What Happened To Dan Bilzerian? - Dan Bilzerian - #828

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dan Bilzerian. He's an entrepreneur and a professional poker player. What would it be like to dedicate yourself to hedonism for an entire decade? Without any budget or time or resource constraints, what would you discover from doing every adventure imaginable in the modern world? And what would you truly value once it was over? Expect to learn where Dan has been for the last few years, whether his company Ignite actually went bankrupt. If Dan is still rich, why he's trying monogamy. What happens when you lock yourself on an island with 100 women. Dan's advice for all men on how to be more attractive. The biggest pitfalls that men make when posting on social media. How to stop being intimidated by hot women. And much more. Dan has an interesting arc. Doesn't matter whether you like him or hate him. The guy is non-typical. He is a non-fungible human. And there are not many of him around. And I think that there's an awful lot that we can learn from observing somebody who goes to the absolute extreme of anything, whether it's in athletics or lifestyle or finance or asceticism. There's a lot of lessons to take away from today. I really hope that you enjoy this one. Also, don't forget, the next couple of weeks, I've got the biggest guests we've ever had coming onto Modern Wisdom. I've got Alex Hormozi, Eric Weinstein, Robert Greene, Dr. Andrew Huberman, all coming up over the next few weeks. And the only way that you can ensure you will not miss those episodes is by hitting subscribe. So navigate to Apple podcasts or Spotify. And press the follow button in the middle of the page or the plus in the top right hand corner. I thank you very much. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dan Bilzerian.
What happened to you? Where did you go?

**Dan Bilzerian** (1:59)
You mean on the last like four things I flaked on or for the last two years?

**Chris Williamson** (2:03)
Pick whichever you want.

**Dan Bilzerian** (2:07)
Well, I kind of pulled out a little bit when I did the book, right? That was like two years. And then came back pretty strong for like a year. I was going back into the whole thing. And it was funny because when I did the book, I realized that the whole hedonism thing wasn't really my bag and just wasn't making me happy. So I came to that realization, much like I came to the realization that money didn't make me happy and then still chase fucking money for a long time. But yeah, I just, I kind of wanted to get off the hedonistic treadmill.
And I came back after the book. I mean, there's a lot of like people that were talking shit and whatever. And I kind of did it a little bit for Ignite. And also just cause I was kind of bored and COVID was over. But I definitely realized after going, I did, what was it? I did France and then we did South Africa, did South America, I did Dubai, kind of like a, a whole tour of Maldives and then I did Thailand. I just realized like I didn't want to travel around with fucking 12 girls everywhere that I went. And I didn't want to dedicate my whole life to my sex addiction. So that was just the end of it.

**Chris Williamson** (3:16)
Why, why didn't you want that? What, what were you believing previously that you sort of disillusioned yourself of?

**Dan Bilzerian** (3:24)
Well, the belief part of it, I would say that pleasure will make you happy and that hedonism was the answer. And that if I got a ton of pussy and I had a bunch of money and did all this stuff that that would make me happy. And it did, it was fun. Like, don't get me wrong. It was fun to fuck hot girls and do all that stuff. But I just went to the edge of the earth with it. And I think there was a point, I mean, there's definitely a point. I was on a yacht, 300-foot yacht, 30 girls. And I'm just like, I should be stoked. And I wasn't. And like, my energy was being sucked in a bunch of different directions.
I just remembered just being way happier, surfing with my buddies, doing a couple vacation, like all the stuff that I had kind of done before Ignite. So I think 2012 till 2016 was probably the craziest. That was like the motley crew rock star, like drug sex and rock and roll. Like that was it. I became famous. It was like chicks were fucking me in bathrooms. It was just like the crazy shit and it was new and it was fun. And I did that. I did that for a long time. And then I got a girlfriend in like 16 And I was just, like I said, much happier doing the couple of vacations, surfing, the guys who do the guy shit would work out during the day and then play cards, whatever. I could fuck my girlfriend at night. There was no distractions, no stress, no headaches, no bullshit. And I was just like, fuck, this is much better. And then I decided to ignite because I just kind of didn't want to be taking pictures in parking lots for the next fucking 30 years with every asshole that came up to me and not have like something to show for it.