Matthew Souza (00:02):
Hello everybody. Welcome to episode two of the show with no name. Thank you guys for bearing with me as I kind of kept moving the show out. Supposed to be at 11, it will normally be at 11, but this early morning I was down at the station six in Hayward Fire Station working with the recruits and the academy down there. So I had all the big wigs there too, fire chief and everybody else watching me. So anyhow, that ended up taking just a tad bit longer than had expected, and I wanted to give myself enough time to get here back in front of you guys and prepared for the show. So thank you so much for hanging on as I shifted it a little bit. And today we have some interesting stuff. We’re going to be talking about private equity. We’re going to be talking about rats and ai and we’re going to be talking about crunchy moms. Crunchy moms.
(00:53):
I guess it’s okay, sus, we’re still here. Thank you and I appreciate you for it. I saw you guys had some comments on Tuesday. I think my show might be the only show. I’m sure Seon will probably do some that needed to fill in, but for the most part it’s going to be us on a Tuesday. I was looking through a couple other things. What is a crunchy mom, Eric Wise? I’m here for the crunchy mom talk. All right, we’ll start with that. Although Slinky gave it away. Can’t wait to talk. Crunchy moms with Susa. He’s a certified expert. Damn right. Damn right.
(01:30):
Augusta Susa, can you explain why the rat had balls? Yes, I can. Yes I can. Jason, Tyler Watkins, CEO of the heat. One app, Zoomer Mill equals crunchy. Could be Mike, AKA pool boy y all know him. Private equity Frank. Frank probably has an election. An erection for this title is probably what you meant. Yeah, you’re probably right. Susan. What’s up from X? Hey, it’s Susan. You put Susan, you’re Louis. We got it all sorted out. Everybody kind of screwed it up there. Yeah. So we’re going to talk crunchy moms. What is a crunchy mom? Well, don’t you guys wait, we’re going to get right into it here. Do you guys like that thumbnail though? Dang. Pull boy. Typo. Dammit. Yeah, kind of messed it up. Okay, so check this out. So this was new to me. I had never heard of what a crunchy mom was ever or even the saying at all. And I was scrolling through the gram finding some good content for this show and this popped up and I thought that I would share it with you guys and we’ll go over what a crunchy mom is.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Oh, of course. This is my whole identity. I’m a crunchy mom. Of course, people think it’s weird. I care about my health, but I think it’s weirder that you don’t. I’m a crunchy mom of I put butter in my coffee and people think it’s weird, but I think it’s weird. They use inflammatory ingredients right away in the morning in their coffee. I’m a crunchy mom, of course. When I walk by the stickers on the back of a car that say 13.1, I think of the insert, not the race. I’m a crunchy mom. Of course, I wouldn’t buy conventional milk. I’m a crunchy mom. Of course. This is my whole identity.
Matthew Souza (03:16):
There you go. Crunchy mom. Slinky is also a crunchy mom. So what is a crunchy mom? And maybe you should become a crunchy mom. Crunchy mom. Definition given to us here. Have you guys seen the new generative AI with Google? Now where you type it in, you search it instead of bringing up search, it also says it tells you about it ahead of time. Kind of strange definition of crunchy mom. A crunchy mom is a slang term for a mother or caregiver who uses a natural lifestyle in their parenting. The term crunchy mom is typically used to describe a mother or female caregiver who typically falls a natural lifestyle and incorporates it into their parenting. A country mom attempts to avoid modern medicine limits, reliance on technology and eats only organic foods. You a crunchy mom, you just get a new label. I think we should all Tyler Watkins. So I was right. Does equal milk? Well in that particular example it did. But usually people who take care of themselves and are health focused usually tend to look a little bit better, right? They’re more put together, more responsible. 12 daily doses. We have a lot of those where I am. Where are you?
(04:35):
Now that we know what a Croy mom is, can you please explain why people like Mills? We’ll save that for next week. I’ll give the breakdown. Okay, so we have a couple of cool topics to talk about. Of course, I’m going to be bringing you guys a article from Broken Science, hence the weird looking rat thing at the beginning. But before we get into that, now that I’ve enlightened you guys with what a crunchy mom is already adding value to your lives. Oh, fel daily dose is Boston. What’s interesting though, is there going to be a weird line between a crunchy mom and then somebody who also is woke? Is that the same person? Can they be the same person? I dunno. I dunno. I have a seven Isa. Of course. I think those videos are dumb as fuck.
(05:30):
So Corey an interesting story. When I saw that, and I’ve seen people do that trend before, I’m a whatever, of course, I and mind immediately went to doing one in San Francisco and then being like, I’m a fentanyl addict. Of course I’m breaking into your car and show somebody breaking into your car. And I’m a fentanyl addict, of course, I live in a tent. And then finish off the last one with I’m a fentanyl addict, of course I shit in the street and just show the different clips. I don’t know, I thought that that might be a funny take on it. The San Francisco version, right?
(06:07):
Yeah, I guess of course I’m shitting in the street, right? Just show them. Sad, sad, sad, sad. But the great part about California is our fearless leader, Gavin Newsom going to be president if we’re lucky enough. You know what I mean? Have you guys seen the Bill Maher with Patrick Pet David or Julian Michaels? I know, I know. As CrossFitters we’re like, we’re Julian Michaels haters, right? Because of all the stuff she says about CrossFit. But you guys might change your tune a little bit if you watch her on Bill Maher’s podcast, especially the Patrick David one. It’s interesting. He’s like Gavin, Gavin Newsom winner. That guy’s a winner. And then when Patrick pushes him and is like, yeah, what result do you like the best? What do you think he’s done the best of? He of course came up with nothing, which is kind of funny.
(07:03):
Philip Kelly, Jillian Michaels one. I saw it. Yeah, dude, did you see that? She put it to him for sure. Tyler Watkins, CEO of the He went app toilets are a conspiracy propped up big sanitation. Obviously Matt Burns, PBD took over. Yeah, he did. Also too, I don’t the whole entire, if you’re going to have a guest like Patrick bet David on or anybody, when you’re going to have that level of conversation, there’s very few people who could spark up a joint and still keep the conversation at that level. Maybe just Joe Rogan, because the second bill started taking a couple hits, he turned down and from that point forward, he couldn’t really bring up any good points. He wasn’t really quick. He wasn’t really quick witted. So I want to talk a little bit about Philip Kelly. Julia Michaels talked about Ozempic too. I didn’t watch that much of it.
(07:56):
I should definitely go back and watch the whole thing. But the first section I did watch, she was great. Oh, before we get into private equity, which I have, I know we’ve talked about this before, heaven knows Frank’s talked about it and some of his stuff, but I found a really great YouTube channel called, if I can remember how Money Works. So the YouTube channel is called How Money Works. And he made this video just on what private equity is and what they do. And I’ve just pulled a couple nuggets out of there that I wanted just to share with you guys because I think if we really understand the intentions of private equity as a whole, maybe not specifically Berkshire partners, but if we know what the goal of private equity is at the whole and how they typically operate, we could predict CrossFit’s next moves.
(08:44):
We could kind of understand, okay, they’re going to do this because it’s going to give them this and this is why they would do this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But before we get into this private equity stuff, I wanted talk a little bit about leadership, not hopefully in a lame way, but we’re going to bring up our friend here, bill Meyer one more time. And you know what? Shoot, I thought I had written down who this was, but apparently I don’t have it together. So if you guys recognize this woman here from this bit, put in the comments so we know. Here we go. I
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Know you’re friends with Newso. Yeah, we live here, right? Oh, we live in California. I was born here in Oakland, Kaiser Hospital. My pediatrician was that the hospital put out a notice last week. Employees are not to leave for lunch. It’s too dangerous.
Matthew Souza (09:42):
Not only that, I have the Lawrence Livermore lab right up the street from the gym. They fly people in all the time. They stopped using Oakland Airport because of the amount of people that got robbed getting into their rental car and leaving the airport. By the way, they don’t fly in people to Oakland anymore. So I know what she’s talking about
Speaker 3 (10:02):
In downtown Oakland. That’s on him. I don’t want to hear that. The homeless problem is intractable. You want to be CEO. It’s your problem. It’s your dad. Hi.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
I know you like him, but I just think, I
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Can’t imagine him having the gall to run to relieve this country when he’s run this state into the ground when we just had Governor Brown, not that long ago was safe. Things were going on. It’s not good. It’s not. He looks very shiny.
Matthew Souza (10:35):
He does look shiny. He’s put together, he’s got the hair and he looks the part for sure, like, oh, he’s a standup guy.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
He’s not a straight shooter and
Speaker 3 (10:46):
He’s not willing to do the hard things to make this state better. And that’s his only job. He doesn’t realize that he thinks it’s to go sing Kumbaya with a former Marette at New College of Florida to make some vague points. Meanwhile, back in our state, people are dying in these encampments.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Well, I’m hoping that running nationally will bring him more to the center,
Matthew Souza (11:06):
Running nationally will bring him more to the center. Oh, I was almost starting to bill and now I just think he’s a full-blown idiot. You guys know the couple that’s like, oh, we haven’t been getting along that well and things haven’t been great. But I think what would help us get closer as a couple is a kid. We’re going to have a kid, and this is going to solve our relationship problems. And I don’t have any kids, but I know you guys that have kids out there. That is the worst possible thing you could do if your relationship isn’t sound right. So imagine somebody who has a state with a GDP the size larger than most countries, and the whole entire thing is going to shit. And we don’t even need to get into the homeless problem. We don’t even have to talk about the crime.
(11:54):
We could just simply talk about the roads. If you live here in the Bay Area and you drive eight 80, or if you drive six 80 or if you drive five 80, you will fucking might hit a pothole that would blow your tire out. Polio will back me up on this one. He commutes all over the Bay Area and dude, some of those potholes and even the infrastructure portion of it, it’s just falling apart. Oh, the phone line’s open. Okay. All right. Thank you, Sivan. We got the phone line going. First time on the show, let just get the Bluetooth going.
(12:31):
Wait, what’s happening? What else is playing? Wait, I’m getting a weird echo now. Is it my phone? Okay, standby. Hold on, hold on. Okay, there we go. It was playing on my phone at the same time and I could hear myself in Echo and it was really odd. Okay, Bluetooth on. Okay, road caster. Road caster. And then of course, I’m probably going to have to have one of you guys call it so we could test it real quick, but it would be fun to get some of your inputs on a few of these topics. One second. All right, it says we are connected. Okay, and I’ll run the phone line at the bottom and I’ll switch screens in a moment here. Banners. Alright, boom. We’re live calling. Yeah, okay. So anyhow, talking about giving somebody a state and they run it inground and to the ground, again, we’re not even referring to the homeless problem or the crime problem, just simply infrastructure and the ability for people to live here, to afford to live here and being able to solve some of those problems.
(13:43):
Now, a lot of people would go, well, what is he supposed to do? What he is the fuck? Gavin Newsom is the guy in charge, right? He is the guy in charge. And if you’re going to be the guy in charge, everything rises and falls on you. And to think that taking him from a state level to a national level leadership is somehow going to make him a better leader and to take more responsibility is insane. It’s exactly the same thing that I just talked about of people having problems in their relationship. So they buy a dog together or they have a kid together, or they think that, okay, well if we just get married and take it to the next step, things will get better. And it’s like, no, you’re just putting more on a shitty situation. So fix the situation first before you give more responsibility.
(14:33):
And in his case, more power as well too. And listen, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have the answers for the mental health problems that have the open drug camps that are falling into California. I’m not here to say that I have all the solutions to the crime problem, but all as I know is that anything that happens in and around my gym is my fault. It’s my responsibility. Even if I don’t know how to figure out how to fix it, I better start working towards some sort of solutions to just at least start making progress towards fixing it. And when people and I get fired all the time and we don’t have the ability to fire our governor because if they try to do the recall, you saw the propaganda that came out. There’s way too many people that are infected here with the mind virus and they’re just like, they’re afraid.
(15:22):
So they would rather just live in the shit hole. And what I mean by I get fired all the time is anytime a member leaves the gym, I got fired. Anytime a coach is saying, Hey, I’m not taking my hours anymore, or I’m going to do this or do that and I won’t coach you anymore, I got fired. Anytime something that happens in the gym that has a negative effect or anything on the community, me personally or however it goes, it’s always going to come down to me. Whether it was my responsibility or not, Hey, one of the coaches didn’t shut the back gate, the whole entire place got robbed. That’s not a true story. I’m just making this up again. That is my fault. Even though I wasn’t the one that was there, I still had to train the coach properly. I still had to make sure that they knew what they were doing, that they were competent in their tasks that I could delegate to them.
(16:07):
So that way that task would still continue to get done. And if I don’t do it, that’s a hundred percent on me. I didn’t provide enough there. And so for somebody like Bill Meyer who has a really good, really big voice in the space and has a really large audience to say, well, not all these things could be his fault. He doesn’t really know how would you solve the problems? It’s like, motherfucker, I’m not being paid to figure that out. He is in charge and we definitely need the ability to hold our leadership more accountable. And I just wanted to just highlight that a little bit because I often think sometimes people think that they’re higher up, that they should be somehow void of accountability or responsibility. And I just think that’s totally bullshit. If you truly have somebody who’s leading for the front from the front, then they are just a person who is willing to take total responsibility for everything that happens around them.
(17:04):
And it’s funny because I find myself aligning with more and more of those type of people in life, and I kind of look for that. You see something comes up and you’re like, how are they going to react to this? And I’m not talking like a tongue in cheek where they’re just venting about the situation. I’m talking about when the dust is settled, how are they reacting? Are they becoming a victim? Well, how was I supposed to figure it out? I didn’t have the resources, I didn’t know what to do. Or they taking response like, Hey, we screwed up there and I definitely have to figure out how to solve this problem. I don’t know yet, but I’m going to actively work towards doing that and show you that there’s progress.
(17:41):
12 daily doses, give the police more power, man, give the police more training, give the police more resources. I agree with that Power. No, I don’t think more power is the solution, but I also think that it’s going to come down to the personal responsibility of all of us. If the leader from the top is blaming somebody else is blaming Trump for their problems or is blaming other things that are outside of their control, that’s going to trickle down through everything. If I start taking that same exact approach in my affiliate and just start being able to blame it, well, hey, this happened. Or Hey, I was going to get to it, but this happened. Or, Hey, don’t really busy, so I couldn’t make that. Why do you think the coaches are going to act in there? How do you think Albert, my GM’s going to act?
(18:26):
He’s, he’s going to do those same exact things because he is just going to mimic my same behavior because I’m tolerating that. And therefore, since I’m tolerating it, I am now setting that as the standard. We talked a little bit last time about what you tolerate becomes the standard. If you’re looking in terms of leaders or political leaders or anything else, if they have that victim mindset, if they’re blaming, if they’re tolerating a lot of bullshit, that is their standard. And that’s definitely not somebody who I want to elevate to become president, although I will make the prediction here. Clearly, Biden is unfit to serve anything. He can’t even serve his own food into his mouth, let alone the country. And there was another clip that was from Patrick, be David’s podcast earlier today, and I wanted to get it for the show. I’m not going to let you guys wait while I fumble with it here.
(19:15):
But Gavin Newsom was essentially talking about how well Biden did. And of course he’s going to do that because they’re in the same party. And that’s part of the problem too, is people just pony up and just tow the party line regardless of how ridiculous it is. But I bring that up just to say that anybody who wants to hold up, how do I want to phrase this? Eric Weinstein had a really great thing on this, and it was like you pulled past a cop and they’re kind of directing traffic. There was this horrific accident, right? I mean, just imagine the most horrific accident you can have. No, I think the on podcast phone isn’t working. I think it’s working. I just don’t think anybody’s called. I think it’s working, but it’s not. It didn’t it. No one’s called. So when you pass by that scene, right?
(20:04):
And then the Copco says, this was Eric Weinstein example, move along here, folks. There’s nothing to see. And clearly there is something to see. There is a horrific scene behind you and he wants you to just move along. Nothing to see there and what they’re really asking of you. And if you guys go back and watch some of these clips of Gavin Newsom where he’s supporting and saying that Biden get a good job. What he’s asking of you too, and in the example of the cop is they’re asking you to not look at reality for what it is they want you to say, I know what you guys are seeing and what’s coming of it, but I want you to just pretend it’s not there. I want you just make believe this isn’t happening. Only listen to what I’m saying and agree with it. And so in something as obvious as the, oh, phone got sent to voicemail.
(21:01):
Oh, I’m getting no calls on my end. Okay, my calls are so otherwise I’d call. Okay, sorry about that. Magnus, 12 daily doses call in, test the line, give some action. I guess says I tried to call in to test the line and sent to voicemail. Oh, okay. I dunno why, but whenever you have somebody who is clearly saying, I know what you guys are seeing, and I want you to ignore that reality and just focus on what I’m saying, that’s so dangerous. That is, I mean, right around the corner from that is going to be horrific stuff that we’re going to be told just to ignore. And it kind of happened during the government lockdowns a couple years ago. Hey, we know you guys think that it’s not as bad as it is. I’m going to talk about this delicately so we don’t get dinged by our tech overlords.
(22:01):
I know you guys think it’s not as bad as it is. It’s not killing people at the rate that we thought it was, and it’s not as contagious for some groups, but we need you to ignore that reality and just listen to what we’re telling you to do. Think about that. Please ignore the reality and just listen to what I tell you to do. Scary stuff. Anyways, wanted just to show you guys that I thought it was cool and I thought it was cool to relate it back to where responsibility lies and where the buck stops. As soon as I, whats your number I need to call in? Let me just go ahead. It’s 9 2 5. No, I’m not telling you on the air. Jeremy, what are you crazy? What are you crazy? I don’t know why it’s not forwarding. Usually it’s worked in the past.
(22:50):
That’s all right. We’ll get that sorted out. Okay, so now when we talk about responsibility, we talk about who the buck stops with. We talk about who’s in charge. Now we’re moving on to private equity. No reason to string all those together and no one deal. How does that, okay, so this is my, oops, sorry. So this is my little first portion of the video here. As always, you guys know, I’m going to kind of stop it just at random time so we’re not listening to a ton of this. But I only get about seven seconds. I only get about seven seconds. So here we go.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
Private equity has minted more global billionaires than oil and technology. It’s a $4.7 trillion global business,
Matthew Souza (23:34):
$4.7 trillion global business. At some point, the numbers just get so massive. You’re just like, what? It doesn’t even matter.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
That according to some outlets has crushed your ability to buy a house and your chance to relive your childhood at Toys r Ross. Private equity is simultaneously the ultimate career goal of every insufferable business, bro,
Matthew Souza (23:55):
Every insufferable business, bro, I’ll leave that section at that. I wanted to introduce you guys to that channel there, which is how money works, and use that first portion because as more and more people understand what private equity is, they understand that basically what it’s doing is it’s just eating up a bunch of companies. So they could just build themselves into this powerhouse company for just keeping it super basic. Just some bro talk right there. Julian, 1999 finds to fix the phone. Oh, funds to fix the phone. Thank you. I appreciate that. My cut of that will be the 99 cents at the end. So it’ll put it to, I’m just joking. And so the reason why we want to talk about the private equity is because it’s not just in the realm of CrossFit where it’s touched our world. The private equity group kind of moves around and just continues to just buy stuff up.
(24:54):
And when you buy up more and more companies, and we put in all this bureaucratic stuff, meaning I have my middle management who reports to my executives who report to the CEO, who reports to the board, who reports possibly to the managing partners or maybe the managing partners are sitting within the board. So you have all those layers of people that are going to have their hands in making any decisions. You’re going to have all those layer of people that are going to write the checks to say, okay, we’re going to fund this idea. Hey, we’re not going to fund this idea. And so on so forth. And whenever you have multiple different layers of it like that, the personal responsibility starts to erode out of it because it’s never like me. It’s the next guy up and it’s never them. It’s the next guy up.
(25:37):
And then when you get to the guy at the top, it’s like, oh, well, I’m just going off the numbers. It’s not me personally making the decisions. I’m just making decisions within the parameter and framework that I have. Right? Does it go to my voicemail? Does it say my name or does it just give you slinky phone is ringing on my end now, but went to voicemail. Dang. S leaky would’ve called. That would’ve been a fun one. Okay, so the question is, it moves up the rungs. And as you have all these people with their hands and making the decisions and saying, let’s put money to this. Let’s not put money to this. Take money away from this. They’re all pretty much after one end goal, which this is going to be from the same exact channel that I showed you before. This is skipping ahead almost towards the end of the video for relevance of what I’m talking about.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
Four times before you have deployed all of your money. The companies you acquire are called portfolio companies, and your job now is to get as much money as possible out of them for your investors.
Matthew Souza (26:41):
So once you acquire one, the companies they become, and I loved how Chris Cooper called it, he called it the CrossFit baseball card. And if you look at this is the structure of the company, we don’t need to focus too much on that. But if you look at all the little businesses down below in which they’re talking about here, each one of those would essentially become to the private equity group, a trading card. How is it performing? Is it making me more money? Is it making me less money? What is it doing? And my job is one goal. It’s not to promote a revolution in health. It’s not to build some crazy community or a culture, it’s just to increase the value of the company. For my investors in that company, that is the one goal. And you guys have heard us talk about that quite a bit, but how do they do that? How do they increase value into a company?
Speaker 6 (27:29):
Private equity firms have a bad reputation for gutting companies laying off staff and saddling them with tons of debt. And that’s because they do this a lot. Since you own the portfolio companies, you can tell their CEOs what to do.
Matthew Souza (27:42):
Since you own a portfolio company, remember that’s the company that they bought, in this case, the CrossFit training guard. You could tell the CEOs what to do. Nope, it’s not a joke. That’s real. So the first portion of that too, they said they come in and they gut the companies, they stack it with a bunch of debt and they pull on different levers to see if they could increase the value of the company. And I was talking with Shan earlier today, and he used the analogy of a house as I was talking about this with him, just processing how I was going to explain this, and it makes a lot of sense with the house. So if I buy a house for a hundred dollars and I put $10 down and I use $90 of the bank’s money, and then I fix up the house a little bit, put on some different paint and remodel the kitchen a little bit, I can now value that house at $200.
(28:34):
And at the same time as I’m building onto the house, as I’m adding more value to it, I’m also paying down the mortgage slightly. So maybe I owed $90 to the bank, and by the time it’s all fixed up and everything else, I’ve paid down a little bit more. So I own a little bit more equity of the home, and I’ve made it look a little bit better. Now I’ve done two things. I’m able to flip the house for more because of what I’ve done to it, but I also own more of the equity of the house because I paid down the debt that was due to it. So now I have two separate ways to increase the value of the company for my investors. So I say all that to say, okay, so what has CrossFit done so far? Well, we’ve seen CrossFit layoff quite a bit of their staff.
(29:16):
So they came in with the baseball bat and did that whole thing. And we even just saw it in the recent with Keith Knapp and a couple of others that have been let go of the company. So they’re continuing to do this, which again, every person they let go, it saves ’em money. And as they change other things in the company, like we heard Don say on Kettlebells and Cocktails podcasts that he was taking a meaningful money out of the games. We have no idea what that’s going to look like yet, but we know that something is going to happen there too. And that’s just along the lines of the same thing they did by just laying off a bunch of people the fastest way to gain more money. You just cut your expenses and now you have more to your bottom line without having to actually grow the revenue of the company.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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