In Part 2 of our PayPal series, we dig into the men who built it and the things that they built next. We'll talk about what a Venture Capitalist is and how even when they fail sometimes when they hit it BIG they hit it REALLY, REALLY big. The names of these guys & their businesses are EVERYWHERE! What do you think they are up to next?
In Part 2 of our PayPal series, we dig into the men who built it and the things that they built next. We'll talk about what a Venture Capitalist is and how even when they fail sometimes when they hit it BIG they hit it REALLY, REALLY big.
The names of these guys & their businesses are EVERYWHERE! What do you think they are up to next?
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: It's against the spirit of using a Fitbit
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number ba zero nine.
>> Farz: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do. We're recording this time for real, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Yay.
>> Farz: While you spin your yarn, I will spin you a yarn. How does that.
>> Taylor: I love it. I'm putting. I should put my Fitbit on because fun fact, if you are taking yarn from the store and making yarn balls, that counts as steps on your fitbit.
>> Farz: That's, you know, I guess you're right. And it's also against the spirit of using a Fitbit.
>> Taylor: But that's, I'll be like, how did I walk 9000 steps today? I'm m like, oh, I just sat on the couch and bald yarn.
We are going to congratulate our friends Katie and Alex Schmidt for the birth of their daughter
>> Farz: We are going to congratulate our friends Katie and Alex Schmidt for the birth of their beautiful daughter.
>> Taylor: Woohoo.
>> Farz: Wait, was it yesterday or today? I can't tell from this birth certificate. Isn't it supposed to be on the birth certificate?
>> Taylor: Why on earth do you have the birth certificate? What are you talking about?
>> Farz: Alex sent it to me. The thing with the footprint on it, is that the birth certificate? Introducing a precious new arrival. It has a name. Oh, yeah. Okay, so it's Thursday, August 15.
>> Taylor: It's a birth announcement.
>> Farz: It's 07:50 p.m. yeah, whatever.
>> Taylor: Yay.
>> Farz: No, it's from, it's from Kaiser Permanente.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but that's not like a, whatever. It's much harder to give a certificate. You have to, like, call the government.
>> Farz: Got it.
>> Taylor: You get it in like three months.
>> Farz: Anyway, congratulations to our friends. They just had their beautiful baby girl. Everybody's happy and healthy and, Man, what a, what a time to be alive. We're, we're definitely, getting up there. Everybody has kids except me, so my.
>> Taylor: Daughter'S almost ten, so here we are.
>> Farz: That's crazy. That is crazy.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: Wow.
>> Taylor: Let me introduce us then. I'm going to say something else about our friends.
>> Farz: All right, this is going to hopefully go well. Let's hear it.
Taylor: I'm trying to figure out which friends are not following doom to fail
>> Taylor: welcome to doom to fail, the podcast where we bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week. Today is Wednesday. I am Taylor. We are joined by Fars. As always, and I have been, have decided to do one of the pettiest things I've done in a while, which is to copy and paste the followers of our podcast on Instagram and copy and paste my followers on Instagram and figure out which one of my dumbass friends are not following us.
>> Farz: Did you find out?
>> Taylor: No, I'm still cleaning up my spreadsheet. I have our. I have our podcast followers, and I'm going to add a my followers and then get rid of the duplicates I think is what I'm going to do, and then I'll be able to see who is not.
>> Farz: How are you doing that? We just. You can export your own followers.
>> Taylor: No, I literally spent like five minutes scrolling all the way down so I can copy and paste them.
>> Farz: Taylor, you're like, man, like, you, you could have. You could have ran the world.
>> Taylor: I got annoyed, so I was like, come on, what the hell? all you do is follow me. You don't have to listen, but, like, if you're my friend, you should, like, support me. And I have, like, a lot of friends who I support constantly, and I just feel like I don't get the same support from them. It's not you, and it's not you if you're listening, but it's you if you're listening to this in a year because you finally decided to catch up.
>> Farz: You know what's funny is you reminded me that there's somebody that we both know who I have gone above and beyond to try and be supportive of the things that they've chosen to do in their careers. And at every opportunity, if I ever try to call them or text them or reach out to them for any help whatsoever, just, like, guiding a direction here. Nothing. Crickets. And it just reminds me, just chat.
>> Taylor: Me with a person's name in the chat here. yeah, I'm not gonna take it anymore.
>> Farz: I'm not gonna take it anymore. Oh.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
>> Farz: Throughout every stupid, dumbass career move this guy made, I was there. Be like, hey, I don't think that's the right track, but I support you. Tell me who you need intros to. Tell me what you need. I call him up, was like, hey, I heard you're this one organization. Maybe we can collaborate. Not even a call back. Yeah, literally the only person that I have stayed in touch with in the past, like, ten years that just literally will not call me back over anything.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Anyways, so dumb. So, yeah, hope. well, let me know, because then I can do the same thing.
>> Taylor: Yeah. I can probably get your followers, or I can put it on my.
>> Farz: I'm sure. Well, so. So here's the thing. One thing to note, taylor, is I did do outreach. Every single one of my followers but that was like, when we first started.
>> Taylor: I emailed everyone I know and still, like, four people signed up for our email.
>> Farz: No, I know, I know.
>> Taylor: You can sign up for my email and you can, you can sign up for my email blast and you can make a filter to filter it out of your inbox and straight to trash. I don't care.
>> Farz: Just like, what I'm saying is, like, we might, you might just need to catch people at the right time in the right day and like, you know what I mean?
>> Taylor: That's why I'm m gonna start calling them out personally.
>> Farz: You guys got it coming.
>> Taylor: You have it coming. Okay.
This is part two of my series on the Paypal mafia
>> Farz: so today's my day to share my story. And I did. This is going to be part two of my series on the Paypal mafia. so the first part had to do with the origin story of Paypal. And today we're going to go into the business windfall that followed the PayPal mafia, as well as calling out some of the more notable members of the group. because I want to kind of end this with part three being more of, like, the social impact of what's going on with, with what these folks have contributed, which is a lot, because we hear about it all the time now. it's important to kind of put that within the context and framework of who these people are and so on and so forth. I do have kind of narrative on this because I'm like, I'm like, this sounds really stupid, and you should tell me that it's stupid, but like, I'm starting to realize, like, how vastly different billionaires are than the rest of us.
>> Taylor: Yeah, like, I think. I think that's a good point. And I've been thinking about what you said last time where you're like, there's this, like, I need to innovate at this speed. And that is the thing that I care about the most.
>> Farz: Yeah, I think I'm iterating that stance.
>> Farz: A little bit. Yeah. So long story short is I get really excited and I text Taylor constantly when I think that we're plugged into the zeitgeist. Like we caught the wave of something, you know, when it was, like, gonna happen. And we didn't realize with a Murdoch episode we did. For example, we didn't know Netflix was producing a series about this and it was gonna blow up, become super popular. We just did the episode like a month later they released a series, and then, like, a few days after that, he gets, like, convicted. Like, we didn't know any of that. Was going to happen. It just happened. I texted Taylor because the Daily did an episode where they touched on somebody referred to the last episode having to do with Andreessen Horowitz, which is the a 16 ZBC capital firm out of Silicon Valley. And then I texted Taylor again yesterday because I saw that Joe Rogan's podcast, he interviewed Peter Thiel, who is considered, like, the don or whatever, like, the main guy of the PayPal mafia. Taylor, I think we're onto something. There's got to be a reason why this stuff is hitting at the exact same time.
>> Taylor: Well, it is because, I mean, it's because they're very involved in politics, and it's very. It's very. I think maybe, like you were saying, maybe you'll get to. But I think it's very interesting that, like, the social parts is not something that they. That they seem to care about. Peter Thiel, as an example, as a gay man who doesn't care that gay rights may be taken away.
>> Farz: So here. So here's what I. Part of what I mentioned about my evolving view of, like, what it's like to be a billionaire was actually listening to that episode. And obviously, Joe Rogan's worth, like, hundreds of millions of dollars. Peter Steele's worth, like, multiples of billions. And, when you hear them, like, talking, you're like, oh, their brains are not. They're not on the same wavelength. Like, there's orders to this thing. And, like, they are not even close. And. And I'll be honest, I'm just going to admit to the entire audience here, I'm not close to being 100 millionaire. So I can't even think in 100 millionaire terms, much less than multiple billionaire terms. So, like, no, anyways, that was kind of, like, a little bit of you.
>> Taylor: Did you watch succession?
>> Farz: No, I never got into that.
>> Taylor: it's super good. But there's a part where that my husband was talking about recently where, like, they're talking. They're like, having $5 million is, like, the stupidest amount of money to have because you can't retire, but you can't, like, Like. But you still have more money than, like, a lot of other people that you know. And they called it, This is terrible, but they called it. It's like being the tallest dwarf.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: That you're like, well, it's not enough to, like, I don't know. You know? And I am not. I have, like, $7, so it's crazy.
>> Farz: I have, like, $17.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: So we're not close to this level.
>> Taylor: I'm very, I'm, you know, absolutely fine and doing great. But not a millionaire.
>> Farz: No, no. Yeah, it's. It's just. It actually, it was, it was so, Okay, I'll get into that later. Like, remind me, if you care to go back to, like, my feedback on the Joe Rogan interviewing Peter Thiel episode, because there was a lot of things I pulled out of that was like, okay, okay, that's a talking, point right there. Anyways, we can come back.
The five richest members of the PayPal mafia have combined net worth of $270 billion
So what I want to get into is kind of like, what this group of individuals, what they. What the option of it was and why they contributed in a way that nobody else contributed to technology and society and all that stuff. So let's go ahead and dive into it. So again, the ending of the last story was PayPal being sold to eBay. Again, the paypal. PayPal was sold for about $1.5 billion, which, yes, it is a ton of money, but in total, the members of the PayPal mafia walked away with somewhere around 350 million in total. And that ranges from Elon Musk, who took the vast majority of that. He, received about 165 million, and the rest kind of shared what was left over. not putting down that, like, that's a ton of money. But currently, the five richest members of the PayPal mafia have a combined net worth of $270 billion.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I feel like at that time, I feel like the word billion dollars and enter are, like, mainstream. Until the past. Like, I don't know, five or ten years.
>> Farz: I mean, yeah, so Bill Gates held the mantle forever. Then we all knew who Bill Gates was then, you know, Warren Buffett. And then all of a sudden, like, I think America had like, a glut of billionaires. That happened in the past, like 20 years. That was just like kind of unprecedented in terms of how many there was. So today, again, the top five richest members, their combined wealth is about $270 billion. again, 250 billion of that is really just Elon Musk. So lets drop him from the equation because he sways it so dramatically. It means that the remaining members made about 185 million from the original sale, but still have a net worth of about $20 billion. That means that if you were to exclude Musk, this group 108 x'ed their money. If you include Musk, it means that they 771 x their money over a 20 year period of time.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: So that's a big deal, because by comparison, the US gross domestic product, the size of the US economy as a whole, grew 2.27 x in 20 years over the preceding 20 years. So that gives you a scale of the magnitude of what these guys did. So how did they end up doing it? And part of this is going to be a little bit speculation, which I'm going to rely on you to help me with, Taylor. The other part is going to be quantifiable. So I'm going to start with the quantifiable bit for. For a minute. So, very standard finance stuff, money tends to grow money. So, for example, if you put $1 million on a high yield savings account, you can safely assume that you'll earn about $40 to $50,000 a year just on interest, without touching the $1 million. Or if you want to be riskier, you can put that money in an index fund and you'll make about $70 to $100,000 off your $1 million, give or take. If you want to be even riskier, you put that money in a venture capital fund with a VC firm who will combine similar investments and then dish them out to tech companies to fuel growth in the hopes of either hitting profitability acquisition or an IPO.
>> Farz: If you're not super rich with like a ton of liquid capital, going the VC route sounds like a total white knuckle experience. You have to put this money in a pool knowing with certainty the vast majority of businesses that that fund is funding are going to go nowhere. But maybe, maybe one of them is going to hit big. Maybe. So they call this, the Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth effect. It is the trade off between frequency versus magnitude. And it's named such because Babe Ruth was known to swing for the fences, and most of the time he wouldn't hit the ball. When he did hit make contact, he was just knocking totally out of the park.
>> Taylor: Right. He only hit home runs, but he didn't always hit.
>> Farz: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Some examples of this are when Facebook, for example, bought WhatsApp, which was a Sequoia Capital investment bank backed company. Sequoia invested $60 million in WhatsApp. When Facebook bought it, they valued it at $22 billion, which means that Sequoia's interest in the business earn them $3 billion or 50 x their investment, which is pretty good. That's like where you're shooting for if you're a VC firm. So that was the biggest investment Payoff in VC history. But when. But then you look at the members of the PayPal mafia and what they have done, and you start to see how they are able to consistently outperform everybody. Else over and over and over again. So we'll start with the biggest example, which is Facebook. So again, Peter Thiel, considered kind of the dawn of the the PayPal mafia, founder of Confinity, and the second CEO, PayPal, after Elon Musk, was unceremoniously booted from the role. He was the very first outside investor in Facebook. So outside of what, like the individual founders put in, he's the first investment capital that came into the business. This is insane to me. He spent $500,000 of his own money in 2004 for 10% ownership in the business. Wow, 10%. I think Facebook is probably worth a trillion dollars right now, I don't think.
>> Taylor: Oh my God. Yeah.
>> Farz: So Facebook launched in February of 2004. Around summer of that same year, Thiel became that first non founder investor in the business, and also introduced Mark Zuckerberg to more capital opportunities through his network by introducing him to another PayPal millionaire, Reid Hoffman, who was COo of PayPal at the time. It was sold to eBay, in total off about $500,000 for Teal. He made $1 billion off that initial investment. Hoffman invested 27 million and he made about 300 million. So he invested a little bit later. But then again, Hoffman wasnt just a passive investor. He had founded a company called LinkedIn in 2002, right after exiting PayPal. His initial investors were once again Peter Thiele. And then David Sachs was PayPal's head of product, and a guy named Jeremy Stoppelman, who was PayPal's vp of engineering. Wow, those were the initial investors. They would have fueled the growth. LinkedIn would be sold to Microsoft, in 2016 for $26 billion.
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: So that made Hoffman a built, multi, multi billionaire. who's this David Sachs I just mentioned? He went on to found Yammer, which Thiel and Hoffman also funded, and was also acquired by Facebook for 1.2, or Microsoft for $1.2 billion, which again, provided another couple hundred million dollars off their investment issues. It's just thing, it's just hit after hit. It's like, it's the Jackson five.
>> Taylor: Like, well, what were they, what were the other things in the middle of that? Like you were saying that, like, didn't hit well.
>> Farz: So these guys invested in a lot of companies, but the companies that they invested in themselves together, where they themselves were the founders and the creators of it? No, they all hit. The only one that had like, a little bit of trouble is actually the next company, which was Yelp. So, David Sachs was a lead investor. And Yelp, Yelp had a whole host of issues. Monetization, scaling, whatever. It was a whole separate nightmare.
David Sachs helped make Yelp an actual viable business
But we all know what Yelp is now. It's never going to go anywhere. And we can thank, in large part, David Sachs for funding that growth and making Yelp an actual viable business as of today. Then we have YouTube, which was founded by three PayPal alum who. They weren't originally part of the mafia, because they weren't founders. They were just early engineers. But now they're kind of considered, a part of that collective. And they received a ton of support from the PayPal mafia, the original founders themselves. Enough to raise 11.5 million in metro capital, all for $1.6 billion exit sale to Google, which now we have YouTube, the most ubiquitous video shooting platform in the entire world.
>> Taylor: Wow. And we have a YouTube channel you can search a doom to fail podcast on YouTube.
>> Farz: And we also published very fun, vintage videos of random family.
>> Taylor: Yep, all of our episodes are there as well.
So then we get to the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Elon Musk
>> Farz: So then we get to the 800 pound gorilla in the room, Elon Musk. So how is he kind of interwoven and interconnected all this and a lot of this? Like, I think I kind of knew, but I relearned the vast majority of it researching, this. So the story really begins with SpaceX, because when he left, when he was basically fired from being the CEO of PayPal, he founded SpaceX. So it was noted that he found SpaceX to decrease the cost of space travel. I don't totally get why he cared about this mission, or this causes a mission. I read some vague statement that he really wanted to help build greenhouses to support terraforming in Mars or something. Like, I have no idea why this was. I didn't find enough topic on this, like, why this was something he cared so deeply about, but he just really.
>> Taylor: Liked the movie biodome.
>> Farz: I mean, who doesn't? Polly Shore. It's like, it was the best polish for vehicle.
>> Taylor: Do you remember how cool those were in that time?
>> Farz: Yeah, no, yeah. son in law was pretty good, too.
>> Taylor: I love that.
>> Farz: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Taylor: I think about the lettuce sandwiches, son in law, like, once a week, it's like, just lettuce on, like, a piece of bread. And I just, like, love it, and I wish they would make it for me.
>> Farz: well, I'll call Juan and see if we can hook you up.
Between 2006 and 2008, SpaceX had three failed Falcon project rockets
So, between 2006 and 2008, SpaceX had dumped its considerable investment resources into perfecting the Falcon project rockets. And on three occasions, those launches failed, meaning the rockets just kind of exploded. I'm going to go out on a limb here. Well, not on a limb. I'm just going to go ahead and admit that I don't know a lot about rocket science, but it sounds like it's really tough to nail this stuff both in, like, science, resources and in money.
>> Taylor: Mm Is that fair? That's fair. I wonder why, I guess. Do you know why? Like, is he, like, the government's not doing it fast enough?
>> Farz: I don't know. It was something about why. Yeah, it was something about how he thinks that it could be done more efficiently and effectively and cost effectively and all that stuff. Like, that's kind of what, what I sense. But also there's an element of this, again, like what I was telling you earlier, like, there's something that these guys are plugged into that's, like, different than our understanding of it. Like, I don't think that a guy like this just doesn't have a contact at NASA that he calls. You can tell him, like, here's what this be worth. Here's how much it costs here, what we get. Yeah, I'm sure there's, like, some, they're plugged into things that are different and give them a lot more visibility and insight into, like, the landscape. Then I think you can glean from just, like, researching the way we research.
>> Taylor: Right, totally.
>> Farz: So, apparently so. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy after these three failed attempts. Their last attempt was only possible because, again, Peter Thiel came to the rescue with investment in the business. They kept it afloat long enough to perform their, fourth successful launch, which resulted in a federal contract that would save the business. And now possibly the lives of two astronauts were stranded in space.
>> Taylor: Thanks to both. Theyre still there.
>> Farz: Theyre still there. They're still there. And it sounds they're not coming back until February.
>> Taylor: I mean, like, maybe they're happy. I mean, they're probably making the best of it, you know? But it's still.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. I didn't notice, but they've actually been this, they're like real astronauts. They've been in the space station many times. Like, they're like their normal thing.
>> Taylor: So, yeah. Anyway, I mean, maybe, maybe they wanted to stay longer and they, they, like, do something weird. Weird.
>> Farz: So by this point, when we get to the launch of the Falcon Four, which was the first successful launch they did right when they got their contract from the government, it was documented that the business, SpaceX, had about one week's worth of operating cash.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: So one thing I read was that when he got the call saying that he got the government contract, he, Elon Musk told the guy who called him, I love you. Fair. So it was, he was in a really tough bind, and this is a part where, like, stories kind of converge. And I don't actually understand how anybody could go through this.
Tesla was founded by two guys named Martin Eberhard and Mark Must
But we turn our attention to Tesla, which agAin, contrary to popular belief, must not found. Tesla. Tesla was founded by two guys named, one named Martin Eberhard and a guy named Mark, tarpenning, who founded the business in 2003. Must joined it in, 2004 as the single largest shareholder with $6 million in investment, which resulted him, after a little bit of like board move arounds and whatever, just corporate b's, him being installed as a CEO. so the business spent the next few years working on its battery tech, optimizing supply chains. all this in anticipation of launching the Tesla Roadster in 2008. Despite their best efforts, they had real difficulty bringing the flagship vehicle to market and experienced significant delays in cost overruns on the project. So in 2008, Musk, Musk. Musk's roughly $180 million fortune was basically down to zero. He had personally put his last $70 million into Tesla that year, and $100 million total in SpaceX before the successful launch of Falcon Four. This is all in 2008. What was the other thing that was going on in 2008 in the us recession, the Great Recession, GM and Chrysler both bankruptcy. So nobody was trying to buy some random car with a new technology battery tank that nobody even understood what it was. It, was a horrible, horrible moment to be doing this. What ultimately saved Tesla was that Chrysler was trying to invest in electric battery technology. They're trying to invest in electric car battery technology. And they infused Tesla with a $40 million capital, grant swap for equity. And thats basically what saved the business long enough for them to get their roadster to market, which was like on the downswing of the Great Recession, and when they were able to kind of sustain themselves long enough to kind of burst out with the model S and so on and so forth. So what I didnt bring up was that he also put his last $10 million in solar city to try and make solar energy accessible for like households and stuff. So what I read is that at this point, he literally had no money. It is said that he was borrowing money from his family and friends to just pay his living expenses and buy food. So as of today, that $180 million, in proceeds that he made off the sale of PayPal, theyre responsible based across the market caps of Tesla, SpaceX and Solarcity, which is now part of Tesla. About $1 trillion in market cap and about $250,000 in employment across, the employee network for those organizations. So again, all the kind of flowing from this one. I mean, it's interesting because Peter Thiel is not even close to the richest person and he's like the one central cog that made all this, like, possible.
So I was kind of going into speculation on what makes this group so unique
So I was kind of going into speculation on, like, what makes this group so unique, how they keep supporting each other, reinvesting in each other, and why their businesses that they personally found keep, find, keep hitting one after the other. And it really tailored took me back to when we were early employees of our last company.
>> Farz: So at that time, that company was backed by some of those powerful people in Silicon Valley. And we experienced like a ton of growth in those early years. I think you and I joined when the business was somewhere around 300 customers. And we, I mean, by the time I left, we were in the tens of thousands. So, yeah, so, like, we were in like a yemenite hyper growth phase. We're also like super close to each other, right? Like, we worked weekends, we spent free time together, we stayed late at the office, we had ping pong tournaments. Like, we did a lot of stuff together. And I think, like, that's kind of what, again, like, the people that I talk to now that have helped me throughout my career since then, it's just the same people. It's like I said with the person I just told you about, like, anybody who wants a favor for me, like, they can call me and get it and vice versa. And I think that that's kind of what this, kind of what, how this evolved into. What evolved into obviously different scales. If, if nobody's going to call me and ask me for a hundred million dollars, but, like, they'll call me and ask me for introduction or favor or something like, that's just different. But, that's my theory.
>> Taylor: That makes sense. I mean, if you can, like, help the people who helped you and, like, help each other and you have the means to do it.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. So, so anyways, that's my story. My m. Wow. Mine is like, super short today, but like, that's kind of the story I left off a lot of. There's so many different examples of this and I didn't think it was. I could have done like 20 more of these, but I thought, like, the biggest things I kind of wanted to throw out there. and, yeah, that's kind of where I'm gonna leave it.
>> Taylor: Okay, cool. yeah, I mean, I think that, like, similar to the money compounds, so do the connections, you know?
>> Farz: So true. Yeah.
>> Taylor: You can be like, oh, yeah, I know this person. Like, if I'm just, like, a person who has an idea, like, for a podcast, and I don't know anyone famous in the podcasting world, it's gonna be hard to get it up and popular.
>> Farz: You know what's interesting about the Facebook example? What happened was that Sean Parker, who was president of, Facebook, he knew through the grapevine, Reed Hoffman. Reed Hoffman, before he joined PayPal as a COo, had started a company called Socialnet, which is what he flipped into LinkedIn later on. But when Sean Parker came to him, he was like, listen, I'm trying to get this other thing off the ground, and it's kind of in the same vein of what you're trying to do. I think there'll be a weird conflict of interest if I was your lead investor. He was investor later on. He invested $27 million later on. But before that, he was like, I don't want to seem like I'm being shady, so talk to my buddy Peter Thiel.
>> Taylor: How did he know those people?
>> Farz: I mean, I would assume he created Napster. Like, don't you just kind of know everyone when you.
>> Taylor: Oh, I forgot about that.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's the story for this round. The next one's gonna go into more of, like, the social side of the Paypal mafia. The controversies and kind of things that came out of it since then. but I have been. I've been finding it really, really interesting, like, just learning more about this. There's a book that just came out which I called on the Edge by Nate Silver. You bought a book? Yeah. It's a real one. Look. It's real.
>> Taylor: Oh, God, I can't believe words in it.
>> Farz: You see the words?
>> Taylor: I was so proud of you.
>> Farz: And, dude, do you have a bookshelf.
>> Taylor: We can put on a bookshelf?
>> Farz: I was gonna put it, like, right here, just sitting right here. but. But one thing. One thing he does, he actually interviews Peter Thiel, and he discusses it again on the Ezra Klein show about his experience, because he didn't talk about this in the book, but he talks about this when he's talking to Ezra Klein, where he's like, he also is just like, man, talking to these people. I'm trying to understand how they see humanity, how they see themselves in humanity, how they look at timelines, their contributions, and it's like, it's not, like, necessarily a God thing of, like, I'm chosen. It's more of, like, I, have the ability, and therefore the responsibility to do x, y and z. And, like, rightly or wrongly, it's not that you're gonna agree with everything these guys do. Obviously, you don't agree with a lot of it, but, like, it's just different prerogative. It's just. It just operates on a very different prerogative and operates on, like, a humanitarian timeline and a humanitarian perspective as opposed to, like, that's why I found the interview with Joe Rogan so funny, because obviously, like, goes into, like, this side quest of, like, drugs and psilocybins and like, whatever. And, like, you can. You can almost, like, hear Peter till being like, what? Like, what? He's like, I'm trying to, like, save humanity. I'm trying to clone my brain and instill it, install it into, like, a 17 year old version of my body. Like, what do you tell. Who gives a shit about, like, your. Again, it's just such a different scale of, like, what these folks think about, which is so interesting. Yeah, but we'll get there, Taylor. I mean, we won't. We probably won't, but, like, whatever, we'll be happy.
>> Taylor: Well, I also. I feel like then it's something that they're.
Jeffrey Epstein: I think time matters in a different way than others
That they are saying that is interesting that, like, time matters in a different way. And I also think time matters in a different way. You don't have to worry about, like, regular people shit, like, keeping your house clean. Yeah.
>> Farz: If you were worth that many billions of dollars, like, yeah, you're. I would assume that the thing you would be focused on, first and foremost, is how to increase your longevity.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: In investing in technology. I didn't tell you this. Like, there was one time I went to, Actually, this guy might have been part of the payload. I can't remember exactly. I saw his name pop up somewhere. But anyways, he was one of these billionaire guys. And, I was going to go have a lunch with him. And so I had this lunch with him and we were talking about the business and what we do and everything. And how he framed it for me was like, dude, I'm investing in businesses that can get contracts with DARPA. Like, I'm not interested in consumer B's. Like, things that you are selling is like, it's cute, it's cool, it's fun, it's cute. Keep doing your cute thing. Right. I'm trying to like, create, like, magnetic waves of energy that could go to space.
>> Taylor: Like rocket science shit that you don't understand.
>> Farz: Yes. I was like, I was like, I'll just have my salad and leave. What am I doing here?
>> Taylor: What am I doing here?
>> Farz: But I want to say, like, it's not that anybody's better or worse than anybody else. It's just like, that's not the lesson here. It's more of, like, just like, I'm trying to get, like, an understanding of, like, of, like, who these people are, why they are the way they are. Like, there's gotta be lessons within that, right? There's gotta be something. There's gonna be something cool about, like, being able to think that long till I can't think that long till I'm like, I'm literally thinking, like, what should I get for dinner? Like, you know, like, I can't, ah, break outside of my own paradigm. It'll be nice to.
>> Taylor: I think it also speaks to, like, a historical thing of, like, a kingdom having a war and not caring about the immediate consequences. No, yeah. And being like, the consequences are that my thing will be here for generations. You know? Like, that's the thing that I care about. If in the meantime I destroy lives and things and blah, blah, blah. Like, that doesn't really matter to me. And I don't even give it a. Give it a thought, you know?
>> Farz: Maybe. Maybe that one thing he said on the podcast I was just listening to was he just, like, he was dissecting why humans are the way they are? Like, that's a really fascinating way to look at it. He was like. He was like, yeah, we're just copycats. Our brains were literally designed to just copy other, other people. Like, that's all we do is we just. We just mimic what's around us. That's what we call it. Aping we're gonna ape someone is like, we're just gonna, like, do what they do. Like, if a kid wants. Kid has a blue ball, the other kid's gonna want a blue ball. Like, it was just how we operate. And if you have a lot of money, I want a lot of money. Like, it's. It was a very interesting way to perceive it. But anyways, though, that was also, like, a funny podcast. I wouldn't listen to it because I take the subject matter that seriously. Cause again, Joe Rogan's going into, like, a weird, like, he's, like, talking about doing mushrooms and stuff. Like, dude, what are you talking about? Yeah, this is so interesting.
>> Taylor: All of the that plus all the steroids, it can't be good for him.
>> Farz: Also, he would like, there was something that I found really fun about that, though, was that he would just, like, he came up with theories about Jeffrey Epstein and, Bill Gates, like, Peter Thiel did. And it totally brought back the fact that. That Paypal mafia guys, like, seem to really dislike the Microsoft guys. So. So apparently Bill Gates shorted Tesla, like, a ton, which, like, caused, like, the stock to crash at a really critical point with Elon Musk. Like, called them out on it, and, like, it was a huge media firestorm for a while. And then Peter Thiel's on. On this podcast talking about how close, Gates was to Epstein was like. I was like, oh, dude, you should, like, try. You're certainly a billionaire fight here. It's like a. Yeah, totally. It's really fun to do that. But anyways, so that's my episode. That's all I got for now.
Taylor: I'd really just like to not have to worry about dinner
And then next week, we're going to join you with controversies, of the group. So TBD.
>> Taylor: Cool.
>> Farz: What do you have to say, Taylor?
>> Taylor: No, that's interesting. I like it. It is. Like, it's hard to see some of the stuff that, like, these guys do and be like, what are you even. What are you doing? But, like, you're right that they just are totally different. Like, they just have a totally different mindset.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: I can't even imagine having that, like, as a, you know, as, like, an option. Like, what would you do?
>> Farz: Gotta be nice.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Or terrible. I don't know.
>> Taylor: right? I don't know. I mean, I definitely think. I definitely think that money can buy happiness, so. But I do think at some point it might make you crazy. I don't know.
>> Farz: I mean, buying, like. Yeah, the longevity thing would make me pretty happy. I think knowing that, like, I could have the resources to just, like, not be subject to time, that'd be kind of cool.
>> Taylor: I'd really just like to not have to worry about dinner. I'd like someone else to make dinner every fucking day and, like, make my bed. Like, I feel like there's so much I could do if I didn't have to, like, think about food.
>> Farz: Your point? I'm literally thinking about dinner right now.
>> Taylor: Right. And, like, if you could just go outside and dinner was, like, made for you, and you'd be like, thank you.
>> Farz: So nice.
>> Taylor: I went to this, like, three day women's retreat in January, and the food was made for us, and it was just incredible. They're like, okay, dinner's at six. And you get there and dinner's there. You're like, thank you so much. You didn't ask me what I wanted. I don't give a shit. Just make me something. You know what I mean?
>> Farz: Like, so nice.
>> Taylor: So nice.
>> Farz: One day, Taylor, Sweet.
Anything you want to read off? I have one fun thing about Jesse Owens
Well, anything you want to read off?
>> Taylor: I have one fun thing. My friend Seamus from New York, he, sent me a message cause he had said something on Instagram about Jesse Owens. A little bit more olympic stuff. But his like great grandfather, I think was actually, one of the track coaches in the 1936 Olympics. And, there was something that happened where they wanted Jesse Owens, like either in the trial or in the medal race to do like one race after the other, which would have been really hard because it was like he just did one thing, don't immediately do another one. So his grandfather found a, thing in the rules where you could consult with your coach for any amount of time. So, he wasn't like the head coach, he was like one of the coaches. So he talked to Jesse Owens for like a half hour about nothing and he got to like rest and then do his next thing.
>> Farz: That's pretty cool.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah. You have cool friends.
>> Taylor: I do.
>> Farz: well, thank you for writing in, Seamus and, that's a really cool name too.
>> Taylor: It is, it's cool. It's like hard to say if you look at it spelled but then when you say it or. It's cool.
>> Farz: Yeah, it's seamless.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Like Seamus and like Sinead are like really hard to like figure out. But like once you figure it out, you're like, oh, it's such a lovely name.
>> Farz: Sydney add. anyways, yeah. Please write to us. Doomdofeldpod@gmail.com on the socials at ah doom to fill, please follow us. If you're not following us, Taylor will be really happy or she will cost you. We don't know which.
>> Taylor: I will find you. I will figure out how to make a pivot table on the spreadsheet that I'm making and I will find out if you're my friend coming for you.
>> Farz: cool. Anything else, Taylor?
>> Taylor: That's it? No, thank you so much for us. Thanks.
>> Farz: We'll go ahead and cut off. Bye. All.