Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in and stopping by the Make It Click podcast. I'm your host Wilson Cross, CEO and co-founder of Boardless AI. Today we have a really epic guest, Andrew Wilkinson joins the show today. Andrew is the co-CEO of Tiny and he's also started 40 plus other businesses. Tiny owns and operates over hundreds of millions of annual revenue. We're doing this live in Victoria, BC, um where he's headquartered and I love to be. So, it's going to be a fun show. >> Andrew Wilkinson, thanks for joining, man. Really appreciate it. >> Of course. >> Really appreciate it. >> Thanks so much. Um, you're always in Victoria. >> Um, most of the time. I'm not a really I don't really enjoy travel very much. Um, so when when it's cold, I'll go away, but otherwise, yeah, I'm mostly here. >> Where do you go? >> Uh, I love to go to Maui. >> Oh, nice. >> Yeah. Cool. Cool. Yeah, I've got one hotel I love and I'm like a creature of habit. I've been going there for 20 years. >> My girlfriend gets very annoyed because I won't go anywhere else, but Yeah. >> Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Of >> course. >> Um, yeah. I was saying I uh this is like a new endeavor, the podcast. Um, and it's kind of like everybody I want to do coffee with or like do that coffee chat thing, I don't do that. I'll just try and invite them here. So throughout the year, that's kind of what this is looking like. So we got a few good good guests banked already. Um but obviously super excited to do this. Um I was I was catching up with a mutual connection and uh it sounds like you're really into pickle ball. >> Mhm. >> Is that your thing? >> I'm obsessed. Yeah. >> How how's that going? >> Good. I play like three times a week. I was trying to build You're a tennis player, I think. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's why I bring it up cuz I thought you were a tennis guy. So, I had I had this whole thing set up for you on the tennis front, but then I heard about the pickle ball hobby. So, if I get your address, there's a a pickle ball. But go ahead. Go ahead. >> Sweet. Yeah. I mean, I um I wanted to build a tennis court on my property and I couldn't fit. >> So, I was like, "Oh, I guess I'll do a pickle ball court." And I'd never really played pickle ball before and so I did it and now I'm just completely obsessed. Like, I play three, four times a week, and yeah, it's the best. >> Is uh is was the pickle ball court built before you got into it? >> Um yeah. Yeah. I was like I was like I know I'll like it basically, but I find pickle ball is the great equalizer. Like if you and I played tennis, I'm much worse than you. So you would kick my ass. Whereas if we played pickle ball, you'd probably still kick my ass, but we'd both enjoy it, you know? Whereas I wouldn't enjoy the tennis. It would just be miserable for me. So I find you can play with old, young, skilled, unskilled. I played with a guy who's like top ranked tennis player, age 50, and he, you know, he's can kick my ass, but it's like we can still play. >> Totally. Victoria guy. Yeah. >> First name start with an H. >> Hannis. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's like my neighbor. He lives in Detroit. >> Very small. >> And he's uh he's into Venture. What's know what's your like I like to have you kind of describe your story, but can you give it because there's so much going on. There's Dribble, there's Pixel Union, there's kind of the roots in Victoria, then obviously Tiny. Can you just like if nobody lots of folks know you and if you're on the internet you you would have to have an internet connection to be watching this eventually and if you're on the internet watching some sort of podcast thing they probably know who you are but if you could just give a little bit of a sense of like what you've done who you are what you're running right now >> what the day-to-day is funny I did a um interview two days ago with my old boss um when I was 19 I worked in a coffee shop And so my boss, Sam Jones, awesome, awesome guy. Um, and I sat down and did a podcast. And it was interesting to think back to it because that's where I started. Um, I was a college dropout. I had kind of I was always into computers and stuff, but um, I had gone to journalism school in Toronto and I hated it. Dropped out. >> Hated Toronto or hated journalism? >> Both. I hate I mean Toronto is freezing, right? I was like, why would anyone live here when they could live in BC? I like Toronto now, but but it's better when you have money. Not good place to be a broke student when it's 10. Um, >> but anyway, I I moved back home. I was working as a bista trying to figure out my life. And these two guys, Jeff and Chris, kept coming in and they would just sit there all morning on their laptops working. >> And eventually I was like, "What do you guys do? Don't you have jobs?" And they said, "Well, we just basically walk into local businesses and we sell them websites." So, they would just make websites for small businesses. And they told me how much they were making. And I was like, "Oh my god." Like, I don't want to be the guy making the coffee. I want to be the guy drinking it in the cafe on my headphones chilling. Yeah, that sounds way better. And so, I started um basically uh read a bunch of books and then I started walking into local businesses and I walked into a pulled pork barbecue joint. >> Guy said he'd pay me 500 bucks and it was like magic. There we go. That's my career. And that was the thing that snowballed and started everything. And so I started um working with tiny little companies and then bigger and bigger and bigger and over time that turned into, you know, Google and Walmart and Slack and Uber and all sorts of amazing companies. Um >> and then uh I decided I was a genius. You know, I'd had all this success, so I should start more businesses. And I started every stupid business you could imagine. you know, I started a skin care business, cat furniture company, uh, you know, online DJ school, you name it. And I lost all my money doing all those things. Was utterly humbled. Yeah. >> And I realized starting companies is really hard. >> Um, and so in about 2013 or so, I shut down most of them and then I sold one of my businesses that was doing well and I had a really bad experience selling the business. Um, you know, it was like when you're a founder, your business is like your child. >> Totally. >> And you're giving it to a stepparent and then I was on the board and I watched them, >> it felt like they're abusing my child, you know? >> Yeah. >> And uh, and I hated that experience. And so when I read about Warren Buffett and I heard about how he would buy these businesses and just leave them alone and let the founder keep running them or hire a CEO, I went, why is nobody doing this for small tech companies like mine? And so I started Tiny with my business partner Chris >> and we've been buying businesses for the last 13 or 14 years and >> our best known ones are Aeropress, Letterbox, Serato. Um, usually I just kind of follow my interests. So I love film. >> So we buy letter box, social network for film. I was a bista. I love coffee. >> Aeropress. >> I used to DJ very poorly. Sado. >> Um so for me it's been a really fun journey of just kind of find following my passions >> and then seeing what comes up. >> Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And the that first design agency where you go into the pole pork place, is that still an active company? >> Yeah. Metal. >> Okay. Exactly. And >> much bigger now. >> Exactly. Would that be kind of the company that springboarded everything else? >> Mhm. >> That was the golden goose. >> Yeah. Got it. And walk me through kind of like what how tiny relates to Metal Lab, how big they are, just a little bit of numbers around the scale because some people they'll hear this and they won't necessarily know the scale and it's pretty big scale. Very quick scale. >> Yeah. >> And not venturebacked scale. >> Mhm. um or venture venturefueled scale. Um but can you kind of walk us through that? >> Yeah, I remember I read this book um Rework by Jason Frerieded. >> Um they're the guys who made Base Camp and they were all they were kind of the contrarian anti VCs. They were all about profit. And >> because I'd started a business in Victoria and there was no venture capital and it was an agency to me that was very logical. of course, a business should be profitable. And so, um, we never raised any money. We never really used any serious amount of debt until a couple years ago. Um, and for the most part, we just compounded the cash flows. And so, um, today the business the businesses we own probably do over $250 million a year of revenue. Um, 40 million $45 million of Ebida, somewhere in that range. Yeah. >> Um and then separately um you know I also ran um you know when I was when I was taking dividends out of the business before we started Tiny and for a couple years after um I ended up taking a lot of money out and starting a family office which is just a douchy rich person way of saying a personal holding company. And so I've invested in about 150 startups um real estate stocks all sorts of other stuff. So there's this there's this huge collection of 40 or so businesses uh and operating companies under various umbrellas. >> Yeah. Yeah. Totally cool. That's dope. I think a lot of uh founders who probably probably most folks watch this that are kind of in tech in and they're a founder, want to be a founder, investor, they probably at least so I'm I'm 33. when I was like 21. I still go back and forth on this. It's like the only way to get rich is own re uh be born in 1968 and own real estate or start a venture back startup. That was like my like and I still go back and forth on that. But you didn't really do that. You took a different path. However, you do have a lot of exposure to the valley way of thinking obviously through your clients and obviously direct investments you've made. Given that you didn't take that path, you took maybe call it more of a cash compounding dividend track. When would have you said you like in your opinion got wealthy, became rich? Was that in your 20s and and and how? So, um, within about two or three years, I was making about $100,000 a month of profit. Um, and so to me, that was >> that's crazy rich. You know, like people often I'll talk to a young entrepreneur and they'll say something like, "I want to be a billionaire." Yeah. >> And I go like, >> "Well, why?" >> You know, what what do you possibly want to spend all that money on? Because to be a billionaire, you know, you're making uh what 40 million, 50 million, 60 million a year of profit. >> What is it in your life that requires that? You know, do you want to buy 12 houses? Is that going to make you happy? Do you want to buy a GFream G650? All these things that are not actually what people want. What they really want is >> freedom of time, the ability to buy a great house, great car, go on nice vacations. And the reality is you just don't need that much money to do that. And so for me, when I hit even 20 or $30,000 a month, which is a lot of money of profit, I was like, I'm I'm rich. This is amazing. And I would say that the bigger the numbers have gotten, my life has not gotten >> any better. In fact, in a lot of ways, it's gotten worse. >> Um, >> how so? >> Uh, well, I just think money makes things complicated, >> you know. um money uh when when people especially when people know you have money, you have to question people's intentions with you. You've got a lot of people wanting things from you. >> Um you have people seeing you as a payday. Yeah. >> Uh you have crazy people, so security concerns, all all sorts of stuff. Um and then you got to manage this burdensome thing, right? Having a large amount of money is actually incredibly stressful because when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. when you have something you have something to lose and you obsess over that if you're not careful >> and uh it's yeah I don't know when I I think when you talk to almost any entrepreneur they always say um >> I miss the good old days and I miss the first three or four years or whatever it is and I always use this analogy of >> if I love chopping wood in my backyard and I just did it for fun >> and then my neighbor popped his head over the fence and said hey would you chop me a cord of wood I'll pay you a hundred bucks suddenly drink our heads off. It's a blast. >> Flash forward 20 years >> and you wake up and you're in a sawmill and you're in a little office watching over the automated sawmill and you're just doing spreadsheets while the air conditioning blows down your back. Is that >> better? Is that a better life? Like no. The chopping wood is awesome, right? So I think like there's this kind of interesting paradox. >> Your biggest advantage I think reading about you has been age got started really early and there's not a lot of substitute for that. >> So just maybe talk me through the age piece and when you kind of realized you wanted to go this more Buffett route of reading every day tinkering and not really being in all team meetings. >> Well I would say um Morgan Hel has this great line. He says, I'm going to butcher it, but he basically says people think they want to get rich and what they actually want is respect and friendship, right? And I think um a lot of young, you know, especially young men have this vision where, you know, they're going to become a billionaire or, you know, build some massive company and then X, right? And then, you know, they've watched too much Entourage. They're like, "Oh, I'm going to be Vinnie Chase on Entourage the moment I become a billionaire." >> The reality is that all the things that those often somewhat broken and sad people want is uh free. You know, it's free to be loved by friends and have a great community um and build be respected by having integrity or being interesting or whatever it is. And so I think a lot of people just have this kind of they have it wrong. Um and I think people project a lot onto their jobs. So when I talk to people that are let's say like I talk to a 20-year-old and they say I really want to be a corporate lawyer and I say oh why >> they'll often be like well I mean it's a great job and I watch suits and you know or or they've watched Law and Order. They have some sense of what being a lawyer is >> but their uncle might be a lawyer. >> Yeah. But but then I asked them, um, oh, you must really love paperwork. >> You must really love meetings, paperwork, and email. >> Yeah, exactly. >> And you must really love detail. >> And they go, oh, no, I don't like those things. And I'm just like, okay, well, you're working towards this thing that is not going to deliver what you want. And I think for me um my path was I started so many businesses and in the early days I would just constantly ask myself why am I not good at running businesses. I can start them >> but I can't take them further. I got bored very quickly. I want to start a new thing. I have shiny object syndrome. And so I'd read all these management books you know good to great or seven h what is it? seven habits of highly effective teams or whatever it is. And I'd whip myself. I'd be thinking, why can't I do this? Um, >> and then >> over time, >> the only way that I could actually run a business, I realized, was via other people. >> And so, I gave up on that. I realized like I I can't do that. I'm not capable of that. >> The dayto-day, >> I can't do the day-to-day. I can't do detail. I'm not a detail- oriented person. I'm good at like finding like signal and opportunity and reading and absorbing a lot of information. And then I get really excited about an idea and I laser focus for like 3 months and then I'm just done. >> And so um now I know I have ADHD, but I didn't know that at the time. >> Interesting. >> And so the only way I could be successful, the only projects and companies that had worked >> I would start it and then I'd find a really really good number two diligent person and they would run the business. And so over time, we moved from a model of me and Chris just being chaos agents and starting businesses to hiring professional CEOs, incentivizing them, and leaving them alone. And it started working. >> Okay. >> Um but now, you know, I've realized this about myself. I just didn't know what it was. >> Interesting. That's huge. And you just like when did you figure that out? >> A year and a half ago. >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. I was doing I was doing a memory test. I go to this longevity doctor and they do an annual kind of memory test or whatever. And I did my first one and the doctor goes, the neurologist goes, you know, your your working memory is like 15th percentile. Like you are really terrible with working memory. Your long-term memory is good. You remember the things you want to remember, but your working memory is terrible. And that usually indicates ADHD. >> And I was so I was like, that's ADHD is like a, you know, I'm not that that doesn't resonate for me. That doesn't make sense. And then I started reading about it and I was like, "Oh my god, like every single >> symptom I have this." And so I took the medication. I took Viveance. And I remember >> I I I took it and I cried because I was like, "Oh my god, my brain was Time Square." Yeah. >> And now it feels like a library. It feels calm inside and I don't feel impulsive. And so for me it's been um transformative and it's really reduced my anxiety and I just feel so much better. >> Wow. Yeah. So I mean if you look at all the uh online media on you um podcast stuff people write it's very business slanted. It's all business like you know not a lot of health slanted. Um but that might have been the health piece might have have been the breakthrough as you mentioned to future past business success. How do you strike the balance because the ADHD piece can be a competitive advantage? Right. It can be right. So you don't want to or maybe people would argue you don't want to shut it off completely. How do you kind of strike the the balance? It's a hard question because I can't I can't go back in time and give myself medication and know what that would be like. What I can say is that I've started businesses since and I've done been able to execute a lot of things that are very short term where I see an opportunity and jump on it since doing that. Um, but what I would say is like most people are driven to entrepreneurship because they're broken in some way. Now, that could be parents that abused them or a teacher that told them they couldn't do it or some way they're looking for they're looking for the world's love. They need the world's love in some way. And >> um and I think a piece of that can be a biological thing, right? So, for me, like >> my anxiety, I would have such bad anxiety and I would tell myself that it's because my business isn't big enough. M >> I have anxiety in here because oh I'm I don't have the right employees or I don't have the right business or you know my partner doesn't get me or whatever it is. >> And by medicating myself I've been like oh no no no I was in here. >> It's a little bit like travel right? Like do you ever talk to someone and they're like oh like I hate it here and I'll I want to move to Europe. >> I just need to go to I just need to go to Mexico for a week. I just need to get my brain right. >> And it's like your brain comes with you. That's the problem. >> Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. you um obviously your book's great. >> Thank you. >> Um I'm gonna have you sign it later. >> Sure. >> Thank you. Um but your emails are really dope. Um and on January 13th of this year, 2026, you did an email and it said, "Divorce is awesome," I think was the title. Um great read. I think truly um kudos to you on being like super, what's the word? is vulnerable to like the absolute world. I don't know. It's like 30,000 subscribers or something like that, but like many people forward forward and whatever and read it or screenshot and somebody pinged me was like, "Yo, you know, look at this uh look at this title. His emails are really good." I read the whole thing. I read it twice. Um, happily married and stuff like that. But more or less I'm trying to get at the point of like the being vulnerable. But maybe walk me through the that email, why you sent it, and then also I want to get back to the ADHD ADHD thing because you mentioned a drug in that email that has also been transformative, but can you just walk me through that because very strong email. Um yeah, maybe I'll pause there. >> So um I do a lot of um forum groups. So, it's basically like the way I look at it is it's like men's therapy, but if I went to a group of men and I said, "Do you want to do group therapy with me?" Most of them would say no. >> And so, you trick them. You tell them it's a business group. >> And so, you go in and you share personal, family, business, highs and lows. >> And over time, what happens in a group of men as they get comfortable and it's confidential and everything else is they start talking about their marriage and relationships and how they feel about their life and all the other stuff. And I've been doing these groups for 20 22 years now. And I've seen >> How old are you? >> Uh I am 40. So I've been doing them uh for a really long time. Maybe since I was 19. So maybe 21 years. And um I have been amazed by how miserable some people are in their marriages and how long they will stay in them. And I would also say that I've observed a phenomenon where my divorced friends were the happiest. >> Yeah. And so um you know I was in a at the time I was not happy in my marriage about five four and four and a half five years ago >> and um I did a lot of thinking about it and ended up separating but I realized there's this like bizarre um fetishization of marriage where it's like this sacred thing and you cannot break it to the point where somebody can >> be in an abusive or miserable relationship and still stick with it because they worry about what their friends will say or whatever it is. And so I have said that for years. I'm one of the happy divorced guys, right? Like I I got out and I was like this is great. Like hey, we're unhappy >> now we're separate. We're co-parents. It's all good. Like for me that was really um positive. And so I quietly to all my friends said what I wrote in that piece that look if you're unhappy you should separate. If you love your marriage and you're great, then hell yeah. But if you're not, nothing can make you more miserable than being in an unhappy marriage. And so, >> um, I don't know, just decided to, um, actually write it. And it was my most popular email of all time. Wow. And it was so funny because like, >> what stats do you kind of hedge and look at? >> Oh, just the number of, um, the number of opens and all that stuff. It's just like everything was off the charts. Um, but I got so many >> subject line was epic. >> Yeah. Yeah, the it was a really good subject line, but but um the there was like, you know, there was like gossip around town or people got upset about it, but so many people emailed me directly and were like, "Thank you." Like, "No one else is saying this. I've never heard someone say this." Um because I think divorce is considered this great evil. Like you can be a boyfriend girlfriend for 10 years and you tell you say you got you separated and everyone's like cool. Like that's right on. let's go out. >> Or you can be business partners with somebody for 10 years and wrap it up. Nobody does. But if you say, "I'm getting divorced." Forgetting kids, if you just say, "You're getting divorced," people are like, "Oh my god, did you try? Did you go to therapy?" It's like it's it's this bizarre thing as if your gut doesn't know that you're not happy. Um, so yeah, I I love sharing stuff like that. And I find a lot of business people, they're very onedimensional and they'll share like they're like I'm a business person and therefore I can't do anything outside of that box because it'll freak the people out. Like you know I have investors we are public company >> and it's like >> for a long time I'd be like okay I've got to be Mr. like value investor Warren Buffett guy which I am but I've got other pieces and I want to share that stuff. And so for me it's it's resulted in some friction. Yeah. And you know, some people criticizing me, but for the most part, it's meant I just connect with so many more people. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you send out this email off the charts, whatever. It's pretty deep and personal email. Um, for sure, 30 plus email subscribers, all that fun stuff. And you mentioned kind of it sounds like for a second in your brain, you know, I have I have a public company, you got optics. You also I think in that email or somewhere you sent said said like the the cost or the downside of people pleasing or something. >> How do you kind of because that's something personally I'm I used to early in my career be super optics optics based like >> like so crazy that I wouldn't tell an investor I have a girlfriend or something, right? Like I wouldn't like say I don't or I do. I just would withhold because I just, you know, I just want to be like I just want to raise raise the round and get that done without people thinking I'm distracted. You know what I mean? And you were kind of nodding. It sounds like you know what I mean. Um but and that's like really the people people pleasing syndrome and the optic syndrome. How have you gotten kind of out of that or are you out of that? So, I um I don't know, for some reason, ever since I was a little kid, I've I've felt like other people's feelings are my responsibility. So, if I'm in a group of people and we don't have a good time, I'm like, "Oh my god, it's cuz I wasn't funny enough or I wasn't engaging enough or whatever it is." And so I think that just over time transformed to, you know, when you have a public public persona and you're online, you are not wanting to let people down and and wanting to be a certain way um and not wanting to be criticized. You know, everybody wants to be liked. And so there's this really dangerous I think quote from Warren Buffett and he said which is true but he says um it takes 50 years to build a reputation in 15 minutes to lose it >> which is true right it's like you you know build whatever reputation you want for 50 years you get in the Epstein files boom you're done right >> you were in the Epstein files >> I was in the Epstein files uh he got a Twitter notification about one of my tweets but I it was that was another one of my email subject headers or subject >> which one did better that that would That was a good one, too. Um, but yeah, fortunately not, to be clear, not in the actual Epstein files. Um, but, um, Epstein, weirdly, was really into Aerop Press. >> Oh, interesting. >> So weird. Um, great endorsement. Not not the spokesman I was hoping for. Um, but anyway, but um, Warren Buffett has that quote and I really took it to heart and I just thought, okay, I can never upset anyone. I want to make sure I'm totally consistent. I sit in my box and over time I just felt really miserable. I mean it's like you when you think about it it's like there's certain types of there's there's like this Machavelian life right where let's say that you're dating >> and you go and you go on a date with a girl and you're like okay I'm not going to show any weakness. I'm going to show only alpha male qualities. I'm gonna say all I'm gonna say like, "Oh, I you know, I'm I love my mother and I'm a great son and I want to travel and I'm very fit and all those things, right?" >> Yeah, it's possible that that girl um falls for that and whatever. I would argue that you're going to have a lot more success in relationships and friendships and all relationships in life if you're just honest and you show your center, right? And so I think like you know if you did a multivariate test and you took the same guy and in one he's posing and fake and making up and wearing a mask and in the other he goes on the date and he says yeah you know I've got a really challenging relationship with my dad and um you know work is hard right now, right? But but you're a good person and funny and all the other stuff. I would argue you're going to have a much more successful date and you're going to have a better relationship. And I think that carries through everything in life. I think like if people don't like um that I talk about, you know, ADHD or whatever in my newsletter, like I don't want them as an investor. I don't I don't want them as somebody I want to do business with because that's kind of almost antihuman. >> It's like they expect the founder to just be like a robot that is obsessed with shareholder value to the um >> you know, and ignores everything else in their life. Right. >> Interesting. would you um now you have shareholders because you have a public company the the advice you'd give to like an entrepreneurial somewhat technical now everybody can be technical with vibe coding but you know under 25year-old wanting to go do something ambitious entrepreneurially would you tell them to like go raise venture do a startup like are you anti- anti-VC anti-investor anti-shareholder No. Um I think if you talked to me when I was 20, I would give it's kind of like uh you know people who believe in communism when they're 20 and then over time they kind of start realizing like oh no it's more nuanced, right? Maybe they're still lean that way but it's far more nuanced. And I think um >> you know if you use a bakery analogy, if you want to start a bakery and it's going to require $300,000 and you don't have $300,000, you need an investor. And so if your ambition requires $300,000, go raise the money. >> If it doesn't and you can do it by yourself and bootstrap it, you're way better off raising money later. >> And now, let's say you start the bakery >> and you bootstrap it or you get a loan from your parents or something like that. >> And you go viral on TikTok for some croissant you make or something and there's a line out the door and you're going, "Oh my god, I only have one oven. I need two more ovens." >> Yeah, you should go to the bank. you should go to VCs or whatever the source of capital is. And so I think um Tim O'Reilly has a great quote. He says, "When you go on a road trip, you're not obsessed with gas. You need it, >> but you're not obsessed with it." And I think I meet a lot of founders that are obsessed with gas. >> Interesting. Interesting. Um and you've obviously you've met a lot of founders. You're an investor. How many like how many like angel you don't make like venture? You don't have like venture firm. You have a family office. you make angel investments. How how does that all play out? >> So, I I um over the last 20 years I've invested in about 150 startups um ranging in size. So, you know, we're um we were early investors, not not super early, but you know, 10 years ago in SpaceX uh and some big companies like that, as well as just like I'd meet a random founder and give them a 100 to 250,000. Um and so I've done that as a hobby basically. Yeah. And the way I look at that is um that's like gambling in Las Vegas. You know, you go, you play roulette and then what I do for a living, buying businesses where we're buying the whole thing and putting in a CEO, that's like playing poker. If you know the odds and you know how to play poker properly, you have an actual advantage and you can consistently make money. And so my venture portfolio is like >> I don't know if I'm an idiot or a genius. you know, 20 years in, I've had a lot of nice exits, but I've also uh also invested in a lot of companies that are dumpster fires, and it takes a very long time to uh know whether or not you know what you're doing in venture. And I think that's part of the problem with it. It is kind of gambling. And my advice to any founders are always like when they have a windfall, they're like, "Oh, I want to pay it forward. I want to invest in founders." And they get venture. >> Yeah. >> It's the worst thing to do with your money. Yeah. >> It will not give you what you seek. What you seek is comfort and calm. It doesn't give you that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When um and those are angel investments wires me money like 6 million safe like a 200k on a 6 million safe note. >> Sure. Stuff like that. I mean, you know, some of them are larger, some of them are up to like 2 million. Um, I also have a bunch of like positions in where I'm in LP in venture funds or private equity funds and that sort of thing. But for the most part, it was just meet the founder, like them, give them money or I have a friend who's doing something and I'll go along with it. But I'll tell you when you like when I got divorced and I had a liquidity crisis where I was like, how the hell am I going to make these big divorce payments? sure would have preferred to own a bunch of stocks. Yeah. >> And I would have, you know, if you look at if I just put all that money in the stock market in an ETF, I would have like four times the amount. >> And maybe I'll get four times the amount over 30 years maybe. But it's going to come in trickles and I can't margin it. I can't get a loan against it. The bank doesn't understand it. I can't do anything with it. And so I regret actually doing a lot of that startup investing cuz it makes you feel kind of like, oh, cool. I was in the first round of XYZ company. But like it's a very very ill liquid way of investing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. What's your best angel investment? >> SpaceX. >> Okay. That's right. And after that >> I had one. It was so dangerous. The first company I ever invested in, I put 25 grand in. I got 500 grand or a million dollars back and it happened in like two years. And so that was the taste where it's like, you know, it's like you're if you do a dumb thing like you walk into Vegas and the first bet you make, you bet $1,000, you make a h 100red grand. You're like, "This is the best. I got to do more of this, right?" You don't realize that you're lucky. And so, um, did really well on my first one. Um, you know, there's been a there's been a bunch to be honest, most of where I've been successful has been things where I've incubated them and then been the kind of key investor. So it's like I'll put up the capital, I'll start it um and then I'll let it go. So like we started a business called Supercast which does um if you do you listen to Peter or any of that stuff >> a little bit. Yeah. >> Huberman, we power the subscription the paid podcast element of that. Okay. >> And um we just sold that business. Um and you know that was a great return, right? So it's like I like >> I go back to over and over again like f starting a business that's actually profitable. Yeah. >> And doing something simple, that has delivered way more results than all the random venture investments. >> So, if somebody said, "Hey, you can't make any more angel bets ever again." You know, >> I would be very happy because it would be like someone's taken away my like dangerous toys, you know? >> Yeah. Yeah. And do you do any real estate? >> Uh, a little bit. I own I own a few buildings. Um, I've I've done stuff in the past. I used to own our office. For the most part, though, I don't like real estate. I think real estate is a great way to have rich kids. >> Yeah. >> Which I don't want. I don't want my kids to be rich. >> And how many kids you have? Two. >> Two. And I'm about to have a third. >> Oh, congrats. Thank you. Congrats. Awesome. And uh what's your kind of perspective? How how has it changed in business, how you want to raise them based on wealth and like start like I always thought like I I never want my kid to be a founder. Like I do not wish that upon anyone. So, like if I was to have kids, um, which I'd like to, probably don't want them to do, you know, and if I ever got wealthy, which I'm not, I would, uh, probably not want them to be exposed to that. What's your kind of take? Because some people are like very lawy fair. They're like, "Yeah, I got money. Kids can do whatever they want." >> They turn out fine. >> So, Warren Buffett and Charlie Mer have two opposing views. Buffett says, um, you want to give your kids enough that they can do something, not enough they can do nothing, right? but he's not a big advocate of giving children large amounts of money. Charlie Mer says if you don't give it to them they'll hate you. >> So, and he's giving all his money to his kids. >> Um the way I am approaching it is basically going to my kids and saying like look there's a lot of people in the world who need our money more than we do and so it's all going to be given away to charity by the time I die. And you're going to be taken care of. You're going to get like social security plus. Yeah. Right. you'll be able to maybe have a down payment for a house and if you ever fall off the, you know, fall off the employment wagon, you'll be okay. >> But, um, I don't want them to have like dynastic wealth or anything like that because I think it'll make them miserable. I think it's like >> if if if we think about it capitalism, it's like capitalism um says that being successful is like making money and like starting a business or being a successful employee, whatever that is. So, and whether we like that or not, that's kind of what society is right now. And so, if you do the equivalent, let's say that we just take that as and we use um an analogy. We say that um it's winning Olympic gold, right? Imagine if society was instead about winning Olympic gold. >> I think being rich and giving your kids all the money is like giving them a gold medal when they didn't do anything. >> Yeah. >> They need to go and actually build something themselves. Otherwise, they'll be miserable. and and a lot of the advantage you could probably give them is like not cash like connections, network, intro, career opportunities. Um, anyways, that's I mean I hope hope to be able if I was to have kids that's what I would hope to do. Um, and you're in Victoria full-time. >> Yeah. >> I think it's a good place to raise kids. >> It's an amazing place to raise kids. Um, mostly because there's no I mean it's very beautiful and and safe and all the other stuff, but it's also um there's not a lot of status here. >> You know, if you drive a Ferrari in Vancouver, that's like >> okay. If you drive a Ferrari in Victoria, you're going to get the middle finger and you look like a douche. And I like that. Um, >> no. No, I don't. I have a Tesla and I one car and I don't I don't like flashy cars. I had that phase. I bought like a, you know, 911 Turbo and would drive around. But it's like I think um usually when I see people driving cars like that, I just feel sad for them. >> I'm like, "Oh man, like you know, you really need the world to know you have money." And >> I don't know. It's like when you meet really rich people, you realize like >> they mostly wear hoodies and like Casio watches and they're not trying to show off, >> right? It's the like in between people where they really really want you to know. >> I think that you get that with self-made people. Like there's a lot of people that are like super wealthy and they've done a lot of good stuff, but they really were born on third. >> Yeah. >> Like running very fast. Um so they might have a bit of that flare. >> Um >> you said buildings. You own any restaurants? >> I own uh a bunch of restaurants. >> Okay. um just as a for fun thing mostly just to kind of keep the uh what we generally so I started a pizzeria um and bar in 2015 lost a lot of money very >> in Victoria >> very bad experience yeah >> but then um there was this great neighborhood deli called Otavio where I grew up I grew up a block away from it and I used to fix the guy who owned it uh his computer and my brother worked there so I just I had this amazing affinity for this place and he approached me and was like, um, hey, you know, I know you buy businesses. Would you want to look at this? And he said he had an offer from someone else. And I asked him who the person was and I was like, I just don't think that that buyer is going to do a good job. They're going to ruin this place. >> And I looked at the P&L and I was like, "Oh, this is actually like a pretty good operation." I knew what a bad one looked like because I'd lost all my money and run a really bad pizzeria. And so when I saw it work, I was like, "Oh this is really cool." And so we bought that about uh 11 years ago and ever since I've basically just been taking any profit we make which is not a ton but whatever profit we make and we just buy more kind of institutional Victoria restaurants. >> Um and the idea is just keep them keep them as is and just protect them. >> Totally. Totally. Any sports teams? >> No. >> Would you? >> I think it's I think it's ego. Some people love it and that's great. Um but >> for me like no I don't. I I always find it funny when it's like co-owner, Golden State Warriors, whatever, and it's like >> it's like with 20 other people or whatever, but it's like I >> I guess there's people that love sports. Like I have a friend, he loves basketball. he would really want to do that and like he'd love it and it'd be an amazing experience for him. Yeah. But so often it's like these token rich like uber rich things of like okay like super yacht sports team you know 10 houses like I just don't enjoy I don't derive any value from those things personally. Uh I've experimented with them but it doesn't do it for me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've always my uh my like I guess ego goal is uh I want to buy a minor league baseball team. Um or like a few of them one day. But >> then you can be happy. >> Then I'll be happy. >> The moment you buy it, the moment you sign the feel you'll feel your heart just calm down and everything will be good. >> Um yeah, exactly. Um on the anxiety stuff, how does that show up in the dayto-day? Like do you wake up with it and you're like I got all these customers or emails. Oh man, I'm freaked out. or I got to lay someone off today. I'm like really freaking out. >> For for a lot of people when they talk about anxiety, I didn't relate to it because they would say um oh my god, I'm replaying this conversation in my head over and over again. What did I say? It's a lot of social anxiety. And for me, actually, oddly, when I was in conversation or socializing, that would be my least anxious moment. >> My anxiety was much more I'm forgetting something. I'm letting people down. Um there's too much. there's just endless things going on. I'm getting endless texts and emails and problems and stuff. But then, oddly, when things were calm, like let's say my girlfriend's out and I, you know, turn off my computer and I'm just sitting in my house, I want to watch a movie, >> I would still just feel overwhelmed and looping and irritable. And >> um >> in retrospect, again, ADHD, cuz the moment I started treating my ADHD, that all went away. I used to be like an 8 on the scale where I'd be obsessively thinking about all the people I'm laying down and all that stuff, but also what could go wrong. So, how my business is going to get up or I'm going to die of cancer or whatever it is that has just it's just volume got turned down. >> So, like it's it's like gone >> gone. >> And and you think that's what it's like for people without because I every like I deal with anxiety. I don't treat it. Um, but you think that's what it's like for people that have no anxiety? >> If you um, you know, there's a lot of people, my favorite question is always um, do you have seasonal allergies? >> Mhm. >> Your nose get clogged, >> you take a claritin or react. >> Mhm. >> Right. How is that different? You know, it's a symptom of something going on in your body. >> And um, people are so scared of medication that changes your brain, but ironically, when you take an antihistamine, that also changes your brain. There's studies that show that it literally >> changes your mood and your irritability and all sorts of stuff. And so I find it very interesting that people will medicate for something that kind of just bothers them a little bit like a headache or you know stuff nose, but they won't for something that's ruining their life. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So I don't know. >> Maybe I'll look into it. >> Yeah. Maybe worth it. I was terrified. I was totally terrified of medicating. Um >> and uh it's been it's been awesome. But people have different experiences. Like go on Reddit and you're going to hear a million stories about how it ruined someone's life. >> One thing I did actually that's um been game changer. Would love your thoughts cuz I don't know what you do in this arena is uh pretty much two years ago and I never was like heavy into it but it was very casual like daily weekly but I stopped drinking two weeks two weeks two uh two almost two years ago. Total game changer. um like completely um and that really ratches ratchets up the anxiety level for me and I've stopped that and it's like much more calm life um not as angry or fierce or sharp elbowed. Do you do you still drink? >> So yeah, I was like a I was basically an alcoholic like functional alcoholic um from like 18 to 27 or so. And I think a lot of it was driven by anxiety because I'd just be so stressed out at work and then I need to go blow off steam and I would just drink like six drinks a night, six nights a week. And >> I remember um I read this book called The Triumph of Experience which is about the Harvard Grant Study. So what they did is 100 years ago or something they took a thousand men at Harvard and they said we're going to study you for your entire life. So every year we're going to do mental health, physical health, relationships. Uh, I might have. Yeah. >> And um I read that book and in the book they talked about alcoholism and how it was one of the biggest signals for misery over a long life. And that what happened was basically people would be functional and then functional and then suddenly they would be literally it would be like a switch flips at 60 and they're suddenly drinking stolly at 9:00 a.m. And I read that and I was like I I need to stop drinking. Like it was a big problem for me. And so I stopped and I was so addicted that it was like I was getting like shakes and anxiety and depression and it was really hard. But now being off it, I'm shocked. >> So you don't drink? I >> I drink maybe once or twice a year. Like I had a 40th birthday party. I want to stay up till 2 in the morning and dance. >> I'm going to drink. But the cost of it, you know, it's like two or three days of not feeling >> you kind of have to plan plan it in advance for that. Don't make any plans. >> Having kids helps, right? It's like there's nothing worse than waking up with a hangover when your kid wakes you up at 6 in the morning. >> Yeah. Yeah. Or Yeah. For me, it was like startup. Like you can't Oh my gosh. Like um >> my most successful years running a business, I was an alcoholic. >> You were. >> That's it. I would get up at 1:00, get to the office at 2:00, work all night or work late. >> Get up at 100 p.m. >> Yeah. So you'd sleep till 1 and I'd stay up drinking and partying until 5 grind on the >> and I would just grind and like I don't that's not recommendation but it was weird like that was some of my most productive >> years. Interesting. Interesting. H you have me thinking now. >> You should start drinking every day. I think that's really good life advice. >> There's a um you just mentioned them. They're like a neighbor of yours. I won't I don't really drop names and stuff, but they're a neighbor of yours. They mention this like longevity book author that they like and they mentioned that you work with them >> or what would I forget the name. You know, >> um Peter Tia. >> Yes. Okay. Sorry, that's what it was. Okay. Peter Tia. >> He has a book, but he also has like a program. Are you part of that or in that? >> So, I was I did it for a couple years. >> Okay. >> Um and then so I already had a really great doctor. I went uh for two years and and worked with them and then they stopped having patience. Okay. >> And so I stopped. Um but uh but no, I mean I spend a lot of time trying to optimize health and think about that stuff. And I think that's something that's very much worth doing cuz I see a lot of people who um you know they work their faces off and they're unhealthy and they're like, "Oh yeah, I got to make all this money so I can enjoy it when I'm 40 or 50 or whatever." But then they're like suffering from cancer or heart disease or something horrible. >> Yeah. Yeah. So the tangibles so far in in our chat, you know, no drinking, treat the ADHD/anxiety. Um what about the sleep and diet? >> So um sleep, uh I don't really do anything crazy. I just treat it I treat myself like a baby. I remember when I had a baby uh when I had my son, there's like this whole thing about like you want to put them down within a 15inut sleep window, white noise machine, dark room, cold room, all these things. And I started just treating myself like a baby. So I'm like it's 9:45. That's the moment I go upstairs and I read and I only read for 15 minutes and the room's dark and all that stuff. So I'm just very rigorous. >> Any melatonin? >> Uh some occasionally I will. Um I don't think it's good to do it every night. Yeah. Um, but I Yeah, I mean, you you do it every night. >> Um, >> I don't travel with it and I travel a lot. So, like, >> how much do you take? >> Uh, 5 milligrams. >> Oh, that's a lot. So, they've done studies on melatonin and the optimal amount >> multiple nights a week >> is 300 micrograms. So, that's.3 um milligrams. >> So, much smaller than what you're taking. Maybe worth optimizing. >> I might. So, this is why I'm doing it. Yeah, >> the name of this podcast is Make a Click. >> This is the dumbest. Um, so one of my friends, Dr. Ashley Mason, is she runs the sleep lab at UCSF and I was having lunch with her and I asked her what uh, you know, give me sleep tips like what you're doing right now. She's like, what's I was like, what's the craziest sleep tip? And I'm expecting she's going to tell me about some miracle drug or something like that. >> And she goes, you know, most people sleep with a blanket that's too heavy and too hot. And so the first thing she does with every patient is gets them to get a cotton blanket that's thin by two and then have two cotton blankets. And I switch that and it's like holy Like I'm sleeping. Why am I sleeping under like a massive heavy crazy duvet rug? Um so there's stupid stuff like that that like really really works. >> No, I don't do that. I've got blackout curtains. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I need to like do the blackout curtains and the eye mask. That's huge. Um >> Okay. and the exercise. You're a fit guy. >> Yeah, I I mean I play a lot of play a lot of pickle ball and tennis and uh I lift weights. >> Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Um what about the kind of I guess big fan. How how many of those Warren Buffett Charlie Munger things do you guys sell? >> So yeah. So um >> cuz those are dope, but I want other ones. Like I think a cool thing would be going on and like like like prompting, hey, like what one can you make me? Like I want Andrew Wilkinson. >> Mhm. Like >> I hope not. Um there's there's uh so basically like there's this weird phenomenon where you know like Roman emperors people make like busts of them or whatever. And so me and Chris made busts of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger just kind of like to put in our office as a reminder of like think like these guys. Yeah. >> And uh we started a business. We kept having people be like oh my god can I buy one of those? So we started a business. Bergkshire.store store I think it is where we sell these Buffett and Munger um bronze bus for like two grand. I don't I think we've sold like a hundred or 200 of them and it's just like a fun little side business. My assistant, you know, runs it or whatever. But um but yeah, it's totally ridiculous. >> Dope, dope, dope, dope. Um >> maybe a little bit on kind of the changing dynamic of of business right now and AI. You I think I read something you said you're getting up. Do you get up or are you a morning person? >> Yeah, I get up usually around like 600 6:30. >> Okay, that's legit. And I I read something like Andrew Wilkinson getting up at 4:00 a.m. every day to vibe code or something. >> Um Claude Code. >> Mhm. >> What how are you deploying that? And can it be deployed across all your businesses? How are you leaning in? Are you doing it yourself? You're hiring or maybe you hired a vibe coder. How's that kind of like rejigging and rethinking everything you're running? >> So, um, you know, the worst part, I love people. I'm very extroverted. But the worst part about business is people. And what I mean by that is, you know, you have an idea of how you want your company to run and you know what you want the endgame to be. But then in between that, there's all these people you have to convince and they all have to be reliable and do the things you're paying them to do. And as you know, people are fickle, they're moody, they, >> you know, are alcoholics, they're narcissists, they're all sorts of stuff. >> They resign. >> They resign, you know, and and yeah, it's very, very difficult to have your vision executed. And I think what's crazy about AI is like now you can just go and cloud code and brain dump what you want and magically it appears an hour later. And that is a very cool experience. And so we um I just I have I realized like I love I love building things, but I don't like managing people. And now I can actually build things without managing people. And so I've been spending >> um like $40,000 a month >> on cloud credits instead of scaling payroll. I'm just I'm not hiring developers. I'm not hiring marketers. I'm just building automations basically. Um, and so I've got a couple businesses now where we're building out OpenClaw agents to run everything. So, you know, a support request comes in, it's answered. If there's a bug, it's fixed. Uh, the marketing is managed, the SEO is managed. >> Um, and so it's like this idea of one person businesses that can do tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. >> And you think that's Do you think that's legit? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Because like I go back and forth on that. like, okay, you're doing 10 million ARR and it's growing and it's obviously going to hit 25 million AR R in like 18 months. It's growing super fast. There's a bit of revenue concentration where like two big companies or customers are going to take you there and then you're augmenting it with like your mid-market customers or whatever. >> Don't you need like account managers? Like don't you need like let's talk B2B like a B2B SAS company like don't you need account managers to like talk to you and like >> Well, yeah. Not right now. I don't think that you could build a B2B business like that where you're selling everything's automated. It's like the founders doing >> you're selling to Walmart and doing all that stuff. Exactly. What I do think is very feasible is like building a business that has a lot of touch points for customer service or sales like basic sales um or SEO or mark you know basically like anything that can be done behind a keyboard without getting on the phone or video >> is to me pretty automatable. Um, and I think like you end up becoming this like octopus who's like orchestrating all these agents and like that becomes where you spend your time as a founder. Um, but I I don't know. I don't think it's like some golden age though because you you can do it but so can everyone else. And so it's like, oh my god, I can build an, you know, amazing piece of software. Well, you know, as soon as you publish your idea, 10 other people are going to copy it. You're charging $10, they're going to start charging $1. >> Boom. there goes your margin and I think the cost of software basically goes to like a small margin over the cost of the tokens to produce it. Yeah. >> And the server costs and stuff. So, so I don't think software is a good business because of that. So you wouldn't you think like B2B SAS is I guess the there's that whole I would I guess you would say B2B SAS is is I think you said this in a tweet the new e-commerce >> talk so you wouldn't start a B2B SAS company. >> No if you think about e-commerce it's like incredibly low margin. Um, it is incredibly difficult and highly competitive and the moment you make your product like you get ripped off by a bunch of Chinese knockoffs or someone pulls something off AliExpress and then competes with you. Um, and I think software has just been so spoiled like you know we've been able to have 50% margins in software businesses for a long time and I don't know that that continues. I think >> one reality I mean yeah you can build anything right now. Let's say that we're spending, I don't know, $2,000 a month on Slack. >> Sure. >> Um, is it logical for you as the founder to say, "Let's build our own internal Slack and just build like our own software." Well, you got to run it on Versell. You got to fix bugs. You got to deal with downtime. >> Is it worth having a tool that's so critical to your business be something that you have to maintain? I think at some scale, you know, if you're Walmart, yeah, maybe it makes sense to build your own tools. Sure. >> But um there's definitely still uh an opportunity for a lot of these products to be really good. But I think it just goes down to competition. Like restaurants are not a good business. Not because selling food is is bad. I mean, it's hard to produce good food, but it's because there's endless competition. And competition equals low margins. It's like if you're the only pizza pizza restaurant in town, you can charge $50 for a pizza. If you're not, you can charge $22 or whatever the going rate is. And uh if you charge $50, people will tell you to go yourself, right? >> Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. And then I would say um what what's your take on like um so that's SAS, that's e-commerce. What's your take on like marketplaces? >> Well, I think it depends on what you're selling, right? So most marketplaces are um people, so you're booking, you know, a Task Rabbit or Instacard or whatever. I think those are probably fine for the time being. I think um anything where I call them airport businesses, any anything where people congregate, right? In an airport, people congregate and then you have all these stalls. So let's say you're in a lobby. People are forced to go to the lobby because they want to get on the plane. Yeah. >> So they're sitting there. Now you have a bunch of stores. You can put a duty-free in. You can put a hot dog stand. you put that group and there's no advantage because there's no other airports, right? And I think marketplac you want to put on Airbnb, not some other one because no one's there, >> right? Um and so I think that's still a huge hugely valuable thing, but it depends on what the the shops sell. And so, um, some marketplaces will be phenomenal still and others are just totally >> Yeah. >> On the, um, kind of day-to-day unlocks. So, you mentioned the health unlock. You know, I mentioned mine like no drinking. You mentioned one treating ADHD on the AI productivity unlock. Um, for instance, like Claude has all these connectors. You connect it with granola. you can connect it with um lot tons of them. Are there any kind of like two or three hacks that you've done that it's just like oh my gosh how was I living >> before I did that? Like for me it's like how was I living before Claude was connected to my Gmail? >> Like that's insane. Like it just totally unlocked my life. Are there any items like that for you? >> Tons. Um, I mean, one of the most valuable ones has been I just record every single meeting, whether it's in person or on Zoom or whatever. And then I have I use uh Fireflies because it has a good API and then I have my OpenClaw agent ingest all that into a vector database. So, it just has full context about all my projects at any given time. Um, and then it's able to actually take next actions and keep me accountable. So, for example, if you and I had coffee and I said, "Oh, I'll send you that book." Um, it'll remind me later. Oh, do you want me to send Wilson that book? And then it'll go into um it it has my my credit card information, my Amazon, and it can order it for you or whatever. So, I found that proactive um proactive actions like that just save me so much energy because for me, you know, I still have ADHD. It's not like the pill makes all that go away. And so I still struggle with remembering what did I say I was going to do or whatever and so it just keeps me uh on track and I I have I mean I've got like 20 different automations doing all sorts of different things. One of the most valuable ones, you don't have kids, but for your listeners that do have kids, my kids school send like, no joke, like five to 10 emails every day. Like there's just so, you know, there's a field trip on Thursday, need to pack a lunch and oh, your son is in this program and you need >> came over for me, man. That's not my vibe. >> Exactly. And so I really struggled. I really, really struggled with that. the boys would get upset because I've, you know, I've sent them to school without the packed lunch for two boys. And um and so I made a um an agent that ingests all those emails and it just figures out what needs to go on my calendar and it puts them on my calendar with notes and stuff and that is such a dumb automation, but it's just changed my life. The other one I love is every morning I wake up and I get sent four outfits. So, it figures out I've trained it on my entire wardrobe. >> And you do that by taking pictures or just telling >> I just took photos and I built out a big spreadsheet or whatever and then it just says like, "Hey, um, you know, it's 12° today and I know this is what's on your calendar. Here's four outfit options." And then it renders an image of what I would look like wearing them. Yeah, >> it's really cool. >> Um, so that's I don't know, just stuff like that I love. >> And when's the first time you look at a screen in the morning? >> Yeah, usually first thing, honestly. I used to like I used to like read a book or meditate or whatever, but as soon as Cloud Code came out, I just feel like I'm so in it. The moment I wake up, I just I want to go and go to the slot machine and play. >> So, you wake up, no shower or whatever, and you go straight to the computer before coffee and stuff. >> I go I let my dog out, I go, you know, make coffee, all that stuff, but then I immediately am on cloud code. >> Don't Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One thing actually I've actually done is uh Do you go do you have an office? Like do you go into an office? >> I I have one but I don't really go in. I go to a cafe most of the time. >> Okay, nice. Um so what I do is uh I'm a big I'm a big office guy just like kind of office and separating it and whatever. But um I'm on airplane mode from wake up shower airplane mode all the way get into the office and then and then I turn it on and that's been huge for me. That's sweet. >> Huge. >> And it's a little bit of like a a full embrace. It's like, okay, now I'm like logging on for the day and there's like three apps I look at first, you know, email and calendar and it's like boom, here we go. Um, so I'm kind of assessing out what that looks like. Um, why I ask is because I I'd like to do the wardrobe thing, but I would have to kind of look at a screen or else I'd be naked for the whole day. >> So yeah, exactly. um on the on the kind of overall next 10 20 years. Do you ever see yourself like logging off? I I I saw something. This was all this, by the way. I I prepped a bit of prompts for our chat, but like I I've kind of read or followed you along um through your journey. So, this was like two years ago. I probably saw this. So, this wasn't like in prep because I'm meeting you today, but um it was kind of you were saying, "Hey, I interviewed this guy and we talked about like shutting down businesses." You had like a really insightful I think it was the 36 Signal guy. >> But anyways, do you think you'll ever kind of just like go off the grid, like kill Twitter, just kind of totally go off the grid and like zen out? Well, I mean, I've kind of been doing that for so for the last um >> But you got the you're like you got the email marketing going. You got the >> Yeah, but it's fair. You're not email marketing because it's like I don't look at it that way. I look at it as um my friend Nick Gray has this thing he calls uh Nick's friends newsletter. Okay. >> Basically, if he emails with you, you just get autosubscribed to it. >> And uh and he just talks about whatever he's thinking about. There's no ads. It's just him being like, "Hey, I'm doing this thing. I started doing this cool cool uh >> you know started doing this cool new form of exercise. I found the perfect shoes whatever and I I just loved that. And so after I wrote the book I was really craving writing still and so I just did the exact same thing. So I just anyone that emails me I autosubscribe them other people can subscribe too and I'll just write about whatever I'm thinking about and I just it scratches an itch for me and I love it. But it's been a really interesting method for keeping up with people. Like you and I have not had coffee for 8 years and yet you know pretty much everything I've been up to. >> And it's like this parasocial relationship where people are totally up to date with you even though you're not out there getting coffee and meeting people and going to conferences or whatever. And so for me, I just love like it increases my opportunity surface area where people think of me and they go, "Oh, you should come to this cool thing or I, you know, hey, we have this company to sell you or whatever." Um, >> I do I do have periods where I I go dark, but I go dark mostly from things that create controversy or negativity. So, for example, like I found I actually really don't enjoy Twitter. Uh, I don't like that, you know, you say something and then you just get a million trolls posting and half of them are bots and all this stuff. I'd way rather just have a onetoone thing where I put an email and if someone emails me back, that's great. >> And with podcasts, I'll kind of do them at random and then not do them for a while. >> Um, >> like you host. >> No, no, just like someone interviewing me, something random like this. But, um, I'm I have been enjoying for the last couple years being a lot quieter. I think like the doing the book going public like there's a lot of ego tied up in that of wanting to get hey everyone look at me and look I did this thing and I think having the experience of doing that and realizing oh I still feel all the things I feel right as we talked about before >> was like okay I don't need to do all those things and what I really need to focus on is who are my five best friends what's my community am I a good dad like it's very basic stuff So that's where I'm focusing my efforts uh outside of the business is just like >> being quiet and doing those things. >> And what's the kind of the dayto-day like a not a perfect day we all have like this kind of perfect day if I could have but what what's kind of the day-to-day for you right now cuz like you are at the end of the day co-CEO right? >> No I'm not. No we >> okay you guys stepped down. You guys stepped down two years ago. >> Sorry. And then constellation guy >> Jordan. >> Jordan. Okay cool. Okay, cool. In Toronto? >> Yeah, Jordan runs business dayto-day and then Chris and I are, you know, we're um we are making a lot of the calls behind the scenes in terms of are we going to buy a business or not or what's the next strategic uh milestone or we're talking to founders or that sort of thing. A lot of what we do is just storytell and set the culture and stuff. >> Yeah. And what's the day then what does that look like dayto-day? Are you in meetings? Couple calls. I don't do any um any meetings or anything. Um no Zoom other than with No, I don't do Zooms. Um I basically have one weekly meeting for Tiny and I have one weekly meeting for um Folly, my family office >> and otherwise I am a free agent and if I'm having coffee with someone or doing a podcast or whatever, it's just because I want to. >> Um which has been awesome. I can't say that for the last 20 years, you know. This is a new phenomenon. Dope >> and it feels great. Dope, man. That's awesome. That's awesome. And uh and that's like the last couple years or last year? >> Last two years. Yeah. >> Awesome. Awesome. Congrats. Well, thank you so much for doing this. >> Oh, yeah. Of course. >> This is awesome, man. Really appreciate it. I'm uh sincerely big fan of yours. Mean that. And uh >> yeah, looked up what was it? Parasocial. I got parasocial relationship. >> I've looked I've looked I've never known what that is, >> but I guess that's what this has been. >> Well, it's like it's like we haven't talked in person >> eight years. I love >> in 8 years, but you're somehow aware of the stuff I've been up to. >> And so in your mind, yeah, you have you have a relationship with with me, >> but I haven't talked to you, right? There's an interesting >> value of that. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, and that's that's what I that's Yeah. So, the more parasocial, the better. >> As long as it's not like a stalker who believes that, you know, >> you've put a radio in their brain or something. Uh, yeah. I I take Yeah. precautions or whatever to >> Yeah. >> I don't I don't >> I had a I had a guy is I told the story in the book, but I had a I had a guy show up in my house and it really freaked me out and I've had a few weird things like that. Um and that again it goes back to like be careful what you wish for. Right. Totally. Cuz like do I like it when I go to a conference and all the nerds are like, "Hey, you know, it's great to meet you." Whatever. I love that. But then the cost of that is a crazy person showing up at my house. >> Yeah. Wacko. That's for the next pod. >> Yeah. >> Cool. Thanks, man. Really >> You can show up at random. Yeah. With a Bowie knife. Yeah. Hey, let's go. >> Yeah. Great. Awesome. >> Cool, man. Thanks. Really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was great.