I dig you guys re: crypto but you seem clueless about how to find "the good life." Are you married? Have kids? Ever committed to anything, besides making money? Any foundation/belief that doesn't involve $$$? You're spot on about avoiding debt, but clueless about commitments. Commit to someone, grow together, have kids (if you want)--and do it as soon as possible. You want all your kids to be in their teens when you're in your late 40s. What you gain in sleep will more than offset what you supposedly "lose" when you're younger. I'm a paid subscriber but I'm starting to think your bullshit island is populated by people who have everything in the world...except anything meaningful. It's pretty telling this post didn't mention art, beauty, religion, or...really any of the primal things that motivate folks to make the decisions they do. Shallow. Few. And.
You're free to leave any time. This is a blog/website focused on making money and you're surprised the posts are about making money. Best of luck to you. If you want religion and family advice... go to a church and hang out with your kids dude.
OK, man, I appreciate that, and I subscribed because you know way more about making money than I do. But this post isn't entirely about making money. You're giving life advice. And...other than staying out of debt, it's terrible advice, and suggests a pretty myopic view of life. Commitment, relationships, art, beauty...this is what gives money value. You drifted into this lane, don't be surprised you're getting called out.
What in the world are you talking about. It is a money and crypto website. If you want the other stuff go somewhere else or unsubscribe. Getting levered up at age 20 is beyond foolish if you give up your ability to move around and make more money. Usually just guys who made money in RE during the boom that think otherwise (those days are dead due to taxes and massive other issues that are on the come)
Banned for a month for wasting time. There is no way that anyone smart would lever up with massive debt in the 2020s with a kid and no money and say that is good advice.
You all seem to think this poster is talking about this substack. He's not. The (banned) anon is talking about himself and projecting. He had some personal life event blah blah blah you can figure it out yourself.
If you 100% buy into what guy on the internet tells you then you got some problems man. Not every suggestion or bit of advice will fit every reader. Dumb to throw out 90% of one's financial advice because you disagree on whether you should get married at age 28 vs 33. I got married in my 20's (best decision I ever made, my wife is a baller and doubt I could have done better in my 30's) and don't entirely agree with some on here as far as RE investing if done correctly. Doesn't mean the advice on income diversification, crypto, business building, etc. is not worth every penny of my subscription and then some.
So much of this now days. Just because some of us don't want kids, it doesn't make ones life shallow and empty like those who have/want kids seem to believe. Those who push that narrative are just as condescending and ignorant about life as those they claim to know better than. Lame.
1. The greatest pleasure in life is winning, and 2. the definition of winning is having successful children. Most agree with 1 not 2, but toward the end of life nearly everyone realizes that 2 is true.
(The definition of "successful", is your children go on to have more successful children.)
If the definition of "winning" is the experience of pleasure. Then heroin addicts would be the winners because they experience the most pleasure. So winning cannot be this definition.
If the definition of winning is happiness. Then religious people would be the winners because study after study shows that they are the most happy. So winning cannot be this definition.
If winning is achieving status, or whatever makes other people jealous wanting to swap lives with you. It's nonsensical if you really think about it because different people are jealous of different things. Someone might want to swap lives with a tibetan monk while another might want to swap lives with a rock star.
Ok, but then let's change the definition to, winning is whatever makes *society as an average aggregate* jealous wanting to swap lives with you. Sure you say, different people want different things but there is an "average" of what people are the most "jealous" of- and that's the winner. Aka more people want to be rock stars than tibetan monks so the rock star is the winner.
But you would be wrong on this too. The reason is because it's all so subjective at this point. There's the mindshare problem- let's say people are jealous of Ryan Gosling, and some obscure religious cult leader. But even though tons of people know who Ryan Gosling is, nobody really thinks about him on a day to day basis, whereas with the cult leader, he might have less fame, but his followers think about him 100% of every hour of every day. So the cult leader has more mindshare, more energy expended by others being jealous of him. So you could make the case that the cult leader "wins" over Ryan Gosling.
In the end, there is only one metric that is truly objective, exists in reality and can be measured, and that is how many children you have, and how many children they have and so on. So this is the true definition of winning, thus the true meaning of life. I would be willing to die happily tomorrow if you magically gave me 100 direct biological children.
If you're still in doubt, just watch any nature documentary. It's science. Having successful children (note, NOT marriage) is the purpose of life.
Maximizing genetic copies is obviously the definition of winning, which is why talking about it triggers so many people. The average Somali woman has 7 kids. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc., all total losers. We live in Clown World.
Bad argument, because jerking off at a sperm bank doesn't automatically mean your sperm will be the one(s) selected to father children.
There is actually a doctor who kind of did this except, he switched out sperm with his and artificially got ~70 women pregnant. Think about the incomparable inner satisfaction & peace you would have knowing you fathered so many children. I'm so jelly.
vanished, I remember you posting your eth portfolio a while back and saying you have even more BTC. Still so bullish on BTC? What about ETH flipping BTC on market cap? I'm becoming an ETH maxi I think. Seriously thought about dumping all BTC.
I originally started out as 97% btc 3% eth until defi came along last year. I aped into eth at 0.03 btc/eth but should have bet more (crypto story of my life...) Eth gained against btc so right now I have ~33% more btc than eth. Do think it should be the other way around. The past couple months moves caught me off guard. So now I'm looking for a spot, over the next few years, to swap another good chunk of my btc for eth. I'm terrible with these long term positioning moves tbh. And I actually invested in the original eth presale too 🤦🏻♂️ I was a broke student back then so only threw in $135... Very mid-iq...
You're right. You don't have to have kids. But you absolutely have to find meaning beyond $$$. Or in it. What does it mean to you? Why get it? Where does it all lead? If you don't have the answers to these questions, that's ok. I don't either. But I called out the authors because, eventually, you have to account for what you say.
You're arguing at crossed purposes. You ask "Are you married? Have kids? Ever committed to anything, besides making money?" - none of your business for a start. But as they point out, they're a money making blog. The perspective they offered in this piece is true whether people like to admit it or not when it comes to making money.
It IS detrimental to leverage up in your 20's, if you're under 30 it IS highly probably you don't know who you are and where you're going yet. These are questions you can and should think about, but purely from a financial perspective - they have given good advice. To work out the personal side of it, follow and emotional hand holding blog who tells everyone they're awesome no matter what and that you should follow your passion for tofu flower rearrangement and you'll be happy and successful.
Have you guys ever considered doing a education substack/coursera type product? I'd easily pay $20/mo or what not for skills/projects to demonstrate skills (copywriting/sales/coding etc.) that have been deemed actually useful by BTB. There's too much crap out there imo.
The worst mistake is when guys in their 20's get married to someone who already has kids! When the marriage fails they're still stuck paying child support for a kid that isn't even theirs. I've seen it happen and it's not pretty.
The first part of this needs to be printed and handed out to college students in the first week they're at college. The college sales funnel works pretty well for the colleges, but not so much for the students, especially when mommy and daddy aren't the ones paying the bill. The biology/chemistry students are all pre-med until the very last year when they don't get in.
They premeds don’t get in because the real autistic chemists bend the curve up too steeply. But then the chemists finish grad school fast whereas the biologists linger on as postdocs into their middle thirties!
More that the American Medical Association controls doctor supply to keep salaries/demand high. 784k applications, 32k offers across all med schools last cycle.
If you're not starting your first faculty/industry position by 30, you're behind. If you're going for real money, have to be a VC group's science guy or equity in a startup that either can get sold to someone bigger or move drugs from Phase 1 to Phase 2.
Even if you do get in it’s not the best ROI. You give up all of 20s and early 30s as indentured servant in a residency program. Huge opportunity cost of earning/investing anything in 20s. Nearly everyone has high five figure or six figure debt. You have a (relatively) high salary after residency but you are still stuck trading your time for money.
That is also true usually lots of legal issues. It's funny how defensive people get about a decade wide general statement. It's like dude if you make it to millions by age 28 pretty sure you can have kids or do whatever. Misses point entirely.
A lot of people when they step back from partying/drinking etc, feel they’re ‘losing their identity’ and/or their friends won’t like them anymore. The amount of time you get back from recovery and the time wasted with those ‘friends’ you lose is invaluable.
Count yourself lucky if you get out of life with 1 real friend.
It isn't something you can control directly, mostly a numbers game but also depends on your character.
I replied becuase of a suspicion that this 'fear' kept two talented people I knew stuck like barnacles onto their (commoner/herd) social environment and the result was doing nothing with their lives.
I would rather work and have money with little social life than be broke and hang with the same people and doing the same things I was last year - Floyd Mayweather
Thanks for the reply Iguana, I guess most friendships between the average person are based on complaining and schadenfreudic competition anyways - that's why kids give people a reason to live - it all boils down to genetics and biology
So true about partnerships(don’t do it!) and aspiring small biz “investors”.
“I want to buy into your profitable business that I know nothing about, I’ll help make all decisions. And I’ll even pay a whole 2x multiple for the equity.”
Ha yes. The worst is when people want to buy a business having never even run one before. How exactly is that going to improve the management of the biz
Same issue I'm facing now. Put the feelers out, so far no buyers for 100% but multiple people want to 'partner' with me. Sure, put in same effort (though granted not a lot these days) for less % and have possibility of partner messing up and ruining my residual stake. Pointless. Will continue holding 100%, milking the cashflow and profits for a few more years and have less headaches.
The avoid dumb decisions advice is golden. Making it in life is relative. Just make less mistake than others and you're better off. Thankfully, most people are idiots so we don't have to be overly autistic about whether each step is a mistake or not - just avoid the obvious.
"Tons of gamblers and affiliates found the crypto space first"
-> interesting because I was multitabling (10-15 tables at once, easy when you have 8 arms ;) Sit'n Go Poker Tournaments (but I consider Poker a game of skill and not "gambling") in my spare time for 2 years with a decent ROI before quitting my job and moving into affiliate marketing ten years ago.
Invested into BTC and ETH in 2015/2016 (only discovered BTC through an affiliate marketing forum).
I'm sure there are quite a lot of ex poker players around that later moved to affiliate marketing (Charles Ngo probably being the best known).
Looking forward to play poker for coconuts and shells in 2035 with you!
Not sure what BTB's advice is, but I've had a little bit of luck through sites like eros and seeking arrangement (surprising lol). Eros typically has working girls that are upfront with their fee structure, while SA is a little bit more nuanced. The girls there aren't technically escorts, but for the right "investment" you can have some fun. Feel free to ask more and I can share a little more details.
You don't need a GF, but you need to be picking up girls that are not just escorts. This will keep your game tight and the skills learned here are more valuable down the line.
I would really like to start my own PE/VC investing firm one day. How do I do this while keeping the bulk of the equity? The smaller shops I know are mostly ran by 2-3 people that control the equity together and make the big decisions. Would love to hear some experienced advice on this from the BTB boys
Well, you once you get to PE, you will realize raising money from LPs is the same as having clients in IB—you are their bitch. If you want to keep the bulk of the equity just buy or start a biz, like WSP do. There’s a good book about this too (but on a much larger scale than just small small ecom businesses) called From Billions to Bust and Back (or something like that). Autobiography by Icelandic billionaire. The guy invests PE style with his own capital. This is something to strive for. Generally, if you raise money from someone (be it partner in PE, founder in a start-up, etc.) you become a corporate cuck.
This is correct. True that there are some LP’s that are easy to deal with/low maintenance but you don’t really know who’s a pain and who’s not until deal is closed. Best to use your own money hence side income. Then you start own businesses, buy own RE, etc.
I dig you guys re: crypto but you seem clueless about how to find "the good life." Are you married? Have kids? Ever committed to anything, besides making money? Any foundation/belief that doesn't involve $$$? You're spot on about avoiding debt, but clueless about commitments. Commit to someone, grow together, have kids (if you want)--and do it as soon as possible. You want all your kids to be in their teens when you're in your late 40s. What you gain in sleep will more than offset what you supposedly "lose" when you're younger. I'm a paid subscriber but I'm starting to think your bullshit island is populated by people who have everything in the world...except anything meaningful. It's pretty telling this post didn't mention art, beauty, religion, or...really any of the primal things that motivate folks to make the decisions they do. Shallow. Few. And.
You're free to leave any time. This is a blog/website focused on making money and you're surprised the posts are about making money. Best of luck to you. If you want religion and family advice... go to a church and hang out with your kids dude.
Go for it dude!
OK, man, I appreciate that, and I subscribed because you know way more about making money than I do. But this post isn't entirely about making money. You're giving life advice. And...other than staying out of debt, it's terrible advice, and suggests a pretty myopic view of life. Commitment, relationships, art, beauty...this is what gives money value. You drifted into this lane, don't be surprised you're getting called out.
What in the world are you talking about. It is a money and crypto website. If you want the other stuff go somewhere else or unsubscribe. Getting levered up at age 20 is beyond foolish if you give up your ability to move around and make more money. Usually just guys who made money in RE during the boom that think otherwise (those days are dead due to taxes and massive other issues that are on the come)
Banned for a month for wasting time. There is no way that anyone smart would lever up with massive debt in the 2020s with a kid and no money and say that is good advice.
You all seem to think this poster is talking about this substack. He's not. The (banned) anon is talking about himself and projecting. He had some personal life event blah blah blah you can figure it out yourself.
If you 100% buy into what guy on the internet tells you then you got some problems man. Not every suggestion or bit of advice will fit every reader. Dumb to throw out 90% of one's financial advice because you disagree on whether you should get married at age 28 vs 33. I got married in my 20's (best decision I ever made, my wife is a baller and doubt I could have done better in my 30's) and don't entirely agree with some on here as far as RE investing if done correctly. Doesn't mean the advice on income diversification, crypto, business building, etc. is not worth every penny of my subscription and then some.
So much of this now days. Just because some of us don't want kids, it doesn't make ones life shallow and empty like those who have/want kids seem to believe. Those who push that narrative are just as condescending and ignorant about life as those they claim to know better than. Lame.
1. The greatest pleasure in life is winning, and 2. the definition of winning is having successful children. Most agree with 1 not 2, but toward the end of life nearly everyone realizes that 2 is true.
(The definition of "successful", is your children go on to have more successful children.)
If the definition of "winning" is the experience of pleasure. Then heroin addicts would be the winners because they experience the most pleasure. So winning cannot be this definition.
If the definition of winning is happiness. Then religious people would be the winners because study after study shows that they are the most happy. So winning cannot be this definition.
If winning is achieving status, or whatever makes other people jealous wanting to swap lives with you. It's nonsensical if you really think about it because different people are jealous of different things. Someone might want to swap lives with a tibetan monk while another might want to swap lives with a rock star.
Ok, but then let's change the definition to, winning is whatever makes *society as an average aggregate* jealous wanting to swap lives with you. Sure you say, different people want different things but there is an "average" of what people are the most "jealous" of- and that's the winner. Aka more people want to be rock stars than tibetan monks so the rock star is the winner.
But you would be wrong on this too. The reason is because it's all so subjective at this point. There's the mindshare problem- let's say people are jealous of Ryan Gosling, and some obscure religious cult leader. But even though tons of people know who Ryan Gosling is, nobody really thinks about him on a day to day basis, whereas with the cult leader, he might have less fame, but his followers think about him 100% of every hour of every day. So the cult leader has more mindshare, more energy expended by others being jealous of him. So you could make the case that the cult leader "wins" over Ryan Gosling.
In the end, there is only one metric that is truly objective, exists in reality and can be measured, and that is how many children you have, and how many children they have and so on. So this is the true definition of winning, thus the true meaning of life. I would be willing to die happily tomorrow if you magically gave me 100 direct biological children.
If you're still in doubt, just watch any nature documentary. It's science. Having successful children (note, NOT marriage) is the purpose of life.
Maximizing genetic copies is obviously the definition of winning, which is why talking about it triggers so many people. The average Somali woman has 7 kids. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc., all total losers. We live in Clown World.
Bad argument, because jerking off at a sperm bank doesn't automatically mean your sperm will be the one(s) selected to father children.
There is actually a doctor who kind of did this except, he switched out sperm with his and artificially got ~70 women pregnant. Think about the incomparable inner satisfaction & peace you would have knowing you fathered so many children. I'm so jelly.
vanished, I remember you posting your eth portfolio a while back and saying you have even more BTC. Still so bullish on BTC? What about ETH flipping BTC on market cap? I'm becoming an ETH maxi I think. Seriously thought about dumping all BTC.
I originally started out as 97% btc 3% eth until defi came along last year. I aped into eth at 0.03 btc/eth but should have bet more (crypto story of my life...) Eth gained against btc so right now I have ~33% more btc than eth. Do think it should be the other way around. The past couple months moves caught me off guard. So now I'm looking for a spot, over the next few years, to swap another good chunk of my btc for eth. I'm terrible with these long term positioning moves tbh. And I actually invested in the original eth presale too 🤦🏻♂️ I was a broke student back then so only threw in $135... Very mid-iq...
Legend
You're right. You don't have to have kids. But you absolutely have to find meaning beyond $$$. Or in it. What does it mean to you? Why get it? Where does it all lead? If you don't have the answers to these questions, that's ok. I don't either. But I called out the authors because, eventually, you have to account for what you say.
You're arguing at crossed purposes. You ask "Are you married? Have kids? Ever committed to anything, besides making money?" - none of your business for a start. But as they point out, they're a money making blog. The perspective they offered in this piece is true whether people like to admit it or not when it comes to making money.
It IS detrimental to leverage up in your 20's, if you're under 30 it IS highly probably you don't know who you are and where you're going yet. These are questions you can and should think about, but purely from a financial perspective - they have given good advice. To work out the personal side of it, follow and emotional hand holding blog who tells everyone they're awesome no matter what and that you should follow your passion for tofu flower rearrangement and you'll be happy and successful.
Have you guys ever considered doing a education substack/coursera type product? I'd easily pay $20/mo or what not for skills/projects to demonstrate skills (copywriting/sales/coding etc.) that have been deemed actually useful by BTB. There's too much crap out there imo.
The worst mistake is when guys in their 20's get married to someone who already has kids! When the marriage fails they're still stuck paying child support for a kid that isn't even theirs. I've seen it happen and it's not pretty.
Ha that is just awful, don't know anyone foolish enough to do that
Scott Adams
Only if you adopt those kids. Otherwise, you have no post-divorce parental rights or obligations in most (US) jurisdictions.
Still, marriage is a huge risk, and kids are a great responsibility but also a great reward.
Weak move to ban him
The first part of this needs to be printed and handed out to college students in the first week they're at college. The college sales funnel works pretty well for the colleges, but not so much for the students, especially when mommy and daddy aren't the ones paying the bill. The biology/chemistry students are all pre-med until the very last year when they don't get in.
Brutal did not know that is how med works
They premeds don’t get in because the real autistic chemists bend the curve up too steeply. But then the chemists finish grad school fast whereas the biologists linger on as postdocs into their middle thirties!
More that the American Medical Association controls doctor supply to keep salaries/demand high. 784k applications, 32k offers across all med schools last cycle.
If you're not starting your first faculty/industry position by 30, you're behind. If you're going for real money, have to be a VC group's science guy or equity in a startup that either can get sold to someone bigger or move drugs from Phase 1 to Phase 2.
Even if you do get in it’s not the best ROI. You give up all of 20s and early 30s as indentured servant in a residency program. Huge opportunity cost of earning/investing anything in 20s. Nearly everyone has high five figure or six figure debt. You have a (relatively) high salary after residency but you are still stuck trading your time for money.
Having a business partner (almost) always ends in a lawsuit and burned bridge on a long enough timeline. It's like a divorce.
Also, no lifelong commitments in your 20s.... great tip.
That is also true usually lots of legal issues. It's funny how defensive people get about a decade wide general statement. It's like dude if you make it to millions by age 28 pretty sure you can have kids or do whatever. Misses point entirely.
Awesome post as always!
A lot of people when they step back from partying/drinking etc, feel they’re ‘losing their identity’ and/or their friends won’t like them anymore. The amount of time you get back from recovery and the time wasted with those ‘friends’ you lose is invaluable.
Count yourself lucky if you get out of life with 1 real friend.
It isn't something you can control directly, mostly a numbers game but also depends on your character.
I replied becuase of a suspicion that this 'fear' kept two talented people I knew stuck like barnacles onto their (commoner/herd) social environment and the result was doing nothing with their lives.
I would rather work and have money with little social life than be broke and hang with the same people and doing the same things I was last year - Floyd Mayweather
Damn Floyd is ice cold. Words to remember.
Thanks for the reply Iguana, I guess most friendships between the average person are based on complaining and schadenfreudic competition anyways - that's why kids give people a reason to live - it all boils down to genetics and biology
So true about partnerships(don’t do it!) and aspiring small biz “investors”.
“I want to buy into your profitable business that I know nothing about, I’ll help make all decisions. And I’ll even pay a whole 2x multiple for the equity.”
These people are delusional.
Ha yes. The worst is when people want to buy a business having never even run one before. How exactly is that going to improve the management of the biz
Same issue I'm facing now. Put the feelers out, so far no buyers for 100% but multiple people want to 'partner' with me. Sure, put in same effort (though granted not a lot these days) for less % and have possibility of partner messing up and ruining my residual stake. Pointless. Will continue holding 100%, milking the cashflow and profits for a few more years and have less headaches.
love these life advice guideline timetable type posts. Thank you!
The avoid dumb decisions advice is golden. Making it in life is relative. Just make less mistake than others and you're better off. Thankfully, most people are idiots so we don't have to be overly autistic about whether each step is a mistake or not - just avoid the obvious.
Reminds me of the Loser's Game by Charles Ellis (succinct version - https://medium.com/five-merrion-row/winning-a-losers-game-13cd93f16ab3).
Competition? https://www.seba.swiss/research/yearn-finance-decentralised-asset-management
"Tons of gamblers and affiliates found the crypto space first"
-> interesting because I was multitabling (10-15 tables at once, easy when you have 8 arms ;) Sit'n Go Poker Tournaments (but I consider Poker a game of skill and not "gambling") in my spare time for 2 years with a decent ROI before quitting my job and moving into affiliate marketing ten years ago.
Invested into BTC and ETH in 2015/2016 (only discovered BTC through an affiliate marketing forum).
I'm sure there are quite a lot of ex poker players around that later moved to affiliate marketing (Charles Ngo probably being the best known).
Looking forward to play poker for coconuts and shells in 2035 with you!
Amazing as always!
How can I get a copy of your 3 books? Hard copy by chance - or ebooks?
Again, cannot thank you enough for putting the time and effort into this content!
I am in tech sales and am 23. How is it possible for me to secure another at-home position or two?
General life question:
Don’t want a GF so I can hustle more.
Because you guys mentioned using escorts in the past:
What’s your framework for hiring/screening escorts? What’s the procedure in general? Total newbie on this one.
Not sure what BTB's advice is, but I've had a little bit of luck through sites like eros and seeking arrangement (surprising lol). Eros typically has working girls that are upfront with their fee structure, while SA is a little bit more nuanced. The girls there aren't technically escorts, but for the right "investment" you can have some fun. Feel free to ask more and I can share a little more details.
You don't need a GF, but you need to be picking up girls that are not just escorts. This will keep your game tight and the skills learned here are more valuable down the line.
It doesn't take much effort at all to keep a FWB around.
I would really like to start my own PE/VC investing firm one day. How do I do this while keeping the bulk of the equity? The smaller shops I know are mostly ran by 2-3 people that control the equity together and make the big decisions. Would love to hear some experienced advice on this from the BTB boys
I'm young, starting in IB. But will probably be on the IB -> PE wave for awhile here
Well, you once you get to PE, you will realize raising money from LPs is the same as having clients in IB—you are their bitch. If you want to keep the bulk of the equity just buy or start a biz, like WSP do. There’s a good book about this too (but on a much larger scale than just small small ecom businesses) called From Billions to Bust and Back (or something like that). Autobiography by Icelandic billionaire. The guy invests PE style with his own capital. This is something to strive for. Generally, if you raise money from someone (be it partner in PE, founder in a start-up, etc.) you become a corporate cuck.
This is correct. True that there are some LP’s that are easy to deal with/low maintenance but you don’t really know who’s a pain and who’s not until deal is closed. Best to use your own money hence side income. Then you start own businesses, buy own RE, etc.