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The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

The Man Who Made $100M Before 32: The Secret Was To Stop Letting Them Control Me | Alex Hormozi

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Business, Society & Culture, Education

4.518.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2026

⏱️ 142 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Every founder is being told to build an AI company. Alex Hormozi says almost all of them will be gone within months, that the best move is the exact opposite of what the market is saying, and that in a world of AI the only moat left will be reality and your reputation. Alex Hormozi is a entrepreneur, investor and author. He is the co-founder of Acquisition.com, a portfolio of 16+ companies generating over $250 million a year, and the author of the $100M series: '$100M Offers', '$100M Leads' and '$100M Money Models', whose 2025 launch sold 2.9 million copies in a single day and broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest-selling non-fiction book in history. He explains: ◼ Why the practical businesses, like plumbing, are the real opportunity, not the ones built on top of AI models ◼ Why delegating your hardest thinking to a machine makes you weak ◼ Why reality and reputation are the only moats AI can't erode ◼ Why revenue retention matters more than marketing or sales ◼ Why marrying his wife Leila was the best financial decision he ever made, and how the right partner changes your odds ◼ He opens up about one of the hardest years of his life, in the same year he made more money than ever The views expressed are those of the guest, and this conversation is intended for general informational purposes only. This podcast and its associated materials should not be used as a substitute for professional financial, legal or business advice. Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:12 How To Use AI As An Entrepreneur 00:04:40 Where Will Value Come From In An AI World? 00:06:52 How To Generate Great Ideas In The Age Of AI 00:08:16 Why Long-Term Thinking Wins In Business 00:13:18 Why Most Businesses Never Reach $10 Million 00:18:10 How To Price Your Product Or Service 00:19:27 The Biggest Hiring Mistakes Founders Make 00:22:44 Why Starting Feels So Hard 00:25:13 What Alex Would Do Differently Starting Again 00:30:10 What To Do When You Feel Uncertain In Business 00:33:15 Why Alex Delayed Starting His Business 00:35:59 The Lessons Alex Learned From His Father 00:39:16 How To Know If Entrepreneurship Is Right For You 00:41:02 How To Beat Decision Fatigue 00:42:29 Is It Easier To Start A Business Today? 00:44:08 Ads 00:46:07 Is Doing Hard Things Always Worth It? 00:46:52 How To Succeed As A Content Creator 00:49:19 How Alex Is Adapting His Content For The Future 00:52:24 Why Credibility Is Your Biggest Competitive Advantage 00:55:42 The Value Equation Explained 01:01:17 Why Delayed Gratification Pays Off 01:03:48 How To Know You're On The Right Path 01:04:35 Does Your Business Need To Be Scalable? 01:09:09 Why Unscalable Businesses Can Be Great Opportunities 01:10:41 How To Know When It's Time To Quit 01:11:35 Ads 01:12:35 Why Self-Awareness Is A Business Superpower 01:17:04 Stop Planning And Start Doing 01:19:55 How To Incentivise People And Find The Right Audience 01:23:01 Business Ideas You Could Start Today 01:26:03 Why You Should Sell To People With More Money 01:32:12 Why Employees And Customers Deserve The Same Treatment 01:38:03 Why Hiring Is Everything 01:38:51 How To Choose The Right Romantic Partner 01:44:18 What If Your Partner Doesn't Support Your Business? 01:47:00 How To Figure Out What You Really Want In Life 01:50:09 Becoming A Dad: How Alex Feels About Fatherhood 01:57:09 How Alex Thinks About Death 02:09:02 Are You Actually Happy? 02:18:20 What Happens If Superintelligence Arrives In Just A Few Years? Alex Hormozi: ◼ Acquisition.com -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/6QgE53x (https://www.acquisition.com/) ◼ YouTube -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/BEwaKl4 (https://www.youtube.com/@AlexHormozi) ◼ Instagram -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/qSyA93 (https://www.instagram.com/hormozi/) ◼ X -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/6LaEqiX (https://x.com/alexhormozi) ◼ LinkedIn -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/2Vqmjxe (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhormozi/) ◼ Skool -https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/DLi0vBN (https://www.skool.com/) ◼ '$100M Money Models' - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/4ExripR ◼ 'The Game' podcast - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/9X40GGc The Diary Of A CEO: ◼ Join DOAC circle here - https://doaccircle.com/ ◼ Buy The Diary Of A CEO book here - https://smarturl.it/DOACbook ◼ The 1% Diary is back - limited time only: https://bit.ly/3YFbJbt ◼ The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: https://linkly.link/2hm7r ◼ Get email updates - https://bit.ly/diary-of-a-ceo-yt ◼ Follow Steven - https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Flightcast - Check out https://www.flightcast.com/DOAC8 LinkedIn Marketing - https://www.linkedin.com/DIARY Fiverr - https://fiverr.com/diary and get 10% off your first order when you use code DIARY

Transcript

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0:00.0

I do $106 million launch. My mom got to see it, which is really cool. She dies four weeks later.

0:06.4

It was just like, how am I supposed to show up right now? So I write these tweets as notes to self. I had never heard you talk like that publicly before. Yeah. I'm like, what do I need to hear right now? And I was like, I'll write that, which is like, I just have to keep fighting.

0:19.5

And people will judge how much you love someone by how much you choose to suffer.

0:23.1

I don't think the person that you lost probably wants you to suffer. One of the lessons that I've learned from an entrepreneurship perspective translated into life is we will get these moments of dissatisfaction or discomfort and be like, life sucks. I need to change something. But my emotional discomfort is not an adequate reason to change what I'm doing. And so there's all these other skills that are still required to be successful in business. But if I can compress 14 years of business advice, the first thing I would say is you have to decide whether you care more about your future than what other people think about your future. Like someone's version of you has to die because everything in the very beginning of entrepreneurship comes down to one thing which is fear and it makes sense to be afraid it's because we want certainty

0:57.9

but the only way to know is to start the second thing i've learned is that the fastest way to build a

1:01.9

$10 million business is not the fastest way to build a $100,000. Because focus and patience are the two

1:07.7

enduring competitive advantages because they're so anti-human and so this is where entrepreneurs will skyrocket and I'll unpack that concept. So how are you thinking about your business in the world of AI? I'm a big AI advocate. But people are using AI in the wrong places. Like outsourcing thinking and decision-making to AI is a really bad decision because you will just get dumber. This is the best asset I've got for now.

1:27.9

So I want to keep it as sharp as I can. Finally, this is like the absolute raw truth I could possibly

1:32.1

give, which is the single best financial decision that I ever made. And that is...

1:37.9

Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show,

1:43.0

will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now

2:04.5

and hit that follow button.

2:05.8

Thank you so, so, so much.

2:12.6

Alex, I feel like we have to start with AI

2:16.7

because it is front of mind for both, I think, my audience,

2:20.6

but also for entrepreneurs that I speak to at every step in the journey, whether they are,

2:25.4

I was with Adara, who's the CEO of Uber the other day in New York, and that's what the conversation was about AI.

2:30.6

But then I speak to startup founders who are trying to build a software company and can't find a moat that is defensible. Those conversations are about AI. What is your, how are you approaching this as an entrepreneur? How can we use AI to do the things that are the normal functions of the business at a way better, way faster, et cetera? What I'm seeing a lot, especially with founders or people are starting out, is they're using AI to do a lot of dumb things really fast. And they're trying to build companies that the models are going to swallow up pretty much immediately anyways, they already have for super users and it's just going to like become easier. And the question that I would ask for the entrepreneurs who are, you know, AI maxing right now. And again, I think it's very good to adopt new technology is, are you making more money? Just the very simple, are you making more money now? And even though you're token maxing and spending all this video tokens, be like, are you making more money? And I had a business I looked at the other day. They had 11 VAs that

3:25.0

were doing, I can't remember, some sort of like data cleaning work. VAs? Yeah, virtual assistant. So,

3:30.4

low skilled labor overseas that was doing work. And I think it was something in the neighborhood of like

3:34.7

$11,000 a month is what they were paying for these 11 VAs. And they were doing a good job and it all

3:38.9

worked. And they then spent $350,000 to try and

...

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