E079: The Pro’s and Con’s of being a CEO

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the Operators Podcast, episode number 79. They finally asked me to do the intro. We had a lot of fun today talking about what it's like to be a CEO, the good and the bad, a little bit of cost of living talk, lots of other good stuff. I don't know why my thing keeps going like this, but special thanks to our premier sponsor, Fulfill. Special thanks to PostScript and special thanks to NorthBeam for being with the Operators Podcast since day one.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Stay tuned, episode 79.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the most challenging things about running an e-commerce business at scale when you're doing thousands of transactions a day across multiple different sales channels is the operational complexity that scales with it. You have to do refunds on eBay and you have to do customer service tickets on Amazon and everything just kind of gets out of hand.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You get reports from Shopify and Amazon and all of them have weird, unique parameters that don't match the way you look at things and you're manipulating data. And you just want one source of truth that has gross revenue, discounts, COGS, margin. You just want one thing that has all of it. And that's where Fulfill comes out of the box with the best reporting in the business. It provides accurate, reliable data systems. It does order management for you. And it does all that without needing customization.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: They've worked with e-commerce businesses like mine at Ridge, like Hexclad, and they've built the most accurate up-to-date reporting that comes right out of the box. It has real-time insights. You can make better decisions. And you know when you sell something, what you sold it for, what the COGS were.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you have to do returns or refunds, you know all of that in one spot, in one out-of-the-box report. So thank you so much, Fulfill, for being the flagship sponsor of this pod. If you order something from me, it will be sent through Fulfill's data pipelines to my 3PL. If you do it from Amazon, that comes into the Fulfill reporting as well. So thank you, Fulfill. You're the best.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's hear about this trip. Let's hear about this trip. Where'd you go?

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Just, I was in Italy the whole time.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we're in Italy.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So, Marque. So like my family lives in a little town called Fano. It's like 60,000 people, beachside. You know, it's a vacation place for Italians, not Americans.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And then like a little country called San Marino. It's like a private republic.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I know San Marino.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of cool. It's like they get all the advantages of the EU, but not being a member.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's like, thanks for the currency. We're going to pay less taxes and not put up with any of your shit.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_03]: But no, it was good, man. It was like a lot of pasta and pizza as it usually is.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I didn't realize how close San Marino was to the coast, actually.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Dude, yeah. Yeah, you look right down at Rimini and basically right across to Croatia.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a cool little spot. I think people should go visit if they ever get over there because it's like 30,000 people live on this mountain.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what it is. It's a village.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_05]: There are so many incredible places to live, to see and live in Italy. Like you can't go wrong.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_05]: I heard the funniest story, though. So I know these people bought a place in Sicily and they spent like 40, 400 grand fixing it up.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_05]: They didn't have to pay it. Like you could actually buy real estate in Italy very affordably.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Like you can buy a villa in Tuscany, a sick villa in Tuscany for two mil, maybe less.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_05]: But I know these guys, they bought a place in Sicily and they spent like 400K fixing it.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And then the mafia came and said, thank you. We're going to take the house.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_05]: So just give us the keys or we're going to burn it down.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_05]: And they literally just had to give the mafia the house.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_05]: So there's parts of Italy you may not want to buy.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the South is basically the answer.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_03]: It's getting better, though.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Like I was talking to my cousins about this.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_03]: 15 years ago, I was told by my family, like, just, you know, try to try to avoid.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they gave me certain areas in the South and now they're all going frequently and it's being cleaned up.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I think it's getting better, but I think those stories still come out.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's that's weird.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I, you know, the mob is kind of like folklore in America.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you hear about it, like from the 20s, maybe maybe the 60s and the 70s.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It's weird to hear that the mob is still active, like a true like a true gang in Italy.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Sicily is a different place, dude.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's called the Cosa Nostra.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Like there's an actual term for it in Sicily and Naples and like certain parts of the South.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_03]: But and there are.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like the American mob either.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's actually, Sean, it's fun to read about how the Italian version of the mob works in the South and how like in some ways they're almost like they're like a built in police force and a built in like we take care of our own kind of thing.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It's it's really weird.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not the typical like, you know, the New York.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Was it Gotti was the the the American mobster?

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's not like that kind of mobster.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_03]: They're like they're super old world.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_03]: It's fun to read about.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_03]: You should go read about it.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, what's going on with the Oklahoma sports?

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, how much are you guys involved?

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Because I keep seeing tweets about all this like different Oklahoma sports stuff.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_05]: I'd like to understand this.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, we're pretty we're pretty involved at this point.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: How much do I feel like I could say publicly?

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I will say this.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I think there are some very interesting deals that you can strike with sports teams without getting too much into kind of like the special sauce of what we're doing right now, because I think we're still figuring it out.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: What what can really make one of these deals work for us in particular is that you can combine you sending them sponsorship dollars, them buying you product and sending it to season ticket holders or, you know, selling it at games.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can kind of work it out as a brand where the cash outlay is net nothing if you if you do it right or even makes a little bit of money.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: But you get all of the top of funnel exposure.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we've been working on.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: There's also some really interesting opportunities in sustainability that we're seeing, like we're having a meeting this week with a stadium where they want to have a sustainability initiative.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: This is important to a lot of musical artists that are that are touring.

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's kind of preventing them from getting some of the shows that they'd like to get.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we're going to work with them on some sustainability initiatives.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So really kind of the best case scenario here is that you're finding a way to not only expose a lot of fans to your brand, but then also you're recouping all those marketing costs through selling more product.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So we will be expanding this.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: We did some very cool stuff with OU this year where every game they had in stadium drops and the drops have been selling out before kickoff.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I've just been the one bad part of this.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't do this.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is that you'll just be inundated with requests for products.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So like I'm getting, you know, whatever, 50 texts a week at people asking, hey, I didn't get one of the cups.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_01]: But the but like University of Kansas.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Your phone number anywhere.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Dude, it's isn't it.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the worst part.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Phone number.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_05]: I get I think it's a crazy.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_05]: Sean, do you get crazy calls on your phone number?

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't answer my phone.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_05]: No, no, I don't either.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_05]: But I took the mic.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_05]: I took the mic.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Beckham advice and I went on, you know, silence unknown callers.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_05]: But but still like there's so many.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much junk.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We use Google Voice for like like, you know, all public numbers for the company use Google

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Voice and it just shuts down.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's tied to my email.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So I probably get 50 emails a day about our Google Voice account.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't offer CX support via voice like we make that.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_05]: But then they call your personal number because somehow it exists on the Internet and they

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_05]: find it.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I've gotten support tickets across every channel known to man.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I get Instagram, you know, DMs with people that are wanting, you know, a cup or something.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So they find you one way or another.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess, you know, you get you get stuff in the mail.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I bet I wonder what's the craziest way that you customers try to get in touch with

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: you guys.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, dude, I had a I had a like five page written letter.

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Like handwritten, like not even fucking typed, man.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Like somebody wrote out in pen.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I had to learn to read cursive.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_05]: You know what's really fun?

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_05]: We get we get wedding invitations.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_05]: No.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_05]: HQ nonstop.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01]: We get thousands of those.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: What?

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Who does this?

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this a South thing though?

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Who decided that was a thing?

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're doing it to try and get free gifts for their wedding.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: But we've got a massive bin of them.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, Mike, I was interested in the sports teams because, you know, we did the Yankees

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_05]: deal.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, it's a really interesting statistic lesson that the Yankees are now sponsored by

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_05]: Hex Club the very first year they go to the World Series.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, is that correlation or causation?

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_05]: There's no way to prove there's no way to prove you're not responsible.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a pretty good thing.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Can I ask?

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I got a question on the sports thing as the non sports person on the pod or maybe just the

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Canadian thing is the audience for is the audience you're after male or female?

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, is it both?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I always assumed that doing anything in sports licensing or anything around these like larger

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_03]: college professional team franchises was like you needed to be a Sean or a or a Hexclad.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Like you needed to be like heavy dude as your target audience.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And I guess it's just like the beer commercials and the trucks and the typical stuff that

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_03]: you see advertised like liquid death.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Mike, what can or somebody can you guys educate me?

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Like who are you reaching with this?

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it everybody or is it?

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's both.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this was actually one of the problems that we had originally is we were like, well,

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_01]: we're 70 percent female.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Does this make sense?

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think two things I'd say some teams are there's a lot of teams that are kind of

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: just fabric of the community type of thing, like the Thunder are certainly this way.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you football certainly this way.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But the other thing is that, you know, what what women are constantly looking for around

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: certain times of year is gift ideas.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Men are super hard to buy for.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so even if you do have a female heavy customer base, if you can provide them something

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: compelling that they can get for the man in their life from a brand they already love,

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_01]: they're like.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think a lot of our license sales are to men.

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I bet we're probably 80, 20 on license, like you're saying that.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And it hasn't hurt us.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that we're our everyday products tend to skew female.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Huh?

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll say if you're doing like the big four and the major sports, it's going to be male

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: heavy, like sports like tend to be a male hobby.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: College, you can get 50, 50, right?

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, college is mostly I think it's like 60, 40 women are graduating.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're selling college merch, you can sell a lot of stuff to women.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_05]: It's got to be it's got to be very male dominated.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_05]: But I will say in our time with the Yankees and just talking to people, there are plenty

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_05]: of females.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I was at some of the games and playoff games and surrounded by women sitting there.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_05]: So there's plenty of women who who love sports.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_05]: It's it definitely skews male, but there are definitely plenty there.

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the worst thing about sponsoring the sports teams, I'm sure, is that you guys

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_02]: get hit up for tickets all the time.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Like speaking about getting phone calls from CX, like Mike, how often are people trying

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_02]: to get box seats?

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And Jason, Yankees, Yankees in the World Series.

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_02]: How many tickets do you have and how many you have to give away?

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we don't get tickets with our sponsorship, but this was my big splurge of last year's

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: that I bought courtside tickets when the Thunder were going through their first run of being

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_01]: really good.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I went to some games, but I never set courtside, could never afford it.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they got really bad for a couple of years.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I'm going to time this.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to buy this on the way up.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And sure enough, Brian and I bought tickets last year.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They are unbelievable.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll have to, I'll send you guys a picture of it.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: But like, like there are literally times where like a player is in my lap, you know, kind

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: of like the NBA is so different than other sports because like these guys, like their ankles

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: are like their entire career.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And they'll let you be like a foot and a half from the action with a drink, which is just

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: crazy to me.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but anyway, so, uh, we, the, but having courtside tickets, I will tell you this two

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: things.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, when I was going through the year, I was like, Hey, if there ever needs to be

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: an operators, okay.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_01]: See, it's a steakhouse in an okay.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: See game.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and we can make this happen.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the second thing is almost nobody turns down courtside tickets.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So it is actually a pretty great way.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you want to spend some time with somebody or somebody's coming in from out of town, it's

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: a great event.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So we've got, um, we've got four to six tickets for, for every playoff game.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_05]: We were offered a really like very good deal to buy four.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_05]: And I just bought them personally.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, and then we got two free just because not a part of our sponsorship is just that

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_05]: the Yankees are amazing.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_05]: And they've like, whenever there's anything going on, they're like, you want tickets,

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_05]: you want this, you want that.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_05]: They just go, go out of their way.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_05]: They really, really treated us incredibly well.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And I was asking, um, Mike about the sports stuff because now that people have seen us

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_05]: do the Yankees, um, we're being inundated with big teams, um, you know, the bulls, the

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Kings, the Dodgers, the Mets, um, the Lakers, the Clippers.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_05]: And, um, I feel like it's what we did with the Yankees was like, they're the biggest sports

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_05]: franchise in the world.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_05]: They're in the biggest city.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Like why not?

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_05]: There wasn't a whole lot of scientific analysis that went into it.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, sometimes brand stuff, you just need to go with, with your gut because it's not easy

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_05]: to measure.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, but we, we, if we are going to do more, we need to be more thoughtful about the type

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_05]: of deal we do with the Yankees.

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_05]: We did a huge TV deal.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're all over the yes network and we're on like, whenever they put up a graphic about

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_05]: like Aaron judges stats, it says hex clad right underneath it.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_05]: It's pretty cool.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_05]: All season long.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_05]: People were texting me that.

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, but yeah, so we've got the Mets, we've got the Kings, we've got the Lakers, we've got

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_05]: the Clippers, we've got, um, and they're doing outbound.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they're calling you.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I would, I would imagine that these guys are just booked.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Like they don't need to do their own BD.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So dude, it's so expensive.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, we, we were approached by, uh, the jazz and then we were approached by

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: the Clippers cause the Clippers have a new stadium.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: They have like, they're investing a ton of money in the team.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they have like a full blown, like SAS sales staff.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_02]: They have like 10, 20 people who like, all they do is like try to get these deals in.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, like the, the deals for the jazz started a million dollars and they're

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: like, you know, I, I'm not, I'm not a fucking NBA.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So they were like, Hey, we're going to like give you a little, like, you know, those halftime

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: games.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, we'll have a rich halftime game.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And like, we'll have a special wallet that comes out.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: You can only buy in store.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And like, you know, like when you, cause you have to like take the shit out of your

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_02]: pockets when you walk through security, they're like the little thing.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we can make that look like a Ridge wallet.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_02]: They put their stuff in like, like, you know,

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: they get really creative because it's, it's, it's once you do that, it's a million dollars

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: for a year forever.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Basically they think they can get 10 years out of, out of you at these big contracts.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, they have a great, I'll make a couple of comments about that.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: One is that, um, it really depends on the rate you pay and there's ways you can set just

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_01]: big amounts of money on fire here.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and everybody should hear that.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a reason why they have these outbound departments and, um, the, the pro teams need

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: the money because of the payrolls they're running.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But like you can get very poor ROIs.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It all depends on what you structure and what you pay.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And one other thing that I think is super interesting that I'll just kind of put on everybody's radar

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: with sports.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, college sports is going through a massive disruption period right now with this name

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: image likeness stuff.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And there is a case I'm told that's, uh, in the kind of, it's a class action that they

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: are going to have to settle.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: The colleges are where, uh, athletes are going to start getting something 15 to 20% of all

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: athletic revenues going forward.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have heard from the horse's mouth from a D one big time athletic director that most

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: departments or athletic departments are not prepared.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_01]: They have no way to fund this.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And some people are going to basically be caught swimming with, with no trunks when the, when

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_01]: the tide comes in and what these universities are going to have to do is monetize their athletes.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you, there are going to be some people that figure out how to do this really well

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and, and it works with their product and they make a bunch of money.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I have ideas about how I think that's going to go down that I don't really want to share

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01]: publicly, but I will just say like, that's going to be a major area of opportunity.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_01]: If you were talking about where's going to be the biggest growth and influencer going

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: forward, I think one of the areas is going to be college athletics because they're going

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: to have to have those athletes make money to support all the money that they're paying

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_01]: them.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and the, the contracts they're getting, especially in sports like football with a

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: name image likeness.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Huh?

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Your college deals that you guys do, their licensing deals right now.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Have you done more depth than just licensing with the levels of these colleges?

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Like Mike, I know you, you had a, you wanted to go deep in your local like state, right?

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_03]: That was like a big thing for you.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_03]: It was simple modern was that.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And are you looking at it do that beyond where you live?

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Like just the, the beyond licensing, I guess.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So the licensing piece is like a, you know, it's just, you have an MRG, a minimum royalty

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: guarantee, and then you just pay them for the amount of stuff you sell.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And then what we're really talking about is sponsorship deals where you're giving them

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: marketing dollars.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And in exchange, they're giving you some kind of placement in stadium on broadcasts in

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: different things.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, yes, Matt, like there were, there were two kinds of different things.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_01]: One is we were like, well, we're going to do this locally just because we live here and

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_01]: we want to, you know, like, and this goes back to the kind of like the, when you're

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_01]: a business owner and you don't have outside investors, what are you optimizing for?

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, well, I'm optimizing for quality of life.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty freaking cool when the company I've started is being advertised during the

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Thunder game.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we had the first, second round game versus the Mavericks last year.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01]: We literally just made 20,000 bottles in Oklahoma City.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And I handed, me and some other people handed them out after the game to everybody.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It was awesome.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what's the ROI on that?

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but it was really, really cool.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And even getting feedback from people as we were handing them out, I think it was incredibly

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_01]: great for the brand.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But part of the reason you do that is just like, that's where you live.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, there's a, there's a piece of that, an intangible benefit.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That's hard to kind of put your finger on.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_05]: I think as we've done these, the do fun shit budget, Sean, do you have a do fun shit budget?

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Because I know you have like, I know you love to experiment and spend on stuff and you post

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_05]: about it, but do you have a do fun shit budget?

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is, this is the brag marketing I was talking about.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So like, you know, part of the reason you have a company is so you can support people you

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: like and care about doing it all in.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that was, that was part of the brag budget.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_02]: My favorite, my favorite band, you know, I've, I've paid for private shows in the past.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_02]: They hit me up and they're like, Hey, will you sponsor our tour?

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, yeah, fuck it.

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: That was such a ballroom move.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Sean, tell that story.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you've told that story on.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Sean, you got to tell the story about hiring the band privately.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so me and my wife have the same favorite band.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a band that basically nobody on earth likes.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: They're called, they're called the Menzingers.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Like they, they might have 500,000 monthly listeners.

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's a small band.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: We met, we met over that band.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_02]: We were actually at the same show like a month before we actually met, but we go to the internet.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: She had like the band she likes in her bio.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, Oh, she's the only girl in LA who likes this band.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_02]: We should, we should be together.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_02]: We got, we got married over COVID before we got engaged.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And during COVID there was no concerts.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hit up the band and I hired them and they played a private show for me and her.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's, that was the engagement party.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and they were so happy to get it because like, you know how hard it is to be like a,

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: a touring band like during COVID like that year, they probably made like $25,000 each.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's, it's a hard fucking business.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so anyway, they hit me up and they're like, Hey, would you sponsor a tour?

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, yeah, fuck it.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe like I, we get into my wife said quality of life.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like one of the themes of today's show is going to be how much it sucks to be the CEO of a business.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I, I spend, I'm going to spend, I'll be on over 10 flights in October.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm, I'm in, I have to go to Oakland today and I was in New York twice and I have to go to fucking San Diego.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Like just part of this job is that it doesn't stop.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, are you wearing Kevlar to Oakland?

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, our, our, our wholesale 3PLs in Fremont, but there's a JSX flight Burbank to Oakland.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So you just fly into the private airport there.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really nice.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_05]: It's good.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but yeah, anyway, I'm staying in Palo Alto.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not like I'm a fucking, I'm a, I'm a warrior dude.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, but dude, being a CEO sucks sometimes.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, look, it's very hard to complain.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm, I'm, I'm so happy in my life.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I get to make millions of dollars a year, but I've never been able to like log off.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like our employees on Friday, they're like, well, work sucked this week, whatever.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And they go have fun.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Like none of us get to do that.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So this ties to some of the benefits, the fringe benefits of being a CEO is you get to direct

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_02]: budget and you get to sponsor whatever you like.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, if it's, if it's okay, see if it's the Yankees, if it's getting playoff games, cause

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_02]: it's, it's the fruits of the labor.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Matt, do you have anything like that?

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything you enjoy that you can spend money on?

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't spend company dollars cause I am venture funded.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_03]: So I have that thing that Mike is talking about not having, which is a board and investors.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, you know, I used to, so with my first company, it was bootstrapped and the usual things that

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_03]: you're allowed.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Like I was a big fan of basketball in like in Toronto.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_03]: So I liked going to games.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, mostly do like travel.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I honestly think that like, that's the ultimate luxury and the like do fun shit

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_03]: thing is just like going to other cities and then doing all the things in that city that

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_03]: you're like growing up.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I just couldn't get to do.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_03]: So we used to hold like, uh, with my old company, we'd go to New York a lot and we would just

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_03]: have these parties to get clients.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And I thought it was the best thing ever.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, I get to have a party as a business, you know, I'm 30 years old and I'm

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_03]: throwing a party at an awesome restaurant in New York city.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And my company is paying for it and it's not coming out of my pocket.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, that was the coolest thing at that time.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, Matt loves his D to see dinner.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I don't know.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I've like the, I dread the idea of getting a plane and traveling for just work, uh, like

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_03]: 10 flights in a month, Sean, that sucks, dude.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It's so funny.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a great example.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Like travel seems so like cool and like, uh, you know, like aspirational when you're

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: younger, like business travel must be awesome.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Staying in nice hotels.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you do it a while and you're like, no, it's a grind.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_01]: No matter how nice a hotel, no matter where you sit on the plane, it's just a grind.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a good way to go.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Travel less.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And somehow I keep figuring out ways to travel more.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_05]: It's ridiculous.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe 2025 new year's resolution is to travel less.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a theory on this, Jason, like that when it comes to saying no, basically your

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_01]: no muscle has to continue to get stronger and stronger.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if you, if like, if you think about when I was like 35, my ability to say no, if I kept

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_01]: that same ability to say no to 45, then I'm just totally cooked because the number of things

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting asked to do has gone up exponentially.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And the cool factor of the things I'm getting asked to do is, is going up exponentially.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like my willingness to say yes has plummeted basically over the last 10 years.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's still probably too high, exactly what you're saying, because I still find too

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_01]: many weeks where I'm like, how am I doing all this stuff?

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The worst, the worst month I've had, it was, was probably I did 20 flights in 30 days.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And like that fucking sucks.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So like 10, 10 is fine, but like, I'll probably only be home maybe five nights in the month

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: of October, which the wife does start to hate.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: That's probably, that's probably when all that stuff comes to an end.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: What's up everybody.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the operator's North beam ad unit.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So 30 seconds, I'm going to tell you all about how, if you have any problems with North

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_02]: beam, you can directly message Austin, the CEO.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_02]: He is there.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He will set up your ad account.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_02]: He will make your bed.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: He'll give you cookies.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Really?

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: They have a dedicated team of people, probably 30, 40, 50 reps at this point who will make sure

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_02]: North beam is working correctly and functioning.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can get amazing data out of this ecosystem.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They will be more hands-on than any meta rep will ever be.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're going to help you understand where ad dollars are best spent, best position in

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: which ads are working.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02]: My team works with the North beam team literally every day.

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_02]: They're in my Slack.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you don't get the same level of support as an operator, but they will be there to make

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_02]: sure it's working.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're not happy at all, just email Austin.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He will take care of you.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We use North beam every day.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a benchmarking tool.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It's super helpful for forecasting, daily pacing, inter hour pacing.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So we can see like if we just launched an ad in two hours, if it's working or not, that's

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_02]: what North beam does for us.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you North beam for the support.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm customer probably number one.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you so much.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_05]: One thing to add regarding North beam, because we just went through a contract renewal with

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_05]: them on their, uh, specifically on the MMM and, uh, we got a pretty sweetheart deal and

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_05]: I expect them to come back to us and raise our price and kind of deserve it.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I was like, let me, let me reach out to the team, you know, and see how it's going.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Cause I'm not in the day to day that I get, I get feedback and the team was like, they have

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_05]: improved the MMM so much since we started it that they were like, we should definitely

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_05]: pay for this increase.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_05]: So, and my team hates every agency and most SAS, the only person that hates SAS, uh, the

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_05]: only more than my team is Sean Frank.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, but yeah, I mean, they came to us, they're like, Hey, you guys got the, the sweetheart

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_05]: deal.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_05]: We wanted the first MMM clients and I was very, very pleased when my team was like, it's

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_05]: really working well for us.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's my little MMM plug.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Sean's biggest CEO hate is all the travel.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_05]: What's a, what's Mike's.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think, gosh, I think that feeling responsible all the time and that you're aware of everybody's

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of hopes and dreams.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I think for me, the, just the sense that like so many people are relying on me and I think

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: it's exacerbated by the fact that I've got a really good, really hardworking team.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of feel like, well, you know, part of it is having your car pointed in the

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_01]: right direction, driving in the right direction.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my job.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And part of it is the people driving the car doing a good job.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And in my organization, the people driving the car are always doing a good job.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like when things don't go well, I'm kind of like, well, I kind of think that's

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_01]: my fault that I'm not, I'm not pointing us, not steering us in the right direction.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So we, you know, it's not just all the employees we have.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: We have these manufacturing partners.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_01]: We have like, you know, the thunder and OU and all these, you know, we have all these

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: nonprofits.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think the amount of responsibility you feel, Sean, you nailed it earlier.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I'm never fully off.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: The idea that I would ever have an hour where I don't have a work thought is just not realistic.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of good stuff that comes with that, but also that's a significant amount

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_01]: of pressure.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_03]: What about you, Matt?

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I was going to say the, the not pressure from a responsibility, but the, the built-in

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_03]: pressure to always grow or do more like the, like the never enough.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that's a CEO thing or, or if it's just an entrepreneur thing, but it

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_03]: feels like the force that is just constantly there that I want to push against.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like a dark force in the back of your brain.

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you're not doing enough.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And like, I fall for that all the time.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I have to be doing more.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to be writing.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I have to be telling people what to do.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It sucks, man.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Just like sitting around.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_05]: It's true.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like, there is, there are no mental breaks.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_05]: So you guys have hit that.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I can, I can unplug for the weekend better now than I used to probably cause I forced

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_05]: myself and I enjoy playing golf.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_05]: But I would say the people issues increase, not linear to the number of employees you have.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, and, and maybe it's just like the time, but I just found like, I find there is just

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_05]: a lot more handholding, a lot more egos to deal with.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, I was just talking to somebody, you know, like, you know, we never had HR issues until,

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_05]: until we hired an HR person and everyone's going to HR.

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_05]: And, and I realized that because we did not have to have a head of HR for like forever.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, my controller was dealing with it.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_05]: We use the PEO and then we hired a great head of HR.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_05]: She's really, really great.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_05]: She's really, really committed.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, she, she's around Pantyota.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_05]: She's like, she's known in the industry.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_05]: She worked for CTC.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, and, but all of a sudden, like everyone wants to go talk to HR about something.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_05]: And like, I think you should talk to your manager if you have issues.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_05]: I like, I don't think running the HR with every question is a good look personally.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_05]: Um, but that's so that's, that's the, I think that the people stuff, it just, um, it doesn't

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_05]: grow linearly.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_05]: It's more like exponentially and it's, um, it's distracting because it's, I mean, it's part

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_05]: of getting to the goal is right.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like rallying the troops and getting the people to be effective and productive.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_05]: But on our level, I think having to spend so much time, Danny and me spending so much

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_05]: time, like thinking about the people and not thinking about growing the business is, has

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_05]: been, uh, has been, I'd say an interesting challenge over the last couple of years as

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_05]: we've gotten so big.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I think every person over 30 is an exponential increase in brain damage.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like a factor of 10.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like you add one, you just got 10 times more brain damage.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So have you guys seen the math on this?

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like that it, that basically it's, it's counterintuitive, but it does the number of

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: relationships in your organization scales exponentially as you add people.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So like when we founded the organization, we had three people and there were like three total

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_01]: relationships, me to Brian, me to Mike and Mike to Brian, three total relationships.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We're at a hundred people now and it's like 5,500, 5,500, or maybe we're at 120, whatever

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_01]: we're at.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like thousands of relationships.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And kind of to your point, Jason, there's just so much more surface area for conflict

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_01]: or for things to go wrong.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're really fortunate that we, we don't have a lot of that in our organization, but

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_01]: there is a point where like the numbers just get you.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I also think what you said, there's a book that's going around about therapy right now.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And I say, this is both my parents were in mental health, but the book is kind of critical

[00:33:09] [SPEAKER_01]: of some of the therapy culture because the research is starting to say, if you do a lot

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: of asking people about their feelings, like, how are you feeling that they feel worse?

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_01]: That the more you ask them to talk about their feelings, the more you ask them, Hey, what's

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_01]: wrong?

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_01]: The more they manufacture and come up with things that don't feel very good or feel wrong.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of like the, at the far end of what can happen is when we create cultures

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_01]: where that people are constantly complaining.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and then the more we listen to it, the more they kind of complain.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_05]: That is, that is so well put.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_05]: I, Mike, please tell us that book.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I'll look it up while we're, please put it in the chat.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can, you can do the math yourself.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So if there's three dots, how many lines connect those dots?

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You could, there's only three lines.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_02]: When you have four dots, you get to six, right?

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So you added, you added 33% more dots, but you doubled or 50% number of connections.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And when you get to a hundred, it's actually an infinite number basically of lines connecting

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_02]: all these fucking dots.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is what happens every time you add a person.

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it is, it is truly exponential because everyone has to connect in, in, in these relationships.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Which is why.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I remember back in 2022 when we were, we were so lean and we used a bunch of agencies and

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_05]: it was really like a small group of us, me, Danny, maybe a couple others, like really

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_05]: just managing all these agencies.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And we, we have built a best in class team at Hexclad.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I'm really proud of the people that we have here.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_05]: But every once in a while, I'm like, wow, you know, things were a lot simpler when we were

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_05]: managing a bunch of agencies and our, our numbers were pretty dang good back then too.

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's the classic executive role is that every three months you're like, oh, I

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: could do this with 10 people, not a hundred.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I had that conversation all the time, you know, going back to like the hard parts about

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: being a CEO, we had to fire three people on Friday.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And like, I, I am actually like, I, I do not like the term layoff.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I think, I think that is usually people taking the easy way out.

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_02]: We fired people who are no longer a fit to the business and we offer them severance because of

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_02]: that.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a reduction in force.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to hire new people in exchange for those roles.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_02]: We just, we, some of those people have been with us for two, three years or whatever.

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So they, we offered them 80 grand in severance, something like that, like a huge amount.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just because they don't fit where the company's going, right?

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_02]: These people are bad.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_02]: They, they probably would be great at any of your guys' companies, but the roles that

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_02]: they do inside of our business, it's just, they're not, they're not where we're going.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And that sucks because you, you want to be, you want to be a mic and you want to take everyone

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_02]: along with you and like, you want to set this thing and coach everybody up.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes, sometimes that's not how it works.

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, one of the ways that I'll, I'll communicate this sometimes is when you're a CEO, you have to

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: wear multiple hats.

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have a hat that's like the fiduciary, you know, overseer of the organization.

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a hat that's the manager.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I have the hat that's Mike, the person, Mike, the friend, you know, I have all these different hats

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and I have to have conversations where it's like, I'll just preface the conversation with,

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I'm going to have to take off the mic, the friend had, and I'm putting on the mic,

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01]: the manager hat.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not good enough.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know this isn't going to sound like, you're probably not going to like this conversation,

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_01]: but you need to hear this.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's kind of the point you're making, Sean, is that when you're CEO, there are just times where

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: it's like the crappy conversation, the hard decision, like you're just, you're the person to do it.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And the personal side of you may not want to do it or may really feel sorry for how it's going to

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_01]: impact another person's life or their business or whatever, but you're acting on behalf of the

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_01]: organization.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to do it.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's bad therapy, by the way, that's the name of the book.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just reiterate, therapy is really important for a lot of different types of people.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But in our culture, we're doing more therapy than ever before.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And people are describing themselves as less mentally well than ever before.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And so something about the approach or some kind of a breakdown that's happening.

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really interesting book.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to check it out.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's Abigail Schreier.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Interesting.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_05]: She's a, she's a very polarizing figure, Mike.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It, it, that book is, is a polarizing book.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, that's why I say like, Hey, I'm a big fan of the mental health industry,

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_01]: like not industry, mental health professionals, because I have seen a lot of people that my parents

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: have personally helped people that have gone through abuse, really difficult situations

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_01]: in their life where like, literally they need to be on medication.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_01]: They need to have somebody to talk through their issues with.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But the problem is a lot of the difficulties that we face, we just have to work through.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_01]: We really underestimate one thing about human nature, which is our ability to adjust to

[00:37:54] [SPEAKER_01]: our circumstances.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So the bad part of that is we're hedonic.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_01]: That means if our circumstances are really good, like we get the awesome new car within

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_01]: a week or two, we've adjusted and we're not able to still derive joy from that.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But the opposite is also true.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You put us in a situation that we think would be, you know, impossible to get through the death

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01]: of a loved one, right?

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Losing a job, a really ridiculous demand at work.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And from the outside, we'd say, well, I can't handle that.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you put people in those situations and it turns out they do adapt.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: They are able to rise to the challenge.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And in our culture, we're not doing that enough.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: We're so protective from the time that we have kids, you know, like our kid, when I was

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_01]: a kid growing up, it would be like, yeah, go ride your bike.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can go ride two, three miles away from the house.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody does that anymore.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: That's like not the air we breathe anymore.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_05]: This is totally e-com grandpa.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And then I know Sean said, but like the lack of grit in today's society, in the United States

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_05]: of America, at least is astounding.

[00:38:52] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like absolutely astounding.

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's what you're talking about.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So I got two points.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_02]: The first is the hedonic treadmill is totally real.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_02]: We have friends in our lives that have over a hundred million dollars.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you ask them if it's enough, it is never enough.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it is.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, people, people I love and care about people.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I like, I literally mentors.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I look up to, I'd love my life to be like them.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_02]: They have, they literally have a hundred million dollars.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, I'm like, what, what are you doing?

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Why are you still grinding?

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Why are you, why are you fucking on board meeting calls yelling at your lawyer?

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_02]: They're like, well, they're like, well, I know people have a billion dollars.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's, that's better.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Sean, have you read Andrew Wilkinson's book?

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Never enough.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, you're not a book guy.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They share something in a lot of books.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm never going to read.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Not going to read bad therapy.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Not going to read.

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Mike, you might like it.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_03]: It's actually, Jason, you might like it.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_03]: It's actually about this topic of like just the hedonic treadmill of the never, the never,

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, achieved horizon and the never enough thing.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And you're right, Sean, we do have friends that have like an obscene amount of wealth

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_03]: and yet they feel like they just can't stop.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_03]: They got to get more, more, more, more.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And they're willing to put it all in the line to double it again.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_02]: The, the, the, the second point I was going to make about, you know, like Mike said, Hey,

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_02]: if you're in great situations, you get used to them.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're in horrible situations, you get used to them.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I bring up the Macari method all the time and people always try to Google it.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So I, I linked it in chat.

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Finn is going to put it in the description of this.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: He does an interview where he talks about, yeah, your body will adjust.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, if you have to do 80 hour weeks, if you don't get any sleep for five weeks in

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: a row, he's like, if you have to sleep three nights, it's like, yeah, you think you're

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: going to die, but no, your body will adjust.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you're able to actually put yourself through intense stress for long periods of time.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, don't do that all the time.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But he's like part of being a founder, getting like exceptional results is like, you just

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: have to suffer sometimes.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think about that every time when like it's three in the morning, my plane just landed

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_02]: and I have to go to some shitty fucking hotel in North Jersey.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Cause I have some meeting the next day.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just think I'm like, look, I'm not going to get sick.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to power through this because your body will adjust to intense pressure for

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_02]: however long.

[00:41:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And that is probably like, you know, being soft as, as a society is forgetting that it's

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: like, no, you could not sleep for a couple of weeks and you'll be fine.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I love this topic.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: One other thing, Sean, you know, we've been kind of kicking around this.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_01]: What's, what's hard about being a CEO?

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I think another way of verbalizing what I said earlier is that nobody's going to really empathize

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_01]: with you, that nobody really understands what it's like to live your life.

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody's going to really try that hard to understand what might be hard about your

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_01]: life.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you, that's why a lot of CEOs can be so lonely.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and we know this, like the, it's the reason why all these coaching groups exist

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and things like YPO, because typically, you know, the whole it's lonely at the top thing.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it is difficult for people to empathize with your life because your day to day is so

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_01]: different than what most people experience in their jobs.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's very difficult for anybody to really understand the pressures or strains that you're

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_01]: feeling.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I was just going to say, I watched a Tegan and Sarah documentary about how like they had a

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_02]: stalker and like, they had like someone pretending to be them and fucking up all the relationships

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_02]: and like that they had ended up having security and, uh, not to name drop on my flight to New

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: York.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I was sitting next to Josh Brolin, the actor and like people like fucking come up to him and

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_02]: take photos or whatever, but like, they don't know who that guy is.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, Oh yeah, that fucking sucks.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Being famous totally sucks.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Like everyone wants more of you and expects more of you or whatever.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And being, being the CEO of an organization is that to like the smallest degree, like nobody

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_02]: gives a fuck who we are.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Like nobody's going to take photos of us, but like there, yeah, there's no sympathy.

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you're going to pay all the fucking tax.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you're going to, you're going to expect all of these things.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And if there's a problem, it's your fault.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And in exchange, you get a bunch of money.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm super fucking stoked on that, but dude, it's, it's make or break by the sweat

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: of your brow.

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_02]: What were you going to say, Matt?

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I was going to say that the YPO thing, uh, I've been YPO, I'm an EO.

[00:43:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a huge fan of these groups.

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, like I really am.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that it's important to have your peers.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I think Sean, what you did during COVID of like starting all of these text groups and getting

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_03]: people together is kind of a version of that.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like the, the digital version of that.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, let's just connect a bunch of people who otherwise wouldn't really talk to their

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03]: peers and it actually helps.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you, you know, for people listening, if you're not in one of these organizations,

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_03]: they're actually pretty good.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Like YPO has been awesome.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a global network too.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I can go anywhere and meet people in YPO.

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty rad to show up in a city and just like have an instant network of folks who do

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_03]: your job.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That's cool.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, I think the second part that stands out to me is how much, uh, in, at least in, in what I think

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_03]: our network and even just beyond our network and the network I have here, I think great CEOs just

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_03]: really lean into the suffering part.

[00:43:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Like that there is no actual great outcome if you're not willing to do the suffering.

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, so a lot of this, sometimes I, even my wife will call me out and it's like, it sounds like

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm bitching about this.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, like there's parts of the job that suck, but there's parts of every job that suck.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think the people that excel in any job and any career are the ones that realize that

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_03]: the process and the suffering is sort of the cost and that you just got to learn to enjoy it.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Well said.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: One, one kind of thing in this, I just think it's so fascinating.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was, I was looking at the quote while we were talking about this.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I was thinking about Jason's parts.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going backwards, but the, the part about grit, the, the quote, hard times create strong

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_01]: men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times.

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just think like so much of being a good CEO is about having grit and about saying,

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, even if nobody understands what I'm doing or even fully appreciates it, I'm looking out

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_01]: for the group and, uh, and anyway, it, it can be a grind.

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_05]: You know what amazes me?

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_05]: This is kind of a related topic and let's, let's, we can call this one a panzerism is the lack

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_05]: of understanding history in today's society, because we're so it's like, if you look at

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_05]: the election right now, you're, you wind up in a funnel.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like an election funnel.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_05]: You're in the Democrat funnel or you're in the Republican funnel and you just hear what's

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_05]: in that funnel and the lack of critical thinking skills, which to me, a big part of that is

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_05]: this like not understanding history.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Because if you look at everything you do in life through the lens of, of history, cause

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, the Churchill said it, it wasn't him.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_05]: I think someone else, but you know, those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_05]: it.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_05]: It's like, there's so nothing new under the sun, you know, all the, all the, all the, whatever

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_05]: you call it, trite expressions, but it's just amazing with everything going on in the world.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Everyone is stuck in their, in their political funnel right now.

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And they just don't understand history and they don't realize combining critical thinking

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_05]: with an understanding of history.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, that's what makes you a winner, right?

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_05]: That's, that's why we're all winning because we're all critical thinkers.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Sean is not like just believing what anyone tells him, right?

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Sean is like calling bullshit on everything.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, we all are, but it is amazing how people just do not understand.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Like they can't even look back 40 years and, and know how much life has changed for humans.

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_05]: You were talking about sustainability before Mike.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I'm not like a huge sustainability environmentalist by any stretch, but like, think about water

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_05]: bottles.

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Think about plastic water bottles.

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I didn't grow up with plastic water bottles in the seventies and eighties when I was a kid.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_05]: I had a two liter Coke in my, uh, you know, but I didn't have water.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_05]: I had, I had Hawaiian punch in a can, but like, you know, and

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_05]: where did all these water bottles come from?

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, this is insane.

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_05]: And just lack of understanding history and critical thinking is just, it, it really makes

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_05]: me shake my head every minute of every day.

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_02]: There was like 40 years in human history where nobody drank water.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It seems like from, from the sixties until 2000 people just were not drinking water.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Jason, I wanted to bring up, um, you know, you brought up the election.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So everyone, every fucking four years, they're like, this is the most historic, important

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_02]: election of our lives.

[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And it never is.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the last important election was 1992 because of Ross Perot.

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that was the last time that I think there was like a unique, interesting thing happening.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And the sense that I think it's been the same fucking, you know, like since then there hasn't

[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_02]: been an election without a Biden, a Clinton, or this year, a Trump on the fucking card.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that entire time.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Or yeah, basically like, wow.

[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the, Oh, or I guess you have to add a bush in there for, for like eight years or

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_02]: whatever.

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the same fucking people the entire time.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Like Ross Perot, I think was the last interesting thing to happen.

[00:48:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, any, any other ideas on the election or what Jason's talking about that we don't

[00:48:27] [SPEAKER_02]: understand history.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think I appreciated the, that his, like, I don't think I appreciated learning about

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_03]: studying history until I got older either.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Like to be completely fair, I think it's been in my forties and it's actually been in my,

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_03]: like probably the last year or two Jason, where I, I actually think there's a lot of

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_03]: value in reading history.

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Um, especially as an entrepreneur, especially as like where your job or a CEO, where your

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_03]: job is to go look out for the future and try to come back and tell people like, Hey, we're

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_03]: going to, like Mike said, we're going to steer in this direction.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Not understanding where we have, what got us to this place societally, even in consumer.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_03]: How did we get here as consumers?

[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Where did all these products come from?

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_03]: What not understanding history is actually a, um, you're missing some pieces.

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

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[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Infinity testing does that in the background constantly, testing hundreds and thousands

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[00:51:11] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, I'm going to have the conversation.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Jason, you brought up HR being issues.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_02]: The main issue is how the fuck do you manage the career trajectory of 100 people?

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Because they all want more money.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They all want to advance, right?

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Or I shouldn't say everybody.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd say 80, 90% of them want more money, want to advance, want to keep going.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And an organization, unless it's growing exponentially, just doesn't have that many leadership spots.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And where this really comes up is I think we're still in a cost of living crisis.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_02]: In chat, I referenced a house in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that's a million dollars.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And everyone talks about, you know, like, oh, there's like, it's too expensive in LA,

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_02]: too expensive in New York.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You should move to fucking the Midwest or whatever.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Blown away that there's lots and lots of houses in Oklahoma that are a million plus, right?

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_02]: One, two, one, five, whatever.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, Mike-

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I can confirm that they are freaking huge, though.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_01]: That like in Oklahoma, you are living like a king at that level.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:52:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you guys manage that?

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Like the cost of living crisis, especially all you guys have in-person staffs.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Matt, you're in fucking Canada where it's so expensive to live.

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Dude, housing here is obscene.

[00:52:24] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the case of the one benefit that we have in Canada that I think offsets cost of living

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_03]: relative to America is healthcare.

[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, we don't pay for healthcare here.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_03]: So like as a company, I don't have, I have it for my American employees and I look what I pay.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I actually look at what I actually caught, it costs me and it's, it's insane per employee per month.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Like it blows me away.

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So we don't have that.

[00:52:49] [SPEAKER_03]: But so there's a, there's a certain psychological element to that guys that you don't understand until you have it,

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_03]: which is like, there is never, there's no instance in a Canadian's life where they're like,

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how I'm going to pay that bill.

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Like a medical bill.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_03]: There's no future state where they're like 80 years old.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, fuck, if I get sick and I'm 70, what happens?

[00:53:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, can I afford that bill?

[00:53:14] [SPEAKER_03]: So that our housing is expensive, but we don't have that other looming thing.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_03]: That's this unknown that we're constantly, you know, that you're, is keeping you up at night.

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_03]: There's certain parts of living here that are really cheap and there's certain parts that are expensive.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's the same anywhere.

[00:53:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, um, it really bothers me that the, I don't like that we can't pay people more.

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Like it really, it weirds me out in Canada specifically, like the cost of housing to relative to what people make is so detached from reality.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't, it's such a complex problem.

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't understand, but it pisses me off that the gap exists and I don't know how people afford to live.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I really don't.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: A quick little fact check.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_02]: If you're 70 in America, you're going to be on Medicare and you will not have to pay.

[00:54:00] [SPEAKER_03]: There you go.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I just, I know I have American friends who like literally panic about healthcare bills.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, the social, the social, the social safety network that in the U.S. is definitely not what it is in other countries.

[00:54:15] [SPEAKER_05]: I think it's a good thing though.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Because it's traditionally been like a more self-reliant.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Yep.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a good way of doing things.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Like I know a guy who's like 70 and he makes very little money.

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_05]: He's got a lot of health issues.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_05]: He, he can really can't work.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_05]: He can barely afford his rent.

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's hard for him.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Like there's not just like some great safety net waiting for him, but, but you're also taught as a young age, or at least you should be to like succeed in life, work hard, you know, save money, you know, do all those things.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's kind of like, are we supposed to be taking care of everyone for their bad decisions for the rest of their lives?

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a tough one.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, Sean, the, the thing up here that blows me away, it's probably similar to LA.

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Like the cost of living in Vancouver is twice what it is where I live.

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And where I live is expensive.

[00:55:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Like we, we live in like a, I don't know.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a really nice place though.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_03]: This is, this is part of the issue is that the city that we do live in the environment and the climate and what we have is what drives up the cost of living and the fact that we're like landlocked.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So there's not a lot of land.

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like the Midwest.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_01]: This is one of the problems with globalism and, and with globalism and like the rise of like the wealthy globally, they're just more mobile than ever before.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the amount of places that people really want to live in the world has stayed the same, but the mobility and the number of millionaires, billionaires keeps increasing.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like, have you guys seen the, um, the photos of Everest, like Everest, you can apparently only summit it for a few weeks.

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like this really cool thing until you see how it actually looks.

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's basically just like a line all the way up to the summit, you know, like, yeah, exactly.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's like waiting in line at Disney, at Disney world for three days in environment that could kill you.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, it's, there's nothing like that cool about it because of the same dynamic.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I do think one, one point I'd make to what you're asking, Sean, about the HR and people is that I think you just have to be really upfront about here's what the company can do for you.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's how I can help you.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and here's what it can't do.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing that I've gotten better at, I used to kind of feel all this pressure to, you know, help everybody, you know, meet every hope and dream.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'd like, you know, you do that for a couple of years and you realize you can't.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the things I've started saying to everybody is like, listen, everybody leaves a hundred percent of people that are in the company right now will leave.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you might be here for two years, you might be here for 20 years.

[00:56:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but you are going to leave just like I'm going to leave.

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And all I can control is while you're here and while what the company can provide and what you need are a good fit for each other, that you have the best experience possible.

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And that when you leave, hopefully I'm sending you out of here where you've learned a lot and you've got things you can take with you.

[00:57:09] [SPEAKER_01]: You've got skills that you look back really favorably on your time here and the relationships you built and the things you learned and things like that.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And once I adopted that mindset, it helped me to kind of offload a bunch of the, you know, responsibility I was putting on myself.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Because otherwise, like you said, you're just constantly chasing your tail.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, this person is worried about not growing.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_01]: They feel like they need a direct report.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So do we need to hire somebody just so they have a direct report?

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Or, oh, this person's a little bit unhappy with their compensation, but it doesn't really make sense to, you know, pay them 10% more, even though some other company's willing to.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_01]: You really just have to start to be like, hey, here's what works and here's what doesn't.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I totally get if it doesn't work for you, everybody will leave eventually, but we're going to treat you as well as we can while you're here.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that is the best thing you can do as a CEO is make your company so attractive that the name on the resume means something someplace.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We've had employees, we had an employee, Julia, for five years or whatever.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_02]: She's like, my goal is to be a CMO.

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, all right, well, unless Connor dies, knock on wood, like that's, he's our CMO, right?

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're not going to be that here.

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, she probably made 90 or 100 grand at Ridge.

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_02]: She gets an offer for 180 someplace.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, yeah, fucking take that.

[00:58:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to pay you that.

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that company values the name of the resume, they value your work, they value who you are.

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Totally take that.

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_02]: That's an amazing outcome for a CEO.

[00:58:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And it is, it's not making a company that everyone stays at forever.

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a company that people can graduate from.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Matt, you were going to say something.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_01]: No, man.

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly what you just said.

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that story, Sean.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that is, that is great leadership because that is helping people to thrive.

[00:58:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And like one of my favorite ones ever was a guy that I knew as a college student.

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_01]: He had a letters degree.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I hired him, make him $40,000 a year and taught him how to be an analyst at this company with my brother.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And today he's the head of analytics for a huge precious metals exchange where he makes, I don't know, probably 180 or 200 a year.

[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was, I don't know, it's been eight years or something.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So he went from, you know, graduating with a letters major to running all of the analytics for a huge exchange in a very short decade of time.

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's doing really well.

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, it was sad to me when he left, but it was also exactly what you said.

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, this is great.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the whole point of you hope you bring people in and you lead them and they outgrow you a lot of the time.

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And they go on and do other great things.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_05]: We have that too, where people are just coming after our team.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And yeah, they put the HexCloud name on their LinkedIn and they're getting calls and these people deserve it.

[00:59:41] [SPEAKER_05]: It's been a combination of their hard work and our brand kicking ass.

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_05]: But like a little career advice here is don't take that deal too early.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Don't like, there's always going to be time.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_05]: You probably could be worth more later.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Like, so there are a lot of people that, you know, they go to work, you know, you go to work for Ridge or Simple Modern for a year.

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_05]: And then you have it on your resume and some recruiter finds you and maybe someone will offer you a lot more money.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_05]: But I feel like there are a lot of people that are considering making that move too early.

[01:00:22] [SPEAKER_05]: And it's, I just, I tell people here because it happens a lot.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, look, it's great money.

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_05]: You know, if you really need the money, go take it.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_05]: But that money will be there again in a year or two in this particular case.

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_02]: What I'll have to say is you, you want to be on the winning ship.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So like a VP at Stanley is worth more than an exec at Allbirds because when you're an exec at Allbirds, it's really, really hard to escape that legacy.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Like people, people really don't like when things go bad and it, that can fuck up your whole career.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Like we've interviewed people from all of the big publicly traded exchanges.

[01:01:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, yeah, I don't really, I'm like, I'm like, if you had such good ideas, why does it suck?

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Right?

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're such a good leader, why did the company suck?

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's so unfair of me to put on those people.

[01:01:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's human nature.

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's one of the gravity that works against companies outperforming for really long periods of time, Sean.

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That just like you said, if I'm at Stanley and I've gone through a big monster run where I'm looking out in the next three to five years and I'm like, man, it's going to be pretty tough.

[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be pretty tough to grow from here.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be pretty tough to keep this positioning.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Then when the job offers are coming, it's tempting to take those job offers.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not just picking on Stanley.

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: This is true of any company that's had a really good run.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: People come poaching and the people that are at the organization think, well, like this might be the best offer.

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: This might be a good time to kind of sell high.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And that becomes a thing that brings them back down towards the pack.

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of the things that's interesting, whether you look at college football or business, this dynamic exists where once you outperform a little bit, all these market forces start to conspire against your future outperformance.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And you have to have a plan of how to fight those off.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_01]: People think it's all about getting to outperformance, but it's not.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It's about sustaining outperformance.

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really difficult part.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Totally.

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people are being recruited from Hexclad.

[01:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It's an amazing brand.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: It's had an amazing run.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think the future is still bright.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, yeah, do you want to be a VP at Hexclad or do you want to be an exec at Allbirds?

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, dude, unless you're fucking one of one can do a turnaround in the public markets, I'm not taking that job.

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: If I got a call right now and be like, hey, Sean, we'll give you $5 million a year.

[01:02:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to be the CEO of Allbirds.

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be like, no fucking thanks.

[01:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, call someone else.

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: All right.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: I do want to talk about the fucking house, like the cost of living crisis, because it used to be people would be like, oh, I'm just going to leave L.A. and go someplace cheaper.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Everywhere is a million dollars for a house.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing about housing is there's a theoretical limit.

[01:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, there's a house in my neighborhood trying to sell for $5 million.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a house in my neighborhood trying to sell for $8 million.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to sell.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: They're never going to sell.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to sit there forever.

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Because the theoretical limit is like $3.5 million.

[01:03:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, houses sell for $10 million, like just up the hill for me.

[01:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But those buyers are literally one of one unique.

[01:03:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So what the fuck is going to happen?

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_02]: How come every house is a million dollars?

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I think about it from two angles, Sean.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think about this a ton, but it definitely is something that's worth discussing, which is so from a consumer perspective, if the cost of living is getting so high, what happens to discretionary spending?

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That's something that all brands have to think about.

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And the second is employee team building, building all in one location.

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Mike, you and I have offices.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Jason, you have an office.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Sean, you're distributed, so you're less impacted by this.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_03]: But there are dynamic, that macro trend, if you look at inflation over the last three or four years, the actual net cost of living is obscenely high as compared to what it was three or four years ago.

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_03]: So this is having an impact on how long people stay at companies, how often they job hop, where are they looking for work?

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Are they willing to relocate?

[01:04:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Are they, you know, the pressure for remote work?

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Like all of these things, I think, Sean, stem from cost of living.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know how you guys are doing it.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, Jason, you have an office in L.A.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to recruit somebody, the minimum threshold you have to pay somebody is $125.

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That is like to live in East L.A.

[01:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's parts of L.A. that are cheap, right?

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Koreatown, you can still get an apartment for $1,500.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But like, yeah, I mean, it's still probably $125 is like the minimum floor.

[01:04:46] [SPEAKER_02]: How the fuck are you dealing with that?

[01:04:50] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's still a lot of people in L.A.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Because, look, you can think about the cost, but I also think about the benefit.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_05]: It's having people.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_05]: I know personally, me, like my output when I come in the office, I like line everybody up.

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_05]: I get everyone I need.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_05]: We bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_05]: We get stuff done.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Things that will take me offline an hour and a half take me 10 minutes in the office.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_05]: So I do think there's a give and take there.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_05]: There's also really good talent and we have to pay more for them.

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're actually just taking a fucking 30,000 square foot office space over from Spotify has like four floors around the corner from us and we're taking one of their floors.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're going, we're going in, we're going all in on, uh, on in person.

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, going back to the Tulsa, Oklahoma example, right?

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's houses there that cost a million, a million, one, whatever houses in L.A. cost one, seven to two, two, five.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So they call it double.

[01:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You make more than twice as much money in L.A.

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's more than twice as much opportunities.

[01:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So like, I totally get the advantage of being in L.A.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was just at the MKBHD studio.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Um, we did like, uh, like a bunch of like consumer research there and like talk to everybody, did interviews.

[01:06:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's probably, there's probably 20 people in that studio.

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I interviewed like 16 of them.

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: They have lunch together every day.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And like, it just felt nostalgic.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh my God.

[01:06:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Seeing, seeing people every day for lunch, sitting, talking, joking.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, you know, I haven't had that in five years or whatever.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's so nice.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So I definitely understand the benefit of doing that.

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But just like logistically, God damn, is it hard?

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: One person gets sick and fucking takes out your whole organization for a week.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: There's, there's upsides and downsides to every different way you build.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the key is that you understand what the unique strengths and weaknesses are of the way you're approaching it and that you maximize those.

[01:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So for us, it's like, yeah, there's some downsides to Oklahoma as a market,

[01:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: but there's some huge upsides.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If we, since we built an in-person culture in Oklahoma, it's really difficult for somebody from Colorado or New York or California to come poach one of our people.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't generally want to move, you know, just like people don't want to move to Oklahoma.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: People don't want to move from Oklahoma.

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like the same exact idea that when you get people that are, and like the fact that we have lunch every day means people are more connected,

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: which it's a lot higher to pry people away from the organization and we can pay people less.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But there's also like our candidate pool is more limited.

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So we have to basically like the way that I think about it is in our market, we have to be in the top 0.1 or 0.01%.

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what we have to hire.

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: At LA, that might be, you can just hire in the top 1% and still get the same quality level.

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's more margin probably to still have an excellent team.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But my biggest thing is, I was telling this to a couple of my guys the other day, we tend to think about the history of the company and like the big days were like when Target said, yeah, let's go, let's partner.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Or when, you know, we, Disney came on as a, as a licensing partner or whatever.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But I actually think the biggest days in company history were when certain people said yes, because that is actually what drives performances.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You get a great team of people.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the second part of that and the key part of that is, and then you keep them together.

[01:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And so whatever market you're in, whether you're remote or in person, whether you're in a big city or a small city, if you can figure out how to gather a lot of talented people in that context and keep them together, then you'll be successful.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And there are a lot of situations.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a book called The World is Flat, where they talk about Walmart as an organization.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And they make a pretty good argument that the reason why Walmart was so successful is because it was in the middle of nowhere.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That basically they had to become awesome at logistics because they were in the middle of freaking Arkansas, which was nowhere.

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they became so much better at logistics than everybody else.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And that enabled them to kind of crush everybody else on prices and eliminate their competition.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's advantages no matter where you are.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: You just got to be able to seek those out and then use those to not only build, but keep together a great team.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, on logistics as a weapon to win, same thing from Little Caesars.

[01:08:55] [SPEAKER_02]: The reason why that guy is a multi-billionaire is he's like, oh, I want the cheapest pizza possible.

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So they're like, he wanted to sell pizza for five bucks or else we're selling for 12.

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, oh, I'll just make the best supply chain ever to get my pizzas cheaper.

[01:09:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And now he's a billionaire.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Hot and ready pizzas is like my favorite business idea, I think, of all time.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: For exactly what you're saying, Sean.

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just brilliant.

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, and that guy, I mean, that guy really fucking runs Detroit.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_02]: He owns every sports team in Detroit.

[01:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, he owns so much stuff.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to somebody that's in their senior management a few weeks ago.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And even learning more, it was like, man, that's just an amazing franchise.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, also, I mean, he's dead.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So rest in peace.

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: His family runs it all now.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_02]: He, sweetheart, dude.

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: He fucking paid Rosa Parks rent.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: That is one of my favorite stories.

[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[01:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And never told anybody about it.

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: All right, guys.

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's end the pod.

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for being here.

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Mike, happy birthday to Mrs. Governor Beckham.

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Happy 2015.

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: The first lady proudly accepts your thanks.

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Mike, you're going to get canceled going after younger women like that.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You got to be careful.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Later, boys.

[01:10:06] [SPEAKER_03]: No, they're going to go out and do charity work today.

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_03]: It's her birthday.

[01:10:09] [SPEAKER_03]: That's how good Mike is.

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, listen.

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I just said, hey, what's the plan?

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Good looking.

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll let you guys know.

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm off to birthday day.

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_01]: See y'all.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Bye.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Have fun.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: See you guys.

[01:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: You made it.

[01:10:21] [SPEAKER_02]: An amazing episode of the Operators Podcast.

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for being here.

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening.

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[01:10:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Goodbye.

[01:10:44] Bye.