0:05 Start here just exactly like I did. Cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. More money in short term or long term. A lot of people when they first get started with their career, they think so far into the clouds. It's not about the money, it's how you make the money. It's a big component of of luck and God's grace as well. I don't know. I guess it's just it's all relative. All right, bro. So, we know you fly private a lot. Are you flying first or business today? Private. What's the plan? >> No, we're not flying private to America, bro. >> We did do that once in on the BBJ. >> Yeah, >> that was very unnecessary, but I guess
0:51 that was also a bit of a celebratory flight. We were squaring off on a big investment out there. But no, we're slumbing it in first class. >> And for the viewers watching, I mean, you live on a very nice villa on the palm. Got all these nice cars. I mean, flying first and private a lot, spending a lot of money, you know, >> everything's relative. You know, my rule is or I guess my rule was 7030 split. I think you should Well, it's actually funny. It works in this weird curve. Like when you first start out, you're going to probably it's going to be 7030 as in you spend 70% of your income and you save 30% of your income. And then it gets to a point where where you're actually saving and more importantly investing 70% of your income and spending only 30% of it. And then you get to a point where hopefully you get to a point where you're you have so much cash flow coming in where you're once
1:36 again then go back to like I'm at a point right now where I actually just can't spend 30% of my income cuz it just it would generally just be yeah as it's wasteful I guess. So yeah, I spend about probably about this year maybe 10% of my earned income. Obviously there's your portfolio income and then there's your earned income. This year probably no maybe 15%. So it's all relative. But I also like I just think everything is meeting in the middle. Like I hate these people that are just so frugal and they're like I need to penny pinch and save and they also think like they're bad people for spending money. I'm like what's the point? You don't just want to be rich, you want to experience a rich life and whatever that means to you. So for me personally, I feel very fiscally responsible spending 15% of my earned income. Obviously this year our investments have done very very well. We're about to go visit two of them in
2:22 New York. And yeah, I don't know. I guess it's like like I'm not tonedeaf to the fact that of course I live a very privileged life at this point. But I said I I guess it's just all relative. You know, in another person's world like you're flying private to New York. Like why would you fly commercial? another person's world like it's crazy, you know? I don't know. I guess it's just it's it's all relative. >> Well, I think as you get further along in your career, ownership means more and more to you. And I came from being in this industry to I guess it's kind of the same thing like being a Formula 1 race driver compared to being the owner of a Formula 1 race team compared to owning a stake in Formula 1 itself or the rights the television rights to Formula 1 itself. I kind of went from being a player to then owning a team to
3:10 now in a sense owning a part of the division. So, you know, WAP is the fastest growing fintech platform for digital products for our industry. And listen, I guess I'll kind of call it how it is when people make $1 on our platform. Obviously, I get a very, very small percentage of that. So, I guess it's a good thing that people make over 150 million a month on our platform right now as it is. And yeah, I guess it was a very, very large check. It was a big bet, but it was also a calculated bet. I mean, what better industry to invest in than the one that you've been participating in in one way, shape, form or fashion in the last 10 years. So, I think a lot of people when they first get started with their career, they think so far into the clouds. Like they're thinking about ownership and thinking about big enterprise plays and like they have like all of these massive grand visions and I just don't think that's the way to go. Like first you start off as you start here just exactly
3:55 like I did. You start here and then eventually you work your way up and then you know one day you're 10 years into an industry and you look at it you're I don't even know how many square feet this office is. You know you're looking at your office and and you're a coner in a multi-billion dollar company. I'll be honest I still think we're very much in our infancy as much as we've grown. Obviously not going to disclose the exact numbers but since I invested we've grown 6x in the last year and 4 months or at least at the valuation I invested at. So yeah, it's been a wild ride. As you get further and further on in your career, like to be honest, you don't care about all the flashy this that stuff. You just want ownership. And yeah, I think that's why you work hard to be able to own stakes in the businesses that you do. Obviously with ownership comes definitely a level of
4:41 control and level of influence. And I think in a sense that's almost more powerful than money. So, it's almost the same as like buying a house to then going to developing buildings to then owning the steel that people use to develop their buildings. It's like the closer you can get to the root of what people use from an infrastructure perspective and the more stake and ownership you can have in that, that's always I mean that's always the dream. So, I'm always just looking for infrastructure plays like for our industry for digital products. is the biggest business. you know, it's a multi-billion dollar company, which is tiny in all honesty compared to where it could be and should be very soon. And I will also say because I think it's important, it's a big component of of luck and God's grace as well. Like I was right place, right time to be in the right industry, to have the knowledge
5:27 and expertise I have in this industry, to have the influence I have in this industry. Um obviously having done you know very very well for myself in life to be able to have the cash and the stockpile to deploy uh when opportunities like this arise because you know opportunity like this could have arose to have a very strategic and and favorable without getting into specifics uh investment and have an opportunity to reopen a previously closed round cuz that's not common to be able to have that opportunity. You also need to be prepared for when the opportunity presents itself. So, you know, I do want to say there's a definitely a big component of uh luck and timing that that plays into it. So, you know, I can't can't remotely take anywhere near 100% credit. Sometimes you're fortunate. I guess I got fortunate with this one. Right place, right time?
6:16 >> So, is doing something that makes you more money always the right decision? Well, I think first things first you need to clarify is like more money in short term or long term because like for example like like we have people that work for us at that have already made multi-millions. I mean some people even like 8 figures and they took a I don't want to say a pay cut, but they probably could have made a lot more money in the short term if they had just kept doing what they were doing, but they know that what we're doing here is a rocket ship that's just only going up. And the other big thing is I feel like once you've met like most of your like basic needs and I will say like I'm I'm no person to judge. Basic needs for some people mean different things. Like you know it's funny I was speaking to an associate of mine and she was saying like we were kind of having this conversation and I was talking about like how much people think they need more money than they do to survive off of. And just as I was about to say a number she was like yeah like you only
7:01 need like$18 million a year. And I was like what do you spend 18 million a year on? And she's like oh my jet fuel is 5 million a year. And like that's like that's her truth is like a multi-billionaire. My truth is another number that you know some people might find big for some people they're like oh I need 30 or 50k or 100k a year to live off of. So my point is like once you hit that number, you start looking you start looking at different things. And I think like one of the big things is not what are you doing, it's who are you doing it with. Cuz I feel like if you do it with the right people and you show up to work every single day, like right now it's 9:00, 8:47 on a Tuesday, there's still so many people here. You know, most people can check out. I was in the office on a Sunday. There was like 15 20 people here. No one needs to show up here on a Sunday, but people love the people that they work with so much. So yeah, I guess all that to say, I think once you get to a certain position in
7:47 life, it's not about the money, it's how you make the money. And it's also not about like how you make the money, it's also about like who you make the money with, if that makes sense. And sometimes I'm a very pragmatic person. I think also you need to be like wise and you need to be smart and you need to like honestly like go get your bag. But once you've done that, I feel like you kind of have earned the privilege to go, okay, what do I really want to do? And maybe shortterm it doesn't make you as much money, but longterm it actually can make you far more money. Number one. Number two, just considering like Jenny, like do you love the people that you work with? Cuz I'll be honest, there's been multiple times and like it's funny cuz you hear it and you're like ah no, like I'm different. You know, I'm different cuz you hear these things of people saying I've heard from multiple people as I was like coming up in my career, oh the benchmark, you always keep pushing the benchmark forward. I was like, no, no, this is, you know, big
8:34 number. Once I hit this number, like I'll retire. Like in my mind, I was going to like retire for a few years and kind of take a few years off. And I hit that very very big number in 2021 and then I hit another very very very big number multiple times since then. And each time I was like oh you know maybe this like I'll kind of take time off and take a few years off. And I think Jenny if I didn't enjoy the people that I worked with whether it's you know my own companies where I'm the sole shareholder or whether it's businesses like WAP or you saw another one of our companies LRA where I'm a co-owner with a large stake in the business. So I don't rub shoulders every single day with my team at these companies but still very involved. And it's just genuinely without these people like I don't know man I just think I retire at this point. So I think that kind of goes to show it it's not always about making the most amount of money. I think sometimes for your soul it's important to love what you do. And by the way love what you do to me also doesn't mean like every single day is like roses and sunshine
9:20 and blah blah all this stuff. Today there was a very difficult seauite conversation we had to have in this room like a three-hour conversation about some things directionally where we might be missing the mark or we we could show up better. Some key hires some Yeah. It was just like today was like one of those heavy conversations. So when I say that, you know, do what you love. I I don't mean that in like a airy fairy. Oh, if it feels difficult or if it feels hard or if it feels like is a part of the work you don't like, well then oh, you're not meant to do it. It's like no, like honestly 80% of whatever you do will always kind of suck and that 20% will make the 80% worth it 10 times over. So yeah, I would say it's not always about making the most amount of money, but that is a privilege that you get to a certain point. And I I don't mean like you need to become a multi multi-millionaire to get there. just like I feel like once you you you kind of get to like 100k a year uh pretty
10:06 steady you kind of get to a point where it's like okay like what do I really actually want to do in life and who more importantly do I want to be on this journey with the number one thing that you need to focus on in my opinion is cash flow and that's really what I'm immensely grateful that I optimized for at the beginning of my career is cash flow no crazy topline numbers no crazy empire plays like just get to a certain position in terms of your cash flow, then get to a certain position in terms of your investment portfolio, and then later down the line, you can focus on these big empire plays and whatnot because we're on the way to Miami now, but we literally just visited two of my offices. I guess I won't go into specifics, but like who right now is a $4 billion company and I'm a coowner in the business. There is another example. We raised in a $40 million valuation in
10:52 May and then Q1 of next year, we should do our series A at about $150 million valuation. And even in that business, minus the two co-founders, I'm the largest shareholder. So from that you can kind of decipher how much money I have in these businesses and how much just two of those businesses alone add to my net worth. But you need to understand that does not pay for this transportation. Like having the privilege of anywhere I am in the world always being able to fly in comfort. My equity and my stake in these businesses doesn't do anything for me. My free cash flow does. Okay. I can't pay for this flight with my stake in these businesses. Now listen, as time goes on, you start to build relationships with banks. You can pull some equity out of businesses. you can pull equity out of even the stakes that you have in businesses like there's different financial games that you can play but I really think that people have this idea that even a lot of the owners of these multi-billion dollar companies like they're killing it they're living large
11:38 like a lot of times it's genuine not like that if you want this kind of lifestyle you need a cash flow or you need to have successfully exited some of your positions in these businesses or sold your business exited your business and once again even when it comes to selling and exiting a business like there's so many stipulations that people don't understand they see oh XYZ person sold their company for3 $300 million. It's like, yeah, okay, but show me the term sheet and then you'll actually know what they walked away with. So, I've said it before, I'll say it again. Like, cash flow is not only what makes you live a rich life, it's what makes you feel rich. Like, I speak to so many of my friends and this is a big pattern with people that exit their business. Even though they have a lot of money, they have a lot of money, but now they don't have the tap of cash flow coming in. And because they don't have the tap of cash flow coming in, they actually feel poor again, even though they've got so much money in the bank. because it's
12:23 just psychologically when money isn't coming in even though you have this bed and of course you can deploy that capital and invest that capital just cuz you're deploying and investing that capital you're not seeing that return straight away. So it's just I really do implore anyone at the beginning stages of their journey just cash flow cash flow cash flow disregard the revenue numbers disregard the big top line like as an example with LRA like we're not profitable like of course we're not profitable that's the name of the game like we are burning money to get more market share so even though paper just my stake in that business alone I'm very very rich just because of that business that doesn't mean that I then get to experience a rich life because of it until the day the business sells or f the business sells the stuff is always there's no guarantees in life and that's why as I said I don't like to focus on net worth per se. I like liquid net worth. That's a different story. And I really just do wish that all of you guys
13:10 focus on smaller numbers, but consistent numbers, growing numbers, and just keep growing your cash flows, parking money, putting it to the side, so that way later you can have your big empire place.
