#754: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ann Miura-Ko

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3:52 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to sit down with world class performers. From every field imaginable to tease out the habits. routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply. and test in your own lives. This episode is a two for one, and that's because the podcast recently hit its tenth year anniversary, which is insane to think about.

4:16 And past one billion downloads. To celebrate. I've curated some of the best of the best, some of my favourites. From more than seven hundred episodes over the last decade. I could not be more excited.

4:28 To give you these super combo episodes, and internally we've been calling these The Super Combo episodes. Because my goal is to encourage you to, yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks. But to also introduce you to lesser known people I consider. Stars.

4:44 These are people who have transformed my life and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps They got lost in a busy news cycle, perhaps you missed an episode. Just trust me on this one, we went to great pains to put these pairings together. And for the bios of all guests.

5:01 You can find that and more at Tim.blog slash. Combo. And now, without further ado. Please enjoy. And thank you.

5:09 For listening. First up Arnold Schwarzenegger Austrian-born bodybuilder Star of Total Recall

5:18 True lies, twins. And the Terminator films. Among many others, Businessmen. The Lanthropist?

5:25 Best selling author of Be Useful. Seven tools for life. and the thirty eighth governor of California. You can find Arnold on Twitter and Instagram. At Schwarzenegger.

5:37 And you can join more than half a million subscribers to his newsletter. Pump club. That Arnoldspumpclub.com I was looking at a very old photograph.

5:49 I think it's a little bit more. your first major bodybuilding competition in uh Stuttgart. I think it was the junior Mr. Europe. And I looked at this photograph and what stuck out to me was If you we had just looked at the faces, not the bodies. It was so clear to me that you were going to win and that you knew or believed you were going to win. Your face was so confident compared to every other competitor. Where did that confidence come from?

6:14 My confidence came from my vision. Because I am always a big believer that If you have a very clear vision of where you want to go. Then the rest of it is much easier. Because you know always why you're training five hours a day. You always know why you're pushing and going through the pain barrier and why do you have to eat more and why do you have to struggle more? Why do you have to be more disciplined? And all of those things become much more clear. It's not like oh my God, I have to do another

6:45 Two hundred sit ups. It's more kind of like I can't wait to do another two hundred sit-ups because That would get me one step closer to have the apps that I need to win that Mr. Universum. That's my goal. I see myself clearly on that stage.

7:01 winning the Mr. Universe, I see myself very clearly of getting the trophy, standing there with the trophy, raising it above my head. And having hundreds of bodybuilders around me. below me on stage, uh looking up and idolizing me, including the thousands of people that are watching the event. So that was always my clear vision and that always inspired me to go all out. And so when I went for a competition, you have to understand I went to the junior Mr. Europe. During my time in the military.

7:30 And so what it took for me to go And to get on the train. Personen zu Which was the people's train. meaning kind of like it was not the schnell zu get the fast train. It was the slow train that literally stopped and every train station to let workers off and to bring new workers on. And that's what the train was. And so with that you g went to all the way to Stuttgart because it was the cheapest way

7:56 Of going. Because I didn't have much money. And you didn't get hit by any customs officers or anything like that. Well, we we we got hit but the minute we we got through it, I didn't have my passport because you have to give up the passport when you go into the military, right? You pass. I didn't even have a passport. Passport we got afterwards when we were finished with the military. So We got through and we got to

8:17 Germany. The Stuttgart. And so there was this will there. That no matter what it takes, and even if I have to crawl to Germany. That I will be there at that event because that was my shot when I saw the ads about this Mr. Europe Junior competition. Best kipta atlet Europa's.

8:34 In German. And that that was my opportunity. to really go and to make my first kind of uh Entry Into an international competition.

8:45 And I felt that I can win it. And that's what I was there for. I wasn't there to compete, I was there to win. And uh and so that's why you saw that facial expression There was a certain arrogance there, there was a certain way that opposed with the other competitors. I always felt during the pose off. That I had my act together much more than the others did and then I'm gonna

9:07 Make them feel inferior and I will win and I will look facially and physically to the judges that I'm the champion. So you touched on something I really want to dig into, which is the Psychological warfare.

9:20 of bodybuilding, of life in general. I really feel and this is a compliment I mean it is a compliment, a a real master. And if anyone who's watched Pomping Iron or Or anything I think. comes away with that as a takeaway. How did you develop that? And for instance, when you were, I guess, seventeen or eighteen How did you get inside the heads of those people?

9:40 At that point. I think that it came about When I Trained in the gym. I always felt that People are kind of

9:51 really vulnerable. In certain areas. So that someone that comes to the gym And works out because he wants to have a better body. that he most likely will be vulnerable and that's during conversations that I discovered in Munich

10:04 And it was train in the gym. They were vulnerable when you said something like Well you you're fat. There was not like a even a a a doubt in anyone's mind if ten people would have looked at that guy or a hundred people, they all would have said that that guy is fat. But he was outraged. He said, What? Do you really think I'm that fat?

10:22 Did you mention it? Is it while you're in the gym? I say I go to a doctor's office and say I have a cough. I don't go and beat around the bush. I say I have to tell him what the problem is and then he can give me the medication. I say and it's the same thing in the gym. I said you come here because you're fucking fat. And so that that's that so now let's solve the problem.

10:41 And so there's no beating around the bush there either. And so you know, so I could see that they were kind of like shriveling up. And kind of shocked. So I could see the vulnerability. And then I

10:53 tried different lines on people and you know we'll talk about their hair the hairline or we'll talk about the hair color turning gray or so and then they it would just freak out you know about little things like that. So It was natural that with all the experience that I gotten of being a trainer and working with people and all this, that I learned about people's psychology and about their weaknesses and their strength and all this, how do you build people up? Because my whole thing was Let's first discover And talk about the weakness. And then let's go and rebuild everything.

11:23 So that was the idea to give this guy six pack, to make him feel great, to declare victory by next summer, that he can go to the beach and that he can go and feel proud of himself and feel great and all this and then continue training. So that was the idea. So By the time I came to America and I started, you know, competing over here. It was very clear that when I said to someone Let me ask you something, is it do you have any knee injuries or something like that? And then this they would they would look at me and say No, why? Why

11:50 No knee injury at all. No. My knees feel great. And you asking? I said, Well, because your thighs look a little slimmer to me. I mean, I it be I thought maybe you can squat, though maybe there's some problem with leg extension. But then this is really And then I saw them all for two hours in the gym. Always going in front of the mirror and checking out the thighs, if the thighs still exist or something. So but I mean this is you know, people get people are vulnerable about those things. So Naturally when you now have a competition. You use orders.

12:21 Yeah. And so the the you ask people were they sick for a while, you know, why they they look a little leaner, or that the you know, uh you know, did you take any salty foods lately? And they say why? I said, because it looks like you have water retention. I said it doesn't look as ripped as you were like a week ago. And so so th that throws People off uh in an unbelievable way. They're and and they walk away kind of like this didn't bother them at all. But then you you can see you watch them As they walk around the pumper broom. And then you warm up for the competition

12:52 And you could see them kind of thinking To themselves kind of and then going to a mural and checking it out secretly and all that stuff. So you know it works a I just slowly developed it because I always felt That sports. А на час а фізико фін.

13:08 As a matter of fact, I felt that the the mentality and the mental strength in sports into psychology in sports In reality, I mean I see when I watch a Mr Olympia competition or Mr. Universe competition or any of those things You know, they all look pretty much the same, the top five guys.

13:28 But what makes one emerge is is the way he acts. If he acts like a winner, if you see him smiling, having a great time on stage and doors. So I felt in that one should use the psychology, one should use everything in as far as food supplements is concerned, use your best you know posing trunks, try to use the sun out there and work out in the sun so you get tan all around, use the best posing routine. Just really give me a tan of everything, then you have a shot of winning. And psychology was definitely part of that. And

13:59 You develop this arsenal. Of intimidation. through the bodybuilding. Did you use that for instance? in movies waiting in line to audition against other people who were going into audition or anything like that. Did it apply to show business? I never additioned.

14:15 Okay. I would never go out for the regular parts because I was not a regular looking guy. So my idea always was, okay, everyone is going to look the same and everyone is trying to be the blonde guy in California, going to Hollywood interviews and then looking somewhat athletic and cute and all this. Okay, how can I carve myself at the niche that is unique that only I have. So I always felt like Really strong about I have to get into the movie business like Reg Park did the like Steve Reeves or Paul Window, Larry Gordon and all those guys that were in the Muslim movies in the in the fifties and sixties. That's the way I'm gonna get in there.

14:52 Of course, you know, the naysayers were right there and they said, Well, you know, this time has passed. This was twenty years ago. You look too big, you're too monstrous, too muscular, you would never get in the movies. So that's what producers said in the beginning in Hollywood. And that's also what agents said managers. He said, I doubt that you're gonna be successful in that because the day's idols I mean, this is not the seventies, Arnold. The day's idols are you know, Dustin Hoffman, Albert Gino, Woody Allen, I mean look at this all little guys. You know, those are the sex symbols. Those are the hot stars.

15:25 Look at you, you weigh two hundred and fifty pounds or something like that. This is that time is over. But I felt still very strongly. And had a very clear vision. that the time will come where someone will appreciate that and then sure enough When people saw me on talk shows.

15:41 They got inspired. Directors like Barbara Aferson. And then bought the book of Stay Hungry and had it written into a script and then did the movie with me because he believed in me that I had the personality and I had a certain strength and a certain kind of a look that would be great on the screen, that the camera loves me. And all that. And so it worked. I did Stay Hungry, I did then Pumping On the Documentary, I did the streets of San Francisco, and worked then with Anne Margaret and with Kirk Douglas and the villain.

16:10 And then all of a sudden I got the contract for Conan the Barbarian. And bang, there we were twenty million dollar movie, which today will be a uh equivalent of a two hundred million dollar movie. And Tina Delorante is producing Universal Studio and International Studio financing the movie and John Milliers, a first class director directing it. So my whole plan worked. And I was so right. Even John Milliers after he has done the movie, he said If we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger. We would have had to build one.

16:40 Because of the body. And when I did Charmeda Jim Cameron said If we wouldn't have had Schwarzenegger. And we couldn't have done the movie because only because it sounded like a machine was it so believable that he actually played a machine. And that's what where people bought in. He says, I'll be back

16:56 It's totally different than when I say I'll be back kind of thing is so so he was the greatest compliment. The the very things that the agents and the managers And the student executive said it would be a total Obstacle. Become an asset.

17:11 And my career started taking off. The not auditioning is really interesting to me. I knew you were very successful in real estate, but correct me if I'm wrong, you had Become a millionaire in real estate before your first movie. Is that not before the first movie, before my career took off. Got it. So I did not rely On my movie career to make a living.

17:29 Because that was my intention because I saw Over the years The people that worked out in the gym. And did I met in the acting classes? They all were very vulnerable because they didn't have any money and they had to take anything that was

17:44 Offered to them. Because That was the living. I didn't want to get into that situation. I felt like if I'm smart with real estate and take my little money that I make in bodybuilding and with seminars and selling my courses uh through the mail order and all this I could save up enough money to put down money for an apartment building.

18:05 And I realized that in the seventies The inflation rate was very high. And therefore an investment like that is like unbeatable because buildings that you know I would buy for Five hundred thousand dollars. you know, within the year were eight hundred thousand dollars and then only put the maybe a hundred down. So you know you made three hundred percent on your money. So you couldn't beat that. So I quickly

18:27 developed and traded up my buildings and bought more apartment buildings and office buildings on Main Street down in Santa Monica and so on. And the investments were very good. And it was just one of those magic Decade. The day you couldn't do it in that same field. There's another field in real estate where you can do that, but in this particular field I don't think you will see those kind of chumps ever again. And I benefited from that and I became a millionaire from my real estate investments. And that was before my career took off in uh show business in acting, which was after Conan the Barbarian in nineteen eighty two that movie came out. We shot it in eighty one and in eighty two it came out.

19:05 So from that point on my career took off because people saw, you know, that the movie was successful at the box office, then you know, I signed a contract to do Conan number two, and you know, then that led to a contract, you know, for terminator one and then Commander, you know, then the action genre. Al was another fortunate thing. Each of those decades Offered something very fortunate. that was a little bit beyond my control. But I benefited from that, you know, so that there was the action shrewd that all of a sudden took off in the eighties with Stallone and Fantam and all those guys.

19:37 Coming in. really was terrific and our salaries went in a mine I got like a million dollars for Germanator two, and then all of a sudden by the end of the day I made twenty million dollars. That's incredible. And I wanted to talk about the mail order for a second because

19:54 That was done with Franco. Colombo or Franco Colombo. who for those that don't know is a European was a European champion in power lifting. And uh also a boxing champion and then became a bodybuilding champion.

20:08 And then he I brought him over here s with uh Joe Weeder's help. In America, but at that point there was no money in bodybuilding. That's a key thing that everyone has to understand. Unlike the day where the top bodybuilding champions make millions of dollars In those days there was no money in bodybuilding.

20:26 And so When we didn't have enough money, we literally had to go to work. And so Franco and I since Franco's talent was to be a Bricklayer.

20:36 And uh very skilled bricklayer. And learned that in Italy and in Germany. uh be were able to go and start thinking about the idea of putting an ad in the LA Times. Creating a company. And calling it European bricklayers and masonry experts.

20:54 Marble experts building chimneys in fireplaces. The European style. And this was also a time where everything that was European was huge in America. So we benefited from that, you know, Swedish massages and everything had to be kind of a foreign name. Or a Japanese this and this. So Europe and Japan and all those places, you know, were used, the the names were used because

21:18 For some reason or the other people just thought that was better. And so we use that. And yet. And we put the ad in the paper and Literally a week later.

21:28 We had the big earthquake. in Los Angeles. And I mean the chimneys fell off the apartment houses and all this stuff. And the it cracked walls and all this. And so Frank and I we as a matter of fact one of the friend of ours Wife. who was very smart and she worked in a supermarket. She

21:49 the answering the phones and calling people back and all this Just to make sure that our English doesn't get all screwed up with the talking over the phone and all this. And so she gave us then the addresses and then we got to do the estimates and I was kind of like set up to be the math genius. And that figures out the square footage and that Franco would play The bad guy.

22:10 And I played a good guy. And so we would go to someone's house and then someone would say, Well, look at my patio is all cracked. Can you guys put a new patio in here? And I would say yes. And then they would run around with the tape measure, but there would be a deb measure with Centimeters. And no one in those days could at all figure out anything with centimeters. And we will be measuring up and I say what this is, you know, four meters and uh eighty two centimeters, and they had no idea what we were talking about. And this is so much, and then we are we're writing up formulas and the dollars and amounts and and and square centimeters and square meters and all this stuff. And then I would go to the guy and I said It's five thousand dollars.

22:49 And the guy will be in a state of shock. And he says, it's five thousand dollars. I said this is outrageous. I said, I mean, they didn't think that it's it well, what did you expect the the the basis? I thought maybe it's like two, three thousand dollars, is it about five thousand it says I said, let me talk to my guy, I said because y he is really the masonry expert. I said, but I can beat him down for you a little bit. Yeah. Let me soften the meat. And then say I will go over to Franco and we will start arguing in German. You know, this is eine Schweinerei, du kannst nicht so ver viel verlangen, das ist ein Plötzchen, nicht mehr arbeiten hier in Amerika. And this will be going on and on and he'll be screaming back at me in Italian and some some stuff. And then I will be uh then all of a sudden he calm down and then we'll go to the guy and say Phew. Okay, here it is. I could get him as low as three thousand eight hundred dollars.

23:37 I say can you go with that? And he says Thank you very much. You know, I really think that you're a great man and blah blah blah and all that stuff. I say okay. I said, give us half down right now. We go right away and get the cement and get the bricks and everything that we need for here, and we can start working as it amante. And the guy was ecstatic, he gave us the money, we immediately ran to the bank cash to check and to make sure that the money's in the bank account. And then we went out and got the cement and the the wheelbarrow and the all the the stuff that we needed.

24:06 And went to work. And so we worked like that for two years. I mean very successfully. As a matter of fact, on the end we had uh various different jobs where we employed like sixteen different bodybuilders. all the laziest bastards that you can never hire, but never the because they all were interested in working outdoor and getting a 10 at the same time for the bodybuilding competitions. They were not interested in working. But anyway, so we all had a good time. We all made money and this is actually then I did this until I started my mail order business and then that became the new source of extra income so we could afford everything and then save also some money and so on. I've been very fascinated. to look at your film career and hear the story of

24:47 Twins. Tell us the story of twins how twins came together. And how you guys structured that deal because I didn't know anything about that. Twins came together because I felt Very strongly that

25:02 I had a side of me that is a very humorous side. And that if someone Wouldn't Be patient enough. And willing to work with me as a director.

25:14 Bring that humor. out of me. And it's Something that is very difficult because you can be humorous

25:23 in your private life, but cannot pull it off in a movie. There's many actors that have tried that. And but not successful. So I felt, you know, that I should really Talk to Ivan Reitman.

25:35 Because I really loved Ghostbusters. And it said it myself got it was so well directed and and all this. And that just happened to run into him. When I was in Aspen.

25:45 We were hanging out there with Robin Williams and some other people and we were all up there at Snow Mass and we were skiing and then at night and before dinner we all had a great time sitting by the fireplace and choking around and Ivan Reitman would say to me I don't know. That's it, I listen to you and I see A side of you that has never really been on screen. And I said to him, I said

26:08 I would love to do a comedy and I would love to bring that side out if it is the innocence of me or the naivety of me or the humor of me, whatever it is, is it I would like to see that on the screen. I think I think it could be good. That's why I said him as I want you to work with me and to direct me in a movie. Let's figure out what it should be. Okay, I would love to do that.

26:29 I'm gonna go home after Christmas, after this vacation and I'm gonna Look into And develop a bunch of ideas. And then You and I get together and then pick the the one that we like the best. He developed immediately within short period of time a bunch of ideas.

26:46 And the one that we both like the most was called The experiment. Which then became twins. experiment we didn't like because of my German Austrian background, so we thought that it would be better to call it twins. And we developed that project, got it written I came up with the idea then of

27:04 Danny DeVito. That it shouldn't be just someone that is acting totally opposite of the way I am. But you should also look physically. Totally opposite of the way I am.

27:15 Ivan loved that idea and then we went after Danny DeVito and I remember we sat in the restaurant And we made a deal on a napkin. and wrote down, you know, this is what we do. We're gonna make the movie for free. We don't want to get any salaries. And we get a big back end.

27:32 And these the Ivan should take this deal and with the agent to the studio. And he took it to Tom Pollock, who was then running uh the Universal Studio. Tom Policy said. This is great. you know, sixteen and a half million dollars if you guys don't dig a salary.

27:47 And You get a big back end. We're gonna give you thirty seven percent of whatever it was together. Danny. I wanna admit.

27:55 And we worked out the percentage of what our salaries are. So whatever Danny got at that time. for movie versus what I got for movie and versus what Ivan got for directing. So we worked it out percentage wise and that's how we ended up dividing up the part amongst ourselves. And let me tell you, I made more money on that movie.

28:14 than in any other movie. And the the the gift keeps on giving. It's just wonderful. And I remember Tom Pollock After the movie came out, he said to me, he says All I can tell you is he says, This is what you guys did to me. And he

28:29 Bent over. He turned around, bent over, and he put his pockets out and he says you fucked me and cleaned me up. So it was very funny. He says I will never make the deal again. But anyway, so the movie was a huge hit. It came out just before Christmas and throughout Christmas and New Year it made every Day Three to four million dollars. which in today's term it will be, of course, you know, double or triple. But it was just huge and it just went up to one hundred and twenty nine million dollars domestically. And uh I think worldwide it was like uh three hundred and uh two hundred and sixty million dollars or something like that. So it was really very, very successful.

29:08 And it like I said, it uh it ended up costing I think around eighteen million dollars the movie. Amazing. So amazing. Now when I hear a story like that, I think of the deal that George Lucas did for Star Wars, where the studio's like, Ah, toys? Whatever. Sure, yeah, you can have the toys. And then they probably felt very much the same way. They're like wow, we're not gonna make that mistake again. That's right. I've heard you mention transcendental meditation in passing, briefly. Do you meditate? I don't meditate now, but I

29:36 In the seventies. And I remember there was a time in my life where I felt like everything is just kind of coming together and I did not find a way or couldn't find a way. Of keeping the things separate. So it was always when I was thinking about it, I was thinking about at the same time

29:51 my bodybuilding career, I was thinking about my movie career, I was thinking about the documentary Pumping Ar that we're shooting right now and the movie Stay Hungry that we just finished shooting and my investment in the apartment building. And is this gonna do I get the financing from the bank and the all of this kind of stuff was always coming together. And at the same time it was training For the Mr. Olympia. competition in South Africa. And I was training right here at Gold's gym. And I remember there was all the camera equipment around five hours a day in my face. And then someone in the middle of squatting was trying to ex to change the battery pack on my on my lifting belt and all that stuff. So it was like you know, eventually I felt like I got to do something about it because

30:32 I have such great opportunities here. And everything is happening and everything is going my way. But I'm just clustering everything into one big problem rather than separating it out and having calm and peace and and being happy. And so I but total In a coincidence I ran into this guy that I've run into many times on the beach, very, very

30:54 Pleasant man who Told me that he is a teacher in transcendental meditation and I said, Well it's interesting you mentioned it, I said because I feel like I should do something Because I feel like I'm just overly worried and anxieties and all this stuff. And I feel like certain pressures that I've never felt before. And then he says oh

31:13 Arnold, it's not uncommon. It's very common. Lot of people go through this. This is why people Use

31:21 Meditation. Transcendental mediation as one way. of dealing with the problem. And he was very good in selling it. Because

31:30 He didn't say it's the only And so. He just is one of many. And he says, Why don't you try it? He says I'm a teacher there. Up in Westwood.

31:40 I would not be able to teach you since we have friends and uh many years. There will be another teacher that they will give you a mantra and blah blah blah and teach you how to do it, and then I can help you after that. Because I will be teaching up there. So why don't you come up on Thursday and I will be there. I would introduce you to the folks up there and so then I went up there. Took a class. And I went home after that. Then tried it.

32:01 I said, but I gotta give it a shot. And I did twenty minutes in the morning, twenty minutes at night. And I would say within fourteen days, three weeks I got to the point where I really could disconnect my mind and as they say to find these few seconds of disconnection and rejuvenate the mind. And also learn how to focus more and to calm down. And that's all the effect right away.

32:23 that I was much more calm about all of the challenges that were facing me. And I continued doing that then for a year. I think that I've mastered this. I think that now

32:36 I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. And they really felt kind of it was uh one of the things where in the transcendental meditation was kind of anxiety and pressure. Meeting around the corner tranquility. You know, this is kind of what it felt.

32:52 So I was happy from their point and even today. I still benefit from that. Because I don't merge and bring things together. And see everything as one big problem.

33:04 I take on one challenge at a time. And when I go and they study my script for a movie Then that day when I studied my script for the movie. I don't let anything else interfere in that and not just concentrate on that. So the other thing that I've learned is that there's many forms of meditation in a way.

33:24 Because like when I study and I work really hard. Where it takes the ultimate amount of concentration. I can only do it for forty five minutes. Maybe. Maybe an hour.

33:36 But then I have to kind of run off. And maybe play chess. And I play chess for fifteen minutes, then I can go back and have all the energy in the world again and jump right back. And then continue on with my work as as if I have not done it at all today, right? It's like I'm fresh.

33:51 And so that's another way I think of meditation. And then they also figured out that I could use my work outs. as a form of meditation because I concentrate so much on the muscle and I have my mind inside the bicep when I do my curls.

34:09 I have my mind inside the pectoral muscles when I do my bench press. So I'm really inside. And it's like Again a form of meditation because You have no chance of thinking or concentrating on anything else at that time. But

34:23 Just that training that you do. So there's many ways of meditation and I benefit from all of those and I'm today much calmer because of that and much more organized. And much more tranquil because of that. This whole conversation makes me want to go tackle the world.

34:42 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. And I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me. On the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. go to drinkag one dot com slash Tim. That's drink ag one.

35:35 The number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com. Slash Tim. Check it out. And now

35:48 Anne Miraco A co-founding partner at Floodgate Venture Capital Firm. A repeat member of both the Forbes Midas list And the New York Times top twenty venture capitalists worldwide. One of Forbes most powerful women in startups.

36:04 And a Stanford lecturer and member of the board of trustees of Yale University. You can find Anne on Twitter at Animaniac. And welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

36:17 So There's so many places we could start. I was hoping to humanize. the ever intimidating An Mirko, which I I may only partially succeed at doing, but Could we start with

36:31 Explaining why your brother used to introduce you or how he used to introduce you on stage. I had this brother, an older brother by Exactly two years. We're born on the same day. And he was one of these guys who's so confident he knew

36:49 That he wanted to study cars and airplanes from the time that I could remember him existing. And he was always confident with friends. And he was also confident on stage. And so as any Good Asian Child would do.

37:05 We played musical instruments. I played the piano. He played the violin. And we would always have to perform. And I was painfully, painfully shy. And so I would get up on stage and I would refuse to speak, and my mother knowing this

37:24 wouldn't let this get in the way of our performing She would send my brother up on stage to help announce whatever I was playing. I have this real clear memory of being in junior high. In having this happen, my brother. got up on stage and said, you know, this is

37:41 And Mira. She's gonna be playing a Chopin Nocturne. And go. And I looked over And I remember thinking to myself They the mental dialogue that's happening in a teenager's mind.

37:55 This is totally ridiculous. Because I'm sitting there in front of a a room full of people and I felt fine playing the piano, but I felt petrified speaking. And that's one of like the clearest memories that I have of my brother and me. And the difference that we had between the two of us. Why were you so shy or nervous about speaking? I've always been an introvert, so I think it comes

38:23 Probably directly from that. But I was also sort of I was a strange child, I have to admit. I had a lot of different interests, but I love to do things by myself. I wasn't really that interested in talking to other people. Like one of the first things my mom actually discovered about me when I was a little kid when I was two. I only spok Japanese.

38:45 We were living in Michigan. І на істопіс вестіл лил чад. And um I would walk by anyone speaking in English. And in Japanese I would say, I wish you would leave.

38:59 So You know, and like I can't even my poor mom. My poor mom. And so she was like oh we really should socialize and With people who speak English and we're living in Michigan, so there's no shortage of these people. Just a hit pause. Do you do you still speak Japanese? I do. So I speak Japanese to my parents. How do you say I wish you would leave? Just for people who want to mutter that.

39:27 To people in the park. Or wherever they might be is do you recall or how might you have said that as a kid. Do you have any idea? I think I might have said, Let me think about it. That's that's you know it's kind of de house now. Ha ha ha.

39:42 Yeah. That is aggressive. That's really aggressive. Yeah. You know, I was like, You're not welcome in this house. Oh my God. Or it was like it was I think probably more likely it was Usaina. Right, right, right. Oh wow, that's even worse. Yeah. Right. And so but something that Like a drunk dad says.

40:07 Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like shut up. Yeah, you're really loud. You're really irritating. But like in like a little intransigent.

40:15 two year old saying that to a grown up speaking English in her home. Okay. I I don't want to take us too far off the rails, but we w we may come back to that. Okay. So we were talking about you being introverted and shy and weird, yeah. And it was um one of these things that I think it really held me back and I knew I knew actually It was holding me back. The strange part though was

40:38 My mom was recently talking to me about this. In A few years prior to that experience, ран stage. I had actually Done this other thing, which was we had this summer school program

40:54 where I would go to local community college. It was Fool and all these schools around the area when they let out for summer. the students would go to this community college take math classes and writing classes and whatnot. So a lot of elementary school students to high school students would be at Foothill College. And so my mom said you have to pick two classes, and one class was a math class, obviously.

41:19 And she said you could pick your second class. And my brother picked a normal junior high school writing class, and I was in fifth grade at the time. So ten years old. And I picked a negotiations class. And it was not in the summer school program. It was an adult class. Why did you pick that?

41:40 I picked it because I remember the book was getting to yes. Yeah. looked at me and she said, Why did you pick this class? And I said It's because they're teaching you how to get to yeah. And I want to know how to get to yes.

41:57 And I have this incredible experience this community college. Of having um class with I imagine they were Probably thirty to fifty year old adults taking this class. And they were probably the most patient

42:14 Wonderful people. And you know, we had this experience where you had Certain supplies that you were given on pieces of paper, and then you had to negotiate your on Mars and you had to negotiate supply lines and whatnot and create a real society. And in the simulation they're taking seriously a ten year old kid

42:34 Із негоціатин форсь. And I remember taking that experience. And feeling like You know, I was taken seriously in that environment, but it was a great experience because it was a small class. It was like twenty people. And in that setting, I felt okay.

42:52 Speaking up But then on stage I didn't still. And so it was sort of these small steps that felt like I was getting closer and closer to realizing Oh, I need to actually be able to speak up. I need to be able to say things in front of a large audience. And so there was this. desire to face my fears. So what was the next step after that?

43:15 How did you go about facing the fear of speaking on stage. I get to high school and as Every high school freshman's doing they're looking for different activities to participate in. And I decide to dive into speech and debate. And speech and debate at this time at Palo Alto High School was not a very

43:36 big activity. There were probably about twenty students on the team. And I found that I really enjoyed it. And It was a really great group of students.

43:48 And then not only from Pal Alta High School, but from the local community. And I just fell in love with The idea that you could Really seriously get up. in front of a an audience and

44:02 Talk about really important issues. Even as a high school student. And so I dove into that activity and was frankly terrible at it. I think freshman sophomore year.

44:14 I didn't win any tournaments didn't even come close. That was sort of the way though I I decided I could face that fear. What kept you going? I mean there's the Answer that

44:26 Or perhaps potential answer you gave just a moment ago, which is you really enjoyed it and you loved it, but what did you love about it? What did you enjoy so much that you're able to persist through failures over those first two years.

44:40 The first thing is just the people. I reflect actually on the people that I met in speech and debate and they're doing incredible things. We have Just in my my year alone, not in my team, but in my local community. Professors You know, one's at Harvard and Government, one's in Philosophy University of Colorado.

45:01 One woman is now on the the morning show on NPR We have several venture capitalists. It was just a really interesting group of people. All in the same age group. who wanted to talk about really interesting things.

45:18 I also found that The actual activity itself. It challenged me in a way that I hadn't been challenged before. So I was really good at math and science, and those things really came naturally to me. But getting up on stage and speaking was not something that was natural to me.

45:36 But The piece that I did love that came very naturally was competition. And I've always been this way. Yeah. No, I'm just chuckling because yeah, I can I c I would agree with that. Right. I love I love competition. You put in points on anything and I Want more

45:58 I want more than the next person, and I remember. The coaches that we had, we We didn't have Teachers at our school who were able to coach. And so we had to go across the street to Stanford and find students who were willing to coach.

46:14 And these kids were eighteen to twenty one years old. So They would pump us up by saying, Hey You can get someone to cry.

46:25 In cross examination, I'll buy you a slice of pizza. And so you know, things like that. were extraordinarily motivating and if you feel like You know, logic and arguments could get you a step further. It was just something that

46:43 Even though I wasn't good at it at the time. I just loved it and I felt like if I could just do one more tournament, I'd become even better at it. And you would see that. So that that's the thing that I loved. So do you have any memory? This seems like a very very specific example that you gave of the crying in the pizza. Did that actually happen? Did you succeed at making someone cry and cross examination for a slice of pizza? Or is was that just something that kids. So can you I feel like I'm not succeeding in my desire to humanize me and make myself seem like a less of a dragon lady, but we'll get there. We'll get there. But this I wanna hear the I wanna hear this story. So let's there's several stories. So there were points in time where I remember people would cry

47:33 In the they would crumble in the middle of cross examination and run out of the room crying. And my coach would see that and proudly bring me a slice of pizza after this happened multiple times. This wasn't a single tournament. And there were moments where They had courtesy points too. So it wasn't just about winning. It was also whether you were courteous during that.

47:56 There were rounds where I got zero courtesy points and my coaches They would ask why we got zero courtesy points just to really understand if we were just being mean. But a lot of times it was just because we were Yeah, and I was particularly tenaceus in cross examination and

48:17 And even at the point where I had the person stumped, I would just keep going. I would keep going, keep going at it. And so I remember at least four or five occasions where Someone cried and left the room before the round was over. This was like the cobra cai of Debating.

48:36 The bad team from the Karate Kid. And it's my uh my s my six year old at one point, right before kindergarten, said Hey mama. I can make people cry just with my words. And I have to say it was like a really proud moment for me. And then I had to course correct and talk to him about that. But

48:57 Now for someone who is wondering what I omitted from the bio that's I had in front of me. You had two years Of not doing well.

49:09 And then in the bio we have she placed first in the national tournament of champions and second in the state of California in high school. And it goes on. I'll I'll mention one more thing. It was part of a five person team at Yale that competed in the Robo Cup competition in Paris, France. All right, but let's focus on the debating. So how did you go from to f miss flub with Not succeeding in debating. to getting good at debating.

49:32 Yeah, and this is where I think It's the love of the game. Were your parents supportive through all of these Early trials and tribulations. No, so you have to you have to remember, you know, I come from very traditional Japanese parents who really want me to get into a great university.

49:50 And my mom at one point right after sophomore year looks at my record. And my parents were incredibly supportive. They would go and judge these tournaments every single weekend. spend so much time doing it, driving us all over the state. And my

50:07 Parents pulled me aside and said, You know This isn't working. You have A losing record in this activity that you're doing. And you appear to be doubling down on your time with respect to this.

50:21 And if you want to get into a good college, you have to perform well in whatever you're doing. It's not just about effort, you have to have results. And I remember my mom said to me I've heard Fencing is a great way to get into an Ivy League.

50:38 It's And I remember looking at her and I was like How is it possible that she's my mother? She Clearly does not know anything about my athletic abilities if she's suggesting that I move into fencing at this moment.

50:54 And so I said to them Point taken. Give me the summer. And I'm going to just work on it. And this is back before the internet. So Working on it meant I was at Stanford

51:07 Green Library. Reading philosophy books and reading articles about I think they have twelve topics, twelve possible topics that they're going to pull from For the next year. And I just studied those topics. I lived in the library and then

51:26 I emerged That year. to start competing and when they announce that first topic. I knew that topic. Cold.

51:37 And then I could write my cases really quickly. I had already done all this research. And I remember going into my very very first round. And had this deal with my parents. If I didn't win

51:52 One of my first two tournaments, or at least place. Then I would quit. And I had this distinct impression walking into my f very first round. That fall.

52:04 And feeling as I looked across at my opponent. Th there was no way that they could Have out Prepared me. And so

52:16 I knew that whatever they they said. I would have Five arguments against. And it was this incredible knowledge that it's not that you can be lucky

52:30 And turn your luck around. You actually make your own luck. And for me, that was a profound lesson because I placed in that tournament. And I placed in the next tournament.

52:41 And it was like that, it just never stopped after that. And I had a losing record. All through my freshman sophomore year. And it's like I turned it around junior year. Very suddenly.

52:54 And the main difference was that I was willing to outwork and outdo every competitor who walked in through that door. For people who don't know the format. And I'll be honest, I've been surrounded by not surrounded by, but certainly in the same universities and so on where debate teams existed, but I've never

53:15 seen a debate competition. What what is what is the format? It's a bunch of nerdy kids dressed in suits holding briefcases. And then maybe that's changed, but that's what it was back then. And then

53:30 You have A resolution that's been announced nationwide. And that resolution is generally it has some philosophical elements to this is also Lincoln Douglas style of debate. And you have

53:46 What does that mean? If you don't mind. So so it's one person against one person, so it's individual. And it's value based. And so you're really debating philosophy. So An example of

54:00 one debate that we did the principle of majority rule. ought to be valued above the principle of minority rights. Or Resolved that education is a privilege and not a right. So all of these debates are really surrounding not a specific policy.

54:20 But it has some application in the real world. And what you're trying to debate is A philosophical underpinning behind That statement. And what I loved about debate was you were actually forced to

54:34 debate both sides. So you had to have cases ready. For both the affirmative And the negative. So Pro the resolution and against the resolution. And the format is the affirmative goes up and talks about this resolution and says all the reasons that they support it.

54:53 And then there's a a short cross examination where the negative Then cross examines the affirmative, asks questions of the affirmative. Then the negative gets up and Talks about all the reasons that they're against The resolution

55:09 And then goes point by point against all of the arguments that the affirmative made and talks about why they're wrong. And then there's another cross examination of the affirmative against the negative. And then the affirmative gets up for a rebuttal negative gets up for a rebuttal. And then the affirmative does closing arguments.

55:28 It sort of Shorter and shorter speeches towards the end. Mm-hmm. And w how is the outcome? Determined. Parameters.

55:39 So it really depends on the tournament. Aside from courtesy. Courtesy points. It's all about courtesy. There's two different types of tournaments, actually, when when I was debating, one was where you had parent. Judges And that I would say really the style of speaking, your flair really would come into play. Your sense of humor.

56:01 Wasn't really just a line by line arguments. There was also Places where you would go where college students were the judges or experienced Coaches were the judges. And that's where really the line by line logic.

56:17 becomes much more important than just the style of your debate. So it really depends on your audience and you had to read the audience correctly. And did they just Then Say I choose A or B.

56:31 Or do they have to rank like the sort of Olympic style one to ten in some fashion. So you only have two debaters that you're judging and you vote for one of them. And in some of the rounds you have just a single judge. And then in another in the the breakout rounds, the semi finals, you you might have a panel of judges. They can't confer. They're just sort of

56:53 voting individually on who wins. So you you may be at a point now with debate and argument that you've reached the uh of unconscious competency phase in the sense that in skill acquisition one framework that one could use to think about skill acquisition as you go from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.

57:15 to conscious competence than unconscious. So I don't know if this question is going to be a A good one, but I'll I'll try it anyway. For people who want to get better at debating and structuring arguments. And so on. Are there any books or approaches?

57:32 Or resources, anything, exercises that you would suggest. Well getting to yes. Mm-hmm. I Thought was always really good.

57:41 I actually found The philosophical Text? To be extraordinarily informative. So

57:49 Anything where you have that Socratic method in a book. I found really A great way of learning how people Debate the greatest philosophers. Aristotle and Socrates.

58:02 Even, you know, when you get into more modern literature around justice you have People like John Rawls writing. That is actually a dialogue and a real logical debate. And

58:15 I always found those examples to be really great to read how people Argue Philosophical constructs. You know, presidential debates to be honest in politics aren't real debates because it's too Ships passing in the night.

58:31 And you don't have real conflict between People. I've also found like the British parliamentary system, if you've ever had the chance to see that on I think sometimes it's on C SPAN. That's actually an interesting observation of a real world debate as well, because they will actually

58:49 engage in dialogue around policy and it's not just ad hominem. Attacks. I find those sort of real world examples much more powerful than Someone going sort of point by point in teaching you How to debate.

59:03 Because I think the how is much more around How do you engage in the idea? How do you read and research both sides of an argument, and what do you believe on both sides? And so, you know, one way to do that would actually to take a fairly controversial Topic.

59:21 And then actually read Read a lot of liter. On both sides of the argument. And then understand where actually The conflict happens.

59:32 Are there definitions that people don't agree on? Are there nuances that people haven't thought about? Is there real conflict or are they two ships passing in the night? I think you could do that with even the gun control debate, or you could do that with immigration, or you could do that with abortion, and really understand. both sides of an argument and that's the way to engage in

59:54 The process of debate, I believe. If we're Reflecting back on your Cobric eye training. For slices of pizza.

1:00:03 I'd be really curious to know if there are any particular approaches or questions Or playbooks that you find very useful. In a heated

1:00:17 argument. And I'll give you some hypotheticals, right? Let's say that you are on stage at an event and you or doing a QA with the audience and you have someone who ends up being really hostile or attacks you. Or it could be on someone on stage. You're just having a contentious debate of some type. I find it fascinating to see how people even with No real logical advantage shut down opponents. And I'm not saying that's You in this case but for instance.

1:00:42 Whatever people may think of our of our dear current president of the United States I do find it fascinating how effective he has been at saying, check your facts, right? And it just throws enough imbalance into the dynamic where someone's like, Wait a second, maybe I did miss one piece of due diligence. That they're on their heels and it Opens up a window. And creates sort of a uh

1:01:05 an illusion of them being stymied that is really advantageous. I'm like, wow. I mean, it's kind of gross on one level, but it's also kind of brilliant. And I also have a lot of lawyers in my family. So one thing that they'll do, not to say they all love arguing, but a lot of them do. You'll say something and They will go so

1:01:24 Let me just get this straight. You're So I understand. You're you're saying that X, and they'll kinda take your argument and like inch it a little closer to absurdity, but just Subtly enough that you'll say, Yeah, that's about right. And they'll say, Okay, so really what you mean is X, right? And they start to edge you over Before they even counter with an argument.

1:01:44 To make you contradict yourself or kinda seem ridiculous and then They just have to kind of finish you off. I've never taken debate, but I do find this really practical and and really interesting. So It's a long winded way of introing, but what are your thoughts on any of that?

1:02:01 It's funny, my my husband has said to me in the past And this is a lesson that I continue to try to learn and relearn. Is that life is not a debate. And you know what he's saying, and it's funny, he was a debater as well in college and in high school. And we joke that I would still have beaten him in high school if we had actually gone

1:02:26 Head to head. But I think it's a really important point that Life isn't about winning the argument. And he's also said to me in the past. It's not about being right.

1:02:37 And I think that's so true. It's something that I'm always trying to really practice in life. And I think it's the debater in me makes it really hard.

1:02:50 The things that you're pointing out are What's important about it is that people Have a tendency to have an inner dialogue where they're Right.

1:03:02 And Instead of really listening to the other person They're coming up with a next argument. that proves that person wrong. So if you go back to what I really loved about debate and what I felt like I got out of it.

1:03:17 It was actually this ability to see both sides of an argument. To really delve into a topic and understand why the The side that I actually naturally believed. could actually be flipped on its head.

1:03:31 And that was a really important skill to develop, and I think that was so much more important to develop. Than the skill to argue for my side. Because I think in the world today what we don't see enough of Is empathy.

1:03:45 For People you might even disagree with. And we get stuck in our version of truth and what is right. And we aren't truth seekers anymore.

1:03:58 As a result. We're truth winners. That's very true. Yeah, very true. That's a piece that really makes me sad is that

1:04:07 You know, when people are like, Oh, this debate skill is so great to have Because now you can like Ram people with your ideas. And I've never seen a situation where you shout people down and convinced them you were right. I've seen situations where

1:04:23 by developing true empathy for The other side You actually create bridges and you create commonality and you create situations where you can actually work together. And I think that's the piece I would take away from my debate experience. I would say actually making the person cry in cross examination probably is not the skill that I should be using in real life, although maybe sometimes I do.

1:04:47 Just when you're teaching your son the black magic. I should point out just so people don't think I'm completely uh Sort of drinking the Kool Aid of the bloodlust of this potential sport, although I do find it very, very Fascinating.

1:05:04 As an insight into some parts of human nature, but the book you mentioned, Getting to Yes, which is part uh or be byproduct of the Harvard negotiation project, as I recall. Yeah. is not a book about proving you're right. It's a book about getting outcomes. Yes.

1:05:19 And there's another book, which I believe was co-authored by one of the co authors of Getting T S called Getting Past No, which I I also really, really like. And It is about Well, both of these books. Any book really on negotiation is about achieving a very

1:05:40 particular outcome or arriving at a desired result as opposed to proving that you're right. So I I just wanna underscore that because there's a a very real world difference as you already noted. Between saying. Debate.

1:05:55 And negotiation. The toolkits are very similar, perhaps in some respects but in debate, you're not gonna have to think about I wouldn't imagine something like

1:06:06 The Batna that they talk about in getting to yes to your best alternative to negotiated agreement. like walk away power or what your options are, you don't necessarily have to go through that thought process, but when you step into the real world, you're not just trying to prove that you're right. You're trying to get someone to concede something and agree to a certain set of terms or a price or whatever it might be. Or amicably trying to break up with someone or get together with someone or w have a divorce or whatever it might be.

1:06:33 you're really trying to manifest some type of outcome. Or damage control. It's really, really different from being a Truth winner. And

1:06:41 The World class term. That I mentioned in the intro. I used a little bit of foreshadowing saying that I Suspected it might come up.

1:06:50 A little bit later. So in doing In doing homework. For this conversation. I read and I don't think this is a misquote, but that your dad even when

1:07:03 I think you were gonna be photocopying in the dean's office. would remind you to be world class. Yeah. And he would ask you if you turn in a calculus assignment, is that a world class effort? Yeah. Could you talk a little bit more about this and That wasn't my experience growing up. My parents certainly encouraged me to do a good job, but tell us a little bit more about your dad in this particular case

1:07:28 And how that was used. My dad grew up in Tokyo Right at the tail end of World War Two. And so one of his earliest memories actually is

1:07:40 Just Planes coming across Tokyo and the fire bombs. And he escaped to the countryside. And then came back to Tokyo for high school. His father passed away when he was in college and he

1:07:54 Literally. tutored kids One guy was like the prime minister's son. So that he could make enough cash to support his family. He had three other siblings.

1:08:05 And he was one of these incredible academics, and so He was At the top of his class in one of the famous high schools in Tokyo. Went to Tokyo University, was also then went to Toshiba, which at the time was one of these great companies to work for

1:08:23 And then he ran into a friend who Told him he was also a friend who was one of the top at his high school. Who said hey there's great opportunities in America. And this

1:08:34 gone off to Princeton and gotten his PhD. And was at that time working in one of the the great labs in IBM And was also becoming a professor and And my dad

1:08:47 decided that he also wanted to go to the US, and he was the eldest son. And so having a mother who's a widow and three siblings He had to take care of them until he had saved up enough. All of his siblings were married and his mom had the courage to say, You know what, you can go. You can go to the US. So this is sort of the backdrop for.

1:09:09 Who my dad is. He comes to the United States without speaking very much English. gets a PhD in mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering And then is in LA ultimately as a postdoc and an associate professor.

1:09:25 My mom comes to marry him. And They are The only family members living in the United States. So really no support.

1:09:35 So my dad eventually makes his way out to Nassa at Moffat Field. And my memories of him, he was very engaged on the academics, but He would wake up at five in the morning and go to work and he'd bring back reams of paper and would continue working late into the night. He loved what he did. So when he turned to me

1:09:57 On anything I ever did from the time I was a small kid. Small child. I would be writing something. And if the handwriting wasn't neat enough, he would say hey. Is this world class?

1:10:10 And I remember thinking to myself, you know. For a five year old, yeah, this is world class. But he would always push. He would always say Is this really, you know, the best that a five year old could ever do?

1:10:27 And it was a constant message. And The story you're pointing to is one when I was in college. After living through a lifetime of this Is this world class question?

1:10:38 I had A moment where I was starting my financial aid package included, you know, ten hours of work study. And I had the opportunity to work in the office of the Dean of Engineering. And what was really

1:10:53 funny to me at the time is since I'm leaving to go to my first day. Of work. I called my parents. My dad gets on the phone he said make sure you do a world class job. And I thought my dad thought I was like really doing something important in The office. And in fact, I was just photocopying. And I said to my dad, I'm photocopying and I'm filing. There's no such thing as world class there. And he said, Well, I'd still think about it.

1:11:18 So I get to the office and I am actually just photocopying and filing. And I remember standing in front of this photocopy machine with a stack of papers. thinking to myself, what is world class in this situation. And I decided it was Really crisp copies.

1:11:36 Where you couldn't tell that it was a photocopy. And so I I remember really trying to make, you know, the Colour match and Everything was Straight.

1:11:48 And I spent a lot of time on the details. And when I was filing things, I didn't just handwrite it. I got a label writer and I made sure it was printed out on labels. And I really tried to do everything. as well as I possibly could and I remember I was getting donuts and I would like make sure I got the the fresh donuts instead of the ones that had been standing out.

1:12:12 In the basket for a while. So every step of the way it was What can I do to make this experience? For the dean or for his

1:12:24 Executive assistant. A delight moment. And it was a real lesson for me because it was a case of real ownership. I felt so much ownership. of the job I was doing, even though From the outside, I think most people would have thought it was just sort of a grunt job.

1:12:41 And I think that's sort of again when I come back to You don't just get luck. You create these opportunities for yourself. to me was a real learning experience. Mm-hmm.

1:12:54 Right. I mean you're you're looking at the potential precursors of luck and trying to set the conditions, even though they might not always produce luck, you can increase the likelihood. Which think is a perfect segue. Two Discussion about

1:13:12 Spring breaks. Don't worry, this isn't going anywhere. Tricky. This relates to Shadowing. I'll just that'll be my cue, which might bring you back. So

1:13:23 All right. Where to lead into this. You were giving a m a man a tour around Yale. Yeah. Who is this man? Why were you giving him a tour? What happened?

1:13:34 And I actually don't know all the detail. I just I found two lines in a past interview and I was like, You know what, I wanna dig into this'cause I don't There's more to this story, I know it. I'm a junior at the time. At Yale.

1:13:46 And Doing this office work. And The Dean of Engineering was this older gentleman, Alan Brombling. And he had no idea who I was.

1:13:58 I've been working in this office for I think two years. But he barely knew my name. He was just like this great He'd worked under George Bus senior. He was a legendary physician. Um, and I really look up to this man, and so

1:14:13 One day he He pokes his head out of the office and the executive assistant was out. And he said Who are you? And I said, I'm Anne Mira. I'm your I'm your student assistant in this office. And he said, Oh, I've heard of you.

1:14:28 I need you to go and give This friend of mine a tour of the engineering facilities. And he's like, I know you'll do a good job. Sarah's told me you're great. And so I I take this gentleman and I take him on a fairly Thorough tour of the engineering facilities.

1:14:47 And we just had a great conversation and he it started off with, you know, where where are you from? And I said I was from Palo Alto, and it turns out this guy is also from Palo Alto. And we're just sort of talking about Palo Alto and In the buildings that are around us and My growing up back in Palo Alto.

1:15:07 And in the middle of it, he said, Hey, you know, what are you doing for spring break? And it just so happened I was gonna go back home and visit my family. And he said Well, that's great because I'm wondering if you want to come and shadow me and see what I do for a living.

1:15:25 And In my complete self-centered moment of being a, you know, junior I hadn't asked this guy what he did for a living and so I said, Well, what do you do for a living? And he said, I'm the CEO of Hewitt Packard.

1:15:44 And I remember thinking to myself, I am such a moron. And I said, I think that would be Amazing to be able to shadow you for a couple of weeks during spring break. And so this man Lou Plot Invites me

1:15:58 To just shadow him. In nineteen ninety seven. And I am going around he didn't have a driver, he was this was really just the The Hewlett and Packard era of CEOs.

1:16:13 She Drove himself around in a Ford Focus. I remember this. We would go go to different meetings and he took me around. And One of the days actually Bill Gates came to make an announcement. About dot net.

1:16:27 With Hewlett Packard. And so it was an incredible event that happened. I got to sit backstage and see everything that was happening. And Lou Platt then invited the photographer to come in.

1:16:42 And actually Take a picture of me talking to Lou. And I didn't really think about it, but after the fact I get back to my dorm. And Lou Platt has sent me A thank you letter

1:16:57 Saying thanks for coming to visit. I thought you would enjoy these photographs. And there's two photographs in there. I've framed them in my office now. One is a picture of me sitting on a See talking to Lou.

1:17:10 And then the second picture is Bill Gates. Sitting exactly in that spot that I was sitting in, talking. To Lou Plot. And You know, to me, like mentorship means so many different things. I've had so many different examples of mentors, but

1:17:28 to a a junior in college Who literally is a nobody. He was such an incredible example of mentorship. He never asked for my resume. He never asked for my GPA.

1:17:43 He just sort of took this girl. And said, You know what, you have something. I see it. And I'm gonna show you something even greater. And

1:17:53 To me, that is such a gift. It was so incredible because. I hadn't even thought about my own personal potential ever. No one had ever described anything to me. And I came back from that with my mind completely blown. I met Ann Livermore, who was an executive, and I'd never seen a female executive in my entire life. And Here's someone who I can look at and see, and I can see that people around her respect her.

1:18:21 It's a life changing moment and it comes from That first Comment from Dean Bromley who says I've heard of you. I heard you do a great job.

1:18:33 And that's where the opportunities opened up. You're the woman responsible for my fresh donuts and crisp photo copies. I've heard good things. Exactly. Typed up filing labels. Now, I should note we don't have to go too deep into this, but in a way

1:18:50 You were perfectly primed. for doing a good job with your photocoping and labeling After spending was it summers in Kanazawa in the stationer store. Am I making that up? Yeah, no, my first job was literally

1:19:06 Helping my uncle and grandmother sell Office supplies. In Kanazawa, Japan, at our store, Taikidol. Taikidal. Oh man, Kanazawa is just such I'd never been to Kanazawa. For those people who don't know, I used to live in Japan long time. My first time out of the US was a year in Japan as an exchange student, which which is a whole separate story. But

1:19:27 Never made it to Kanazawa until a few years ago. It's gorgeous and it's not that far away from Tokyo at all. But such a cute Spot with uh so much to offer. Yeah, it's actually incredible because it's one of the few cities in Japan That was protected by historians, the US. It did not get bombed in World War Two because of. Some of the historic

1:19:51 elements of the city. So it's almost like a smaller version of Kyoto and it has Historic Japanese garden called Kenokuen, which was Kenokuen is Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So it's it's summers I would spend maybe like two blocks away from Ken Nokuen.

1:20:09 So it was an incredible set of summers. But yes, I I used to man the cashier register at the the office supply store. So I know my pens and notebooks and stamps. Like nobody's business. Do you have any favorite go to w don't worry, I'm not gonna spend too much. Uh time on this. But do you have any favorite notebooks or pens or items of those types that you use today? Yeah. Yeah, totally. So On pens, I love the juice up.

1:20:37 How do you smell juice? Juice. Up. Oh, juice up, okay. Yeah, juice up oh four. Can get them on Amazon. They're super thin pens.

1:20:48 O four that's like point four millimeter or something. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And then um for notebooks. It's the Nuna. It's N-U-U-N A. Some European brand, but I like any notebook that has the dot. Matrix on it.

1:21:05 the paper quality is really great. I see dot matrix. It's not like graph paper, but there are perpendicular lines that are dotted. Yes. Yes. I'm very particular. I could go on and on. It appeals to the Dungeons and Dragons nerd in me.

1:21:21 Anything that resembles graph paper. So the juice up O four and the NUNA. Yeah. Definitely anything European sounding with a repeating vowel, I'll pay forty percent more for. Maybe a hundred percent more. Maybe a hundred percent. You mentioned that you have these photographs in your office. I'm curious. You're sitting in your office right now? Yeah. All right. So what else? I'm sure you have photographs of your family, but uh outside of kind of the usual suspects,

1:21:43 What are other items that you have in your office that are important to you? I have the original Lift. Pink musta. That used to go in the front of the cars.

1:21:55 Which I love. I have also A picture and a set of laser etched metal plates that students gave to me.

1:22:06 That have sort of a word graph of all of the words that they thought They ascribed to me. Students of what? What was the context for these students interacting with you? And and what are some of the words? Yeah, so I had I teach at Stanford, so after my PhD What I realized was I I loved teaching more than anything else, and so I stayed

1:22:29 in contact with Uh, Tina Seelig and Tom Byers over at Stanford, who run The Stanford Technology Ventures program. And they've given me the opportunity to teach A few different classes, but the one that I got these metal plates

1:22:45 And the photograph from was The class of two thousand thirteen Mayfield Fellows Group. And they have words like Thunder Lizard. Taras.

1:22:58 Inspiring Mother Mm.

1:23:04 So You know, it's just really fun to see sort of what words they thought. What were you teaching these Mayfield fellows? We were teaching them basic concepts behind leadership. In entrepreneurship. And it's sort of the first exposure that they get as juniors and seniors into

1:23:23 really, you know, start up ecosystem. What does venture capital do within that ecosystem? What are the tough choices that you have to make as a leader within These types of organizations What does growth look like?

1:23:39 in these types of organizations. So it's just sort of Uh, startup one oh one, but what I love about it is it's only twelve students and it goes for nine months. Wow. So if you get to be involved in it, you get to really know. some of the students and I've been mentoring students and sometimes teaching some of these classes since two taus eight And

1:24:03 You get this whole arc of the career path of young people And I really love it. I think it's just sort of You get to see. You students who start off as seniors.

1:24:17 And then they start their career, they might go to grad school. Then they go back and get a job. They get married. And then I think one is now about to have a kid. So just sort of see this whole arc.

1:24:30 And it's just about ten years, twenty years behind where I was. And so I get to see this incredible. progress that these students make over time. So it's it's something that I love. And Miracle, Mother of Thunder Lizards, AKA, Mother of Dragons. We're gonna come back to Thunder Lizard because that there's a whole lot wrapped around that. But I'm gonna try to keep my brain somewhat focused here.

1:24:54 Is there a reading list? for that class, or do you recall anything that was on a recommended or required reading list for that class. Yeah, so we actually teach a I'm starting a class today. At Stanford.

1:25:09 For the new spring quarter. And in this class, what we're teaching is what I would call intelligent growth. It's a little bit different than the Mayfield Fellows. But my hypothesis, my belief is that Just like

1:25:24 Fake news in politics. There is actually something That we would call fake growth. Yeah. We've worshiped at the altar of growth for about five to ten years now.

1:25:37 And What I've seen Is that And this is startup growth specifically. specifically within startups. There's so much that we see that is fake.

1:25:49 And no one has ascribed actual adjectives to growth. Until now. And so The class that I'm teaching to engineering students at Stanford is around What is actually intelligent growth?

1:26:06 And so you asked about the reading for it. It's all around some of these case studies. That we've seen. A great example of that to me is Qualtrics. We're gonna have Ryan Smith, who is the C of Qual Trix, come in and speak.

1:26:21 And I think he's a great example because I think he was at fifty million dollars in revenues before he raised the dime of venture capital money. And so as a result, he's gonna own An incredible piece of his company when it exits, and it will. And so I love the capital efficiency with which he built his business.

1:26:41 I also think you know one of my companies, Lift Із агрейм. of having that kind of discipline early on. And not just wasting venture capital dollars in the early days when they didn't have product market fit. So they spent

1:26:58 Two and a half years working on this platform called Zimride. Knowing that they had to get to density in riders. And Zim Ride was just a it was a platform where you could find carpooling Arrangements. And it was being sold to universities and companies.

1:27:15 But we couldn't get enough density to get transactions really moving fast. And it was two and a half years before they launched Lift. And in the first six weeks you could start to see that there was a real traction there. And it was only after they they knew what they were doing With lift.

1:27:34 That they went and raised Large round with founders fund and then an even larger round. With And recent horoets. And that story of really

1:27:44 Really hacking value. Before you go out and hack growth is something that I don't see often enough. in Silicon Valley. So it's something that I'm continuing to seek. And I love to see companies, especially outside of s Silicon Valley, that do that. And that's When we come back to hunting for thunder lizards, that's what I'm looking for.

1:28:05 When you mentioned the case studies, do you have written case studies that you're using much like I don't know if Stanford uses these, but much like the Harvard Business School case studies, which are these kind of three ring binder Yeah. A five to ten page cases that are published, you use those? So the the ones that we've focused on, there's a Harvard business Case On floodgate.

1:28:27 that you can purchase off of the Harvard Business Review website. So anyone can purchase these. You don't have to be a student. keep going because the format of these case studies is really Interesting to me. And as an undergrad senior, when I took Ed Shao's class in high tech entrepreneurship, which is how I met Mike Maples Junior, who's gonna be a recurring character Shortly.

1:28:47 I remember how useful they were. So that's The only interjection. Sorry to interrupt. No, exactly. So we we use that case study for Qualtrics. There is one on Floodgate. So if you go to the Harvard Business Review site, you can actually just search for Floodgate or Qualtrics and it'll come up. And they're somewhere between, you know, five and fifteen dollars. So they're pretty easy to buy and download.

1:29:11 But I think those two in particular are quite valuable. We have then Also just people coming in and speaking about some of the things that they've learned and how to grow that business from zero to one. And then one to acts. And people like

1:29:28 Michael Siebel Who is now partner at Y Combinator. But also was part of Justin TV. And social cam. We have Stephanie Schatz, who was the fearless leader on the sales side for Zamarin.

1:29:43 She had eighteen straight quarters of beating the stretch target. So you can only imagine how incredible she is as a sales leader taking company from zero to fifty million dollars in revenues. So we have a lot of different types of people, whether they're CEOs, Or CROs

1:30:02 or venture investors coming in to talk about The kinds of trade offs they had to make. and how they decipher growth. to make sure that they're they have the real kind And not just kind that they're buying.

1:30:16 Right. Just to elaborate on that for people who may not be in the startup world, if for instance you're sitting in on an incubator Investor Day and you see Twelve companies in a row that have twenty percent month on month growth with very similar looking charts. There's a possibility that they have been inflating or manufacturing their numbers with paid acquisition. to raise funding or do any number of things. And it's relatively easy to spot once you know the symptoms. But there are a and and then there are

1:30:47 I suppose as you know, Richard Feynman would say the physicist You must be sure not to trick yourself or fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. You can also get very caught up with what you might consider vanity metrics, but let me take a step back and just ask Well, before I ask, people definitely take a look at the case studies for both Harvard and if you search Stanford GSB, which is the business school case studies, you'll also find a website with these

1:31:13 Profiles of companies, and not just companies, but decisions they had to face generally where you can determine for yourself what you would do in a given situation, then read about what they did, whether it's MongoDB, I'm looking at this Stanford GSB site in the case studies right now, Sonos. And so on. How did you

1:31:31 first become exposed to say venture capital and what did you think you were gonna do in college? When you were in college, junior year, what did you expect you were gonna do when you grew up? I actually had multiple different paths. So I I started off When we were talking about my brother describing this kid who knew he wanted to work with cars or airplanes. From the get go. And guess what he's doing right now? He's in Germany. working with race cars. So You know and I was the complete opposite. I I think when I was four I wanted to be a farmer.

1:32:04 Then somewhere along the lines I really wanted to be a doctor. And I wanted to be a doctor for a fairly long period of time where In

1:32:14 Freshman year, summer. I took organic chemistry. I was in this pre med track. I think sophomore year summer, you take the M Cats if you're pretty sure you want to Go to medical school. And

1:32:27 That summer I was with my best friend who also really wanted to go to medical school. And she is right now studying leukemia, she's a doctor. at U C S F so she's she's clearly gone down that path and doubled down on it.

1:32:43 But I remember going to study for the MCATs with her, and I turned to the side and I looked at her, and I had this sudden realization which was Not Then this is two days before we're taking the MCATs. I said

1:32:57 Hey Kathy. I hate hospitals. I don't like actually being around sick people. I also don't love it when people are always complaining to me. And I think that might get in the way of me being a doctor.

1:33:13 And she looked at me like I was an alien and she said, Why are you saying this right now? We're about to take VM Cat, so we need to go study for it at Kaplan. But you know, I was just constantly observing her and she is just this incredible human being and she continues to be. But this realization of Wow, like the actual job of being a doctor may not be something that I actually enjoy.

1:33:40 was really a hard realization when you've been all in for this long. And so It was a realization that I really had to face, and I knew I knew my gut that I was doing it because it was a really great path. It was a path where I knew

1:33:56 what the next step was. I knew what next class I had to take. I knew the next exam I had to take. Then there was applications, then there was school and then there was residency and fellowship and it it just felt like a really predictable thing to do. But the actual work at the end of the day was not something I was going to love or enjoy. And that was really disturbing to me. And so I really screeched off of that path.

1:34:22 And it was hard because I had actually taken all of the requirements except for biology. And the pre med requirements did not actually overlap very much with electrical engineering. So I taken a lot of extra classes to make it a possibility. But realized also it wasn't for me.

1:34:39 And that's where I was sort of in this state of not knowing what I wanted to be. And could I pause for one second? Yeah. So what you just described Illustrates a

1:34:51 degree of self awareness, but also decision making that I think is rather uncommon in the sense that I know a lot of people who have gone on to become doctors or lawyers or fill in the blank that has a lot of prerequisite training and schooling. Because of Say succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy. Like, oh God, I've put in so much time Even though I have this intuitive feeling I'm not going to like it.

1:35:18 I really should do it. And What? Was the conversation or the background that allowed you

1:35:28 to step off of that path and not to beat the like Asian kid drum too hard. But But let's be real, right? I mean, you're also that would be a very admirable, well respected happy to share at a dinner party with friends type of path for your parents, I would assume So all the more uncommon that you would step off of that track.

1:35:50 How is that the case? Why were you different? So I think it goes back to actually the moment in debate. Where my mom is telling me You should do fencing instead of debate. there was this realization of

1:36:05 Oh. My parents really love me. But they don't know me. No one really knows me in terms of my capabilities and What I feel like I can get done.

1:36:16 No one knows that better than I do. It was an important lesson for me because. One other fact that I didn't mention І за кід There was no sign that I was special.

1:36:29 Except for, you know, these weird characteristics where I would go learn negotiations. But I Failed the IQ test. Multiple times.

1:36:40 And the school district insisted I was not gifted or talented. My mom had to fight for me to be part of this gifted and talented program. As a two year old after I I was uh really hostile to people who spoke English. My mom stuck me in tried to put me into pre-school to socialise me.

1:37:01 But I um ended up biting the person who was interviewing me Um For a pre school slot and they put me in special education. I was one of those kids who got picked up in a short yellow bus from our house and taken to his

1:37:17 State run. program for special children And I think for a long time my mom wasn't really sure. What I was But she just decided to be all in on the fact that I was gifted and talented.

1:37:31 Even if I wasn't. And she was really worried that I was I was one of these special children. And so I had sort of an environment around me way before Yale. Where

1:37:45 I knew What I was capable of. Even if the test scores showed that I wasn't. Yeah. And I knew that

1:37:54 I knew what I was capable of. Even if my parents didn't see it in me. And I think there's sort of this This moment in time that people need to have where

1:38:05 you realize that there's no Test. For human potential. There's no recognition for that. It's something that you have to find.

1:38:16 Inside of yourself. And I think for me That one of those tests was actually going back to Am I gonna be a great doctor?

1:38:26 And if I revisit this question that my dad had always asked me, can you be world class? I knew I couldn't because I looked at Kathy and she was gonna be world class. She loved helping people, and she loved helping people from that kind of

1:38:43 perspective. Which is not where I was gonna be. world class. But I felt like there was something in me where I could be great at something.

1:38:54 That just wasn't it. And how did you have the you have all of this technical training by this point and you have the chemistry, but you certainly also have the Let's see here. At that point the electrical engineering, probably. Yeah. How does finance and investing or startups, I don't know which came first, enter the picture. So having grown up in Palo Alto, I was actually exposed to a lot of startups as a even as a kid, my

1:39:18 I used to baby sit for a serial entrepreneur. And he was always tinkering around in his garage, and I remember thinking to myself, Oh, he works for himself, which is very, very cool. I also on my debate team Was Lisa Brennan Jobs. Who

1:39:35 I didn't really realize she was the daughter of Steve Jobs until I was in her house and We were talking about debate. I was a senior at the time and I was helping her through learning the ropes of speech and debate and Steve Jobs sort of appeared out of nowhere. And I remember thinking to myself, what what is Steve Jobs doing in this house? Um And so, you know, it was just sort of it was all around.

1:39:57 And so venture capital was something that actually a friend of mine had brought up. when I was still struggling with this notion of what should I be And he was a real finance guy and he said, You know, you're you're really good at technology and you're now interested in business because of this exposure to Lou Plot.

1:40:17 You know, have you ever thought of venture capital? And I remember kind of reading about it and having heard a little bit about it growing up. looking into it and realizing oh you have like all this work experience you need to have. I talked to a couple of former Yaleys who were venture capitalists and

1:40:35 And sort of had that in my in the the back of my head. And so You know, I went off to work at McKinsey as a consultant for three years. And then In the process of trying to figure out what to do next.

1:40:48 I met a venture capitalist by the name of Ted Dinter Smith. And In that interview with him We spoke. Not about technology, not about the research I'd done or my work experience, but he wanted to know.

1:41:04 What books I was reading? He wanted to know About the music that I loved. And in that period I was really into modern American literature. So I was really into EL Doctoro. There are a few books that I just absolutely loved, and we talked about that for a little while.

1:41:22 And then when we turn to music I've played piano, classical piano, since I was four. And he He and I talked about the the classical musicians that I really loved and He happened to be in

1:41:35 English lit major. Along with being a physics major. So he he loved books as much as I did. maybe even more. And then he was an opera nut. And so we had all these things that we could talk about and Two hours into that conversation Never having touched upon

1:41:54 Technology He then basically said, How would you like to come work with me? And I was living out in Palo Alto at the time. This is an opportunity in Boston.

1:42:05 And I remember not not even hesitating, knowing that I wanted to work. with this person, this human being sitting across the table from me I jumped at that opportunity and it wasn't It wasn't the fact that it was in venture capital, but rather

1:42:20 I really wanted the chance to be. working around someone like Ted Dinter Smith at that time. Let's talk about that interview for a second. So that I think would strike some people as a very Unusual.

1:42:33 Interviewing style. Yes. Do you think in retrospect, and maybe you know, that he had already decided you were fully capable of doing the job, therefore didn't have to check that box and just wanted to make sure that he could work with you and spend time with you? Was it that he was using that interview to sell you so that when he made the offer, you would say yes? What do you think was going through his mind? before, during, or after or I suppose d before and during that conversation.

1:42:59 You know, I think Ted Is a very unique human being in that. I used to have this perception that networking was work in a room and like you shake a lot of hands and hold a lot of babies and You learn a few names and you move on. I learned from Ted

1:43:19 that networking is actually A deep curiosity about the human being who's sitting across the table from you. So I don't think he necessarily had That kind of purpose in mind, but that He was just really interested in what I was interested in.

1:43:37 And We happen to find commonality And he was trying to understand how my mind worked. in what I was interested in.

1:43:47 I've taken that as a real lesson because I love the way He would network he learned so much about people in that process. And that's how he ministered to his entrepreneurs. He also

1:44:05 was capable of providing advice at the right time because he really knew those people. And so for me I felt like it was a really unique interview. It stood out from all the interviews I've ever had. But I think he was learning

1:44:21 more about me than most other technical interviews could have gotten to. And then, you know, his other partners, I think Eesar Armini. gave me sort of more of a case study and could dive into that, but Ted always had a deep curiosity about the human being and not necessarily just the skills.

1:44:40 What else did you learn from him or In that position in that job. I thought that Ted was also an incredible first principles thinker. So my second day of work at CRV was nine eleven. Oh my gosh. And so

1:44:56 So it was you went from kind of a bad economy to a horrible um black hole economy. And And so it was a really terrible time for venture. And they had just raised this.

1:45:10 one point four billion dollar fund. So that's I mean, for Venture, that's a huge amount of money. And it's a huge accomplishment to convince so many investors to invest in your venture capital firm at that amount. Then Ted took the time to actually start to do analysis with me.

1:45:30 On How much capital had gone into venture capital at that moment. And then the exits had stopped. There were no more IPOs, no one was acquiring companies. The economy just came to a screeching halt. And he decided Along with the other partners in this firm.

1:45:49 To give back. Most of the money. So they reduced their fund from one point two billion dollars. to four hundred fifty million dollars. And the reason why that's so interesting and impressive.

1:46:02 is that the way a venture capital firm makes money. the way you have any salary or the operating money that you have for the firm is a direct percentage. of the fund that you raise. And so by shrinking the size of the fund. You're shrinking the size of the management fees that you get.

1:46:22 Pretty dramatically. Oh, for sure. Very dramatically. I mean, for people who don't know, I mean you you'll hear very often, it's not always the case, but in Venture capital two and twenty, two and twenty, and that means two percent management fee based on the sort of assets under management, meaning that particular fund, and then twenty percent of the upside. For people who don't know. Mm-hmm.

1:46:43 they decided to give back those management fees. And to me, that was really, really impressive because you're facing down a really terrible economy, not only are you shrinking the size of your fund to reflect that You're also shrinking the size of your management fees and you're you're taking that blow. So

1:47:02 Things like that I learned I learned also How to shepherd companies through that kind of difficult time. And how to be a true partner. to an entrepreneur. And so you know, I think

1:47:14 It was a really important lesson to learn because I would argue most people haven't seen real cycles. People seem to think two thousand eight was a real significant dip in the economy. But Anyone who lives through two thousand one knows that two thousand eight was a blip

1:47:31 compared to a real downturn. Because we've had a raging bull market for such a long time. that memory and that knowledge of Of having survived

1:47:43 You know, two thousand one. as a crisis period is something that I hold with me. Really, my war chest, I I know how to get through. that kind of time period, and I don't think a lot of people do. Yeah, it makes me think of

1:47:57 A lot of what I Heard in Silicon Valley still here. You know, before moving to Austin, which makes me think of I I'm gonna paraphrase this, but it's a quote from Sir John Templeton, I think it is, which is the most expensive words in investing are this time it's different. And It has been quite the bull.

1:48:16 Run. You mentioned first principles thinking. I wanna tie that into something you mentioned related to your class, tough choices for leaders. What are some of the toughest choices for Leaders I suppose in this context. CEOs or high level

1:48:32 Exact co founders of companies. What are some of the Toughest decisions that nonetheless seem to come up. Fairly commonly. The most difficult thing for a startup. Founder, CO leader

1:48:46 You witness multiple phase changes in a business. And so if you imagine you're going from Absolutely nothing to something. That's what I call the zero to one phase. You're searching for product market fit. You're trying to find the best customers.

1:49:03 You're trying to find where your tenx advantage is truly valued. That's a very different Biz process And truth seeking

1:49:14 Then When you're going to From one to X, which is now that I know what my value proposition is. I'm gonna add to that, but I'm also going to pull on some of these growth levers.

1:49:26 The fundamental job of a VP of marketing who is in that zero to one phase. changes dramatically one to X. It changes dramatically for the the salesperson in zero to one to one to X. And you go through this incredible Bermuda triangle where

1:49:45 You have to navigate that change. And so Вай с challenging for startup founders is actually

1:49:55 Being comfortable with your fundamental job. Shifting From Every three months you would have a massive shift in what you need to focus on. And how you need to develop.

1:50:08 And I think A company is a multi dimensional thing in in Silicon Valley, we spend so much time thinking about product and product market fit. That We forget that there's this huge emphasis you might want to place.

1:50:23 on the fact that a company is also an organization. A company is also a category that you're building. Company is also a business model. You know, a company is also a team and so It's the skill set actually to balance

1:50:39 All of those things. And knowing when You fundamentally need to change out the talent in your team. The knowing when you actually need to let go of a product. And knowing actually to me this is probably the hardest piece.

1:50:56 Knowing the difference between A winning strategy. versus a strategy not to lose. Could you elaborate on that, please? Yeah, so to me a strategy not to lose is a lot of different things. It's to

1:51:12 На To lose to a competitor. На то. A strategy not to lose out on revenue. So it's all these fears that you have of

1:51:23 Captured ground Or The fact that you might have someone take over something that you want to do. A competitor who's breathing down your kna. versus a strategy for winning.

1:51:36 Is about where do you double down on? Водою ти капчу град тобі агресів. To play offense and not defense. To me there is huge difference between that strategy of I'm gonna win in this market.

1:51:51 versus I'm not gonna lose. And not losing often involves a lot of hedging. And When you feel that urge to hedge

1:52:02 You need to focus. And you need to be offensive. In what ways might that hedging manifest? What would be examples you've seen or hypotheticals of the symptoms of a defensive strategy in the form of Hedging.

1:52:17 It might manifest itself in I am gonna go after Two very different customer segments. One is large enterprises The other small medium businesses.

1:52:31 And the reason why that's really hedging is you have two completely different ways of selling to those organizations. And you're afraid to pick one because Maybe you have some revenue in both. Right. But in that situation

1:52:47 By not choosing To focus on one group or the other. You're probably a shortchanging your team because you don't have a specialized team to go after that opportunity. You're short changing your business model because you aren't pricing your product correctly. And you're shortchanging the opportunity because

1:53:08 Probably your product isn't optimized for that customer set. Your customer service isn't optimized for that product set. And your team is ultimately confused because you're heading in two completely different conditions and directions. And so That's one of the most common ways that I see people involved in a strategy of not losing instead of We're here to win it.

1:53:31 Yeah, all of those things you mentioned also contribute to lighting money on fire. Right. I mean that's That split focus just the bonfire. The bonfire of funding. Or cash flow, depending on where it comes from. This is really important, and you know this, but I want to underscore it for people listening.

1:53:51 And give a few other examples that might be Worth people might enjoy exploring. So this Winning. versus not losing distinction.

1:54:01 Seems really subtle. but you can get a intuitive feel for it in a few different ways. One is there's actually a I think it's a three part mini series podcast called The Making of Oprah. And it talks about

1:54:16 The rise of Oprah. I know this seems like an odd segue. Oprah impresses the hell out of me in a million different ways, and after you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. But She would constantly tell her team many of whom wanted to respond to say Donahue, who was the eight hundred pound gorilla at the time. Like we need to race our own race.

1:54:35 In the sense that if you're on a thoroughbred horse and you're in a race, you need to focus on your race. You can't be looking side to side. at the competitors the racers next to you, or you get yourself into a lot of trouble or you get really injured. And the second is if people want to Google

1:54:50 Dan Gable on aggression. There's a short video I put on my blog that hits this point exactly. And I'm giving examples from different disciplines because I it it is cross disciplinary. It's not just investing in startups. Dan Gable is the most legendary wrestling coach certainly in the last I would say hundred years in the United States. also won a gold medal in the nineteen I want to say seventy two Munich Olympics without having a single point scored on him. That just does not happen.

1:55:18 And this video will show you a lecture that he's giving one of his athletes after his athlete tied and he said you lost to him twice before you just didn't want to lose. He said you never win that way. You gotta tie. And that's exactly why you got a tie. And uh

1:55:37 The difference is is just so powerful, it's worth I just thought taking a second to to underscore it because I think it's a really a critical distinction that you brought up. It's our sort of uh like I think about it. I love to ski.

1:55:51 And I had this instructor once, I was complaining about going through powder and I was saying how it really hurt my my thighs. He's like, My thighs are burning and he looks at me, he said 'Cause you're not leaning forward. And like the minute you lean forward Suddenly you're just gliding.

1:56:10 And it's scary in that moment when you lean forward. Because you feel like you're gonna fall. And yet It gives you so much more control. It's so much less effort counterintuitively.

1:56:23 Definitely. That to me is like the perfect example of Oh, like you have to actually Have A little bit of aggressiveness.

1:56:33 In order to have the win. I think you are Well suited in that respect. How did you meet The man.

1:56:40 Who So famously tries to trick not trick, that sounds too strong. Who so commonly will say something like Well I'm just a southern boy. Maybe you could slow down and explain that one more time, which by the way, if you ever hear anything like that, like really stop and pay attention because you're about to be tricked or misdirected. I've actually borrowed that and I use that for long island a lot. I'm like, you know, I'm just a slow long island boy. Take a second, maybe you can explain that to me again. How did you meet

1:57:08 Mike Maples Jr. Yeah, so this actually happened in one of the classes that I was teaching at Stanford. He was one of the mentors for a bunch of teams. So we had all these teams who are creating business plans for their own version of a startup company. We had incredible mentors. To each of these teams we had

1:57:28 I think someone who was the former CEO of Verisign, we had think Diane Green might have been a mentor to one of the teams and we have explained to folks who Diane Green is, for those who don't know. Diane Green is now the head of Google Cloud. She was also the CEO of VMware. Big deal. Big big deal. So big deal. Big deal.

1:57:49 And what we What we did was we would team up some of these entrepreneurs or people in Silicon Valley with a student team and Mike was one of them. And for people who know Mike, he's just this charming Boy from Oklahoma, he calls himself sometimes a washed up enterprise.

1:58:07 VC and or washed up enterprise entrepreneur, but he's not. So he came to our class and He was mentoring this team, but he was actually being too nice. And so this he was having like all sorts of weird issues. They were fighting and they came to my office hours and one of them started to cry. And

1:58:29 Spotting a theme here within proximity of Right. I did not make this team member cry. It was they were making each other cry. Screw it. And so I was just kind of I was really I was kind of mad at Mike because Part of the role of the mentor is to help shepherd them through this tough point. And he was just kind of checked out on that front.

1:58:53 And I emailed him and he said, Oh yeah, my team's doing great. And I said, Well, I kind of beg to differ. They were just in my office and one of them started to cry and they're fighting and right now If they don't pull it together, they're really gonna fail the class. And he just wrote me this message that said, Well, I think they're gonna get an A plus. Okay.

1:59:12 Yeah. Uh And so I said, Well, so far not tracking. And so we just sort of have this friendly banter and actually the team does turn it around and they ended up getting an A plus in the class. And uh did Mike intervene or did he just throw some turtle shells on a desk and like divine his way to that outcome?

1:59:31 I'm not really sure, but I actually take full credit for the turnaround because had I not pointed it out to Mike then The team would have just imploded. So based on that interaction, a few years later I was starting to get to a point in my PhD where I was thinking of starting my own company. And I had started my PhD in computer security.

1:59:54 Exactly because I knew that it didn't matter when I graduated. There would be a computer security problem out there. And I wouldn't be at risk of market timing. And it was sort of a perfect opportunity because Just as I was going through my research.

2:00:13 It was from two thousand three to Two thousand seven at this point. We had transformed from this world of Where security used to be a bunch of vandalism problems. To now there are companies

2:00:26 involved and like real money was being involved and so real crime was being created here. And then towards the end, there was really like nation state warfare starting to happen. And so My research was really in risk management. Uh

2:00:42 Computer security. And I knew that this was becoming a huge issue. And so I started to think I'm gonna make a company. So at that moment I Turn to some of my advisors.

2:00:58 And my advisors were nice enough to say, Hey If you're thinking about starting company You've been in the Ivory Towers for literally four years. So you should get out of the classroom. And go check out some angel investors. And then

2:01:12 Mike was one of the first people I turned to and I asked him if I could see his deal flow. And he was nice enough to say, Sure, why don't you just come in and take a look at my deal flow on Wednesdays. And so we would sit next to each other and look at companies. And Dealflow means the sort of top of the funnel companies that he's considering Potentially investing in.

2:01:33 Right, they would come in and pitch for between thirty minutes and an hour. And then at the end of that, I think it was March of two taus. He calls me as I'm Actually going up to Tahoe to ski.

2:01:46 He calls me to say, Hey and I have this great idea. I just raised my first fund. It's thirty five million dollars. And I think

2:02:00 that you should drop out of your PhD program and join me. And it's not the venture back startup that you've been thinking about. But it's now backed. Venture startup. Let's go. Oh, I like that.

2:02:15 Ha ha That's really good. Now was that an immediate yes or was it a let me sleep on it? I actually thought he was crazy because First of all You know, I was literally again, I was a nobody. I I'm I'm a PhD's candidate. I don't even have my degree.

2:02:32 At Stanford. So there's like all these business school students, there's great, you know, angel investors milling around. Why the major question was like, why does this guy think that I would actually be a good investor? And then The second piece was There weren't a ton of

2:02:48 Venture capital firms that were being started up. So even when I went back to people who were my mentors Some of them said Why would you go to a no name VC? Why won't you go and be an associate? Uh

2:03:02 Kleiner Perkins or Excel or Sequoia. Yeah. And I don't really have a good answer. And just to set the stage for folks who don't know maybe the recent history in Silicon Valley at the time That

2:03:16 Mike had proposed this to you. sort of micro cap venture capital was Barely a thing. There are a lot of funds of all sorts of different sizes now, but at the time This was very unusual. Yeah.

2:03:30 And so it was You know, at this point in When we get to two thousand eighteen, there's probably you know, thirty funds being pitched a week to a limited partner. who invest into these venture capital firms, but back then there was very, very few.

2:03:45 And so It was really a question of is this the smart thing to do? And I think this is sort of where, you know, when you turn to an entrepreneur This is the feeling that they get. What I sensed was there was actually a major change afoot.

2:04:01 All of the students around me at Stanford didn't need five million dollars to start a company. And that's what venture capital was offering to startups at that point. They would say, I will buy fifty percent of your company for five million dollars. Right. It was predicated on the entry costs being very high. In summer. Very, very high. And like at that point We suddenly have open source software. We really have

2:04:27 What's starting to look like clo computing. We have all the shared resources, so Even though I was helping to run servers in the closet at my grad school in our lab. That was starting to become something that we didn't need. There was actually

2:04:43 you know, services that you can use where you could rent services. And so To me There was a dramatic change that was happening, and so you had to change the financing environment. So I felt like I could see something.

2:04:58 that everyone else didn't see that Mike was also seeing. And he used to say five hundred thousand is the new five million. And then the second piece for me was This guy Mike Maples had a skill set I had never seen before. Maybe in like one or two other people in my entire lifetime. But he was

2:05:17 This incredible marketer. En I used to believe. You either built things or you sold things. Everything else. just seem like an extraneous skill set to have. Mike was incredible at storytelling and positioning.

2:05:35 and strategy like real straty for how do you create a new category. And how do you build that category and how do you create the king of that category? And As an engineer

2:05:49 I hadn't thought about what you do after you build the product. And so this magic of category creation. to me was Something that almost felt like magic. And so I looked at Mike. And I thought

2:06:05 I really need to learn. From this person. And not only is it a great skill set that I'm learning from. He is also genuinely one of the best human beings that I've ever encountered. And so it was just sort of this magical combination of someone

2:06:20 Whose values really aligned with me. And how I wanted to build a firm and the things that I wanted to do with that, and how I wanted to treat entrepreneurs. And a person who was A mad genius. And so that combination to me was irresistible. And so

2:06:36 A couple of months into it, I said, sign me up. So Question number one, just for people who are wondering, and I know a lot of people you seem very good At avoiding the sunk cost fallacy. And this is so, so, so key, this cognitive bias.

2:06:53 When you were looking at The quitting of the PhD program. I don't know how it works at Stanford, but did you realize you could kind of you didn't have to quit. I didn't I did not quit, so So that first year and a half of my life at Floodgate was crazy because at that point I joined Floodgate and I have an eighteen month old child, my daughter Abby.

2:07:17 And then I think it was four or five months into it, I am pregnant with my second child. I've promised my mother as any good Asian daughter would that I will finish this PhD if it's the last thing I do. So I'm Waking up at like four o'clock in the morning

2:07:34 Doing research until You know, seven when my daughter wakes up. Then taking her to daycare. And then working from like eight thirty to six thirty.

2:07:44 Uh floodgate and then Coming back, doing dinner. And then working on my PhD again, rinse and repeat. And then I got pregnant with my second child a few months into that. And then

2:07:58 decide I was gonna defend my PhD. They set the date for six weeks after I gave birth to my son. So, you know, I not only Did my first set of investments, but Also

2:08:11 Gave birth to a child. cared for another one. And Managed to stay married. And finished this PhD all between two thousand eight and two thousand nine.

2:08:23 And so you know To me, like that's like the most creative and probably productive period of my life ever. And probably will be, but also showed me that I can actually

2:08:37 do a lot of things that everyone around me was like, Why would you do all of those things at the same time? This is gonna seem like a non sequitur, it kind of is, but how does your mom say your name? Because Anne is sort of an unusual first name. Oh no, but that's not my first name. My first name is Neco. Lego!

2:08:54 Yeah. So how does my mom say she's like Lego Chan. They got chance to go in there. I can barely That's another word everybody should look up and learn. S U G O I

2:09:09 That just means sort of awesome, impressive, m a whole b whole sort of things because I can barely manage to brush my teeth and shower on a daily basis. And yet You're doing all these things simultaneously. I have to pause at this point.

2:09:23 Just to try. The colours of who

2:09:32 What have you struggled with? Like have you had any dark really it doesn't have to be dark, but difficult times, dark times. That you could tell us about and Where you really struggled. Or is that not part of your Sort of lexicon.

2:09:48 No, I think we we all have struggles, right? So I think even in this moment of like the PhD and caring for my kids and caring for myself and my husband and my family and trying to do a good job at work. Like things slip.

2:10:06 Right. And I struggle with this still today, and this is where the darkness comes in is like, Am I doing anything well? Like am I a good mother? Today my my six year old is on a field trip and he asked me Why is it that you never get to come on a field trip? Like those are all these moments where

2:10:25 You wonder, like, am I failing at being a parent? Or I not able to get to the dishes in my I had a moment where Might

2:10:34 front door neighbor is actually a Japanese woman, a nosy Japanese woman. And she went up to she went up to my mother and she said, You know, your family is so strange. I always see the husband doing the dishes. But never the wife. Never the wife. That is the most nosy Japanese neighbor thing to say ever.

2:10:55 And then like I spent two days like in in that in that front window doing dishes. And at some point I was like, Oh screw this. But it's like all no It is this constant battle of How do I figure out what my priority is? So that

2:11:12 I have like minimum viable Progress. On some fronts, and then the thing that really matters I'm gonna make massive progress on. That's where the darkness creeps in. I think

2:11:25 Іноформі майри loser момент Have been Things like Early on I just described to you early how There were tests that always said like I wasn't that smart.

2:11:39 There were lots of examples where I wasn't good at a lot of different things that other people found very normal. Like I was horrible at standardized tests. Only until I got to like senior year or junior year in high school did I finally figure it out. Like There's so many places where So many people said

2:12:01 Distinctly average. Maybe not even that smart. And I think for me it's been learning to Tune out the naysayers. And knowing

2:12:12 That There's certainly a lot of things I'm not gonna be good at. But there are things that I can actually be great at. A really good example of that actually is my PhD. I remember when I got to my pH at Stanford.

2:12:27 And I'm starting First of all, like I took a math class and there were college freshman in this class and it felt like the math teacher was speaking Greek. And the

2:12:38 Freshman or flying through this material because they're like little kid geniuses. And I remember thinking to myself, Well, clearly I should not be getting a PhD in math and thank goodness this is an operations research. Then I had this second experience where

2:12:56 Uh New professor came in across the hall from me. His name is Ramesh Johari. He was my age because I had taken five years off to start my PhD. He was literally my age and he was

2:13:10 Incredible. he could remember things about different papers and theorems and how they were proved From like years past, compare and contrast them. He just knew things that I struggled to remember. And I remember looking at him. And being in one of his seminars and thinking to myself

2:13:31 That is world class as an academic. I'm okay at it. But I would have moments where I was like, I'm actually not even good at it. And then I would go to a conference and like when you compare us yourself against the world of PhD students, then obvious Then you start to develop a little bit more confidence.

2:13:50 Then you go back to Stanford and you see what world class is and And I was thinking to myself, this isn't the path. And There's a place where I actually can use the skill sets that I do have. Where I can be really good at the things that I'm doing.

2:14:03 And so If I I'm sitting here saying Oh, I was always good at everything that I did. That's just not true. There are so many moments where I realized it's like being a doctor. I said. I would not be good. At being a doctor.

2:14:17 I would not be great. At being An academic. I would not be great at a lot of different things. Just knowing and having the self awareness of where I would double down.

2:14:31 is I think what what I was good at. And so It makes this emergen life. Where I was going from one track to another. I was gonna be a doctor and then

2:14:42 I went to McKinsey and then I went to VC and then I went to get a PhD and then I went back to VC This is all self discovery rather than a stated path. that I had career plan for a long time. Well it strikes me also that And maybe I'm trying to create a narrative where there isn't one or a connection, but it seems

2:15:03 reasonable that Mike's Superpower or one of his abilities to help Create categories. And then sort of mint.

2:15:14 Kings within a given category. Is actually a different species of something that you're also good at, which is Kind of uh Jack Welchian in a sense, and that is you're looking at the different paths you could take.

2:15:28 And if you can't be, say, number one or number two in that thing It just gets rolled out. And you're asking this world class question over and over again. And one way is to find something where you can dominate and really be world class in the other Is to

2:15:43 Create an entirely new Category. in a sense. So it seems like you and Mike are very complimentary in that way. Uh and have that. Shared programming.

2:15:54 People describe. you as an investor when your strengths is being technical. Which I suppose seems self evident given your background, but How would Mike, let's say, describe your

2:16:06 If I asked him, what are Anne's superpowers as an investor? There are a lot of investors out there. What is Anne's Superpower or set of superpowers. What would you say? I think for me The superpowers I have are

2:16:18 A few fold, so One is Because of the technical capabilities that I have. When someone is describing particularly anything that has to do with math And luckily for me right now, math is having this incredible resurgence in

2:16:35 artificial intelligence and In cryptocurrency. I can get that piece. I can get that piece better than I would say probably ninety nine percent of the investors out there. And so if I get a math paper

2:16:51 That's something that I love to dig into. And that technical insight is something. that I think I'm better at than most other investors out there. And then from there.

2:17:03 I can also Start to piece together. what that company will look like around that technology. And so it's not just I'm looking for great R and D projects, but ones that are ripe.

2:17:16 To be Big D. And little R. And I think that's a superpower, especially at the very early stage. So one of the companies that I invested in back in two thousand ten.

2:17:28 A Yasty. They've gone over a hundred million dollars in financing at this point. And I found them. When they were They didn't even have a business plan, they had four math papers.

2:17:40 That they sent to me. And so to me that that's something that I double down on and it's a part of the types of investments that I like to do. That's very different from The task grab, it's refinery twenty nine.

2:17:54 and lift that I've done in the past as well. I think the other superpower that is a little bit less evident is more evident as I'm working with people. Is I feel like I have a pretty good sixth sense about The people dynamics within an organization. So I can tell when there's actually infighting happening.

2:18:14 I can sense when uh executive is starting to disengage. And those are things that I work on with A lot of the CEOs that I work with. And then the the last piece that I think I

2:18:27 really love to engage in is the fundamental data behind the business. And so I love looking at the cohort analysis and really engaging on data. because that's a piece of the puzzle that I feel like I'm also good at encoding, unencoding. What are you looking for now and what are

2:18:47 Thunder Lizards. We mentioned hunting thunder lizards earlier and I promised I would come back to it. So maybe we Define that first. And perhaps you could tell us. what you're looking for at the moment. So a thunder lizard is inspired by Godzilla. It's a term that Mike

2:19:03 My partner used to always tell the story. Which is that we are inspired by Entrepreneurs who are like Godzilla.

2:19:14 And so What is Godzilla like? He's Born from radioactive atomic eggs. So the DNA of that entrepreneur is already fundamentally different. And then he swim across the Pacific Ocean, and depending on if you're Mike or me. He lands in either the Bay Area or Tokyo and starts to wreak havoc.

2:19:37 And eats trains and automobiles and buildings. And then Proceeds to crush that industry and creates disruption. And then build something out of that.

2:19:49 And so that idea of disruption is something that that I always liked that imagery of like the journey across the Pacific Ocean, born from something fundamentally different. And then really starting to turn things over.

2:20:04 So when we say okay, what are we looking for right now in terms of Where do we think the new Thunder lizards will exist. There's sort of two different areas. It comes back to The map.

2:20:17 that I'm really interested in. One is I do think that Artificial intelligence is about to disrupt a lot of different types of enterprise software. I think that enterprise software still sucks.

2:20:32 And If we're gonna be able to really transform the way A business has actually operated. We have to take the software that just basically records data and spits it back out to you. Into something that's actually more intelligent that tells you something that you didn't know.

2:20:50 that Gives you super powers. And I think that we're gonna see more and more of that. in the industry. And so as an example, like baseline examples. Why do we spend millions of dollars on Oracle or Net Suite?

2:21:05 When The CFO still has to make a budget for next year. Why doesn't that Financial planning just automatically automatically generate itself based on all the history that it knows. Plus all the data from the external world.

2:21:21 So I think Things like that we're gonna start to see happen more and more. I also think, you know, fundamentally The scientific method may also be dead. Like we list used to have the scientific method. is developed in a time where we didn't have enough data and data was actually

2:21:37 The fundamental bottleneck in scientific research. Well that's just not the case anymore. And so why is it that We form a hypothesis, then look at the data. And then come to a conclusion.

2:21:50 We should have all the data. then have an analysis of that that leads us to A hypothesis or a belief system that we fundamentally test further. So I think these massive changes are coming.

2:22:05 And you see it even in cryptocurrency. There's also really philosophical interesting debates happening around well, you have this massive pull towards centralization. Whether it's in AI and ML where you have to have all of that data in one place in order to really train. M L being machine learning. Machine learning. Or in cloud computing, you're also putting it up into the data into more

2:22:28 In data centers. In cryptocurrency We believe that there's gonna be more decentralised software. And so how do you reconcile those two types of systems I think there's lots of

2:22:41 Really interesting themes. That are just at the start of being discovered. I'm really excited about what's gonna happen with autonomous vehicles. And the technology that's gonna be required to make that a reality. And so all of those areas I think are

2:22:59 Just fascinating. And so it feels like the period of real intellectual Abundance. and that we're headed into a period of real great creative energy. End of time.

2:23:13 Where a lot of your philosophical Training and reading. Will be put into Practice in the real world, right? Where we have people can look up the trolley scenario. It's typically thought of as a thought exercise, but

2:23:26 If you're programming Not take us to off on a tangent, but If you're programming for autonomous vehicles and there's some type of act of God of hailstorm a huge boulder falls in the middle of the street and the car has to swerve left and hit

2:23:42 Two school kids are sort of right and hit. Five you know, five geriatrics. You know, how does it make the decision. What is the logic embedded into That machine. It takes a lot of these

2:23:54 philosophy one oh one thought exercises and uh translates them very directly into the real world with real consequences. It is it is a Fascinating time. It's also like how much do you want to know, right? So deep learning It's actually very difficult to know what's happened inside of this black box. And so there's more of a demand for

2:24:16 Let's know what Actually happening this inside of this black box, especially if lives are at risk or if billions of dollars are at risk and we need to be able to audit these algorithms. I think there's real interest in new technologies now that we can actually audit and know what's going on inside the box so that If the the troy example happens

2:24:36 We actually know how the machines will make their decisions. And so I think there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of opportunity. But also a lot of thought that needs to go into How we want to regulate all of this. Tricky tricky tricky. Yeah.

2:24:53 Yeah, it's gonna be Going to be exciting. Interested to see how all these things coalesce, right? Also, you're looking at these gigantic companies. The Facebook's Google's the fangs, right? That are more and more so converging onto the same territory to see how that Resolves.

2:25:09 If it does in some fashion is also really, really exciting to me. Or how something like Y Combinator, just to do a little bit of inside baseball, can say We are interested in this type of company. or this particular aspect of engineering or fill in the blank and s kind of steer The

2:25:28 Attention of thousands or tens of thousands of would be entrepreneurs into a particular Sector, right? Or type of project is also just really interesting to think about from the the the ramifications five years down the line.

2:25:42 But anyway. Maybe I mean like I think we have so many incredible societal problems that need to be solved. And I believe that the privat сектор.

2:25:55 is most capable of solving these problems, whether it's Energy or health Or The fact that we have so much trash. How do we solve that? How do we get clean water to people? It's not just about the next social network.

2:26:11 And how do we deliver better advertising to people, but The beauty of this type of entrepreneurship is that there are Huge societal problems that still need to be solved. That I think

2:26:25 is a really exciting opportunity also to build great businesses around. And so I think that's also what gets me up in the morning. And makes me believe that what we're doing is important work. Yeah.

2:26:38 It is important work. I don't think that sort of collective interest and self interest have to be misaligned, right? They're not mutually exclusive. Um you can solve and there's a long history of solving public problems with private sector. Technologies and companies. And let me just ask I know we uh

2:26:57 We've gone a little bit longer than expected, which I should have expected. Let me ask you just a few more questions and then we'll we'll wrap up with where people can find you and learn more about what you're up to. Besides getting to yes. Are there any books? That you've given a lot as gifts or reread a lot yourself.

2:27:18 For me, you know, right now There's a couple books that I think are Are super interesting. So My mentor Ted Dinter Smith. Just wrote a book called What School Could Be.

2:27:32 And this goes back to sort of education as a critical societal Question. How do we fix education? And what he did was he went on a fifty state tour.

2:27:46 to look at schools and discover that the answers are actually already there. And our incredible school teachers throughout our country are already finding solutions. To teaching our kids the most important skills they need to have. And I think Reading that book has not only given me hope, but also a desire to see real change in the public school education system.

2:28:11 But I think that's a really important problem for all of us to actually engage in. And so that's one book that I would really push onto other people. The other one that is completely on the opposite end of the spectrum, but it is a fiction. book it is by Callid Husseini, who also wrote Kite runner.

2:28:30 He wrote this book called A Thousand Splendid Sons. probably one of the most beautiful books that I've read in a long time in terms of fiction writing. And I would encourage people to read it because Gives you a sense of Afganistan's incredible history.

2:28:47 and the role women have played within that history. And I I just loved that book because it just was eye opening to me. In a very different way. So two very different types of books, none of them like straightforward business books, but ones that I think are meaningful for our society to read today. What school could be in one thousand splendid sons. Yeah.

2:29:08 Is there any Purchase. of a hundred dollars or less, that's kinda arbitrary, right? But just not a Bugatti or something that has most positively impacted your life or positively impacted your life. In recent memory.

2:29:23 A hundred dollars or less. Nah, it could be. I mean look if it's like a foldable kayak that you got for four hundred, that's fine too. But it could be anything. Could be two dollars, could be free, could be Any recent addition to your life. Oh my gosh, so It's actually a foldable chair. So I go to my daughter's soccer tournaments a lot.

2:29:43 Mm-hmm. And there's this incredible foldable chair. I don't know what it's called. You can get it on Amazon. But it has this Flip over Sunshade that goes over your head. And for any

2:29:55 Parent who has been at A swim tournament or anything. This is life changing because oftentimes I'm just Baking in the hot sun. And you can be anywhere and you have your own personal tent that like folds over your head. It's like saved me on multiple weekends my husband bought two of them.

2:30:15 I love it. Can you send me a link to that and I'll put it in the show notes. If you can track it down. So for people wondering, I'll I'll put that in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash podcast and you can find this miraculous foldable chair. If you Could have a giant.

2:30:32 Billboard. Anywhere with anything on it. So metaphorically speaking, getting a a word, a quote, a message, a question, anything out to millions or billions of people can't be an advertisement. What might you put? On that billboard. Wow.

2:30:47 Hm. I wonder if it's like Not losing does not equal winning. Sort of one of my one of my themes. These days. I like that. Yeah.

2:30:58 And I think actually Finding your world class life. It's probably the other one that I would think about. Find your world class life. And I think the reason for that is

2:31:10 To me, everyone is capable of that and I think oftentimes we forget it. And it for every person it's different. That's the beauty of humanity. So What do the characters for Nacel?

2:31:23 Mean. Oh my gosh. So it means it's a small round bell. And the reason for my parents naming me that was they were originally gonna name me Something more like, you know. Really beautiful child or

2:31:39 You know, genius child and my mom. My mom took one look at me when I was born, she's like, No None of those. She said Your face was so perfectly round when you were born, it reminded me of this like Perfectly round bell.

2:31:59 And I'm like, Mom, like all these other friends that I have, especially Chinese friends, they're like super intelligent. world class dominating dictator for life CEO child, you know? And I'm like Small bell. Child.

2:32:19 Lego chang. And where can people Find you online, say hello, learn more about What you were up to. I think professionally the best place is to see

2:32:31 My Twitter, which is Animaniac. A N N Uh I M A N I A C Mm-hmm.

2:32:39 Or On Instagram, it's A M I U R A. You'll see more of my life there. Amiura. Yes.

2:32:48 Three bays. Is that what that means? Miuta? Something like that, maybe. Yeah. Mm. So Twitter, Animaniac, Instagram, A Miura, M-I-U-R A. And Best website?

2:33:02 Floodgate. It's uh floodgate.com. Floodgate dot com. Why Floodgate? What is a floodgate? Or why why is it called a floodgate? Yeah. Yeah,'cause we think w we're at

2:33:14 The forefront of like the headwaters. Of innovation. And it sounded I don't know, kinda big and Audacious.

2:33:26 Good enough reason. Uh audacious. Audacious. Yes. Audacious, aggressive. But still. The mother of dragons.

2:33:37 There is a nurturing mother like There is. Den Mother. quality to end. I call myself like a mama bear, you know, I'll I'm very protective, but also

2:33:48 I'm gonna push my kids and people around me to be the best they can be. Just don't get in between the the mother. And the cub. Good guideline. And I will say for anybody who's wondering, what would it be like

2:34:01 sort of mono a mono with Anne I would say, you know, you're one of the few people I would put Sam Harris in this category where If you are willing to engage in like a public debate with either of you, you just have to make sure that you have practice defending against having your face ripped off. And Like the most

2:34:20 logical complimentary Way. possible. I'm just very impressed by you, and and I've I've really wanted to have you on the show for a long time. And I'm thrilled that you were willing to Carve out.

2:34:34 A few hours to spend chatting and it's always fun chatting. We still have It's always fun. Tim, you've you've been there from the very get go. You were the person behind my very first investment in Task Rabbit. So I have a lot to thank you for as well. Well, the adventure shall continue. And I will certainly am not I'm not as involved as I used to be in the tech scene, but I'll be cheering from the sidelines. Is there anything like else that you'd like to say or suggest or mention any parting words before we wrap up.

2:35:06 Yeah I hope. Your audience enjoyed this and if they got anything out of it that they If they want to contact me, I'm always open to more conversations. And

2:35:17 hope that some of my story shows that even if People tell you you can't do something that That you can. Can indeed. Just gotta spend the summer reading. Up on those twelve.

2:35:29 That's right. You can't always out talent everyone, but if you outprepare them, you might as well have out talented them. Maybe the billboard sign is effort matters. Effort. It really does. It does. Well, Anne, thank you so much again. This has been such a treat and a gift and I look forward to hearing what people have to say.

2:35:49 on the on the interwebs and perhaps we'll do a round two in person. During one of what was the name of the uh Was it the Tim Ferris wine hour? What was the What was the truth? Yeah. Ferris time. That's what Mike calls it.

2:36:08 Faris time. Which was the uh yeah, the little little wine. Parative. Just smooth out the edges. That'll we we could describe the just grabs a glass, he's like, I think it's Ferrisau. I'll take it. I will take it. Uh and

2:36:25 And I I will talk to you soon. See you soon, I hope. And to everybody Listening. You can find links to everything we discussed, the books. The fold out chair and much more

2:36:38 Getting T S and so on. In the show notes. as you can with all episodes at Tim Duplog forward slash podcast and until next time. Thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.

2:37:09 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. Albums, perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

2:37:58 This episode is brought to you by 8 Sleep. I have been using 8 Sleep Podcover for years now. Why? Well by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top of a fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. 8Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the Pod, and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool even in a heat wave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat sensitive. I am always more heat sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore heavy nights,

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