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

And 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 start working there and I started doing like, I would say like I'm below the water boy. I'm like, you know, like 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 I learned 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 young teenager to have. But your other obsession was video games, right? Yes. Was there, like, parallels 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 people would care about back in the tribe was who brought back the food? Who killed the animal? In business for me, 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 at 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? 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 Ferugui 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 like, 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, you know, 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 where he 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, you know, my road was very, it was not linear at all.

I didn't wait to be given opportunities, right? For example, like when I started building websites, that was one thing. But I was curious about, okay, like how, you know, are ads made? So I just, I was targeting 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 do it. I just started 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 have this idea, we're going to start our own ad platform, you're how old? At that time, I was about 17 years old. Okay. That's a very unusual idea for a 17-year-old. Yeah. Yeah, 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, you know, that was the idea at the time of Appenda. Appenda was a mobilizer. 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, you know, the beginning of AppLovin 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, you know, Adam and I would talk a lot over AIM because it was effectively his account manager. But I would screw with him a lot. You know, I'd be like, hey, I'll teach you a lot about making money online. You know, 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. The guy's a walking calculator. But ignorance is bliss. And I just had this ship on my shoulder, right, that I feel like I could take on the world.

And as we spend more time, you know, 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 that's seeing success. I'm going to go build a mobile ad platform. So he's going to compete with you. Yes. This is where he like 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 that episode. And the Adam Ferugui 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, you know, it's the fact that like, at the time it's like, whatever, Apple was a $150 billion market company. They're going to print 6 billion in cash this year and they're doing 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 rap every year and it's like founders to the top and as soon as we stopped recording he leaned forward he goes hey can you just meet Adam Mickey Malka over and over again like who is this guy and can you introduce me to him 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 yeah so now this guy is like this fucking kid is making all this money with this ad network don't he 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 there's just this shit eating grin, like on his face, like, like somebody who would just like eat your food. And it was actually, no, he pulled me. I pushed him into a room because I saw the smile on him. 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, you know, like you mentioned to me earlier, I'm a massive gamer. I love playing video games. I was actually going to go join my friend's company in Y Combinator that build mobile games. And then Adam Reverso-ed me and he said, whoa, wait, what do you mean you're going to go join somebody else's company? You should come work for me. You know, 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. Not of respect for Adam, because even though I talked a lot of shit to him online and, you know, 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 So a lot of people are like, oh, I'm here 24-7 or, you know, 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 going to 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 was 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 to 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, the guys are coming to fucking live in the office.

Like you couldn't ask more out of an employee. So yeah, him and this guy called Furkan 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 want to 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.

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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 move 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 a product market fit. next idea was to build Apple of an ad network. And 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, he'd been doing advertising as well.

So he was very, very familiar with the space. And something 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 of the history. He also told the story, too, where he tried to sell 25 percent of the company to VCs for a million dollars. Yep. He's like, you know, you can buy 25 percent of the company.

You should back this. You guys got in really early in this where you just said this transition from desktop to mobile. Yep. 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.

I want to skip ahead, 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 like the Chicago Bulls being led by Jordan that you see in like the last dance. So just talk about like 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. And 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 our operational excellence, is that we feel like all of these little things, they all add up to delivering incredible returns for our advertisers. And so that, I would say, is one big thing that's different. We are so focused on performance. That is actually the cornerstone of our company. So a lot of people may say to us, and customers, they love and hate us for it. Some customers say, 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, you know, 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 them versus other companies out there. They would say, well, whatever the customer wants, the customer is always right. It's like, if our goal is to deliver more customers profitably for you, then like there is data that you can look at and there is right and wrong decisions. And for us, like we're always trying to push towards the right

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, just literally just calling people over and over again actually work? Because people do this with me. They're like, hey, I'm going 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 is this guy called Nadir 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 had 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 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 leave with bad news internally. Like, you know, a lot of companies, like, you know, they're like, hoorah, like, you know, we have 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 the like your stock price volatility too like i remember uh something happened recently and i didn't i don't pay attention to the news so i don't even see this but uh 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 uh 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 talking to them. You just did not give a shit. We don't care about the short term, right? And. 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 know, 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, it's 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.

I've heard you say in other places, too, that one of your goals is to build AppLovin into a durable business where it actually outlives you. Yes. Where did you get that idea? Purpose is extremely important in life. And for me, I'm probably not going to be the guy who cures cancer, or I'm not going to 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, you know, 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 bid to get back in the game, you know? 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, you know, 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? Like 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, let's take this to the back. So we started a games business and the reason of starting a games-

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 loving is 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 of the value we delivered. But there was a lot of internal stress. And then also the games businesses, they're very hits-driven.

work in like the next month they were gonna have to go get jobs again so it was like make or break for that 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 and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas. That is exactly what AppLovin has done with their advertising platform. AppLovin connects you with over a billion potential new customers in mobile games. AppLovin allows you to capture undivided attention. AppLovin ads are full screen videos that are watched for an average of 35 seconds. That is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water. And you can launch on AppLovin in minutes. You set the goal and AppLovin achieves it. No complex setup, no expertise needed. And AppLovin scales quickly. They can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers. Other businesses have seen immediate results, scale to hundreds of thousands

of dollars of spend per day, and increase their revenue by millions. So you want to get started quickly before all of your competitors are on AppLovin. And you can do that by going to AppLovin.com. That's AppLovin.com. Your story is similar, where you've told me in the past, where it's just like, you're the kind of person who'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. Rich or die trying, I'm going to succeed or die trying.

Yeah, I mean, I would, it's funny, I dated a girl 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, like, 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 the stuff. Right, and just continue going. 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, like, 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. So, you know, I was doing this. But no kids. No kids. No long-term relationship. Basically just work. Yeah, just work.

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. You know, like I play like a game of World of Warcraft, right? It's like a subscription. I, you know, I hang out with the same friends I did in high school or people I work with. You know, I wear clothing that's like, you know, 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, you know, having.

That was something that never had happened to me. And so I was never concerned about cash flow. I knew we had a great business and, and, you know, they were still growing. So I was just like, you know, let's, let's double down on what we have. It's like frugality, like a. company uh like 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 yeah and he's like taking jet blue yeah 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 you know we're we're talking about frugality but you know So if you look at dashboards all day and the main key period 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, you know, one is 10x cheaper, why wouldn't I take that every time? I think that was really kind of the mindset of it.

about pedigree. I want to hire young people. He loves people, has no experience. And he goes, and then you find somebody who's young, talented, and hungry, and you saturate their capacity, which is exactly what you just said.

It's like, we're all working. Like, 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 it in this biography called the NVIDIA way. Jensen has a line. He'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 and 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 concentration like he's always pushing and that just like it starts at the top and like it boils its way down throughout the organization so you described him

before as like a an incredible task master 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 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 you get to more. out of them. Or like other people, it's like, it 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, 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, uh, in, in Andre Agassi's biography where he says, uh, 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 want to, the next question I'm going to 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, hey, maybe we should like, our brand's a little too friendly and too soft. It doesn't like represent like 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 like 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 I'm like, and that's it, like, well, let's just like talk now. Where do you think like you should update in terms of like the new brand of Apple Up and like the communication you guys are going to start doing externally? Like what's going to be different than what you were doing? I think what's going to be different is that we're really going to focus on telling the story of the founders that we work with and the brands and kind of showing them from when they were this 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 AppLovin 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. If you really take time to 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. If you compare, if you look at his business or also like Long Lake as well, he'd 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. They have better technology stacks, right?

They're actually hiring more people. Well, that's a lot, like, specifically, right? Like, they're hiring more people, right? They're able to make their employees more efficient to get more help. 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 AppLovin 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, Remember you calling me after this? Yeah, I was like, I was 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. Oh, they're all outperforming. Well, it makes sense.

It ties back to this person. This is something that, you know, you and I have talked about, you know, going over a lot of the biographies, the same biographies I do on Founders Podcasts. Like, people don't understand how important, and like, this really is a superpower. If you know, it's 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 gonna do at the end of that? You're gonna be like, hey, this guy cares so much.

I'm buying his product. 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 read. They listened to it 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. 100%. 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. Yep, 100%. 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 go 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, because we've had a million conversations. Your story, like, how did I start? 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. It 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? Well, 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 it 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 Colombia. My dad's from Iwage, came from Colombia 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 like 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 on my head. It'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 set 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, right? Like Richard Branson says, like, the only thing worse than being poor is like becoming rich and going poor again. Like I'd 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 like, you know, it's not like I could have, you know, gone into any good college. I'm pretty much unhireable, by the way, like on paper, right? Like who's going to hire this like high school dropout. And like the idea of like going to work back for my brother as well would have also been like equal failure to me. Like I love my brother. Like he gave me the tools I needed to succeed. And ultimately I chipped my own,

my own stone and, you know, paved my own way. So like those things all combined, you know, helped me become the best version of myself and really pushed me forward.

I think the very common trait around people that like where excellence is their North Star, they get to the top of their profession is it's like you'll hear them say the same maximum 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 score will take care of itself, which is a book about Bill Walsh and, you know, the 49ers. When he took over the team, it was a losing team. And then it won over three Super Bowls under his management was about every little detail, every little thing between now, like how 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 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 why am i doing this um 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 one of 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. You