I washed up in Silicon Valley in 2012, and back then the valley was still a pretty optimistic place. The exercise of starting a company back then, as it was taught to my generation of entrepreneurs, was about looking deep within and finding a problem that affected a lot of people around the world, but a problem that you had some special emotional access to and you'd have a vision for your company that was something that you cared deeply about deep in your bones, but then something started to change. Mostly I think that as an industry, we matured, we kind of figured out a formula for starting big companies consistently, and that formula, it turns out, was a lot less romantic than what we were doing. It was a lot less about innovation, and it was much more about finding industries that were aging and staffed with, you know, well-intentioned, but. Ultimately bureaucratic and, process bound people and then ripping through those industries with software and seed rounds and the software. And these companies had these, this kind of uncanny ability to incinerate jobs and create shareholder value all at the same time. And innovation got financialized. Turns out unicorns could now be mass produced in San Francisco, but somehow, even as our actual work changed quite dramatically, our messaging as an industry never really changed. As an industry, we'd build B2B SaaS for oil fields by day, but by night at our holiday parties, we'd still claim that we were making the world a better place. You know, that line itself became a bit of a punchline. And the joke it turns out was the entire industry. Over time, there was greater and greater dissonance between what we actually did and what we said we were doing. And then in recent years, something even stranger and more dystopian started to happen. I started to notice, I call it, the grafted on vision. Instead of just generically saying that you were making the world a better place and then calling it a day, companies started to invent these plausible, but ultimately pretty gauzy visions. These visions were, you know, they sounded realistic enough or they sounded reasonable enough. They kind of made sense. They were vaguely connected to what the company was doing, but in reality, not a single person at the company was actually working towards that vision. You know, if you were a grocery delivery company. You were all of a sudden making nutrition more accessible to American families. If you were a banking business, all of a sudden you were making commerce more seamless around the globe. It was weird and we could all see through it, but we still did it. Honestly. I did it, and we called ourselves visionaries. That I think is how we all lost our credibility as an industry. But in recent years, I've seen some flashes of that old spirit of authenticity and of optimism, and my guest today is one of those flashes. Niles Lichtenstein lost his father when he was 13 years old to make ends meet and to fill that void. Niles, his immigrant mother, opened their Berkeley home up to visiting grad students. As a result, Niles and his brother grew up with this rotating circus of people constantly traveling and moving through their home. And in all that impermanence and all that uncertainty, Niles found, meaning Niles found beauty. He discovered what owning a home could do for a family. He developed an idea of how your neighbors could be your community, how your friends could be your co homeowners. And he put his money where his mouth was. He took all of the money that he'd made in his life and he put it into Coying Homes with his friends and his family, people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a home and wouldn't be able to be part of this American experiment. And then when it came time to start a company, Niles did what we all claim to do. He started a business. That was deeply rooted in his personal experience and a heartfelt vision for the country and for our culture. His company, Nessman, has just one goal to make home ownership possible for way more people. And they do this in two ways. For one, they allow people to buy homes with their friends and family, and two, they open up all of these government programs that people don't normally know about. Niles is the real deal. Niles is the purest and truest version of a visionary founder, and I could not be more proud to have this conversation with him. And now I bring you Niles ex Lichtenstein. From wefunder's office on Mission Street in San Francisco, this is warm intro. All right, Niles, thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. So I've been, as I've been preparing for this, I've been thinking a lot about your story. One thing that I just keep going back to that is, for me so salient through every stage of your life, is just this concept of home. Hmm. What it means. Why does it matter? Why is it something that we should be aspiring for everybody to have as a society? I'm not talking about a shelter. I'm not talking about a roof over here. I'm talking about a home and just what that does to a person. So I wanna, start, with the house that you grew up in, the home that you grew up in. And actually maybe even before that, you have, and I, I said this to you before we started recording. You have the coolest name in the world, and I think your name, A name tells a story, no name tells as much of a story as your name does. Talk me through that name. How does Nile act? Lichtenstein come to be? And then. Tell me about the home that Nile, like Lichtenstein grows up in. Yeah, sure. So, well home. I'm excited to get to think through that, yeah, so Nile's X stands for Chian XI apostrophe A and Lichtenstein, there's actually another name in there, be, but we won't go into that, um, on the birth certificate. But Niles, they're all actually geographical locations, which is interesting and they kind of represent, you know. Things about me that I, I think are, are maybe unique, and I don't know if your parents always intend this to happen, but Niles is a small town, near Martinez, California. That was like the first, like one of the first movie towns, right? Charlie Chaplin would film a bunch of movies'cause there was a train site there and trains were like the thing during that period of time into film with them. Shian is of course the, place where the terracotta soldiers are in Central Asia. And it was a place that my mom and dad, I believe they visited and then could continue to read about. And then Lichtenstein, if you had an E in there, is, is like the small country near Germany, right? Mm-hmm. So, um, we actually got to travel there, my wife and I at one point, and that was really cool. And I've been to all of three places and mm-hmm. So, you start to have some some of this notion when you think about home of like the global home and then you think about the more local, like people always think it's Nile, like the Nile River, right? Yeah. Is that what you were named after? And it's interesting because. No, it was actually this small town that probably very few people know about. Yeah. But like, you know, um was, was a place nearby that I think my mom and dad spent a weekend. Wow. So you're raised by, this German American father. Yeah. Um, and this, Chinese Malaysian immigrant woman. Mm-hmm. Um, tell me about that home, especially for your early childhood when you're, you know, the, the age that your kids are now. What, what did that feel like? What are your memories of it? Yeah, I mean, you know what's interesting on my dad's side, it was German Jewish and Irish Catholic actually, which is an interesting kind of combination. On my mom's side there's, obviously Chinese influence, Chinese Buddhist influence, and Muslim Malay influence with Malaysia. And so my auntie used to call the afterlife insurance. That was like, her joke was like, here's the boy with afterlife insurance. Right. So I either had a place somewhere in the afterlife, or like a home Yeah. Had a home anywhere in the, we're getting back to home. Right. And guaranteed, yeah. Like guaranteed a home. And, and you know, I was fortunate in the sense that I grew up in a pretty progressive place. Yeah. Like Berkeley, where, I'd go to Bat Mitzvahs, knew the whole, but we would also go to church. Had friends who fasted with Ramadan. I would do that with them in, in in, obviously in solidarity and then always kind of grew up, grew up with some level of, of Buddhist kind of upbringing. So I think that, it was definitely a home full of, stories I think. You know, and there's, I, when I was at the age of my kids right now, I think, stories were a big part of, of what home meant. Mm-hmm. And, and the diversity of just experiences was really, really important, um, for me. So, uh, do you remember your first memory at home? My first memory at home, that's a really great question. My brother has a great memory and I always joke that it was, he was very fortunate'cause our father passed, we'll get into this maybe later, but my father passed when we were pretty young and he was a lot younger and, so I've always been amazed that somehow he has the best memory. But I think one of my first memories at home., That I think about was showering with my father in the morning, like the smell.'cause here in the Bay Area you get the fog. Yeah, yeah. It's coming in and then there's the, the hot, shower, you know, faucet turning on and then you, you have a lot of woods and eucalyptus trees and stuff. Yeah. There's something about that combination that you just kind of get. And so I, I think a lot from a kind of a multisensory perspective about showering, with my dad, which is something that I now try to do with my kids mm-hmm. In the morning. And it was a way for him to make me a part of his morning routine. And, I still remember he would tell me, uh, uh,'cause I would talk a lot as a kid, right? Yeah. As you can tell with this podcast. Not, but, but he, he would, he would say, oh, well, you know, your role is to be the supervisor, so you have to sit there, right? Yeah. You have to sit there and you can supervise me. It was a way for me not to get in his way as he was. That's hilarious. Kind of getting ready. So,. Yeah, I, when I think about this is about you, but just when I think about my first memories, so many of them have to do with the, with hanging off of my dad's legs, like their tree trunks. I love it. And while he is taking phone calls and, like a phone that's cycle break or, going to the beach with him and just mm-hmm. Sort of dangling off of his extremities, just, it's, I love that's, yeah. That's the most formative stuff. Totally. But, you, you suffer this in incredible loss. Yeah. Right. And at, is it at 13, right? Yeah. So I mean, he got terminal cancer when I was about 12. Right. Wow. And, you know, you don't really know. And my mom was also going through health problems for a while, but it was a really, you know, fascinating, I mean. Obviously being an entrepreneur can be a very tough struggle. But, there was a time in middle school, I was in middle school at King Middle School in Berkeley on, on, MLK and Rose Street and I was sleeping only three to four hours a night every night because I was, as a 13-year-old, as a 13, 12 and 13-year-old, I'd give up all my sports and my thing just to kind of be there. So, you know, my, there's nothing that was, I think, grittier than give that time that I'd have to, to get through. You know, I, I watched a man that I clearly admired, turn, go into, go become 80 pounds, and, I talked to him through a tube in his neck and I fed him through a tube in his stomach. And, and, uh, you know, it's, it is one of those things you'll, you'll never really forget. But it shapes you in ways that you don't even imagine until you're encountering certain things, in life. So, well, tell tell me about that. Tell me about how it shapes you.'cause. At 13, you have to, there, there's just the practical, logistical stuff. Mm-hmm. You have to learn things like home refinancing. Yeah. Things that no 13-year-old should ever have to Yeah. Have to know about. Yeah. But then there are also all these like emotional, um, I think warmer fuzzier parts of how it changes the home that you live in. Mm-hmm. Which it's, I think to, to people that don't know the story it causes this like major shift in the,, the sort of the physical reality of where you're living. Right. Yeah. Um, but tell me, tell me about that. Just tell me about that period of, uh, you know, after you lose your father. Yep.. What that does to you as a person, as as a child, what that does to your home. Talk, talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean, this is great. It's like therapy. This is awesome. I mean, Ja, you're, you're like, the, yeah. I mean, you know, it, it, what does the home become? Well, in a lot of ways it, it kind of becomes three worlds, right? It was my mom, my brother, and myself. And I think you're like, you're coming and having these moments together in solidarity, but then also dealing with them as three separate orbs in a way, kind of rotating and trying to figure it out because you're all going through stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think, so much of my own. Understanding, like I had to do a lot of thinking and some therapy around the understanding that of what my mom was going through during that time because, for me, I felt like she checked out, right? Like she checked out of a lot of things or, but I didn't realize how scared she was and how afraid, and that's what actually makes her stronger in my eyes, right, is the fact that, like now as a parent, like going through those things and saying to yourself if you're, an immigrant woman who doesn't have a job is not employed and you're trying to think about how do you hold onto your house and your kids and you're, things like that, all of a sudden, like that level of, stress and shoulder. But probably what I was thinking about at that time was like, how do I just kind of. Take care of my mom, take care of my brother, and, but also protect myself. And, and so,, you know that, yeah, you were just 13, so yeah, it was just like, 13. Then I had turned 14 not too long after, and then I was, you know, getting ready for, Berkeley High School, which was, an amazing high school, but very, very big high school and, and had its own, unique challenges too. So, yeah. Yeah. It, it does this thing, this, this experience as I, uh, from what I've read about you, and I've never, in all the entrepreneurs that I've met, I've never seen somebody make so much beauty, or find so much beauty in a, what for most people would be a traumatic or difficult experience. And you go through this period, right? Where,, you turn your, your mom turns your home into a, um well, how would you describe it? Like Yeah. I mean, you know, two things happened. One, I mean, my mom was, was s smart and scrappy. Right. And if you have, like, if you hang out with immigrant parents, especially from a certain generation, right. You know, they'll always tell you the story about there's 10 people living in two rooms. Yeah. Like, and I don't know why it's always 10 people in two rooms. Immigrant. We still, they're still back in Asia, they're still back. There are always 10 people in two. Yeah. You know, it's like, um, so, what, what she saw. And what I think I, I could help her understand more. I mean, she saw the possibility, and this is with an immigrant mindset of like, okay, we have a home, we have an asset. How are we gonna keep this asset? So one is, now that it's a home, we're privileged to have a home we can refinance and maybe take some money out. So, you know, helping her through that paperwork and understanding how that would happen. The second was, I was learning about Craigslist at the time, then I,'cause I was like, oh, well, you know, we could rent out rooms. Yeah. So we up renting out rooms to international grad students at Berkeley. And it was fascinating. It was like, you know, a really interesting upbringing to, you know, yes, we have to sheer bathrooms, occasionally have to sleep in other places that we wouldn't wanted want to, but like ultimately we got to be around folks from Germany and Sweden and Mexico and Taiwan and Nigeria. And they're in your home. Right? They're in our home. They're living there. We're sharing the kitchens, we're sharing the bathrooms. Like for what period? How much time are they? I mean, that was up until, I mean, really, in some ways she kept it going for a long time. Yeah.'cause I think she actually really loved the, even the camaraderie when my brother and I were gone. But it was throughout our whole childhood. Right. So, um, so you just have this kind of, you know, rolling circus of people that's kind of going, it was like a, it was a boarding house essentially in a way. Right. And so, Yeah. And it's funny'cause I do think about all of their stories, right? Yeah. And where they are now and, and things like that. But, um, yeah. Well I wanna ask you about that., To the degree it's possible. Mm-hmm. Um, tell me about some of the favorite characters that pass through the home. Yeah. Uh, or even just favorite moments that you remember with those characters. Uh, yeah, I think there was, the German couple well started with one guy from Germany and then, he had a small room and then mm-hmm. But he was like, I'm gonna have my wife come too. Or am I Torsten? Torsten was his name. Torsten Dittman., That's, that sounds like an AI generated German name. Yeah, exactly. Right. Um, but, but you know, I, I think, I mean, he was just a lot of fun to be around. They were like a young, energetic, couple. We had, uh, this one kind of physicist too who just used to. Look at the stars a lot too, which was interesting and just like, I thought that was, that was fascinating. We had an architect who, was supposed to babysit us every once in a while. Yeah. I babysit my brother. I don't think it ever really happened. Right. She just would let us do whatever we wanted to do. I mean, it was just like, it was just fascinating. Right? Yeah. Like, you get, get all these different people from different walks of life., And yeah,, and in some ways, you know, my mom was a little bit like their mom too, right? Yeah. There was this kind of interesting dynamic when you have kids, and a mother and then, you know, students and I, I didn't realize how, how might weird that might have been for a young person, but, it seemed fine at the end of the day. Um, is it, and I, I didn't have this on my list, but as I'm hearing you No worries. You talk about this, was it any level is, is part of this a sort of Wanting to just kind of fill some space, right. Like, I mean, I understand of course it's financial and it's logistical and all that, but at some level it also feels like, just, I, I've, uh, the, anytime I have someone in my life that's, that's lost someone, one, or the people that I've lost, one of the, the oddest feelings that I think is not talked about enough is just this kind of vacuum that you feel Mm, yeah. Just in the, the physical space that they used to occupy. Yeah. And you kind of like, yes, you want to, you want to grieve and you wanna deal with it, and you wanna do all of that, but you also just want that space to be filled Yeah. At some level, you know, that almost makes it easier to deal with it some, in some way. Um, was it, do you think any part of it, was that for your mom or do you think she was much more kinda immigrant about it? No,, I think you could have, you're totally, you could be very, right. I could. I could see and, and feel now as you bring me back to that moment that, there was definitely a need to fill the space with different energies. Yeah. And, and things like that. So that's incredibly perceptive, honestly. Like, you know, like that, I, I think, you know, that that very much could have been the case. Yeah. And so that's a question I'm gonna ask her actually.'cause I, I think, you know, like I said, you, you just never stop like, learning about yourself and learning about,, what these different moments in time meant and, and how you were trying to navigate through them. Yeah. Well, what does that do to you? Because I, I, if I had to, to guess,'cause I, I have, uh, similar experience, you know, different source, but, and my parents were just, they were the people, they were the, the family that sort of moved out at the, the village and, you know, built a home in, in Delhi. And so we. I swear to God, we always had like 20 uncles staying with us. It just, and I was raised by this kind of like rolling circuit of people. Yeah. That would be with us for a couple months, and then they would find a job or they'd go back to, to whatever. And, but I, I sense in your story, this, you developed this kind of comfort, which sharing a home with people. Yeah. And of course, and it shows up in the most beautiful possible way, 20 or so years later when you start the company. But, what did that do to you to, to be a teenager going into high school and to just have this sort of, just this group of people, this kind of like ever-changing cast of people going through your home? I think it definitely created community, right? Yeah. Like, I mean, I think there's, there's a couple points where, I've always been community oriented and like you said, like what is home? And it's funny because I talk about this with my brother quite frequently because in some ways he had the opposite reaction. He's like with the exception. Like his very close family, he doesn't wanna have everybody in his space, which is interesting. Yeah. Whereas for me, maybe it actually was a, a coping mechanism, like you said, in a some way kind of filling the space. The earliest memories, of that were actually someone who's like a grandmother to us, um, Lena, and she was from Mississippi, black woman, but she had these Sunday dinners and it was all soul food and everyone would come together and gather, and they would argue and they would fight, and they would cry and they would laugh. Mm-hmm. And it was just, it was something we didn't have. And, and that actually kind of kept us afloat after my dad passed too. Mm-hmm. Is, that was another thing that as you're talking about it, I'm thinking about because that was this notion of, of being together and, and that togetherness and, and this moment where our home had just become so fractured and we didn't really have, you know, my mom definitely always felt that her immigrant experience and her experience as a woman during a certain time. Put the world against her, right? Mm-hmm. And so it actually, in some ways could further isolate us. And so I think my response to that was how do you create as much community as possible? Yeah. So, you know, a lot of it was like joining, student clubs and activities. Mm-hmm. Starting organizations, like getting very involved in a lot of things that had to do with, with community justice or community organization work and things like that. And I was, I think, constantly searching for different types of communities, whether it range from sports or art to,, to activism. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump forward in the timeline a little bit. You, you make it to Harvard. Yeah., And you get there at, at what point do you discover poetry? So discovered poetry, actually probably at King Middle School. Yeah. And it's really more discovered, particularly, I mean, I'd always liked, I guess I could, if I really had to root poetry first grade teacher. I wrote a, I still remember this poem by the Fish in the Sea. She said it was great. And that always stuck with me okay, maybe. And I don't know why. I always remember that. But then, I had to give a speech at graduation for King Middle School. And, what came out wasn't really a speech, it was more of like a spoken word piece. I had no idea or reference what spoken word was mm-hmm. Or anything like that. Right. And so, and I didn't even know afterwards that there was mm-hmm. But then, um, an amazing organization called Youth Speaks that was based in the Bay Area that has kind of spread and its wings and, and helps out organizations nationally, help young people express themselves. Really kind of embrace me. And, you know, the first, um. Poetry Slam is what they called it back in the day. I don't know what they still do, but that poetry slam, it was David Diggs and myself, so David from Hamilton and, uh Wow. And other, well, Sebastian and Little Mermaid now too, and a few other things, but like, uh, but it's funny. Yeah. So him and I competed. I actually won that one. He got second, but like, uh, I believe I, I still joke around with him about that to this day, but, um, then I started finding a lot of community Yeah. In being able, in the writing community and the expressing mm-hmm. And expression community and then, took it with me to Harvard and, and, you know, poetry and writing kind of be, be, became my way to translate the world. Yeah. In some ways, maybe. Turn things into a home, right. In a way because, helped build up the spoken word society. Um, miss Gorman is now the, the probably the famous person who was in the Harvard Spoken Word Society. So good to see that, that legacy connect. This, this is Amanda Gorman. Amanda Gorman, right. President Biden's. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I I I can't claim that. No, but I know she went to the Harvard Spoken Word Society and I was like, dude, we got, somebody used somebody like Famous through there. Yeah. But no, I mean, it's, it's fascinating to like, yeah, to go back, but there was a really strong community in the Youth Speaks community, and it was diverse. It was engaging in conversation and stuff. So, so yeah. So, and so you do a lot at Harvard. Yeah. You start this organization, right? Finding freedom through language. Yep. Um, you. You go on this trek? Yep. Uh, was that while you're still at Harvard or right after you got It was, no, it was actually right before the n Nepalese Rek. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was right before, so you go through, uh, Alaska, Nepal, and Right. Yeah. Um, just tell me, just even logistically, for somebody who's never done anything like that what could possibly possess a person? To trek through. And did you do it solo? Yeah. No, I, I, I didn't, so, so actually, so I'll give you the, the story. Yeah. Gimme the, I'll give you the real story. So there's a, an amazing organization and, and so much of my life has also been around giving back to me. So community giving back to me. So I was in a organization called Summer Search that started actually here in the Bay Area is national now as well. And summer search gives youth going through certain adversity or mm-hmm. Or not have the means or whatever to, to go do these summer experiences. And the first experience was in Alaska and the Prince William Sound for six weeks. Wow. And then the second one was in Nepal, building a school at, at 14,000 feet. But the, the most interesting story that ties all of those together was, and I think this is something that, that is a big part of my life, that, if I share a story, I think this is one of the stories that I do love sharing, is that, when I was going through a really tough time when my dad was sick and depressed, you know, my mom said. Hey, I'm in,, middle school at the time and, and I'd given up my sports, my music. She's like, you know, just write down the things that, that you want. Maybe you can manifest them in the universe. Right. And of course, I was a middle school, hormones or, so. The first thing I write down is like, there's this really. Hot girl named Mariko, half Jeff.'cause just like I want to, everyone loves her. Oh, you, you fool. You came up with a backstory for her. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no. She's a real person. I, so I wrote down, I wanna, this, I wanna date this girl. So my mom said, write down the things you want in life. Right? And so I actually wrote down, I want to date this girl Marico. And then the second one was like, now she's gonna hear this ask. Yeah. Know this is gonna, she might reach out. Yeah, she might reach out. Um, then then the second dump my wife here now just, uh, then the second one was, uh, Alaska because it was actually one place that my father and I visited together. And, and, and I wanted to go there. And then. Um, the third was I wanted to actually go to more Tibet. I was trying to get in touch with that Buddhist side. And then the last was getting into Harvard and Enrico ended up becoming my high school sweetheart. I got this scholarship to go to Alaska. And then the Nepal Scholarship was fascinating because it was one that was, there was one slot for summer search kids, and um, it was one of the most coveted ones. And the director of the program had actually just saved it specifically for me. And when she told me wow, that she had saved that one for me and that I was gonna go, and it was an incredible trip. You know, I always say, uh, never had a mirror, but it was the most reflection I've ever done. Right. Wow. So, and still is to this day, like a, a place where I can kind of center myself. So, I mean all of that kind of prepared me for a, a, a new world on the East Coast. Yeah. I, um, I want to just quickly linger on this point, uh, of manifesting for a second. I had this interesting experience recently, and it's related to this, I was talking to some friends and, they said, Hey, HAI, do, do you have a vision board? And, I'm gonna state my biases. I didn't tell them this, but, not only do I not have a vision board, I was always pretty kind of contemptuous of the idea. I always thought it was a little dumb. I think specifically I always felt very allergic to the word manifesting., And I, I'm not quite sure what part of it got me. It like irked some, part of me that saw myself as, like a rationalist and all that. Mm-hmm. But then they start showing me their vision boards and they were funny and they're interesting and they're like, one, one thing I think I really liked about the vision boards was, about their vision boards was this, idea that it's not a list of goals. It's not a list of things to own. Yeah. It is, how you want your life to feel. Which I think is a very important distinction. Mm-hmm. Because I think I'm less interested in coming up with a list of things I hope to achieve or hope to possess. I am much more interested in how do I want my life to feel five years from now or 10 years from now. And so I, I take this and then I tell my wife about it. And, she's shared my posture towards manifesting and vision boards and we had this hour long flight to LA that weekend. And so we decided to just make one. And man to anyone that's listening to this too, um, go make a vision board. True. If you're skeptical and you're an engineer and an atheist like myself, and you don't believe in any of this, you are who it's made for. Truly. Like, I think'cause it, it did something for me. And I know I still, I will state still my skepticism about like, you know, I don't, I don't assign any kind of like magical value to it. Mm-hmm. I just think, and one of the things that came out of it is, is what I, I think, is so relevant to, to our conversation.'cause we start to make this thing and we think about like, you know, what we want our lives to feel like and all that. And what it does that's so powerful is, it reveals all the things that you thought were really important, that you don't actually matter that much to you. Yeah., And then it reveals these things that you, you know, we're on your list, but you just never really thought that much about it. And we both came out of it with this special emphasis on home. Yeah. And just how we wanted our home to feel. Interesting. And that became, and that, that week we got back and we started up a whole bunch of home projects. Amazing. We one of the things that came from it was that we decided, oh no, we, it is essential to us that our kids grow up in a multi-generational home. Interesting. And if we're gonna do that, we need to make adjustments to our home so our parents can actually be comfortable here and all of these little things. And so, and that would've never happened if I hadn't vision boarded. I, I, my concept of. Not, I mean, screw the concept. My reality, yeah. Of where I live would've been very different if I hadn't vision boarded. So this is a, that's so interesting. I mean, I, I love that. And I think the other thing is, especially at our, you know, you get to a certain age too, where I think it's right, it's not about the exact thing that you're gonna accomplish. In fact, that's kind of sometimes a, a bit of a red herring, right? Yeah. Like it's more about the feelings. And then what's amazing is you can start to clarify for yourself what you're really after, right? Yeah. Like what is that kind of thing and, and that you're really going for and, and are you going in the right way to get it right? Yeah. Like, and, and, um, you know, and, and I think that's just so, so critical. Yeah, exactly. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Oh, no, of course. It's, it, I, I think the other thing that it does, right? That, and this is going to, to, to the idea of, of Buddhism. Um. That classic story of the monk and the Minister have, have you heard this one, right? Yeah. Uh, but for, for, for people that don't know, and please fill in if I miss anything. You know, a monk and a minister who grew up together there as kids, uh, they meet much later in life and one has gone on to become a monk and the other one's gone on to become a minister., And they're talking, and the minister says, to the monk, you know, if you really sort of to use kind of common day wording, if you locked in and you really focus, you know, you could have a real career for yourself. You could, you know, you serve the king, and the king would give you this, and the king would give you that. And then you could buy a home and you could do this. And the monk says, and what would I, what would that do for me? And he says, if you do this, then one day you can put up, put together enough money to retire, and then you retire. And then you could be at home and you can just be with your thoughts and just relax. And he says, and the monk just kind of looks at him and says,, or I could just have that right now. But I think that what, what, like this type of exercise does that I find so valuable is. When you think about the things you wanna own. Yeah. You're kind of not going deep enough. Yeah. Because you're not thinking about, uh,'cause it's easy to come up with a, to, it's easy to create a, an aspirational shopping list. Yeah. Just be like, oh yes, I have a three bedroom house. I wish I had a four bedroom house. That, that is kind in at some level it requires no thinking. Right? Yeah. But what you are now thinking about is, well, what does a four bedroom house, what does that allow me my life to, to feel like? What does that do for me? Um, anyway, this is too much of me. I wanna bring this back. No, no. I mean, yeah. All I, all I would say is, you're exactly right. And, one of the reasons why Nest focuses on home, I think home is just in getting someone's home is it's on everyone's vision board. But not because, and this is what makes me so scared around the notion of ownership and potentially a larger and larger portion of our society not owning. Yeah., A piece of property is that you get to create something that. Is your, and I think there is this need, right? Yeah. For especially during uncertain times, that sense of certainty Yeah. That some, that you own this piece of land that you physically can be here and it's safe. Yeah. And secure. Like no matter how. Nice. It is. You're renting, you're still renting. Right. And there's that sense. And so I think it's, it's, it is really interesting. I mean, we, we always were like, oh, okay, so we're gonna have four bedrooms so each kid can have a bedroom. But what we realized is that the best configuration of those four bedrooms was the two kids actually being able to sleep together and creating a relationship together. And us having a little space and having a study that mm-hmm. We would go into and work out of. And I know that's just very basic, but it was interesting.'cause our natural, our, our, if I show you those pictures of the home, you'll see there's a boys' room, a girls' room. Like, you know, that this natural kind of idea, but if we rethought about like, well, what are we trying to achieve? Yeah. What's the feelings that we want to get? And, and I will tell you that, that feels so much better. Yeah. Right. You know, so, well, I, this is, it comes at a, you bring this up at the perfect time.'cause around this time in your story, right? You come outta Harvard, you start a company, you buy your own, your your first triplex around that time, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, one thing that I've, I've been thinking a lot about Yeah. In asking you, this is the only, I, it's not even combative. Yeah. It's, it's a, it is a genuine question that I've been kind of thinking about a lot recently is, why buy a home? Yeah. And you, you kind of touched on that there, but it does seem like so much of our society is focused on that, right? Yeah. So much of, by the way, I think everybody should buy a home. So I'm, I'll state my priors there, but I'm, I do think that for people that are listening. Especially people that feel very locked out of that system. I think there, there's this kind of desire, this impulse to be like, well, you know what, if you look at the numbers, it might not even be the best asset class. Maybe you could, maybe you should put in the, put that money in the s and p even if you can't afford a home. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but you know, they're all these kind of, and then you have to do repairs and all this stuff. Yeah. So I think, for a lot of people, they genuinely ask this question of why is there such a societal, even governmental emphasis Yeah. On owning a home. And one thing I find interesting about you, but I I want you to, to, to speak to this, is you actually focus the less on the financial reasons to own a home and more on the emotional reasons for it. Right. But I, I, I, I wanna hear that from you. Why should someone, why should that stay on somebody's vision board? Warm intro is brought to you by Wefunder. Wefunder created this thing called the Community Round that lets you raise money directly from your community. So instead of going to VCs and rich people, angel investors, you can go straight to your friends and your family and your customers. And you know, this is not a traditional ad read. I used Wefunder for my company three times. We ran three rounds on Wefunder. We raised over a million dollars, and I found that it completely changed how everybody felt about our business. Our customers all of a sudden didn't feel like they were just customers. They felt like they were owners in the business. They shopped with us more. They told their friends about us. My team felt like what we were doing was important because our community had shown up to invest in us. I tell every founder I can find to go raise a we fund around, especially for companies that care about community, there is nothing greater you can do than letting that community invest. Go to wefunder.com/join to check it out. Yeah, so the emotional reasons which we briefly touched on, which always come to the forefront is me, is a sense of control, sense of belonging. I mean, they even say honestly, kids. Like kids can tell when they're renting a home versus owning a home in a home that they own. Own. Right. And there's an impact on their psychology too, when they bring friends back to their home, whether it's rented or owned. Right. Like things like that. Mm-hmm. A sense of being. But,, I also think, like, financially I can make a ton of arguments, but like, it's very, it's one of those asset classes that, has performed, well over time. One of the few that has extremely preferential tax treatment. Right. Yeah. So we've set up this system in some ways mm-hmm. To make, having a real estate asset, something that's, uh, that's one. But the biggest thing comes from the amount of people maybe we all know in our lives Yeah. That have benefited from owning a home. Yeah. And now I was just on a call this morning with an auntie of mine who, um, you know, she's worked her whole life, hardworking, incredibly intelligent. She's now at an age where, she might have to have some surgeries. Things are coming up if she didn't have money in that home. Right. Yeah. Where would she have gotten, she doesn't have any kids right now, so that's why, we were there and, and I think about stories like that, right. As like, I think we've gotten right, the part of home which is Hey, let's reward people for having an asset. Yeah. That they can,, leverage that's their own, that can give them different benefits. And so, if there's a another asset that can do all of those things, by all means maybe, you know, we mm-hmm. Go towards that asset. I'm not saying like, oh is like, and I'm a huge fan. You know, creating a, a pretty diversified portfolio. Right. But, if I was to do like things over again, if I'm my, I young 20-year-old coming out, making decent money or making enough money where I could go in with two buddies and buy mm-hmm. A three bedroom place together and we all owning and renting, I would prefer that. Now it seems like a lot of extra overhead. Yeah. But actually if you pull out the trajectory of that property and what you can happen and you make it easy for people to understand and the steps to take, even better if you're getting a two to four unit building. Right? Yeah. Like even better when, you're able to go and owner occupy one unit. Mm-hmm. And by the way, again, the system is actually set up for you to do this in the sense of the elements of economic and financial wellbeing are there, the process and the is still so geared towards the traditional Yeah. Like single family home, Upper middle class couple.'cause these days there's really this huge missing middle, which is what we're, we're oftentimes talking about. So yeah. So that ability to be able to live in one unit, rent out the other unit, subsidize your costs Yeah. And be able to make that happen. But I just had, the other thing that we've been seeing too is I just came from upstate New York where I had,, one of our first groups together with two, two friends, single friends in Brooklyn who just really couldn't afford Brooklyn. Right? Yeah. And, and the models in our system said, you're probably not gonna afford Brooklyn. Like, it doesn't make sense to buy, actually, it makes sense. But if you're, if you wanna have ownership in your life, consider buying in Hudson Valley actually. Right? Yeah. You'll feel like an owner. You can rent it out part of the time. Yeah. You'll, you'll cover all of your costs plus a little bit. Mm-hmm. And I still remember Selena, who, doesn't have home ownership in her background. She, she was intimidated by the process. And the coolest thing most recently was that I just. Got to meet her at her second home. Wow. She bought, her, she bought not only that Hudson Valley property, she's now bought another home. Yeah. Through that. And so now both of them are, she lives in one and one's gaining equity and she's, renting her Brooklyn apartment to some friend right now. Yeah., Whatever it is. Right. So there's these just different pathways, right? Yeah. That, that we can think of when it comes to home. And then there's actually tons of programs to make it easier and better for you. Yeah. We've actually done a decent job in this country of creating lots of pockets of programs. We've just done a poor job of like actually aligning them to the people Yeah. That need them. And there's tons of programs that never actually get taken advantage of. Yeah. Which is crazy. Right. I saw this. I didn't read. Sorry. I know I went deep into it. No, no, no. This is, that's the whole point of this thing. But, um, I saw this book, uh, at the bookstore the other day. And I didn't, I'm not gonna lie and say I read it, I just saw the cover. But it was, threw it in Chad, GPT, like, gimme the notes. It was, this woman who was, who told her story, through the dogs that she'd had. Mm-hmm. And it was her life story in, I'm gonna get the number wrong, but 10 dogs or whatever it was., Trace for me,, how was that? The story of the homes, right? Yeah. Like Yeah. Um, and especially the homes that you come to own. Yeah. Me, gimme kind of the, the highlights of like your experience with home ownership, with the investing in homes, with co-ownership, all of that. And then of course how that all leads to Nessman. Yeah.,'Cause I, I think more than almost anyone I know. You started a company that was rooted in your personal experience and your personal problems. Yeah. By problems, I mean problems you were experiencing. Um, and so yeah, if you can trace for me that sort of that Yeah. Uh, you know, the, the hits Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hits. So, so you think about the, the kind of family triplex that we went in with family members, like to be able to make sure people could afford Oakland Yeah. At the time. Right. And this is, when is this was 2013, right? Yeah. So 2013. And still be able to like live there. Right. And I actually held one of my offices for one of my startups there in the middle, so it paid rent. So I was like, Hey guys, it you, we know rent will come in. Right? So this is your first home, you own yourself, right? Yeah. Yeah. First. And you did it with family members. So I did it with family members, but also did it with some capital I'd made from the first startup. Yeah. And then also rented out,, units as well. And, and so that, that was one of these like moments where. I think you reflect on it and you're like, it just made sense. Mm-hmm. Because people needed to be able to own it. Just, I don't know. Yeah. It just made sense, right? Like, and I think about how do you, you get to that asset that we had when we were growing up, right? Mm-hmm. Second one was actually, a condo in, in downtown Knob Hill. Mm-hmm., And I just remember this one because it was the first home that my wife and I owned together. Mm-hmm. But we ultimately ended up not staying, not living there, and actually renting it out to someone who became more of a mentor and friend of ours. Mm-hmm. They, we found them on Craigslist again. Right. And they ended up renting out mm-hmm. The condo and we ended up selling it to them. Oh wow. And that was actually. Great. We made a ton of money on that one in a very short period of time. Mm-hmm. Which was, really interesting. Um, Hudson Valley co-owned with, with friends, Jersey City was probably the most interesting one. Mm-hmm. Most recently. I'm just trying to think about the ones that made the most that were, there were also ones that didn't make sense. Yeah. There a couple early,, short term rentals that I had the idea that they were gonna work and they didn't. Mm-hmm. And I wish I had better data around it. Mm-hmm. The most recent Jersey City one, which was I think is a highlight, and I'm gonna go to the last one that I'm working on right now. Mm-hmm. Right. The Jersey City one was Oh, my, my home in Knob Hill. Mm-hmm. Which is also just a meaningful, I'll send the link to you of the place. Mm-hmm. But what I like about that one in particular is, we live on the top floor. We rent out the units in the, the mm-hmm. The middle unit and the bottom unit. We were really thoughtful about not displacing people.'cause we had bought it, during, right before the pandemic and so forth. And we wanted to make sure people could stay there and still have the ability to rent, but the numbers still worked and we were able to renovate it and make it ours and have it pay for itself. But, I think there's a really unique feeling, and I'll talk about the emotional side. Yeah. I've never felt this in all those other situations. I've never felt more of a hero in my own journey mm-hmm. Than when I was able to provide my first home for two kids and Yeah. In my wife. Right. Yeah. There was something about it that like, just felt amazing, right? Like, maybe I could have taken all the assets and bought, and then it felt even more amazing that a lot of it was subsidized through that. Mm-hmm. And we cobot that building with two of our friends as well. And then the Jersey City one was, to the last two stories, Jersey City, Coca. One of the first people I've met on this journey was a guy named Israel, who was really interested in what Nest was doing. And he had started, a cafe from entrepreneurs with West African roots called Coca. And he was like, Hey, my landlord is going to sell this. Mm-hmm. That's going to, my cafe is gonna go under because I'm not gonna be able to afford the new rent. And so we talked about it and we were like, well, what if we just bought it, right? Mm-hmm. It was a triplex in Jersey City. Mm-hmm. It's also really good timing because Manhattan had just shut down st short-term rentals. And so Jersey City, short-term rentals, were going up. Mm-hmm. So, we quickly put together a coy group. I was part of that group. Mm-hmm. And, now the cafe's flourishing. One short-term rental pays for the whole, the mortgage. Yeah. And then there's a third unit. And then the last one I'll bring up is, is. You know, I've been working on a coy for the company actually. Mm-hmm. For Nest and the employees mm-hmm. In Dillon Beach. Right. So Dillon Beach is about an hour and 10 minutes away from here. And I think one of, when we think about what are that, that those vision boards, right. I think first you want, I think a lot of people on their vision board, and I've noticed this in the way we talk about almost like the projected paths of homes mm-hmm. And thinking about it financially, but thinking about it from a feelings perspective. Yeah. The first path is securing where you are now if you can. Yeah. Right. Secure where you are now. Don't pay someone else rent, pay yourself rent. Yeah. Like, let's get that done. Right. So that's the first thing I always try to get with folks. The second is. Can we get a place where you can get away Yeah. For part of that time to, allow yourself the space to breathe and think, or that creatively inspires you, or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Get that place. And can we leverage short term rental, both from a tax perspective and a rental perspective to help pay for that as well. Yeah. Right. So, so Dillon Beach is one of the places we're working on right now. Yeah., For, for all of our employees to have a piece of that Yeah. And then be able to go up there and take their family Yeah. And so forth. So,, I know that was a lot. No, no. That, that's, that's perfect. what I find so amazing about your story, right. And I wanna, I wanna actually make this about Neman for a second. You are, uh, I, I said it before, I think starting from an emotional core, right? Having this kind of deeply personal, unique experience around what your home felt like. To go from that to very much as they say in the valley, very much eating your own dog food, right? Mm-hmm. Of this is how you built up your wealth and this is how you secured your family,, is through a series of co-ownership, uh situations and like, you know, um, building up property really, like real estate is where you've spent so much of your time. And then that all results of course in, and then that results in you actually starting the company, right? Yeah. So tell me, let's, let's talk about investment for example. I, I will just add that, you know, part of it I wanna give credit to my team. Yeah. So I had a bunch of colleagues who are working. Second startup is a New York Times funded startup called In Woven, that's a sustainable SaaS company. That also kind of came from a place of passion, But my colleagues were the ones who were like,, you know, those tools that you were using mm-hmm. To buy, we want to use them too. Right? Yeah. And so they became, they became co-founders and they became owners through that process. My co-founder today, like, he was like, I'm from San Diego. I live in San Francisco. I'm not gonna be able to afford working for startups my whole, whole life. And I know a lot of startup founders and entrepreneurs and people working at startups, there's ways to do this. And so he bought his first, short term rental. He was a rent investor in, he found that public. He looked at the top 100 public golf courses and said like, Hey, I'm gonna get one near San Diego. And then cece ended up with, a partner of hers, her, her place in Queens and so it's, it's like I give credit, I just wanna make sure I give credit to them because they were. Um, they're the ones who also were like,, I think there's something here that you've been doing that Yeah. Will a apply to everybody else?'cause I always get concerned that, I, we end up sometimes coming at it from a coastal elite perspective. Oh, I'll, I solved this for myself. I saw this for others. Yeah. But, it was them that really compelled and said, there's something there. Yeah. So tell me about this. So if, for someone who's never heard an er, right? Yeah. And, uh, normally, uh, on the podcast we, I'm very careful to have people not talk about their companies. But here, I I genuinely think that what you're doing, is interesting. And if a lot of people knew about it, I think I, I think people would be genuinely curious to know more about this. What does Nessman do? Yep., What sets it apart from I think maybe people's traditional understanding of how they can own a home. Yeah, totally. So, our tagline is, home ownership is so possible now. Yeah. Now that it doesn't tell you exactly what we do, but what we focus on is creating on-ramps to ownership. Mm-hmm. Particularly for Gen Z and millennials,, through matching you, with the right financing and affordability strategies and personalizing the process, all along the way. So you can, sometimes one person said, oh, you guys are like a wedding planner, but instead of my big day, it's my big purchase. Right? Yeah. And we're completely free to the end consumer, right? Mm-hmm. Here's the thing, there's so much money in this ecosystem that, that gets thrown away. Mm-hmm. Just to get you to buy a home. Yeah. But our focus is understanding who you are in a judgment free zone., Whether it's you need credit repair, you're trying to afford a down payment, or you are, frankly, you think you can't buy, but actually, if you knew about this program, you'd be able to buy. Or if you knew that you could. I can't tell you how many people. Two incomes still searching Zillow every day. Don't feel like they can buy. Yeah. But if they added a unit to it and got a duplex Yeah. They'd have the same amount of square foot and then now they're able to buy. Right. So things like that. Or giving the opportunity for a uncle or auntie or parent to invest with you, right. Yeah. Like you'll actually find that your family members and friends wanna see. People own too. Yeah. So there's this whole pool of found money that I find fascinating. Mm-hmm. In fact, we're starting, we have this nest gen program, which is our home buying accelerator, and it's got different flavors and we're gonna do one for creatives and artists. Yeah. And the reason why, and we're actually gonna be working with Laina, hopefully on, on stuff for restaurant workers and people in the service industry because we wanna show that there are these pathways, whether it's leveraging down payment programs, leveraging coying and putting capital together. Yeah. So yeah, that's what we focus on. It's a mixture of platform and services. Everyone gets an estimate coordinator. Mm-hmm. Along with our planner, which is agen workflow that Yeah. Allows you to like actually understand you, match you with those things, build your dream team. And we're releasing this kind of reward based roadmap.'cause like I said, there's so much money we should be rewarding you for taking these very brave steps. So talking about emotions when you go through pre-approval as a first time home buyer, and we really do focus more on first time home buyers.. Yeah, we send you a bottle of bubbles, nothing's happened. Mm-hmm. No one's made any money, but we send you a bottle of sparkling wine. Yeah. Because we know how difficult it is to just go through this process of uploading documents, how sometimes vulnerable you feel sharing your, what you make, what's in your bank account. One time you missed a credit card. Yeah. That one time you missed that credit card payment. And sending you that bottle of saying, congratulations, you're a really major way through this Yeah. Is, is important. And, and pop it open when you get to the home. Right. Yeah. So like, oh man, I can say a lot of things about this, but just I'll share my personal experience with this. So my wife and I bought our home in 2022. And, leading up to that, I had been running a company and, my finances looked like somebody who'd been running a company. Mm-hmm. And my wife had worked in tech and she had these very kind of clean, beautiful finances. And we go in to the pre-approval process and she turns in her finances and they're just like, yeah whatever you want, whenever you want it. And then I turned in mine and, I had taken a lot of credit card debt to start my company. Yeah. They reached out to me, the bank reached back out and said, Hey. We're gonna,'cause my wife was so impressive. They're like, we want to lent to you, but can you write a letter explaining why you have godawful credit? Yeah. And so I had to, I've never felt more embarrassed. And honestly, I even at a more serious level, I felt like I was gonna jeopardize our ability to own a home. Mm-hmm. By having by chasing after my dream of running a company, I felt like,'cause my wife and I had just gotten married and we were trying to do this thing, and I felt like I was this close to letting us, to letting her down. Yeah. And I mean she's an incredible person. Would've never said anything, but I really felt like, so I wrote the shit outta that letter. Yeah. Amen. I had to really, but, worked out and everything was good. But like, I to to your point, it is a very vulnerable process and it's, you know, you have to, and I think this maybe gets to something bigger, right. And I want to talk about an estimate more like in your work at a macro level, which is that. When I, I am not smart enough to diagnose any societal problems, but it seems to me that one big thing that we're gonna keep talking about, in our politics and in our culture is the problem of affordability. Mm-hmm. That, we've had, we've gone through this incredible 80, 90 year period of unbelievable wealth generation and even in pockets, peace and prosperity and all of that. But somehow we've ended up in this place, in the wealthiest country, in the world, where so many people, just feel like a baseline life is unaffordable. Mm-hmm. And nowhere I think there, there's no one purchase where that feels more visceral and you feel like more of a failure. And you feel more helpless than you do with a home because it is, it's the most existential purchase. Right? Totally. I mean, a car is a car and, maybe you should be buying a Corolla and not a, not an Accord or, whatever. But to not be able to buy a home fee makes you feel like such a,, makes you feel like you're doing something wrong and makes you feel like you are not part of this American experiment. Yeah. And I think that there's,, it's a very upsetting feeling, and I know a lot of friends, and I, myself, as I was saying, felt that at points,, I think the thing that, you know, in all of this Yeah. In all of this kind of feeling of, being left out and being vulnerable, all that, the one thing that, isn't talked about enough is the genuine feeling of confusion. Mm-hmm. Yes. Of like, I think. If you were to do a real mathematical analysis of all people in America that, that don't own homes, but can own homes based off of their finances, I think we would all be shocked by how many,'cause there's a large percentage of them that, you know, maybe don't wanna own a home or aren't doing it for some reason. Yep. But there's a very large percentage of people that genuinely do not know if they can own a home. Yeah. I think there's that's exactly right. Which is incredible to me. Yeah. That, there's a real confusion and I think there's, it's the worst type of confusion.'cause to answer that confusion, to solve that confusion, you would have to go through the thing you're scared of. Yeah. Which is you would have to look deeper into the market. Yeah. And so as a result, you just doom scroll and Zillow. Yeah. And you don't ever make a move. Dude, you've said this the best way I'm gonna take all of this. I'm gonna get this recording, and take this because. I think you've just done a great job of encapsulating a lot of what we're seeing. So in this country, lowest first time home ownership rate ever, right? 24%. Right now. Right now, since the metric was shared, it's usually hovering between 33 and 36%. That's percentage of transactions that year that are first time homeowners. Right. So you're imagining that's about 600,000 people who've just been kind of squeezed out, so they're not that far away. Yeah. But the interesting thing to your point is when you're. W kind of, when you're just one or 5% away mm-hmm. It feels impossible. Yeah. Like that 1% gap feels, and, but at the same time, and the highest median, first time buyer, age 38, which is, it was 31, 10 years ago. Yeah. Right. And then largest wealth gap between owners and renters. And so yet still the desire is higher than ever. Bank of America does these studies and mm-hmm. They always say where does home ownership rank? And in the past, now it's crept up to above marriage and kids. Yeah. Now it's marriage, kids, and career fulfillment. Yeah. So there's this gap between desire and reality. Yeah. Right. And what's crazy to me, and I've been trying to articulate this, so I always say Neman is a shockingly easy concept in a frustratingly complicated industry. Yeah. Right. And the crazy thing is the, your lender and your agent are not. Really equipped and they're not compensated to help you through any of the complexity. Yeah. Right. But they're actually very willing to pay us to help you Yeah. Through that complexity and deliver, which is, really interesting. So the goal for us is how can you be a consumer advocate? Yeah. How can you come in and say, here's the situation, here are the options available, and, and just find people that pathway. But the amount I should just, if I shared with you the letters we get, the texts we get mm-hmm. Like of that people that thought it was impossible. Yeah. But find that it's actually very possible. Mm-hmm. If they just rethink. Yeah, because the math doesn't math. If you think to yourself, I always have to go a 20% down, right? Yeah. If I go there versus, okay, maybe I'm coying, so it's two of us putting 10%, or I'm using a 5% down program, and that's okay.'cause I'm getting rent. Right?'cause 20% of your, of down payment is now about 80% of the annual millennial salary. Right. And yet 35% is going towards rent typically. Yeah. So the math cannot, doesn't work out unless you're gonna get some additional support or you find some liquidity event or something like that. But all that to say, I think you're right., I think it's just a fascinating net to crack. But, you do it back to the vision board, right? Yeah. You doing it largely because Yes, there's a big opportunity, right? Yeah. Yes. You can build something like maybe what SoFi did for student lending, right? Yeah. You could build for own ownership. But it's much bigger than that. It's giving people the opportunity to. If something did happen in their lives. I'll give one, one other story about real people. We recently had, a co buyer who came to us and she wasn't so much a coyer, but she was buying with her son. Her son has disabilities and special needs, and she was so thankful because we ended up buying a duplex. They live in one unit, but her biggest concern was that when she passes away, how is he gonna have a place to live and generate revenue? Yeah. And what's amazing is now with this duplex, he has a place to live and it'll be generating revenue. Wow. Right. And we've had single mothers come together and say, we're looking for support in community and we're tired of living rent to rent, you know? And so by pulling their capital, they're able to purchase a home, right? Yeah. Like those are those moments where you say, and sometimes it's just the couple who's like someone just proposed in the new home that they just bought through Nest, right? Yeah. You And so that's the community we want build. Absolutely. Last weekend there was a party in Brooklyn at a duplex, a house party that literally was like, we sponsored, we sponsoring house parties now, just because it's like, bring your family and community, let them into your home, see what you've done. Right. And it was just, it's cool. So the part of what Neman does,'cause of course you've got, making all these governmental tools available to people and you've got all these different, and like finding the right zip code and all that. The part that I think I find the most compelling is I've had this experience now of watching my, fellow millennial friends sit around at coffee shops, two or three of them. And be like, I really wanna buy a home. I don't have enough for a down payment. And then the next one goes, I wanna buy a home. I don't have enough for a down payment. And everybody goes around the table and says the exact same thing. And it's a little like three people sitting around a table being like I wanna make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I only a bread. And the next person says, I only have peanut butter. And the third person only has jelly and they can't seem to figure out You put'em together and you got a PB j. That's a great slide. Like three people. So here how I got the peanut butter jelly, no, it genuinely feels like every millennial, every third millennial conversation, is it's about wedding you having kids. And then the other one is, I wanna buy a home and I can't buy a home. Yeah. And it, to me it seems so god damn obvious. Yeah. Oh, just get together. Yeah. And I do also think like this speaks to a, I think a bigger societal thing that your story touches on that I think has been really core I've just been noticing is that. We are starting to increasingly have these relationships in our lives, that are very different. We don't have words for them yet. Mm. Where, they're these people in my life that, I can't technically le they're, they don't meet the legal definition of family. Right. But to call them friends is an insult to them. You know, that they're, they have, they occupy this space and I want to organize my life around them, and I know they want to around me., But it almost the tools don't seem to exist to enable that. Yeah. What the tools seem to be built for is to be a nuclear family and to put up a fence between you and the next nuclear family. Right? Yeah. That's what we're built for. I love that about Nessman, that it is the first of these companies that I've seen that you all are built to enable this particular type of, it's not just for friends trying to buy homes, but that you really you've built something to supercharge that. Yeah. That's definitely at the core we call that found family, right? Yeah. Like that notion of you've found your family. And I think also as more people have gone away for college and Yeah. And created those families that's there. So, Niles, I want to end at some level where, where I started. So you talked about the home that you grew up in and how that felt and what that did for you as a child. Tell me a bit about your wife is an incredible, and we'll, maybe, we'll plug her Instagram in the show notes. Incredible interior designer. You've spent now a lifetime thinking about homes. What is the home that you're trying to create for your son and daughter? How do you hope you know, when they're doing this podcast on Mars? Or wherever technology is at in 30 years? When they look back Yeah. And they talk about their childhood and the home that you and your wife created for them. What do you hope they say? That's, I love that question. So one thing that I think a lot about when it comes to homes is I would love for them to say that outside of the typical, it was a happy household and things like that. I'd love to say that there, there wasn't ever too much space, but there was always enough space, right? Like this notion that we don't need 5,000 square feet to be happy, right? Like, we don't need all of those things. What we need are flexible spaces that can grow and change with us, that we can reinvent and live. I'd love them to say that their home felt like a community where they got to know the. Older Asian grandma at the bottom floor who says hi to them and speaks to them in Chinese to the middle unit of like tech bros who like love like mm-hmm. Barbecuing in the backyard., I'd love to say it was a place them, for them to say it was a place of creativity and inspiration, just with my wife's incredible way of designing and color and feeling like connected, but also, feeling utility and thinking through that. I'd love to say that it was genuinely kind of San Francisco and Bay Area. Yeah. There's something that kind of, I think there's a matching the space and home to the place it's in and mm-hmm. Paying, homage to that I think, is really powerful. So yeah. No, that's a beautiful question. Thank you. And I'm sure they'll remember showers with their father. I'll tell you one last short story. There's a letter that my father wrote, and I can send it to you'cause I'm open with it. But he somehow was able to say everything to my brother Byron and I in three paragraphs. And I don't know how I read it over and over again. And we found that we, I I, we found that letter, right? And my first instinct was to like, put it in my bedroom near my wall or my office. We ended up putting it in the powder room of our home where, you know, guests having dinner or whatever would come and actually see and read this letter on the wall. And the reason why I give all credit to Alicia, she's like, you think about your dad, you wanna share that? Yeah. And he Actually, can I read the letter real quick please? Because it's on. Please do. I'm gonna read the letter and then we can, wrap it up because I actually, it's on in the article, but I want like. Read this letter.'cause I just, I love what it said and, okay, let's see. Okay, here. Okay, let's see if the, okay, so it sits on our powder room, which I'll send you the picture, but it's crazy, floral, like paperwork and so forth. But it goes, um, dear Niles and Byron, I've been thinking for months about what to leave in writing as a farewell to both of you. I've gathered some letters from my friends about me, so you will know how others saw me. But I also want you to have fond memories of me when I'm gone. I'm very proud to have you as my sons. Every time I hear other parents praise you both as exceptional. I glow. I glow. With that pride, I know you will continue to be wonderful people because it is in your nature. What legacy can I leave you? It starts, of course, with my genes and those of your mother, who's brilliant and talented way beyond she will admit to herself. But I also think it is values. I believe it is important that you always be polite. And respectful towards others, that you be honest and fair in your dealings and that you always keep your word, desire good things for yourself, but never be greedy. Most of all, try to see the optimistic side of life. You'll both have hardships and disappointments, but you should focus instead on the good things that God has chosen for you as you go through your life. I hope you will think of me and call on my memory to guide you along the way. I love you so much, dad. And so that hangs in our powder room, and I think people feel a little more connected to us when they're in there, sometimes unexpected.'cause they're, they look over and they see this, but when they read it and they come out, they feel a little more like they understand our story. Um, and as I, one of the things, I'm really struck by when you read that is, how much you did what your dad asked you to do. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate that. S thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Appreciate you. This was beautiful. Man. Man. God. How are we ever gonna top that? Niles? Ah, man. Dude, Niles, you're incredible. No, dude. Gimme a hug. Oh my God. Thanks. That was awesome. I, uh love it. Warm intro is produced by G one one, audio and video at Han Production, help by Danielle Ibarra, hosted by me. Cool.