#22 - Cloud Kitchens, Kava Bars & Religious Products

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
Okay, Million Dollar Brainstorm, we're back. You've been in Hawaii, tell us about that.

**Sam Parr** (0:03)
If you guys Google lobby conference, you'll see it. A lot of people write about it as if it's this douchey event, which definitely checks the boxes from the outside of being that.

**Shaan Puri** (0:12)
Okay, what's douchey about it?

**Sam Parr** (0:14)
It's expensive and it's in Hawaii and it's a bunch of tech people. I don't think that's douchey, but it definitely checks many people's boxes.

**Shaan Puri** (0:19)
And it's like exclusive, right? It's like, I think 50 people, 100 people, a small number.

**Sam Parr** (0:24)
It's like an invite only thing. So it definitely checks all the boxes to fit that stereotype. It's called lobby conference.

**Shaan Puri** (0:29)
So how did you get invited?

**Sam Parr** (0:30)
One of my investors, Narendra, he referred me. Okay, so it's this, you can Google it to learn about it, but it's this event hosted by David Hornick, one of the partners at August Capital of VC. 150 or 200 people, invite only. They've done it for 13 years now.
And the guys who were there on the first year, many of them are still there. And it's like internet OGs, like Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos was there. Kevin Rose.

**Shaan Puri** (0:51)
Kevin Rose, dig.

**Sam Parr** (0:52)
I had dinner and hung out most of the time with Tim Westergen, founder of Pandora. Like all these guys who were like maybe my age now, but are in their 40s, who were still trying to have a hit and have now had some hits. It was awesome. It was great. Two takeaways.
Number one, Gen Z, totally, they're fucked.

**Shaan Puri** (1:10)
Okay, why?

**Sam Parr** (1:11)
We talked about like, there's this one-

**Shaan Puri** (1:13)
Were they there? I don't think they were there.

**Sam Parr** (1:15)
No, there was like, we had these like little meetups about, like, and we would talk about interesting things. Gen Z, I didn't realize it. They're having very little sex.
They're doing a lot of drugs, but they're not drinking. And a lot of them have depression and mental-

**Shaan Puri** (1:27)
Gen Z is like 21 and younger right now?

**Sam Parr** (1:30)
Maybe four, 24

**Shaan Puri** (1:31)
24 and younger, okay.

**Sam Parr** (1:32)
Yeah, the suicide rate's high. The depression rate is like astronomical. A lot of issues.

**Shaan Puri** (1:37)
So who was talking about this? Who was like the Gen Z expert?

**Sam Parr** (1:38)
There's one woman who runs like a research firm for Gen Z. So it was very much like, well, here's what the cool kids think.
I realized that at that time, I'm like an old guy who's like, well, how do they use-

**Shaan Puri** (1:47)
Yeah, exactly, old people talking about young people. It never fails.

**Sam Parr** (1:51)
Funny, like I was like the youngest guy there. People had Gen Z children and they were talking about it.

**Shaan Puri** (1:56)
Right, right, okay, fair enough. All right, so that was one takeaway. What's the second one?

**Sam Parr** (1:59)
The second thing, there was tons of rich ballers there, really wealthy, and a lot of them seemed just horribly down, depressed and not like that.

**Shaan Puri** (2:07)
If you're young or if you're rich, you're depressed. That's what I'm learning.

**Sam Parr** (2:10)
Well, and this is something that's kinda, I can't believe I'm saying this because everyone who's young hears this and no one believes it, which is that money will not make you as happy as you think it will. I saw this firsthand very clearly.

**Shaan Puri** (2:21)
What made you say this? So they're at this conference and they were just recluse or what made you feel this? Or they were sharing, like, look, I'm not feeling great.

**Sam Parr** (2:28)
First of all, yes, a lot of people, there was this one gathering, it was like a bunch of small sessions that people would complain about stuff, like say, here's what I'm struggling with. And you think that these people who have it all figured out, they definitely don't.
People brought their families and you see the interactions that people have had with their husbands or wives or kids, and it's like this guy on the surface appears like this baller, but he just has, he's going through the normal bullshit that every family man is going through.

**Shaan Puri** (2:50)
Right, right, right. Yeah, I have a friend who's, I don't know how wealthy, he's close to a billionaire, and he basically, he was talking about this, how he was feeling this way, and he's like, the problem is, no one wants to hear about an unhappy billionaire.