# 5 ruthless business lessons from one week in NYC > Source: > Published: 2026-07-07 09:00:00+00:00 [10 years since last NYC visit](/my-first-million/episode/id/198235/#snapshot-8888) Shaan Parr had not been to New York City for roughly 10 years before this trip, making the observations feel fresh and outsider-sharp. As AI deepfakes make everything fakeable, Shaan Puri argues trust is about to become the scarcest and most valuable commodity on the internet — and smart creators should be building it now. My First Million As AI deepfakes make everything fakeable, Shaan Puri argues trust is about to become the scarcest and most valuable commodity on the internet — and smart creators should be building it now. TL;DR Shaan Puri returns from a week in New York City and distills five ruthless business lessons: the power of proximity in creative work, the importance of asking "what does it really mean?", trust as the scarcest future resource, city and team branding as competitive moats, and precision marketing that speaks to people's quiet, unspoken fears. The standout takeaway: as AI-generated deepfakes flood the internet, trust becomes the most valuable currency — and creators who've already built it, like food influencer Jack's Dining Room, are sitting on a goldmine [1] — Sam Parr "As AI floods the internet with fake content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. Food creator Jack's Dining Room has built a goldmine of i…" 23:50 [2] — Sam Parr "I think trust is going to be the thing that is in lowest supply over the next 10 years. Every video I see on Instagram, I'm like, is this f…" 27:07 . Sam Parr returns from his first New York City trip in a decade and shares five business lessons: proximity, asking 'what does it really mean,' trust, city brands, and marketing. Featuring stories from Hasan Minhaj, Gary Vaynerchuk's right-hand man Nick Dio, food creator Jack's Dining Room, and brand strategist Rohan Oza. The first and arguably most evocative lesson from Sam's trip comes from a late-night visit to Hasan Minhaj's creative office. [1] — Sam Parr "Fancy offices with matcha and glass walls signal you've already lost the plot. Hasan Minhaj's real creative weapon is a tiny room above a D…" 01:30 Arriving around 9:30 or 10 PM, Sam found Minhaj deep in a meeting with his full team — a deliberate act of 'stacking' social days so that the next three are quiet writing days. Minhaj's core philosophy is blunt: the moment you walk into a creative office with glass walls, a hot secretary, and fancy matcha, you've already lost the plot. The real work is on a yellow legal pad, in a tiny rented room above a Dunkin' Donuts with no Wi-Fi, surrounded by sticky notes mapping Act 1 to Act 3. Minhaj described proximity as a 'covalent bond' — atoms bumping into each other, serendipitous value flowing in both directions. He even invites anyone in New York to use his office, whether they need a desk or a hair-and-makeup room. Sam draws a broader point about world-class people across domains — athletes with obsessive recovery routines, MrBeast with the largest soundstage in America — as examples of what it looks like to 'dial up to 12.' At Gary Vaynerchuk's social club Fly Fish, Sam bumped into Nick Dio — described as GaryVee's right-hand man and human extension. Nick's official title is vague, but his actual job is precise: in every social gathering, he identifies the 'social slack' — the music too loud, the two groups not yet bridged, the person who doesn't know who to talk to — and fixes it invisibly, elevating the entire room's experience. Nobody notices what he did, but the room is better for it. [1] — Sam Parr "Every room has social slack — someone not knowing who to talk to, two groups that haven't connected yet, drinks that ran out. Gary Vaynerch…" 11:52 He illustrated this with the Knicks' championship celebration: through years of relationship-building, the team chose Fly Fish to celebrate their first title in 50 years, and Jalen Brunson's now-viral 'F Wemby' toast leaked from that exact room. Nick also described his method for entering a new industry: meet the 150 most interesting people doing interesting things, go in with zero agenda, and pick up on the back end — whether that's a podcast appearance, an investment, a friendship, or an insight. The win reveals itself. Cities, like businesses, can have brands — or fail to. Sam opens with his hometown of Houston as a cautionary tale: large population, significant economy, no brand. Detroit has one (cars and manufacturing). Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, and LA have brands — looks, sounds, attitudes, loyalists, and haters. [1] — Sam Parr "Very few cities have a real brand — a look, a sound, an attitude, loyalists and haters. Most cities are commodities, interchangeable and fo…" 18:58 The lesson extends to NBA franchises. Most teams are commodities: coming to play here is the same as playing anywhere else. The exceptions are the Detroit Pistons' Bad Boys (a brand with a name, merch, and player archetypes that reinforced it), Michigan's Fab Five (black socks, baggy shorts, a visual aesthetic), and today's Miami Heat, whose 'Heat Culture' functions like Navy SEAL culture — daily weigh-ins, strict body fat standards, team-first accountability. Sam argues that when you build a genuine culture and brand, people change their own behavior to fit it. They bring the version of themselves that belongs. Shaan extends the concept to UConn's basketball program and notes that SF's tech scene has its own brand but is paradoxically resented by the broader city. At Fly Fish, Sam encounters Jack's Dining Room — a 22-year-old food creator with tens of millions of followers and a brand ecosystem called YesChef spanning guides, festivals, a run club, and thousand-dollar private jet culinary experiences attended by Machine Gun Kelly and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sam is immediately struck not by the business model but by the asset underneath it: trust. [1] — Sam Parr "As AI floods the internet with fake content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. Food creator Jack's Dining Room has built a goldmine of i…" 23:50 In a world where every Instagram video raises the question 'is this fake?', and where AI tools can now generate hyper-realistic influencer personas with consistent faces and styles that post endlessly without anyone detecting the fraud, authentic trust is becoming the internet's scarcest currency. Sam argues podcasters like himself and Shaan are well-positioned because audiences know they are real humans. But Jack has something rarer: food trust at scale. Every one of Jack's 10 million likes is a person who would drive an hour to try a restaurant he recommended. Sam's pitch: build Jack's List — a Yelp competitor where Jack's single pick in any city is the answer, with no noise, no fake reviews. Jack hedges; Sam offers to build it himself and give Jack 10-20%. Sam opens the marketing lesson with a visit to an exclusive New York steakhouse where a waiter opened a treasure chest and told the story of their Australian Wagyu farm — then delivered the line: 'the steak is so soft you could eat it with a spoon.' Sam immediately wrote it down. [1] — Sam Parr "The best restaurant marketing doesn't explain — it hits in five words. 'Steak so soft you eat it with a spoon.' 'Taylor Swift came here two…" 34:40 A different restaurant's entire reputation rests on one line: 'Taylor Swift came here two nights in a row.' [2] — Sam Parr "The rich want status and praise. The rich and unknown want fame. The famous want privacy. So I just figured out how to create products for …" 38:30 Both are examples of what Sam calls 'marketing kill shots': five words that communicate what 500 words of explanation couldn't. Shaan spontaneously coins 'history you can wear' to describe his vintage denim, and Sam immediately identifies it as a million-dollar brand slogan. The deeper principle comes from an unnamed successful marketer at the dinner: the rich want status and praise; the rich-but-unknown want fame; the famous want privacy. Know who you're selling to, and the product designs itself. Sam extends this to Alex Hormozi's extreme positioning — 'I want to own the word business' — and argues that owning a single word in a customer's mind, however reductive it feels, creates compounding clarity that trying to be everything to everyone never can. Chapter 1 · 00:00 The first and arguably most evocative lesson from Sam's trip comes from a late-night visit to Hasan Minhaj's creative office. [1] — Sam Parr "Fancy offices with matcha and glass walls signal you've already lost the plot. Hasan Minhaj's real creative weapon is a tiny room above a D…" 01:30 Arriving around 9:30 or 10 PM, Sam found Minhaj deep in a meeting with his full team — a deliberate act of 'stacking' social days so that the next three are quiet writing days. Minhaj's core philosophy is blunt: the moment you walk into a creative office with glass walls, a hot secretary, and fancy matcha, you've already lost the plot. The real work is on a yellow legal pad, in a tiny rented room above a Dunkin' Donuts with no Wi-Fi, surrounded by sticky notes mapping Act 1 to Act 3. Minhaj described proximity as a 'covalent bond' — atoms bumping into each other, serendipitous value flowing in both directions. He even invites anyone in New York to use his office, whether they need a desk or a hair-and-makeup room. Sam draws a broader point about world-class people across domains — athletes with obsessive recovery routines, MrBeast with the largest soundstage in America — as examples of what it looks like to 'dial up to 12.' Shaan Parr had not been to New York City for roughly 10 years before this trip, making the observations feel fresh and outsider-sharp. Fancy offices with matcha and glass walls signal you've already lost the plot. Hasan Minhaj's real creative weapon is a tiny room above a Dunkin' Donuts with no Wi-Fi, a yellow legal pad, and sticky notes. The covalent bond of proximity — bodies in the same room, atoms colliding — is where the real work happens. Hasan Minhaj batches all meetings into dense single days so the following 3 days are uninterrupted creative writing time, a barbell schedule approach. The optimal work strategy is a barbell: spend time in extreme high-proximity serendipitous environments, then swing to completely isolated deep work. The weak middle — a fog of Zoom calls and Slack pings — gives you neither the breakthroughs of collision nor the depth of real thinking. Chapter 2 · 09:11 At Gary Vaynerchuk's social club Fly Fish, Sam bumped into Nick Dio — described as GaryVee's right-hand man and human extension. Nick's official title is vague, but his actual job is precise: in every social gathering, he identifies the 'social slack' — the music too loud, the two groups not yet bridged, the person who doesn't know who to talk to — and fixes it invisibly, elevating the entire room's experience. Nobody notices what he did, but the room is better for it. [1] — Sam Parr "Every room has social slack — someone not knowing who to talk to, two groups that haven't connected yet, drinks that ran out. Gary Vaynerch…" 11:52 He illustrated this with the Knicks' championship celebration: through years of relationship-building, the team chose Fly Fish to celebrate their first title in 50 years, and Jalen Brunson's now-viral 'F Wemby' toast leaked from that exact room. Nick also described his method for entering a new industry: meet the 150 most interesting people doing interesting things, go in with zero agenda, and pick up on the back end — whether that's a podcast appearance, an investment, a friendship, or an insight. The win reveals itself. When a business fails, almost nobody extracts the real lesson. They say 'I learned so much' but can't name the main thing. Chris from Tiny Capital pointed this out: the lesson 'don't start a restaurant in rainy season' is laughably shallow when your restaurant just failed. The discipline to ask 'what does it REALLY mean?' is rare and valuable. Every room has social slack — someone not knowing who to talk to, two groups that haven't connected yet, drinks that ran out. Gary Vaynerchuk's right-hand man Nick Dio's entire job is to identify that slack and fix it before anyone notices. That invisible service is what brought the Knicks to celebrate their championship at Gary's restaurant. The New York Knicks celebrated their first NBA championship in 50 years at Gary Vaynerchuk's club Fly Fish, illustrating the power of relationship-building. Former MFM producer and 'How to Take Over the World' host Ben Wilson has publicly disclosed a stage 4 high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma diagnosis affecting his brain, bones, lungs, and liver. He's seeking a rare drug called tarlatamab, and has launched a GoFundMe. His message: live like you're living, not like you're dying. Former MFM producer Ben Wilson announced he has stage 4 high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma affecting his brain, bones, lungs, and liver. LeBron James spends $1 million a year on his body because his body IS the product. The question every entrepreneur should ask: what's the equivalent investment in your core asset? One executive coach spent $1 million learning from the world's 15 best coaches across different modalities — and made himself exponentially more valuable. LeBron James reportedly spends $1 million a year on his body, which Shaan uses as a metaphor for extreme investment in your core product. An executive coach spent $1 million of his own money on immersive one-on-one training with the world's top coaches across 15 different modalities over 2 years. Chapter 3 · 18:53 Cities, like businesses, can have brands — or fail to. Sam opens with his hometown of Houston as a cautionary tale: large population, significant economy, no brand. Detroit has one (cars and manufacturing). Las Vegas, New York, San Francisco, and LA have brands — looks, sounds, attitudes, loyalists, and haters. [1] — Sam Parr "Very few cities have a real brand — a look, a sound, an attitude, loyalists and haters. Most cities are commodities, interchangeable and fo…" 18:58 The lesson extends to NBA franchises. Most teams are commodities: coming to play here is the same as playing anywhere else. The exceptions are the Detroit Pistons' Bad Boys (a brand with a name, merch, and player archetypes that reinforced it), Michigan's Fab Five (black socks, baggy shorts, a visual aesthetic), and today's Miami Heat, whose 'Heat Culture' functions like Navy SEAL culture — daily weigh-ins, strict body fat standards, team-first accountability. Sam argues that when you build a genuine culture and brand, people change their own behavior to fit it. They bring the version of themselves that belongs. Shaan extends the concept to UConn's basketball program and notes that SF's tech scene has its own brand but is paradoxically resented by the broader city. Very few cities have a real brand — a look, a sound, an attitude, loyalists and haters. Most cities are commodities, interchangeable and forgettable. The same applies to NBA teams: without a culture like Miami's Heat Culture or Detroit's Bad Boy Pistons, you're just a franchise playing in a building. Chapter 4 · 23:39 At Fly Fish, Sam encounters Jack's Dining Room — a 22-year-old food creator with tens of millions of followers and a brand ecosystem called YesChef spanning guides, festivals, a run club, and thousand-dollar private jet culinary experiences attended by Machine Gun Kelly and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sam is immediately struck not by the business model but by the asset underneath it: trust. [1] — Sam Parr "As AI floods the internet with fake content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. Food creator Jack's Dining Room has built a goldmine of i…" 23:50 In a world where every Instagram video raises the question 'is this fake?', and where AI tools can now generate hyper-realistic influencer personas with consistent faces and styles that post endlessly without anyone detecting the fraud, authentic trust is becoming the internet's scarcest currency. Sam argues podcasters like himself and Shaan are well-positioned because audiences know they are real humans. But Jack has something rarer: food trust at scale. Every one of Jack's 10 million likes is a person who would drive an hour to try a restaurant he recommended. Sam's pitch: build Jack's List — a Yelp competitor where Jack's single pick in any city is the answer, with no noise, no fake reviews. Jack hedges; Sam offers to build it himself and give Jack 10-20%. As AI floods the internet with fake content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. Food creator Jack's Dining Room has built a goldmine of it — millions of followers who trust his restaurant picks. Sam Parr pitched him to build a Yelp competitor powered by a single trusted voice: one list, one pick per city, no noise. Jack passed. Sam offered to build it himself. Food creator Jack's Dining Room, aged 22-23, has tens of millions of followers and a full ecosystem of brands under YesChef. Shaan argues that as AI-generated deepfakes flood the internet, trust will become the scarcest and most valuable resource of the next decade. AI can now generate hyper-realistic influencer characters with consistent faces, jewelry, and style — and flood social media with them indefinitely. Within 12 months, we're heading into peak fakeness. When everything is easy to fake, the people who are verifiably real become exponentially more valuable. Shaan Puri used AI music generator Suno to create a folk/Americana character named Noah Flan — the off-brand Noah Kahan — who sings potty training anthems for his daughter. The result: 'Let It Flow,' a surprisingly catchy song that actually worked. He's now building an entire library of AI-generated songs for parenting milestones. Chapter 5 · 33:39 Sam opens the marketing lesson with a visit to an exclusive New York steakhouse where a waiter opened a treasure chest and told the story of their Australian Wagyu farm — then delivered the line: 'the steak is so soft you could eat it with a spoon.' Sam immediately wrote it down. [1] — Sam Parr "The best restaurant marketing doesn't explain — it hits in five words. 'Steak so soft you eat it with a spoon.' 'Taylor Swift came here two…" 34:40 A different restaurant's entire reputation rests on one line: 'Taylor Swift came here two nights in a row.' [2] — Sam Parr "The rich want status and praise. The rich and unknown want fame. The famous want privacy. So I just figured out how to create products for …" 38:30 Both are examples of what Sam calls 'marketing kill shots': five words that communicate what 500 words of explanation couldn't. Shaan spontaneously coins 'history you can wear' to describe his vintage denim, and Sam immediately identifies it as a million-dollar brand slogan. The deeper principle comes from an unnamed successful marketer at the dinner: the rich want status and praise; the rich-but-unknown want fame; the famous want privacy. Know who you're selling to, and the product designs itself. Sam extends this to Alex Hormozi's extreme positioning — 'I want to own the word business' — and argues that owning a single word in a customer's mind, however reductive it feels, creates compounding clarity that trying to be everything to everyone never can. Shaan Puri's parenting philosophy comes from his mother: talk to your kids like adults and feed them like adults. No kid's menu, no babytalk. His daughter asks for green beans at dinner like she's placing a corporate catering order — and that's entirely by design. The best restaurant marketing doesn't explain — it hits in five words. 'Steak so soft you eat it with a spoon.' 'Taylor Swift came here two nights in a row.' Both lines communicate everything about quality instantly, in the same way a great brand makes an argument a 500-word essay couldn't win. Peter Thiel wrote in Zero to One that branding is a genuine moat and a competitive secret — and then immediately admitted he doesn't understand it well enough to write about it. That admission from one of the sharpest minds in tech is the most powerful endorsement branding has ever received. The Gymkhana sister restaurant in New York called Ambassadors Clubhouse reportedly has a 100,000-person waitlist, illustrating the power of brand story. The founder of the Gymkhana sister restaurant fired the chef, took over the kitchen with no culinary training, and earned a Michelin star in just 9 months. 85% of home meat meals are chicken — and it's boring. Rohan Oza told an Indian sauce brand to stop positioning itself as an Indian cooking ingredient and start positioning as the solution to bland everyday chicken. That one strategic reframe changes which supermarket aisle you're in, who you market to, and how big you can get. Rohan Oza reframed the Indian sauce brand's positioning: 85% of home meat meals are chicken, so the product should make chicken less boring, not be an Indian cooking ingredient. The best copywriting doesn't lead with solutions — it describes the customer's problem in such precise, private detail that they feel completely understood. 'I know why you always volunteer to take the photo when you're with your friends.' When the quiet thought is said out loud, people trust you completely — and then buy anything you recommend. Sam Parr's wife couldn't be convinced to declutter for years — until Instagram decluttering coaches named her quiet fears out loud. 'Does panic come inside you when someone offers to come over for a playdate?' That single sentence flipped a switch that a thousand logical arguments couldn't. The right words don't persuade — they reveal. From Made to Stick: a million seconds is about 72 hours, a billion is 82 weeks, and a trillion is 32 years — a framework for making vast numbers tangible. No indexed bits in this chapter. Sign in to keep viewing Create a free account to keep exploring this episode's insights, snapshots and quotes. We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: [Privacy Policy](/privacy/). Install Vuci on your phone Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience. 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