Decoding Tony Hawk’s mindset in 72 minutes

Tony Hawk (0:00)

Fourth game just got released. It got to be in the top 10 sales right away. And he said, the first three are still in the top 10 And I said, what does that even mean? And he's like, this is what it means. And he slid a check across the table for $4.5 million.

That's how he made My First Million.

Sam Parr (0:26)

Tony, can we show you something really quick, just so you understand how real this is all about to be?

Tony Hawk (0:33)

Sure.

Sam Parr (0:33)

So we're business nerds, but at least one of us has grown up watching you. I'm going to show you why I like talking to you. This is me skating. Can you see this video?

Tony Hawk (0:43)

Wow.

That's awesome. So is that 360 flip recent?

Sam Parr (0:47)

Yeah, I'm 37 years old.

Tony Hawk (0:49)

Damn.

Sam Parr (0:49)

So look, there's a six stair.

Tony Hawk (0:50)

I'm jealous. That's amazing.

Was that the Riverside Park right there?

Sam Parr (0:55)

Riverside Skate Park. I moved right by it, just and I go every Saturday and Sunday.

Tony Hawk (0:59)

Sick. I'll meet you there so you can teach me how to relearn 360 flips.

Sam Parr (1:03)

Yeah, right. Have you skated there a bunch?

Tony Hawk (1:05)

I can't do them on flat anymore. I can only do them on banks.

Sam Parr (1:08)

Well, that's more impressive. But I grew up watching you forever. So it's pretty cool that we've intersected at this strange place called My First Million where we talk about business and stuff. But I'm so excited to talk to you.

Shaan Puri (1:20)

Yeah, actually, Sam, I have a funny story. So I met Tony once many years ago now, like 10 years ago. We went on a trip to Ethiopia with Charity Water.

Tony Hawk (1:28)

Yeah, I was like, I know that face.

Shaan Puri (1:30)

Yeah, so we're in the middle of nowhere. It's like, there's no service, there's no nothing. There's no water, right? That's why we're there. There's no water in these villages. And we're on the side of a mountain, we're kind of doing a hike. And this guy's like...

Tony Hawk, and he recognized Tony Hawk on the side of a mountain in Ethiopia. A place where they didn't even have anything. It was incredible. And the funny thing was the whole trip was like a bunch of who's like, oh, this guy created Spotify. This guy created this. Nobody knew anyone except for Tony Hawk. You got recognized on the side of a mountain. I thought that was unbelievable.

Tony Hawk (2:02)

That was a fun trip. I had never experienced anything so remote for sure. But also with the whole mission of a life-changing water. Like it was insane. We got to fix wells. That was wild.

Shaan Puri (2:14)

Yeah, we got to see the water come out for the first time in a village when the geyser blasts and stuff like that. It was amazing.

Sam Parr (2:21)

How did you get looped into that, Tony?

Tony Hawk (2:23)

I was a big donor to Charity Water. And I had actually sponsored a well in the name of my daughter, who was very young at the time. She's now in college. But we got to go visit the actual well. And people were thanking me on my daughter's behalf. And it was really cool.

Shaan Puri (2:40)

That's one of the amazing things Charity Water did. This is really not about charity. It's kind of a business lesson. When Scott started Charity Water, he had no background in charity. But he decided, like, hey, he just asked himself the question, why don't I give to charity more? He's like, well, I think the main thing is you don't know where the money goes. You kind of give it, it's a black box.

You hope something good is happening, but you never really feel the impact, see the impact. And so what he was doing was, if you donated, you get a GPS tracker of exactly where in the world your thing was going. You can see the flow meter of how much water is coming from your well once it comes online. And then for people like Tony, who were doing like a full well, he would do these once in a lifetime type of things. You could go see it, go see the place and go talk to the people who are the beneficiaries of this. And I just think that that was such an unlock for him and why Charity Water, one of the reasons Charity Water was able to do so well as a nonprofit compared to the kind of standard operating procedures of nonprofits.