In the new economy you get rich by owning an audience, buying attention, selling directly to customers and sticking with it longer than the people who quit. People used to get rich through oil and big industry, which meant employing thousands of people and being one of the few who served the population. The video’s argument is that the economy has changed and that anyone can become rich if they know how.
The 15 ways below are grouped into six parts, from audience and attention to global talent and mentorship, with a bonus on leadership at the end.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 ways at a glance
- 1-3. Your voice, true fans and reach (0:31)
- 4-5. Paid advertising and assets that outlive you (3:57)
- 6-8. New technology, barnacles and selling direct (8:20)
- 9-10. Sell your knowledge and Bitcoin (11:49)
- 11-13. Counter-culture, global talent and global buyers (14:29)
- 14-15. Outlast the quitters and pay for access (17:19)
1-3. Your voice, true fans and reach
Number one is that your voice and opinion is where the money is. Information, even the truth, is a commodity, and there is nothing new to say. There is still demand for valuable insight, because nobody wants to sift through everything alone. Many bands write love songs, yet you have one favourite. The value today is your unique perspective: everyone can say it, but it hits differently from you. When coffee shops, podcasts and food all start to look and taste the same, people look for something specific, and if you become specific you can build an audience.
Number two is that your fans support you all the way to the bank. We live in the age of creators, and you are a consumer or a creator. By the video’s count, 1,000 true fans are enough to do it full time, 10,000 to live comfortably and 100,000 to become financially free. A true fan wants you to win and is willing to pay for the value they receive, at around $100 a year by the video’s estimate. They also build communities around you. You get rich by creating value for the community and receiving a piece of it.
Number three is that your reach determines how rich you get. Attention is the new oil, which is why a Super Bowl commercial costs so much. Two things matter: how many people your message can reach, and the quality of the audience, meaning how likely they are to buy and how wealthy they are. You do not need a big reach, you need the right one. At $3,000 a month, 278 clients make a million-dollar-a-year business. The tactic is to give it away free and convert people when they can afford it, the way Gmail is free for you while businesses pay $15 per user per month.
You do not need the biggest audience, you need the right one.
4-5. Paid advertising and assets that outlive you
Number four is learning paid advertising so you do not need organic reach. The best thing about the internet is that you can buy attention. If you sell a product or service online that people can buy with a card, you create an ad and pay platforms to show it. If you can spend $1 on ads and get $2 back, you win. Early on you might spend $10 to get $1 back, which is depressing, but you keep testing. A more relevant ad improves the return, one of several ads performs far better, and as your site and product improve you learn what you are doing. Selling through different channels is, in the video’s view, the most valuable skill to acquire in the modern economy.
Number five is investing in what you think will outlive you. Trends come and go faster than ever in the new economy, and things that last tend to rise in value through demand, inflation, scarcity, consumer appetite and a growing middle class. Wealth needs time to compound. Ask whether it will be around in 50 to 100 years and whether people will still want it. If yes, buy it, monetise it if you can and forget you ever had the money. It names land, homes, raw materials and art, and argues no real asset will be cheaper than today over a 50 to 100 year window.
Art is its example. There will never be more Picasso or Rothko paintings, and big pieces trigger a frenzy when they reach the market. Over 60 percent of high-powered wealth managers have added art to their offering and that one projection has the market growing 31 percent in two years. Great art has stood the test of time and will probably outlive all of us.
Over 50 to 100 years, scarce real assets tend to get more expensive, not cheaper.
6-8. New technology, barnacles and selling direct
Number six is becoming an ambassador for a new technology. Each one brings three openings: most people are not aware of it, most do not know how to use it and most do not know how to make money from it. You can introduce the masses, teach people to use it or monetise it before anyone else. As adoption grows you are regarded as an expert, and experts charge expert rates.
Number seven is becoming a barnacle on a whale. Your business is an add-on to another that is growing exponentially, and you grow as it does. When personal websites became a trend, WordPress became the whale, and having the top theme or plugin in its store was the barnacle. The same goes for Shopify and its apps, and now AI, where ChatGPT is the whale and featured GPTs are the barnacles. If the whale is worth billions, a barnacle can easily be worth tens of millions.
Number eight is selling directly to consumers. Under the old model a chocolate maker spent $2 on a bar and sold it to a retailer for $2.75, and the retailer sold it for $5. Products traded profits for shelf space, and artists traded their souls to labels. The distributor made more than the creator. Today you can sell the bar yourself for the same $5 and keep the full $3 of profit instead of 75 cents. This approach is credited to the youngest Kardashian reaching a billion dollars at 21. With the reach and paid ads skills from numbers three and four, it says you could be five times richer than someone who needs a distributor.
Cut out the middleman and the profit that used to be theirs becomes yours.
9-10. Sell your knowledge and Bitcoin
Number nine is selling your knowledge. The new economy is one of curation, of handpicking and guiding people through the maze of life. You might expect a race to the bottom on price, but the video says people do not simply want cheap. Two things beat cheap: fast and low risk. Walking is cheaper than an Uber, yet Uber is worth over $160 billion. Online universities are cheap, yet people pay hundreds of thousands for elite degrees because they minimise career risk. If your knowledge saves people time or reduces the risk of overcoming an obstacle, they will pay, as long as they know you exist. They say they made millions selling courses.
Number ten is Bitcoin. They ask how many readers expected crypto on the list, and say they still hold all their Bitcoin untouched in cold storage because their thesis has not changed. They believe it could be disruptive if it reaches critical scale, and note that spot Bitcoin ETFs being approved will make mainstream investors take it more seriously. The FTX collapse taught them a lesson about the industry, so they say they are done with altcoins. Their view is that Bitcoin acts like the S&P 500 of crypto. This is the hosts’ personal stance, not advice, and the video frames it as one of those going-against-the-grain moves.
People pay for fast and for lower risk, and cheap alone does not win.
11-13. Counter-culture, global talent and global buyers
Number eleven is going aggressively counter-culture. Every action meets an opposite reaction, as in baggy jeans, then skinny, then baggy again. In any industry there is demand for both culture and counter-culture. The example is education: if you think schools are drifting into politics, one move is to launch a private STEM school that focuses on math, physics and programming, leaving other topics to be handled at home. It argues people would pay to protect their kids from what they see as nonsense, and cites that as of 2023, about 2 million children are outside the traditional education system. This is the video’s opinion, not a settled fact.
Number twelve is hiring talent on the other side of the world and selling locally. Ten to fifteen years ago, work from places like the Philippines, India, Eastern Europe or South America tended to be mediocre. That has changed: prices are still substantially lower, but quality matches the West. Many agencies do arbitrage, selling a $5,000 package and outsourcing it for $1,500. The suggestion is to do something more valuable with that talent, since building a technology product now costs a fraction of what it used to. An app idea you could not afford to build might now be possible, and once built the world is your marketplace.
Number thirteen is selling internationally. There are rich people everywhere, so there are buyers everywhere for your product or service. It is one of the biggest advantages in history. Earrings once reached only people who passed your booth, and now they can be sold to billions of people online, around the clock.
Talent is priced differently around the world, and that gap is an opportunity.
14-15. Outlast the quitters and pay for access
Number fourteen is doing it for long enough to catch a break. Some catch theirs in year five or six, and it changes everything. The best thing about the new economy is that barriers to entry are gone, and so is the worst, since everyone takes a shot and it is harder to stand out. You stand out by continuing while others quit. Podcasting is the example: 90 percent of podcasts do not pass episode three, which is 1.8 million who quit. Of the 200,000 left, 90 percent quit before 20 episodes, another 180,000. To be in the top 1 percent you need 21 episodes. Your competition is the 20,000 who did not quit, not the 2 million podcasts.
Number fifteen is paying for access, tools and mentorship. You want to be someone’s apprentice and be in the room where the magic happens, because once you see how it is put together you become the magician. Pay for books, coaching sessions, seminars, retreats and private memberships, and commit to them. They save time and money if you have what it takes. Your business can be 3x’d by learning a new tool. There are two things to pay for: the kind of knowledge that builds your mind as an asset, and the kind that shows you how to do something specific. Combine them and you have a gold mine.
Showing up when nobody else does is how the win becomes yours.
Bonus: carry the ones who need carrying
The bonus is a leadership lesson. A team is only as strong as its leadership, and some people are not born strong but become strong in the presence of strength. The hosts say they learned it the hard way and quote Michael Jordan on pulling people along and challenging them when they did not want it, and on never asking teammates to do something he did not do himself.
The point is that earning the right to push people comes from carrying the same load first. In the hosts’ view, the few with that internal fire are the ones likely to come out ahead in the new economy.
FAQ
How do you get rich in the new economy?
The video points to building an audience around your unique voice, buying attention with paid ads, selling directly to consumers, using global talent, selling knowledge and staying in the game longer than those who quit.
How many true fans do you need?
1,000 true fans are enough to work full time, 10,000 to live comfortably and 100,000 to become financially free. It estimates a true fan’s value at around $100 a year.
What does being a barnacle on a whale mean?
It means building an add-on to a business growing exponentially, so you grow with it. The video cites the top WordPress plugin, Shopify apps and featured GPTs in the ChatGPT ecosystem.
Why does selling directly to consumers pay more?
It removes the distributor. Selling a $5 chocolate bar yourself earns $3 profit instead of 75 cents from a retailer.
Why does the video say you only need to outlast others?
Most people quit early. 90 percent of podcasts stop before episode three and 90 percent of the rest stop by 20 episodes, so reaching 21 episodes puts you in the top 1 percent.
Keep reading
- Complete list of ways to get Rich (62 Examples)
- 10 Ways Smart People Can Get Rich
- 15 Steps to GET RICH (Ultimate Guide)
