SPEAKER_00: I am so excited to welcome you to season three of Angel. This is the podcast where I, Jason Calacanis, an angel investor here in the Silicon Valley, who's invested in over 200 startups, interview my peers and the people who've done it longer

SPEAKER_01: than me to ask them the questions you as a founder or an investor want to know. How do you find deals? How do you determine who to write that check to? How do you determine if you want to go pro rata, if you do follow on financing? What makes a venture capitalist, an early stage investor, a seed investor, an angel, what makes them tick? How do they make their decisions? We've got an amazing season for you. Ten amazing investors.

SPEAKER_02: Some of the investors who are on this season, Matt Akko, Charles Hudson, Chris Redlitz, Christina

SPEAKER_03: Tsai, Dave Morin, Ryan Hoover, Mitch Kapor, Mamoon from Kleiner, Ben Ling. It's going to be an amazing season. We're all going to learn a ton. And you can get it all at angelpodcast.com.

SPEAKER_06: Angel is brought to you by LinkedIn. You already know LinkedIn as the world's largest professional network. It's also a better way to find great talent. Go to linkedin.com slash angel and get a $50 credit towards your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. And Embroker. The Embroker startup program helps secure the most important lines of insurance at a lower cost and with less hassle. For guaranteed 10% off on premiums and up to 20% depending on quote, go to embroker.com slash angel.

SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast, Angel. I'm Jason Calcanis, an angel investor here in the Silicon Valley. They've made over 200 investments in startup companies and in this podcast, which is now in its third season. Welcome back. We are going to interview another 10 amazing early stage investors. Angel investing is the greatest job you could ever have. You get to sit with the most intelligent people who are the most motivated to change the world and you get to write them a small check, maybe as small as two or $3,000 if you're going through a syndicate or $10,000 or $25,000 if you're investing directly, and then you place 10, 20, 30 of those bets over a couple of years. And if you're like me and you're investing in the right companies, you may hit a unicorn, a company worth a billion dollars.

SPEAKER_13: Every 20, 30, 40, or 50 times you make an investment. What happens when you hit a unicorn? You might return 50 times, 100 times your money. In my case, I've hit seven of those unicorns in 200 investments.

SPEAKER_00: Investing is hard. You should only invest a portion of your net worth that you're willing to lose. This show is filled with great advice, but the worst thing you can do is put all of your

SPEAKER_01: capital into one company. You want to be diversified. You want to invest, if I was going to give my mom and dad advice or my brothers, I might say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5% of your net worth if you're doing this and you're learning. Maybe if you're super aggressive and you've got a lot of money, maybe if you're doing it full-time or half-time, maybe 10%, even 20% of your net worth. But be careful. Only invest what you can afford to lose and have a 10-year outlook. And the benefits of angel investing are so great. You're going to learn a lot. Every company is like getting an MBA. So if you make 10 investments, it's like getting 10 MBAs. And in fact, if my daughters came to me and said, Dad, I don't want to go to college. I don't want to spend $200,000 on tuition. I'd rather spend $200,000 angel investing over the next five years. You know what I would say? Let's go. Great decision. On the podcast, we like to feature people who are extraordinarily successful. If you're an angel investor and you've done a dozen deals or you're a new fund manager and you want to be on this podcast, that's awesome. Thanks for emailing. Email us back and call us back in five years when you've hit as many unicorns and you've invested in as many companies as my guest today.

SPEAKER_15: Christine Tsai is with us. Managing partner at 500 Startups. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. How long have you been angel investing and doing early stage investing? Obviously, 500 Startups is an accelerator slash incubator. I don't know which word you prefer.

SPEAKER_18: For probably venture firm, but venture firm with an accelerator. Venture firm with an accelerator. Why accelerator not incubator?

SPEAKER_21: Well, I think people probably- Is there a difference? I mean, people kind of use the term interchangeably, right? Sure. I mean, when I think of the term incubator, I think of ideas that are homegrown in-house

SPEAKER_24: and potentially eventually spun out. Whereas in accelerator, you're ideally accelerating companies that come into the program.

SPEAKER_27: But I think a lot of people tend to use them interchangeably. When did you get your start in investing?

SPEAKER_21: It was really with the start of 500, actually. I mean, I was fascinated with venture for a long time.

SPEAKER_24: Prior to 500, actually, my entire career was in tech in Silicon Valley. I actually grew up in Silicon Valley. So I definitely was coming out- Literally grew up here. Yeah, I was not born here, but it would be much easier if I could just say I was born and raised in Silicon Valley. But I, for the vast majority of my life, was raised here in the Bay Area. Whereabouts? In the East Bay in Fremont, actually. And I grew up with-

SPEAKER_33: Where the Tesla factory is now.

SPEAKER_24: Yes. Yeah, that was the new me plant for many years. And I don't know what was there before that existed.

SPEAKER_34: But yeah, now it's a Tesla plant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_27: It's changed a lot here.

SPEAKER_34: Yes.

David Friedberg: And what did you do before venture, before the founding of 500?

SPEAKER_24: You know, I was thinking about my, just my professional career. I've been in Silicon Valley for now, I mean, working for like almost 20 years. And it's really been primarily two places. So it's not like a lot of, a lot of like the vast majority of people who are probably at, you know, startups, tech, they, you know, a couple years here. You know, prior to 500, which is now nine years old at this point, I was at Google for quite a long time, was there for about seven plus years. So joined in 2003 and then left in 2010 to start 500. And then prior to that, nothing too eventful. It was the dot-com bust. So finding a job out of school was pretty tough. But, you know, it was definitely a very transformative period of time for Google, of course.

SPEAKER_39: Yeah. Was Google public at that time? No, it was pre-IPO.

SPEAKER_24: Yeah, so I joined in 2003. So that was about a year before the IPO. And then they went IPO in 2004. And it was still a pretty quiet time coming off of the bust. And Google was one of the few places, of course, that was thriving and hiring. And I just, it's funny thinking back now, it was definitely a time where, you know, tech wasn't vilified the way it is nowadays. And I remember going, you know, walk down the street with a Google t-shirt and the types of reactions you would get from all kinds of people. It would be like, Google is this jarling company, could do no wrong. Now, of course, when people think of Google, Facebook, and all those tech giants, it's not so, no warm, fuzzy feelings. But it was just definitely a really transformative time for, certainly for Google, Silicon Valley. For me, it was a really special time. And as you probably know, you know, within venture and entrepreneurs, there was a lot

SPEAKER_38: of just really amazing people that were at Google during that time that I had the good fortune to work with or know.

SPEAKER_47: Well, you know what? You either die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

David Friedberg: Yeah. It's Batman. I don't know if you remember that quote. I probably butchered it, but it always stuck with me. We'll get back to that. I'm going to put a pin in the vilification of Silicon Valley and how we got here.

SPEAKER_51: What did you do at Google? How did you get the job? Where'd you go to school? What was your degree in?

SPEAKER_24: So I literally, like having been here almost my whole life, I also went to school here. I went to Berkeley. So go bears. I have to always include that in there. So I was there, did cognitive science, which was kind of a nice interdisciplinary major with psych and linguistics, philosophy. There was a computer science angle to it, which was the hardest part for me. It's funny thinking about, especially when you think about this whole kind of dialogue around, you know, women in tech and people have different perspectives on why there's, you know, not enough. Or I had no excuse as a daughter of an engineer. My mom was an engineer at Intel for like 30 years. And so we always had computers in our house. She was constantly, you know, strongly encouraging me to learn programming. And definitely a lot of strong encouragement, again, joining, or sorry, getting accepted into Berkeley to do computer science, which is, I don't know if you know, is a really challenging major. You have to not only apply to get into Berkeley, you then have to apply to get into that major. And it's very theoretical. I just wanted to learn how to build websites, which you don't learn at Cal. No. So I did not do computer science. I think I dropped out of a couple of the undergraduate recs. So there was no way I would have, I didn't even try to get in. So, but I did that. I was still very fascinated by tech. So when I graduated, of course, I was quite interested in working at a, you know, a dot com and a tech company, which was hard to come by. I just vividly remember one summer, I think as a junior, there was a lot of hiring. I think I got rejected from all of the startup internships I interviewed at. And then the following year, which is very different. It was just like, nobody was hiring.

SPEAKER_35: This is 2003, this is 2002.

SPEAKER_24: 2002 when I graduated.

SPEAKER_35: Which is fascinating.

SPEAKER_22: That's when the dot com bubble burst. Yes. And a bunch of us young kids were running around starting blogging.

SPEAKER_21: I remember, I don't know if you, I remember you as one of our top AdSense publishers. So like your question.

SPEAKER_03: I was the number one AdSense publisher for Engadget. Yes.

SPEAKER_62: Actually Kim, what was Kim's name? Kim Scott. Kim Scott. Yeah.

David Friedberg: Yeah, but what was her name before that? Kim Malone. Kim Malone. She's now Kim Scott. And she actually wrote the book Radical Candor. Yes.

SPEAKER_22: And I have, have we had her on the podcast? I don't think so, Jackie. I mean, what do we do with Jackie? Take a note. Kim, Radical Candor. But I remember like it was yesterday, in the first post IPO, they asked us, would we be featured as the independent publisher alongside the New York Times in the first post public

David Friedberg: quarterly report? And so they published Engadget in New York Times. They had quotes from me and Martin Isleholtz. But we were like, Kim was my rabbi at Google and she was like, do you know, I said, what percentage am I getting? She said, well, don't disclose that.

SPEAKER_71: I was like, 70%? And she just like gave me like a little thumbs up. Oh, in terms of the rev share? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_73: Because you guys didn't disclose the rev share. Yeah, we're pretty secretive. And at one point I said, you're giving me 100%, aren't you? Just to make me happy. And she gave me a little wink and put a thumbs up.

SPEAKER_03: And I realized that Google was paying me above what they were making to have me go out and tell everybody it was okay to put Google ads on your site. Because that was a big controversy for blogs, even commercialized blogging.

SPEAKER_22: All right, when we get back from this quick break, I want to hear the story of the founding of 500 Startups. And obviously, we'll address the elephant in the room. We're leaving your co-founder, Dave, when we get back on Angel the Puckets.

David Friedberg: Every week, 22 million professionals on LinkedIn are looking at jobs.

SPEAKER_02: That's because LinkedIn has the most powerful job hiring function ever created. And I want to give you $50 towards your first hire by going to linkedin.com slash angel, the name of this podcast, linkedin.com slash angel, gets you $50 towards your first job posting. Of course, terms and conditions apply. We use LinkedIn jobs. We hired Sir Charles and our marketing manager in Toronto, both from finding them as passive job seekers on LinkedIn. That's right. Our marketing manager in our Toronto office was on LinkedIn. And she saw an ad for our position. And she said, wow, that's an interesting position. That would be an upgrade from what I'm doing right now. She was not looking for a job. She was what they call a passive job searcher. She didn't even know she was looking for a job. But when the right one was presented, aha, aha, we got her. And it's been great ever since. Those are the people you want. The people who are currently unemployed, maybe they're unemployed for a reason. Maybe they're just getting back into the workforce. I don't mean to be cruel to anybody here. But the people who have great jobs, they may want an exceptional job. They may have a good job and they want a great one. They may have an okay one and they want a great one. You're going to at least get in front of those people. And you can manage your candidate pipeline through the software there. So it's really easy to keep track of everybody. And it really is about LinkedIn's massive reach. They have 70% of the US workforce is on LinkedIn. Who's not on LinkedIn? That's like not having a phone number. How do you expect to operate in the world if you're not on LinkedIn? That's just literally impossible. So go to linkedin.com slash angel and solve your hiring problems today. We did. I did. And I would never.

SPEAKER_01: And I'm being dead serious here. I would literally never try to hire for a position without putting it on LinkedIn first. Okay. LinkedIn.com slash angel. Get the 50. Let's get back to this amazing episode.

SPEAKER_00: Okay. Welcome back to Angel the Podcast. I'm Jason Calacanis. And if you're watching the video, you see three copies of my book, the English version, the Japanese version, and the Chinese version.

SPEAKER_22: And for those of you in Estonia, Italy, Spain, or other Spanish-speaking countries, Germany, et cetera, stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00: The book is traveling the world.

SPEAKER_22: And if you want to read the book, this podcast is the complement to the book where I explain a lot of my theories on early stage investing. And you can go to angelthebook.com. So this podcast can be found at angelpodcast.com or in whatever podcast player you prefer. My guest today, Christine Tsai. That's T-S-A-I. And you can follow her on the Twitter, Christine underscore T-S-A-I.

SPEAKER_13: She's a managing partner of 500 Startups. Did you co-found 500? Tell me about the origins of 500 Startups.

SPEAKER_24: So I was at Google, you know, as we talked earlier, for a long time and probably, you know, midway in. I just started to become, I don't even know how, like really interested in kind of VC. And it was a pretty opaque, you know, opaque industry back then. One of the few that really actively blogged about it at the time was, it was just a handful, but Fred Wilson was probably one of the ones that I remembered. And I didn't even think about the, you know, the concept and probably the concept didn't exist back then. Like unicorns and like returning the fun and like all this, you know, all that stuff that was more related to the actual fiduciary part of it. And to me, VC was an opportunity to work with companies really early. I'd done that and had been doing that more on the Google side, worked a lot with the publisher side as well as developer, developer tools. And by and large, a lot of those users were Startups or entrepreneurs. And so to me, that was pretty fascinating, definitely was looking at it much more from the product tech angle versus, again, the investment side of it. So I just, entrepreneurs, and so to me, that was used to try to weave it into my day job at Google. I was on the product marketing side, whether it was like inviting Fred to come talk at one of our speaker series, you know, asking the companies that we were working with for connections to their advisors or angels, just more because I was fascinated. And that's actually how I met my co-founder, Dave, when I was at YouTube, there was a company that I was working with on the YouTube APIs, they think back when the YouTube APIs were pretty limited in what they could do. Nowadays, I think it's a different story. Asked for an intro. And, you know, he was probably one of many different VC connections that I had made just on my own. And there were certainly a lot of ex-Googlers that had gone on into venture. And, you know, 2010, I decided, you know, I think I'm ready to leave Google. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I knew that venture was interesting, but, you know, it's not the type of job you go apply for. And I had actually gone to a couple firms, you know, through the kind of interview process and got rejected from them all. And a lot of the feedback that I got was, you know, venture is kind of an industry where, you know, you either start right out of college. Or you join after having been a successful entrepreneur. There's a little bit of the feedback of, well, you know, if you're a woman in venture, you kind of have to be, like, really, really aggressive with a kind of indirect feedback that you're kind of, like, not aggressive enough or you're kind of too quiet. So to me, it was just sort of like this pie in the sky, maybe someday, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_27: And 2010, maybe 1% of partners at firms were female.

SPEAKER_22: Probably, yeah. Yeah, Kleiner being the one place that had a large number of All-Stars at that time. Yeah. Paradoxically. Yeah. Given what happened with Alan Powell.

SPEAKER_01: Leadership. I want you to answer them that embraced it. So Dave asked you to be his co-founder or he had started and then pulled you in. What was the history of that? When did he bring you into all this?

SPEAKER_87: So I believe he had actually started. I mean, this probably precedes even 2010. I think it was maybe 2008.

SPEAKER_24: My memory's a little fuzzy, but obviously 2008 was a great time to start a fund. The financial crisis. Everybody go home. Exactly. So I think that kind of paused. And then 2010, he was starting to try to raise the first fund. It still had no name, nothing. And, you know, when I was going through my journey to try to figure out what am I going to do if I leave Google? I'd already made up my mind I want to leave. You know, he was one of a few, you know, coffee conversations I had. And the timing just seemed to be pretty good. Like he, I remember that meeting. He was very cool. And I was telling him, I've made up my mind. I want to leave Google. I know I want to do, I'm interested in venture. I'm also kind of exploring other opportunities. What advice did you have? I didn't know anything about him raising this fund. And, you know, we would stay in contact after we had initially got introduced because I would help him with like Google stuff and this and that. But it wasn't, it wasn't like a, it's not like we were, you know, the prototypical, like best friends, you know, knew each other for our entire lives. But, you know, when I told that to him, he was kind of like, you caught me at a good time, you know, I'm working on this fund. And in hindsight, when I think back, I think, wow, I basically left my, my, my job at Google, which was, you know, obviously it was, it was, it was fine. It was great to go start something new with some guy who I, I, I know, okay, but you know, it's not like the fund was even off the ground yet.

SPEAKER_87: So in hindsight, I think, wow, that was pretty like stupid or bold, bold. I would say bold. Bold.

SPEAKER_106: Okay. Yeah. My, yeah, my parents were very worse on my arms. Hey, when we're Korean. Yeah, Korean Asian parents are, they always want, you know, what's, what's, what's secure and safe. But yeah. And you're not a doctor. So you broke their hearts. Interestingly, I don't, I, yeah, yeah. Engineer is probably the one I was going to say, like, like, probably, they're probably not like most stereotypical parents. They never really pushed the doctor route. But yeah.

David Friedberg: So the word I heard was you were the bedrock, the foundation of 500.

SPEAKER_22: You actually did all the work. You did the foundational stuff and got stuff done. Dave was obviously out there being the hype man, was a bit of a maniac, maybe drank a little bit too much in my experience with him.

SPEAKER_47: And obviously to his own admission was inappropriate many times. I know you don't want to, I don't think we need to rehash the whole thing here because it's been rehashed, but you wound up taking over 500 after his departure. How did you deal with the revelation of his indiscretions, him being your partner? And how did 500 startups survive all this? Because based on what I heard, 500 startups was going to shut down. And it was like on teetering on this is the end. And so how did you save it? Or how, is it saved?

SPEAKER_119: And what can we expect going forward?

SPEAKER_87: Well, I think when you, you know, when I, when I look at 500 now, and even back then when, you know, this is like a year and a half ago at this point, I think it's important

SPEAKER_24: to remember that 500 is always, and maybe it wasn't so visible in the early days, but, you know, it was always really about a very strong mission. And the mission that we had was that founders exist all around the world. They need help creating great companies. And not only do we care about seeking out and discovering these amazing founders in, you know, whether it's in Mexico City or India or Malaysia or Los Angeles, that that talent exists everywhere. And not only does that talent exist everywhere, there are many places outside of Silicon Valley that will become not like Silicon Valley, but they also will grow and flourish into what everyone wants to be Silicon Valley for. So a lot of people look at Silicon Valley and think, oh, we have to have that mindset. But, you know, over the past nine years, as 500 is so global, when we look at these different markets, of course, they're not exactly like Silicon Valley. In fact, if we had the mindset that they need to be exactly like the Valley, then it's a bit of a, you know, doesn't do justice to what's special about that market, that culture, and all the cultural nuances. So to me, that was really what was most important. That 500 was really this brand that has now, today, helped more than 2,000 companies around

SPEAKER_27: the world. We're talking about, you know... When you say helped, invested in.

SPEAKER_24: Yeah, invested in. Actually, like, put money into these companies when a lot of people...

SPEAKER_22: What does that put you versus, say, sorry to interrupt, but where does that put you versus Y Combinator and Techstars in terms of the number of companies invested in? Do you know?

SPEAKER_24: You know, in terms of the number, I don't know what their numbers are. I know for 500, you know, it's about 2,200 companies to date since 2010 that we've actually invested in. And the portfolio right now is, like, just shy of 50% outside the U.S. Amazing. And I think even from the early days, I actually remember it as kind of a knock against us in some cases where people would comment, 500 has a lot of international companies, as if it was sort of second tier. Yeah. But now, you know, when you look at even... Everyone loves the term unicorn, but when you look at the unicorn companies, since that's what everyone kind of salivates over, you know, now I think it's getting close to 50% of them are from outside the U.S. And that number is just going to increase. And, you know, even for our own portfolio, we have about 10 that we publicly disclose or others that are unicorn status, but we don't... They're not public about it. Even for those, like, we're kind of trending that as well. Like, we have about half of those are outside the U.S. So it's pretty... For us, like, in this kind of next phase of 500, we already have been known to invest globally, and that's what a lot of people know us for. We really want to lean in there in terms of our global approach, kind of capturing all that value we've built over the past nine years. And I guess, you know, going to your earlier question about, you know, like, Dave and everything, you know, it's not really something that is... You know, it's... I don't really talk about it too much just because it is... It was definitely a very... To say it was, I guess, a painful time in my life is kind of an understatement. So, but, you know...

SPEAKER_27: It has to be the worst part of your life, I think, certainly professionally to date.

SPEAKER_106: Professionally, yeah. I will... Actually, you know, even personally. I mean, you say professionally, personally, but, you know, this is...

SPEAKER_24: You know, it was just... I guess what I'll leave it with is it was a very painful period, so I don't really... Why didn't you quit? ...enjoy talking about it, but...

SPEAKER_73: I assumed you would quit. You're in demand.

SPEAKER_01: You have tremendous experience. You could... It's much different to 2018, 2017, 2018, 2019. It's a much different market than when you went out to look for a venture job in 2010. I know for a fact that the top 10 venture firms, half of them would hire you in a heartbeat. Why did you stay and deal with trying to save 500 rather than doing what I might have done, which is said, you know what?

SPEAKER_73: I'm going to go hang out at Sequoia or Benchmark or Chamaths or Craft Ventures or pick a firm and, you know, drink blue bottle, chicory iced coffee for $6 a pop and not deal with this nonsense. Why didn't you quit, Christian? What was it?

SPEAKER_112: I think the mission of 500 is just way too important to let it die.

SPEAKER_24: And I think, you know, Dave leaving was obviously huge. I just... I don't think I could have done that. Not to say there weren't times where I just felt like, I don't know what I'm going to do. This is like, I can't handle this. But, you know, ultimately, I felt like there's so many people, our team, you know, our investors, our founders, that I just felt like I had this very strong sense of loyalty that, like, someone had to be here. And, you know, even to this day, I think, you know, it's been about a year and a half, two years. I'm actually really excited about what the future holds for us going forward. Like, this year and even next five, ten years doesn't mean it's going to be easy. And, like, in fact, it's going to be far from easy. But I feel like, you know, I think back to, like, what the ethos and the mission is of 500 and just everything that... I think this actually becomes more evident every time I have a conversation with a founder. When I talk with a founder from the past accelerator batch that we invested in, and maybe they were from a market where entrepreneurship is shunned or who knows. But those are always the best reminders where they think, you know, 500 was there for me. Like, they were the first one that believed in my company. You know, this mission is just too important for, like, no one else is going to do this but us. And I felt like it was just that plus that sense of duty. I just, it didn't cross my mind saying, oh, peace out, guys. I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_89: But just because, like...

SPEAKER_119: I think it's admirable. I mean, literally, if it was me, I would have just been like, this is nonsense.

SPEAKER_22: I didn't create this nonsense. Bring on the chicory blue bottle. I'm out.

SPEAKER_145: I'm going to take four weeks off and over Christmas and four weeks off over the summer and just join a big venture firm.

David Friedberg: Paradoxically, the firm was what percentage female led.

SPEAKER_73: If you look at the top positions, I always was amazed by the amount of female leadership at your firm.

SPEAKER_125: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_73: Half? A third?

SPEAKER_125: Well, the investment partners, I believe it's actually, if you include all of our, like,

SPEAKER_24: folks like myself, our partner, Veggie, who's also part of the leadership, and a lot of our general partners who run the various funds around $500, I believe it's about a third. And then in terms of the leadership, it's, I don't think it's half. It's close to half, like maybe 40%.

SPEAKER_151: And you index that against maybe low single digits in venture. You're probably 5, 6x.

SPEAKER_153: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_88: And 26% of the companies invested in by 500 startups are led by women.

SPEAKER_113: How did you hit that high of a number?

SPEAKER_22: Did it take a specific amount of work or effort, or was it that female leadership drew in female leadership? I want you to answer that question when we get back from this quick break.

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SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Angel, the podcast. You can visit us at Angel Podcast. My guest today, Christine Sy, the managing partner of 500 Startups. How many people work at 500 now across how many countries?

SPEAKER_125: So our team represents more than, I could be off on this even, but like more than 20

SPEAKER_161: countries around the world. But our team is, you know, worldwide is about, I believe, 100, 120 or so. Wow.

SPEAKER_22: How much under management and how much money is, are you responsible for having deployed?

SPEAKER_24: We have a bit over 450 in, when you say committed capital, people under management, but that's across all of our funds.

SPEAKER_22: Got it. Yeah. And over 2,000 investments. Right. 10 known unicorns. Intercom, amazing.

SPEAKER_00: Did they go through the program or was that a direct investment?

SPEAKER_24: Direct investment, but TalkDesk actually went through the program. And then Twilio, SendGrid, Credit Karma, Canva, and a couple of the international ones, like

SPEAKER_38: I mentioned, actually Canva- Canva went through the program? No, no, no, sorry. Canva was a direct investment. Direct investment in Sydney. Yes.

SPEAKER_24: And then Grab, Bukalapak, and then a couple others. I always, it's always a game I play. Can I remember all 10? But since I'm on the spot with Jason-

SPEAKER_119: Yeah, Bulapak, GitLab, Grab, Canva, Revolution, TalkDesk, Karma, Credit, Credit Karma, Sangria, Twilio, Intercom. I got them all.

SPEAKER_166: Yay. Perfect.

SPEAKER_22: And when we left, our hero, that's you, Christine, I was asking you about attracting female founders.

SPEAKER_01: Famously, some folks have said there's a bit of a pipeline problem. It's hard to find the female founders. Was that true 10 years ago, five years ago? Is it true today?

SPEAKER_15: How do you think about the number of female founders and finding those female founders?

SPEAKER_21: It's definitely, I would say, a combination of things.

SPEAKER_24: So a lot of people will focus, you know, have tunnel vision on a specific aspect of the problem and say it's a pipeline problem. None of girls are interested in tech or whatever. Like, I don't believe that. Or they'll say that it's, you know, you need to have women on the other side of the table to look at, you know, female founders and attract them. And then, you know, there's probably like 10 other reasons as to why it is the state that it is. But I believe that certainly like a big aspect of it is proactively reaching out to these founders. And this is not just limited to female founders. It's certainly underrepresented founders. Look at the intersection of the two underrepresented minority female founders. And, you know, and you're a very savvy investor. You've been doing this a long time. Great deals don't come to you. You have to go actively out and scouting them. And we think the same thing about the companies that we invest in. And sure, we do have an open application process for the accelerator. We certainly get a lot of inbound deals from our network. But it's really up to us to be going out and actively scouting these companies. And the more that we proactively go out and try to source deals from, you know, network or pool of applicants that are female founders or, again, you know, underrepresented minorities, then the more likely, of course, that our portfolio will be diverse. It's interesting, the question about, is it, do you need to have women and, you know, investors who are, you know, underrepresented minorities to help increase that? I think, yes, definitely there's, it's clear that when you do have that diverse perspective on the investment side of the table, that oftentimes does translate into a more diverse portfolio. But I'd also like to think that, you know, if it was like two white guys at a firm, they should be able to invest in diverse companies too. So it's, it's kind of an, I always kind of feel torn with that question. It's like saying the only way you can really have empathy and want to understand a female founder or a business that targets maybe demographics, you don't understand that you have to be that person. And I'm like, well, I, that may be some of the reality, of course.

SPEAKER_112: I'd like to think also that people who aren't that could also see the value.

SPEAKER_35: Yeah, you would think. You'd think, but I think. But the statistics didn't show that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: And the statistics show the opposite, which is Aileen Lee or yourself or Cyan. Maybe people feel more comfortable. Yep.

SPEAKER_22: Certainly Arlen Hamilton from Backstage, which has had her own struggles, which we all have as investors, raising funds is hard. Does 500 require that you have multiple co-founders like Y Combinator does?

SPEAKER_03: And do you require that there be developers as founders?

SPEAKER_24: We've actually invested in a lot of companies that have single founders. So it's not a requirement. I think what we do like to see is that if you're a single founder, obviously it's, it's, it's, it's quite a task. So for all the other responsibilities, do you have a team or is it really just like literally one person? But, you know, we've had, again, we've had a number of companies where it's a single founder. There've been cases where it was a, you know, the founders were not technical. We're not huge. I mean, I know I'm personally not a huge fan of the non-technical founders and then they outsource everything to, you know, contractors that they've never met. So that's a little bit. Scary. A little bit iffy for me. But if they at least have technical talent that's in-house, it doesn't have to be a CTO, it could be an engineer or something, then that, that helps address that with, with hopefully

SPEAKER_133: the intention that down the line they do recruit a CTO or, you know, lead engineer.

SPEAKER_47: Do you think Y Combinator having that rule, you have to be developers, basically, you have to have multiple ones. Do you think that resulted in a lack of diversity?

SPEAKER_22: Because if there are less female founders or people of color who are developer founders versus sales founders, product founders, you're a product person, I'm a product person, designer founders like the Airbnb who actually did go to them. Do you think that was, that actually reduces diversity? I kind of think that was like the leak in the game over there.

SPEAKER_87: Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's hard to say, but I think definitely when you're thinking

SPEAKER_24: about how do you access more diverse companies and deal flow, you have to think about like, how do you look at, what are your, what are your criteria for like, what makes for a good company? So if it is like, let's say you have this mindset that has to be technical founders or that they have to have gone to a certain school, you know, part of the challenge is questioning like, really, like, are you sure? Like, is that really the case? Because, you know, we've had a number of companies that we've invested in that have gone on to be successful that, that didn't fit that prototype of what a founder should look like. So I know that it's, it's something, you know, whether it's the requirement is what school you went to, or that they have to be hackers or technical. I mean, you know, how that impacted YC or others, I mean, I'm not one to comment, of course, but I do know that when you, you try to expand your mind of like, what could be possible for being a great founder, then of course, that's going to open up the opportunities and you'll start to see companies that you might not have previously considered that are equally like great, or even, you know, going beyond the founders, the demographics that those customers are, or sorry, the demographics that the founders are targeting, and it could be an audience that you really have no insight into, that you wouldn't have considered that it's, it's something that, you know, just going back to like, what is it that makes for a successful founder, our, our, our history over the past nine years is, it's, it's a pretty

SPEAKER_38: diverse set.

SPEAKER_22: But let's get into that. What, in your personal experience, do you think makes for a successful founder?

SPEAKER_24: To me, it's, it's less about the, the specific tactics of again, like pedigree or what they've done. I mean, of course, what they've done is certainly helpful, but I think in working with so many founders over the years, and some of this, you, it's hard to pick up from an initial, like an hour or two hour cup, a cup of coffee at the blue bottle or, but we certainly see this when we work with founders, especially through the accelerator. One is definitely speed. So, you know, how quickly do they move when they say they're going to do something? How accountable are they? You know, there's a number of founders that we've seen that, you know, they, they do something, they do it. They move fast, not recklessly, but they move quickly, they learn, they keep going. A lot of it is just about moving forward and building. So really kind of speed at which they execute. Second is what you might not consider is how, how open to feedback or how coachable they are. And so I think a lot of founders

SPEAKER_38: might think, I got to be like, you know, asshole founder thinks I'm great and doesn't listen to anybody.

SPEAKER_96: Yeah. Exactly. I'm going to be like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_184: It's funny. I had somebody on the podcast, which I remember who, who met with Mark Zuckerberg

SPEAKER_145: early on and she was female and he handed her the card, I'm CEO bitch. And it was like, wow, if there was anything indicative of the aughts here in Silicon Valley, it would probably be that moment. Yeah. It was Katerina fake. Oh, can you imagine? I mean, listen, Zuckerberg was a dipshit when he was a kid. He might still be, but he was a total dipshit when he was a kid. And I mean, talk about being clueless. Like, yeah. And the thing is like, those are

SPEAKER_38: what, you know, of course those are the outliers and that's, what's held up as being successful. But I feel like those types of founders and personalities, I mean, my humble opinion, they became successful despite that attitude, not because they were that way, but unfortunately because you know, the, the few that rose up, those are held up as like, this is what you got to be like. So everyone thinks I got to be an asshole CEO and, and have all this arrogance and like, act like I know everything when you really don't know that much.

SPEAKER_03: So what you're saying is if I could recap, it may core, it may correlate that some people are assholes who've succeeded, but it may not be causation. Causation, exactly. Yeah. Correlation, causation. You know, it's fascinating. I just realized I went to school for computer science and then quickly changed to psychology. What was it about psychology you found more appealing than computer

SPEAKER_38: science? Well, I wish I had a nice answer. I think a lot of it was, well, I clearly was not going to be able to get into computer science at Berkeley with the grades I had for the undergraduate ranks, especially when you drop a couple of classes, you're not going to get in, but, but

SPEAKER_24: I think, you know, cog sci was interesting because it was so interdisciplinary. There was a combination of psych, neuropsych. There was an AI element before AI was a thing. Yeah. I mean, like a thing here, linguistics, philosophy. And it was, it was, I think a relatively new major at the time. I think the equivalent at other schools, I don't know if it's called cog sci, I know

SPEAKER_38: at Stanford, it's symbolic systems, but, but I liked it because actually the part I really liked about cognitive science was actually more the neuro aspect of it, but.

SPEAKER_205: What's going on in your brain when you make decisions?

SPEAKER_87: Yeah. Well, I think it was more medical. I think, to me, it was much more comforting to know if you have a lesion in your brain, that's what's causing this, you know, aphasia,

SPEAKER_24: not, you know, what could it have been about all the different theories on why you have certain, you know, people suffer from certain mental disorders, which to me was hard.

SPEAKER_87: Your childhood. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you don't always know.

SPEAKER_181: It's easier to know it's your brain and chemicals.

SPEAKER_87: Yeah. But, you know, I think with, you know, it's interesting you switched sort of similar to

SPEAKER_24: me, I mean, without all the nuance, but yeah, I went from, um, CS to cog sci, which is pretty close to psych. And, um, yeah, I mean, there's, there's definitely like, if you forget that at the end of the day with everything, with investing founders, like everything behind it,

SPEAKER_213: they're humans, right? So you cannot discount the human element.

SPEAKER_22: Right. Well, and interestingly, the two thing you said, the two things you mentioned as being correlated with success for founders, the speed of execution and, um, being open to feedback. And you also mentioned as part of the speed to execution, saying what you're going to do and doing what you would, you say, which is accountability, accountability and being open to feedback or on a cognitive basis would show maturity, self-awareness.

SPEAKER_219: Yes. And these are the things that I found can also be super helpful. Yeah. Like if you're trying to be a leader, to be aware of what the other person is experiencing,

SPEAKER_03: what should angel investors coming to a demo day at 500 startups or anywhere else and evaluating companies, what should they look at? If your mom or cousin or brother, sister, whatever said, said, I'm getting into angel investing and I'm going to, I got tickets to all the demo days. I'm going to launch accelerator, I'm going 500, I'm going to tech stars, I'm going to my combinator,

SPEAKER_221: I'm going to pair. What would you tell them to do just between us? Uh, and don't just ignore the 200,000 people who are going to listen to this episode. What would you tell them to not invest in,

SPEAKER_87: to not fall for? And what would you tell them to focus on? I mean, yeah, I mean, I would definitely

SPEAKER_38: tell them that, I mean, my, my advice would be to use demo day as a chance to get a feel for like, maybe what companies are interesting. Um, but if, if you're talking about first time angel investors, I certainly wouldn't advise like drop a check at demo day, which is like the, you know, fantasy, like I got it all my, my, I raised my entire round of demo day. Everyone was throwing money at me. I'm like, that's not how it works. Um, and if it is, then you shouldn't take their money because they don't know what they're doing. Um, the thing is with, as you know, with angel investing, it's, it's so early that, you know, you're not going to diligence a company for five

SPEAKER_24: months to decide on a 25k, 50k check. So, um, but what I would advise is certainly demo day is useful to, to kind of, it's really like good chance to network with other investors, kind of see what's maybe some sense of like what's relevant and see the companies. But of course, everybody looks good at a demo day, right? Like everybody pitches fantastically. Um, up and to the right, polished. Yeah. Very, very coincidentally, everyone is up and to the right growing 20% month over month and, um, all that stuff. So, um, but it really is like, you know, there is some showmanship there, but I think it's still a good chance to see all the companies, what they're working on and then definitely go approach the founders and try to get a meeting with them and have that time, not a demo day where it's crazy and kind of like a lot of noise, um, but have the time to spend one-on-one with them and to see how they interact with you, how they explain what they're doing. Um, and some aspects about how they follow up and how they treat investors, um, I think says a lot about, says a lot about the founder, but maybe in, you know, if they're with an accelerator, potentially it says something about like what they're being coached in terms of how to treat investors. And I think that's something that, um, angels may not, uh, newer angels may not already know, like a kind of old, you know, crotchety,

SPEAKER_38: been through war angels, um, like yourselves, like not that you're old, but, um, you know,

SPEAKER_47: I'm 48 and I'm, I'm not going to fall for nonsense. Like literally when I go to Y Combinator demo day, or when I did go, I haven't gone in a couple of years, when I would go, I would have people send

SPEAKER_22: me, I, there was like the little app where you say you're interested in the company. So I picked like five, the handshake thing, but I would just say I'm interested in the company. Right. And like, literally I would get replies back. How much would you like to invest? And then one time I got a

David Friedberg: hundred thousand dollar notes sent to me in DocuSign and I went to my chief of staff and I was like, what is this like company? Um, did they have like a corporate name that's different than their product name or something? You know, that happens sometimes or Acme ventures, but they make a product called Pinterest or something. And you're just like, okay, wait, wait, I'm missing something here. And then I went to the fat and they said, no, I can't figure this out. We searched, we can't find this DBA doing business as, and I asked the founder, I was like, did we speak? I'm sorry. No, no. I, but I read that your average check size is a hundred. So I thought I would get you the documents as quick as to help you along. And literally Michael Siebel at Y Combinator told

SPEAKER_22: people that great investors, the opposite of what you're saying, don't think about it,

SPEAKER_03: shut up and send their money and move quickly. And don't think about returns. Just think about, this is literally what Michael Siebel said at their angel thing. It's like the worst advice I've ever heard. Just think about how great it will be to brag when you put a 250 K check into a company. And I was just like, this is terrible advice. And I realized everything Y Combinator does is adversarial with investors. They consider them like, and I think it's because Paul Graham kind of had bad investors. And, you know, when you have this top down thing, they just look at like this adversarial relationship. So I advise investors, like, don't go to demo, don't go to Y Combinator Demo Day. If you do, just go to network. And at Y Combinator Demo Day, don't feel any pressure because literally the last 20 companies I met said they were closing their rounds. And I would set up a meeting and they'd say, well, we're closing before then. And I'd be like, well, this is, I don't have time to meet within the next two weeks. You know,

SPEAKER_179: I'm busy. I'm Jason Calacanis. Like, no offense, but I can't meet with you tomorrow. Do you know who I am? No. Yeah, but it was lit. No, but I mean, literally, like I'm a busy guy.

SPEAKER_78: Like logistically, I'll give you my assistant's email. We'll set up a time. Like that time might

SPEAKER_03: be 10 days from now. And like, oh, we're going to be closed by then. And I was like, I just read back. Okay. And in every instance, they're not closed. And in one instance, they said to me, oh, Jason, yeah, we're raising at a $10 million valuation and we're raising $2 million, blah, blah, blah, safe, blah, blah. And I was like, who's leading the round? How much do you have closed? And like, we got like a million and you're leading. I'm like, I'm leading? He's like, yeah, that's our dream is you to lead. I was like, oh, that's very complimentary, but who set the prices for this? And they're like, well, we just came up with the $10 million price. I'm like, how did you come up with this price? $10 million? And they said something to the

David Friedberg: effect of like, well, my friend went last year and he got like a 9 million. So I wanted to beat his 9 million with a $10 million valuation. And I was like, really? Oh, that's unfortunate. And I said, you know what? If I was going to set the price on this, it would be $5 million or $4 million. And I don't even know if I would invest. I'd probably wait to see if you could actually keep these

SPEAKER_22: customers for more than two months. So somewhere between five months of hand wringing and five

SPEAKER_00: minutes at a demo day is the magic number for you of where you should invest. What do you need to know? How many meetings should you have in your mind? If you were advising again, your mom, your cousin,

SPEAKER_260: somebody you care about deeply, what would you advise them in terms of a process, meetings, questions, diligence? I mean, I know, yeah. I mean, I know for me,

SPEAKER_38: like even early on within 500 where, you know, for again, like it was, it was relatively new for me.

SPEAKER_24: Like it was, it was really like one, one meeting tended to be enough. Like if I had to follow up, it might've been, I don't know, like it occasionally, but so I, I would say that definitely no more than two. If you're going on to like three meetings, I don't really know why. It's

SPEAKER_202: like overkill. For a 25K check or a 10K check or a 50K check. Yeah. For a small check like that,

SPEAKER_24: it's just, it's not worth it. I mean, everyone has their different perspectives on, on the investing angle. And, um, I do, on one hand, I do, I do appreciate that when we, we teach our founders on how to fundraise, cause many of them are pretty clueless about it. Cause it's not like they go have done fundraising before. Whereas we see it all the time, maybe I'll be it on the other side of the table, that there is some element of a sales process where you want to create urgency. Now,

SPEAKER_38: how much urgency you create to the point of like, kind of stretching the truth. I don't know, but Lying, like lying, like lying is not good, but I mean, I do appreciate like setting,

SPEAKER_24: you know, some sort of timeline and all that stuff. But again, I think how you do it, how you execute on that is, is, um, you know, I, I don't know if I agree with that approach, but, um, but yeah, if it was a new angel investor and, um, you know, they're trying to figure out

SPEAKER_38: how do we, you know, how many meetings do we have? Do we ask for their like five year plan and financials? I like, no, like they don't, that doesn't exist. What's your favorite question to ask

SPEAKER_270: a founder when you're in that one hour meeting? You have like some go-to questions,

SPEAKER_271: a favorite one that reveals a lot. One, one question that seems to stump them. Cause it's

SPEAKER_24: not so much about like, what's your market, like, you know, this and that and your metrics,

SPEAKER_38: it's like, why are you doing this? Like, why, like, why, why, why are you starting this company? It kind of reveals it's, it's pretty open-ended question. Some of them just say, because the

SPEAKER_24: opportunity is great and that doesn't really excite me, but if I can get a sense of like, why is it that they're taking all this risk and capital probably, and the stress to start a company, because as you know, starting a company is like, is, um, is not for the faint of heart. Like, why are they doing that for, for this purpose? Like, um, you know, and I know in some cases, it's not going to be a beautiful magical answer. Cause I don't know anyone who has this really, you know, tug at the heartstrings, um, emotional story about starting like a SaaS company. I don't know. Um, but I'd like to understand like, why are you like, why now? Like, why, why are you the team to do it? Um, because some of the answers they reveal there, it's, it's eyeopening. Um, and the other, the other aspect is trying to get a sense of, do they really understand who their customer is? Um, you know, I've had experiences where clearly the founders are maybe chasing a market or they're kind of like, this is cool. Like, let's try it out. Um, but when I ask them questions about their customer, their target, target user, they, they seem to, there, there are a lot of gaps there. And so to me,

SPEAKER_38: if you don't really understand who you're serving, cause ultimately as a founder, you're building a business to help serve a customer, you should care about them. Then that's not a great signal.

SPEAKER_179: So, uh, what's we'll, we'll wrap up with this, but I got two I'm going to wrap up with. Number one,

SPEAKER_03: what an amazing portfolio, what an amazing career. Congratulations on that, all that. Now it's time for the pain and suffering. Tell me the company you passed on that to this day,

SPEAKER_109: you felt that one, the one I saw it in your eye, the painful one, the one that got away.

SPEAKER_112: This reminds me, I, um, I'll send it to you after this. I wrote this set a satire blog post of

SPEAKER_24: eight things to do to appear like an important VC. And one of them was lamenting about the deals you

SPEAKER_106: passed on because, you know, you can say, Oh, I passed on Uber. Oh, punch in the face, but it's sort of a humble brag. Like I got a chance to look at it.

SPEAKER_283: I was in the meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to Elon and he offered me to be in Tesla and I didn't do it. Yeah. True story.

SPEAKER_285: Yeah. He was, he was a little rude and he stared at me funny.

SPEAKER_145: So I know I wasn't an angel investor at the time. I was giving him advice on VCs.

SPEAKER_27: Oh, and I was like, I don't angel invest. I'm investing in my own thing, you know, whatever,

SPEAKER_87: but dumb idiot. Um, I know that I, I passed on stitch fix. Oh, but the thing is I never actually got to meet Katrina because I was on maternity leave and there were some wires crossed, but I'm like, it was so close. So, so stitch fix is a painful one. Um, the female founder unicorn.

SPEAKER_287: She is amazing. Amazing as a person. Like when you hear her speak, you're just like, I wish I was that smart and considered. She seems to me to be like the Xena warrior princess, the CEO crowd. Like she is just a bad-ass. Yeah. She's who I want to be when I grow up. That's exactly what I was thinking. I was like, why has she not been on the show? Emmy award-winning

David Friedberg: producer, Jackie, if you get her on the show, I will give a thousand dollars to you or the charity

SPEAKER_145: of your choice. Emmy award-winning Jack, Jackie, I'm putting a thousand dollar bounty

SPEAKER_00: on this fan. Yeah. Yeah. Jackie, I'll give you $1,000 in cash or give it to a charity of your choice. If you get her in the next year, Jackie's looking at me like, Oh my God,

SPEAKER_03: more challenging in the next six months. No, next year. I give her, I always like the term paper, like, you know, give, cause then you get, maybe the cram in the last two or three weeks,

SPEAKER_213: but we got the day right now. That's true. Then nothing will happen until the last.

SPEAKER_03: Oh, I got an even better one. Yeah. Jackie, if you get the CEO of stitch fix on the podcast, I will give everybody on the company a work from home day. No pressure. That's 15 work from home. That's what everybody covets the work from home day over Christmas. I will even better. I'll give, yes, I will give everybody over the Christmas break a work from home day. So everybody at launch, tell Jackie, forget the thousand dollars. It was off the table. That's 15 days to work from home, Charles, a little peer pressure here. Huh? Okay. It was super awesome to walk down the street with a

SPEAKER_22: Google logo and now it's a disaster. People find out I'm an investor at Uber. They're like, why do you hate people? I'm like, why do you hate people? I'm like, hate people.

David Friedberg: Why isn't a horrible person? Well, no, I mean, it's, it's fascinating to me. There are a million drivers driving for Uber and Lyft and everything. And they're like, they're getting paid $1 an hour. I'm like, do you really think people would be going to like, they take one receipt. That's like a mistake at Uber or Lyft where it's like something went wrong and they credit the person with $10 or,

SPEAKER_00: you know, and they're like, look, Uber made $4 on this ride and the driver made $2. And that was the only ride they had that hour. Therefore they made $2 for that hour. It's like, that's not how

David Friedberg: it works. You don't get paid for your 40 minutes of wait time when you're reading a book in this model. I am not advocating people make $2 an hour, nor are those people making $2 an hour or they would not be on the app. They would take the job working at the Apple store or a target or Starbucks, which are looking for people to make $14 an hour. So how could those people drive when they could work

SPEAKER_00: in the Apple store for 12 or $14 an hour? Obviously they're not doing that. Is this going to end? Do we deserve this hate? What can we do better?

SPEAKER_38: I mean, part of me thinks it's just, it's, it's natural in terms of the, the life cycle of tech.

SPEAKER_24: I mean, obviously tech is not a new thing. I mean, it's been around for a long time, but just kind of this, this phase of technology and, and startups and venture, um, and just the way Silicon Valley is, to me, I'm a little bit, you know, again, lived here my whole life, so it's hard for me to tell, but, um, you know, there's all this reaction of like, I, you know, Silicon Valley is awful. San Francisco is awful. It's expensive. And yeah, it is expensive. And people want to go off,

SPEAKER_38: you know, and live in somewhere else and Portland or Seattle, which is probably going to turn into

SPEAKER_297: San Francisco because everyone, there's an exodus, but the nature of cities.

SPEAKER_24: Yeah. I mean, I, I think it's inevitable just began because again, you know, tech had such a ride and we'll probably continue to still have that for such a long time. And, um, you know, anytime something is, is on that kind of up into the right path, there's always, um, you know,

SPEAKER_38: there's, there's, it's not going to be perfect. Right. And you probably see this, we've seen this with other industries. There was a period in, um, you know, just anecdotally, like, like when I was, you know, 20 years ago or however long when I was, um, an undergrad, um, you know, a lot of people wanted to go into finance and banking and, you know, and, and then there was a downfall there and there was, you know, it's not seen as this like warm, fuzzy, you know, wonderful place. No, people hated Wall Street. Yeah. Big time. Yeah.

David Friedberg: People forget. People hated Microsoft. They were considered the Borg. Exactly.

SPEAKER_215: They literally would call them, no, Microsoft was considered the Borg because they beat Word

SPEAKER_22: Perfect and Lotus 1, 2, 3 and put it into their operating system the same way Facebook is putting, copying Snapchat. Exactly. Hey, listen, Christine, I know that you've been heads down working really hard, uh, to build the 500 startups brand. Uh, and I know you had a, uh, some, a rough patch there that you had to work through, but I just want to say just investor to investor, I commend you on the effort. And, uh, I think you're awesome for having done that and not doing what I would have done, which is I would have hit the, I would just been out of there in two seconds. I would look enough. You did the hard work. You deserve that credit. Um, and I think all the companies inside of 500 startups probably really deserve to give you a high five, uh, for, for doing that hard work and not giving up. Yeah. 500 is a great program. If you want to join, go to 500.co slash startups.

SPEAKER_145: Uh, and what in portfolio, Intercom, Twilio, SendGrid, Credit Karma, Talkdesk, Revolution, GitLab, Bukalapak. I don't know what that is. Oh, Bukalapak. It's a Indonesian company.

SPEAKER_260: Oh, wow. It's awesome. Yeah. Grab and Canva. Hmm. I'm trying to get the Canva CEO to speak

SPEAKER_22: at launch festival Sydney, but she's so busy. Oh, all right. Listen, this has been great. Um, you could follow Christine, Christine underscore TSAI and again, 500.co class is going on in apparently 20 different cities around the world. So apply to one of the programs. You got a favorite city in the family that you'd like to go to, which program is doing the best,

SPEAKER_01: has the most success. I'll make it easy for you because I know you want to pick one of your

SPEAKER_03: favorite 20 kids. Yeah. Which one has the objective best returns to date, best portfolio of your

SPEAKER_330: funnel. Oh, of the funds. Oh, I, that's just objective. I can find out by tweeting. So you could tell me or I just tweet who's the best. Like one of them has the biggest.

SPEAKER_332: I just can't do it. You can't do it. Well, they're, they're all different. They're, you know, different, different stages. I'm going to give the typical, like they're,

SPEAKER_335: they're all great, but they're all great. All my kids are great, except, including the one who dropped out and is taking yoga classes in Costa Rica. He's great too. They're great. They're going to be a yoga teacher. It's going to be awesome. Oh my God. I just said that and

SPEAKER_337: I just realized. Oh yeah. Sorry. I think a yoga teacher is an amazing thing to do.

SPEAKER_78: Yes, it is. I just, I know. I just read the story that yoga teaching is a scam.

SPEAKER_03: Really? Oh, so what they do is they get people who are into yoga. And one of these companies was in the New York times. They say, when are you going to do teacher training? You know, you'd be a great teacher. You should do teacher training. Can you do teacher training, teacher training? How about teacher training? And then they pay 1500 to go to teacher training, and then 500 for one-on-one. And they, they spend a couple thousand dollars on teacher training and they never become a teacher. Oh no. And it's just a way for the yoga studios to just take whatever, 2% of their most, you know, best people and say, go through training. Interesting. Wow. It's a tangent, but people like the podcast because of that. Thank you,

SPEAKER_01: Emmy Watering, producer Jackie. Thank you to Sir Charles, our director. Thank you to our amazing partners for making Angels season three possible. Go ahead and visit their websites and

SPEAKER_260: thank them on the Twitter. We'll see you all next time on Angel Podcast.