Hemant Taneja - Engineering Global Resilience - [Invest Like the Best, EP.382]

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1:29 My guest today is Haman Taneja. Haman is the CEO and managing director of General Catalyst, the global venture capital firm you'll hear us refer to as GC, which oversees nearly thirty billion dollars. GC has set out to build resiliency across critical industries worldwide. The firm leverages technology to retool sectors such as healthcare, energy, defense, and manufacturing, and explores innovative capital structures to support founders and businesses. Amont discusses how the firm is positioned to respond to the aftermath of crises. Including the pandemic, wars, energy issues, and beyond.

2:01 We also discussed the building of a category defining healthcare company, Lavongo, and much more. Please enjoy this conversation with Hamont Tanija. I always like to start somewhere that is energizing the person, things they're thinking about. We were just talking about this. I think it's a great place to begin. Can you describe this concept of your and your firm's role enabling global resilience sort of in the aftermath of the pandemic and lots of what's changed in the world.

2:28 And why that through line is such a key idea for how you spend your time and energy. If you think about The crisis after crisis we have dealt with over the last five or six years, the pandemic, the wars. the financial markets, the energy crisis. And you think about the

2:44 climate that we have in different nations because of the rising nationalist interests. Our whole belief is that a huge wave of innovation is about bringing resiliency to nations. What does that mean in terms of critical industries like healthcare? If you are a country today, are you really gonna rely on the United States? For the vaccines for the next pandemic, where you're gonna really prepare yourself to build your own capability, same thing around energy independence.

3:09 Defense. All the critical industries. Our goal has been to think about How do we retool ourselves? as the firm that leverages technology to create new businesses to rise up to that occasion and be good partners in driving that kind of resiliency for the nations.

3:26 Where does that manifest most immediately? Like healthcare's a great example, obviously, because what we all just lived through in the last four or five years, but what are other areas that you feel like That sense of nationalism, that sense of self reliance. nation level resilience. Need. the most investment and work.

3:44 Where's it meet with opportunity? There's a few industries where that dynamic is playing out as we discuss, healthcare is one, energy. Is a huge one. If you think about defense.

3:55 There's a lot going on there. And then also there is this whole idea of reglobalization around manufacturing. In the last thirty, forty years where every nation, every business was focused on globalization. You always focus on going and moving and manufacturing a lot of the other core functions.

4:12 to China and places where there was labor arbitrage and you could take advantage of cost efficiencies. Now I think as there's a decoupling of the two worlds and there's the US, Europe, India. technology ecosystem coalescing and there's the China plus its affiliates. What you're seeing is there's a re globalization of those supply chains as well. So manufacturing is another area. where that is taking hold and we're thinking a lot about how do we enable

4:36 These resilient supply chains. in the markets that are of interest to us. One of the most wild things and interesting things I've seen you and the firm do is on the healthcare side, thinking about it. through the lens of controlling an entire healthcare system and then trying to innovate within that thing. Can you talk about that grand idea in as much detail as you can? Like I'm fascinated by

4:55 Where the idea came from, what you've done so far, what you intend to do. And whether this could be like a model for New kinds of innovation. Yeah. So look. The work we're doing in healthcare is a twenty year overnight success.

5:08 In two thousand five, I got a call from Partners Healthcare. somebody there who said, Hey, we have these electronic medical records and we're trying to figure out what to do with this information. And my first question was, What is an electronic medical record?'Cause I knew nothing about healthcare at that time. So Actually hired a friend of mine who's a physician. She walked me through how to read these things. And I was like, wow, there's a lot to be doing there.

5:30 That whole thought process led to building the first company that we incubated in the healthcare space. Where we were basically aggregating these records to improve quality of care in hospitals. That taught me how siloed the healthcare world was from the technology world and how in a lot of ways We were building technology. Completely backwards.

5:49 The impact of technology in healthcare was it actually created Less efficiency. And to counter for that, the health systems have to create more jobs, you know, which is the antithesis of what technology does it brings productivity. In an industry. I sort of became a lot more intentional from that. After selling that business, I teamed up with

6:08 Glenn Tolman, who was a very successful founder in the healthcare business. He was retiring from Oscripts and I said, Hey Let's take a shot at building a company that truly is culturally At the intersection of technology and healthcare.

6:20 All ring the technology expertise. You bring the healthcare expertise and let's go Take a shot at a problem. That thought process led to the creation of the long book. And we built what ended up becoming a category defining company.

6:33 Taking care of consumers with chronic conditions. We came up with a business model that scaled by selling through employers, because they're rational economic buyers. And as you know, most of healthcare is not. A free market. So we found this pocket where you could actually build a business. Built a product that had an NPS better than Apple at that time.

6:50 took the company public in twenty nineteen, sold it in twenty twenty four eighteen billion. That gave us a playbook for thinking about hey we can actually create this radical collaboration between technology and healthcare and solve problems in the industry. So rather than thinking about ourselves as

7:06 Let's go disrupt healthcare. We're gonna team up with the folks that really know a lot about it, have empathy for it, and we'll go take a shot at it. While building the vongo I started applying this idea of radical collaboration, went around to a bunch of health system CEOs and they said, Hey

7:22 The technology that we have created is unsurmountable. We really need to build a software company. That's truly in service of your needs. And I would love to have three partners that Kind of want that to be their legacy. If you want a vendor to solve this problem, they'll come to you in a few years. But if you really want it to be your legacy, then come join me.

7:39 And I had Steve Clasco, who's now actually at G C, who is the C of Jefferson Hell. And a couple other CEOs sign on. And we started this company called Commure. Where we went down this path of let's really build

7:51 A software stack, which is truly dedicated to healthcare. And then What happened in twenty nineteen? We were actually presenting internally a plan because I was seeing Comir being successful. I saw the Bongo being very successful. I told our partners I think we crack the code. I think we know how to build finally build businesses in this industry that can be at scale with technology.

8:10 And we should put twenty percent of our capital in the next ten years in healthcare. I wrote a book about it. We're gonna publish it in November. And guess what happened in twenty nineteen? Covet happened. So talk about having a prepared mind and therefore the opportunity to turn a crisis into an opportunity, we just fully leaned in. We went to our LPs, we went to health systems, we raised a health care fund.

8:31 And we put down this whole thesis around health assurance that I published to receive Glasgow as a manifesto. Since then we've basically been focused on a core thesis. That healthcare should be proactive, affordable, and accessible. And in order to do that, we have to make our health institutions, our health systems Better businesses.

8:51 And so a lot of what we have done since then has been With the belief that We need to deliver health assurance. We need to help these hospitals become better businesses and we need an ecosystem of companies that are required to actually go do that. And I said that in my book as well.

9:06 So we started a bunch of companies. We invested in a bunch of other great founders. And then we went and partnered. Wait now over twenty health systems. Almost fifteen percent of US healthcare system

9:19 We're working with their C suite on how do you really think about technology innovation and transforming the industry. We also decided, as you mentioned to go and acquire one of the hell systems ourselves. Partner with the community. And actually create a center of excellence that can be a blueprint for

9:36 All of the United States. And then also for the rest of the world on how we really should create proactive, affordable, accessible healthcare. I have a dumb question. Can you just define what a health system is for us?

9:48 The thing you bought. What are the component parts? of the health system so that I could then ask some questions about Okay, cool. Now you control one. You don't have to worry about decisions they make because you control the thing. So you can start really pulling the levers. So what is a health system? Like how should people think about What that contains and doesn't.

10:06 You have these acute hospitals. So if you need to have surgery or you've got cancer, you go and get these complex treatments. And then you have these outpatient procedures where you can actually go get an outpatient procedure on even a knee surgery, you can go urgent care, all the things that we deal with. And what has happened is you have these systems that End up. aggregating the acute care hospitals, building sort of this primary care, urgent care, outpatient.

10:32 Services model around it. And the way our system works for the most part is insurance companies Are the ones that end up paying. For the services that these systems deliver.

10:43 So there's this model where there's a misalignment where Health systems to combination of outpatient, inpatient. in a volume based system are literally incentive to have heads in beds. The more sick people, the more money they make. Insurance companies

10:59 want people to not be sick'cause then they get the premiums that they don't have to have a cost. So the who pays who benefits is fundamentally misaligned in our system and its volume base. So what some of the health systems have also started doing to say is hey, what if we took our own risk? We should have our own insurance company. So that we can actually fundamentally do what's called value based care.

11:18 More effectively. And uh keep people healthy and actually get paid for keeping people healthy. The US healthcare system. Pays you for people being sick. And what the consumer actually wants, if you sort of think about our orientation entrepreneur, is consumer wants to be healthy.

11:33 And so how do we orient the system there? And the key is to have a model where the entity that's providing the care is also taking risk. And our health systems are too weak. to actually be able to do that. They don't have the capital base, they don't have the expertise. There are so many problems operationally

11:50 With these systems. That's where we thought, Hey, what step in? And I've actually said before the Amazon of healthcare. that sort of can be the type transformative companies, not a trillion dollar company, but a trillion dollar ecosystem. Because The healthcare problem is way too big for any one company.

12:05 So how do we actually create an ecosystem of companies that can then go and help these Healt systems, as I described in just now. become much more vibrant and actually have the ability to deliver health. versus being incented to entirely focus on Delivering sick care.

12:22 Could you give an example of this notion of taking risk and why that's such a key component of a healthier Instead of chain. Take Kaiser. Kaiser is the ultimate example. I thought it was a health plan.

12:33 And do you go to Kaiser's Primary care services. And so now The way in theory I don't think it works perfectly and they have their own set of challenges, but in theory When you go see a physician that's in the Kaiser Network

12:46 Their whole job is to keep you out of the hospital. 'Cause Kaiser Health Plan is ultimately responsible for covering the costs. Of the patient. So if Kaiser's seeing you as a patient and also uh getting paid as a health plan. They're not motivated to have you enter the hospital. They don't want you to enter the hospital.

13:02 So they'll do all the things to keep you healthy and invest in those things versus Hey you're sick. Welcome to us, so now we can make Revenue off of it. So I think that's why Payers and providers kind of converging and becoming payviders.

13:15 Is ultimately what will create a rational economic behavior in this space. So it's United United has in some ways the largest delivery system attached to a called optimum, they own it. And so now they have the risk and they have the delivery mechanism and The question is can you also help health systems do the same on the reverse order?

13:33 So that on the other side of it you have These systems that can truly focus on keeping people healthy, sort of being value based, if you will. Can we talk about the steps you've taken

13:43 as the leader of G to reimagine like the structure of the investing business itself. And what evolutions are necessary that you've done so far or will do in the future. that position you as a big investing firm to tackle these kinds of challenges'cause like This is very different stuff than writing a million dollar seed check into a company. buying a health system or doing much bigger moves with more capital

14:07 I'm sure requires like a different way of thinking about the firm. So I'd let me just riff on The future of private investing and Your origins and how it's evolved. Look, twenty Plus years ago when I got in the investment business

14:20 We were essentially funding companies that deliver software to make us efficient in some way. And when After two thousand seven when social mobile cloud Transmanifested themselves. We started doing this digital transformation of society.

14:34 We went from building software for doctors to building healthcare service companies. We built from building software for insurance to building insurance companies. So the scope changed. Now say they're like Two

14:46 Companies that have had a profound Impact on me. In how we thought about the evolution of the former, we'd probably strike And uh Lugongo. So when I moved to the Bay Area'cause David and Joel, the founders of the firm, asked me

14:58 To go Take a shot at building us in the valley. But the very first investment, as luck would have it, I ended up seeding was stripe because I just thought John and Patrick were amazing. I knew nothing about payments, total luck. But I got to see by watching them. was

15:13 A Gee's what? the operational excellence with which we build a business. And I thought a lot about how we would apply that to ourselves. business that are the worst run, or used to be the worst run, at least. And we're like, how do you be operationally ex in ourselves?

15:27 Second thing was just watching the scope of what they were doing. was boy, this company has infinite runway. The venture business at that time largely was Invest in the company or lead? You hope it goes public for a billion dollars. If you own twenty percent you make

15:42 Couple hundred million bucks to return your fund and you're a genius. You do that once in your lifetime, you're lucky, you do that twice, you're good, you do that three times, you're legendary. That's what the business was. And then also you look at Stripe which

15:55 We invest in twenty ten. I've invested in it fourteen times. Including A very large investment. In this last round and we double down when Covet happened. And

16:05 The belief was well, there's infinite amount for this company to do. So if we're actually going to be good partners to them. How do we need to change to actually have both the capital solutions? And the kind of governance it takes to build companies that do execution of that skill. So that was about value creation maximization, profit maximization, and just hey, we just got to change. That was sort of an interesting thing.

16:30 In parallel As I mentioned, I was starting to build Libango in twenty thirteen. We launched it in twenty fourteen. And that company All of a sudden we're like, wow, we're taking care of people's lives. And this thing is first of all only gonna scale if it improves health. It's gotta have real

16:45 Purpose and impact. It's only gonna scale if we can actually take costs out of the system, going back to my health insurance thesis of Affordability. And it's also a very large market. We have thirty five million people in United.

16:58 states that have diabetes and other chronic conditions Hundreds of millions worldwide. So that's an infinite market too. So we could actually be company for a long time. So seeing these companies build And

17:10 I'll tell you in like twenty nineteen when we took Libongo public. And then in twenty twenty we sold the business. We sold it for like eighteen and a half billion. And that day I had an incredible buyers remorse. I was like, wow, we created a lot of value in the short term. We made billions of dollars for our investors, who were the largest shareholder. But what would have happened if in serving only half a million people we're actually serving ten million people and we kept doing this?

17:33 And what would have happened if we had kept a relationship with all the employers we signed on and convinced them to deliver health this way with this business model to their employees. We would have built done something much more profound from an impact perspective and also maximized return. So the third process was If you want to build an enduring company, you have to think about it on a much longer horizon.

17:54 Than we're used to. Yeah, to think about A capital basis that is Much larger and much more differentiated. And we can come back to that as well. And you need to think about doing it in a way that the products are fundamentally in the interest of society.

18:07 So purpose and profit are not either or, but you gotta align them. And so just watching these companies and others that are in our portfolio like that. Gusto and Airbnb and others. That we worked with It just became

18:20 clear us to us that the opportunities was far greater than what venture used to do. And with our mindset,'cause we also build companies who are as much builders as investors. We just wanted to make sure we were building an enduring firm. That could AB there for our founders for the long term. So we had to change ourselves in the way we run ourselves.

18:39 And B, we had to build with a different playbook that really focused on this whole idea of profit and purpose. I have a million questions about all this'cause I think it's so interesting how you refactored the whole thing. Maybe let's just start with like the way the firm GC works. What is most different about it today in twenty twenty four versus ten years ago or something like that. Like if I was to step in one day and a decade later, like what are the biggest changes that I would notice just about the firm itself.

19:07 Maybe I'll start with a story. In twenty fourteen, ten years ago, to your point. I went to go visit David and Joel in Boss and And I said, Look. I think the world's changing in this industry.

19:18 And I've also got a lot more confidence that I can be a decent investor because I was completely unproven when I came to the Bay Area. In twenty eleven. And I'd love to know what you want to do with a firm. But I'm gonna build something that's gonna be

19:32 fairly different given what I see the opportunity is said to be changing. But it's your firm and I'm happy to Help. think about a proper transition over a couple of years and go do something or If you guys are open to building something I'd love to build. But out of respect, I wanted to ask them.

19:47 To my Positive surprise anyone. blank. They were like, no, let's go build. And they're entrepreneurs, right? Or GC started out as entrepreneurs helping in entrepreneurs. We decided okay. Great, but what does that mean? We need to turn it ourselves into a well run business and we know nothing about it.

20:03 Then we brought on Ken Shenhault. To come be a chairman and a lot of people were like, Jeez. Somebody retiring from running a Fortune five hundred company after eighteen years to come start doing venture, what does that mean? And I think now it's pretty clear. It really was about building a technology platform that could have a great impact on society. And by the way, he's also made some great investments.

20:22 And then we just went down this path. We did a Very intentional. Succession to going from a partnership to me sort of taking on as a CEO. The firm never had a CEO before and It was important for us to

20:34 make that transition'cause we were going to be a company and an investment firm. So we sort of thought about what is the culture. That builds an enduring firm. It needed to run with the rigor of Any other company?

20:45 And let's take inspiration from somebody like Stripe and others. And it also needed to Protect is magic where you were really backing conviction of a few people versus consensus in some process. And so we designed ourselves to be able to do that. We also

21:02 thought that the goal is gonna be about transforming industries. It's not about just going and chasing deals, so you become a lot more intentional. From being serendipitous in the beginning. And so that required us to have people that are deeply, deeply entrepreneurial and have a change in the world they want to create.

21:20 Also as entrepreneurs, they're sort of saying, Hey, we have capital We have these amazing community of founders that we work with, and what's the theory of change around which we want to build towards together? So that became an interesting sort of cultural evolution of the firm. And then The other thing we talked a lot about is like what are the capital solutions required to help founders

21:42 really build companies in this next generation. So then we started thinking about the various pools of capital. So today The way firm runs is We have A set of partners that all have

21:54 These deep views on sectors and geographies and the chain they want to create. And we have a set of partners that are fiduciaries for these different capital solutions. That are required. From a company building standpoint. And we all act.

22:07 As one team. We all share in the same economics. We all get together once a week. It sort of maintains that sort of spirit of the partnership. But then we go off and really run. We have OKRs and we have goals and we have budgets and Everybody's got responsibility of part of the firm that they're running.

22:22 When Ken joined from American Express. That was his prior stop before coming to G C. What were the most tangible things that you remember him doing or installing that changed the way the business ran? So many. Uh for first thing that was amazing was we

22:38 We had dinner in Cambridge with David, Joel, Ken, and me. Right after he started And it was like such a pressure comment. He said, I think I know why I'm here. I'm here to take the firm the two of you. And create succession to him.

22:50 And I wanna just tell you guys it's gonna be very messy because change is messy. And I was like, I don't even know what that means. And I wasn't even uncomfortable about even the idea of there's a succession'cause we've done this together for like So long Since pretty much the firm started. But that was like a very interesting journey that he sort of set us on and we're all One big family after that messy

23:10 Succession. So that was one. The other thing he helped us do, he said we really need to do a mission and values exercise. So think about it, eighteen years into its existence, we did what a company typically does at the beginning. This goes back to like it's just this next phase of going from completely serendipitous to being much more intentional. So we did that. We had this beautiful set of values that were created.

23:30 out of that exercise by somebody can had work a lot with Jennifer Zimmerman and then she came on to be our CMO. So we did that. Then he asked me to run a three year strategy. for the firm. And that's when I was able to take a step back and think about what we're really building. What is the culture gonna be?

23:47 This whole sort of duality of partnership in a company. And also There were some design principles that We agreed on but which I Took on the

23:56 Orchestration of the platform build, one of those Is Venture actually does not scale. So if you think about The last thirty years of venture capital is this according to Bubbles happen, funds get bigger.

24:08 Well those collapse funds get smaller. the good firms stay on and once in a while there's a new firm, but it's just been kind of like this thing happening going back and forth because But having more money. You can't manufacture more outliers and all the return is in the outliers. So one of the things was like, Well, you know what, we actually shouldn't be thinking about scaling

24:25 How much capital to deploy and venture. But then the conflict is, but then we wanna have all this great change. We wanna drive transformations in these industries. You can't do that with small venture funds. So what else do we need? We started sort of thinking about building those products. It's been a remarkable journey and then

24:41 The more we sort of Put that viewpoint out. These amazing entrepreneurial people That are Hoping to create the change in these theses decided to be like, hey, we want to come work with you guys, come work at GC. So I think it became clear to flywheel of talent.

24:55 But now I feel like we can go tackle any interesting problems because we have such amazing bandwidth with these people that all want to run these directions and be entrepreneurial. Could succession, successful succession in asset management businesses is incredibly rare. It's really fraught. It's really hard to do. You called it messy.

25:13 What was the messiest part of it? Why do you think it's the case that It's just so rare that good succession happens. You've managed it. So what was messy and what were the keys to making it happen? When we move to the Bay Area, let me start there. I do think that's an important

25:28 Insight into why this transition Worked really well. We talked to a lot of firms that move from the east to the west. to try to become a Silicon Valley firm and most of them failed. And they all had a common pattern to them.

25:41 The pattern was They would go And essentially hire a couple of young people in the valley. Give them some agency and see if they can perform. What we did instead was we literally took everybody we were developing in Boston and sent them three thousand miles away.

25:56 I said we'd rather replicate trust. And they can go build a community themselves. So that the firm is intact. Our LPs were super mad at us. They said this firm is over.

26:07 Because if Aimant and others We're successful, they're gonna split. If they failed, you're gonna cut off, but now you have nobody left. to make the firm endure in Boston. So they were really concerned.

26:18 Well they underestimated the power of that trust. And then when Ken came, his whole criteria was I want to be part of a team that I can deeply trust. Yeah, I think first thing is like the sort of foundational trusting was really important. The other thing is look, our succession isn't really a traditional succession because I've been there since two thousand and two. The firm's already in two thousand, so it's just really I happened to be fifteen years younger. And I've got that runway so we can actually have as luck would have it, we have a bridge.

26:43 to really do the succession that's gonna come after me, which would Ken and I talk a lot about'cause I wanna get that right now. To make sure we are able to do that. When the time is right. And then I think the messy part, boy, think about it. We were changing the firm in such large ways. I mean, David and Joel were Predominantly early stage investors were like

27:03 I remember when I in twenty sixteen when I said, Hey, let's lead Stripes round at nine billion. They were like, What are you talking about? And it was sort of this conversation of how does that even make sense? I was like, No, I think there's gonna be a hundred million dollar company and Those are strange words to come out of your mouth. Right, but we just had conviction and they obviously great partners there. We went along with it. But like we stretched in all these directions. And we said, let's go build this health practice that's not quite just venture investing, but we're gonna do all these things.

27:28 And oh, by the way, we're now gonna have a CEO where we had this deep belief that there was only four or five of us around the table as a partnership. So like so many changes that they had to get comfortable with. In the process of letting go And thinking about hey, this is our baby and is this gonna endure and thrive or what's going on? That creates anxiety.

27:46 Very understandable, but Again goes back to that trust and confidence. It's never been that complicated or acrimonious ever in our conversation, but these are like real things we should be talking about. And I do think as luck would have it.

27:59 some of the decisions we ended up making in the valley really worked out. Some of the scroll investing we did really work out. Some of the hatching with it of companies worked out and so That also got them more comfortable. So I think it's been a very good process because to me, in the end, did that trust and the relationships really preserve and we still all get together. I'll call Joel, who's now

28:20 retired from being on the management company all the time because I'm just used to it because it's been plus years of thinking through complex things together. And we'll even joke about the things that used to orchest each other all the time. It's exactly where you want to end up. There's trust, there's agency to like do things differently and take them in different directions, but

28:37 Do you protect the core of the values of the farm? And that's something I am very protective of. We don't want to lose the institutional knowledge. We don't want to lose the history of how the firm guard to where it is. And preserve the core values, especially around creativity and relationships.

28:52 In the way and and the generosity of spirit. If you read our guys Every time I read those words. Like, yep, that's us. I love that idea. I think Ravi Gupta from Sequoia is the first one to introduce me to it, that Amazon has its fourteen values, but if you really pressed Bezos on it, the customer obsession would be the one that he stuck with. If I did the same pressing of you on your values, what do you think would be the last one that you held on to?

29:15 relationships. It's all of our relationships. When I think about our business It's the relationship with the founders. It's the relationship with those industries that we want to change. It's a relationship with the government. And sort of having collaboration. So it really is about this radical collaboration.

29:30 And relationships persevere because there's mutual respect, there's transparency. And there's like real collaboration, and we take a lot of pride in Being genuine about that everybody would do the business with. That's the last thing that'll go. I'm sure that the answer to the next question flows the relationship thing, but I'm fascinated to learn the story of how

29:50 These new and different capital solutions came to be. How did you learn on top of just a traditional like pool of a couple hundred million bucks to make early stage investments or whatever. How did you layer on

30:02 other things with LPs. How did you learn from them? How did you form capital, you know, in new unique and interesting ways and learn how to deploy it? Talk me through that evolution and the role the relationships played in that. So look, I'm the C of the firm. You could probably say I Play the role of the CIO.

30:18 The one that gives me the most energy is actually being the chief product officer of the firm. And really thinking about what do the founders need. To Drive the creation of these enduring companies and these industry transformations, which is the ultimate goal in a lot of ways.

30:32 And so for that, obviously first we have to think about the capital base and the governance models. As we said, these things are much bigger markets, much more responsibility. So how do we evolve around that? And then I think There's this whole idea that equity as the only Liver.

30:47 for how we build these companies may not make sense. For unstructured risk, we're building a product It makes a lot of sense, but when you think about sales and marketing And how do we drive growth in a business? Is it really in the founders' interest to be diluting them all the time? To go to that growth or is there a better way to

31:04 give them capital to be able to do that. We have this our head of data science. In fact, the only data scientist we had at that time. And I think he was twenty eight came to me and presented me this idea. Around a better way to

31:16 We found it friendly in the way to build a company is subscription businesses. First time I told him to go away. He kept coming back at me and then I gave him a million bucks to trial. The concept. He showed me the data, I was like, Wow.

31:29 And so then we went and raised three hundred million bucks. Pass our LPs to give us a shot. This is entirely new, but we think This is part of how The companies need to be built. That worked really well. And today it's a couple of billion dollar fund that Pranav, who's now

31:44 In his early thirties and K V, who's this co founder of this effort. And run on platform. They've done an amazing job. And I think we have something that really helps the founders. And especially in these markets, by the way, where not everybody's gonna get to go public.

31:58 The market dynamics are changing. We now have a way for them to actually build these companies and do their life's work, even if they were private the whole time, and still take care of their shareholders and still take care of Their growth capital needs. And so That's an example of it. And then As I mentioned, like from the beginning, we've been incubating.

32:15 Businesses. We built three category defining businesses from scratch. It was kayak and travel. Which my partner Joel started, demand where which my partner Larry started, which became The commerce slide for Salesforce and then the Vongo.

32:29 Which I had worked on with Clan. And there's many more. And we said, Gosh. Being a builder. A makes us good player coaches, gives us the empathy, gives us strategic thinking around the spaces.

32:39 And it's an amazing business from a returns perspective. And we should institutionalize it. So we started institutionalizing this whole idea of incubating, transforming Venture buyouts are like where we really get to play as builders with co-founders.

32:53 versus in the venture business where we're sort of investing and really getting behind other people's Visions and so we institutionalize that. So I think we've been very founder centric on like what capital tools are required. What should their structures be? to drive the change that is required. And so it's been very organic.

33:11 And it's not focused on A UM because we want to be a high performance firm, which is the reason we don't scale our venture funds. But we are willing to think about going in all directions that can help increase the chances of founders. Being successful. Could you give me like a sample transaction just to really like bring to life that middle bucket that the data scientists brought to you and how it would work? So if I'm a company that's got a subscription software or something.

33:35 And I want some capital. What is the structure and nature of that capital? Almost fifty companies are using this now, including companies like Five Tran and others. The way this works is Let's assume you're spending A hundred million bucks a year on customer acquisition.

33:50 That spend leads to Acquiring new set of customers that pay you. What we say is we'll give you A percentage, let's say eighty percent of that hundred million bucks that you spend. So you don't have to spend your own cash. So all of a sudden

34:03 Once you sign with us We'll give you eighty million bucks to acquire the next set of customers, which means your cash balance will go up by eighty million bucks, but you didn't spend that. Now when those customers get acquired with that Eighty million bucks of ours and twenty of yours. Those customers when they pay then pay us.

34:20 what you're getting from them up to a cap return. You pay us and then at some point we're done and you're getting all that revenue stream on your business. So you grew without actually shrinking your balance sheet. In fact, you grew your balance sheet. Now the question is what do you do with that balance sheet? You could use that. to give liquidity to your shareholders, which everybody needs.

34:40 You could use that. To New acquisitions. You could use that to actually grow faster. And invest more in growth. So like it opens up all these avenues.

34:49 Because The spend on sales and marketing is a very structured risk. We know what the inputs and outputs are. So why take really expensive venture capital money from our venture capital funds when we can actually help you grow With this. And that has served These companies to minute a new product.

35:04 And so you know, it's been in an industry where we've been on this juice of how do I get the next mark and the next mark so my returns look good. So actually thinking about how do I dilute less and dilute less and get bigger and bigger. 'Cause ultimately it's the end game that matters. I think that behavior change I still think some of the venture investors don't fully get it.

35:22 But I think they will over time. But some have really I had religion now and they're getting behind us in a meaningful way and There's some incredible case studies of companies that would just completely change the trajectory with this product. And so the skill set there, I'm sure, which then helps you also in the business too is

35:36 Just a really deep understanding of the customer acquisition efforts of a company and in the lifetime value associated with the given customer. And if you understand that equation, you feel confident that you can earn a great return, maybe not unlimited high return, but a high return by understanding that component of one of these businesses like Five Trend really well. I'd love to learn a a bit more about the lessons you've learned on the incubation starting company side.

36:01 And also mistakes that you've made. Like I'm fascinated by the role of leadership and also like the role of first risk, like someone that is both a leader but also willing to like take that entrepreneurial risk. And that without that, it can be harder to build a 20 year long duration big build out. How do you manage that? Let's say you have an idea as GC And you need

36:21 a leader to be the CEO of that thing. What have you learned about that matchmaking process and making sure that like the motivation and source of the idea has a nice long duration. And it's not a mercenary or something. We have a very clear framework.

36:37 for where we take on projects like this, but these are very costly from a time perspective. When one of us goes in incubate for like six, nine months, that's all you're doing. So We're kinda out of the market and we have a lot of capital We invest. So first is We don't wanna work on

36:51 problems that founders are already solving. So we look for things that are not happening because on structural reasons. Those structural reasons might be the very interdisciplinary Or you really need a lot of capital so no one wants to take that risk. Or you need collaboration from people in industry that somebody just starting with no credit just couldn't get

37:09 Things like that, which we can overcome given our Gravitas has a firm in our relationships, in our capital base. That's an important criteria that we wanna be net accredited to the ecosystem in that sense. The second thing is This is a lesson learned.

37:23 Because I've started companies where it was just me in the beginning. I was just excited about it. But you're fragmenting doing fifty different things, those never work. So we don't start unless there's somebody who's a co founder. And the primary founder that wants to own it.

37:36 From the beginning with us. We'll be with them through and through, but that's gotta be there. As a point. The other thing we do is We set it up in a way that if along the way We lose confidence, but

37:49 The funder wants to keep going. The capital stack isn't so messed up, we're we own so much that They can keep going. It doesn't really usually happen, but it could. We want to make sure The founders that come and partner with us on the creation side to start new businesses.

38:03 they could always raise from the outside if our own sort of alignment wasn't there. Even though it doesn't happen. So I think they're sort of thinking about those conditions to make sure the success of the project and the person you're partnering with. A set of first and foremost and doing something that's like really needed. Comeure that I mentioned earlier. That was not gonna happen.

38:20 Going and building a software company. I've bought seven businesses into commute to actually put pieces together, help scale. We've got a phenomenal leader to Who's running it now and I just think the world of But it's digging and zagging, and then that wouldn't have happened.

38:34 without somebody like us coming and doing it. But so many things just automatically would. And we should just back founders and be good partners to them in that sense. What do you think about the Rubicon to be crossed or not? for firms like yours to get into full traditional like control positions in companies where you're just buying and running businesses like private equity would with or without leverage, you know, whatever, the capital structure could be a different conversation, but It seems like

38:58 We're kinda heading that direction. If firms are excellent at technology and precipitating change and transformation of industries in the way you're describing. At some point, maybe you just want to buy massive whole businesses and drive change that way in the way that you bought the healthcare system. What do you think just industry wide about that trend? Yeah, it's a couple of things. One is On the healthcare system, we're actually buying that.

39:19 From our balance sheet. 'cause we want to hold that for a long time and we don't want to put that community in uh, hey, we're gonna sell it in like seven years and all the PE issue is gonna be very much You're part of our long term healthcare strategy? And we're gonna be a center of excellence, and we're gonna do it right by the community at Suma and

39:35 And for that, it just can't be a portfolio company that has a pressure to exit. So it's sort of a different scenario. Having said that. I do think With AI. There's a lot of sophistication around the data infrastructure being built and the models and how that all plays out. And we can at some point talk about that, but The place where AI

39:53 has immediate value. From my perspective. is to onshore productivity. Where we offshore. Labour.

40:00 In the past. So think about businesses that have gone and outsource jobs and call centers or accounting or revenue cycle management, issues like that. Yeah, I can do all those things really well.

40:11 So we're gonna bring that productivity back onshore at every market, not just the US. But they are'cause it's Those businesses will go from low service businesses to high margin software businesses. In fact, some of the most exciting IPOs that might happen financially ten years from now might be those kinds of companies that today we think are not that interesting. But it just became economically interesting with AI as a leverage point.

40:33 Those businesses we are already Putting plans in place and have been buying into vehicles that we've started and then applying AI to them. So this is already happening. We've done

40:45 half a dozen of these, there's others that have started doing that as well. So I think it's naturally gonna happen. The difference is In private equity. You take cost out. In what we call venture buyouts. Where it's leverage bioes, we put innovation in.

40:58 And that's the big difference. And so I actually think Our creation effort where we build businesses, we buy businesses, we transform businesses. There's a lot of alpha to be created, but it's hard work. You really have to be a builder. Slash investor to want to do that and

41:14 The people that we have doing those types of deals in the firms were just entrepreneurs. They just think that way. And they're investors, but then they have a capital base, but there's entrepreneurs. And so I think that's an important uh tool in the tool set to go drive these transformations.

41:28 What have you seen? And the way that AI is being approached by companies, by entrepreneurs, by investors that is the most confusing to you. Like is there an area where you feel like you're the most different in your understanding of what this might mean or where it might create the most opportunity or anything like that? Look, I don't know if we are

41:47 Different, but When Livonga went public in twenty nineteen We took it public as an applied AI company. Applied AI is where I feel like We can capture the most value.

41:58 And we've been systematically thinking about we have this matrix, which is what are all the business functions? Roll the industries. What needs to happen for each uh spot in that matrix. So We've incubated Hippocratic. Yeah, which is a language model for healthcare.

42:11 Got forty systems to team up with us, we built a language model, but we don't sell that as a AI model. It's literally Uh Online agent, AI agent, but used to be an online nurse. That's the smartest agent that can actually check up on you and prepare you for up procedures that are coming up and whatnot and Do it for

42:29 A few bucks an hour versus nine dollars an hour. Which helps us really Going back to their need to cut. cause would be more vibrant. That's an example of a business. We help catalyze, we collaborate with the industry.

42:39 We teamed up with One of my partners was left to go build this business on and Andy Lee who built a LauraCon. Which is like the fourth largest call center company, and we are building this company called Crescendo. Which is building these full on sort of AI enabled call centers. So that matrix

42:54 It's super interesting. Marketing, legal contact center, every one of those dimensions, and then How we fundamentally think about care with AI in health and financial services and others, how do you kind of redefine that? Underneath it, I think there's a lot of focus today on

43:11 Building the AI models and sort of chasing AGI. That Place is very hard for us to invest'cause I feel like

43:19 Every round is a venture round. Even if you have some short term revenue because as technologies get commoditized you're just not gonna be able to capture that much value. So you don't get a return on your investment or building the model. But people keep funding because It's the race to AJ with the prize is so large, and then whoever gets there maybe

43:38 If there is AGI to be had would be this multi-trillion dollar company and none of the rest of the stuff matters. We're not really in that game. We're much more focused on applying AI and creating this sort of value and transitioning these businesses. In the short term. So

43:52 There's a lot going on. There's obviously then there's a semiconductor layer underneath it that all has to evolve as well to take advantage of this. So And I do think there'll be value capture. We we've decided we wanna be very deep. In making sure We build these solutions that transform the workforce. We go from Again, these companies where it was all about labor and outsourcing to building great businesses onshore.

44:13 So it's a bit of a global resilience team per nation in that as well. And technology is ready today to capture the value. What we're seeing is just unbelievable. In terms of these products look like And the economic

44:25 benefits those products have. For their customers. Can we talk a bit about defense? That seems if you just were an outside observer to be one of the biggest zones of change in this whole world where huge companies that require lots of capital and are hard to build products are spinning up like every day, it seems like, and a huge amount of capital is flowing to them.

44:47 You and I, I think actually first met for the first time at a dinner where the topic of conversation was China. And just like the new landscape of geopolitics in the world. And that driving Lots of this defense investing and innovation, which kind of had been the same like defense primes for forever and ever. What are you seeing there? How does that have your interest? How would you describe it to People learning about it for the first time.

45:10 Yeah, so defence is In an area we've actually been investing in for twenty years. We bought The first defense contractor, actually David did one of the co five from BBN Technologies in two thousand and four. The idea that we will commercialized technology from there.

45:25 And we built ends. We did that a couple of times and then I think the first really profound company we seeded with our friends at the founders fund was Enderal. There the belief was to me there's two issues. One is the misalignment of the business model with the primes. When it's cost plus. There's always gonna be high cost and high plus. And then when you think about

45:43 The technological capabilities that they have. versus All the innovation that got done in the consumer and enterprise world They were just backwards. It's sort of interesting, right? In the

45:54 Silicon Valley came out of defense. Sure. Several symbiotic, right? In its origins. Is there and then we're feeding back into defense. I think that's really what's going on to say let's take all these Really high reliable hardware software capabilities that are being used at scale.

46:08 Let's bring them back in and now really rethink what the cost structure should be. So I think that's one thing, which is It's an amazing opportunity. We have a large investment in Enduro. We also have a European company in defence called Helsing that is doing incredibly well and we've invested a good amount of capital there. And we're looking at

46:26 Doing the same in India. Going back to sort of what is the defense sort of ecosystem across the markets that we care about. It's very Tricky because every time we do a defense Investment.

46:37 We have a huge Debate. Around it. Is this ethical? Is this the kind of thing we're gonna do? And I think now thanks to Paul, Jeanette, Teresa Carlton, who's at G C as well, working on our global policy work.

46:50 We now have to sort of create a framework to be like look, we're focused on deterrence. And in fact, the first time we made the large investment in Durham, not the first check, but the second check. We met five times in a week. We had to write an ethics memo. It was like so unusual for people because they're like This makes

47:04 kinetic weapon someday and what is really gonna happen, what does the trans mean? We just we're not used to thinking about it. But thanks to having Ken here, who's got a lot of experience with some of these other folks. And we said we're gonna do it on deterrents. What does deterrence mean?

47:18 I think deterrence We have a three star general and If former Senior person from the CIA asked was like, What does deterrence mean? Whatever you need to do for the bad actors to not attack.

47:30 It's not about there's line of kinetics or not. Whatever you need to do. the bad actors to not attack and so So using that as a framework is a bit of a very intentional moving target as well as we what we think about we're gonna do in defense. But look, I think these companies are very important. They're doing incredible work.

47:46 And they are applying AI and all the innovation that have happened to this industry. It'll Reduce taxpayer dollars on it. And I think if done right, it'll create conditions for better peace as well. So We're big believers in it. We have a whole strategy, Paul and Jeanette in particular in US and Europe, and then our team in India is now trying to replicate the same in India, are very deeply thinking about.

48:09 How to build engineering companies in this space. What are you most paying attention to in the realm of geopolitics and regulation? It seems like Everything you've described about G C is just Bigger, it's more ambitious. Then

48:23 A bottom up seed stage focused type firm. And so you're gonna just encounter these big issues. as much as any investment firm, what most has your eye? Like what are you watching most in terms of what's going to matter and drive outcomes and opportunities in the geopolitical and Regulatory spheres. It is the question I think a lot about.

48:42 We're multi stage when we're not just seed stage, but For us It's very important that It's not just that we're funding these companies. for long term, but that they actually have real societal impact.

48:52 Sort of going back to that alignment of profit and purpose. So I think in that arena, there's two things. Tick AI. By the way one thing I should say we Geopolitics and AI.

49:01 This is peak ambiguity. In the last twenty five years I've been in the business. It's never been sort of more confusing as to what's gonna happen. So I think in those times you really have to lean into your values. to sort of follow it true north. And

49:15 I was saying with AI. There's this regulation, non regulation, it's sort of I try to stay away from A lot of that what we need is collaboration. What we need is Work with the governments'cause that's gonna happen. And make sure we accelerate our resiliency in AI. So we develop and every nation should do this to think to this way. I'm saying we here in

49:35 US, Jeanette will say that in Europe and near Jree our India partners will say that in India. But like How do we make sure that there is resiliency and we advance our technological capabilities to winning. I think we have to do that. We have to make sure we're investing in everything that does that.

49:51 At the same time, when you apply it to society We have to make sure it doesn't cause unintended consequences, like what happened with social media and whatnot. So I don't think it's either or of regulation or regulation. The world's not black or white, guys. You gotta embrace this ambiguity. And understand how to work. towards a solution that accomplishes both. So I think that's one thing I think about and say

50:13 Is Europe trying to think about regulating too much and slowdown. It's US kinda not thinking about it the right way. Every region's got their own issues. And how they're approaching. So I think a lot about that. And then I think on the geopolitics side, the other thing that's really top of mind is What is this democratic supply chain gonna look like?

50:31 In AI. In manufacturing. In defense, in energy, in health. And can we actually be Custodians of innovation across these ecosystems that can pull that together.

50:42 When you bubble both of those up, the thing that I think a lot about has effectively a global CEO of a global firm is Will we be given the license to do that the right way. Can we build a culture that we really think what's best for US, what's best for Europe, was best for India. And our teams on the ground are really dedicated to that mission.

51:01 And how do we go execute that? Ken and I had a long conversation about you and yesterday on like, how do we just make sure our culture and values are that that's the way we're gonna build this firm, that's the way we're gonna do our work. And Our doors are open to Do business with all

51:14 These geographies that share our values. Are there other investing firms that have most inspired you? Our lead investor for the last Twenty plus years has been Andy Golden. And he just retired as the head of the Princeton Endowment.

51:27 He's a very close friend and mentor. And when I was leaving Boston come to the valley. Those last three years I would Take him down to the bar of the IU meeting and just

51:37 bludding him with booze and ask him how do I be the firms that are these legendary firms. What do I have to do? And I think it was more hubris and I was young. And he would always say to me Play your own game. Run your own race.

51:50 I do think I actually took that to heart before I came to the valley. I've not really paid attention to what other firms are doing in terms of their strategies. Again, as I said, there's such amazing people here. I learn a lot from Mark. And Andreessen or Vinod and like some of these other legendary people that are just such deep rooted understanding and history of technology.

52:10 I learn a lot from these folks. But when it comes to what we want to do, I just think we have to do our own thing. I'm heads down in that and I always encourage our team to just not worry about other people are doing. I think you have to believe in what you're doing and stay the course. I haven't spent time with Andy. From the endowment.

52:25 But y his name comes up a lot in the context of a question like this. What about the flip of the question, which is A lot of times you'll hear people ask limited partners like him, what makes a great GP. What's the inverse from your GP perspective and investing perspective, what makes a fantastic

52:40 limited partner, capital provider, or investor. I would tell you What Andy said. about this,'cause we just had a retirement party for him and he said G C was an experiment for him.

52:51 'Cause there was a belief that In order to be a good steward of capital for an endowment, you have to be hands off and away from your managers and not engage and build relationships. And with G C he really invest in building a deep relationship, which by the way You and the agency to help shape us. They've always on every key decision gone and gotten their advice.

53:09 Usually gets yelled at. Hold my firm ground. And get my way, but like it's always The big daddy taking his belt out. Scenario before I talk to them, you know? So I think that's one, which is can you actually build the same deep relationship like we try to do with our founders?

53:25 And so I think that's one. The other thing I would say is Look, when you are A big endowment and you're creating A portfolio. to de risk yourself. You don't want a portfolio of portfolios. You want people that really

53:37 Focused on the strategy that you want that they're executing and not diversifying. If they're backing us to be an early stage firm, the moment we come and say, Hey, we also want to do growth, they're like, No, we already have growth firms. Or if you say we wanna do I'm gonna make this up'cause we don't do this real estate, the way they're like, What are you talking about? We already have real estate. So I think that's where the misalignment happens. So as an entrepreneur, I always look at it and say, Who are the LPs that want to believe in the strategy, believe in me and our team?

54:02 And give us the agency, but in return What we ask them to believe in is a framework to say, here's our guiding principles with which we're gonna innovate on the platform. As long as we're agreed to that. As long as we adhere to that. Back us.

54:15 And don't question why are we scaling,'cause we're scaling to just help build the biggest companies, which is inevitably gonna make us a high performance firm if we do our job right. Some of our old LPs have stuck with us and sort of helped us got behind us in that, like Princeton and others. And then we have new LPs that came in that also wanted to back us as some of these other entrepreneurs in that journey. And That's been really

54:35 Amazing. I can tell what it feels for our founders when we do that with them. to really have their back and give them the agency to take risk and increase their ambition and go bold and Fortunately, we have some LPs that also do that with us. Very cool.

54:49 What do you think G C is the worst at? We lean on creativity over process. All over the place. And so if you walk inside a G C It's just gonna feel like a broken startup.

55:00 All kinds of shit. Breaking everywhere. Okay. So when you're in it. And we have some investors that have a tremendous track records having been in these elite disciplined firms. Like what is going on? And I think you look back and say the numbers are actually pretty good. But it just feels messy.

55:16 And I think You either just embrace that and embrace the chaos and the ambiguity'cause it breeds creativity and frankly ambition. World driving nuts. And so I don't think G C is for everybody. And by the way, look at David and Joel. They were like they're like from the beginning. People at G C

55:32 We're like that. I'm like that. And so I think that's Probably The place where I think we can get better. In all of the things we've discussed. Which is starting companies, backing companies, new forms of capital.

55:44 Industry transformation. There's so much going on inside the firm. With a common mission. Which pieces of it get you the most personally juiced up? Is it Deal making? Is it some new

55:55 understanding of a product or technology. What are the moments, the repeatable moments that you find yourself most living for inside the business? Creation. I just love Creating new stuff. We built a

56:09 school with telcon where our kids went, I've started And a climate policy shop fifteen years ago, very vibrant and active. Sorry, some businesses, even on the G C platform, each one of these is a new business. So I think just bringing New things to live just gives me a lot of energy. That inevitably requires doing deals, and I love doing deals.

56:27 I am still the largest doubler of capital in the firm, every fund. And I see my obligation to be But if I am not Delivering elite returns, I should not run it. I strongly believe that and I do think whoever

56:40 will end up taking over from me, that's gonna be a criteria as well that You gotta be in the business of creating value. You gotta live it. That's what gives me the most energy. If we were writing Hamant's The Art of the Deal book. What would the key chapters be?

56:54 What would be the key components of your version of that book? It's very simple. I think I always try to focus on a win win. Always think about what's best for the other person and can we structure something that also works for us. That's one. And I think the other is

57:08 Lot of people get stuck in short term optimizations, local maximizations. And I always think about a longer game. And I'm happy to give uh to move forward on things if I think the prize is big enough for all of us. So I think just having that

57:22 Mindset. Which again comes to me good relationships are based on mutual respect. Transparency, trust. I think every deal needs to be based on that.

57:31 In the spirit of that longer game, what have you learned from John and Patrick Collison at Stripe about building in an infinite market, which is a nice term you used earlier. So much. I mean I think they've had Such a profound impact on Me. I think they're relentless focus on talent. their deep belief on the journey and not the end game.

57:55 There's no end game for them. Think that's important. I asked Patrick get it. What's the second act? And he's like Ark.

58:03 So I think I think this ambition to be like we can do anything. So you know stripe in Art to me is like this continuation of a journey'cause it's you know it's Things are near. Into line. And I just think thinking And playing that long game, having confidence in what they're doing. There were so many other competitors. And if you think about the payments market, you had Three companies that got started that were meaningful, one focused on big companies, Audience, one focused on

58:25 Small. existing businesses square and won't focus on new businesses. They kinda stuck to the fact that you know what, we just have to get every new business'cause the world just turns over. In twenty years, and then we're gonna have everybody. Right. And so I think having that kind of a long term mindset.

58:40 And not being seduced by what else might be working and doing. I think they did that for a long time. And then they also had the Patients to it. Remember at one point That all these products They're like

58:51 We don't wanna be distracted. We wanna be really sort of So just The way they made these decisions, the patience, the relentless excellence. And sort of having maintain their boldness.

59:04 And their humility. All through this. That's something I really aspire to. I think that's really important. And that's the kind of leader I want to be. That's the kind of leader I want everybody else to be.

59:14 What's next? What are you thinking about that? hasn't yet happened that you Think might happen. H E C and the G C

59:22 Cinematic Universe. So I think we have a really good Time around. Some of these industries like health. defence manufacturing from a transformation standpoint. We have a really good thesis around

59:34 AI that we're quietly executing, but at scale. We've put a lot of capital towards this applied AI theme. I do think a lot about Energy. As I mentioned I created this civilization advanced econom energy economy but

59:47 Tom Steyer and a lot of it was focused on creating clean, affordable, secure energy. This was not a solving environmentalists, but really building advanced energy solutions. And I feel like technology industry has the ability to shape the energy industry because we represent a lot of new demand.

1:00:03 'Cause a lot of the computer work that's gonna happen. And so can we step up to the occasion because once you have new demand. You can bring innovation into a sector. So I think a lot about How do we go about executing that?

1:00:16 Where You're gonna have to do some moonshots that are twenty five year horizon. projects. They don't get done in the venture scale and you're gonna have to think about infrastructure that gets built. What is our role in enabling that? Because that's in some ways foundational to everything we do on top of it. So I'm thinking through that with a few people in the team.

1:00:35 As to like Can we, should we, when would we do something in that area? My friend David Senra has this phrase he loves, which is I think it's from Churchill, and the phrase is always more audacity. And that seems like a good description of T C under your leadership and kind of your plans for the future. It's been fascinating to hear about its evolution. When I interview people, I always ask the same traditional closing question What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?

1:01:02 Wow, that is a Amazing question, the kindest thing. I'll have to give you a little detour first. My definition of happiness is this interplay between curiosity and generosity. I feel like you're happy if either your

1:01:16 learning and growing as a person, or you're helping other people. I do think that's like an amazing way to We just think about sort of what makes you happy. So When I did my first deal A G C.

1:01:28 It was a company called Smart Link. I've just joined G C it just happened to be a case and a steel. And David Called me and said, I want you to take a couple thousand bucks. Go have a meal. Well.

1:01:39 W you want to go do it. And actually took my Parents. And then we went and celebrated, sort of doing my first sort of milestone thing. It wasn't like a deal that I led, but I sort Do and

1:01:50 Moments like that are just Incredible where somebody's kind of celebrating in your success. And Helping you You know?

1:01:58 Show that forward. What a lovely little thing and moment. And knowing David, like I could just see it. I could see the conversation. That is so cool. I love it. What a great story. Simple. Haman, this has been a total pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

1:02:11 Awesome. Great. Wonderful. Um If you enjoyed this episode, check out joincolossis.com. There you'll find every episode of this podcast complete with transcripts, show notes, and resources to keep learning. You can also sign up for our newsletter, Colossus Weekly, where we condense episodes to the big ideas, quotations, and more, as well as share the best content we find on the internet every week.

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