Speaker A: We're officially announcing the hund00 million overs subscribed growth fund and some of the tier one names, maybe all the tier one names. And Edged, Cognition, Seronic, Modal.

Speaker B: Good morning, party people. What is going on?

Speaker C: Jake Paul is one of the biggest YouTubers and influencers on the planet. He didn't just pick a fight with one good guy. He picked a fight with an entire sport. When there's a lot of people watching you, sometimes you want to like take it up to the next level.

Speaker D: And then boom, it became a thing to hate Jake Paul.

Speaker E: He is completely unhinged. Today we are talking about the block head. Is Jake Paul a boxer?

Jeff: When we announced anti-un was like GW like you're making a mistake. Jake is not like good. You're you're ruining your career. And we're just like whatever, bro. Mark and Dre and Chris were some of our very very first LPs. when you have like the living goats of the industry being like, "Hey, you guys are good." It's like, "Okay, let's do it."

Eric: Jake, given your career, you could have partnered with a lot of different people. When did you guys know that you were going to be such partners?

Jeff: One way I think about it is that like if Jake can just live his life and get a bunch of views and someone has to like $100 million on fire to get a bunch of views, who do I want to be partners with?

Speaker I: I think a lot of people in the space can have a lot of followers, but not the cash and cash is key.

Eric: Jake, Jeff, we've got some big news. Thanks for coming on the podcast today to discuss it. We've got a growth fund. Why don't why don't you share the big news?

Jeff: Yeah, we're uh officially announcing the uh growth fund that we've been working on for quite some time in uh some of the tier one names. A lot of the tier one names, maybe all the tier one names. Um but andal, etched, cognition, spacex, um open AI, anthropic, uh seronic, modal. So yeah,

Eric: the list goes on.

Jeff: A lot collaborators in.

Eric: Um maybe they just zoom out first. Uh Jeff, for those who are not familiar from what you can see beyond the surface, how would you describe Jake's superpowers that led him to be the amazing partner for you here? And then I'm going ask Jake the same.

Jeff: I think Jake from the outside could be like a entertainer or professional athlete, but I think to me Jake's always been a constant entrepreneur. One, and then two, I think he's really created himself as a taste maker and a cultural leader of his generation, right? like all the young kids today look up and want to be an influencer. Jake literally created the influencer term in that like job profile if you think about him instantiating a daily vlog. So I think it's easy to especially with an internet character like you take pieces of that persona and just put that as a whole human. But the underlying thread is I think he's a very generous, thoughtful, kind human being who is very ambitious and is going to not stop in whatever uh venues that he chooses to participate and compete in. So I think if it's entertainment, media, sports, and hopefully with venture capital, growth equity, investing, uh we take that on together. So

Eric: thank you Jeff. the um well, why don't you say the same for Jeff? Obviously, the same question that we'll get into both your stories.

Jake: Yeah, I think Jeff uh is one of the smartest people that I know just across the board and um I think the work ethic and the his background being so different than mine as well. we make like such a great team, you know, computer science, Stanford, uh, but is deep deep networks and we just think similarly, um, and a lot of things and I think that lends itself really well to being great partners. Um, but yeah, he's non-stop thinking ahead and sees a lot of things before they come around the the corner. and um he actually said no to investing in my first company when I was 18 years old and the company failed. So he was right. Um so just really great judgment. Um great people, you know, this is the people business and so just being able to really read people and have that EQ as well as IQ is really important.

Eric: You're you're just making us like flatter at each other.

Jake: Yeah, Eric, you're an OG. So that compliment you as well.

Eric: I appreciate. Well, I mean I um speaking of OG, I remember Cory Levy uh you know, many years ago said, "Hey, I've got this kid you you got to meet. He's building something super interesting. Uh he's super talented." And I was out of town. I was like, "Ah, you know, I don't know if I I I he ended up introducing him. We we never uh ended up meeting." And I remember sometimes I reflect back, I'm like, "Holy shit." Like, first off, Cory's incredible judge of talent, but two, it's like you got to take bets on the on the like up andcoming T because you never know, you know, where they're going to end up. Jake, the idea that someone would, you know, become a media sort of mogul, then, you know, professional athlete, then a tech investor. That that's like a pretty distinct path. Say more about what other people can learn from how you took your path. like was it all organic or what was sort of your strategy or how do you even like retroactively make sense of of your sort of multi-hyphenate career?

Jake: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think always being like entrepreneur first and very analytical and when things are working double, triple quadruple down and when they're not, just sweep the things under the rug. And so, uh,

Eric: that's what someone once said about A6 and Z. I love that they just launch a bunch of stuff and then when it doesn't work, you just pretend it never happened.

Jake: Seriously, I' I've failed so many times to get to this point and made so many mistakes. And I think it's resilience in this day and age and in having a public career as well and being uh a public figure. I think you have to have tons of resilience. You have to know yourself. You have to um go through ups and downs. But I think uh being an entrepreneur at heart, I always looked at everything from a business lens and always hustled and showed up every single day and knocked down every single door of opportunity and always wanted to grow my network. I think that's been a super powerful thing that differentiates me um is always knowing the right person at the right times to um ask them for help or ask them for a favor um and also doing favors for them when they need you and not charging for it. I think people in this entertainment world are very transactional um and short thinking and not professional. They show up late. Um, I've always tried to be the most professional entertainer. Um, and so that's lend itself well. And then when like I went to box, it kind of started as, you know, this crazy thing. But then it was a million pay-per-view buys, 30,000 tickets sold out. I had a blast doing it. I was like, "Okay,

Eric: experiment for you."

Eric: Or did you know you were going to go all in when you

Jake: No, I didn't know I was going to go all in. But but after the first one, it was like this was absolutely massive. I'm going to become world champion. And that was like a pivot moment where it's like, yeah, this content's stuff's cool and doing great, but I can still do content within boxing, but this boxing match was the most viewed amateur event ever, 30,000 tickets sold. The press conferences were getting tens of millions of views. So, I was like, clearly people love this and I love it and so I'm going to go all in. And then that, you know, lends itself to now being, you know, one of the highest paid athletes on the Forbes list um because of just following the numbers. So I think being analytical um as an entertainer is also important.

Eric: So you have the content, you have this massively high grossing boxing career. Why get into tech?

Jake: Yeah. So I think it was actually again just being an entrepreneur at heart, but it was actually my one of my first loves was the valley and coming out here when I was 17 with Corey and Alex Dealov actually and um they showed me all these crazy companies and I got to meet some really smart people who were building the future and seeing like uh even Cory's after school setup where he had like all the screens and all the employees were there and it was just like

Jake: so different um and so cool. And that's when I fell in love with wanting to make my own startups and being a founder, but also being in the investor world and even understanding how it works and all the VC lingo and started growing my network. And so it's really always been there since I was a kid and it's always been something that I loved. Um, and then when I was 23, I wanted to take a bigger bite at the apple and um, that's when I met Jeff and the stars aligned and we just decided to go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and turns out um, that we're actually really good at it. So, it's fun when things are working and um it's fun, you know, helping shape the future of America with these companies and

Geoff: it's like a full story like like Mark and Dre and Chris Xman were some of our very very first LPs. So, appreciate them for helping us put us into business and also giving us a confidence. They've seated almost every single emerging managers. So, when they see, hey, like when you have like the living goats of the industry being like, hey, you guys are good. It's like, okay, let's let's do it. Yeah.

Jake: Yeah. I was just telling the story like I think they were our first pitch call for the fund and I was like all nervous before and like didn't even have like the full pitch per perfected yet. And so um yeah by the end of the call they were just like all right yeah we'll like we'll invest and we were like okay great like perfect.

Interviewer: Yeah. And the when did you guys know that you were going to be such a partners because you Jake given your sort of sort of your career you could have partnered with a lot of different people and for you it was also a risk of hey you know it wasn't as common back in the day to maybe partner with YouTubers. What what did you know that you were going to like be partners?

Geoff: No, I'll I'll if I can start. And it's really funny because we were just spending the weekend with the All-In podcast uh besties and Jason Calacanis. And I remember when we announced Antifund, Jay Kell was like GW, like you're making a mistake. Like Jake is not like good. You're you're ruining your career. And we're just like whatever, bro. Like you're And there's like a full circle moment because I joke about it now, but um one I think like there's no beef. It was fun to play poker with those guys, but two, like Jakeel, you're a podcaster. You're trying to be what Jake invented. You are a VC turn influencer, and I think we will give you guys a run for money from who can be the better investor. Um, no, but I remember

Interviewer: shots fired.

Geoff: Um, but but I remember that I found that Jake was very wise for 23, 24. Um, and what I mean by that is I think very few people have the amount of like inbound requests, outbound requests for their time across so many different spectrums. I would say that one way I compliment Drake is that he context switches so widely, right? There's like one moment where there's paparazzi, he's going to events and he's like a celebrity on a red carpet and like he's blinged out in influencer gear. Next moment he's a professional athlete training and like preparing for a massive Netflix headline fight. Next moment he's like negotiating business deals and inside the weeds of numbers and like his his metrics and then you pivot off to the next thing. Then he's like filming a Tik Tok, right? And I think in Silicon Valley there's a lot of smart people and I think the context switching is pretty wide as a founder. But to go from like go entertainment mode to like serious quantitative analytic mode that broadly is is very very impressive. one. And then two, I think um Jake has the one word that you mentioned is that resiliency. Like Jake has just seen a lot of [ __ ] like coming up in Hollywood, going through the influencer phase, uh going through controversy, like surviving it, having haters, like most people do not eat that much pain. And I think that if you think about investing or startups, it's pain tolerance.

Geoff: And if you're literally fighting and punching people or getting punched in the face for a living. And then two, like the internet punching you, right? Which is like the most toxic environment like internet troll trolls like hating on you. If you can survive that and thrive in that environment, that's presidential like head of state level courage and resiliency. So those two things I think is what is inspiring to me in terms of like how much can I context switch, how much pain tolerance can I have and hopefully that's what we can imbue with our startup founders and our portfolio companies and our co-investors, right? Like that human quality that is very rare um is inspiring to me and hopefully for the people that we work with.

Interviewer: On that note, Jake, what can people learn from you about resilience and pain tolerance? Is it just something you've had since you were a kid? is something you've learned over time. Is it something you've, you know, just sort of like been pushed off the deep end?

Jake: Yeah. No, I I think it's a little bit of all of those things. Um I think I had like a very intense father, so I think it started there. um and just being able to deal with with with him and um growing up in that environment and I think the hard work and um that led me to a very public career. Uh it all started with people actually like hating on me from day one like in my school. So there was never like a moment where me making the videos didn't have like a ton of haters. My whole school in high school like turned against me and was like talking [ __ ] making anonymous accounts saying things about me. My principal teachers were saying things.

Jake: Um, so it's always been there. So I think I'm just used to it because of that. Um, which is pretty interesting. And then you're like, what else are you gonna do? Like I don't know. just be a coward and quit and give up and let people run you. Like I could just never be that person and I just don't think that way. And I know who I am. I think that's very important as well. And I feel like a lot of people know who they are, but they let the comments and critics like get to them very easily. And so if you could just look yourself in the mirror and be like, I'm doing good. I'm a good person. I'm doing good good things in the world. I have a good heart. I mean well. And if you can mean those things, then it doesn't matter what anyone says.

Interviewer: Yeah. When when people ask you like, "Hey, are tools like uh therapy helpful or other sort of self-care tools, whether physical or emotional or mental to help deal with like what what do you tell them?"

Jake: Yeah, definitely. I I fully believe that. I think um you just have to be careful, you know, you don't want the therapy to like turn into victimizing yourself and then always being in constant sad loops. So, I think you have to be careful and at some points um if it feels needed, yes. But I don't think you should get like trapped into the cycle of therapy and always kind of having a call with someone or an in-person meeting with someone that is generally probably going to be negative. Um, and so I think it's very important like who that therapist is as well. But I do think it's important to learn about yourself and unpack things. And I think the childhood like trauma and going back and realizing like, oh, you know, um, you know, you had this that happened to you and this is maybe why you have anxiety in this moment and these things. And so I I really like childhood trauma work that you can connect to why you behave certain ways as an adult.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jake: Um, and I think it's important to unpack those things and learn about it. Totally.

Interviewer: Jeeoff, why don't you also make sense of some of like when you reflect on your career, looking back, you've taken some big swings and some different spaces. Um, when you look back at the the threads that have tied your career together, how do you make sense of it? What are some of the big insights you've had that have led you to go deep on certain things?

Geoff: I guess like I've always been like a almost an academic or a engineer or scientist at heart. um how do you like what is the nature of reality? What is the truth? what are the underlying systems

or rules that govern yourself, a company, a society, right? So, if I think about um some of the things I've been interested in, whether it's biohacking, how do you optimize your your your singular person? Um actually, that's how I got to know the Andre family with with Keton IQ. Chris Dixon was our lead investor. Um I wanted to figure out how we could engineer better brain performance, human performance. Um and then you think about at the like the larger scales, right? How do you impact culture? How do you impact society? What is the right way to organize a company, organize a venture firm, organize a nation state, right? Like that's like the largest scale of optimization. So um so I think there's like a tinkerer or or like a student or an academic that just likes just figuring out the different systems. Um and then the second part is I think with a little bit of battle scars and wisdom just like fewer things that just compound really really well. So now I think about why venture and growth is a very interesting uh problem to play with is that managing $1 to $100 to a million dollars to a billion dollars is kind of the same level of hard, right? It's like hard to spend $100 really well. It's hard to spend hundred billion dollars really well, but it it's you only need like one or two people or three people to manage a hundred bucks or a hundred billion bucks, right? Like those are the best investors are just like really really strong conviction folks who just are making big bets. Um, so that's where I think we've gravitated towards and I think Jake has a different lens on how he can scale his thought leadership and cultural leadership and his um ability to convene and bring people together at the higher and higher scales. So I think that's like a shared level of just like shared ambition and and maybe arrogance in terms of we think we can play at that those highest levels of wielding capital, wielding technology, wielding wielding culture. Um so if that is like the end point of just like okay what are the underlying rules of nature rules of reality um what's the most efficient way to start pulling and playing with those levers so I think science computer science physics are foundational to just the nature of reality and then capital are is the lever of of of like human society and civilization and I think where anti-und has been quite unique is that in a world where there's more and more capital is attention more scarce is be able to control mind share more scarce so one of the original questions like why is Jake like an ideal partner it's like you you really can't name a better partner than Jake Paul in terms of wielding attention and driving cultural taste so if we can really master those two lovers maybe we can control the world right like or let's just try and have someone stop us

yeah there was a famous tweet of if if you're smart, pivot to being hot or, you know, if if you're if you're focused on intelligence, you know, uh pivot to being, you know, willing attention. You you had this blog post of uh you know, there's two jobs, AI maxing and and looks maxing. Why don't you talk about that?

Uh yeah. No, I think it's um I think it's actually true. um which is that the only thing that really will matter is that if we assume that like we're pretty AGI pilled um intelligence is just going to be metered out through compute um then what matters then it's like one like your relationship with people and I think looks maxing is like a pretty narrow focus on like you know the physical appearance matters and like people like people that look good and symmetric and healthy so fine. Um, but I think it's beyond just looks. It's like your vibe, your your ability to just be charismatic and engage with people. So, that's like an important skill set in the future. Can you just have better vibes than everyone else? And I think with venture, right? Like I think I think what you've done with the media strategy for Andre and Horowitz, I mean, you guys are literally executing on lookmaxing the VC world essentially, right? like you guys have your own propaganda arm just pushing out your view of the world. Um, and then the second part is that like okay, if you don't have maybe you're not maxing out on vibes, then you got to just be best at wielding intelligence. So all you got to do is like play with codecs and be on the computer all day long and then on this on the on the other side work out, sleep a lot and look max. Then you got everything covered. if you were 22, like just getting out of college today, but in 2026, um, what would that look like in terms of how you'd want to spend your time?

I was, we're just, we we were just stopping by Stanford and Jake's going to go back to college and, uh, so that might be an answer that he can actually think about. Um, yeah, I want to play on the Stanford football team actually. So, we'll see what happens.

He's going to do, uh, one year on the Stanford team and then get drafted the Cleveland Browns. It's happening. Let's go.

Um I'm actually like old school in the sense that like and I think I've saw that earlier in my career where like oh is if computer science and math is automated then you don't need to study this stuff and just do like cultural or other fuzzy stuff. Um, I would just go deeper and deeper into actually understanding math, uh, actually understanding computer science because if you actually know underlying how uh, these large language models are actually working, you actually can wield them and prompt them better. So, I'm actually like doubling down that yes, like get really good at math, get really good at computer science, right? Like the people that are leading these industries are like math champions, right? like Scott Woo and all these guys are just hardcore at that stuff. And you know, you know, we were hanging out with Scott at at their office a couple months back. So, you to get technically brilliant.

A version of AI like maxing is basically just max your IQ and max your EQ, right? Like that's another just like a simpler way to put it. And like looks maxing and a maxaxing are just like the more cult like currently cultural relevant terms for it. Would you start a company? would you join anthropic or open AI or

you just got to gang up with the smartest most ambitious people possible and that could either be your own startup or it could be joining open AI. Um and I think but I think the most important thing is like team up with like-minded ambitious people that will push you to be the best version of yourself. So if that's a company then go let's and we'll like Jake and I will back you. If it's joining OpenAI, Cognition, some of these like really really high growth companies so you can learn a little bit before you jump into the deep end yourself, that's also great. Um, but I think the most important thing is just get with really really smart, ambitious people and team up and and grow together. I'm not technical, so I think there would be a harder place for me, but I think I would uh probably try to be in VC coming out of college.

And yeah, hopefully if I made a lot of good connections at Stanford, I my buddies that I would seed seed their um genius ideas. But

don't cut yourself short. like we had Jake was on his like MacBooking and

yeah I got my GitHub's popping so that GitHub and watch his his his commits.

Well, I was going to ask if you were 22 today in 2026 or 18 even, could you run the same playbook or is there something about what you did um you know on YouTube or or sort of these new platforms when you were younger that is like wouldn't work in the same way today and you'd have to have find a new like to me to me it's obvious you know boxing you just got to be the best in the world. You got to beat the other person but in terms of what works on sort of the creator space it doesn't seem to be as an outsider as obvious. And so I'm curious if the same kind of media playbook would have worked, you know, 10, 15 years later or

it's No, I mean I I I don't think it would. I think there's very few um you know, people breaking through on the media side of things. It's a lot harder to grow, a lot

Jake Paul: harder to amass a following and to be a known brand and to rise to the top. You know, you kind of had to be there from the start. And that's why you really see with brands that have stuck around at the highest level in social media, it's me, Mr. Beast, and my brother, and there's really no one else.

Speaker A: Um, and what was your for people who are not as familiar, like what was your insight in terms like what were you doing that was so new or that amassed such an audience so quickly?

Jake Paul: Yeah, I think um a lot of it was I mean I think you just have to be entertaining and me and my brother were doing that posting every single day like 15-minute videos that were that took the whole day to film. So just effort first and foremost the entertainment in it. Um and then I think diversifying with like characters. So, I basically created like a daily reality show with all of these people on it and all these crazy things happening and that was cutting edge at the time. Um, and then just always being the visionary of like what's working, what trends, you know, okay, let's make a rap song and then all of a sudden it's like one of the generational anthems of this of, you know, younger kids know every single word of it. It's like, oh, music worked. Okay, let's make more songs. Let's make a whole album. Let's make a Christmas album. Um, so constantly just like bits of iteration, but you know, spanning the full spectrum of entertainment. So it was like songs, comedy, I would make like scary videos, you know, have the fear aspect of it. Then all of a sudden I'm going into athleticism which is boxing and that whole side of entertainment as well. And so I think the modern-day entertainers have to do it all.

Speaker A: We went to Mr. Beast's um sort of place in North Carolina, Jimmy's place rather, and he uh sort of gave us a tour and he was showing how just analytical the whole operation is. Yeah. Was much yours much more kind of artistic or creative or emergent in terms of like oh let's just [__] around and find out or like how did you in terms of like what to spend time on what to do in comparison to something like beast operation.

Jake Paul: Yeah, I think um it's it's similar, but I think Jimmy is like a numbers guy and is super analytical and uh mine is definitely analytical, but not at the level that Jimmy is with with how he does things. And uh mine is more creative, like entertainment focused and just like kind of like a feeling thing like you're saying. Uh, but that's why, you know, Jimmy just maxed out the numbers on on YouTube and just did every little thing possible to hack the algorithm.

Speaker A: It's interesting because there are a lot of people who will get big but not be super durable, whereas you you just mentioned you and your brother and Jimmy is the ones that really stuck out. And I'm curious why some people get big for a period of time, but and I'll hear hear about them. They're being on Tik Tok, they be on some platform, but I I don't hear about them years later. Like it's

Jake Paul: Yeah, I've seen the the biggest stars in the space from like day one just not stick around anymore. It's weird. It's really weird. There's a group called Magcon back in the day. They were like the Justin Bers of the internet world. And actually Shawn Mendes like spun out of there. He was the one that's like obviously made it really big. But it's just interesting. I think people maybe don't have that resiliency. they get tired of working or making content or going to the new platform or, you know, lose motivation, whatever it might be. And I think the people who are like truly destined to do this and love doing it um and that are talented at it are the ones that have lasted longer. And I think you almost have to um yeah diversify like we've gotten into politics, business, growing brands, and so you start to have this audience um that follows you for multiple different things. Some people love my ranch YouTube videos and like only know about that and don't even but I also have I'm on a A16Z podcast where like now people in the tech world are hearing about what I'm doing but they probably won't watch my Tik Toks. So I'm doing all these different things and growing audiences in all of these different worlds. And um I think that's been the key. And then I think also knowing how to monetize it and make money. And I think that's been a reason for us to continue to exist because I think a lot of people in the space don't know how to actually pull cash out. They could have a lot of followers but not the cash and you cash is king. So, I think that's been another uh very important reason for the I don't even know 13 14 years of being at the top of the influencer game.

Speaker C: Yeah. I I think to me Jake is a startup in of himself and in startup land, right, it's all power law. Yeah. And I think essentially Jake has hit escape velocity. So, I think I think Jake gets even more powerful in this new era of AI generated characters and and just infinite noise because you'll have a lot of AI generated content and the people that you grew up watching, loving and just supporting or hating as as a child and like that generation is now going to take over from like the boomers who are going to be dying off and all of that. Um, I think you compound just like an open AI and Enthropic are compounding even faster. So that's sort of like I'm just kind of excited just on the on the path forward because it's basically like celebrity survivor battle, right? Like literally everyone has died off except for like the predestined few. And I think the predestined feud literally should be like the future billionaire trillionaires if you just extrapolate out that exponential because there's gonna be fewer real people that like you like care about. And I think where I would almost like juxtapose Jake and Logan with like a Mr. Beast and I don't I mean whatever I'll just I'll just say it as like I feel like Mr. Beast is like so quantitative and analytical that it doesn't matter if Jimmy's in the video or not. Like swap him out for another, you know, game show host. Maybe they're not as smooth, but I don't think Jimmy would say that he's even that smooth of a natural like actor or character, but like his analytics and his taste in terms of selecting the content format is very very strong. where I think Jake has a lot of durability is that like you you like follow his story. Like you I guess like one way I think about it is that like if Jake can just talk and get a bunch of views or just live his life and get a bunch of views and someone has to light $100 million on fire to get a bunch of views, who do I want to be partners with? Who do who do I think has true skill and true charisma um without overly calling other people? But like I think that is like a measure in terms of like how do you take like an analytical lens and like a structural lens to how do you backward engineer what has Jake has been able to accomplish

Speaker A: to that end you you said you know c people you need to figure out how to monetize how have you figured out what's worth doing from a business perspective of what's not worth doing like for example um I I don't know if you've been in feature films yet or had major major roles like should you be doing that or is that a waste of time like there's a whole set of activities that where you could do it you'd have some special access or opportunityities you do it. People might be telling you you should do it. How how do you think about that?

Jake Paul: That's something that we've talked about and explored. There's been opportunities on the table to act for example. But I think it's just like what was the time expenditure? What was the like return in terms of you know how much money are we making here? And then who are the people involved and is it going to perform well and do we like this script? And um there's the risk of of something going wrong and just like it flops at the box office and everyone shits on you. Like it happens all the time. So I think it's yeah just staying focused right like having the boxing as the core of of everything for many years and um and content and so never getting away from your bread and

Speaker A: butter and staying extremely focused on that and having a great teams around to to help with all of those things. Um, but yeah, I think things now have to be like 10, 20, 30 million opportunities for me to spend time on it. And so I think it's pretty measurable um from that side of things to the, you know, figure out if if it's exciting in that sense. Um, and then I think just on the besides the money thing and just brand building, I've just been doing it for so long that it's just like instinctual like is this a good idea? Yes or no? and it's pretty pretty obvious, but there are strategy talks and highlevel people that huddle around the board and um sometimes I'll film a piece of content and maybe not post it because it doesn't make sense. So there is like processes and teams that look at everything and conversations and it it is pretty strategic, but a lot of it also is just like instinctual and on the fly and it becomes more and more obvious as time goes on what the good opportunities are.

Interviewer: And is is all good press good good press or or or sorry is all all press good press or most attention good attention or when you look at some of the controversial moments that you guys have been through or that you see other people in through do you think that they uh have been successful in spite of those moments or because of the instinct that led to those moments or how do you think about in this new era of attention um yeah this question

Speaker A: I would say that not all press is good press um for certain people for me. Yes. Because I can like survive it and like

Interviewer: you're anti-fragile.

Speaker A: Yeah. And just it's it's you know what are they going to say? Like the my neighbor like the first reason I was hated from the very beginning like on a ma in the mainstream was because I jumped on top of a news van. So it's like that that's seriously why people started hating me. They're like look at this douchebag. and I was like making fun of the news reporters shoes and it's like okay like it seemed like bad press at the time but like that was like my first like mainstream moment really um in the in the press and so um I think for certain people all press is good press but I don't think it's a saying that is good for for everybody and holds true for everybody

Jeff: everything you do has risk just Don't take fatal risk like just don't get yourself killed and probably and don't go to jail though people have come back from that but like don't go to jail don't die and as long as you take risks and calculated bets and keep compounding you'll eventually end up somewhere good. So I think that's like my take on that on that question which is that like I think most people are just too afraid to do anything that even warrants press. So, so like I think when you're already have a platform then yes maybe you can be a little bit more cautious but most people are just totally irrelevant like you need to do something a little bit risky to even get to a place to be cancelellable. Most people can't even be canceled because you didn't exist. So the the general advice like yo just live more and do more [ __ ] in general cuz you're nothing and you maybe can get out of nothing.

Speaker A: [ __ ] Max.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Another way [ __ ] max is is is cool too. Yeah.

Interviewer: The um I want to understand this new media environment by analyzing a couple people. Can you guys explain clvicular as in why is what's his talent? What makes him so successful? What advice might you have for for for someone like that? Um, how do you make sense of it?

Speaker A: I mean, I mean, it's kind of what you just said, what Jeff just said is, and he's doing it on the on the highest level.

Speaker A: It's entertaining. I think I've I've had this saying that um I've used and I think it holds true in the world of entertainment is that people want to see something they've never seen before. And so, it's so new and fresh and different and kind of crazy, but a lot of the stuff he says is true. His delivery isn't always the the best or whatever and he is like very abrasive. doesn't care, but he's talking about a lot of relevant things and everything is out there about him so you fully know him and he's not afraid to be fully authentic and say exactly uh expose himself to the world and I don't think people have done that and and that's why I think he's he's been successful and then he's also doing things that generate bad press but it you know good news travels fast, bad news travels faster. So, it's growing his brand like wildfire and then it just turns into this like loop and he's able to convert it actually into views and then he he keeps on going and all of that. Um, but I yeah, it it is it is pretty wild and um I think the streaming culture is like really interesting and probably not the best for society because like there's so many of these kids watching and I actually feel like what I was doing on YouTube like this is the final iteration of it and um I feel bad for like sort of contributing to where this has gone but at time. I like never thought of that or like, okay, I set the bar here as crazy and now people have the streamers have to do it every day for multiple hours and to keep people's attention, they're having to like do out-of- pocket [ __ ] Um, which I don't think is like a good influence. Um, but there's obviously it's entertaining. So,

Interviewer: and just to for people not as familiar, my understanding from my limited, you know, observations is he some of his content is well, he's a streamer and some of his content is him like going to the club and talking to girls and having very sort of humorous conversations and then some content is sort of focused on his looks maxing journey and just giving a lot of advice and doing interviews and kind of saying, you know, sort of out of pocket uh you sort of [ __ ] do your your term around sort of um relationships or gender norms or just sort of like, you know, um how to look much better. Um so much to the extent he's he's invested so much that there was rumors for a while that he may be um not able to have conceive or something that he may have um but I think that's no longer true. I I can't remember exactly. Is is that accurate summary of what Click like what is Clicker doing?

Speaker A: Yeah, I would say that's accurate with the noting like um yeah, he's definitely like very controversial and like taking drugs on the stream and doing pretty crazy things like that. So, yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah, he spent I mean he spent some time like he he he like joined Jake's first live stream ever. Like what was like in person? Like

Speaker A: I thought he was nice. Yeah, thought he was a nice guy. definitely pretty wild on his stream though and and I'm wild, you know, as entertainer known as that. I can turn that on. But yeah, so if I like am saying that then it's probably pretty pretty wild.

Interviewer: Yeah. Is um streamer culture today you when you say you were sort of the previous evolution, where do you see it all going? Is it just going to get crazier and crazier? Are we going to sort of see new formats or how do you sort of envision the future of kind of like what you you know help helped create?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we will see new formats and people pop up that are unique and different, but I I think that the players that are in it now and are the biggest now will likely remain the biggest. Um, and so I don't think it'll shift too much in terms of like all the personalities, but I do think things will get crazy, slightly crazier. Um, but I it's probably already near its peak because the platforms now like aren't allowing certain things to be streamed and they're already getting like, you know, deplatformed if they do certain things. So, I think it's probably uh at its at its peak right now with some of the things that are going on.

Interviewer: I mean, talking about like you can't die, you can't go to jail, right? Like at some point someone's going to step on that and boom, you peak you that the end endame of that.

Speaker A: Yeah. I recently learned that there's like uh that kick is like a Twitch but more edgy. Um but then there's like Rumble is like a even more edgy version of that. There's just like different streaming platforms for

Interviewer: ...different levels of edgginess.

Jake: Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: Um to to your point, um would go on the controversy point for like when you look at some of the stuff that's been like the hardest for for you to handle or the biggest controversial moments or when other people come to you and are like, "Holy [ __ ] I'm in this, you know, massive scandal or how do you how have you like bounced back from that or how do you advise people to bounce back from just like the toughest where you're like people actually trying to cancel you and they're succeeding a little bit?"

Jake: Yeah, I think faith and God I think God gives its toughest battles um to his most important soldiers. And so there's always for me in all of those moments I had to like learn something, go through something and grow. And it's always on the other side of it once I've gotten out of certain situations and learned a lot of things etc. It's prepared me to fly higher in life and do more things. And so, uh, I think everything happens for a reason. And, yeah, you can't like victimize yourself and know that if you come out on the other side of it, you will be stronger and that will lead and lend to a bigger and better life.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. Jeff, how about you?

Jeff: I mean, I think Jake puts it really, really nicely in terms of whether it's faith in like a higher power or just like a conviction in yourself that what you're doing is truly worth fighting for and battling for and and and standing and like dying for, right? So, I think it's like and that's why I think just choosing the right mission is so important, right? Like a lot of things that people choose to do, they probably do not care for, right? like if you hate your job and but you still putting you know 40 hours 50 hours a week on it and and you're like getting attacked or critiqued for it then like there's no conviction there. So, in some sense, if you just choose the right battles to fight for and you're willing to take those arrows because you believe in the mission, you believe in the message, that almost like helps you with that faith because like you you actually believe in in in and have conviction in what you're fighting for like you know, we're invested some of the top most high-profile AI companies and and and and those are some of the topics that were able to just like and I think especially Jake can like share his perspective on, right? if people are going through like really high-profile uh like hate on social media or litigation and controversy. I think Jake having lived through that at some of the highest levels and sharing that how he deals with it is like just super helpful for founders that we talk to and work with. Um but I think it just goes back to like I think if they believe in the mission they're doing, right? Like if you think that you're making beneficial AGI or you're really believe like fusion energy or defense tech and making Americans have the best weapon systems as really important which we think is really important then having that strength to fight and battle for that uh makes it easier if you have that self-conviction that what you're doing is correct.

Interviewer: >> You know someone once asked Cler something like um you know it seems like you're not that interested in politics. Why why is that? to say something like it doesn't help me with my looks maxing journey. Um so as I say how have you guys sort of approached politics or not approached politics or Yeah. How have you guys thought about that?

Jake: Yeah, I think um it's always been my goal and a part of who I am since I was younger is to like help the people around me um and to be a leader and to speak my mind on certain things. And I think when I'm in this position of having a large audience and as an American, we all have our right to our opinion and to voice our opinion. That's one of the most beautiful things about this country. And I think with a lot of people uh following me, I've taken it upon myself to speak my mind on what I believe in and to um hopefully help others understand as well and grow a deeper understanding of politics and some of the things that are going on. And I believe it's important as American to exercise that right to our opinion and to voice our opinion. And I've just slowly, you know, started to talk more and more about it openly. And I think it comes from my dad as well. He was very political growing up. And I've always been involved in it and seeing it and talking about it. And I think it's the biggest game in life. And um I think it's interesting to be in those rooms and to talk to those people and to uh help them, you know, potentially win um certain elections, whether that's governor or president or senator. So, it's just been interesting and fun and I think it really truly does make an impact to the American people and society.

Jeff: And I just gonna say that's one thing I respect about Jake because I know that a lot of people in the public eye are too afraid to step into politics because it's not good for business, right? Like Michael Jordan like everyone buys shoes or whatever like that that quote. >> Um but I respect that Jake and we just had conversations about this where it's like you know like if you actually have conviction like God or your faith will like pay full dividends for that conviction, right? Right. And I think there's and I think there's something to like life and your family and your culture, your neighborhood, your community is arguably more important than just like stacking more >> zeros behind your account, right? Like at a certain point like you win the money maxing game. You win the money game, then it's like can you actually create a better livelihood for yourself, your kids, your neighbors, your community? Um, and it takes courageous people like Jake to be like, "Hey, like I I'm okay to like take a little bit of risk."

Jake: Yeah. And maybe piss off a segment of people, but I truly believe in this. It's not some BS. Like it's there's like there's a deep conviction that he will sacrifice >> monetary opportunity or just reduce optionality because there's true belief and true conviction behind his perspective. That's what that that is what leadership actually is.

Interviewer: Yeah. >> So, there's no leaders out there. We're totally screwed. So, we need people to step up and lead. >> Could you see yourself running someday >> for some sort of elected position?

Jake: >> Yeah, I could see you being involved for sure. And I think it's like become more and more of a thing. I think Jeff was the first person actually to like talk about it six years ago and then obviously President Trump like endorsed me on stage to run for president and then backstage was like, I think you should really do it, etc. I would only want to be involved in it if I was like the best person to do it. Um, and to help the the country. Um, and if some other people on the other side of things that weren't good for the country felt like they had traction, um, I would probably do it to, yeah, help the people of America and make sure we don't get wrapped up into this like whole socialist communist thing that's going on like in New York with mom don dummy. Mom dummy. Yeah, that's it. Um it's really bad and it will lead to um America being in a very very bad place. And so if something like that's going on and there's something I can do to help, then yeah, of course I'm going to want to get involved or even maybe just help push a candidate and support them.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. So, you spent the first 15 years or so, you know, we talking about media, you know, uh, boxing, uh, tech. If you were to guess over the next 5 to 10 years, um, what's something else you might add to your repertoire, um, besides obviously going much bigger in the areas you're already in, what could that be?

Jake: >> I would probably say, yeah, the the most like obvious one that I'm like super passionate about is is definitely politics. And that seems to, you know, grow as I get older as well because of what Jeff was saying is like, how do I, okay, we have the money, we have this stuff, like how do I help the world and do my part and I have the courage and I believe the right mindset on it and the right way to think about it and finding truth not only

Jake: within myself, but that becomes a practice out there in the world. And so I believe that a lot of my takes and opinions and thoughts on it are the ones closest to truth and really just finding what's best um for the people and for the country and um for you know creating the future for my kids and if I can be helpful in that and I think and I know I can and I know I have very a very good way of thinking about things. um then yeah I would definitely see myself in the next 10 to 15 years in that arena for sure.

Interviewer: Last question on this topic high level what are the what's a topic or what are the topics that you care most about in in that arena that of making sure we really get right?

Jake: Yeah, I mean I think uh education first and foremost and I think it's like so it's it's bad. It hasn't been reformed since you know what the 1920s the 1930s there's been no change and the world has changed so much and I think there you see with you know being in the investing world you see some of these like newer aged startups that are focused on school popping up um what's the one alpha alpha school very like impressed with what they're doing and I think creating that future You're almost, you know, planting seeds of a fruit tree with changing the education system because then in 30, 40 years, the country is going to have a lot smarter people, a lot better educated people and that ripple effect just impacts society so much and in a massive way. And we also don't want to fall behind with other other countries. And I think it also lends itself to finance. And the number one problem I think that's out there right now with young men and young women even is like how do they make money? Where do they make money? And if that education is in place and you're prepared and you actually learn about maybe how to do taxes in school and not like about the [__] uh Pythagorean theorem, I I think that would be a much better outcome for the people of America. And um it's just wild to me that something like that isn't taught amongst many other things. And so I believe the economy would thrive more from education. And yeah, the list goes the list goes on. But

Jeff: I mean, I think one thing that's cool is like the Invest America accounts, the Trump accounts.

Jeff: I know that Jake is supporting the team there on that. Maybe you want to talk a little bit more about that. But I think in terms of allowing the next generation of young Americans actually participate with the fastest growing private companies and having them be a shareholder and a stakeholder in success of American innovation is really really important. Right? That ties into education, right? To to Jake's point, if people don't grow up knowing how to compound their money, right? Like I think it's I I people should know the Pythagorean theorem in the quadratic equation. But yes, you should know actually how like they shouldn't. It's literally taking up space in my brain.

Interviewer: But like knowing how

Jake: and I don't have a lot of space. Okay. So,

Jeff: but knowing how like wealth compounds and how is really important. And I think with like the Trump accounts, like having every little kid see their little stock portfolio and realizing, hey, like this is how money and investing works is super important.

Interviewer: To to that end, Jeff, if you were 18 today, um knowing what you know, would you go to college or like do you advise people to go to college? How do you think about that?

Jeff: Um, yeah. I I I I think Peter Thiel in some sense is like kind of hypocritical when he's like, "Don't go to college where he had Stanford undergrad, Stanford Law School, he got all the badges, right?" So, not but I but I think underlying point is correct. But to me, like getting a badge is useful if you don't have any other badges, right? Like Jake could not have to have the institutional badge of being educated because he became world class at what he does as a content creator, an athlete, a media personality, an entertainer. But if you're not like Jake, then you need to like get some external badges, right? Like you got to win a science fair, win a math competition, and if happens to be like, you know, you get you go to Harvard, that's a really good badge to say like, hey, at some external validator that you're at least good at something, right? Um, so to me it's like you you I think all of us should try to aspire to be best in the world at something and it could be the best violin player. It could be the best business person, be the best boxer or the best like I don't know podcaster or just the best like artist or the best like doodler, right? But like everyone should have some god-given like talent to be potentially the best in the world at. And then two, if there's like education badges that help you like validate and give you that confidence that you can be, I think that's actually very valuable. But I think in terms of like the educational content, um I think that will be reformed there, right? Like I think the education system will change. But I think the badging system will not change. So my advice would be like collect some badges as a kid, right? become the best YouTuber or go to Stanford, go to Harvard, get some badges and that I think gives gives you a lot of confidence.

Jake: Yeah.

Jeff: To like do the next thing like a real thing.

Interviewer: Jake, are you seriously considered going to Stanford?

Jake: I went there today and I was like this is beautiful. We went to the church and um yeah, I don't know. I think it could be funny or interesting, but I I I would definitely uh I think it would lend itself like I I do have NFL aspirations.

Interviewer: Oh, wow.

Jake: Uh after boxing,

Jake: I want to play slot receiver and so I think to, you know, get that experience in college first would be good so I could walk onto the Stanford team. It Yeah, it I'm being serious though. Yeah. Well, this might be the first podcast you you mention it. So,

Jake: it is and it happened. The idea of it happened today because I was like, well, I was originally thinking I'll just go straight to the Cleveland Browns or Dallas Cowboys, but they're probably going to want to see me play first. And so, it might be better if I start off in college and um have a little bit of an advantage over the younger, not as big kids before going into the NFL.

Interviewer: That's amazing. the um um I want to close on some anti-fund topics. Um Jeff, you talked a little bit about founder taste and how important it is and how how rare it is to actually have it. Talk about what it means and and how you guys have developed it.

Jeff: I mean, I think through both our journeys, I mean, I think I remember like some of our early conversations with Jake, like Jake's met some of the most [__] weird, crazy hustler, scammy people through his career, like going, you know, 16 to Hollywood and just like getting thrown to the wolves, right? So I think and like me coming up in Silicon Valley, Stanford, Y Combinator, uh I think we just got a lot of reps at meeting people, getting pitched things, doing bad deals, making mistakes. Um so I don't there might be some talent or EQ or people reading skill, but I think a lot of it is probably just a ton of reps, right? Like, and again, maybe going full circle at the top, like I think I remember was like, you know, recatching up when Jake was 23, 24. It's like, oh man, this guy's like got a lot of reps on a lot of stuff that like 50-year old men never deal with, right? Just like, oh, like litigation, this business deal, someone

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jeff: business issues or success like Right. Like just he just had a like he just like he lives in dog ears, right? Like I that's like I feel like that's Laura uh recently joined a standup Jake's uh family office and and and and running it. I mean it's like the amount of stuff that we've done in the last couple months is just like probably it's like two years worth of like [__] in like two months. Um uh so so I think there there's like that people reading aspect but I think it ultimately goes down to like okay um do they have a passion and like a reason to believe why they can be world class of what they choose to pursue and then two are they resilient and tough enough to eat a ton of

Guest: Yeah, those are like the two like attributes and I think that's like, you know, some measure of IQ and then personality read

Guest: And and just yeah, track record, you know, and um leaning on on other people that we trust and respect for background um on certain people and their dealings with them. So I think reference checks are also very important for us. It's um yeah one of the companies we invested in like a defense tech we just like hit up Palmer Ly's team and we're like yeah what do you think of this group? Um so always referencing our our network for the certain categories of things that we're working on and that's proven to work really well.

Host: You you've made investments in some iconic companies. We listed some of them earlier. We'll also put the you a bunch in the show notes, but you've also incubated, you know, getting better. Um could you could you see yourself incubating more uh companies where you have unfair advantage like you did in sort of uh you know betting or how do you think about that?

Guest: Yeah, definitely. I think um have been noodling on certain things to found currently um and just like seeing how the world is evolving with this current you know AI boom and just seeing the world change and all of this stuff and so there's been ideas and you know we've grown some of these companies so where they like run themselves like better for example and I spend a limited amount of time on um now because it's just the team is fully built out and so I think there is a dynamic shift happening for us right now where there's kind of an open slot to potentially found and start something new in this current landscape and it's definitely enticing um but obviously there's so much going on right now and you know you could launch a company and then you know open AAI or claw replicates it next week and um you're kind of [ __ ] out of luck.

Host: Yeah, totally. I anecdote, we were talking earlier about the need to monetize. Anecdotally, I've I've seen the sort of creator class get a lot smarter and more sophisticated about, you know, we've number like yourself getting into venture, getting into private equity, but even, you know, Jimmy was originally making chocolate. Now he's just bought a bank. He's like, "Hey, I can make a dollar off a customer. Maybe I can make hundreds of dollars off a customer." And so you guys getting into actually building software product, you know, and companies sort of I feel like people are getting more sophisticated about where the value is and um I'm excited to see that trend continue.

Guest: Yeah, thank you. And yeah, I think as we become more sophisticated, yeah, it's like cool to sell, you know, I won't say like which companies or whatever, but like we want to play a bigger game.

Host: Yeah, totally. and and shift humanity

Guest: w you know while doing that.

Host: Yeah, I think it's a good place to wrap.

Guest: Yeah,

Host: Jake, Jeff, you guys are doing something really exciting. We're excited to be co-investors in a number of companies together and more to come. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Guest: Thank you, man.