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SPEAKER_05: Hey everybody, welcome to episode 9 season 5 super angels the series we do as part of this week in startups. You all tell me you want to meet more investors. You want to meet people who do early stage. And so we created the podcast angel and we've done now five seasons this fifth season. We thought we would focus on

SPEAKER_06: What we call super angels. What's a super angel? It's a term we made up. It basically means somebody who's invested in a lot of companies is at the top of their game and who you can learn a lot from and What a season it's been I mean to just go down the list

SPEAKER_07: Episode 10 coming up joanne wilson the gotham gal Ventures is coming on good friend of mine. We worked together in the 90s. We had

SPEAKER_06: Reid Hoffman, Matt Muller, Gary Tan, Mark Cuban, Howard Linsen, Elad Gill, Dez Trainor, David Tisch. I mean it this is a lineup of just killers and today will be no different. My friend Paul judge of panoramic ventures is on episode 9. How you doing Paul? Hey man, I'm great. How are you?

SPEAKER_12: I'm good. I miss you. I haven't seen you in person in over a year. It has been a long time, but it's

SPEAKER_13: It's good to see you digitally and you're growing and becoming more high resolution by the day here. I love it

SPEAKER_06: Uh, yeah, we're getting we this is the thing. I would never do remote Interviews. I thought I had to do every interview in person because number one I felt I needed to be in the same room with somebody to kind of Really get the conversation going which maybe is true. Maybe it's not but Also, everybody didn't know how to set up their home studio They would be on wi-fi

SPEAKER_05: They'd be on bad wi-fi. They'd have an old computer. They wouldn't have a good camera. They have a terrible microphone and now In the year of the pandemic everyone's got a podcast studio at home

David Friedberg: And things are golden now, uh, is it okay if I say where you're based right now? Uh, yeah, is it okay to disclose? Yeah, sure All right, so you're part of the miami crew now Representing atlanta

SPEAKER_20: And now you're spending time in miami. Yep, so i'm still i'm based in atlanta mostly, but I am in my uh, in atlanta mostly

SPEAKER_21: But i'm in miami at the moment and i've been you know coming back and forth and you know I used to come back and forth to the bay area

SPEAKER_22: Uh, but coming here is like it's an hour hour and a half flight versus kind of four hours I used to commute to the bay area all the time

SPEAKER_23: And now there's just a ton of people there doing internet stuff

SPEAKER_21: Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing every week. There's there's someone else that I kind of bounce into that I know that is here Right now or thinking about moving or have moved and uh, we've done a couple investments in the city

SPEAKER_25: Uh, so for this year, uh, and so yeah, I love the energy

David Friedberg: The energy is there. Um

SPEAKER_05: The bay area no longer has a stranglehold on funding or being the place to to form your company and Since we're all living on zoom I don't know about you, but i've made a ton of investments over the last year and I haven't even met the founders yet

SPEAKER_06: Have you invested in companies over zoom and not met the founders?

SPEAKER_30: Yes, I have not met a new founder in person who? Um, I don't know in a year right and I don't know

SPEAKER_35: Same for me same 20 25 30 investments in the last year and i've met Two in person after I invested Um we happen those are the two that happen to be in miami

SPEAKER_25: I met them after we invested but yeah 25 decisions that are all they're here their zoom their their video

SPEAKER_38: And what can we take away from that in terms of? What we thought we needed to do in terms of making investing an investment Versus what the pandemic forced us to do And then the second part of that would be What do you think is going to happen? You know now after we all get our shots and you know, we're yolo in in q3

SPEAKER_43: Or at least I am I can't speak for you, but i'm going crazy this summer, man I'm gonna be anywhere but home

SPEAKER_47: It's not gonna be racking up the miles

SPEAKER_49: Right, it's almost there. It's almost people are getting more vaccines. So it's it's about that time

SPEAKER_21: Yeah, the fall is gonna be good. There's just all-star weekend In atlanta this weekend. No, I didn't uh, I think it was there's a lot of people in the city Yeah, right now a little bit too early soon. So I didn't

SPEAKER_49: Right, I didn't I watched it on tv, but um, my man obi top and from the knicks got robbed

SPEAKER_38: That slam dunk contest obi should have won

SPEAKER_51: Oh, yes, you watch the slam dunk contest. Yeah, watch the slam dunk and the three-point

David Friedberg: I didn't kiss the ring. He didn't kiss the rim He got up there. He was like three feet from the rim and he just blew a kiss to the

SPEAKER_53: I could blow a kiss to the rim obi toppins like jumping over his dad and julius randall doing this like crazy windmill

SPEAKER_55: Come on. No, it was it was fun. It was fun and uh, curry curry in the three-point pulling it off

SPEAKER_56: But like one point at the end. I mean he's a video game like automatic

SPEAKER_21: I mean it was video game being able to win with just that last final point And like you see the human side of it that he barely made it

SPEAKER_38: I love it. So great. He's the greatest shooter ever, right? I mean, yeah And ray allen can't come close. I mean i'm trying to figure out this anybody who's even close I don't maybe clay thompson is the only person who's really close

SPEAKER_20: Yeah Yeah, and just the the way he

SPEAKER_35: Does it uh, so automatically and effortlessly like the other guy who was close behind him by one point You could tell he was trying to the the full extent of his capability and in staff with a bad kind of round still still

SPEAKER_68: Pulled it off. On a bad run. He's still better than the best run that everybody else had

SPEAKER_49: That was the crazy part. So yeah, that was it. I watched all-star uh, virtually, uh, but then you were asking about

SPEAKER_21: Uh, you know zoom and meeting people virtually and what happens when the world opens up and You know, I think it's I mean it's changed what it means to have a meeting, right? It used to be 30 hours of commute an hour meeting 30 more minutes of commute

SPEAKER_35: Uh, and now that all goes down to 30 minute meeting So there's just so many more in a day I get to see more companies than I would have seen otherwise hundred percent

SPEAKER_70: Yes

SPEAKER_35: That's the big change. Yeah, like your top of funnels water and then from the entrepreneur standpoint

SPEAKER_21: It's a bit easier. I think to get a meeting with an investor Than it was traditionally and so that means a whole new generation of entrepreneurs that wouldn't have had access

SPEAKER_73: Now have more access to to venture capital into angel investors

SPEAKER_74: It definitely uh lowers a vcs or an investors

SPEAKER_38: Benchmark or bar to to take a meeting because it's 30 minutes and you're not coming to my office and You know, there's always this fear like maybe this person's just really strange who knows but

SPEAKER_06: Like if you're doing a 30, I mean, I I feel like people want to get off the zoom in 20 minutes Like when you start getting to that 20 to 30 minute zone people are like, all right I gotta be on another one of these in an hour man. I gotta get off this and Go take care of my kids or my dog or something or have a sandwich it really is you know The other thing somebody brought up, um, that I thought was so on point that I hadn't realized Was it feels like we flipped? Getting to know the person and then diligence in the company and the opportunity We used to get to know the person and then try to figure out the opportunity and move into due diligence So it was like socialization and this performative You know, here's my deck and i'm answering the questions Now we get all the information up front. We you know

SPEAKER_38: We get all the diligence and then like you said, you know after you invest you're like, yeah, i'd love to meet

SPEAKER_21: Right, maybe we go for a walk and talk. Yep. So remove some of the bias that exists, right? Like if someone has built a real company and has good customer traction and so forth

SPEAKER_35: Those numbers can speak for themselves versus do I know to go to the right coffee shop? Do I know to order the right cappuccino?

SPEAKER_21: Like some of those social norms that if you're not not based in the bay area, you have a different background You might have felt that first part of the filter

SPEAKER_47: But now you get a chance to go straight into talking about what you're building Uh, yeah, it's good. I think it's a good thing

SPEAKER_71: I also find people are very very much up front

SPEAKER_05: You know in the email exchange and then going into the meeting So I have founders who are like this is the amount we're raising

SPEAKER_38: This is how much we have left in the round. Here's the diligence documents. Here's the diligence folder. Here's the the the note Would you like to get on a call? And normally they were trying to get the meeting in person You know kind of build that social credibility build the relationship and then you know slowly trickle out that information The founders are just like here's everything Are you in or out? Let's you know cut to the chase here and so the efficiency is real. I think

SPEAKER_06: It was probably more like two hours three hours to do a meeting you could probably do reasonably two Maybe three meetings in a day, right? Right Now I plow through two or three meetings in a morning. Exactly

SPEAKER_81: Exactly This is so much better. Yep And this it's not going to go away, right? Is that your prediction? No, not at all

SPEAKER_82: You keep doing it this way, right?

SPEAKER_20: Especially yeah for I mean top of funnel deal flow like you just you can see more things like you buy three or four times higher

SPEAKER_35: Uh of viewing and meeting and understanding what I found is You know, some number of entrepreneurs have built a good business But they don't know how to make the deck the right way They don't know the right ratios. They don't know the right lingo But like they have like a really good business And typically like you wouldn't take those meetings you would see the deck and like I don't know

SPEAKER_21: And you just miss it. Yeah, but now you're like, all right Let me give it 30 minutes and see and then you meet them and you see the passion and you meet the founder and you hear about it

SPEAKER_35: And so I think it's it's helped with better deal flow Uh, but it's also helped kind of a set of entrepreneurs that wouldn't have gotten a chance And so I don't think you I don't think you go back to viewing a third of the number of deals

SPEAKER_38: So you even feel like paul judge has less bias in Pre-judging a startup, right? Absolutely We all had some bias coming into it like the ugly deck

SPEAKER_53: Maybe the awkwardness they don't know the terms to use they don't got the right connects to get to you

SPEAKER_05: Now it's just like man. I'll take the meeting 20 minutes and now I have three people doing meetings for me now introductory meetings Okay all week So they're seeing 20 people 15 to 20 people each a week

SPEAKER_86: So I have 50 at the top of the funnel and then I get the top whatever five or ten Of that so it's like really starting to scale and it feels just like a lots You know flowing to the system like you're saying much faster

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SPEAKER_06: Catch me up on what you're doing because I know you used to do you used to use your own money And then I heard something about maybe being involved with soft bank and this hundred million dollar opportunity fund What exactly are you focused on and for people who don't know how you invest how much you invest and what verticals take us through

SPEAKER_07: What you're looking for and what pools of capital you come out of?

SPEAKER_21: Yes, certainly certainly, you know My background jason has been you know for first 15 20 years. I was a entrepreneur building some cyber security companies

SPEAKER_35: And so like that's what my my grad school work is in uh, we built a company called cypher trust and we built pure wire and then uh pin drop And it wasn't until pin drop Uh, that I actually like open my eyes to wait a second. Like there's a world where i'm not the entrepreneur I'm helping another entrepreneur And when I met vj and we co-founded that company after it was going along well

SPEAKER_21: And we were probably at the series b. I said wait, there's more vjs. There's more smart people that need help and Uh, you know, I met vj through georgia tech and so what I did then was said I just want to get as close as I can to georgia tech's campus And meet students and professors coming out of there and so I first started this place called tech square labs And my whole idea was you know, how do we have smart people walk in the door and kind of co-work and i'll find ones to invest in

SPEAKER_35: And we started doing this thing called startup battle where people would compete and a hundred thousand dollar investment prize And I did that for three or four years And through that through tech square, you know invested in 30 40 companies Many that are atlanta or university based companies through startup battle invested, you know, very early stage kind of two people on a laptop

SPEAKER_21: I mean what we call it nowadays, you know, probably precede or pre-precede Uh, but there's been some good companies. We had the fortune of being part of uh through that

SPEAKER_35: Uh, and then I fast forward i've been looking at over the last two years like okay how to do that at more scale Right how to be able to participate not only a seed but across series a and series b But doubling down on that thesis of like atlanta and the southeast and things out of universities and things that are diverse Uh, and so I started building this plan to do panoramic Along the way last year, uh, a good friend marcelo clar who uh, you know, leads softbank He called and said hey paul. We're we're gonna start a fund uh dedicated to minorities It's gonna be a hundred million dollar fund called opportunity fund and uh, would you help with it? And so I joined the investment committee Uh of the opportunity fund and there's an amazing team there and it's a hundred million dollar fund focus on uh blacks and latinos and native americans Uh, and then just two weeks ago jason we announced panoramic And I partnered with a gentleman named mark buffington. He ran a firm called bip capital That's been in atlanta for the last, you know, eight years or so Uh, they're on fund four and been one of the most active firms in the in the region And we partnered and we rebranded and called the firm panoramic with the whole point that You know, we look where other people don't we take in a wider view

SPEAKER_13: And so that is kind of where i'm investing so i'm a managing partner at panoramic And then i'm on the investment committee at opportunity fund

SPEAKER_93: And with the opportunity fund that means they're out there finding the founders vetting everything and when you're on that Investment committee, they say hey, here's the ideas we want to invest in and you just make sure. Hey, listen, this is uh This is an appropriate investment or you just give feedback and um Tell me about that process

SPEAKER_21: Yeah, so the investment committee is marcelo clara who it was this was his brainchild of you know

SPEAKER_35: How to kind of make impact in the world? Uh, and Another lady, uh, named stacy brown philpot who was ceo of task rabbit previously Uh, and I knew both marcelo and stacy. Uh, they were we're all in the same class, uh, at aspen institute through like henry crown fellow program So we've been friends for years. Uh, and then, uh, the fourth person is a gentleman named shu nyata Who is that soft bank and leaves their latin america fund? Uh, so the the four of us are the investment committee and there's a team of brilliant people who are who are running it and sourcing deals and analyzing and Um, we look at a lot of companies and met with hundreds of companies and we've done about about 20 investments in the first nine months

SPEAKER_98: Wow, yeah

SPEAKER_06: All right, let me ask you the I I don't want to say controversial question but This is the the question I I keep hearing when we talk about Equality and making sure everybody gets access to capital a dedicated fund for people who are underrepresented versus just making every fund More fair just and having more people of color or underrepresented people in the fund Are these either or or is it an end?

SPEAKER_104: What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_76: I think both should be pursued one is a more has more direct immediate impact

SPEAKER_35: Um, right and so it's one thing to go take, you know These funds and firms that have been around for 50 years And go change all the processes because you have to change the lps you have to change the the gps you have to change the screening Like there's years before we get there

SPEAKER_21: Uh, but you have to do that work still But then you take something like opportunity fund and it's dedicated it's purpose built It's uh, the team is diverse the mission Uh, is is there?

SPEAKER_35: Uh, you know now you also you look at the portfolio You have a group of some of the top minority entrepreneurs that now can come together

SPEAKER_21: Uh, and so you know other thing with opportunity fund is it's not only the capital, but Those entrepreneurs get access to soft banks ecosystem and like all the the founder support and so this is an ecosystem And usually you don't get access to unless you're raising a hundred two hundred three hundred million dollars And so now you're

SPEAKER_105: I don't have access to that ecosystem. I was gonna ask you for a connect

SPEAKER_106: I got you, man. I got you

SPEAKER_108: Uh, I mean, I I know masa, but I don't know anybody in between So now I got you

SPEAKER_21: So I'll introduce you to marcello and shu and then the team but it's like no now these minority founders that we've invested in You know can be raising a million dollars or two million dollars But also get plugged into this team That helps them grow and helps them with those connections and so often time That's what a minority founder needs in addition to the capital Right because they might not come from that same network They might not have that that same set of people to reach out to And so I think both the need especially when you're dealing with a problem that is you know centuries in the making Yeah, it's not just one solution. So the fact that people are debating like oh, this is the wrong solution This is the right. It's kind of like we need the um, you know, scott weiss from our police It's called the sledgehammer approach, right? Kind of yeah You have the egg and you just you need to try all the solutions And that's what we have to I mean, it's such a bad problem And it's I mean centuries in the making that we have to try everything and I think this is one approach that i'm watching work in real time

SPEAKER_05: I think that's a really important observation and insight because

SPEAKER_53: What I find is people get very critical of everybody trying to improve the situation Right, it's it's like If if there is different ways to put this fire out or there's different ways to build this bridge Whatever metaphor we want to use to solve the problem and make the world, you know more just more equal And spread these opportunities around Like all the better fantastic And there is a very specific problem that you very subtly Uh mentioned there which I think we need to unpack venture firms are very weird like they form Almost like a poker group or a sorority or a fraternity or a golf group, you know, they're they're decades in the making And they don't change that often like partnerships

SPEAKER_38: You know, you have four or five partners. They're chopping up, you know Whatever the fund is and whatever the returns are whatever the management fees are

Chamath Palihapitiya: And usually it's they only switch out a partner when somebody

SPEAKER_53: retires So, I mean the inertia might be every two funds three funds. They might change somebody And I don't think the public understands this concept. This is why new funds are so important, right?

SPEAKER_20: It is I mean because they they have a system that works like if a fund's been around that long like there's a reason it's working

SPEAKER_35: Like they're delivering returns And so you're delivering returns based on a certain model based on a certain prototype and a founder type that works for you

SPEAKER_20: I mean even though you might think is the right thing to broaden your your funnel and go look for Your results are working and so you're hesitant to go make drastic changes where if you have someone with a very new fund

SPEAKER_35: And you're building an approach from the ground up you can think about deal flow a different way You could think about uh, you know, how you you help founders in a different way And so, uh, because that's what it takes them think how bad the problem is I mean, you know, you know the numbers, right? Like one percent of venture capital to to my to blacks Whereas, you know blacks are like what 13 of the us population. So we're talking to art of magnitude

SPEAKER_21: Uh deficit right same thing with women founders. I mean, you're not talking like oh, we need to tweak it five to ten percent

SPEAKER_93: Yeah, this is we need we need a 10x solution not a ten percent solution

SPEAKER_21: exactly and uh, the the thing though is It's not just like oh, let's do this because it's like the right thing to do It's like people are missing out on returns Like you're you're you're you're supposed to be seeking alpha It's like why would you just take half of the country and not make sure you're you're connecting with them and paying attention To them, especially nowadays when

SPEAKER_35: Minorities have a competitive advantage In many of the sectors of technology that are becoming most important

SPEAKER_93: Uh, give me some examples of that where do you see minority founders having an edge? I mean, I can think of one right off the bat, which is social

SPEAKER_05: I mean if you look at instagram twitter and now clubhouse all built on black culture because black culture Let's be let's be honest here Is american culture? Period black culture is american culture. That's that's our export. I mean whether it's music fashion

SPEAKER_125: Everything you know comes out of black culture period

SPEAKER_20: You nailed it. Uh, you nailed it. I mean from from what we wear to how we dance to how we dress to what we listen to um

SPEAKER_21: You know the cool right look the cool and you know as as tech is is more consumerized Whether social networks or or what's happening in gaming or e-gaming Uh, whether it's Kind of it's as much as community is coming into everything like communities coming into fintech community is coming into Kind of where you live and kind of how you think about buying houses and and so as much as that's happening

SPEAKER_35: Uh, you know minority founders and minority influencers have a competitive advantage

SPEAKER_21: And so if investors are overlooking that They're really overlooking the people that are going to drive the next generation of Of technology growth and it's kind of like what happened in different sports like you you start to see this influx of minority Founders that are understanding what it means to build a scalable product understanding what it means to go to market efficiently And as you learn that skill set, it's kind of like when you saw the first minority start to play tennis or start to play golf Right, you just let us know the rules Sorry gonna end right Serena and tiger exactly once you get access to how the rules work, uh, it gets really interesting and so Uh, I think anyone who's paying attention and like, uh, intentionally adding diversity to their their deal flow They're just they're getting tomorrow's returns earlier before everybody else starts to pay attention

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SPEAKER_38: There are so many things to be hopeful about right now I think every there's a there's obviously a lot of pain and a lot of history of pain and suffering in this country And the mistakes and our original sins, but You know, I'd look and I see so many great moments happening Um, I was just talking with somebody about like who had the best quarter chamath

SPEAKER_91: Or you know this venture cap is wherever it was like. No, I think jay-z had the best quarter I mean, he sold ac he sold half of ace of spades to lvmh Mm-hmm after I forgot what champagne company said. We don't want your people here. Oh, crystal

SPEAKER_81: Yeah, crystal literally jay-z is including crystal free marketing in his songs and they're like

SPEAKER_91: Yeah, brown people black people not so much for crystal. Yeah, it's like, okay a space. What's up? He sells half of that to lvmh takes down hundreds

SPEAKER_06: Yep, and then uh title he's like, you know what?

SPEAKER_71: Yep, I wonder if the artist owned the platform what that would look like, right? And he what he 10x'd 510x'd I mean, it's crazy about 10 times and then

SPEAKER_13: Uh, he had a cannabis deal like he was part of a cannabis spat

SPEAKER_147: I didn't even see that. I mean, yeah, he was part. I can't even keep up who's also an oatly I think

SPEAKER_148: Yeah, he was an oatly. So it's interesting. Uh, yeah music

SPEAKER_115: This is his side hustle and he's killing us I just I hate to point it out, but like

SPEAKER_152: I think he was like music was his number one thing and this is the side hustle and he's just Dominating it. I mean that is the really killer thing

SPEAKER_135: I think when you can mix celebrity and influencer And product because I feel like celebrities and influencers

SPEAKER_53: Have an inherent understanding of what consumers want And they connect with them so deeply so this kid uh dobrik is doing the camera company dispo

SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, like he really understands that generation and like jay-z understands like when people are popping bottles at the club like here's what that should look like and Here's what you know the trend is in oatly or I mean

SPEAKER_91: He's he's getting it from champagne all the way down to like milk alternatives

SPEAKER_20: Right. It's pretty great moment. It is. What I love is he's going after industries that have like traditionally been unfair

SPEAKER_21: Uh, to to the people that have been creating a value, right? So like music industry is traditionally unfair to the creators And so with title he went after that, uh, you know food and beverage

SPEAKER_35: I mean the crystal ceo kind of shot himself in the foot and he went after that man

SPEAKER_21: And then if you look at the cannabis industry I mean, it's not exactly tech, but it's creating tens of billions of dollars of value

SPEAKER_35: Uh, it's kind of the the most valuable crop that this country's ever seen But if you look at everyone that's going public, there's no diversity But we all know this country was built on the backs of blacks tending to crops

SPEAKER_152: And it's like really I mean I was about to go there and connect that You got you beat me to it. No, absolutely think about this in one state

SPEAKER_38: You know a black teenager gets put in jail For selling a dime bag or an ounce of weed and another state or in canada

SPEAKER_06: Some white executive ipo is a company for selling weed. Yeah, I mean Where's the justice here? Like where's the fairness? I mean

SPEAKER_38: It's great to see this finally leveling out. I feel like I don't know how you feel because we're both I think of the same generation We're both gen x

SPEAKER_53: And we we've been watching this story, you know for now close to 50 years. I just turned 50 and like I feel like it's like we got to see it be really bad Like we got the tail end of just explicit racism and

SPEAKER_135: People really being going at each other and then we're watching it and it feels like maybe by the end of our life. This might Feel really equitable. I'm hopeful. I don't know. How do you feel?

SPEAKER_167: I think I think because I'm a white guy It's easy for me to feel hopeful about it, right? Maybe i'm just painting something that makes me feel better, you know, but how do you feel as a black man?

SPEAKER_21: You know, there's there's this uh, this is kanye lyric It says like people say i'm racist because I only see green faces

SPEAKER_20: And it's it's it's that that part is actually promising though because You know at the end of the day if like you can feel the economic impact you kind of look past the color of the skin And as more minorities are participating in business

SPEAKER_35: Um you gain a respect right you you gain access and people realize like oh wait a second This person's smart in a different way. This person's creative or genius in a different way And that helps Gain that respect that helps people kind of get this equality Uh that that you that you're you're mentioning And so I think as you see time after time and deal after deal quarter after quarter of that Uh, you'll get to it and a lot of it will be driven by there's some set of people That are doing it because it's the right thing to do There's some set of people that are doing it because like the numbers kind of drive you in that direction And I think that's okay right if you look at like the work of like martin luther king I mean he spent a lot of time fighting uh for civil rights and voting rights But a lot of his time later in his career was about you know economic empowerment and about More of kind of economic Equality and so I think both of those kind of drive us in the right direction And these things that were mentioned are just examples of it right kind of whether it be you know company a or company b Those are all steps in the right direction Ultimately of kind of getting into a world that's more fair and more equal

SPEAKER_05: It it and then it's against the backdrop of seeing something like george floyd right and then the nba having to come out and say

SPEAKER_38: You know what? I don't know if we're taking the court unless we can address this right

SPEAKER_05: So we we still have this pocket over here of like just disgusting like horrific unfairness and violence towards black men Right, and it's still not solved right and that's the heartbreaking part when you try to like reconcile this But but it's all part of the same system education opportunity policing You know drug policing and cannabis all this stuff is feels like it's part of the same system That's at least I feel like it it's churning in the right direction

SPEAKER_95: Yep. Yep. And the thing that that happened this time and with the murder of george floyd is

SPEAKER_20: Usually uh, the world had become desensitized to it, right?

SPEAKER_35: Um, it happened unfortunately like almost you know monthly if not weekly and as a black man you would see it You would watch that video on your phone in the morning And you see someone that looked just like you doing nothing but driving home from work And you'd have to like dust it off and like go into the office and like act normal and like close the deal and write the code and get the customer And so monthly you're going through this like wait, there's someone who looks just like me been treated like an animal But I'd have to like forget that for a moment and go perform this time The entire world was sitting at home because of covet Right, so the entire world was was holding still And I think the timing of what uh, the george floyd mart murder was was was so instrumental in the impact Because everyone was sitting at home holding still and everyone had to watch and everyone had to digest it and think about it Um, and it's I think caused a lot of the reaction positive reaction and people realizing the disconnect Uh, that we've experienced over the last year, uh, but I think that that emotion Is part of what we've been experiencing every month for the last several years as this happened. Yeah

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it and Let's be just completely real here Black men and the black community was telling us this was happening all this time

SPEAKER_135: And it was only until we you know as a broader society had to witness nine minutes of a murder like an extended torturous murder that You know, you you watch it and just even thinking about it makes you feel empty inside It's just brutal to even think about that moment And but you were saying it the whole time and people didn't believe it Right. That's the part that's tragic. I have it. Yep. Yep. So no

SPEAKER_20: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean it's it's filled a lot of good work, right? It it it filled things like opportunity fund to exist

SPEAKER_35: It fueled a lot of corporations Coming rethink how they make hiring decisions and figuring out how they can give back Um, you know, it's filled a lot of things that we're cheering on right now Like we invested in a company called praxis that does diversity training to help people with unconscious bias Right, it's caused people like double down on you know, like I started a cannabis medical cannabis company two years ago Because it's about hey, there's any quality in this industry We can use our business skills to go solve that inequality And so it's it's fueled the passion of I think this current generation to just go harder And so to you to your point, I think ultimately what will happen is yeah in this lifetime We'll get closer Uh to equality along the way we'll we'll see a lot of uh, kind of good impact around education and kind of feeding the the folks that that are in need and

SPEAKER_13: And and and so forth

SPEAKER_23: 2021 is looking up tons of new beginnings lots of hope it's going to be a great year and

SPEAKER_187: Hopefully great opportunities for you to grow your business, but If you're going to grow your business, you're going to need incredibly talented people To do as a founder what maybe you're not great at or you don't have time to do anymore

SPEAKER_53: You need to build your team you're only going to be as successful as the team that builds your products interfaces with your customers and builds the culture of your company and linkedin jobs Finds the right person quickly to fill your positions and we are going to give you your first job posting free right now You go to linkedin.com slash angel linkedin.com slash a-n-g-e-l angel very easy to remember Hiring is super important. I'm doing it here at launch Just hired a second producer for this week in startups hiring a community manager. We hired another support executive For the syndicate we are booming over here and we do all of this by going to linkedin jobs 722 million members worldwide mean business They keep their profiles up to date on linkedin for a reason you're looking for opportunities And you can post your job with all those great screening questions and linkedin is going to get your role that position In front of the right people with the soft skills the hard skills and all the things you need The thing i've been blown away with is the quality of the candidates very simple linkedin.com slash angel linkedin.com slash angel and

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SPEAKER_05: It's also very interesting. I'll you know, I can tell you from my side You know just watching other white venture capitalists

SPEAKER_38: And you know i'm a seed investor so I get there earlier and we made a real effort As you know because you speak at all our events, you know doing founder university specifically for underrepresented people doing it specifically for women and we just changed the ratio of people we were funding it happened like I think we did it in two years like just jackie on my team

SPEAKER_05: Doing these underrepresented founder founder university is a two-day event And these downstream investors from us were like Where are you finding all the black women to invest in like literally somebody said that to me? Like can you introduce me some black women because I have never invested in a black woman i've done 47 investments

SPEAKER_06: And this is what person said to me i i'm i'm just terrified that somebody's going to see my statistics at some point And realize i've only invested in two women. They were both white women, you know, and i've never invested in a black founder I mean, it was like a cto on one team and there was just Abject fear the last two or three years from some people who just didn't have any diversity and I said well Have you actually talked about it or engaged people of color? Have you actually met them where they are? And they were like no, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_187: I was like you talk to people And they're just like oh is that how you do it like

SPEAKER_53: Is this not completely obvious to you like why are you not just Anytime a black founder if you have not invested in a black founder yet Anytime a black founder emails you just meet with them It costs you nothing and and then just be as helpful as you can be and the ratio will change But if you're not putting any effort into it, you think it's just magically going to change that

SPEAKER_187: You're going to have some 19 year old black founders come to you and drop out of harvard with their idea for a sas company

SPEAKER_149: And they're just going to call you like some white guy on santo road. It's just not going to happen. It's that's not realistic Do a little bit of work, right?

SPEAKER_35: Yes And and and now people are publishing so many lists like uh, michael siebel y combinator published their directory of black founders and I mean, you you know an opportunity fund site with the 20 companies we've invested in if I mean if anybody wants to meet more black founders I introduce you to the ones that we've we've invested in across different funds But what I love about it jason if you look at the portfolios They're not solving like black problems or just just black problems or just latino problems Like they're solving just really some of the most meaningful problems that that exists And if I didn't show you the founder you would never never know right companies company called car bias is a professor Out of georgia tech that came up with a nano compound to make heat sinks more efficient And like now it's his compound is on space shuttles and he just raised 15 million dollars, right or or someone like um Like uh vitable that's doing you know kind of video health care Uh to kind of make more affordable health care or like there's all these problems that are just fundamental human problems that exist And uh, you know what there are some companies that are solving problems that are more specific to minority communities, right? So like maven is solving the problem around, you know hair extensions or uh, the guys at squire are solving the problem around barber shops But there's so many that are just solving like problems that are human problems and markets that are gigantic And so sometimes people are looking for black founders

SPEAKER_197: Uh, because they're only looking in one place right but

SPEAKER_38: It's it's really great. I think this is where I think the dedicated funds are doing such great work because When you look at Andreessen Horowitz or soft bank or what jackie's doing at our firm with founder university When you say hey, we're dedicated to this We're we're we're dedicating time cycles money meeting time whatever it is

SPEAKER_06: Then it just it's kind of like putting the shingle out like yeah, we're open for business. Come come talk to us If you don't and this is my advice to my contemporaries If you're not explicitly saying we want to meet folks and you're not doing the work It's just the change not going to happen It's or it's not going to happen at the pace. We need it to happen

SPEAKER_38: Like we talked about earlier. This is a 13x problem not a 13 percent problem We need to really really get moving on this and and just shout out to a 16z with their opportunity fund Yeah, soft bank because you list the company So if you're looking to make a bet you can just go to that page meet with 10 founders You're going to find a company that's already got product market fit that you could put a million into

SPEAKER_135: Just get to work, you know cut the check. It's not hard

SPEAKER_82: Exactly exactly. So now I mean like you said yeah ben and a team and you know chris lyons

SPEAKER_21: Cultural leadership and nate jones like talent times opportunity. I mean they're they're doing the work and been doing it for years Uh, and then you know, you look at what like these celebrities influence like we talked about jay-z a lot

SPEAKER_35: But like everybody's doing it now. So like quality control like the label coach k and the team that Run like little baby's career and other artists like that

SPEAKER_21: You start to see them investing in companies like exit and they just did a partnership with tech stars Right, so you see music labels really become active and then you look at at atlanta Like I mean people from ludicrous to 2 chains to ti are all invested in tech companies And so I mean this next few years. I mean just gonna be so impactful

SPEAKER_05: Uh, it feels like the as somebody explained it to me on the pod really and naz has queen's bridge Carmelo anthony had his uh fund. I don't know if he's still actively doing it, but I saw he had done a fund just it and then lebron in my portfolio Invested in and became a spokesperson for calm calm And I can tell you I had more people come to me in that month to talk about calm

SPEAKER_38: That in the entire six years of being an investor in that company's like lebron james uses calm

SPEAKER_135: I was like, yeah, he's an investor too Like he's gonna make a lot of money off of calm like It's definitely happened. I know from the warriors just being in town, you know, i'm good friends with draymon

SPEAKER_07: Um, and he you know, he's always like hey, what deals what deals I mean, he's just

SPEAKER_06: Really engaged durant was very engaged. I mean, they're just looking for deals And that's just a great moment Uh for me as well just to be like wow draymond green And I are like talking about deals at the poker table and trying to figure out what we can invest in together

SPEAKER_38: This is like Just great for

SPEAKER_13: Society writ large you mentioned calm and I mean I had to point to what do you call it? I got my my beat wet a little bit

SPEAKER_207: Your syndicate from your sentence. You're in the same calm. Yeah, a little bit just a little

SPEAKER_208: Fuck. Yeah, a little wet beat. Yeah

SPEAKER_05: So let's talk about when you're young entrepreneurs or first-time founders

SPEAKER_53: What in your mind do could All first-time founders

SPEAKER_38: Do a better job that we got a lot of founders listening to these episodes And they want to connect with folks like us What can they do less of and what can they lean into more of to close the check? And to just close the deal and get the money when you think about it

SPEAKER_210: What makes it really easy for you to fund a company? What makes it really hard to fund a company for me?

SPEAKER_20: It's this this order of You know team and and customers

SPEAKER_35: And like, you know, what effort have you put in to get people around you to join you like what's your olympic team? Right not the I think of it as like not the little league team like you went and got your friends from down the block

SPEAKER_21: But like the olympic team You went and found like some of the best people in the world and you're early I get it So like a lot of people are going to tell you no But have you convinced a few real game changers to join you on this journey and so team? Uh, and then for me, uh, you know, so customers so too often First-time founders I think want to jump to talking to investors first And they skip the recruiting the team part and they skip the kind of no really have a real relationship with a prospective customer And get their feedback and understand and they're pitching the idea More so than they're pitching like the team and kind of the customer reaction to the idea they want to go straight to Give me money when there's a little bit of legwork that you need to do first And so I think that order of team customer investors

SPEAKER_35: Too many people want to jump the first two and have investor meetings. I think a bit too early

SPEAKER_05: See, this is so important when you go in to meet with an investor and you're talking about what you're going to do

SPEAKER_53: As opposed to talking about who you recruited And who's using the product?

SPEAKER_38: Your credibility is very low But when you come in and say I found I got the Former you know developer from facebook to leave and he's investing or she's investing 25k and um, you know, they've been to the they've been to the show before they know what they're doing

SPEAKER_06: Oh, and by the way, let me tell you about our first four customers two of them are using the product to get in some value But these two These two customers asked us for these 17 features and let me show you what our Progress is with those features now For us as investors, we don't have to imagine that you can recruit We don't have to imagine and believe you when you tell us that you understand the customer You do understand the customer And I am constantly ripping up decks and saying Nobody gives a shit about the total addressable market slide That you found from Gartner group author anderson price warehouse coopers all due respect. It doesn't mean anything to anybody Nobody gives a shit about that. Tell us about those two customers who can't live without your product Give me a slide on each one. Give me three slides on each one Where here's how they're using the product? Here's how you got into the organization you met them at a I had somebody like I was like, how did you meet these customers? You've got like these like five or six customers and they're like I went to a trade show

SPEAKER_187: I was like what and they were selling some sort of product that was for the legal market Yeah, there's like there's like 10 legal trade shows and I went to like three of them and I met these people and then We went out there was like a cocktail party afterwards and then I met them again at the cocktail party and then I met them in their office in

SPEAKER_53: New york and then they said they would give the product i'm like Oh my lord, I love you You went to a trade show

SPEAKER_38: And you showed your product to the people who are the target audience and you understand them and you talk to them That's the kind of stuff that gets guys like us to write checks

SPEAKER_21: Exactly Exactly. It's not a kind of oh, I made this great slide I think of and if I get your money then here's what I will do

SPEAKER_20: It's kind of show me you're doing something and you just need more fuel for the fire Uh to to keep going so many people get that part wrong where they would just be better off Go work on it for a month or two months. It doesn't mean work on it for three years like Go do a little bit of legwork. Uh, and then from there. I think the other thing that you know

SPEAKER_21: I'm sometimes an entrepreneur sometimes an investor right every few years and helping start a company And so the the one thing that i've been able to see from both sides is

SPEAKER_35: Kind of the decision or process of an investor looking at a return model Right looking at kind of what multiple what ir are am I going to get this money back with friends

SPEAKER_21: And so I often help entrepreneurs understand especially as you're going to later stages series a series b's

SPEAKER_35: Explain to investor. How you're going to send this money back with friends

SPEAKER_21: Right, so in the back of their process. They're doing this return model They're modeling your best case and your base case and your average and a weighted probability and they're managing the irr And so if you think about that as you think about the outcomes of your three-year projection Uh, you can help put yourself in the shoes of this person And help them understand here's how this turns a three-time return or five-time return that doesn't mean you have to turn to a vc

SPEAKER_160: As an entrepreneur, but it's helpful to understand the framework. That's actually driving decisions

SPEAKER_114: Super critical because

SPEAKER_53: If you're coming to them with a business that in the best case doesn't return their fund And doesn't bring back that money, you know and every dollar doesn't come back with nine other dollars Why would they waste?

SPEAKER_38: One of the slots in that spreadsheet on you they got 30 slots 40 slots whatever it is in that model Every one of those is a chance to hit an outlier

SPEAKER_06: They don't want to waste any shot and every one of those bullets is precious They got to hit like this crazy half-court shot like they got to hit A shot from like one of those speaking of steph curry. They got to hit one of those steph curry in the tunnel shots Like that's that's what we have to hit you hit calendarly, right?

SPEAKER_223: right right

SPEAKER_06: like calendarly is like hitting it from Like the upper deck what what was that investment about? How did you hit that one?

SPEAKER_20: Tell me the story which one calendly so yeah, so, you know, so that was all my my anti-portfolio jason I I know told he's a good friend a great guy. I have the text message From five years ago when it said hey i'm raising

SPEAKER_83: And is it wait, it's pronounced calendly not calendarly. Yeah calendly

SPEAKER_20: Yeah, calendly based in atlanta minority founder Uh, you know the the reports say they just raised that three billion dollar valuation I have the text message in my phone five years ago and I looked at the product and I said ah It's kind of a calendar add-on Not sure and here's what I didn't do to your point of how we used to be too selective for meetings. I didn't even take the meeting Oh Right, uh, I didn't even take the meeting. That's painful, right? I have the text message But I didn't actually go take the meeting

SPEAKER_35: And so, you know now I cheer him on and we're friends and so forth They've built an amazing company that the viral loop of that thing

SPEAKER_187: Uh, and the number of like meetings and their schedule. Yeah, I missed it in your backyard The biggest one in your own backyard you missy. This is the blind spot even you could have a blind spot. Yeah minority founder

SPEAKER_95: Sit down the street for me, right?

SPEAKER_20: And you know them and I know them but those are the things that keep you going like keep you aiming to get better Uh, in this in this funny world of been an investor, right?

SPEAKER_35: Uh, and you it also it makes you kind of think about more and more like what could go right versus what could go wrong When you're looking at a potential investor

SPEAKER_38: Explain that what that means because this is the hard lesson i've been invested in my 11th year of investing How long you've been actually writing checks maybe four or five years now?

SPEAKER_232: Yep. Yeah, so more recent

SPEAKER_38: Yeah, this is like something you realize maybe I think in that five six seven years when something You dismissed

SPEAKER_53: As just being a feature or not big enough too niche and You came up in your mind because our human minds are so not risk-taking, right?

SPEAKER_06: We're so cautious as humans. We're so scared that we go. You know what? It's a feature There's got to be something bigger But you said it what could go right versus what could go wrong? You made the decision of like, well So many things can go wrong here. Like can't google calendar or microsoft just add this

SPEAKER_81: And here we are it's 10 years later whatever it is and this I've never seen all my team i'm paying for this product 20 different times On 20 different corporate cards Everything went right. Yeah, or maybe one thing went right. I don't know what it is

SPEAKER_21: But now to say exactly what what it is like you realize it's kind of like been an armchair quarterback It's easy to sit there and critique the place

SPEAKER_35: And some people think like that's what makes them a great Investor is like oh if I point out all the things that go wrong like look how smart I am I can point out the problems and it's like no the the better Ones are actually forecasting what happens when things go right and then helping the entrepreneur like make those things come to pass Uh, and so now that's a great example of I mean It's a product that people love. Uh, the viral loop is there as efficient sales cycle Uh, and so you spend the rest of your months and days and years

SPEAKER_21: You know making up for that right and looking for the next one and looking for the next one But now in this world with 30 minute meetings

SPEAKER_15: You do 12 meetings a day instead of four and so you don't miss the meeting the next time. Yes

SPEAKER_239: Everybody can improve their game

Chamath Palihapitiya: Uh, well, let's since I gave you the ptsd now when I started with it's so funny because I have my notes here And I glanced over at my notes and I was like, oh shit. He hit that Then I realized it was what you didn't Give me give me some of the big hits. Give me some take me through the greatest hits

SPEAKER_07: The right now you're just like wow. I can't believe this has gone so well

SPEAKER_20: Yeah, so I mean a few you know my Background uh has been in cyber security and so like, you know one

SPEAKER_35: Co-founded but also wrote a check was pin drop right so we're 10 years in Um, you know started around a napkin Uh, the first round was a million dollar round now there's you know 200 million invested into the company and growing

SPEAKER_21: Um, and you know probably seven or eight of the top ten banks are our customers and that's that's going well Uh, and then other cyber security companies, uh, like was an investor company called cadium That turned into expanse and then was acquired by palo alto for I believe it was 600 800 million

SPEAKER_86: Uh recently and then uh company and those security companies are like slow and steady man Those are just like these nice little 500 million billion dollar

SPEAKER_38: Yep, just straight they they don't like pop into like the hundred billion dollar things that often but man do they become worth

SPEAKER_20: 500 million to 5 billion over and over again time and time again, right and problems that you think are solved already

SPEAKER_35: But the hackers it's the kind of this industry that kind of keeps giving back a bit the gift and curse is You solve it and then the hackers figure out a different approach And so the industry needs a different solution and so it's one of the few industries where there's an adversary That every few years will create a need for the next generation of your product Um, and so, you know invest in a company called emailage that you know stops fraud Uh for commerce. They were acquired recently by alexis nexus and uh, but then you know, there's um, you know others that are still going So like, uh, I was investing like ring so some consumer faces

SPEAKER_252: You were in ring? Oh, that's my anti-portfolio Oh, that's so brutal

SPEAKER_35: It's lucky there I met jamie and uh, and so smart He was kind enough to let me invest and then, um, but more recently, you know companies like green light uh, fintech for kids that, um, you know, met them there in

SPEAKER_254: What did they do? I never heard of them

SPEAKER_35: Oh, so green light is a unicorn based in atlanta And they make a debit card for kids And so if you want to give your kid and pay your kids for their chores But like on a debit card and they get more allowance depending on if they did their chores or not And so wow, yep, there's there's millions of families that use this debit card for kids So think of it as like a what's a neobank, you know, like chime or money line or vera So it's like a neobank for kids

SPEAKER_13: And so now they've raised I don't know maybe 100 million dollars the most recent value was there were 1.2 bill. Yeah, yeah

SPEAKER_260: Uh, do they let the kids trade uh bitcoin as well?

SPEAKER_21: Almost they just announced uh investing accounts for kids they did

SPEAKER_262: That was a joke. Oh my god. So they combined in the robin hood feature said yeah

SPEAKER_263: So a little bit of equities you want to teach your kid how to invest, uh, so there's equity

SPEAKER_226: So that hopefully not options or shorting stocks, right?

SPEAKER_264: Let's leave that for when you you get to college Exactly

SPEAKER_81: a bunch of like young people I know they know more about put options and call options and They're like taking my advice and then making all this money and i'm like explain to me one more time how that put call works

SPEAKER_270: How does it work? You're what are you doing? Exactly? You're buying options on what? it's like

SPEAKER_263: Oh my god, you're doing like a straddle strategy of what exactly?

SPEAKER_264: I'm like all I know how to do is put money in and hope for the best That's kind of my strategy Just keep placing bets

SPEAKER_276: But I don't know how to bet these things like that

SPEAKER_35: In fintech right now because you're getting all these these companies that are becoming like affinity fintechs Right? So like green light is like a fintech for for kids Um, and then i'm an investor and helped start this company called greenwood That's a neo bank for minorities And you talk about how culture impacts technology. We partnered with killer mike, right?

SPEAKER_21: The reaper and activist and then partnered with uh ambassador andrew young Right, so great civil rights hero and people like jesse williams and launched greenwood

SPEAKER_35: Which is like this neo bank for black and latinos and like the whole point is You know the banks are really unkind and unfair to minorities There was a decline for loans at a higher rate. They don't can't get the same access to say

SPEAKER_93: I mean and then think about the fees they charged them like when when you get to where we are People are like, oh, yeah, no, no, that's all free and i'm sending you tickets to the knicks and uh, you're all good

SPEAKER_187: And here's a margin loan when i first heard what a margin loan was i was like

SPEAKER_91: Wait, what they're like, yeah, well you can just take out whatever amount of money you need and we'll just charge you one percent Don't worry about it's a courtesy and i'm like Where was that when i fucking needed it right to like you know you can't have that until you're rich i'm like But i don't need it now. I have money and they're like, yeah, that's why you can use it I'm like so you can have more money for free for free free money

SPEAKER_263: You remember that moment when they explain to you a margin loan

SPEAKER_226: So wait, I have this account with money in it. That's not my money, but I can use it Just use it for one percent or so. They're like, oh, yeah, like whatever plus whatever libor you're good

SPEAKER_20: So here's what's crazy. So meanwhile, I have a bunch of friends that are like that are minorities that like They have a lot of money really profitable businesses and they can't go to the bank and get a loan for their business

SPEAKER_35: But it's like But it's doing seven eight digits a year is dropping a lot to e but uh is fast growing and the traditional bank They walk in they get declined and say wait, where's the disconnect and so I think that's a problem like with greenwood Working to solve but it's another example like green light of an affinity bank an affinity fintech Uh, they both happen to be based in atlanta. Uh, but yeah

SPEAKER_187: I mean you could literally flip it you could be like, you know what? You don't have a lot of money in your account Checkings free you're not going to charge you for the atm when you get a little bit of cash

SPEAKER_06: Then we'll start charging you that's kind of how the world should work, right? It's like there's not that much money down here anyway, just And we're we're in wealth front and well fronts like yeah, you know the first 10,000 you can invest whatever it is I think it's five or 10,000 we won't take any fees We'll we'll take our little you know Chip when you get past 10,000, you know in in holdings or whatever That's kind of how the world should work. I kind of feel that's how like taxes should work. I feel like if you're coming up

SPEAKER_05: Things should be free and then when you kind of start to hit your stride Then you start paying into your taxes or whatever it happens to be

SPEAKER_53: And it's the exact opposite in the world. I got famous and people are like can I send you a free phone or a computer for free? And it's I'm like

SPEAKER_108: What I what are you talking? I don't need a free computer. Please don't send me anything for free I don't want free shit from you like That was like my I went to sundance. I could have my brain got Melted you ever go to sundance

SPEAKER_53: You know like you see these like sweets. They have these things like called gifting sweets. Okay, and you know about gifting sweets

SPEAKER_187: Yeah, yeah, for sure and or like other parties and you walk in and they're like, oh, would you like we can ship you this espresso machine? We'll send you this or would you like these skis and i'm like What's the catch? They're like, we'll just take a picture and you know, we'll put it in the back of the sundance magazine and i'm like

SPEAKER_152: Okay, what's the catch? Oh, that's how it is

SPEAKER_21: Like my fiance every day just gets stuff to the house. It's like why do you send you?

SPEAKER_35: Oh, you're on this tv show and you have a bunch of followers and so

SPEAKER_209: I can say what your fiance is on one of the uh real housewife show, correct?

SPEAKER_301: Yeah, yeah Yeah, okay

SPEAKER_38: I'm assuming real housewives of atlanta. I don't watch it, but I follow her now because I follow you Okay, so I follow your wife to see just for the one out of 20 pictures that include you

SPEAKER_187: I understand like what's what's that about now? Does that mean you get are you on that show? Do you get pulled into this reality television orbit now?

SPEAKER_20: No, not not really. It's interesting. Jason's like, I'll tell you why we did it So I used to come to the bay every month or so and people would say oh you live in atlanta

SPEAKER_35: They'll say hey, do you know, um two chains and then they'll say hey, do you know like the housewives? And I was like, what do you mean like that's not atlanta? Like atlanta is like we have these fortune 500s and we have georgia tech and we have you know, like coca-cola Coca-cola there's all this other stuff And I realized it was the number one representation on the of the city, right? It's the number one viewed show umbrella bravo And we said look what if we put like someone on there that like really represents our community that does cost you know Community service and philanthropy and like builds businesses and entrepreneurship. Yeah, like could we Show you know millions of black females technology should we could we show them entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_20: Could we show them investing and so we we did it for that That's a good decision Right, and so it comes with reality tv comes with like some hairy stuff, too So we don't do that anymore. Yeah, for sure, right? They have to make up like weird stuff for storylines But now, uh, she's launching a new show, uh called making up a mogul

SPEAKER_35: And what she's doing now is going around and interviewing Like entrepreneurs and like tell me your story of how you built your business Uh, and so yeah, so that she's transitioned to to that But that was really the whole thing about tv is like how can we educate more minorities and more women about business and about entrepreneurship? Uh

SPEAKER_93: That's like that's a big win. You know, I was I had a reality tv show pilot I did with mbc luckily it didn't get on air

SPEAKER_38: Because some of the people who were involved in the show were Uh later had personal problems. I'll leave it at that But I I was like, you know what i'm open to doing a reality show if it does promote

SPEAKER_07: entrepreneurship and inspires people to do it I think shark tanks done a good job of that sounds like your fiance is going to do a great job of that But that's got to be weird

SPEAKER_86: For you to be walking next to her down the street and like paparazzi like just going crazy

SPEAKER_22: Yeah, I have to regularly take pictures of her with people when we're at the store or something

SPEAKER_319: Oh, okay. Oh, so now you've become an insta-husband. Yeah, so i'm totally like

SPEAKER_320: Oh, can you take a picture? Okay, fine. Oh god

SPEAKER_326: You're an insta-husband And insta-fiance Fiance's of instagram

SPEAKER_319: Uh, they see my wife's not on the social but she's threatening to go social now

SPEAKER_38: So she turned on her accounts and i'm like, oh boy here we go I'm gonna be taking pictures of all kinds of stuff and she got a clubhouse account now and and Think it's gonna start. Oh, man

SPEAKER_263: I'll send you a clubhouse exposing these rooms

SPEAKER_81: Oh, i'm loving it That's like my new pastime Because you know I hated that when we were when you and I were coming up in the industry

SPEAKER_06: Like the demo conference you'd be like, oh my god your product is so good. Give me 20 000 you know five minutes on stage And I was like, well, that's bullshit and I started the tech crunch 40 conference with mike and then eventually We split up and I did launch festival We made it free to be on stage. Yep And we made it free to have a table, you know in the exhibition area for startups And we would just charge the big companies, you know, ibm or Verizon we'd be more than happy to pay to sponsor the event and it was great that the up-and-comers didn't have to pay

SPEAKER_38: And now you got all these weird coaches Trying to sell You know seven figure eight figure nine figure 10x your business and you want to talk about like How horrible these people are they're specifically going after black women hispanic women you know why? Because they're a lot of them are just first coming into Entrepreneurship, right?

SPEAKER_06: So they look at them like targets. They're like, okay. Oh, here's a black woman who's you know been raising her kids now She's got five hours a day. Her kids are in school or whatever And she wants to start a business great. Let's charge her five thousand dollars to teach her how to do this five x system

SPEAKER_336: That's not good

SPEAKER_06: It's gross and and it's these like white guys Who you know live in san diego or whatever and then they pretend they have some system where they're going to teach you How to do what you and I do for a living, right? But you and I are not taking meetings with people who are curious about entrepreneurship We're taking like we said before like hey show us your customers or whatever So there's this big gap in the market, which is i'm interested in startups Yeah, but I don't know anything But I got a lot of energy and I might even have a little bit of capital to invest in or I got some time to invest in

SPEAKER_05: And they come in and I tell you these guys are such scumbags They will say i'll put you on a payment plan for the course and they make them sign a contract Wow, and the person pays ten times a thousand dollars ten thousand dollars to take a course They don't get anything out of it And you know what they're teaching them in the course. Here's what seo is here's what a click funnel is You know, here's how to build a landing page and all they're doing is repeating the stuff that You know people in our industry build web pages for and they build this like very light course

SPEAKER_38: That you could get for free on intercom's website or You know hubspot has all the information for free and videos on their website because they want you to buy their product for 99 a month So literally these people could go to hubspot, but they don't know what that is

SPEAKER_05: And so these people come in and just intercept them charge them ten thousand dollars make them sign nondisclosures

SPEAKER_38: And Sometimes they even get them to take loans out. So they're like here's a payday loan company

SPEAKER_114: Go there get a loan to take my course

SPEAKER_06: Wow, and they fall for it because they don't know any better. I mean, how would you know any better? My mom might fall for it You know, she's she's a nurse She doesn't know how business and startups work

SPEAKER_86: And so i'm specifically calling these people out on clubhouse and i'm stopping them

SPEAKER_38: I'm just absolutely just letting people know what the funnels are And then i'm taking my founder university course and i'm just going to make it into like So you want to start a startup?

SPEAKER_07: Here's like step one step two step three and i'm going to make it just to Totally fuck with these guys i'm going to charge one dollar And i'm literally hiring a full-time teacher And i'm going to charge one dollar and maybe have ten thousand people do it a year just one dollar just to make a point

SPEAKER_06: i'll teach them everything for one dollar And then i'll figure out i'll get some sponsor to pay for the other stuff I'll get hubspot to underwrite it so that when if you know ten percent of them make it to the end of the course

SPEAKER_38: They might become hubspot customers or i'll get zendesk or one of my people to you know support it But i am i tell you right now i am i am livid I'm going to come over the top and i am stopping this is not happening on my watch I love that like just taking advantage of people who want to change their station in life I mean it's just brutal

SPEAKER_135: It makes it just makes me so angry

SPEAKER_90: I love it because there's so much of it right like these these vultures and they're well

SPEAKER_13: they're they're slinging real estate courses or Trading courses or forex or found like there's whatever they've picked some specialty And yeah to your point they'll put something in their bio that looks real like in their instagram bio and they'll seven figure 10x entrepreneur eight figure

SPEAKER_68: They'll go rent some cars here's how you bust them you say tell us the name of your eight figure business

SPEAKER_06: Because you know it's not listed right? It's not the business isn't listed You know you could put like all you could literally list all the businesses with the urls With your bio page on the website like you can do that. Yeah, I could list it Like you know, you could go to crunch base and see my investments like it's not too hard people But these people are like 16 789 figure businesses Just ask them tell me the number one business. What's the url so I can look it up What's the address of that business?

SPEAKER_355: There is no address. There is no business. It's all

SPEAKER_22: Yeah, no, they just they have a couple rented cars and they they they chartered a jet once or twice

SPEAKER_49: with all their friends and took it and took it took selfies and They rotate those pictures. It's kind of the bottle out

SPEAKER_06: They literally will rent cars put them in their driveway and take pictures of it. Yep And then they put it on their instagram and then It's it's really like pernicious techniques they're using which is if you're affiliated and you're associated with a fast car

SPEAKER_07: You might have owned a couple of these i'm not calling out your lifestyle paul

SPEAKER_81: But I know that you have some nice vehicles But you know, like You're not renting them like you own nice vehicles. I own a couple nice vehicles, right? Then

SPEAKER_06: They this is where it really gets sick. This one guy was paying like sylvester stallone And like pacino and they don't know what they're getting into but their speaking bureaus like hey go to this conference He wants to talk to you about your career. Here's 50k. So then they do that Then they have a picture and a video on youtube of them interviewing al pacino and you're like, oh, they're friends with al pacino And they drive a ferrari Therefore and they wear a tie Okay, this person's legit But you don't realize they rented the ferrari for a thousand dollars for six hours And they paid pacino 50 grand to be on their conference and they charged all this money for the tickets

SPEAKER_07: So they just made the audience pay for pacino and they got all the association

SPEAKER_361: Now you pay 10k for the course and we're charging your credit card until your credit card gets turned off

SPEAKER_38: And now you're in debt and you're like some single mom You know out of atlanta or la or something and you got Into their click funnel and they convinced you to do it and then the techniques they use is one person was telling me

SPEAKER_06: they They tried to make her feel bad about herself like oh You can afford those shoes in that purse but you can't afford to invest in yourself

SPEAKER_86: I guess you're not serious about business and they kept like grinding her and like insulting her And she was like, okay, I guess I gotta like really take myself more seriously And she was like really embarrassed about how she fell for it

SPEAKER_06: I was like, don't be embarrassed like, you know people pay for college like people have coaches like in our industry There are jerry colonna has been on my pod Multiple times good friend of mine. He's a great coach like coaching exists, right?

SPEAKER_365: But that's not who these people are right I'm taking them all down

SPEAKER_13: Let's do it. They they they they need to be moved out of the way because there's so many promising probably entrepreneurs That could really be successful that are taking a wrong left turn and will be distracted into that that

SPEAKER_366: That could have been the next you know x xyz company. And so

SPEAKER_361: Uh, that's it you're teaching you're teaching i'm gonna hit you up again. I'm getting more of your time paul That's I mean, I do have to say that while we wrap up here. I appreciate the hour

SPEAKER_170: I just you know, we're friends But if I never said it thank you for showing up for me all the fucking time every I you never say no to me

SPEAKER_05: Every time I ask you to show up and speak at a conference You're like i'm i'm there i'm there i'm there and if you can't be there, you're like i'll be there the next one I really appreciate it, you know on behalf of the entrepreneurs and everything. It means a lot

SPEAKER_21: No, my pleasure man, you're you're out there, you know leading the way and carving a path so anything I can do to to support you know, you've It's a good friendship and uh, kind of uh, inspiring and so, uh, you know, I like to say, you know, it's kind of Iron sharpens iron and we kind of inspire each other so anything I can do to be helpful

SPEAKER_49: And now that I see you're on this mission of taking down these these uh fraudulent clubhouse rooms and coaches

SPEAKER_187: Uh, I got your back. Let me know what I can do. We'll run a room like legit guys giving free advice. No, no coaching

SPEAKER_06: Free coaching for life. All right, man, uh continued success and i'm coming out to miami soon Uh, right after I get my vaccine and i'll see you there. All right. I'll see you soon

SPEAKER_38: I got a good cuban place. I forgot the name of the place But one of my ceos down there took me to this crazy cuban place with croquetas And like that, you know those cuban sandwiches. I don't know. Oh, yeah knows, but oh, yeah, I have

SPEAKER_20: Oh, my lord. I was looking for one the other day. Actually, I was

SPEAKER_21: Uh, I was walking down the street and following google maps and trying to get to this place and I never found it So I haven't had good cuban yet here

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, old havana cuban bar and cochina. I'll email you this. There's like this really old place and it's got a deck on the back And man, they have these sick croquetas. Yeah, that's the name of it. Oh, i'm gonna get the pictures right now

SPEAKER_38: Old havana cuban bar and cochina just hit this place up the backyard is dope Um, and the croquettes, you know those little fried Mashed potatoes. Oh, man

SPEAKER_135: If I move down there, i'm gonna have to work out a lot because i'm gonna be hitting so many croquettes and all these And that that cuban sandwich is crazy So you're thinking about it. I'm thinking about no i'm gonna

SPEAKER_05: You know if I I could see myself living in miami or in austin I mean, I love both those cities and I i've lived 30 years new york 20 brooklyn 10 manhattan that I did 10 in la I've done five or six uh here in the bay I could see myself doing 10 in either of those places. I could I could I could do 10. Yep. I could do my time in miami

SPEAKER_389: It could be worse

SPEAKER_245: It could be man. I was I was coming for a couple days and I came here for a week and so I just uh, I just leased a condo here

SPEAKER_366: And so I was like, all right, let me try and yeah It's good. It's uh, I can

SPEAKER_05: Well, if you can lower your costs as these startups were getting demolished here at the costs, right? The cost of living is too much and I would just Like starting like four years ago three or four years ago I was like come here to get the money and then go somewhere else and then just you know Keep a we work office and if you have one of those we work cards where you can float in and out You know just

SPEAKER_53: Come here once a month every other month do your meetings, you know meet with your partnership

SPEAKER_395: And then deploy the capital in salt lake toronto or austin or miami, but atlanta anywhere that it's not four thousand dollars for a one-bedroom

SPEAKER_371: right

SPEAKER_135: Places you're when you haven't been here since the pandemic, right?

SPEAKER_371: No, I haven't been in san francisco bear over in a year now

SPEAKER_38: It's over. I mean done it is over like

SPEAKER_05: The the apartments went from four thousand to twenty five hundred The city is a ghost town and I kid you not seven out of ten restaurants shut down It's The place is cleared out and the the tax and the rest of the peninsula is booming

SPEAKER_38: So everybody left san francisco Okay and came south east or north. So they're they're all going up to you know

SPEAKER_05: marin where they're going to the east bay oakland berkeley so those places have all gone up and even further east

SPEAKER_86: You know like tahoe and they're going south to gilroy and santa cruz

SPEAKER_135: But now that you can work at home people like why why do I want to be in this city? That's overpriced I can work from home. Why am I paying four thousand dollars for an apartment when I could pay two thousand dollars for a mortgage On a house with that on an acre It doesn't make sense, right? So I think san francisco is like a five-year slide straight down

SPEAKER_38: It's going to be crazy. I I don't think it can recover

SPEAKER_06: In the short term, uh because of the taxes and you know anybody and then now they're losing some of these super routers So like keith for boy leaves or you know elon leaves whatever like when those kind of when that level of person leaves young people are like Well, if keith can go to miami, I can go to miami, you know

SPEAKER_351: It makes just total sense to them. What are you gonna do about your mayor right now?

SPEAKER_38: I know I got well, you know, they I I I guess miami's gonna need a new mayor at some point or austin will

SPEAKER_05: All right, there we go. I feel like I got you know I turned 50 and I gave it a lot of thought. I feel like I want to do 10 more years of investing Okay, I feel like if I if I can keep up this pace 100 to 200 investments a year I got 14 people in the investment company now If I can keep up this pace and put another 1200 investments on top of the 300 I got now and do 1500 investments in 20 years

SPEAKER_38: Hmm, that's I don't know who can hit that track record. It's it's I kind of feel like i'll be steph curry with the threes like

SPEAKER_135: You know full circle like who can catch me now like I don't think you can catch me now Who's gonna catch me like paul graham retired like Ron Conway retired chris saka is doing You know carbon, I think I got a straight shot like i'll i'll be mount rushmore

SPEAKER_210: You know, that's what i'm going for I'm playing for legacy

SPEAKER_133: No, take it would take an institution, right? I mean it it take like a Not a person but an institution to compare we take y-combinator tech stars type level like they're they're churning out those institutions

SPEAKER_38: 400 investments a year, you know my little 14 person team doing 100 and I think we'll hit 200, you know eventually like I think we're gonna be in a good position

SPEAKER_411: So i'm just grinding all right, man. Good to see you paul. Stay safe. We'll see you soon. Hey youtube, I'll talk to you soon. Cheers