The PE Guy, Unfiltered (Mostly)

Speaker A: Foreign

Speaker B: welcome to the Investors First Podcast, a service of CFA Society Orlando. We're here to educate investors, advisors and consultants through conversations with some of the top finance and investment professionals from around the world. Learn more about us@cfasociety.org Orlando

Speaker C: in today's episode, we welcome the PE Guy, whose real name is Johnny Hillbrandt Partridge. The PE Guy character was started in early 2025 after capitulating from years of ridiculous travel and lifestyle stories from folks in finance, but particularly private equity, mostly in wedding settings. According to Johnny. He is certainly making his rounds in the CFA community and we quickly realized he would be a great guest on our podcast to to his role in PE Private equity, as the PE Guy often says, and his skits. We cover Johnny's start with the Ellen DeGeneres show, then his sudden fame as a Soul Cycle instructor and then becoming a content creator. We discuss why he picks on private equity professionals more than any other position in finance, how he strikes the balance between making the PE Guy unlikable yet charismatic, and a behind the scenes look at what goes into the PE Guy. We then dive into social media influencer platforms and how he manages each of them. We also talk about how financial firms should pay attention to unique content like his instead of traditional advertising. Last and certainly not least, the PE Guy makes a brief appearance in character. We start with where he summers and we also get his thoughts on the best golf courses in Florida. And then we also ask where he stations his yacht in the Mediterranean and much more. Today's hosts are myself, Steve Curley, co managing principal 55 North Private wealth and co host Chris Cannon, CIO principal at First Trust. Please enjoy the episode. You can follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn or@investorsfirstpodcast.com Johnny, welcome to the show.

Speaker D: Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker C: So where can we find you today?

Speaker D: I am in Boston. I'm outside of Boston, one of the suburbs. Wellesley, Mass.

Speaker C: Not peak finance, bro. Like Manhattan. But you're still close to a few of them adjacent.

Speaker D: Uh yeah,

Speaker C: I think it would be good. Just a level set. You graduated from University of Denver and I always love hearing origin stories. There was a lot of hard work before you become known of anything. You've obviously went through a variety of different roles before you landed on what we'll talk about today. But were you an A student? Were you hungry? What was college like?

Speaker D: So I was not an A student by any means. I was definitely like an average student. And that was all throughout. Whenever grades started happening, I would just be like that was my best. I always would say, c's get degrees. And I was like, we can't all have A's. I don't know why. I'm like having basically a performance review with my English teacher in high school. Like this doesn't make sense. We can't all get A's. There have to be people like me. So I was like, gladly one of those people. It didn't mean that I didn't work hard, but I worked hard at things that I liked. So if there was a subject that I really liked, I would do more and I would do better at it. Cause I would be interested in it. And there were a lot of things where I was like, why? Same thing, high school. But in high school I was also, I had the excuse. I was an athlete. I was a swimmer and a water pole player. So I was doing two a days getting in a freezing cold pool at 5:30 in the morning and then getting in a pool for two hours after school and then doing like dry land for an hour. So I was basically a professional athlete when I was in high school. So I would just go, well, I'm sorry, I was swimming, I couldn't do my homework. And then I got to college and I was just a lazy college student. And I was like, all right, you know this marketing classes, I'm sorry I mixed up the difference between vision and mission statement on the uh, quiz. Like why do I need to know that? I kind of had like an attitude of I will do, I will get by here. It's kind of like how I go to the gym. I'm not going to be the biggest guy in the gym because could I? Yeah, maybe. But it would take a lot of work. And I'm kind of like, is the juice really worth the squeeze? No, I'll have a healthy heart and I'll make it maintain a healthy enough bmi.

Speaker C: And that's it sounds like you've always been fit and healthy and those are two of the most disciplined sports there is. I mean wrestling may be another one in high school that requires just intense discipline. I know water polo is brutal sport. So you went from those two hyper disciplined sports to the freedom of college.

Speaker D: Yeah, and I was going to swim in college and I ended up not. It was a D1 so it would have been a very different situation. But I was a swimmer my whole life from age 5 to through 18 and it was like age group and swim meets all the time. And then in high school I was at state level and an all American swimmer. But then you kind of are like, well, why did I stare at the bottom of that pool for four hours a day? That was so dumb. You can burn yourself out from a young age. You're like, why did I do that? I could do anything. And there was probably a little too much freedom. So instead of being disciplined, I just went to college and gained 40 pounds in, like nine weeks. And if I like something, I just keep doing, you know, loved pizza, loved beer, didn't really care about school. But you're right, those were disciplined sports. And I have the discipline if it's something that I really like to do.

Speaker A: Backing up a little bit to your high school, were you essentially born in Winnetka? Uh, outside of Chicago?

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Your formative years until you left for college was essentially a John Hughes film.

Speaker D: Yes. Truly.

Speaker A: You lived in mythical Shermer. You went to Shermer High.

Speaker D: Yeah. Ferris Bueller's Day off is filmed at my high school. When you're younger, you don't realize that everything is not like that. And I'm really glad that I got out because I know some people that never really got out. Our generation is like, a little less like that. My mom's from Winnetka. I went to my high school, and my grandmother, I was like, no offense, but you never left. They left. They went to Florida half the year, but they didn't leave leave. So I really left. And I wasn't trying to be a rebel. I was just like, I don't fit in. I love all this. I was like, well, don't get me wrong. Who doesn't love access to a snack shack at the country club pool with an unlimited tab as an 11 year old, I love this. If I can do this as an adult, no problem. But I left that world. And then when I went to college, I was like, oh, not everyone grew up like that. And it's good to have that perspective. So I just watched people trying to keep their head above water, maintain an image. There's a lot of that. And as I got older, I was like, that was kind of like bs. Hey, like, my friend's dad seemed to be really unhappy all the time, but he always drove the nicest car. But he was always so angry and, oh, well, like, the lawn was perfect, the car was perfect and waxed. He was so angry all the time. I observed those things from a young age.

Speaker C: We often say pre and post. A trade is ex ante. Ex post. So ex ante.

Speaker D: Chris.

Speaker C: And I get to see a lot of these people. I get to See a lot of them in a town like Winter Park. Ex post. We get to see them because we're in wealth management, so we actually see what they have. And so we do see the people that were treading water and could never get out of that stance because they're so fearful they're going to lose their friends and all their associated contacts because if they're discovered for not being what they were perceived to be.

Speaker D: More context that. My dad grew up in Iowa, so my mom grew up in Winnetka. My dad grew up in Iowa in a two bedroom, one bathroom house with four kids and two parents. And my dad was like, this is great. He worked for, I think Principal Financial group for like 30 years. He was like, I've got a good job. But he was subjected to this environment where it was like, that's not enough. But he's like, where I come from, I made it, I'm loaded. But the goalpost was being moved. And so from. Also, I think my dad opened my eyes to that from a young age, too. And I remember his favorite commercial was this one with this guy who's. I don't even know what it's for. You can still find it on YouTube. But it's this guy who's mowing his lawn and he's like, how do I do it? Perfect life. And he's like, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. And it's this hilarious commercial. And my dad showed that to me when I was 12, probably. I remember that. And so I had that context also from my dad pointing to like, hey, just so you know, our house is awesome. It's not as big as your friend's house. So anyways, that just gives it a little more context.

Speaker A: Of course, I'm now mapping that to Pretty in Pink. So I'm thinking, you know, that whole the rich poor thing. My important questions are old style or Coors?

Speaker D: Coors. Oh, okay.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker D: You know, it's funny, at Denver, I think the whole athletic facility is the Coors arena or the Coors athletic building. So they served Coors at our hockey games in college. So I have a special, and I thought it was so cool. I was 18 in 2008, and I was like, you know, on a can, like, the mountain turns blue when it's cold. That was like my cool thing. My friends would come visit if I went to visit my friends in Milwaukee at, uh, Marquette, we were drinking Miller. When they came to Denver, we're drinking Coors. So I have an allegiance to Coors.

Speaker A: And then pizza, of course. The Chicago style or New York or other.

Speaker D: I would say Chicago style deep dish. Lou Malnati's. Because it's so different. Not that it's better. It's its own category almost. Deep dish. Lou Malnati's pizza in Chicago or any of the others. Because I find the other New York to the other ones are pretty similar. They at least look similar. The deep dish looks like a cake. You have to be careful eating it not to choke on too much mozzarella cheese.

Speaker C: Yeah. First time I was in Chicago, I did deep dish at one of the places up there that obviously one of the famous names. And then I followed it up with Garrett's. Went into a food coma for three to four hours. That was tough to overcome.

Speaker D: Yep. Swollen from the salts. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: Vienna beef lodged in your arm.

Speaker D: Oh, yes.

Speaker A: That's Italian beef. Stains all over your. So good. Um, it is delicious.

Speaker C: So before the PE Guy, we probably don't have time to go through every single role that you've done, but it was kind of cool. You spent a couple Years with Ellen DeGeneres show. You probably had so much exposure and so much interesting content that you were seeing there. And she's funny on top of that. And then you finish as a Soul Cycle instructor. And both are exciting in their own rights. I was just curious how you could transition where you started to where you finished. And then we can jump into the origination of the PE guy.

Speaker D: I kind of always have been comedic. I've always liked comedy stuff. And the opportunity to intern at the Ellen show right out of college came up and I somehow got the job. I was one of six interns for the summer. I got hired full time as a production assistant for two years. But my goal was to get into the comedy department at Ellen, and at Ellen, nobody in a good job. Not that a production assistant was the lowest of the low, but at the time, they hadn't expanded to their whole, like, digital department. So they had a staff of 80. 10% of the staff is production assistants running around. The rest of the people. The associate producers want to be producers. Actual full on producers. The writers assistants want to be writers. There is no movement because it was the best. Oprah was not around. There wasn't anything else. James Corden was starting. Unless somebody gets fired, you're not going to work in the writing department here. They kind of played favorites. You're in or you're out. And I was kind of like, all right, you're just like an assistant. I kind of Also looked around. A way that I gauge if I fit in somewhere is if I look around and I want my life to look like the best role of that place. Looking at the executive producers and the big, uh, time producers who have been at Ellen for a long time and being like, do I want my life to look like that? And I was like, no, I don't.

Speaker A: So they had a nice house, a nice car, and they were grumpy all the time.

Speaker D: I was like, do I want to live in Calabasas? No. My family's in Chicago, Louisiana. Felt so far away. It was that I imagine this happens at most organizations. There's a level of. You get to a certain level and the tiniest things bother you. One of them, like if you brought them the wrong size Starbucks straw, you get yelled at. And I'm like, I don't want to be like that. And, and I think that's an LA thing. Or it was in 2012 and to 14 people were like, it's just kind of how it is here. It's a rite of passage. They got yelled at. You'll get yelled at. And this is a daytime talk show. It's not even that funny because it had to be digestible for everybody in the country who's around at 2 in the afternoon to watch daytime TV. So it wasn't breaking any records with pushing boundaries of the comedy. So I didn't want to stay there. I had a couple other jobs in the middle and then I left Ellen. I was unemployed, a little found soul cycle. And I was just like, this is great. It gives me a microphone. I can exercise, make people laugh, be around people who want to like be better. It's kind of like a guards down environment versus like a lot of jobs I was interviewing for. I remember the feeling of getting a suit on and sitting in an office and looking around before walking into the room and be interviewed and being like, I would never. I couldn't do this. It's kind of like this straight A student. There's somebody else who walks into that office and is like, oh my gosh. I'm like so energized by this. I want to be here. And I was like, this is square peg, round hole. I keep saying this to people. It's like my new analogy. When you leave the rental car place at an airport and you go over those spikes, it's like reversing over those spikes. For me, you're going the wrong way and you're going to feel it. Soul cycle. I was like, whoa, this is so not traditional, but you can at the time, 20, 15 or 14, whatever, it was the big thing. And they were paying really well, and you got benefits and health insurance. And I was like, all right. So I moved to New York, found SoulCycle locked in, and became obsessed with it. And it brought me to Boston, and I love it, and I still love it. I don't teach anymore, but it also let me, like, make people laugh. I could try a joke here and there, and I'd be like, maybe they didn't hear it. They didn't laugh because it's so loud in here, test some stuff out.

Speaker C: So Soul Cycle, you went from basically working for a celebrity, and then you were the celebrity at SoulCycle. So I guess Peloton was right on the heels of SoulCycle and carried into Covid and then took a dive after that. But I remember SoulCycle and Peloton instructors were like, celebrities.

Speaker D: Especially in a, uh, town like Boston, a small town, people walking down the street would like, wave at me and be like, you were my instructor last week in the heyday, all of the classes were waitlisted, and there's 57 people in the class. I'm teaching 16 classes a week with one day off, seeing 60 people three times a day. They're all amongst me in my community, so I was running into them. It was this, you're on top. And then I really think Covid punched a hole in the side of that business and never recovered to what it was, which is true for a lot of businesses. But that fanfare and the, like, idle status of the instructors, I think it kind of took a dive, which was good, though. I think they all, including myself, we needed a little humbling.

Speaker A: Going back to your time in la. Were you in the biz long enough or is. Does this not even qualified to get your SAG card?

Speaker D: No, I would have had to do something on air at the show, and I had some friends who did segments on air, and then you can, like, apply. I have a plaque that says that I was recognized for working on a show that won a Daytime Emmy. It's a very convoluted. Like, you have a kind of Emmy for daytime, which is also kind of an Emmy.

Speaker A: Have you ever thought about standup or anything like that?

Speaker D: When I was in LA and in Chicago at, ah, UCB and at Second City, I've taken improv classes. I love improv. Never to the level of, like, being on a troop or anything like that. I've always loved improv. And then I took a standup class At Second City, that was great, but I was like, whoa. I think I prefer improv because standup is, like, so daunting. And in improv, you can just stand back, you can freeze, and then it becomes part of the scene. They're like, oh, he's frozen. Let's help him out. But in stand up, it's like, you thought this was funny and it was going to land, and then they're just staring at you. I have so much respect for people who do. I never revisited stand up since I took that class 12 years ago.

Speaker A: What about comedy writing? I think Judd Apatow even has, like, a program.

Speaker D: I should do some sort of official program. Right now, I'm so dialed into this one specific character that I should zoom out a little and do some other comedy writing. When I left Ellen, this is kind of funny, I started not an official newsletter, but every week I would send a email to all of my friends who still worked at the show. And it was called Good Morning, Soldiers, because I knew they were, like, going back into battle and I had retired. I was honorably discharged. Stuff like that I used to do. I've liked writing comedic things. There just hasn't been an outlet for me to really do that.

Speaker A: You're in greater Boston area now. Have you ever run into the guy, comedic character Fitzy? Do you know this guy?

Speaker D: I don't know. I don't think so.

Speaker A: I met him. He was doing a comedy show in New York. He essentially does this quintessential Boston character.

Speaker D: You know, he's like, you know, he's

Speaker A: gonna go fuck yourself and stuff like that.

Speaker D: I do know who that is. Yeah. I never met him, though.

Speaker A: Oh, okay.

Speaker D: All right. Well, yeah, Love that.

Speaker C: Speaking of the origination of the PE guy, this wedding in 2025, this is pretty recent. The PE guy started March 2025. Yeah. So the catalyst for this. Does this human know they were the catalyst, that you were talking to them at a wedding, and they were just talking down to you about everything they do that you don't do. Is that roughly how the encounter went?

Speaker D: Yes, but I think it was also multiple encounters. I think there was just one straw that broke the camel's back. And the funny thing is, it was a culmination of multiple experiences, mostly at weddings where I. I get cornered by people, and I was just taking note, and it kept happening. And then this one, I think in February of last year, or maybe it was January, it actually happened to be. It wasn't a PE Guy. It was a PE Girl that's a kicker. There's a couple things that she said in that, uh, that I'm like, I don't think she would ever put it together. A, she was so delusional, so, like, not aware of herself that she'd be like, oh, yeah. And then B, she'd be like, oh, it's PE guy. It's PE Guy. It's not me. But there were a couple of things she said that I'm like, she might take note. She's like an acquaintance. That's the other part of this. When you go to a wedding, you have to play nice with everyone because you don't know. They're like, oh, I'm the groom's best friend from growing up. And you're like, oh, I hate that guy. You can't go up to your friend who's the groom, be like, who's that guy? He's the worst. You have to play nice. And it's unnatural. You're like, we have nothing in common. Why do I have to talk to you?

Speaker C: Pete Gao just can't figure out past the filter. Just the basic filter threw her off the scent. And here we are, 16 or 15 months later.

Speaker D: She was just the kicker. The next week or whatever, I just started to develop the character, the guy you get stuck talking to. So I was like, why does this keep happening to me?

Speaker C: The content was coming at you for years, and then finally somebody took you over the edge and you're just like, I can't listen to these people anymore. Obviously, the explosion of wealth, especially in this country, has gone another gear in the last five to seven years. And so Covid has definitely accelerated that. The amount of people flying private, the amount of people with luxury travel bags, everything, it's all being maxed. The peak of consumer driven society. And everybody wants to tell you about it. Weddings are a fertile ground for that. Seems to be one of the most fertile for that type of exchange. So this person. Can you give us an example of one of the things that may have sent you over the edge? Give us maybe a sample of what that catalyst was.

Speaker D: One of the things was she had a garden leave situation. What she was doing was leaving one job and going to the other. And I don't even know if it was exactly pe, but where she worked was a place where there's pe, but it's a big place. She had left that place and she was on a garden leave. So it was like, oh, uh, I'm just doing a bit of this and a bit of that. And then I'm going to go to Aspen for couple weeks and then I'm gonna go Italy for a month. And I was like, what? I was just like worth 34 years old or whatever. Why are you acting like a retired person who's earned four months off of paid vacation by the way, or whatever. Leave. Garden leave. She had explained garden leave to me. She kind of like chuckled and was just like, well, so garden leave is when you work at a whatever and you have like a. I think ja. It was just so in your face and they pay you and like your whole salary and that's like a lot of money. And I was just like, I'm gonna go just travel the world for four months or whatever. Okay, well great chatting with you. I don't have a problem with people having the money, having the planes, having the whatever, taking the garden leave, having a high paying job. I don't care at all go do that. It's just the way it's presented. You could definitely say like, oh, I've got a little leave thing from work right now, so I'm just hanging out. If I asked you like, where are you going? Then great, lean into it. And then you can say like, can you even believe I'm also going to go to Europe? I feel so lucky. Whatever. There's a better way to present that. So I think that's also where people get tripped up is they're like, oh, you're just making fun of people who have money and good high paying jobs. Like, you must be jealous. And I'm like, trust me, I'm not jealous. It's more just the way you talk about it. It's not an eat the rich anti capitalism. It's not bad at all. It's just, I didn't need to know that you're just kicking your feet up for two months or whatever it is and getting paid your absurd salary to go to Italy.

Speaker A: By and large, the people that you have encountered that have been inspirational for PE guy, did they grow up wealthy? Did they do the story thing where they, you know, the Phillips Andover, Exeter, Deerfield Academy, then Harvard, Yale, then Stanford. Did they grow up in the ghetto or lower middle class and then claw their way up and become affected?

Speaker D: I think that there are two examples that I can think of right off the bat. There are the people that built that people would traditionally call like new money. There are people that have like built their way up. They are like super proud of that and they haven't realized that nobody really cares because it is such a big deal for Them, they're like, I'm the first in my family and I'm proud. And they don't know how to talk about it. I know people who grew up with parents having money and their parents were like, you just don't talk about money. Just don't talk about our money, don't talk about your money, don't talk about money. Don't make anybody feel weird. And then there are the people who grew up with the money who are worse and they just maybe never had their parent. And they were always given everything and told they're the exception to everything. And they had life just fast tracked for them. Not to say they haven't worked hard at whatever they do. I see both examples and I see a lot of the. I was a legacy at, uh, Choate, and then I went to whatever and now I'm at this company or I bought my dad's practice and life has just been a smooth sailing and they don't have any humility about it. I have both examples. 80% of people fall in the middle.

Speaker C: I think I loved how Silicon Valley, the writers, fantastic how they went after vc. They were early on that, several seasons on that. Some of the things I remember the comment, the guy goes, I was a billionaire and I need to rebillionize. And he had a, uh, tequila named trace commas. And they had all these silly things and they were picking on Silicon Valley. Well, I was curious why you didn't go after the VC people. Because they can be just as bad. And then you got the PE people, which Chris and I have experienced a lot of that too. And then you have the investment banking people. You just don't see them as much because they work longer hours. The VC people, if you plotted them on a chart, seem to work the least amount of hours to make the worst statements ratio. So the PE seems to be in the middle. So I was curious why you honed

Speaker D: in on pe, the VC and investment banker. This was not intentional, but I think it worked out nicely. Those have been so done on Instagram and in character stuff. The, oh, I'm venture capital guy, not specifically that, but like, oh, I'm an investment banking guy, that comedy stuff. But there hasn't been like a specifically private equity person. So I maybe subconsciously took note of that. And then I just felt like a lot of the people I was meeting at weddings were like, well, I'm in private equity. And I'd be like, I don't really get it. It wasn't that more people were in private equity. It was just that I was noticing it more. And then it kind of opened my world to, like, when I started talking about it or hearing about it, I would read about some of the drawbacks of it and how it is everywhere and how it's totally kind of like a runaway train in a lot of instances. And I've since learned a lot in the last 13 months about it. The good and the bad. But I think I honed in on P.E.I. because I wasn't hearing people say, uh, I'm in investment banking, or I'm a venture capital guy. Like, it was all, oh, I'm in pe. Or I'm specifically people saying, I work for a company that's PE backed. As if I needed to know the structure of the ownership of the business that they work for. And I was just like, all right. And people started asking me. I also took note of, like, is SoulCycle PE backed? And I was like, I gotta figure out what this PE thing is. So that's why I honed in on it. Cause it was everywhere. And then I really leaned into it. Cause I was like, oh, no one else is doing this.

Speaker C: And one of the things Chris and I were talking about beforehand is the balance between. You gotta be a little bit polarizing, like maybe Bill Belichick, a little bit unlikable with the messages, but very charismatic to keep the eyes glued on the screen. Striking that balance is really interesting. And I'm sure you've figured it out. I'm curious. Your feedback mechanism on that, when you record, do you run it by anybody first? Do you have, like, a select group of people, or are you just putting it out there and then you can see the data? I mean, you are getting objective data on these things. And you say, okay, this one hit and I know why. Or this one hit, and I don't know why.

Speaker D: It is just me. I'm, uh, like, let go and let God. I write it out, and I make sure it's as absurd as possible. And then I do get the data from Instagram and TikTok, but it's really hard to say. Two days ago, I did a video just in my. I'm starting to call it regular face. And that one did really well. And I'm like, okay, there's an indicator that the algorithm wants me to show more of my regular face. Okay, I can do that. Easy. But when it comes to the video about Chicago PE guy versus a video about PE guy bragging about his cars, it doesn't always make sense. Especially when I do stuff in person. I went to a Lamborghini dealership in Philadelphia and I posted the first video from that, and I think it was the first kind like it, and it blew up. Then the next one from the same dealership, which was part two, didn't do as well. When I say didn't do as well, I mean it got like 200,000 views versus a million. The minimum is like a hundred thousand views. So nothing is bad. The lower view count versus the higher. It's not always easy to tell. And I think that that's intentional by Instagram, because they want you posting all the time, but they don't want you following some sort of pattern because you think it's the formula to success. So you'll see that with a lot of content creators, which is another term I hate content creators on the Internet being like, here's how to hack the system. And if there was a formula, everyone would do it. And then no one would be special or elevated because you would all have a million views on every video. It's like inflation. You are just devaluing. It knows that. And so now they have this way of hooking people because everybody wants to be a content creator. And the message is, do this, do that, try this, try that. And it has people on the app all day long trying to figure out,

Speaker C: Johnny, this sounds like youth sports. Getting parents to pay for clubs that are being promised they're going to be a professional athlete. If you do this, do that, do this, do that. They all play intramurals in college.

Speaker D: It's skill and luck and timing and it's just like anything. So I see those metrics I just can't figure out. I don't sit around and beat my head against the wall too much. If I had a management team managing me, they would be like, hey, part of their job would be to do that. And they would give me some sort of spreadsheet that's like these types of videos do. Well, I'm just going to keep doing what feels good for me. And that seems to be working. And if it stops working, then maybe I'll try something else.

Speaker A: You hit the spinal cord in the zeitgeist of the country or something. Certainly in our circles with Steve and I, we shoot your stuff around all the time. And often we even have somebody in mind who, you know, is got enough similar characteristics that we know who we're talking about. I get wanting to press that for as long as that thing can ride, man. I do the same totally.

Speaker C: Are you like a classic book writer and that you have no cost or goods sold and it's just you, or do you have members of your team or. I'm sure there's people that want to help you, that are reaching out to you.

Speaker D: It's just me. I don't have a team of people because I don't want to share. If you have a management team and you have a, uh, agent or whatever that represents you, everything you bring in, you give a percentage of that to. I don't need that right now. I'm handling it well on my own. And I don't want to share. This thing is, like, so precious to me, this character. And I don't want somebody to come in and try to, like, commercialize it in a way. That's not to say I'm not trying to make money on it, because I am, and I'm making good money doing this. I don't want someone to come in and go, like, we've got the next idea for PE guy. And then it's a total flop because I went and, um, took a right turn. He's doing. And I'm talking about him in the third person because I have to separate myself from him. He's doing everything the way he should, and it's so organic and natural. I feel so lucky to have that that I don't feel like I'm sitting around being like, I gotta make another skit around the office. That's funny. What's something funny? I'll just be like, oh, hey, the, uh, Indy 500 is this weekend. Let me write a script about how. I would never go to that because it's for analysts or something like people below me. It just comes organically.

Speaker C: How does the revenue model work? So, for example, you have 300,000 plus followers on Instagram. I don't know what LinkedIn would be. It was hard to see ahead of time.

Speaker D: TikTok, LinkedIn's like 20,000 followers. I think that's a new place for me. So it's in this order of, like, following Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, uh, monetized, and LinkedIn is not. But Instagram, the way I monetize there is. They don't pay you just for posting. TikTok pays you. If you're a creator there in the creator fund, and you post and your videos get views. Any video that's over 60 seconds, if they get views, you get paid for those. So then, uh, every month I get a check from TikTok and then Facebook, same thing. And Instagram is like, hey, I'll use Bolan Branch as an example. Bowling Branch, let's do a three month contract with you. Once a month you post an ad for us. It's a paid partnership and let's do a script together and whatever. You make a funny video about Bull and Branch and we pay you. So I do a few of those.

Speaker C: Would you rather bet on Bull and Branch and say I want a percentage of the revenue or you want the flat fee and you don't want to take that risk?

Speaker D: I want the flat fee because the bigger ones that I work with a lot. Ramp, Vanta, uh, Bowling Branch, Zapier. The ones that have been repeat. I know they're. I'm making money for them. I think that what they pay me is more than fair. I don't need to know, I don't need a percentage and I don't want to be tied to some. Hey, last month was a little low compared to what? Like, I don't care what happens. You take the video that I make you, you pay me for it. Because a lot of them, they take it and they boost it. They put paid spend behind it and then they see more come in. So I'm like, it's yours to do whatever you want. I don't care if you make a million dollars off of this video, go do it. And I don't want to hear about it. If you make zero, I don't want to hear it because I don't want to tie my like worth to brands based on that. There's a big awareness play. If I post about roan and there's 300,000 views, who knows how many people buy that. It's like a billboard, but instead of looking down at your phone, when you walk past the billboard, you're physically on your phone and you see the ad.

Speaker A: I think the universe would be perfectly tied in a bow. If you were ultimately taken out by pe. That would be great.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Are you PE backed?

Speaker D: Yeah, rolled out.

Speaker A: Maybe PE guy could take over himself, fire himself, and then use AI in order to increase productivity.

Speaker D: Yes, yes, yes. There's some crazy meta thing there Chris talked about earlier.

Speaker C: Will you go on the road like a standup routine? Will you do a roadshow?

Speaker D: I would. I just would need to figure out what that would look like. Maybe it's like in a year. It's like more of like a book tour. I currently do a lot of in person conferences and stuff. So I make a video, a two minute video for a company that's like, kind of like inside jokes for the company or whatever. And then I go to the conference and usually I'm interviewed in like a Q and A style on the stage for the people, and then the audience ask questions and I do a lot of that. It's funny because they make me sign an NDA and I can't post anything. So I'll sit and I'll be like, that was such a great conversation. Are you guys going to like release the video on LinkedIn or something? And they're like, no, we want to keep it private. A lot of them are service pe. And um, the questions will be like, from the president of the company. Like, we deal with guys like this all the time. They don't want that out there. They don't want their clients being like, why are you bringing this guy in saying that he's like us? But I do that a lot and that's kind of feels like I'm on the road, but it's sporadic. Do you do cameo? Yes, I do lots and lots of cameos.

Speaker A: It would seem like your two minute videos, you know, if somebody gave you a cameo that they could take that and play it at one of those things.

Speaker D: I've run into that before. There's rules through cameo that are like, it's not for commercial use. I did just make one for a company. It was a smaller company and it was like for a small whatever. I was like, I'm just going to make this for them. But I do run into that because I do like realtor videos also. People will be like, I'm a realtor in Charlotte, North Carolina. Like, say that I'm your realtor and I'm the best and I have to just like reject it. Like, you're welcome to rebook this at the business rate. So I do run into that issue right now while we sit here. I think I have like five open cameos from the day to make which later.

Speaker C: And you have like what, 72 hours? You have to respond or.

Speaker D: Uh, yes. So most of them are four days. And then one of them is 24 hours because it's like someone's birthday today. But yesterday I just asked someone's brother if he would be his best man for him. There's things like that. There's like, tell my wife I'm pregnant or tell my husband I'm pregnant roast my friend who got divorced. Here's all these, like grimy details. Mention this and that. There's crazy stuff in these cameos. So they're fun for me to See, it's like a, uh, peek into people's lives.

Speaker C: That's great. So one of the things I was thinking about is I've heard you in interviews before talking about creating unique content, things that we haven't seen before. Differentiating from the pack. And should more financial firms be paying attention to your success? I feel like financial firms really struggle with unique content creation and just end up paying for badges on professional golfers or associating with professional sports instead of going organic or creating unique content.

Speaker D: It's not the same exact thing. But an example of that, someone that's done a really good job of that is Ramp. I work with them. Um, I don't know if you've seen what they do.

Speaker C: We use them.

Speaker D: Oh, good for my office. They're great. They could have remained, for lack of a better word, stuffy. There's so many brands out there that I know would never work with P.E. guy, uh, because they're very aspirational. And the ads are like Mahogany Desk and this. And I think that more of them should take notes of things like what Ramp's doing and just be more creative. And it doesn't have to be crude or offensive or out of control or wacky Face Guy, there is something to be said for. People are tired of, you know, what you're getting with certain companies, and you're like, okay, it's not exciting. And I think especially nowadays, people need to be excited. You see, like, the data, how many seconds people watch videos on, um, Instagram before they flip. You have like a fraction of a second to capture someone's attention before they swipe. So these legacy companies are still doing the same marketing they did 10, 15, 20 years ago. It's like, all right, but maybe they don't have to. Maybe they don't have to do something different and market to the people like me that have attention spans of, like mice.

Speaker C: Yes. Uh, I mean, I watch the attention spans of my kids and they just sit there and swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. And they're just making that split second decision like you said, and I'm trying to yank the thing out of him or turn off the wi fi.

Speaker D: Oh, God.

Speaker C: Then there's a lot of anger, like last night. But as we transition into character just for a brief period at the end of the episode, I know that we're encroaching on the summer, so I wanted to ask you how you feel about people who use summer as a verb.

Speaker D: Oh, my gosh. Isn't that wild?

Speaker C: Believe it or not, we hear it a decent amount down here in Winter park, which is a small town and a lot of people in the Northeast know about Winter Park. South Florida, obviously, is going to be ground zero for this. But I'm curious how often you encounter that and how you feel about folks that say that.

Speaker D: I don't think I encounter that until maybe living in Boston and then I heard somebody say it. Seriously, all bets were off after that, and now I hear it all the time. It is the kind of thing where if you say that to me and I'm standing, like, at a wedding, I would be like, johnny, don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh. It's absurd. Most people don't know what that means. First of all, unless you all run in the same kind of circle and all have the same amount of cash on hand, which you don't want to be in a group of people like that. If you're in a group of people and everybody understands what the word summer means, you should get out or just stay and know that you guys are the worst, because it's the most absurd thing in the world. We summer.

Speaker C: Is it okay if we invite the PE guy on now?

Speaker D: Yes. I wish I could put my filter on the thing.

Speaker A: We only do audio.

Speaker C: We'll let the listeners visualize it. They've seen the filter, but it's good

Speaker D: for you guys to see, too.

Speaker C: Oh, that's great. That's great. P Guy, welcome to the show.

Speaker D: Thanks for having me. Steve, Chris, thank you both.

Speaker C: We were curious. Curious. We're only about a month out from the summer. Where are you summering this year?

Speaker D: Oh, we summer all over. We have a house on island on Nantucket, so we'll obviously summer there, but we spend all of August in Italy usually, and I'm expecting we'll be there. Wifey and I might do a day weekend thing over to France because the staff will be with us, so they can stay with the kiddos in Italy and then we'll be over in France on T. I'm not sure if you've been. Probably not.

Speaker A: Do you ever summer in the winter in Chile or Argentina or South Africa?

Speaker D: Oh, no, not technically. We winter. We do winter in Palm beach, but I've been to all those places you mentioned. I don't have homes there yet. Yet. We are looking at expanding the real estate portfolio to be global.

Speaker C: We spend a lot of time interviewing CFA charter holders and our listener base. So some of your associates, I think, have the CFA charter. Some of your junior uh, associates, yes. That might do a lot of the heavy lifting that gives you your carried interest. So curious what your thoughts are on folks with the cfa.

Speaker D: If I'm being honest, I don't really know what. What any of that is. I vibrate at a different level than all of you. No offense, obviously. So I'm not really familiar with any of it. I'm here, and you guys, I would imagine maybe right here. And I know there's no video for people to see, but I'm up above, under the line. Right, right below the line. That's where you all fall, in my opinion. No offense, obviously, when it comes to

Speaker C: South Florida, I understand you winter in Palm beach, but, uh, your ideal spot in South Florida, would it be Naples, Miami, or Ocean Reef? Or do you prefer Palm Beach?

Speaker D: Oh, it's a tough question. So we're members of Ocean Reef, obviously. We have property in Palm Beach. My wife's family for years had a huge house. Estee Lauder's old house, actually.

Speaker B: Beautiful.

Speaker D: Beautiful property in Palm Beach. The Gulf isn't my favorite. Okay, I'll leave it at that. So I'm more of a Palm beach guy. We've been members at Everglades Club over there for 30 years now, so it's important for deal flow as well. I get over to Naples on the plane sometimes, but it's not my favorite.

Speaker C: Your Chicago ties connect you at all to Grove 23 with Jordan's club?

Speaker D: Oh, certainly I've been.

Speaker C: I just didn't know what your preference was down there. If you get into your family tree. For listeners who don't know, can you just walk, uh, us through your three children?

Speaker D: Three kiddos, Tarantino's four, Bontoc is two, and EBITDA is nine months.

Speaker C: Why wait for the most important earnings formula for your business for your third child? Why not the first?

Speaker D: Such a good question. It really is. We knew we'd name one of them ebitda. We're not done having kids. I knew we'd name one of them ebitda, and it's pretty gender neutral, so I knew I would name one. But Montauk is a very important place to me, and Tarantino is one of my favorites, so just makes sense, right? But EBITDA is very important to me. They're all three very gifted.

Speaker C: And is traditional private school enough for them, or do you feel like you may need to be part of something that's a little more AI Forward? That's more entrepreneurial?

Speaker D: Exactly. And I'll tell you, it's in the Works. I can't give up any more information than that though. Especially not to people like you. You've gotta be up here, top echelon. So unfortunately you might never even hear about it. But it's stealth and it's in the works. So I'll leave it at uh, that.

Speaker A: Is it painful to speak with people like us that have attended public school?

Speaker D: Yeah. Well, I would say it's like mentorship and charity work at the same time. I'll allow it. It's a tax write off, certainly.

Speaker A: Excellent.

Speaker C: How are you planning this multi generational wealth that you're building? How do you guarantee your kids stay in the 1 of 1%?

Speaker D: Oh, that won't be a problem. I think it'd be physically impossible for them to spend it all. And there's guardrails.

Speaker A: Can you tell us what state or country your prepper hideout place is? Nope.

Speaker D: Nope. Oh, uh.

Speaker A: Excellent.

Speaker D: It's an island. That's all I'll say. That's it.

Speaker C: I see the multigenerational wealth you're building due to your role in PE private equity is fascinating.

Speaker D: Thank you. It is.

Speaker C: I mean is there ever an end to this? Or do you think low interest rates, high carried interest and rolling up mom and pop businesses will forever entertain your family and future generations?

Speaker D: It certainly will. It's not going anywhere. It's a runaway train in all the right ways, especially for me. And I think people will get used to it. I think we were paying some of those employees too much at a lot of these places. A lot of my poor cos. There's those sob stories. You'll see a news story here and there. They gutted the whole team, all that stuff. Uh, they're paying these people, these normies, too much money. So that's what we're doing. We're trimming the fat. And there's a lot of fat here in this country, as you know.

Speaker C: I think about, there's the employees that roll up to your various private equity roll ups. But I also think about each house. You have these really substantial teams that power the operation.

Speaker D: And my properties.

Speaker C: Yeah, all your various properties. So I was just curious what the benefits package, how you treat your staff.

Speaker D: Oh, I have no idea. I know they're fed.

Speaker C: And how many layers do you have between you and your staff at ah, Personal Properties?

Speaker D: There's so many of them, I don't know their names. They're lovely. They do wonderful work. I've got assistants that are buffers. I don't need to hear their gripes about this. Or that or they want more. I've got people to take care of that. So I'm just too busy. I'm too busy.

Speaker C: Let me walk you through a quick scenario. So your Gulf Stream is down and you have to ride in a single prop or a Cessna. How would you respond to that?

Speaker D: Well, I just call somebody. I just call somebody. I would not ride in a single prop. I don't think I've been in a

Speaker C: single prop ever in BVI or Mediterranean. What's your preferred boat in those areas?

Speaker A: Well, on my boat there's a Viking, I'm sure.

Speaker C: Which boat?

Speaker D: That's like the kids tube off of that. It's a 300 foot yacht. We actually ship it over to the Med.

Speaker C: Oh sure, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker D: It'll meet us there in Antibes this summer. We'll be on it for a day and then they'll ship it back across the Atlantic.

Speaker C: Oh, that's lovely.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's just whenever I need it.

Speaker C: We appreciate you spending time with us, PE guy.

Speaker D: Of course.

Speaker C: We hope you're able to summer and your year round school and all the tutors you carry with you for EBITDA and your other two children. We hope you guys all have a wonderful summer, the whole group.

Speaker D: We will certainly. I hope you guys can get away for a weekend or whatever it is that you do in the summer.

Speaker C: We might be able to drive to the beach for a day. We were thinking.

Speaker D: You said a chill down my spine. Yikes. That's good though, to remember what the majority of people are subjected to.

Speaker C: Yeah. Now maybe drive on the beach, park the car and put down a cooler and maybe pack like a six pack of quarters.

Speaker D: Getting nauseous.

Speaker C: All right, well, thanks for your time. We're going to close out with Johnny. I hope you have a wonderful day. Appreciate your time.

Speaker D: This has been. Okay.

Speaker A: I'm um, back.

Speaker C: I always love talking to these folks like PE guy at weddings and so forth where when they start up on me, I just start going, right, sure,

Speaker D: sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. So that's.

Speaker C: I just can't help but go there on my responses.

Speaker D: Yeah, you razz them up. Yeah.

Speaker C: And so when these people get fired up, I just can't help but pour gasoline on the fire. And so I start bringing over everybody and their mother to stroke them. I can't help it.

Speaker D: I love it. And you're like, did. He's got three houses in Florida and

Speaker C: he flew private one time in 2022.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And you're like, I'm going to Go grab a drink. You guys chat. Yeah, you guys stay in chat with my new pal.

Speaker C: I'm going to pull the pin and I'm going to drop the grenade. See ya. Uh, Johnny, thanks you so much for your time being so generous.

Speaker D: Of course.

Speaker C: I wanted to give a shout out to your podcast. The Due to my Role podcast. And I think you interview content creators a lot, but could you walk the listeners through that real quick?

Speaker D: I was doing a weekly podcast and I did it for 10 weeks because I had to set up the guests. I was setting them up just through Instagram, DMS basically. So I did like season one. I'm going to bring it back for season two and do 10 episodes because again, it's just me. I'm trying to figure it out. But basically the first five to ten minutes of the episode is me in PE Guy character talking to somebody, just the way Pete guy was talking to you guys. Horribly, like, obnoxious. So it's almost seven to 10 minutes where you're like, okay, I'm done with him. And then I come in and I actually talk to the person. So I interviewed a couple founders. I had Jim Acosta on randomly. I had Anna Delvey, the Criminal. I had the guy from Fyre Festival, the Criminal. That was random. Some comedians and stuff like that and other content creators, just basically like a semi famous person will follow me on Instagram and I'll be like, will you come on my podcast? And if they see the message, usually they're like, sure. So I'm like, okay, Jim Acosta. I'm like, come on, let's not sit around and swirl about how horrible the country is. Let's not get into that. Let's keep it light. But I'm like, come on my podcast. If you like PE Guy, you'll love this. That's been really fun for me because there's some interesting famous people who follow me. I'm trying to get season two up and running, and I would welcome anybody. Also, I thought in the beginning of starting the podcast that it would be potentially me talking to somebody who's in private equity who's like, rebutting what I'm putting out there or is just interested to talk to. PE Guy has a light heart about what they do for work. So it's open to anybody who wants to come on. I'm, um, trying to figure it out still.

Speaker C: But it's been really fun going back to February 2020. We launched this a week or two before everything shut down. We were originally gonna do one a quarter we volunteer on behalf of the CFA community to do this. Then we just realized everybody was at home and there was this great opportunity. So we went once a week. Once a week was a recipe for burnout. And so I couldn't keep up that pace. So we went to monthly. And that's been a nice cadence. But I also like seasons. I think the way you're doing seasons is a way to give you that breakfast so you can say, hey, what worked? What didn't? And then you need enough time between. Unless this is your full time job. I, uh, like the seasons. You can say, oh, this season's gonna be this or this season's gonna be that. And you can take a break and also you can plan your life around it a little bit.

Speaker D: Exactly.

Speaker C: God forbid you have a life. So, yeah, shout out to your podcast and then how can folks follow you? I guess all the various social media channels is the best way to find you.

Speaker D: Yeah. And it's just. Ah. JonnyHillBrant Johnny J O H N N Y H I L B R A N T at all of them.

Speaker C: And that is your real name.

Speaker D: Yeah, I know. P Guy doesn't have a name and it's too late.

Speaker A: Can he be one of the heirs to the Massing deal fortune?

Speaker D: Yes, of course. He could be anything. I was thinking that like a couple months ago, I was like, it's too late. He can never have a name. It just wouldn't work because then people would be like, why'd you pick Gary? You know that's my name. I just think it's funny. He's PE Guy and that also keeps him like, not human. He's not real. I don't want to make them too real.

Speaker C: It would have to be a name

Speaker A: like Thurston Howell the fourth.

Speaker C: Like Pritchard Edward Guy.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Like the most absurd name.

Speaker C: Yeah, 100% end of episode question. I know you have your own podcast, but we can unconstrain this to dead or alive. Who would you like to interview and why? Because you have your own podcast. We might ask who that you couldn't interview now that you wish you could have or bring them back to life for an interview.

Speaker D: I'll start with the dead one. Not to be morbid, I would say Catherine o' Hara as the bring them back to life and interview them. Talk about best in show Schitt's Creek. That's just the first thing that popped in my mind. The person I'd like to have on my podcast that would be really cool would be like a Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey, But I think Will Ferrell might be a little more like, normal. No offense to Jim Carrey. I think in real life, Jim Carrey's freaky. He's a little off for me. I feel like it's like don't meet your heroes kind of thing. He might be, like, a scary one. Will Ferrell might be a little more like just cool.

Speaker C: I'm a big fan of Ashley Schaefer, that character from East Mounted down, and a variety of other ones, but he does seem like he's got a lighter, normal side to him. I think he's just down to earth and not funny when you're just hanging out with him before he goes into character. So you can just hang with him and he'd be normal. And I agree that Jim Carrey, on the other hand, seems like the kind of guy that he has a movie role coming up and he's not going to break that character. I've heard stories about that.

Speaker A: He's a method actor. And Will Ferrell has a degree in sports broadcasting from usc.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, sir, for all your time.

Speaker D: Oh, my gosh.

Speaker C: Thank you, Johnny.

Speaker D: Thank you, guys. This has been awesome. Yeah. Jamie posted on When It Drops.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And we love to be one of the first in the finance community to sort of highlight the great work you're doing. We all need to have humility in our day jobs. Thank you for bringing that.

Speaker D: Agreed. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me. This has been fun.

Speaker B: You've been listening to the Investors First Podcast, a service of CFA Society Orlando. If you haven't yet, go ahead and subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also learn more about each episode and the society itself@cfasociety.org Orlando podcast. Thank you and we'll see you next time on the Investors first podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of their firm. This podcast is not intended to provide expert advice on topics covered and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. If you need tax, accounting, or legal advice, please consult a professional.