#139 Compounding Memes - Trung Phan on his great grandfather, living abroad, the expat community in Asia, writing, working at The Hustle, children and work, balancing his various activities, going solo, and playing the long game

[00:59] Paul: Welcome to The Pathless Path. I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast, we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life. Today we are talking with Trung Phan. He is a writer with Workweek and Bloomberg. He is the creator and co-founder of Barely AI. He is doing a bunch of different things.

He's also working on a TV series. He is a 1-year veteran of carving his own path. I'm excited to dive into his story. We've both spent considerable time abroad in Asia. I want to dive into that as well. Welcome to the podcast, Trung.

[01:41] Trung Phan: Thank you, dude. Thank you. Where's the path? I can't see it. We're without a path right now. I'm looking at this.

So for the listener, for the listeners here, I'm in this Riverside app and I see like the COVID of Paul's book and just says The Pathless Path. And then when you actually break down those words, without a path path, I'm like, this is the most confusing shit in the world, man.

[02:02] Paul: People like it though, I don't know.

[02:04] Trung Phan: Okay, all right. So, uh, it's just, uh, it's like, you know what it reminds me of? And I'm not saying this is in a positive way. Have you seen Forrest Gump when there's like the plastic bag just floating in the wind? This is what this feels like, but in a good way, because like I'm all for floating in the wind as a plastic bag.

[02:20] Paul: The Bagless Bag sequel.

[02:23] Trung Phan: No, dude, so I had no idea you lived in Asia. I'm hijacking this interview. Where'd you live?

[02:31] Paul: Hold on, I, I have one scripted question I ask all my guests.

[02:36] Trung Phan: Okay, okay.

[02:38] Paul: What are the stories and scripts you grew up with around work when you were growing up? We're gonna answer that and then we can use that to talk about living in Asia because I think that's important.

[02:48] Trung Phan: Well, it's also very related I did too. See, like, even when I, even when I rudely cut you off, it all comes back together because we're like that bag in Forrest Gump. It's just flying around, it's going to find its way. Uh, Asian, man. Asian parents, dude. Like, you can guess right now, what did my parents want me to be when I grew up?

Just, just guess.

[03:04] Paul: Doctor, lawyer, academic, uh, engineer.

[03:07] Trung Phan: You nailed it, dude. Yeah, so I went, uh, my older brother is a doctor, uh, but I went to university, pre-med. And then I almost failed calculus in the first semester because I was getting hammered every day and the class was at 8 o'clock AM. So I'm like, I got to find a major where all the classes start at noon. And sure enough, it was history and sociology. So I just, I cannot, I'm not exaggerating.

I literally set my schedule based on the time that the classes start. And like that's how I picked my major. So I dropped out of pre-med and yeah, that's the answer.

[03:41] Paul: This is very resonant. I had this 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM lab I had in science, or I forget what it was, biology or something. And it was like, there were like 4 people in it 'cause nobody wanted something that late on a Friday, but I just like did not want to get up in the morning. So I would go straight from the lab to the bar. It was great.

[04:02] Trung Phan: That's a way, I mean, that's a no-brainer. Like if you're gonna have to go to 8:00 AM versus 5:00 PM, it's like, what difference does it make? When you're in your late teens or early 20s, your circadian rhythm won't even get you, you shouldn't be waking up before 8 anyways, man.

[04:16] Paul: So I went to a big public school in the States and it was mostly oriented around partying and socializing. Do you think people are undervaluing just like screwing around and having fun in your early 20s as sort of a way for later career success?

[04:33] Trung Phan: I went so far on the other side of that, that I'm, there is, I mean, like, we will both know people that, you know, finished school in 3 years and were volunteering on the side. It's like, I'm not— that's not me. I also probably went a bit too far on the other side, like picking majors based on times that the classes start. But yeah, there's a happy middle ground, right? And I mean, let's be honest, you don't learn anything in college. It's like you make buddies there and you fucking have a good time.

Your prefrontal cortex isn't even developed yet. Like, who cares, right? Just like Just to have a good time.

[05:05] Paul: So the funny thing is, I was doing a bit of research about you and your history. I was reading my own history, Fan Boy Cho, and your great-grandfather. Have you read the Wikipedia entry?

[05:17] Trung Phan: Oh, I'm very familiar with that. I mean, I have his books and I—

[05:21] Paul: I want to read this, and I think you're pretty similar to him in some ways. So Fan admitted he did not understand the meaning of the text in great detail. He's talking about reading the Confucian texts. At the time, but by age 6, he was skillful enough to write a variant of the Analects that parodied his classmates, which earned him a caning from his father. Now, come on, how do you—

[05:47] Trung Phan: like father, like great-grandfather, like grandson.

[05:51] Paul: Do you think he would be proud of your Twitter posting?

[05:55] Trung Phan: Um, what I will say is this, so that's a great question, and I don't want to have anybody rolling in their graves, including my ancestors. Uh, my answer would be yes, and I'll tell you why. So like his claim to fame was, I mean, he literally tried to get the French kicked out of Vietnam. Like he went to Japan and procured weapons and was involved in a plot that, well, frankly, it killed a bunch of French colonialists, right? Like if the French consider him a terrorist, but in Vietnam he's a national hero, obviously. Um, um, the whole point being he knew the power of ideas, right?

And this is why he wrote If you look at any type of textbook or history book about late 19th century Vietnam, early 20th century Vietnam, like his books and writing will be at the top of those lists because they— he was giving— because Vietnam is a very proud country and for thousands of years it's been under the, like, the influence of China, right? Like China's the massive neighbor to the north. And Vietnam— actually, I've talked about this before, but like I live in Canada and we're like America's hat. So like I understand like in my blood what it feels like to be like, like the smaller brother nation. And, uh, so like his whole point was like, you know, Vietnam does have this very rich history, but it's always been encroached by other powers.

And he just wrote very vocally about, you know, Vietnam should just carve out and make very clear that these are our borders and like this is our history and our people. And the influence at the time in the late 19th century was Japan, right? Japan had woken up with the Meiji Restoration, uh, and been like They sent officials to Germany and America. It's like, we need to Westernize our country or we're going to get gobbled up by them. And, uh, my great-grandfather looked at Japan as a model, but the mistake he made with Japan was Japan wasn't interested in lifting up all Asian people. They're interested in becoming the hegemon in the region, which is why we had World War II, uh, or specifically in the Pacific.

But anyways, the reason why I say, to answer your question, why I think he'd be proud is he knew the power of ideas. And this is the— Twitter is, as we know, we're both on there quite a bit. The amount of politicians, media figures, influential people on Twitter, it is like the fastest way to move information and influence minds. Like even something as small as like recently we see this like generative AI war. Like where is Sundar Pichai answering back with Bing? He's literally putting out a Twitter thread, right?

Like it just shows you the power of this platform. And even though we all know we can joke about it, it's like grossly undermonetized and like whatever. Happening right now under Elon is like a totally different question entirely. Like, we could— that'd be a whole episode. Uh, but yeah, I think he would be proud.

[08:39] Paul: Yeah, the— it's pretty fascinating, that time period. He's, he's like hanging out with Sun Yat-sen. Yeah, who was huge in influencing— he's interesting. I spent a lot of time in Taiwan. He's the one person that both Taiwan and China who are— exactly, him is like a great leader.

[08:58] Trung Phan: Well, the same as the father figure of—

[08:59] Paul: then they split off—

[09:01] Trung Phan: 20th century. Yeah, exactly right. Like, that's such a great point, man. I love that we're going down this road because I'm very passionate about this stuff. I really don't get to talk about it on podcasts. But you're right, man.

It's like, he's a fascinating figure, Sun Yat-sen. And the fact that my great-grandfather had an opportunity to speak with the— he was a Republican. He was the person that brought the Republican fervor to the, the literally landmass of China. And then, like you said, obviously Taiwanese look up to him and, uh Very influential.

[09:28] Paul: Yeah, I, I moved, I did like the career thing. I was a little better in school and like trying to optimize the grades and do all that stuff. And, uh, worked in strategy consulting for 10 years, but eventually, uh, went to, uh, Taiwan when I was 33, 32, and changed so much for me just living outside of the US. I, I wonder if that was a similar thing for you. I know it was a little weird going to Taiwan, Vietnam because your parents were like, why would you go back? Right.

And I know that's a very common theme, um, with immigrant parents and sort of disconnecting from their country when they left. Um, how were you thinking about going back? What drove you to go back?

[10:12] Trung Phan: Yeah, well, I, I'll address your question exactly because when people do ask me, should I live abroad? At a young age, I actually say, okay, if you want to spend— there's two ways to look at it in my eyes. If you want to just stick around for a year teaching English in Southeast Asia, cool, do that. But if you're like, in your mind, you really have no idea what you're going to do, and like you can go there and just try to quote unquote figure it out, you're actually better off in a mini version of what you did. Get some Western skills because that way— and like, listen, if you work at McKinsey for two years and you go to Asia, they're going to make you like VP of Operations, right? And you'll get paid way better and you can actually— though, that's what I mean.

It's like I went there without a plan. It's like I couldn't even get a job teaching English because this was very humbling, uh, because it turns out nobody in Vietnam— exactly, they don't want another Vietnamese kid, right? It's like, that's the entire point. You nailed it. It's like, so that was extremely humbling. Like, the only job I was actually qualified to do at a university because I had a history and sociology degree was to teach English in Vietnam.

It's like literally the only skill I had, and I couldn't even do that because they didn't— they wanted a white person. I mean, this is the thing that a lot of people don't understand too about Asia. We don't have to go deep about the race questions in North America and all that, but it's like, no, happy to— you truly have to live abroad to understand. It's like, Vietnam is 99% Vietnamese, Japan is 99% Japanese. Do you understand how retrograde the view of like the majority of these countries are to other races? Like, it's just like, this is what to me, when I see this wokeism movement happen, is like, you guys don't understand.

Like, go, go to Southeast Asia, go to East Asia, go to South Asia. That's half the world. Think, look at how they treat people of different quote-unquote races, right?

[11:54] Paul: There's a lot of progress to be had.

[11:56] Trung Phan: Yeah, there's a lot of progress to be had, right? So I think to answer your question, it's like, is it important? Yeah, it gives you so much perspective because yes, of course, everybody should be treated, you know, everybody should be given an opportunity to succeed in this world and treated equally. But what you have to remember is like looking at North America, like Canada and USA, yes, Massive problems. But you compare it to a lot of these other countries and regions, it's like, it's night and day. Like, you can't even compare.

Like, I have a lot of relatives in, in Vietnam which just straight up, they just have never met anyone that's not Vietnamese, right? Like, 100%. Like, rural Vietnam, they wouldn't even know how to interact. They hold every single, like, negative view you could think of, of other races because they just literally have never met them. And, and, uh, I think it's a very— I think it's probably one of the more important lessons, uh, living abroad, actually.

[12:44] Paul: Yeah. My, my wife is Taiwanese, so I am the white person that her family hangs out with.

[12:50] Trung Phan: Yeah.

[12:50] Paul: I'm the, the single person.

[12:53] Trung Phan: So you, everything you do, you're representative of the other billion plus, like, uh, uh, Caucasians, right?

[13:00] Paul: I represent the Americans.

[13:02] Trung Phan: Yeah. 100%, man.

[13:07] Paul: But yeah, it's, it was a mind-blowing experience also. I mean, you can know other people live different ways, but until you live in the mix of different ways of living, I mean, just simple stuff like riding a scooter around Saigon, right? Yeah, it's, it's crazy. It's a completely different way of orienting. It's a different energy. Walking around the streets is so different.

I, I've only visited Vietnam for, um, 4 days, but, okay, um, But you got the energy, you feel the—

[13:38] Trung Phan: yeah, there's like an energy to it.

[13:40] Paul: It's wild. And there's more young people. It's like this future optimistic energy. It's a little crazy. It's, it's, um, and it's extremely Vietnamese. Like Taiwan is 99% Taiwanese, so they're in such a bubble of their own cultural scripts and ways of thinking about the world too.

It's— you sort of start picking up all these different ways of thinking. Yeah. What was that like for you? I mean, obviously there was some cultural stuff for you, probably getting a new perspective on your own culture.

[14:14] Trung Phan: I think because prior to moving there, I'd been there with my family a couple of times, which probably isn't surprising, right? Asian parents bring their kids back. But I think the interesting thing, and I mean, this wouldn't be surprising to you, is because my family, they left before the fall of Saigon, right? So they hold very negative views. About the Vietnamese Communist Party fairly. And, uh, and to your initial point, it's like, well, how do— not only like, what do immigrant parents feel when their kids go back, but like, to the country, that it's not in a positive way that they left, right?

Like, their memory— even though like my great-grandfather's a hero in Vietnam, it's like he has a very interesting history of the Communist Party. So they tried to bury his legacy for decades because he was an intellectual rival to Ho Chi Minh. So he was buried, his reputation was buried for decades. So it's not like, like, what I want to make clear is like, is my great-grandfather very prominent and influential figure, but it's not like we come from wealth in Vietnam. Like, everything was taken, and, and his reputation has gone through ups and downs. And that all ties back to what you've said, is like, I think the main thing for me was going back there, and what had nothing to do with the culture, just like, it, it's just about my age and the time and and what you kind of initially asked, like, should people live in Asia at that time or live abroad at their young age?

The main lesson for me was like, I'm glad I did what I did because now with obviously, you know, with a kid and like settled down, it's like it would never happen again, right? Like, that's like my frame is not really cultural, it's just like looking at the arc of my life, knowing that I would never be able to do that again. And that's what I look back at. I met my now wife there, and that's obviously super important. No, but the takeaway kind of being like, I don't look at it like, oh, I had this like cultural awakening. I'm just like, I would never be able to do what I did for those 5 years ever again.

[16:01] Paul: You meet a lot of interesting people too in these environments, right? These expat worlds. And I know that's injected some of your writing. Talk to me about like, who are some of the people like, it's wild, the people you meet living in these countries as expats.

[16:17] Trung Phan: I mean, dude, you lived in Taiwan, you've been in Asia. The thing, the funny thing about the expat world is, it's a small sliver, right? But they're all in, and you'll get the full spectrum. You'll get, you'll get literally just backpacking bums, you'll get teachers, and then you'll get local CEOs of those companies. And the thing is, they all hang out at the same place, right? Yeah, there's like the expat bars.

Like, it's a well-known trope, you probably know it. You've been— I'm sure there's many expat bars in Taiwan or Taipei. And, uh, and, and The funny thing though, I'll say about expats is this, you nailed it. There's so many different characters. And the thing that I like though is that if you're an expat in Saigon, you're one degree removed from like the expat community in Bangkok. Like you hit the ground and somebody will know somebody there.

It's like, yeah, go here, hook up with this person, they're gonna party. And like no matter where I went in Asia, it's like, it's just one, it's like one layer of group of people. It's like, it's like kind of going to university again, right? It's like, oh yeah, I met with Danny in Shanghai and then I met with like, uh, uh, Tim down in Bangkok. He's like, you know that that feeling. So, so, so, so two things I'd say.

Number one, we touched on is like there's a whole spectrum of interesting characters, and they are truly interesting characters, uh, because, uh, from the TV show that, uh, uh, that I'm working on, I'm still in development hell unfortunately, but we, we have done some episodes. That's the positive, like produced them. Uh, uh, there's, there's a couple lines in there and they're taken from actually Hemingway. So Hemingway was famously an expat in Paris And, uh, with, uh, he had a whole crew over there. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote The Great Gatsby, uh, a bunch of the artists, they're all just hanging out in Paris, right? But then he— his description of expat life in Paris in the 1920s, he's basically talking about, I get drunk every day, I don't do anything, and I like have sex with random people.

Like, that, that's his story of being an expat. Like, that is what a lot of expat life is like in East Asia, or anywhere really, right? It's like you're— you've been derooted from where you grew up. And I think specifically in Southeast Asia, I love your thoughts on this. The framing that we did around the TV show about expats is in Southeast Asia, if you end up as an expat in like Saigon or Cambodia or Thailand or even like the Philippines, like, you're not like— you didn't go to Harvard Business School, right? You went to Harvard Business School, you'd be in Tokyo or you'd be in Hong Kong or Shanghai or, uh, or Seoul, you know what I mean?

Like, there's tiers of cities in Asia and like The ones, the expats I hung around, these were not the best and the brightest that were offered by the world, right? This is like people are truly running from stuff. And, and there's actually, there's a, there's an economic reason why that happens too. It's like it's much cheaper to live in Cambodia and Thailand and Vietnam. It's extremely expensive to live in Seoul, Tokyo. Like you need to be a high, you know, a high-flying executive to really live it up there.

Well, not really live it up, you can still, you can still live pretty well in Hong Kong, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, I, I probably way before 20— 2008, 2012. I probably— It blew up probably 5 or 6 years later.

[19:36] Paul: Yeah, the last 10 years have been such an explosion of people like me, like digital nomads. I didn't drink when I, when I was in Asia for 3 years, which probably, yeah, that probably seems crazy to you. I also didn't, I hung out with like other digital nomads and a lot of locals because I met my wife so early after moving there. So it was a bit of a different experience. But I think it's evolved and these countries have gotten a lot richer in the last 10 years.

[20:08] Trung Phan: Yes.

[20:09] Paul: So there's a lot of local stuff that's happening where a lot of locals are intertwined with the entrepreneurial digital nomad coworking ecosystems. I think you'd be surprised going back, like I went to Saigon in 2019.

[20:27] Trung Phan: Okay. And recent.

[20:29] Paul: It was such an interesting mix of like locals, entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and I think it's evolved. But I definitely get what you mean. But yeah, it's just so much easier to meet people now. Like smartphones changed everything.

[20:43] Trung Phan: Yeah, 100%. I mean, when we went to, when I went to Vietnam 2008, it was like barely anyone was on Facebook in Vietnam, right? Totally.

[20:51] Paul: Wow.

[20:51] Trung Phan: Totally game changed now. But to your point, I think exactly my description of what I just said is a very time capsule that time. So I will caveat. For 2008-2010 region. And, uh, yeah, I think your frame is correct though. Like, it's pre-Instagram, like it's way pre-TikTok obviously, and, uh, and smartphone hadn't really penetrated the country yet.

Like, iPhone had only been out a year by the time I'd been there. So, uh, yeah, it was, it was interesting, man. It was, um, again, I'll go back to the initial thought. I was like, I'm just happy I did it for that time period because I could not do it again. But it's amazing you did in your early 30s, man. Like, that's cool.

[21:29] Paul: Yeah, yeah, it was a different perspective. I think I had more stuff to reflect on. It was like a slower, more contemplative reflection. And yeah, I was kind of lost in my life and trying to be found, which is a classic script in Asia.

[21:45] Trung Phan: Yeah, contemplative. Great, great word, by the way. I haven't heard that one in a while.

[21:53] Paul: Yeah. Check this out. Vietnam. 2010 GDP or 2009 GDP was $106 billion. Today it's $366 billion. That's wild.

[22:05] Trung Phan: Still, still 1/7 of Apple. No, like literally, like I said, that's how I look at how I remember.

[22:13] Paul: Like, this is like a tweet thread. It's like, lesson: Vietnam should have bought Apple.

[22:18] Trung Phan: Yeah, like Apple should have bought Apple early. I'm stealing that.

[22:24] Paul: Um, that's awesome. So in Vietnam though, you wrote for this paper. That's sort of like an accidental thing.

[22:33] Trung Phan: You—

[22:33] Paul: I mean, you had no other options, but—

[22:36] Trung Phan: exactly.

[22:37] Paul: When did you realize like writing was a thing either you liked or could be?

[22:41] Trung Phan: Oh, I've always— I've always— yeah, great question. I've always liked writing. I, um, actually went quote-unquote viral, or like was pretty— I wrote a pretty popular blog in McGill. Yeah, Trung Phan, about partying. And like, it was weird as well.

[22:55] Paul: I couldn't find it. I searched the web.

[22:57] Trung Phan: Oh, I deleted it. That stuff is like, I was like, you know what? This should not last. This should not be lasting. This is not meant to be archived on the internet. I mean, there's nothing super wrong with it.

It was just like really immature, just partying jokes. Like, I mean, I wouldn't mind looking at it back now, but like, I'm sure in 2010 when I wasn't able to get a job or 2009, I'm like, you know what? It may be time to pull the plug on this thing. But, uh, looking back, I probably should have just pursued that from the beginning, uh, the writing. Because as you know, with, uh, your kind of ventures and media ventures, man, the number one thing for audience building is time. Like, there's only so many new subscribers you can get a week, right?

So many new followers you can get every week. It's like, the reality is it's just time. It's like, it's like the Morgan Housel quote from about Warren Buffett in The Psychology of Money, one of the greatest books ever. He says Warren Buffett's like his skills investing, but his secret is time, right? Like that's just it. It's just you have to let time happen.

That's what I regret the most actually is like for the— if anybody ever asked me about, you know, building in public media stuff, I'm like, I just wish I'd started earlier. Again, it's not for everyone. Like you have to want to go through the ups and downs for a decade plus because the fruits of all that labor is going to wait at the end, right? It's like it's all— nothing happens in the first I mean, you know this, you're a book publisher, you run a podcast, like nothing, everything is at the end is where the payoff is. And you just have to be willing to wait that long. But yeah, I've known because I wrote this blog in university and I mean, it was a fraction of the kind of distribution I get now on Twitter, but like, I just, it was cool, right?

You're walking around campus like, oh, Trung, funny blog. And I'm like, oh, amazing dopamine. Like, you know what I mean?

[24:39] Paul: The original likes.

[24:41] Trung Phan: Yeah, the original likes was somebody just pointing at you on campus. I'm like, yeah, buddy, thanks, buddy. But yeah, I knew. And that was like when I said that teaching English is my only skill, that's not actually true. Writing was my other skill. Like I'd say I've always been a pretty natural writer.

And when I say that, it's because natural in the sense, you know how they all say write in your own voice? Like that's what I've actually been doing. Like from the very beginning.

[25:05] Paul: Yeah, you're great at that.

[25:07] Trung Phan: Yeah, it's just like I literally never did not do that. So I guess I never had like apprehension about it. So that's a lot for a lot of people. The problem with writing your own voice, like you're like, oh, what if my voice is stupid, right? It's like that. I never had that for some reason.

And so yeah, I've been able to write pretty early. I can write, I mean, I can write like very like dry stuff too, right? So which is what I had to do as an equity analyst, ultimately where I ended up. In Vietnam. And then, oh, and listen, you're a consultant, you, you know what it feels like to write that, that freaking, the soul-sucking, uh, like industry analysis overview, the drivers, what are the key risks.

[25:47] Paul: Uh, yeah, so yeah, I can, I can pump out a 25-page, um, in-depth research report on the economics of, uh, I don't even know, I could—

[25:58] Trung Phan: coffee, let's just call Let's call it Rubber and Coffee.

[26:01] Paul: I can do that. Yeah, coffee. Let's break it down. We'll do the segments, the different regions.

[26:08] Trung Phan: I did, I did Rubber and Coffee while I was in Vietnam. That was funny. I know a lot more about rubber than I should.

[26:15] Paul: But yeah, that, that stuff's super helpful. I think you probably learned— I think from consulting, what I learned is like, I, I feel kind of bad saying this, but I didn't really find writing a book very hard because I'm very good at structuring lots of ideas. I just— it's just a time thing. I just need to, like, go through the motions. But yeah, for me, a long time I didn't think of myself as a writer either. But I look back now and I'm like, oh, you moron, you liked writing all these times.

I just never thought of it as like a thing people do.

[26:49] Trung Phan: Well, I mean, fair. It's also not easy to make a living.

[26:52] Paul: It wasn't for a long time.

[26:53] Trung Phan: Yeah.

[26:54] Paul: Like our paths right now were literally not possible 5 years ago when I quit my job.

[27:00] Trung Phan: Um, well, that's why everybody looks up to Ben Thompson, right? Like, he was true. I mean, he lives in Taiwan. He's like, you know, yeah, he's the OG.

[27:08] Paul: I don't know him. I used to just say I was the second, um, most important newsletter writer in Taiwan.

[27:14] Trung Phan: A white newsletter writer in Taiwan. Nice. I love that.

[27:17] Paul: Um, yeah, what, um, how did you end up at, uh, The Hustle?

[27:24] Trung Phan: So, uh, when I left Vietnam, I did an MBA Uh, so this is for, for, I guess a lot of your listeners are kind of career, like, ideas. It's like when I left Vietnam, I didn't have any, again, other than writing and my experience there, which is not super valuable in North America. Vietnam, as you alluded to, is quite a small market. Uh, yeah, I went back and did an MBA, a 1-year MBA, as a way to integrate myself in North America's economy. Uh, I probably shouldn't have done that because it ended up costing, including opportunity cost, maybe $150,000. $200K, and looking back, unnecessary.

Um, uh, but yeah, that was— fortunately I was able to get a job in the States because Vancouver, notoriously, uh, for its cost of living, its housing, pays awful, like, uh, for the average job. There's not a ton of industry here, or there wasn't when I graduated. Even now there's not a ton. I mean, it's primarily mining and real estate. There's a lot of tech here, but it's more engineer-driven, and they're just kind of stashing people. Like, Seattle— I mean, Amazon just stashes people up here that can't get visas, right, to Seattle.

And, um, I was an engineer, but I ended up working, um, same skill as research writing. I ended up working, uh, for Kensho, which is a fintech company in Boston. And that was nice because I got into the US market. And, uh, the way I actually met, uh, uh, got hooked up with the hustle was one of my co-workers, colleagues from Kensho was an early investor in The Hustle, and he knew I had liked writing in my own voice comedically and obviously had this kind of finance business background. And he's like, yeah, you should just write with these guys. So that's how I got linked up with The Hustle.

And The Hustle, obviously, when I was working there, the move— once you start doing that, you just start to get on Twitter and being much more public. And I actually knew pretty quickly with Twitter that it was a game I could crack because In terms of humor, like, uh, I do— I don't know, I don't know if any of my listeners follow me or if they don't. I like to do memes and really dumb jokes. And that's— I'm sure, like, going back to like the college thing, like, like my blog was literally about partying and making jokes. It's like, it's always been like, like my North Star. Uh, and so I was, I was watching Twitter, I'm like, oh, I saw who the big accounts were.

I'm like, oh, I can do this. Like, this is doable.

[29:47] Paul: That's awesome. This is another parallel I found with, uh, Fun, Funboy Cho. Um, he passed his regional exams in 1900. However, he had no intention of pursuing such a career and only wanted the qualification to increase his gravitas. Gonna keep blurring out those. Well, I hope you're not—

[30:05] Trung Phan: I got the CFA, bro. Like, I also got the CFA. Well, yeah, let, let, that's it, dude. First of all, amazing research, Paul. And, uh, yes, he, uh, Yeah, every— let's go up to there and then let's just stop with the whole house arrest part where— well, not only that, I mean, the early rebel phase, we'll keep that going. Well, we'll, uh, we can finish it off for the listeners, don't end up seeing the Wikipedia page.

But, uh, my great-grandfather— well, we'll close this loop on his story— was, uh, he was sold out by Ho Chi Minh, uh, as we, as we alluded to, that they're intellectual rivals. He was living in Shanghai meeting with Sun Yat-sen, and, uh, Ho Chi Minh sold him out to the French. To eliminate a rival. And the French want to execute my great-grandfather, but, uh, they realized that it would have created a martyr, so they just put him in house arrest for the last 15 years of his life. And he died at the beginning of World War I— or World War II, sorry.

[30:56] Paul: Key lesson is become so valuable that they can't get rid of you.

[31:00] Trung Phan: Yeah, you— if you, if, if you, if you are a martyr, that protects you. That is a, that is a good lesson.

[31:09] Paul: Writing every day. So I interviewed Steph Smith yesterday.

[31:13] Trung Phan: She's awesome.

[31:14] Paul: And she's— yeah, she's amazing. But even she is like, she's incredible, produces so much. She's like, I don't know how Trung did it every day. Just like day after day.

[31:26] Trung Phan: I appreciate you.

[31:28] Paul: Day after day, just like executing, shipping and putting out amazing newsletters. What was that like? Because, I mean, that seems like it kind of battle-tested you and The, uh, so that year is—

[31:43] Trung Phan: I'll tell you, when people do ask me, it was just like a confluence of events. Uh, some people left, uh, COVID happened, uh, and, um, it was just— it became difficult for a little while to hire enough people. And I just recently moved over from Trends, which is The Hustle's, uh, kind of research group, into, uh, uh, the daily newsletter, which is the one that I'm sure a lot of, uh, the listeners here read, which is the I think the list is up to 2 million now. I was writing at the time to about 1.2 to 1.5 million readers. And yeah, the thing about daily newsletters, and I tell people this whenever they ask me to start, like, hey, should I start a newsletter? I'm like, just be sure whatever time commitment you choose, like, just know, like, just add an extra day.

If you, if like, if you're doing 3 days a week, that's really a 4 to 5 day job. If you're doing, if you do 5 days a week, that's a full-on 7 day job because you never stop thinking about it. And what happened that year was just a confluence of events. We just were unfortunate, we had some readers, writers leave, and then COVID happened where I just had so much time on my hand. So I, it was literally a blur for about, I think, 9 months, almost close to a year. I mean, we have editors, copy editors, we had a team to structure everything, but it's like the actual writing, there are days, they're almost close to a year where it was like every single day.

Was writing this entire email. And to be honest, I was quite burnt out by the end, which is the end being when we were ultimately acquired by The Hustle, immediately able to hire, right? And again, I had a lot of great editors, but they also had other jobs to do too. We were just a bit short-staffed. So it wasn't like they could just chip in and write because they had other responsibilities, right?

[33:23] Paul: Yeah. So you were all acquired by HubSpot. You eventually decided to leave. What was the thought process of going on your own and had you thought about going on your own or did the acquisition sort of speed up something like that?

[33:39] Trung Phan: Going solo, definitely always have. I mean, there are portions of my life, I consider my early 20s kind of going on my own as in like it really wasn't working for anyone. I just kind of explored my interests. And I mean, during that time we didn't talk about was I did sell a film script to Fox. Like, that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a comedic film writer, and I thought that was my in.

But anyone that knows anything about Hollywood knows this shit is so difficult to break into. Like, I have very few ins. I was fortunate enough that one of my co-writers also was quite established in Hollywood, Vietnamese American, a guy named Vincent. Great dude. But yeah, I always knew that because writing, as you know, is quite an individualistic exercise, right? And all the things that you mentioned, there's so much tooling now.

And that really, the thing that really made me realize that I should just go fully solo was like building my own distribution. I'm like, okay, listen, if I can grow on Twitter and like, I know distribution is half the battle for anything. It's like, it took me a long time to realize that distribution is literally 50% of the battle, right? Like, you'll know this. It's like, you write anything, however much energy you put into writing that, you're gonna have to put the exact same into promoting it because no one else is gonna do it for you. And there's so much content out there.

So when I finally came around to realizing that distribution's half the battle and that I can actually build my own distribution, I'm like, okay, well, I should definitely try to go solo. and truly write about things that I care about and at the cadence I want. I think that's the benefit. I'm not writing 5 days a week anymore, 6 days a week. I'm not writing research reports about topics I literally actually don't care about, right? It's like you said about your 25-page reports.

You can do them, you just don't give a shit, right?

[35:30] Paul: God, even if I got paid $100 grand, I don't think I could muster up the energy.

[35:35] Trung Phan: You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's when, I think, I mean, it's not gonna be shocking. Anyone that's listening is thinking about it. It's like if you build your own distribution, like it's in your hands, right? Is the trade-off you'd make with any larger publishers like, oh, we can get you in front of eyeballs, that trade-off doesn't matter anymore, or you just have all the leverage now, right? So yeah, that's how I think about it or thought about it.

[36:00] Paul: Yeah, so the mix of activities you're doing is, Really interesting. I mean, you're doing your newsletter and I think you have some distribution help with Workweek. You're also writing for Bloomberg. You've, you're working on an AI app. You're doing the TV show script and you're also doing the NIA pod, which is super fun to listen to.

[36:26] Trung Phan: Oh, nice, man. Yeah, I love, love those guys, Jack and Bala.

[36:30] Paul: How do you think about the balance of all this?

[36:32] Trung Phan: Um, we talked about the hustle 5 days a week. I, yeah, I kind of got myself in a position again where I kind of recreated all these obligations.

[36:40] Paul: Oh no.

[36:41] Trung Phan: Yeah, so, uh, uh, well, for example, like on Bloomberg, I'm actually taking a bit of a break right now, uh, because I just had to clear something off when I did the Barely AI, uh, the app. And so the good thing about the app is, uh, a new that, so you're dealing with advertisers through your existing newsletters or podcasts, is that I had advertisers that I didn't even use the product for. And I'm like, I'm not crazy about that. I'm not saying that necessarily the product's bad or good. I just truly don't know, right? And I just kind of wanted to be able to, we'll say it, I just wanted to shill something that is very consistent with me.

It's like, and like I can just make, like if you look at like my Twitter and how I show Barely, which is like for the listeners, it's a, it's an AI-powered research app. It's like, it's everything that you kind of seen, but all in one place. Like it has reading tools, writing tools, image generation, text image. I guess the positioning-wise, if we have to get McKinsey about it, it's like people ask you, so okay, why don't I just use like Bing or OpenAI or ChatGPT? It's like, this is pure simplicity for us. It's like we're integrating all into one place and we're making a lot of custom prompts.

And so we think it's a UX differentiation because I think at the end of the day, all these large language models are going to be commoditized and everybody's going to have access to them. So it really becomes a question of distribution and user interface for different, for consumer-facing products anyways. But yeah, so I want to say all that as a preamble to, if you search my name on Twitter, and you punch in B-E-A-R-L-Y, Barely, you'll just see how dumb my shills are. It's just purely just joke after joke after joke about like, hey, is this a good SaaS business? And it's like an arrow pointing all the way down, right? It's like, hey, I made $0 last month.

How do I multiply the MRR on that for the entire year, right? It's like, it's just like, it's just jokes that you couldn't do if you're advertising another product. But it's just so consistent with my existing content and personality that people fucking love it. Like they just engage with it, right? There's— and honestly, it's just like I'm having a good time. I'm— listen, I obviously want to make money with Barely, and it's not going to take a lot.

I need 5,000 paying customers for a 7-figure business. But like the whole point is I'm actually trying to have fun, right? Like I'm actually trying to have a good time and deliver value for people. And if you enjoy that Venn diagram, amazing. And so like to summarize, to answer your question is like How do I look at it all? The bare— so I had to, I had to drop something to do this new thing.

But the new thing, which is this AI app startup, is like very consistent with what I'm already doing. So I'm just trying to like, you know, you only have so much time every week, right? And especially with a kid, you're just like, ah, my pie, the hours I can dedicate is quite restricted right now. So if I could find a way to shoehorn something into stuff I'm already doing, making jokes on Twitter, Beautiful.

[39:37] Paul: Yeah, I think for me it's this, it's kind of like steering a cruise ship. You're like constantly tweaking the direction and you're like trying to get closer and closer. It's also really weird too, because once you're working on your own, you can literally do anything. You can launch a company, you can launch a newsletter, you can, um, write for Bloomberg, right? And it's a bit overwhelming at first because you realize you can literally do anything and like constantly tweaking and trying stuff is a challenge. Don't, don't— we got some kid noise in the background.

[40:12] Trung Phan: Yeah, no, all good.

[40:13] Paul: Endorsing this. I have a daughter. I have a daughter coming in 2 weeks. This episode will probably be incredible.

[40:19] Trung Phan: This will be the last one. This will be the last one before your daughter comes.

[40:23] Paul: Last recording. Yeah.

[40:25] Trung Phan: Oh, dude, congratulations, man.

[40:27] Paul: Thank you. But we are, we are embracing children. On this podcast.

[40:32] Trung Phan: Do— okay, well, I mean, uh, for the listeners, you didn't see, but I had to hit mute. My kid just literally came down here and said he has to do number 2, so you might hear him say, Daddy, I'm done. But, uh, uh, no, no, you had a great— you had a great— you had a great tweet, Paul.

[40:44] Paul: Maybe that ties in. Yeah, maybe that ties in. Go ahead.

[40:47] Trung Phan: No, I just want to say you had a great tweet about— and I fully agree with you— you said, I think— I can't remember what— I might have seen it in time, maybe I'm dreaming— but you said basically, great thing about working for yourself is you take vacation whenever you want. And it's like, oh, do you want to take a vacation? Take a weekend vacation? Yeah, that was you, right?

[41:02] Paul: Yeah, it was. I took a vacation last week. We decided, okay, there's nothing on Wednesday.

[41:07] Trung Phan: Yeah. Oh, here's the best part. You get to take midweek vacation. You're off-schedule vacation. It's incredible.

[41:13] Paul: Yeah. And I think, um, it's funny how many people don't realize the degrees of freedom they have. Have you been able to lean into that, or have you been, just because it's your first year, trying to go a little harder on the work side?

[41:25] Trung Phan: Well, actually, what I'll say is, like, I've always been remote, so, like, I was able to walk into a situation I always wanted, as in even at my fintech startup. And sorry, dude, I'll answer that question. I got to wipe his ass. You might want to mute that. I'll be right back.

[41:41] Paul: I love this. We're keeping it in.

[41:43] Trung Phan: All right, hold on a second. I'll be right back.

[41:49] Paul: That was the best answer to a question I've ever had because I was asking how you lean into not working. I love the— yeah, I love this because—

[41:59] Trung Phan: yeah, you can't do that if you're in the office, right?

[42:01] Paul: That's awesome. Yeah. And is this—

[42:05] Trung Phan: no, sorry, I just want to answer. Yeah, the part that I got cut off was, um, uh, when I cut myself off, uh, apologies, was I had— I was working remotely basically from 2015, even with the fintech startup I was at. So I've always had actually quite a few degrees of freedom. Uh, and I knew that's what I wanted to keep doing moving forward. So like, that was— it's been— when COVID happened and the whole world came to like the world that I already started living in, I'm like, oh, like I was kind of waiting for that because I wanted to move back to Canada, which I did. I live in Vancouver now, but I still wanted access to the U.S.

market. So like, listen, COVID, awful, but for the, uh, the situation that I was in is like that had just kind Brought a lot of people into the world that I was already living in.

[42:51] Paul: Yeah, I was working remotely in a co-living house in the Canaries when the pandemic started.

[42:56] Trung Phan: Oh wow.

[42:56] Paul: And I was like, I didn't really have to make any adjustments to my life, so it was a little weird, a little weird. But yeah, it's, it's been amazing that more people can structure their lives like this. How, how have kids played a role in how you think about work now?

[43:15] Trung Phan: I mean, I fully get the value of remote work. Although what's— it's very interesting, right? Because a lot of people actually don't like working at home and doing childcare because they don't think they can accomplish anything. So I have friends that are like, they hate it, they hate remote work. Whereas for me, I'm like, oh, it's a lifesaver with my kid. I get to spend so much time with them.

But actually, for a lot of people, they're like, no, well, your job might be different. I can write at midnight, right? If I wanted to. A lot of people, they got to be on the cadence of, uh, the, uh, of 9 to 5, how corporate world's working. So I get why for them they'd be like, yeah, working at home with your kid is awful, right? You know what I mean?

But like, I'll, I'll do those days. I'll just play with my kid like the entire morning and then the afternoon and not even work until after 7 PM. So, uh, fortunate in that regard.

[44:01] Paul: I love that. Yeah. And do you try to have a structured workday?

[44:06] Trung Phan: I'm thinking about it more because my kid's gonna go full-time school soon. So right now he's only doing half day. I know when he's full, full-time, it's like, okay, like I can actually start— in my mind I'm like, I can accomplish a lot of things. But the reality is like, you know, you feel how— however many hours you give yourself is what you're gonna— like, in my mind I'm like, oh my God, next year I'm gonna be an animal. But then I— but the reality is like, it's probably gonna be not quite animal level, but it'll even be probably a little bit more than what I'm doing now. So I will try to structure a bit more next year.

[44:38] Paul: Yeah. Do we have a book in your future?

[44:41] Trung Phan: I don't— I mean, you got a book. I don't think I'd want to sit down and deal with, like, if it did be self-publishing, because I guess your form of the book is—

[44:53] Paul: yes, self-publishing is easier than people think. So I'm happy to talk to you about that. But I guess your form of the book is like the TV script and stuff.

[45:00] Trung Phan: Yeah, that's like the long— that's like the long form. Stuff that, uh, you know, a good— it's just a great— this is a great point to bring up about creating content is there. Listen, it's easy to get the quick dopamine hits with the memes and the dumb tweets, but, um, you know, you still want to leave something for posterity, right? You want to, you want to put your effort into something that'll take a couple years like you did with your book. And, um, yeah, I mean, the TV show is one of those things. I have some other long-form stuff I'm working on.

Um, but yeah, I don't think a book is necessarily in my future. I don't think it's the highest leverage thing I can do.

[45:33] Paul: Yeah, it, it's the longer projects though, like the TV script, the movie script you've done. I found at least writing a book, there's just like the intrinsic value of that process was so rewarding, like so much better than the weekly newsletter I do. Do you get that same joy from writing comedy, humor?

[45:52] Trung Phan: I do. I'll, I'll say what I, with my newsletter, what I'm trying to do now is like, uh, I'm trying to go, uh, hasn't happened yet, but I'm trying to do where like every other week is like just a true banger, whereas maybe the ones between is like you do less, you hold yourself to less of a time bar so you can actually put the effort into the ones that— I mean, you know how this game works, right? It's super pointy. It's like the power law. You want ones to really hit and break through, and, uh, no one can do every single week. I mean, Matt Levine can from Bloomberg because he's a freaking alien.

[46:24] Paul: He's an animal. Yeah, I like don't want to read people like Matt Levine or Morgan Housel. I'm just I'm like, what?

[46:31] Trung Phan: How, how are they so— it's so— it's— I mean, yeah, Morgan's amazing too, uh, with, uh, because every time you leave one of his essays, you're like, oh, oh, this was like a punch in the face of insights, right? Uh, but Levine is just like— Levine's so good that any single one of his pieces would be the best ones I've ever written. He's doing it so often, it's almost diluting how good he is, you know what I mean?

[46:54] Paul: Yeah, yeah, I, I like that idea. If he released like one every 6 months everyone would read it. Like, yeah, there'd be like a news event.

[47:02] Trung Phan: Exactly. Exactly.

[47:04] Paul: What's next for you and how you're thinking about The Path? You're entering year 2. Are you finding you're like getting your footing a little more and starting to see longer-term visions or anything like that?

[47:16] Trung Phan: Well, I'm going to say something pretty corny, but when I ever do get asked this, it's just—

[47:20] Paul: we love the corny.

[47:21] Trung Phan: If you go down The Path, let's— I mean, you know the Jack Butcher image, right? This is pointless. Yeah, it's just the one of the greatest graphics ever. You should put it up. But, uh, yeah, I, I, I know that these are long-term games. And so when you ask me what my plan is, is like, there is no plan.

It's like, I'm— I know what I'm doing tomorrow. I know I'm gonna send some tweets. I know I'm gonna hack away at an article for the end of the week. And I know I have my podcast on Tuesday. That's it. Those things are just going to compound.

I, I'm trusting time to do its work. And, uh, obviously opportunities come, and they do come, right? As you well know, it's like you just start getting hit up with opportunities left, right, and center as you go on this journey. So there's no master plan. I just know opportunities are going to come. If one of them just changes everything, amazing.

If not, I know the path that I'm on right now is going to compound to something amazing anyways.

[48:11] Paul: I love that. Yeah. Finding work you like doing and can do over the long term is such a superpower in today's world. And funny enough, this— Yeah, go ahead.

[48:21] Trung Phan: No, I was going to say, do you know David Senra from The Founders Podcast?

[48:24] Paul: Yeah, he was on this podcast a few times ago.

[48:28] Trung Phan: Yeah. So you know David's whole thing, right? David is— he's literally living this thing. And every time I message him every now and then, like with new ideas I have, and he literally just goes, will you be doing this for 10 years? I'm like, no. He's like, okay, that's all I need to hear.

Right? That's all. Yeah.

[48:43] Paul: He's like, he's so good at the long game.

[48:46] Trung Phan: Yeah. No, it's beautiful, dude. Beautiful. So like, that's the best framing is like, you know, I'll just steal David's quote. It's like, will you do this for 10 years? If not, you should probably reconsider it.

'Cause all the gains we talked about is gonna be at the end.

[49:01] Paul: Yeah, my podcast listenership just went 5x in the last 3 months and I've been doing it for 5 years.

[49:10] Trung Phan: Do you know what to attribute it to?

[49:14] Paul: The long game.

[49:15] Trung Phan: Yeah. Compounding. Compounding.

[49:17] Paul: It all compounds. Like I've got more attention from the book and more followers, people finding it. I'm getting better at interviewing people, better guests. But yeah, it's, it's all just staying in the game.

[49:29] Trung Phan: Dude, I love it, man. I love it.