My First Million
Read bullet-point summaries of My First Million on startup ideas, acquisitions, money, internet businesses, founders, and investing.
Episodes
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98 days until 2027...Do this and you’ll thank yourself on Jan 1st
Shaan Puri and Sam Parr discuss how to use the final 99 days of the year as a decisive sprint, then wander through a series of connected threads: personal
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How I launched a marketplace with no buyers and no outside sellers
Grant LaFontaine founded Whatnot, a live shopping marketplace now valued at $20 billion, growing from a niche Funko Pop app to a platform where millions of
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Advice from Sam Altman’s coach that’ll piss off every hustle culture bro
Joe Hudson coaches top-tier entrepreneurs and CEOs (including Sam Altman) by blending business strategy with deep psychological work; this episode distills his
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17 minutes that will completely reset how you think about growing online
Shaan Puri, who built a podcast with over 100 million downloads and millions of YouTube subscribers, shares eight unconventional lessons for growing an audience
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Confessions of a $500B investor (ft. David Rubenstein)
David Rubenstein co-founded The Carlyle Group at age 37 with $5 million from four investors in 1987; today the firm manages roughly $500 billion and employs
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Tony Hawk inspiring us for 72 minutes straight
Tony Hawk, the most recognizable figure in skateboarding history, joins My First Million to discuss his journey from obsessed kid to cultural icon, the business
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I've scaled 3 different companies to 9 figures. Here's how.
Danny Yeung has built three separate companies to nine-figure revenue: a Hong Kong e-commerce group-buying business (acquired by Groupon), Prenetics (a DNA
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How to use your "useless” hobby to make money
Sam and Sean explore how niche passions become profitable businesses — perfume tours, museum hacks, mafia walks, horse-owner media, and LeBron's bond deal
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7 things Bezos, MrBeast & Thiel do that you don’t
Two hosts discuss seven unconventional CEO tactics from famous leaders, plus a philosophical counterpoint about the cost of greatness, framing each move as a
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How a $5B founder is using AI (3 tutorials)
Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier (valued at ~$5B, seed-strapped with only $1M raised), shares how he personally uses AI as a CEO to run his company and
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Brutal startup advice from a $2,000,000,000 founder
Alison, co-founder of Poppi, recounts the journey from selling apple cider vinegar drinks at farmers markets as "Mother Beverage" to a $1.95B exit to Pepsi in
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3 low competition businesses with massive demand in America
This episode features three founders pitching their businesses in a "Shoot Your Shot" format: Rishi Talati of Hot Plate (a platform powering $100M+ in sales for
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Asking 3 millionaires how they make $1.8M, $5M, & $12M/year
This episode features three founders pitching their businesses in a "Shoot Your Shot" format at a San Francisco live event: Nick Haschka of OnPoint Generators
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3 strangers showed us how they made $8M, $10M, & $40M/year
This episode of "My First Million" features the "Shoot Your Shot" format where three founders pitch their businesses live in San Francisco, ranging from a
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3 killer businesses hiding in plain sight
This podcast episode is a wide-ranging conversation between hosts Sam and Ben that moves through several distinct threads: the hidden economics of
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We accidentally dropped 9 genius business ideas while drunk
Three hosts — Sean, Sam, and returning co-host Ari — share nine half-baked but potentially viable business ideas in the latest "Drunk Ideas" episode, each
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We found the internet's best sales advice
This episode of My First Million jumps between several unrelated but high-signal conversations: a legendary Hacker News comment on sales, practical applications
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What happened when I accidentally sat next to...
This episode of My First Million covers a listener's graduation invitation, the Ferrero family chocolate dynasty, the "golden window" of childhood obsession, an
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Chris Camillo: I put 70% of my portfolio in this ONE stock
Chris Camillo is a self-taught investor who turned $20,000 into roughly $80 million over 16–17 years (≈68% annualized) using a method he calls observational
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Killer marketing tricks Amex, Apple and Domino's use on you - Rory Sutherland
Rory Sutherland, veteran advertising executive and behavioral science advocate, argues that business success comes not from optimizing physical specs but from
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The powerful family behind everything you eat (and why they hide)
This episode of My First Million explores the hidden empire of the Cargill family — America's largest private company for 40+ years, 88% family-owned, with more
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I asked a blue-collar millionaire how much money he actually makes
Sam Parr spends a day with Mark O'Brien, a 63-year-old developer who buys, restores, and sells historic brownstone townhouses in New York City, to evaluate the
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Ray Dalio: The one rule that cuts investment risk by 80%
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates (the world's largest hedge fund), shares the principles and hard-won lessons that took him from borrowing $4,000
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Howard Marks Warning: if you invest like this, you're about to lose everything
Howard Marks, co-founder of Oaktree Capital, reflects on how his thinking has evolved across AI, investing through crises, long-term partnership, parenting, and
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If I was 25 with $0, I'd build this
Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga and early Facebook investor, shares his framework for building companies, investing, and living intentionally — blending
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5 ruthless business lessons from one week in NYC
Sean returns from a week-long business trip to New York City and distills five ruthless lessons observed across meetings with creators, operators, and
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The investing hack hiding in your own company
Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, reflects on 20 years building a public enterprise software company, the strategic pivot that saved it, the acquisition
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3 weird businesses doing $10M, $20M, $30M
This episode of My First Million features three entrepreneurs from the Hampton community presenting unusual, high-revenue businesses: a $10M junk-mail magazine
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This guy sold his company for $2B (and used it to buy Pokémon cards?)
The episode opens with a humorous discussion of a South Korean trend — "dopamine websites" like Food Never Comes — that let users go through the full ritual of
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Most people are chasing type 3 (but it's actually the worst)
The episode explores the power of committing fully to a lifestyle or aesthetic as a personal branding and business strategy, arguing that going "all in" on a
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Ex-Goldman CEO: 3 sectors where I'm putting my money right now
Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO and senior chairman of Goldman Sachs, discusses his personal investing philosophy, career lessons, and views on risk, luck, and
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The SpaceX IPO is creating 4,000+ millionaires. Here's how
SpaceX is going public in what will be the largest IPO in history at a $1.75 trillion valuation, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire on paper. The
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Exposing the fake financial "Gurus" destroying your net worth
Barry Ritholtz is a veteran investor, blogger, and podcaster who runs an $8 billion AUM advisory firm built on the philosophy that most people should simply own
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The "Idiot Index": the simple math that made Elon Musk billions
Pat LaFrieda Jr. turned a dying family butcher shop into a $270M/year meat empire by rejecting commodity meat, building custom branded blends for top chefs, and
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This dumb $25 phone might just replace your iPhone
Sam and Sean evaluate a series of startup ideas and trends, sorting them into "good crazy" (promising, unconventional ideas that could work) and "bad crazy"
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The insane rise and fall of MTV
Tom Freston was a co-founder of MTV Networks, helping build it from a small startup into an $8–9 billion revenue media empire that included MTV, VH1, Comedy
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The 50 richest families in America are betting on this trend
Joe Liemandt is a serial entrepreneur who dropped out of Stanford in the late 1980s to co-found Trilogy, which built the first AI product to sell a billion
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This will save you 10 years of bad investments
Monish Pabrai, a value investor managing over $1 billion and a close associate of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, shares his core mental models and investing
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Gary Vee runs 7 businesses doing $10M+ each
Gary Vee runs seven businesses each doing eight- or nine-figure annual revenue, all built on a philosophy of long-term greed, deep human relationships, and
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A look inside how we actually run My First Million
This is a public recording of a real strategy meeting for the podcast My First Million (MFM), now 6 years and 822 episodes in, with roughly 115 million
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What Palmer Luckey does when he's not building billion-dollar companies
Jim Ratcliffe: the blue-collar billionaire who does things "just because"
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I put 80% of my money in the S&P after a billionaire investor told me not to
A deep dive into how genetics, personality, and self-knowledge shape financial outcomes, investing behavior, and career success — and why understanding your own
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I made $250M in one year. Here's what it actually cost me
From $2.5M to $250M in a Year: A Founder's Journey
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I Bought A Drink Nobody Wanted (And Sold It For $2 Billion)
Rohan Oza is a brand builder and early-stage investor who has helped create and scale some of America's most successful beverage and consumer brands, including
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GTA 6 Goldrush, TBPN's $100M OpenAI Deal, The OG Clickbait King Who Burned $4B/Year
The episode covers a wide range of topics centered on where the biggest opportunities are right now, the TBPN acquisition by OpenAI, the GTA 6 economy, and the
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How to find your thing
A 24-year-old fan approached the hosts at a restaurant in Austin and asked a deceptively simple question: everyone says "follow your passion," but how do you
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This guy sold his company to Unilever for $1.2B after just 3 years
Chad, a serial entrepreneur with a background in private equity and investment banking, built and sold his third company—Grüns, a gummy-based comprehensive
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25% Of My Portfolio Is Tesla Stock, Here's Why
Sam Parr and Shaan Puri riff on a wide range of topics—cryogenics, AI-driven job displacement, longevity research, executive coaching, magic/mentalism, and
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#1 Habit Expert: Why Your To Do List Is Making You Less Productive
Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators, joins Sam Parr to explain how habits, communication
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If I Had To Make $1 Billion... Here’s The Business I Would Start
Hosts Shaan Puri and Sam Parr answer a listener's question: what single business idea would you pursue to make $1 million, and what would you do to build a $1