PAGE 46 · JUNE 26, 2026

I spent an hour with a billionaire during my Cannes excursion, but before I impart the profound learnings I received from this chance encounter, you have to understand this was by far, the most ridiculous week of travel I’ve ever endured; and as I sit here on yet another plane heading half way across the world to LA (not home)….I wanted to share the breakdown of the last 72 hours of my life, in hopes it gives you perspective to your own.

Let’s start by acknowledging that I didn’t go to Cannes with an agenda, so as I wandered alone through the Carlton with my silly St Barths hat thinking where I should go to next, I found a table that was kind enough to let me sit. For some unknown reason, as the rest of the table got up, this unassuming man stayed, maybe pondering the same “what’s my next move” dilemma amidst the insane calendar of events and gatherings. Or maybe it was just the energy of the conversation that kept him glued. No ask. No what do you do. Just two beers, and two strangers on very different paths in life, criss crossing the learnings we’ve gained through our lived experiences.

We talked work and life, and how having a mentor is probably the single most important facet of success (and that I wish I had one). When he raised $100M for his first company at 23, the VC firm backing him forced him to get a mentor. He explained that with a check of that size, with such an untested founder, that this persons job (who they placed) was more of a therapist than a captain, never providing an answer, only questioning the path to how he would arrive at his own. Each week, the mentor would report back to the board with his POV on the things that could not be seen. How he handled stress. How he would persevere through the challenges that demanded the utmost clarity to shape the direction towards a billion dollar exit.

Now at 50, he said perseverance is the thing he looks for most in founders. Can they survive the daily fires? Can they hang on long enough to get through the days whirlwind to only wake up the next morning refreshed and ready to jump back into the deep end over and over again. You may have heard the story of the Whoop founder being a week away from bankruptcy. Now his company is worth over $10B. Perseverance was the thing he latched on to most throughout our chat, and amongst many other valuable lessons he shared, it was the thing I reflected most on….because just a few hours before, I had endured what I think, must be the soul of perseverance.

Let me share….

I’m a member of Liberty National, one of the most exclusive and expensive golf clubs in the country. I have no right being a member there, and let’s call it pure luck and happenstance that I even have the option to grace their luscious greens amidst the crowds of c-suites and entrepreneurs. Everyone there is more successful than the next, and for 3 years, I’ve wanted to play in their annual member guest, but even a membership doesn’t guarantee a spot, so when I got the look to finally play, I couldn’t pass it up. The only problem, it was the Friday and Saturday before Cannes, which started on Sunday. And somehow in the same week, I was invited to speak at VidCon in LA… and of course, it was the day after Cannes ended (hence my current flight).

I can’t preach “you have to be out to be in” and then not take advantage of these opportunities. So last Thursday, I told my wife and kids I’d see them in two weeks. The plan was simple, go play on Friday, come home around 10pm, pack, wake up, be back out to play round 2 by 8am, and then take the redeye at 9pm that evening so I could make it to Cannes on Sunday. There was this “Tennis on the Riviera” event my friend Ax was hosting at 7am on Monday, and I very much wanted to play in it. If you don’t know, tennis is my happy place.

So on Friday, I woke up at 530am, uber’d an hour to my golf course from my new home at the Jersey shore, and absolutely crushed the field Day 1. The sun was coming down around 9pm and everyone was heading home to rest for next day’s finals, except the group I found myself with. They had a bus outside heading to the city, and I had a very simple choice. Go home, pack, and rest up for a two week long excursion… or, see just how far the rabbit hole goes. That red jerk who sits on my right shoulder was pitching some pretty compelling reasons to go out, and as I looked left to hear the other side, the enlightened one never came. Maybe he had the day off. Maybe a rough night. Whatever it was, I got on the bus and headed into the city.

Around 1am, as we were all leaving, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in a minute, so my new found golf buddies left, and I stayed a while to catch up. Smart, I know. Around 130, as I finally yawned and thought, fuck, I still have an hour uber home, I saw one of the guests from the golf crew alone in a chair; eyes shuttering, drink in hand, clearly out of sorts. I spent 45 minutes trying to help him find his phone (which we never did), place him in an uber, and send him off to an unknown address; hopeful that he would somehow, god willing, find his way back to play the next day.

Remember, I hand’t packed yet, so now in a LYFT (because a stranger was currently in my UBER) I finally got home around 330, went to bed, woke up at 6, kissed my wife, said good morning to my boys, and threw together 10 days of who knows what kind of outfits into my carry-on, and headed back to the golf course.

At the end of Saturday, after playing like absolute dog shit, somehow we had eeked out enough points and won our flight, and as we readied for the chip off, I found my long lost uber brother. He hugged me, thanked me, and his friends all came over one by one to appreciate me ensuring he had found his way to a bed. I didn’t think what I had done was anything more than what any other person would’ve done. In my book, no good man gets left behind. And he was a good man. But they had taken my action in such high regard, that for a few brief moments, for the first time in a long time, it felt really good to have a good deed recognized.

When I made it to the airport later, I was in high spirits. I won my flight, made some new friends, and had a really fun night. As I checked in however, the lady asked to weigh my carry on, a request I had simply never heard in 20 years of flying almost weekly. And of course, by some unknown Swiss Airline standards, my carry-on was overweight, and she said I had to check it.

Now, I’ve been here before, and when you have a connecting flight like I did from Zurich to Nice, you don’t want to be in a position where your bags aren’t directly in your hands when you’re coming off that first flight.

So I pleaded, in every Jeff way possible. Even asked if I could unload clothes into a garbage bag like a Sherpa. But no luck. I needed to take 9 pounds out of my carry on, an impossible feat when my book bag was already stuffed like Federer heading to the Open and I was carrying enough vitamins to make Arnold Schwarzenegger look “au naturale”.

But there was no way I was giving up. So in my haze of no sleep and tequila shots, I opened up my carry-on right beside the check-in booth, and proceeded to put on two pairs of pants over my shorts, three shirts, and two jackets. I went back to the line looking like Tom Arnold from Santa Clause, and with a sour look in her eye, she re-weighed my bag, and with an obnoxiously loud sigh of disappointment, she gave me the tag that said my carry on would pass.

As I walked to security, just out of view of her gazing eyes, I stopped and proceeded to undress…taking off the paints, shirts and jackets I had just put on, and place them neatly, gently… back into my carry-on. Some rules are stupid, and I will not follow stupid rules.

As I sat in the lounge waiting for my flight, I had felt accomplished. I had just crushed a tournament I always wanted to play in, and had just beaten the weight Nazi at her own game. All I needed to do now was to find a way to sleep vertically in my Econ plus seat (business was $8k, fuck that) and I’d be on to kicking some tennis ass in the south of France.

But after two hours of delays, as my flight finally took off and I found not a single ounce of sleep staring into the back of my eyelids, I was unprepared for what would happen next. When I landed, there was no way I was going to make the connection to Nice. I called Amex immediately to see if they could help as I doom scrolled Kayak to see what other options existed. But it seemed everyone and their mother was going to Nice, and when I got to the connections desk to find another way out of Switzerland, the economy line was around the corner.

JD Vance was trying to negotiate an Iran deal nearby, and the ticketing system was of course down during the most popular international festivals in Europe, which left me staring at a melting pot of disappointed people waiting to only be more disappointed as I was about to be. So I walked down the first class line, with no first class ticket of course. Yet in a few short minutes, I was negotiating my way to get to Cannes. The kind man worked his keyboard to find me a connecting flight through Austria to Marseilles, the closest airport that could get me within striking distance to Cannes without waiting till the next day, and I was able to google a two hour train ride that could get me to Cannes around midnight if I made it, so I booked it.

Another win. Another problem solved. I called my wife and explained how I just conquered the situation as I waved hello to my boys dancing on the bed. All was well in the world. I was tired, but I was almost there, sitting with a coffee catching up on the Friday emails I missed, when I got a notification….my flight to Austria was delayed. I was going to miss my connection to Marseilles. Fuck. God damnit! OK, now what? I pulled open Google Maps. I could barely tell you where Wisconsin is, let alone how far Zurich is from Cannes. It was 7 hours by car. Could I do it? Fuck it. I need to be in complete control of what happens next. I’m not gonna be Tom Hanks in Terminal. I’m driving to Cannes!

So I walk to the car rental area and head to Avis. No shot. They won’t let me take a car to Nice. Hertz. Nuh uh (in French of course). No cars to drive that far, it’s not in their bylaws or whatnot. I’m 0 for 2. So I got to SixT. I’m wearing this stupid St Barths hat and a Liberty National t-shirt they gifted me at checkin. I start pleading my situation. But the guy has no cars, yet with a few more pushes and a little bit of “Jeff” convincing, he snagged a car from another reservation and cut me a 30% friends and family discount. I tipped him graciously, of course.

Now I’m in a car, in Switzerland, having to drive through Italy and France to get to Cannes. 7 hours if I don’t stop. It was Sunday. It was Father’s Day. I was alone in a country I didn’t choose to be in, in a car that wasn’t my own, going to a place I had no hard forced agenda to attend.

But it was Sunday. It was Father’s Day. And I had 7 hours alone on my agenda. My time. So I took the roadtrip of a life. Stopping along the way at the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Drinking wine. Having the most delicious pizza. Snapping photos. Talking to strangers. Seeing a pop rock concert on a beach. Enjoying pistachio ice cream and listening to probably every song I had ever heard between 1994 and 2007. No work. No real thoughts. Just the windows down and fresh air as I drove though at least 1000 tunnels carved into the mountains. I’m sure I’ll be receiving 87 speeding tickets by the time I get back to Jersey, but it was all worth it.

And at 130am, I made it to my AirBNB, closed my eyes for a few short hours, woke up at 530 for some unknown reason, and was the first person at the tennis courts at 630am. I played 4 hours till they kicked us out at 1030. Non-stop, and it was… absolutely fabulous.

You can only persevere if you make the right choices. I probably should’ve paid up and flown direct. I probably shouldn’t have gone to NYC. I most certainly shouldn’t have driven through Europe and just waited to catch a Monday morning flight and missed the stupid tennis meetup. But I don’t know, looking back, it all kind of just made sense. I stayed cool, never faltered. I never got mad or stressed. I didn’t yell at anyone of cast blame on any person. It was just another day. Another problem. Another dive into the deep end as one might say, and to be honest, in some crazy way, I enjoyed the challenge.

I have to believe everything happens for a reason, because from those choices, good or bad, the table I had sat down at happen to be with someone who I played tennis with that Monday am. It’s why I was waved on over to sit down. And those few moments together hitting balls gave me the opportunity to meet this incredible entrepreneur. This billionaire who only through acquaintance, was able to hear my story, and give me the chance to listen to his.

Had I not gotten in that car and driven through 3 countries to make it to tennis, I may have never met him. I may have never met hundreds of other people that day or the next day or the next day. So while my trip is still not over, and I head to Vidcon to speak on Saturday about creator ownership and how we’re on a mission to democratize access to ownership for all, I couldn’t help but think, what is perseverance?

Life will throw a lot at you. It will try and shut you down. It will test your wits and your patience. And from my experience, it is relentless in its pursuit to beat you down till you have no other choice but to throw your hands up and yell at the world “I give up”. I just, give up.

But don’t. Persevere. Because if you believe that you should… you absolutely can. Whether it’s a flight, or fighting a public company, I will never back down. There is no quit in me. And there should be no quit in you.

The trip continues. Wish me luck! And hopefully on the redeye I take Saturday night to ensure I get one weekend with my family… some much needed sleep.

WHAT WE’LL HIT ON THIS WEEK

MUST KNOW
Egypt Dean, 15, turned royalties from a beat he made for Kendrick Lamar at age five into a seven-figure stake in Ballislife HYDRO.

THE ROSTER
FIFA Heroes launched worldwide with iShowSpeed and Central Cee as playable characters, not pitchmen. Creators are on the team sheet now.

THE SIGNAL
Forbes is now paying creators on revenue share and letting them keep the IP.

Must know · 5 min read

Egypt Dean is 15 years old. He just put a seven-figure stake into Ballislife Drink Inc., the company behind the Ballislife HYDRO sports drink, and he funded it with royalty money from a beat he produced for Kendrick Lamar when he was five.

Read that again. The capital did not come from his parents, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz. It came from his own catalog, work he made as a kid, compounding quietly in the background until he was old enough to deploy it.

And he didn't deploy it into a logo deal.

He found Ballislife HYDRO the way every real customer does. Last summer, at the Ballislife All-American Camp, as a player. He liked it, and he posted about it to his own audience before a single dollar changed hands. The deal came after the conviction, not the other way around.

That's not an endorsement. That's a customer who decided to become an owner.

Here is why the structure matters more than the headline. Ballislife is not a logo. It is a media company that happens to sell a drink. Founded in 2005, it reaches more than 28 million followers and does over 450 million video views a month, almost all of it aimed straight at young athletes. That is owned distribution into the exact audience legacy hydration brands have to rent at a premium.

Now look at the market he is buying into. Sports drinks are worth roughly $46 billion. Gatorade holds about 61.6% of the US category. Powerade and BodyArmor together hold about 26.3%. The shelf is locked. The only crack in it is trust, and trust is the one thing a Gatorade budget cannot manufacture and Ballislife already owns.

So a teenager with a real audience and his own capital takes a position inside the one asset Pepsi and Coke cannot buy on the open market. He is not paid to hold the can. He makes money if the company wins.

This is the part founders keep missing. The most valuable person in your category is not the one with the biggest follower count. It is the one who already bought your product before you ever called. That person converts their own audience for you, because they are talking about something they own, not something they were paid to mention.

Egypt Dean is the youngest, cleanest version of a shift we watch every week. The believers are moving from the ad read to the cap table. The only question is whether they do it with your company, or the one you will be competing with in three years.

We built OWM to help founders find those people early, while conviction is still cheap and the term sheet is still yours to write. Find the customer who already loves the product. Then make them an owner before someone else does.

Saturday June 26 ∙ 10:00AM ∙ Spark Stage

After a 10hour drive to Cannes, I'm now on a 12 hour flight heading to VidCon to host a panel on Influence for Equity.

Austin Sprinz and Yumna Jawad will share their entrepreneurial journey. Each in a different stage of building. Each fighting in their own arena. Every creator is an entrepreneur. Some make content. Some build businesses. Some do both...

Looking forward to sharing this conversation on Saturday to those who need to hear it.

If you’ll be there, stop by!

Industry Moves · 1 min read

Every game studio in the world pays creators to post a download link. FIFA just put them on the team instead.

THE NEWS:

On June 24, FIFA Heroes launched globally, a five-a-side arcade football game built by Solace in partnership with FIFA. It is mobile-first, live now on iOS and Android, with PC and console coming later this summer. Matches run two minutes and are engineered for clips.

The launch roster pairs real footballers like Enzo Fernández and João Pedro with playable creators: iShowSpeed, Central Cee, J Balvin, and Brazilian sensation Luva de Pedreiro. Central Cee also scored the game with unreleased tracks. iShowSpeed is on the cover. Motorola, the official smartphone partner, will pre-install the game on select new devices.

THE OPERATOR TAKE:

The whole story is in one word: playable. FIFA did not rent iShowSpeed's face for a trailer. It built him into the product as a character you select, with his own abilities, lined up next to a World Cup winner. Football culture now lives in reactions, edits, and creator clips as much as in the 90 minutes, so FIFA put the people who own those clips directly on the roster. The creator stops being the ad. The creator becomes the inventory, the reason a 12-year-old opens the app at all.

Look at your own product and ask which creators you would put inside it, not in front of it. The ones you build in are the ones who show up every day to win, because now it is theirs too.

Industry Moves · 1 min read

A 108-year-old business title just rewrote its own deal memo.

THE NEWS:

Forbes just launched Forbes Creator, a social-first network spanning video, podcasts, and live events. Its six debut creators, among them Erin McGoff and Shira Lazar, are not on flat fees.

They are on deals that mix a talent fee with a share of the revenue their content generates, and the IP ownership shifts by project. Chloe Moore runs it as VP of the network.

THE OPERATOR TAKE:

When the institution that ranks billionaires decides to share revenue and IP with creators instead of buying their time by the hour, the flat fee is officially on notice. Forbes knows its credibility compounds harder attached to people than to a masthead.

Pay for time and you rent attention. Share the upside and you build a partner.