Nov. 5, 2025

The High School Dropout Who Made $2B & Bought an NBA Team

The High School Dropout Who Made $2B & Bought an NBA Team

Episode 761: Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) sits down with Ryan Smith ( https://x.com/ryanqualtrics ) – the high school dropout who built an $8B company and bought an NBA team.

Show Notes:

(0:00) 1.9 GPA to $2B

(9:47) Starting Qualtrics

(14:02) Focus

(24:00)  How to be top 1% at sales

(26:17) Turning down $500M

(31:37) Working backwards

(3814) Buying an NBA team

(43:51)  The 9 most important minutes of the day


Links:

• Qualtrics - https://www.qualtrics.com/

• Utah Jazz - https://www.nba.com/jazz/

Check Out Shaan's Stuff:

• Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com 

• Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents.

• Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies!

Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC

Check Out Sam's Stuff:

• Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That - https://copythat.com

• Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth

• Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/

My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano