High School Dropout to Multi-Billionaire: The Relentless Drive of Rafael Vivas

You have a very interesting story, one of the most interesting entrepreneurial stories I've ever come across. You're a high school dropout, you got kicked out of your house, you lived in an office, and now you're a multi-billionaire. So I want to start with, how did you manage to get yourself kicked out of your house? I always focused on driving as much value as I could. And so I realized, you know, when I was in school, I wasn't really good at it. Horrible grades, couldn't pay attention, didn't really care about anything the teachers were talking about. But internet advertising was something that I gravitated to and kind of grabbed onto. And so for me, once I got into the business, I stopped going to classes, I was skipping school, I was working 24-7, and it came to the point where my dad was like, all right, you think you're this big guy, you think you're this hotshot making all this money online, then just move out of the house. And literally, it was like a day later, got my stuff, moved to my best friend's house. And it was kind of funny because at that time it was, you know, I go straight to my best friend's house, his mom was a really sweet lady. And she was like, you know, hey, good to see you. I was like, oh, can I live in your house? And I was like, but I've got a great deal for you. I will employ your son as an intern at this business, I'll help clean the house. That was pretty much it. And so that was, you know, I would say the first foray of me moving out of the house. But you were how old when this happened? I was around 16 years old. Okay, but why drop out of high school? Why did you, like, how did, a lot of people drop out of college, but like you dropped out of high school. Why did that? So take a step back. I started working online around 14 years old doing performance media buying. And what I saw during that period was really eye opening. I saw at the time I was working for my brother, you know, these guys were making 20, $30,000 a day in profit, advertising different products. My teacher would make $25,000 a year. So it was a no brainer to me really quickly that school, the upside was nowhere as high as compared to if I were to put all my efforts into performance marketing. And so your older brother was kind of teaching you the trade. Yeah. Is that how it worked? Yeah, so, you know, kind of backstory. I come from a family, it's four brothers, two stepbrothers, all boys, but my parents got divorced very early. I was not growing up with my oldest brother, but I was always online, always on the computer. I was building websites, did game service business for a little bit. And at one point, my brother came to go visit my dad. And, you know, he was telling my dad that he was doing performance marketing. And my dad had this brilliant idea that I would go and intern for him. I go and intern for him for a summer, which initially I was against because it was like, I'm making $1,000 a month, you know, selling stuff online and doing game servers. And, you know, as at that time, you know, 14 year old kid, that's a lot of money, you know, in middle school. So, you know, what ends up happening is he convinced me to go and join him. I started working there and I started doing like, I would say like I'm below the water boy. I'm like, you know, the boring terms of service and privacy policy, like I'm the guy adding that onto the site. Whatever work that those guys didn't want to do, you know, was pretty much foisted onto me. But through that, I got to learn a lot about the industry. So learn about, you know, what types of products people are interested in, what types of ads get people's attention, how money is made online just in general. And so that was kind of my big foray into it. And at the time you were essentially, you became obsessed with online advertising, which is a funny, like obsession for like a teenage, a young teenager to have. But your other obsession was video games, right? Yes. Was there like parallels that you, that you drew between the two activities? I was never really good at sports. I played soccer and baseball as a kid, but I wasn't good at any of them. The thing that I loved about video games for me was that it was all about based on merit. If you're competing in a multiplayer game or a single player game, ultimately it's just to out compete the people that you're competing against effectively. And that was something that I loved. So taking it into business for me, I always had this analogy in my head of when they sent the warriors out, you know, back in the days to go get food for the tribe, the only thing that they, that people would care about back in the tribe was who brought back the food, who killed the animal. In business for me is I always just focused on being the most valuable person in the room, doing what I could to drive the most value for everybody. Say more about this. I think titles and, you know, seniority, I think it's all bullshit. I think in business, similar to sports and similar to video games, it's just about delivering the most value possible. And that was something that I realized early on is that if you go kind of down the same route as everybody else, where it's like, okay, I'm going to go start a company. I'm going to be an analyst for a few years, you know, then I'm going to go and try to get to the next level of a manager and then a senior manager and so on. It's this linear and very boring path where actually you limit your ability to grow personally and then also the ability to deliver value to a company versus if you take this other approach of what is the most important thing to the business? And in my skillset, what can I do to deliver as much value as possible? If you take that mindset very quickly, it may not be a linear route, but very quickly you will be exposed to opportunities that you wouldn't be otherwise. And so that is kind of the approach I've always taken. But this is one of the most fascinating things about you. When I tell other people about you and Adam Faruqi is you had that trait when you were like a kid. You've been working with Adam since you were 17. 17 or 19, something like that. My brother and Adam had worked together. So I'd known of Adam since I was 14. I met him at 15 and when I told you I was the water boy, he came to the office, my brother was a go get Adam a water. But I knew who he was before because there was kind of this leaderboard in my brother's performance marketing company and Adam was at the top of the leaderboard at the time and I was the guy behind him. Initially I started building websites, I started building ads and then building campaigns. And so I knew already knew who he was. So that's how I got connected with Adam. And then from there, we didn't really communicate that much in the beginning. I would say when I was around 17, 18 is when we got closer. And that was because my road was very, was not linear at all. I didn't wait to be given opportunities. For example, when I started building websites, that was one thing, but I was curious about, okay, how are ads made? So I just started getting on Photoshop and making ads. And then at the time, somebody showed me how to put up a, it was like a MySpace campaign and I did that. And then from there, it was like, okay, I want more traffic and I just started reaching out to brands on my own, right? And nobody gave me the permission to register doing it. Fast forward, I was like, hey, we started our own ad platform, right? Why are we buying from all these other ad platforms when we can just go and reach out to the publishers ourselves and we have demand? Wait, so when you get this idea, we're going to start our own ad platform, you're how old? That time I was about 17 years old. Okay, that's very unusual idea for a 17 year old. It was, the reason we started the ad platform was at the time, this advertising platform that we were working with, they had their own advertisements, their own offers, and they banned us off of it because we were competitive. And I got so angry that night that I was like, I remember I went home, like pretty much cried and I was like, we're going to bury these guys. And I went to my brother and I was like, hey, I'm going to leave your company to go start my own ad platform. I want to go head to head with this company. And he started laughing so hard and he was like, you're not going anywhere. I'll give you a few engineers, go build what you want. And that was the idea at the time of Appenda. Appenda was a mobile ad platform. Around this time, Adam had already left my brother's company and he was actually done with ads and wanted to start building consumer products. And so, the beginning of Apploved actually was, at first it was a dating app and then there was a fashion app and then there was all these other products that they kind of built. Adam was buying traffic from me. Adam was buying traffic from your ad network for his apps that he was developing. Exactly, exactly. So, during this time, Adam and I would talk a lot over AIM because it was effectively his account manager, but I would screw with him a lot. I'd be like, hey, I'll teach you a lot about making money online. I'll teach you how to run real business. Which is also another crazy thing because he's like 10 or 12 years older than you. 12 years older than me, way smarter than me. Guy's a walking calculator. But ignorance is bliss and I just had this ship on my shoulder that I feel like I could take on the world. And as we spend more time talking, what ended up happening, very intelligently, Adam was like, okay, this kid who works around the clock but isn't that intelligent has built this ad platform in kind of this wide open blue space and that's seen success. I'm gonna go build a mobile ad platform. So, he's going to compete with you. This is where he pulls you in the room, he's like, don't get, he came on the show. Let me back up before we get to this because some people are listening, they haven't seen an episode. And the Adam Ferugie episode, when people are like, I think that is one of the episodes I'm most proud of because I think I titled it like the best entrepreneur you've never heard of. And it's the fact that at the time, whatever, Apple is a $150 billion market company. They're gonna print six billion in cash this year and they're doing it with like 400 employees. And the reason I'm proud of that episode is because it goes out and all of the like, almost like I think the next like five or six guests that we had on the show that came on, this happened over and over again. We did this episode, they'll be out in December with Mr. Beast, right? And I've known Mr. Beast for a while. He listens to my other podcast founders, like he'll send me his Spotify wrap every year and it's like founders at the top. As soon as we stopped recording, he leaned forward, he goes, hey, can you introduce me to Adam? Mickey Malka, over and over again, like who is this guy and can you introduce me to him? And he was like such an unusual, like unfiltered, like hardcore person. So this is the person that we're talking about. This is the person you've been working with for like half your life. So now this guy is like, this fucking kid is making all this money with this ad network. Don't, I think he told the story, he's like pulled you in the room, he's like, don't be mad, but I'm gonna compete with you. Yeah, you know, it's funny. He was in the office and he had this shit eating grin, like on his face, like somebody who would just like eating your food. And it was actually, now he pulled me, I pushed him into a room because I saw the smile on him. And I was like, what the hell? Like, why are you so happy? What are you smiling about? And that's when he goes, hey, don't be mad. I'm building a competing ad platform. And at the time I didn't care because I was, like you mentioned me earlier, I'm a massive gamer. I love playing video games. I was actually gonna go join my friend's company in Y Combinator that built mobile games. And then Adam reverse inno'd me and he said, whoa, wait, what do you mean you're gonna go join somebody else's company? You should come work for me. You know how to work your ass off. You know everyone in the space here in mobile gaming, but you know nothing about building a real business. And out of respect for Adam, because even though I talked a lot of shit to him online and I always knew he was a really intelligent guy, I decided to come down to Palo Alto and meet the rest of the team. Is this when you move into the office? Yes. So a lot of people are like, oh, I'm here 24-7. I work 996. Raph moved into the office and then it speaks to the unique culture that you guys have. Adam built the bed. He did, he did. Him and another engineer. So double click into it. So what happened was this. So interviews went great. I was like, these are the smartest guys I've ever, you know, really spoken to in my life. It's a no-brainer, I'm gonna join. You know, we negotiate. I'm like, I want half the company. He's like, oh, somebody in your role gets a quarter of a percent typically. You know, I got a little bit more than that. I didn't get half the company though, obviously. And so I was like under, but there's one circumstance I have. And he's like, what is it? And I was like, I have to live inside of the office. And he was like, sure, but why? And I was like, think of this as like the Vietnam War, right? Like we have this goofy name called Applovin. We have no VC funding, right? You're gonna have some five foot eight chubby kid go out there and go sell, you know, to game developers and advertisers. The only way that we're gonna win is we're gonna have to out-hustle everybody else, which means I have to live here, right? Like this is the only way this will work. And you know, obviously he was very happy. It's like your first business hire, and the guy's like, I'm gonna fucking live in the office. Like you couldn't ask more out of an employee. So yeah, him and this guy called Furcon at the time, they went to IKEA and they built me and this other guy who's, I brought over another engineer to come live inside the office, our bunk beds. I can tell you the other engineer, the second he saw the bunk beds, he was like, screw that, I'm definitely not living here. When I saw it, I was like, home sweet home. You know, time to get started. I wanna tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. SpaceX is one of the most valuable businesses in the world. And one of the main themes in the history of SpaceX is constantly attacking and questioning your costs. Ramp helps many of the most innovative businesses in the world do exactly that. The median company running on Ramp cuts their expenses by 5%. And one thing SpaceX has demonstrated is that a religious dedication to controlling costs can help actually increase revenue because you can pursue opportunities you couldn't otherwise. And we see that in the Ramp data too. The median company running on Ramp also grows their revenue by 16%. 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And what they discovered is that Deal is the best company in the world at building infrastructure for global hiring. Deal will help your business hire, pay, and manage any worker anywhere in the world so you can retain the best talent anywhere and spend the rest of your time focusing on what you do best, delivering value to your customers. The founder of Eleven Labs has a great description of the value Deal can give your company. He said, we built Eleven Labs to break down language and communication barriers. With Deal enabling us to hire and support exceptional talent anywhere, we can accelerate our innovation and bring more voices, stories, and ideas to every corner of the world. Deal is trusted by over 40,000 companies and growing fast. Learn how they can help your business by going to deal.com forward slash senra. That is deal.com forward slash senra. What is the state of the business at the time you moved into the office? State of the business is pre-revenue. It was like an animal house. Adam had a bunch of engineers just working on different apps and they were just trying to find product market fit. or next idea was to build Apple of an ad network. And, you know, for context on Adam as well, is that Adam before had ran a very successful ad platform called Social Hour. That was an ad network on Facebook. And then before that, you know, he'd been doing advertising as well. So he was very, very familiar with the space. And some of that he mentioned in your last episode, he already saw a lot of user activity switching from PC to mobile. So it was kind of like, he was the perfect person to tackle the space because he understood the problem. It was a wide open field. And then also me coming on board, I was able to connect, you know, us at that time to the right advertisers and publishers and the rest is history. He also told the story too, where he tried to sell 25% of the company to VCs for a million dollars. He's like, you know, you can buy 25% of the company. You should back this. You guys got in really early, where you just said this transition from desktop to mobile. And he was turned down because they thought they're like gaming and ads. Like these are terrible businesses. They didn't understand that. And then a few years later, they go and fund a bunch of other competitors to you. And he said, you guys made it a company principle to put those, to drive those other competitors out of business. So take us to the back here. So there was actually plenty of other companies in the space that were very well funded. And, you know, they were backed by the top tier VCs at the time. So Benchmark, Sequoia, and so on. Some of them were very, very successful already. It felt like the market actually at the time was very mature. It was like, how are these, you know, at the time it was like this one kid doing sales and a few people in Palo Alto are gonna succeed against these behemoths that already had a, at that time it looked like a lot of the market. And also when Adam went to go try and raise this money, we were already profitable. It's funny because he was giving them a deal on a silver platter. Revenue traction, companies growing like crazy month over month, very profitable, you know, world-class margins compared to everyone else in the space. And he still got turned down. Why do you think that is? I think what it came down to was that we have a very untraditional story and background. A lot of people that, you know, had raised money before, you know, they were doing these mobile game platforms, they were game publishers or they were part of these big corporate companies. And so on paper, you know, they worked at Facebook or they worked at Google. They were on the AdMob team, which was one of the biggest ad platforms at the time. I know they worked for all these businesses. So on paper, they looked great. Versus us, we were performance marketers who we always ran arbitrage businesses. We'd never run an ad network that had kind of seen its way to a very profitable exit. So I think that's really what it was. How do you start, like you guys are a smaller team, no funding, you're such a bootstrap, competing against already established players that have more money and have more people. So how do you guys start building a company? How do you start winning? What Adam understood better than anybody else in the space was that the tech is the most important part. Everyone else focused on sales, right? So they had hundreds of advertisers and they had these premium publishers, but their algorithms were shit. A lot of these algorithms were people just like manually optimizing things in the background. Now, we didn't have a state of the art machine learning model that's not what existed back then, but we had rules in place and we did regression learning around kind of deciding what to serve. And that in itself allowed us to out-compete our competitors even though we didn't have as much demand and even though our publishers at that time weren't as high quality of some of the other ad platforms. And so when we would go and we'd actually see our monetization, let's say we'd go head to head with another ad platform, and a lot of times we would monetize at double the clip of somebody else. So the conversation of when I'd walk into a room or I'd reach out to a publisher was, I guarantee you more money than you're making elsewhere. It was a no-brainer, right? A lot of people, they believed it was too good to be true actually, so they'd make us put it in writing. We had no issue doing that. I would really say Adam's vision in going all in on the tech is what allowed us to succeed. Okay, we were talking before we started recording, you're like, I think our brand is too soft and it doesn't represent the insane performance culture that we have inside the company. Okay, I want to skip way ahead in the story because I spent a ton of time with you, spent a ton of time with Adam, and it does kind of remind me of the Chicago Bulls being led by Jordan that you see in The Last Dance. So just talk about what it's like working inside of Applovin. Applovin is a company where we're always on, and our goal is to make sure that any dollar that is given to us, that we're driving a profitable return. And so the businesses that we partner with and we work with, we treat ourselves as an extension of their team. And that is really different than a lot of these other ad platforms where they look at it as they're just providing a service. So I'll give you an example. We've interviewed a lot of people from some of these bigger ad platforms and they try to come get a job at Applovin. One of the questions I'll simply ask them is that, hey, would you set up a campaign? Would you upload ads? Would you come up with creative ideas? And a lot of times like, whoa, like, if I haven't done that, like, why would you do that? And for us, we do all of these things. And this is a part of like our operational excellence is that we feel like all of these little things, they all add up to delivering incredible returns for advertisers. And so that I would say is one big thing that's different. We are so focused on performance. That is actually like the cornerstone of our company. So a lot of people may say to us, like in customers, they love and hate us for it. Some customers say like, or I say a lot of customers would say, we're very competent, we're great, we deliver great results for them. But they would say like, you guys are pretty arrogant and aren't always the nicest people. But it's not that we're trying to be arrogant, it's that we just ultimately are trying to deliver the best returns for them. And so we are very opinionated on what they could be doing better and always pushing that. Versus other companies out there, they would say, well, whatever the customer wants is the customer's always right. If our goal is to deliver more customers profitably for you, then there is data that you can look at and there is right and wrong decisions. And for us, we're always trying to push towards the right decision. So say more about this anti-delegation take that you have. Yeah, so we talked about this before the show. A lot of leaders, and you hear about it in podcasts, is like hire people, delegate, delegate. That's not a cloth we're cut from at Uplovin. And the reason why is kind of like, to be a great leader, you have to be in the weeds. If you think about it in a sports analogy, why did Michael Jordan always get the ball? Or why was he effectively considered the captain of the team? It wasn't because he was the oldest person there, the most senior there. It's because when they gave him the fucking ball, he made the shot. And so for us, we look at it as, if you're in the weeds, you understand what the customers want, you understand what the customers need for them to succeed, and you understand what's also important. When you delegate and you hire all these people, you focus on a lot of things that are not important for your business. But you've hired these people, so they need something to do. So you just go and have them work on these tasks that don't really move the needle. Did you watch the Todd Graves interview that I did? I did. Where he says that he's a delegate. He's like, what does that word even mean? He had this nasty look on his face. He's completely anti, there's a lot of great founders that are kind of anti-delegation. Yeah, I also think it's what makes the game fun. Going back to video games, imagine you play all these levels, and then you get to a boss, the final boss. You're gonna hand the controller to your friend? Fuck no. You're gonna go and do it yourself. That's a new challenge, right? And that's what keeps the job exciting for me personally. What do you spend most of your time on? Because Adam told me he thinks you're one of the best deal guys in the world. I focus on doing the highest leverage deals that we can that's possible for the business, right? So we have a very small team. Luckily, we're a business that's very profitable and growing very quickly. And so we try to do deals with, whether it's companies that are advertisers, or doing partnerships with other companies that can bring us thousands of advertisers. That's my goal is to generate or to bring as many customers onto AppLovin as possible so we can build the best business possible and one of the biggest ad platforms in the world. And then you try to expand the existing customers too. Adam told this great story on this podcast where he's just like, yeah, Raph's like an animal. And he's just like, I get calls from customers all the time. He's like, what's up with this guy? This guy's a multi-billionaire and he's harassing me to spend an extra $5,000 a day. And he's like, this shouldn't matter to you. And he goes, it matters to us. Everything matters. Everything fucking matters, right? It's like, if you can't do the small things, right, how can you be expected to do the big things, right? And like, you know, I've said this online before, but like, we're just getting started. Like, you know, Adam talked about this. We're on pace for $20 billion of advertiser spend. When you look at like the two behemoths in the room combined, they do half a trillion dollars of ad spend on the platform, right? Or across their ad platforms. So like, there is so much room for us to grow. And when you're able to get into the weeds, make sure that you're succeeding for your advertisers. And by the way, a lot of times like, we do deliver better results for advertisers, but they may not move budget in the beginning because like, they're not focused on us or they're focused on other things. Like, it's important that you get in there and you make them care about your business, right? And that's actually one of the, I'd say one of the superpowers I have is that when I reach out to these customers, like, what the hell is this billionaire reaching out to me for an extra $5,000? It's like, it goes to show like, we're very serious about your business. Like, we really care about working with you. You're not just a number and a spreadsheet to us. Is this just like a persistence thing? Like, I just read Ari Emanuel's new book and his whole thing, he's going to come on the show and one of the things I want to ask him, is just like, does literally just calling people over and over again actually work? Because people do this with me. They're like, hey, I want to get in touch with you. And they're like, I'm just going to email you every day to your response. Like, you're getting blocked immediately. Like, that's just not going to work with me. If you just email people like nonstop, right? And just send them useless stuff, like they're just going to tune you out. And as you said, you'll block them. I think what matters is like, you're persistent, but you're always figuring out ways to deliver value for the customer, right? So like- So give me an example of that. So it's a really funny story. So, you know, we're going to Miami after this and there's this guy called Nadeer Khan. He ran a business, an apps business out of Miami, sold it for a few hundred million dollars. And it took me two years to get ahold of him. And every single time I'd reached out to him, it was about ways that they could make more revenue, right? Whether it was like, hey, this level could be optimized or you should be showing ads here, or like, hey, in this market, you're like, you're dropping the ball here. And there was this inside joke within their company, which was, we wish we had a Rafael Vivas on our team, because this guy's always like on top of things, trying to help us become better. And eventually he like responded back to me. He goes, you are one of the most persistent folks that I've ever encountered in my whole entire life. And then after that, we started doing a lot of business together and we helped them grow dramatically. Okay, so it's not like, hey, I'm going to keep bothering you, calling you, emailing you, because I want something from you. I'm going to keep getting in contact with you and delivering value. And you'll just realize after I tell you six good ideas, hey, maybe I should take this call. Exactly, right? And also it's not like a lot of times, like these people don't think that your ideas are good. It's just like, they have other things going on, right? It may not be the right time. They may not have the right people. It's important to always stay in their ear. Like you said, right? If you're delivering value, like these people will eventually want to work with you. What do you think are some of the other parts of app-loving culture that's very different from the inside that you would compare to like some of the other companies that you may see? The really big difference about us is like we are very, very hands-on. That's what I touched on before, but like even Adam sometimes will set up campaigns or like we'll be checking in on these small clients. And I would say like really just like giving a shit, like really caring is one of the biggest things for us. And then also like, I would say like we lead with bad news internally. Like, you know, a lot of companies like, you know, they're like, hoorah, like, you know, we had this, you know, we did this thing and it's great for our business. And like, but a lot of the internal app-loving like monologue is like, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks. Like, and then we just tackle it one by one to go and improve it, right? I would say those are really the two big things. You guys seem to be like immune to like your stock price volatility too. Like I remember something happened recently and I don't pay attention to the news so I don't even see this, but I think it dropped by like quite a bit for some reason. And I had called Adam and he called me back like right away and I just had like a joke for him that had nothing to do with anything. And like, he was like laughing and he was in a good mood. And then I found out after the fact, in fact, we were flying back from a recording and then somebody on the plane had told me, they're like, dude, their stock dropped by like, I don't know, 20% today. I was like, you would never know, talk to him. He just did not give a shit. We don't care about the short term, right? And we don't care about the short term because ultimately, if we feel like we're doing the right things for our business and growing, ultimately the stock price will reflect that, right? And you saw the company went to one point worth $3 billion, or actually, sorry, $4 billion. So like the stock dropped over 90%. So like being cut by 20% or being cut by half is just like another day in the NFL for us. Like it doesn't faze us. As long as we know we're doing the right things and helping our customers grow, the score will take care of itself. Now, I've heard you say in other places too, that like one of your goals is like to build Apploven into a durable business where it actually outlives you. Yes. Where'd you get that idea? Purpose is extremely important in life. And for me, I'm probably not gonna be the guy who cures cancer and I'm not gonna build AI or robots or anything like that. But what I'm very confident that we can build is a business that will be able to help companies grow many, many, many years past our lifetime. And that to me, if I can do that successfully, I would say I have succeeded in my lifetime, personally. So is that why you're still working? Is that why it keeps you going? Because like there's some people, I was just at this event in England and one guy sold his company for like $13 billion. And he's kind of like chomping at the bit to get back in the game. He doesn't regret the sale, but he's just like, I can't be an employee. I have to have a company. I have to have like some kind of vehicle for all my creativity and my energy. But he said his other co-founders are just fine. They made a billion dollars each, whatever the case was. And he's just like, they're like building houses and they're like writing angel checks and they're hanging out on the beach. So it's a few things. One, like when I say like we're still early in the game, like I didn't work 14 years of my life to like leave before the game even got started. Like, what are we talking about? The job's not done yet, right? We are so early in our life, like as a business and like our impact, like it makes no sense to me. I'm like, why would leave this early? I have to be a part of something bigger than me, right? And bigger than me is helping businesses grow, delivering tens of billions of dollars, hopefully someday hundreds of billions of dollars of value back into the economy. I think that's one of the great things that we do, right? Is that as we help these businesses grow profitably, they can hire employees, they can invest in better products and ultimately that gets consumers. purchasing their products more and simulates the economy. And I think that's something great that I can do for society. What happened where you had to like, take a year off though? You were, were you just like completely burned out? Like, tell me the story again. Yeah, so I say it's the back. So we started a games business. And the reason I'm starting a game. Wait, you said the ad platform first, then the games business, because what was the reason for the, just starting the games business after the ad platform? You know, we did a lot of business in Asia. China's like one of my favorite places to do business because the founders are so intense. They move very quickly. They're intelligent. Just like everything you'd want in a business partner. It's no bullshit. One of our partners at the time is this company called Cheeto Mobile. And they were one of our biggest publishers. And what they would do is they would, they would just squeeze us, right? Squeeze us in every way possible you could imagine. And like, we had an agreement signed with them and they were like, screw the agreement. We don't care about it. Like, you know, and they would just break it all the time. You know, there were so many nights I'd stay up when I was staying in the States till 4 or 5 a.m. to like go and manage them. And then, you know, spend a lot of time in Asia with the leadership over there too. But throughout this journey, you know, I was thinking to ourselves, like, we will never be in a position where we are so dependent on like one of these partners. And we'd also seen what Netflix had done at the time. And we thought there was this great opportunity, you know, for owning the vertical, really. Like, you know, great. We have the ad platform, but also having our own content as well. You know, you have better economics. You have a distribution advantage. Overall, you build more enterprise value. And by the way, this is like not an uncommon business tactic in Asia. Like the biggest gaming companies in the world are all also distribution companies. Like Tencent being a perfect example, NetEase being a perfect example. These are companies that have other things outside of the games and they use that to distribute their games. So that's how we got into the games business. But Chivo, you know, really pissed me off so bad. It kind of like, I told you the story earlier about how we started the ad platform because one of our partners fucked us. I came back to, this partner had pushed to the ends of me and I went to Adam and I said, it's very simple. I'm going to leave to go and build this competitor against Chio Mobile, or I'm going to do it here. And I really want to do it here because- Wait, pause there. Why is that simple to you? Why would you leave to go build the competitor? It's Cheetah, the animal? Yes. Okay, to Cheetah. Because I had so much rage in my heart that I wanted nothing but to like dominate those guys. It wasn't about like, you know, I'm a very simple guy, David. You know, and we talked, I stay in the $200 hotel. I'll take the, you know, the shitty, you know, commercial airline flight. So like money to me, like, of course, like it's important, but like, I don't, you know, some people are like, hey, I'm going to make more money and buy a big house. I don't care about any of that, right? Like for me, when I work, it's for purpose. And that company would push me to a point where I was like, my purpose at this point was to destroy these guys. And so that was really the start of, at the time, Lion Studios. And why did I call Lion Studios? Because Lion is the only animal that can kill a cheetah. And our thesis was, let's go work with the best developers in the world. We have one of the largest distribution platforms in the world, and we'll help distribute their games. And within two years, we pulled that from zero to over 250 million in revenue and profitably. It was a great business, but throughout that, it was really fucking tough for two reasons. One, as you can imagine, when you start building games, all of our customers started looking at us as competitors, right? Because at the time, the app love and it's essentially, it's advertising in games, but at this point, you're still just doing game installs? Exactly. Okay. Exactly. So we're the new kid on the block doing games. And our partners didn't like that, obviously, right? They looked at us as hostile. And in reality, you know, there was more benefit, right? We were creating more inventory for the market. This data was helping improve our machine learning model. And so we're able to be more efficient at effectively driving traffic for them. And so they worked with, like, even though these partners didn't like us, they worked with us because the value we delivered, but there was a lot of internal stress. And then also with games businesses, they're very hitch trivet. You're working around the clock. And our best partners that we publish games with, they were not sitting in America. They were sitting in Europe. They were sitting in Asia, you know, all around the world. Why do you think they weren't in America? I think they weren't in America really for two reasons. One, the cost of labor is a lot higher here. And games, like the games that we were building at the time, you didn't need the best of the best, right? It was just about getting the most amount of reps as possible. And a lot of the games that we built, they're these games called hypercasual. There were these methodologies we would use to determine what would be a hit game. And a lot of it was just based on, like, how marketable was the game? What we saw was, like, you could get more cost efficient employees over there. And then also, like, they would just work. They would out-hustle the hell out of the American studios. So, like, you know, we'd interview these people at some of these game studios. And, you know, they'd be like, yeah, I work nine to five. I handle this, like, really small part of the equation at this, you know, for this game studio. They have these bloated teams. Versus, like, I would go meet, like, it was actually a perfect example. There was this team called Game 5 Mobile. We released a game that did, you know, close to $100 million in revenue together called Happy Glass. It was a husband, wife, and little brother. And they were so poor that they all lived in the same house. And their house was also their office. And I think at one point, and, you know, I may be wrong or right here, I'm pretty sure they all slept in the same bed. I think this is literally how poor these guys were. So, when you come from that, right, like, you can't compete against somebody like that, right? They will die before they fail, right? And I think, you know, two things. One, those, like, partners, like, they're incredible to work with. But it also drove me to work harder, right? I saw what they came from, and I know this was their big shot. I loved making people like that successful. They were the underdog. Nobody had believed in them. And actually, it was funny, this company, Game 5, these three people, they worked, I think, at HP. They took this bet on this game studio. And for them, like, if it didn't work in, like, the next month, they were gonna have to go get jobs again. So it was, like, make or break for them. I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book, Zero to One. The quote says, the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places. 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Your story is similar, where you've told me in the past, where it's just like, you're the kind of person that's like, I couldn't go back, I got kicked out of my house, I'm moving into the office. Like, this either works or I die. Yes. That was literally what you said. Yep. Like, there is no turning back. Like, I'm going to die. I'm going to succeed. It's like 50 cents. It's like, get rich or die trying. I'm gonna succeed or die trying. Yeah, I mean, I would, it's funny, I did it all the time, and I told her, I'm going complete black mamba. And when I would work, I would listen to like these motivational, I was kind of a psychopath, I listened to these like motivational videos all day while working. I did this every morning. When I was struggling, because I, you know, because like you're a fan of founders, that's how we met. And first five and a half years, I was just like, I don't get it. Like, this is a better podcast than, like I'm obsessed with podcasts. I know what a good podcast is. This is better. No one's listening to it. And I'd have to wake up every day and brainwash myself with this stuff. Right. It really works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, especially because like, it was such an intense environment internally, right? Adam is like pressing really hard on me. I understand what the future of the company is on my back, because at this point, like all guns are pointed out at us. We've burned the ships, right? Like we are there to like win. There is no other option. So I would wake up, you know, at like 4 a.m. and I would stay up until like midnight. And you're in your early 20s? I was, yeah, I was at that time, let's say like 26 to 28. Okay. So, you know, I was doing this. But no kids. No kids. No long-term relationship, basically just work. Yeah, just work. Nothing else mattered to me besides work. It was the most important thing. So I did that for two years. And I kind of, at two years in, I kind of pull my mind up again. Like from the front, I realized like, oh shit, this business does like not need me anymore. Actually. This is the game studio? The game studio. It was a game publishing business, right? So like the way that I would, I would compare it to like Universal Music Group, right? Like we had the distribution. We'd go find talented game developers and like bring their games to the masses. And by the way, we drove over 20 games to number one, over 3 billion downloads. Like this was an incredible business. And we were one of the biggest at the time. I'd gotten to the business to a point where I was no longer mission critical. And at that same time, I started like reflecting on myself and I was like, okay, so like the business no longer needs you to succeed, right? And we'd also done other acquisitions that I helped lead up of other game studios. So like, what do I really want to focus on? And for me, like making a family was really important to me, right? Like I was 28 when I took a step away from the business and I was like, I need to start thinking about like having children. This was something that was always really important to me. I always knew I wanted to be a father. And so I took some time off from the business. That's funny, you say a year, but I wasn't really good at taking time off because three months in, I started going crazy, just started building products for fun. But yeah, I moved to Miami at the time because San Francisco was so depressing. COVID, everything was shut down. I went to Miami, it was supposed to be just like a vacation for like a weekend. And I was like, oh my God, COVID doesn't exist here. Like everything's open. And then, you know, I ended up planting my roots there and meeting the love of my life and having a family. Yeah, I was there during that time too. I remember, because one of my favorite pizza spots is Lucali in Sunset Harbor. And at the time you used to go up, first of all, there would be like never a wait, and then they're serving away during COVID and you would put your phone number and I kept seeing all these like 415 and 212 area because everybody from San Francisco and New York came to Miami at that point. So wait, you take a sabbatical, like how did you frame this with Adam? Was it sabbatical? Like, what did you say? I'm fucking done forever? Yeah, so this was really good at breaking the news to him. Right, this is like, you know, Adam's like a big brother to me. And so I waited for my birthday. You know, I'd actually been like diarying it for a while of kind of like what, indirectly, I was actually just kind of, I kind of knew I wanted to take time off. I'd say about a year before, I was just writing about like, what are the things that the business, like, where am I the bottleneck? And where does the business need to be in a place where I don't exist, but here for it? So I kind of just started marking things off the list. And before I knew it, like everything had been accomplished and like, you know, I could not be around and new games were being released and revenue was growing. And so I called Adam and I was like, hey, like, you know, it's my birthday. It was a happy birthday, of course. I was like, I want to take some time off from the business. And Adam is not a very emotional guy. He's just like, are you sure? I was like, yeah. And he was like, well, I respect whatever you want to do. And then we kind of like ended the conversation. And then what happened after that was like, a lot of people calling me being like, what the hell are you thinking? Or what are you doing? My brother, this guy, Errol Chen, all these guys are trying to convince me to stay. They're trying to offer me all these different packages. And I was like, it has nothing to do about the money. It's like, the business doesn't need to succeed. And there's other things in my life I want to go and accomplish. And so I took a step away from the business. I would say like from that conversation, probably it was supposed to be like a six month transition. But within three months, I was kind of out. At the time though, did you think I'm out of app loving for good? Oh yeah, I thought I was going to go off to the sunset and enjoy my life and chill on a beach and never work again. But you realize very quickly that it's a very fucking depressing life. Like, there's no purpose. We should have a fucking ad in every one of our episodes about this. It's like, these post exit founders that have never found something else to work on is like the most miserable souls to be around. Yeah, and to double click on it, you know. So I like, you know, I love playing video games. Would you realize that like on a Wednesday afternoon, you have no one to play games with. None of your friends are around. They're all fucking productive. They're doing things, right? So you have no one to hang out with. It gets lonely. But then I started, you know, I started working on these businesses. And actually this double clicks was like, what drives me? What I realized is like, you know, I found this great tech team and we were working together and working on these products. I didn't, one, I didn't care about the products we were building with. I had no connection with them. For me, it was just like- You're talking about the ones you're doing in your sabbatical. Yeah, my sabbatical. I was like, oh, I just like opportunistically like, hey, I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's go and build into it. So that was like one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that. That's the same. You ran a dating show? Yeah, it was Love or Fame. The idea was that you come and you, it was on a mobile phone and you would compete for love or fame. But imagine watching 12 hours a day of dating shows. If you want to jump out of a window. So that wasn't for me. And then the second thing is like- Do you take time off to go on a beach or not even on a beach? Yeah, not on a beach. Just like low quality work. Yeah, which was horrible. And then the second thing was, I like did not truly care about the people I was working with when I started the second company. So I would say like one of the things that's kept me here at Apple for so long, outside of helping our customers succeed is like, I really deeply care about the success of Adam and the rest of our team. For me, if they don't do well, it doesn't sit well with me. I will die. I will run myself into the ground to like make those around me succeed. And I didn't have any of those things. And so like my journey back to Applovin was, we're New York Stock Exchange, ringing the bell. We're all hanging out. And- So when you go public, you're still outside of the company. Still outside of the company. Great shape, by the way. So yeah, so go there. We ring the bell and like first day out, stock drops, right? And I'm talking to people there and things, they were, the company is still growing, but like there was definitely some flaws within the business. And it was like very clear to me that like, I need to be here. Like this is my calling. You found your purpose. This is my company. And, you know, we were drinking our sorrows away. I wouldn't say partying because it wasn't like a super happy moment. You know, you're- IPO happens, your stock immediately drops after. And Adam, he looked at me and he was like, hey, I'm hearing from people, you're thinking about coming. And I was like, I'm fucking in. And then I've been here ever since. I got drawn back in through the purpose of the business, and I knew there was a lot more I could be doing here. Do you think you would have made that decision if the business was ripping in a good spot and the stock price was going up? I think I would have, because at that point, there would have been nothing else for me to offer to the company, or no value that I could deliver. I mean, if- So you would have stayed out of it? I would have stayed out of it, and I would have had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me. And this is where, I think you guys go public something like 28 billion market cap or something like that, and it goes down, I think like almost like every day for like 200 days or something like this. This is the legendary stock buyback, which we should retell the story now because it's incredible. The company's crashing, it's funny, it's like it's inverse, right? Stock is crashing, revenue is going up. And so like Adam tells a story better than anybody, but he just doubled down on buying up Lovin' Stock and levered up the company, and it was one of the greatest returns of all time, right? Yeah, because I think at the time, I think you went down to $3.8 billion market cap, right? Something like that. But I think you guys were doing like a billion in cash flow or something, right? And so the idea is like, let's take, no one else is going to buy our stock, let's take this billion in cash flow, start buying back our stock, and then at one point, the company reaped like a $50 billion windfall on that decision to buy back the stock. Yes, yes. And it was funny because at the time, we were thinking if the stock continues dropping, we're just going to buy the company and take it private, kind of like Michael Dell did with his own company, right? So that was kind of one of the directories we were going to go if it didn't keep free falling, because we thought it was such an incredible business and we knew we wanted to continue running it. Well, that was going to be my next question to you. Like, when this is happening, you're like, okay, we went public 28, now we're down to 3.8. You're not like stressed? No, because you're talking to a guy who my hobbies are like $15 a month. Like I play like a game of World of Warcraft, right? It's like a subscription. I hang out with the same friends I did in high school or people I work with. I wear clothing that's like pretty cheap. I don't have like these extravagant tastes. Like, I think what ends up happening with a lot of these people is that their lifestyle creeps a lot more than what they end up having. That was something that never had happened to me. And so I was never concerned about cashflow. I knew we had a great business and it was still growing. So I was just like, let's double down on what we have. It's like frugality, like a company. Is that something you guys talk about inside the company? Because like, I remember talking to Adam and at the time the stock price was amazing. On paper, he's worth like 20 billion. And he's like taking JetBlue. And then I introduced him to my friend Patrick. And he was like, I think doing like investor meetings. He's like flying like Southwest or something. There's like a normal like budget airline. It's like, what is this guy doing? Yeah, so I think it's less about like, we're talking about frugality, but if you look at dashboards all day and the main KPI you're looking at is return on ad spend. Like we think about life like that, like how much return am I going to get for my investment, right? If I can get to the same place at the same time, but one is 10X cheaper, why wouldn't I take that every time? I think that was really kind of the mindset of it. So it was less about frugality, but like the return wasn't there for it. What is this relentless focus you guys have on the amount of employees you have in the business? Yeah, so the thing for us is like- Is that our same situation? Like we can hit this much revenue with half the, it's like a, almost like a demonstration of like an actual skill set of an entrepreneur. It's like, I can do twice as more with half of what- Exactly, right? Because it's a distraction, right? You're managing C players that are just wasting your time, or you're focused on things that don't matter at all, right? And so it's actually great when you have less people, it forces you to be very focused. Is this like something that's talked about inside the company, or does it just happens naturally? Is this relentless? It just happens naturally, it's just who we are. Because this goes back to your insane performance culture. Yeah, I would say like, Amazon was maybe one of these companies where they really focused on being frugal, but for us, and also because the company is founder-led, we spend the money like it's ours, right? We're also very data-driven, right? Very analytical, we look at everything that we do, right? When you look at it from a spreadsheet perspective, it's just very obvious the things that make sense to double down on, and other things that don't. So is there not like lots of, you mentioned earlier, like we can do every single job in the company, we can do the campaign, we can make the creative, like there's not many layers of management inside of it then? No, not really. I mean, obviously the algorithms, we obviously can't do that, and luckily we have like an incredible team that's able to build those systems that Adam and I and others can't. Like for us, like this goes to the controls of our company, like there's not much red tape, right? Our belief is like, we're hiring smart people, right? They understand the value of a dollar, and we let them go out there and do what we feel like is best with the company. It's not like there's these layers of approval to go get things done. But is there anything else that you think is rare or unique in the approach, the way you guys run your company that you don't see outside the company in other businesses? We try to give people as much ownership and as much work as possible, versus like a lot of companies, oh, you're overworked? We're going to go hire a bunch more people. Our approach from it is like, okay, what can we build to automate your work, certain parts of your work to make it a lot more efficient? What things are not important that you're wasting time on that we just shouldn't be doing at all? There's no peer managers in Apple. Everyone is a doer. Even our CTO is pushing code himself, right? And he manages like 100% engineering work. Really just being relentless on prioritizing what we work on, and then also being very hands-on with the two difference makers. There is no special magic, David. It's like fucking work on the things that matter and do it over a long period of time, success will come. You and I were talking about the Luca Ferrari episode that I just did. A lot of what you just said is very similar to Luca. He has this idea. He's like, hey, I don't really give a shit about pedigree, but when I hire young people, he loves people that has no experience, and then you find somebody that's young, talented, and hungry, and you saturate their capacity, which is exactly what you just said. It's like, we're all working. I'm going to give you more than you can handle. Why do you think you, and Adam, and Luca arrived at the same conclusion, and why is that so important? I think it's because we weren't able, we didn't have the cash to go and hire out these massive teams, and at the time, we didn't have kind of the pedigree or kind of background to be able to hire the best talent out there, right? So we had to go get the people we could, and we had to torture them into greatness, kind of like Jensen Huang talks about. I love that idea. It's like, I don't like giving, in this biography called The NVIDIA Way, Jensen has a line, it's like, I don't like giving up on people. I'd rather torture them into greatness, and you get to the end of your book, and he's talking about, he wakes up every day, he looks in the mirror, he's like, why do I suck so much? And this is even after, I think, he has the most valuable company in the world. It's like, oh, he tortured himself into greatness, too. Yeah, and I would say Adam did that to me, right? So like, and I would say, to this day, it's like, it's always conflict, it's always confrontation, like he's always pushing, and that just like, it starts at the top, and like, it boils its way down throughout the organization. You described him before as like, an incredible taskmaster. Yes. Like, for somebody on the outside, explain what that feels like. He understands the right buttons to push for everybody, right, so if you're insecure, he's going to double-click on that, right, and say, oh, you're stupid, you're not that good, you can't do it, and you're like, well, I'm going to show this guy, I can do it, right? And for other people, you know, it's like, he will, you know, be really nice to them, and like, that's how he gets more out of them. Or like, other people, it's like, he would just be like, oh, well, that's interesting that you think about it this way, and then that person senses doubt, and then, you know, they go and execute on it. Adam is just, he's hyper-competitive, and he's, and that's what also makes him a great leader, is that he understands the things that make people tick, and really pushes them to do their best work. Does he push you further than you think you can go? I think there's this great quote in Andrzej Agassiz's biography, where he says, his dad tortured him, and at a certain point, he goes, I no longer need my dad to, I'm probably butchering this, but I no longer need my dad to torture me. I am old enough to do it myself, right? And that's, you know, that's how I am with him now. It's like, I went through so many years of it, I don't need him to do it, right? It's ingrained in me. Yeah, this is what I love about you guys, and I wanna, the next question I'm gonna ask you is like, what do you think people from the outside get wrong about this performance culture? It goes back to this idea, it's like, hey, maybe we should, like, our brand's a little too friendly and too soft, it doesn't represent this ruthless culture inside. I think I mentioned on the episode I did with him, it's like, what I like about Raph is I can call him on like 11 p.m., and he picks up. You mentioned earlier, it's like, dude, you don't believe in scheduled phone calls. It's like, no, I just called him, and that's it. Like, let's just talk now. Where do you think you should update in terms of the new brand of Apple and the communication you guys are gonna start doing externally? Like, what's gonna be different than what you were doing? I think what's gonna be different is that we're really gonna focus on telling the story of the founders that we work with and the brands and kind of showing them from when they were just small business to how we helped them grow into these massive companies and the journey throughout it. I think what a lot of people get wrong about Apple 11 is they say, oh, they see this ad platform, and it's outperforming its peers. It must be a scam or a fraud. And what they don't take the time is to really peel back the fruit and say, oh, wow, look at these guys, they have the perfect edges. They etch everything in great. Like, if you really take time to, like, look into the details of our business, we care about every single detail, and you notice these little things they've added up, and that's what sets us apart from our peers. And this is what Luca Ferrari talks about as well, right, is that, you know, if you compare, if you look at his business or also, like, Long Lake as well, and you say, oh, it's just a PE shop. What do they do? They just go in, they fire a bunch of people, and they make it more efficient. It's like, no, it's way more than that, right? They have better technology stacks, right? They're actually hiring more people. Well, that's Long Lake, specifically, right? Like, they're hiring more people, right? They're able to make their employees more efficient to get more output, right? And that's one of the things for us is that the way that we approach things are different than everybody else. We optimize on the inefficiencies of these other businesses, and those combined allow us to set ourselves apart. I think telling the story of the founders of the companies you work with is really smart. I think, obviously, telling the story of the founders of Apploven, too, and the important people that play a role in the company is super important. You just mentioned Long Lake. Me and you had a dinner with one of the Long Lake founders, and the first dinner, you're like, oh, no shit. This is, like, if that guy's involved, you remember you called me after this? Yeah, yeah, I was like, honestly, there's not many times I walk away from a dinner and I'm like, this human is so impressive. I thought he was part of the Illuminati. Yeah, you're like, I don't understand. How come I never heard of him? How come you never heard of him? And then you see, oh, of course, like, then you see the other companies involved, and it's like, oh, they're all outperforming. Well, it makes sense, it ties back to this person. This is something that you and I have talked about, you know, going over a lot of the biographies, the same biographies that I do on Founders Podcast. It's like, people don't understand how important, and this really is a superpower. If you know, like, let's use James Dyson, who both me and you are a fan of. If you know all the struggle that he went through to make his products, and you read the book on him, or you listen to the podcast on him, or you watch an interview with him, what are you going to do at the end of that? You're going to be like, hey, this guy cares so much, I'm buying his products. And this is what has happened to me, where like, a lot of people didn't know who the hell, they didn't know what Apple was, they never heard about him for a week, they listened to him, like, I have to, like, if that's the guy running it, I'm going to at least try to use this tool for my business. It's super valuable. Why is Elon out there doing all the product demonstrations? Why does Steve Jobs? It's like, the people want to back people, not companies. They don't have a love of companies, they have a love of people. Yeah, so the more you guys can do that, even this. I don't remember, did you, when I first floated this idea to do this, did you tell me no? I didn't want to do it, you know? But you pushed me, you're like, you got to get out here and get on the podcast, and you know, I did another podcast before this as well, it's kind of like my media training into it, and you're like, no, we're going to throw you right in the deep end. Yeah, I mean, because we've had a million conversations, your story, like, how did I start it? It's like, wait a minute, this kid dropped out of high school, what, he lived in the office, this isn't a joke, he did this, he's working for this company for 14 years, he's in his early 30s, like, how did this happen? Again, like, understanding the personality, like, that develops the ideas and makes sense why, you know, you have a bunch of older brothers, you have a dad that, like, you know, kind of talks shit about your, I think he wanted you to be a doctor or something, right? He wanted me to be a doctor, and you know, it's funny, so my dad, you know, doesn't own the stock of Applovin, right? So like, you have a man, by the way, he thought the internet was a scam. That's right. Like, thought the internet was a scam, and he was like, he didn't take the time to like, care about our business, and I don't hold that against him, but like, yeah, like, I have it in me, like, I hook in me to like, prove everybody wrong, right? And the beauty is like, we've done a good job over 15 years, but we still have so much more room to go. Right, like, I think my journey will be over when like, I walk, like, if I walk down the street, and everybody's, oh, I know that Applovin brand, right? But today, you walk down the street, and 99 out of 100 people, or 99.9 out of 100 people would be like, App who? What is Applovin, right? Like, we obviously, even though we make a big impact in these businesses live, like, we're very early in our journey. What's your relationship with your dad like today? It's good, you know, I never hold it against him, because I always think about like, how was he raised? You know, my father, his dad died when he was 15 years old. He had four other siblings that he had to go and take care of, and a mom that couldn't speak English, right, so they came from Columbia. My dad's from Iwage, came from Columbia to West Palm Beach, in the United States, and his dad was a lawyer. He grew up in a house where like, didn't have anything to fall back on. Dad was a hard ass, and like, he became a doctor not because he wanted to, because he needed to, right? It was the only way to make a lot of money to help support the family. And so, now when I think about that, I'm like, oh, of course it makes sense of who he is, right? Like, that's why he was so hard on me, right? So like, one of the things that we talked about before this podcast is like, you know, I grew up in a nice neighborhood. I went to a nice school, but like, I was the poorest kid amongst all the rich kids. Like, I had five pants, five shirts for the whole entire school year, and that was it. And when I would come home and complain about like, oh, my friend's got Nikes, or he's got this nice shirt, my dad's like, I don't give a shit. You want stuff? Go out there and go work for it. Like, go out there and hustle. And that's like, what pushed me to become a better version of myself. I know like, you have this chip on your shoulder. I would say you have like a boulder on your shoulder, is the way to put it. I don't think it's a chip, it's a giant rock. I know Adam pushed you in your professional career. Did your dad push you at all? And I know he's like, skeptical on the internet and everything else, but like, is there something about your relationship where it's like, you can draw back that like, some of your drive comes from him? Leading up to the point that I got, that I left his house, was kind of when that impact ended, right? He kind of like sent me off. to go free. And the most indirect was like, when I say this couldn't fail, there was no way I could ever move back into my parents' house. Richard Branson says, the only thing worse than being poor is becoming rich and going poor again. I moved out of my parents' house. I was living in San Francisco. I was working for my brother. And then I was doing the startup. I was like, there's no fucking way that I'm going to go move back with my parents, right? Remember, I dropped out of high school. So it's not like I could have gone into any good college. I'm pretty much unhirable, by the way, on paper, right? Who's going to hire this high school drop out? And the idea of going to work back for my brother as well would have also been equal failure to me. I love my brother. He gave me the tools I needed to succeed. And ultimately, I chipped my own stone and paved my own way. So those things all combined helped me become the best version of myself and really pushed me forward. Where do you get this attention to detail that you have from? Is that innate? Did somebody mentor you inside of Applovin? Yeah. So this guy called Mark Rosner, and he's my mentor. And before we had a lawyer, he was our in-house counsel. What was his position in Applovin? So he was our CRO. And how we got a hold of Mark was, he was the CEO of this company called Zedge, which did ringtones and wallpapers. And he broke off on his own. And he had this blog called Applied Revenue. It was just talking about ways to make more revenue on apps and just within the mobile app ecosystem. And I told Adam, hey, we want to work with Zedge. And this guy seems pretty intelligent. You should reach out to him. What turned into potentially was going to be a consultant, we decided he would come in as a CRO. What was hilarious is that when Mark first met Adam, and they were doing the sit-down, Adam put an NDA in front of him. And most people just sign that NDA. And Mark says, hey, can I get like 15 minutes? Adam steps out of the room. And Adam comes back to the room. And Adam calls me in with him. And the whole thing is marked up. And he's like, I can't agree to this. I can't agree to that. I can't agree here. And immediately, I was like, pull Adam to the side. I whispered to him, we can't trust this guy. There's no way we can work with this guy. What type of fucking human being is going to redline an NDA? For a company they're interviewing for, what are they going to do? Share trade secrets. Adam had a different perspective. He goes, this guy, if he was this diligent to take the time to redline the agreement and go over detail, this is somebody that we want to work with. Mark came on board, we ended up hiring him. And initially, we did not get along well at all, actually. So he was managing the supply side, I was focused on the demand side. I brought in a ton of demand. He was working on publishers. And what ended up happening was over time, I ended up working on his team, I'd say team because there's only one person. So I ended up working under him. And initially, it wasn't a great relationship to turn into a great mentorship. Because what Mark saw was this raw kid who had a ton of energy, who had a ton of skill, but it wasn't honed in. He always pushed me to really dig into the details. When we do contracts, make sure that we're very specific about what we do. And going back to like, I told you, we didn't have an in-house counsel, like Mark probably did over 200 agreements himself. And we only got screwed on one of them. Like his hit record is incredible. When we hired our first lawyer, and he started redlining agreements, he would redline our lawyers agreement. Also, the best Mark Rosner story, and by the way, he's gonna hate that I'm bringing him up. Mark doesn't hate anybody besides the one guy that he lent 20 bucks to when he was in fifth grade, he still sees a temple today. So like, you're talking about a guy that like, every detail matters to him. And actually, it's kind of like go like further into the story. So at one point, you know, my grandmother, she had breast cancer, I have to go to the hospital. And there was this deal that we were working on that took months. It was a company, actually out of a little outside of LA. And we're so happy we got the deal done. And like, you know, I was working on the agreement while in the hospital, and I sent it out, and they signed it, and I signed it. And Mark calls me. And you know, I was expecting to be like, Oh, how's your grandmother doing? He's like, Raph, you screwed up big time on this deal. And there's like this, you know, one point that you're off effectively was off by like 1%, or 2%. And I was like, Mark, like, are you kidding me? We spent months, I can't go back to the client. I can't have this conversation with them. And he was just like, do you want to be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods and just hung up the phone? And we're following up with me falling over the client renegotiating the deal, as you can imagine, the client's very irate. And, you know, we got the deal done. And then he called me back. And he was like, good job, you know, like, like, that was the type of guy who mentored me. And so that's why I cared so much about every single detail. Because for him, it wasn't good enough, unless it was perfect. Yeah, I think we very commentary around people that like where excellences are North Star, they get to talk about their profession is it's like, you'll hear them say the same maxim over and over again. It's like how you do one thing is how you do everything. There are no small details. Yep. And the squirrel take care of itself, which is a book about Bill Walsh. And you know, the 49ers, when he took over the team, it was losing team. And then it weren't at one over three Super Bowls under his management was about every little detail, every little thing between that, like how they showed up on practice on time, how they answered the phones, how the locker rooms were, everything. It was focused on like, every detail, all the actions that you do are more important than focusing on the scoreboard. Because if you do all the little things, right, then the score will take care of itself. So that's great advice that Mark gave you. What's the best advice that you've ever received? The best advice I ever received is staying in the game when it hurts, when you want to quit. That's when you know you're having growth in your career. And there's been many times in my career where, and this has come from my brother, where I've wanted to throw the towel and it's, I've already won, you know, why am I doing this? You know, I don't need to be working this hard. And he's just like, sack up, you know, work your ass off. And like, if you're feeling this pain, that's because you're growing. And so I think that was the best advice I ever got in my career. I think it's probably the best advice anybody could ever get. Just stay in the game. It's awesome. Raf, this was awesome, man. I had high expectations for this conversation. You exceeded them. I really appreciate you trusting me and actually letting me twist your arm and making you do the podcast. I hope we can run this back again in the future. Thanks. Thanks, Seth. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review. And make sure you listen to my other podcast founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through founders.