The Culture War - Tim Pool - Tim Pool Vs. Liquid Death CEO DEBATE w/ Mike Cessario (Liquid Death)

Oct. 18, 2025 - The Culture War - Tim Pool

01:13:24

Tim Pool Vs. Liquid Death CEO DEBATE w/ Mike Cessario (Liquid Death)

BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW - https://castbrew.com/ Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com Host: Tim Pool @Timcast (everywhere) Guest: Mike Cessario (Liquid Death) My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnews Podcast Channel - https://www.youtube.com/TimcastIRL

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mike cessario

36:17

tim pool

36:18

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Hello there, friends.
		If you're watching on Rumble, you saw me do a quick frame check already because, you know, we're chilling.
		I am going to be having a discussion with the CEO of Liquid Death, a canned water and beverage company, over issues I take with their company.
		And I will start by saying I respect that he's willing to have this conversation because I think it's a bad company.
		I certainly think that there's worse companies for sure.
		But I take issue with the misleading claim death to plastic, while all of their products, or I shouldn't say all, because I don't know everything they sell, but their cans are all lined with plastic.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Not only that, they sell packets of drink mixes, which are also lined with plastic.
unidentified		There are alternatives to plastic that are readily available and low cost, such as glass and stainless steel.
		And so for that reason, we will have this discussion.
		And let me start by pulling in the CEO himself of Liquid Death.
		And again, I am honored that he is willing to have this conversation.
		Let's make sure we have audio is working.
		Checking seems to be good.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Let's kick it up.
unidentified		Make sure everything's here.
		Mike, can you hear me?
		Gotcha.
		Thanks for joining me.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		do appreciate that you're uh willing to have this uh conversation let me of course no Glad that you're willing to have it.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Let me put my head.
		Let me make sure the audio is good, but I'll put my headphones on.
		So, well, let's just start from the beginning of how this kicked off.
		And I'll start with my tweet.
		And I'll be as crass as I need to be, and then you can address it.
		I said that I'll refrain from swearing, but I said your company was ish, you know, S-word, and that you mislead the public into thinking you have plastic-free products when you actually sell plastic-lined products and other plastic products.
		And I'm not okay with that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'm not a fan of that.
unidentified		So I'll make the claim, I believe the intention of your company with this death to plastic slogan is to trick people into thinking that they're buying something that's more environmentally friendly when in fact they're buying plastic, fully aware that plastic bottles are worse.
		And the reason I say this is because a few years ago, as we've entertained the Maha argument, and we've seen it rise up and the conversation become more notable, I was seeking out plastic alternatives for my studio.
		We have about 40 employees.
		We have a dozen or so contractors.
		Plus, we have three or four guests coming in every single day.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So we like to stock up on various beverages and snacks.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Now, we would order pallets of plastic water bottles because some people just don't care.
unidentified		We would also order glass bottles, and it was usually Saratoga Springs glass water bottles.
		I'm fully aware that the plastic caps have, I'm sorry, the caps, they're metal, but they have plastic sealers.
		And a friend of ours, Richie Jackson, told us how he rode for liquid death and that we should consider aluminum as an alternative to the plastic.
		The purpose being because we wanted non-plastic contaminated goods.
		So we didn't want our food products for those that were serious about it.
		So I ordered thousands of dollars of liquid death over the next couple of months for our staff.
		And then my brother informed me, in fact, all of these cans are lined with plastic and we're not actually getting away from it.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		We're still using it.
unidentified		I was incredulous.
unidentified		I said, what do you mean?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It says death to plastic.
unidentified		They're aluminum cans.
		And silly me, I guess I just didn't realize that aluminum can meant aluminum and plastic can.
		So my brother, using caustic soda, dissolved the can and then showed us the plastic bag, which we were drinking out of.
		And I was a bit perturbed by this, not because I don't recognize that plastic lines everything.
		We buy bacon, it's in plastic, but that the can says death to plastic.
		And I bought plastic, assuming I was buying something that wasn't.
		So in fact, what ended up happening was, instead of me purchasing a glass bottle product, which would be substantially less plastic, I ended up buying more plastic and increasing my plastic consumption and the direct contact we make with our with our food goods.
		So I'll just throw it to you to respond and then give us like an intro or how you want, how you see it and what you want to say about it.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		Yeah.
		And, you know, and you bring up a good point.
		And I think to kind of walk back like how Liquid Death started and what the idea was from the inception was, so Liquid Death, we started the company basically in 2018.
		And at that time, plastic pollution was a big thing.
		You were seeing that like Marriott and all these huge hotel chains were getting rid of plastic straws.
		At that time, there was news that was out there around the whole China plastic bottle recycling thing.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So this idea that people were discovering plastic bottles are not actually recyclable.
unidentified		Yes, technically they are recyclable, but they're not actually getting recycled.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		What's happening is you're sending your plastic bottles in your blue container to a recycling facility.
unidentified		That facility in the past for decades was then putting it on a ship to China and marking it as recycled.
unidentified		What happened once it got to China?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		No one knows, no one cared.
unidentified		They could have just dumped it in the ocean.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		They could downcycle it into carpets or whatever.
unidentified		Then, I think it was, yeah, right around 2018, China said, we're not accepting any more plastic trash from the U.S. We don't want your plastic trash anymore.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		It's useless.
unidentified		Then that was a problem for all these recycling plants.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Now they have nowhere to market as recycled.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		They just have to send it to the landfill because the costs try to process plastic bottles, grind them up, then resell that at a profit to the facility so that they can actually be a business that generates income.
unidentified		They would lose money.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		They would go out of business if they actually processed all the plastic bottles.
unidentified		So what we did learn was aluminum is the only thing that actually gets recycled.
unidentified		And aluminum is subsidizing any of the small amount of recycling that's happening for plastic and also glass because metal is a valuable material.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You melt it down.
unidentified		They can put it in bricks.
unidentified		You can sell those bricks for, I forget what the price of aluminum is now.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		It's like $1,500 a ton or something like that.
unidentified		So cans from a recycling standpoint, if you're talking about environmentally friendly, that's a big word.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		What does that mean?
unidentified		It can mean a lot of things.
		If you're talking about sustainability, meaning, hey, I can drink a can, it's going to get melted down and made into a new can over and over and over again.
		There is no material, including glass, that comes close to aluminum when it comes to sustainability, and especially plastic bottles.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So in the original days of Liquid Death with Death the Plastic, everywhere it said death the plastic on our bottle or on our pack, it said, we donate a portion of proceeds to help kill plastic pollution.
unidentified		And we work with companies that we put on our site like Five Gyres that fight plastic pollution and a couple others.
unidentified		So for us, plastic was just shorthand as a beverage company for plastic bottles.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And a lot of people understood that.
unidentified		Even now, I think we surveyed some liquid death drinkers and it was like 80% assumed that the reason they're buying the can is for recycling reasons, not because, oh, I believe that it's so much healthier to drink out of an aluminum can because pollution is a big thing to people and plastic bottles being in the ocean, all of that.
		That was how we built it.
		Now, over the last couple years, this idea of micro plastics is a very new thing that people are discovering and that people are getting more aware of.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like liquid that touches plastic can potentially leak particles and you're actually drinking plastic particles.
unidentified		And there's not been a ton of research on exactly what it is.
		Some of it is so, so nano small, like at like an atom-like level that you need special stuff to even detect it and figure it out.
		So if you're looking at, okay, well, people are concerned about liquid touching plastic.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And to your point, hey, doesn't a plastic bottle mean that there's less plastic?
unidentified		Well, it's not true because in that plastic cap, there was a French study that was done.
		They found more microplastics in glass water than even plastic.
		Because with that cap, it's put on with so much pressure and there's paint on the cap, there's plastic seals on it that just that act of turning it off is releasing so many particles into the water itself that it could even be more than a plastic bottle.
		And I think you're talking about, well, and then last thing, if you're even just talking about the amount of plastic used in a plastic cap, the amount of plastic, and then a lot of plastic bottles are actually using plastic labels that they use to put like the branding and whatnot on there.
		That amount of plastic used in a plastic bottle versus this basically microscopic coating that they put on a can, even a glass bottle is using 10x the amount of plastic that a can is using.
		So again, it's a gray area, which is why I wanted to talk about it.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		There is no kind of perfect material or perfect solution.
unidentified		Everything kind of has, you know, pros and cons to it.
unidentified		Glass and glass and cans are far better than plastic on most levels.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		But that's kind of a quick overview of it.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot to break down.
unidentified		You mentioned donating proceeds.
		You mentioned the recyclability.
		You mentioned the study about plastics, microplastics, all those things.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So we got to, we'll try and go through these.
unidentified		The first thing is the obvious one.
		Why don't you disclose on the packaging, the cans, the boxes or otherwise, this product does contain plastic inside?
		And it's a good point.
		And we are actually as of, because I think to your point, the need to talk about plastic being in there, even though if the plastic has absolutely no effect on the recyclability, which is really what our message is.
		That's also not correct, but we'll stick to the first point.
		No, it is correct.
		So the plastic in the cans, where do they go?
		That layer inside the can is microns thick.
		When those cans are smelted down in the process, that is completely burned off.
		Where do the particulates?
		No impact.
		What's that?
		Where do the particulates go?
		In whatever facility that they're burning that in.
		Now, there's pollution made from it, correct?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		What's that?
unidentified		Plastic burned creates pollution.
		Where does that pollution go?
		Does the facility have certain filtration that they're capturing?
		Are they taking the battery?
		So where do the filters go?
		What's up?
		The argument that there's no pollution made from the plastic you're using is a stupid argument, okay?
		When you burn off aluminum cans, the plastic is fried and it breaks down into plastic particulates, carbon dioxide, and water vapor, which is captured by filters in these facilities.
		And those filters create massive landfill waste.
		So this idea that this is another issue I take with what you're saying.
		You've done numerous interviews where you say infinitely recyclable, which is not correct, okay?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		About 2% of your cans are still plastic.
unidentified		I fully accept and recognize it's still better than a plastic PET water bottle, substantially cheaper.
		You can get it for a fraction of a cent per ounce in a plastic water bottle.
		But again, my point is you are using these manipulation.
		This is called assumptive reasoning in marketing and manipulation to convince people that you are doing something, that you are not doing something you're in fact actually doing.
		You burn the cans down to melt.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think it's 700 Celsius or higher.
unidentified		And the plastic fries off into pollutants, which are captured by filters.
		And those filters are waste product.
		And the filters have to exist because you're burning plastic.
		But Tim, you are absolutely wrong.
		They are infinitely recyclable.
		The plastic's not recyclable.
		They're not burning down the filters to make more epoxy resin lining.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Infinitely recyclable means these cans can be used, melted down.
unidentified		That metal material can be used to make new cans without having to go mine more additional metal to make new cans.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Plastic cannot be.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You cannot, it is not happening where plastic bottles are being melted down.
unidentified		Let me ask you bottles.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So it is infinitely recyclable.
unidentified		Okay, so let's adjust.
		What percent of your cans is plastic?
		What percent of your cans are made of plastic?
		Less than 1%.
		So the industry estimate is that it's about 0.5 grams to a gram of plastic in all aluminum cans.
		You guys, I don't know if you're still doing tall boys or the 12 ounces.
		It's 0.3 to 0.6, but yeah, go ahead.
		Okay.
		So the standard estimate is around 1% to 2% of a can.
		I do the low end because I want to steal men as much as possible.
		So when you say the can is infinitely recyclable, are you saying that minus the plastic, which is a percentage of the can?
		Infinitely recyclable.
		Are you saying there's a difference between saying infinite and 100% of this can is being reused?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		There's a difference.
unidentified		Marketing.
		It's not marketing.
		It's the English language tip.
		Infinitely recyclable.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Aluminum can.
unidentified		The can can be recycled over that metal material.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, that's still not correct.
unidentified		The aluminum can be, but the can itself can't because it contains chemicals you have to burn off.
		The can can be infinitely turned from a used can into a new can.
		No, the aluminum over and over and over.
		You cannot take, you cannot take, you cannot take a liquid death can, burn off the plastic and melt it down and convert that into another liquid death can because you will need new plastic to line the inside.
		Absolutely.
		So the can itself is not infinitely recyclable.
		The aluminum of the can is.
		Not to mention, my understanding is that.
		So 99% of the can is infinitely recyclable.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You are correct.
unidentified		99% of the can is infinitely recyclable.
unidentified		0% of a plastic bottle is infinitely recyclable.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		0% of a glass bottle is basically infinitely recyclable.
unidentified		I also disagree with that because I have glass bottles that we reuse all the time and have arguably recycled.
		I understand the point you're making about sending a glass bottle to a facility to melt it down, but I look at, let's address the comparison that you've brought up over and over again because once again, we're pitting this as if it's, you know, cans versus bottles.
		But as far as I can tell, there is no metric showing that canned water has displaced plastic PET water bottles in any significant way.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		In fact, plastic water bottle consumption is higher than it's ever been and growing exponentially, especially in the third world.
unidentified		So when the argument is made that we are better than plastic, but when you look at the net product of liquid death still produces more plastic on top of existing plastic, I don't see how this actually is an argument.
		So if you look at the top 10 plastic bottled water brands right now, since liquid death has been around over the last six years, and look, liquid death is still a small brand.
		Like we're not Coke, we're not Pepsi, but we're on the start to at least have people think about alternatives to plastic bottles.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like, yes, we're, you know, if you look at the publicly available scan sales data of all our categories, and which, by the way, still water is less than 15% of our revenue now.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Mostly what we have are healthy soda, healthy, low-calorie iced tea, and then we're launching sort of healthy, better for you energy drinks going into next year.
unidentified		So if you just look at still water, it's becoming a smaller, smaller part of our revenue.
		But if you look at the top 10 plastic bottled water companies over the last six years, all of them are declining in sales except for smartwater.
		Smartwater is the one brand that is up in sales.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		However, SmartWater has moved a lot of their bottles to aluminum.
unidentified		If you go in an airport right now, almost all the smart water that they're doing, they're putting in aluminum.
		Let's clarify that real quick.
		You're saying specific companies' sales of plastic water bottles are going down.
		Right.
		That's fantastic for those 10 specific companies.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But in general, PET water bottles and the sale of water in plastic bottles has increased exponentially year over year.
unidentified		So are you saying just don't do anything?
		Are you going to answer my argument or are you going to shift and divert?
		No, but I just told you of the top 10 brands that are doing all the volume.
		Yeah, but I don't care about top 10 brands.
		I care about total plastic consumption, of which Liquid Death says death to plastic, but contributes significantly.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		To be fair, small company, I understand you're a big company, but relative to the big players, you're not the biggest.
unidentified		I want to say something real quick too.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I actually, I love your drinks.
unidentified		And I think this is great.
unidentified		Liquid Death, I've always been a fan.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I just don't like how you market this as though you're not plastic when you're contributing to plastic.
unidentified		And there's a lot more to add to this.
		I mean, you have single-use plastic lined packets.
		You don't need to do that.
		You could do stainless steel.
		You could also do glass.
		My argument is you are using this marketing scheme to try and sell a product.
		Well, one, we did get out of the packets and there's another company that's no more death dust.
		There's another company that wants to license our name so that they can create death dust.
		And now what we're trying to look at is what packages are available that are a better option than what's currently there.
		With that stuff, there's not a lot of great options right now.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So the original thing for Death Dust, the thinking, just so you see how we're thinking, was that what we did find was because most of those packets are used by people who are like pouring them into reusable water bottles and going to the gym and using these things.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So you can make the argument that by using a packet, it's like 98% less plastic material than a plastic bottle if you're buying a Gatorade, that people kind of making their own sort of sports drinks, you're kind of eliminating the need for someone to buy a plastic bottle so that if someone's not buying a Gatorade and they're making their own Gatorade, you can argue that it's less plastic consumption that's happening.
unidentified		And then hopefully as technology moves along and packaging moves along, that there are better formats that can be used for these things, given that there's such a new category that out of the gate, it's not the most ideal solution.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		But the minute there was something better that you could migrate over to it.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And that was kind of the thinking that we had going into.
unidentified		So why not glass?
		Glass bottles for liquid death.
		Yeah.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Couple reasons.
unidentified		One, the recyclability factor.
unidentified		They're not actually being recycled.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So the idea that you have a plastic bottle, you put it in your blue bin, it goes to a recycling facility.
unidentified		They don't wash it out.
		Like, because think about it, you have a Coke bottle.
		They own that exact shape and modeling of the bottle.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You're not going to wash that out in a facility and then it goes and then all of a sudden your sprite is in somebody's old used coke bottle.
unidentified		That's not what's happening.
		Europe actually has a better recycling system for glass.
		And the reason that is, is because they don't have a mixed recycling plant.
		They have very specific glass containers, metal containers, plastic containers, all of them.
		But why does recycling of glass matter?
		Because if you're talking about sustainability of something that a material that doesn't have to be created from new always, that you can have material that's created new gets reused over and over and over again.
		You're not constantly having to create new.
		And that's part of what sustainability can be.
		I look at it like, you know, calories per bottle, right?
		So if the argument is that recycling is good because it requires less energy to recycle a glass bottle versus produce a new one, I suppose there's an argument there.
		But the reason why they don't recycle glass is because it's actually not correct.
		It costs more to recycle the bottle than to produce a new one from scratch.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Considering that glass bottles are rocks and when they sit in landfills, it's a landfill full of rocks.
		I don't really have a great concern about that.
		Plastic bottles, you and I agree on, but I would actually make the argument that from my personal experience, we stopped buying the Saratoga Springs glass water bottles.
unidentified		I'm familiar with the study that perhaps, according to this one study, there may be a couple, there's more microplastics in the bottle because of the cap.
unidentified		There are alternatives.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		There's cork, there's silicone, things like that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But in my experience and what I've encountered, the argument that people are going to not buy a plastic water bottle because liquid death is an alternative, I think also presupposes that people will choose not to buy a glass product with less plastic because they see liquid death as a cheaper alternative, which in fact just increases total plastic consumption worldwide.
unidentified		Yeah, but you're really going out on a limb to assume that millions and millions of people are making the same exact assumption that you are.
		No, I'm making a balanced assumption that there's no data to suggest a person has foregone buying a plastic bottle in favor of liquid death when the inverse could equally be true, that they chose not to buy a glass bottle in favor of liquid death, which has more plastic.
		I would actually argue this.
		But liquid death doesn't have more plastic.
		There's more plastic in a glass bottle than in a liquid death can.
		In every single glass bottle, even with a cork cap and with a paper sticker.
		Show me one bottle that exists in a retailer anywhere in this country that is not alcohol, that you're charging $15 a bottle for that has a cork in it.
		The cork.
		So we've, it is funny because you sent me this big long post on X about our pool water gag product.
		And we're talking to a variety of distributors that have offered cork sealers as well as silicone, which is a bit more expensive.
		So it certainly exists.
		Like my point ultimately is.
		No, it exists, but it's expensive.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's why alcohol brands use it because liquid death is what, eight times the cost of a plastic water bottle per ounce?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		No, false, false.
unidentified		So I can go to Walmart right now and for 0.8 of a cents, just like not even a single cent per ounce.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I can get water from a plastic bottle.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Liquid death, I found at the lowest, eight cents per ounce and the highest, 17 cents per ounce.
unidentified		So let's talk about the beverage business then.
unidentified		So you can talk about how we get the pricing.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Because I think people are really confused about how pricing ends up on the shelf where it is.
unidentified		And that was part of my post to you to understand that.
		Because even in the early days of liquid death, when I had the idea, I want to make this beverage company, there are so many costs that I never even realized existed until you actually get into it.
		So there's two ways you can sell a beverage to somebody.
		You can ship it direct to them from your warehouse and sell it on your website, which is kind of what it seemed like you were doing with the gag product, right?
		Then there is selling in a retailer.
		And there's only one way you can basically sell in a retailer.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You have to sell to a distributor who then sells into the retailer.
unidentified		If you're a non-ALK beverage product, the only distribution system for the most part that you can use is the beer distribution network.
unidentified		Because the other two non-out distribution networks are Coca-Cola's network, Pepsi's network, Keurig Dr. Pepper's network.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		You cannot be distributed in their network unless they own your brand.
unidentified		It's locked off.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Beer distributors, because of the alcohol laws in the U.S., alcohol manufacturers are only allowed to own 20% of their distribution network.
unidentified		You can't produce the booze and also sell the booze to retailer.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So there's about 400 independent Anheuser-Busch distributors.
unidentified		Anheuser-Busch Corporate only owns 20 of them.
		So for those other 300 plus distributors, they're all individual family-owned distributors around the country.
		You can go to them one by one and say, hey, will you distribute my product?
		And most of them say, unless you have massive chain authorizations in Walmart or 7-Eleven or Albertsons, we don't want to deal with your product.
		We've got 100 other brands.
		So it took Liquid Death a lot of time to do that.
		So once you build out that network, we've got about 300 Anheuser-Busch and other, some Miller Core, some non-ALP distributors around.
		They want a 30% profit margin to sell your product to the store.
		So me, let's say I can make, let's say I can make a 12 pack of Liquid Death water for call it five bucks is my cost.
		By the time you have the can, the filling, the carton, shipping from the bottler to your own warehouse, then also the cost of shipping from your warehouse to the distributor.
		That all adds up to be a lot.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		As a beverage company, on the low end of what you can sustain yourself as a company is a 30% gross margin.
unidentified		At scale, you want to be north of a 40% gross margin.
		Companies like I mentioned, Monster Energy are at 54.
		Coca-Cola is at 60.
		You start adding that on five bucks plus shipping, give a 40% just mid-range beverage company margin on there.
		Then it goes to the distributor.
		They need a 30% profit margin on that to the retailer.
		And then the retailer, if it's a grocery store, they want a minimum of 35% profit margin when they sell it to the customer.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		In a convenience store, when you're selling singles, they want a 50% gross margin.
unidentified		So you start adding that up.
unidentified		That's how you get to these prices that are, yes, higher than what Coca-Cola can sell it for when they own the entire supply chain.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		They own the cans.
unidentified		They own everything.
		So the beverage game in general is very capital intensive because as a small company, you will never get anywhere close to the cost benefit of a Coca-Cola who own most of the products on the shelves that you see.
		Are you allowed to disclose the profit margins for Liquid Death?
		I can't give an exact number, but I could say we're around 40% gross margin right now.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		The public estimate is 333 million in sales last year.
unidentified		Is that public number correct?
		That's retail scan sales.
		That means when there's certain data centers that track big retailers like Walmart or Albertson's, what goes through the register.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		That's not our revenue.
unidentified		That's how much liquid death was sold through the registers in retailers.
		So we're not allowed to disclose our actual revenue.
		So are you allowed to say how many cans or how many units you sold in the last year?
		I don't have an exact number, but you could kind of back out probably something close to like around a buck a can through the register.
		So if it's so probably like close to 300 million cans.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Wow, that's a lot.
unidentified		So is the argument, I suppose, that you don't want to disclose your products contain plastic or that as it pertains to using glass bottles, you could not find a way to reduce the label or maybe even use no label?
		So since the post the other day, and this is something we've been talking about for a little while, it's not like we're like, hey, this is something that we're in a room.
		How do we manipulate the public and get them to buy?
		That's not happening.
		Death to plastic is a marketing tagline, right?
		Marketing taglines at the high level like that, they're not claims.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We're not saying our product contains 0% plastic.
unidentified		Death to plastic is like just do it or gives you wings.
unidentified		It's a short form to get people to then look deeper into the brand of like, oh, what is this?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And then if you actually go to our website or you read on the can or you look into it, there's more info on what it is.
unidentified		Now, I agree at this point, because of all the other concerns about plastic, we should absolutely update our line to death to plastic bottles.
		And we should have on our site.
		And we actually, if you go to our site now, I had my team update, hey, let's just change the logo now, death to plastic bottles.
		Let's actually talk through everything that we talked through.
		Hey, yes, they do contain a plastic liner.
		And here's what it's all about.
		And here's what's happened.
		And reality is about microplastics and plastic bottles and let people make their decision.
		Again, nothing's perfect.
		And we're not trying to do this to deceive people.
		Again, it's always hard for companies in a lot of areas where companies are so close to their own products, where it's like, we live and breathe every day all the details of liquid death.
		And what we might assume is something that is easily assumed might not be the case.
		And then we learn and we adapt.
		And I think that's what that's what you have to do.
		I didn't, I did notice this too, because I pulled up your website and saw that you do have this section now, which talks about plastic liners, which I believe you put up yesterday.
		And was it yesterday?
		It was yesterday.
		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		No, I did.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		As soon as we had this conversation and I saw some of the traction on there, again, this is something we've been talking about.
unidentified		I'm like, guys, like we've been talking about this for a while.
		One, it should have been updated earlier.
		Yeah.
		Why isn't this updated?
		Why did you do it years ago when all these articles came out and the videos of the plastic bag and the liquid death bottle were going viral?
		Like back then it didn't matter or, you know, I look at it like, here comes a guy with millions of followers posting on X. I have this issue.
		And you see all, it's like over a thousand comments are made, hundreds of retweets.
		And then you update it.
		But all the information I'm talking about, I've actually discussed privately, or not even privately, I've gone without naming liquid death out of respect for mutual individuals, mutual colleagues that we have.
		So I've actually done shows where I've talked about the issue of can liners without naming liquid death.
		But there's articles from three years ago talking about how you guys line your product with plastic and don't disclose that.
		And only now you change it.
		Well, yeah, I mean.
		I'm glad you did.
		Don't get me wrong.
		Yeah, and that's what I mean.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		It's like, well, one, we didn't believe that based on, cause look, we don't just make decisions in a vacuum of three people sitting in a boardroom.
unidentified		Like we look at shitloads of survey data.
		Like we have people, we're surveying liquid death drinkers to find out what is it?
		Why are they buying?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Is this a problem?
unidentified		And what we identified was the fraction of people of all the liquid death customers, the fraction of people that would be in this camp of, oh, I thought I was buying something that had no plastic in it.
unidentified		And how dare you deceive me was so small.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And even now, it's a very small number of people.
unidentified		But hey, sometimes you do have to cater to ultra clear.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So there's nobody that can that can do it.
unidentified		I appreciate you coming on, but did you talk with your lawyer before doing this show?
		Absolutely.
		And you brought up Red Bull gives you wings, which you know the FTC fined Red Bull for as a misleading statement.
		And then you just stated that you.
		But that's a ridiculous thing.
		How many people buy?
		How many people are buying a liquid death?
		No, how many people do you think are buying a Red Bull saying, I believe this product is going to give me wings?
		Fascinating because that wasn't the FTC's arguments.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		The argument was that Red Bull's statement misled the public into thinking that it provided more of an enhancement than any caffeinated beverage.
unidentified		The statement, Red Bull gives you wings, did not trick people into thinking they would grow wings.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		People believed Red Bull was an energy drink and then they found out it was a standard caffeinated soda.
unidentified		That's why they got fined.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think it was $13 million.
unidentified		So when you say to me, we knew death to plastic was a marketing slogan and our products contained plastic and there was a portion of people who genuinely believed it was plastic free sounds like you've just admitted to an FTC violation.
		You're completely wrong because death to plastic is not a claim.
		Death to plastic is a point of view.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Neither is Red Bull giving you wings.
unidentified		We are a company that is trying to do something about plastic.
unidentified		Not all plastic.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We don't say death to all plastic.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Our product contains 0% plastic.
unidentified		That's not what we're saying.
		And we have, if you look at any ad that Liquid Death has made, Recycled Plastic Surgery Center, the most recent thing we did with Whitney Cummings, the whole thing is about recyclability.
		It's about putting plastic in your body, which microplastics do when they leach into your food product.
		I thought that was pretty funny because I like Whitney Cummings and you did this commercial where they're jamming plastic in their body.
		And I was like, kind of like when you consume plastic lined food products with mycoplastics leaching into them, right?
		Look, look, I'm just saying again.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, no, no.
unidentified		Tim, no, no, no, no.
		You're trying to spin something here.
		And look, that's what you do too.
		You spin.
		Spin?
		And you're trying to spin it.
		Yeah, you're speaking spinning.
		Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing.
		I bought a product at death to plastic because I didn't know aluminum cans had plastic in it.
		And you told me you knew people, there's a portion of people who didn't know that and you kept selling the product without disclosing it.
		That pisses me off.
		I would not have bought Liquid Death as a plastic alternative had I known my food product was lined with plastic because it defeated the purpose of purchasing it.
		And I stopped buying my Saratoga Springs thinking this didn't have plastic in it.
		That's my whole argument.
		You said you knew that was the case for a portion of your customers.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'm pissed.
unidentified		I was one of those customers.
		And not just that.
		I'm buying thousands of dollars.
		I'm buying, I think, like dozens of cases, maybe even 100 cases because we have 40 employees and we were drinking a lot and our guests were drinking a lot.
		And we've done special events where we've had people put liquid death on our table.
		I don't care if Coca-Cola, Liquid Death, or Celsius or whoever has plastic lined cans because we get that.
		I was unaware of that.
		I learned something.
		I care that this can say death to plastic on it.
		And I thought aluminum cans didn't have plastic.
		And you knew this was the case for some of your customers.
		And I was buying a product through misleading advertising.
		So what you're saying was if it specifically said death to plastic bottles, there's no issue.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, not at all.
unidentified		You said no issue at all.
unidentified		It's not an absolute.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I take issue with the marketing campaign, which insinuates you don't use plastic and you're actively working against it when in fact you are contributing to the production and consumption of plastic.
unidentified		It's absolutely better than plastic bottles, but there's no data showing a comparison between liquid death consumption and a decline in PET bottle use.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		In fact, exponential increase across the board.
unidentified		So when I look at your cans, can for can, liquid death produces the same amount of plastic as every other canned soft drink manufacturer, and you're growing.
unidentified		And now you're getting away from water and you're going into standard soft drinks, which typically are in aluminum cans because of pressurization.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		They're not going to work in these thin PET bottles.
unidentified		You are the same as every other company, but you have this thin veneer of we're environmentally friendly for some reason.
		Or better, despite the fact if you put on these cans, these cans do contain plastic, I would not have bought them.
		I would have kept buying glass.
		And so that's what I'm bothered by.
		So I'll say this, put on all your products.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No, you're arguing that that's not correct.
unidentified		We don't know that it's correct.
		No, you're absolutely wrong.
		How does glass have more plastic?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It's in the glass.
unidentified		Plastic inside the cap of a plastic bottle, it weighs about three grams worth of plastic.
		And can I get one with that?
		I'm the high end that's one.
		So just the cap alone is six times the amount of plastic material as what is in a can.
		And then if you have any plastic on the, on the label of the plastic bottle, which a lot of them have, that's another couple grams.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So you're talking on average, and you go ahead, chat GPT, AI, whatever the fuck.
unidentified		A plastic bottle, they estimate has five to six grams of plastic used in a plastic, in a glass bottle, which is 10 times that of an aluminum can.
		2.22.
		Fair point.
		Yeah.
		So you could make the argument that that's what I'm getting at is, yes, there is no perfect thing.
		And when it comes to plastic, that's the bigger thing.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Let's just say you made a glass bottle that somehow uses no plastic whatsoever.
unidentified		If you're talking about microplastics, water in the bottling facility is touching plastic all over it.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		There is no way to get away from plastic in the modern industrial society, unfortunately.
unidentified		Water is passing through plastic tubes.
		There's plastic nozzles on the bottle fillers that the water goes through in the facility.
		So we live in a world dominated by plastic.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So there is no way to get away from any risk of microplastics, regardless of what the container is.
unidentified		I agree.
		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		I agree with that.
		And that's why we have liquid death.
		And my issue is not that Coke lines their cans with plastics.
		My issue is that your marketing misleads into people thinking that it's not the case.
		But the point was made.
		So we can move on from there.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I do have a question, though, because you sent me that big long Twitter thread about the cost of shipping glass.
unidentified		I certainly think glass is still a point made about beer caps.
		I did a quick search and I'm not getting for for pop caps, which are not resealable, which I would consider to be more comparable.
		Let's try and get a hard number.
		So one of the concerns with like, what is the demand for a plastic bottle?
		And resealability is a big deal.
		So it looks like even in pop caps, oh, I'm sorry, it's 0.03 to 0.08 grams in a pop cap.
		A typical beer cap contains about 0.05 grams of plastic.
		Okay.
		So it looks like there is an alternative with less plastic in it than your can.
		Because I figured that'd be the case.
		It's kind of silly to think that a beer bottle would somehow have more plastic in it than a plastic lined can, right?
		So glass bottle cap structure is mostly steel and aluminum, 95 to 98% cap by mass.
		With a total standard weight of 2.2 grams, the plastic liner is usually 0.03 to 0.08 grams, roughly 1 to 4% of the cap's total weight.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So again, let me say, I respect fighting against plastic.
		I think it's good that you offer alternatives to plastic PET bottles.
		I don't, however, see a real market displacement.
unidentified		PET is on the rise.
		I think you're more likely to pull people from glass bottles, like Topo Chico, for instance, is going to have substantially less, or Minaragua, for instance, less plastic than yours, based on what I just looked up.
		And not to mention, comparable price.
		I've got 8.4 cents per ounce at my local Walmart for glass bottle Minaragua with a single-use pop cap.
		So I can get, it's funny, Minaragua is not even marketing that they're anti-plastic and there's less plastic in it.
		Now, to be fair, maybe the label has a certain degree of plastic, but we could mitigate that.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		We could do a paper label or something else.
unidentified		So ultimately what it comes down to is I'm willing to accept that you didn't really think about it all that much.
unidentified		You didn't, the microplastic thing is only new in the past several years, but there's still a few factors that I think matter.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		One is you could have always gone with glass and single-use pop caps, which is less plastic than the can.
unidentified		You could have disclosed on your site on the can, this product still does contain plastic, which I think is important.
		And And on top of that, I genuinely just think that liquid death is overall a contributor to the market, not a displacer for the market.
		So consumption of single-use plastic is only going up.
		I take issue with the phrase infinite recyclability because that misleads people into thinking this can is pure aluminum and the whole thing can be reused as a can.
		It can't.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		You've got to get new plastics.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, again, you saying that they're not infinitely recyclable, like you're really stretching on that one.
		Okay, let me ask you a question.
		If I took this can of liquid death after it was done, melted it down into aluminum, could that aluminum, just in and of itself, be reformed into another can of any size?
		Yes.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It could.
unidentified		Yeah, and then to your point.
		So then why do you put plastic in your cans?
		All beverage cans are required to have a liner because the liquid would interact with the metal.
		Okay, so let's try this again.
		If I took this liquid death can, finished it, melted it down to aluminum, reshaped it into a can, it would not be capable of holding your beverage because it would react with it.
		Yes, but you're talking about the word infinite.
		What do you mean by the word infinite?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Let's get, let's start there.
unidentified		Okay, a liquid death can, I'm not saying aluminum, a liquid death can is not infinitely recyclable because of the portion of it, which is plastic, ink, or otherwise.
		The ink, by all means, whatever, however it's colored, we can throw that out the window because it is what it is.
		But the plastic has to be reproduced.
		Not to mention when it's burned off, the plastic will emit carbon, water vapor, and plastic particulates, which are soaked into a filter.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That filter becomes waste.
		It is tons better than plastic bottles, certainly not better than Topo Chico or any other single-use pop cap on a glass bottle.
		So it is not infinitely recyclable.
		That is a marketing term.
unidentified		And when you actually look into it, every confirmation is infinitely recyclable as a marketing term used to make it seem like it is.
		Now, if you said the aluminum in our cans can be recycled infinitely because it's a metal, that would be a fair statement.
		And by all means, make that distinction, I suppose.
		Once again, my point is all of these factors line up and show us an avalanche, which says to me, I don't believe that you guys were unaware of the impact.
		In fact, you said to me just a moment ago, you knew a portion of your consumer base thought this was plastic-free, and you did not put on the can that it was, in fact, containing plastic.
		Even if that percentage is 2% or 1%, it shows that you are willing to say that portion of our consumer base is okay to lie to or mislead.
		It's not lying.
		It's lying by omission.
		It's misleading them and thinking death to plastic doesn't actually mean us because we're producing more single-use plastic.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We have tons of info on our site that is always talking about recyclability of plastic versus aluminum.
		We're never claiming that these are healthier to drink from in any way.
		We're never claiming anywhere actual claims of like 0% plastic.
unidentified		Death to plastic is a rallying cry.
		It is a claim.
		Let me ask you.
		I get it.
		I get it.
		And I'm not trying to, I don't mean to cut you off, but just because I hear your point and I duly noted.
		So one other question I have that says on this can, we donate a portion of the profits from every can sold to help kill plastic pollution.
		I checked your site.
		Do you want to explain?
		I don't know if you're allowed to tell us what portion of the profits actually goes towards fighting plastic pollution.
		Well, in the early days of Liquid Death, it was we had a specific number.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We had it was like five cents a can was what we what we donated in the very early days.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		As the business, well, actually, it was the original thing was 5% of the profits we were donating.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Your site in 2021 says 10%.
unidentified		No, no, no, not 10%.
		The website, Liquid Death Archived 2021, says 10% of all sales per can goes to fighting plastic pollution.
		That was never on our site.
		How much you want to bet?
		10%.
		It doesn't say 10%.
		How much you want to bet?
		Gentlemen's bet.
		Because I have the archive pulled up.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Million dollars.
unidentified		Are you sure?
		I'm ready.
		I know we never put that on there.
		Everyone watching right now can see archive.org.
		10% of the profits from every can is donated to help kill plastic pollution.
		I don't know if you're able to see.
		Actually, you know what?
		Yeah, I can't put it on my screen.
		Everybody watching can see that it says 10%.
		Buddy, yo me a million bucks.
		Hey, hey, hey, hey, you said it.
		Tell me where to make the checkout to a plastic fighting charity.
		Yeah.
		I'm not mad that you're saying 10%.
		I think it's good.
		I could show you detailed legal stuff within there.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		That is someone who needs to be fired that is running our website because that is never, it's never been on a can.
unidentified		It's never been anywhere else.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like that is not at all what we've ever claimed.
unidentified		Like that's somebody who copied and pasted something that's a typo and it's not on there now and it's not ever going to be on there.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		That's not true.
unidentified		August 1st, 2021 Liquid Death website.
		It's not, yeah, that's a typo and it's been updated.
		And if you look on every can we have now, every packaging thing we have now, it does not say that.
		Yeah, currently it just says we donate a portion.
		So here's another issue in my argument that I think this is a marketing ploy for you guys.
		I looked into these nonprofits and I was shocked to find that relative to the size of your company and your sales, these are microscopic nonprofits.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		They look fantastic.
unidentified		You know, I don't want to disparage them in any meaningful way, but I'm just surprised to find, I mean, is Liquid Death the principal contributor to these nonprofits or do you give them like a check for 100 grand every year?
		Well, Five Gyres is the biggest nonprofit we could find that is solely dedicated to helping with plastic pollution and plastic.
		So I mean, how much money do you give them?
		I mean, we can't disclose exactly what it is, but we are probably their biggest, if not their biggest, one of their biggest contributors.
		So according to their 990 for the year of 2023, they brought in $1.2 million.
		To be fair, I know that you guys have seen exponential growth over the past couple of years, but and I'm not trying to immediately just go totally dark and negative because I think it's good that you guys are doing this, but it seemed low, to be honest, that their total contributions for the year is 1.2.
		The prior year before that was 1.1.
		This is the latest 990 that I could find.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And the current assets for Thirst was about 500,000, though I didn't pull up their direct 990.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It just seems small for the latest reporting period.
unidentified		Again, I'm not trying to disparage the fact that you actually do this, but I look at it and like, to be, if it's, I looked at what they do, they do like cleanups and things like this.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		They advocate, they say that principally what they do is science.
unidentified		And so it seems like most of the financing is going to paying individuals who probably aren't getting a full salary, to be completely honest.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think it's respectable because most nonprofits I think are scams, but they have a big team.
unidentified		And at the rate of revenue that they bring in, these people are really, they seem to be really doing the work.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But it does seem to be relatively low, especially considering the size of the company.
unidentified		I will totally give, I think the estimates for total sales for liquid death ending fiscal year 2023 was like less than half of where it is now.
		So factoring in retail sales don't account for your total sales.
		You guys are making the drink.
		You're then selling them to distributors.
		It's probably substantially less.
		If you're doing a buck a can and 330 million cans, that's out the retail store, right?
		The bucket can was like retail price, I think you're pointing out?
		Retail price, yeah.
		Buy us, single tall boys are $3.30 at our sheets and our 7-Eleven.
		And then the regular cans at Walmart are like $1.8 per can.
		So are you guys still doing tall boys or is it now just all the small ones?
		No, we still have the tall boys.
		We got rid of cases of tall boys this year for most of what we have.
		And because basically, if you look at the beer industry, all single cans or big tall boys that you buy, like cold, all cases of beer is 12 ounce.
		So we kind of moved to that.
		But now we realize there's enough people who do want to buy full cases of big cans for a couple hero skews and flavors next year.
		We're going to re-release some of the big cans.
		So just because I'm not trying to be so dark on this one because I think it's good that you're doing this, but am I wrong about my interpretation that the nonprofit only brought in 1.2 in total contributions and you guys are generating, you know, I don't know, I don't know, tens of millions of dollars.
		Is it it comes off immediately?
		Again, I'm trying to be careful because I don't want to be too mean.
		I actually respect this, but it does come off like you're contributing very little.
		It's a lot relative to the nonprofit, but 1.2 million for a nonprofit is actually on one of the smallest nonprofits, you know, in the industry.
		Sure.
		And the reality is there's not a lot of nonprofits dedicated to plastic pollution.
		They're the biggest one that there is.
		Second, the other thing you have to keep in mind is, yes, Liquid Death sold 300 million cans.
		We are still not yet a profitable company because as much as it costs, like we're still operating, like we said, on a 40, 40 margin that took us forever to get there.
		Big reason for that was during COVID, ocean shipping costs went up 5X. We used to produce our product in Austria because there literally was not a single co-packer in the United States who could put spring water in aluminum cans.
		Did not exist in 2018.
		So we, you know, in 2022, we moved our whole supply chain to the US. You know, it ate our margins.
		But what that shows is like most beverage companies, the game is stacked against you with Coke and Pepsi to start a new brand.
		And most new beverage companies, what you have to do is you start a company, you have to price your product where Coke and Pepsi prices it.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Even though you don't have the economies of scale, you can't just say, oh, we're going to be an $8 can of water next to $1.79 smart water because that's what we need to make a profit.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		No, you have to price where Coke price is, lose money for years, raise capital, and then eventually you get to enough scale where your costs come down enough where, hey, you're actually maybe able to generate a profit.
unidentified		And for example, the company Body Armor, they're like the Gatorade type product that got bought by Coke for $5 billion, I think two years ago.
		They had to get to almost $600 million in revenue before they were actually generating profit.
		So even though we're a company that's not even making money, we are still donating.
		So yes, that's why we're not donating these massive amounts.
		As we get bigger and we have more profit and become a bigger company, we could continue to donate.
		Are you planning to sell Liquid Death?
		Our excitement is as a company, because we're a multi-category brand and because the kind of marketing we do could never survive in the Coca-Cola corporate structure or Pepsi corporate structure.
		Any of the stuff we do would die in a focus group or would get killed by somebody in that system.
		That's not the kind of marketing they make.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So yes, maybe one day someone could come to us and say, hey, Liquid Death's taken enough of our market share.
unidentified		We're just going to buy them.
unidentified		But for us, we're more excited about the potential of one day becoming a public company like Celsius or Monster or Vita Coco, where we still kind of control our own destiny.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		No one can tell us how to market and we can continue to drive company value.
unidentified		Entertaining the possibility that a sale could come at some point, have you guys taken any actions which could benefit you in a sale of the company?
		And specifically for the reason of maybe this will make us more appetizing to someone to buy us out?
		I mean, I mean, yes.
		I mean, we work with a ton of smart people.
		We have a board of people that understand MA and people who have been a part of other brands, sold brands, been a part of the Coke and Pepsis who have bought other brands.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So we have a pretty good hold on what it needs to look like if you are going to get acquired by someone.
unidentified		But again, most beverage companies are built to sell, as they call it.
		They're like, hey, we're going to start this thing.
		We're going to burn cash.
		And the whole plan the whole time is we're going to flip it to Coke or Pepsi.
		That was never our thing.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like we built this to kind of be a long-term company.
unidentified		Now, to your point, if Coke or Pepsi comes to us and says, hey, Liquid Death, two and a half billion, we got to think about that, right?
unidentified		Because there's a lot of people that have busted their ass with this company.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Every employee of Liquid Death owns shares in the company.
unidentified		Jason Ellis, as you know, owns shares in the company.
		Like Dane Berman, one of my favorite people on the planet and skaters who put together the Liquid Death skate team.
		Just unfortunately, after six years, we just realized like, hey, it just doesn't fit in into our strategy.
		And, you know, we just can't do it anymore.
		And as much as I love Richie, I know that there wasn't many other sponsors he had.
		And it hit him really hard that, hey, we can't keep paying you that couple hundred bucks a month anymore.
		Yeah, I don't think that was the issue for Richie.
		I think it felt more like you stabbed him in the back.
		And my understanding is that the entire skate team is now gone.
		And, you know, when Richie first told me to buy this stuff, and I did, and then shortly after found out there was plastic in it and got pissed because I thought, you know, the marketing was misleading.
		I said, for Richie's sake, to be polite, I'm not going to start a public spat with Liquid Death.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But then you went and asked the whole skate team.
unidentified		And I said, I don't got to hold my tongue on this anymore.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		For Richie, not to, you know, I don't want to speak to his business, but I mean, the things this guy did for you was really, it was really amazing.
unidentified		He would always make sure he had a can of Liquid Death in every video we were producing to make sure it was on camera and everything else.
		And for 500 bucks a month, you cut him off.
		And he's been with you since the beginning.
		You really couldn't afford 500 bucks a month?
		I mean, Corey Duffel and the rest of the team is doing really that bad.
		So let's talk about this again.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, no, let's talk about this because I think it's important because I mean, you're a skater.
unidentified		I'm a skater.
unidentified		Let's talk about skateboarding and liquid death for a second.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So the skate team started in 2019.
unidentified		We had like no sales.
		Like we were a small, small company.
		I went to, it was a skate event where it was one of the concerts.
		It wasn't warp tour, but it was like some kind of skate and concert thing.
		I met Dane Berman there and Adam Arunski.
		And we had Liquid Death at this event.
		And they were videoing themselves like doing stuff like over a can.
		And I got to be like, hey, I started this company.
		He's like, oh, this is cool.
		And I got to be friends with Dane.
		And Dane said, hey, maybe I could put together like a little skate team for Liquid Death.
		And I was like, hey, look, like, we don't have big budgets for this right now.
		Also, from the beginning, our strategy as a company was never to try to go into skate in extreme sports.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We did it because I personally skateboard and love skateboarding.
unidentified		But the reality is Monster and Red Bull and Energy Drinks, they write massive checks into that world that we could never compete with.
unidentified		So it would be really dumb for us to go try to buy our way in to skateboarding against all these other big energy drinks that throw so much money around.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		But it's like, hey, if we could do this thing really cheaply and, you know, these are cool guys.
unidentified		And Dane's like, yeah, I'll get some cool guys together.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		We did this for six years.
unidentified		Now, in no way does it actually fit into what the marketing strategy was.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		So in the early days, me as the CEO, my personal likes, I can kind of keep around.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		But now as we get bigger, when we have a team of people and marketing strategy, and they're like, hey, Mike, like, you know, we've been paying these guys for six years.
unidentified		We don't really track, is it doing anything for the brand?
unidentified		Is it selling any more water?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like, we're just kind of doing it because you like these guys.
unidentified		Like, we might have to kind of start phasing this out.
		So we had to do that.
		I don't like the way this part of my team.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		I have to respect my team to a level to say, hey, Mike, this doesn't fit into the strategy anymore.
unidentified		We have to do it.
		What was your budget per month for the skate team?
		I think all in, like, they're probably to pay all these guys every year.
		I think it's like 40 grand a year that all in we were spending on the skate team.
		Yeah.
		I hear you on the, hey, we don't know if there's real value in these guys kind of statement, I guess.
		But it's, it's kind of crazy for a company recently evaluated at $1.4 billion to be like, you know, these guys that have been here since the beginning, it costs us 40 grand per year.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Let's fire them.
unidentified		And so, you know, my thing, I know people have already tried to make in the argument.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		The only reason I'm arguing is because I'm friends with Richie and Jason and some other people.
unidentified		I just think, you know, look, I want to stress this.
unidentified		I actually think Liquid has a great company.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I just don't like the marketing that you do.
unidentified		And I think you should fix it.
		And really, I have very little to say after the fact, if you do fix the marketing and say, like, we get it, Can't use Plastic.
		We're going to try and be better than everybody else.
		Then there's nothing.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It's like, okay, all right.
unidentified		We'll make that the play.
		Outside of all of that, as we have like the last few minutes here, bro, there's, I don't see an argument to be like, I'm a skateboarder.
		It costs me 40 grand a year to keep a skate team on.
		And we just brought in a bunch of investments.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Like, what's for, so it's like 3,600 bucks a month to keep the guys from the beginning on who have, who have never missed a beat for you and you cut them off.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's, that's, that's shady.
unidentified		It's not shady, Tim.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like you're, you're basically saying, okay, if you become a liquid death skater, you should be paid forever.
unidentified		Doesn't matter if you, if, if you're measuring what you're doing, what you're posting.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Also, I have, I can show you a text message.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		When we brought Richie on about, I think it was a year into it, he came to me and said, Mike, I want to produce my own YouTube show that's kind of funny about skateboarding.
unidentified		Will Liquid Death give me the money to do it?
unidentified		I said, how much is it going to cost?
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		He said $50,000 for 10 episodes.
unidentified		I said, Richie, there's no way we can do that.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Maybe we can swing 20 grand.
unidentified		He's like, oh, okay.
unidentified		So we gave Rick, we wired $20,000 to Richie.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		He made three episodes of this show.
unidentified		It got no views and he got really bummed out.
		He's like, I don't know why there's no views.
		And he gave up.
		He didn't even make the whole 10 episodes.
		We didn't even get pissed at him.
		Even though we wired in the money, we said, hey, look, Richie, you tried.
		It just didn't work out.
		It's all good, whatever.
		And we still kept paying him for years.
		So it's not like we've done a lot.
		And of all the skaters, I have a text from Corey Duffel, from Dane.
		They all were like, Mike, I just want to say thank you so much for the last six years.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Like you paid us literally, Corey Dufel said, you basically paid us to do nothing for six years.
unidentified		And I really appreciate that.
		It wasn't easy for us to go find sponsors at our various stages of career, you know, where that is.
		Thank you so much.
		Like, I appreciate everything I have.
		Richie was the only one who went and posted something out of anger.
		And I will say, I don't like the way that Richie was let go.
		I wasn't even, I knew that we were moving on.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		I had no idea when it was going to happen.
unidentified		And I found out after the fact, oh, someone just called them and said, this is it.
		I wanted to more personally.
		do this.
		And yes, I was not happy about that.
		But I look at the rationale of it.
		That's a whole different story.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I have no logical argument for your business rationale.
unidentified		And I think it is largely correct.
		And so I'll make sure that, you know, everybody who's listening understands this.
		I run a business as well.
		There comes a time when you're like, listen, man, we've done this for a long period of time.
		We've got to wrap things up.
		My understanding is you offered to keep paying everybody for several months after the fact, even though the team, I don't know if it was you, but whoever was in charge said, we're actually letting you know it's happening now, but we're going to give you several months lead time, which is respectable.
		So I just think it's kind of like the personal and professionally, you make a good point.
		You're correct.
		Personally, right now, skateboarding is at its worst moment ever.
		And so to see a company as successful as yours be like, it's 40 grand to keep these guys in skateboarding in some capacity.
		Nah, let's not do it.
		It feels like no love of the game.
		And there's no real logical argument that I have against you for doing so.
		It's just like it sucks that skateboarding is burning down and this is just another log on the fire.
		And I totally get that.
		And I hope that in the future as Liquid Death actually, because so much of our focus right now, it's like, hey, look, we've grown.
		We've raised a lot of capital.
		We're at the point now where it's like, you need to become a big boy company that's actually making profit and making money or it's just going to go away.
		Right.
		So when it starts getting to like profitability, that's where all of a sudden little amounts of money here and there all start adding up.
		And that's really what you have to do to really drive how do you become a profitable company.
		And if we get bigger in the future and we have more marketing budget to spend on things, I would love to maybe get back into skateboarding in a much bigger way where we can actually write the kind of checks that we have to compete against with Monster or Red Bull or any of these other companies that can just throw money at guys.
		Like, how are we actually going to go make a big debt unless we just have so much money to spend on?
		So just two last quick questions.
		This one you may require a longer answer, but when I talk to a lot of people about the brand and when people, I got a bunch of messages from people when I was tweeting.
		A lot of people say that there's two reasons they won't drink it.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		One, there's like this hippie-dippy, it's not really political, but there are these people who believe that water contains emotional energy.
unidentified		I'm sure you're aware of this.
		Yeah.
		We made a commercial making fun of that very recently.
		Yeah, they're like water molecules.
		They're like, I won't drink anything called death because it's bad for the spirit.
		But there are people who have said your either mock or legitimate cursing and satanic worship or prayer of the water means they'll never touch it.
		And I'm not, I'm not, you know, that deeply theistic.
		So I'm like, I don't know.
		I drank it, whatever I can right here.
		But do you think that's going to impact your growth?
		There are a lot of people who are rather pious, I suppose, who won't go near the brand and that's going to inhibit your growth capability.
		Yeah, well, two things.
		One, it's not a lot of people.
		I think most people always forget about social media.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		What you may or may not know is like the 90-10-1 rule.
unidentified		Yep.
		Yeah.
		90% of people who are viewing social media do not interact with it.
		They treat it more like a television.
		They're just watching kind of the circus.
		10% of the people watching social media will do a light action.
		Like maybe I'll click the like button.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		Maybe that's 10%.
unidentified		Only 1% of the people consuming social will actually take the time to write and comment on something.
		And then of that 1%, how many are the people who are like the angry people?
		So I tell people all the time, people try to make business decisions based on angry things they see on social media.
		But the reality of what's happening is like imagine being in a football stadium sold out.
		There's one group of 10 people at the top screaming that this team should sell and they're the worst team ever.
		How much does the actual ownership of that team going to put stock in those 10 people when you've got literally a full stadium of other people who are all bought in?
		But because of the way social media works, you only see the negative stuff really easy.
		So it could feel like it's a lot more than it is.
		But you really have to look at, no, no, no, what's actually happening?
		I tell my team all the time, hey, if we have 20,000 likes and two angry comments, I'll take 20,000 to two all day.
		You're never going to have 100% of people who love you.
		Same is true for Yelp and Google reviews.
		So I guess just last question.
		First, I do appreciate you having the conversation.
		It's very, very respectable.
		Will you change the, in some meaningful way, the branding or whatever on these cans to make it very apparent that there's plastic in them?
		Yeah.
		So we are starting to make the updates of having our tagline be more specific to say death to plastic bottles.
		So we're going to have that on cans packaging.
		Now, the way the cans and packaging works, it's going to probably have to happen in cycles over time because there's inventory and we're not obviously going to like burn inventory.
		And again, what we feel like is that the number of people that it's actually, you know, that this is actually an issue for is small.
		So we're going to continue to update it.
		We already have it updated on our website and we'll continue to, you know, where we can make things very clear on the packaging.
		But also, again, be very clear about what that means.
		Like just saying it contains plastic, but being clear about, okay, well, so what?
		What does that mean?
		Is it worse for me?
		Is there more microplastic?
		Is it less than a bottle?
		Because you don't just want to give a blanket statement that people could then misinterpret three other ways.
		It's like every time you try to fix one problem, you could make three more, right?
		Here's what, here's what I would appreciate.
		And it's very difficult.
		I don't think you can write out this huge paragraph like you've done on your site explaining that cans contain substantially less plastic, though there is still going to be some in there.
		How do you let people know that you are doing better than a PET bottle, but the can is lined with plastic, you're still substantially better off?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		It's very difficult to convey, which is why I took issue with just hashtag death to plastic.
unidentified		I don't feel that death to plastic bottles rectifies any of the past or anything like that.
		Not that I know how you would do that other than up at the site.
		But as far as changing the marketing so that people know you're not saying outright all plastic or the can doesn't contain plastic is probably a step in the right direction.
		You know?
		I got one more question for you, actually, because I'm looking at this can.
		The iced tea says manufactured for liquid death in Los Angeles, California, and the ingredient just says water.
		What's the water source for this?
		So for almost all soda, iced tea, anything that's not bottled water, they're using what's called usually RO, reverse osmosis water.
		Is that what you guys are doing?
		For our flavored beverages, we use reverse osmosis water, which is basically it's municipal water, tap water that gets filtered of literally everything that's possibly in the water is filtered out of it.
		It's how basically all soda, all drinks are made.
		That's the other thing about bottled water that most people don't realize.
		Most of the big bottled water companies, Essentia, Aquafina, Dasani.
		That's all just purified municipal tap water.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		It's not actual premium source spring water.
unidentified		So this is actually really funny.
		Dasani's water source is municipal public water supplies.
		Yes.
		And they sell, they do a billion dollars in revenue.
		They put tap water in plastic bottles and they sell a, they're the number two bottled water brand.
		It's crazy.
		So just to clarify, the rest in peach that I'm holding, you guys take, is it's municipal water that's reverse osmosis filtered and then used to brew your drinks.
		Exactly.
		Okay, right on.
		Well, I think I've made my claim.
		I think if you guys are honest in your commitment to, you know, I will add, what a silly debate for me to be having, you know, no disrespect to you, just like getting me getting angry over the plastic branding on liquid death and I tweet about it.
		And then here we're having a conversation.
		I respect that you're having the conversation.
		And if you, if you, our guys are committed to updating that so that people are aware, then I don't know.
		I guess I'm content.
		You know, that's all I'm mad about.
		All right.
		And if you need a show sponsor, you know who to call.
		Oh, here it goes, huh?
		Yeah.
		Well, anyway, man, is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up?
		No, like I said, thank I appreciate you having the call.
		And again, like I'm big on a big reason I'm a fan of you, even though we might not totally align on certain political things and things like that.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		What I do like is that I do believe the problem right now is most of us here in the world, we live in the middle.
unidentified		And there's so much extreme on either side that is somehow steering the conversation and that.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		And I feel like we need more people getting in the middle where it's like people just need to talk to each other and not have it be, well, I'm left, so I'm never going to fucking talk to someone on the right.
unidentified		Or, you know, everything about Trump is just, he's a fucking villain and a Nazi and everything else.
		Like, yeah, I don't love Trump, but is there some stuff I think he does that's good?
		Sure.
		Yeah.
		Is there a lot of shitty things he does?
		Yeah.
		But it's like, I feel like we need more conversation and make, try to somehow get back to like just having dialogues and not having it be just pure fucking vitriol on either side.
		I unfortunately don't know if we're trending in a positive direction in that regard, but I do appreciate you having conversation.
		So, you got like social media or anything you want to shout out before we wrap?
		No, no, no.
mike cessario ▲ ● ▼		I think we're good.
unidentified		Right on, man.
		Well, again, I do appreciate it.
		Thanks for the call.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the conversation.
unidentified		I saw that you updated your website the other day, thought that was a good thing.
unidentified		And I appreciate you being as candid as you have.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I look forward to seeing the new labels on Liquid Death.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And I will add, I am impressed and you're doing substantially better than literally any other beverage CEO in addressing concerns consumers have.
unidentified		I can't believe you gave me the time of the day to actually yell at you on the internet about why I'm pissed about the marketing, but you did it.
		So I have to respect it.
		So, brother, thanks for hanging out.
		And I guess I'll just, I'll see you on X. All right.
		Thanks, brother.
		Have a good one.
		Take care.
		Well, I got to give it to him at least as far as it goes with that.
		He had the conversation.
		He addressed the concerns.
		We'll see what it means moving forward.
		And I will stress, it is kind of funny and silly that it's like the least important thing, I guess.
		There's some good stuff you clarified.
		I will reiterate my position just as I wrap this up.
		Death to plastic leads people to believe they don't use plastic.
		The can itself says it contains 70% recycled materials.
		Saying infinitely recyclable implies that they are actually recycling 100%.
		They're not.
		There's plastic in it.
		And again, it says literally in the can, 70% recycled material.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So they are still a portion being reused.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		The aluminum is.
unidentified		And I'll also stress when I looked up their nonprofits.
		I try to be light on this one.
		I'm not here to just rag on someone and be insulting or mean.
		But for a small nonprofit to bring in only 1.2 million and this company to make as much as they do, I'm curious what their actual profits are and if it really is that much.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		He says they're actually not.
unidentified		I also think it's absolutely hilarious because I'm going to pull this one back up.
		He owes me a million dollars because he made the bet.
		10% of the profits from every can is donated to help kill plastic pollution.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		And he says, that's not correct.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		That's wrong.
unidentified		Well, that's your marketing.
		And I will stress this.
		Well, I'm not going to be petty.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I respect.
unidentified		I got to put it in perspective.
		Ain't no other drink CEO is going to come on here and have this conversation with me.
		But I'm going to stress, my friend, someone commented 30% disappears.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Fair point.
unidentified		It oxidizes.
unidentified		I'm going to stress, he did say to me, he knew a portion of their consumer base believed their products did not contain plastic, didn't update the packaging.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So that still irks me.
unidentified		I mean, that's still kind of shady, right?
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		But not everybody is going to be perfect.
unidentified		And if he's going to address it and he's going to take action now because there's some weight behind it, he's doing better than everybody else, I guess.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		So I'll take it.
unidentified		Hey, this is a special live stream.
		I had fun.
		Mike, I appreciate it.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		Thank you guys for watching this weird stream and conversation.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I think even outside of what my argument or disagreement may be with Mike, the conversation may have been very informative for many of you to understand packaging processing, drink monopolies.
unidentified		Dude's got a great point about how you can't get into the space because Pepsi and Coke own everything.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		People have asked us why we don't do cold brew cans.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		We wanted to, because the expense, the cost is just absolutely insane.
unidentified		As for our gag product, pool water, we can sell this locally at low cost.
		If we want to have this be available in other regions, I don't know.
		That's where it gets crazy because we can actually, the supplier and producer is actually within 10 minutes driving from us.
		That's why we could do this.
		But if you do order it, we are going to put it up.
		Shipping is going to be expensive depending on where you are.
		If you're local, it'll be dirt cheap.
		So the other thing I'm going to stress too, they could do glass, right?
		I'm not going to attack Liquid Death because they're not a glass bottle company.
		I'm angry over their marketing because if they want to say death to plastic, even death to plastic bottles, like he's saying he's going to do, I still think it's fair for me to say Topo Chico, Minaragua, other glass bottles with single-use pop-top caps have substantially, they have 10% of the plastic that's in this can.
		You could do better, but you know, don't let the perfect be the end to be the good.
		Guys, thanks for hanging out.
		This has been fun.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to go eat food because normally I'd be eating food by now.
unidentified		I really enjoyed this and I really do appreciate Mike having this conversation.
tim pool ▲ ● ▼		I wish Liquid Death the best and I don't want anybody to fail.
unidentified		And it hurts my heart that he fired his skate team, but he's not wrong mathematically.
		He's just wrong spiritually.
		Not that it matters for a business.
		Thanks for hanging out, guys.

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