He built a VR headset that could kill you.

Facebook tried to silence him for $100M.

Now, his new $14 Billion company is building AI drones & underwater ghost ships.

The incredible story of Palmer Luckey, Silicon Valley's most controversial founder🧵 At 16, Palmer was building VR headsets in his parents' garage.

His first prototype, the PR1, was groundbreaking:

• Built-in haptic feedback
• 90-degree field of view
• Low latency

This was just the beginning...

He spent his youth in skateboarding gangs.

He skipped so much school he was sent to youth detention.

Now he has a $5M science empire, 6M subscribers, and publishers fighting for his books.

Here's how Huberman turned his life around (and his blueprint to monetizing expertise)🧵 Born at Stanford Hospital in 1975, Huberman had science in his blood.

His father was an Argentine physicist who worked with legends like Richard Feynman. His mother was a children's book author.

But his perfect childhood was about to crumble...

Donald Trump's reputation was dead in 2004.

He lost over $1B in the '90s & no one trusted him as a businessman.

Then, he became the face of a bizarre reality TV show and changed his public perception forever.

Here's how a reluctant decision made him President 12 years later 🧵 The 2000s weren't kind to Trump.

His casinos were bleeding money, his real estate empire was struggling & his name was losing its shine.

Then Mark Burnett (creator of Survivor) pitched him an idea that would change everything...

Trump International Hotel and Tower in 1993:

A building worth pennies on the dollar.

Everyone said Trump was crazy to buy it... Until Trump had a genius idea and artificially transformed it into Manhattan's most prestigious address.

Here's the full story🧵 First, some context:

The building was originally the Gulf and Western Building - a dull, aluminum-clad office tower completed in 1970.

By the early 90s, it faced huge financial difficulties...

This is Dario Amodei:

CEO of OpenAI's most powerful competitor, Anthropic.

Recently, on the @lexfridman pod, he shocked the world by revealing:

• The timeline to superintelligence
• The dangers of AI misuse
• Why he left OpenAI

His 11 insights I can't stop thinking about🧵 1/ The Scaling Revolution (2014)

While at Baidu, Amodei made a discovery that would change AI forever:

Simply making neural networks bigger and feeding them more data led to dramatic improvements.

Everyone told him "we need better algorithms." He saw something different...

In 2023, Argentina was dying:

• Central Bank $12B in debt
• 50% poverty rate
• 7,500% inflation

Then Javier Milei became President.

11 months in, he's pulling off the greatest economic turnaround ever.

In a 2-hour pod with Lex Fridman, he revealed exactly how he did it🧵 When Milei took office in Dec 2023, Argentina was imploding:

• Inflation in the first half of December was at 7,500%
• GDP down 15% over the previous decade
• Central bank reserves: minus $12 billion
• Nearly 50% in poverty

The situation was worse than anyone imagined...

Everyone thinks Black Friday is about shopping.

But the original Black Friday was a $450 million gold heist that brought America to its knees.

Two men used the President's own family to orchestrate the biggest financial scandal of the 19th century.

Here's the forgotten story: Post-Civil War America was in chaos.

The federal government was drowning in $3 billion of debt.

Treasury Secretary Boutwell had a plan: Sell government gold reserves to stabilize the dollar and reduce inflation.

But this created a perfect opportunity for manipulation...

In 2018, Tesla was one month from bankruptcy.

Production was "hell" & they were losing millions every day.

So the board promised Elon Musk $56 BILLION if he saved the company.

No-one thought he could do it — but what happened next shocked everyone...

Here's the full story🧵 Let's set the scene:

2018. Tesla was at a crossroads.

The Model 3 launch had been brutal. Production delays plagued the company. Losses mounted quarter after quarter.

Short sellers were circling. The media predicted bankruptcy.

But something bigger was brewing...

Jake Paul's new business will destroy the $102 BILLION betting industry.

Not because they transformed 'Hawk Tuah' into Spotify's #3 podcast.

But because they cracked the code of Gen Z attention (it's so simple, you'll laugh):🧵
Jake Paul and Joey Levy built a multi-billion-dollar sports empire by breaking every rule in the playbook.

In 18 months, they've:

• Amassed 7M+ followers
• Generated 4B+ impressions
• Captured 500K+ paying users

But their most genius move? Something no-one saw coming...

This $400 billion company spends $0 on advertising.

They LOSE money on purpose & they make 130 million people PAY just to enter their shops.

And this year, their empire eclipsed McDonald's and Coca-Cola's.

Here's how they defied every business rule — and won: 🧵 In 1983, most retailers were obsessed with glitz and glamour.

They'd mark up products 50%+, pour millions into flashy ads, and stock everything under the sun.

The focus? Short-term profits at all costs.

Then Costco came along with a radical idea:

This man can predict the future.

He foresaw the rise of EVERY social media & invested early in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter & Ethereum.

And he just said, “Attention is the new oil”.

Gary Vee’s 5 wild predictions on the future of wealth creation (& why you should care): Prediction 1: The Attention Economy

Every second of your day is filled with companies bombarding you.

Attention is the new currency. And Gary's predicting a gold rush.

So much so that Gary's new catchphrase is 'I day trade attention'.

What does this mean for you?

This is the greatest heist in business history.

This guy sold his company for $550M...

Then bought it back for JUST $1.

The original buyers lost $800M in the process.

Here's the incredible story of how Dave Portnoy won his company back 🧵 2003: Dave Portnoy launched a free weekly publication in Milton, Massachusetts.

It was a simple paper focused on gambling & fantasy sports projections, distributed across Boston's metropolitan area.

Most commuters ignored it.

Until 2004, when everything changed:

I bet my life savings Jake Paul will be a billionaire by 2029.

Not because he's the face of "YouTube boxing" which has grown to a $1 BILLION per year industry.

But because he cracked the secret code of Gen Z attention (it's so simple, you'll laugh): In 2013, Jake Paul was just another kid making 6-second videos on Vine.

By 2016, he landed a Disney Channel role. But in 2017, Disney fired him. His career seemed over...

Then he did something nobody expected:

The man who heals what doctors can't:

Will Ahmed.

He took on Nike & Apple to build a $3.6 BILLION healthcare revolution.

Now Michael Phelps, LeBron James & Patrick Mahomes can't live without his product.

Whoop's blueprint to blowing up a business is unmissable🧵
Meet Will Ahmed:

A Harvard student-athlete in 2010 who was pushing his body to the limit every day.

But despite being a D1 athlete with world-class coaches, he had NO idea if his training was helping or hurting him.

Here's why that mattered:

In 1974, Muhammad Ali destroyed George Foreman.

Foreman spiraled into depression. Became a recluse. Lost millions of dollars.

Then a kitchen appliance made him richer than all his fights COMBINED.

Here's how George Foreman revolutionized celebrity businesses forever 🧵 Zaire, 1974. The air was thick with tension.

George Foreman stood undefeated. 37 knockouts in 40 fights. A destroyer who seemed unstoppable.

Until Ali revealed his secret weapon...

A strategy so simple, yet devastating, it would break Foreman's spirit:

This man predicts the future.

He's been fighting wokeism for years & he invested early in Bitcoin, Twitter, and Uber.

And he just said, "A man who regains his voice can never be silenced again".

Naval Ravikant's 4 predictions on social media, attention & wealth creation: Naval Ravikant is modern-day prophet.

His musings on startups & the internet paved a generation's way to wealth.

Thanks to him, "ownership," "leverage," and "long-term games" became the everyday language of today's entrepreneurs.

His recent stances have been incisive too...

Google tried to buy this zero-revenue startup for $1 Billion.

Then Mark Zuckerberg countered with a $19 BILLION offer & everyone called him insane.

Now, that "startup" is used by 2 Billion people.

How Mark Zuckerburg quietly made the best tech investment ever🧵 2009: Two ex-Yahoo engineers were frustrated.

Every time they missed a call at the gym, they had to check multiple apps to see if friends were available.

"What if you could see statuses next to names in your phone's address book?"

That simple frustration would birth a $19B company:

In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg was one of the most hated CEOs on the planet.

6 years later, he wears chains, surfs in tuxedos & fights Lex Fridman.

Everyone seems to love him.

It's the most brilliant PR transformation of the century & everyone should understand how Zuck did it 🧵
2004: A nervous 19-year-old in flip-flops launches Facebook from his dorm room.

2024: A confident 40-year-old in gold chains wakeboarding while holding the American flag.

What happened in between?

In 1996, Marvel Comics was dying.

Their top talent had quit, they were losing fans, and they were bankrupt.

Until they made ONE gamble that changed everything & led to the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Here's the full story: Let's rewind to the early 90s.

Marvel Comics was on top of the world:

• X-Men #1 sold 8M copies (most successful comic ever)
• Spider-Man was a household name

Collectors bought multiple copies of everything.

Until it all came crashing down:

Despite 13 years as an NBA superstar...

Magic Johnson made more money in ONE DAY from Starbucks than he did in his entire basketball career.

His retirement made him $600 MILLION.

It’s the most incredible story. Here’s how he did it: Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, Magic would help his father collect trash.

His father worked two jobs - General Motors assembly line and trash collection.

One cold Saturday, young Magic tried cutting corners:

The largest business experiment in history...

Microsoft is watching how 900M professionals live, work, and succeed.

But no one realizes what they're really building with this data.

The fascinating truth about Microsoft & LinkedIn's master plan🧵 The story starts in early 2016.

LinkedIn was in trouble:

Their stock had plunged 40% overnight. Ad revenue growth had crashed from 56% to 20%.

Wall Street was ruthless: "overvalued," "no path to growth," "failing platform."

But Satya Nadella saw something others missed: