Speaker: 0:00

I've been thinking a lot about California lately. I look, I'm gonna state my priors here. I love California. I've lived here basically my entire adult life, and I really think this is the best place in the world to live. But I'm not blinded by my love. I know California has real problems and those real problems need real serious solutions. And I personally am open to any idea from any well-intentioned person about what California needs, but that's an important distinction. Well intentioned. I to be frank, am just not interested in the opinions of people who don't really want the best for the state to be frank about it. If California is just a partisan punchline to you. Sure, get your retweets and get your likes, but just know that no serious person considers you part of the conversation anymore on what California needs to put it another way. You don't get to hate California unless you also love California. That's why lately I've been looking for people who, in their own way, are trying to make California a better place. That's how I came across Ethan. Ethan Agarwal is a massively successful tech entrepreneur. Ethan moved to California as a child. He grew up in Silicon Valley. He started a company here. He hired dozens of people. He, he made millions of dollars here, and now he's running for governor as a proud capitalist. He wants to make California more meritocratic, a bolder, a more ambitious place because he really thinks that the state isn't doing for other kids what it did for him. But honestly, n none of that matters. What matters is that Ethan, like me, is a proud, adopted son of California. He cares about California. He criticizes it because he loves it, and that's what makes him worth listening to. And with that, I bring you Ethan Agarwal from wefunder's office on Mission Street in San Francisco. This is warm intro. Ethan, thank you so much for being on the podcast, man. First of all I actually wanna start kind of a weird place. Tell me how you ended up with the name Ethan.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Yeah, my real, my born name is Atin, A TIN. And I never liked the name. Yeah. And part of it is the, the T sound that the sound doesn't translate well in a lot of different languages. Tell me about it. And so, it was always this awkward thing of like a tin atin, a thin, and just that back and forth conversation didn't feel good. And so I decided, I think it, I don't know, 15 years ago now or something to start more than that. Actually, I was younger than that, like 20 years ago now. Started to go by Ethan. So yeah, my, my legal name is Atin, A TIN. What

Speaker: 3:08

has the adoption been like for that, for the new name, with your family?

Speaker 2: 3:13

It's awkward.

Speaker: 3:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:14

I mean, for anybody that knew me before they generally still call me. Yeah. At, or, you know, dude or whatever. My parents, I'll say, do a pretty good job of trying to balance between when they meet someone who's new, they'll call me Ethan and mm-hmm. You know, they also, my parents very rarely call me by my name. It's usually beta or mana or something like that. So for them it wasn't that much of a difference.

Speaker: 3:37

Dude. As far as like Indian people changing their names for politics or having to change their names for politics, go, yours is one of the shortest distances to

Speaker 2: 3:45

travel. That was the thing that I felt good. So I, I have a younger sister also. Yeah. And I was sort of debating with her like, what's the right path? Yeah. And she said, yeah. Ethan is like the closest. And I, I thought about it and then I thought of all the people I know and I wanted to make sure I didn't know any Ethans that I didn't like. And exactly the path is like smooth enough to go from a TIN to E-T-H-A-N.

Speaker: 4:06

Yeah. It's, I think the biggest jump I can think of is probably posh to Bobby. Bobby, yeah. That. And then how about MHA to Nikki? Is, is, that's also at least he stealing one letter. A letter. But, but no, I think I think up to, to Ethan is, is great.

Speaker 2: 4:23

What, what I will say, when I heard about Bobby. When he was relevant 20 years or 15 years ago. Yeah. I was like, what a tool, like, you know, who changes their name? And I, I do owe him probably an apology because I did it, but in my defense, I did it far before I thought I was going into politics.

Speaker: 4:41

Oh dude. I am not even in politics and I'm walking around with a ridiculous name. Like, my name is Nia. Okay. And like the third day of Berkeley. The, this girl that lived downstairs from me was like, I'm gonna call you Chai. And then everybody at Berkeley called me Chai. And then, which is a great name Jobs. It is a good name. It is a good name. I think the only thing I don't like about it is that I'm Indian. It would be like if I was Italian and my name was Pasta, like it would be, it's, it's, it's a little insane. Speci. If I wasn't Indian, it's the coolest name in the world. I

Speaker 2: 5:10

know a guy from Thailand named Chai and that goes really well. Okay. So I, I take your point.

Speaker: 5:15

I think I've have considered at times rebranding to Che.'cause that is the more accurate sound in my name. But then I'm like, oh, I see. That is, I'm not planning to run for office, but that would be. To have the same name as a famous revolutionary is, I'm not sure that's, you gotta put Axon on the e saying, but anyway, this is about, this is about your made up name, not my made up name. Tell me, okay, let's take this back. Tell me, tell me a little bit about your childhood, especially, I wanna understand what that move was like for you going from Canada to the US because you were 10 or so. Nine. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Good. Me. Good memory. Yeah. So, I was born in Montreal. My dad was a professor at McGill. He taught electro engineering. My family story is probably very similar to everybody's, which is my parents came here to the US in the seventies. The Congress passed this Asian Immigration Act in 65. And so a bunch of Indians and Asians and folks came to America after that act has passed. My dad here, my dad came here to do his PhD and masters at Johns Hopkins university of Pittsburgh. And then he went to the Montreal Olympics and fell in love with the city. Oh wow. And decided to. Start his family there. And so he became a professor at McGill, taught electrical engineering and CS for like, I think 18 years. I was born in Canada and then he decided to start a company in the software space. And in the nineties, if you're starting a company mm-hmm. There's only one place you go in the world and that's Silicon Valley. And so he moved the family out here in 94. And yeah, I grew up in a small town called Los Gatos, which is about an hour south of San Francisco.

Speaker: 6:48

Okay, I have a few questions about that. The first question would just be, was that hard for you? Nine nine's a pretty I think tender age. Was that, was that a hard

Speaker 2: 6:58

transition for you? Yes, very hard. I remember, I literally remember crying on the airplane. Oh my god. You know, you're in third grade, you have all your friends. I went to a French school, you know, I grew up in Quebec, so it's like everything is French. So I spoke French Hindi and English growing up and. I come coming to the America where I, the only thing I used to know is we used to drive from Montreal to this place called Plattsburgh in New York. Mm-hmm. Because things were cheaper.'cause you didn't have to pay taxes. Yeah. So we would drive to Plattsburgh, buy a bunch of stuff and then drive back up. And that was my only experience with America. Oh wow. And so we're coming to California. I don't know anything. This is pre-internet obviously. And I'm nine years old. And I actually remember the first day that I got here. I was really sick. Like that night I remember. And so for like three days I was violently ill pro, I don't know if it was an infection or what, but it was just compounded the fact that I had no desire to be here. Now, you know, 20, 30. Wow. 31 years later. I'm very glad with that decision. Yeah. But back then I was, I was very unhappy.

Speaker: 7:56

How long did it take

Speaker 2: 7:57

you to start to like America? Very good question. At that age, I think it's just when you make your friends. I, I went to a school called Foothill, which was a public school in Saratoga for a couple years. And I will say like, we moved in September and the winter came and I was used to four feet of snow. Mm-hmm. And Saratoga, Los Gatos is, you know, not four feet of snow, not four feet of snow. And I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. Like, it's, it's nice that it doesn't snow and get crazy here. So probably within like a winter or so,

Speaker: 8:28

that is a very grown up reason to fall in love with America or California. The, the weather is very like,

Speaker 2: 8:35

well, so I grew up skiing and I grew up playing hockey and I was a big fan of the Canadian. So I will say I was frustrated that hockey was not as big of a thing here. Yeah. As it was in California. And I remember skiing, you had to drive to Tahoe. Mm-hmm. Versus over there it was like trombone was like 30 minutes away. So. Those things did happen. But I will say like once I made some friends, once I got used to the weather, I got into baseball which I wasn't playing out there, so that made the transition a bit easier.

Speaker: 9:02

And your dad at the same time is going through transition of his own, going from a professor and even a professor, you said for like double digit years, right? Like he's Yeah. 17, 18 years. Yeah. And so almost two decades of being a professor and all of a sudden he's a technology entrepreneur. Yeah. Crazy shift. I want to hear what that was like for him and, you know, in so far as you know about it, and then too, like what that, what effect that had on you watching your dad go through a, you know, mid game shift like that. Yeah. Yeah. Tell, tell me about that.

Speaker 2: 9:32

I don't think I understood it at that age, but he started this company in 94, and then he took it public in 2001. So that was seven years later. And at that point I was 16. I was a junior in high school and this is, you know, peak tech market 90, late nineties, early two thousands before the.com crash. And I think what I realized was that there's always opportunity to do more. Like my parents were never the type to just do one thing forever. It was always like, what's next? How can we do more? How can we do something differently? How can we do better? And a lot of it was in desire to help their kids do better. And so, you know, we grew up in the sense of like. When he was a professor, he was making almost no money. Not no money, but very little money. And so we grew up with a mentality of like scarcity and you know, his company did well and stuff. And so things got better. But we grew up with that mentality. And what I watched him do is I watched him sacrifice a lot for me and my older sister for a long time. And then my younger sister came along and things were a little bit better, but we grew up with this mentality of sacrifice and you do whatever you need to do to do better for your kids. And so, you know, being a professor, starting a company, and he's now started two more companies since then. He's in his, you know, he's 73 or something, 74 now, and he's still working, you know, full time. And so I see that, and I think it goes back a little bit to just this like. Mentality of America, which is, there's always more to do. There's always something that can get done. The people that come here are incredibly hardworking, incredibly ambitious. They're the smartest people around the world. And you know, we can get into the campaign, but that's one of the things that I feel like we're losing is the best people don't see California as the obvious place to go anymore. Yeah. They're going to Austin, they're going to Houston, they're going to Phoenix, they're going to New York, they're going to Charlotte. They're gonna other cities that are more embracing of the entrepreneurial spirit than California's. And yes, AI and stuff is still dominant here, but in 10 or 15 years, I'm not sure that California's gonna be the obvious place anymore. And that's really concerning to me.

Speaker: 11:46

Well, so one of the things I want to try to do in this podcast is, i've been noticing this trend in American politics recently. I'll probably have talked about this in the intro to the podcast. I've noticed this thing where we increasingly don't have the same vocabulary Okay. On, on two sides of any issue. And you see it in, in the way that like people will, the words that people used to insult people on the other side don't have even the same sort of effect, right? Because you'll one side will call the other socialist or communist or whatever, and then the other side will literally be like, oh yeah, I'm a proud socialist. Great point. And that, you know, you see other party talking about socialists. Exactly. Right? Like, we don't even have a, to even be able to. Insult somebody effectively, you need to have some shared vocabulary. Right. Very good point. And we no longer have shared words. So one thing I want to try to do, and I've combed through your website several hundred times in the last couple days and preparing for this, I have a few words that I want you to define as they come up in your story. Okay.'Cause I know they're very important to you. So I, I want first to understand your relationship with the word meritocracy. Okay. Because I, I think you just touched on it a little bit, and I think you watched your dad go through this very meritocratic journey. Right. What does that word mean to you? Is this a word? Your parents use it a lot when you were growing up?

Speaker 2: 12:57

No. Okay. But it was in our ethos.

Speaker: 13:01

And what is your earliest sort of relationship with that word? Like, how does that, how did that enter your consciousness? What does that mean to you? Yeah. Tell me about the word meritocracy or meritocratic.

Speaker 2: 13:11

I remember the first time that that word entered my lexicon, which is, I will not name this person, but it, this is a real story. When I was in college at Johns Hopkins. I wanted to go into finance. I wanted to go into investment banking and I to get a job in banking. I was a double major. Hopkins did not traditionally send students to Wall Street, and I wanted to get a job at a bulge bracket, you know, and I, I, what's a bulge bracket? Bulge bracket's, like, basically a very large investment bank. Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, as opposed to a boutique bank. And I worked my ass off. I studied all the time. I went from Baltimore to New York on these$12 mega bust rides, you know, 20 times for interviews in preparation. And I did a whole bunch of things. And I finally got the job. I was over the moon and I started the job. And the other analyst on my team was the daughter of the priest of the managing director. Wow. And you know, it was something in my brain that, like short circuited, where I was like. Hang on. Like there, there's something wrong here. Yeah. Because I killed myself to get this job and I worked really hard and, and in a way the system worked because I worked really, really, really hard to get that job and I got that job. But there was one other seat. And what that means is there's one other person at least who deserves that job, at least as much as I do. And I'm 99% sure that it's not her, it's not the daughter of the priest of the md. And that's where the whole thing broke down for me. This is, I was 21 years old, so I remember when this happened. It was 2006, and that's when I was like, okay. There's a world here that is different than the world that I grew up in, which is that you work hard and you're ambitious, and you're smart, and you're safe, and you do all the right things, then you'll move up in the world. And I was like, hang on. That's not the way the whole world works. So that's where the first time that happened. And then since then, in the last 19 years, I've noticed it a million times. But I remember that being the time when I was like, all right, I gotta think about the world a little bit differently now, dude.

Speaker: 15:22

Nobody should ever take advice from me. I'm historically horrible at giving advice, but you guys should clip that and run that as an ad. I truly,'cause I think even the reaction that I had, and I think I would agree with you on more issues than, than not but even the reaction I had to, to the word merito meritocratic on your website was, I think knee jerk net negative. But hearing you describe it, hearing what that word means to you, I think I, I see it in a very different light.

Speaker 2: 15:48

I'll give you one other example, which is going back to my dad. My dad has no reason. To do well in America in the seventies. Yeah. He like doesn't speak a language, he has no family lineage of whatever kind. He has no money. He's an immigrant from a third world country. And because America historically is a meritocratic society, the fact that he was a smart, hardworking, ambitious guy, he rose to be one of the most successful businessmen in the country. And that's a good thing. It's good that that opportunity is available. Mm-hmm. And so when I say meritocratic, I say I want anybody to be able to succeed that is willing to fight for it. And when you, when you enable people who are not meritocratic to get to certain levels, that's where the system starts breaking down. And so when I think about meritocracy, I think about. Being rewarded and being treated appropriately for the type of work that you do as opposed to someone else sort of just like shooting their way to the top because of something unfair? I think it's getting worse.

Speaker 3: 16:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:58

I think that people are putting in a lot of effort and I'm talking about like people making 80 to 150 k, that sort of demographic in California at least. I think people are putting a lot of effort and they're not getting a lot out of it.

Speaker: 17:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:13

And I think that's getting worse.

Speaker: 17:15

Tell me about your relationship with money. I especially wanna understand this move that as I was, reading your, your, your bio. I was fascinated by you know, you go to Johns Hopkins, you it is at this point a meme of the podcast that I have asked every single guest how they got into this to whatever really good school they went to. So I will not ask you that, but it is impressive that anybody gets into Johns Hopkins. So we go to Johns Hopkins, you as student body president, you work for the Diane Feinstein campaign, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:43

Wow. You did your research.

Speaker: 17:44

Of course. That's impressive. And then I'm gonna get this name wrong. You worked for the, for general Wesley Clark's presidential campaign.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Yeah.

Speaker: 17:51

But then when it comes time to to decide on a career you didn't go into politics. Yeah. You decided to go into, into finance. What, where did that decision come from?

Speaker 2: 18:00

I wanted, I used to think that you have to go to law school to become a politician. Yeah. And I applied to four law schools and I got way listed at one of them, and I got rejected from three of them. And so I was like, oh, the world doesn't want me to become a politician because. I didn't get into law school. Now it turns out that that's not true.

Speaker 3: 18:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:17

But at 21, that's what I, or not 21. Yeah, 21. That's what I thought. So I didn't get into law school, so I was like, all right, I'm gonna go into finance. And

Speaker: 18:25

you spent how many years in finance, banking, hedge fund and consulting, which I guess is Lucy. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:30

I, I did three years of banking. I did my MBA from Wharton. I did a year at a hedge fund. And then I did three years at McKinsey, but I don't count McKinsey within my finance year, so call it four or five years. What was that like? Did you like it,

Speaker: 18:44

McKinsey? Oh, just the, oh, that, in debt, four to five years stretch? Yes.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Well, I learned so much and I use it to this day. Mm-hmm. And it's not just the finance and the Excel spreadsheets. You learn about the way the economy works. And I'm very, very, very happy that I did that. And for the listeners who know things, you know, on banking, you're. Mostly advising clients on m and a and IPOs and stuff. And then in the, in the hedge fund world, you're investing, you're buying stocks. And I find, you know, we, to go back to the point about meritocracy, the beauty of the markets is that it's the most raw form of meritocracy. There is nothing matters, but the numbers. Yeah. And I don't know that the world should live like that, but I think it's a, it's a refreshing place for someone who thinks that way to be able to just understand the world and measure your results very objectively. Yeah. So I, I did like it. I did learn a lot in that time.

Speaker: 19:43

This is actually, man, I'm doing a great job.'cause this is the next question on my on my little research doc. The next word I want you to define. Is capitalism'cause that is another or not, you don't need to define it in a, like a Miriam Webster type of way. Like just what that word means to you Yeah. And why it's figured so prominently. Yeah. On in your campaign. Right? Yeah. Tell me about capitalism and also tell me the view of capitalism, which I think is a very unique vantage point that you get from investment banking.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Yeah.

Speaker: 20:13

Yeah. Tell, tell me, tell me about that word, capitalism. When does that become a part of your sort of worldview?

Speaker 2: 20:18

Okay. So I will actually start with a bit of a Miriam Webster version just to lay the groundwork. So capitalism is the word, capital is a fancy word for money. And basically what capitalism says is that the desire for money is what drives outcomes. And that's a bit technical but I want to establish it as sort of the technical definition. The way that I think about it is that the world works through incentives. That incentive can be money, that incentive can be comfort. That incentive can be health, that incentive can be fame, whatever it is. But humans are generally driven by incentives. And some of us just want to be able to go home at five 30 and watch a ball game and go to sleep without having any mental sort of challenges or hiccups or whatever. Some of us need to conquer the world and somewhere in everyone sort of lies in between that. And the reason that capitalism works is that it allows everyone to contribute in a way that is aligned with their incentives. So I'll give you an example. What is gonna make a pharmaceutical company do research? This is a really. Dangerous topic to bring up on a podcast, but I'm gonna bring it up anyway. What drives them to do research? Is it for the good of humanity or is it for money? The real answer is that it's for money. Because if it was for the good of humanity, the sacrifice that was needed to do the research to get to that outcome, it would never happen. And I'll give you an example. So if you look at a drug that is developed to help with Alzheimer's there's probably, I'm guessing so I could be wrong about this. There's probably tens of billions of dollars that have gone into Alzheimer's research. And as you know, it's still not treated fully. Mm-hmm. But if the desire was just out of a desire to do good, that would not ever have happened because. I don't have$10 billion and you don't have$10 billion. So other people are giving tens of billions of dollars to research something and then they're not getting anything out of it, because if my dad or your dad don't have Alzheimer's anymore, that's not good for us. But that doesn't necessarily not contribute to the society. Yeah. So it's a question of incentives. Mm-hmm. So the thing that I have found over and over again is that people are driven by incentives and capitalism drives incentives. Yeah. The word, again, capital I think is a bit misleading because it focuses just on money. I think people have different, different things that drive them, but I, I believe that people are most likely to reach their potential and are most comfortable when they are motivated by incentives.

Speaker: 23:17

Okay. Let me, let me get a couple more clarifying points on that. Right. You spend this, this time in finance and it seems like that makes you you came outta that liking capitalism more. Is that fair to say? I came out of it understanding the way the world works more. Yes. Interesting. And then you take that and you go off and start go on. Truly a generational run, starting companies. Is it two companies and two exits? Yeah. That's fucking amazing, man. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm like many years too late to say this, but congratulations. That's you. Truly like, yeah. You killed it. Let me, let me actually ask you about that. Why do you think, what do you think goes into being a good entrepreneur? A lot of the people that will listen to this are gonna be entrepreneurs or people backing entrepreneurs. What do you think goes into being a good entrepreneur, and why do you think you did so well? 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 in 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.

Speaker 2: 25:16

First of all, don't start a company because you want to start a company. Yeah. That's the biggest mistake I see founders make. Start a company because you have an itch that if you don't scratch that itch, you can't sleep at night. You wake up thinking about it, you're distracted about it all the time, and all you think about is why does that thing not exist? Or why does this thing exist the way that it does? It should exist this other way. You start a company to solve a personal problem about the way the world works and there's no other reason to start a company. So, the first thing you need to do to be an entrepreneur is to be extraordinarily passionate about a particular problem. And the reason I say that is because it is a hard fucking job. It. It's not, you know, waking up at 4:00 AM to commute for two hours and working as a laborer and then going back kind of hard. That's a really hard job. But it is a stressful, stressful job. Yeah. And if you are in it for the glory or what you think is glory or what even money, what you think is money, you're gonna fail. Probably some people will succeed, but you're probably gonna fail and you're gonna have a horrible time doing it. So starting a company has to be the very low list of reasons why you start a company. You start a company'cause you wanna solve a problem. So, so that's thing number one. Thing number two is, you know, I, I don't know if you read this Walter Isaacson book on Elon Musk. Yeah. I don't know, two years ago now. But I, I read a lot of business bios, so I've led read a lot of Buffet and Gates and Steve Jobs and Ken Griffin and Elon and all these people. And I find that those, that level of people have three things in common. And I'm not putting myself next to them, but here's what I'll tell you. One, they're brilliant people. Like academically, just brilliant intellectually people, intellectually brilliant people. Buffet was like a genius growing up. Elon is obviously a genius. Gates was a genius. These guys are just absolute geniuses. Two is, they are Unendingly ambitious. Mm-hmm. You can't tell them no, there's nothing that they think that they can't do, and they may be wrong about. 10% of it or 90% of it. But the point is they are un unbelievably ambitious. And three is they don't have empathy. And that's where I think entrepreneurs get dinged a lot, which they probably deserve to be. Yeah. But that is the job, unfortunately, the job requires you to be generally unempathetic and I'll, I'll give you an example. When I was, when I had to fire the first person I ever fired. Mm-hmm. I still remember his name and I won't say it, but this was back in 2016, so nine years ago, it was a nightmare for me. It was so, yeah, hard. I stewed about it for weeks. I tried to push it off. I, after I did it, I went to a bar and had a drink'cause I was just such a mess.

Speaker 3: 28:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:13

And the way that I got around to re it resonating in my head was someone said to me, they said, there's nine other people that work at this company, and if you let this guy stay, you're putting these nine other people's jobs at risk and their families and their incomes and their kids. So you owe it to the other nine people to, in this case, let this one guy go so that you're protecting sort of the larger good. Now, going back to your question about compas, compassionate, conservative, or whatever you wanna call it, there's a way to treat people that are let go. So I wanted to make sure this guy had a job coming out. I gave him a really good severance. I made sure that he was taken care of. Mm-hmm. Because I didn't want him to be just like unemployed and not have anything to do after that care of the people. But firing someone is still a really hard. Thing for them. It's, it's getting fired is really painful.

Speaker 3: 29:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:05

And the only way that I got around to it was recognizing that I had responsibilities elsewhere. So going back to your question about what it takes to be a good entrepreneur, I think you need to be one, very ambitious two, you need to be like scratching an itch that I mentioned earlier. Three, you need to be able to understand this idea of the greater good as opposed to like each specifically each specific nuance. Hmm. It, you need to be thinking about what's the greater good, what's the greater good? Like what's the most good I can do for the most number of people, that's the question you have to ask yourself. And then third is I always thought of four. There's four constituencies that a founder has and my order of the constituencies is your customer, your team, your investors, and then yourself. And I think if you put your. If you operate every decision based on that hierarchy, you'll end up doing pretty well. Sometimes those things are gonna be odd at odds with each other. On very rare occasion, all four of those things will benefit at the same time. But if you have that priority, I think you'll generally do pretty good.

Speaker: 30:09

Rank those the, the, the three traits you just mentioned this ability to prioritize this ambition, brilliance. Right. This is, I'm gonna ask you to, to gloat a little bit, but tell me which of those qualities you have the most of and which do you think you're the most efficient in?

Speaker 2: 30:25

I think I am, I can't say this without bragging and I don't want to brag. You

Speaker: 30:29

sold like two companies for a lot of money. I think it's okay to brag a little bit.

Speaker 2: 30:33

How do I say this? I am not, I have been surrounded by smarter people than me for much my life. So I don't think it's. Like just pure, raw intellect. Mm-hmm. I don't think I, I don't think that I'm unempathetic. I, I actually have quite a high degree of empathy, which has, you know, hurt me at times in life. I do think I'm pretty ambitious and I do think that I can understand like the greater good question reasonably well. And so I'm the guy that's like, you know, I don't, you see, depend, there's so much Twitter startup advice these days, but one of the things is like, your job is to just sort of like continue to push people to do more faster. That's like most of what a CEO's job is. And even at the Jensen Wang level, that's all he does is just like mm-hmm. Push people to do more faster. That's something that I'm good at is I can, I can see that there's more potential than other people can often, and I know sort of. That limits are rarely achieved, and we can do a lot more than we think we can. And I'm good at, I'm good at sort of telling a story and bringing people together and setting a vision. And as a result of that, hiring people, fundraising, selling a product, those, all those things all align from my ability to see a little bit further out in terms of what can be accomplished.

Speaker: 32:02

Why do you think, or how does someone get as good as you at fundraising? You, you've kind of killed it with fundraising. Well,

Speaker 2: 32:11

I first, I suck, so I had 120 investor meetings before I got my first$200,000. Oh, wow. All nos. And some of them were multiple nos. Damn. So I don't know what the actual number is, but it's certainly over 200. So I was terrible at fundraising for years. This is over two years. I realized there's one of five things that an investor needs to hang their hat on in order for you to be able to raise money and you need to be excellent. Very, very, very, very, very good at one of those five things to raise money. Mm-hmm. I'll quickly walk through them. Yeah. One is your team and not like. Two people went to Stanford. I mean like it needs to be six PhDs that mm-hmm. Have worked in that field for 10 years and no matter what those people do, someone's interested in it. That kind of team. One, two is growth. Your growth is spiking so insanely high that some guy on the street's gonna give you a term sheet'cause you just can't deny your growth. Mm-hmm. Early Snapchat was like that and we were, early US were like that. And I'll come back to that. Three is the product. The product is something like Instagram or something that's just such a phenomenal product. Mm-hmm. Or Uber, like just a mind, bendingly good product that you can't deny it. Four is distribution. So you have some go-to market strategy that is extremely defensible and extremely scalable. And then five is ip. You have some crazy. Hard science, deep tech patents or some type of biotech product or something that you've been working on for five years and no one else can replicate. Mm-hmm. One of those five things. And what you need to do is be super, super, super honest with yourself about which of those you have and do you actually have it in spades? So in my case, for two years I was like trying to do all five, when in reality I should have been trying to do three, when in reality I should have been trying to do one.

Speaker 3: 34:03

Hmm.

Speaker 2: 34:04

And eventually my growth started looking really, really good. I can, I still remember the numbers. This was like in, this was in July of 2015. We did like 2000 of revenue. This is MRR, then we did 5,000, then it was like 17,024. Then in January of 2016, we did 55, 78. Like I think it was like 1 0 7, 3 33. You know, it's just this, right? Yeah. And at that point, the investors can't say no. Yeah. And. I was in a way, like the worst profile of a founder. I was a solo entrepreneur, first time founder, non-technical with an MBA living in New York. Like you could not create a worse, like, you know, Venn diagram of founder attributes that people out here look forward to fund a company. Mm-hmm. But my growth was so damn good that thankfully, pair Ventures, who's one of the best VCs in the world, took a shot and gave me 250 K and then we went from there. So I realized that, and then for all my subsequent rounds, I focused on what is the one thing that I have in those five to continue to raise any money.

Speaker: 35:14

Dude, this is actually a really, really big concept that I think people who have not fundraised don't realize. It took me until this very moment to realize, I think, I think a lot of people. When they go out to fundraise, are trying to be good on all of those different attributes you mentioned. Yeah. Ken. Whereas exactly like what is, it's much better to be incredible on one. Correct. And even to kind of suck on the others. Totally. It help, it makes that one thing more believable. Totally. It's like, I remember asking, it's same, same but different. I remember asking Michael after our after we got into yc Michael Sebel, who was running it at the time I asked him hey, you know, between two companies.'cause you know, yc, you, you went to yc? No. Oh, you didn't? Okay. Man my research has failed me, but it's, I pretty good so far. So we're gonna cut it out. It's gonna be, it's gonna be flawless when we put it out, but no, I, i, I asked him, you know,'cause YC interviews the three people, right? And I was like, what? Which company do you prefer? A company that is where all three people kind of like it, or, or think it's like seven, eight outta 10. Or a company where one person thinks it's 10 outta 10, everybody else thinks it's zero. And he was like, any day that second company.

Speaker 2: 36:20

Yeah, totally.

Speaker: 36:20

And I think it's the same idea. We're like, you want to be both. I think as a person and as a company, there's I think too much emphasis on being well-rounded. Whereas I think what you wanna be is like asymmetrically weirdly good at one thing. A hundred percent and kind of even shitty at the other ones. Right. Totally other one. And lean into your

Speaker 2: 36:38

strengths. Mm-hmm. Acknowledge your weaknesses, but lean, double, triple, quadruple into your strengths. This is a

Speaker: 36:45

perfect place for us to then pivot into deciding to run for governor of California. Okay. Right. Well, I guess, okay I wanna do this. This is how I wanna do it. I, I have three things that we'll try to cover before the end of this podcast. Right. And we'll spend some time on each first. Why the fuck would you wanna do this? You're, without going into the numbers, presumably rich and young, and have a beautiful family and live in what I think is the greatest place in the world why the fuck would you wanna do it? That's number one. What I wanna cover, number two, what I wanna cover is pursuant, relevant to this thing. Sounded like a lawyer there for a second, but irrelevant to playing to your strengths. How do you actually do this? How does one actually do this? And how will you specifically pull this off? I, I wanna get into the playbook. I wanna get into the, the weeds of it, and the number three. I wanna live for the final part of this episode in a world where Eal Agaral is the governor of California. And what does that feel like? What does that look like? So let's, let's start with the first one. Why the fuck would you do this?

Speaker 2: 37:48

Okay. I'll give you both the political answer and the real answer. Okay. I've been interested in politics for a long time. You talked about this in college. And in the last 10 years, mostly the form of me being interested in politics has been me bitching about politics. Hmm. And me complaining about the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and all the chaos that's happened. And I realized that if I don't do something now it's time to put up or shut up basically. Hmm. So I just sold my second company earlier this year. Yeah. And for the first time in 20, since college, I'm a free agent and I've never not worked and so I now have time to do this. Newsom is termed out. So it's an open primary. I don't like any of the other candidates and I'm very concerned about the direction of California and the Democratic Party. All these things aligned and I said, you cannot keep complaining about the state of politics and the state of California and the state of San Francisco and all these things if you're not gonna take a shot at it this time. And I always say, why aren't smarter people getting into politics and why aren't younger people getting into politics? And I wish government had more attributes like business, and I wish things were run more like a startup. And I always complain about all these things. If I'm not gonna do it, then just shut up. And so I owed it to my myself and to all the people who listen to me complain about this all the time. Mm-hmm. To actually do something about it. So personally, that's a little bit of why.

Speaker 3: 39:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:16

Maybe the more political answer is I think California is a mess and I have two boys and. If they said to me in, you know, 10 or 15 years, Hey dad, I want to go to Texas or Phoenix or whatever Florida, to start a company to do X, Y, Z industry. I can't look them in the eye and be like, that's silly. California's obviously the best place to be. Yeah. Which it has been for 30, 40 years and we're losing that and I don't like that. And I, what I really, really, really hate is wasted potential. That drives me crazy. California has so much potential and the fact that we're not capitalizing on it drives me absolutely. Up a wall.

Speaker 3: 40:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:01

We have the smartest people here. We have the most interesting people here. We have the best looking people here. We have incredible weather. We have natural resources. We have things that other cities and states and countries beg for, and we are instead of. Standing up those people and those opportunities and that potential, we're doing everything we can to beat it down. And that drives me crazy. And so I'm running because I wanna help California realize its potential.

Speaker 3: 40:32

Yeah.

Speaker: 40:33

Oof, man. You got me fired up. That one thing that, that really this is a weird string for me to pick up on, but I, this really strikes a chord with me. Have you seen this movie, the Last Black Man in San Francisco? No. It was like going around and winning a bunch of awards a few years ago. It's a, it's a good movie, but there's one line in there that I think is great. He's sitting on a train, he's sitting on a, on a muni bus out here, and he's had a pretty rough experience with California or with San Francisco. And he's kind of questioning his own place in the city. And he is sitting there and he hears these two women talking on the train about how, you know, San Francisco's so like, yesterday's news now, and it's, it's about East LA now, and they're gonna leave and San Francisco's not cool anymore. And he looks at them and goes excuse me, can I ask you a question? They say, sure. And he says, do you love San Francisco? And they're like, what? And he goes, no, I answer the question, do you love San Francisco? And they say, no, I guess. And he says, you don't get to hate San Francisco unless you love San Francisco. And I feel the same way about, about California. That's a great line because dude, I sit here, man, and I, I go around, I have family in the south, I have family in the Midwest, and I watch the news and I talk to them. And there's this thing that happens in the rest of the country about San Francisco and about California. Where they, they love pointing out the problems. Right. But it is not, this is why I really resonate with you saying, put up or shut up. Right. They're not coming at it from the lens of wanting to do anything about it. It's, yeah. It's schaden Freud. Yeah. It's, it's totally laughing at the misery of your fellow countrymen. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 42:10

It's,

Speaker: 42:10

how is that to, to laugh about the, the state of the streets in San Francisco or to laugh about anything that happens in California and not immediately suggest a solution. How is that the patriotic thing to do? How is that the compassionate thing to do? How is that a, how is that the ethical thing to do? I, I genuinely, it really fills me with, with fury when I see the way the rest of the country talks about it. Let's say, first off, I don't. I think I might have a slightly more favorable view of how things are going in California than, than you do, but I agree with you on a lot of the problems. But let's say that the worst version of what people say about California is true, right? That it truly is a shithole and it it is a war zone, and it's, it's going to hell. Let's say all of that is true. Then how is it the right thing to do to laugh about it if it's as bad as you say it is? Why are we not all showing up here like the fucking Peace Corps to like save the state, right? So I appreciate what you're doing and I appreciate how you think about this. Let me now pivot a little bit, and now that my rant though, which we will cut out is over. So, so good. No man,

Speaker 2: 43:17

that's

Speaker: 43:18

so good. Thanks, man. Keep that in please. Okay, cool. I appreciate that, man. Let me, well it's all, it's just me responding to, to you getting me fired up. Let me, let me actually pivot this a little bit to how do we actually make this happen? How does this, how does one get elected Governor of California? How will you get elected? Governor of California?

Speaker 2: 43:36

Okay, so it's an open primary, meaning that Newsom is not up for reelection. Mm-hmm. California has something called a top two primary where when there's a national election, the Democratic party nominates one candidate. The Republican party nominates another candidate, and those two people face off in the general in California, whoever the top two vote getters are, move from the primary to the general. So it could be two Democrats, two Republicans, one Democrat, one Republican. We don't know. The general history is that if it's one, I mean this is a new concept, but if it's one Democrat and one Republican, the Democrat will win because the Republican will not win the general. Sure. So if that's the outcome of the primary, then the Democrat has basically won the general. The last time this happened was in 2018. In the primary Newsom got 2.3 million votes, and this guy John Fox, got 1.7 million. So you only need about 2 million votes to go from the primary to the general, which is an unfortunate turnout of, is unfortunate voter turnout of like 5% in a state of 40 million people. But that's a topic for a different day. So I need about 2 million votes to go from the primary to the general to be one of the top two people. The way the candidates have emerged so far is that there's a group of people on the far left, the Katie Porters of the world, and then there's a group of people on the far right, this guy Chad Bianca, who's a sheriff and SoCal and is running as like a mega candidate. And the bet that I'm making is that there's a group of people in the middle who I call the Lost Democrats, who are frustrated with the extremes on both sides. And these are the people that probably voted for like Clinton Gore. Obama, Hillary, but then didn't vote for Kamala, and now they feel like the A OC Momani, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, part of the party are way too far to the left, and then they don't agree with the MAGA Trump on the right. So there are lost Democrats and 40% of California voted for Trump. 40% of California voted for Trump while their own US Senator and Attorney General was the person running against him. So the idea that California is a deep blue state is bullshit. At best. It's purple. In all likelihood, in 2028, it's gonna be a red state because this state is shifting dramatically. So the bet that I'm making is that a bunch of the people that voted for Trump. This time around felt alienated from the Democratic party and that some of the people that didn't vote for Kamala also felt alienated from the Democratic party. So my campaign, my position is designed to provide a home to those people in the middle who don't like either side of the extremism. So how do I get the 2 million votes? So, there's, about 7 million people in the Bay Area that I'm going after aggressively. There's 6 million people in the Central Valley. There's about 25 million people in la. I'm spending time in truly NorCal, not San Francisco NorCal, but like up in Cloverdale and Mendocino, that area. Spending time all over the state. So I am trying to get my 2 million votes from everywhere, wherever I can, because there's problems everywhere. I'm not foregoing any county or any mm-hmm. Pop, you know, demographic two is I just turned 40 and the median age of a Californian is 38 and the median age of the other candidates is 64. And I think that as someone who has a young family and who buys, you know, is buying a home and putting kids through school and all that kind of stuff, I understand what other people. Of my age group and that sort of a 30 to 50 year age group we're going through and understand what their experience is like in California. And I have a sister who's 29, she's 11 years younger than me, and I already think all the time about how her worldview is very different than my worldview. So I can only imagine how a 22-year-old is thinking or how a 15-year-old is thinking. And if, if I can. Put myself in their shoes. And if I can't, then can a 70-year-old candidate put themselves in their shoes? I don't know. So I think that people are looking for someone they can relate to, who understands the problems they're going through. Not that the older candidates don't have empathy, but it's just hard'cause the world changes so fast. Even, I don't know that I have the connection to the 22-year-old, not sure that the 70-year-old person does. And then three is, you know, I am running as a unabashedly, pro-growth, pro business, pro jobs, pro housing. Someone called me an abundance candidate. You can call me that if you want, but I'm unabashedly running as that. And if you believe that. Consumer protection or social justice or environmentalism or things like that are the number one issues facing California, then you should not vote for me. If you think jobs and housing and prices and population are the biggest problems facing California, then you should vote for me. The last thing I'll say from a political perspective is we talked about this. I wasn't born in America. I was born in California. In Canada. Mm-hmm. So I was born in California. I was born in Canada. Which means that I can't run for president. Mm-hmm. People use the California governorship as a stepping stone to do other things. Obviously, Newsom's gonna run for President. Katie Porter ran for the Senate, she lost. Some of the other candidates are gonna run for other positions, or they're gonna wanna be appointed to the cabinet or whatever. I don't want any of those things. I just want to focus on fixing California. And then honestly, I'll probably go back to the private sector. Like I would be glad to take some kind of candidate pledge that says I will never pursue another public office again. Yeah. And I think that's important because otherwise what you end up doing is you end up just thinking about, okay, how do I position myself for like my eventual senate run or my eventual presidency run and who do I not piss off and who are the demographics I focus on and all that kinda stuff. Versus I don't have any of those problems.'cause I didn't come into it with allegiances from a political background. And I'm not leaving this job with allegiances that I need to protect. I'm just focused on fixing California. So if I piss off the Democrats or the Republicans or this group or that group or I don't really care. I just wanna get things done that fix California. And I think, I think people. See through that. And I think people are starting to vote for non politicians for that reason. Obviously, our president's never done politics before. Mom in New York was an assemblyman for I think two years. Yeah. Our own mayor in San Francisco, not a political guy. So we're seeing non politicians get elected. Mm-hmm. I think for that reason. So, and I'm the only non politician on the ballot right now, so bringing all those things together is my bet at getting the 2 million votes I need.

Speaker 3: 50:09

Hmm.

Speaker: 50:10

Can we, can we do a little game?

Speaker 3: 50:13

Sure.

Speaker: 50:13

I will say a name to you of a politician, and you tell me the first word that comes to mind when I say that name. We can cut this out later if you don't, if you're not happy. I don't

Speaker 2: 50:22

mind the game, but I generally don't like defining people with one word. Okay. One sentence. Okay. Okay.

Speaker: 50:28

Newsom

Speaker 2: 50:29

high potential. Misunderstood, but flawed. Katie Porter. Smart but wrong. Momani. Relevant but wrong. Trump relevant but wrong. A Diane Feinstein. Smart, admirable, rest in peace. Pelosi groundbreaking. And should go rest on a beach somewhere.

Speaker: 51:00

Last one. A OC. Just wrong. Hmm. Interesting. Okay, bringing this back to you seems most likely that if you were to make it to that general, you would be making it there most likely with Katie Porter. Is that fair to say? Probably.

Speaker 2: 51:18

Well, maybe not anymore. Oh yeah, she's outta a rough week. My, her staff has had a rough decade.

Speaker: 51:26

For people that don't know the week that we're recording, this is probably the week before we release it. There's been a series of interviews that have come out with Katie Warner, where in one, she was people believe mean to the journalists. Right. And then another one, this is from like a while ago that the video just came out, where she's yelling at a staff member is that

Speaker 2: 51:44

there's, I'll tell you, there is more coming out. Oh, okay. It's I mean, it's a reflection on her character, which, you know, you can be rude if you want, but if you get. Jarred, yeah. So easily that someone's in your zoom shot. How are you gonna solve Yeah. The problems facing a state.

Speaker: 52:03

Without me taking a political, this is not a political stance. I find the funniest Katie Porter story to be the mashed potato story. Oh my God. Are you familiar? Unbelievable. It is. For those that don't know, please add any other detail. But the story came out, I guess recently that her ex-husband said that one time during a fight she poured a hot mashed potatoes on his head. And I don't know why, but I think it's the texture of mashed potatoes. That to me, makes that the funniest political story of the year.

Speaker 2: 52:33

Also, I, I don't know him, but I understand that he's bald, so it like sped his skin. Oof.

Speaker: 52:40

Yeah. It's pretty bad. I also am like fascinated by in what situation are you that angry around mashed potatoes? I'm never that angry around mashed potatoes.

Speaker 2: 52:50

I'm generally quite happy around mashed potatoes. In fact, it's probably among the happiest that I ever am when there's a bowl of fresh h fresh, hot mashed potatoes. I, I guess I would much rather eat it than pour it on someone's

Speaker: 53:03

head, because that's how fresh they're, that they scolded a man. So they've gotta be hot enough. Like she, like whoever made'em, just

Speaker 2: 53:10

made the them. Yeah, exactly. How would you not rather eat them? There's, there's no one, I mean, maybe like Hitler or someone that I would throw it at, but like the bar of hatred has to be extraordinarily high for me to wanna throw it at someone instead of eat it.

Speaker: 53:26

Two. Okay. There's so many this might end up being the thing we talk about the most on this podcast. I would pay straight up like whatever, 1%, 10% of my current bank account to hear the sound of not hot, but the sound of mashed potatoes hitting a bald man's head. I don't know why, but I think that's gotta be the funniest sound in the world. Also, like there's

Speaker 2: 53:48

butter, right? So like, is there seasoning? Like, okay, do you watch Sein? Do you watch Seinfeld? Yes. Okay. So when, when Kramer. Gets dowsed in the cooking oil and he becomes a Turkey and he has the rosemary and the flour, and Newman is there and he like gets hungry at the end of the episode. Yes. Yeah. This is that. Yes. She, she literally dowsed him in food and like, I don't know.

Speaker: 54:11

What is the appropriate response to that? I think that is top three Thanksgiving foods to pour on a bald man's head. Someone

Speaker 2: 54:21

should do that as their Halloween costume. Someone should show up like a couple. Well, the one person dressed as her and a dude with just mashed potatoes

Speaker: 54:30

pouring down his head. Wow, man. And like divorce papers. That is, that is really good. I think the only'cause here's the true genius of it, right? I don't think you're giving Katie Moreton enough credit, man. I promise we'll get off this in a second, but it's. Liquids you can't throw. That's too sure. It's that that can cause like major burns and that's a problem. And then solids you can't throw'cause like that could hurt somebody. Right? Semis, solids have this like sort of quality, you know what it is?

Speaker 2: 55:00

The TSA question. Yes. What are you allowed to take through? TSA security, right? Yes. And I say this as an experienced DEI food traveler. Yes. Which is like, can you take doll through TSA And my mom's always like, well you can tell them that it's a solid, so it's okay. But I'm like, mom, it's liquidy. So it's the same threshold of the question, which is like, what are you allowed to throw in terms of the terms molecular structure of the food? Is what is the TSA threshold for liquid versus not liquid? Dude,

Speaker: 55:28

I, I bet you know, have you heard this? I promise, this is the last thing I'll say about this, but there's this, this truism about the internet. They say if it exists. There's porn of it. This is, have you heard of this? Unfortunately I have. Yes. I just know them. It's rule something, right? What is it? I, I forget what's Rule 48 or something like that. Yeah, they have like some imaginary number. It's popular in the valley. I just wonder if they're like guys who are just really into having like foods. Well, okay, but is it a

Speaker 2: 55:58

reenactment of that story or is this I don think the

Speaker: 56:00

story inspired these men. Okay.

Speaker 2: 56:02

You're, they're already into that. Fired to the story coming out and the story just got em really, like some guys had a great weekend. They were like, this thing that's been interesting to me for two decades suddenly reached national news. Yeah, exactly. They thought it was about

Speaker: 56:16

them for a second. There's a guy out there who's like really into progressive politics and also really into having hot foods thrown at them. At him, and that was the best weekend of his life when that story came out. That just, that was everything you ever wanted. Amazing. Okay. Yeah. This will all get dumped. No,

Speaker 2: 56:33

no, no. Did you watch, did you watch billions? I did not. No. Okay. There's a story of a DA there that likes getting BDSM sex, and so it was relevant to this. Anyway, go ahead. We're gonna pivot hard, pivot hard

Speaker: 56:47

pivot to

Speaker 2: 56:48

very seriously. You should get some of that

Speaker: 56:49

in. That was really funny. Oh, no. We'll, we'll keep it in. We'll keep it in. Okay. It is now 20. When would the governor be taking taking office? January 27th. January 27th. So, let's say, let's zoom out a little bit. Let's say it is January 20, 29. You know, couple years in, we are living under an EAL regime in California. What does California feel like? In what ways does it feel different?

Speaker 2: 57:14

There's a lot more people here because we've built 2 million houses of two to$400,000. Infrastructure is dramatically better, roads are smoother. There's new bridges, tunnels, or at least they're in the process of being constructed. If we're two years into it, teachers are paid a lot more than they are today, and the best districts are competing for the best teachers. And being a teacher is a job that everyone would at least think about going into because it's such a rewarding and high paying and exciting job. Companies are innovating and they feel like they're no longer being choked at the threshold of leaving California. If I can just give you one quick anecdote. Mm-hmm. I'll give you three quick anecdotes. Elon built Tesla in California. He opened Gigafactory in Texas. That's 20 2006 figure manufacturing jobs that went to Texas when they should have been here in California. Maan. The CEO of SoftBank announced that he's investing a trillion dollars in data centers. All of that money is going to Arizona. Despite California being the home of ai. DoorDash just launched this autonomous delivery robot. Mm-hmm. They called dot, this is a company started at Stanford. Three students. It's a hundred billion dollar company based here in California. They couldn't get approval. They couldn't even get review for developing this thing. So they opened an r and d center in Arizona. 206 figure jobs, just jobs and companies are leaving'cause you just can't get anything done here. So under the wall, governorship companies are bringing jobs here, they're developing here. Most importantly, California retains its crown as the most exciting place for the best people around the world to come. And that's not true anymore. People are going to other cities, they're going to other countries, or they're staying in their respective countries. What I want is for California to be. To restore its natural place is the best and obvious place for the smartest people in the world to come and realize their potential. That's beautiful.

Speaker: 59:28

We'll end with this. So we started the podcast talking about your memory of your dad in the kind of the, the early years of his career or the peak of his career. Many. When your sons are 40, you know, they're four and six right now, right? When the, when they reach their early forties, how do you hope they remember this era of your career?

Speaker 2: 59:52

Very good question. As dad was trying to do something for other people, he saw a problem and he tried to solve it.

Speaker: 1:00:01

Beautiful. I wanna end with the, with the way you started with, there's always more to do. There's always more to do, Ethan Al. There's always more to do. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. That was great, man. Warm Intro is produced by G one Moon, associate producer Alex Seko audio and video work by Jin Han, hosted by me Hai.