The 2023 Milly Awards: Part 2

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
All right, now we're ready for part two of the Milly Awards. We've got a bunch of categories like Breakout Company or Product of the Year.
Who is the craziest slash most delusional person we met this year, as well as things like our favorite content, books, podcasts that we consumed. What is the best of the best? And one of my favorites is Unsexy Business of the Year. So what's a business that on the surface looks maybe boring or it flies under the radar, but actually secretly crushes it? We each share our own. So enjoy part two of the Milly Awards.
Next category that we have is the craziest, most delusional person that you met this year. So somebody who is kind of out there, they broke your frame a little bit and it can be good, delusional, crazy. It could be bad, delusional, crazy. This is just saying this person thinks way differently than you and they're a bit like, they're living in their own world.

**Sam Parr** (1:01)
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Now back to the pod.

**Shaan Puri** (1:50)
And so this was a tough one for me. I was a tough category. Sam, who did you have?

**Sam Parr** (1:55)
So the easy one was Elon Musk. Do you guys, we already forgot about how Elon and Zuck almost got in a fight. That was hilarious. I think Elon's insane, but I didn't want to pick him because that's too easy. So I chose this guy named Val who I've met via Hampton. You probably have seen him on Twitter. His name's, so like basically Val was under the radar for years and years. I mean, he's probably 45 years old. So he just started using Twitter, but he built a bunch of businesses. He was a Soviet Union immigrant, came here to America, aged 19, built a business that made $10 million in profit in year one. I started hanging out with him and now he's got this massive set of businesses that probably do like 150 or $200 million a year in revenue that he owns. He's never raised money for any of them.
I invested in, right when I met him, I invested into one of his real estate deals and he was new to it and I got a great return.
And so I did another one with him and I started talking to him and he's like, yeah, we own this many tens of millions of dollars of Brooklyn real estate. And I was like, Val, what the hell? How'd you figure out how to do this? He goes, well, I just did the math and I did this and I did this. And he was so logical and yet so calm about it. And he was comfortable with the risks. So I got to give love to Val.
And here's a fun fact about him. I started talking to him even more. He wakes up at 4 a.m. and he starts working at 3 p.m. and basically works until 4 a.m. And that's his life. And I'm like, there's so many reasons why that's bad. And he was calmly just saying like, yeah, but it works for me.
And he's got five kids. I love people that got tons of kids.
So this guy is the best. He seems like a good dad, a good husband, but he does crazy business stuff. Just absolutely crazy, but he's so calm about it. So he's one of the craziest people that I've ever met.

**Shaan Puri** (3:26)
Andrew, you wanna go next?

**Andrew Wilkinson** (3:27)
Sure. So I actually struggled. I think I said Brian Johnson. He was the person that comes to mind.
Really, really nice, interesting guy, but definitely crazy, all the health stuff he's doing. Elon Musk is another obvious answer, but I actually couldn't think of somebody that was crazy. And so I actually inverted it. I said, who is the sanest, calmest, most boring person? And Chris and I got to meet Michael Dell this year. And Michael Dell is worth $65 billion. That's insane. And we sat down with him. I'm going like, okay, I'm gonna crack this guy open, right? Like you read his book, it's all very tame. His public persona is very like, you know, serious and calm and nice and all that kind of stuff. His book is literally called Play Nice, But Win.