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That's

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s-r-s-a-c-q-u-i-o-m.com.

1:21

Hello, I'm Ted Sides, and

1:28

this is Capital Allocators. This

1:31

show is an open exploration of

1:33

the people and process behind capital

1:36

allocation. Through conversations with leaders

1:38

in the money game, we learn how

1:40

these holders of the keys to

1:42

the kingdom allocate their time and their

1:45

capital. You can join

1:47

our mailing list and access

1:49

premium content at capitalallocators.com. All

1:53

opinions expressed by Ted and podcast guests are

1:55

solely their own opinions and do not reflect

1:57

the opinion of Capital Allocators or their firms.

2:00

This podcast is for informational purposes only

2:02

and should not be relied upon as

2:04

a basis for investment decisions. Clients of

2:06

capital allocators or podcast guests may maintain

2:08

positions and securities discussed on this podcast.

2:12

My guest on today's show is Alexis

2:14

Ohanian, the general partner and founder of

2:16

776, an early

2:19

stage venture capital firm with a billion dollars

2:21

under management, and he describes

2:23

as a technology company that deploys

2:25

venture capital. Alexis was the

2:28

co-founder of Reddit. One of the most

2:30

popular online forums in the world, which

2:32

he sold 18 months after its

2:34

2005 launch for just $10 million and

2:37

returned as executive chair in 2014 to

2:39

help lead the turnaround

2:42

of the business. In between

2:44

and since, he's invested in early

2:47

stage ventures as a partner of

2:49

Y Combinator, co-founder of

2:51

Initialized Capital, and most recently, founder

2:53

of 776. Despite

2:56

his success in entrepreneurship and investing, Alexis

2:59

is most well known in the world

3:01

at large as the husband

3:03

of 10 star Serena Williams. Her

3:06

conversation covers Alexis's initial ride at

3:08

Reddit, taste of early stage

3:10

venture capital, and return to

3:13

Reddit to scale the businesses alongside

3:15

the challenges of managing a modern

3:17

social media platform. He then

3:19

turned to his investing as a technology company,

3:22

including Cerebro, 776's transparent

3:26

operating system, somatic ideas,

3:29

traits of successful founders, social

3:31

media engagement, investments in

3:33

women's sports, and lessons

3:35

learned from wife Serena. Before

3:39

we get going, I hope you're enjoying this

3:41

Memorial Day in the United States and

3:43

the unofficial beginning of summer. For

3:46

me, that means lots of tennis playing

3:48

and watching the French Open by day,

3:50

and lots of sports watching by night.

3:53

The NBA playoffs are in full swing, the

3:56

Yankees' power trio of Soto, Judge,

3:58

and Staton are crushing home runs nightly,

4:00

and all in Zverev will have paired off in

4:03

the first round of the French Open by the

4:05

time this comes out, and the

4:07

NHL playoffs are in the conference finals

4:09

with the local New York Rangers competing

4:11

for it all. If you're

4:13

anything like me as a fan, you

4:16

believe, maybe irrationally, that you can influence

4:18

the outcome of the game by watching.

4:21

Some believe it's not true, and it's not

4:23

the only fallacy that creeps into sports. The

4:26

Lefasne's fresh off its capital allocator's

4:28

appearance, and a brief analysis of

4:30

the curse of the President's story.

4:33

The Coffe's awarded to the team with the

4:35

best regular season record in hockey, which this

4:38

year is the Rangers. And

4:40

the curse is the alleged inability of

4:42

those teams to win the Stanley Cup.

4:45

Without diving into details, it turns out the

4:47

curse is wrong. The best

4:49

regular season teams still win the

4:51

Cup disproportionately to other playoff contenders,

4:54

which leaves me with only one thing left

4:56

to say. Let's go read

4:58

read. And Yankees, of course. And

5:01

that all has nothing to do with spreading the

5:03

word about capital allocators. But just this one time,

5:05

you have my blessing. Turn off your phone. Stop

5:08

listening. And watch the news. Please

5:11

enjoy my conversation with Alexis

5:14

O'Haley. Alexis, thanks so much

5:16

for joining me. I'm

5:18

very happy to be here, Ted. Thank you for having me. Why

5:21

don't you take me all the

5:23

way back to your first entrepreneurial

5:25

instincts as a kid? Gosh,

5:28

well, my first would have been

5:30

mowing lawns around the neighborhood.

5:33

This was now in suburban

5:36

Maryland. And as soon

5:38

as I could push that mower, my dad would pay me

5:40

an allowance, probably a few bucks to mow the lawn. And

5:43

I realized my neighbors would pay me more. Sorry,

5:47

dad. Shout out to the fields. They were across

5:49

the street, the mooths, also across

5:51

the street. We did some business. So I

5:53

mowed a lot of lawns. That was

5:56

really the start of it. Then I went and got a job

5:58

at CompUSA when I was 14. I

6:01

had this Madonna mic and I'd

6:03

be pitching the latest computer peripherals

6:06

and software to a crowd of people

6:08

who did not want to hear a

6:10

14-year-old telling them about the computer mouse.

6:13

So I went through the worst public experience

6:15

hell every 30 minutes as people

6:17

just ignored me and I'd be like,

6:20

this is my job to present this

6:22

mouse to you from Logitech. I

6:25

got over so many of my inhibitions around

6:27

public speaking. That was an amazing job. I

6:29

was making websites for strangers on the internet for money.

6:32

I was doing that while I was in high

6:34

school. I always had a lot of ambition even

6:36

at a young age to just be my own

6:38

boss and solve people's problems. How

6:40

do you think about what to do as you went through college?

6:43

I entered UVA, Wahoo, as

6:46

a pre-med. I think that's what it

6:48

says in the first year lookbook and

6:51

I bopped out of that within a week and

6:54

I was looking for a replacement and

6:56

I found this ancient Greek history class

6:58

which is relevant now because 776 is

7:00

named after the first Olympic Games. I

7:03

took this class. I love this ancient Greek

7:05

history class so much I declared my history

7:07

major first semester first year and

7:09

the dean of the history department was shocked that a

7:11

freshman would come in there after one semester declaring but

7:14

I was convinced I was going to study history. I

7:17

ultimately double majored and also got

7:19

an undergrad degree in business from

7:21

McIntyre but I was going to

7:23

be a lawyer because that was what a

7:25

history major does and my grandfather was

7:28

one and I thought I could do

7:30

this too and then I walked

7:32

out of an LSAT because I was hungry on Saturday

7:35

morning to go get a waffle

7:37

from Waffle House and then as a true story

7:39

20 minutes in I just

7:41

got up and left and after months of studying

7:43

for this test I was just too hungry and

7:46

realized sitting eating my waffle that I probably

7:48

should not be a lawyer and I wasn't

7:50

going to take the LSAT seriously and that's

7:52

where I decided I was going to engineer

7:54

something to do after graduation and then ultimately

7:57

led to Reddit and shout

7:59

out to my friend Walt Emmer. who's

8:01

the CEO of Waffle House, he put

8:03

a plaque in at the booth

8:06

in Charlottesville on Route 29

8:08

at that Waffle House where I had this Waffle House

8:10

epiphany that led to Reddit. So, did you

8:12

not think, hey, I'd go back and take the LSAT on a

8:14

day where you're less hungry? No because

8:17

I think it took something

8:20

about that moment.

8:22

Maybe it was the realness of taking

8:24

that LSAT. Studying for it, I

8:26

didn't mind. I didn't like it. But

8:28

there was something about taking it and thinking, I'd have to go

8:31

to school for three more years. It was going to be very

8:33

expensive. And if

8:35

I could walk out of that test so

8:37

easily, maybe I should make that

8:39

kind of a commitment. That was the extent of it.

8:41

And I didn't know what I was going to do next. I just knew I

8:45

needed to do something after college and I figured I'd

8:47

just engineer it myself. So, what was

8:49

that initial origin story of Reddit? It

8:51

was a way to order food from your cell

8:53

phone via text message. And so, this

8:55

was 2004 now.

8:58

I graduated in 2005. So, there were

9:00

no smartphones. This is era of the candy

9:02

bar phone or like the Motorola Razr, I

9:04

think had just come out at that time.

9:07

Radical new flip phone. And

9:10

having worked at Pizza Hut through college, I

9:12

was a cook for a brief period there. And so,

9:14

I was used to these orders coming in through a

9:17

printer. And they'd come from the front as the servers

9:19

would input them on a touch screen. But I realized,

9:21

okay, well, the output is just a printer. You

9:23

could come up with another input. And my roommate

9:26

at the time had been visiting,

9:28

I think it was Sheets gas station where they had touch

9:30

screens to order your subs while you're pumping your gas. So

9:33

similarly, like, hey, I could just use my phone. And

9:36

so, we didn't have a good text solution for

9:38

this because the interface in hindsight would have been

9:40

just heinous to try to text in. But I

9:43

talked to every restaurant on the corner, which was

9:45

the main strip in UVA of bars and restaurants.

9:47

They all of course wanted to be nice and

9:49

said, oh yeah, great idea. At the time, I

9:52

was so naive. I thought that counted as business

9:54

development. I thought like I'm being a good CEO.

9:56

I've got customers. That was dumb. And

9:59

what it took. was my

10:01

roommate who I'd recruited at this point, Steve,

10:04

to now join my company. And then his

10:06

then girlfriend saw that his icon, this guy

10:08

named Paul Graham was giving a talk at

10:10

Harvard called How to Start a Startup.

10:12

And it was during our senior year spring break. He

10:15

casually mentioned this to me and I was like, we have

10:17

to go. And he was like, really? And I was like,

10:19

yes. And I think this is the sort of gift and

10:21

curse of my personality. I also couldn't

10:23

imagine any other thing we could do on

10:25

senior year spring break, then go to Boston

10:28

and hear this guy give a talk about

10:30

startups. Cancun was just not on my

10:32

horizon at that point. And so we

10:35

go up, we hear him speak. I pitch

10:37

him afterwards on the business idea. Actually,

10:39

I pitch him on taking him to coffee to pitch

10:42

him on the idea. I think he

10:44

was surprised we had come all the way from Virginia.

10:46

And he said, sure. Met him that night. Pitched him

10:48

on this idea. It was called My Mobile Menu, or

10:50

MMMM, for short. And he

10:52

said it was a pretty good idea. He actually got really excited about

10:54

it. He's like, phone's going to be the future of ordering. I want

10:56

to have to wait in line again. A

10:59

month later, applied to Y Combinator, which he had just

11:01

started first ever batch. And back

11:03

then, it was $12,000 for 7% of your company. And

11:08

we got rejected. And I really

11:10

thought the pitch was good. But this time, we

11:12

did it with the rest of his partners. Actually,

11:15

that night, he called me up and said, hey,

11:17

sorry, it's not going to happen. And he was

11:19

right. The tech wasn't there for phones. It

11:22

was still like a kludgy user experience. I tried

11:24

to text and try to get the order right

11:26

and think of all the menu nuances. And restaurants

11:28

were notoriously hard to partner with, especially in 2004

11:30

or 2005. But the next morning, he called

11:32

back and he said, listen, we don't like

11:34

your idea, but we like you. So if you were

11:37

willing to switch your idea, we'll fund you. Immediately

11:39

got off the Amtrak somewhere in Connecticut. And I

11:41

talked to the nice lady at the station and

11:43

gave us a free ticket back to

11:46

Boston. And we met up with him and sat down. He just

11:48

started asking us questions. And what we eventually got to was this

11:50

idea of creating the front page of the internet and

11:53

give Paul credit for that tagline. I

11:55

took the check from him, $12,000. We

11:58

were off and running. And then we would grab him. a few

12:00

months later and moved to Boston to spend the summer building. How

12:03

did you think about building

12:05

an audience? It was

12:08

grueling. In 05, there

12:10

were no social

12:12

media websites. So remember, this is

12:15

before Twitter, before LinkedIn. The

12:17

extent of it was Facebook, which was

12:20

still in colleges, MySpace

12:22

friends tore down the decline and

12:24

blogs were actually the dominant UGCs

12:26

who generated content of the time.

12:30

So building an audience involved me cold emailing

12:32

a ton of bloggers to say, hey, look,

12:34

I'm Alexis Ohaney and I found this company

12:36

Reddit. We think we have an

12:38

interesting approach to helping people find what's interesting online.

12:40

You may want to submit some of your articles

12:42

there. Maybe some of your fans already have. That

12:44

was even better when I could find one

12:47

of their articles that did well that someone had submitted.

12:50

It's a great way to open an email and just like, hey,

12:52

50 people have uploaded your link on Reddit. Now

12:54

they didn't know what the hell that was, but it

12:56

felt nice and basically try to get

12:58

them to do an interview with me about

13:00

Reddit. In 05, 06, you'll see

13:03

all these random bloggers who have written articles

13:05

about Reddit. And this was the

13:07

main way we would appeal to them and

13:09

the way we would grow the fan base.

13:11

I had run a forum, a PHPBB forum

13:13

in college, probably had about 600, 700 members. Those

13:17

were the first people I emailed to say, hey, try this

13:19

new thing out. Reddit in a lot of

13:21

ways is just modernized forum software. And

13:23

we got some early users that way. Paul Graham mentioned

13:26

us in one of his essays. That was the first

13:28

big pop, but we're talking on a

13:30

scale of thousands of people. Not what folks

13:32

are used to today. But the most

13:34

important thing then was showing up in the

13:36

comments. And for years, I or nothing is

13:39

my screen name was one

13:41

of, if not the most prolific users of

13:43

Reddit being in the comments,

13:45

starting conversations, respond to people. It

13:47

was almost like being a party

13:49

host offline. We can sort of

13:51

imagine what makes a great party host. People

13:53

take for granted. It actually works the exact same

13:55

way online. You have to do that same kind

13:57

of work. Now the benefit is if...

14:00

If I host a bunch of great people here, the only people

14:02

who are going to enjoy that experience are the people who are

14:04

here in that moment. If you're doing

14:06

that exact same thing figuratively online in

14:08

a community, a subreddit, it's

14:11

not just the people who are there in the

14:13

moment. It's for decades later, everyone who stumbles on

14:15

that thread or finds it in a search result.

14:18

And so the scalability of doing that really

14:20

blocking and tackling community building is so much

14:22

better and stronger online. And I think I

14:24

had enough instincts just because I grew up

14:26

on the internet that it worked. So

14:29

what happened from there? I

14:32

went through the most formative 16

14:34

months of my life. I had

14:37

just a few months into founding Reddit, my then

14:39

girlfriend had a pretty bad accident while

14:41

she was studying abroad. A few months after

14:44

that, my mom was diagnosed with terminal brain

14:46

cancer. It was one thing

14:48

after another to go from feeling like an

14:50

invulnerable 21 year old CEO to

14:53

a very different perspective on life and

14:55

purpose and all those things. And

14:58

so at the same time, this

15:00

was the only thing I could do to escape

15:02

from that was work. And

15:05

so that's what I did. I probably should have seen

15:07

a therapist sooner, but it was what I poured everything

15:10

into. And I knew deep down because of the support

15:12

of folks like my mom, I

15:14

knew I was going to be successful. It sounds very irrational,

15:16

but I was like, she's been such

15:19

an amazing force my entire life and continues

15:21

to be now even more supportive in the

15:23

face of her own horror and so

15:25

stoic and so supportive. I got to do this.

15:27

I got to make this work for her uneven

15:29

10 months in. We're out at Google's

15:31

headquarters and Chris Saka, who's going on to be

15:33

a prolific investor. He was the right-hand Larian Sergei

15:36

at the time. I'd sat next

15:38

to him at a dinner and a month later found

15:40

us invited out to Google. And so

15:42

Steve and I were there meeting with everyone. It

15:44

actually made us an acquisition offer. It was like

15:46

an aqua hire type thing. And Google wanted to

15:49

roll Reddit into YouTube and they were going to

15:51

make us the sort of YouTube commenting system. It

15:53

was one of the ideas they had, which is

15:55

surreal to think about now. Not

15:57

long after that, for all kinds of reasons. I

16:00

found myself at Paul and Jessica's house because

16:02

they pulled me aside and they're like, hey, look,

16:04

if you can find a way to sell this

16:06

company, it's going to be a great

16:09

outcome for you, for everyone. I

16:12

just didn't know anything about management. I didn't know anything

16:14

about how to build a team. I made a lot

16:16

of mistakes. And

16:18

a conversation I was having with the head of

16:20

BizDev, Akan and Asta, this guy named Kirosh Karim

16:22

Khani, who I had met through a reporter

16:25

who had interviewed me who then pitched her wife

16:27

who was an editor who happened to be married

16:29

to Kirosh. He said, hey, I

16:31

really like what you're doing with Reddit. Let's do a

16:33

little licensing deal, which ended up being a prelude to

16:35

an acquisition offer. And then, yeah,

16:37

$10 million acquisition offer for 12 months

16:40

worth of work at the time. We got it consummated in about

16:42

four or five months. So 16

16:44

months in, it's just mind blowing. This is life

16:46

changing money for a year worth of

16:48

work. This is insane. I thought I was getting away

16:50

with something. And Paul and Jessica were

16:52

really earnest about seizing the opportunity.

16:55

So we did, I spent three

16:57

more years as Khan and Asta, as a head of product,

16:59

I didn't Khan and Asta, which is not where I was

17:01

long to be. And then one thing has ended. I

17:03

actually joined YC, tried starting another startup,

17:06

Hitmunk, then eventually found my way to

17:08

venture capital. So how

17:10

did you turn from building up Reddit, selling

17:12

it, spending some time with Khan and Asta

17:15

to investing? Paul and

17:17

Jessica, again, shout out, had invited me,

17:19

I think it was in

17:21

2010, once the handcuffs came

17:23

off with Reddit. They invited me to

17:25

come out and play a role at YC. And

17:27

I wasn't ready to move. I was living in

17:30

New York. I love New York. I was born in Brooklyn,

17:32

but they engineered a role for me as this ambassador

17:34

for the firm. So then

17:37

part-time partner, then full-time partner. And

17:39

I eventually started moving my way

17:41

out West. But that was when I

17:43

first got under the hood on the other side

17:45

of the table, that combinator, starting to see thousands

17:48

of applicants every six months, reviewing them, interviewing

17:50

founders, accepting them, working with them. I

17:53

didn't fully appreciate just how

17:57

big YC was becoming.

18:00

terms of its impact on the ecosystem

18:02

because Reddit was such an early small

18:04

exit but it was the

18:06

first validating one of that first batch.

18:09

This $10 million, it was the first really big one

18:11

for YC and it helped give a

18:13

seal of approval that then led to Dropbox supplying which

18:16

was the first real billion dollar company and then that

18:18

led to Airbnb. Once you did it twice, it

18:21

really validated YC as a model. And

18:23

so getting to see that from the inside was eye opening. Paul

18:26

Graham had built just a little bit

18:28

of software to manage office hours and

18:30

applications and it was just

18:32

enough and I think in part because of

18:35

Paul's distaste for management and people. He

18:38

built a software to handle a lot of those things and

18:41

there was something to it that I thought

18:43

was phenomenal because it was able to scale

18:45

a process pretty darn well and then it

18:47

wasn't too long until 2011, 2012 when Gary

18:49

Harge and I actually got approached. All

18:53

three of us were partners now at a time at YC

18:56

got approached to actually raise a fund.

18:59

We hadn't had the liquidity events of say

19:01

Paul Buckeit and so we were doing small

19:03

check. I was doing small checking investing 50k

19:06

type checks. We got approached to basically

19:08

invest other people's money and that was the first time I'd

19:10

even considered, oh I could be a VC. There

19:13

was no looking back after that. So

19:15

what happened with that first little fund? Well,

19:17

I can't talk specifically about it but we

19:20

ended up making some sound investments very early

19:22

in companies like Coinbase and Instacart. I

19:25

think I actually also invested in Reddit when we took

19:27

it out independently. Reddit was also in that fund. Yeah,

19:29

it was some good early stage investing. So

19:32

when you step back into Reddit a number

19:34

of years later, what was the

19:36

platform at that time? Well,

19:39

the previous CEO had just defended

19:41

revenge porn a few months earlier

19:43

in the name of free speech

19:45

and that was one of his last acts as

19:47

CEO. Not surprisingly, one of the

19:49

first things that happened after I came back was banning

19:51

revenge porn which was a pretty obvious thing to do

19:54

but it was a company that had I think

19:56

$8 million in revenue that year 2014. That's

19:59

public. despite being over a decade old

20:02

and dropping because obviously advertisers don't want

20:04

to be on revenge porn websites. And

20:07

so maybe 40-45 employees, no

20:09

mobile app, which was gut-wrenching because I

20:11

designed and shipped an iOS app in

20:13

2009. It's

20:15

called iReddit and it's

20:17

supposed to be Reddit on Reddit, like iReddit on

20:19

Reddit. That's why I named it Reddit. And

20:22

so I shipped this iOS app, but then I

20:24

left six months later, a year later, and so

20:26

it died. And it killed me because here I

20:29

was five years later, we still

20:31

didn't have a true iOS Reddit app.

20:34

And unfortunately, the culture had metastasized around this

20:36

idea that desktop web was the only thing

20:38

that mattered, which was sad because

20:40

even in 2014, it was obvious that mobile was

20:42

here to stay. So it was a lot of

20:44

product to catch up on, a lot of business to

20:47

rebuild and a team to rejuvenate. And

20:49

I was very lucky about a year later, we're

20:51

about 60-65 people at this point, hired

20:54

Caitlin Holloway. I was our first ever

20:56

head of people and culture and she really just

20:58

rejuvenated everything, taught me so much about

21:00

management, scaling and org. Four

21:02

or five years later, when I stepped back

21:04

to a board-only role, I think

21:06

the business was probably 175 million revenue, probably

21:10

like 500-600 employees. So I've grown a lot,

21:13

learned a lot from that. And then Caitlin eventually came and

21:15

joined me on the dark side of venture capital about a

21:18

year later. But it was formative as

21:20

hell. And so that's the other big window of time

21:22

where I learned so much about

21:24

how to actually build a real business,

21:26

how to even think through building

21:29

a performance culture, executives,

21:31

all those things, all those dynamics. And

21:33

thankfully, we got enough things right. What

21:36

were those one or two key lessons you

21:38

learned about management? Number

21:41

one, and this is something we'll

21:43

coach CEOs on now, if

21:46

there are really systemic challenges with an

21:48

employee and you give that

21:50

direct feedback and you

21:53

don't see material improvements and you keep going

21:55

through the same process quarter after quarter after quarter, it's

21:57

not actually going to get better. six

22:00

months really to get them ramped up, moving,

22:02

get to see the full output. And

22:05

if things aren't hitting expectations, it could be because

22:07

maybe you leveled them improperly and they're not

22:09

quite the right role. But if

22:11

they are struggling in key ways and you give them

22:13

that feedback and you give them another quarter to

22:16

work on it and you don't see enough change after

22:19

another quarter, it's basically time to make the move.

22:22

And that is one of the hardest things in the early

22:24

days of a company. So much of your success

22:26

comes down to the team that you build. And

22:28

one of the hardest things first-time

22:31

founders and CEOs have is around

22:33

performance management, whether that's giving negative

22:35

feedback, which is also a

22:37

gift if done well and really important. But

22:40

then also moving on from folks and

22:42

doing separations. And those

22:44

are muscles you have to exercise in

22:46

the gym. You cannot just read about.

22:49

And hopefully you've got good partners around. You can

22:52

help you think through this stuff, role play this

22:54

stuff and whatnot. This is something we try

22:56

to provide for founders ourselves. But it's something that

22:58

especially for early stage companies, it's just so

23:00

important. There's just no room. You're

23:02

looking at maybe two years of runway period

23:04

until your next race. It's really in everyone's

23:06

best interest to not try to make

23:09

fetch happen, so to speak. Would you

23:11

learn about giving feedback effectively? Really

23:14

great feedback is fast. It

23:17

happens pretty quickly after some incident.

23:20

It is direct and it

23:22

is compassionate. Ideally, create a culture and create an

23:24

environment where you're attracting the kind of folks who

23:26

are going to thrive with feedback. The

23:28

goodness is in many

23:31

high performance cultures, there's

23:33

a high correlation between folks who are high

23:35

performers and who love feedback, especially this kind

23:37

of feedback when delivered well because they want

23:39

to get better. They are endlessly searching self-improvement.

23:41

So if you can first inform us, try

23:44

to build a culture that attracts that, then

23:46

okay, you're delivering it in

23:48

a timely manner that is compassionate and

23:50

it's not hateful and

23:52

also is very specific and speaks

23:54

to the actions or the things of the work

23:56

that need to improve. And bonus points if you

23:58

are able to offer. and suggestions or

24:01

insights. But that is an exercise that

24:03

Caitlin put me through seven years ago and I

24:05

cannot tell you how many times I come back

24:07

to it when trying to deliver feedback. Even to

24:09

my kids, I don't know

24:11

if that's healthy but bring

24:13

a lot of these management principals home so we'll see how it

24:15

turns out, the little ones. When you

24:17

took this thing from 8 million revenue to 150 in

24:21

just a couple of years, what

24:23

did you see differently in terms of your

24:25

ability to scale and grow than when you

24:28

were around the company the first time? Well,

24:31

I have to give a lot of credit

24:34

to the folks who did

24:36

the real work building that. And

24:38

the good news is I work with some of them

24:40

today. Our team president at the LA Golf Club, Neil

24:42

Hubman, was our head of sales there at Reddit during

24:45

that entire time. In fact, he came

24:47

on right around the time I did and was at the company

24:49

up until a year ago when he joined us at LA

24:51

Golf Club. And so you've

24:54

got folks who were

24:56

in the right role executing

24:59

the right way and

25:01

frankly, as bad as Reddit

25:03

looked with that 8 million

25:05

revenue and this revenge porn branding

25:08

in 2014,

25:10

folks who could see past

25:12

that saw tremendous potential. I

25:15

mean, we did have 8 million

25:17

in revenue but it was so

25:19

notoriously underperforming for so long that

25:21

it's not like we were just starting there. We

25:24

had an audience that already should have been generating

25:26

way more revenue. We had engagement. We had cultural

25:28

influence that should have been way more valuable. It

25:30

was just being under managed, let's

25:32

say. And so what I

25:34

saw there that most impressed me though was

25:38

if we could attract folks who

25:40

saw the potential, who were willing

25:43

to run into

25:45

the burning building and basically say, no, no, no,

25:47

there's something really special here. We can say this

25:49

and this can be a career defining opportunity for

25:51

me. In a way, because it

25:53

was so unattractive, I think we also just automatically

25:55

separated out a lot of folks who wouldn't have

25:57

been the right fit. So I'm not saying make

25:59

it. your business look as unappealing as possible.

26:02

And what was so compelling was just

26:05

by creating a modern

26:07

philosophy around how to

26:10

treat employees, how to reward

26:12

employees, how to build culture

26:15

internally, in many ways,

26:17

frankly, reset a culture was

26:19

really exciting because then I started

26:21

to see how something I never

26:24

took seriously like values. I

26:26

always thought company values were just bullshit people put on

26:28

a wall. In many places, they

26:30

are. At

26:32

the best performing companies, they really are an

26:34

extension of the founder. At some

26:36

point, you grow so big or even it's something that

26:38

long, you cannot be a part of every decision. You

26:41

should not be a part of every decision. And

26:43

so these values when well articulated are a way to

26:45

scale as if you're in that room. And

26:48

then what was also so interesting as I watched as

26:50

they also evolve, we would do these

26:52

audits every year. We'd

26:54

look back and say, okay, these values that got us to where

26:56

we are now, look at where we were a year ago. Do

26:58

we still need all these? Should we evolve

27:01

some of these because now we've actually accomplished

27:03

that thing. We want folks to take pride

27:05

in the work they shipped. I

27:08

stepped into an organization where we were frankly

27:10

just shipping product that wasn't great. It

27:12

was really, really important that we shipped not

27:15

just often, but also well. And we took pride in our work.

27:17

And that needed to be a value, this idea that folks would

27:19

almost figure it would have to sign their name on the things

27:21

they were putting out in the world. And if you didn't want

27:24

to work in a place where you had to stand by your

27:26

work, that's fine. You

27:28

just do that somewhere else. And after a

27:30

year or two of doing that, I remember Caitlin

27:32

saying during one of these off-sites, look, we've reached

27:34

a place now where I feel like we don't need

27:36

this value anymore. What do we all think? And how do

27:38

we evolve that as an executive team? To see those things

27:41

evolve, to see it when it's done well is

27:43

so powerful because I think to do

27:45

really hard, big things, you need to

27:48

find ways to scale that limitless well

27:50

of founder energy that's unfortunately limited to

27:52

24 hours a day and usually just

27:55

a few humans. Once

27:57

you get that internal

27:59

flywheel. going the right way with

28:01

the right people. On a platform like

28:03

Reddit, you also have the challenges of

28:05

the external environment and it's not just

28:07

Reddit, the social media. You mentioned revenge

28:09

porn, you've got harassment and hate stuff.

28:12

How did you think about all

28:14

of those issues and it's obviously broader

28:16

than just a Reddit issue? The

28:19

internet, frankly, that I spent my childhood

28:21

growing up on always had its weird,

28:24

dark, awful places. The

28:26

community platforms that existed that by and large

28:28

defined the internet in those 90s and

28:31

early offs, the number of

28:33

people online, especially online a lot,

28:35

was far, far, far, far fewer.

28:38

It was a smaller sampling of the world. I

28:41

think all of us, and I'd say all

28:43

of my peers in the social media world, all

28:45

those other founders and CEOs, we had

28:47

rose-tinted glasses on because, yes, we

28:49

all were white dudes. That's

28:52

worth stating. We just

28:54

didn't encounter much awful

28:57

content in general. The

28:59

forums were smaller, the topics were

29:02

web design forums. This stuff

29:04

existed but it didn't metastasize like it does

29:06

now because the internet is so ubiquitous because

29:08

social media is so ubiquitous. What

29:10

happened on the internet did not become news

29:12

globally that same day. It

29:15

wasn't something we thought about from the jump. Frankly, in

29:17

the early days of Reddit, if

29:19

there was something really awful, hate speech,

29:21

whatever, we would just ban it outright

29:24

because we were the mods, effectively, of the

29:26

handful of communities we had. As

29:28

the platform grew, we had to build

29:31

more of these tools to help our moderators do that

29:34

job. Then part of the challenge also, frankly, was

29:36

leaving in 10, coming back in 14. That was

29:38

a four-year gap where we were now going to

29:40

play catch-up on a lot of things that I

29:43

could say maybe I would have done earlier. Then

29:45

we all saw more and

29:48

more people moving online, spending more of

29:50

their time online in the teens.

29:53

Now here we are in the early 20s

29:55

where truly culture happens online. That

29:57

is the first place where this stuff happens.

30:00

I don't want to say everyone, but it's a whole hell of a

30:02

lot of us spending a heck of a lot of time. And

30:04

we're seeing now more and more of

30:06

the negative consequences of that prolonged exposure.

30:09

And look, there's philosophical

30:12

disagreements, of course. I mean, I left

30:14

Reddit pretty publicly in protest back in

30:16

2020 in the wake of George Floyd,

30:18

because it did not align with my

30:20

views that the company would take such

30:22

a stance in support of

30:24

communities of color and black communities in particular,

30:27

and also still have thousands of hate communities.

30:29

And when I brought this up, similar to protests

30:32

I had about some of these extreme violence communities

30:34

like Watch People Die, I was in

30:36

a minority on that board. And so it

30:39

was important to me to just get

30:41

aligned with myself and challenge the company

30:44

to ban those communities once and for

30:46

all, which they did after I resigned

30:48

and replace me on the board. And

30:51

I think private companies, I think of it

30:53

like Javits Center. We're here in New York.

30:56

If you've been to a Comic Con there, you've been to an event there.

30:59

Javits is a convention hall, pretty big,

31:01

that is effectively privately run. It still exists

31:04

in the United States of America, which is

31:06

a country that honors free speech, and it's

31:08

an awesome right. But if

31:10

you're in the Javits Center, it's a private enterprise.

31:12

And so Javits has

31:15

every right to say, yeah, sure,

31:17

you want to host Comic Con here, great. But

31:20

if you want to host your KKK

31:22

community here, we're not going to allow

31:24

that. If you just take it out

31:26

of the online world, there is something

31:28

insidious about this idea of seeing

31:31

a Pokemon next to

31:33

a KKK booth. It almost normalizes very,

31:35

very heinous behavior. And look, the World

31:37

Wide Web still adheres to these principles

31:40

of free speech. You can still find

31:42

those communities online. I think

31:44

I actually, although I find them vile and

31:46

disgusting, I understand why they need to exist

31:48

on an open internet. The difference is pre-social

31:51

media, they all existed in their weird little

31:53

vacuum. And the only way it really

31:55

metastasizes is if some person you knew sent you

31:57

some email that was like, hey, check out this

31:59

website. And you'd very quickly be able to be

32:01

like, you're weird, no thank you. But

32:04

social media unfortunately game-ifies this outrage

32:06

that actually helps the most outrageous

32:09

content metastasize and spread a lot

32:11

faster. And so here we

32:13

are in a place where I feel, yeah, if

32:15

you are the owner of the Digital Javits Center,

32:17

you actually can absolutely decide what communities belong and

32:19

don't belong. That's your right in

32:21

America to do that. I think

32:23

things get a little convoluted when we muddy

32:25

the discussion with the public square is

32:28

if we're using the public square metaphor, that

32:31

implies that these websites are cities.

32:35

If there's a public square, some kind of digital towns. Who

32:37

decides who the leader is a digital town? The

32:40

board? So it's not a

32:42

democratically elected leader. It is a digital

32:44

town square in a city that is run by a dictator

32:47

that its citizens have no lever to

32:50

battle with. And what's

32:52

nice about a democracy is, yeah, we can have

32:54

that literal town square where we have the ability

32:57

to access free speech. But we also have this

32:59

amazing set of levers from the founding fathers that

33:01

allow us to vote and make decisions if we

33:03

don't agree with something to make change. And

33:06

so that's for me where the digital city

33:08

metaphor falls apart. So

33:10

all this is to say, the most

33:13

encouraging trend I've seen of late, and

33:15

I think AI is actually going to

33:17

help usher this in, AI and

33:20

the glut of AI-generated content is now

33:22

going to make proof of humanity much,

33:24

much more important for UGC websites because

33:26

it will be really, really important, not

33:29

just to keep down spam, but because

33:31

users presumably want to see what humans

33:33

have to think. And

33:35

I actually think this wave of proof of

33:37

humanity that consumers are going to ultimately demand

33:40

is going to lead to a better

33:43

quality of conversation on the internet. I don't

33:45

want to get rid of pseudonymity, let's call

33:47

it. It's not pure anonymity. I think Reddit

33:49

works because you can choose a username and

33:52

Fluffy Bunny 12 is still

33:54

an identity so it doesn't

33:56

descend into total chaos because you actually have

33:58

accountability. You get the freedom. to be,

34:00

let's say, more honest than you would be on

34:02

your Instagram, but you still have the accountability where

34:04

you have an identity you actually care about. And

34:06

Fluffy Bunny 12 still matters in a

34:08

way that if you were purely anonymous, it wouldn't. We're

34:11

going to see a shift and Gen Z seems to be leading

34:13

the way in terms of not wanting all

34:15

of their lives digital. I just saw this uptick

34:17

in dumb phones now in the United States. So

34:20

United States is one of the few countries in the world where

34:22

we're actually seeing a rise in the sale of dumb phones, which

34:25

I can't help but feel is a part of

34:27

this culture of, okay, the pendulum swung so far

34:30

on user generated content and living

34:32

on our phones that perhaps there's

34:35

some energy now swinging back. So

34:38

I'd love to shift a little bit. You've had your

34:40

operating experience, a little bit early venture experience, and now

34:42

the platform and some views

34:44

and that a bunch of different things

34:46

into a venture capital firm. Would love

34:49

to hear how you thought

34:51

of bringing all this together in what you've

34:53

tried to do at 776. For

34:56

sure. I saw

34:58

firsthand the power

35:01

of designing community software, Reddit,

35:04

and I saw the opportunity in early stage

35:06

venture building initialized. And

35:10

in 2020, I realized that if I

35:12

was going to do my life's work,

35:14

it would be building software which I've

35:16

called Cerebro, which is a deliberate X-Men

35:18

reference to be a full fledged

35:20

operating system to run a venture

35:23

capital firm just better, cheaper, faster than

35:25

anyone's really done before. I

35:27

love building software. I love building community.

35:30

My partner, Caitlin, who founded the firm

35:32

with me, like I said, she obviously

35:34

deeply understands both community online and offline

35:36

from our days at Reddit. And

35:38

so we're taking the unique approach. We've built Cerebro

35:41

to be, and this is where we do all of our

35:43

work as a firm. We do

35:45

a tremendous amount of our founder support through

35:47

it. A lot of it is self-serve. I

35:49

don't want a founder to have to ask

35:51

me, hey, who do you know at insert

35:53

company name? Because that's a bad query for

35:55

my brain to figure out. I talked to

35:57

all my billion dollar CEOs, these seed investments.

36:00

that had grown up and I said what was the most

36:02

valuable thing that I did for you and one

36:05

of the top results was oh, intros,

36:07

your network's strong, people take

36:09

the intro, it was tremendously helpful. And

36:12

I realized I sorted that list of things and

36:14

at the top of the list was what was

36:16

most productizable and what I realized was here was

36:18

the perfect thing. My brain, not

36:20

a very good database. A database is

36:23

a very good database and so

36:25

that simple query of hey, who do you know

36:27

what company X is trivial

36:30

if it's all living in software and it's searchable by

36:32

founders. It's a pain in the ass if you're asking

36:34

me. It's also a waste of everyone's time. So

36:37

that was the very first tool we built in the Siri row

36:39

which I took about 40,000 contacts that

36:41

I had amassed in a personal CRM over my career,

36:44

made it searchable and then

36:46

let founders click a button to

36:48

draft an email for me to

36:50

basically edit and approve and send that would

36:52

come from my inbox and that

36:55

was V1 and we've since built a whole

36:57

full-fledged product. It's tremendous and

36:59

then the other benefit of doing all of

37:01

our work in software and scaling, now there's

37:03

four investing partners, is

37:05

the exhaust of that engine

37:07

is data. And so

37:10

over the holidays, I got a little frustrated

37:12

because I was browsing other firms' websites and

37:14

I realized every single VC firm, all these

37:16

early stage VCs, all the same promises

37:19

on their website and I thought,

37:21

well that's not differentiated and I thought worse,

37:23

the very best founders don't want to hear

37:25

promises. They want to see receipts. So

37:28

we just built the 776 website. So

37:30

now it has real-time data. So in the last 365

37:33

days, you can see our median

37:35

response time to founders. I think it's like one hour,

37:37

24 minutes. The number

37:39

of intros we've made, workshops we've hosted,

37:41

sales meetings we've had, even

37:44

the user engagement of Siri row, the app that

37:46

we've built, not just of our team but also

37:48

how often our founders are using it. And

37:50

so by putting a scoreboard, which

37:52

we've always had internally but now putting

37:55

it externally, I just wanted to

37:57

make it very clear to the world that we are

37:59

built very differently. more like a technology company

38:01

that deploys venture capital than anything else. And

38:04

God help someone who's gonna compete head to head with

38:06

us on a deal, who's

38:08

gonna say, oh, you

38:10

should take our term sheet. We'll help you a

38:12

ton. We'll be super responsive. We'll help you with

38:14

press. We'll make lots of intros. Because

38:17

that founder's just gonna pull up the website and

38:20

say, well, show me the receipts because these guys

38:22

actually have data for all the things that you're

38:24

promising me. I don't know what your

38:26

answer is to that. Do you tell your poor admin to go

38:28

harvest your calendar in the next 24 hours? But

38:31

it's exciting. This is the kind

38:33

of accountability the best founders expect.

38:36

This is what they expect to provide

38:38

their investors. And I think

38:40

it is a great time when investors are now

38:43

looking to have a similar kind of accountability to

38:45

their founders. I

38:48

wanna take a break in the

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39:57

And now, back to the show. So

40:01

that aspect of operationalizing

40:04

how you work with your portfolio companies

40:06

has to come after you've found the

40:08

portfolio company. So if you circle back

40:10

to the top of the funnel, what

40:13

is it that you're looking for? We

40:15

are generalists and so I

40:18

think I've benefited through my entire investing

40:20

career and probably frankly

40:22

in building Reddit from

40:24

being pretty intellectually

40:27

curious and promiscuous and

40:29

so as a result I have a really broad

40:31

network. You gotta imagine being a first check in

40:33

companies ranging from Coinbase and Instacart to

40:36

Patreon and Ro and Flock

40:39

Safety, a variety of different industries, a variety of different

40:41

backgrounds. So much of what is

40:43

at the heart of Cerebro is network. The

40:45

first product was just those 40,000 contacts I

40:48

had my own CRM and

40:50

so we're very cognizant of the

40:52

relationships we're building, wherever the most

40:54

signal is in our network. A

40:57

lot of VCs, so much of

41:00

our deal flow still

41:02

comes through recommendations of folks

41:04

in our network. There's a lot that just comes in

41:07

through the front door in the inbox but

41:09

there's a very, very significant number that

41:11

come through some warm recommendation from someone

41:13

that we've worked with or invested in

41:15

before or what have you and

41:17

that still ends up being a really dominant

41:19

force and that starts to guide a

41:22

lot of how we think about the world when

41:24

we just want to get smart about a sector.

41:26

We made our first ever space tech investment in

41:28

our first fund, a company called Stoke and

41:31

they are a couple of ex-Blue Origin

41:33

folks building reusable rockets that will, the

41:35

second stage, the little top will land

41:37

itself. Amazing team on paper,

41:40

I have never built a rocket before.

41:42

I can evaluate most of these technologies

41:44

pretty quickly if they're software but this

41:47

is very hard hardware but

41:49

we got to conviction, we did the investment, the

41:51

company's been tracking well and so now that opens

41:53

the door to a whole other

41:55

network of space tech founders through

41:57

a really credible CEO. and

42:00

that's open to order companies like Astroforge. And

42:02

so we're going to see more of this.

42:04

And what gets exciting is

42:07

we get to spend time with actual builders

42:09

on the cutting edge of tech. They teach

42:11

us what's happening. We get

42:13

to conviction about spaces or sectors and

42:16

then we've got some of the biggest reach

42:18

in venture on social. I'll literally

42:20

tweet out something I'm excited about

42:22

or confused by and

42:24

start to get a trickle and then a

42:26

stream of pitches around that. And that's also

42:28

tremendously helpful. We haven't announced yet. We just

42:31

invest in a company based on a tweet that I

42:33

made a year ago about

42:35

fixing the American food system

42:37

because we saw vertical farming

42:40

boom and then crash

42:43

and there were parts of that business model made a ton

42:45

of sense a lot of other parts that didn't at least

42:47

for venture and I was desperate to figure out what the

42:49

next version of it was going to look like and I

42:51

think we found it we ended up investing in it and

42:53

it all tracked back to a tweet. So it's

42:55

a mix of things but Paramount

42:57

is surrounding ourselves with high output

42:59

high horsepower founders. There's

43:02

three aspects of what you do that have

43:04

come up in that thread. So one is

43:06

the tweet your social media presence. Another is

43:08

the sort of conviction and ideas

43:11

and then the last is founders. Maybe

43:14

start with this question of the idea

43:16

and the founder and how do you

43:18

think about the intersection of the two?

43:21

We have a deal tracker in Cerebro and

43:23

when a company goes to the pitch stage

43:25

anyone who is in that meeting gets

43:28

a notification that they need to go grade the founder.

43:31

They're grading the founder on a number of different criteria. The

43:34

most most most important one is

43:36

around the founders themselves. So some

43:38

personality traits that we look for then

43:41

there's the more standard stuff

43:43

around products market timing. Those

43:46

are all important. Oftentimes they're usually

43:48

just reflecting back on the founder.

43:51

If the product is poorly built or has no

43:53

taste. It's reflection on the founder. If

43:55

the market opportunity as presented to

43:58

us feels off or we're

44:00

gonna get 90% of the whole market audacious.

44:04

Again, it's a reflection of the founder. The timing

44:06

one is an interesting one because gosh, I mean,

44:08

I guess I was a victim to it with

44:10

my mobile menu. Obviously, smartphones have

44:12

solved the problem of ordering whether it's to

44:14

skip the line or just get delivery, but

44:17

the timing was off and I'd like to think I

44:19

was a good founder. I just got the timing wrong

44:21

and that's the one that can stymie a

44:23

company. We'll likely still invest because

44:26

it's something very hard to

44:28

time, especially when we're the literal first check

44:30

in a company. So it won't seem obvious

44:32

to the rest of the world for maybe

44:35

three to five years. That's part of the

44:37

fun, frankly. I'll tweet about investments I've made.

44:40

March of 2019, I am probably one

44:42

of the few people in the world,

44:44

certainly in venture tweeting that women's sports

44:46

was the most undervalued opportunity in the

44:48

world and I was gonna buy an NDB

44:50

sell team. I had so many people

44:52

tell me how wrong I was and how much money

44:54

I was gonna lose and Angel

44:56

City has done pretty well since that initial

44:59

check. This is part of the intuition

45:01

I want to build for the rest of the investment team was,

45:03

I mean, not as much experience as me, but a whole lot

45:05

of it is what we're

45:08

looking for in founders who are

45:10

capable of building these multi-billion dollar

45:12

companies. There are these traits that I

45:14

keep circling back on that seem to just be more

45:16

and more important as I reflect on them. I assume

45:18

you want to know what they are. So

45:22

at least one of the founders has to

45:24

be a good communicator and

45:26

that's not necessarily charismatic or can get

45:28

up on a stage and give a

45:30

TED talk. They need

45:33

to be able to one, understand

45:37

their idea, communicate it in a simple,

45:39

effective way and then also

45:41

just be able to synthesize what

45:43

is going on in the broader world and

45:45

then specifically who they're talking to

45:47

and be compelling. And so that

45:49

might be pitching us as investors

45:51

that might be getting

45:54

someone to quit their job to come work for them to

45:56

be one of the first 10 employees of a startup very

45:58

risky. It might be convincing. someone

46:00

to buy their

46:02

software. Maybe it's a B2B sales business and

46:05

at least one of the founders needs to

46:07

be a very compelling communicator. There's this je

46:09

ne sais quoi around it. There

46:11

are traits you look for. They're probably not using

46:14

a lot of jargon. They can speak plainly and

46:16

confidently about what they know and it's

46:18

such a nuanced thing but that one

46:20

seems to be over and over again

46:22

one of the clear differentiators. There's

46:25

another one around resilience that we look for

46:27

and again that's a hard one. You can't

46:30

ask someone, hey tell me your most resilient

46:32

time or are you resilient yes or no

46:34

but you look for things that they've built or

46:37

done in the past. This is gonna get hard.

46:39

Starting a startup, the moment you're meeting me, this

46:41

is literally your first check, there

46:43

are much better ways to spend the next

46:45

decade of your life if you

46:47

want to make money. I try to

46:49

talk people out of starting a startup all the

46:52

time. As much as I try to broadly encourage

46:54

people to consider starting a startup, I

46:56

also want to just say gut check, do not do

46:58

this for wealth. Do not do this

47:00

if you're just trying to make some money because

47:03

there's smarter ways to do it. Do this because

47:05

you lose sleep at night because this thing doesn't

47:07

exist and you want to bring it into the

47:09

world kicking and screaming knowing

47:12

that it will suck for extended

47:14

periods of time and you're gonna have to be

47:16

the one to pick yourself up. Don't even count

47:18

on your co-founders, don't even count on your investors,

47:20

don't even count on your friends and family. It

47:23

will be on you and if that is a

47:25

road you want to go down, if you want

47:27

to choose the glass and stare into the abyss,

47:29

then okay great, we need people like

47:31

you. But try to talk folks out of

47:34

it. So these are the elements that we look for and what's

47:36

so fun about

47:38

this gig is whether

47:40

it is a crypto

47:42

company or Mr.

47:45

Beast's company or whether it's

47:47

a space tech company or a climate tech

47:49

company, no matter

47:51

the sectors, those attributes

47:54

carry over from CEO to CEO

47:56

to CEO and it's fun because

47:58

these are not folks who are in Hurting someone

48:00

elses company? I don't think I could

48:03

do. Any other part

48:05

of this job of investing? well certainly

48:07

not nearly as well as I can

48:10

the early because it's a kind of

48:12

alchemy that I'm just looking for something

48:14

very different than Francis if I did

48:16

public market investing, Words. Either

48:19

entirely data driven, or maybe there's some other

48:21

magic to us. It's the alchemy

48:23

of early stage where you can literally

48:25

spend thirty minutes with a person who

48:27

has only an idea and say yes.

48:29

Actually, this can be a multi billion

48:31

dollar business and thank God for the

48:33

power loss. You have to be right.

48:36

Even half the time he owes me right once or

48:38

twice out of a fund. and. Some

48:40

great returns. A lot of

48:42

people are finding you with ideas.

48:45

Can be tied to this massive social

48:47

media following that you have on Twitter

48:50

on Instagram. How. Have you

48:52

thought about putting your time into those platforms

48:54

and what it takes to resonate and build

48:56

an audience? I have done

48:58

a terrible job building my audience and I know

49:00

you're going to be like well, but you've done

49:03

a pretty good job of it. I. Look

49:05

at full time content creators like Jimmy, my

49:07

friend Cleo Abrams. he's got a few million

49:09

and you'd sushi disease Amazing. Explain or is

49:11

about hard texts as cubs. You just true.

49:13

And so I see the work they do.

49:15

It is a literal full time job making

49:18

counter. Nina the said it's a lot and

49:20

if you want to do it well, yeah

49:22

to do the work gotta get the reps

49:24

him And so we're getting better Now in

49:26

part because I've got a team and are

49:28

not just scaling me for content or also

49:30

scaling my partners because this isn't just feel

49:33

like a shell. Haven't you know me?

49:35

I love software so I built more and more software

49:37

help us do this better. She professor. We've.

49:39

Built our own version of it

49:41

into cerebral and so this less

49:43

our content seem that but also

49:45

our founders go straight entire tweets

49:47

linked in posts for us. So

49:49

yeah, we're finding his efficiencies when

49:51

I can just get a push

49:53

notification be like oh, he's opposed

49:55

to reschedule to go home and

49:57

edits Jealous good me either smoke.

50:00

The pool sand. And. Again, creating

50:02

always efficiencies That also lets us report

50:04

back numbers, impressions, number of engagements, click

50:06

through rates of there's a link. We

50:08

also then just shipped an app called

50:11

Muse or really it's a feature within

50:13

Cerebral. Inspired. By Cameo

50:15

or Fourth Wall where our social

50:17

seem even our founders can. Basically.

50:20

Ask us for a Selsey video or audio

50:22

with a prompts just like he might pay

50:24

some seedless celebrity to make a birthday video

50:27

for you. Our Founders can do that are

50:29

a source of Seem, can as all get

50:31

a video that say hey let's talk about

50:33

Zealand Clark's record Nike deal on how it

50:35

affects the seizure of women's sports and I

50:38

get that prompt. I sit on the screen.

50:40

I recorded video and under a minute I

50:42

had send out. Think about it again and

50:44

whether it's a sounder who requested it or

50:46

are cops and Seem requested it, they get

50:48

it. They've already got a transcription. They've already

50:51

got a closed captioned they can. Now to

50:53

a few edits and Boom goes live on

50:55

social media. And so these are all tools

50:57

that we build Because we reach despain point,

50:59

we're doing the things so much and there's

51:02

so much friction in it that could be

51:04

solved with software that I'd put it on

51:06

the product roadmap. And this is fun because

51:08

I think concentration is only going to get

51:10

more important. We talked earlier about the Ai

51:13

ways. I. Think of the World and

51:15

barbells a lot. And so. As.

51:17

It gets easier and easier to

51:19

create a I generated content as

51:21

Cameo on us it taunts and it'll

51:23

be really good. but because of

51:25

that. New. Just imagine a

51:28

lot of this contents culturally will

51:30

get used to it. If

51:32

you tommy five years ago that we

51:34

would have a spidey sense for oh

51:36

that looks a I generated now. You

51:39

find it everywhere and social media their the

51:41

Devil Your Face book demo that is

51:43

getting duped on the daily which is hilarious.

51:46

Sites fiverr sophisticated reddit user you're like are

51:48

some little off so it's already entering the

51:50

culture. And. I think that other

51:52

side of the barbell were again proof

51:54

of humanity will really matter as inc

51:56

In a world it's can be awash

51:58

in content. Standing out

52:00

as human. almost. Intentionally

52:03

So is actually going to have more vice.

52:05

I think in a world with is just so

52:07

much that stuff and actually matters more to

52:09

be an original content creator. Build that following which

52:11

will let you break through the algorithm and

52:13

give people reason a princess what you're so. I

52:16

love to ask you about. One of

52:18

your investments on that other side

52:20

of the Barbell. Montgomery introduced us

52:22

and he partnered up with him

52:25

in dismantle collectibles business. How does

52:27

that said Into your view the

52:29

world. Well, a couple areas

52:31

obviously inspired a lot by Reddit six

52:33

years ago when I got back into

52:35

the hobby, were trading cards at first

52:37

and then game One. Collectibles, video games,

52:39

all the things. A. Buddy. Mine

52:41

was like. It's back

52:43

and if you want to know to latest

52:46

and greatest gifts check out this forum and

52:48

was like I was time traveling because he

52:50

was a P H P B B form

52:52

just like I built in two thousand and

52:54

four. Except now in the late teens

52:56

and I was shocked I was like surely there's

52:58

gotta be better communities for this like more modern

53:00

and he was like now this is it. And.

53:03

Other Okay, that's an opportunity. I. Given

53:05

seduced to Mister Maghaberry. He's.

53:08

Got his the back on Le Comte inside

53:10

Pawn Stars and we do in the Golden

53:12

Show so he knew sort out of hop

53:15

hop down, high quality media and consecration and

53:17

he already had a passion for collectibles. And

53:19

then I knew the bottom of beauty. See

53:21

we said look left partner on the saying

53:23

we'll start with you d C side. says.

53:26

And audible products. We can get that going

53:29

and in from that community will start to

53:31

see things that bubble up that will be

53:33

able to then take a top down approach

53:35

to make even better. and frankly this is

53:37

my I wanted to do it Read it

53:39

for very long time. We just had other

53:41

priorities were. Usury.

53:43

Concept to do an amazing job

53:46

servicing a novel idea, but. A.

53:48

Crowd cannot easily create that next step

53:50

of content. So sorry everyone knows from

53:52

a hobby is all those Mansell cards

53:55

at their tops Mass cards. I got

53:57

dumped in the ocean and she's an

53:59

example. Assume some users like a and

54:01

see anniversary of those cards being dumped in

54:03

the ocean and there's a thread. And

54:06

a bunch of the people in

54:08

the thread of vote something about

54:10

I really want to know from

54:12

that executives what they were thinking

54:14

and medicine matter single story but

54:16

imagine that That is where top

54:18

down content can actually go. And

54:21

sit down with this guy. an interview the

54:23

guy and actually made the piece of high

54:25

quality content that a bunch of random people

54:28

on the internet cannot easily make and so

54:30

we ask that question why a lot and

54:32

that for me is the lever where you

54:34

can have scale with you see and then

54:37

you can have the top down really amplify

54:39

and tell some the best stories than creep

54:41

is great flywheel and we got really lucked

54:44

out with amazing Ceo Evan and after the

54:46

races and so I'm excited. One proof of

54:48

humanity's vertical communities. I can show this is

54:50

where actual. Humans are coming to

54:52

talk about their actual passions combined

54:55

with. This renaissance of

54:57

alternative assets trading cards boomed

54:59

during Coven the obviously took

55:01

a big tag along with

55:03

Krypton always respected of things

55:05

after. But already have started marching

55:07

back and we're seeing record high options

55:09

for lot of a high and stuff

55:11

and I think as an asset classes

55:13

here to stay mentally. I keep it

55:15

in the same parr my brain as

55:17

art would have historically been, except art

55:19

is not nearly as culturally relevant as

55:21

these are the power of nostalgia and

55:23

the power of sports in particular. Again,

55:26

keep an eye towards when. My favorite Just

55:28

Basis goods is people don't ask often enough

55:30

what's gonna stay the same And ten years

55:32

there was asking what's going to change and

55:35

ten years and so keep an eye towards

55:37

ten years from now A I generated everything

55:39

is ubiquitous. What? Are the

55:41

scenes in the Pillars in Entertainment? They're gonna

55:43

matter more than ever. In a world where

55:45

every screen we look at will be perfectly

55:47

programmed for exactly what we want to see

55:49

when we want to see at the way

55:51

we want to see if. There.

55:54

Are Sean was of. entertainment is

55:56

in which regional television cinema diagram

55:58

a hard time A damn. The

56:00

this because it's a lotta really

56:02

good competition. Sports Sports will be

56:04

the one last place for traditional

56:07

entertainment where you are guaranteed to

56:09

feel the humanity no one will

56:11

want to watch robots play basketball.

56:14

Music. System the middle. My daughter still

56:16

don't want to go to Taylor Swift's

56:18

Cadets like a religious experience, but there's

56:20

plenty of artists that are going to

56:22

be displaced in different ways because it's

56:24

just not that special. The one hit

56:26

wonders they're going to our time. But

56:28

sports sports gonna thrice and you're still

56:31

gonna want to go to see the

56:33

next game even though you're no. you're

56:35

going to get your heart broken because

56:37

every screen in your life is giving

56:39

you this perfect digital dopa mean hit

56:41

and it's gonna be a surreal Jeffrey

56:43

A dystopian version. Of this and I'm

56:45

attack optimists. It's looking on the bright

56:47

side of where this goes. I do

56:49

think that will actually as a species

56:51

we will crave a break from their

56:53

digital dopamine drip because we didn't make

56:55

it this far to just be sedated

56:57

with exactly what we want when we

56:59

wanted. Some times where we were hunt

57:01

the gazelle we didn't get the gazelle

57:03

and it sucked. And then when we

57:05

finally got the gazelle, it was great. It tasted

57:08

better than ever. and so there's a version of

57:10

that that still needs to be said in us.

57:12

And that's where I think sports just continues. To

57:14

thrive. When. You're talking about

57:17

sports. I just have to ask

57:19

you. what? Have you weren't from

57:21

you or weiss? ah what? have

57:23

I learned? Well. He. Goes

57:26

without saying. I wouldn't

57:28

have tweeted that prosthetic tweet and

57:30

twenty nineteen about women's sports nor

57:32

what I think I have started

57:34

an easel city if I hadn't

57:37

seen first hand. That.

57:39

Women's Tennis in America. Was.

57:42

The dominant sport. So.

57:46

Look. I didn't follow tennis. I knew

57:48

who my wife was when we started

57:50

talking, but I've literally had never watched

57:52

a tennis match. I grew up in

57:55

a household where American football and a

57:57

foul specifically was the only sport that

57:59

mattered. Tennis. was a bullshit country

58:01

club sport. Sorry, dad. And

58:04

that's what I played, that's what we watched, that was it. But

58:06

I was obviously very aware of the Williams sisters culturally,

58:08

but I just had never watched tennis. I

58:11

watched my first match and I thought, oh,

58:14

this is amazing, I got this sport way wrong. Just

58:16

watching this thing courtside, like this sport is way harder than

58:19

I thought it was. And

58:21

way more exciting. And

58:23

I didn't even watch a men's match for a

58:25

year. And when I saw my first men's

58:27

match, I turned to my buddy

58:29

and I was like, dude, why

58:32

are they playing to five? That's

58:34

dumb. I was a

58:36

total neophyte coming into this. Here's an

58:38

NFL sports fan. I'm already pissed because the sport

58:40

won't let me cheer whenever I want to cheer.

58:43

Statistically, if you're

58:46

only playing the three max, each

58:48

point matters more, the stakes are

58:50

higher. So that was my first

58:52

impression of tennis. I was like, this is great,

58:54

every point matters. As soon as I'm sitting in

58:57

a match for us to five, I'm

58:59

looking at my watch and I'm like, but this

59:01

first one doesn't even really count. This is a

59:03

less compelling product than the women. But

59:06

then I started to see the

59:08

numbers of viewers here in the United States. And

59:10

you look, year after

59:12

year after year, more Americans watch

59:14

the US Open women's final, which

59:17

is the big American tennis match

59:20

than the men. And it doesn't matter.

59:22

There doesn't need to be a Williams sister in

59:24

it. There doesn't need to be an American. You

59:26

could watch two non-Americans this happened a couple of

59:29

years ago, went head to head with Djokovic, who

59:31

was chasing history. More Americans watch

59:33

the women. And so that

59:36

showed me, oh my God, it

59:38

took a lot. It took

59:40

Billie Jean fighting for pay equity. It

59:43

took generational talent in

59:45

Serena and Venus. And with

59:47

that true, true, true American excellence.

59:50

But all those things happened. And

59:53

as a result, because again, the

59:55

cash money started showing up for

59:57

the players as well. You

1:00:00

now had an opportunity where for

1:00:02

the United States of America women's

1:00:04

tennis was the top sport. Even

1:00:07

just being competitive with the men in pro sports

1:00:09

was unheard of. You couldn't find that anywhere

1:00:11

else. But it was enough of a proof point that I

1:00:13

said, okay, so if the

1:00:15

women of US soccer are excellent,

1:00:19

and even an average sports fan, again, I'd

1:00:21

never watched women's soccer before, never watched men

1:00:23

either. But if I close my eyes

1:00:25

and I was asked, think

1:00:27

of American soccer greatness, I

1:00:29

would think of Chastain, hitting that penalty

1:00:32

kick, I would think of Mia Hamm. I

1:00:34

was aware of Alex Morgan and Rapinoe, but I

1:00:36

was like, yeah, the women, because the American men

1:00:38

have never been great at soccer. And

1:00:41

I thought, okay, I can market greatness all day long. And

1:00:43

then I started looking at the stars of the league, and

1:00:45

I see Alex Morgan with all of her followers. And I'm

1:00:47

like, that's the free market of attention. And

1:00:50

there's millions and millions, tens of millions of people

1:00:52

paying attention to Alex Morgan. So she's

1:00:54

got to be worth more than at the

1:00:56

time, a team had just sold for $3 million. The

1:00:59

math doesn't math. And yes, I

1:01:01

had that confidence, full stop, because

1:01:04

of Serena. And what she was able to

1:01:06

do, set a bar and

1:01:08

open the door for women

1:01:11

athletes. Obviously, I've got two daughters. I

1:01:13

do care about the gender equity issue.

1:01:16

But I actually care much more about the fact that

1:01:18

the free market spoke loud and clear. And if you

1:01:20

look at the list of top earning athletes every year,

1:01:23

the only women are almost all tennis

1:01:25

players. That's the global impact

1:01:27

that Serena Venus had, that Billy Jean

1:01:29

had to level the playing field, get

1:01:31

equal investment. And

1:01:34

the excellence followed and fall out. People

1:01:36

want to watch that. And

1:01:38

so you're seeing it now. Kaitlin Clark is having that

1:01:40

moment. I think it's going to level up the W

1:01:42

in a huge way. And

1:01:45

what have you seen about how

1:01:47

that transcendent excellence of sports translates

1:01:49

to day to day life? It's

1:01:53

funny. I

1:01:56

see Serena as my

1:01:59

wife first. and that's

1:02:02

not to say she's not excellent. I hope

1:02:05

it's actually heartening to hear that

1:02:07

it's not literally every single

1:02:09

thing is excellence embodied. Whether

1:02:12

it's Serena or Tiger or

1:02:14

MJ, no actually they're kind

1:02:17

of normal, I mean they're not, they're exceptional

1:02:19

humans and what

1:02:21

is it they put on their pants one leg at a time

1:02:23

like the rest of us. Like there's actually something

1:02:26

really remarkable about the normalcy.

1:02:28

I think one of the

1:02:31

best parts of Serena's evolution and she would

1:02:33

say this, she has said this, is

1:02:35

that right now she gets to spend so much

1:02:37

time as a mom. She was just volunteering at

1:02:40

the book fair at Olympia School. My

1:02:42

childhood was obviously very different from hers.

1:02:44

At a very early age she had

1:02:47

to take on tremendous responsibility and do

1:02:49

incredible things. So this is

1:02:51

the first time she's really been able

1:02:53

to now have a normalcy that again

1:02:56

growing up I think most of us

1:02:58

that's just what we consider life but for her

1:03:00

is something that now she wants to be great

1:03:02

at and is great at and it's

1:03:04

awesome seeing her do that. One thing

1:03:06

I can say for sure though, regardless

1:03:09

of whether it's on the court or

1:03:11

off, she is the hardest critic on

1:03:14

herself and so that same

1:03:16

instinct that drove her to want to be

1:03:18

better, she always says there'd be no Serena

1:03:20

without Venus. She always

1:03:23

had to be a little better in order to

1:03:25

keep up with her big sis and

1:03:28

she applies that whether or not she's

1:03:30

making cinnamon rolls for the family or

1:03:34

just watching over our kids. She

1:03:36

really goes to 11 always. She wants to

1:03:39

be the best and she's so incredibly hard on herself and

1:03:41

I guess that's the other side of it too. No

1:03:43

one should assume to be

1:03:46

that great comes without tremendous

1:03:48

work, tremendous sacrifice, tremendous cost

1:03:51

and that's probably the other thing that

1:03:53

I think I see firsthand

1:03:56

and I think one of the reasons why early on

1:04:00

it worked as well

1:04:02

as it did for us because I

1:04:06

spent most of my life in relationships

1:04:08

where folks didn't fully understand why I

1:04:10

was the way I was and why

1:04:12

I worked the way I worked and

1:04:16

I found myself in a relationship with

1:04:18

someone who obviously didn't have any trouble

1:04:20

understanding and obviously was doing things on

1:04:22

just another level and so it

1:04:24

motivated me and it helped I think tremendously

1:04:26

to just be around someone who just was

1:04:29

operating on that frequency. A couple

1:04:31

quick closing questions we'll get you out here. What

1:04:33

is your favorite hobby or activity outside of work

1:04:35

and family? Those are

1:04:37

only two things I do. No, I have

1:04:39

a pancake art but that's technically family. I

1:04:42

do crepes on Saturday, I do pancake art

1:04:44

on Sunday, all on my socials.

1:04:47

I play helldivers too with my buddies every now

1:04:49

and then. My best friends are my guys since

1:04:51

I was five years old so they're still in

1:04:53

the group chat and we'll fire up discord and

1:04:55

we'll play helldivers once a week. I try

1:04:58

to get in a couple hours. I started playing

1:05:00

golf but again I do it just to play with my

1:05:02

daughter. I'm her caddy on Sundays and I'm trying to learn

1:05:04

as well and I just got

1:05:06

into making brisket. So I started smoking, got

1:05:09

a Traeger a few months ago and I do it

1:05:11

every Friday night now. I gotta say

1:05:13

I got a pretty good. Olympia randomly

1:05:15

loved brisket. We were in Austin once she

1:05:18

tried it. She loved it and I was

1:05:20

like great. My daughter loves a thing. Here's

1:05:22

an excuse to get a smoker. Now I'm

1:05:24

gonna go down the YouTube rabbit hole to

1:05:26

master Austin or Texas style brisket and now

1:05:28

I'm doing briskets and I've got my own

1:05:30

cow guy now. I'm in a total smoking

1:05:32

meats phase. What's one

1:05:34

fact that most people don't know about

1:05:36

you? I was getting my

1:05:38

coffee this morning and

1:05:41

the woman hands me the coffee and

1:05:43

she's like, are you Alexis?

1:05:46

And I was like yeah and

1:05:48

she was like Wow. She was like

1:05:50

say hi to Serena for me of course

1:05:52

and she's like you're a lot taller than

1:05:54

I thought you were and I was like

1:05:57

really? I get this so often so I

1:05:59

guess the summer. Hiding thing that I keep

1:06:01

hearing about as a people are surprised that

1:06:03

I'm six five but. Now you

1:06:05

know there's a surprising fact. What's

1:06:07

your biggest pet? peeves on investment

1:06:09

such? Biggest. Pet

1:06:11

Peeve is. While. It's

1:06:13

my alpha is the fact that. Very

1:06:16

very very few people in this industry

1:06:19

are building venture firms like technology companies

1:06:21

and yet we all talk all day

1:06:23

long about how we invest in technology

1:06:26

companies disrupting antiquated industries. Well, I've got

1:06:28

an antiquated industry for years com Venture

1:06:30

Capital and I know in the grand

1:06:32

scheme of things that the oldest, but

1:06:35

it's still antiquated if the best technology

1:06:37

people have is some rudimentary Crm and.

1:06:40

What? Air table so. At.

1:06:43

My pet peeve. Which to people

1:06:45

have had the biggest impact on your professional?

1:06:47

Nice. Also Zealand holloway who

1:06:50

were to now almost a decade since

1:06:52

the Reddit turn around now some some

1:06:54

six a. Gonna

1:06:57

sound like a shameless plug. But

1:06:59

I made a donation to Robin

1:07:01

Hood. Sound Asian here New York

1:07:04

and Pulse you to Jones has

1:07:06

really been just. Awesome

1:07:08

And he's certainly open my eyes to

1:07:10

what a really high functioning foundation could

1:07:13

look and operate like. And I have

1:07:15

my little baby Seven Seven Six Foundation.

1:07:17

Not on the Robin Hood skill yet,

1:07:20

but it has really opened my eyes

1:07:22

to it. I know you asked about

1:07:24

professionally, but I'm gonna include the slant to

1:07:26

be part because I really want that to

1:07:28

be a big part of my legacy and

1:07:31

I do for profit venture capital work. We're

1:07:33

trying to maximize returns and I want to

1:07:35

do so in a way that my kids

1:07:37

would be proud of me for. Attic for

1:07:39

Track and well, there. And. I also

1:07:41

think that a lot of the same

1:07:43

attributes of entrepreneurship can be applied to

1:07:46

slam to Be and certainly the way

1:07:48

we've given out some at twenty million

1:07:50

in com a grants of input not

1:07:52

every year. With. a global cases all

1:07:55

over the world psych twenty on people given

1:07:57

hundred thousand dollars each and just sick of

1:07:59

build on something. If I

1:08:01

can use these muscles that I've exercised

1:08:04

around early stage investing and building companies

1:08:06

to help a whole other generation entrepreneurs do great

1:08:08

things to help make the world suck a little

1:08:10

less, that's a win. What's

1:08:12

the best advice you've ever received? My

1:08:15

mom told me that I

1:08:17

should never live my life for

1:08:21

what I think

1:08:23

she or my dad want. What

1:08:26

she said was specifically she was like, you're going to

1:08:28

make me proud as long

1:08:30

as you are living your life and

1:08:33

as long as you are doing what you feel

1:08:35

is right for you, I'm going to be proud of you. I

1:08:37

don't care about what the details are, I just

1:08:40

know that's what's going to make me

1:08:42

most proud and I can see you doing it and

1:08:44

keep doing it. And it's wild because I've come

1:08:46

to meet so many people whose

1:08:49

parents for whatever reasons were

1:08:51

much more prescriptive like, oh, you got to get a job

1:08:53

here. You got to do this, you got to do that.

1:08:55

And I feel like one of the most liberating things that

1:08:57

she did, which maybe that

1:09:00

was part of her master plan. Even while I

1:09:02

was going down the road of something very prescriptive

1:09:04

like go be a lawyer, she just kept reminding

1:09:06

me, do you find whatever it is that you

1:09:09

want to be great at and then go do it the

1:09:11

best you can. I didn't realize at the time how

1:09:13

special that was and I feel like I've had that

1:09:15

echoing in my ear ever since and now as a

1:09:17

father, I'm going to have a six year old, but

1:09:20

Olympia comes to me and her

1:09:22

mom with a new thing she

1:09:24

wants to do when she grows up probably every

1:09:26

week. Right now it's a fashion designer. Last

1:09:29

week it was a model. One week it was

1:09:31

a diva. Then it was a

1:09:33

veterinarian before that. Actually, no tennis player. As

1:09:35

of yesterday, now she wants to be a

1:09:37

tennis player, but I try to carry my

1:09:39

mom's message forward even though she's not here,

1:09:41

which is just look, the only promise you

1:09:43

have to make to us is that whatever

1:09:45

you do, you've got to just

1:09:48

do your best at it. Do something you truly want

1:09:50

to do. Hopefully it will be useful in the world

1:09:53

with something and we'll support you and

1:09:55

we'll love you for wish

1:10:00

you knew a lot earlier in life. I'll

1:10:02

give you the one that I learned in my 20s. Actually, I

1:10:04

don't wish I learned it earlier but I'll still take

1:10:06

it. The greatest gift that

1:10:08

I got seeing my mom struggle and

1:10:11

fight brain cancer was here I was

1:10:14

in my early 20s feeling invincible

1:10:16

starting a company. Oh, look, I'm a CEO

1:10:19

and I saw firsthand what someone cares

1:10:21

about when they've

1:10:23

got a few years to live. So

1:10:25

even as I came into early wealth, as I came

1:10:27

in all this stuff, I never got it twisted because

1:10:30

I can tell you spoiler, the

1:10:33

only thing you're going to care about if God willing

1:10:35

you get a long and healthy life to look back

1:10:37

on is the people that you spent it with and

1:10:39

that you love and the experiences you had with them

1:10:41

and those memories and hopefully those people are still there

1:10:43

with you and that's it. And

1:10:45

what was the best part of

1:10:47

a really hard time was seeing her live

1:10:50

that out every single day. I made

1:10:52

that money. I knew what I was going to

1:10:54

get my dad. My dad, we had a couple

1:10:56

of nosebleeds season tickets for the Washington commanders now

1:10:59

and I upgraded him. I got us four tickets

1:11:01

and we're front row. So my two friends would come.

1:11:03

I didn't miss a game for 10 years. And so

1:11:05

that was I knew what my dad wanted. And I asked my

1:11:07

mom, I was like, what do you want? She's like,

1:11:09

I don't want anything. I was like, come on, you should want something.

1:11:11

She's like, I don't want anything. Every

1:11:13

week I'd call be like, come on, mom, let me get you

1:11:15

something. Every week, nothing, nothing, nothing. And finally she's like, okay, look,

1:11:17

you're going to keep calling me. Just make

1:11:20

a donation. This is a nonprofit that I love

1:11:22

that works with dogs and shelter pets. And I

1:11:24

was just like, really? It wasn't a billionaire, but

1:11:26

I made a lot of money here at 22

1:11:28

years old. I'm like, mom, I'll get you something.

1:11:30

Didn't want a thing. And for all

1:11:32

those years that she had left fighting, the only things

1:11:35

that mattered to her were the time that we could

1:11:37

spend together. And thankfully she got to spend a ton

1:11:39

of time with my dad, a ton of time with

1:11:41

me. And yeah, so

1:11:43

that's the cheat code. And so sitting here

1:11:45

at 40, I still feel as

1:11:48

ambitious as ever in my professional career. And

1:11:52

I know that so much of what I'm doing

1:11:54

now is hopefully part of some bigger picture that

1:11:56

I get to paint for my two kids and

1:11:58

the friends I have. And I still have to

1:12:01

remind myself to put the phone away. Trust

1:12:03

me, I'm not perfect at this, but I've really tried

1:12:05

to create some hard and fast rules, especially while my

1:12:07

kids are still young, to make sure

1:12:09

that they know I'm there, I'm engaged, creating

1:12:12

those core memories. And I

1:12:14

just know none of this is for anything

1:12:16

else other than the legacy I'm leaving them with. Hopefully

1:12:19

time well spent and a dad

1:12:21

who's got a job that he cares about and

1:12:23

a job with purpose. I want them to

1:12:25

see me work and I don't want them to see me not. And I frankly,

1:12:27

I don't think I'd last too long just

1:12:30

sitting around. Like I said, it's all thanks

1:12:32

to her. And as I've gotten to know

1:12:34

other folks who have gone through similar things, it's been

1:12:36

eye opening to, to see this as a recurring

1:12:39

pattern. And so every bit that

1:12:41

I can do to try to make that time count

1:12:43

with my close friends, my loved ones is hopefully honoring

1:12:45

that. Lexis, thanks so

1:12:47

much for sharing your story and this exciting path

1:12:50

for Alma 776. I've

1:12:52

listened to a few of your pods. They're not normally

1:12:54

this heavy and philosophical, man, but I'm glad I could

1:12:56

do it. Thanks

1:12:58

bud. Thanks for listening to

1:13:00

the show. To learn more,

1:13:03

hop on our website at capitalallocators.com

1:13:05

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1:13:19

good one and see you next time. Bye.