yeah. It was like just coming out and I
wasn't anywhere in the world that hated this idea of more than Paris. Yeah, and they lick cars out fire. Yeah, but that's Travis is like, yeah, we should just go there and you know, let's why wouldn't we launched there when he talked to Jeff Lawson? It was just clear to him that there was a massive problem with a regular public switched telephone.
Network and how it interacted with with the internet and that he could make that interface just seamless and easy and basically use HTML to control the pstn and he just knew he's like and so when all the call centers are using this and when all the eCommerce sites have it and so it's just you know, and I mean, it's funny when I when I first spoke with Shivani about her background and she has this whole app and this whole data layer and I was like Sue who coated all this and she's like
I did I was like but you're not a computer scientist and she's looked at me and she's like Chris. It's not that hard. I taught myself and it's just like the one thing that they all had in common was nobody was like falling all over themselves to be like dude. This is the next greatest thing. I promise you they just knew and they have ability their success and I remember Evan Williams and how when people would say, how is this ever going to monetize? It was like his head would break it was like wait. It's not obvious to you how much money we're gonna make
Once we
have on this one, I mean, he's the legend of Legends and product.
He might be one of the most thoughtful people I've ever met. I don't mean really Madam but
Mikey history will show that like that guy's product skills are off the
map. They're incredible. He just doesn't like to talk that much because when you ask him a question, he really really likes to talk about the you put my mouth on
his body. We can fucking I'm a trillion instead. I'd like my superpower is I read everything and forget it. That's why I'm a podcaster now I have this skill.
Super power is 1 what happened the so I could go on forever. Let's just talk about the future a little bit what you're working on that because you're coming out of your coming off the mat. You got your living a little bit off the grid and do focusing on community and give them back but the future it you've got to be dragged in now. So what do you got excited about right
now? It's not so much Dragged In. It's like don't call it a comeback. I've been here for
years. I wasn't calling to Clio.
I know I know I'm just saying like, I've been I announced a few years ago.
Oh that I was just quitting investing and that was mostly way to despair my inbox to you know, my inbox is already a disaster. Then you go on Shark Tank and it's just everybody who's ever had and ideas emailing you and so I just need to tap out of that. I didn't have passion for the things we're investing in and it's not to say there is an amazing stuff being built. I just wasn't my stuff I'd it wasn't getting me excited to wake up in the morning and you know, like stuff like I'm not a gamer.
I had some younger people working for me. You were super excited. I was like, yeah, I get how this is going to be a big thing. But I just not excited to go like dive into it. It's not my world and you know, the blockchain is a fascinating intellectual experiment, but I realized I didn't have deep opinions about it. I would do amas and people are what about the blockchain and I was like, I just don't have any table pounding opinions about it. And so and and without that stuff it's hard to be an investor in those Muses right? I mean we ride made money.
Is when I've been like all in are you fucking serious? You don't see this, you know when people used to like house Twitter ever going to make money. I'm like just shut up and give me your stock. You shouldn't be allowed to own the stock.
So and that's what you were doing. You were buying
that's what I did by the time I went public we owned 18.5% and I and my first check was only 25 Grand so over the years I just acquired it from people but these days so for the last four years, I've been really quietly and only in the last couple of months that we've been taking the covers off it but investing aggressively
And both for and nonprofit climate Solutions. And so I and this just gets me excited like the ability to dramatically impact the planet and get rich again has been pretty fascinating. You know, some of the stuff we're doing is pure research where there isn't a monetizable play. But if it works, we'll save seventy to a hundred million lives, and then some of it is just, you know shifts in energy and transportation.
Ation and food and disease and I know we're going to make a ton of money. I mean our portfolios already crushing it and it's just funny that I can feel this good about what we're doing and just be racking up huge numbers. And so that's you know, we weren't telling anybody it's called Lower carbon Capital. We had the website up there for a while. Nobody had found it. But but now we're kind of talking about it. We're stopping up. The team is getting bigger. We have had a science
coming on wears.
Where is it going to be in Wyoming?
Everything is distributed, you know, I've never had a headquarter snot and so because if you have a headquarters, then you got to have meetings. And so I'm sorry my meeting suck. Well, if you don't have a space that can take place. So, you know, I haven't even other than Zoom meetings for my kids and a couple violin lessons. I haven't opened up Zoom since since the pandemic started. I just I can't fucking deal. Yeah.
Yeah, I just want to get it done. But so we have one guy who sits in New York. Another guy who's in the Bay Area. We have a had a science coming on and that person doesn't know that had a science yet. So I don't want to disclose where they are. But I'm in Wyoming, you know, we I just want to work with the best people wherever they are and the best climate companies many of them are over in Europe because I got a little bit of a head start huh, but but ultimately the approach.
Trying to take is doing things that don't require jumping through regulatory hurdles where it's just basically anything we can do to meet climate Demand by just presenting consumers with a better faster tastier sexier thing and not having to guilt or shame anybody into a solution. Like I am not trying to convince any
pocket. He's he's just flip. Yeah, there's
no there's no political. Will there's no there's no economic well to take a hit.
It but I don't think we need to I think we can just give them better options and done right people are dramatically impacting the planet without even knowing
it. Yeah. Yeah. Well good for you. I'm really appreciative that you took this much time and had to go. I think it went pretty well. What do you
think?
Oh, super fun, man. You do it again. Of course, dude. Well everyone keep panicking. It's a natural reaction.
It's a natural thing people just try and maybe go outside for a walk. You don't have to do anything fancy. But or do some Community work, I mean, it's tough to Get outside yourself. My therapist always say like, hey, dude, why are we talking at the end of the cocoa do some for the community? So that
generally people always does feel better kind of round out the National Domestic workers Alliance is really helping people who are caught in this economy and
Crude team Rubicon is one of my favorite organizations to volunteer with they especially work with former veterans and First Responders. And in normal times. They are the first people on the ground after a hurricane and it's just some of the most thrilling work and it's great because guys have PTSD who come back and having a hard time adjusting go into a hurricane post-hurricane set it and believe it or not. Like the Mayhem actually feels a little bit soothing and so they Thrive there but that's a really cool organization that
anyone can volunteer with and and and help others at a time like this. I would absolutely encourage anyone listening to go find their local food bank and those dollars go a long long way food banks are it's just a it's just a bad scene out there right now, man. Yeah,
what we're doing is just local restaurants in your hospital and keeping them both kind of work and sending food from the local hospitals. I saw that on 60 Minutes because clapping that idea. It's just sending it to ya with the hospital. You can do easy Scott with a credit card and still
get shot server and Frank Barbieri.
In San Francisco start something that's gone Nationwide now Frontline Foods where it's exactly that have a local restaurants keeping people employed keeping the supply chain
my housekeeper. I do
bring it. Yeah bringing food out to the hospital's. It's just it's easy. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's really not hard so look man, but yeah to everybody out there who's feeling freaked out right now, you're not alone in that is a natural feeling. So I hang
it. Thanks Chris. We will talk soon. Thanks for taking the time. Be will silly. Okay trans fat.
what do you think they're K naught I love this story it's an old good story for our first octant people may not know this guy like you know he's been he's been living in Wyoming for a few years and in LA but like man he was in every meeting for about 10 years he was just popping up on Twitter I mean he couldn't he just had like the bravado and just you know obviously not for everybody but for me it was funny yeah he was just like where's Waldo he was like where's Sokka he was in every deal hustling I don't know
LT can make money his street Hustler. Well, I figured out way more appetite them rest. I mean in the end people got to be honest with themselves. I couldn't do what he did because I can't take that risk. I'm just too wimpy, right? I don't want to live with that data. I mean, I don't know I guess it makes you do crazy things, you know, and I think this generation by the way, they don't have credit card debt other than school debt, which is terrible debt like credit card debt at least help the consumer the economy, right? If you only Best Buy shift get it done, you know fucking your college just going into
Oh God, damn, whatever you call it the endowment, you know what I mean? So like we were stressed by our credit card debt. All right, so we're good. We're good. Yep. All right. Everybody will be back soon with another panic with friends.
