00:40:34 · Rafael Vivas
[00:40:34] S1: Yeah. So this was really good at breaking the news to him. Right? This is like, you know, Adam is like a bigger bride... A big brother to me, and so I waited for my birthday. You know? I... I'd actually been, like, diarying it for a while of kind of, like, what... Indirectly, I was actually just kind of... I kind of knew I wanted to take time off. I'd say about a year before, I was I was just writing about, like, what are the things that the business... Like, where am I to bottleneck? And where does the business need to be in a place where, like, I don't exist but here for it? So I I kind of just started marking things off the list. And before I knew it, like, everything had been accomplished and, like, you know, I I could not be around and new games were being released and revenue was growing. And so I called Adam, and I was like, hey. Like, you know, it's my birthday. It was a happy birthday, of course. I was like, yeah. I wanna take some time off in the business. And Adam is not a very emotional guy. He was just like, are you sure? I was like, yeah. He was like, well, I respect whatever you wanna do. And then we kind of, like, ended the conversation. And then what happened after that was, like, a lot of people calling me being like, what the hell are you thinking? What are you doing? My brother, this guy Harold Chud, these guys are trying to convince me to stay. They're trying to offer all me all these different packages. I was like, has nothing to do about the money. It's like the business is an immediate succeed and there's other things in my life I want to go and accomplish. I took a step away from the business. Would say from that conversation, probably it was supposed to be a six month transition, within but three months, I was I was kind of out.
00:42:00 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:42:00] S0: At the time though, did you think I'm out of AppLovin' for good? [00:42:03] S1: Oh, yeah. I thought I was gonna go off to the sunset and enjoy my life and chill on a beach and never work again. But you realize very quickly that it's a very fucking depressing life. Like, there's no purpose. [00:42:14] S0: We shouldn't have a fucking ad in every one of our episodes about this. It's like, go... These post exit founders that had never found something else to work on is like the most miserable souls to be around. [00:42:25] S1: Yeah. And to double click on it, you know, so I like... Yeah. You know, love playing video games, which you realize that like on a Wednesday afternoon, you have no one to play games with. None of your friends are around. They're all fucking productive. They're doing things, right? So you have no one to hang out with. It gets lonely. But then I started, you know, I started working on these businesses. And actually this double clicking is like what drives me. What I realized is like, I found this great tech team and we were working together and working on these products. Didn't... One, didn't care about the products we were building with. I had no connection with them. For me it was just like [00:42:54] S0: You're talking about the ones you're doing in your sabbatical? [00:42:56] S1: My my sabbatical was like, oh, I just, opportunistically, hey. I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's let's go and build into it. So that was, like, one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that that
00:42:56 · Rafael Vivas, David Senra
[00:42:56] S1: My my sabbatical was like, oh, I just, opportunistically, hey. I think this vertical's right. The KPIs look good. Let's let's go and build into it. So that was, like, one thing. One funny thing is I ran a dating show for a little bit. Don't recommend that that [00:43:09] S0: business. Ran a dating show? [00:43:10] S1: Yeah. It was love or fame. The idea was that you come and you... It's... It was on a mobile phone, and you would compete for love or fame. But imagine watching twelve hours a day of dating shows if you wanna jump out of out of a window. So so that wasn't for me. And then the second thing is, like, I don't True. [00:43:27] S0: You take time off to go on the beach or not even on the beach. Yeah. I know. [00:43:30] S1: It was [00:43:30] S0: just, like, low quality work. [00:43:32] S1: Yeah. And then... Which was horrible. And then the second thing was I, like, did not truly care about the people I was working with when I started the second... The company. So I would say, like, one of the things that's kept me here at AppLovin for so long outside of, like, helping helping our customers succeed is, like, I really deeply care about the success of Adam and the rest of our team. For me, if they don't do well, it doesn't set well with me. I will die. I will run myself into the ground to make those around me succeed. And I didn't have any of those things. And so my journey back to AppLovin was we're New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell. We're all hanging out. [00:44:18] S0: And So when you go public, you're still outside of the company?
00:44:18 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:44:18] S0: And So when you go public, you're still outside of the company? [00:44:21] S1: Still outside of the company. Great shape, by the way. So yeah. So go there. We ring the bell and like first day out, stock drops. Right? And, you know, I'm talking to people there and, you know, things... They were... The company is still growing, but, like, there was definitely some flaws within the business. And it was, like, very clear to me that, like, I need to be here. Like, this is my calling. Your purpose. This is my company. And, you know, we were drinking our sorrows away. I wouldn't say partying because it wasn't like a super happy moment. You know, you... Your IPO happens and your stock immediately drops after. And Adam, you know, he looked at me and he was like, hey, I'm hearing from people you're thinking about coming. And I was like, I'm fucking in. And then I've been here ever since. I got drawn back in through the purpose of the business, and I knew there was lot more I could be doing here. Do you [00:45:16] S0: think you would have made that decision if the business was ripping in a good spot and the stock price was going up? [00:45:22] S1: I think I would've, because at that point there would've been nothing else for me to offer to the company or no value that I could deliver. I mean, if [00:45:28] S0: So you would've stayed out of it. [00:45:29] S1: I would've stayed out of it and I would've had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me.
00:45:29 · Rafael Vivas, David Senra
[00:45:29] S1: I would've stayed out of it and I would've had to figure something else out. But I felt like at that point, the business needed me. [00:45:34] S0: And this is where I think you guys go public something like 28,000,000,000 market cap or something like that, and it goes down, I think, like almost like every day for like two hundred days or something like this. Yes. This is the legendary stock buyback. Yes. Which we should retell this story now because it's incredible. [00:45:46] S1: The company's crashing. It's funny. It's like it's inverse. Stock is crashing, revenue is going up. And so Adam tells a story better than anybody, but he just doubled down on buying AppLovin stock and levered up the company, and it was one of the greatest returns of all time. Right? [00:46:00] S0: Yeah. Because I think at the time, I think you went down to $3,800,000,000 market cap. Right? Something like that. Yep. But I think you guys are doing, like, a billion in cash flow or something. [00:46:08] S1: Yes. [00:46:08] S0: Right? [00:46:08] S1: Yeah. [00:46:08] S0: Yeah. And so the idea is, let's take... No one else is gonna buy our stock. Let's let's take this billion in cash flow, start buying back our stock, and then at one point, the company reaped, like, a $50,000,000,000 windfall Yes. On that decision to buy back the stock.
00:46:08 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:46:08] S0: Yeah. And so the idea is, let's take... No one else is gonna buy our stock. Let's let's take this billion in cash flow, start buying back our stock, and then at one point, the company reaped, like, a $50,000,000,000 windfall Yes. On that decision to buy back the stock. [00:46:20] S1: Yes. Yes. It was funny because at the time, we... You know, we were thinking if the stock continues dropping, we're just gonna buy the company and take it private, kind of like Michael Dell did with his own company. Right? So that was that was kind of one of the directories we were gonna go if if it didn't keep free falling because we thought it was such an incredible business and we knew we wanted to continue running it. [00:46:38] S0: Well, that was gonna be my next question to you. Like, when this is happening, you're like, okay. We went public 28. Now we're down to 3.8. You're not, like, stressed?