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The 48 Laws of Power on My First Million

The 48 Laws of Power was mentioned 23 times on My First Million in 19 episodes.

“I mean, I had so many stories with him, you know. It was probably one of the most fun elements of my life. You know, going to parties with him, going to the awards ceremony in Vegas, meeting Floyd Mayweather Jr., going to his house in Connecticut. It was a trip. It was like a drug trip. It was amazing. I have lots of stories, but that gives you an idea. your life's so fascinating because like you know Tupac was interested in Makaveli and then you 48 Laws of Power came along and that's like the new version of Makaveli.”

Master Your Mind & Watch What Happens - Robert Greene · My First Million

Listen at 52:53

“you get the new in the matrix moment where you see the code you're like ah okay >> yeah it's pretty cool. >> He's like are so you telling me I'll I'll be able to um dodge bullets. He's like I'm telling you when you're ready you won't have to. Right. It's like basically if you understand psychology at a certain level then you're able to make less you're able to do less work and have a better result. I used to have I don't know if you remember this at the office we used to come to Monkey Inferno. We used to have a giant poster that I made where it was three triangles and then it was a picture of a ugly circle and it just said different is better than better. >> For sure. And I I made this for our team cuz like we're always just trying to say how we're better than everybody and everybody says they're better and everybody's trying to be better. We're all trying to one up themselves. The only thing we have to focus on is say how we're different. The public can decide if that's better for them. Um, right? Maybe you want the mouthwash that's really clinical. Maybe you want the mouthwash that tastes good. Right? Like what do you want? Well, our job is just to highlight the difference. And uh and it's really hard to be better than something that's been out has more funding, more people working there, it's been out for 20 extra years. It's like it's really hard to topple the incumbent with a with a better product when actually you just have to be a significantly different product that will be way better for a certain set of customers. >> All right. So the second one >> All right. The second one is modern day. So we went you know whatever 130 years ago. Now we have a today situation that kind of inspired me and I think it'll inspire a lot of other people too. So do you know who do you know who Preston Thorp is? >> Preston Thorp. I don't think so. >> You may have seen this story because it was going viral recently, but here's the story. So, I see this headline that there's this guy who's a software developer. He's an engineer. >> Except the weird thing is that he's incarcerated right now. He's an he's an employee and he's a he's a software engineer for them, but he's incarcerated in a prison in Maine and he has been for a while. And so, I was like, how did this happen? What is the story here? And so, the story here is pretty crazy. Basically, this guy grows up. He's 17 years old. He's a computer geek. He he's, you know, sort of always like he's torrenting music and movies. He's doing what a lot of people were doing. Uh, you know, a lot of us who were on our computers in when we were teenagers, not me, of course, for anyone listening, but you know, others. >> And, you know, somewhere along the way, he um, this is what he says. He goes, "I get kicked out of my house by my parents for being a stupid 17-year-old like kids are, but instead of being broken, homeless on couches, I come back, I'm apologetic. Um, and I beg mom and dad to let me back in." Um, that I'm sure was their plan, and it worked. The problem was I stumbled head first into the into the dark web uh where Silk Road, you know, preil Silk Road of internet wholesale drugs. and he's like, >> uh, there was a place where you could buy chemicals from, you know, for pennies from sketchy companies in India and Canada and Holland and they would sell them in bulk. Um, >> so instead of just being totally apologetic and reformed, I ended up going off the deep end and suddenly I'm making tens of thousands of dollars a week by the a uh, you know, by the age of 18, 19 years old selling drugs that I'm buying wholesale. So he's, you know, buying buying >> like MDMA, weed, stuff like that. >> Okay. All right. He was buying that and he was selling it. That's >> So age 20, he gets arrested for the first time. They catch MDMA coming in the mail from Vancouver. They catch some weed coming from California. And because of the weed, he ends up going to prison. And so he goes to prison, goes for a couple of years, and he gets out and here's what he says. He goes, "A few years later, I leave prison with zero dollars in my pockets because lawyers and commissary are expensive and nobody pays you uh nobody pays what they owe you when uh when you go to jail." Um, and so then I'm I'm get out and I'm living in a halfway house that smells like crack smoke. It's filled with parole officers and junkies. And I'm left with a difficult choice. Um, I can continue to live here and walk every day to a temp agency hoping to get a $10 an hour manual labor job, but I don't have an ID or a social security card at this point, or I could go to New York, uh, go see some old associates and come back home after a week with 10 or $20,000 in my pocket. And I could spend my time living in a comfy luxury hotel. um until I get my get back on my feet and rent an apartment. I chose the latter and obviously I was back in prison a short 14 months after uh after a short 14 months of addiction and misery. Where is he writing this? On his blog. >> On his blog. It's called my story. And he says, "I've incarcerated now with this sentence um since 2017." And he says the following. He goes, "I came in with a terrible attitude, a terrible outlook on life outlook on life and no hope for my future. I've spent I've spent he spent three of the 10 years that he's been there um in solitary confinement. So 22 23 hours a day um he and he writes parentheses 10% of my life question mark. And at some point I truly became one of the people that people looked at me and saw when I first came into prison at 20. They would ask is this your first bid? And he would say first I'm not coming back here and they would always laugh. The older heads would always laugh. Everyone says that but everyone comes back and sure enough I did. And so he talks about how he's there. And during the pandemic, he just he got lucky that he happened to be at this prison in Maine that has this program where you can both enroll in a co in college coursework while you're in prison, but you can also they also gave him limited internet access. So some some prisons have this college kind of course work that you could do to try to learn and better yourself, but very few have the internet access. So he gets on, he immediately blows past the he gets hooked on programming and he blows past the college coursework, starts doing starts becoming self-taught and just sort of um gets absolutely obsessed. 14 15 hours a day he spends learning how to code, learning about ultimately like databases. He becomes a huge open source contributor to projects and people don't know cuz they just see his open source code. They don't know his backstory. So they they reach out with a job offer and then they find out about him. Well, one company who did that was willing to actually employ him. And so for the past few years, he's working a full-time job from prison and he pays 10% of his wages to I guess like whatever he has whatever he owes or has to pay back and then the rest you know he keeps and he's like become this kind of inspiring figure and I just thought this was this was kind of an amazing uh example of you know doing what you want you know of making the most out of a otherwise pretty bleak situation. He said this following quote. >> Well, when you when I Googled them, his LinkedIn came up first and he he's employed at at torso.o. Is that right? >> Torso. Yeah. >> Wow. Okay. And so what did he say? >> See, he had this one quote that I really liked. So he goes, "There was one day after spending a few years where I had an epiphany. I started questioning everything about my life. I no longer knew why I had accepted the former identity and situation. None of it made sense to me anymore. And I decided I was no longer okay being where I was or who I had become." This is fantastic. This is a great find. It says on his LinkedIn he gets out this year. >> I know. I'm excited for him. I'm rooting for him. This is the This is the the new serial for me. Um so so I thought this was pretty inspiring. I do have one more. And this one is a different lore story. >> I hope this by the way if you know if you're connected to this guy, he works at is it Terso? I don't know what that company is. Is that a big reputable company? >> I had never heard of him before this. So you know they've gotten a lot of pub from this but they're they're basically trying to rewrite SQL light is what I picked up. If you're if you're somehow can get connected with this guy. I'm not sure if he's allowed to watch YouTube or whatever. I would love to like see him comment. >> Bro, let me tell you something. Not only is he allowed, >> he restricts himself to one hour a day of YouTube entertainment and the rest he spends coding. He's got more self-control than you or me. >> They're just like us. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He did a podcast recently, so I saw him on a podcast from prison and I really want to get him on here. So, if anybody can make that happen or knows him or can get us connected, please do. >> Well, Preston, if you see this, comment on the YouTube uh in the YouTube comment section. That'll be fun. And we'll we'll actually pin it and we'll see if we can get you on. >> All right. So, I gave you one the Bank of America guy, the generous Titan, the the guy who builds the the biggest bank in the history of planet Earth, takes no equity and essentially no salary in in the process and does, you know, some one of these sort of uh bank moguls who says all the right things but then actually did all the right things. It's kind of amazing. He's about that life. All right. So, then uh we have Preston, inspiring guy, rising up from uh from, you know, his circumstances and doesn't let the past dictate the present. Um, okay. Now, the last one is a guy named Stefan Thomas. And this one is a different different sort of lore story that just kind of also captured my imagination and sort of broke my brain a little bit. All right. So, this guy Stefan in 2011 he he's like a programmer. I think in 2011 he gets paid to make a video about Bitcoin and uh again 2011. So, you know, Bitcoin I think the white paper was like a 09 thing. I think Bitcoin started in 2010. So, this is one year into Bitcoin. and he makes an educational video about Bitcoin. He gets paid7,000 Bitcoin to do it and 7,000 Bitcoin at the time is like 10 grand basically. It's a couple it's like a dollar or two per Bitcoin. >> Who paid him? Like who if you're a year in was it like Satoshi? I mean was it like a >> I don't think so. Um I think there was like you know some early companies that were you know interested or you know making educational content about this. Um so that same 7,000 Bitcoin is today worth 400 million Bitcoin. But of course, that assumes you held. Now, the crazy thing about Stefan is he held. He held the whole way. Now, you might be wondering, how does this guy have this incredible, you know, belief, this conviction, this foresight? Is he an investing genius? Does he have the self-discipline of a Navy Seal? Like, how did he get himself to hold all the way up to, you know, Bitcoin today, $118,000? Well, the answer is he couldn't sell. He lost the password to his Bitcoin because what he did was when he got the Bitcoin, he stored it, he did a best practice. He stored it on a hardware wallet, the iron key at the time, the most secure way to hold Bitcoin. And he writes the password down to his iron key on a piece of paper, folds it up, puts it somewhere safe. Problem is, he forgets about it because at the time it was a little bit of a smaller thing. You know, you know, 710K. >> Cool. I'm going to hold this. So, we'll see what happens. Life happens and he loses the piece of paper. >> Is Iron Key a brand or is that like a protocol? So, it's a company. Wow. >> A company that that makes the it's the name of the device, let's say. >> Great great product. It works. >> Yeah, exactly. Uh, also great marketing for his product in a way. Actually, you know, I take the back. It's pretty terrible marketing. This is my fear with hardware wallets in general is you lose you you are the sec security vulnerability. You lose the password. So, he loses the password and he goes and he tries to guess guess what it was. Guesses once, guesses twice. The problem is Iron Key has a limit. You only get 10 guesses. Oh. So, he has a $400 million treasure sitting on a device that's in his house, just sitting on his desk, and he can't unlock it. And he tries everything. He tries to remember. He tries looking everywhere for it. He tries to remember it. He has hypnosis done to him to try to see if the hypnosis can bring it back out of his subconscious mind. >> Nothing's working. He has now tried eight of his 10 password guesses. >> He has two left as of as of right now. Now, that alone is already just like, oh, dude, what a It's like a party story. >> Here's where it gets weird, >> dude. Have you seen the the old TV show Twilight? Have you ever seen that? Like, there's a famous episode >> vampire thing or >> No, no, no. This is from the ' 50s. There's a And there's a very famous episode where this guy's like, "All I want to do is read all day." And there's a Doom apocalypse. The world like ends and everyone dies and he's all by himself and he's like, "Finally, I get to read all And then he's walking to go grab his favorite book and his glasses fall off and he mistakenly steps on them. And it's like one of these like be careful what you wish for type of thing. And uh this is ex this is it. This is like it's like when you asked the genie for something but you weren't specific enough and it like is this is that story that sucks. >> It's almost worse. It's like he had he found the genie and lost the lamp is actually what kind of what happened here. Um and so he he's got this genie. He's got this lamp. He's got this $400 million treasure sitting on his desk, which would be one of the biggest like found treasures, sunken, you know, think about sunken treasures all around the world or discoveries of, you know, diamonds or gold or things like that. This guy's just got one in his house. It's crazy. So, now he's got two guesses left and this was as of 2021. And there's this team of basically like cryptographers/treasure hunters who heard about this story and were like we're going to try to break the iron key. So they start working on all these methods. Now the what they're they're going to do they weren't able to figure out how to actually like just pick the lock to open it without knowing the password. But they took a different approach. They're like can we get rid of this 10 password limit? Right? If we can get rid of the 10 10 guess limit, we can guess an infinite number of times. So what they do is they figure out how to use a laser to cut open the USB without triggering the anti-tampering devices. Then they use nitric acid that they put on the thing to like get rid of another defense. And these guys actually have done it. They figured out how to turn the iron key into an infinite gas situation. >> No way. When did this happen? Like recently? >> This happened a few years ago. Three, three or four years ago. Now here's the problem. Stefan doesn't want to work with them. >> Why? >> He He goes, "I made a handshake deal with two other groups to try to crack this and I want to honor that." And they're like, "What?" And so the the quote from these guys is, "We've cracked the iron key. We just haven't cracked Stefan yet." >> Oh my. >> They have the solution and he won't use it because he made a handshake agreement with two other groups promising them a portion of the uh of of the proceeds. >> But there's a go around. Wait, so it's 7,000 It's $7,000. >> Oh, so that's $700 million. >> Uh, yeah, now it is. Yeah. >> So, there's there should be enough to go around, right? Where you could have like three parties to work on this. >> There should be more than enough. In fact, there's also other things that he could do. He could just sell it today for a guaranteed payout to any of these groups, right? Like, you could be like, I'll take 50 million today and you guys go ahead. If you crack it, you there's I think it's 800 million total or whatever. 800 million is is uh you know minus 50. You can keep 750 if you can crack it but if you don't the risk is on you. So he has like all these options and it's so bizarre to me that he is not taking any of the fantastic options that are in front of him. Um isn't this just weird? >> This is weird. Is he wealthy? >> Complete nonsense. >> What's this? Like I'm looking him up. It looks like he >> It made me mad to be honest with you. The first one the first story made me uh inspired. The second story made me double inspired. And the third story just pissed me off. >> Is Stefan uh rich or or anything like that? Like is he a big deal? >> I don't know if he's I mean I think he's done well. He has done other stuff in the realm of crypto. So he started this company called Coil that was like trying to do something interesting in crypto failed. He now is the creator of Intleledger which is like a kind of like a open payments protocol he's trying to make. Um yeah it's kind of weird. I mean he's not $800 million rich. like, you know, I think this would be the the greatest thing he's ever done. >> Do you have any friends that have like like for example, my roommate James uh was was like a hacker early on and he was hardcore in the space and he was doing the typical stuff like he was buying things like as soon as Bitcoin was accepted in this weird experimental way, he was like, "Hell yeah, let's do it." Uh, and he like, you know, spent a,000 Bitcoin on whatever. Do you have any friends who have done crazy things like that? I have a friend that lost 200 Bitcoin. I know that I know personally just which today like you know and every year it just sort of updates how bad that loss is. So now it's a $23 million loss. He was kind of kicking himself when that was like a you know $200,000 loss or whatever at the time. But he's like >> he's like I mined 200 Bitcoin. It's on a like a a a hard drive somewhere. I think I I think I threw out the hard drive. I think I threw out the laptop. like it's gone. And um >> there's another guy that's got this story where he um his USB or his hard drive, his Bitcoin hard drive was in a landfill >> and he was trying to search for it. They were they wouldn't let him. He's like, I will buy the whole landfill. >> And he tried to purchase the landfill and they turned him down and this guy's just like trying to get access to this to this landfill to go search for for his hardware. So that's it. That's what I got for you. Three stories. Um, that's just my gift to you this week, Sam. >> All right. That's awesome. That's great. That's it. That's the pod. [Music]”

3 Wild Stories to Get You Hyped This Week · My First Million

Listen at 22:10

See every podcast mention of The 48 Laws of Power and more books on My First Million.