Hey, guys, welcome to Group Chat.
We're all three back.
Let's go.
Let's go.
We have a little bit of a teaser today
of a master class that we've decided D needs to put on.
And I know a lot of people say that.
Very kind of you, drama.
And just to celebrate your success with love
to go to dinner with you.
Yeah, thank you.
I can't wait.
And thank you for the compliment.
Somehow oddly, I feel like paying for things now.
Thank you.
Yeah, D has a unique skill that we're going to talk about.
It could help you also, like, you know,
there's some tough times in the economy.
Maybe some tough times ahead.
And I think this skill will really help a lot of our listeners.
A lot of listeners say they have gotten
some great advice from this show.
And I think this episode is no exception.
I agree.
We're going to talk about D's trip to Paris
for Men's Fashion Week.
We have a full recap of everything going on.
So you get to kind of experience that.
And then a lot of news to go over.
A lot of fun news today.
Nothing negative or scary.
Everything's good in the world of group chat today.
And then we have an interview with our friend Rob,
aka Balan, that's been on the episode multiple times.
And then we're going to soar you off
into the rest of the week with our winners, losers,
and content recommendations.
So we got a hot episode.
We're going to get you ready for, you know,
you got two more days until you got a long weekend.
So we're going to go ahead and prep you out.
Maybe if you're traveling,
taking a road trip for the weekend, we got you covered.
You guys ready?
Fantastic.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
Gosh.
Ladies and gentlemen, group chat.
Go, let it go.
Hey guys.
Hey, hey, hey.
D's back.
The back.
The lead is back.
Well, you guys are both elite.
And there's an ode to that in our new merch.
That dropped today.
That dropped today.
Annan's member, Tent T-shirt.
His signature design done by Eric Deluxe
is available now on shopnewrepublic.com.
So if you want to be a liberal elite,
be very woke, but far from broke,
go to shop new republic.
There's nothing better.
Come your nose down at the poor.
From the members, Tent.
Yeah, like you're with them,
but secretly you're thumbing your nose at them.
Okay, available now.
It's hot T-shirt.
We got the Beverly Hills colors.
Yeah, it's a good shirt.
It's great shirt.
Annan, do you have it yet?
Not yet.
It's iconic color wave.
Yeah.
I expect to see your, you know,
you and some of your extravagant,
like I want like a photo from Yellowstone Club.
Yeah, you know, I just throughout the year,
I'd like to see a little montage of where you were,
your members, Tent, all the different members, Tents,
you were in.
Many, many, many Tents.
D, your back, we thought maybe the pod got too liberal for you.
No, your back, you did were a travel abroad
to spread the great word of America.
I was pushing America hard.
Yeah, I understand.
You know, we saw your new hat design.
Yep.
Red, white and blue.
And how was it?
You went to Paris.
I went to Paris.
I had timed a bunch of meetings with retailers and brands
that I work with out there during men's Paris Fashion Week.
Yeah, so lots of picks and content from the...
So for folks that are in fashion,
Paris Fashion Week has basically become what magic trade show
was 10, 15 years ago.
It's become, yeah, it's insane.
And it's like, well, in what respect?
You mean, it's the same people that were there 20 years ago
and magic have now graduated to luxury?
No, it's not.
Because it's not just luxury.
Everybody, every brand is there now.
Like, you know...
It's just more expects.
Like, the hundreds had a showroom in like the Marais,
so, you know, like, with retailers.
Like, all price point brands.
Basically, all the buyers would rather go to Paris
than go to Vegas.
And so the brands obviously would rather be in Paris.
And so, all the retailers that you normally would work with,
you name a household retailer that's in this industry,
this particular category of clothing,
they're all present, all the brands are present.
Then what happens is the PR people come,
the manufacturers come, then the riffraff comes,
the parties come, and it's become like a moment now.
That's so wild.
So wild to think about.
Like, if you really did like a documentary on magic,
you know, 2005, like, this is where it graduated to.
Yeah, by the way, in 2005, magic, Jay-Z was there.
Pharrell was there.
Now, they're just in Paris.
That's, yeah, yeah.
That's actually for the, for the, for the, for the crazy.
So it's just that the world has just moved.
And like, I think specifically in streetwear,
this segment of culture is intertwined with luxury.
And so it just makes for a much cooler, sexier experience
for buyers and sellers.
And, you know, like, for example, Jeff Staples had a pop-up.
He was probably at Magic and Pool Show 20 years ago
when I was there.
And he had, he had energy.
Like, it was packed where his cafe was.
And, you know, it's just, it was really interesting
to see all the, many of the same people in the industry,
but in a different light.
And then, I think the fascinating thing was,
one, I mean, Paris is insanely crowded.
So not only was it meant fashion week,
it was also the air show.
So everyone thought the city was crowded
because of fashion week.
Sure, the hotel coast.
They're like the right, it restaurants cool fashion.
The Paris air show, this is a fascinating show.
It's basically the show for aviation and space.
And it is governments buying planes
and not just like regular planes.
It's also a military plane.
So every defense contractor is there as well.
Yep.
I had a meeting at one of the hotels, like,
on Avenue Monten, which is like where, you know,
all the kind of luxury stores are.
And it's just like military people
from like all these different countries.
Wow.
And I heard that it was so busy
and it was like a insane show
because there's like the Ukraine war is happening.
Plains and fighter jets are being depleted.
Yeah, this is a seed woman.
A boom in.
I can't even imagine.
There were like, people were,
there was not a hotel to be found.
I found some small, like,
Rinky didn't co-tell in the array that like,
I could stay at and it was still $500 a night.
And any hotel that was it,
you was no chance you could even get a room.
Restaurant reservations impossible to get anywhere.
It was so fucking crowded.
I wonder if the Lagna was represented.
Oh, Lagna was definitely there.
It checks out.
There was a report today that there's a missile shortage
and Andrew, which we talked about on the last pod,
bought a company out of Mississippi
that's supplying these missiles.
And everyone thought the US could ramp up production
for all these missile requirements
with the Ukraine war.
And now there's a massive shortage.
And now people are worried that the US actually
doesn't have enough, you know, missiles supply,
which is probably horseshit.
Complete bullshit because this is the one
that's spent more money.
We spend, we have enough missiles.
The US military spends annually more individually
than the next nine countries combined.
I think our military is fine.
Yeah, but the military industry complex exists.
And now they're, let me tell you,
I got to witness the military industry complex.
Yeah, I kind of like it.
Yeah, I like it.
Yeah, I mean, American hat, American flag hat
and just switch industry.
But your hotel rate and plane airfare
had nothing to do with the fast show.
It was all the military industry.
The hotel, 100% was, I've been going to this fashion week
this time frame for a very, very long time.
I've never paid a lot for a hotel.
That's the military.
Yeah, it is, but here's it's funny.
Like if we've been spending more the US government
than the next nine countries combined
for the last 30 years called, yeah.
Why do we need more missiles?
Why not?
I mean, yeah.
What are we doing with this?
You could never have enough missiles on it.
Yeah.
This is a problem with the liberal, you pushies.
You don't want to defend America.
Yeah, more missiles.
Yeah.
How do you think you need to have that members 10?
Cause we've been dropping missiles for decades.
We defend you in that members 10.
Yeah.
You get to live in your little pussy, little life.
Cause we're just running through missiles
like fucking tic-tacs.
But it's interesting that even the most
military supplied countries still feel the need
to keep buying more shit.
Yeah.
Sure, the accounting and the inventory.
Like there's probably warehouses of missiles
that were just left in Afghanistan.
And I'm sure, like it is probably horrendous.
So my point is there's all these scare reports
in the last 12 hours about shortage of missiles.
I think we're fine.
Yeah, but it's it's it's propaganda
so that we can go spend more money.
Yeah, cause like, you know, it's like big
farm on military and these are very well run machines.
They're good at what they do.
And so anyways, going back to it,
inflation in Paris is just completely out of control.
Oh, really?
I thought you were going to say Johnny,
like, didn't matter.
No, I mean, I give us some prices.
I'm just most insane price is tequila.
Really?
So you're an expensive trip.
No, I didn't pay for anything.
I had people paying for me all the time.
You were taking a wallet.
I literally, I think I paid for maybe two drinks.
The entire week meals, not a meal, not a meal
that I had to whip out my credit card.
You could put a course on this.
I think you have a skill here.
Yeah, there should be a message.
I do pull out the wallet.
I do the fake.
You know, what's your what's your move?
How far in advance is the counter party
taking out the credit card before you do the fake pull up?
I'll pull it out first, but he's going to make it
like little comments throughout dinner.
Like, uh, you, you had a great year.
This will be on you, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So you basically like hype there.
You hype their eagle up so they feel like they have to pay.
Yes, I got all that runway show.
Yeah, so that's one of my things.
So, you know, it's a good tactic for people to know.
You keep complimenting your dinner counter party.
Yeah, yeah, you're good.
I literally text people like, and I do it in a joking way.
Where you taking me to dinner tonight.
Yeah.
And they're like, where do you want to go?
And I just, you see someone do something good.
Like in the press, you know, a lot of people would say,
Hey, congrats.
I was really great.
You say congrats.
I was really great.
Where are you taking me to dinner?
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's exactly what I do in advance.
So let me tell you the great places to go to dinner.
In Paris, if you don't have to pay.
If you don't have to pay, yeah.
So, um, there was a, uh, a party, uh, the brand
rude through and they did it at Plaza, Octane.
And I go to the bar to get a drink.
I ordered Casa Drogones.
They had Casa Drogones in 1942.
I'm not a 1942 guy.
So I ordered Casa Drogones.
They're the same price point.
Casa Drogones is much cheaper.
Like, uh, in, in, you could go to the store
and get a bottle for 75 bucks.
So a 1942 glass in LA is what, 40, 50 bucks?
1942, which I ran into a bunch of buddies.
They all ordered 1942.
I see, it comes and it was 150 euros a drink for a single shot,
one shot, 150 euros.
So it's triple, more than triple, it was 160 bucks.
Yeah, 165.
That is insanity.
Insanity.
Then, uh, that's a bottle of 1942 at the liquor store, no?
Literally a bottle.
I think it's 149.
Wow.
And I, um, um, ordered Casa Drogones,
which is like a 70, this version of it.
It's like a $70 bottle at a liquor store in California.
125 bucks.
Euros.
A glass.
A glass.
So then, which is nuts.
And then we went to Hotel Coast.
Hotel Coast is like, basically where everyone hangs out
during Fashion Week, it's a hotel restaurant.
And I go to dinner one night with one of my friends there.
And he's like, I want to get drinking.
Let's get drinking.
He starts ordering doubles of 1942.
So he's $320 a glass.
$320 is a glass, okay?
I mean, we, we blessed a drink three, four each
before we even had dinner.
So he's out like two grand before dinner.
Yes.
And then we went to, no wonder you,
you can't even do the fake credit card.
Yeah, I can't even afford it.
Yeah.
You know, I gotta be honest here.
And I was like, this is way out of my touch.
I get $1,000 of tequila tonight.
This has to be on you.
Way more than a thousand.
That's the funniest part.
And then, so the kind of spots everyone was hanging out
was Hotel Coast.
And there's a restaurant called Lulu, which is,
and right near the Louvre Museum, hot.
If you're going to Paris, I will go to this place.
During the day, it is sick.
It's a restaurant or lounge or what is it?
It's a restaurant, like in the middle of the grass,
you know, and like, call it a hundred yards away as the Louvre.
You can't see it from here.
Hard to get in or can anyone make a rest?
Um, you can, it's hard to get in,
but like your concierge at your hotel
should be able to call and make a rest there.
Incredible place.
But same, like, you know,
Truffle pizza, you know, 75 euros or 100 euros.
It's just even the coffee,
like I found like this American woman
that opened a coffee shop and, you know,
getting ice coffee in France is kind of hard
unless you go to like a specialty coffee shop.
So I want, I drink ice coffee only
and it was like eight euros.
So do you think the prices reset in three weeks
after all these people go?
No, I think.
Did you've had this like kind of wave, right?
You had the film festival.
Yeah.
You had Formula One in Monaco.
You had fashion week
and it kind of all culminated in the last.
So I went to all the, like, I went for runs
and I would go to like the touristy spots,
like Eiffel Tower or the museum and all these places.
And it was packed with tourists,
like families with kids.
Yes, families with kids, just, you know,
good old Americans.
How are they affording this stuff?
I look, I think if you booked it far enough in advance,
I'm sure you paid a little bit of a cheaper price.
Is it ring like a snackable?
Yeah, I mean, the free breakfast.
The free breakfast at every hotel was popping.
People were, I honestly don't know how people afforded it
because like everything was like insanely expensive.
Every restaurant was expensive.
And even Ubers were so fucking expensive.
Put like this, the traffic was so bad
that after my first two hours there,
I did not take a Uber till I left town to the airport.
I biked everywhere.
I literally had a line bike
and I was flying around Paris and a bike.
And that's not normal.
That's not normally what you would do.
No, normally I would just take Uber everywhere.
I mean, traffic is bad there.
I mean, I think the interesting thing is is like,
we talk about traffic in LA.
Traffic in other cities like New York City, Paris.
They're unbearable.
Because you're talking like, at least LA,
we're going 10 miles.
It's just the LA spread out.
That's the only difference.
Yes, here it's like three miles
and it says 35 minute Uber, 30 minute walk,
18 minute bike ride or whatever.
And so I recommend definitely,
if we're going to Paris this summer, hop on a bike.
It's so easy.
So you're telling me all these A-list celebrities,
LeBron, Kim Kardashian.
They're all on bikes.
Like they're just sitting in an hour traffic.
Yes, they're sitting in an hour's traffic.
It's on, they have their SEV caravans
taking them from fashion show to dinner.
Yeah, just like cool for an hour.
Yeah, and like I got caught up in the Pride Parade traffic.
Even with the bike, there was traffic that day.
Well, it's not going on.
Temperature is warm.
Not unbearable.
Not unbearable.
Like you go walk and you'll be fine.
What, you know what I said, noticeably missing?
Chinese people.
Interesting.
Which is very like not normal.
I've thought something.
Probably have to share it offline.
Really?
Why are you afraid of CCP?
I want our TikTok clips to keep going viral.
That's fine.
Do you think they're allowed?
Yeah.
Do you think their money's locked down?
Yeah, you can't go to the Louis Vuitton store with no money.
Oh, that's true.
So go yard headlines, Hermes headlines,
certain LV stores headline.
So what's the demo of the line?
Mixed.
Like young people, like cool kids, or no?
No, I'm just saying, younger.
Yeah, ethnicity.
There was some Asian people, but it was pretty mixed.
So I was told, and I'm curious, well,
you didn't go to London on this trip, right?
Yeah.
So apparently London's a ghost town.
This is anecdotal.
So someone in London that's listening, I'm sorry.
But there's no VAT refund in London.
So you can't shop.
You can't shop.
So the Euro, you can still do the VAT refund.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of shopping tourism from the Middle East,
China, Southeast Asia, India.
And you save like 30% on these luxury goods
that you would, you want to buy, Chanel, Louis Vuitton.
You used to go there, point to 30%.
So you choose your vacation, and it's 10% the VAT,
but it's also price cheaper,
because the goods are made in the region.
I think with, I guess with the US dollar, sorry,
the US dollar is 30%, you're right,
with a 10% VAT, I don't know what their currencies are.
The US dollar is actually like 30%.
Yeah.
So a lot of people are just choosing their vacations
based on shopping, and they'd rather shop in Paris
than shop in London, because I had a close friend
who's in London, he's like, it's a ghost town.
Wow.
Paris was the most crowded I've ever seen it.
And I've gone in summers for years,
and I could not believe, like it was every restaurant,
every hotel lobby, every, like it's just people.
Yeah, and this was a friend who was there last week
in London.
Yeah.
So, time is exactly where, yeah.
It was, I mean, I could not believe 100 people there,
and it's just very expensive.
It's just not, you know, you gotta go
when you have other rich friends there.
Otherwise, it's not as fun.
Yeah, I think we should do like a well lit,
you know, like the masterclasses,
and it's just D, like how to, how to get a free meal.
How to be likable and get a free meal?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's the masterclass.
It is a masterclass.
Yeah.
It's unbelievable.
You're like Matt Damon in a...
Balance it, Mr. Ripley.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just to kill all in all.
Any other takeaways?
I mean, fashions on fire, that whole world is on fire.
I met with a lot of brands.
I'll tell you that business is soft.
It is not, you know, very even at the high end.
I met with some luxury companies.
What they said was there are pockets
that are, they said American luxury consumers
holding strong Europe pockets.
China is very slow to recover.
Like they're not seeing what they thought
would be the bounce back.
And they think the next three to five years
is not gonna have the growth they've had
in the last five years.
And so there are cautious.
And then you just talk to, you know, brands that,
smaller brands at different price points.
And everyone's, everyone was like pretty cautious.
They were like, yeah, you know, businesses tough.
Like we have things that are working
and countries and retailers that are working.
But like, I didn't meet anyone where they said,
like, God, it's booming.
I think I met one brand that said it was just like
absolutely on fire.
But I don't know the scale at which their brand is.
But it didn't feel like it was like the good times are rolling.
The only two things that seem immune
is luxury hotels and travel.
Yeah.
It's weird that you would say like,
it seems like business is soft for everyone there.
But when you are there looking around,
people are spending money like crazy.
So I had a conversation with a retailer yesterday,
like a mass market retailer.
And they were saying that they are seeing a noticeable
pause in travel related spend.
So luggage is things like that.
They saw that like, it was booming
till like three months ago and it just stopped.
So that means travels should calm down in the fall.
I'll tell you, I looked at a flight 30 days out on Delta
and it was 30% cheaper, 30 days out.
So I think by September, you should be able to.
I had the worst call of all time.
Yeah.
I said January of this year, travel will be cheap.
And it has been more expensive than ever the last six months.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
I just cannot, when I like look around,
I look at the flights and I look at the restaurants
and I'm just like, does everyone just have so much money?
Yeah, I really think there's like,
I would say in LA, just restaurants that I've gone to
let it go too regularly.
If I were to think about the bill 2019 to 2023,
it's double for the exact same work.
I did meet someone that you guys know, young guy goes out,
parties, dinners, he's like a very social guy.
And I just asked him, just anecdotally, we were at lunch.
I was like, what's your like social life like now?
Like when you go to lunch and dinners and parties,
he's like, he's like, you know,
there's no more someone taking care of the whole bill,
like a group of 10, no one does that anymore.
I have, there's a lot of split bills.
And then our average check size is much lower.
And he's like a late 20's, you know, very social person.
And I was like, wow, that's interesting.
I mean, the bills are insane.
I mean, just if a man and I go to dinner
and I see the bill versus what it would have been four years ago,
it's double.
It's, yeah, it's double.
I'm curious, does at any point,
our restaurants go into lower prices again?
I think so.
They're addicted to it now.
Yeah, especially with traffic, you know,
demand goes way down.
Wage costs have gone up.
You talked to any restaurant turned, the minimum wage,
it's $17 is, I think, to get like a busser an hour.
Yeah, an hour.
Yeah, that used to probably be like eight or nine.
Yeah.
The one thing I did spend money on in Paris was,
I had to be at a meeting at a certain time when I landed.
And I was nervous about how long the immigration line
and customs was going to be and getting to a car.
I got a greeter.
It was 150 euros.
I got from my plane to,
where do they grab you from the,
literally off the plane?
Okay.
From the plane to a taxi, the guys like,
do not take an Uber, take this taxi,
they're local, they'll get you there faster.
The greeter tells me,
Bob minutes.
Wow.
This I would say now.
You look like a special line.
Yeah, he just, there's a special line.
He just grabs you to the front.
So are you seeing the crowds in immigration?
I'm waving right by them.
And they just take you to the front.
They take you to the right to the front.
But it's clear.
Yeah.
Okay.
I know celebrities do that.
You, I mean, if you fly internationally,
you should always do this.
This is insane.
Yeah, especially with kids.
You do it like any major airport.
So every airport has it.
I'm actually, I've had friends do it.
Anthony does it all the time.
So we did it in Mexico City.
And then I hit up his guy that he works with.
And I was like, give me the guy that you would do in Paris.
And then I called him.
How quick were you in Mexico City?
I don't know, one minute.
Really?
One minute.
It was a busy airport.
Yeah, it was one minute.
You just go in the front.
Yeah, go.
Whatever guy.
That'd be amazing.
When you come home, this is really niche.
But when you come home from Cabo,
it's always like, because that's such a short plane ride.
And you can get jammed at LAX with like,
but did you have global entry?
Do you have global entry?
I do, but over COVID it expired.
So the last time when I got jammed.
But if you get stuck with like, you know,
there's a couple of flights coming in from China.
And Tokyo just landed.
And like, you can be in the air.
China again.
Gotta go get those missiles.
China.
You can be in the airport longer than your flight, you know?
Here's another one.
I landed in Minnesota.
I'm Minneapolis on Sunday night.
Big international transfer.
I got off the plane.
I got off the planet one, global entry,
which they don't even scan anymore.
You just, it's complete from your eyes, your face,
which is so fast.
And then my bag was already out there.
I was in an Uber in 10 minutes.
And I didn't even have anything special there.
I just had global entry.
So drama, I had to redo this too.
Just a tip for you.
Just reapply and you automatically get it.
I didn't have to go back in the interview.
Cause mine expired during COVID too.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah, everything expired.
My TSA pre-check all of it during COVID.
I didn't realize until I came back.
I'm back.
Okay.
Good call.
Okay.
Is that it?
Good recap.
Good recap.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Paris, bike and, you know, hopefully you're traveling
with someone with a lot of money.
Yeah.
I really think you should do that masterclass.
I think our listeners could really benefit.
Benefit?
It's really how you word it.
It's the complimenting.
No, you do it.
You have a, it's an art the way you do it.
You do it in a way that, like the person feels, you make them feel really good about
themselves.
And then it's like the least they can do is pay.
And also if they don't pay, it kind of kills the whole facade that you just created
of them.
Yeah.
You know, like you like the way this story feels.
You got to keep it going.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Over complimenting is good.
Be extremely nice.
Yeah.
There's no downside.
I'll have to, I have to give a shout out to Rich from Fashion Nova.
He really took care of me all week.
So that's.
He was just sponsored.
He was just sponsored.
He was just sponsored.
I was basically a fashioner.
I was basically a fashioner.
I was a fashioner of a model.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was, I was a model.
Yeah.
All right.
So more news that's actually similar to what we were just talking about, Airbnb.
You know, I guess this is where I want to start this is during, like the COVID time and
even kind of coming out of that.
One of the big things.
There was the NFT craze.
Everyone was getting rich off of NFTs.
Everyone was getting rich off of, you know, day trading.
There was, there was kind of this trend of things that all went away.
And one of those things was there was countless TikToks and kind of short form content videos
about how you're all stupid and what you should be doing is doing Airbnb's.
You should be buying property.
You should be Airbnb and being them.
Here's how I do it.
I now have 10 Airbnb's.
I am printing cash.
You guys are all idiots.
It was this huge kind of gold rush.
It seems that that has officially collapsed.
I mean, I wouldn't even say it's like having a tough time.
It seems pretty devastating.
Yeah.
So there's a chart that came out that said revenues are down nearly 50% in cities like
Phoenix and Austin.
So the biggest drops are Severeville, Tennessee, 47% drop from May of 2022 to May of 2023.
This is revenue kind of per listing probably.
Phoenix, Austin, Myrtle Beach, San Antonio, Orlando, Florida was number 15 with a 35% drop.
So all that telling me is that travel to these markets has slowed because now you can
go anywhere, right?
Like you're not going to Austin, Texas for the weekend when you can go to Paris or when
you can go to New York or when you can go to these other cities.
So I think that I don't want to say like I think it's hard to say that Airbnb has completely
collapsed.
I think it's more appropriate to say the low COVID locations that Airbnb was booming
on have collapsed.
And I bet you if you looked at certain other markets, they've exploded.
Yeah.
So I think there's two different things that are pretty notable about this is that one.
Hybrid work is real.
So I know work from home is still the majority of like a lot of companies in major cities.
But they still require you one to two days a week in the office.
You got to show up.
You got to show up.
So this like fantasy of living in Idaho and working from home like he could have done
in 2021 is over.
So you have this like you actually have to be kind of close to wherever your corporate
headquarters are.
Yeah.
And that's all these major cities, which makes sense because you have not seen rents
collapse in any of the major cities.
No, New York's rent is at an all time high.
Yeah.
50% occupancy.
Yeah.
LA is a probably at all time high too.
I'm sure LA rents at all time high and LA occupancy in office is probably at an all time
low.
Yeah.
So, but you still have to show up kind of one to two days a week and do your face time.
The second thing is in these communities, it's that the numbers are kind of staggering.
So in Arizona, for example, that there's like a million Airbnb's and only 500,000
homes for sale.
Wow.
So if they start, if those Airbnb's are underwater and if they start selling, it's going to
create a market.
And this is the dynamic in all these like kind of tertiary communities.
And the other thing is if you bought a home in 2021 when your board ape was hot, your
crypto was hot, your stocks were hot and thinking like, oh, I have another hustle.
Yeah.
I already hit it on these three hustles.
I'm going to buy some real estate.
And get another casual stream your underwater.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also think that the, so we won't know until we see Airbnb's overall numbers, you're
totally right.
But I think there was also like Airbnb kind of made a mistake where in the beginning of
Airbnb, it was like, oh, my God, this is so nice.
You can go to the perception was you go to another city, you stay in a house as opposed
to a hotel, a hotel suck, look at all the nice amenities.
You have your little soaps and all that stuff there.
It's so great.
But there was really this trend of like Airbnb suck, like you can't make a mess.
They ask you to pay a cleaning fee then they ask you to take the trash out before you leave
and then they ask you to, and it was like this super high maintenance experience.
And I don't know whether that was just big on social media or whether it had an actual
financial impact.
But I feel like there was like kind of a like, hey, hotels aren't so bad.
Like you kind of go make a mess leave.
They make the bed every night.
Yeah, there's like no rules at a hotel like we're having like a family reunion this weekend
and we were looking for an Airbnb in like Ventura County somewhere and it was like, I
don't know how many people is like 15 people of us 17 people with kids with kids.
No Airbnb would even take us because the kids zero.
They said, do you have any small children?
They're like, no, you can't come.
You can't eat anywhere but the kitchen.
You can't do this.
You can't do that.
And you know, you're responsible for your own laundry.
If you're there that long, you make your own bed, you know, hotel, you just fucking throw
everything everywhere.
You go out for lunch.
You come back and it's beautiful and no one says anything.
You can eat upside down under the bed if you want and no one says anything.
There's no, no, no thought of taking out the trash.
And I don't know whether that was just, you know, it looked bad but it didn't actually
affect their numbers.
I think that has to play a part in this.
Yeah.
I also think like if you're a budget traveler, I think Airbnb still makes sense.
But if you have the means to pay for an experience, there's no way an Airbnb makes more sense
than a hotel.
A hotel.
A convenience.
Yeah.
It's really hard.
It's someone that's getting you food.
You need, you forgot a toothbrush.
Something shows up at the toothbrush.
Yeah.
A toothpaste.
Room service.
Room service.
You go down like drama said and just leave your room like a mess.
I'm back.
It's perfect.
Nobody says a word to you.
They don't even judge you.
They've seen worse.
Yeah.
I just think, I also think during COVID, Airbnb's made a lot of sense because you're alone.
You know, you're not around a bunch of other people.
You're not in elevators.
You know, you could just go on these little trips.
So I don't know.
Like I said, I don't think we don't have overall Airbnb numbers.
I don't think.
But like, there are definitely, I would imagine these were like Austin is probably an area
where a lot of people took a risk, made an investment, got their Airbnb.
They're their multiple Airbnb's and they probably just got creamed.
How about these tax evaders that went to Austin?
It's 117 degrees there right now.
Six months one day.
That's a good one.
You're probably back.
If you're a tax evader, you're probably doing your five months in LA.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then the California state board's going to still come after you.
So you're going to stick in 117 degree weather and pay your taxes.
You're going to melt their money away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm curious how that will age.
Yeah.
Terribly.
I know for a fact, it'll, that's one of my like bank predictions, bank it predictions.
They will absolutely come after every single person that in 21, 20 that left to Florida,
Texas for those.
But if they stayed there, there's different.
I don't think no, because the money was made the 10 years prior in California is going
to steer us for it.
It depends on your income in 22.
Yeah.
If your income go forward, yes, that's going to be protected.
Oh, you're saying they're trying to evade previous earnings?
Yeah.
Basically, they were like, oh, companies about to go public, I'm going to Florida.
Company goes to public.
You make $500 million.
They're coming for that because that is not what you made that money in California.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're going to see it play.
Like if I moved to Florida and in six months sold a business, I can't, they're coming
after.
California, whatever.
No, but I mean, look, the law hasn't, there's no precedent yet, but I don't think the
California state board is that stupid to be like, oh, yeah, you made all your money
in California.
But when you actually liquidated it, it was in Florida.
We can't touch it.
So it's never really been a problem that needed to be addressed.
Now it is.
No, because it's never been at scale.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
Well, I'll give you, I'm curious.
I don't know the migration to Texas and then the re-migration back to California.
I've heard that.
I have not heard people who went to Florida come back.
Florida people are all happy.
Florida man is happy.
Good.
Yeah.
Stay there.
Florida man's happy.
And then pay your California taxes.
Austin man.
Austin man.
Austin man.
Austin man.
Austin man with 117 degrees.
You got to be a little worried.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was fun for a while.
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't know if these people moved to a new state to collect their cash, but case
text, which is, I think we've talked about them, right?
It's a AI legal, you know, tech for using AI on like legal documents, legal work, stuff
like that.
They have sold for $650 million.
I hope they went to Austin first.
So they've got bought by Reuters and we haven't talked about it.
We've talked about a company I'm invested in, which is also in a similar space.
It was in the legal space.
Is that why we talked about it?
Yeah, exactly.
It's called Even Up.
And I actually asked a person in this space where these private data sets or public data
sets that they were aggregating from everything I've read, I read TechCrunch, I read everything.
It seems like their only edge was they had early access to chat GPT-4.
Yeah.
So this might have been a bag that would not exist in two years because everyone would
have had this access now.
And I was told 15 million of run rate ARR and they got a $650 million bag.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Do that multiple.
I don't want to.
And how old are they for their ARRs, what two?
I think they've been around for like six or seven years, I think.
But do you think they got to boost off of this chat GPT?
I think they just saw growth and Reuters probably was like, we have no way, we need to like
keep up.
Yeah.
I mean, you saw, there was another acquisition that happened.
There was a GML, two years.
Oh.
Because they had $1.1 billion.
They're six years old.
Yeah.
If they're six years old and they had 15 million ARR this year essentially, that means they
did nothing before.
Yes.
Yes.
What did they do for the last five years?
I think they might have eaten 10 years old if I read the article right.
Sorry.
I'm going to quickly look.
Wow.
See the best bag collection.
Well, I mean, I think the, you know, there's the other acquisition.
2013, they were founded.
So 10 years old.
10 years old.
They did no business.
They got early access to an application they did not create.
Yes.
Did a million bucks a month and sold for $6.50?
This is like when broadcast.com, Mark Cuban, so similar to like, yeah, broadcast.com.
It's also like, uh, directing consumer when, uh, Bonobos sold for 400 million to worthless
company.
Yeah.
Uh, what's the company?
Well, these are more like the dot com because Bonobos was doing revenue at least.
These guys did that one, one million dollar a month.
Case tech said one, one million dollar a month.
Like dollar shave club should not have sold for a billion.
Sure.
But it's not the direct summer.
It's literally dot com bust.
Those companies, you dollar shave club, these people were doing tens of millions of dollars
a revenue a month.
These companies are not the company, Mosaic ML that got bought by Databricks for 1.3 billion
has 60 employees, uh, 21 million dollars per employee.
Pretty good.
Oh my God.
There's going to be some just on godly bags.
You got to get your bag if you're an AI right now.
Yeah.
If you haven't been smart enough to be working in the world of AI for, you know, how long
have you had to get this education, do all this stuff 10 years, whatever, get your bag
now.
It's it.
It's it's going to.
This is going to cool to this reality of like, okay, what's we've all burnt a lot of
money.
What's really a value here?
We already know this is going to be a wipe out.
It's like it's 100%.
I think leading into the next topic is actually really relevant to what we're just talking
about.
Yeah.
Open AI.
The engineer with 10 years experience is rumored to be making a million dollars at open
AI.
I've actually heard the numbers more like 1.2 to 1.3.
This is full package.
Full package with stock.
Yeah.
And cash.
Yeah.
So if you're, there's a shortage of these people with this talent skill set in the world.
So if you're Reuters, what AI engineer is going to go to Reuters?
Nobody.
Literally nobody.
Zero.
They have to overpay to even get the talent skill set to even help the organizations stay
alive and not be extinct.
Yeah.
So you're going to see massive acquisitions in the space, not because case text matters,
like 15 million of AR over 10 years.
Like, yeah, it's just terrible business.
But they're like, we know we need to have AI engineers.
How do we do it?
And you have these companies flush with cash that are just going to keep buying and buying
companies.
For numbers that are going to sound stupid to all of us, but they probably don't have
an alternative.
Yeah.
Well, because like, if you were going to hire 50 open AI engineers, that's $50 million a year.
Right.
And they all just saw, oh, I could use these skills, find a niche, and there's $650 million
waiting for me.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you have to, like, I would imagine if you're one of these people that is entrepreneurial
at all.
You have a little bit of that in your DNA.
You have to realize like, hmm, I could probably collect an easy 100 million just by putting
the right fucking story behind this shit.
Yeah.
AI story.
Easy.
Good for them.
I mean, it's going to be the biggest cash grab to me, the dot com.
Yeah.
You just have to, you get out.
You're great.
You got to get out.
Like case text.
Case text probably would have been easier.
Case text.
Dinner's on you.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
Case text.
Case text.
I'm a huge fan.
He was very huge fan.
Let's get this and reach out.
The group check guys would love to go to Cabo.
We love you guys.
I mean, you guys are the quintessential entrepreneurs, you know, people dream of what you guys have
built.
Yeah, visionaries.
I'd love to have visionaries with a guy or gal like that.
I love to have a $750, uh, 1942 with a guy or gal like that.
So given the recent fund raises that have happened with certain companies and then obviously
now we're seeing exits in the last week, one for 650 million, one for 1.3 billion, the
number of texts I've gotten privately, we're back.
Yeah.
From tech people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get that.
Cause you're stupid deals.
Yeah.
How would you not feel that way?
The stupidity is back.
Even though it's like really in one specific area, it's the same old thing.
But I just want that to happen to me, you know, that I'm back.
Just be like, man, these are fucking idiot.
I can't believe you got this.
I would love for yourself for a billion and just roast the outcome on the podcast.
That would be amazing.
Do these idiots?
Can you believe Reuters just gave me 650 million?
Lunch on me, finally.
Yeah.
There's going to be a lot of wild stories, I think, um, yeah, in that area.
How about this?
Wild stories.
There's this Wall Street Journal article about, you know, we've talked about this a little
bit.
Um, it's fascinating.
But the use of mushrooms, LSD, ketamine, um, it's just sort of more popular than ever.
I think it's always been kind of popular in like the tech world.
I would say more so than, you know, a lot of other worlds.
But yeah, I think that Steve Jobs driven like everyone read, you know, knew that he took
LSD in India and, you know, envisioned the iPhone to then every other dork thought
yes to be them.
And even when you used to watch the Silicon Valley, it was a big part of that storyline.
I'm just saying it's kind of been tied to that for a while, but, you know, there's this
article about how, then, you know, micro dosing that phenomenon came up and seemed like,
when I picture it, I picture like, you know, 50% of people in Silicon Valley are just
micro dosing on one of these drugs.
Oh, it's a 99% okay, even better, uh, throughout any given day.
And, but we, you know, we have the story about it.
So the Wall Street Journal put out an article saying, you know, Mushroom's LSD ketamine is
what drives Silicon Valley.
I can fact check it, true.
I mean, driving this to me, that's what it's people in that industry do, yeah, yeah.
Not that it's driving the innovation.
But you know, we have a matcha, we have lattes, Silicon Valley, they have.
I can tell you like Barry's bootcamp drives L.A.
Yeah, exactly.
It's soul cycle and matcha.
I would say of the people that I'm extremely close with, not close with, that are somewhat
tangentially connected to technology.
It's a nine out of 10 that do one of these, you know, magic magic, magic substances.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, hey, I would say it's working for them.
So go ahead and pop one of your favorite, uh, hallucinogens and think of the next AI
idea.
And it's building over the sports you saw Aaron Rogers talk about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's like, was that a conference in Denver talking about psychedelics?
Yeah.
And everyone's criticizing him and he's like, well, after I did I was guy, I did 45 touchdowns
and got the MVP.
Yeah.
So there you go.
There's a wave of.
I don't think.
He's connecting.
Yeah.
He's connecting.
Yeah.
I'm just saying that's what you said.
No, not all the, uh, the practice.
Yeah.
I don't know if the LSD and the iPhone were connected either, but it started a revolution.
I don't know this.
You guys know this?
I might be just kind of old and square here, but like mushrooms.
Like the young folks here are like eating mushroom chocolate.
Oh my goodness.
Skittles.
Yeah.
It's like legal.
You want to get a, you want to get a gallon of water in because that's like what I've
been trying to do daily.
Yeah.
I think people are like making sure they get a gallon of mushrooms.
Yeah.
You get like your gram or whatever much the measurement is.
What's like, can you just buy it?
Like where the hell come everyone has mushroom chocolate in their back?
Yeah.
I think you can buy it.
You can buy it anywhere.
I can buy it.
I can buy it.
Dispensary.
Medmen or the illegal dispensaries.
Uh, yeah.
I'm pretty sure.
I mean, everyone has it.
It's everywhere.
It's everywhere.
It's everywhere.
Yeah.
Those cans, those mushroom cans, I don't know where that means it must be sold at dispensary.
Yeah.
That's marijuana.
They do a mushroom now.
Yeah.
There's mushroom.
I was at a Silicon Valley party with mushroom cans.
I think he's saying like a can of mushroom beverage, right?
No.
A can of mushroom beverage.
Yeah.
I was at a person's birthday parties from Silicon Valley.
Out here and there was beverages with mushrooms in it.
I mean, a young, like, open it like a Coke, a young woman that works in the creative industry
that I was around the other day in her early 20s looks like a, you know, you'd see her
walk it through air one, tipped over her purse the other day and actual like mushrooms
that looked like mushrooms in a bag tumbled out.
It's like anything from the can.
Mushrooms are having a moment.
Yeah.
Mushrooms are having their moment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mushrooms are hot.
Well, hey, Silicon Valley has led our innovation for the last decade.
So who knows?
Okay.
Well, there you go.
There's some inspo for the, you know, this is a really good informational episode.
We taught people how to get a free meal and drink.
We taught you the next area where you could just catch a quick 500 million bucks in like
six months.
Yep.
And we told you how to maybe alter your consciousness so that you can come up with all these ideas.
Yep.
There you go.
Welcome to group chat.
Real quick, we're going to do winners, losers, and content, but before we do that, we have
an interview.
Who do we got?
We got our friend, Robert, aka, Ballon, who's, you know, brought, brought a lot of interesting
things by the podcast over the years.
And so he's got a really for the business owners pay attention here because it's, it's
important.
So let's get into it.
All right.
We're going to cut to our good friend, Rob, aka, Ballon.
If you listen to this podcast for a while, Robert has come around a lot of times with actually
really good stuff.
Yep.
He brought some meat sometime.
That was hot.
He's fixed some people's credit.
That was hot.
Now, and I'm sure a lot of people have heard about this.
And I've experienced this painful, dreadful process myself, ERC.
Yep.
But employment, retention, credit.
So interesting.
Robert's working with a company that obviously helps people file it.
Right.
And how'd you get involved with these guys?
Well, thanks for having me on again, guys.
You know, one of the things is I work with NFL players and I bring brands to them off-field
brand deals.
So with those brand deals, you know, these companies, they, they might ask me certain questions,
hey, do you know this guy or do you know this?
And one of them happened to ask me if I knew anything about the ERC.
And I actually said I do because we're working with an ERC company with the NFL guys.
And so I sent him over there and he ended up qualifying and getting funded, you know,
I mean, he was a little bit scared about it because I guess he just didn't know.
Yeah.
Well, it's interesting is people don't realize if you retained full-time employees during
the COVID years, which is 2020, 2021, you are eligible for a tax credit, which is literally
cash that you can then get returned to you.
Right.
So, you know, I heard about it, you know, beginning of last year, we started the process
of filing.
We filed, I think last summer, early fall, I bet you haven't got it.
Have you got, did you get it?
No, I haven't gotten it.
I did get a notice that a small portion of it, because it comes by quarters of you file,
right.
It's going to take me till next summer to get all the money, next summer, because right
now it's taking anywhere between six to 18 months is the range.
And it's a lot of money that we're owed and it's, it's been like a very, very non-transparent
process.
And then what's funny is is I was looking, because for us, it's kind of like found money.
We need it.
The business needs it.
It would be great to get it.
But like, I would be like, I'd pay, I'd pay a fee to get it a little faster and he
said, he's got to do that.
Waiting 12 to 18 months is not hot.
No, I mean, especially in actually three years.
Yeah.
Because you kept them on when you shouldn't have kept them on.
And then now you're waiting for the reimbursement.
Right.
We did this good deed by keeping all these employees.
We haven't been fucking rewarded.
Yeah.
So what's the name of the company?
It's a ERC straight line.
And one of the things too, D is like, you know, 60% of the companies are told that they
don't qualify.
Yeah.
But they actually really do.
So, you know, there's a, for an example, they actually did a company and they were told
they didn't qualify.
And mind you, this was large.
And they ended up qualifying and they ended up getting $9.7 million back.
I mean, that's fucking huge.
So just think about the payroll he was using in 2020 and 2021.
Yeah.
So, you know, sometimes people are told they don't qualify or they think that they don't
qualify.
I mean, it literally, it's super simple.
If you have five or more W2 employees in the years 2020 and 2021, you could most likely
qualify.
Yeah.
And I mean, you can get 10 to $26,000 back that's per employee and you don't have to pay
it back.
Yeah.
Like, they're giving it to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not the money.
And so the interesting thing is, I think people, like to your point, they don't, a lot of
people think it's a scam.
They don't know what it is.
But I'll tell you it's real because I know one of our good friends got millions of dollars
back recently and I know tons of friends that have filed and gotten money back.
For sure.
It just takes time.
Yeah.
It takes time.
And I think there's a process to filing.
So I heard the 2020 stuff, the deadline is this Friday and then the 2021 stuff, there's still
more time.
Yeah.
I mean, there's definitely more time, but one of the things that, you know, that to talk
about that really helps is they can actually fund it.
So if you, if you qualified last summer you were talking about, you could have had that
30 days later.
And that's you, that's one of the great things that they do is they're able to fund it
for you 30 days later after you qualify and then they'll collect it from the goal.
Yeah.
And they'll collect it from the goal.
And it's not alone.
So they're not going to say, okay, well, we're going to give you, we're going to
advance you, but you're paying us, you know, three or four percent on it, right?
So it's not alone.
So you don't have to wait the six to 18 months.
It won't you qualify?
They will fund it within 30 days.
So I mean, it's worth a shot to call them just to see if, yeah, I think everyone who
held employees during that time period should file it.
It's a no brainer.
No brainer.
No brainer.
No brainer.
It's stupid not to.
Yeah.
I mean, again, it's free money, right?
30 days.
So, and usually qualifying with them, it takes, I think he said it was like 36 hours.
Like, come on, do you three days and then you have to have all your shit together.
You have to have your shit together.
Yeah.
You're sloppy.
Yeah.
Sloppy floppy.
And I can call 536.
For sure.
And that's what I'm saying.
It's worth the call to call them and see what they can do for you and then just get it
going.
Okay.
So how do you reach them?
So call this number.
They know exactly to put the group chat people up front.
Okay.
So, I mean, they get hundreds of calls a day.
So they have a dedicated line for group chat and it's 954-825-2950 and again, that's 954-825-2950 and
that, you know, that's dedicated to group chat.
So if people call in, they're going straight to the front of the line.
Okay.
So we'll make sure all the cat these who are interested call that number.
Yeah.
It's actually silly if you don't make the call and actually understand if you could just
get money that you didn't know existed.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for sure.
So again, it's like if you had five plus W2 employees in 2020 and 2021, I mean, it's worth
giving them a call.
Yeah.
Well, there's no harm.
Learn it.
Yep.
Amazing.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
Hopefully we find some money for some cat these.
They could buy some Losianto.
Or give me some ozempic.
Yes.
That's right.
Ozempic.
Ozempic.
There's nothing like ozempic.
You could be rich and skinny.
Yeah.
All right, guys.
No, thank you.
All right.
Great interview.
As always, ball and, you know, major friend of the pod.
Let's get into our winners losers and content and close out that way.
Do you who's your biggest winner for the last week?
My winner is Bitcoin.
Wow.
Wow.
Finally.
How long have you been around?
12 years.
This week, it's my winner.
I think when the thing with crypto, which happened over the last kind of call it five
years, it got into like basically what AI is right now, like we know AI is important.
And we've said, you know, for, you know, on and off again regarding crypto, like, where
does it really flush out the scams, flush out the scams, basically crypto is so persona
non grata anywhere in the world right now that it feels like the right time to actually
be wanting to invest.
And this is just me looking at just from objective standpoint and I look at Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It looks like that's it.
There's the only game in town.
The rest are fading off.
And quietly while, you know, Coinbase is getting hammered by the US government, black rock
and fucking fidelity are launching Bitcoin ETFs.
And obviously they know there's a percentage of their money that's going to want exposure.
Same way they want exposure to venture, they want exposure to real estate, Bitcoin, they
want, there's people that want now an exposure to the, to the kind of currency.
And I still inherently do not believe in the technology of Bitcoin.
But I do, I've always said I believe it, I feel comfortable as a store of value.
Wait, the technology is real because that's the reason it's a store of value.
No, but I'm saying that there's no actually use case for crypto.
Nobody uses crypto for anything.
But I think that's, I believe in the idea that people believe that it has value and
that's all that matters.
But the underpinning technology is what creates the value of Bitcoin because it is solving
the double spend problem.
It is a asset that only you can own and that you can transfer digitally.
Yeah, but I don't believe in all of the, the use cases of crypto that I do not believe
in.
So I think that's where the biggest opportunity right now is to invest because if you
the real crypto developers, I follow all of them on Twitter, I'm investing in a handful
of funds.
And the literature I'm seeing is their heads down working.
And it's similar to AI, it's going to maybe take another seven, eight years.
Like no one thought about AI in 2014.
And in 2023, you're seeing it all over the place.
But these people have been heads down for the last five, six years.
And I think it's going to happen a lot quicker.
And it takes a real technical mindset to understand what they're working on.
And I think you're going to see some pretty large developments in crypto in the next three
years.
Yeah, I think they have to find a use case that's like, I think it's going to run a background.
I think it's going to run the background similar to the way AI is, right?
No, AI breakout moment was a consumer facing thing.
It was exactly.
No, no, it's going to, there's going to be, I'm invested in a gaming company.
My friend Ameth is working that is on that is basically like a consumer gaming company
that you're working on, you're playing, but you don't understand that blockchain's actually
powering the whole thing.
Yeah, that I could.
So that's what is going to be the next wave.
Okay.
Fair.
Either way, either way you called it a winner, I think it's taken a decade for you to call
Bitcoin.
I believe it.
And that's a big moment.
That's all I believe.
That's what you need.
You need the Joe's to finally understand the story of value, then you just see it running
in the background.
Crypto's going to run in the background.
That's when it becomes the use case where it replaces the infrastructure of, I don't
believe it's going to be the currency of mankind.
That I did not believe in.
I don't think that's what I don't think a lot of these believe think, no, that was ten
years ago.
And I think it still is the currency in developing countries where you have 40% inflation.
Like would you rather own Bitcoin or a dollar?
I know.
It's not, it's still not you, they're not storing their value in Bitcoin.
They are collecting money.
You know, Bitcoin is actually, I always said this, that if Bitcoin only represented the
value of the black market, forget the economies that we all have to live in, the black market.
You're talking drugs, weapons, gambling, like all these black market activities.
It's still a multi-trillion dollar asset class.
Yeah, that's fair.
You're a black market guy.
I'm saying that's the downside.
Yeah.
Yeah, it sounds like you're supporting it, but it's whatever.
No, I love it.
Okay.
Ah, Ahnen, who's your winner?
Taylor Swift.
I mean, always, she's winning always the winner.
She's honestly one of the most impressive artists.
I think of our generation because Michael Jackson was before.
Well, I think ever, I think it's fair to say Taylor Swift is one of the most impressive
artists of all time.
Yeah.
Definitely of all time.
I'm saying of our generation of like being alive.
Like we were kind of a little young for Michael, but just kind of understand the importance
of her.
Yeah.
So she's on this tour.
She's going to be the most successful musician of all time, by far.
Yeah.
Also, I was way too young for Michael.
So just don't let me into that same conversation.
Yeah.
You guys, you know, kind of, yeah, I saw Michael, he was on TV, I wasn't even born yet.
So Taylor Swift is on this like epic tour domestically right now.
She's selling out, you know, 70, 80,000 stadiums around the country.
She's doing four or five nights in a city in LA.
She had five nights sold out at SoFi, which broke the record that BTS had previously held.
She just launched a six night.
And the rumors are that she's doing anywhere from three to five million dollars a night
in March, separate from ticket sales.
Yeah.
And cities are basically making, she's so big and she's bringing so much interest to
whatever city that she's performing in that mayors are getting involved.
So I can I tell you firsthand, I had spent a few hours in Minneapolis the other night.
Yeah.
And my hotel that she was there the night before.
And it was packed with people wearing Taylor Swift merch that had flown in to watch Taylor
Swift perform.
Also, I have a community economy.
I know a friend that is very well connected at one of these, I don't even remember at one
of these arenas, not LA, Minnesota or something like that.
And Taylor Swift.
So what they did was they allowed people to come shop the merch the night before the
concert.
And they did three million or three to five million in that day before concert night of
people just coming to buy merch.
No show.
Oh my God.
So it's ungodly number.
So that's one, that's the night before like the three night stretch, you know.
And then she's doing this domestic tour, which ends sometime, I think in LA actually,
and then she's doing international South America, Asia, Australia, Europe.
So I think the light numbers are that she's going to grow over a billion.
I would guess it's more.
Yeah.
And I don't know.
That's in one year.
One year.
It's so wild.
I mean, can you imagine if you put out one album, you do one tour.
What's she net?
A few hundred million.
Yeah, a few hundred million.
Probably more.
What's by all accounts is she's the boss.
She's the CEO of Taylor Swift Inc.
Yeah.
So she's making all the calls.
She's performing three and a half hours a night.
Yeah.
I don't know how she does it.
She's the goat.
She's the goat.
I think she is.
She is the goat.
Yeah, we got accepted.
And she's like going through breakups through all this.
She's broke up with her boyfriend.
Yeah.
You're fired.
Get out of the tour.
You're fired.
I mean, think about most people.
What is she 30?
I think a little older.
Thirdly 30s.
Not only 30 person, male or female.
They go through a breakup.
They go out.
She's like, I'm gonna do nine nights.
It's so fine.
Yeah, she's like, thanks for the song idea.
Beat it.
Bitch.
Little bitch.
I just did seven million in a freaking bird.
I mean, seven.
I made more money.
You're gonna make it the whole life.
I'm gonna slap you.
Well, I was on this call breaking up with you.
I just made five million dollars.
Because it's the night before.
She's sustain it.
I mean, that's the actual thing.
If she's really going through all these breakups
for all these years, how do you sustain
being able to do three and a half hours a night?
You know, five out of ten nights.
These guys are losers.
She's just choice to her.
It's a good for her.
Yeah, no big deal.
And then think about like,
this is the first year we've talked about Taylor Swift
in the last like five years.
So she can go now take three years off,
spend a year writing an album,
do a year collecting five hundred million dollars,
go through seven more breakups.
It's fine.
You don't even see her.
Like she's one of those, like Beyonce, Jay-Z,
I would say like massive celebrities,
pop culture, like probably top of the top.
I've only seen her once in real life.
Did you really?
Yeah, where?
Wow.
What's that bar that you see behind Fairfax?
Dime?
No.
Oh, I know what you're talking about.
No vacancy.
No, no name, no name.
It was like, you know, like a private bar situation.
And guess who she was with?
Who?
Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Wow.
There you go.
And that's my point.
You see them.
I mean, I've ran into them a handful of times.
You see them out.
You see photos of them.
Taylor Swift is gone for years.
We have years.
You don't see an image of her.
No, she's not spotted anywhere.
I love it.
Okay.
Well, undeniable winner.
My winner, let me look at my list.
Oh, obviously.
My winner is finally.
I'm so happy to say this.
Golf.
Wow.
Finally, after all the trashing,
after all the shit talking, you know,
once there's these moments in the news
that almost seems like people are listening to group chat.
And not saying that's what happened here,
but it could be what happened here.
The writer cup, which is a massive event, right,
where it's US versus...
It was a country, right?
You know, like US versus...
US versus Europe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then it's just one V1.
You know, just head-to-head.
Yeah.
And it's really...
It's one of the rowdy events kind of like
how waste management is rowdy.
And the people come and they're all dressed up
in, you know, US gear or whatever.
And there's the teams and whatever.
Really rowdy, great event.
They have teamed up with...
The writer cup is teamed up with Rock Nation
and more specifically DJ Khaled to...
We don't know yet.
Bring, you know, some vibes to the event.
And finally, I mean, this is just what we've been talking
about.
This feels like an amazing move.
And it's happening.
So...
I think someone with a PGA listens to the pod.
Or he got back to them.
Yeah.
There's no way it came.
This quickly.
I think DJ Khaled wants...
We're the only ones that are talking about golf.
Yeah.
I think the art market is consulting.
Yeah.
We can sell courses to corporate companies.
For three people that are completely outside the golf community
to talk about it as much as we have.
Yeah.
All right.
PGA invited to the writer cup.
Yeah.
I know you're listening.
I'm taking credit.
We should all take credit.
Pay for lunch.
PGA.
Monahan.
Lunch is on you.
I know.
We know you just caught a bag.
Did you see the Saudis are buying tennis?
Yeah.
We didn't talk about that.
Yeah.
No.
ATP.
Yeah.
They're in talks about...
I love that sentence.
Did you see that the Saudis are buying tennis?
They bought golf.
Another buying tennis.
Yeah.
That's great.
Okay.
I like it.
Loser.
Who's your loser?
D.
My loser.
You know, I'm turning on my guy, Zuck.
I think Elon's going to beat his ass.
I saw Elon pounding...
I saw him pounding Lex Friedman.
Yeah.
I'm all on Elon now.
That weight.
He's got him.
So...
The way to kill him.
Can I quote something from my chat of people that follow this shit with Lex Friedman,
Rogan, Zuck?
Yeah.
They said, here's a quote.
This isn't my quote.
So don't quote me.
Lex Friedman swings from Elon's nuts.
That was a stage photo.
Okay.
Well, maybe that's because Elon's so big that...
Yeah.
That's why he's swinging from his nuts.
Little...
Lex can just...
All he can do is hang on to those nuts and swing.
I'm going with Elon.
I think just the mass.
Oh, no.
I'm sorry.
I think the masses...
Yeah.
I think you just sit on him.
Elon's a good boy.
He's South African.
South African.
South African guy will fight in them.
Yeah.
He said he got beat up a lot as a kid.
So he knows...
It's like the Eastern Europeans, like Yokehitch, those guys...
You know, fuck with those guys.
That's rough childhood.
Yeah.
Okay.
So...
That's a good one.
I mean, I didn't expect to see...
I think it's officially passed the point where I expected it would go, meaning I think
the chances of it actually happening are like 10%.
But I didn't even expect to see footage or photos of Elon like on a fucking Jiu-Jitsu
mat.
You know.
Yeah.
I think the chances of happening are like 30, 40%, 50% and they just went through the roof.
Oh, man.
Okay.
That's a good one.
I can see Suck putting on 20 pounds just to get going.
True.
On and who's your loser?
Pickleball.
It's been the biggest phenomenon since the pandemic.
What?
That's like the Taylor Swift's sport.
That's all they do is win.
Now we're seeing that estimated health care costs have increased by $400 million with
the trajectory of the growth of the sport.
This has been my theory for the last 10 years.
The moment I turned 30, stopped all recreational sports.
All I do is work out and exercise because you play basketball, you play any of these sports,
flag football.
Yeah.
ACLs must be powerful.
ACL Achilles hips.
Yeah.
So pickleball pickleball is bigger problem has been around seniors because a lot of seniors
play pickleball.
Yeah.
And they're the ones actually getting injured and it's like, whatever, three, four,
nine.
Because he gets like a safe activity.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
It's like a sport for non-athletic people that they can like a barrier to entries just
low enough that they can climb on over that thing and just blow out an ACL at fucking 62.
I mean, one of our own from the group chat team towards Achilles.
Oh, yeah.
Pick up basketball, Chanel.
Wow.
L.A.T.?
Sorry, Chanel.
He's.
What?
How old is he?
30s.
30s.
Can't be playing pickleball.
I feel like earlier in your 30th birthday, you should get a warning like your ACL.
No, you should do like your retirement ceremony.
No, when you're 30, you enjoy just say, hey, you just hang everything up, hang your practice
shirt up.
I mean, it should be illegal.
I mean, a really good friend of ours, which I won't say because I don't know if he wants
us to say it.
Took on Jiu-Jitsu, started getting really active in his late 30s and popped his Achilles in
half, not too long enough.
Yeah.
Insurance companies shouldn't let people over 30 do anything.
Yeah.
Get your ass at home.
There's a rapper over there.
I mean, there's a more take-o-zepic.
Yeah.
Chill out.
Don't need to work out.
Get some cardio in.
Do some weight.
Do some weight.
Once a leg.
You're fine.
Okay.
That's a good one.
My loser, I think I'll give it to L.A., I guess.
I know I told you guys this in the chat, but I literally witnessed a murder two days ago.
And you know, the other, I told this story about six months ago where someone got shot
outside of my building and, but I didn't see the shooting.
I didn't hear the gunshots, so to speak, I just heard the commotion.
And then I saw the guy laying on the ground and they were giving them CPR and stuff like
this.
Two nights ago, I'm in my office in this room and 10 p.m. right here on the computer.
And I hear what sounds like a gunshot, but it was so close to the building that I heard
like the almost like the ricocheter, like the vibration off the building.
And it sounded like, okay, did someone just shoot like at the building?
And so I literally like ducked down, you know, like at my desk.
And then I went to go look out the window, I just heard a bunch of shots.
I look out the window, there's two guys sprinting away.
So I know that like, oh, those were gunshots, because every time I think I hear gunshots,
I look as like, is anyone running?
Is anyone reacting?
And these two guys were running as fast as they could away.
And the one guy stops, looks like he's like taking a breather and then just collapses and
dies.
He was the one who got shot.
And he saw my window.
I saw all of it, not only did I see it, but because things are so fucking crazy here, right
on my window sill, I have binoculars.
So I saw it really close.
God, I've binoculared what happened.
So was it gang violence?
Was it a random murder?
What was it?
Nobody knows.
Like even the news reports and the whatever, like you can tell it's kind of like, who knows?
Like two guys got an argument.
Apparently someone said that they heard them arguing first.
I didn't see the shooters.
The shooters ran the other way.
I saw the two guys that were getting shot at.
But there was like a bike in the middle of the street.
I don't know.
There was obviously some sort of argument.
They obviously don't know.
They even said like, I don't know.
The guy might have been homeless, but he didn't look homeless.
He just where he collapsed.
He ran down the road and collapsed next to a homeless tent because there's homeless
tents all down the road.
And so they're like, oh, he was found near a tent.
He might have been homeless.
You can tell there was no real investigation done.
But it was literally right outside my window.
Like it was nuts.
It was so nuts.
And like, that's scary.
I hate to say it, but since I saw that last guy get shot, there's been probably two other
nights where I just randomly heard gunshots, but there was just never any payoff.
Like I don't know what happened.
And then that was literally right outside my window.
Someone just getting murdered and collapsing.
So.
Can I give you some advice?
Move.
Yeah.
Move.
Yeah, I think it is.
I think that one put me over the edge because also like Karin was out and Karin literally
came home 10 minutes after that and she didn't drive on that exact road.
But like, you know, she was driving 20 feet, sorry, 100 feet from where that happened.
And it's just wild, you know.
And keep in mind, I just want to say it again, we used to walk these streets at 2 a.m.
Every weekend.
Yeah.
And there was never a problem.
Yeah.
Anyway, pretty crazy.
Okay.
Decontent recommendations.
Yes.
So I was on a lot of planes last week.
I got to finally watch the movies, two movie recommendations, House Party, hilarious.
It was produced by Spring Hill, which is LeBron's company.
Love it.
LeBron has a.
It's a remake of the old house.
Yeah.
It's hilarious.
It's so funny.
And then extraction too could be the movie of the year.
What's that?
Isn't that.
Um, I think Chris Hemsworth, unbelievable, a lot of violence, a lot of shooting.
Who are they extracting?
Um, I can't tell you.
I cannot tell you.
But it's unbelievable.
Is it like aliens?
Is it war?
Just, you know, good old shoot, shoot, kill, kill.
Got it.
Just a nightmare.
Like your neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just a night on sunset.
Okay.
Got it.
Uh, Onan.
Television show of the year, Swagger on Apple Plus.
Really?
It's loosely based on Kevin Durand's.
I watched an episode.
Because you were talking about it.
It was Michael Katz.
Thank you for the wreck.
Yeah.
He's the one who put me on.
I think it's two seasons in and watch the first episode last night.
It's loosely based on Kevin Durand's upbringing, Rich Climbing and Kevin Durand are exactly
the producers on the show.
But it's as if he was growing up in 2023.
Yeah.
Because very present day.
So it's like over time, Instagram, and how like a young athlete that is from like a
tough neighborhood is getting discovered and how they like it to the next day, you
team.
And, you know, that's cool.
That's a good show.
It's great.
So I think it's going to be a great show.
There's also some sort of record.
I was watching the NBA draft and like, I don't remember.
But like three out of the five top picks didn't go to college.
They were like, jee-lead or whatever is really interesting.
The number one guy next year is not going to college.
The Lithuanian kiddies playing for the jee-lead.
Wow.
It's awesome.
Yeah.
They were all international or jee-lead, I think.
Contamples.
Oh.
I just saw that the righteous gemstones is back on HBO.
I don't know if you guys ever watched that Danny McBride.
Yeah.
I watched a few episodes.
Yeah.
So that's just a great show.
I'm looking forward to watching it.
That's really that easy.
We'll see how that was, how that is this weekend.
OK.
All right.
There we have it.
Anything else?
Any shout out?
Oh, you have a shout out.
I got to shout out.
Yeah, I got to shout out.
So we here at Ghost are hiring for a director of product
design that's going to, you know, really help design
the digital product experience of Ghost.
We're looking for someone, you know,
with pretty decent experience, seven to 10 years of experience.
We're looking for people that come from companies like Apple,
Google, Meta, Amazon, and really transform
from a large company to a tech startup.
And, you know, if you have marketplace or retail tech
experience, that's also a plus.
So if you're interested in joining the Ghost team,
head over to ghst.io slash careers
as we are actively looking to hire for that position.
Jay Powell is not going to like that.
Uh oh.
Oh, no, no, you have to cut someone.
You have to hire some people to gain one, I think.
That's Jay Powell's move.
Oh my god.
And then we have a shout out from the discord
where Jake, who is an active member in the ChattyCatty Club,
he's announcing that he's now Donor Relations
Coordinator at Gigi's Playhouse,
which is a Down syndrome achievement center.
And so last year alone, they served 25,000 family
with Down syndrome across 58 locations in United States
and 87 countries.
They have a 2023 national golf outing.
There you go.
And then they have a Gigi Fit acceptance challenge in 2024.
If you're interested in joining and changing perceptions
and promoting acceptance, please email us at guyguy.vacaro.
V-A-C-C-A-R-O at gg'splayhouse.org.
That's g-i-g-i-splayhouse.org.
So.
And if you haven't big shout out to the ChattyCatty Club,
it's crazy.
Any hour of the night, people are talking,
people all over the world are in there.
It is so booming.
It's amazing.
So if you had not joined, head over to ChattyCattyClub.com,
pick up a membership, join the Discord.
It's really fun.
I'm sitting in articles all day.
Yeah, a lot of content, a lot of good conversation.
And people are quick.
But news, it's fun.
Yeah.
OK, love it.
All right.
There you have it.
Everyone have a great rest of your week.
Have a great long weekend.
We got a godly long weekend.
I didn't realize.
Yeah.
Man, I am really good.
I'm really good, bro.
Yeah, we're so much more of a long weekends this year.
Everyone have a great fourth.
We don't even know when we'll be back.
Who knows?
Yeah, I don't know.
Tuesday night.
Is that fourth night?
Yeah.
So Wednesday.
Wednesday.
Well, we'll figure it out.
Big.
We'll see you guys soon.
Everyone have a great weekend.
Thanks for listening.
God bless America.