Uncapped #56 | Brian Singerman from GPx

Brian Singerman is the co-founder of GPx, a fund launched in 2025 alongside Lee Linden of Quiet Capital. GPx backs elite emerging managers at the early stage, then provides programmatic capital to co-lead later-stage investments when those managers choose to bet their career on a breakout company. Before GPx, Brian was a General Partner at Founders Fund for over a decade, where he was involved in investments including Anduril, Stemcentrx, and Airbnb. He transitioned to Partner Emeritus at Founders Fund in December 2024. We discussed Brian's framework for identifying outlier founders, why he has no checklist, no rubric, and no list of attributes, and why he is always looking for the single thing someone is genuinely better at than anyone else. Brian walked through the Anduril founding team as a case study in complementary spikes, explained what Peter Thiel is actually best at as a venture capitalist, and broke down how Founders Fund made the second most money on Airbnb despite being the 30th investor. We also got into GPx's strategy, why Brian thinks SPVs are dead, his framework for the optimal LP allocation to venture, and when to make a concentration bet. Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:50) Why you can't have a checklist for founders (1:46) How Brian looks for spikes (3:55) How Founders Fund played to its strengths (6:54) The Anduril founding team (12:04) Shared beliefs as the foundation of company culture (14:12) How Brian spent time with founders (19:06) What Brian is genuinely best at (20:25) GPx: backing elite emerging managers (23:12) Why Brian knew he was done with traditional VC (25:30) "I'm looking for people who could have beaten me in my prime" (29:38) GPx's structure and the bet-your-career mechanism (30:40) The optimal LP allocation to venture (34:49) Why SPVs are dead (41:00) How Founders Fund made the second most money on Airbnb (43:51) The concentration strategy (49:10) How Founders Fund worked and Peter's role (52:16) What makes Peter Thiel the best venture capitalist in history (56:53) Solo GPs vs. teams (58:02) Brian's music studio Links: https://x.com/briansin https://x.com/jaltma https://uncappedpod.com/ [email protected]

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm not trying to spot people who can spot greatness. I'm trying to spot people who like can play the game of venture capital, who know their strengths so well. I'm looking for people who could have beaten me in my prime.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they can play a game that they can win.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  All right. I'm really excited to be doing this, Brian. Thanks for, thanks for coming on the podcast with me.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  I want to start with a topic that I think is pretty central to the way your brain works, to the way you've done your work, which is the idea of assessing talent and identifying sort of outlier attributes that people have. And, you know, I think this often gets, I hate to even say this word, but like people talk about like spiky founders, basically meaning the concept that like people have this like report card of attributes, you know, they're smart, they're tenacious, they're gritty, they're knowledgeable, whatever. And it's this idea that one of these attributes is just like off the charts. And I think the idea is sort of like, you know, somebody who's like an A plus in one place, but you know, has low score somewhere else. Versus you have somebody else who's very well rounded and sort of, you know, kind of relating that to kind of the plot of the founder. Anyway, I'm curious why this topic of identifying these attributes is so important to you.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  So maybe you could just start like how you think about these things.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  First of all, I have no list of attributes. In fact, we had, we tried to have somebody like authors come into Founders Fund ages ago and try and be like, hey, hey, let's try and define what a Founders Fund founder is.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  A brewer.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Using like all these like attributes, like a type A or not needy or I don't know, nonsense, right? It never, it never worked. It's never accurate. So I decided to just go the exact other way and I do not have a checklist and I do not have a rubric at all. It's just purely one of those, but I am looking for people who spike with me. It's just, I, it's just can be different every single time.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Can there be something that you're like, they're really good at that thing, but it's so irrelevant to the company they're building? I don't care.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  I don't know if it can be so irrelevant, but it is, I am open to whatever they spike in being anything. In fact, one of the things I love doing the most in this world still is figuring out what it is somebody is the best at. And can they leverage that, right, to win at whatever it is that they're doing, right? Like I'm, I'm a gamer, right? I'm always looking for like, what are the leverage points? What are the things that you're just better than everybody else at? And can you exploit those strengths to win at whatever it is? And so I don't think it can be totally irrelevant, but I think that the goal for people, I really do think that the goal for people in professional life, or whatever you want to call it, is to find that Zen,

• 2:24Speaker 00

  you know, the Venn diagram of like what you're really good at meets what you love means, what you can actually like.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Eeky guy.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like in a, in a real way.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  And so that's what I'm looking for.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I feel like this kind of relates to something that Peter and all of you guys have talked about a bunch, which is like competitions for losers, where you should basically find the dimension of the game that you are so much better at. And then you should tilt the game in that favor.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  That's right. I totally agree with that. Like, I think that the competitions for losers is like a fun way of saying it, but I'm more the latter of what you just said. Like, okay, the game's the game.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  And figure out how you tilt it to be more towards what you are really good at. Like, don't try and beat other people at what they are better than you at. But to do this requires, you know, radical honesty, at least with yourself.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Right? Like regardless of what you show to the world or show to other people, like you gotta be honest with yourself.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  About what you're actually good at and what you're not good at.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was nowhere near, I don't think as big or good a gamer as you, but I was like a pretty big gamer as a kid. And I played games like Starcraft and Warcraft and stuff. And it's basically all about imbalances. And so it's like one race fights.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Especially something like a Starcraft, which is your first example, Warcraft to a certain extent. But Starcraft is your first example of a truly, truly, truly like totally like not the same starting board at all.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Of course. Yes.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  And you've got to like figure out how to exploit your race, like in a way that is just going to win. And that's, but fairly balanced between them.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  It's an interesting point that you said too, that it needs to be combined with self-awareness.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  There's probably a lot of people who have the spike, but don't want to admit that they've got these other weaknesses.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  So they won't play the game in the way that they can tilt the board.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  Correct. I'm all about figuring out like just owning it, owning what you're actually good at, owning what you're not good at. Figure out how to tilt it to what you're good at.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Can you give me some, uh, just like connect this dot to some of the like founders fund, like success story examples? You know, some of the companies.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Founders Fund is what happened in like a really organic way. I mean, like you have these ridiculously smart people who spike or whatever in their own ways. But it wasn't going to like be, we could never have any like rules there, right? Like in the early days of founders, when we tried for like a minute to have like, you know, uh, investment memos. And we tried for a week to have partner meetings and something like this, and it didn't work for us.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  It's not that that's not the, that's, it's not that that's globally wrong. It just didn't work for us because we were really honest about like, okay, let's just put all that stuff aside. Figure out like what this team is really good at and play to our strengths. Like back in the early days, like Sean would never show up, right? But dude would stick his head up like every once in a while and say Facebook or Spotify. And you know what? That's pretty freaking good.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  I saw, I randomly got a chance to, um, see like something Sean Parker wrote about Spotify.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  And I was just like.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  I think I said that to a couple of people. It's the most, it's like the most amazing.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  It was so good.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  The most amazing investment memo I've ever seen written.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. So was that like the quality of, you know, I, I know you don't do memos, but is that what was?

• 5:21Speaker 00

  That happened one time in founders funds history.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  That's funny.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  And it worked out. And it was, it was one of the best companies ever.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  That's funny. The way that Anduril came together, and obviously I know you're, you've been intimately connected since the beginning. And so, um, obviously, you know, share whatever's comfortable, but i- if we could connect to the, this idea of the founder attributes and how important they are.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  What were some of the founder attributes there that turned out to really matter? And can you like walk that out a little bit so people can feel it?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  I mean, Anduril is actually a great example of this because I don't think with, I don't think any one, single one of the founders, like I'll be calling it four founders of Anduril, right? And so I don't think with any single one founder, it's like, oh, spiky in every single way. It's the perfect example of a team of people who are very good at different things. And I think the combination of the four founders of Anduril is cannot be beat, right? Like, and they're so different, like Palmer, you know, I've known Palmer since he was whatever, 18, 19. Like I was the first investor in Oculus. Now that was a screw up on my part because I didn't go bigger in that, you know, helping formulate later in life stuff.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  But Palmer is your perfect example of like unbelievably brilliant, creative, mad scientist, you know, kind of thing. Do you want Palmer running the company? No.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Seems like he has a brain that just can't stop having ideas.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Can't stop having ridiculous, but the ideas are not just like out there and sci-fi. It's like, no, this is.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  They're like prescient and correct. Yes.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  It's like, that's so critical, right? It's like, nope, this actually can be done. And like, so putting that guy on like products and future products and like seeing where his mind goes, that's what you want to do with him. You don't want to like have him bogged down with like.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Operational reviews.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Of something rather like, that would be a waste of, of, of everything, right? And then like you get like a guy like Grim, who's just like so unbelievably good at operations. And like actually to get almost like, I can say opposite, but in some ways the, the total counter to Palmer, right? Like, it's just like, he actually can get this stuff done. Like Palmer can have one of his ideas and like Grim can actually get it done, right? Trey is extremely good at high level connections, extremely good at high level networking, extremely good at establishing like relationships and networks that are like nobody else in the space. He's extremely good at that, right? And then you got a guy like Brian Chimp, right? Like as actual CEO who's so good at dealing with these types of personalities, right? To be the CEO of something like that, and I'll get into this in the founder's hunt too, but like you've got to be just so

• 7:47Speaker 00

  both smart, respected by all of these types of different people, right? And be able to just put it all together. And like, when we found, you know, him, it was just like, oh yeah, this guy is going to be able to put it all together.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  To manage those kinds of personalities, you both have to like be respected by and respect them, I guess.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  That's correct. And that's, I can't stress enough how hard that is to have people like Palmer Lucky.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  And Trey Stevens and these kinds of, and Matt Grimm just go like, oh yeah, we'll defer to the CEO to make these decisions at the end of the, because at the end of the day, the CEO makes these decisions.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Can you put your finger on what that is, or is that just some overall level of competence and trustworthiness?

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Again, it's just what he is really good at. He's very, does not get riled, knows how to, understands people's personalities, knows how to like, knows what their strengths are, doesn't deny their strengths, knows where they're brilliant, knows where they're weak and can put it together. It's just that people trust his holistic decision. I mean, there have been crazy amounts of conflicts in that company, but when Schiff makes a decision.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  That's the decision and I love that. Like it's just like so impressive, right?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  It's interesting what you say about like, you know, it doesn't all have to come from one person. We, we recently met with like a phenomenal growth stage CEO who is basically making the point that he thinks too many people, even now within a company, settle on, I've got to choose between my head of sales being the operational type or the sales of on type. He's like, I'm not going to choose. I'm going to have two. I'm going to make them work together.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Correct. But you've got to be the type of person that can then make them work together.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Right. Cause too many times you'll have these kind of dominant personalities and various things. And if you get, if you have, if you don't have that person who has the respect, as you pointed out, the respect and respect of the others, like it's going to fall apart.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Actually, that's an issue. Have you ever had a CEO that you've worked with who didn't have this ability, who was really great, or is this a requirement?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  I mean, I've, I've tried, I've experimented a ton in venture capital, right? Like you'd, I've in early days, I'd have a CEO who was just like really, really, really good at science or tech. And it's like, you realize quickly, that's not enough. Right? Like, and then you, you experiment with having a, a CEO who like you think can do it all. Like the only person I've ever met that can remotely do it all on that regard is Elon. Right? There's nobody else that's even close on the like, do it all. Lev Chin, to some extent is the only other person that I know who's that good of a CTO and CEO, right? Like true.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  CTO and CEO, right? And similar to Elon, but like outside of those two guys, I don't know anybody else who could do it. And then plus that's just CEO and CTO. Like you also need like all the other aspects of business. So it's like, I think it's pretty rare to have one person be able to do it. So I love like when a strong, strong, strong CEO.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Can understand their strengths and weaknesses and mesh it all together.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  I feel like SpaceX is well discussed enough and Elon's obvious enough, but what about Palantir? Like, can you point to like, what were some of the founder attributes there that connected to the way the company?

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Well, I wasn't around in the founding days of Palantir. So I need to like.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  But I assume you know now enough.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, like, I know, I know enough about it, but it's like, I feel less comfortable because I wasn't. I got involved in Palantir, you know, in like twenty oh nine, twenty twenty oh nine. That's like, I met Stefan and Lonsdale.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  I met, I probably met those guys when after like Lonsdale had left the company, I think, right? So now he's like a good friend of mine, but so for Palantir, it's a little bit tricky for my, I don't really know how it was.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  In the founding days, I can tell you though, that there's certain attributes of the, of the, the founding teams at Palantir, like they did all have a core. And I think this is an important thing that doesn't get discussed enough, right? It's one thing to have a set of people who have different strengths and weaknesses, and then you have somebody putting it together, right? Like Carp working with Peter, right? In this, in that case. But it's a whole other thing. Like you have to, they have to have some fundamental beliefs shared.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Right? And, cause that is going to set the culture of the company. If those

• 11:52Speaker 00

  don't align, like it could lead to trouble. So I think that the Palantir founders all like shared in the, and this was really hard to find back then, a hardcore pro America, like

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Right? Like kind of a culture.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Is there another company besides Palantir that's worth going into that would be worth talking about? And then we can, we can go back and we could talk about Palantir a bit.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  In terms of like a.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Like is there, is there one more example besides Andrel that you can talk to, that you feel comfortable talking about? You know, about how the founder mapped back, like maybe cognition, if you were involved in that one, or I don't know, what's another company that could make sense to draw out this concept of like the founder specialness and, you know, how it played out in the company?

• 12:32Speaker 00

  I mean, I think, I think, I think all of them, right? Like to some extent, like you can always backtrack this to like, what, what, what is the stupid like venture for it? Founder market fit?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Is that like the, the venture speak, you know, version of it? I mean, I think you can always like back into, to, to that for everything. But for me, it was always just a, here, here's how I knew it. Okay. How about this?

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  I, I'll be taking you through how I kind of judged the holistic sense of the founding team. Um, and for me, it was never just about the CEO, but it was only about the founders, right? Like it was, it was about the founding team. It was critical for me to.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  You needed to meet everybody.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  All the founders, not all the head of whatever, right? Like, but I did need to meet all, I did not want to just meet the CEO. I wanted to meet all the founders because of what you're talking about. Now, what I would do in these pitch meetings, back when I would do pitch meetings.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Would be like, okay, I would sense where they were strongest immediately. Like I could sense where they knew they were strongest and where you know, they, where they were confident. And I said, be, and what I would do at the start of these meetings would be like, okay, I'm just going to give you that. Like I wouldn't take that off the floor and I would try and, and I don't know what I'm doing, right? Like, I mean, I was just trying to poke holes, right? Like I'm a strategy guy, but I don't know their business, right? I would try and poke holes where I thought that meant that they were weak. And if they either, and it wouldn't, I wouldn't care if the, the CEO was strong in them, but if the, another founder would take the question and be like, oh, I get why you're here. Oh, I get why you're here. That would be like enough for me to be like, great, right? Like in other words, they weren't talking. If they didn't have the per, if they had the person speaking who knew what they were talking about, like what I can't stand is people who like

• 14:07Speaker 00

  try and speak about everything, even if they don't know what they're talking about. Just say you don't know what you're talking about on that, or supplement yourself with the people that do know what they're talking about. So it's like, that was always a good litmus test for me. It's like, if the different founder would speak about the different thing, I was like, that's good.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  That is good. Man, when people speak about stuff that they don't know, and then you're just like, it's going to be very hard to work together.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  You can never, if you can never just like, I don't know, let's move on rather than.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  I would much rather them say that, or even let's say a co-founder wasn't there. I would much rather them say, you know what? I don't know that. You should meet my co-founder. Okay. Then, then I accept that answer better than them trying to like speak about everything that they don't know.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the things that I appreciated that you, um, asked me when we hung out last time was you were like, you know, you, you were kind of trying to get at like what my, you know, attributes might be.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  And you asked me like, you know, no, no, there's no need for you to try to be humble. Just.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Just what do you think you're best at? And I was, I reflected on that a lot because I think the way you asked it gave a lot of permission for the person to just share what they think they might be, which shortcuts so much other work that you'd have to do to give the person space to do that.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  I love it. Like, look at what I'm doing now in my life is like, I love learning what people are truly the best at, and it can be anything. So I encourage, like, in other words, it's, it's kind of like, don't be humble when hum, humility is not necessary, but be don't speak about things that you don't actually know, right? Like it's both, it's both sides. Like the stuff that you are good at, great. Let that shine. Right? And the stuff that you're.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  We got like, don't try and pretend like you're strong.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Have you found any other, um, I'm going to say tips and tricks, but what else have you found helpful in getting to the essence of this? Cause I think that like, there's been a lot of ink spilled and a lot of time centered around the work of trying to figure out if somebody is great. And I think very few people can actually do it.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so. I try and get away from generics as soon as possible. Like so, a lot of times people are, even if they're like not trying to be humble, they're, they'll been like, especially like people, you know, especially if you've been around Silicon Valley a long time, whatever. You're like trained in this way of like speaking or whatever, right? I just try and get beyond that, um, immediately, not just saying these, by things like, oh, no need to be humble on the things you're good at, but like trying to like, stop speaking in cliche terms.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  Like just, but let's just get beyond that immediately. Just talk to me like you're like, but like, just like try and get them riled up.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Honestly, like I probably did this with you. Try, try and be like, okay, it's too generics, too generic, too generic. I try and get people to like scream.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Like, this is what I'm really good at.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  And like, I, when, when they do that, then we can have a conversation, right?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I think one of the other things, which I think you were probably just getting out there a little bit is trying to get to specifics and trying to keep digging into the same thing and not just like accepting a surface answer.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Which is by the way, one of my favorite things doing interviews here is like, you're asking somebody something, you just like, don't let it go a little uncomfortably long.

• 16:56Speaker 00

  I can't sit like, I, I, you know, I don't like.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Cause sometimes the depth is really there when you keep asking and they are just not used to being asked the thing.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  What I try to do, like we're going through like hiring process and in interviews, I like, I, you know, I'm not a good manager and I try not to hire almost ever, but like, and even in those, I try and just be like, okay, I try and think of a game that we can play that just like has to take them up. Like I do like a speed round thing of something like that, where they just have to like not prepare their like polished answers, right?

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Like what?

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Like, like in my case, like I'm looking at a bunch of GPs, like what do you think of this GP? What do you think of this GP? Then they name them, I name them, I name them. Like just give me your off the cuff answer. Like, you know, you don't have time to like make something up. You're just giving me your gut.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Answer.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Right? Like, and that's just so much nicer and more fun to me than like waiting for somebody's polished Silicon Valley answer.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  So what is your, what, what, just to turn around and then on this little segue, what's your thing? Like, what is the thing that you feel most confident in being good at?

• 17:54Speaker 00

  That I think I'm like, that's why I'm doing it. Like I was all, when I was doing the, the venture capital thing, I don't know how to diligence companies. I was never going to like know their business very well. Like everybody at Founder's Fund knows this. My wife knows this. Like I don't do spreadsheet stuff at all. I'm not a diligence person. What I was good at is trying to get to the heart of like, is this founder truly A plus? Now that's even too generic and that's, that would be too generic for me right now.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Right? But back then it did the job. It's like, cause what we did better than anybody, I think what Founder's Fund did better than anybody else, um, was differentiate between an A plus and a minus founder, which I don't think most people can do. I think people can differentiate between an A and a C founder. Great. I think most people cannot differentiate between an A plus.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  And because it's a parallel, that's like.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's like, there's a lot of great A minus founders out there, but it's like, we took the ones that were A plus and we just backed the truck into them, right? Like, that was just, that was Founder's Fund 101. So I think we were pretty good at that. And I like to think I was pretty good at that myself. And that was my strategy.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Back then, right now I would say that's too generic, which is why I like going into the details. What about them is A plus? Not from this, not from like a checklist perspective, but specifically on this question of like, what are they actually better at than everybody else?

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  If you can figure that out and, and you give them a company or in my case, like a, a firm where they actually can play to those strengths.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  That's a pretty good winning combination.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Okay. So, um, now let's, let's talk about GPX. Can you just, just for context, everybody, can you just quickly explain like what it is?

• 19:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. GPX is kind of like a, we are investing in emerging managers or solo GPs or whatever you want to call them. Not the big name, name funds, right?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Um, for lots of reasons, but what we do is we take those, what, you know, what we call elite athletes or elite GPs and we enable them to be.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Even better at what they do in a couple of ways. Number one, you know, me and my, so I'm partnering with a guy named Lee Linden, who runs Quiet Capital on this. So me and Lee will be your consigliere. There's very few times where you get an actual consigliere who's returned billions of dollars in venture capital, right? So we will be these GPs consigliere. They can call us for anything. We will get to the honest core of the conversation like. Most LPs are really good LPs because they don't mess it up.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  But that's a great LP. Just don't mess it up, right? I mean, like, I think I can take that another step further. By actually being a true venture consigliere. So that's number one. Um, number two, we have our own LP base that we can supply them with. We'll get into that later. But number three, when they are ready to bet their career on something. Right? And this is critical, like not, if you're a GP and you put one to two percent of your fund into something, who cares if it goes to zero, right? It doesn't, it doesn't matter. But you put 20% of your fund into something, that better works. You're only doing that if that's going to actually work. You know that's going to work. So you can kind of go all in on it. We enable that to happen for these GPs by writing.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  We have the ability to write programmatic and automatic capital to them when they bet their career on something. So they can preempt rounds with that capital. They don't, they, I don't have a veto on that capital. These are people who don't want a boss. They would love a strategic partner, but we could never hire them at Founder's Fund because they don't want a boss, right? But if we enable them to actually win some of these rounds that they otherwise would have not enough capital, or they'd have to go raise some SPV. And I can tell you why I think SPVs are dead, but they'd have to go to raise some stupid SPV and that takes like, you know, a long time. With me, they can preempt that round as long as they're willing to bet their career on the company.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Which is 20%.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Roughly.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  I mean, it's all tailored per the.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Different strategies are a little bit different.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  But it's some gigantic.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Some like, no, you can't miss on this.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Whereas.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  And then you don't even need to know anything about the company because you already trusted the GP and now they're staking their career. So you're good to go.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. It's what you're, what we have to do is be really, really, really, really, really good at picking those GPs who don't like YOLO and aren't good, you know? And I work with them on this, right? Like, like this, when they choose to go all in on a company, it's not going to be my first or even 10th time hearing about the company. They're going to be talking to me about it, right?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  I think you said to me that you were kind of like, you knew it, you knew you were ready to be done with VC when like, you know, the, the incremental pitch meeting was just like the bubble gum had lost its flavor kind of thing.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  It had, even, even with an A plus founder.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Like all I could start thinking about in general pitch meetings was like, how do I get out of this meeting?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  And that's really bad because.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Even when in the face of greatness, you felt that way?

• 22:12Speaker 00

  Of greatness.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Why is that?

• 22:14Speaker 00

  I still love meeting with founders and doing strategy sessions with the top founders. That I can still do all day, but I, the whole like process of meeting the founder, well, I mean, a lot of reasons, right? Like, you know, number one, like when I was meeting with the founder, like I was always pretty good at what I did, but there was always imposter syndrome. I've never founded a company, right? And so whereas like meeting with the GPs, it's very different.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  And so you feel like on some level, after some amount of time that like, that wore away at you or something, the fact that you always were, had that or what?

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Either it wore away in me or I realized like,

• 22:48Speaker 00

  I'm, I need to do something I'm even better at than this.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Right? And I think I'm, it's a similar mechanic with the GPs, but I think I'm even better at doing this with the GPs than I was with the founders. Because like, there's no imposter syndrome with the GPs like.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Probably also some level where it's just like, you've done one game for a long time and it's nice for life.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  I think I've given you the analogy, but I'll, I'll say the analogy anyway. It's like with pitch meetings, it's like, so like, imagine you're a musician and you wrote a song.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  And it was a hit song and everybody loved the song and it's your song, you know, it's like, great. It's your song and you love it, but like, you've played that song every single night of your life for the last 30 fucking years.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  And you just can't play the song anymore.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  That was like with, that's what happened with the pitch meetings and very unfortunate because again, I think there's still top tier founders in great companies, but now it can be.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  A level removed and still get to work with those top companies.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  So I mean, I, I guess the, the, the, uh, the central goal is the same, which is you're trying to spot greatness.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  But now, but now what you're trying to spot is not greatness directly. It's people who can spot, you're trying to spot people who can.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  I know. It's a similar kind of thing. It's actually like, it's, it's even more similar to the founder thing than you think. I'm not trying to spot people who can spot greatness. I'm trying to spot people who like can play the game of venture capital, who can tilt the game of venture capital to their, uh, to, to make themselves win, who are so honest with themselves, who know their strengths so well. I, I'm looking for people who could have beaten me in my prime.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Not because they can spot greatness. Maybe that's not part of their strategy, right? Like.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Because they can play a game that they can win.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Yes. I'm betting on elite athletes, playing a game that I know that they can win. And when those elite athletes bet their career, that's when I go in with.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Which I think implied in this, but correct me if you disagree. I think implied in this is you're saying the, the, the selection is one of many parts of venture.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  And so spotting talent is only one part.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  There's all these other parts of.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  There's all, but there's all the strategies that don't even rely on that, right? Like, I mean, like, I'm really, just like I was on the venture side, I'm really open to this being anything, but there has to be, it can't be like some, oh, I'm like no deep tech and founders like me. That's way too generic, right? Like every, name a venture capitalist who doesn't say that, right? It's got to be something specific, but I don't really care what it is as long as I've been, oh yeah, that might give you a way to win this game.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Give me some examples of stra, not naming firms or people, but give me a flavor for types of strategies that a new emerging manager.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Here's a differentiated one. Let's say you're, you know, these guys, like these are called 10 Xers in Silicon Valley lore or N of one guys, whatever you want to call it. Like they, they usually were like these like growth hackers or whatever, right? Okay. Let's say you've got.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  There are a hundred extras now with AI, but.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Right, exactly. That's why I said it with a cheeky, whatever. You know, these guys, right? Everybody in Silicon Valley knows these guys. So it's like, you got one of these like hundred extra kind of guys. And back in what they would do in the past, or one of the things they probably still do is pick a company where they're, maybe their skill is not relevant for every company. That's totally fine. They know where their skill is relevant and it's like a really good company and they know they go in and make that company just do ridiculously well. And they pick one company and they go all, they work at that company. Okay. But what if you're one of these hundred extra guys? And especially in these days with AI, like, and you can like actually leverage yourself. So we know, so I know a couple, one guy who's doing this. He's one of these hundred extra guys. It's a niche skill, like not useful for every company, but for the ones that it is.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  It truly is. And he's like, I leverage myself. So his portfolio, his investment portfolio is like, going to be like five, six companies, all of which he is actually operating at. They're not competitive with each other.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Right?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  But going and operating, doing his hundred X thing for all these companies, making them all worth that, that to me is pretty freaking novel. Like most venture capitalists do not do that, right? Like I would never go operate.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Well, the other thing that's good about that is it's not the type of strategy that's exploitable by some, like.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Like it's not something where it's like, I can have a great fund one, but then if other people realize it, they're going to swoop it.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  You can't copy this.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  There are strategies that will like work for a fund, but then won't keep working.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  That's right. And this is not one of those. This can work because it's like, you, he can be like, well, good luck cloning me. Like, it's like, if you're truly one of these N of one guys.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Then that strategy can play for a while. You don't have to choose this one. You leverage yourself. So I love that. That's just one example, but like there's, there's, you know, there's lots of people that I'm working with. Maybe they, again, it's, it's tough with me because I'm so gut based.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  That when I meet somebody, if they just like, like it happened recently, I'm not going to name any names and I can't name names, but like it happened. I met, uh, some GP. And I was just like, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. Like I can, in, in that other GP's case, I can put it, it's like, that's a brilliant strategy. And yes, you're the perfect person to do that. Great. I'm in, right? There's ones that just you talk to and you're just like, oh.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  You absolutely were going to crush me. Like honestly, like, I, the story is like when I met, and like even when I met like Kushner, like 15 years ago, like I was like, ooh, this guy might be able to like beat me one day, right? So like I invest in Oscar, join the board of Oscar and invest in Thrive.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  Right? Like it's a similar kind of thing. Same with like when I met a lot.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  I was like, like a lot, a lot did this like thing on the strike deal that we did. It was so impressive, especially for like a soul, let alone, but impressive, it would have been impressive for a fund, let alone a soul.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Usually like these guys are good.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  This guy is, and it takes a lot to make me think.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  This person could beat me in my, you know, like, and so when I meet one, I'm just like, I need to invest.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Yeah. And I guess a lot of it is, um, well, your strategy mimics sort of like the Founder's Fund thing in some sense where you're going to invest in a bunch, but that at some point will you be concentrated mass? Like if you find in a lot or in a Josh, and then seven years in, you've got this great relationship and now you can write them 500 million.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  Like that's the idea. Like when, when on GPX, we, so a portion of GPX, like 20% or less is we're going to be writing checks into funds directly. But we're not taking any, we're, that's pass through to our LPs. I'm not making any money off that. We're not charging any carry on that.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Most will come from the double downs?

• 28:33Speaker 00

  Everything is going to come from our automatic checks when these, when one of these GPs bets their career on something, right? So like in Founder's Fund case, there's like, you know, some obvious, I don't want to, I'm not going to speak in terms of exact with founders, something you can imagine that the ones at Founder's Fund went like kind of really, really, really big on. We're like, you know, SpaceX and Palantir and Airbnb and Stripe and Stemcentrics and Anduril and, you know, OpenAI, right? Like, and so these kinds of things, when they have one of these, it doesn't happen every, you can't put 20% of your fund in every day.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  And that's fine. No, I put no pressure on, right? You know, that, that would lead to adverse selection.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  When it happens, you.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  When it happens, I'm in.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yep. If you are, uh, if you were a not you LP, you're an endowment of, you know, what, what is your approximate approach to venture right now?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, what I tell LPs, even on pitching them on this is like, okay, if I was good, if I'm running some endowment or whatever, some extra pension fund or whatever. And I'm going to, and I'm going to bother with venture capital, which you should, right? Like you absolutely should. I put it in two buckets. It's like.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  The tier one, and I'm not going to name names here, but you put it into the tier one multi-stages, but only the tier one.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Right. You figure out who's currently tier one. And the good news for those is like, you can see the performance, you know who they are. It's like, the hard part is just getting a big enough check in.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Right? Like I can use founders funds case here. It's like, yeah, you should definitely, any, yeah, whatever you can put into founders fund, you should put into founders fund. All right. But good luck getting a big enough check in.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  That's the problem. Okay. Um, then my say part two of the optimal venture strategy. So one is this tier one and only tier one, right? Part two is put your money into the most elite emerging managers. This is great for lots of reasons, right? Number one, like you can totally, as they become the next founders fund, as they become the next.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  You'll hit something and you'll be a anchor.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Scale with them. At founders and like, if you invested in our first institutional fund, you got to scale as much as you wanted with us, right? Every, every, this, this, everybody loves their first backers, right? Everybody loves their true believers. Okay. Same with GP world, right? So as these GPs become the net, and that's why we don't, by the way, this is why we don't charge carry on the fund investments. We want our LPs to be able to scale with these elite emerging managers, right? Like that's the whole point. They can co-invest with us. Doesn't matter. We're not a gatekeeper for it. Use our impression, use our opinion of who is the elite and go for it, right? Okay. So it's really important to invest in the most elite, you can scale with them and the returns at the top end can exceed the returns of the most, of the most, just because like the fund sizes are smaller. Yes, there's two problems with it. A is not enough dollars, but B, there's thousands of emerging managers.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  It's like really, really, really, it's like, not like the top tier multi-stage VCs where you kind of know who they are, right? Like this is really hard.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  This is what I love.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  So this is what we're doing.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yes, makes sense. On, on the topic of spotting talent, do you think that in order, so taking aside all the other imbalances that you can create as a solo, which I actually want to go to, because you know, I thought about this a bunch, you know, when I was doing, but uh, on talent spotting itself, do you think that you must be a sort of an imbalance report card yourself to spot another imbalance report card, even if it's in a different stat?

• 31:38Speaker 00

  This is a great question.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Or can a, somebody who is an A minus at everything still spot an A plus, F, F, F, F, F?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  It's a great question. I don't know. I can tell you that for me, I think it's really critical that I think that I'm really good, that I'm one of the best at something in order to spot them. Because then I can sense like,

• 31:55Speaker 00

  I know when I'm talking about something that I know really well, that I think I'm really the best at, right? Like I know how it makes me feel. I know how it makes me sound or whatever versus when I'm trying to like, you know, a little bit unsure. So that part I think is a good game attracts game, if you will.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Cause you can tell when somebody is speaking about something in a way that.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Truly know they know.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  It's like when I was a competitive gamer, if I'm playing against somebody who like, I can spot if they're really, really, really, really, really good at a game, just by talking to them.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Right? So I do think that's it. Now, is that the only way to do it? I have no idea.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Um, I know it helps me. Maybe there's somebody who can be really good without, you know, who's more well-rounded. Like I'm not a well-rounded person by any stretch, right? Like I, I focus on what I'm good at and, and I've said like, this is, I think it's a really good skill in business. It is not a good skill in like, necessarily in a marriage where you need to be a little bit more well-rounded.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Can, can you name a provably elite venture capitalist who you would say that's a well-rounded person? Who happened to just be an elite venture capitalist?

• 32:56Speaker 00

  I don't know, but I'm, I, I would imagine that there is one, maybe. I, I can't.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  But you can't think of one.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  No, I can't. Every, everybody who I would say is elite venture capitalist, I'm like, that person is elite because they are really, really, really good at whatever it is. And they can crush the game by playing that game. Like, yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Why did you say SPVs are dead, by the way?

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Um, couple of reasons. In, in Silicon Valley, everything, the founder is king. Um, and, and all hierarchies go through the founder. So if you're an elite founder, like you're the founder of say, you know, OpenAI, Anthropic, Endural, SpaceX, whatever, like the next generation of top tier founders listens to you. And what I've seen the top tier companies dealing with now is they're so miserable. Like, look at all the news. I'm like Anthropic and SPVs, Endural and SPVs. It's so bad that, but once you open that Pandora's box, it's like open.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  And there's really not a whole lot you can do about it. So they're telling all the next generation founders, yes, do this, never do this, never do this. So it's like, it's not one of those things that's dead right now, but it's like, in a couple of years, people realize, oh yeah, only tier four companies are doing it.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because um, it, it connects to the fact that we're in a massive oversupply of capital right now. And so in an undersupply, you take the capital you can get.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  This game change, this, this thesis changes in an undersupply world. Like I'm very much open to adapt or die.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Okay. And so, but I'm signed up for right now, where you're not in an undersupply of capital, right?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Okay. So, so we're in a massive oversupply moment of capital, particularly for the companies that are working.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, correct.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  And um,

• 34:32Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  These things humongously change how founders, you know, update their preference set. What is your best read on what great founders prioritize most now? I mean, obviously you're thinking about this a bunch.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  I am. I think the, the best founders prioritize who they trust most. And that trust can come from either, oh, this person actually is an expert in this thing and like listen, or it could come from this person co-founded this company with me, right? I think that's a big one, actually. Like this is why I love, it's like, if you're a manager and you're like actually co-founding companies, I mean, look, two of the best companies in founders in history, like,

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  maybe third, like, you know, we've got a couple more that people have found, like Dalian and Scott founded companies, right? Like that are really freaking good. Okay. And so like, if you, that is a way of learning trust. Like you're, if you're an investor who also co-founded the company, look at like what Frankel does, right? And so that I think goes a, a long, long, long way.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  I appreciate the clarification because I think a lot of times people hear the trust and they interpret it in the sort of personal sense of trust, like, oh, our families have gotten together and we have a dinner together.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  Maybe that, maybe that could be it, but like, no, I think it's like, I think it's like, that might be, I, that's why I agree with you. That's why I say maybe that's it, but I think that's table six. No, I mean, like really trust, like the, the GPX GPs that we have, when they go all in on a company, I am not expecting it to be some random company that they've been chasing along with everyone.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  It's like you trust that their advice is good. You trust that they can help you. It's like that for me.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Or they have been helping you.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Like I'm expecting that these guys are going to win the kind of company, the big round and the kind of company, because they co-founded the company.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  And the founder just has like,

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  It's more than just like, oh, lose trust.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  It would be like absurd to do anything other than let them lose.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Yes, as long as they have the capital.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  And enter me.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. Um, the uh, you know, one, one of the things when I was doing alt cap before, that you know, LPs were asking about a lot, and I would contend with two in, in practical, you know, scenarios was the, that trust being earned weighed against, let's say a brand where they didn't have that. And so like the common scenario frequently that, you know, I, I, you know, lived and thought through constantly was you've earned the type of trust you're talking about, and that's now being weighed against a brand.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  With a partner that they don't really care who it is, you know, let's say.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  How do you think that plays out right now? Like, how important do you think that trade is?

• 36:51Speaker 00

  I think that the tides have turned towards right now, the pure, if the, the established real, as long as they have the money, the real trust. Look, the Endural board is like, I'm a board observer at Endural. The actual board of directors is like the three, three of the four founders.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  It's like nobody else, because it's like, no, they need that level of trust, right? And that I think does win. Now, do I think the tier one brands have a huge edge in venture capital? So of course, that's why I say like in my optimal venture strategy, venture capital strategy is like that, but, so it's kind of like a, that's the heavyweight. Now, even though a tier one, I think right now, if you're a tier one brand and you're going up against one of these true trust people, I think it's still going to be hard because the tier, here's why, here's why. In a world with somewhat less capital, this might change because the reason, one reason to go with the top brands, like, oh, the signaling and like, oh, it's helpful in raising.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  The king making.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  The king making, it's helpful in raising your next round. What I think we're in a time right now where that does not matter for the tier one companies, right? So maybe for the tier four companies, it still matters. You need the, oh, I need benchmark to invest so that like, I can get the signaling for the next round, whatever. For the tier one companies where they know, it's like, no, capital is not going to be a problem. Again, not, not counting the like companies that need to raise a trillion dollars or whatever. And that's a little bit different, right? I'm talking about like the real.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  We can get into that separately, but like, you know, these other companies where I think they probably have to raise less than they had to in the past.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Right?

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm kind of waiting for that. You know, everyone says the way everyone's gonna need to raise less and then the companies keep raising more. So.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  They keep raising more.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  What you're saying makes sense to me, but.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  They they don't necessarily have to do that, but either way, we need to do that separately. But the point being that I think that in this world with the abundance of capital wanting to invest in those companies, I think the trust wins out even over the brand.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  But again, the only thing that can defeat.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  The trust is.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Is maybe the toppest of top tier brands. Like, there's no world in where it's like a second tier brand beats that.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  No, but I think you're, I mean, you know, to taking the Zach Frankel example or something like that, like he's still always going to get to invest.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's gonna always get to invest whatever he wants.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  And then the other firm can also invest.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Zach probably got a better.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  But like, if you ask like, you know, the ramp guys or Scott at Condition, like, they're gonna be like, yeah, Zach is doing that's what he wants. And then you.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  It beats kind of, it kind of beats.

• 39:01Speaker 00

  But but but think about this, those are tier one companies.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  And the reason they're they're so they're totally comfortable saying that because it's like, yep, great. We can do that. We don't need the signaling. We don't need any of this nonsense. Like, you guys can put in money or not, right? The tier one companies just want the trust.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess the only, um, I I agree with your point. The only, um, the only wrinkle I think maybe is sometimes, you know, on the tier four, you know, whatever. I, I do think sometimes early, early on in a company's life, Airbnb is a good example.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  There's, there's a lot of these companies that are in fact great, but it takes people a little bit of time to see it.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  We it took for us forever to see it.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  You know, we, but that but that's what we did with Airbnb. This is the, this is the, this is, I love talking about Airbnb because it's like, we were slow or we didn't see it. We didn't see it. We didn't see it. Once we saw it, we went real big.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Right? Like, I always like, I think we made, we, we were behind, we were probably the thirtieth investor in Airbnb, but I think we made the second most amount of money.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Which, by the way, if you're Founder's Fund and you're like, we're Founder's Fund, which, you know, it comes bo- both with good and bad things. It actually takes a lot of ego to put aside, we passed, these other people made a good decision.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  We're not going to come on top of them and they're going to get it. We are admitting that they deserve a way better multiple on this than we're going to have. And we're going to put a crazy amount of money. Like, that actually takes, putting your ego aside.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  Adapt or die.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  This is, this goes back to one of my earliest, you know, stories, like a whole bunch of people would have offers from Google, like in ninety eight, ninety nine, various reasons you turned down, you know, like Stan, Stanford ninety eight, I know a lot of people like offers from Google that they would turn down to do other startups or whatever it was. Come two thousand four, right? And it's just like, you know, they're still hiring and your, your startup didn't work out, right? Like, there's the certain people that were like, oh, Google's already fully baked in two thousand three, two thousand four. It's like a billion dollar company. There's no way.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  There's a lot of like self soothing.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, there's, it's too late. It doesn't matter. And then there's people like, no, no, I think this is actually still really good. And you go there in two thousand four.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Gotta go fix my mistake.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  I don't care. Like, the past is the past, man. Like, this is the whole good money after bad. Like, just like, we were slow on Airbnb.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Sure. Great point. It's the inverse of good money after bad. And I think like.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  People are very good at realizing that on not putting more money in if they don't like it. But I think people struggle in the other.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  They struggle in the, we didn't struggle in the other direction. We're like, oh, yeah, Airbnb is really good now. Let's just fix this by putting the most money we possibly can to the company because we know how good it is.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  And so I think we made the second most amount of money on Airbnb, even though we were like.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Super late.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  And you did it at like two billion or something, right?

• 41:25Speaker 00

  We did something two billion, but we put like a hundred and fifty million into the company.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Right? And so like, exactly. Hence my GPX strategy of like, I don't actually care at all about your ownership percentage. It's people, managers, when they talk to me, oh, well, we get this about ownership. And I don't care. How much of your fund are you putting in? Because like, that's what's going to actually determine your, your, your multiples. Like, and on the Airbnb thing, it's like, what I tell people is like, well, billions minus five billion is the same as billions minus fifty million, the same as billions minus a hundred fifty million. It's like, the answer is still billions.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  And so like, that's the thing. You need the billions regardless of how much you put into, to, to get it, right?

• 41:59Speaker 01

  That is the crazy thing where you're like, hey, if we spent, you know, you, you put in one fifty at two.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  You could have bought that same stake for less money, but who cares?

• 42:07Speaker 00

  But who cares?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  It turned into five billion.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  Okay. Let's say we made, the gains are identical.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  And actually, you know, it's actually, yeah, I mean.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  You have to be, the most important thing on this, Jack, is you have to be right.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Like, when we went into Airbnb.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  Right? When we went big, it's because we knew we were right at that point. And I think that's totally fine. We didn't know.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  Before then, so we didn't put a lot, you know, put money in. Once we knew, we're like, yep.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so on that topic, the, on, on the concentration topic, I feel like very central to what Founder's Fund has been all about is these crazy concentration bets. Maybe Airbnb is not one of them exactly, but you know, you probably.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  That was pretty high concentration.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  And did you multiple or I don't even know what, but like, you know, I hear, I hear stories about SpaceX where it's like, not only was a huge percentage of the fund, but it was fund after fund after fund. Anduril and Ramp, and I'm sure there's more and Airbnb, you know? And, and I think it's great, but I think the strategy, it is probably the sort of most cited and copied strategy that I hear right now. Like, the amount of managers who talk about concentration seems very high and it might be good, but it does seem to me that to do the Founder's Fund strategy, it requires both A, having a SpaceX in the portfolio and B, knowing you've got one when you've got one.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  Correct. This is.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  And those seem kind of hard.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  This is all about that whole look in the mirror thing, man. This is all about the be honest with yourself. Like, this is why I don't put pressure on my managers. I don't want, it's like, at first we were like, oh, we want the, the best of the best, the best company from the best managers. Like, nope. That's not necessarily true. The best may still not be good enough from this perspective, right? Like, that's the key thing. It's like, you've got to know, we were really good at knowing when to actually do this, even though like, we had a lot of great companies and this and that. It's like, when to actually do this is the most critical thing. And you can't just be like, well, it's, you're gonna lose a lot of money if you're like, oh, well, this is my best one. So.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  It's the best in this basket.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Right, right. Like, so all in. Like, you're gonna lose a lot of money if you do that.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  Right? And so you've got to be, this goes back to be honest. It's like, which one of these, like, like, is, if, if the answer is no, that you don't have one as you were pointing at, if you don't have a SpaceX in your portfolio or whatever it is. Okay. Just, just keep doing your thing.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Part of what I think is hard is if you're not calibrated to what an Elon or a SpaceX looks like. And so, you know, one of the things, I thought about this for myself, you know, I tried to, I tried to get myself calibrated as much as I could, but just knowing that like, you probably are not calibrated to real greatness when you're a year or two or three into your venture career. You just can't be, I don't think. I mean, unless you got.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  I think it's why people like having me as a consigliere, because I'm really good at pushing them on that and like comparing it to, like, the Elons to the Cheskys, to the Levchins of the world.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that calibration is really important, right? Because otherwise.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  It's critical.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  But then, so, so there's that. And then the other piece is like, you know, so there's both having one, but then there's also trusting yourself to know you've got one. And you know, we've talked about this and this is a known thing. I mean, Peter seems uniquely brilliant and able to see greatness when he has it. I think all of you guys were. And so, separate from having a SpaceX, like, there were a lot of other investors in SpaceX who didn't invest a hundred times. They kind of could have, but they maybe didn't. And so, you know, when, when you see this strategy, do you click, like, what do you need to believe to believe that a manager is going to be good at the concentration strategy?

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Oh, man, this is where I do need to see something of myself in them for, from, you know, to, to be blunt about that. Like, I can't, if I see an element of like, oh, they're just doing the concentration thing because they know that's what I want to hear. I, I, I'm very good at sensing when people are saying something because they know I want to hear it and I just get allergic to that. It's like, when I, I have to sense this natural ability to be, do it, but also, and this is what I don't talk about with people. Now it's going to get blown after this podcast, but like, they also need to be reserved enough and honest enough to know that they might not have that. And that's okay. Like, I'm not going to name names, but like, one manager that I worked very closely with, that I love, like,

• 46:04Speaker 00

  was recently, like, she was recently evaluating whether to go to do this.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  And I had a conversation with her and like, she at least, you could tell, and she could tell that it's not the right, it's, it's a hyped company. It's having amazing up rounds. It's like, oh, man, like, if you're playing the Silicon Valley game, you would, she was like honest enough with herself to be like, unsure. So I'm like, don't do it.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Right? I'm like, if you are not sure, then there's absolutely, do not do it just because to play in the Silicon Valley game. And I would, Jack, ninety plus percent of managers are going to do it to play the Silicon Valley game.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yes. And what's, what, you know, what, what I think is, is, it's probably true that even Founder's Fund, Sequoia, like, it doesn't matter who you are. Most of your vintages are not going to contain a SpaceX level company.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  And so even if you're them, you should, in most of your funds, not be putting forty percent.

• 46:53Speaker 00

  Two did this with SpaceX, three did this with Palantir, four did this with Stripe, Airbnb, and some others. Five didn't have one.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Six Anduril.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  Seven didn't have one.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  I mean, like, it.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And you're much better off in those scenarios, I think, rather than.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  You're so much better off in those scenarios.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Way more initial bets.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, yes. You were.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I'm better off in those scenarios. Y C has proven that it works great.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  That's fine.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  A lot of bets that seem.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  I still think, like, I still think that the ones that had one of those that concentrate are going to perform way better than the ones that didn't.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  But if you don't want to do is force.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Yes, that's critical. It's like, maybe you have a fund that's not as good as Fundation Two, okay, or whatever, but like, that's okay. You don't want to force it because forcing it loses you a lot of money.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think definitionally what you're saying must be true because in order for the broad portfolio to be really good, it must have contained something great. And if it must have contained something great, it would have technically been better to dump it all in.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  Yes, correct. But definitionally, that's true. And if it doesn't, then it, forcing would be a terrible idea.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. In the sort of, you know, earlier years of your time at Founder's Fund, just because I think those are kind of, you know, interesting and very formative. How close was Founder's Fund to the CEO, you know, the the strong CEO model, you know, one end of the spectrum to the equal partnership model on one end of the spectrum?

• 48:08Speaker 00

  Oh, founders, the always, you mean like in terms of like how founders and works?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  Not an equal partnership?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can you tell like, how did something?

• 48:16Speaker 00

  I think it's the opposite of benchmark.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was very strongly, you know, it's got it, you know, it's trusted people. But at the end of the day, Peter's gonna call it.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  He's gonna call, but Peter didn't even have the most Peter. Peter wasn't like saying he gets the most.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  So how? Yes, tell me how it works.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  Like Peter had the final call. Peter's CEO of Founder's Fund. Peter founded Founder's Fund. But like, the end of the day, like it ended up, it probably ended up working where like your carry and current fund was driven a lot by your actual returns in prior couple.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Right? Like it's it's not the it's probably not the exact formula, but it was certainly based on actual performance. And it's tough to go back in history and venture capital, right? Like you have this like carry numbers. And it's like, but you would get more. It's like.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Wow. So carry can fluctuate up and down?

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, hundred percent.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  And like, I'm good with this. I'm very good with this. It's just because it's like, the the principle being like, well, first you make a lot of other people money, and then you can start making real money, right? I very much believe this, right? Like, I don't believe in entitlement. And it's like, you first have to like, do really good. And then you can start making real money. Um, and so I think the no, yeah, carry went up and down at Founder's Fund. But it meant you didn't have to necessarily like.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  You didn't have to fire.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  Fire somebody like, yeah, if you if you're in an equal partnership like benchmark, if somebody's not pulling their weight, you the only way is to.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  It's the only escape.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  It's the only escape out. Whereas Founder's Fund, it's like, you can be like, well, name is person not like doing it. But you can give them a smaller amount of carry and they can still have value or whatever it is, right? Like, that's the the the good news about that.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  It's actually a good point. I mean.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  The downside is fricking negotiation every single time.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  That's right. I thought about this a bunch. Cause I mean, like, you know, obviously, I I'm obviously biased. I I really enjoy the equal partner model for a bunch of reasons, but but thi- this is one of the cons is that there is, um, you can't sort of like have the franchise model where you're like, we would still rather have you than not have you, but not at this level. And there's a world where we'd both rather you be in the next fund at half the carry. So let's do.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  I also think that the benchmark is the example of the people that do it best, because you are able to, you know, do that whole transition or whatever. If you're not, if you imagine doing the equal partnership model and you're not good at that.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  You lose a lot of money. Okay. Right? Like, it's just not, it's not gonna work. You have to be really, really, really good at this. So my point being like, all firms are different. And you need to play to your firm's strength. For us, it would have been a disaster to have an equal partnership.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  How about the way a decision got done? Like.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Depends on the check size.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yes. So tell me, what was the like rough, you know, not not in numbers, because I'm sure I moved around, but like, kind of how did it work? Shape was?

• 50:41Speaker 00

  If it was a small check, like you probably could like just get it done with one other person just giving a okay.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  If it was like a really, really, really big check, then it needed like, depending on when we're talking about like, at what point it would require like me and Peter or just, you know, whatever. If it's for like a really, really, really big check, I think it's pretty standard.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Do you think there's like, um, more like managerial fund CEOs and more like CIO type of fund CEOs? If you're like, Peter strikes me as extremely CIO like, you know, very much like, you know.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Um, so some ways, but Peter is also the thing that the thing that makes Peter Thiel the best venture capitalist in history is not necessarily even because, and and I think he is, is not because necessarily his like individual decision making at the CIO level, right? It's more, I mean, it's the inspiration of the GPX model. Like, he was really, really, really good at taking very, very hairy driven and smart people who are very different, figuring out what their strengths were, letting them play to their strengths. Now, what he needed to find was people who are really, really, really, really good and smart, who could also push back on him.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Cause like, I think Peter is extremely self-aware that he is not always correct. And therefore you want to partner with people who you think are going to be correct in ways that you're not, that are also able. And let's be clear, not everybody in the world can push back on Peter Thiel. But like, who if you are the type of person who can, and you're right, this is the most important thing, though. You have to be right. But if you can do that, like, I think he was just the best in history at assembling a team of ridiculously talented people that are able to push back on him and leveraging their strengths. Why Founder's Fund is like the greatest, like, in my opinion, like, team is very different than like a solo GP thing.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  It's a it's it's like the best team venture capital firm that there is. But like, not, of course, I'm biased.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  But he's the reason for that.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Hmm. How important was the way that the team worked together? Like, did the team need to like each other? Did the team need to respect? What need to be true for the team to work the way you're saying?

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Probably more the respect thing. Um, you had to realize, like, I think the life thing, I mean, I think that we,

• 52:46Speaker 00

  you know, when you're dealing with a bunch of chaotic, outspoken people, sometimes we are going to do things that.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Confident.

• 52:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that you don't like. So the que- the question is like, well, okay, but are they actually really, really, really good? Do like, it's like, you have to not cross a line.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  You can't cross this line of being like, you know, we always used to, you know, we always used to be like, you know, does a founder cross the line from being like just really good to like something more

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  worse that you don't want to deal with, right?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  And I think with these with with the team at Founder's Fund, it was like, they're gonna do their crazy things. You, they can't go over a certain line. But otherwise, you just have to respect them from their for their for their work.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Cause this is the thing, you're hiring, you have a bunch of individuals.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  I actually think this kind of happens with founders too. It it's very easy to say in theory, oh, yeah, I want people who are awesome at something. And, you know, I want the spikiness. But then I think in practice, a lot of those people are uncomfortable in experience.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  You know, in the day to day experience of a lot of the people we're talking about founders or VCs, they're actually uncomfortable to be around. They do things that are uncomfortable. I think a lot of people then can't actually sit with it. And I think that's part of what prevents people from investing in or partnering with these kinds of people.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Is because the rest of the report card doesn't like, you know, when when someone is that mismatched, which, you know, is sort of like definitional, and someone's that good at something like, they're they just behave in uncomfortable ways a lot of time.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's true. But I think the flip side is also true. Like, what you don't want to do is just work with somebody because you just like them.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Like, cause then you get blinded by like, oh, I really like being around this person. But if they're not pulling, if they're not actually really good.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yes. So we're like company decisions, like confrontational? Was it like aggressive?

• 54:29Speaker 00

  Sometimes.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was like more aggressive than you imagine other places that might be like more like.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  I think so, because we did. We also didn't have, and I think that, you know, post me being there, I think like, you know, it's probably run pretty differently right now, but they may have memos or they think the growth team runs with like a ton of diligence now, like Napoleon runs a tight ship on that, right? But like, for me, when I was there, like, especially on the venture side, there was like no memo. So the way they would get done would be like, well, you'd have a debate. I just like talk about like, for you, you have to get people that like, the first step, Founder's Fund was always like, well, can you convince other people to meet with the company?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Right? Like, yeah, that was like a requirement. And then like, if you did, then you would have like a debate. And sometimes these debates would take like five, five minutes. And that was it. That was a decision was made in five minutes on a yea or nay on, it was not, it was not some long process.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Right? Unless like the person who was really driving it was unsure, you could, you know, I could always tell it's like, if somebody was doing a long process, the answer was probably not to invest.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 00

  But like, you know, there'd just be a conversation or at a, a, you know, a table or a text message conversation. It was really ad hoc, man. Especially in the early days, it was really ad hoc.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  With all this talk of teams, do you, um, and you think about you're investing in the next sort of great fund? Do you want to back a team? Or do you want to back a solo who's gonna later build a team?

• 55:46Speaker 00

  It's a great question. I think for now I know how to do this with solo. I'm taking some, here's why. You're solo GP. Again, I have to, I have to, I all of, these people are essentially calling my capital. And so getting this whole ultra high conviction thing correct is everything. And if you're solo GP and you invest 20% of your fund or whatever, it's like, there's nowhere to run. There's nowhere to, it's just you, right? Like, you have that ultra, there's no, but there's no bling. Whereas I've been in, I was in a partnership for a long time and I'm not getting into specifics, but like, sure, there was always this element of like, oh, well, that person wanted to do it. So I kind of supported them or, oh, I didn't really want to do this. This is the the blame game. I hate that.

• 56:27Speaker 00

  And so the if you're playing this like blame game, like I I don't want to deal with that in partnerships. I'm trying to figure out how to make the GPX model work.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  With partnerships, but I think it probably works better with solo GPs, just because you get the ultra high conviction stuff just nailed.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Well, maybe the last thing, um, then I'll let you go. I saw on Molly's podcast, you were doing it in your home music studio. I play a lot of music. Do you play a lot of music?

• 56:51Speaker 00

  I write a bunch of my own songs, but I can't play anything.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  So how do you write it?

• 56:57Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, I know enough music theory and you can use DAWs and you can like use MIDI controllers to get notes into the computer and and play around, right?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  But you're not like playing on piano or guitar?

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Not live. No, I like, I I theoretically know how to play all those things, but like, I can't physically like, I'm trying to learn guitar and it like hurts. But like, I do have a pretty big studio and I love it. And like, in fact, it was awesome. Like my kid's band, my eight year old band had like a practice rehearsal in the studio that it was like, everybody, the parents that were there, like, all of our hearts just like melted. But this, the studio has to support everything from like band practice to karaoke, which our family loves.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  To like professional tracking, professional mixing, um, like, it has to go from pro to kid.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  So do you, do you work with pro musicians on stuff you wrote?

• 57:47Speaker 00

  I have, and that's the plan. Not stuff that I wrote. No, no, here's what I like to do. So we can get into this whole like, you know, I'm bullish on human happiness and going forward in AI world. And so it's like, what I get at, so I'm gonna, my my plan and what I've been doing is letting perf- letting artists use the studio for free. Cause I I don't care about making money on the studio. So they get to use the studio free. I'll even create a label for them where they own a hundred percent of the IP and everything. I don't. But the the exchange, I get to be a fly on the wall. So like, I get to be like part of the experience. They so total, total win win. They don't have to pay anything. They get to own all of their own personal everything, but I get to watch. I get to feel like I'm part of it. And in a way that feels real, because I think I'm at the studio with them while they do it. And I

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Get in there, yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  I've had this like, ever since like, you know, I dated somebody in high school and she had a band and like, I remember the time that I got to go to the studio and like, but that was like, it felt so cool. So that's what I'm trying to kind of like relive here.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  It's just amazing to me that you're doing it without being able to like play somewhat.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Don't know how to play anything, but I can like.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  It's like you're Rick Rubin.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  I know, I I know enough about like production now.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  That I can get that done. I just can't, I think that the physically playing stuff, man, I just haven't practiced.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  But you feel able to get to a good song?

• 59:02Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm trying to get better at doing that. But yeah, that's my goal. My goal is to like be like part of the process such maybe I can even like help.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  I mean, this is.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm a huge music fan.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  It's almost too on the nose to connect to being an investor, you know, who doesn't play the music, but just, you know.

• 59:16Speaker 00

  Well, it's the similar kind of thing, man. Like this is why I could never found a company, right? I'm not going to be in a band. I can't found a company, but like, yeah, I can enable that. I I I do know it is. It actually is somewhat similar. I can't believe you. You're the first to like mention this, but it is somewhat similar. Like, I want to enable that band to be the best they possibly can while I get to be part of the experience. I love the experience of it. And there's, it doesn't matter how good something AI better than you at something. It doesn't matter.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Experience, human experience is like.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I mean, it almost doesn't matter whether or not you think AI is going to be better than people making music.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  Right. I don't care. The I'm sure the AI is going to be better.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  This is like, you know.

• 59:55Speaker 00

  Doesn't matter.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  I spoke to a chess grandmaster recently, which was super cool. And he was just like, you know, we've been losing to computers at chess for 20 years.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  And people love watching Magnus Carlsen.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. I like watching Magnus Carlsen. Like, I don't, whereas I don't watch the stock versus whatever fish.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Five thousand.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Battlefish. Like, yeah, yeah, I don't watch those games, whereas I watch the Magnus games.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  And I don't know if you're a chess player at all, but the other crazy thing is if you watch those, you know, if you watch stockfish, the moves are alien moves.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  They're alien moves, man. You're just like, you're watching with like a huh.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  That move makes no sense. Then it just turns out that it's good.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  It's like the, it's like when, it's like the AlphaGo thing. It's like when it beat Go, so you talk to these like Go pros about it.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And then you watch like a YouTube video, Magnus Carlsen, like, I don't understand that move.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  I understand that.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna try.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  Totally. Then maybe he adapts and maybe he can learn, understands why. But no, I, to me, the human experience, like, it does not matter. This is why I'm like, yeah, not anti, I mean, it's a long conversation, but like, I think the human experience survives regardless of how good AI gets at something.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Do you think, is the math thing any different? You know, like, and this is, you know, recent that OpenAI had the thing where they, you know, solved all this open math stuff. And then there were a bunch of mathematicians who were like expressing sadness over it. Is that somehow different than the chess thing? Or do you think it was like, yo, the chess players in 2005 were also really sad? And they thought, you know, that this was the end. And then it all turned out that, like, people want to see humans play anyway.

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  It's a great question because there is a difference, right? The math stuff. I guess they have to move on to something else because like the great, the thing about chess is like even if.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Versus human.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Exactly.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Math wants to solve.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  It's PvP versus or or PVE, right? And if math is PVE.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  And the E is.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Solved, you need to move on to a different E, whereas PvP.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Well, this is like, you know, I'm, I know that we can make a machine that throws a baseball way better than a pitcher.

• 1:01:38Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  That rips a baseball at 400 miles an hour.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  And you can certainly watch robots play baseball and it'd be a different sport, right? But PvP, yes, yes, yes. The PvP nature of it is probably what makes that a little bit different than the math thing, whereas it may be PVE because once a proof is solved.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:54Speaker 00

  It makes no point. There's no point solving that proof again.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  That's right. So there could be a little sadness in some of those.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  It could. And the PVE, the E, the AI might take away some of that. The PvP, though.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  But broadly, you're like AI optimist. This is going to be very good.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  I'm a tech optimist in general. Like, I generally think that, like, you know, there's struggles, but we figure it out. I'm, I'm bullish on humanity. I am a tech optimist. I think tech is going to like. Like, I'm not crazy. Like, I think that's going to create a lot of, like, struggles over the next whatever many years, but like, no, I am a tech optimist.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Speaker 00

  That's why I can remain happiness. But I'm also like a human experience optimist, right?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Well, Brian, this is super fun.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Awesome. Thanks, Jack.