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Welcome to the Frankly Speaking Podcast. Today I'm joined by Kenneth, who is a restaurant owner, owns three separate restaurants in Hawaii.

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He is an aspiring MMA fighter, gonna fight me one day, and blowing up on TikTok recently, does a bunch of chef reacts.

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And yeah, welcome.

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Hello.

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I was really curious to hear more about your background, because like, you're pretty young, right? You're like 28, 29?

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And then you already own...

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29.

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29.

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And already own three restaurants. Like, that's pretty impressive.

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I thought the whole restaurant industry, you had to like, really work your way up, and like, took a long time.

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Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the space.

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It's, I mean, that's not false. It is true.

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But yeah, just curious to hear, like, how you kind of grinded away, and like, made it to where you are so quickly.

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Oh, it's a very long story. How far back do you want me to start high school?

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Yeah, sure.

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Okay.

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When I was about to graduate high school, I had to decide what I wanted to do.

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And Chinese parents, they're like, I want you to be a doctor or a lawyer.

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You know all that stuff already.

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But basically, I wanted to either go to business or cooking or fighting.

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And they, fighting is like, eh, two to pick from, cooking or business.

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And then I just, I was like, oh, cooking eventually turns into a business.

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And I think if you go straight into business, like, if I went into business, I would probably be much richer than I am now.

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But there's, you'd always feel that, like, that void of being one of those people that just uses other people to get things done.

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And I guess that's fine.

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But having, having a specific skill that you can say, like, yeah, you can compare me to this other person, like, like an electrician, you know how to do something.

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It's not just pushing papers around and that type of stuff.

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So, my first job was at a law office.

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I was a junior in high school.

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This was before I was forced to pick and go to college.

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But, yeah, I had to take two buses to get to work.

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And then I would work for standard eight hours for, like, $7.25 an hour, I think.

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I was a bottom-level person.

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I'd, like, water the plants.

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I'd make manila folders with the prong thingies.

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You'd make a whole stack of folders.

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But one of my jobs, too, was shredding confidential information.

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And they had, like, an infinite amount of it.

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But everything I did there, I always tried to do it as fast as possible to get it done.

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But, you know, like those big black trash bags, I would fill it with shredded paper.

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And then I would squish all the air out, and I'd fill it some more.

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It's, like, compressed, I would fill up a big black trash bag.

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And then this one specific day, I did, like, 23 bags.

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I was so bored that, like, I wasn't, like, crying, like, how you would imagine somebody crying.

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But I was just so bored that one tear came down the side of my face.

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I was like, I cannot do non-physical work.

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I can't do paperwork because I need to.

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So, yeah, that's why I decided to quit.

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And then the next job I got when I was a senior was my first job was a dishwasher.

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So it was at a pizza place.

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I did the dishes, I did salads, and I did the fryer.

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So I did everything except the actual pizzas.

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And it was, like, no experience at all.

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It's, like, what is this thing?

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It's a sink to, why is there three compartments?

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And, like, how do you move things from left to right efficiently?

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And then I went to college, Kapiolani Community College, Culinary Institute of the Pacific.

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I started doing that, and I started working.

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And I did both things at the same time.

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So most people that go to college, they're, like, richer in a certain way where they just be, like, I'm going to college.

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I'm going to finish my college, and then I'm going to start working.

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But then time isn't only this way.

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It's how many hours in your day do you use?

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Like, most people just use eight hours or ten hours.

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But then if you go to school for eight hours, and then you work the other eight hours, and then you go to sleep, in two years, you could accomplish twice as much as somebody who just worked one normal full-time job.

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So I went to school, and I worked most of my college career.

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It's not just doing the work.

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It's doing the work with intention of trying to get better.

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Because you can have somebody who is just, like, a drone and peeling potatoes.

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But then you compare that person to this other person, like me, who was, like, how do I peel potatoes faster?

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How do I think about what I'm going to do next to get better at it?

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Because you hear people say, like, oh, 10,000 hours to get good at something.

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I think, like, somebody just pulled that number out of their ass.

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Like, let's say doing a rocher.

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That's the spoon where you make that smooth Quesnel shape, one stroke.

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If you gave a college student ice cream and you said, give me a rocher, they can stand there for, like, 5,000 hours, and it'll look like crap.

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I taught myself how to do it in, like, 10 minutes.

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And it was, like, 90% proficiency, I would say.

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Like, it's not perfect, but in 10 minutes, because I knew how to move my hands and how to get certain angles and how things work, basically.

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The longer you do something, you're going to keep getting better.

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But the margin that you get bigger by keeps getting smaller.

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So, like, if you did sushi for 10 years, you might be 90% proficient.

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You do 10 more years, you're not going to, you go from 90 to, like, 95.

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10 more years, you might go from 95 to, like, 96.

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And it keeps getting smaller, but you're never actually going to get to 100, because 100 is infinite.

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I did the associate's degree in culinary arts, and then I was actually there for five years, because I spent two years competing on the competition team.

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So, I was the team captain for both years that I was in competition.

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In school, there's this thing called the volunteer log sheet.

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You volunteer, and then you get scholarships for it, basically.

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There's two ways of getting scholarships.

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You volunteer for these, like, events and stuff, or working for chefs, and then you get scholarship from that.

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But then the other way is, there's this, like, outside the counselor's office, there's just, like, that board that you put the pins in.

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There's just, like, a whole wall of, like, papers that each one is a different competition.

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It's, like, this is a healthy cooking competition sponsored by this.

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This is a, this competition, that competition.

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There's so many competitions.

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So, I, this was when I was brand new, too.

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But I knew, like, I wanted to push.

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I wanted to do everything.

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I want, even though I knew I was going to lose, that's the thing is, it didn't deter me.

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It was forcing myself to fail and lose so I can learn from it.

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And every single competition that I could do, I went for it.

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And it ended up that, in my whole five years in college, I made more money off of scholarships than my entire tuition cost.

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And now I'm coming full circle.

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I'm actually going to be a teacher at that school.

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Oh, sick.

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Since I have, I have whatever free time I want to do.

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And it's going to pay me crap, but I get to teach people.

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That's awesome.

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I guess I had a bunch of questions to kind of follow up.

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But, like, I guess the first thing is, a bunch of people are super afraid to fail.

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Like, I think that's actually the one thing that prevents a lot of people from achieving more success.

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And it's kind of, like, ingrained upon us in school.

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Like, especially as Asian kids.

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Like, hey, you've got to be perfect.

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Get all A's.

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Yeah.

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And do all the extracurriculars.

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Like you said before, doctor, lawyer, engineer.

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You have, like, set career paths you can choose from.

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I guess what made you so unafraid of failure and, like, so also pragmatic?

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Because I think that most kids at that age, and, like, me too, like, I wasn't thinking about career or anything during college.

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I was just thinking, like, how can I slack off the most, pass my classes, get a good enough resume, and, like, play as much video games as possible.

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And just, like, effectively, like, waste my time doing normal kid things.

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But it sounded like you were already pretty mature at that age.

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You had a bunch of goals.

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You worked towards them.

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And you even did it without needing to.

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Like, you said you could have gone to college and just done that without working.

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So, I guess, like, what kind of drove you to do those things?

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And, like, were there any events in your life?

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Or is it just more kind of, like, an inheritance, like, I want to be the best I can and be really effective, even at that young age?

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So, first off, I was none of that stuff that you just described.

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I was, sounds like I was exactly like you.

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I wanted to play games all day.

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Yeah, I can tell you my whole game history.

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Like, every MMO I played, I played MapleStory for years.

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I played Diablo 2.

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And then that's where, like, investing, that's how the investing story got started with Diablo 2.

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But, like, I played games a lot.

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And I actually think playing games taught me my personality that I have now.

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I learned min-maxing from games.

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Like, if you play 15 hours and that guy plays 10 hours, you got five more hours of killing slimes and leveling up faster.

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I wasn't trying to learn these things because I was playing the game and I wanted to be better than everyone.

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I think being better than everything, everyone else, was the core of it.

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Learning how to be better than everyone by playing the games.

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It was play more hours, be more efficient, kill in a more efficient way, quest in a more efficient way, make money faster, learn how to control the entire economy through the auction house.

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Probably one of the first games I played when I was really young was, like, Neopets and MapleStory.

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MapleStory is, like, the prime example I'm going to use because I played that for so long and throughout my entire life.

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I don't play now, but as I aged, I got better at playing games and all that.

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And then you got more efficient at leveling and you know, like, where to put your points and all that stuff.

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But from that point on, as I got older, I got better at what I was talking about, like, making money.

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So, from when I was, like, I would say 16, when I was 16 years old and later, almost every single game, I would, there was this certain chronological order on how I would do things.

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First thing is, play the game until I'm max level.

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And then, you know, when you get to max level, that's when, like, the real end game happens when you farm things for hundreds of hours and all that.

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But a new game would release, I would download it on the first day.

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If I wasn't in on the first, like, week, I would feel like, oh, these guys got a one-week advantage over me.

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I don't want to play.

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So, I was always first one in, and then I would always play as much as I can, get as far as I can, as fast as I can, to gain an advantage.

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Because first mover advantage, you get exponential, you get free farm on everything, when in 10 days, everyone's going to be fighting over each spawn of a mob.

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There's so many games that I just got so rich, I could buy out an entire item section, or I could buy out everything.

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And then I would just post my one thing at, like, increased price.

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And if somebody posted something under me, I'd just buy it, because I knew I had so much money that I could just keep doing it.

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And then I'd just become too rich and quit.

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So, put it in gaming perspective.

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You have, like, index, all that stuff, right?

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I put all my skill points as a human into one thing.

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So, I was really smart at that stuff, but I had no social skills at all.

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Like, I wasn't well-spoken at all.

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I was super shy.

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Like, most from kindergarten up to high school, I got bullied to some degree.

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And I always got into fights because of it.

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And it would be, like, bigger kids that I have no chance with, or multiple kids.

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And just, like, yeah.

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Because even though Hawaii is the most Asian state in the U.S., the school I went to was not Asian.

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Oh, no.

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Well, because it was one of the, like, more poor areas of the state.

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So, it was a lot of, like, Micronesians and, like, Hawaii and, like, Filipino people.

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And, yeah.

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I think in my whole, from kindergarten to high school, I was probably one of, I was one of, one of one or one of three, like, between that range of Chinese people.

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And it didn't help that everyone, including myself, thought I was, my family was poor.

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So, do you know what a flea market is?

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Yeah.

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I also grew up poor, man.

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So, I know.

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I can empathize.

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I don't know if those exist in other places, but we'd go to the T-shirt stand where it's just, like, super colorful T-shirts and there's a sign.

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It's, like, $5 for $10.

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And there's, like, there's, like, a dolphin on it or there's a lei.

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Just, like, super basic shirts with, like, a print on it.

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So, that was the clothes that I ended up wearing.

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I'd always wear shorts to school.

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And I remember, I remember so clearly for my, you know, your sixth grade dance.

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You're supposed to wear nice clothes.

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Nice clothes for me was wearing jeans.

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And it was kind of fucked up what my teacher said, right, when I showed up.

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Because, like, I never wear jeans.

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I always wear shorts.

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And, like, I showed up in jeans.

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And then she was, like, she was basically talking crap about what I was wearing.

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And I was, like, is that what your parents made you wear to the school dance?

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I was, like, but, but, yeah.

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Anyways, it turns out my family's not poor.

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They're just Chinese.

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That's absolutely hilarious.

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So, I grew up in Iowa.

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It's basically all white people.

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Like, very similar.

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Like, one of one or, like, one of three.

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I mean, I never knew anything about our finances.

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I just knew that, like, we never got much stuff.

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My parents bought me, like, Game Boys and stuff.

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But, like, you know how, like, in high school, you're supposed to go out with your friends to the mall or something.

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Or, like, do extra stuff with your friends and all that stuff.

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I never did that with anybody.

216
00:15:13,540 --> 00:15:15,140
I don't know if you know what a plate lunch is.

217
00:15:15,940 --> 00:15:18,240
Scoop of rice, mac salad, and a protein.

218
00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:20,580
Just, like, $8 or something.

219
00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:28,620
I've spent, like, $20 on plate lunches with hanging out with people in my entire high school career.

220
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:30,480
Like, I didn't get an allowance.

221
00:15:31,420 --> 00:15:34,300
It was, like, you know, Chinese New Year's.

222
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:35,200
You get the red envelope.

223
00:15:35,660 --> 00:15:37,100
You get all this money and stuff.

224
00:15:37,420 --> 00:15:39,160
And then you receive it.

225
00:15:39,260 --> 00:15:40,700
And then you just give it to your mom.

226
00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:40,940
Yeah.

227
00:15:41,180 --> 00:15:42,700
Because mom's going to put it away for you.

228
00:15:42,700 --> 00:15:46,980
Like, when you want to buy something, then it's, like, oh, no, no, no, no.

229
00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:48,020
This is for saving.

230
00:15:48,180 --> 00:15:49,300
And it's just, like, what?

231
00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,320
What's the point of people giving me money if I can't spend it?

232
00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:53,420
Yeah, dude.

233
00:15:53,620 --> 00:15:54,020
It's, like.

234
00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:56,460
Then for Christmas, you would get, like, a quota.

235
00:15:57,040 --> 00:15:59,340
You can spend $20 this year.

236
00:15:59,580 --> 00:16:00,400
Buy whatever you want.

237
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:00,640
Right.

238
00:16:00,700 --> 00:16:02,020
Buy this one thing for Christmas.

239
00:16:02,380 --> 00:16:03,100
I was a bit lucky.

240
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:05,580
It was, like, one thing for Christmas, one thing for your birthday.

241
00:16:06,180 --> 00:16:06,580
Yeah.

242
00:16:06,580 --> 00:16:08,840
But, like, I played a bunch of card games.

243
00:16:09,040 --> 00:16:12,140
So, like, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, Magic the Gathering.

244
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:15,940
And the local game shop, they would actually give out prize money for winning.

245
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:18,360
So, that was how I actually had money.

246
00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:20,900
Like, I didn't get a part-time job or anything.

247
00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:21,800
Yeah.

248
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:23,860
My parents actually had, like, a negative allowance.

249
00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:26,780
So, if I got, like, a B on my report card, they would take money from me.

250
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:28,460
But, like, I don't even have, right?

251
00:16:28,820 --> 00:16:29,480
Oh, yeah, yeah.

252
00:16:29,660 --> 00:16:31,480
I remember report cards.

253
00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,160
Getting an A was $20.

254
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:36,520
Getting a B was $10.

255
00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:41,320
And getting a D was $5 or something.

256
00:16:41,780 --> 00:16:42,160
No, no, no.

257
00:16:42,260 --> 00:16:43,280
You have money for getting a D?

258
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:43,580
No, no.

259
00:16:43,580 --> 00:16:44,840
I would get, like, B for getting a D.

260
00:16:45,540 --> 00:16:45,860
Yeah.

261
00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:47,040
No, that's not right.

262
00:16:47,140 --> 00:16:49,900
It's A, A minus, B plus.

263
00:16:50,020 --> 00:16:51,760
And then you don't get anything below that.

264
00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:57,740
So, $5, $10, $15, A, A minus, B plus, $0, $0, $0, below that.

265
00:16:57,880 --> 00:16:58,780
Yeah, that makes more sense.

266
00:16:58,900 --> 00:16:59,080
Yeah.

267
00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:02,200
I was like, dude, like, what kind of Asian parents giving money out for Ds?

268
00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:07,200
It's really cool how, like, Hawaii, it seems like the community is super tight-knit.

269
00:17:07,900 --> 00:17:13,900
Nothing at all like corporate America, where it's just kind of, like, your connections don't really matter until you're much older.

270
00:17:13,900 --> 00:17:19,120
Or if you're already, like, wealthy and connected, then you have, like, friends, families, or parents that can help you out.

271
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:28,360
So, I guess it's still kind of unclear to me, like, how do you go from working at restaurants to eventually, like, becoming an executive chef and opening your own restaurants?

272
00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:31,880
Like, that entire process, if you can kind of go into it.

273
00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:42,800
The reason I just told you about me getting bullied in high school and stuff is because there was a transition from high school to college that when you go to college, it was like you get to restart brand new.

274
00:17:43,420 --> 00:17:52,440
All of these people that I went to college with are adults, and none of them had a preconceived notion of what my personality was supposed to be.

275
00:17:52,780 --> 00:18:03,260
And because I was so awkward when I was young, like, I couldn't make eye contact and all that, I could all of a sudden just try to be somebody else, be somebody better.

276
00:18:03,260 --> 00:18:06,320
When I was 18, I was making a goal for when I was 24 already.

277
00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:09,320
It was like, okay, I need to become this person.

278
00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:11,240
I need to be good at talking to people.

279
00:18:11,460 --> 00:18:13,300
I need to get in shape.

280
00:18:13,420 --> 00:18:14,520
I need to do all this stuff.

281
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:16,080
I need to get good at my career.

282
00:18:16,380 --> 00:18:24,180
And, yeah, I had a goal that was, like, a six-year plan of, okay, by the time I'm 24, I want to be a sous chef.

283
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:28,020
And when I'm 28, 29, I want to be a head chef.

284
00:18:28,140 --> 00:18:31,020
When I'm 34, because this is, like, the normal path.

285
00:18:31,020 --> 00:18:37,480
You open your restaurant, and then you just run your one restaurant until you die.

286
00:18:37,860 --> 00:18:38,660
And that's it.

287
00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:40,180
That's the normal path.

288
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:50,780
My mom, like, from when I was born up until maybe when I was, probably when I finished high school,

289
00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:55,040
the only jobs that she's held were, like, minimum wage jobs.

290
00:18:55,040 --> 00:19:02,980
Like, she would sell clothes at home for, and then, like, get paid a dollar for each piece that she finished.

291
00:19:02,980 --> 00:19:10,660
Or she was a bank teller for, she was a bank teller for, like, five, five-plus years, making minimum wage, like, $10, $12 an hour.

292
00:19:10,900 --> 00:19:18,220
But then this opportunity came up that, in Chinatown, she could start a fish market with this business partner.

293
00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:22,820
The strongest part of her personality is that she was personable.

294
00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:31,760
So, the other partner was better at, like, cutting, they knew how to butcher things, they knew how to sell things.

295
00:19:31,900 --> 00:19:34,780
And he was a very, he was a salesman, and she was a personality.

296
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:41,980
So, they partnered, and they opened a fish market in Chinatown about 10 years now, 10 years ago.

297
00:19:42,700 --> 00:19:48,680
And then, that's when they started making real money, not minimum wage money.

298
00:19:49,060 --> 00:19:53,640
This was about when I was 21 or 22.

299
00:19:54,300 --> 00:20:01,640
They made, they finally saved up enough money, and then the business partner wanted to open a Thai restaurant.

300
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:06,840
And then, I was already in school and working, so I was in the industry.

301
00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:13,200
So, I ate his food, and I was like, you don't know how to cook Thai food.

302
00:20:14,220 --> 00:20:15,360
Don't open a restaurant.

303
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:18,400
Like, stick with your fish market.

304
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:23,240
You can do that, it's fine, but don't try to open a real business.

305
00:20:23,540 --> 00:20:34,700
Not that a fish market's not a real business, but it's like Chinatown, where, like, you know, a restaurant is, like, you need to advertise, you have to make good food, you have to do customer service.

306
00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:42,120
There's so many aspects of a restaurant that's more American, where you have to be professional, because your customers aren't other Chinese people.

307
00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:43,660
They're random people.

308
00:20:44,060 --> 00:20:48,280
So, but both of them being stubborn, it's like, ah, we can do it.

309
00:20:48,340 --> 00:20:50,660
We, look how successful our first business is.

310
00:20:51,060 --> 00:20:52,220
Okay, fine, go.

311
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:55,740
And then, they opened the Thai restaurant.

312
00:20:56,140 --> 00:21:03,480
So, they would wake up at, like, 3 or 4 in the morning, do the whole fish market until about 2 or 3 o'clock.

313
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:09,460
And then, right after that, go to the restaurant and then run that until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.

314
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:13,400
So, they're working, like, 18-hour days.

315
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:18,720
And then, some days, they're just, like, so tired where, well, the business partner, he never got tired.

316
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:20,000
It was my mom who got tired.

317
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:21,800
She would just say, like, I'm too tired.

318
00:21:21,900 --> 00:21:23,440
We just closed the restaurant.

319
00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:26,420
They wouldn't, like, put up a sign, like, we're closed today or anything.

320
00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:30,720
It would just, it would just be, like, the customers are outside, like, why is it dark in there?

321
00:21:30,780 --> 00:21:35,560
There's only open, and it's just, like, yeah, that's not how you run a restaurant.

322
00:21:36,380 --> 00:21:38,700
But, they ran that for a year.

323
00:21:39,120 --> 00:21:47,060
It's just bleeding money because all the money they lost from the restaurant was equal to the amount of money they gained from the fish market.

324
00:21:47,060 --> 00:21:51,280
So, they're breaking even, but they're working 20 hours to break even.

325
00:21:51,620 --> 00:21:52,920
So, not a good deal at all.

326
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:57,920
But, I was basically working at what was considered the best restaurant in Hawaii at that moment.

327
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:04,340
So, I told my mom, hey, I'm going to quit my job.

328
00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,200
I'm going to take over the restaurant.

329
00:22:06,800 --> 00:22:10,120
I'm going to sell all of my stocks, and I'm going to buy the restaurant from you.

330
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:22,700
I'm confident enough that I can, I'm going to YOLO all of my money that I've saved and invested in the past, like, 10 plus years.

331
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,880
So, I started investing when I was, like, 13 or so.

332
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:34,680
And, that's because, like I was saying earlier, you can't touch the money that you have saved unless it's to make more money.

333
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:45,520
So, I told my mom, like, hey, I want to invest in Blizzard Activision because I played Diablo 2 and then Diablo 3 was coming out.

334
00:22:45,580 --> 00:22:48,020
So, I was like, this game is going to be really good.

335
00:22:48,460 --> 00:22:52,360
And, I didn't, I didn't know what a PE ratio was, a market cap thing.

336
00:22:52,420 --> 00:22:55,140
It was just, this is a good game, Diablo 3.

337
00:22:55,260 --> 00:22:56,660
I believe that it will do well.

338
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,080
That's my whole investing theory on that.

339
00:23:00,580 --> 00:23:02,040
And, she was like, okay.

340
00:23:02,460 --> 00:23:04,980
And, then, like, I put it in.

341
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:06,620
It was less than $10,000.

342
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:10,420
But, I bought in at, like, $13 a share.

343
00:23:10,740 --> 00:23:12,560
And, then, Hearthstone came out.

344
00:23:12,820 --> 00:23:15,520
And, I didn't, I didn't even know what Hearthstone was.

345
00:23:15,940 --> 00:23:20,000
And, this Hearthstone caused the stock price to go from $13 to $26.

346
00:23:20,620 --> 00:23:25,300
And, then, when Diablo 3 came out, it went to, like, $35 or something.

347
00:23:25,900 --> 00:23:30,580
But, when I was young, I did all this, like, oh, learn.

348
00:23:31,100 --> 00:23:34,740
Because, if you don't know something, you just listen to what people say.

349
00:23:34,740 --> 00:23:37,500
So, I was like, see what Warren Buffett has to say.

350
00:23:37,660 --> 00:23:38,720
I didn't know who he was.

351
00:23:38,780 --> 00:23:42,480
But, you just, like, Google, like, how to invest and stuff like that.

352
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:44,900
And, you just learn all this stuff from all these different people.

353
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,640
And, then, you develop your own investing theory.

354
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:49,920
Like, in the beginning, I didn't know anything.

355
00:23:50,020 --> 00:23:52,180
So, I was like, oh, diversify.

356
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,760
Because, that's, I don't know why, but diversify.

357
00:23:56,580 --> 00:24:01,820
And, then, I put a little bit of money into a bunch of different stocks and stuff.

358
00:24:01,820 --> 00:24:05,460
And, I only had one stock that I lost money on.

359
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,160
And, it was Pandora.

360
00:24:09,100 --> 00:24:13,660
And, then, I started thinking, like, okay, S&P 500, top 500.

361
00:24:13,860 --> 00:24:19,000
Now, what if you could reduce it to S&P 499?

362
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,760
Like, you just take out the bottom one that you don't think is good.

363
00:24:23,140 --> 00:24:24,640
And, just do, you keep doing that.

364
00:24:24,700 --> 00:24:27,140
And, so, it's like, okay, what's your top 10 picks?

365
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:31,400
And, then, it distilled it down to, well, what's your top one pick?

366
00:24:31,540 --> 00:24:35,140
And, then, that's when I became, like, a one stock pony.

367
00:24:36,180 --> 00:24:42,380
And, then, so, I don't remember how old I was.

368
00:24:42,500 --> 00:24:45,860
But, Amazon, like, I didn't know anything about the business.

369
00:24:45,940 --> 00:24:50,760
It was just, like, I can order stuff on a website.

370
00:24:51,020 --> 00:24:52,440
And, then, it shows up at your door.

371
00:24:52,540 --> 00:24:53,820
You don't need to go outside.

372
00:24:53,820 --> 00:24:56,620
And, this stuff just shows up.

373
00:24:56,700 --> 00:24:58,020
And, there's just massive catalog.

374
00:24:58,220 --> 00:24:58,820
And, it's cheaper.

375
00:24:59,060 --> 00:25:01,240
And, like, you don't need to walk through a store and all that.

376
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:02,560
So, I was, like, this is amazing.

377
00:25:03,140 --> 00:25:03,660
All in.

378
00:25:03,940 --> 00:25:05,140
So, I sold everything.

379
00:25:05,660 --> 00:25:09,980
And, then, I went all in on Amazon at $300 a share.

380
00:25:11,180 --> 00:25:14,260
And, then, like, it was, I was so, like, mind blown.

381
00:25:14,580 --> 00:25:16,860
Because, like, I've never heard of it before.

382
00:25:16,940 --> 00:25:19,220
But, I was, like, oh, I heard of it now.

383
00:25:19,340 --> 00:25:20,200
It was, like, mind blown.

384
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:21,640
All in.

385
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,480
And, I started telling everyone, like, Amazon is great.

386
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:25,440
And, all that stuff.

387
00:25:25,580 --> 00:25:31,160
And, then, even though I was making minimum wage, I could still consistently put money in the market.

388
00:25:31,420 --> 00:25:35,700
All this money and scholarships I made from college, I just dumped it into investing.

389
00:25:36,460 --> 00:25:40,540
And, I bought it $300, $500, $600, $800.

390
00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:42,880
I kept buying it whenever I had money.

391
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:44,360
Just, dump, dump, dump.

392
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,880
And, then, my mom was, like, no, what are you doing?

393
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,680
You're buying it at the all-time high.

394
00:25:49,820 --> 00:25:50,560
You're so dumb.

395
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,000
And, then, I was, like, I'm always going to buy it at the all-time high.

396
00:25:55,100 --> 00:25:56,420
Because, it's going to keep going up.

397
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:56,720
Yeah.

398
00:25:58,100 --> 00:26:00,340
2020, June.

399
00:26:00,860 --> 00:26:02,340
That's when I discovered Tesla.

400
00:26:02,540 --> 00:26:06,480
And, I was, like, hmm, this, this makes sense.

401
00:26:06,740 --> 00:26:07,640
Forget Amazon.

402
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:08,960
All in on Tesla.

403
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,400
So, I sold at about $3,000 a share on Amazon.

404
00:26:12,780 --> 00:26:20,520
And, I just went all in on Tesla at, I think it was $300 a share at that time.

405
00:26:20,820 --> 00:26:24,680
So, this is the equivalent of $300 a share went up to $3,000.

406
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:30,800
I also discovered options in 2020.

407
00:26:31,060 --> 00:26:35,600
I actually bought GameStop at $12 a share.

408
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,300
I bought $25 strike call options.

409
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:41,860
Nice.

410
00:26:42,540 --> 00:26:44,360
For one year out.

411
00:26:44,700 --> 00:26:45,180
Wow.

412
00:26:45,260 --> 00:26:46,160
Put it at $12.

413
00:26:46,540 --> 00:26:47,360
That's insane.

414
00:26:47,820 --> 00:26:50,120
Put 5% of my total account in there.

415
00:26:50,820 --> 00:26:51,660
I did the math.

416
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:57,300
If I went all in of when I did that 5%, and then I sold at the very peak.

417
00:26:57,420 --> 00:26:58,940
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418
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419
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420
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421
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422
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423
00:27:31,740 --> 00:27:32,560
I did the math.

424
00:27:32,860 --> 00:27:41,160
If I went all in of when I did that 5%, and then I sold at the very peak, I would be over 100 million right now.

425
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:43,020
Yeah, you can't do the math on these things.

426
00:27:43,020 --> 00:27:46,820
It just, like, it messes with your head, like, ever perfectly yellow.

427
00:27:46,820 --> 00:27:54,580
I remember, because the stock market opens really early in the morning here, I remember, like, for two weeks straight, every morning, I was like, ah!

428
00:27:55,740 --> 00:27:57,620
I was just, like, yelling at my mom, look!

429
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:04,300
But, yeah, it went up, and it went all the way down to, like, $40 a share.

430
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:05,460
I still didn't sell it.

431
00:28:06,460 --> 00:28:12,260
I held it from 12, I rolled it up to 800, it went all the way down to 40, and I was still holding it.

432
00:28:12,620 --> 00:28:15,740
Well, it went back up to 225, that's when I sold it.

433
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,120
That's still really, really good.

434
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:17,900
Yeah.

435
00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:22,380
So, I turned that 5% of my account into 50% of my account.

436
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:29,520
Yeah, it's like, I think a lot of people, like, the default advice is S&P 500, because, like, no one knows what they're doing at all.

437
00:28:30,420 --> 00:28:37,740
If you're looking to, like, the investing philosophy of, like, Charlie Munger and Buffett, it's like, they actually go heavily into the stocks that they really believe in.

438
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,580
Like, they went heavily into Coca-Cola, went heavily into, like, Amex.

439
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:50,560
And their advice that Warren Buffett made during one of his graduation speeches was like, hey, you know, you guys would all do a lot better if I gave you a punch card.

440
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,380
And this punch card is all the trades you can make in your entire life.

441
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,020
Like, you would think a lot more about what you invest in.

442
00:28:56,440 --> 00:29:00,180
And then also the investing advice of, like, you know, buying what you use.

443
00:29:00,540 --> 00:29:04,880
And it's funny with, like, the GameStop thing, because, like, I had lots of friends also buying into GameStop.

444
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,860
And also riding all the way up, all the way down.

445
00:29:08,940 --> 00:29:15,660
And then all the, like, exchange shenanigans, except most of them just, like, you know, panic sold when it's dropping.

446
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,820
I wish I panic sold when it was at 500.

447
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:26,440
Yeah, I mean, it's, I think a lot of these financial shenanigans.

448
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,220
And, like, your story is actually very similar to a friend of mine who, she always loved Netflix.

449
00:29:31,420 --> 00:29:38,060
Like, she worked in, she was really closely connected with, like, entertainment industry and worked for, like, HBO, super into movies and stuff.

450
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:42,100
And she just put all of her money into Netflix ever since, like, for forever.

451
00:29:42,300 --> 00:29:43,380
All of her working money.

452
00:29:43,820 --> 00:29:48,860
Yeah, Netflix was one of my, back in the diversity days, that was one of my picks.

453
00:29:49,140 --> 00:29:49,780
Nice, nice.

454
00:29:49,780 --> 00:29:51,360
Yeah, and, you know, Netflix blew up.

455
00:29:51,500 --> 00:29:52,660
Like, all these tech stocks blew up.

456
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,700
And, like, you could have picked a lot of stocks that performed really, really well.

457
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,860
Like, Shopify went up, like, 300x or something.

458
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:07,300
Like, a lot of these tech companies over the past 15-ish years has been, like, almost nonstop up.

459
00:30:07,860 --> 00:30:11,160
And nowadays, a lot of people are, like, no one knows what's going on anymore.

460
00:30:11,940 --> 00:30:19,800
But I think as far as, like, the GameStop saga and then even, like, crypto was huge and obviously it's dead now.

461
00:30:19,900 --> 00:30:23,800
But, like, NFTs, there's so many stories, even of, like, really young people.

462
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,040
Like, I get messages from people who are, like, hey, Frank, I'm, like, 18.

463
00:30:27,140 --> 00:30:28,440
I have, like, a couple million dollars.

464
00:30:28,540 --> 00:30:29,420
I made this from NFTs.

465
00:30:29,540 --> 00:30:30,840
Like, what do I do with this?

466
00:30:31,020 --> 00:30:34,600
Like, and people whose lives are just, like, drastically changed.

467
00:30:34,660 --> 00:30:40,400
And I think the way that people are able to find out how to trade and, like, the information's out there for free.

468
00:30:40,460 --> 00:30:41,520
You can find it so easily.

469
00:30:42,220 --> 00:30:44,080
And you can also trade so easily now.

470
00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:50,460
Like, I remember the first time I tried to trade options on Fidelity that so many, like, guardrails.

471
00:30:50,620 --> 00:30:52,400
They're, like, hey, do you have this experience?

472
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:53,540
We're going to verify your income.

473
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:54,600
We're going to do XYZ.

474
00:30:54,820 --> 00:30:55,680
Do all this stuff.

475
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:57,100
And we're still not going to give it to you.

476
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,840
And now it's, like, download a random app.

477
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:00,120
Boom.

478
00:31:00,180 --> 00:31:01,200
We'll give you level four options.

479
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:02,360
You want to sell a naked put?

480
00:31:02,780 --> 00:31:03,300
Go ahead.

481
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:04,820
Like, do whatever you want.

482
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:06,200
We'll give you 20 times leverage.

483
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:06,620
Yeah.

484
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:08,220
Infinite leverage glitch.

485
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:10,760
Like, I don't know if you saw that stuff happening.

486
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:11,720
People, like, found.

487
00:31:13,420 --> 00:31:13,940
Yeah.

488
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:25,760
I think in terms of people making and losing fortunes these days, and especially, like, younger kids in college, it's, like, a completely different ballgame than 15, 20 years ago.

489
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:25,880
Yeah.

490
00:31:25,940 --> 00:31:32,360
That's the thing is you can do millions of hours of research to invest in one stock.

491
00:31:32,940 --> 00:31:38,320
Or you can just close your eyes and throw a dart and end up investing in that same stock.

492
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:42,820
Like, it doesn't matter what effort and knowledge went into it.

493
00:31:43,060 --> 00:31:46,580
The only thing that matters is what you bought it and you sold it at.

494
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,920
If you both bought it at 10 and you both sold it at 20, you both doubled your money.

495
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,100
This person studied and invested for 50 years.

496
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,900
And this person's an eight-year-old who was, like, I like this ticker.

497
00:31:59,500 --> 00:32:00,560
Made the same amount of money.

498
00:32:01,180 --> 00:32:01,400
Yeah.

499
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:08,020
It's hilarious because it's, like, knowledge almost hurts you in a lot of these cases because, like, Doge was, like, a meme coin.

500
00:32:08,140 --> 00:32:09,520
This dude made it in, like, four hours.

501
00:32:09,900 --> 00:32:15,260
And he sold all of his Doge, like, the original founder, for, like, a used Honda or something.

502
00:32:15,420 --> 00:32:16,140
Made, like, 20K.

503
00:32:16,700 --> 00:32:19,100
And everyone's, like, oh, you know, it has unlimited supply cap.

504
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:19,820
This thing's worthless.

505
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:20,960
Like, it's a meme.

506
00:32:21,460 --> 00:32:28,740
And then Elon started pumping it and people who had, like, tens of millions of Doge because it was, like, fractions of a thousandth of a penny.

507
00:32:29,300 --> 00:32:30,260
And then it almost went up.

508
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:30,620
They're rich.

509
00:32:30,900 --> 00:32:31,300
Yeah.

510
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:32,880
Like, this thing's rich happened.

511
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:38,700
I put my notice in, three months pass, and then time to take over the restaurant.

512
00:32:39,180 --> 00:32:42,300
Once I took all that stuff, I didn't have any money left.

513
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,180
I had $10,000.

514
00:32:44,660 --> 00:32:51,460
So, that was, so, from the day that I got the key, I also asked one person from that restaurant to come with me.

515
00:32:51,820 --> 00:32:54,060
So, it was me and this girl named Elena.

516
00:32:54,500 --> 00:32:56,480
We were the entire kitchen staff.

517
00:32:56,780 --> 00:32:59,240
And then we couldn't leave at the same time.

518
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,140
So, she put her notice in for one week after my notice.

519
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:13,860
So, for one week, I was just in the restaurant literally by myself cleaning the kitchen because before it was my mom's restaurant, it was a Chinese restaurant for 30-something years.

520
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,380
So, I was just, like, scooping grease.

521
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,480
And then, while cleaning, I would, like, set up vendors.

522
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:25,620
And I hired people to put our new sign up.

523
00:33:25,740 --> 00:33:28,620
But, like, the whole restaurant, it still looked like an old Chinese restaurant.

524
00:33:28,820 --> 00:33:31,500
Like, the red chairs, the plexiglass on the tables.

525
00:33:32,020 --> 00:33:38,700
It looked, if you look on Yelp, scroll down far enough, it looks like an old Chinese restaurant.

526
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:40,920
And then Elena shows up one week later.

527
00:33:41,180 --> 00:33:45,240
And then she says, okay, Kenny, what do you want me to do?

528
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:46,200
What's the menu?

529
00:33:46,620 --> 00:33:48,960
And I say, I give her this piece of paper.

530
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:50,820
It's just chicken scratch on it.

531
00:33:50,900 --> 00:33:52,500
It's just, like, the title of the dish.

532
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:53,500
And then that's it.

533
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:54,700
And I was, like, they're in my head.

534
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:55,540
Just do what I say.

535
00:33:56,340 --> 00:34:00,060
So, I ordered enough ingredients to do everything.

536
00:34:00,660 --> 00:34:04,900
And then we cooked the whole menu based on what was in my head one time.

537
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,300
And then we taste each dish.

538
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,020
And then I just say, like, okay, this needs more seasoning.

539
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:12,320
Change this.

540
00:34:12,620 --> 00:34:13,760
Get rid of this whole dish.

541
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:14,460
It's crap.

542
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,380
From that point on, it was just start prepping.

543
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,840
We're going to start prepping to open for service at the end of this week.

544
00:34:22,060 --> 00:34:24,980
So, two weeks from when I got the key, we're going to open the doors.

545
00:34:25,980 --> 00:34:26,880
I didn't know anything.

546
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:28,340
I didn't have Instagram.

547
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,120
I didn't have any connections.

548
00:34:30,660 --> 00:34:32,800
I didn't even know how to get customers in the door.

549
00:34:33,180 --> 00:34:39,760
But word got out that I left that previous restaurant, which is considered the best restaurant.

550
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,880
And then, like, the story behind it, I'm assuming, was compelling.

551
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:51,060
Like, oh, this guy quit his job at this high-end restaurant to take over his mom's failing restaurant.

552
00:34:51,460 --> 00:34:53,400
And he opened it in two weeks.

553
00:34:53,660 --> 00:34:54,820
That's why it looks like crap.

554
00:34:55,460 --> 00:34:56,860
It looks like a pop-up still.

555
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:58,200
You have to start somewhere.

556
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,320
If you're never happy with your food, then you're never going to serve anyone.

557
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,900
And then you're just, like, caught in this spiral of not doing anything.

558
00:35:05,020 --> 00:35:07,080
Like, I'm scared, like you were saying earlier.

559
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:12,560
So, yeah, first day, we did 26 covers.

560
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,020
Can you explain what covers are?

561
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:15,880
One person.

562
00:35:16,460 --> 00:35:16,880
Oh, okay.

563
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:17,880
One customer.

564
00:35:18,180 --> 00:35:18,360
Gotcha.

565
00:35:18,720 --> 00:35:20,780
So, me and Elena in the back.

566
00:35:21,420 --> 00:35:24,380
And then my mom and the business partner were my servers.

567
00:35:24,780 --> 00:35:27,760
And their English isn't, they're kind of fob.

568
00:35:28,100 --> 00:35:28,240
Yeah.

569
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:33,660
So, when they serve my customers, they're like, oh, here's the menu.

570
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:34,820
And they just walk away.

571
00:35:35,380 --> 00:35:35,900
They come back.

572
00:35:36,020 --> 00:35:36,640
You ready to order?

573
00:35:37,100 --> 00:35:37,880
Yep, yep, yep.

574
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:38,840
And then that's the thing.

575
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:39,980
There was no systems.

576
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,020
There wasn't, like, this is how you write a ticket.

577
00:35:42,240 --> 00:35:44,060
This is how you greet the guests.

578
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:45,360
This is how you host.

579
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,020
This is how you, there was no reservation system.

580
00:35:48,020 --> 00:35:51,660
Every time something happened, I just, on the spot, had to fix it.

581
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:55,980
Like, okay, this is table 11, 12, 13, 14.

582
00:35:56,260 --> 00:35:58,620
And then that one is 21, 22, 23, 24.

583
00:35:59,100 --> 00:36:00,180
Or, like, tickets.

584
00:36:00,380 --> 00:36:03,100
Like, they would have their own way of writing tickets.

585
00:36:03,240 --> 00:36:04,540
And it wouldn't make sense.

586
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,460
It's like, why is the entree at the top?

587
00:36:07,500 --> 00:36:08,900
And why is the appetizer in the bottom?

588
00:36:09,100 --> 00:36:11,440
Like, we have to write table numbers on the ticket.

589
00:36:11,580 --> 00:36:13,180
Or else people don't know where to take the food.

590
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:21,140
And just, like, every single aspect of a business, a restaurant, I had to basically wing it on the spot.

591
00:36:21,260 --> 00:36:24,240
Like, there's millions of things that can go wrong.

592
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:30,040
And when they did, it was like, okay, I have to decide in three seconds, how do I fix it?

593
00:36:30,180 --> 00:36:32,020
How do I prevent it from happening in the future?

594
00:36:32,020 --> 00:36:36,660
And how do I make it right for the customer who had to deal with whatever it was?

595
00:36:36,820 --> 00:36:39,780
Quite simply, every day, we only did one thing.

596
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,900
Try to make less mistakes than the day before.

597
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,340
Don't try to be really good.

598
00:36:45,720 --> 00:36:46,880
Just try to be less bad.

599
00:36:47,820 --> 00:36:51,640
So, first day, we did 20, 24, 26 covers.

600
00:36:51,780 --> 00:36:53,140
Second day, we did 50-something.

601
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,180
And then third day, we did, like, 70-something.

602
00:36:56,300 --> 00:36:56,920
It was crazy.

603
00:36:57,060 --> 00:36:59,560
You're doing 70 covers as a brand-new restaurant.

604
00:37:00,020 --> 00:37:01,520
Nobody knows what's going on.

605
00:37:01,940 --> 00:37:05,580
Like, imagine 70 people coming to eat within a four-hour time span.

606
00:37:06,240 --> 00:37:12,360
And, like, I didn't know you could say no to people.

607
00:37:12,580 --> 00:37:13,920
Like, no, we're too busy.

608
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,040
It was just like, oh, somebody came in.

609
00:37:17,300 --> 00:37:18,020
There's an open seat.

610
00:37:18,720 --> 00:37:19,360
They're seating.

611
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:19,940
They're sitting.

612
00:37:20,460 --> 00:37:20,820
What?

613
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:22,500
20 people came in all at one time?

614
00:37:22,740 --> 00:37:23,240
Sit them.

615
00:37:23,500 --> 00:37:26,000
Give me 10 tickets all at one time.

616
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:27,020
It didn't make any sense.

617
00:37:27,020 --> 00:37:33,820
Every three months, I would rip out half of the menu, the bad half of the menu.

618
00:37:34,260 --> 00:37:36,320
And then I would replace it with new dishes.

619
00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:40,720
Over time, it got to a point where there wasn't any weak dishes anymore.

620
00:37:40,860 --> 00:37:43,520
It's just like, everything's a good dish now.

621
00:37:43,660 --> 00:37:46,580
And then that's when we didn't have to rip out half the menu anymore.

622
00:37:46,580 --> 00:37:51,620
Like, as you know, over time, restaurants get better or worse.

623
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:59,720
But in our case, since we're so bad to begin with, yeah, when we first opened, we averaged three and a half stars on Yelp.

624
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,340
Went to four, and we went to four and a half.

625
00:38:02,700 --> 00:38:06,500
It was hard because our prices were really low in the beginning.

626
00:38:06,500 --> 00:38:16,520
Like, per person, like $20 a person to have me, the fancy chef from this high-end restaurant, $20 back then.

627
00:38:17,060 --> 00:38:20,960
And today, we're sitting at an average of $150 per person.

628
00:38:21,460 --> 00:38:24,020
Like, $20 to $150.

629
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:27,800
Like, no restaurant does that.

630
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:29,180
I mean, that's a great story.

631
00:38:29,340 --> 00:38:32,440
Like, especially you mentioned, even the beginning of it was really strong.

632
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:39,340
Like, strong enough that, had you known about social media back then, like, you make a TikTok story or, like, post an IG.

633
00:38:39,660 --> 00:38:42,840
Like, I could see people in the news publications picking that up, maybe.

634
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,460
And then also, like, learning trial by fire and you, like, steadily improving everything.

635
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:54,200
I think a lot of your story really parallels just, like, not just starting a software business, but any sort of business.

636
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,580
It's, like, people, they don't launch quick enough.

637
00:38:56,660 --> 00:38:57,720
They don't iterate fast enough.

638
00:38:57,780 --> 00:38:59,840
And then you were, like, forced to iterate in real time.

639
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:05,300
Like, having a couple seconds to decide, fixing it, and then you saying, like, how it started off terrible and got better.

640
00:39:05,460 --> 00:39:09,260
Like, that's pretty much how all, most businesses go.

641
00:39:09,380 --> 00:39:10,400
The vast majority of businesses.

642
00:39:10,660 --> 00:39:14,400
Everyone's, like, trying to be a perfectionist, trying to make everything perfect before launch.

643
00:39:14,540 --> 00:39:19,740
Not realizing that, like, you need that customer feedback to recognize what's crap and then make it better.

644
00:39:20,900 --> 00:39:22,280
Are you a fan of Tesla?

645
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,400
Um, it depends on what aspect.

646
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:36,160
So, I'm a fan of them revolutionizing the industry, really forcing other providers to get onto the electric game.

647
00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:37,640
I think their battery tech is revolutionary.

648
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:40,280
I'm not a fan of their cars, personally.

649
00:39:40,900 --> 00:39:41,480
How about Elon?

650
00:39:42,620 --> 00:39:46,280
I think, again, I want to be a bit more nuanced.

651
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,160
Overall, I'd say I don't like him a lot.

652
00:39:49,300 --> 00:39:54,720
I think he makes himself into this kind of, like, almost mythical type figure.

653
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:56,340
I think he's an amazing marketer.

654
00:39:56,500 --> 00:39:57,360
Genius level marketing.

655
00:39:57,780 --> 00:40:04,400
But in terms of actual innovation, if you dig into his background in a lot of these companies, like Tesla, he's not the real founder.

656
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:06,820
Like, these other two dudes made Tesla, and then he came in.

657
00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:08,900
He was the businessman that swooped in and kind of took it.

658
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:18,960
And then, like, if you look into his own personal background, himself, like, he's had memoirs and biographies and stuff written about him.

659
00:40:19,180 --> 00:40:25,760
But, like, his true story is that he grew up extremely wealthy, and he was, like, an emerald prince, effectively.

660
00:40:26,380 --> 00:40:30,740
And he, like, you know, he has the whole self-image thing, or he did have it really down.

661
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:31,820
Like, everyone loved him before.

662
00:40:31,940 --> 00:40:34,420
He was saying, like, oh, yeah, I work, like, 20-hour days.

663
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:36,240
Which, no one does that.

664
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:37,220
Like, no one does that.

665
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:39,540
And then he's, like, oh, yeah, I was super poor.

666
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:41,200
Me and my brother just, like, sharing this room.

667
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,780
We, like, this whole, like, really heartwarming story.

668
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:46,720
It's, like, oh, these guys were struggling.

669
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:47,340
They had no money.

670
00:40:47,420 --> 00:40:47,920
They made it.

671
00:40:48,020 --> 00:40:49,360
You know, now he's back with Tesla.

672
00:40:49,500 --> 00:40:50,660
Now he makes SpaceX.

673
00:40:51,060 --> 00:40:52,480
All these really great stories.

674
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:54,860
But then eventually, you know, kind of gets exposed.

675
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:56,760
It's, like, well, no, he actually had all these connections.

676
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:57,880
He already had all this wealth.

677
00:40:58,120 --> 00:40:58,260
Like, he.

678
00:40:58,360 --> 00:40:58,540
Yeah.

679
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:04,400
So, I think, overall, I think he's still been extremely beneficial to humanity.

680
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,980
And he, both, because, like, SpaceX, that story is still really good.

681
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,060
Regardless of, like, how wealthy he was or how connected he was, I don't think a lot

682
00:41:11,060 --> 00:41:15,880
of people would, basically no one would have been able to do what he does or is doing.

683
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,540
I think the whole Twitter thing is a whole fiasco.

684
00:41:19,700 --> 00:41:22,500
And I'm not sure what the end game there is.

685
00:41:22,540 --> 00:41:23,800
It just seems like a huge misstep.

686
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:30,620
But then, on the flip side of that, it's, like, he basically destroyed high-speed rail in California.

687
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:34,960
And, you know, because everything's online nowadays, all his texts get leaked.

688
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:36,300
All these conversations get leaked.

689
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,120
And he effectively destroyed high-speed rails because he didn't want it to compete with his

690
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:40,740
electric cars.

691
00:41:40,980 --> 00:41:47,500
He made the boring company, which is just an ineffective method of transportation.

692
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,180
Again, in an effort to be, like, hey, like, don't build this high-speed rail.

693
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:58,680
And then, a lot of his altruism, I think, is kind of masked also by, like, anti-union and

694
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,200
anti-just, like, normal people business practices.

695
00:42:03,460 --> 00:42:07,760
So, he's, like, ruthless, kind of reminds me of, like, Bill Gates back when he was ruthless

696
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:08,640
Microsoft boss.

697
00:42:08,820 --> 00:42:10,860
But now, he tried to, like, reform his image.

698
00:42:10,940 --> 00:42:12,080
He's, like, oh, I'm a philanthropist.

699
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:13,440
I want to solve these issues, blah, blah, blah.

700
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:15,660
But, yeah, I used to be a huge fan of Elon.

701
00:42:16,820 --> 00:42:17,800
Not so much anymore.

702
00:42:18,900 --> 00:42:19,500
I mean, that's...

703
00:42:19,500 --> 00:42:20,940
I'm a fan of his philosophy.

704
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,280
Unlike how to approach things.

705
00:42:25,380 --> 00:42:29,200
His thoughts on first principles of how to do something.

706
00:42:29,620 --> 00:42:34,940
I've been doing it, but I didn't know how to label what I was doing, which is because

707
00:42:34,940 --> 00:42:39,160
whenever chefs told me, like, hey, this is how you do it.

708
00:42:39,580 --> 00:42:43,600
In the beginning, I would be, like, okay, copy them and do it.

709
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:48,260
And then, I would, while I'm doing it, I'm thinking, like, why are we doing it this way?

710
00:42:48,380 --> 00:42:50,580
How can we make it better and all that?

711
00:42:50,700 --> 00:42:54,540
And then, like, I would ask the chef, like, hey, what if we do this?

712
00:42:54,540 --> 00:43:00,300
And then, obviously, chefs, most chefs have big egos or whatever.

713
00:43:00,460 --> 00:43:02,180
It's, like, just fucking do it.

714
00:43:02,780 --> 00:43:03,220
Why?

715
00:43:03,720 --> 00:43:04,980
Because I fucking said so.

716
00:43:05,540 --> 00:43:10,660
And then, that's how you stop growth and stop improving.

717
00:43:10,820 --> 00:43:16,000
It's when you just, if you can't logically justify why you're doing something.

718
00:43:16,260 --> 00:43:21,860
In the beginning, when I had to make all these decisions, it wasn't always black and white.

719
00:43:21,860 --> 00:43:28,320
It was, okay, it'll make this thing 60% better, but it'll make this other thing 20% worse.

720
00:43:28,720 --> 00:43:33,560
But it's worth it because, overall, you have a bigger net positive.

721
00:43:34,180 --> 00:43:40,280
And then, later in the future, then you might fix that 20% negative and get better in that

722
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:41,540
and sacrifice something else.

723
00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:44,660
But just, overall, it's making things less bad.

724
00:43:45,460 --> 00:43:49,180
And it's never, it's never, it's always two steps forward, one step back.

725
00:43:49,900 --> 00:43:53,700
Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't realize it also applies to other industries as well.

726
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,820
So, like, even in software design, there's no perfect solution.

727
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:57,800
There's always trade-offs.

728
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,700
Everything's a trade-off, and you have to justify, like, how it'll affect everything.

729
00:44:00,860 --> 00:44:04,520
And even in your daily life, it's, like, juggling career, family, health.

730
00:44:05,380 --> 00:44:06,880
Everything you kind of have to balance.

731
00:44:07,020 --> 00:44:10,120
And if you put your time towards something, something else is going to slip a little bit.

732
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:12,100
And it's about, like, prioritizing these things.

733
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:17,980
But, yeah, it's really interesting hearing your restaurant come up story, building the business,

734
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:19,560
making these daily decisions.

735
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:23,720
Because, like, I think every industry has these parallels.

736
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:28,300
At what point do you decide to, like, step away and open multiple restaurants?

737
00:44:28,980 --> 00:44:30,720
And, like, was that really a big jump?

738
00:44:30,780 --> 00:44:33,440
Or was it just kind of, like, the next logical step in that progression?

739
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:43,180
So, it took me three to four years to learn how to make one restaurant function.

740
00:44:43,780 --> 00:44:46,580
But it's like when you do anything the first time.

741
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,800
The first time is the hardest because there's a learning curve.

742
00:44:50,260 --> 00:44:53,600
The second time, you just have to replicate what you did the first time

743
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,420
and hopefully do it better or faster.

744
00:44:57,180 --> 00:45:02,160
The key thing is, if I only have one restaurant and I'm always the chef

745
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,420
and there's always a sous chef and there's always all these people,

746
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:09,840
what's the most important thing in any business?

747
00:45:10,220 --> 00:45:11,680
It's talented people.

748
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:14,100
How do you attract talented people?

749
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:17,340
Money, position.

750
00:45:19,500 --> 00:45:20,940
You can boil it down to that.

751
00:45:21,060 --> 00:45:22,980
There's, like, treating people nice and all that stuff.

752
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:24,440
But it's boiled down to those things.

753
00:45:24,820 --> 00:45:28,600
Moving up, growth, and, well, it's all growth.

754
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:30,600
Growth in wage and growth in position.

755
00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:35,140
So, if you only have one restaurant and you're the chef

756
00:45:35,140 --> 00:45:37,940
and you're going to be the chef forever,

757
00:45:38,540 --> 00:45:41,540
nobody can ever be the chef because you're already in that position.

758
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:46,700
The only way for them to move up is to move out and away from you.

759
00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:50,860
And so, if, same thing, sous chef.

760
00:45:50,980 --> 00:45:55,100
He might leave in 10, 20 years, but there's 10 line cooks.

761
00:45:56,380 --> 00:46:00,800
All of them know they can't all have, they all can't be the sous chef.

762
00:46:01,340 --> 00:46:11,480
But if I keep opening more restaurants, then people know, like, hmm, even though I just started here and that guy has three years on me or whatever,

763
00:46:11,740 --> 00:46:19,620
they're opening so many restaurants so fast that just by default, I will get my turn to move up.

764
00:46:20,100 --> 00:46:23,440
Obviously, I treat the people who have been loyal to me well.

765
00:46:23,740 --> 00:46:28,500
But if somebody's more talented, I'll move them up faster.

766
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:29,120
But that's the thing.

767
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:39,080
I've, over half of my staff are sous chefs that I employ as a line cook because I pay so much.

768
00:46:39,420 --> 00:46:43,280
That's why I have all these talented people that I don't have to babysit.

769
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:50,460
Because normally, head chefs have to kind of babysit because all of the dumb line cooks make mistakes and all that.

770
00:46:51,020 --> 00:46:53,660
Oh, and one, I guess, quick thing for the audience.

771
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:59,780
Could you quickly go through, like, the hierarchy and the progression of each of these positions?

772
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:04,340
And also, like, a brief description of, like, what the typical responsibilities would be.

773
00:47:04,340 --> 00:47:07,420
So, dishwasher, wash dishes.

774
00:47:08,300 --> 00:47:11,880
Prep cook, you prepare things, but you don't actually work service.

775
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:16,160
Service is, like, when the customers come in and you cook, right?

776
00:47:16,380 --> 00:47:20,440
So, dishwasher, prep cook, line cook.

777
00:47:21,020 --> 00:47:26,360
Line cook is, like, saute, like, the grill guy, the salad maker.

778
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:27,500
Those are all line cooks.

779
00:47:27,820 --> 00:47:31,060
But in general, the hierarchy, like, some places don't have a grill.

780
00:47:31,060 --> 00:47:32,980
Some places don't have certain equipment.

781
00:47:33,180 --> 00:47:36,760
But in general, it's pantry, which is, like, salads.

782
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,880
And then, like, expo, which is, like, the ticket reader.

783
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,880
And, like, helps the higher people plate.

784
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:48,740
Like, plating is when you put the steak on the plate and then you send it up.

785
00:47:49,060 --> 00:47:49,920
So, it's, like, expo.

786
00:47:50,020 --> 00:47:54,580
And then there's, like, the main stations, which is the ones that actually cook on fire.

787
00:47:54,960 --> 00:48:00,440
Saute, which is normally, like, the guy you see spinning around with, like, ten pans on the burners.

788
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,960
And then there's, like, the grill or the broiler, like the salamander.

789
00:48:04,500 --> 00:48:06,760
And then, so those are all the line cooks.

790
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:14,240
Then there's some places have lead line cooks, which your job is to make sure your job is to lead the line.

791
00:48:14,380 --> 00:48:16,900
Make sure everyone cooks good for service.

792
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:25,720
And then there's, in high-level places, there's junior sous chefs, which is, like, a lead line cook training to become a sous chef.

793
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:34,380
And then there's the actual sous chef, which is a sous chef job is basically to keep the kitchen functioning as a whole.

794
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,720
Like, do the ordering, do all that stuff.

795
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:45,020
And then there's the head chef, which is, like, create the recipes, make the schedule, tell the sous chef what to do.

796
00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:51,580
The sous chef is, like, the highest person who does the grunt work and make sure all the other grunts get the work done.

797
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:56,060
Head chef can also be called chef de cuisine, like, chef of the food.

798
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:01,860
Executive chef is more of a management position where, like, in a hotel, you might not even touch food at all.

799
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:03,780
Your job is just to tell people what to do.

800
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:08,740
But in general, executive chef means you run more than one, like, venue.

801
00:49:09,420 --> 00:49:09,780
Gotcha.

802
00:49:09,980 --> 00:49:15,040
But some places, it's just like, oh, he's the top guy, he's the executive chef, even though there's only one.

803
00:49:15,380 --> 00:49:25,820
And then in places like Olive Garden or something, I wouldn't say that the top person in the kitchen is the chef because they don't have control over the menu.

804
00:49:26,140 --> 00:49:30,760
And this goes down the whole rabbit hole of how does everyone define what a chef is?

805
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:33,660
Because based on TikTok, everyone's a chef.

806
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,020
And that's why I get salty about that.

807
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:38,000
Nobody works for it.

808
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:40,920
Yeah, I mean, I pretty much answered the question pretty well.

809
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:52,540
And it's funny that you mentioned that, like, the chef nomenclature, because in corporate and, like, the tech side, everyone wants to add the word engineer to their name.

810
00:49:52,620 --> 00:49:54,600
Even, like, if you have nothing to do with engineering.

811
00:49:54,740 --> 00:49:56,140
So now there are, like, sales engineers.

812
00:49:56,380 --> 00:50:08,400
And there's, like, I don't know, there's all of these people that add engineer to the end of their name because engineers have, like, this higher perceived importance or pay or something.

813
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:08,940
Yeah, title.

814
00:50:09,060 --> 00:50:09,180
Right?

815
00:50:09,300 --> 00:50:13,980
And, like, I really, what you said about the progression, it's the same thing in corporate.

816
00:50:14,140 --> 00:50:16,460
Like, if people are not moving up, they're moving out.

817
00:50:16,780 --> 00:50:20,800
And it's not, it's almost more important for a lot of people for the title.

818
00:50:21,060 --> 00:50:26,640
And I could see there's, like, a certain amount of people who want the higher title for the same amount of pay, even.

819
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,460
Because it sometimes opens up more opportunities.

820
00:50:30,660 --> 00:50:31,780
So I guess more instead of...

821
00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:32,100
And it's clout.

822
00:50:32,340 --> 00:50:33,120
And it's other things.

823
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:33,660
It's clout.

824
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:40,700
It's like being a line cook on Tinder and you get two matches, but you write executive chef owner, everyone matches you.

825
00:50:40,980 --> 00:50:41,180
Yeah.

826
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,920
And so the same thing between, like, being a nurse or a doctor.

827
00:50:44,580 --> 00:50:44,720
Yeah.

828
00:50:45,020 --> 00:50:48,980
And I think that these, like, status games, people actually...

829
00:50:48,980 --> 00:50:53,100
People treat you differently because they automatically respect you because of a title.

830
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:54,240
Right, right.

831
00:50:54,380 --> 00:50:58,280
And it's pretty hilarious because Netflix before, they didn't have titling at all.

832
00:50:58,500 --> 00:51:00,720
When I worked there, everyone was a senior software engineer.

833
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:08,940
So, but when you don't have a specific hierarchy, like, companies will develop their own hierarchy within it based on something.

834
00:51:09,020 --> 00:51:11,120
Because as humans, we just love to organize ourselves.

835
00:51:11,260 --> 00:51:15,720
So instead, what we had was, like, okay, well, now you can see everyone's tenure.

836
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:22,900
So, like, someone who's there longer would supposedly have more clout to have more time to build, like, their connections or whatever.

837
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:28,880
But I think the difference, rather, in, like, the tech corporate world is, like, there was always the option to move out.

838
00:51:28,980 --> 00:51:30,680
So turnover was really high.

839
00:51:30,860 --> 00:51:34,580
I think Silicon Valley, the average tenure is around one and a half to two years.

840
00:51:34,740 --> 00:51:39,960
Just because, like, it's a lot easier to move up than to get an internal promotion.

841
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:41,920
Because, like you said, it's like a pyramid, right?

842
00:51:41,940 --> 00:51:43,380
There's only X number of spots.

843
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:46,440
And there's going to be someone there who's worked there a lot longer than you.

844
00:51:48,020 --> 00:51:53,960
But I think that it's really awesome how you kind of figured out all these systems kind of just, like, on the fly.

845
00:51:54,140 --> 00:51:56,300
Like, trial by fire, you're like, okay, all these people are leaving.

846
00:51:56,380 --> 00:51:57,240
How do I get them to stay?

847
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:03,280
How do I make a system to keep my good people as well as, like, attract other good people to make sure everything runs smoothly?

848
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:10,340
And I think a lot of corporations even don't figure that out because they're like, oh, you know, we'll just pay people as low as possible.

849
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:11,100
We'll get turnover.

850
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:12,300
We'll try to hire cheaper things.

851
00:52:12,300 --> 00:52:14,640
But then, like, the entire quality of the product suffers.

852
00:52:15,820 --> 00:52:27,880
So I want to talk about the one biggest change that I made that I think makes us innovative to, like, be way better than other restaurants in a certain way.

853
00:52:27,880 --> 00:52:33,080
But, like, okay, like I said earlier, I pay really high, right?

854
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:35,780
You might think, like, where does this money come from?

855
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,500
It doesn't come from the restaurant functioning on its own.

856
00:52:40,700 --> 00:52:44,460
Like, I thought about this whole, like, the whole restaurant system and all that stuff.

857
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:48,760
Like, I always just sit on my computer chair and just, like, think about things.

858
00:52:48,820 --> 00:52:53,480
I think about, like, how onion layers are and all that stuff.

859
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:59,760
And one of the things that I kept going over was, like, where does the money in a restaurant go?

860
00:53:00,300 --> 00:53:06,660
Because, like, and then you asked all these other questions, like, why do line cooks get paid so little?

861
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:15,840
Why do restaurants have to basically abuse their staff because, oh, work eight hours, clock out, and finish cleaning your station?

862
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:20,600
Or why does dodging exist where you go work and you have to do it for free?

863
00:53:20,820 --> 00:53:24,580
And, like, all these things, like, why are all these things happening?

864
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,340
And it boils down to restaurants are too cheap.

865
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:35,080
That's why restaurants fail so much because there's always somebody willing to, if your restaurant shuts down,

866
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:40,100
there's somebody waiting in line to take over your restaurant space so they can run their restaurant.

867
00:53:40,260 --> 00:53:41,220
And why is that?

868
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:44,120
There was this teacher in culinary school.

869
00:53:44,220 --> 00:53:46,400
He told me, well, he told the whole class.

870
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:51,840
He said, why do people keep running restaurants when they have such a high failure rate?

871
00:53:51,940 --> 00:53:55,200
Like, so few restaurants live past two years.

872
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:56,620
One reason.

873
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:58,980
It's sexy to own a restaurant.

874
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:09,000
Like, you don't go up to your friends and say, like, hey, come do your laundry at my laundromat.

875
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:13,400
You say, like, hey, come have a drink at my restaurant.

876
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:14,080
Don't worry.

877
00:54:14,460 --> 00:54:15,360
I'll hook you up.

878
00:54:15,500 --> 00:54:16,360
Like, that kind of stuff.

879
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:25,460
And then, like, when you become really rich in Silicon Valley or something, you get so much fuck you money that you can just be like, oh, yeah, what do I want to do?

880
00:54:26,500 --> 00:54:28,140
I want to open a restaurant because it's cool.

881
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,340
You get to hang out with your friends at your restaurant and that type of stuff.

882
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:41,680
So, money, excess money in other industries end up flowing into restaurants, even though they're horrible businesses.

883
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:44,920
So, why do restaurants make so little money?

884
00:54:45,020 --> 00:54:48,920
Because there's always somebody in line who's willing to make less money.

885
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:54,920
And, like, each region can only support a certain amount of restaurants.

886
00:54:55,100 --> 00:54:57,980
So, like, Hawaii, for example, we used to have 4,000 restaurants.

887
00:54:57,980 --> 00:55:06,960
So, theoretically, if no new restaurants ever opened again and the population stayed the same, no inflation, just, like, imagine.

888
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:09,380
4,000 restaurants last forever.

889
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:15,160
The worst restaurant who's, like, barely surviving, he's going to survive forever.

890
00:55:15,380 --> 00:55:20,680
But you throw 500 new restaurants into the mix, the bottom 500 are going to die.

891
00:55:21,340 --> 00:55:23,920
Basically, restaurants are really bad for making money.

892
00:55:24,540 --> 00:55:25,420
So, there's a joke.

893
00:55:25,700 --> 00:55:29,320
How do you make a million dollars in the restaurant industry?

894
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:31,360
You start with 2 million.

895
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:34,640
There's a common joke among, like, every industry.

896
00:55:36,720 --> 00:55:42,800
Back to what I was saying, I was thinking, like, where is all this money going?

897
00:55:42,980 --> 00:55:50,320
Like, my entire career before my own restaurant, the most I've ever been paid by somebody was $15 an hour.

898
00:55:50,540 --> 00:55:53,800
Other than that job, $12 an hour was my highest.

899
00:55:53,980 --> 00:55:58,160
And, like, I was pretty much one of the good cooks on the island.

900
00:55:58,420 --> 00:55:59,660
And I was getting paid so little.

901
00:55:59,780 --> 00:56:05,000
And I was like, why is, why, why can't people afford to pay restaurants?

902
00:56:05,220 --> 00:56:06,040
Oh, greedy owner.

903
00:56:06,300 --> 00:56:09,780
That, that's what everyone, it's like, they eat, it's like the cop-out answer.

904
00:56:09,900 --> 00:56:10,700
Oh, the owner's greedy.

905
00:56:10,940 --> 00:56:11,380
That's why.

906
00:56:11,780 --> 00:56:17,920
But once you start breaking it down, it's, it's not, some restaurant owners are greedy.

907
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:18,740
And that's why it is.

908
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,620
But most of the time, it's, it's not.

909
00:56:21,740 --> 00:56:27,300
That's why there's no big, like, other than fast food chains, there's no big restaurant corporations

910
00:56:27,300 --> 00:56:29,240
that serve, like, middle to high-end food.

911
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:32,640
Their market cap max is, like, a billion or less or whatever.

912
00:56:33,180 --> 00:56:36,800
But, so, restaurants are horrible at making money.

913
00:56:37,140 --> 00:56:41,380
And it trickles down to the expense that you can control.

914
00:56:41,620 --> 00:56:48,300
So, restaurants usually make between 1% and 10% profit, profit margin, right?

915
00:56:49,460 --> 00:56:50,880
And that's what I was taking.

916
00:56:51,020 --> 00:56:53,120
I was taking these profits.

917
00:56:53,300 --> 00:56:59,100
And then I started thinking, why did, why do servers complain so much about getting 20%?

918
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:07,940
Because once, once I hired new college students as my servers, then my mom and the business

919
00:57:07,940 --> 00:57:08,540
partner left.

920
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:10,740
I kept replacing the servers with better servers.

921
00:57:10,740 --> 00:57:16,380
Because whenever the price went up, new servers wanted to work there because the prices mean

922
00:57:16,380 --> 00:57:16,940
more tips.

923
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:24,280
And then the very last batch of servers that we had was, came from the same restaurant that

924
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:25,040
I used to work at.

925
00:57:25,100 --> 00:57:27,220
The really nice, the best restaurant.

926
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:29,600
So, these are Michelin-level servers.

927
00:57:29,860 --> 00:57:34,520
They could, like, open wine and, like, converse with the guests eloquently and be like, oh, this

928
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:36,000
is a tuila, blah, blah, blah.

929
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,600
And this is a 1984 glass of Chardonnay.

930
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:41,700
It's beautiful with the tannins.

931
00:57:42,060 --> 00:57:44,340
So, they could serve at a really high level.

932
00:57:45,180 --> 00:57:51,980
And what I realized is, these servers, only on a slow day, one server would run the whole

933
00:57:51,980 --> 00:57:52,620
front by themselves.

934
00:57:52,700 --> 00:57:55,840
Because normally you have a hostess, a bartender, a busser, and all that stuff.

935
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:58,340
But I just condensed all these into one person.

936
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:00,360
It was just, you're working the front.

937
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:03,100
It's your job to do the whole front.

938
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:09,040
So, you sit the customer, you take their order, you drop the ticket off, you make their drinks,

939
00:58:09,180 --> 00:58:09,800
you do all that.

940
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:14,500
So, there wasn't any, there wasn't job titles in the front.

941
00:58:14,600 --> 00:58:16,660
It was just, you're in the front, you're a server.

942
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:17,820
You do everything.

943
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:21,900
And then if it gets busier, you get two servers and three servers.

944
00:58:22,420 --> 00:58:23,240
So, yeah.

945
00:58:23,740 --> 00:58:28,280
Well, when they used to work at the other, the older restaurant, they were making $300 to

946
00:58:28,280 --> 00:58:29,420
$500 a day.

947
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:30,860
And they were working eight hours.

948
00:58:31,380 --> 00:58:33,540
And the kitchen people were working 10, 12 hours.

949
00:58:33,940 --> 00:58:36,380
And then they were only clocked in for like eight of them.

950
00:58:36,820 --> 00:58:37,880
It was really fucked up.

951
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:44,260
So, you always hear servers like complain about, oh, I made so little money today.

952
00:58:44,300 --> 00:58:45,260
I only made $200.

953
00:58:45,900 --> 00:58:51,360
It's like, the cooks just made $100 and they just worked, they worked 50% longer than you

954
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:52,520
and they worked harder than you.

955
00:58:52,520 --> 00:59:00,480
So, the servers at my restaurant, they were making like $200 to $400 a day.

956
00:59:00,740 --> 00:59:05,620
And then I started thinking, there's two servers working today, which means they're each taking

957
00:59:05,620 --> 00:59:08,560
home 10% of the total gross sales.

958
00:59:09,820 --> 00:59:11,560
I don't even make 10%.

959
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:15,920
I have, I had to put the money up front.

960
00:59:16,300 --> 00:59:18,920
I have to take the burden home with me.

961
00:59:19,180 --> 00:59:21,080
They just come in at four o'clock.

962
00:59:21,180 --> 00:59:22,680
They serve for six hours.

963
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:23,940
And they're like, okay, bye.

964
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:26,740
And no risk at all.

965
00:59:26,820 --> 00:59:28,560
And they just scoop 10%.

966
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:30,240
And then at any moment, they can quit.

967
00:59:30,460 --> 00:59:34,440
And like, there's no burden to being a server.

968
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:37,360
And they're taking home 10% of the total gross sales.

969
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:40,940
So, I was like, hmm, that's where all the money's going.

970
00:59:41,660 --> 00:59:46,240
In December of 2019, one of the servers quit.

971
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,840
And then the other two servers couldn't take over their shifts.

972
00:59:49,980 --> 00:59:51,420
So, I had to start serving.

973
00:59:52,100 --> 00:59:58,000
Normally, one server at most can handle 25 to 30 covers alone.

974
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:04,480
And then beyond that, if you're doing a 40 cover night up to like 50, 5, 60, that would

975
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:05,460
be a two server night.

976
01:00:06,180 --> 01:00:08,520
And that was, these are like high level servers.

977
01:00:08,860 --> 01:00:10,380
And they could handle that many.

978
01:00:10,860 --> 01:00:16,800
But when I started serving, because I had the like mindset of a kitchen person, which is

979
01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:19,280
like fit things together efficiently and all that stuff.

980
01:00:20,420 --> 01:00:25,020
The busiest day that I served by myself was 76 people.

981
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:26,600
One person.

982
01:00:26,860 --> 01:00:28,420
That was a really, really rough day.

983
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:33,160
Like, it wasn't good service, but it got done.

984
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,260
So, that was the day that Taika Watiki, you know who that is?

985
01:00:37,820 --> 01:00:38,680
Name sounds familiar.

986
01:00:39,500 --> 01:00:41,660
He's the director of Thor.

987
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:43,180
Oh, right, right, right.

988
01:00:43,240 --> 01:00:44,440
He's the Marvel director, yeah.

989
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:45,100
Yeah.

990
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:52,020
So, he walked in on that day that I was doing 76 covers or something, like at like 8.30.

991
01:00:52,260 --> 01:00:53,060
He came in.

992
01:00:53,100 --> 01:00:54,060
I didn't know who he was.

993
01:00:54,180 --> 01:00:54,540
He came in.

994
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:57,860
I was like, oh, can I get on the wait list?

995
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:03,080
And then I was like, I just looked and the whole room is really full.

996
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,580
And, like, I'm super busy.

997
01:01:05,940 --> 01:01:11,180
And I was like, ah, no, we're fully booked for the night.

998
01:01:12,380 --> 01:01:14,380
Because there's just too much happening.

999
01:01:14,580 --> 01:01:16,340
And he was actually very nice about it.

1000
01:01:16,340 --> 01:01:18,060
He wasn't like, you know who I am.

1001
01:01:18,740 --> 01:01:20,520
He was just like, oh, okay, thank you.

1002
01:01:20,600 --> 01:01:21,260
And then he left.

1003
01:01:21,380 --> 01:01:24,900
And then the first table I went to after that, he was like, you know who that was, right?

1004
01:01:24,980 --> 01:01:27,940
And I was like, no, that's Taiko Atiki.

1005
01:01:28,340 --> 01:01:29,220
I don't know who that is.

1006
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:31,480
He's the director of Thor 3 or whatever.

1007
01:01:31,620 --> 01:01:33,920
And I was like, oh, I'm too busy.

1008
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:34,340
I don't care.

1009
01:01:35,740 --> 01:01:45,800
I realized that kitchen staff could, because of what we do naturally, we can move faster and more efficiently than the servers.

1010
01:01:46,140 --> 01:01:49,800
Now, we can't serve as eloquently as them and all that.

1011
01:01:49,860 --> 01:01:51,700
But we can make up for it in other ways.

1012
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:54,920
Because do you want to be served food?

1013
01:01:55,180 --> 01:01:56,280
Like, I'm a robot.

1014
01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:57,400
I pick things up.

1015
01:01:57,500 --> 01:01:58,380
I put things down.

1016
01:01:58,480 --> 01:01:59,560
I recite my speech.

1017
01:01:59,960 --> 01:02:00,320
Thank you.

1018
01:02:00,380 --> 01:02:00,960
Have a good meal.

1019
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:09,160
Or do you want the chef to come out who, like, literally cooked the dish and, like, hi, we prepared this dish for you.

1020
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:10,740
And he looks like a chef.

1021
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:14,480
And he's like, wow, this person cooked this dish.

1022
01:02:14,620 --> 01:02:17,860
And he's willing to serve me and look me in the eye.

1023
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:21,000
And, like, I'm proud enough to sell you this dish.

1024
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:29,220
So when COVID happened, I laid off all of the servers, obviously, because we had to be shut down for, like, two or three months.

1025
01:02:29,480 --> 01:02:30,980
No dining at all.

1026
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:32,200
So I laid them off.

1027
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:40,040
And when we reopened after the three months, I started serving by myself because it was dead anyway.

1028
01:02:40,180 --> 01:02:42,540
So you're doing, like, five cover days and whatever.

1029
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:44,780
So we got more and more busy again.

1030
01:02:45,140 --> 01:02:51,020
But I never hired servers back because I was like, wow, there's 20% more money in the business.

1031
01:02:51,760 --> 01:02:52,660
That's crazy.

1032
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:59,300
That's really insightful, like, knowing kind of where all the money goes and how, like, you're optimizing every bit of it.

1033
01:02:59,980 --> 01:03:04,320
So it ended up that I trained the kitchen staff how to serve.

1034
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:06,140
And that's where we are today.

1035
01:03:06,300 --> 01:03:08,500
We've never hired a server since then.

1036
01:03:08,580 --> 01:03:09,800
And we never will.

1037
01:03:09,940 --> 01:03:12,320
It's always going to be kitchen staff from this point on.

1038
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:14,000
If you think about it, what's harder to do?

1039
01:03:14,060 --> 01:03:18,080
To teach a server how to cook or to teach a cook how to serve.

1040
01:03:18,580 --> 01:03:26,280
As long as you're not, like, sketchy looking and you're clean and you can speak to a certain degree, you can be a server.

1041
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:29,540
Like, yeah, it's not that hard.

1042
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:30,780
That's hilarious.

1043
01:03:30,980 --> 01:03:31,540
The high level is hard.

1044
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:32,520
But, you know.

1045
01:03:32,780 --> 01:03:33,800
Yeah, like, not impossible.

1046
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:36,060
There's a similar saying in software.

1047
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:42,140
It's like you can teach a tech person business skills, but it's really hard to teach, like, a business person the tech side of things.

1048
01:03:42,140 --> 01:03:44,240
Like, the hard skills to actually, like, build an app or something.

1049
01:03:44,300 --> 01:03:47,320
Yeah, that's amazing.

1050
01:03:47,500 --> 01:03:54,720
I figure, like, a lot of restaurants might start to adopt that strategy, especially, like, you said the business economics just make way more sense.

1051
01:03:54,780 --> 01:03:56,440
You're able to pay the cooks a lot more.

1052
01:03:56,440 --> 01:04:03,960
And then you having your own personal experience and, like, the empathy with the cooks and also having the oversight of, like, where does all this money go?

1053
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:12,000
Yeah, and there's a lot of infighting, too, with, like, the front and the house and the back of the house because the front would come to the back and be like, hey, how much did you make?

1054
01:04:12,460 --> 01:04:13,960
Ah, my day sucked today.

1055
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:15,780
You know, like, the server is whispering in the corner.

1056
01:04:16,020 --> 01:04:16,480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1057
01:04:16,760 --> 01:04:19,020
And then the cooks just, like, fuck both of you.

1058
01:04:19,900 --> 01:04:27,580
So there's, like, no matter what you do, there's always going to be this divide between the front and the back because they make so much more money than you.

1059
01:04:27,580 --> 01:04:29,800
They work less than you and all this other stuff.

1060
01:04:29,920 --> 01:04:32,260
And they're like, oh, but we have to deal with customers.

1061
01:04:32,620 --> 01:04:34,060
And why don't you be a server?

1062
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:36,680
And you have 10 back, 10 front.

1063
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:38,280
You have 20 staff total.

1064
01:04:39,020 --> 01:04:41,640
What if those 20 staff could work together?

1065
01:04:41,820 --> 01:04:42,760
You don't need 20.

1066
01:04:42,860 --> 01:04:43,700
You only need 15.

1067
01:04:43,700 --> 01:04:50,260
15 because, like, if it's really busy in the kitchen, move more people to the back from the front.

1068
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:56,860
If it's more busy in the front, you can, like, if no tickets came in yet, no food has to be cooked.

1069
01:04:57,160 --> 01:05:01,020
But then this, like, five tables come in at one time.

1070
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:05,700
The person in the front could go in the back and be like, hey, guys, I need all of you guys to help me.

1071
01:05:05,820 --> 01:05:06,720
You take that table.

1072
01:05:06,820 --> 01:05:07,540
You take that table.

1073
01:05:07,620 --> 01:05:08,060
You take that.

1074
01:05:08,060 --> 01:05:11,280
And, like, it's just more efficient because everyone's more flexible.

1075
01:05:11,720 --> 01:05:13,200
So, it saves money.

1076
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:15,460
And then that's how I can pay so much.

1077
01:05:15,820 --> 01:05:22,680
Average wage of all of my staff make above 50K, which is unheard of for kitchen people.

1078
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:25,500
That's normally, like, a high-paid sous chef.

1079
01:05:27,060 --> 01:05:28,060
Yeah, that's really amazing.

1080
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:36,180
I imagine that, like, a lot more restaurants will start to adopt this strategy because it just, you know, me as an outsider, I don't know anything about cooking, really.

1081
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:38,680
But, you know, it all makes sense to me.

1082
01:05:38,740 --> 01:05:40,040
Like, why wouldn't people do it this way?

1083
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:45,580
Yeah, but most people, most restaurants are, like, this is how it's always been done.

1084
01:05:45,820 --> 01:05:49,460
I don't, like, they're just stuck in their old ways.

1085
01:05:49,540 --> 01:05:50,780
They don't want to change.

1086
01:05:51,180 --> 01:05:51,740
And it's hard.

1087
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:52,380
It is scary.

1088
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:55,100
Like, one, does the cook actually want to serve?

1089
01:05:55,300 --> 01:06:05,040
And then is he, like, what if he, like, you got to have nice teeth to serve and you have to be friendly and that type of, like, you're not going to find that in every restaurant.

1090
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:10,660
So it's only going to work in specific niches, mainly, like, high-end restaurants and all that.

1091
01:06:10,740 --> 01:06:20,880
Like, you can't go to a big city diner or something and be like, oh, that guy who has, like, he's chewing on, like, a beetle nut and he has black teeth.

1092
01:06:21,580 --> 01:06:22,540
You can't do it.

1093
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:28,640
Man, I really like how you're front and back of the line analogy because you can find that in pretty much every industry as well.

1094
01:06:28,720 --> 01:06:30,860
So, like, in finance, they have, like, front and back office.

1095
01:06:31,340 --> 01:06:32,880
And, like, the front office is making all the money.

1096
01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:34,800
They have the prestige and everything.

1097
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:37,960
But the back office, like, they're doing all the behind-the-scenes work, the infrastructure.

1098
01:06:38,580 --> 01:06:39,640
And they just kind of get shit on.

1099
01:06:39,900 --> 01:06:40,900
And, like, they get paid less.

1100
01:06:41,420 --> 01:06:45,140
And even for, like, development, you have, like, the testers and the developers.

1101
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:47,440
And developers, they just, like, throw shit.

1102
01:06:47,660 --> 01:06:49,420
And like you said, there's lots of infighting.

1103
01:06:49,780 --> 01:06:54,180
But then the industry kind of moved towards, like, okay, well, now we're firing all the testers.

1104
01:06:54,380 --> 01:06:55,960
Every developer has to test their own code now.

1105
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:59,280
Like, and that's just kind of where we moved to.

1106
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:05,440
And it's, like, there's specialized positions when it gets bigger companies, like, front-end, back-end infrastructure, blah, blah, blah.

1107
01:07:05,800 --> 01:07:10,360
But smaller companies where things are really agile and people are moving quickly, everyone does everything.

1108
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:11,880
It's, like, you wear a bunch of different hats.

1109
01:07:12,040 --> 01:07:13,880
There's more than enough work to go around.

1110
01:07:14,580 --> 01:07:14,640
Yeah.

1111
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:25,960
But, like you said, as far as restaurant scaling, the reason you started these more restaurants was to make sure that there was a pipeline for people to progress in growth, be able to retain your talent.

1112
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:33,120
Well, that's one of the reasons, like I was saying, it's, like, it's a whole scope of thinking where everything affects everything.

1113
01:07:33,580 --> 01:07:41,580
Another reason I want to open more is there's a lot of shitty chefs that, like, scream and stuff.

1114
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:44,820
And they, like, abuse people and all that stuff.

1115
01:07:44,920 --> 01:07:50,740
Like, my logic is for every one restaurant I open, that's one less restaurant that they could have been.

1116
01:07:51,580 --> 01:07:52,520
It's very hierarchical.

1117
01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:54,080
Like, people screaming at each other is normal.

1118
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:56,520
And things are shitty just because that's the way it's always been done.

1119
01:07:57,040 --> 01:07:58,360
And I think other industries are...

1120
01:07:58,360 --> 01:08:01,480
Like, whipping your children and then you being the one parent who doesn't.

1121
01:08:01,660 --> 01:08:03,820
Yeah, like, breaking this cycle.

1122
01:08:04,740 --> 01:08:05,960
But, like, finance is the same.

1123
01:08:06,120 --> 01:08:07,720
I doubt it changes anytime soon.

1124
01:08:08,300 --> 01:08:09,960
Same thing with even, like, medicine.

1125
01:08:10,160 --> 01:08:14,320
Like, as a doctor, you eat a ton of shit and you work super long hours.

1126
01:08:14,420 --> 01:08:16,400
Don't get paid much until later on.

1127
01:08:17,640 --> 01:08:21,100
I know that the entertainment industry is notoriously bad for that.

1128
01:08:21,580 --> 01:08:22,780
Like, it's kind of...

1129
01:08:22,780 --> 01:08:25,060
You get paid nothing for a very, very long time.

1130
01:08:25,260 --> 01:08:26,460
You know, you've got to put in your dues.

1131
01:08:26,740 --> 01:08:27,380
Work your way up.

1132
01:08:27,660 --> 01:08:28,200
Same everywhere.

1133
01:08:28,340 --> 01:08:28,820
Like, TikTok.

1134
01:08:29,140 --> 01:08:31,860
Nobody gets paid unless you're the top 1%.

1135
01:08:31,860 --> 01:08:36,000
I would argue that a little bit.

1136
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:36,600
Because, like, it depends.

1137
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:37,360
Well, it scales.

1138
01:08:37,540 --> 01:08:40,940
But, like, the biggest people get the exponential returns.

1139
01:08:41,180 --> 01:08:41,720
They get the spot.

1140
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:42,480
It's...

1141
01:08:42,480 --> 01:08:42,680
Okay.

1142
01:08:43,120 --> 01:08:46,780
For anyone listening who wants to make money, social media is not the way to go.

1143
01:08:46,980 --> 01:08:49,000
Like, even the people at the very tip-top.

1144
01:08:49,120 --> 01:08:50,320
So, like, I've...

1145
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:52,720
You know, like you, I've also always been interested in money.

1146
01:08:52,860 --> 01:08:53,920
Like, how do I min-max my money?

1147
01:08:53,980 --> 01:08:55,060
How do I make the most amount of money?

1148
01:08:55,460 --> 01:08:57,220
What industries to go to, et cetera, et cetera.

1149
01:08:58,040 --> 01:08:59,540
If you want to do...

1150
01:08:59,540 --> 01:09:02,240
If you're purely in it for the money, social media is not the way.

1151
01:09:02,480 --> 01:09:04,760
Like, if you look at the very top earners in every category.

1152
01:09:05,380 --> 01:09:07,040
Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, whatever.

1153
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:08,500
It pales.

1154
01:09:08,780 --> 01:09:11,040
Absolutely pales in comparison to other industries.

1155
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:13,340
Like, if you're a tech founder, you're a freaking billionaire.

1156
01:09:13,680 --> 01:09:16,420
And you don't even have to be, like, the top 0.01%, right?

1157
01:09:16,500 --> 01:09:18,660
Like, the top probably 1% of tech founders.

1158
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:20,640
Like, those people, they're all, like, deca-millionaires.

1159
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:24,380
Top 1% of Twitch streamers, you're maybe making, like, 100K.

1160
01:09:24,960 --> 01:09:26,800
And, like, it's a...

1161
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:27,840
The scale...

1162
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:30,080
The barrier to entry, though, is a lot lower.

1163
01:09:30,440 --> 01:09:32,540
You can just randomly do something.

1164
01:09:33,060 --> 01:09:35,660
Whereas, like, to start a company, you've got to...

1165
01:09:35,660 --> 01:09:36,060
Right, right.

1166
01:09:36,440 --> 01:09:39,580
Like, making your first 100K takes a long time.

1167
01:09:39,660 --> 01:09:40,960
And then making your first million.

1168
01:09:41,260 --> 01:09:43,260
But then when you have money, it's easier to make money.

1169
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:48,020
The only reason I'm on TikTok is because I'm trying to be somewhat famous.

1170
01:09:48,020 --> 01:09:49,280
So I get on a TV show.

1171
01:09:50,420 --> 01:09:54,120
Yeah, so it's funny because, like, I would never want to be on a TV show.

1172
01:09:54,460 --> 01:09:55,100
Like, it's...

1173
01:09:55,100 --> 01:09:56,300
I don't even...

1174
01:09:56,300 --> 01:09:57,580
It's very...

1175
01:09:57,580 --> 01:10:02,380
It's very rare for, like, to feel the...

1176
01:10:02,380 --> 01:10:05,240
To feel pressure to be in competition.

1177
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:06,160
That's what I love.

1178
01:10:06,660 --> 01:10:16,920
And to, like, when you're in a pool of a million people that trickles down into being, like, you're the top 15 that actually get to go on the show.

1179
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:19,600
It's kind of, like, there's a lot on the line.

1180
01:10:20,400 --> 01:10:25,880
So, because when I was on the competition team, you can practice doing...

1181
01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:27,120
It's like boxing.

1182
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:30,000
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

1183
01:10:31,100 --> 01:10:32,380
So it's the same in competition.

1184
01:10:32,380 --> 01:10:36,300
We practiced it, like, hundreds of times.

1185
01:10:36,780 --> 01:10:41,860
But they still screw it up on the actual competition when they've done it perfectly multiple times already.

1186
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:44,420
It's just a different level of pressure.

1187
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:50,760
And I like pressure because performing under pressure is, like...

1188
01:10:51,320 --> 01:10:56,660
Doing competitions is, like, the culmination of all of the practice you put in.

1189
01:10:57,020 --> 01:10:57,520
It's not...

1190
01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:00,200
It's not that you practice to do the competition.

1191
01:11:00,440 --> 01:11:03,760
It's that the competition is the judge of what you've done.

1192
01:11:03,940 --> 01:11:11,280
So I think, like, going there and competing with other people on an even playing field, that's the most important thing.

1193
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:12,740
Everyone can...

1194
01:11:12,740 --> 01:11:22,460
In restaurants, you can make this fancy dish and you can have 100 people to help you make this tasting menu and be three Michelin stars.

1195
01:11:22,460 --> 01:11:26,640
But on certain cooking competitions, it's only you.

1196
01:11:27,420 --> 01:11:29,080
Everyone has the same equipment.

1197
01:11:29,300 --> 01:11:30,720
Everyone has the same amount of time.

1198
01:11:31,100 --> 01:11:32,740
It's just even playing field.

1199
01:11:32,860 --> 01:11:34,620
That's what I love so much about it.

1200
01:11:34,900 --> 01:11:36,080
And that's why I want to do it.

1201
01:11:36,260 --> 01:11:42,140
Because, like, even making cooking videos on TikTok, you see my crappy home stove burner.

1202
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:44,660
And then there's these people with these, like, million-dollar kitchens.

1203
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:46,080
It's not fair.

1204
01:11:46,560 --> 01:11:47,540
And I...

1205
01:11:47,540 --> 01:11:48,200
Not...

1206
01:11:48,200 --> 01:11:48,540
I...

1207
01:11:48,540 --> 01:11:49,500
Yeah.

1208
01:11:50,060 --> 01:11:51,700
I have no editing skills.

1209
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:53,020
And it's too much work.

1210
01:11:53,260 --> 01:11:54,320
And all that other stuff.

1211
01:11:54,320 --> 01:11:56,820
So, people keep asking me to cook.

1212
01:11:57,060 --> 01:11:57,860
It's too much work.

1213
01:11:58,460 --> 01:11:59,440
It's too much work.

1214
01:12:00,840 --> 01:12:02,260
I can just do it, people.

1215
01:12:02,340 --> 01:12:03,480
I can make, like, 18 a day.

1216
01:12:04,480 --> 01:12:04,720
Yeah.

1217
01:12:04,860 --> 01:12:07,000
I think I, like, took the exact same approach as you.

1218
01:12:07,100 --> 01:12:11,260
Where it's like, okay, well, how can I make the most amount of videos efficiently as possible?

1219
01:12:11,520 --> 01:12:12,100
Like, if I only have...

1220
01:12:12,100 --> 01:12:14,160
And sustainably, that you don't burn yourself out.

1221
01:12:14,300 --> 01:12:14,520
Right.

1222
01:12:14,620 --> 01:12:16,620
It's like, if I have 30 minutes to an hour...

1223
01:12:16,620 --> 01:12:20,120
So, like, one day, I did try to make, like, a better video.

1224
01:12:20,240 --> 01:12:21,360
Like, I did more research.

1225
01:12:21,800 --> 01:12:22,580
I had, like, a script.

1226
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:25,360
You know, I did very minor editing.

1227
01:12:25,580 --> 01:12:28,660
So, it took me, like, 30 minutes to an hour to make one video.

1228
01:12:29,140 --> 01:12:30,080
And it still, it's like...

1229
01:12:30,080 --> 01:12:30,880
It performed okay.

1230
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,660
But it's, like, in that same span...

1231
01:12:32,660 --> 01:12:34,220
It's like, the return on investment.

1232
01:12:34,300 --> 01:12:34,340
Right.

1233
01:12:34,340 --> 01:12:34,620
Exactly.

1234
01:12:34,620 --> 01:12:35,540
How much time...

1235
01:12:35,540 --> 01:12:35,880
Exactly.

1236
01:12:35,880 --> 01:12:37,020
It's like...

1237
01:12:37,020 --> 01:12:41,500
Because, like, if you scroll all the way down, I actually have, like, steak videos where I'm,

1238
01:12:41,580 --> 01:12:42,880
like, ripping steaks and stuff.

1239
01:12:43,040 --> 01:12:44,500
And that was, like, experimental.

1240
01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:49,060
And, like, I think one of them has, like, 14.4 million views.

1241
01:12:49,200 --> 01:12:53,540
And it's just me, like, taking up a raw blue steak and just ripping it.

1242
01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:55,020
It's, like, a 10-second video.

1243
01:12:55,520 --> 01:12:56,760
Like, that did well.

1244
01:12:56,980 --> 01:12:58,040
But, like, for how...

1245
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:02,520
Like, I don't have an infinite amount of steaks that I can rip that people can be, like,

1246
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:04,500
oh, yeah, I want to keep watching this content.

1247
01:13:04,940 --> 01:13:06,960
Like, I've used that idea already.

1248
01:13:06,960 --> 01:13:07,200
You know?

1249
01:13:07,440 --> 01:13:12,120
I don't know what other type of content is relatable enough that they want to watch to that degree.

1250
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:19,060
So, the thing about TikTok, and it pretty much everyone does this, is you can repost your viral

1251
01:13:19,060 --> 01:13:20,420
content over and over again.

1252
01:13:20,500 --> 01:13:24,640
Because, like, the way the algorithm works, it's, like, it doesn't really show it to all

1253
01:13:24,640 --> 01:13:25,080
your followers.

1254
01:13:25,220 --> 01:13:27,640
It's not, like, YouTube subscriber if everyone sees your thing.

1255
01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:31,680
It's, like, if using AI, it tries to target the audience that's correct.

1256
01:13:31,780 --> 01:13:36,480
And because there's so many users on TikTok and they constantly churn out and they constantly,

1257
01:13:36,480 --> 01:13:38,340
like, new people are coming in.

1258
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:43,480
I've seen people post the same video, like, or the same trend hundreds, if not, like,

1259
01:13:43,500 --> 01:13:44,440
thousands of times, right?

1260
01:13:44,440 --> 01:13:45,800
Because they're always hitting a new audience.

1261
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:50,820
And, like, some general recommendation, it's, like, you want to be making content for not

1262
01:13:50,820 --> 01:13:52,240
just the people who've already seen your stuff.

1263
01:13:52,460 --> 01:13:55,320
Like, in the beginning, I would never try to repeat anything at all.

1264
01:13:55,380 --> 01:13:58,700
Because I was thinking, like, oh, you know, this is old and people don't want to see the

1265
01:13:58,700 --> 01:13:59,380
same information.

1266
01:13:59,900 --> 01:14:04,940
But then you find out that, like, people didn't, like, your video underperformed in the past

1267
01:14:04,940 --> 01:14:06,740
and then they never actually saw it.

1268
01:14:06,820 --> 01:14:08,380
But then it would be somebody else.

1269
01:14:08,760 --> 01:14:08,900
Right.

1270
01:14:09,240 --> 01:14:09,260
Yeah.

1271
01:14:09,260 --> 01:14:11,420
I've thought about, like, doing that.

1272
01:14:11,540 --> 01:14:18,480
But, like, when I made that second account and I was, my plan was to re-duet all of those

1273
01:14:18,480 --> 01:14:20,040
videos on this account.

1274
01:14:20,280 --> 01:14:23,860
But when I started doing it, there'll be people that was in the comment section, like, you

1275
01:14:23,860 --> 01:14:25,280
did this already and all that stuff.

1276
01:14:25,400 --> 01:14:31,600
And, like, sure, it might gain, like, even if I did the ones that did well, I might gain

1277
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:32,260
more followers.

1278
01:14:32,440 --> 01:14:38,180
But then I think I care more about loyal followers rather than more followers.

1279
01:14:39,100 --> 01:14:39,540
Yeah.

1280
01:14:39,540 --> 01:14:44,420
Because I think the loyal ones who are, like, hardcore fans will be the ones that'll actually

1281
01:14:44,420 --> 01:14:47,560
eat at my restaurant if they come to Hawaii and that type of stuff.

1282
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:48,260
Yeah.

1283
01:14:48,260 --> 01:14:53,840
I think that, like, followers on TikTok, they're worth a lot less than other platforms

1284
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:55,940
like YouTube or Instagram.

1285
01:14:56,260 --> 01:14:59,860
And, like, advertisers pay less for it just because, like, it's so easy to follow someone

1286
01:14:59,860 --> 01:15:01,960
on TikTok and then, like, basically never see them again.

1287
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:05,020
Like, a common comment is, like, oh, man, I haven't seen your stuff in months.

1288
01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:09,760
Because, like, most people are not searching your name, going to your profile, looking at

1289
01:15:09,760 --> 01:15:10,280
your videos.

1290
01:15:10,280 --> 01:15:13,740
Except, like you said, the super hardcore fans, they might watch it every day.

1291
01:15:14,100 --> 01:15:17,560
But for most people, like, you know, they'll watch it if you pop up on the FYP.

1292
01:15:17,740 --> 01:15:19,740
And there's, like, so many things that go into the algorithm.

1293
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:23,420
Like, even the time of day that you post because you're stacked ranked against other videos

1294
01:15:23,420 --> 01:15:24,820
posted within that hour.

1295
01:15:25,260 --> 01:15:28,400
And so, like, I had a person, I was working with a person at TikTok.

1296
01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:32,600
And then she's like, oh, yeah, like, you try to, you should really only post one video

1297
01:15:32,600 --> 01:15:34,820
per day because, or one video per hour.

1298
01:15:35,620 --> 01:15:39,780
Because otherwise, you compete with your own videos within that same time period of, like,

1299
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:40,360
stack ranking.

1300
01:15:41,080 --> 01:15:45,280
And it goes further than that, where it then stack ranks your video against other videos

1301
01:15:45,280 --> 01:15:45,980
in a category.

1302
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,580
And, you know, as people are scrolling, they consume the content, it'll show your thing.

1303
01:15:50,760 --> 01:15:52,360
And then there's also, like, a time frame.

1304
01:15:52,360 --> 01:15:54,100
And then they also cycle algorithms.

1305
01:15:54,520 --> 01:15:57,420
And then there's also, like, the news, current news.

1306
01:15:57,520 --> 01:15:59,560
Like, there's, like, all these different things that go into it.

1307
01:16:00,060 --> 01:16:03,460
But I kind of just ignore all that because I'm like, I'm just going to make my videos

1308
01:16:03,460 --> 01:16:04,400
and post in this hour.

1309
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:08,780
Because, like, it's not that big of a difference in my experience.

1310
01:16:08,780 --> 01:16:11,860
It's, like, sure, you can be super optimal about it.

1311
01:16:12,580 --> 01:16:17,880
Yeah, there's diminishing returns after, like, the more you post right away.

1312
01:16:18,180 --> 01:16:18,320
Yeah.

1313
01:16:18,340 --> 01:16:24,560
But in general, if it would perform better anyways, it will perform better.

1314
01:16:24,700 --> 01:16:25,000
Exactly.

1315
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:29,020
So, like, it's a trade-off.

1316
01:16:29,100 --> 01:16:31,960
Like, I post three times a day and I do six at once.

1317
01:16:32,060 --> 01:16:34,340
So, I do six and then six and then six.

1318
01:16:34,640 --> 01:16:37,680
Like, I could spread it out, like, one hour, one hour, one hour, one hour.

1319
01:16:37,820 --> 01:16:41,860
But then the amount of, like, mental labor, like, oh, I got to set a timer to make sure

1320
01:16:41,860 --> 01:16:42,280
I do it.

1321
01:16:42,420 --> 01:16:42,840
Not worth it.

1322
01:16:42,840 --> 01:16:43,900
It's just, yeah.

1323
01:16:44,020 --> 01:16:48,580
So, it's easier to just blast six out at a diminished return three times.

1324
01:16:49,320 --> 01:16:51,600
Yeah, you're already doing good with three times.

1325
01:16:51,680 --> 01:16:52,640
I just do it at one time.

1326
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:54,480
Like, I have two ways to do it.

1327
01:16:55,220 --> 01:16:59,080
At first, I was doing two times per day and then I cut it down to one time per day.

1328
01:17:00,460 --> 01:17:02,640
But I think also what you said earlier rings true.

1329
01:17:02,780 --> 01:17:03,600
It's, like, more about being...

1330
01:17:03,600 --> 01:17:04,460
How many do you post?

1331
01:17:05,620 --> 01:17:07,460
I used to do, like, 24 a day.

1332
01:17:07,800 --> 01:17:08,880
I do, like, 12 in the morning.

1333
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:09,500
All at once?

1334
01:17:09,920 --> 01:17:11,600
Well, 12 in the morning and 12 at night.

1335
01:17:12,080 --> 01:17:13,900
And then I started doing only 12 at night.

1336
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:15,800
And then I went down to, like, seven per night.

1337
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:18,900
And then I went down to, like, at least one video per day.

1338
01:17:19,020 --> 01:17:20,780
But I was, like, I don't know.

1339
01:17:20,780 --> 01:17:25,240
What, which one had the best performance?

1340
01:17:25,740 --> 01:17:27,780
Not relative to how much work you put in.

1341
01:17:27,960 --> 01:17:32,900
Like, did your 24 videos gain you the most followers and stuff?

1342
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:34,080
Yeah.

1343
01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:37,340
So there was a period of time, I think the first three months that I started,

1344
01:17:37,600 --> 01:17:39,440
I was almost, like, trending on TikTok.

1345
01:17:39,660 --> 01:17:40,900
Like, people would see my stuff all...

1346
01:17:40,900 --> 01:17:43,500
Because I was posting so much shows, doing, like, 24 videos a day.

1347
01:17:43,760 --> 01:17:46,260
And each video would get, like, 100K views.

1348
01:17:46,800 --> 01:17:49,260
And everything was just kind of blowing up back then.

1349
01:17:49,260 --> 01:17:50,120
When did you start?

1350
01:17:51,100 --> 01:17:51,940
Last December.

1351
01:17:52,780 --> 01:17:56,460
But then I think after that initial, like, wave of virality kind of ended,

1352
01:17:57,160 --> 01:17:59,020
like, everything just kind of started tanking.

1353
01:17:59,140 --> 01:18:01,360
And then I was also posting a lot less at that point.

1354
01:18:01,840 --> 01:18:06,200
I was also thinking, like, man, because I'm not really doing this as, like, a job.

1355
01:18:06,340 --> 01:18:07,480
I mostly just did it for fun.

1356
01:18:07,580 --> 01:18:11,080
Well, it was to beat my wife because she was, like, gloating about her 2,000 followers.

1357
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:13,760
And then I've continued since then.

1358
01:18:15,060 --> 01:18:21,600
But more, it's more of, like, a hobby rather than, like, a, oh, I want to become super famous for any specific goal.

1359
01:18:21,700 --> 01:18:28,400
Which I think actually hurts me because it also makes me, like, not post super consistently.

1360
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:34,660
Like, before, people could always expect, okay, Frank's going to post, like, 12 videos at night or two times a day.

1361
01:18:34,720 --> 01:18:37,880
And now it's, like, maybe Frank will post, like, one video sometimes.

1362
01:18:38,880 --> 01:18:41,800
For the most part, I get what I want now.

1363
01:18:41,800 --> 01:18:53,660
And I've never, like, I don't feel anything anymore, like, scared or of, like, oh, am I going to get yelled at or something?

1364
01:18:53,740 --> 01:18:57,120
Because, like, I'm the boss now.

1365
01:18:57,320 --> 01:18:59,380
So, I don't need to worry about money.

1366
01:18:59,680 --> 01:19:01,040
Like, I could retire, too.

1367
01:19:01,320 --> 01:19:03,320
I could have retired back then.

1368
01:19:03,440 --> 01:19:09,920
But, like, I've never, it's been a very long time since I've wanted something.

1369
01:19:10,360 --> 01:19:17,240
Like, even when I opened the second restaurant, I didn't feel, like, I'm scared this is going to fail.

1370
01:19:17,240 --> 01:19:20,700
Or, like, I really want this to happen or something.

1371
01:19:20,840 --> 01:19:26,100
It was just, like, oh, well, I know I can do this already.

1372
01:19:26,200 --> 01:19:27,420
There's no challenge in it.

1373
01:19:27,920 --> 01:19:34,560
And, like, if I wanted something else, like, I don't know, if I want a car, I can just buy a car.

1374
01:19:34,760 --> 01:19:42,320
But getting on this TV show, having to go through, like, this whole six-month casting process and beat out all these other people.

1375
01:19:42,320 --> 01:19:46,320
So, it was, like, oh, I could actually not make it.

1376
01:19:46,400 --> 01:19:47,740
I could actually lose.

1377
01:19:47,940 --> 01:19:49,600
And I can't do anything about it.

1378
01:19:50,540 --> 01:19:53,800
So, yeah, that's why I wanted to get on the TV show.

1379
01:19:55,040 --> 01:20:02,720
I always, since I started cooking, I would always apply to all these TV cooking shows, too, like Chopped and Top Chef and all that stuff.

1380
01:20:03,480 --> 01:20:08,860
I got casted, well, I got into the interview process of Hell's Kitchen.

1381
01:20:08,860 --> 01:20:13,340
But it turns out they don't take non-idiots on that show.

1382
01:20:13,520 --> 01:20:15,900
They want idiots on there, so they get yelled at.

1383
01:20:16,200 --> 01:20:24,460
Because if you just have all these Michelin-level cooks and chefs and stuff, Gordon Ramsay's going to be, like, I guess I have nothing to yell at.

1384
01:20:25,060 --> 01:20:32,500
I don't think we're allowed to talk about it, but, like, we got pretty much to the final stage of, like, a, I don't know when we're allowed to talk.

1385
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:33,300
Maybe when the show's out.

1386
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:37,580
But, like, one of the largest reality TV shows, like, in the world.

1387
01:20:37,900 --> 01:20:40,340
And then both kind of decided, like, is this worth it?

1388
01:20:40,380 --> 01:20:41,020
Like, what's the point?

1389
01:20:41,120 --> 01:20:42,420
Like, we don't need the money.

1390
01:20:44,560 --> 01:20:47,960
We're going to have to be away from our kids for a long time, which is the main reason.

1391
01:20:48,080 --> 01:20:55,960
It's like, okay, well, if we do this and we're stuck in this place for, like, over a month, then our parents are going to have to help look after the kids.

1392
01:20:56,000 --> 01:20:59,560
And we've never been away from them for that part for that long.

1393
01:20:59,700 --> 01:21:03,140
And also, I just don't even want to do it, really.

1394
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:09,640
In my mind, I was always thinking, like, oh, I'll entertain this idea, and then, you know, we'll fail at X step.

1395
01:21:09,800 --> 01:21:14,060
But then we kept on going to the next step, and every step, I'm like, ugh, hopefully the next time we fail.

1396
01:21:14,380 --> 01:21:16,340
But then it's like, oh, no, oh, you guys are in.

1397
01:21:16,420 --> 01:21:17,460
You guys are going to be in this thing.

1398
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:18,460
I'm like, oh, no.

1399
01:21:19,200 --> 01:21:22,660
And then, you know, have the conversation, like, hey, like, I don't want to do this.

1400
01:21:22,980 --> 01:21:23,300
Yeah.

1401
01:21:24,160 --> 01:21:28,800
Well, that's really cool that you're taking on the challenge, and, like, I think making a goal for yourself is super important.

1402
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:39,180
Because, like, even though now I don't really have a goal for myself with social media, and then, like, agents are reaching out, and they're like, hey, what do you want to do with this account?

1403
01:21:39,260 --> 01:21:40,200
What do you want to, like, grow it?

1404
01:21:40,280 --> 01:21:41,140
Like, what's your plan?

1405
01:21:41,660 --> 01:21:43,420
It's like, I don't have a good answer for that.

1406
01:21:43,460 --> 01:21:44,140
It's like, oh, I don't know.

1407
01:21:44,220 --> 01:21:46,880
Just kind of keep going and see where it goes.

1408
01:21:46,980 --> 01:21:52,800
Maybe this will help if I, like, decide to make my own tech business later when the kids are in school and have more time or something.

1409
01:21:53,320 --> 01:21:58,580
So, it's pretty cool that you have, like, a very defined goal, and you're like, hey, I want to do this.

1410
01:21:58,740 --> 01:21:58,960
And then...

1411
01:21:58,960 --> 01:22:01,320
Well, I'm kind of like an opportunist.

1412
01:22:02,020 --> 01:22:10,280
I don't, like, I fish for things, but I don't, like, specifically go for things, except for this one thing.

1413
01:22:10,280 --> 01:22:14,000
Because I had it in my hands, and it was just swooped away.

1414
01:22:14,800 --> 01:22:23,400
Because they flew me, they flew me out, and then the day before episode one was supposed to start filming, and then I get to meet Gordon Ramsay.

1415
01:22:24,320 --> 01:22:26,220
Well, that's a hint for what show it is.

1416
01:22:26,480 --> 01:22:32,880
But the day before, I get a knock on my hotel, because we're all in quarantine.

1417
01:22:33,240 --> 01:22:37,360
Because if you get COVID, you get kicked out, and so you're locked in your room.

1418
01:22:38,140 --> 01:22:41,880
And, like, even food, you can't go outside.

1419
01:22:42,200 --> 01:22:47,720
They have, you have to order through DoorDash, and then they have to hand it off to somebody, and the producers have to hand it off to you.

1420
01:22:48,140 --> 01:22:53,700
So, I was in, I was in London, and I still couldn't experience London.

1421
01:22:54,040 --> 01:22:56,980
So, I got a knock on the door, and I was like, I didn't order food.

1422
01:22:58,080 --> 01:23:03,060
I opened the door, and then there's the, like, the executive producer, and, like, have a seat.

1423
01:23:03,320 --> 01:23:05,540
And I was like, oh, this isn't good.

1424
01:23:06,560 --> 01:23:11,180
You couldn't tell me to sit down if it was, wasn't not a bad thing.

1425
01:23:11,780 --> 01:23:13,180
But, yeah, I got kicked off.

1426
01:23:13,180 --> 01:23:22,940
And I think the reason was because, there's a lot of reasons, but I think one of them was that my social media following wasn't big enough.

1427
01:23:23,900 --> 01:23:33,140
Because, what, they actually had a lot of social media people, like, oh, they have 5 million followers, 3 million on TikTok, and this one has 2 million, and all that.

1428
01:23:33,140 --> 01:23:38,540
So, because when the show airs, then they can cross, they can feed back, it's like a feedback loop.

1429
01:23:38,720 --> 01:23:38,960
Right.

1430
01:23:39,520 --> 01:23:42,640
With the contestants, like, oh, I'm on the TV show, go watch it.

1431
01:23:42,760 --> 01:23:43,320
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1432
01:23:43,380 --> 01:23:47,720
And I'm over here with, like, no TikTok, and my Instagram is dead.

1433
01:23:47,780 --> 01:23:49,120
I haven't posted in a month.

1434
01:23:49,240 --> 01:23:54,780
It has, like, 9,000 followers, because I don't really do it, because I don't really do social media.

1435
01:23:55,180 --> 01:23:59,460
But the day I got back, that was, like, screw these people.

1436
01:23:59,920 --> 01:24:02,720
You want me to be social media famous?

1437
01:24:02,840 --> 01:24:03,600
I'm going to do it.

1438
01:24:03,860 --> 01:24:04,880
We'll see you next year.

1439
01:24:05,420 --> 01:24:16,460
I think that's the underrated best motivation, is, like, proving people wrong, or be like, hey, you don't have XYZ, and you go get XYZ, and you succeed at whatever the thing is.

1440
01:24:16,980 --> 01:24:22,900
I think it's really, like, spite, which is, the scene is, like, this bad word, almost.

1441
01:24:23,040 --> 01:24:25,600
But I feel like spite is a great motivation.

1442
01:24:26,100 --> 01:24:26,320
Yeah.

1443
01:24:26,620 --> 01:24:27,060
It's great.

1444
01:24:28,040 --> 01:24:28,400
Yeah.

1445
01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:33,880
The social media thing was how we got approached for our reality TV show casting, effectively.

1446
01:24:34,140 --> 01:24:42,680
And it was, like, multiple arms, because I think their casting, they're, like, doing it worldwide, and so they have, like, the Canadian arm, international arm, U.S. arm.

1447
01:24:42,740 --> 01:24:46,260
And we got contacted by, like, all three, and it's purely because of, like, the social media thing.

1448
01:24:46,400 --> 01:24:56,320
And, like you said, it's a very underrated factor for what determines the reality show, along with, like, the, you mentioned, like, the idiot thing.

1449
01:24:56,460 --> 01:24:57,900
Like, they're looking for extreme people.

1450
01:24:57,980 --> 01:25:01,620
They're looking for people whose personalities mismatch, so it'll be more interesting for the show.

1451
01:25:02,680 --> 01:25:04,080
I think I'm interesting.

1452
01:25:04,900 --> 01:25:09,440
Well, you gotta be, like, you know, really toxic in a way.

1453
01:25:09,640 --> 01:25:11,040
So it's, like...

1454
01:25:11,040 --> 01:25:11,960
Have you seen my videos?

1455
01:25:12,740 --> 01:25:13,540
Are they toxic?

1456
01:25:13,660 --> 01:25:15,020
They seem pretty tame to me.

1457
01:25:15,180 --> 01:25:15,380
No, yeah.

1458
01:25:16,580 --> 01:25:20,160
But maybe I couldn't convey that in my interviews.

1459
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:25,180
Yeah, I think it's, like, you know, they know what sells as well.

1460
01:25:25,480 --> 01:25:41,480
So it's, like, I was reading a little bit about how these producers and casting agents make these calls, and essentially they have, like, personality profiles, and they know which ones don't fit well together, which ones are almost certainly likely to cause conflict when people are on the show.

1461
01:25:41,680 --> 01:25:47,260
And, of course, they try to get these extreme polar opposites because they know, like, okay, there's going to be conflict on the show.

1462
01:25:47,260 --> 01:25:56,460
So this will get views because of the controversy or whatever, it's like a Jersey Shore situation almost, in a way.

1463
01:25:56,960 --> 01:26:02,900
Though, again, it probably depends on the reality TV show, because, like, a cooking one, I'm not sure how they would slot that in.

1464
01:26:02,980 --> 01:26:05,180
They tend to be more positive on this one.

1465
01:26:05,820 --> 01:26:14,080
So I think that's partially why I didn't fit in well, because I didn't fit into that, like, support everyone.

1466
01:26:15,380 --> 01:26:16,660
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

1467
01:26:17,720 --> 01:26:22,880
So at the very beginning of this call, when you were saying, like, oh, yeah, Hawaii is not on the map, can't get a Michelin star.

1468
01:26:23,320 --> 01:26:35,280
I'm kind of, after talking with you, I'm surprised that you said that, because it feels like another one of these things that is, like, unobtainable in a sense, but that you would almost, like, want to reach for because it's hard to obtain.

1469
01:26:35,280 --> 01:26:36,780
And because it's, like, so unlikely.

1470
01:26:37,720 --> 01:26:47,960
Yeah, but that's the thing is, what can I physically do if I had, there's no metric that I can meet that I can go and make it happen.

1471
01:26:48,840 --> 01:26:55,680
Like, I can't, if I had a billion dollars, I can't be like, well, I guess I could.

1472
01:26:56,060 --> 01:26:58,260
But is Michelin publicly traded?

1473
01:26:59,320 --> 01:27:02,960
I mean, the parent company, the tire company is publicly traded, yeah.

1474
01:27:03,140 --> 01:27:07,680
Oh, okay, maybe if I get rich enough, I'll buy the company, I'll make them rate Hawaii.

1475
01:27:10,400 --> 01:27:19,780
Yeah, I guess, you know, like, there's no metric that I can be, like, where it's, like, if Hawaii does this thing, then we will rate Hawaii.

1476
01:27:19,880 --> 01:27:21,080
There's no specific thing.

1477
01:27:21,140 --> 01:27:30,260
It's more of, like, it's kind of, like, it's off of a whim of how, it's not off of a whim, but there's no direct, like, if this, then this will happen.

1478
01:27:30,720 --> 01:27:36,020
And that's why it's kind of, like, I cannot directly achieve it.

1479
01:27:36,280 --> 01:27:36,780
That's why.

1480
01:27:37,260 --> 01:27:40,980
So is it, like, in a sense, almost cultural significance?

1481
01:27:40,980 --> 01:27:43,660
So, like, really popular tourist destinations?

1482
01:27:43,940 --> 01:27:48,380
Or do, like, these large cities naturally just have a more robust dining scene?

1483
01:27:48,900 --> 01:27:49,980
I guess it's, like...

1484
01:27:49,980 --> 01:27:57,220
Well, it feeds into itself, because it's, like, my school, KCC, it's the best culinary school in Hawaii.

1485
01:27:57,620 --> 01:28:10,060
There's all the other culinary schools in the community college, but because ours performs the best, all the funding from scholarships and, like, grants go to our school, because we're the best.

1486
01:28:10,520 --> 01:28:16,320
And then because we get this stuff, then it feeds, all the money just keeps coming in and everything else deteriorates.

1487
01:28:16,680 --> 01:28:18,800
So it's the same in Michelin cities.

1488
01:28:20,000 --> 01:28:24,660
Initially, they were a good city before Michelin decided to rate it there.

1489
01:28:24,820 --> 01:28:34,440
But because they got rated there, all of these people who wanted to open Michelin star restaurants would specifically go to that city to open a restaurant.

1490
01:28:34,580 --> 01:28:41,420
And that's where, because it was big, it grew bigger because people wanted to open a restaurant there to get rated.

1491
01:28:42,260 --> 01:28:43,260
Yeah, that makes sense.

1492
01:28:43,420 --> 01:28:49,500
I think it's the exact same reason for, like, finance being in New York, tech being in Silicon Valley.

1493
01:28:49,740 --> 01:28:56,440
It's, like, you have the money, you have the talent, and because it's already ahead, more talented people go there, more money goes there, and it feeds in...

1494
01:28:56,440 --> 01:28:58,260
It's, like, a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a sense.

1495
01:28:59,320 --> 01:29:00,880
All right, my phone's going to die soon.

1496
01:29:01,440 --> 01:29:03,780
Oh, that's perfect timing, actually.

1497
01:29:04,240 --> 01:29:05,560
Thank you, Ken, for joining.

1498
01:29:05,560 --> 01:29:12,280
I hope everyone enjoyed learning about how chef life works and also the importance of investing and saving money.

1499
01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:24,460
I think a lot of people spend a lot of money, make a lot of money spend a lot, but being frugal and investing, and there is a bit of luck, obviously, and taking risk, and a lot about the calculated risk and the odds of something happening.

1500
01:29:24,640 --> 01:29:26,460
Like, those are all really important to consider as well.

1501
01:29:27,320 --> 01:29:30,520
Ken, did you have any shout-outs for the end of the pod?

1502
01:29:31,800 --> 01:29:32,000
No.

1503
01:29:32,380 --> 01:29:32,640
Bye.

1504
01:29:33,400 --> 01:29:34,280
All right, there you have it.

1505
01:29:34,940 --> 01:29:35,700
See you all later.

1506
01:29:36,140 --> 01:29:39,880
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Frankly Speaking Podcast.