Latest / What's Uptin? / Logan Paul: Cancelled, Sued ... but Still Winning?

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Logan Paul: Cancelled, Sued ... but Still Winning? · What's Uptin?

• 0:00
  Capital is a commodity, but attention is not.
• 0:02
  Before influencers became investors, Logan Paul was doing
• 0:05
  it, and doing it loudly. He's become one of the biggest
• 0:08
  Youtubers. He's been part of some of the
• 0:10
  biggest PR disasters of the social media era and somehow
• 0:14
  comes out the other side with a beverage company, a professional
• 0:18
  wrestling contract and a venture fund backed by some of Silicon
• 0:22
  Valley's most coveted names. Logan is either the future of
• 0:26
  entrepreneurship or he's a warning sign.
• 0:29
  Jake's Fund Fund has invested in some of the most impressive
• 0:32
  companies in the world. Cognition Open AI.
• 0:35
  There is an incredible intersection between tech and
• 0:38
  culture. Did you guys ever find anyone
• 0:40
  kind of not taking you seriously because of your path?
• 0:42
  Look at my, look at my hair. People are afraid to fail.
• 0:45
  They're afraid to be embarrassed.
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  They're afraid to be cringe. 2 words exceed expectations.
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  Exceed expectations. You will win for the rest of
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  your life. This is What's Upton with Logan
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  Paul. Welcome to Web Summit, everyone.
• 1:00
  My name is Upton. I'm very excited to be here with
• 1:02
  you tonight as we get to know Logan Paul a little bit more.
• 1:06
  Logan, welcome to Qatar. How?
• 1:07
  How has been your trip here? Yeah, it's been good so far.
• 1:11
  I've been here for about 12 hours.
• 1:15
  I am coming directly from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• 1:18
  I wrestled in the Royal Rumble this morning.
• 1:22
  I'll say that again this morning.
• 1:24
  We finished the match at 2:10 AM.
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  Come on guys, give it up for him.
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  I was top. Four.
• 1:28
  I was top 4 all right, some big guys in the Rumble but came
• 1:33
  here, slept an hour, had some coffee and some prime energy.
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  We good. I'm energized.
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  Qatar is great. Let's go ask me questions all.
• 1:42
  Right. So you have done a massive pivot
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  over the years from content into business with Prime and now
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  investor. Talk to me about.
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  What drove? You to do that Like why get into
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  investing? Yeah, so I firmly believe that
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  an important aspect of life is the art of the pivot.
• 2:03
  I believe there's a book even called Art of the Pivot.
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  I have a bit of occupational ADD and I'm a generally curious
• 2:13
  person. And because my career started
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  with content creation and influencing, it has allowed me
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  to kind of branch out to various buckets and pursue things that
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  interest me. At the moment it's being WWE
• 2:28
  Superstar, but occasionally I'll have the itch to start a
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  business. I I've been successful in that
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  we we started a hydration and beverage company called Prime
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  and then a Better for you lunch kit called Lunchely.
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  We partnered with Mr. Beast and I have been doing
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  entrepreneurial endeavours that worked because we were able to
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  successfully leverage the social media platform that we built.
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  And I realized that a lot of the founders that I think are
• 2:59
  changing the world, I'd like to think anyway, have a lot in
• 3:04
  common with my brother and I. There's a, there's a, there's a
• 3:08
  founder DNA. And I think as a venture
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  capitalist, what we keep saying is capital is a commodity, but
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  attention is not. Attention is hard and it's,
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  it's, it's, it's scarce. But being able to wield
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  attention strategically, which my brother Jake and I have been
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  able to do, seems to be a bit of an art.
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  And we found that we have been able to provide value for
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  companies in various ways because we've been able to not
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  only provide capital, but as a venture capitalist then also
• 3:40
  advise or wield the tension in order to benefit a company in in
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  whatever way they want, whether it's driving traffic conversion,
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  etcetera. So I imagine you say no to a
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  lot, right? I'm sure a lot of you get a ton
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  of pitches were like, hey, let's just put your name on this.
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  We'll just give you, you know, percentage.
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  How do you determine like what to say yes to?
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  Yeah, don't underestimate the power of no.
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  Contrarily also don't be afraid to say yes.
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  I say yes to a lot because I think there's a lot of wisdom
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  that can come from experience, I think.
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  I think experience is the gap between knowledge and wisdom.
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  However, I'm 30 now, my team mates who are much younger than
• 4:30
  me call me UNK. I have AI, have a daughter and a
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  beautiful wife. And so I feel at this point I
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  have been seasoned enough to know and understand what works
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  for me. And I think I think I always say
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  this to people always ask, always ask.
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  Like don't, don't be afraid to put yourself out there.
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  People are afraid to fail. They're afraid to be
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  embarrassed. They're afraid to be cringe.
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  You're you're, you're going to fail, you're going to get
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  embarrassed. You're you're going to be
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  cringe. Maybe you're not.
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  Maybe you're perfect. Good for you.
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  I wasn't, but that's the name of the game.
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  And man, I think, I think saying no is something that if you're
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  bold enough to ask, you got to be bold enough to get get shut
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  down as well. Is there a project that you in
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  hindsight wish you said no to earlier or or kind of a lesson
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  learned as a as a founder? Yes, yes, Sir, brother.
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  Yes, Sir. I, I, I made a little run at
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  Hollywood. I, I, I moved to LA because I
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  wanted to be an actor. And then I realized I suck at
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  acting like, like just abysmal, abysmal performances on the
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  screen. And I realized I'm not good at
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  being other people, but I'm pretty good at being myself.
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  And so I had said yes to some projects that I think not only
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  ultimately ended up being a waste of my time, which, you
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  know, we'll see what happens, but sometimes you just end up
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  wasting your time and you kind of like chalk it up, whether
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  it's like a waste of time or a waste of money, whatever.
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  Like put it in the education expense.
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  We call it like we have an education fund that like that,
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  that time and money goes to. But yeah, man, it's, it took me,
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  it took me a little bit to, to find myself.
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  But kind of what I said earlier, I, I, I did a lot.
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  I tried to do a lot. I encourage people to do more.
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  I, I have this saying, life isn't short.
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  You just have to do more. And maybe it's partially because
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  of those experiences that I, I was able to find myself at at
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  about the age of 26 and, and at about the age of 27, I, I, I
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  found my calling in, in becoming a professional wrestler.
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  It took me 27 years, but I truly believe I found the thing that I
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  was born to do. So we have obviously a lot of
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  entrepreneurs in the audience. You're hearing from a lot of
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  entrepreneurs now as an investor, people pitching you, I
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  imagine all the time. What is one thing that kind of
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  sets apart the the the ones that you invest in from the noise?
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  Perhaps this is a bit arrogant, but generally if you're pitching
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  us, we're probably not interested.
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  Generally we like to chase the companies that we think are are
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  the big ones that occasionally a company will come along where
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  you'll have a absolute dog of a founder.
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  Which to answer your question, I think that's that's partially
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  what it is. There's a character type.
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  There's an archetype of someone who understands what it takes to
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  be successful and then is usually mission oriented in a
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  way that you know, this person's not going to get off track.
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  And a lot of these founders now of some of the biggest companies
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  in the world, they're, they're young, they're young people,
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  right? So like, you know, you throw a,
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  a 2223 year old couple $100 million, like, how do you, how
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  do you stay on track? It's, it's, it's, it's within
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  that person, it's innate. And so like it's, it's, it's an
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  investment into the person, it's an investment into the product
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  and a little bit of an investment into timing as well.
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  Time, timing, Timing is huge. Huge.
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  Part of life, is it like a confidence that you're looking
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  for in them or just like a long term vision?
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  Because there's a lot of founders that are actually not
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  necessarily confident. I mean, if you look at a lot of
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  the founders of the world's biggest tech companies, they're
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  actually nerds, right? They probably could never come
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  and pitch Someone Like You in a boardroom confidently.
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  Yeah, no, it's not about, it's not about confidence.
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  I don't need you to to to, to walk in there with aura.
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  I don't care about your aura. Are you going to do what you say
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  you're going to do? You know what I'm saying?
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  Like that? Like that is what we look for in
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  partners. Are you going to do what you say
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  you're going to do? I tried to do that as a partner.
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  I pride myself on that. And before all of our
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  relationships, any business endeavor we get into, I say, I
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  expect you if you say something to do it and to get that done
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  because I know if I tell you something, I'm going to get it
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  done. So it's perhaps not a not a
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  overt confidence that that that is like exuding and you can feel
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  it, but a confidence in the ability to build business, sure.
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  So you're a content creator, wrestler, you're running
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  multiple businesses, and you're an investor.
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  When, you know, Monday morning comes, how does Logan prioritize
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  his day, his projects, his priorities?
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  Yeah. Monday morning is tomorrow, in
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  about 3 hours. I'm going on a flight to
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  Philadelphia to do priority #1 which is my job as AWWE
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  wrestler. I have another match tomorrow.
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  So first and foremost comes the job.
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  The thing I committed to, right? I signed a contract.
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  My executives are relying on me, The fans are relying on me.
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  And you love it. And I love it and, and, and I
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  love it and I don't want to let the WWE down because I know
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  there's some people waiting for that to happen and I and I and I
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  can't let that happen. I can't let that happen.
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  So that's number one. And then like I said, because of
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  this weird like occupational ADD thing I have where I got to keep
• 10:32
  my mind busy. Also, I will say I just, I've
• 10:38
  been, I've been blessed to say that I, I just bought a house.
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  It's a very nice house, way too expensive.
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  I spent way too much money on the House, but I, I put my back
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  against the wall with the purchase and I told myself that
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  if I bought that house for my, for my family and my new
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  daughter and we, we're going to live there, that I was going to
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  work my ass off. I was just going to commit to my
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  work. I was going to go sober and I
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  like to work like that. I like to work under pressure
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  like that. And now like I got to make that
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  money. And so besides my job, it's like
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  in between, I'm doing venture capitalist stuff.
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  I'm I'm hunting Pokémon cards. I'm I'm creating content and
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  whether it be a podcast or a vlog, man, really, really
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  everything. And then, you know, you go out
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  there, you take some bumps on the market suplex by Brock
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  Lesnar, like you got to diversify.
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  It's interesting the way you talk about ADD, you know, you're
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  saying like, I have a DDII want to kind of have ADD in business,
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  at least you want to continuously start new
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  businesses or even go into new industries like becoming an
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  investor. But on the, on the flip side of
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  that, I've seen a lot of startups, a lot of founders who
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  have this sort of shiny object syndrome, right?
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  They, they start a venture, 6 months later you catch up with
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  them like, hey, how was that idea?
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  And it's like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I switched, right.
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  So does that happen to you where you're like, actually no man,
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  like you have a talk to yourself, Like no, I said I was
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  going to do this. I got out like commit to it or.
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  This is a this is a fantastic question.
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  I try to do things that I really care about that I love that like
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  it like instinctually since I was a, a child, the lights of
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  fire in my soul and I can feel that for some of my pursuits,
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  like like my, my soul is on fire.
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  I'll literally say that, right? I've become obsessive about some
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  of these ideas. And if you target that you
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  shouldn't lose the flame, I don't think, right.
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  Like it's, it's a shiny object, hopefully because it's been a
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  shiny object your whole life. You know, we know once, once,
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  once you once you try to build a business, ideally, you know, if
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  things work out, you see that business through.
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  But sometimes, sometimes businesses don't work out.
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  That's the other thing. But like I said before, like
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  people are afraid to fail. Failure is a it's, it's
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  inevitable. Like say sorry, all of you are
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  beautiful people, young entrepreneurs, you're all going
• 13:09
  to be great. You're going to fail at some
• 13:11
  point. It is inevitable.
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  But if you don't, God bless you. God bless you, but but don't let
• 13:17
  that dissuade you from continuing to make what you want
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  to make. Failure will happen.
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  Success is not guaranteed. But just keep, keep trying and
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  keep pushing and and and and. Don't.
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  Don't let your inner demons or outer demons tell you otherwise.
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  What's something that keeps you up at night?
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  Pokémon cards, dude. Oh my God, it's so bad, dude.
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  It's so bad. My wife, my wife.
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  How do you explain to your wife you're spending seven figures on
• 13:47
  cardboard? How do you do that?
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  She's from Denmark, dude. She's from are you guys from
• 13:55
  Denmark? Just a random cheer.
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  Incredible. It's incredible.
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  Yeah, dude, Pokémon. I'm, I'm, I'm obsessed with it.
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  I'm. I got that at the moment, Yeah.
• 14:09
  OK, but what about worries? Any worries that keep you up at
• 14:11
  night besides the cards? I mean, what's up with Moat
• 14:16
  book? Like are these agents really
• 14:18
  like congregating and like going to figure out a way to like
• 14:21
  cause an uprising against humans?
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  I don't know. I don't know, dude, bro, it's
• 14:27
  all it's all just it's everything sucks.
• 14:30
  Like dude, everything sucks, but at the same time it's so great.
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  It's so great. So I try to keep the stress to a
• 14:39
  minimum. Don't get caught up in the highs
• 14:40
  or the lows, right? Like this is a big one.
• 14:45
  Good things are going to happen in your life.
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  Sick, Cool, Move on, Celebrate how you want, move on.
• 14:51
  Bad things are also going to happen in your life man.
• 14:54
  Chalk it up, move on. Yeah, I like that.
• 14:57
  In terms of investments, like what industries or particular
• 15:01
  companies really excite you right now or giving you that
• 15:05
  passion? Yeah, so.
• 15:06
  I joined, I joined my brother's venture firm.
• 15:08
  It's called Anti Fund. Jake, Jake Paul the boxer.
• 15:11
  Yes, Jake Paul, the boxer has this weird amazing ability as
• 15:18
  both an entrepreneur and investor that it's like he he
• 15:23
  has it in him. If he wasn't a boxer social
• 15:25
  media star, he'd be he'd be a venture capitalist, which which
• 15:28
  he which he is now. But like, I remember walking
• 15:30
  into into his room, like back in the team 10 days.
• 15:32
  This dude was 18 years old. Former LLC's pitching investors
• 15:36
  pitching Gary Vee to invest in team.
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  I was like, bro, what do you, what do you do?
• 15:39
  How does this work? And he has this thing in him.
• 15:42
  And then all of a sudden, you know, you get you get a little
• 15:44
  seasoned, you make content, you learn a little bit about
• 15:47
  business. And Jake's fund, Antifund has
• 15:50
  invested in some of the most impressive companies in the
• 15:52
  world, Cognition Open, AIXAI Physical Intelligence ramp.
• 16:01
  And I looked at his portfolio and his fund along with our
• 16:05
  partner Jeff Wu. And I was like, yo, you guys,
• 16:07
  you guys really got something going on here because we found
• 16:10
  there is an incredible intersection between tech and
• 16:12
  culture. And we have this ability, like I
• 16:16
  said, to help companies wield the tension in a way that I
• 16:20
  don't think a lot of other people can provide.
• 16:21
  I'll try to be humble. Look, it's so hard.
• 16:23
  It's so hard for me being this good looking, rich, successful
• 16:25
  and famous. But I'll try to be humble.
• 16:29
  That that was my character coming out or was it?
• 16:34
  Yeah, We're good at what we do. And and I have made some
• 16:40
  successful investments myself and we decided that teaming up
• 16:45
  together would be a great way to combine forces and make 1 + 1
• 16:49
  equal 3. Did you guys ever find anyone
• 16:51
  kind of not taking you seriously because of your past or, or was
• 16:55
  it the opposite? Always no.
• 16:56
  Absolutely. How could you not look at my,
• 16:58
  look at my hair. I look like an idiot up here,
• 17:01
  like I'm in a in a suit, but like you got a context switch.
• 17:06
  Yeah, of course, dude. Like how do you, how do you, how
• 17:08
  do you, how do you take us seriously as a, as a boxer and
• 17:12
  professional WWE wrestler? And we come in and we're like,
• 17:14
  we want to be venture capitalists.
• 17:18
  Like. Like.
• 17:19
  Does it make you mad? Does it make you feel like you
• 17:21
  have something to prove or you're kind of like, I mean?
• 17:23
  I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, of course,
• 17:26
  Of course, bro. We're fighters at heart.
• 17:28
  We love to fight. It's like if we can, if we can,
• 17:31
  you know, pick a the corporate fight and try to see who can
• 17:36
  raise, allocate and deploy money in the best, most efficient way
• 17:40
  possible, Let's do it. But of course it's expected.
• 17:44
  That's that's that's what people are supposed to do.
• 17:48
  But it's our job then to do our job and make the connections and
• 17:53
  invest in the right companies and provide returns for our
• 17:55
  investors. So aside from tech and business
• 17:58
  and and all these things, most kids today want to be a YouTube
• 18:02
  or a TikTok star. Does that front?
• 18:05
  Like do you support that? When kids come up to you say I
• 18:08
  want to be a YouTube like, do you?
• 18:09
  Because I mean, you know what it's like, right?
• 18:11
  Most people don't, they see, they see the fun stuff.
• 18:14
  They think it's a lot easier than it is.
• 18:16
  So what do you think? Yeah, great question.
• 18:18
  It's, you know, it's shocking. It's shocking.
• 18:20
  The statistic is like, I think like 40% of young people want to
• 18:23
  be Youtubers when they grow up. Do I support it?
• 18:25
  Hell yeah, Hell yeah. Do what you want, do what you
• 18:30
  love, do what makes you happy. I will say it is very hard,
• 18:37
  although content creation now is easier than ever because of the
• 18:41
  tools available. Like dog I had to put a tape in
• 18:44
  a camcorder and then like as a 8 year old figure out how to get
• 18:48
  it on a computer. Like bro how how does an 8 year
• 18:51
  old know what the word upload means?
• 18:53
  I remember sitting at the computer being like upload what
• 18:56
  up Like I just it was so hard to figure out.
• 18:59
  Now just whip out an iPhone, put it on an iMovie, upload on tape.
• 19:01
  No, screw that. Shoot natively on TikTok
• 19:03
  brother. Shoot natively on TikTok on.
• 19:05
  YouTube Shorts. YouTube.
• 19:06
  Shorts, there's no excuse to make content.
• 19:09
  I will say you got to be good. You got to be damn good.
• 19:17
  It is so over saturated and I saw this coming.
• 19:20
  When I saw the influx of videos being made and people wanted to
• 19:25
  become content creators, I knew that the level of talent it was
• 19:29
  going to get so good where people are so undeniably
• 19:33
  magnetic to watch. Just charismatic beings that
• 19:36
  were built for this example. I show speed, 21 years old,
• 19:41
  biggest star on the planet cannot look away from his
• 19:43
  streams. And that level of talent is only
• 19:46
  going to get better and better. And then it's the going to
• 19:50
  become AI. We will be watching AI content
• 19:52
  creators, half with real content creators, and I say that
• 19:56
  seriously in a very short amount of time.
• 20:00
  There's a lot of debate on that, right?
• 20:01
  Because a lot of people say, well, actually people are drawn
• 20:03
  to people. YouTube keeps announcing they're
• 20:05
  going to demonetize or de prioritize AI and even faceless
• 20:09
  channels. So what makes you so bullish on
• 20:11
  that? So I have a, I have like a
• 20:17
  little bit of intuition at this point where I can just like, I
• 20:21
  can't really explain that. I could just feel it.
• 20:23
  And I've felt myself watching AI content and I've also felt
• 20:28
  myself and I've, I've seen a lot of content.
• 20:31
  It is becoming harder and harder to discern which is which.
• 20:36
  So when the point comes where you can't tell who's real and
• 20:39
  who's not, and the AI influencers are everywhere and
• 20:43
  they're really good, we're going to be in a weird place.
• 20:48
  That said, the value of the human will go up, I think.
• 20:53
  It's almost like the value of in person events, right?
• 20:56
  So like you, you being at Web Summit, you, you know, wrestling
• 21:00
  things like that where people can know and have this almost
• 21:03
  pair of social relationship with you 100% seeing you out in the
• 21:06
  real world. Invest and get involved in real
• 21:10
  life experiences. For sure IRL experiences will
• 21:15
  become more and more valuable as this weird tech world that that
• 21:19
  is not physical and doesn't exist in the 3D, but doesn't the
• 21:24
  2D becomes more and more prominent?
• 21:26
  Final question, because we're out of time, what is your best
• 21:28
  advice to all the entrepreneurs out there?
• 21:31
  I hate superlatives, all right. Any advice?
• 21:39
  Any advice that you wish you knew before you kind of went
• 21:42
  into business? Yeah, I'm going to give you guys
• 21:44
  a real simple one that Jeffrey Katzenberg told me that I
• 21:48
  absolutely love when I asked him this superlative.
• 21:50
  It's so easy, but if you do this, you will be successful at
• 21:54
  everything you do. 2 words exceed expectations.
• 21:59
  Exceed expectations. You will win for the rest of
• 22:02
  your life. Thank you so much.
• 22:04
  Thank you. Thank you, guys.
• 22:06
  Thank you, thank you so much. I'll be WWE champ one day.
• 22:10
  Mark my words. Mark my words.
• 22:11
  Thanks for listening to this episode of What's Up 10 where I
• 22:14
  bring you inside the minds driving tech, money and power.
• 22:17
  Follow along on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you
• 22:20
  get your podcasts. You can also follow my personal
• 22:23
  account on Instagram at Up 10. Would love to connect with you.