Pod Insights Aspire with Emma Grede The Aspire Playbook: How Lucy Guo, a Rebel Girl in a Man’s World, Became the World’s Youngest Self-Made Female Billionaire About this episode Emma sits down with Lucy Guo to uncover the incredible journey of how the daughter of immigrants from Fremont, California, became the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.
Unapologetic and refreshingly candid, Lucy offers practical insights into monetizing your passions, securing the equity you deserve, and maintaining authenticity while chasing your dreams. From being a 14-year-old computer hacker to co-founding Scale AI, a multi-billion-dollar tech powerhouse, Lucy shares how she navigated setbacks—including being sidelined from her own company—and reinvented herself to revolutionize social media.
Tune in for an inspiring and empowering playbook from Silicon Valley’s boldest rebel entrepreneur.
Transcript 21,701 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:10 Emma Grede? Meet Lucy Guo, the world's youngest self-made billionaire. A coding prodigy at 12, co-founder of Scale AI at 21. And if you haven't heard of Scale AI, you will soon. Meta just acquired half the company for $14 billion in cash. Pushed out from the billion-dollar unicorn she co-founded at 24, Lucy roared back with passes, the platform turning the creator economy upside down. Today on Aspire, Lucy's getting real about the founder mistakes nobody tells you about, the future of creator success, and exactly how to pick yourself up when life knocks you down. If you're a creator or an aspiring founder, you will not want to miss this episode.
0:55 Emma Grede? We spend a lot of time thinking about how to get more value out of the things we buy. But one of the biggest payments most people make every month is for housing. And historically, that's been left out of the rewards conversation. That's why Bilt is such an interesting concept. As a Bilt member, you can earn points on your housing payments, whether you rent or own. And those points can be redeemed towards things like flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and even future housing payments. And the membership goes beyond your housing payments. You can link any credit card or debit card to the Bilt app and earn points on eligible purchases at participating restaurants and other businesses in your neighbourhood. The app also has a neighbourhood concierge that can help you book a fitness class,
1:39 Emma Grede? make a dinner reservation, or schedule a Lyft while automatically applying your member benefits. Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com/emma. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash emma. Use our link so they know we sent you.
2:03 Emma Grede? I'm so happy you're here Lucy.
2:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:05 Emma Grede? We have got so much to talk about. I have to say, you are one difficult person to do the research on. There is so little out there.
2:12 Speaker 01 Really?
2:12 Emma Grede? About, yes, yes. You're like a mysterious enigma of a person. But there's one thing that I do know about you, my love. And that is that you are the world's youngest self-made female billionaire. Say it again, say it again. It's insane. And I have so many questions for you.
2:30 Speaker 01 I'm here for them.
2:31 Emma Grede? So many, but I feel like we kind of have to go back a little bit so that I can understand. First of all, like, how did you get here? And where did you come from? So take me back to you. Where were you born?
2:41 Speaker 01 Of course. So I was born in the Bay Area. I came from my two brilliant parents. They immigrated from China to get here. They're both electrical engineers, so shout out to them for, you know, their IQ points. And it started off really young because they had immigrated. They had the mindset of newcomers essentially. And they were extremely frugal. They emphasized education, et cetera. And I learned to really value education and money early on.
3:03 Emma Grede? Do you have siblings?
3:04 Speaker 01 I have a little brother.
3:05 Emma Grede? What about your parents? Are you close to them?
3:07 Speaker 01 I talk to them, I would say, at least a few times a week now, which is nice.
3:10 Emma Grede? So nice.
3:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's definitely gotten a lot, like, I've been able to get closer to them after, you know, moving on from college, et cetera, and like really understanding why they were so strict as parents.
3:18 Emma Grede? Yeah, getting through those teenage years. Were they super strict with you?
3:21 Speaker 01 They were absolute tiger parents.
3:24 Emma Grede? I love that. What did that look like for you as a kid?
3:26 Speaker 01 Let's see, my parents put a keylogger on my computer so they can monitor everything I was doing on the internet. That's actually probably like how I kind of got into computers, whereas I had to figure out how to get this keylogger off of my.
3:37 Emma Grede? No, did you figure it out?
3:38 Speaker 01 You could press a like arrangement of keys on your computer to get into like the admin account and then just delete the keylogger.
3:45 Emma Grede? And you figured this out at what age exactly?
3:47 Speaker 01 Oh, this one I probably figured out, I want to say like maybe third grade.
3:51 Emma Grede? Wow, that's something. All right, so you were destined for this life. What did you study at school?
3:56 Speaker 01 I studied computer science and human computer interactions.
3:58 Emma Grede? And where did you go to school?
3:59 Speaker 01 Carnegie Mellon.
4:00 Emma Grede? Okay. So you were like immediately, you're like, computer science, that's my jam. You knew that about yourself.
4:06 Speaker 01 I actually didn't, which is funny because I had been coding for so long at this point.
4:11 Emma Grede? How did you get into coding? Tell me that. I get it, because if you grow up in the Bay Area, like, I guess there's a proximity thing of like, a lot of people being around you. But, you know, how do you even start coding as a young woman?
4:23 Speaker 01 It was completely not from outside influence. Essentially, my parents were taking away my cold, hard-earned cash. I was like, man, like, I need to figure out how to like, make it so that they can't just steal my cash or my hiding places. I was literally putting it in Harry Potter books and it would disappear. And I'm like, how are you finding this? So one day I discover PayPal. I was like, OK, amazing, I can have money on PayPal. So I literally go to Home Depot, I get a Visa debit card, I open up a PayPal account, and then voila. And I'm already playing Neopets at this point, and I'm, you know, on these online forums. And I see this entire like black market economy where people are able to buy and sell Neopoints, Neopets, et cetera. And that's when I start diving deeper and learning,
5:05 Speaker 01 you can create bots to essentially get these items by cheating.
5:10 Emma Grede? Wait a minute, you were creating bots at what age?
5:14 Speaker 01 I was like in second grade, second grade, third grade.
5:16 Emma Grede? What are you talking about? No way.
5:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:19 Emma Grede? So you were really entrepreneurial from the very beginning?
5:22 Speaker 01 I think so, yeah. I was getting sent to the principal's office for selling like Pokemon cards and colored pencils on the playground. I think I got sent in too, because I was like, what are we doing in school? Why are we learning the alphabet? Like, we're smarter than this.
5:34 Emma Grede? I just love that. All right, so, super entrepreneurial kid, you're trying to figure out ways to make money. You end up studying computer science. So what was your first foray into entrepreneurialism?
5:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would say it was probably the Teal Fellowship. So I was going to a lot of hackathons, which are these like 24 to 48 hour coding competitions.
5:52 Emma Grede? You're gonna have to slow down for me. A hackathon? What are we, what are we doing? What is a hackathon?
5:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, so they're 24 to 48 hour coding competitions. A lot of universities hosted them. There'd be different prizes for like best use of like AWS or best use of Firebase, for example. And then I was just going and competing and making apps. It's actually where I started learning how to really do like iOS engineering before it got popular. And I figured out pretty early on the easiest way to win a hackathon was just creating an iOS app and make it pretty. So I was doing this for like every hackathon I was going to and I just
6:23 Emma Grede? And were you winning?
6:24 Speaker 01 I was winning.
6:24 Emma Grede? And what was it? What were you winning? Like, what do you win?
6:26 Speaker 01 You win cash. I won a lot of iPads. I had like a six iPad collection at some point in time. It was pretty great, honestly. And then the Thiel Fellowship took notice. I was winning these hackathons and they're like,
6:37 Emma Grede? For those of us who don't know, what's the Thiel Fellowship?
6:39 Speaker 01 Yeah. So Thiel Fellowship was started by Peter Thiel to essentially make a point that you don't need college to be successful. So he was giving 20 kids under 20 years old a hundred thousand dollars.
6:48 Emma Grede? And again, for those that don't know, Peter Thiel, the legendary, legendary investor. And so he has a fellowship and essentially the fellowship is to prove that you don't need to go to college to be successful.
6:59 Speaker 01 Yes. So he was investing or like giving grants out to all sorts of different kids from research scientists to entrepreneurs. I guess his team took notice of me winning all these hackathons. So they're like, hey Lucy, like you should apply to the Thiel Fellowship. I didn't really have an idea, so I just used the hackathon project that I had made like the week before. And then submitted it and ended up getting it. And then I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of other like-minded people who had dropped out to really create something bigger. One person in my class actually was the founder of Ethereum. So
7:30 Emma Grede? No.
7:30 Speaker 01 I know. That was like probably my biggest financial mistake of my life.
7:33 Emma Grede? Dumb. You had the opportunity to invest?
7:36 Speaker 01 He literally was on the couch telling everyone like, oh, you should join Ethereum's pre-sale. It's like 30 cents a coin. And I was just like, who are you?
7:46 Speaker 01 Some of the fellows actually put in money and I, I heard one of them like bought an island or something.
7:51 Emma Grede? I can imagine.
7:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, I didn't get
7:54 Emma Grede? How did you feel amongst that group of people? For you, was that immediately a time when you felt like uncomfortable? These are my people. Did you feel like a fish out of water? Cause I'm imagining you were one of very few women or am I getting that wrong?
8:08 Speaker 01 You are not wrong. I was one of very few women. Overall, I would say I, it was a mix. Like I felt accepted by some people and there was definitely a few fellows who told me like, oh, you only got the fellowship because you were a woman. You only got this internship because you were a woman. They probably gave you easier questions, et cetera. And that was extremely frustrating.
8:27 Emma Grede? Yeah.
8:27 Speaker 01 I was just like, I'm not, you went to a worse college for computer science. I thought you didn't go to the number one CS school in the country.
8:34 Emma Grede? Did it, did it ever get to you? Did you ever let that like
8:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:38 Emma Grede? Pierce your, you know, your mind? Did you ever think, ah, maybe it is because I'm a girl, but I'm here?
8:43 Speaker 01 I never let it pierce me and I think this is because, like I said, I did go to like the best. I I think I'm biased. I do think that like CMU, probably like CMU, MIT, Berkeley are like just tied for third in computer science. I think it just frustrated me because I understood very early on that I would need to fight harder to get the same treatment as my peers.
9:04 Emma Grede? Absolutely. Yeah. And here we are.
9:06 Speaker 01 And here we are.
9:07 Emma Grede? And here we are. Yeah, we could say so many things to them, but I'll be polite for the start of this conversation. So I heard that you've had like a tough time with your parents or you had a tough time when you initially said that you wanted to go and become an entrepreneur. And I think that you didn't speak for a while. Can you tell me about that?
9:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think that they immigrated from China to give their kids a better future, right? So they really gave up everything. They gave up their family. They entered a new country, had no friends. And for me to drop out of college was a sign of disrespect. It was kind of just saying like, I don't care about the sacrifices that you made to give me a better life. So they were obviously extremely upset and they just didn't talk to me for a while. They're like, okay, fine. You think you make it like you're on your own. Like you get your own health insurance. You get your own phone. You get like X, Y, and Z on your own. And I was like, well, like crap. But it actually turns out that like for a time period, my dad was sending me a bunch of emails that all look the same, just going like, why would you do this? Like, you're not thinking, like, make smarter decisions. Um, don't be dumb.
10:04 Speaker 01 And they just all look the same. So I had like, I don't know, a hundred emails in my spam inbox.
10:09 Emma Grede? Oh, no.
10:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:12 Emma Grede? So maybe he was trying to communicate with you in his own loving way.
10:16 Speaker 01 Exactly.
10:17 Emma Grede? No, I understand that. So talk me through how you started your first business, because you're obviously like a bit of a wonder kid. You have this like thing happening. You win the fellowship. And how do you even start to think about starting your first company?
10:30 Speaker 01 I mean, it was kind of expected after the winning the fellowship, right? So the first company was a complete failure, but it actually came out of a hackathon idea where at a hackathon, we built this app called Nomit, which was essentially like DoorDash before DoorDash existed. I looked it up and we actually created this app before DoorDash was founded. So that was kind of cool to see. It was essentially like. Two sided like marketplace where you know restaurants like you could order from restaurants and order a food item and then it would get delivered to you by a courier. So that's the idea of it. By the time the fellowship had started, I believe DoorDash may have existed or Uber Eats or something similar. So I was like, okay, how do we make this unique, right? Wow. The idea was that people would be able to cook and then sell the food they cook to other people.
11:15 Speaker 01 Started off at college campuses, so went straight to Carnegie Mellon because it's just high density, right? Like a kid could deliver like a hundred meals in an hour if they wanted to because you just go door to door. It did pretty well. We had people making a hundred dollars an hour, like selling and like food to students. And you were just a student at this point? Uh, no, I had dropped out. I was already a T F. Okay, so you'd already dropped out. And then what happened with that business? Oh, it was never a business. It was just a hackathon project. Okay, it was just a pro- okay, so it was just a project? The business was where we did a little twist where people were cooking themselves and selling it to people. I see. And what happened with that company? Yeah, so it turns out there's just a lot of legal issues with that from like, you know, food poisoning.
11:58 Speaker 01 So the way to legally this was to have a centralized kitchen, but then that defeated the point of being able to cook in your own kitchen. The laws were changed. I'm not exactly sure what the exact laws are nowadays, but over COVID, they changed the laws so you could make money cooking in your own house for like a certain amount of people. And what role were you playing? Like at this point, when you're starting to think about new ideas, like you're the coder, you're the tech person, like what are you doing? Uh, I would say I did some of the coding and all the design. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, so interesting. And is that kind of where you felt most comfortable? Or it's just like what you knew at the time? I would say it's where I felt most comfortable because I always think that the best co-founder pairs are
12:39 Speaker 01 an engineer and a designer. And then I would always make sure to pair myself up with an engineer that was better than me. And then I would just take on the role of doing some of the easier engineering work. And then I'm doing all the product design work. Got it. So how did you know that that company was ultimately going to fail? Well, when we realized that people were going to get food poisoning slash someone told us, you know what you're doing is illegal.
13:00 Emma Grede? You were like, hmm, okay.
13:01 Speaker 01 I did some research and I was like, oh yeah, like this is actually legal. And then I think someone afterwards popped up and did the same thing and it got shut down because it just like, they thought that they could be like Uber, you know? And just ask for free to miss later and it just didn't happen.
13:16 Emma Grede? Did it feel like a failure? Like, how did you take that first failure?
13:20 Speaker 01 I didn't really take it too hard. I was like, okay, cool. Like this didn't work out. Let me like do some more learning because I felt like I could still learn a lot more about just like how to create products and launch products and actually like see larger results. So I decided to go work at a company and I think like afterwards I went to Quora and Snap where I believe I learned a lot there.
13:41 Emma Grede? So you took like a more traditional job?
13:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:43 Emma Grede? How long did you work in those places?
13:45 Speaker 01 I wanna say a total of maybe a year and a half. Yeah. And then I was got the itch to build something again, so.
13:51 Emma Grede? It's so interesting that you took that year and a half. Were you, were you plotting and planning for your next startup? Or was it really for you about, you know, A, did you need the money? Like, did you need to, did you feel like you needed to like land somewhere and learn something? Like, what was the impetus to go, to go into a more traditional job?
14:10 Speaker 01 I would say it was to, like, I knew I wanted to build another startup eventually, but I felt like I could do more learning, especially because I felt like I went into the first one without a lot of knowledge, right? Like, all I had was school and then I had these hackathons, but I didn't really like actually work on a product before or like a startup product. I guess I like technically worked on products, but I was like, okay, like I wanna join like a proper startup that's fast growing and see what it looks like. So that's when I decided, okay, like, let's learn a little bit more before I build my next company.
14:42 Emma Grede? Were they good experiences?
14:44 Speaker 01 They were great experiences. Yeah. I think I learned a lot, especially because like Quora and Snap are so different culturally that I took parts I liked about both of those cultures and then put it into my own companies.
14:53 Emma Grede? I love that. All right. So talk to me. First real company, what happens?
14:57 Speaker 01 First real company. Oh, man, it's a journey. Like, it actually happened entirely by accident. We went through two pivots before we landed on Scale AI. We were building ClassPass for clubbing, terrible idea.
15:09 Emma Grede? Class pass for clubbing. That feels very you, if I know anything about you.
15:14 Speaker 01 Oh, my God. I was just like, in my head, I was in L.A. I was, you know, working at Snap. So I was a cool kid.
15:21 Emma Grede? Needing to get into all the clubs.
15:22 Speaker 01 I was more than just fascinated by club culture, where I was like, wow, okay, like, these promoters are just bringing girls into clubs for free, but there's a giant line outside. What if we could get a guy, guys and girls to pay memberships and then we just connect them to these promoters that already are getting paid and bringing people in.
15:41 Emma Grede? Sounds like a good idea today.
15:42 Speaker 01 Terrible idea. Anyhow, long story short, I mean, I think the core problem really is, I mean, outside of the fact there's not enough money in the industry, like even the largest clubbing apps just don't make that much money. The people that like really want to go to a club that badly already know the promoters.
15:59 Emma Grede? Totally.
16:00 Speaker 01 Like, it's not that hard to find them.
16:02 Emma Grede? It's so true. They'll figure it out.
16:03 Speaker 01 Exactly. And promoters find them because they make money from bringing people into the club.
16:07 Emma Grede? Amazing. But why do you say it was a pivot? Because you took the same, you took the same business and just like reshuffled it?
16:13 Speaker 01 No, we were just like, we need to work on something else. So I was like, let's work.
16:16 Emma Grede? But same team?
16:17 Speaker 01 Same team, yes. And then I ended up building a healthcare app called Ava. An idea was like, we would find you the best doctor for specific medical procedures you needed. So let's say you needed a root canal, a jaw surgery, et cetera. We would find you like the best doctor for that. Also a bad idea because young people generally don't have medical problems, so they're not going to need to use this app. Older people don't know how to use technology and there's going to be a retention issue because when you need these things done, like they're very like one and done, right? It's not recurring and no one's going to be using an app for something that's not recurring. Like what might have been better is like Botox, but that wasn't a thing back in the day.
16:53 Emma Grede? Now that could have worked. But that's really interesting to me because you're kind of like rinsing through like, okay, here are the things that didn't work and these are the reasons. But how long did it take you to actually discover and to make those pivots? Like, were you in these?
17:04 Speaker 01 Like a week, one to two weeks, yeah.
17:06 Emma Grede? Wow.
17:06 Speaker 01 I'm very quick with that, where I think that like when you launch an MVP and there's just no traction, you just pivot. Like, there's no demand in market.
17:13 Emma Grede? Amazing. So there's no ego there, nothing of like you being like, I'm going to make this work. Because these are not ideas that you're particularly passionate about. You, it was like a means to an end.
17:23 Speaker 01 Yep, exactly.
17:24 Emma Grede? Okay.
17:24 Speaker 01 So then afterwards, okay, like we wish there were something where if you click the button to book an appointment, someone would call doctors for us. And we're living with our Y C roommates and then Panash, who's one of our Y C roommates is like, oh, you mean like an API for humans. And at this point, I had already built a lot of viral apps and on Product Hunt. And I realized that that was extremely controversial because you're dehumanizing humans by saying like, oh, like we'll just make them into an API. So in my head, I was like,
17:52 Emma Grede? So, okay, you're gonna have to explain to me, what is an API?
17:54 Speaker 01 So the way an API works is you can like send in a request and then you get like a callback back. What's an example? So like for scale specifically, someone can send a request in like label this image and label all the cars on this image. And then we would send back the image that's labeled.
18:10 Emma Grede? But immediately that triggers to you, you're like, okay, that's not necessarily such a great thing.
18:15 Speaker 01 I mean, I think that immediately it sounds dehumanizing to me because it's like, oh, we're just going to like code humans essentially. And I thought that that was a controversial tagline and I was like, I think it will go viral. Let's build out the landing page and let's build out an M V P. So we built out this like super rudimentary M V P API, where essentially I was sending over the callbacks manually. So whenever we got an API request, I would get a Twilio call, which is also another API that's like, hey, like wake up and like do this task. And then I would literally just like send it back myself.
18:48 Speaker 01 So that was funny. And then, you know, just that picked up the tension of investors because I was right. It did hit the top of Product Hunt, which is this list of like new products that are launched per day. At that point in time, it was very popular, like V C's were perusing the site daily, trying to find new companies to invest in. So when I hit the top of Product Hunt, we had like every single V C reach out. And at the same time, we were, you know, like mass emailing every single Y C company like, oh, we have this API for humans. Is there anything you would want a human to do for you? And the crew ends up being one of our first customers and that's kind of how like scale blows up.
19:21 Emma Grede? So talk to me about the beginning of scale. This is you and a couple of partners at the time.
19:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. So it started off with me and Alex Wang.
19:28 Emma Grede? Yep.
19:29 Speaker 01 And then immediately after we like got our term sheet, I call up two friends from college, Kevin and Zishwan. And they just were like, yeah, like, we'd be down to work with you. Um, Zee was my CS little from college and then Kevin was my roommate, but also my TA. So I knew they were like very good because I had like known them.
19:47 Emma Grede? Yeah.
19:47 Speaker 01 For a long time and like they were the top students at our college. So they come on and join and then I also call up another teal fellow, actually. His name's Jared. Um, I actually invested in his company. He's great. Yeah, he was down too. So that was just like all of us working.
20:00 Emma Grede? That's so crazy. All right. So you've already got a term sheet. So you'd raised a little bit of money right from the beginning.
20:06 Speaker 01 Oh, so I guess like we had Y C money and then we accepted a hundred thousand dollars of angel money. And then we got a term sheet for a series A, like right at the very beginning.
20:15 Emma Grede? So talk, okay. This is the bit that's like crazy because I feel like for the large majority of us, we've all been talking about A I for like not that long. But when you talk about founding scale, this is like, how long ago?
20:28 Speaker 01 Um, this was in 2016.
20:30 Emma Grede? 2016. So let me just think about me in 2016. I am like just starting Good American, thinking about like denim with, you know, reinforced belt loops. And you're out here already starting an A I company. I just want to contextualize it for people because I just don't know that that was, it certainly wasn't the conversation outside of the Bay area then. Like that, it was like the preserve of very, very few and a very small community. But you were in it, like you were right there at the beginning.
21:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, honestly, a lot of people, like, there's a lot of stories out there. I think it was entirely luck there because what had happened was we were going to take over the B P O industry. And we're like, okay, we're going to take over mechanical Turk. We thought we were going to dominate like phone calls where we're like, okay, companies spend tons of money on phone calls. We're going to be better at it. And then we realized very quickly that it's hard to quality control with phone calls. And when Cruise comes along with the self-driving car market. We we realized we have structured data and someone outside of us actually points out and they're like, oh, you have structured data. You can actually use AI on this to reduce the amount of humans eventually. And then it like clicks and they're like, oh, my God, we have structured data. We should pivot into an AI company. So that's what it goes from like
21:45 Speaker 01 scale A API to scale AI.
21:48 Emma Grede? Oh, my goodness. Did you know that you were on to something pretty big?
21:51 Speaker 01 I would say with the amount of money being poured in and the yeah, I would I would say yes. I would also though say that like we were actually really worried like during fundraising, we're like, oh, we can't put like a real market cap here because mechanical Turk wasn't actually that large of a market from the research we had done. So we're like, oh, if we put that like mechanical Turks market cap is only like one B, no one's going to invest. So we just completely ignored the market cap. Yeah, question. And everyone just assumed it was a large market cap. It was wonderful. Because like, I guess like so in the very beginning, we didn't really know how big it could be because yeah, like we we literally couldn't find a market.
22:27 Emma Grede? Did that faze you at all? Like that on the the the level of like unknown that was there? Were you like, oh, my goodness, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never raised money before. Like, because it feels like everything happened to you like, super quickly. Like one minute you're in a hackathon, the next minute you're like trying to figure out a valuation for a company that's like north of a billion. Like, where does the where I'm trying to understand, like, as Lucy, this girl that is doing these things, and you're one of very, very few women, like, where does that come from in you that you felt, yes, I can do this. I'm going to go out and raise this money and everything's fine?
23:01 Speaker 01 I think that entrepreneurs are all a little crazy because you have to be a little crazy to decide I can build a multi-billion dollar company. So I'm going to take VC money and just do it. I think I just believed in us. And I was so surrounded by people that had done it before that it wasn't like an impossible thing. For me, everyone I was surrounded by had done it. So it was just like, well, they can do it. Why can't I?
23:25 Emma Grede? Yeah.
23:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:26 Emma Grede? No, it's so it's it's really interesting because I think there is something about that magical community.
23:31 Speaker 01 Exactly.
23:31 Emma Grede? You know, being an outsider, you feel that. Like, you feel it in California. You feel it like the minute you get to San Francisco and it doesn't matter which. Table you're at, like who you're meeting, like what it is, it's like there is somebody there that's done something extraordinary, probably at a very, very young age. And so I guess it just gives you the the feeling that you can.
23:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think they say that you're like, you know, the average of the five people you're hanging around with most. And when those five people have all started unicorn companies, like it almost feels like you're failing because you're not doing it.
24:01 Emma Grede? Exactly. You're like, where's my? Million dollar company. Oh, I just find it like unbelievable. So you never underestimated yourself.
24:09 Speaker 01 No, I never did. I mean, like, I would say I was always frustrated because I felt like I was being underestimated, being a woman. But I never really underestimated myself.
24:19 Emma Grede? What were your experiences in those early days that made you feel underestimated?
24:23 Speaker 01 Oh, man, I mean, everything like by the time I had made it to scale, I was actually very confident. But I would say like from the T O fellowship, everyone's saying all this stuff. I had some guy spreading a rumor how I slept with like every employee at Facebook. And I was just like, like, I hadn't only kissed a person at this point in time. So I was just like.
24:43 Emma Grede? You're like, not me.
24:44 Speaker 01 I was like, what is going on? And then at this point in time, like I was so closeted, but like rumors of my bisexuality. Cause I was like seeing a girl during that period of time. It was like circling around the Bay Area and like some people were just like, dude, she's she's gay. Like, what are you talking about?
24:59 Emma Grede? What are you talking about?
25:00 Speaker 01 It was like frustrating because we were like trying to make stuff up.
25:04 Emma Grede? So talk me through a little bit of that journey. So Scale AI, you started, you raised this like money. How much did you raise out the gate?
25:10 Speaker 01 Um, we raised four point five for a series A.
25:13 Emma Grede? Four point five million for your series A. And at this point, there's just like a real handful of you.
25:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:19 Emma Grede? Do you remember that time, that early time at Scale AI? Well, tell me what that that first year looks like for you guys.
25:26 Speaker 01 I would say the first year was very do things that don't scale. So for example, um, with every single pilot that we were doing, we were labeling the data ourselves, which was absolutely wild. I would get really insulted when people come back and be like, oh, the data was like bad quality. So we're not going to use it, guys. And I'm like. I label the data. I know the data is right because it was like categorizing things. It's like, okay, cool. Like, here is an image of Obama. Is this political? Is this like a meme? Is this what? And like, obviously, like, you know, I was checking the right boxes because it was
25:56 Emma Grede? That was your job. That's what you did to do.
25:59 Speaker 01 And that was how we were winning contracts because they like, you know, they want to make sure the quality of the data is good enough before they like, trust you with the rest of their data. It was very, very manual. Do things that don't scale. I remember I was sleeping in the office. I was, you know, building up the scaler team. So the team in the Philippines that was labeling things and just training them and like, being online 24/7 because they were working completely different hours sometimes as well. And I would just be in the office till like late where I was like, I don't really feel like going home. Like, I just am going to
26:27 Emma Grede? I'll just stay here.
26:28 Speaker 01 Exactly.
26:29 Emma Grede? What motivated you at that point? Did you have a point to prove?
26:34 Speaker 01 In general, I don't like losing people money. Um, if I take something from someone, I want to like give back 10x, right? So at that point in time, I was just like, okay, like I, I would say, yes, I had to prove to my parents. I wanted to prove my parents wrong and that like I could build a company. And I had taken money from people. And when you take money from people, it's just like, you got to, you got to win.
26:53 Emma Grede? You got to win. You don't, you don't even have a choice.
26:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:56 Emma Grede? So talk to me about when it starts to go a little bit sideways because obviously you were kind of sidelined out of this company that you essentially co-founded. I'd love to understand like what happened and how you got pushed out.
27:08 Speaker 01 I'll say what I can like legally say, I guess.
27:09 Emma Grede? Thank you. Thank you, my love.
27:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. So the tension started arising, I would say, when we like started having like very large differences in the roadmap. I really wanted to focus on the scaler side of things because I was the one, you know, interacting with the people in the Philippines daily. And I kind of grew close to them, like they had a, like, they have a special place in my part. And they were just like, like, there's not enough tasks for us to do. Like, we need to make a living. We're not getting paid on time. Why are you undercounting our hours? Like, I worked four hours. Why is it only saying that we worked two hours? Um, stuff like that was happening and it was just not a priority to fix because the priority was sales where it was like, if a company was like, I want to label like, Let's say Lighter Data, right? Like, we would shift entire roadmap to building our lighter labeling tool.
27:55 Speaker 01 And this just kept happening where we would shift the roadmap constantly to win these contracts. And we weren't focused on making sure that scalers are getting paid on time, that they were getting paid the right amount, et cetera.
28:07 Emma Grede? And so you have a essentially like a difference of opinion on the way forward with your business partner?
28:13 Speaker 01 And then it just became like very, there was a lot of friction because we were constantly arguing where I was like, you're not getting enough contracts, so the scalers don't have enough work. And he's like, well, maybe you should make the scalers more efficient. And I'm like, well, it's really hard to keep them on and not want to take a full-time job when they only have like 10 minutes of work.
28:30 Emma Grede? Did you, did you ever realize, were you like, okay, this is, this situation is untenable? Like, something's got to give here?
28:37 Speaker 01 There was a time when I realized that, and that was when I had reached out to actually Jared, who I had mentioned earlier, who was an early employee or contractor at Scale slash my Thiel fellow friend slash actually my old co-founder, I'm not it.
28:48 Emma Grede? A lot of slashes in your life.
28:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, so Jared, I reached out to him and I was like, hey, like, actually, I want to leave. Like, I want to build a company with you. Let's just like figure out the timing of when I'm going to leave.
29:01 Emma Grede? I'm more interested in emotionally what it means because I think that we talk a lot about business success. And you have been unbelievably successful and there's so many great things to talk about. But just understanding how and what failure does to someone, right? Because it's very difficult to have a business with that much promise and essentially have to leave it. And so tell me more about like, not necessarily what happened, but how you felt and, and how did it transpire? Because you end up out of the, out of the company that you founded.
29:32 Speaker 01 I just kept on getting frustrated by the day. And every single day that I was there, I was looking more for, I was looking very optimistically. Like, I was very excited to start this company with this new person. So when it finally happened, quite literally the next day, I called him up and I'm like, okay, cool. Let's build the company together. And then he quits his job and I feel bad, I had to get him his job back. Cause I was like, I'm tired, I need to like go on a sabbatical.
29:56 Emma Grede? Yeah, you're like, I might need a break after this.
29:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, I did renegotiate, I helped them renegotiate. Like a higher offer on him when he like.
30:02 Emma Grede? And what about your own renegotiation? Were you worried? Were you covered? Were you like, okay, I'll be fine if I leave this company? Because obviously, scale is what has made you the youngest female South Bay billionaire.
30:13 Speaker 01 I always think about it as like, you know, like when you're an early angel investor, you literally just put in a check, you do nothing. And then the company blows up, you make a lot of money. Yay. I felt like, okay, like I invested my time and my resources into this company. I gave it everything that I could emotionally give it and diversification is great. That was literally my mentality. Where I was like.
30:34 Emma Grede? I mean, that's just like so emotionally mature. I would have wanted to murder someone like, well, just because like, understanding the how high is high, you're a huge part of like, you know what's happening in that space. You could see the runway. Was there no part of you that was like bitter?
30:51 Speaker 01 I think there's a specific someone who told my co-founder that I thought he should get fired. And I, I would think I was bitter about like who I thought told him that. Cause I was like, I thought there was like a certain level of trust. But I also did look back on my text messages and I had told someone like, hey, I'm going to tell this person how I feel. An employee had asked me to go to somebody and tell them.
31:15 Emma Grede? Yes.
31:16 Speaker 01 And then I was like, you know what? Like I will, but I think I'm going to like, it's going to get back. So I guess like deep down I did know. But like, I guess I still did it because I didn't really like, I wasn't sure. I was probably like 50 50. So when it did get back or it felt like it got back. I never like, you know, received confirmation. It was just like a series of events happened.
31:31 Emma Grede? Did you feel betrayed?
31:33 Speaker 01 Uh, I felt a little betrayed. Yeah. So I would say like the most I felt was like betrayal, but then at this point I was already so frustrated and I was like, okay, cool. Like I'm excited to like diversify and like work on something I'm passionate about.
31:44 Emma Grede? Good for you. I mean, it's pretty amazing. What do you think this experience taught you about? Power, about equity, about protecting yourself as a founder? Like, what did you learn?
31:54 Speaker 01 I think the main thing I learned is that like you really do need to find someone that you get along with in all aspects. And if not, it is better to be a solo founder. I truly believe that that like whole, oh, like solo founders do worse is not true. To find like an equal-ish partner, you can hire someone and just give them enough meaningful equity that they are basically your co-founder.
32:14 Emma Grede? Totally. No, I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. Do you think the situation would have gone down differently had you been a man?
32:19 Speaker 01 I'm actually not too sure, like potentially, yes, potentially, yes. But it was just, it was so much friction on just like difference and roadmaps. I think the situation would have been different if like I were CEO, he were CTO. Because at the end of the day, even if you are a 50 50 partners, the CEO does command the respect of like your board. And I have learned this as an investor where I'm like, okay, if like, I could love the co-founder, like I could love the COO, CTO. But if the CEO wants them out, like I will support the CEO.
32:50 Emma Grede? Yes, that's it. That's just how, that's how it breaks down.
32:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:53 Emma Grede? What do you think that you learned that you would want other female founders or other founders just more generally to know, given your experience?
33:02 Speaker 01 I would say like, just be very, very careful on like who you start a company with. They could be like so brilliant, but if there's not that trust factor there, and I think trust is built through working with someone previously. Along with just like years of time where you get to know, like, are you guys going to get along and be able to talk through arguments? Or will you guys just argue all the time and there's no solution? And then I would say just speak up more, like stand your ground. I think that a lot of female founders can be timid sometimes, right? I definitely was timid during like my roles, at least at companies where like I would speak up. But like when I'm speaking up and like eight dudes are like, get back down. I actually do get, I did get back down and like I shouldn't have. I think it's easier said than done, though.
33:46 Emma Grede? It's so much easier said than done. It's, and I also think so much of that comes with age, wisdom, experience. It's like you're in like this incredibly mal dominated space where seemingly lots of people know more than you. And also like you're making it up as you go along. It's not that there was a big blueprint there for what you guys were doing. And so, I don't know, I feel like you can be forgiven for some missteps.
34:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:09 Emma Grede? But you know what's so impressive about you Lucy is what, what are you, 28?
34:13 Speaker 01 Oh, I'm 30 now.
34:14 Emma Grede? Oh, stop it. Wait a minute.
34:16 Speaker 01 I'm aging.
34:18 Emma Grede? She's aging. What are you, like 30? Okay, but I think what's so impressive about you that at 30 years old is that you keep getting back up. Like it's so. believable that you've had like you've had the career of a sixty five year old, you know, like in such a short space of time. So explain to me how passes works for those that don't know, because I know that so many creators are out there and people at different levels, like, is there a barrier to entry? Like, give us the, give us the full spiel. I want to know everything about passes. I want to know how you get in, how it works, like, who is it for? The full, give me everything.
34:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, definitely. I would say passes is for creators that either already have a fan base or think they can build up a fan base.
35:01 Emma Grede? Yeah. And does that, like, when you say a fan base, is that ten thousand followers? Is it a hundred thousand followers? Is there a barrier to entry?
35:07 Speaker 01 So we typically look for a hundred thousand followers across platforms. We do make exceptions. For example, like psychics. I think that psychics really generate a lot of business from word of mouth. So even if
35:17 Emma Grede? That's not the least that I did not expect you to say. I had to like, oh, like, so that's just a place that you're like, wait a minute, psychics are amazing.
35:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, I love psychics. That's like the funny thing. I'm so logical, but like I have
35:31 Emma Grede? And then she's like, but psychics.
35:34 Speaker 01 I'm in L A. I have a lot of friends are into this kind of stuff.
35:37 Emma Grede? I get it.
35:37 Speaker 01 Yes. So like, I think like, for example, with psychics, the barrier of entry, like, we would accept someone with like less followers, because as long as they bring in like three customers and those customers have a great time and, you know, we push traffic to their page, they're going to like have a snowball referrals. Like, there was one psychic we put on that quite literally can't get an appointment for two months now. Versus before, I would be able to call her up and she'd be able to like give me an appointment.
36:02 Emma Grede? Like, and how much money is somebody like that making?
36:04 Speaker 01 And she's making like a few thousand a month. Yeah. It's very cool to see.
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37:14 Speaker 03 Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher.
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38:06 Emma Grede? I want to understand like how the platform works. So let's just say I'm a creator. I have 180,000 followers on Instagram, and I want to monetize my following. I don't have a brand. I come to passes and then what happens?
38:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, so passes is focused on depth versus breadth. So you would just sign up for passes, apply to be a creator, we would approve you. And then we have all sorts of monetization features for you to make money off of. From live streaming to one-on-one calls. So for example, you could charge a hundred dollars a minute if you wanted to, to give advice on like how you build SKIMS. And then we have merchandise.
38:40 Emma Grede? Giving me ideas, girl.
38:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, we have merchandise, so you can create merchandise. You don't have to keep inventory and you can sell it, or you can keep inventory similar to Etsy and sell it on our platform. And we even have ticketing, so if you wanted to create like exclusive events for your fans.
38:53 Emma Grede? So you're basically creating almost like a back end infrastructure for a talent or a creator to have a whole business. They could create a tour, they could have the merchandise, they can sell tickets to whatever they want. So you could have a one-to-one phone call, like whatever it might be. You guys are essentially facilitating that and then what, taking a piece of whatever they make?
39:16 Speaker 01 Exactly, so we've built a suite of tools and we're continuing to add on to this toolbox to help you monetize your brand. And eventually we're going to be building in fintech tools to help you manage your money as well and like grow that money.
39:27 Emma Grede? And how are you doing it differently?
39:29 Speaker 01 I think how I'm doing it differently is taking a very tech angle and a 360 approach to it. I do think that in general, and this is what I've learned in scale, the best tech wins at the end of the day. I think tech-driven culture beats sales-driven culture.
39:41 Emma Grede? Oh, I love that. You think a tech-driven culture beats a sales-driven culture?
39:45 Speaker 01 Especially when it comes to tech platforms, although I could use a pointer from you for the sales-driven culture part.
39:50 Emma Grede? You don't need anything from me, I'm investing in you. I mean, like straight away, someone was like, do you want to invest in Lucy from passes? I was like, sign me up. How much money will she let me put in? That was my only question, I was like, what does it take? Like, just get me closer to this girl.
40:04 Speaker 01 So like from day one, I was like, I need to hire the best engineers, right? So like my CTO is a competitive programmer, he's incredible, MIT dropout. All our engineers are really incredible, so that's great to see. And I think from a just like 360 angle, I had become friends with a lot of creators and I really do believe creators are like the new entrepreneurs. The interesting about them is from their brand, they don't have the typical customer acquisition costs that like. I would have that were like, I want to start a hair brand.
40:32 Emma Grede? Totally.
40:33 Speaker 01 It would just flop, right? And I'm sure you've seen some of that with your brand.
40:36 Emma Grede? So much.
40:37 Speaker 01 I was like, cool, like they could literally sell anything their fans from like content to live streams, so one on one calls or merchandise. I think there's an opportunity to like essentially create unicorn creators with passes. We've already created creators that are making millions of dollars a year.
40:51 Emma Grede? Wow. What was the insight for you that led to passes? Because I think everybody's been talking about the creator economy for so long and that there's going to be more and more creative billionaires. But what was it that for you was like, I have to do this?
41:03 Speaker 01 I think over COVID, a lot of things happened. I became friends with creators who were getting brand deals and I was telling them like, hey, you guys should be receiving some equity into these brands. Like, you know, take less cash, get equity. I was frustrated by the amount of managers that were telling them to take the cash and not the equity.
41:20 Emma Grede? I wonder why that happened.
41:21 Speaker 01 I know, I wonder why.
41:22 Emma Grede? I wonder if a manager can commission equity.
41:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly. They can't, they can't commission equity. So that was actually the original idea I was thinking about working on. But then I very quickly realized that creators won't listen to you until you make them money. So that was like, okay, how can we make creators money? I was looking at creator celebrities, like great brands. So you know Kylie Jenner with her lipstick, Kendall Jenner with eight one eight, Jake Paul with better, Logan Paul with prime.
41:46 Emma Grede? Yes.
41:47 Speaker 01 Et cetera. And I was looking at friends who are like, buy me a coffee, Patreon, et cetera. And I was like, these platforms don't have enough features for creators to monetize. And different creators monetize in different ways. Like some creators are going to monetize off of live streaming, which like Patreon doesn't even have. Others monetize off of phone calls, which is actually me, to be honest. Like I have people offering me a hundred dollars a minute to get advice on like fundraising, um, which I don't take because I like giving that stuff for free.
42:14 Emma Grede? But you could.
42:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I could.
42:15 Emma Grede? And you created the platform for it to happen.
42:17 Speaker 01 Yes. And then I did grow up like memberships I didn't think people would buy to like get, you know, like that included is like a 30 minute call with me. And people were doing it just to, I've actually made like tens of thousands of dollars off passes.
42:28 Emma Grede? But that's.
42:29 Speaker 01 Without like advertising it. Yeah.
42:30 Emma Grede? But that's absolutely unbelievable. And what is the average, like when you think about allowing all of these creators to monetize their following? Like, what is the average creators are making?
42:40 Speaker 01 I would say it's all over the place. We can't really talk about the average or the median. Our retention rate, I would say, is a hundred percent at like $5,000 a month or above.
42:49 Emma Grede? Wow.
42:49 Speaker 01 And we have more than a handful of millionaires.
42:52 Emma Grede? That's unbelievable, which must have been the aim at the beginning. You were like, okay, like, we need to make a bunch of these creators millionaires because that's what's going to attract more and more creators to the platform eventually.
43:03 Speaker 01 Exactly. Yeah, when those stories get out, it's interesting though, because I think our creators are very like privacy focused.
43:09 Emma Grede? Really?
43:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, because they like care about being relatable to their fans.
43:14 Emma Grede? Fair enough. Yes, of course.
43:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, like, these stories are there, but it's more so like we tell them and like they paid off their house. They're like paid off school, et cetera. It's just cool.
43:23 Emma Grede? No, which is like so cool. So when you started passes, did you go again to that route? You were like, okay, I'm going to raise VC money. This is going to be a huge thing. Like, how are you thinking about the business and the potential for passes?
43:35 Speaker 01 So when I was building passes, I was running a VC fund, actually. It was called Backing Capital and HF Zero. We were, I was essentially living with a bunch of founders and I realized that if I were to start another company, my LPs would be very angry at me unless I gave them some equity. So I not only gave equity to like the fund itself, so every LP gets a stake in passes, but I also allowed the LPs to invest. And very quickly, like just through text message, like didn't have a name, didn't have like a pitch deck, et cetera, ended up raising nine million dollars over a few days. So.
44:10 Emma Grede? By reputation alone?
44:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, by reputation alone. So then.
44:12 Emma Grede? Yeah, because it's not nothing. I mean, you say it like that, yeah, a couple of text messages, but you're the girl that's done so many things that it's your reputation, your ability to start stuff that's allowed you to be, okay, in a place where you can text, where you have the people that you can text and where they will write back to you and give you the money.
44:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was very quick. I was pleasantly surprised. Like, I hopped on like maybe two phone calls total.
44:34 Emma Grede? You make it sound so easy. I love that. And so what's, how's the company going now? Like, how long has it been and what does it look like?
44:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, so we launched in December 2022. I can't give exact numbers, but 2023 through 2024, we Forexed in growth and we're hoping to see some good growth this year. So, yeah.
44:52 Emma Grede? No doubt. You're happy. Here's, here's my estimation without numbers. I think if you're still there, it's going okay.
44:58 Speaker 01 It's going okay.
44:59 Emma Grede? That's what I think. If you haven't done a hop, skip and a jump, I feel it will be all right.
45:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:04 Emma Grede? I love that. It's so funny. All right. So I want to talk a little bit about like the recent news because I feel like what happened, you know, it's like sometimes you go on your feed and one piece of news just like dominates it. And that piece of news around you as the youngest female self-made billionaire, and I will say it, my aim is to say it 20 times in this podcast, I'll keep saying it for you because it's hard for you to say it yourself without sounding like a total jackass. But did you know that? Did you know that that news piece of news was coming? Were you expecting some big winfall?
45:35 Speaker 01 Okay, so I actually had no idea. It's very funny. I knew it was like happening, but I get a text message from a Forbes reporter who I talked to Fred like with, like, we literally text all the time about different things, like random stuff. So she just asked me, she's like, oh, so like technically at this share price, doesn't that make you a billionaire? And I was like, I literally don't realize it's a story. So I text back LMAO, but it's all on paper. And this was a quote she wanted to include on the article. And I was like, can I make it? I was like, can you make it sound a little bit professional? Like, at least replace LMAO with ha ha?
46:08 Emma Grede? Something. Give me some kind of credibility.
46:10 Speaker 01 I was like, I didn't know it was on the record.
46:12 Emma Grede? But isn't that part of you and part of your charm that you haven't, like, you know, you're still exactly who you are?
46:18 Speaker 01 That I'm not PR trained.
46:20 Emma Grede? Not PR trained. Though when I met you, I was like, I think you need a PR. I was like, would you like a PR and can I give you one, please?
46:28 Speaker 01 No, my, every reporter, every person I go on a podcast with, every journalist, they're like, you know what we love about you? And I'm like, what? And they're like, you're clearly not PR trained. So you're more authentic and you say things. And I'm like, I say things I'm not supposed to say. That's what you're saying.
46:42 Emma Grede? Basically. I would like to pretend it's that one. But you know, there's some, listen, I think that we're in a time where everything is so sanitized, right? Where we never feel like we're getting the truth. And there's something so refreshing and brilliant about you because your skill and your knowledge and how incredibly smart you are and everything that you've worked for is undeniable, right? No one can take that away from you. But I do think partly what's so fascinating about you is your openness. And I think that as a female founder, I don't know, I just feel like there's just so few people tell The truth and telling the truth about all the successes they've had and all of the failures that they've had. So I personally like love that you come and you tell your story and you do it in a really kind of like,
47:26 Emma Grede? you know, Lucy Goosey way, literally Lucy Goosey. Um, because that's helpful. That's what other people can learn from. And so I really appreciate you coming here and being so open because otherwise like we don't know, right? It's like you don't know what you haven't heard and what you haven't had exposure to. And so I think you're doing a massive service to a lot of other girls that would walk into a situation like the one that you had. So I'm gonna say no media training for Lucy.
47:53 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you.
47:54 Emma Grede? What do you think like creators are missing in monetization right now? When you think about the future of passes, like where's it going?
48:00 Speaker 01 I'm really excited about the fintech tools personally. I think they're missing everything when it comes to actually managing and growing their money. And I saw like something unique happen over the last few years, which is that creators were literally getting G P carry because they were able to get into deals where creators will just be like, oh yeah, like, well, like I'll tweet about your product or I'll be best friends with you. I'll invite you to cool parties, like literally anything. They could say anything. And the founders would be like, oh, that's amazing. Like, yes, you can invest. And I do remember this being even true for us. Like there was one celebrity I think we really wanted and we didn't get them. This was our scale. I don't think we got them, but like we were like, well, like, I guess if they're willing to like be friends with us, we'll let them.
48:40 Emma Grede? Or just let them in. Yeah.
48:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
48:42 Emma Grede? Totally.
48:42 Speaker 01 So I think there's like opportunity in terms of being like, you know, the next early investor in the next Uber, for example. And like where that generation of wealth can grow, because we've really created a lot of accredited investors. And they just like, the number one question I get asked is how do I turn my passes income and the passes equity? And how do I manage my money?
48:59 Emma Grede? That's the number one question.
49:01 Speaker 01 That's one of the number one questions.
49:01 Emma Grede? That's so interesting because that must be such a ship. You know, I started my career in like talent representation, doing commercial deals for talent. And it was never the question. It was always about the quickest check, like, you know, most amount of money for the least amount of work, quickest check. And that really changed in the kind of 10 to 15 years that I was in that business, like toward the end. People, you know, talent woke up to the fact that they could take equity and that would one day be worth something for them. But it's taken a really long time to trickle down from. A-list talent level to creators, but you're saying that's actually happening now. Creators are getting equity.
49:35 Speaker 01 So I think it's happening because either they're dating someone who's like very knowledgeable in the space, which we've seen and like we've seen them negotiate, like trying to go like, please, um, my boyfriend says that should be a good idea. And others that like see how much money they're making on passes, they're just like, I need a piece of this company. I think enough stories have happened where, you know, celebrities and influencers are making hundreds of millions, billions from owning a portion of a company that when they are personally seeing a company work for them, they really want to be a part of it. That's been really cool to see. And I think that like we can really help build that generational wealth there. Other than that, like I think there's some other interesting things we can do. For example, we have tons of data on how many super fans a creator actually has, whether they're in a like high value niche.
50:20 Speaker 01 So for example, golf and how much their fans are willing to spend per month. So you can imagine that like, you know, we have a golf creator that we know has like 10,000 fans wanting to spend $300 a month. There are like some pretty interesting things we can build out.
50:35 Emma Grede? Yeah. And I guess once you've got that information, you understand what the benchmark is for a golfer. You can then speak to other golfers and figure out how do you monetize their followings too.
50:43 Speaker 01 Yep, yep.
50:44 Emma Grede? What do people or what, what should creators be thinking about now? If somebody has a growing following and they're thinking, okay, this is less of a side hustle hobby for me. This could be my career. What is your recommendation to creators right now?
50:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think my recommendation is immediately just start creating more content. I think too many creators worry about their content being perfect versus just churning out as many pieces as possible. And I think from what we've seen at least, as long as you churn out as much as possible, like you will do well and you will continue to grow your following. Um, I think they should immediately.
51:15 Emma Grede? I'm getting really stressed out because my social girl's sitting over there and I'm like, but I don't look good in that thing. And she's like, just put it out. This doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Nobody's looking at you. And I'm like, but I don't know. So annoying that you just said that.
51:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think, like, we, we see this and there's just like a drastic change in earnings. One, they don't put out enough content, right? And it could be the shittiest content, but if they put out enough, they will make much more money. And I even see this with the creators on the breadth side where they're, you know, on Instagram reels, TikTok, et cetera. The ones they're posting every single day. Are the ones that are gaining new fans constantly and making money. Um, I think immediately after, like you should really figure out your niche and I would suggest them to go into niches where brands pay more.
51:57 Emma Grede? And is that so prescriptive as it used to be? Cause it used, you know, like, again, back in the day, it was like fashion and beauty and cosmetics and CPG. And then automotive, like it was like very, very prescribed. It feels like it's much broader than that to me now.
52:10 Speaker 01 I think it's, some of it is still very prescribed. It can be broad, but it's like a very select few influencers that are, I almost want to say are so like mini celebrities themselves, right? Like there's literally a group of like, what I would say are cool influencers that maybe have between like one to 10 million followers. And then there are influencers that have like maybe 20 to 30 million that aren't considered as cool. And I think a lot of it is like them getting to know you as a person versus them liking your content. When they get to know you as a person, they like start stalking you. They want to know everything in your life. They look at your Snapchat and like zoom in on the background, look at the mirror and they're like, oh my God, like so and so is with so and so. Versus when they just like you for your content, like you're not getting that. So you're not really getting that super fan treatment.
52:53 Speaker 01 And I would say like Taylor Swift is someone that's like a great example of someone that like really has super fans that like really care about her as a person. Versus there are a lot of other celebrities that, you know, have huge followings. I would honestly say like, and I apologize to like all my music friends, but uh, like DJs are a great example of like a group of artists. Where like everyone knows their music. They're like, you know, in the top 10 on Spotify, but no one cares if.
53:18 Emma Grede? What they have for breakfast.
53:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. Or like, no one cares like who they're getting dinner with. Like they're not getting paparazzi the same way.
53:24 Emma Grede? So, you're right about that. Cause they're making like a gajillion dollars. They're paying to like hundreds and thousands of fans, but then nobody's in trade. Like we don't care.
53:34 Speaker 01 Like you need to market your personality and like be super authentic because you be creating great content, but if they only like your content, but not like you as a person. You don't have that super fan base that is going to like buy anything that you release.
53:46 Emma Grede? Yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. When you think about what matters for influencers, like follower count, over engagements, like what metrics actually matter now? Cause I feel like it changes all the time.
53:57 Speaker 01 So I actually think the biggest metric is you see if they have a subreddit, or if there's like different online forums that have created threads of them. Because that's when you know that like you have a like dedicated fan base that's literally talking about you on Discord, Telegram, Reddit, etc., which shows super fandom and they're like stalking your every move and they're looking to see whether you actually like, like they care about your personality versus I would say likes and comments, like even comments, which is what everyone talks about. They like your content. Like I'll comment on something where like I like the content, but like I won't even know who the person is.
54:28 Emma Grede? Totally.
54:29 Speaker 01 This is the greatest content.
54:30 Emma Grede? Yeah, that's very interesting. So it's all about where else are people actually talking about you?
54:35 Speaker 01 Yes.
54:36 Emma Grede? That is completely fascinating.
54:37 Speaker 01 Like you have fan pages because they're talking about you on fan pages.
54:41 Emma Grede? I mean, I do, but I'm sure I know some people that do.
54:43 Speaker 01 You definitely have fan pages.
54:45 Emma Grede? That's crazy.
54:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:46 Emma Grede? Wow, I never even thought about that before. What do you think smaller creators need to know? Like if you are someone, again, you have like a pretty small following aside from, okay, you've got a post with regularity. You have to be super authentic and let people in. Like what should, what should creators be doing if they actually want to create a business out of being a creator?
55:05 Speaker 01 I think if you want to create a business out of being a creator, well, first you really do have to get like some sort of following. Unless you throw ads, you could throw ads and release a good product and throw ads, but like being a creator isn't going to help you as much. I think collaborations are key. So you want to find creators that are like slightly the same following as you to start, because they're going to be the ones willing to collaborate. And then, you know, like you'll each benefit from that mutually. But then as you continue growing and following, you can start collaborating with larger and larger creators. And sometimes you'll get lucky and an extremely large creator would be willing to collaborate with you, even though you have a smaller following.
55:37 Emma Grede? Totally.
55:38 Speaker 01 And then that's when you start growing that base. And then as long as like while you're growing that base, you're showing them your like authentic, true self and you're being very personable. So they can get addicted to like you as a person and not just your content. You should be able to like start getting customer acquisition without any cost to it.
55:54 Emma Grede? Totally.
55:55 Speaker 01 Also, if you just become friends with a bunch of creators, like they'll post your product for free.
55:58 Emma Grede? That's what happens.
55:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
55:59 Emma Grede? That's what happens. I see, I mean, I see like that happen all the time and we've used that so many times in the business.
56:04 Speaker 01 Exactly.
56:04 Emma Grede? It just makes sense because most of these people are all friends together.
56:08 Speaker 01 And then I also think that, I mean, like. I don't want to say stalk someone, but I think that you can just DM people, say like, what's your address? I want to ship you a present. Don't ask them to post. And like, if they like the product, they're just going to post.
56:21 Emma Grede? Nine times out of 10, yes, they do it.
56:22 Speaker 01 Like, I get so much random stuff. And like, when I actually like the product, I'll post without them asking.
56:27 Emma Grede? Yeah, of course. From your perspective, like, what's changing? Because it feels to me like, what worked a year ago doesn't work anymore. What are the smartest creators doing right now?
56:37 Speaker 01 I would say the smartest creators right now, and I may be biased, are actually building their like, superfan communities. Some creators are actually starting their own Reddit threads and actually like, you know, posting on their Reddit threads as fans to get started. Yep. But like,
56:53 Emma Grede? Savage, I love that.
56:54 Speaker 01 If you think about it, like, let's say you have like a million followers, but you only have like a hundred real fans, right? But like, those hundred real fans go on to Reddit and try to find you, and they don't find you. So there's nowhere to talk about you with other fans. That's not a great situation. Versus if you plant that, you can really start growing that like, superfan base. And then like, people feel more normalized. It's like, okay, cool. Like, there must be something more interesting about this person. So I really do think the smartest creators, they are building that superfan community, and they are monetizing off of it. And the smartest creators are taking equity from brands, which I've said this before, but it's just such a huge loss. Like, if you believe in a product, it is worth taking less cash for equity. We had creators where like, we literally tried to give them free equity, and their managers were like, they didn't even
57:39 Speaker 01 change the cash value. They just like, told them not to take the equity. I'm like, so you're just taking less of it off.
57:45 Emma Grede? Back to those managers again. But you've said Parzis is about ownership. Are you doing what you wanted to do with that company? Like, have you created the platform that you intended to from the beginning?
57:54 Speaker 01 I believe so. And we're continuously building new tools for them to like, have even more ownership over their fans. We're very transparent when they like ask us for data. We like give them as much data as possible. We have like creator success managers that work with all creators above $5,000 a month or more. And it's like you're literally your personal guide that you can text all the time, but also give you reports like, oh, okay, cool. Like Monday at like 6pm is your best post time. Um, we're creating like AI tools to help them price their content so they can like optimize.
58:26 Emma Grede? That's one of the hardest things.
58:27 Speaker 01 Ah, oh, it's been like, like our initial model has already been two X in earnings, which is incredible.
58:32 Emma Grede? Wow. Well, that was always the thing, you know, it's like, I remember like when I used to do this for a living, but it was honestly like how much you were going to pay for somebody or you'd get a brand to pay for someone. It's as long as a piece of string. And often the first number that came out is like the deal would orientate itself around there. And you didn't know if you could get 10 times as much or if you completely, you know, overpriced it, you would never ever know that kind of stuff.
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1:00:00 Emma Grede? Where do you see passes fitting into the ecosystem three to five years from now? Because obviously, I feel like creators aren't going anywhere. The the kind of pie is only getting bigger and bigger. Where do you want to see passes specifically?
1:00:15 Speaker 01 I would say like three to five years from now. I almost think passes can act as like a creator's manager or agent. This goes back to AI. I like it's advancing at a very like fast speed, right? And I do think in the future, what we're going to be seeing is creators like both sell their likeness. And like, I think passes is going to be a really great platform for brands to be able to work with like an AI version of a passes creator. To like AI agents essentially like negotiating for creators. Which I think will be super interesting. And I don't think this is like necessarily going to like wipe out the manager business. But I think what it's going to do is that like, instead of working with like only 20 creators, managers now have the time to work with like a thousand creators. And then they can take a smaller percentage. So more money goes into the creator's pocket because they're working with so many more creators. I like that's like my ideal future.
1:01:00 Emma Grede? Clearly, not not the agency's ideal future. Are the more traditional, like the Hollywood agencies on to what you're doing? Like, are people sniffing around passes and trying to understand it a little bit more?
1:01:11 Speaker 01 I mean, we work with agencies. I think that like we coexist very peacefully. I think that like agencies are actually going to really enjoy when AI agents help them negotiate. Because theoretically, like if you can work with a thousand creators, even if you're taking a smaller percentage, you're making more money.
1:01:27 Emma Grede? A thousand creators, yeah.
1:01:28 Speaker 01 Exactly, you're making more money. And I think that like creators are going to like, right now, I think there is a fear of AI from creators because they're like, oh, they're going to steal our data. They're going to replace us like we're going to no longer be needed.
1:01:36 Emma Grede? There's a fear of AI from the creators, the non-creators, from all of us.
1:01:39 Speaker 01 All of us, yeah.
1:01:39 Emma Grede? Hopefully, you're going to make us feel much less fearful when I ask you all my AI questions. But when you look at the creator landscape, like who do you think is killing it? When you, if you were saying like, this is like the best in class creator, like who who are those people?
1:01:54 Speaker 01 Like creators themselves? Oh, I mean, like, I definitely think Alex Earl is crushing it.
1:01:59 Emma Grede? Yeah, crushing.
1:01:59 Speaker 01 And the reason being that, like, I think she, like, is betting on herself. So, for example, with Sip Margs, I got that, like, um, I got the deal flow. And when I looked at it, I was like, she is going to crush it. Um, she owns a lot of equity in Sip Margs. So, good job, Alex Earl, for taking the equity.
1:02:15 Emma Grede? Good for her. She listens.
1:02:17 Speaker 01 Exactly. And I heard that, like, she's crushing sales, right? So, um, that's amazing. I think eventually she will, like, actually build her own brand.
1:02:23 Emma Grede? I mean, she, yeah, and she should build her own brand. I mean, she did something for my husband's company, Frame, and she just crushes. I mean, there is no limit to what that girl can sell and how many eyeballs she can bring into anything.
1:02:35 Speaker 01 Yep, exactly. And, like, a lot of it is because she was, like, you know, authentic on the internet. She wasn't able to, like, she was able to show the good and the bad. And people started becoming obsessed with her as a person, not her content, which is what makes creators unique.
1:02:48 Emma Grede? Yes.
1:02:48 Speaker 01 I think that the Paul brothers, like, they're very controversial, but, like, they have crushed it there. I do kind of credit myself for Jake Paul, though, I'm not gonna lie.
1:02:57 Emma Grede? You do? Give me more of that story. How are you taking credit for Jake Paul?
1:03:01 Speaker 01 I helped host the party where Jeff and Jake Paul met, uh, and Jeff is his venture partner, and Jeff is the one, you know, that, like, essentially, it helped Jake build W and with Better, like, that's my friend Joey Lovey's company, and I think that, like, that happened because of, like, that whole trio.
1:03:18 Emma Grede? I'll give it to you. I'm fully, yeah.
1:03:20 Speaker 01 I think a little bit of credit there.
1:03:21 Emma Grede? You are fully responsible for Jake.
1:03:23 Speaker 01 I'll take a little bit of credit there. But, like, he's done a really good job of taking his brand and, like, uh, so many venture studios now are, like, trying to find creators like Jake to work with, where they're like, be the face and we'll give you 50%, right? And that actually works out really well because then they have way less marketing spend that they need to do. Uh, and especially if it's a good product, like, obviously you can't release a bad product because people will just shit on the creator and then it'll flop.
1:03:45 Emma Grede? Totally.
1:03:46 Speaker 01 If it's a good product, like, people are gonna continue to buy it.
1:03:48 Emma Grede? Yeah, and there's so many great products out there. So, what do you see as red flags in the creator economy right now? Like, what are people not talking about enough?
1:03:58 Speaker 01 I think people are not talking about the fact that like your following can be like ripped away from you at any time. Like there was that whole TikTok scare.
1:04:05 Emma Grede? Yeah, like you don't own your following.
1:04:06 Speaker 01 You don't own your following. Uh, I think with TikTok, people like really started freaking out. Um, we're like, oh crap, what is going to happen? But also on top of that, like even if, let's say you didn't have to worry about that. If you're just relying on brand deals, like I've had creators tell us that it is like the most inconsistent income they have.
1:04:24 Emma Grede? No doubt.
1:04:25 Speaker 01 You can literally like, let's say you had consistent brand deals, like you knew you were getting 10 brand deals a month. I've had creators that told me that like they had to take a fast food job because the brands didn't pay on time. Like they're like 12 months late, et cetera. And this doesn't only exist in the creator industry. It exists in like the modeling industry, for example.
1:04:40 Emma Grede? Of course.
1:04:40 Speaker 01 But it's just like very unfair, I'd say.
1:04:44 Emma Grede? Yeah. And there's still an element of it that's like a bit Wild Wild West, right? Cause there's so much smoke and mirrors. There's no like, I mean, a lot of the big traditional Hollywood agencies, the WMEs, the CAAs, the UTAs have got creator divisions, but they're not as established as the, you know, like the motion picture divisions or whatever. So there is just so much murkiness there still.
1:05:03 Speaker 01 And then also on that note, I have a lot of people that hate me after this one, but I just don't sign 360 deals. Like I've seen so many creators sign these like crazy 360 deals where the manager is taking 20 to 30% of everything they do. It's like if they decide they want to like start a brand, like let's say they're like, I'm going to start a marijuana brand. I don't know, just saying. And it blows up and the manager had nothing to do with it. They're still taking the 20, 30%.
1:05:30 Emma Grede? That's just like unbelievable naivety. But again, that comes because who do you have, right? If you're a girl and you live in the middle of the country and you start, you know, kicking off and you have half a million followers, like who's advising you? And then an agency sweeps in and you're like, well, this feels good. You know, they're offering X, Y and Z. So don't sign 360 deals. I love that as a piece of advice.
1:05:48 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then also I've seen so many managers literally steal people's money. So I have to say be careful about that too.
1:05:56 Emma Grede? Well, that's why you're building all of these like tools, right? I mean, that's what you're doing at Pasi. It's like, you're actually essentially going to allow creators to own any monetization that they have, to have visibility on it, to take control of it and to maximize it.
1:06:09 Speaker 01 Exactly. Full transparency.
1:06:11 Emma Grede? Full transparency, pretty amazing.
1:06:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:13 Emma Grede? Really amazing. All right, now here's what I want to understand.
1:06:16 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:06:16 Emma Grede? Because you are the AI lady, which is how I go around. I'm like the AI lady, like you know that billionaire AI lady girl. I want to talk most, I want to talk about AI. I want to understand if you, I mean, first of all, there are so few women in AI, like, why is that? And do you think that, like, you know, the, I guess, the first kind of tech revolution, that women are going to be left behind? Because when I, just as an example, when I go around my office and I ask people like, what AI tools are you using? What apps did you download? Like, you know, it's like I'm trying to gobble up the information. I am speaking ninety percent to the guys, right? It's just like not the preserve of the girls.
1:06:59 Emma Grede? Why do you think that is? And are you concerned about it at all?
1:07:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I mean, I think it all comes down to education and culture. So at least when I grew up, um, I was told that like women would not be engineers essentially, um, which is very interesting. So I grew up in Bay Area, right? But when you have that and then when you have a lack of female founders because of that, then generally investors, like you become an investor after you cash out from your company, for example. Or like even if you fail at your company, venture funds love hiring failed founders as well. They typically like successful founders more. But, um, like I have seen failed founders like get hired at venture funds. But when there's a lack of female investors, you have a lack of everything else. And I think the core problem comes down to like traditionally, there has been a lack of female investors
1:07:45 Speaker 01 because there have been a lack of women that study computer science. There's been a lack of like female founders. There's been a lack of, it's just like, it's a cycle. I'm more optimistic for the future because, um, like when I went to go volunteer at a hackathon, I think it was an Apple store or something. It was like fifty percent.
1:08:02 Emma Grede? Now you volunteer at the hackathons?
1:08:03 Speaker 01 Um, yeah, I, I like, yeah, yeah. It'll be like fifty percent women. And I'm like, and they're kids.
1:08:09 Emma Grede? Amazing. That's so cool.
1:08:10 Speaker 01 And they'll be like, you know, ten year old kids. And I'm like, it, like, it makes me more optimistic for the future. And I'm also more optimistic for the future because, um, there's now a push for more female investors.
1:08:19 Emma Grede? I mean, such a push.
1:08:20 Speaker 01 Exactly. Especially as the data shows that like female founders actually do better.
1:08:24 Emma Grede? They do better.
1:08:25 Speaker 01 And I just.
1:08:25 Emma Grede? Their their results are better.
1:08:27 Speaker 01 Their results are better. And I think their results are better because there's a higher bar for women to clear. And I always say that like, if you take two kids from MIT, one's a male, one's a female, the male's gonna get the funding. But if you take like two VP of Engineering from like OpenAI, the female's gonna get the funding. Now that like, there's a push.
1:08:43 Emma Grede? That's fascinating, by the way. Yeah.
1:08:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, but you can think about it like, I think that's true. Yeah. Totally. Everyone wants diversity, but everyone's like, yeah.
1:08:49 Emma Grede? We do. And and listen, you know, it's so funny. I had Carly Kloss on this podcast and she has done this incredible initiative Code with Crossy for years and years. And you know, I know Carly through fashion and it's always been around. I I don't think I'd understood the full extent of what she's doing. She's put twenty thousand women through courses and introduced them to coding and is introducing them to AI. And I'm like, that to me just feels like such a good way of like spending your money, such a good use of resources. What is your advice to women at, you know, the start of their career or women just coming out of school? What would you say to anyone that wants a career in this kind of space right now?
1:09:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, honestly, if I were to give like a very, very practical advice, it's build up your resume. I think that you will have a higher bar to clear and unfortunately, that is just how society works. But have comfort in knowing that once you clear that high bar, you will actually be more desired. Because every single person wants to invest in the female founder. They just look down on women a little bit more, like they just assume you're worse when you don't have that resume built up. But then when you like show proof, they can't deny that you're good. And then they'll be like, okay, cool. Like, this person is obviously clearly talented. I want to invest in women, so let me invest in them. Versus there's gonna be more doubt when you're newer. And then if I were.
1:10:08 Emma Grede? That is, by the way, fantastic advice because I think it's absolutely true.
1:10:11 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:10:12 Emma Grede? It's absolutely true.
1:10:13 Speaker 01 Definitely. And then from like a very tactical standpoint, at least if you're in tech, what I would personally do is go work, get at least one large company name on your resume. It doesn't have to be a public company, but like Stripe, right? Like Stripe is huge. It's large. It's well respected. And then go to a startup. See the startup for like one to two years. Ideally, choose like a series A startup where you've de-risked it, the like upside is still very high. And there's probably enough engineers that they've built a reputation amongst the culture of the company and then go off and do your own thing.
1:10:45 Emma Grede? First of all, that is like such tremendous advice. So you're like, go to a really big company, not necessarily a public company, but like a really big one. Get that year on your resume. Then go to a startup, post series A, so that there's a little bit of, you know, foundation there. Do a couple of years there. Then, number three, go off on your own.
1:11:02 Speaker 01 Yep. And then to choose a series A company, you should just email every single VC out there and just be like, hey, I'm looking for a job. What are your best portfolio companies that are series A? And like, VCs want to funnel their resources into the best companies. So they're only going to be telling you like who they think are going to be like the series B contenders.
1:11:18 Emma Grede? Very smart.
1:11:19 Speaker 01 So then you risk it even more. You're pretty much guaranteed some like liquidity.
1:11:24 Emma Grede? No, you're, but you're, but you're absolutely right about that. I mean, I was looking at the stats and some of them are really quite scary, right? Twenty nine percent of AI professionals are women. One in five global AI leadership roles are held by women. Just two percent of venture capital funding went to women. I mean, it goes on and on and on and on. But what you're actually saying is, once you've got the experience as a woman, so once you've done the work, once you've got a little bit of a proven track record, you're actually in a better situation than a man would be because you're a woman. So it's just about that initial two, three years of experience that you need to get.
1:12:00 Speaker 01 I definitely think so. And I think the reason why we're seeing those stats now is because that was the past. And now the trend is shifting towards like industries becoming friendlier to women. At least I think. I can be very wrong, but based off like what I've seen and what like both as like, you know, I was female GP and I fundraised and I was like, okay, cool. Like they have so many funds dedicated to just like so many LP funds dedicated to just investing in female GPs. I went to Akron, I was like seeing kids literally all want to study computer science and like 50% were women.
1:12:31 Emma Grede? No, they really do. And it's starting young, like the eight year old girls, like my, my little kid wants to do a coding summer camp. She's like eight years old. And I was like, oh, okay.
1:12:42 Speaker 01 Exactly. Like we're seeing a little bit of delay and like the woman being able to get that resume. Cause it does take like, you know, let's call it three years to get up there. But once you have that resume and like, let's call it like another three year delay and like AI is just only now becoming hot. I think in the next like five to 10 years, we're going to see that percentage balance out more. At least that's what I hope.
1:13:11 Emma Grede? So what are the five practical ways that we can all start using AI today? Like if it's in business, in content, like what are the ways that you would say like start using AI right now?
1:13:23 Speaker 01 I can say that like I personally use it for like marketing. So for example, AI is trained on the past. Like you feed it information and it's only as good as what you feed it. But it happens to be very good at looking at patterns. Let's say it read like every single TikTok video script that went viral, right? Like it's going to be able to recreate something for you that will go viral. So in terms of like creating scripts and like marketing, I use it for that. I've used it for content generation, obviously, in terms of just like even marketing images. For example, when I have, you know, like a new icon or something I want to just create, it's easier to just have AI generate it and then just give it to a designer and be like, okay, cool. Can you like finish the last 5% of it? I haven't heard, unless I haven't done this myself, but I find it very interesting.
1:14:07 Speaker 01 I had a friend use it to create an entire business. Um, he basically asked ChatGPT like, hey, I have $50, like make me a profitable business. And it literally did the research, found like a random niche that he should create a website around. Um, with a $50 budget, bought hosting and a domain name. And then, long story short, step by step plan makes $5,000 a month now.
1:14:29 Emma Grede? That's crazy.
1:14:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:31 Emma Grede? That is so crazy. So the point is, we should just be using it.
1:14:35 Speaker 01 We should just be using it every single aspect. Yes, like just know that like it's only as good as like what it's trained on. It just happens to be trained on a lot of stuff on the internet. I think one example is doctors, for example, like everyone's like, oh, like will doctors go away? No, doctors won't go away because AI might be better at detecting cancer, but it might not be trained on like the latest clinical trial. And that doctor is going to know what the best treatment plan is. So I don't think AI is taking over, but it gets you like 80, 90% of the way there. And then you can use your brain to. Solve the really hard problems.
1:15:08 Emma Grede? Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting because I had a dinner in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and I sat around with a bunch of people that you would probably know. And, you know, the conversation was like, what is going to happen, right? Like, how concerned are we? And I think the general consensus in the AI community is there is a lot of concern. Where do you think we're going to be in ten years? And and are you worried?
1:15:31 Speaker 01 I'm not necessarily worried. So for me, I think that AI is going to be acting as our co-pilot. So we can use our brains, like I said before, to solve the really hard problems. Like, it's going to solve more of the mundane tasks. I do think that, like, some jobs are going away. But new jobs are being created, right? Like, for example, we've created an entire industry of, like, lower-level tasks for labeling. Because we're going to constantly need to label data to make the AI better. Because AI is only as good as the data that we provide it. Prompt engineering is a new job where people are literally being hired to get the best output from the inputs that they provide AI. So I'm excited to see, like, where it shifts. And I have also named, you know, like, the example of AI agents and, like, agents aren't necessarily disappearing.
1:16:14 Emma Grede? No.
1:16:14 Speaker 01 But more money is going to be able to go to a creator and they're just going to be able to work with more people. I think this is going to be happening in pretty much every single industry. Where I think people are nervous is can it create, like, a larger dichotomy in the world economically?
1:16:28 Emma Grede? Yeah.
1:16:28 Speaker 01 For example, like, are we going to be able to, like, have chips that are implanted in our brains? And like, there will be superhumans that will be able to create it. Or can AI get very smart and, like, be able to map a genome sequence to the point where, like, you know, everything about, like, your embryo? And are the people that can afford this going to be able to create super babies?
1:16:49 Emma Grede? That's the scary shit that people are talking about, right? Is there going to be data warfare? Are we going to have some, like, weird, you know, China-America situation? Is there going to be biochemical? Like, I feel like those are the things that people are very concerned about. Like, when does it get too much? When does it get out of our control? I want to talk to you about, um, just again, kind of going back to this idea of being in such male-dominated spaces constantly. Do you think that you've taught yourself strategies? Or did somebody? Teach you like how to navigate some of these conversations and some of the things that come up. Because again, you are, you know, you're back in those rooms. You have raised a lot of money for passes. You've got this incredible company that's doing great things, but it only gets more difficult from now.
1:17:32 Emma Grede? So I'm just interested to understand like how you feel coming into those rooms as Lucy at thirty years of age.
1:17:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think Lucy at thirty years of age is a lot more confident. I am not nearly as worried. I think that like I've learned a lot just through observing others around me. Like I'm very lucky to have so many brilliant people that I'm surrounded by. All really different industries from tech, which is where I learned, you know, like how to fundraise very, very quickly. To real estate and music, which is how I've been able to manage to get free artist passes everywhere. But it's probably a mix of just being like, yes, like people tell me advice, right? But then I also just observe. I'm like, okay, cool. This is how you get it. Let me take those learnings and try to pipe it myself.
1:18:17 Emma Grede? Yeah, absolutely. Do you feel pressure from other women in business or more like women in tech? That you almost have to be like a bit of a role model or is that a trap that you resist?
1:18:30 Speaker 01 I don't see myself as a role model, weirdly enough. Yeah, everyone always tells me.
1:18:34 Emma Grede? There's not many of you, though.
1:18:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I get told it and I just like, I kind of like my way of saying thanks for saying that is I always try to give my time. So if there is a female founder that needs advice or really any founder that needs advice, I'll always be happy to pick up the phone. And like give them advice on like how to get into Y C, their advice on their product.
1:18:52 Emma Grede? You see that as like a, like a duty, like a responsibility, though. I understand you don't want to be thought of as a role model, but you're clearly giving this information and speaking to founders like, for what reason?
1:19:04 Speaker 01 I mean, I like seeing people win, like when Hailey Bieber.
1:19:06 Emma Grede? Yes, I love that. Such good news.
1:19:08 Speaker 01 I was just like, hell, yes, like, you know, they're like, oh, Lucy's like, you know, the youngest female self made billionaire. I'm like, no, Haley's next. Haley's younger than me. Let's go Haley.
1:19:16 Emma Grede? That's amazing. That's it. You're ready to have your crown taken.
1:19:19 Speaker 01 No, literally, like it makes me so happy when other people do really well. So I just, I'd be like, why keep that advice? Like, it's not. It's not hurting me if I give it, right? Like, whatever. Like, let's have one go in.
1:19:32 Emma Grede? And there's a real need, right? Because I think there's a way that you speak. There's a level of honesty. There is just a reality of the experience that you've had uniquely.
1:19:40 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:19:40 Emma Grede? That only you can tell. So I think it's hugely, hugely valuable.
1:19:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:44 Emma Grede? I want to talk to you about money.
1:19:45 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
1:19:46 Emma Grede? Because you obviously have like a different type of wealth now. How, how are you coping with that? What are you doing with your money? Like, what is happening?
1:19:53 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, I think people don't realize, like, my money is like illiquid, right? Like, have I thought about making it?
1:19:58 Emma Grede? All of it?
1:19:59 Speaker 01 Pretty much all of it.
1:20:00 Emma Grede? You haven't divested any of it?
1:20:02 Speaker 01 Um, I mean, I have like eight figures, like liquid.
1:20:06 Emma Grede? It's not nothing, I mean.
1:20:07 Speaker 01 It's not nothing, but like, it's not like.
1:20:09 Emma Grede? But you're not sitting on like billions and billions of dollars in your bank account?
1:20:12 Speaker 01 No, I'm not sitting on billions of dollars. Like, can, could I have it?
1:20:14 Emma Grede? I planned like a little shopping trip after our chat today. I thought we could go and, you know.
1:20:19 Speaker 01 I'm done.
1:20:19 Emma Grede? Rodeo it. So you're not, it's not like you're sitting on a mountain of cash, but you, you've taken some money off the table.
1:20:24 Speaker 01 Yes, I've taken some money off the table. I'm very comfortable. Pretty much, I have no liquid cash in my bank account. I put it all into stocks. They're all in investments and I just pretend like it doesn't exist. Which, right now, I actually do because I'm down a lot from year to day.
1:20:39 Speaker 01 But the way I think about money is more so like, should I diversify more? Like, should I take another 100, 200 off the table, right? So then I can just.
1:20:48 Emma Grede? Be very comfortable.
1:20:49 Speaker 01 Be very, very comfortable.
1:20:50 Emma Grede? So all of your money right now, you have invested?
1:20:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:20:53 Emma Grede? And that's how you're living?
1:20:54 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:20:54 Emma Grede? You're living relatively modestly from a, relatively modestly, from a lifestyle point of view? And you are chucking everything into investments?
1:21:01 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:21:02 Emma Grede? And who advises you?
1:21:03 Speaker 01 Um, I work with JP Morgan right now. Yeah.
1:21:06 Emma Grede? Same.
1:21:07 Speaker 01 And then friends, yeah.
1:21:08 Emma Grede? Yeah.
1:21:08 Speaker 01 JP Morgan's great.
1:21:09 Emma Grede? And you take, yeah, and you take like, you know, information from friends and put into.
1:21:13 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:21:14 Emma Grede? Okay. Amazing. Is it working out?
1:21:16 Speaker 01 I mean, I would say, given that, it's probably my fault that the portfolio's down. So, yes, I would say it's working out.
1:21:29 Emma Grede? Is there anything that you're doing with your money that would surprise people?
1:21:33 Speaker 01 Um.
1:21:34 Emma Grede? Apart from partying hard, but I don't think it's that surprising if I know you.
1:21:38 Speaker 01 What am I doing? I'm really just not doing anything with it.
1:21:41 Emma Grede? Really?
1:21:41 Speaker 01 I'm really not doing anything.
1:21:43 Emma Grede? Do you have a relationship to it, though? Is it, has it given you a comfort level? Has it changed the way that you think about maybe your future business endeavors? Or, you know, like passes or anything?
1:21:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I do think it's changed the way on how I think. Like one of the reasons I like decided to start passes is because consumer is one of the hardest challenges to really tackle. And I've always optimized for learning every step of the way I've made decisions. Which is probably my other piece of advice to founders, like just optimize for learning and you'll never go wrong. But I don't feel like I need another, like I want another win, but I want a challenge, right? And it felt like I didn't need an obvious win.
1:22:22 Emma Grede? Yes.
1:22:23 Speaker 01 Cause I think B two B enterprise is much easier to win in because it's brute forcible versus consumer is not as brute forcible. So I think it gave me the freedom to think about that. I have like the options where it's like, okay, cool. Like, let's say that I want to like strike a large deal or like throw a huge party in the name of passes. But I don't want to spend company money, right? Like I can put in my own money to like throw an event and promote my brand without spending company money, which is really nice, you know?
1:22:49 Emma Grede? That's very interesting.
1:22:49 Speaker 01 I do a lot of things like, like most founders are like expensing everything, right? And I don't need to do that. So I can actually put the money into like good use, which I think is better.
1:22:59 Emma Grede? Wow.
1:23:00 Speaker 01 So I think it's afforded me that. Um, I think that the biggest change in my life with money is I just get a lot more things for free.
1:23:08 Emma Grede? People won't like to hear that shit.
1:23:10 Speaker 01 I know. And it's just like, you know, like there's that whole argument where people are like, oh, when you're well, like wealthy people spend less money. Um, and it's more, it's more expensive to be poor. There's that saying, it's more expensive to be poor. And I fully agree with that. Like I just like am surrounded by so many, like I'm surrounded by a different type and group of people now.
1:23:26 Emma Grede? Yeah.
1:23:27 Speaker 01 And because of that, like I just get offered things for free. It's like, oh, you want a flight to like New York? Come hop on my private jet for free. Or it's like, oh, like you want to go to Coachella? Here's free artist passes. I posted that I liked chili oil on my Instagram account and I.
1:23:43 Emma Grede? Of chili oil.
1:23:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I had several.
1:23:44 Emma Grede? Someone sent you a lot of chili oil.
1:23:46 Speaker 01 Yes, several brands, several brands actually sent me a lot of free chili oil.
1:23:50 Emma Grede? But is there any sense of, okay, so, so tell me this, because I understand that and I can imagine this then. At a certain age, if you're thirty years old and people are chucking like free flights and come here, come there. Like, that's very alluring, but is there any part of you that feels a sense of responsibility with that money? Or is it like, no, this is about investing and looking after me and my future?
1:24:10 Speaker 01 I would say in terms of responsibility, I've always wanted to get in a nonprofit world. I technically have set up a DAF, but I'm not liquid. So, um, I mean, like the idea is that like eventually I would want to grow that money and then invest. I, I, I've debated whether I wanted to create my own nonprofit or invest in a nonprofit. Because I think a lot of people are like, I'm gonna build my own nonprofit, right? But then they actually don't really know how to run a nonprofit.
1:24:33 Emma Grede? Totally.
1:24:34 Speaker 01 So, um, you're seeing like, you know, like Bill and Melinda Gates obviously have their nonprofit, right? But there are also other people who just decided like my time is best spent making a lot of money and donating it. And I think I'm like at that point where I'm like thinking about like, do I want to start my own, do I not? I'm exploring, so I'm talking to like some nonprofit boards right now. Um, cause I wanna like kind of learn more about that world.
1:24:55 Emma Grede? What's your area of interest, do you think?
1:24:56 Speaker 01 Uh, human trafficking. So, um.
1:24:58 Emma Grede? Where does that come from, Lucy?
1:25:00 Speaker 01 Where does it come from? So I really thought about this and I think part of it could be from when I was growing up and I went to China. And my parents would really point at these kids and be like, those kids were kidnapped and trafficked. And, um, the kidnappers chopped off their arms so they could go beg for money and give it to the kidnappers. And I was like, holy crap, right? And I think that not enough people have used technology to help solve this problem. And I could go on and on about that, but I actually think AI will really help tackle human trafficking. And there's like interesting avenues, like Thorn is doing like some interesting stuff with tech. And I'm like, okay, cool. Like there's different angles that you can take.
1:25:34 Emma Grede? Yeah.
1:25:34 Speaker 01 I think eventually I would want to like do something combining tech and human trafficking. It's just, is it better to like donate to something like Thorn or is it better to just do it myself?
1:25:42 Emma Grede? Well, you have plenty of time to figure it out.
1:25:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:44 Emma Grede? And then you've got to get that money out as well, so you know what to do with it.
1:25:46 Speaker 01 So the first thing is nonprofit board and to figure it out.
1:25:49 Emma Grede? There you go. I have no doubt that you'll work it out, my dear. I wanted to. Really ask you about the more outwardly facing media part of, you know, your job or the role of being a female founder. Does that, does that matter to you? Do you find, do you think it's useful? I mean, you're already in this kind of crossover business with like being involved in the creator industry. Like, how do you feel about that? Because I think that we hear so many people say, oh, you know, like as a founder, it makes so much sense for you to, you know, have a media facing presence. And then you get the other side of it, which was like so many funds or so many investors are like, I do not want to see you and, you know, your private life out on display. How do you feel about that?
1:26:28 Speaker 01 I would say like before passes, I probably would have preferred privacy, but now I'm doing passes. I think that it's actually very important for me to be very out there. Um, part of the reason why a lot of creators join passes is because I think it's a really relationships driven business. And being able to put my face and like my personality to the company is why they like trust us, right? I'm super close to a lot of our creators. They're welcome in like the office anytime. We actually turned into Creator Studio, which is really cool. So we see them all the time. Yeah, they're like, you know, filming podcasts, like doing photo shoots, et cetera, creating a music studio in there. But because it's such a relationships driven business, I think emotional retention is something that does exist within the creator economy.
1:27:09 Speaker 01 I think it's very important for me to be out there and like really continue to get to know our creators and like let them know like, hey, this is who I am. This is the brand. Like we're trustworthy. We care about you. Because if there were no face of business, we're just a tech platform.
1:27:22 Emma Grede? Totally.
1:27:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's.
1:27:24 Emma Grede? What do you say to anyone though, that would say, oh, but I'd like you to have like a different image? Because you are like, yeah, very you, right? It's like you're out, you're in a pizza, like, you know, you're not, you're not making any apologies to anyone. Let's say that.
1:27:36 Speaker 01 I'm really bad at faking it. So I think that like immediately it'd be very obvious that I've turned like inauthentic. And then we would lose trust, right?
1:27:44 Emma Grede? And it will be horribly off brand.
1:27:45 Speaker 01 It'll be horribly off brand. Yeah.
1:27:47 Emma Grede? I want to talk to you a little bit about leadership as well. So, I mean, do you feel like you, you've, you have leadership style? Or you've developed your leadership style over the years? Is there anything that you've done that I just wonder, like, are you a particularly harsh leader? You feel like someone who doesn't mince their words very much?
1:28:06 Speaker 01 I think I'm very blunt. In terms of harshness, I don't think I'm harsh, but that is like to be determined. Um, I think like my thing with leadership is that I believe that like all leaders need to do IC work. You're not going to be able to know how well your like team is doing unless like you've done it yourself, right? Um, and I think too many companies and like too many leaders, they just try to delegate. And I don't really believe in delegation per se. I'm like, if you have like five minutes free, nothing is below you, like go answer that like customer support ticket. This is something that like-
1:28:37 Emma Grede? You still do that now?
1:28:38 Speaker 01 Oh, I always like literally when like, if I see that something has gone unanswered for 10 minutes, I like jump in. I'm very good at multitasking. Uh, but yeah, I'm just like, I think that it is so important to just continue to like be in the weeds. Yeah, I just don't believe in delegation. So I tell all my leadership team like, hey, like, yes, you have to spend time like doing things that leaders do, which is like managing your team, figuring out like who's being efficient, who's not giving feedback. But I know that you do have like five, 10 minutes in a day sometimes and I see you delegate. There's no need to delegate. It takes 30 seconds. It takes 30 seconds to do it. Just do it. Because for example, if you're a customer support lead, right?
1:29:22 Speaker 01 If you don't know how the product works, you won't really be able to understand if someone's underperforming because they're taking an hour to answer a question. If you know how the product works, you'll understand like that question could have been answered in 30 seconds. So this person is just, they're not doing their job.
1:29:38 Emma Grede? Yeah. Yeah. And it's the only way you know is by having done it yourself.
1:29:40 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:29:41 Emma Grede? Do you think, I mean, there was something I read where you said you hadn't played by the rules. What's a time when you've been a bit disruptive or destructive, do you think?
1:29:50 Speaker 01 Oh, man, I always say ask for forgiveness, um, which I would say has worked out sometimes and hasn't worked out other times. Like one example is obviously like, you know, when we were like, let's do the food delivery thing without looking up any of the laws. I think another example is we're working on paying a lot of European taxes right now.
1:30:10 Speaker 01 Because we were just like, okay, cool. Like, let's do this. We earn money. Yeah, it turns out European sales taxes are a lot of money. We're backtracking all of that right now, to be quite honest.
1:30:21 Emma Grede? So you learn, you'll catch up with you eventually.
1:30:24 Speaker 01 We're constantly learning, but I think that like it's important not to let all the like Uber would not exist if they like play by the rules, right? They ask for forgiveness after. And I think that even like for us, it's like, cool. We got a lot of European creators. We didn't play by the rules, but it let us move faster. And now, yes, we're having to pay a few fines, but I think it was worth it.
1:30:47 Emma Grede? How much of that, like Silicon Valley mythology, you know, like what happens in those companies actually impacts what you do? And how like your style of running a business?
1:30:58 Speaker 01 I think a lot, honestly. Like I look at companies and founders I admire and I'm like, okay, cool. Like this is what you did. Like here's what I like that you did. And here's what I don't like. And let me follow this path. From like choosing investors to like how I hire, et cetera. I think that Silicon Valley culture, like when you see companies build fast and like be able to take customer feedback and implement it within a week or even an hour sometimes, like I think that.
1:31:22 Emma Grede? It's wild.
1:31:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's stuff like I I very much learned you have to do.
1:31:27 Emma Grede? Where do you think you um, I just wondered, because you mentioned earlier, like basically like always learning, like where do you learn?
1:31:34 Speaker 01 Where do I learn? I think I just learn from the people around me. I enjoy learning about different industries personally because I feel like I know so much about tech.
1:31:41 Emma Grede? Are you taking meetings? Are you just like having a lot of phone calls with people?
1:31:45 Speaker 01 I think I just meet a lot of people, like a lot of new people really through random networks, through Instagram, if I'm being completely honest. And I just ask them a lot of questions. And then, you know, vice versa, they'll ask me a lot of questions. You learn about a different industry, you become friends and um, it's just fun.
1:32:00 Emma Grede? It's just fun. And you've had your fair bit of controversy with passes. And I guess that's just part of being a founder and running a business. How do you feel? You know, because I think about all of these tech companies and and how they feel about what is their lever of responsibility? How have you squared that away with what you're doing now?
1:32:19 Speaker 01 I would say you should always just like try to fix things, especially like tech. There's always going to be people trying to get around rules, et cetera. And you should just try your best to like solve it. You're never really going to be able to solve everything, I think. But as long as you're putting in your best effort, that actually matters a lot.
1:32:36 Emma Grede? Yeah, it really does matter. How do you think about the balance of growth and ethics? Because when you're in a business like you are, like you see something, you fix it immediately. But sometimes you, you know, I'm assuming you just let things go because you're like, it's more important to grow today.
1:32:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, if it's like something very, very bad, then that takes priority. So for example, like if it's a security issue and we think that like a bunch of our creators are like compromised for some reason, that's going to take priority over growth, like we will pause everything to solve that. So in that sense, yes, if it's like a smaller issue, like it is, we're very creator first. So if it's like, I guess that's a better way to put it. If a creator is having a problem, all resources go to her solving it. Like even if it's like one singular creator who's like, I didn't get my payout today. I don't know what's going on. I need to pay rent.
1:33:22 Emma Grede? Yeah.
1:33:22 Speaker 01 We stop everything to like solve it. So in that sense, like every creator matters to us. But if it's not like creator facing, we'll probably prioritize growth.
1:33:30 Emma Grede? Totally. Do you have any type of like meditative or spiritual practice that you use?
1:33:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I would say berries is actually my meditation. It's that the only time my like brain completely shuts off. And from my here, it's because I would like perform at an athlete level where like I'm literally just not thinking anymore. I, I think that's a form of meditation. People tell me it is. And here's like the spiritual activity, I don't know, like psychics.
1:33:55 Emma Grede? Psychics.
1:33:55 Speaker 01 Does that count?
1:33:58 Emma Grede? Are your parents so proud of you now?
1:34:00 Speaker 01 They are proud, yeah. I think it's a mix of proud and like, you know, Asian parents always just be like, do better.
1:34:06 Emma Grede? So even now?
1:34:08 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. I think my dad sent me like a hundred texts and I'm just like, Dad, I love you too.
1:34:13 Emma Grede? At least you're answering the texts out. That's the main thing. Are you super proud of yourself?
1:34:18 Speaker 01 I think that I am happy. And I think this is what a lot of successful people will say, but like they are always trying to do more, right? Like they're never, and then very competitive with myself. So I just want to continue to be challenged and like meet those challenges. If I were to be honest, like the only thing I'm like really proud about is winning number one in the Barry's All Stars competition because I really broke my body for that. Like that's probably my proudest thing of like, like I'm more proud of that than this like new title for sure.
1:34:46 Emma Grede? Well, listen, I will change my introduction.
1:34:49 Speaker 01 I'm not gonna, I was like.
1:34:51 Emma Grede? The Barry's All Star number one, Lucy.
1:34:54 Speaker 01 Thank you. I literally had to do like three to seven classes a day to get that number one title. I'm really proud.
1:35:01 Emma Grede? I am gonna tell everyone we know that we need to change the way we're talking about you forever. This is amazing. All I have left for you is a very quick, fast round.
1:35:09 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:35:10 Emma Grede? Okay, here we go. The rapid fire, I should say. What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
1:35:14 Speaker 01 I go to Barry's.
1:35:16 Emma Grede? And the last thing you do at night?
1:35:18 Speaker 01 Uh, I answer Slack, like I answer the last Slack messages I have and I close it out.
1:35:23 Emma Grede? That is very unrelaxing. What are you currently aspiring for in your business life?
1:35:28 Speaker 01 Uh, in my business life, I would say I'm looking forward to building out the Fintech tools and I really want to build our first like passes unicorn creator. So for those that know, you know, like a creator that's like worth a billion dollars.
1:35:39 Emma Grede? Yes. Yeah, let me know who that is. And what are you aspiring for in your personal life?
1:35:43 Speaker 01 I think in my personal life, I guess cheesy, but like find love.
1:35:47 Emma Grede? Nothing cheesy about it.
1:35:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, like I will kiss eventually.
1:35:51 Emma Grede? You know, it's like kind of the time, like that's when it happens.
1:35:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:35:56 Emma Grede? Why not? Maybe that, um, that swipe up will result in something, who knows?
1:35:59 Speaker 01 Oh, definitely not. That one, that one no.
1:36:02 Emma Grede? She's like, no, girl, that's just a swipe up. I love that. What is something you valued when you were starting out in your career that you don't anymore?
1:36:13 Speaker 01 I think something I valued when I started, when I started off my career, but I don't anymore, was, and I hate to say it, but like praise. I think that like as Teal Fellows, which is like where I'm going all the way back to, like we really felt like we like made it in the world because of all that praise. And then I realized like praise doesn't mean you've actually done anything in your career. But it definitely got into like all of our heads.
1:36:34 Emma Grede? Yeah, it would do. What's something that you value now that you didn't back in the day?
1:36:40 Speaker 01 I think I value freedom. I can't really explain it, but back in the day, I felt like I was like trying, I was doing things to prove my parents wrong and everyone wrong. And now I feel like I have nothing really left to prove, except to myself, um, which feels very freeing because it means I get to work on like whatever I want. With all my previous companies, it was like, I didn't care about the idea. I was just like, build something big. It could be in anything, right? Didn't need to be passionate about it. And now I get to focus on like what makes me happy.
1:37:09 Emma Grede? That's a pretty great answer. You have nothing to prove.
1:37:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:37:12 Emma Grede? That's for sure. Congratulations on your success, my darling. So happy to have you.
1:37:16 Speaker 01 It was so fun.
1:37:20 Emma Grede? If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Corinne, Gillian Fisher, Derek Brown and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Saluja and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Justine Dom is our senior producer. Our producer is Kristin Torres. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi.
1:38:05 Emma Grede? Social media by Olivia Homan. Special thanks go to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at Jonesworks and WNE, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekle, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelled G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.
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