Good Friday - August 2, 2024

This is Good Friday - the weekly blog where I email the most interesting people I know - and leak the emails here for you to read.

We named it Good Friday because the worst thing on earth is getting long emails on Friday.

Email on Friday is bad. Except this one. This one is Good.

This week, I went back-and-forth with the newsletter daddy himself. Sam Parr. Sam's newsletter (The Hustle) sold for a rumored $30M. He also used to sell hotdogs, worked for the Pawn Stars guy, and is one of my favorite people to talk to.

Today we're talking The 10 Richest Guys On Earth, Divorces, Olympics & Books. Enjoy.

Sam!!

I’ve got a question for you about rich guys & divorces.

This came up because I was digging through your old tweets and saw this gem:

So I started doing some research..

Here's the 10 richest men in the world:

1. Elon -- 3 times

2. Bezos -- 1 time

3. Bernard Arnault (the LMVH guy) -- 2 times

4. Zuckerberg

5. Larry Ellison (oracle) -- 4 times

6. Larry Page (google)

7. Sergey Brin (google) -- 1 time

8. Bill Gates -- 1 time

9. Steve Ballmer

10. Warren Buffett

So you're right - 6 of the top 10 have been divorced (60%) for a total of 13-14 divorces.

But I think the bigger question is - should we even care? Do we need our business olympians to be all-round-great-guys?

I find myself wanting that, but when I think about it more…it seems like a silly expectation. Where do you land on that?

Also -- Buffet's story is crazy. I knew he had a mistress but I didn't know the details. Have you heard about this?

• He marries his first wife, Susan

• She leaves him to go to California because he's obsessed with work, and she wants to be a singer

• She still cares about him, so she sets him up with her friend Astrid (wait, is mistress-with-permission the billionaire version of friends-with-benefits??)

• They sent out Christmas cards with all 3 names on them "Warren, Susan & Astrid"

• After Susan passed away, he married the mistress in a 5 person wedding at a place called (....wait for it…) the Bonefish Grill !!

Isn't that amazing? 10th Richest Guy in the world, getting married to his mistress at the Bonefish Grill.

That's going to be the name for my next company, Bonefish Grill, LLC. Real ones will get it.

That's pretty funny. I don't remember tweeting that.

Now, your question: should we even care?‍

Yeah dog, we should care. At least, I care. And I think you should care because you're a good guy.

Look, I get it: if you're a freak like Elon or Bezos, that means you likely have an extreme personality. Super quirky. Polarizing. I accept that that comes with being a genius.

‍I am not a genius though. And most people who wanna get rich and do dope shit, they're not geniuses either (you don't have to be).

But I think too many dorks who wanna make it justify their weird+negative, and often inauthentic actions with "well, Elon does it so it’s ok."

Bullshit. That's what I think.‍

My goal is to be rich, which means having a rich life. To me that means having money, yes. But it also means being a dope dad, friend, husband, and human.

And hopefully that means having a solid home life full of people who love me.

OK, hang on, gotta hop off my high horse.

Also, Warren's situation wasn't normal. Warren's first wife gave him the a-ok.

God bless America.

PS: Ellison getting divorced 4 times? Wtf. Why even get married a 3rd or 4th time.

PPS: Wanna read about a really crazy playboy? Porfirio Rubirosa.

• Was a Dominican race car driver, polo player, international spy

• Married 5 times. 2 of the women were the richest women in the world at the time

• Met the Dictator of Dominican Republic

• The dictator was like "Dude, you're the most charming, good looking person I've ever met. Can I pay you to weasel your way into powerful people's life and just feed my secrets about what's going on?"

• So the dictator sent Rubirosa to Paris, Berlin, NYC

• Rubirosa charmed all these powerful people, even getting fellow playboy JFK to help our Dominican

Latin James Bond shit.

That guy is epic. International spy? Race Car driver? Married 2 of the richest women in the world? He's James Bond meets Deuce Bigalow.

How the heck did you know about this guy? I couldn't name a single playboy.

Hang on…why isn't there a list of top international playboys? (hey Forbes, free idea - the 30 under 30 list is dead. Time to reboot the franchise as the "Forbes 50 Philanderers")

Speaking of international fame - I know you're an Olympics guy. I've never been a big fan, but I can't lie - this pommel horse guy really fascinated me:

He looks like me in every corporate all-hands I ever had to attend.

I'm not saying I'm a full blown olympics guy now...but let's just say, the door is ajar.

But I can’t just follow the sport, I need storylines to care. What’s the best olympic storyline that will hook me?

Alright. Olympics stuff.

I'll give you one amazing story from the past, and one for this year.

Past Olympics:

Wanna hear the greatest world record of all time?

Back in 1968 this guy Bob Beamon set the World Record long jump. The record at the time was 27 feet…Bob jumped 29 feet (he beat it by 20 inches). Nobody could believe it. They literally didn’t even have the measuring equipment to measure that far. They had to pause 15 minutes to get a longer tape to measure it.

Then when they finally measure it - the announcer in the stadium says it’s 9 meters, but Bob is American so he still doesn’t know how many feet that is. Finally, they tell him he jumped 29ft and he collapses and has a leg seizure because he’s overcome with emotion. The record stood for 30 years. And is STILL the 2nd longest jump ever. To this day track athletes use the word "Beamonesque" to describe having a crazy performance.

Today:

Sha'Carri Richarson 100m: Last Olympics she was the fav. She won the US Trials. But the night before the final, she found out her mom died. Her family was like hey let's not tell her until after the race. But a reporter mistakenly told Sh'Carri live on air. She smoked weed that night. Then, after she won, she tested positive and was banned from Olympics. She's back this time. Last Olympics she acted a fool. Wore huge wigs and nails during races, talked rudely. Now she's more focused and acted like a pro athlete. I’m rooting for her to win.

P.S. If you want to feel goosebumps in 2 minutes - you gotta watch this. This will make you piss tears out your eyes.

P.P.S. One of my favorite Olympic quotes comes from Steve Prefontaine (Nike’s 1st employee). He had a heartbreaking loss in the olympics, then died in a car crash young. He’s like the running Tupac.

He had the best quote: "Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it."

Dang. What a quote.

I’m no athlete - but if I ever win one of those “EAT 50lbs of HOT WINGS” challenges at a restaurant - I’m 100% going to use that line…

“Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”

(I’m pretty pleased with that joke. Give me a minute to pat myself on the ole’ back for that one…)

Btw - I know you’re a history nerd. Have you looked at the history of the Olympics?

• Started in Ancient Greece to honor the greek gods (Zeus)

• It was only men, and they were all completely naked (!)

• Events: sprinting, wrestling, chariot racing, and (get this) their version of the Ultimate Fighting Sport - with no weight classes, and the only way to win is if your opponent gives up or dies

• Got banned by a Roman emperor and so it paused for 1,500 years (!!)

• Got revived by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a former teacher who thought sport would unite nations and promote physical fitness

• Now it makes $8B a year in revenue, as a non-profit, and funnels most of that cash to 90+ subsidiaries in a way that nobody can track. 10% of their revenue (nearly $800M) goes to funding the operations

Isn’t that insane? A conference that started in 770 BC (back when Homer was writing the Iliad) is still happening today.

I wonder what other legendary events could be revived today.

I've not looked into it too much because ancient history just doesn't make sense to me. Names are too hard to remember.

But if you’re talking history, I’ve got some book recs for you. I’ve been going ham on American history. Particularly 1870-1935. Unregulated, often corrupt capitalism. And thus, the best stories.

Here are a few cool things I've read lately. Some in that era, some not:

1. Hellbound (8.5/10): Story of MLK's assassination. Most people don't know this, but MLK's killer was 2 seconds away from getting away. He fled to different countries for like 2 months before getting caught. Only got caught because as he was galavanting around Europe after the shooting and was passing through airport security, the guard was like "hey, why do you have a 2nd passport in your pocket?". Spoiler, but hey its history...the ending is known.

2. Manhunt (10/10): One of the most riveting books I've read. About the assassination of Lincoln. Killer nearly got away with it as well. Escaped for 12 days. Killer was a total racist, horrible person. But only 25 years old and charismatic as hell. He was like the Brad Pitt of his era. Literally. He was a famous actor, good looking, and could convince you to do anything.

3. The Gambler (8.5/10): Bio of Kirk Kerkorian. Started a small plane charter business with like $1,000. Made $10m in his 40s selling biz. Used that to start a hotel in up and coming Vegas. Used that to invest in stocks. Slowly, bought MGM (the movie company + casino), then General Motors, then Chystler. Super sweet man but total killer. Andre Kirk Agassi is named after Kirk because Andre's father was a waiter at MGM and Kirk treated his people so well.

4. The Patriarch (9/10): Joe Kennedy, JFK's dad, was f*cking RUTHLESS. Grew up poor. Worked for a steel company. Was in charge of feeding 1,000 workers. Created his own catering company to feed 'em. Then got rich doing insider trading. Pumped and dumped Hertz, the rental car company. Made like $1m from it. Parlayed that into buying a Hollywood studio and sleeping with tons of actresses. Then founded the effing SEC and made insider trading illegal lol. Tried running for president but he sucked so he had 9 kids and wanted them all to run for office and get power as he was power hungry. And he pulled it off. But at the cost of doing evil shit and like 6 of his kids dying before age 50.

I’ll stop there because this email thread is getting so long, we’re writing our own book. If you made it this far, congrats, you’re as big of a nerd as us.

If you’re a man in your 30s and you’re not reading histories of evil/awesome men every evening, are you even a man in your 30s?

Alright Sam - thanks for doing this man. Talk to ya soon.

Smooches,

Shaan

That’s a wrap for today’s Good Friday.

Now do me a small favor… tell me what you think!

I wrote it. You read it. How was it?

P.S. - we’re gonna be posting these weekly on the blog too.