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#313February 1, 20221:06:05

Did This Man Just Expose the Silicon Vally Tech Mafia? - Ryan Br…

About This Episode

Shaan and Sam interview Ryan Breslow, the founder of the $14 billion payments company Bolt, regarding his viral accusations against the 'Silicon Valley Tech Mafia.' The conversation explores Ryan's unique 'fearless' leadership philosophy, his transition from CEO to Executive Chairman, and his claims that institutions like Stripe and Y Combinator manipulate the startup ecosystem to stifle competition.

Episode Description

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) and Sam Parr (@theSamParr) talk about how to learn any skill, whether Dan Price is legit or a fraud, Dave Friedberg and Cana, and what a chicken wing actually is. They are then joined by Ryan Breslow (@theryanking) of Bolt to talk about the latest controversy surrounding his Twitter thread, and why he's trying to take down what he considers to be silicon valley's tech mafia. ----- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. -----

Show Notes

  • 00:30- The Hustle's New Podcast
  • 03:45- Podcasting and how to learn any skill
  • 07:10- The Day You Became A Better Writer
  • 10:50- Maven and Shaan's Power Writing Course
  • 14:30- Is Dan Price a fraudster?
  • 20:00- Dave Friedberg and Cana
  • 32:00- Ryan Breslow joins the show and explains his background
  • 43:45- The Y Combinator controversy
  • 01:27:45- Sam and Shaan recap the Ryan interview
  • ----
  • Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
  • ----
  • Additional episodes you might enjoy:
  • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
  • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
  • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
  • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
  • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
  • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
  • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Key Takeaways

1

Beware of 'Conflicting Out' Investors: Dominant incumbents may strategically place small investments across all top-tier VC firms to prevent those firms from funding potential competitors.

2

Pick a Fight as a Marketing Strategy: Publicly challenging powerful institutions can act as a lightning rod for attention, attracting supportive founders and building a distinct brand identity.

3

Operate on First Principles via Conscious Culture: Challenging industry norms, such as implementing a four-day work week, can foster a more sustainable and high-performing team environment.

Business Ideas Mentioned

Early-Stage Startup Investment Bank

Agency

Venture Capital DAO

Marketplace

Hyper-Local Neighbor Commerce Platform

Marketplace

View all ideas

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Quick Stats

Duration1:06:05
Guests1
Ideas Discussed3
Topics5

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