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At the time it was you would push out push out a white paper with your idea of the product you're gonna build, the protocol you're gonna develop, and just people from everywhere in the world will just buy those tokens because tokens will go up 5x the next day.
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Welcome to Partner Path, a podcast that unpacks the venture capital and growth equity ecosystem from a junior perspective.
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Young entrepreneurs and investors have already had a massive impact on the industry, having started unicorns and launched billion-dollar funds.
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We discuss these success stories and more by sharing perspectives and advice from some of the industry's most prominent role models.
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This podcast expresses our views as of the date published and does not represent the views of and is not endorsed by any company for which we work.
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We are excited to sit down with Max Bucai, an investor at Draper, an early stage generalist fund.
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Max began his career as a foreign exchange trader before becoming an operator at AirSwap.
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His passion for blockchain continued when he joined Atari, leading the blockchain team.
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In January 2023, he joined Draper full-time post-MBA.
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Welcome, Max.
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Hey, welcome, Laura.
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Thank you very much for having me.
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So at 15, you moved to New York from Paris with your four siblings.
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I mean, were there any memorable moments or kind of like culture shock from your first months in New York City?
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It was quite insane, right?
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Because like you're a big family, you have five kids, you have to find a place in New York City, like the biggest city in the world.
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I was living in a suburban area in Paris.
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I would say the first thing we noticed is every time we would go and buy something, if it was a car, if it was ice cream, if it was anything, everything was just so big.
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Like even for five kids, like we would only order like one thing, and everything was super massive compared to the portions in France.
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I think a little funnier also, in France, you drink wine with your parents when you're like 15, 16.
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And I remember like going to buy a bottle of wine with my mom, and my mom didn't bring her ID, and she was like 45.
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And even my mom couldn't get a bottle of wine or anything, and she would get ID herself.
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So she was like, Oh, if I get ID myself, you're never going to be able to buy a single drop of alcohol in this country.
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So she felt much better about that.
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Um, so that was pretty fun.
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In 2016, you started as a trader at a French bank at a really unique time when there were some interesting shifts in digitization.
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And I'm I'm curious what some of those shifts were and how it impacted your experience.
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Yeah, so I worked at BNP for 20 months.
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Uh, essentially, when I arrived there, we were eight people in my team.
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So traders for every single currency.
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It was amazing.
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You could trade anything at any time.
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Did you have that flexibility as a junior member?
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I got flexibility very early on, which was a very lucky position, because of the fact that essentially when I arrived, we were doing trading for orders of$10 million and above.
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Everything below$10 million was done by the first algorithms that were starting to be developed.
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When I left, the minimum size order that we would do as individuals was$100 million, and algorithms were doing 90% of all the trading that we were doing.
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So that led to the team coming from eight people to two people very quickly, and me having to do most of the job and getting a lot of responsibility.
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So I learned a lot because I was exposed to the risk of trading every day, and really that was the first time like really learning about risk management, being able to invest money, lose money, make money.
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I was really stressful because foreign exchange is a market that's 24-7.
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Where did you start in blockchain?
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I mean, how did you even come across the fact that this might be the next big thing?
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People were starting to talk a lot about Bitcoin on the trading floor in 2017.
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And it was every every week there was a lot of news, the price kept going higher and higher, and people were starting to get there, was just so much excitement.
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At the time, all the opportunities they were okay, you have this technology, you have those assets, the crypto assets, and the only jobs in the industry were trading.
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So you either go and work for an exchange or you go work for a trading desk.
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And when I looked at those opportunities, I realized, well, I'm not gonna go to a trading desk to basically do the exact same job that I'm doing right now for that job to get disrupted by algorithms again in 10 years.
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So I need to look deeper into what is the real essence of this technology and how is it really gonna impact this industry?
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And essentially at the time in 2017, you had exchanges that were very little oversight, a lot of hacks, a lot of misbehavior.
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And you had started to have the first smart contracts becoming on Ethereum that will enable two peers, so you and me, to exchange assets without ever depositing in a central place.
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And that was essentially the burst of decentralized exchanges.
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Was that what you were doing at Aeroswap?
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Yeah, so Aeroswap was one of the first, it was the third ever decentralized exchange.
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It was two guys, one very one very technical person and one old trader that started it.
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We raised money, I worked part-time for them in 2017 before joining full-time in 2018.
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And it was a crazy time in the crypto market.
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We raised$37 million in the time of two hours from investors from all over the world coming in to buy our token.
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So quick diligence.
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What was that token worth?
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I mean.
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Yeah, I mean, a lot of it at the time it was you would push out a white paper with your idea of the product you're gonna build, the protocol you're gonna develop, and just people from everywhere in the world will just buy those tokens because tokens will go up 5x the next day.
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Um, so we had, I think, out of the 37 million dollars, it was 20 million dollars that came from retail investors, so just anyone going online and buying it.
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And then you have 15, 16 million dolling from funds.
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At those times, the funds' intelligence was super quick.
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I mean, they looked do you have the team in place?
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Is the idea good?
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How's your traction?
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And pretty much they would invest in any sort of projects out there, which became kind of a problem because a lot of money was poured into some pretty bad projects that ended up going nowhere.
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But it was super quick, yeah.
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So you start to see, you know, this pickup of decentralized exchanges, and you really start building your thesis about where you want to focus in this area and what you want to do next in your career, which I think will be a great transition into how you got to Draper.
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But maybe just touch on some of the thesis work that you worked on that led to your next opportunity and then how that filled into Draper.
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A lot of the decentralized finance movement, when we looked at it, is how do we provide tools for individuals or companies to remove themselves from central risk of institutions?
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So the big risk at the time was exchanges.
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How do you remove that centralized risk?
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And how can you access financial markets without relying on any third parties?
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And I thought that was a great application for finance, and we saw it.
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We sold our company in 2020 to Consensus, which develops the wallet MetaMask, and now technology powers all the trades inside the MetaMask wallet, which that makes like$400 million of revenue every year.
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And the MetaMask wallet is where you hold your NFTs and your Bitcoin.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, it's the most you know you can't hold Bitcoin, but you can hold every sort of Ethereum or EVM compatible chain tokens.
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It's the most popular browser wallet, you should get it.
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So basically, our technology was acquired to power all the trades inside of that.
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And basically, what I realized is that by 2020, 2021, all the people that were attracted by the trading aspect of cryptocurrencies already started to take a deep look in the industry.
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And DeFi protocols were blowing up everywhere, so now you could do decentralized lending, decentralized leverage trading.
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And I thought it started to be already pretty well developed.
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And so I thought to myself, okay, we still have this technology that enables financial freedom and being able to hold your own assets.
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Where else are we going to be able to apply it?
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And I looked, I was in charge of a team doing special projects where essentially we looked a bit around of where else we can apply this technology, and I started to gaming and started developing a thesis around it.
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And in early 2020, I met the person who was the CEO and owned 20% of Atari, which is the legendary gaming company where Steve Jobs worked.
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They created some of the first computers, some of the first video game machines.
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And essentially convinced him that blockchain is a really good application for gaming and that we should build an entire team there.
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I think where that thesis came from is younger, I was a gamer, and playing on World of Warcraft, for example, if you played a lot of time, you could sell your accounts to someone else that wanted to buy to buy it because they just wanted to level up, but you could never do it through the World of Warcraft platform because World of Warcraft wanted people to go and pay them directly.
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And so you couldn't sell your account to someone directly there.
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You had to go on some sketchy Chinese website and being able to sell it so that you can extract value from your playtime, from your time spending on the game, leveling up the players, finding the good swords or finding the good items.
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I thought that was going to be the application to bring the next 10 100 million people into the industry and when to build a part of that.
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I think that's a great transition into your movement to Draper.
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Why don't you walk us through the background on Draper and how the fund differentiates from other venture capital funds from your perspective?
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So I always knew of Tim Draper, I think is a well, you have, yeah, I would say you have 15 venture capitalists in the bay that have gone through every cycle and found some very big winners.
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And Tim is definitely one of them.
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I found it because when I went through business school, essentially I thought to myself, first of all, my past to venture, I didn't really know anything about venture that much before I went to business school.
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And at business school, they teach you okay, look at your background, what have you done, what have you done well, what excites you.
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And what I realized is what I've done well is find trades very early, so defined then gaming, and help small companies scale.
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So venture seemed like it's something I had to try.
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Tim Draper is the most enthusiastic person.
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I met him in November of 2022.
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And essentially what the fund is built is pretty special.
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So he comes from a legacy of venture capitalists.
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His granddad was the first venture capitalist, his dad was a very prominent venture capitalist who opened venture capital in many places.
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I think he was the first venture capitalist in India, for example, and opened venture capital business in many places in the world.
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And Tim became a venture capitalist in 85.
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He created this fund called DFJ, which I think a lot of younger uh venture investors don't know, but DFJ in the early 2008 90s was the top one or top two venture capital firm in the world.
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They would do all the big deals everywhere in the bay.
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Some of the massive winners, Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, Hotmail, Baidu.
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And in 2008, he split up with his partners and decided to go and invest himself in Drape with Draper Associates, which was a vehicle that he always used on the site to invest.
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So Draper Associates, then he decided to open it to outside LPs.
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We're now on our third fund.
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The funds are between 200 and 250 million.
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I think what's very interesting about that is now you're seeing a lot of megafunds that manage billions, the funds are billion sized, but people really respect Tim's way of managing money because his funds he puts in 20% of the LP base.
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So we'll call it$50 million.
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And when you ask him, why don't you build a fund that's$500 million, you will get so much more fees, you'll be able to expand it so much larger.
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And he knows that I think every venture capitalist has to build a strategy and know how they can make the best returns.
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And he knows that if his fund is$200,$250 million, he can get a 40-5X because he has the pipeline to do that and he knows how to manage that size.
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And he would never put his personal money in a fund that's a billion dollars.
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And he doesn't need a billion dollar fund because the guy's made it already.
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So he doesn't need to earn all those management fees to pay himself a salary.
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So that's pretty impressive to be able to know like what's the right target for you in the market in which you invest.
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And like how to make money back for LPs too.
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If you think about a fund structure, the bigger your fund is, the expectation is that you return that and more.
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Whereas if you have a$20 million fund and you're returning 40, you've already 2X.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, exactly.
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So for yeah, for example, so he thinks that on 200 to 50, he can return 1 billion in total to his investors, and that's the size that he's the most comfortable doing with.
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So I think it's a really good place for me to learn venture capital also because venture capital, a lot of brand plays into it because there's a charm about talking to the entrepreneurs and being able to win some deals.
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But being in a place that's kind of and working for someone that has seen all the evolutions in tech from the late 80s to today, which the world has changed so much.
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Uh, there's been so many different business models, so many different ways to look at it.
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And the venture business has evolved as well.
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So it's really a great place to learn.
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Also, what I looked personally is I did really well in crypto blockchain, but and I love it, I'm passionate about it, I'm a user, I use it every day, I talk about it every day.
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But is it my life mission?
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I didn't really think so.
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And so what I thought about when I looked for jobs was I've been able to make those calls early in blockchain, but I want to be in a place where I can make early bets on all the future technologies that are going to change the world.
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Because probably today, if you're coming in as a new blockchain investor, might be a bit late to just focus only on that.
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You don't have a specific edge, the market's already pretty big.
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So, where can I be in a spot where I can make investments and trying to get a sense if I have very good judgments to catch technological trends early?
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Because I would have wanted to invest in AI two years ago and then you know invest in ABC in two years and be able to continue working in a place where I can make those bets early on new technologies that are coming up.
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So being a general fund is really interesting.
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It matches perfectly well for me because we still do 20% investments in crypto and I get to lead that, so it's really amazing.
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From an investor perspective, how do you see Tim's experience and dominance in the venture capital industry come through?
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Is it through deal flow?
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Is it through investment judgment and lens and being able to pick the winners from some alpha?
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Obviously, he's been around in the space for a long time.
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What fruit do you see yielded from that?
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Yeah, I think it's much more uh he's pretty laid back now because he's seen it happen so much.
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And it does he has a bit less pressure to.
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I think when you're starting your first fund, you have very high pressure because if you start your first fund and you fail, you're not doing a second fund.
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Tim can raise money for all his life, and so there's a bit that pressure aspect that's going down, I would say.
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What's really amazing for me is that I get to meet amazing people very directly because he's my only boss.
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We will do calls with the GPs of all the big funds in the world, the entrepreneurs.
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You know, we meet Elon Musk, who's a good friend of him.
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He was the first investor, a big ticket into Tesla, the founders of Skype the other day, they're building a new business.
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Tim was the first investor in Skype, we get to talk to them directly.
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So that's really unique in that sense.
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I think also what's great is that for smaller checks, so the fund 200-250 will make like 150 investments in three years and a half.
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A lot of them are 500k, 1 million, and that we get a lot of autonomy.
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I get to push my own deals with basically Tim's hires me or hires other investors, and he trusts them.
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So I have maybe you know five to ten deals a year that I can do with little oversight.
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Because for him, at the end of the day, that he knows that in every fund there's gonna be two or three big opportunities that are gonna be the massive fund returners, and because he's been in the venture capital space forever, he's gonna get a look and an opportunity to invest in them, and those are gonna be the ones that are really gonna return the fund.
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And the rest of them, it's a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves.
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So great autonomy, it's really good.
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To speak a little bit to the fund's interest in crypto, it sounds like he's been bullish on it since mid-2010s.
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How have they launched into the crypto space?
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And obviously you've defined your role, but does Tim have a thesis on the space, or what is the group's thought and approach to the space?
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Tim is actually, I think he comes from it from more like the political standpoint because he's a freedom maximalist.
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So he believes that for every human to be the most productive that they can and the best version of themselves, they need to be set free without any constraints.
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He looked at the first time he bought some data connection in 2012, and he looked at this new currency that was not controlled by any financial system, was not controlled by any government, and so that resonates super well with him.
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And I think it resonates well, just the blockchain ethos in general resonates well with a lot of entrepreneurs, even outside of blockchain.
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So he was kind of the first big venture capitalist to take a massive bet in the industry.
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Essentially, what happened is he had bought some personally a little bit before, and then in 2013 there was this website called SickRoad, Silk Road.
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I was in college, some kids were using it.
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So essentially it's the first application of Bitcoin where you would go online in this marketplace and you can buy drugs or weird stuff with your bitcoins.
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So it's like the black market.
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It's like the black market, exactly.
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Read the story, it's really, it's really amazing.
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I mean, the reason why it got shut down is because some darker stuff started happening there, but originally it was just, you know, some kids want to buy some pots, they will go there and they will use a couple of bitcoins.
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And they got busted by the US government, and essentially the US government had all the bitcoins on the platform, I think it was like 20 or 30,000 bitcoins, and they were like, What the hell is this?
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We have no idea what it is.
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We're gonna auction it off to the public.
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So anyone in the US could come and place a bid to buy it.
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And Tim just bought them all.
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That big stance, like 2013, buying that much, gave him a lot of opportunities to make some of the best deals in the blockchain industry because he was really prominent about it.
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So we're big investors in Coinbase, Gemini, Ledger.
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And today is even more bullish than ever.
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I think it's so that you know now is the second kind of wave around smart contracts, around the new developments in the past three, four years, the automation of tasks, it's really a big freedom enabler.
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We don't really invest like in very technical, small features.
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So we're more like platform investors, we're really looking for paradigm shifts.
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So, how does this technology enable the populations in LATAM, in Africa to really achieve financial independence?
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Because now with this technology, what you have is we've seen in the past couple of years that costs of hardware have been going down.
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.039
Anyone can get their hands on a phone or computer.
00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:34.960
You have global internet penetration through some of the satellite internet projects, like Starlink.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:53.519
And so that what that means essentially is that we're gonna see a billion or two billion people that today cannot participate in the global economy, cannot come online, to be able to come online and teach themselves tasks through the internet and essentially and finance themselves by you the use of cryptocurrency and self-bank themselves.
00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:55.440
And that's gonna be a massive shift.
00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:00.480
Uh, it's really gonna empower, we think it's really gonna empower a lot of businesses and a lot of people all around the world.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.200
So that's a big thesis uh for him.
00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:05.519
But how do you decide where to focus?
00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:10.559
The price of Bitcoin's gone down, kind of stay the same, not much traction there.
00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.920
Everyone's still arguing about what to regulate, what not to regulate.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.559
And so there hasn't been a ton of shifts there, even though I mean, even some of the larger institutions like BlackRock have tried to come out and with an ETF, for example.
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:28.799
So, how do you know where to spend time or or where it's worth to burn calories, just given the uncertainty?
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:34.480
Bitcoin now is pretty, I wouldn't I think Bitcoin now is becoming a pretty safe asset.
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.319
And I think actually there's a lot of very exciting things coming from Bitcoin.
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:41.119
I would buy some Bitcoin now if I were you, uh, not financial.
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:46.160
I don't even want to know how much 30,000 bitcoins bought in 2012 are worth today.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:47.920
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely bad.
00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000
But you know, he's never sold a single one of them because when he invests in things, he keeps them for 10 years.
00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:53.680
He has a very long-term horizon.
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:58.319
I think that's one thing that I struggle with every day in my job because I was a trader.
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:05.039
That's so every day I would come back home and I would know if I made$10,$100, I would lose$10,$100.
00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:07.279
Now I have to think 10 years ahead.
00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:21.200
And I think that's what venture capitalists do is do your research, look at macro trends, and try to understand how this little thing today that those two guys are pitching you in your office with nothing can become massive in 10 years.
00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:27.839
So you have to abstract the 98% that can go bad and look at the 2% of things and how big can it be?
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:30.400
I think for Bitcoin, there's very good tolerance right now.
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:36.960
You have it's gonna be accepted as an ETF, so that means every kind of uh large institution is gonna be able to trade it safely.
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:44.160
You have Bitcoin's halvings, which are events that happen every four years, that's coming up next year and that always collaborates with a raising price.
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:50.480
For us, when we look more at direct companies to invest in, we look at that very long term vision.
00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:55.759
So one of them being financial freedom for many people that get access to the global economy right now.
00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:59.680
Second, one of them is we think that there's going to be a whole reorganization of the web.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.599
Uh, the same way that we saw it in gaming, that's starting to happen in gaming.
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:09.599
So essentially the idea is to tell you that 10 years ago, you would go buy your DVD to watch a movie.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:19.599
You want to watch Harry Potter, you go to the DVD store, you buy the DVD, you can give it to Will, you can give it to your mom, you can give it to your dad, you can lend it out to someone, and then you can resell it.
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:27.200
Today, what the digital revolution created is that we're kind of stuck in funnels where we can access information super quickly.
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:34.480
You go on the app store, you buy the Harry Potter movie, it takes you two seconds, it's the same price, but you cannot do anything with that.
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:36.720
So, what does that mean about your digital ownership?
00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:42.319
You can't send that movie that you've bought for$30, you cannot send it to your mom, you can't send it to Will, you cannot resell it.
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:46.240
You just own a license to the movie for a certain amount of time.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:50.799
If tomorrow you're banned from app from the app store, you don't even have access to it anymore.
00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:57.039
So the idea is that we're gonna start owning and rethink about all the assets that we have online.
00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:02.720
I think NFTs was kind of a craze, you know, everyone buying their PFP, their profile pictures.
00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:09.200
But what it really kind of started to put in the consumer's mind is that aspect of digital ownership.
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:14.319
All the data that we have on our computers today, they can be removed and wiped out in two seconds.
00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:22.319
I think we're starting to see it happen in gaming because gamers are more digital native, so they've been growing around computers their entire life.
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.119
It's easier concepts for them to understand.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:32.960
But we're gonna see all the organization for music, social media, multimedia, videos, film, everything.
00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:36.720
And that's where we're gonna see the next massive platform arise.
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:40.400
What's what's really needed to change consumer behavior?
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:48.480
Because consumers are part of the wave to drive this trend forward, whether it's the intersection of gaming and crypto, just buying crypto in general.
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.960
I mean, I mean, what do you think it will take there?
00:23:51.680 --> 00:24:06.640
Consumers, first you need very high consumer usability, so UI UX, and I think that's a problem that's starting to be solved because you have just so much excitement and so much good developers that are building good tools and good designers that are making the experience seamless.
00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:11.440
And then at the end of the day, is is it cheaper and what's the value add for the consumer?
00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:25.759
You know, for example, if the model today is that it's cheaper to have one Netflix where you pay 20 bucks, one Apple TV when you pay 20 bucks, one YouTube TV when you pay 20 bucks, one Amazon Prime where you pay 20 bucks, I don't think that's the model that's gonna last.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.160
So and all technologies are gonna disrupt that, and technologies are gonna disrupt that.
00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:36.640
So at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to what's the price point at which you get to enter and use those things.
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:40.720
For the games, we've seen really good excitement.
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:47.599
Uh, large studios like TV Blizzard and Ubisoft, they all understand that this is coming and they're getting ready.
00:24:47.759 --> 00:24:52.079
So actually, they're all building games using blockchain technology in mind.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:59.440
So the technology had to be a bit battle-tested because there was still some blockchains, people are not sure about.
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:01.839
There's a bit of information asymmetry.
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.000
But now we're getting to a pretty robust phase.
00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:28.400
And I almost think that this technology is solving uh consumer behavior that's already happening today, in the sense that when you gave an example earlier, I think another example is with Fortnite skins, where people have a rare skin, and the only way to sell that value that you've have in that skin is by selling your account or going on eBay and selling your entire console.
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:42.880
And so the ability to separate out the account or the console from a specific asset that's in one game, like a skin in Fortnite or a skin in World of Warcraft or something, is clearly there's demand for that technology.
00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:52.319
And so I almost think to a certain extent that the behavior is there and the desire is there, and the technology is really enabling things that are inefficient use of assets today.
00:25:52.559 --> 00:26:06.240
Yeah, and I think it all comes down to pricing because right now, Activision Bizo, they're Fortnite, they're like, why the hell would I allow people to swap assets between one another if I'm the only seller of assets and those guys cannot exchange it between us?
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:07.440
It's a one-way market.
00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:15.359
But tomorrow, if Ubisoft wants to build a Fortnite that lets you swap them, then the switch is gonna happen very quickly.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:26.000
So as soon as there's gonna be a big player that can build a really good AAA game experience, I mean Fortnite, I think last year was five billion dollars of money spent on skins.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:30.480
Those digital economies are really, really striving.
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:32.559
And we're gonna see that happen sooner than later, I think.
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:37.039
How do you see the intersection of gaming and then with the metaverse?
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:42.880
Just given the challenges that a lot of these companies have faced of trying to get people to go into the metaverse.
00:26:43.039 --> 00:26:43.359
I don't know.
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:51.920
Do you see this extended reality technology continuing to grow or is the future maybe shifting a little bit of this hybrid universe?
00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:54.000
I'm just curious your thoughts there.
00:26:54.720 --> 00:27:05.200
Yeah, I think unfortunately, I think we the premise went a bit too fast, too quick, and that we didn't really give good steps to consumers.
00:27:05.359 --> 00:27:10.559
So inside blockchain, there's two famous metavers, there's the sandbox, the central end.
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:16.559
And today you have less than a thousand, five thousand players using it on a daily basis.
00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:32.880
And I think even Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, when they kind of laid out the vision, they were put you in front of your head like too much directly, like you're gonna live in this full immersive place, and you're gonna go to walk to work, walking your avatar around, and you're gonna do all your coffee chats there.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.200
And I just think it takes smaller steps.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:38.559
Like now we're seeing like AR is pretty much anywhere.
00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:47.440
You know, I think like a game like Pokemon Go, everyone can play it, or very different applications, like even filters, like use AR pretty much anywhere.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:55.920
For VR to happen, you have to first give consumers tools that are slightly that they're more used to it at first.
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:02.960
Like right now, meta that they're doing the glasses with Ray-Ban is better than telling everyone just put an Oculus on all the time.
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.039
And that's just a too drastic change.
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:16.000
So I think they can't let's start the transition that they try to go a little bit too fast into giving you the future too much ahead, and some people get a little scared.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:28.480
But I definitely think it's the way things are going because you're seeing much and more people that are getting isolated, are playing, want to go in social environments where they can interact with others.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:32.559
I think games are, for example, Fortnite is the best, best metaverse out there, right?
00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:35.200
People go to concerts, you may go and meet your friends.
00:28:35.599 --> 00:28:41.200
That's where a lot of young people like, oh, let's meet on Fortnite and have their most of their social interactions.
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:53.039
For that to elaborate to a work environment, to everyday life, I think will still take a bit of time because also older generations are less digital native.
00:28:53.200 --> 00:29:03.759
But little by little, I think we'll see that, and also yeah, you're also seeing the need for privacy and control as well, because in my head, I see the point of the metaverse is it's like a lack of governance.
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:10.000
But then there's been issues of things going on in the metaverse that have almost created a need for governance.
00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:12.000
Where can they meet in the middle?
00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:19.119
Where it's like people are still using these technologies and you have this free state, but at the same time, there's some sort of control.
00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:20.720
And I don't have an answer to that.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:22.880
It's just something that I was thinking about.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.680
Yeah, and you saw the same thing with the internet, right?
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:30.480
Like you have lack of moderation of the internet that can impact a lot.
00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:37.680
You now you're seeing it with AI, you know, a lot of those talkative AI characters that you can interact with.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:51.359
I think there's this app called uh Chai, where essentially it's like kind of like a non-safe for work AI, and people are talking about their fantasies, and there's very little control, and you're seeing it leading to people killing themselves.
00:29:51.440 --> 00:30:07.680
So it's true that we're gonna need to figure out a way to technology freedom is great, but there's still consumers that you need to protect because if technology goes a bit too far without any sort of framework, it can lead to disastrous outcome.
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:08.480
Yep.
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:18.559
And before I close with my final two questions, if I can give you a million dollars today and you can put it in any Bitcoin, crypto-related company, who are you giving it to?
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:23.519
Oh, if I had a million dollars today, I would definitely put it in Bitcoin is the safest.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:28.319
I think there's also the massive tailwinds that are happening right now uh around Bitcoin.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:35.279
No, but what about a company, like a startup, or or it could be a later stage company, just like if I give you a couple million dollars, like who are you gonna give it to?
00:30:35.599 --> 00:30:45.759
Oh, if if you give me a couple million dollars today, I think one company that's very leading the charge and very underestimated and very underpriced is Coinbase.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:46.799
I would put in Coinbase.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.920
I think the Coinbase stock is one of the most undervalued stock out there.
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:57.519
It's a very safe investment if you're gonna make you're gonna make 10x of 12, 15 extra money in the next year and a half, I think, if you invest in Coinbase.
00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:01.440
So then I don't want to give you all my personal, I don't want to give you all my personal data.
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:04.240
So yeah, you're like, I'm not answering anymore.
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:07.759
And reminder, this is not investment advice.
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:08.640
Yes.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:11.279
Max, two questions to end.
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:13.200
What motivates you to work hard?
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:29.599
What motivates me to work hard in my job every day here is that it's really amazing that I've got really lucky to go and work in two early stage startups that both exit it, and that brings you amazing joy when you figure that problem, cracking them up and seeing a company grow and just experiencing that.
00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:32.079
I would suggest to anyone in the world to do it.
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:40.799
It's seeing starting from a company, five people, going to 50 or 100 people, making revenue, changing something in the world, being able to sell that company, the best feeling ever.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:44.559
And every day today, I work with entrepreneurs that are trying to do the same.
00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:54.799
And for me to be able to back them and kind of spur that joy and that excitement in each of them and go tackle so many problems that are in the world, I think is super, super interesting.
00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:58.880
I kind of, one of my boss told me one day, question everything.
00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:00.559
And it's something I never had done in my life.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:11.920
I was always, you know, going to school, listening to what people told me, get a job in banking, that's you would have a happy life doing that, and you would be able to have a good family and whatever your happy version of happiness is, you'll find that.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:15.279
Just keep your heads down and follow the line.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:23.039
And being now in the disruptive technology place, I realized that everything that's around you, you should always ask yourself a question.
00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:29.839
If someone tells you this is the way, if someone tells you two equals two, one plus one equals two, question that.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.720
Go further than just listening and take stuff for assumptions.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:34.559
Like question everything that's around you.
00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:37.680
Why is the world in that, why is the world functioning that way?
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:46.559
Trying to go deeper because there's many, many things that are going to get changed and that are gonna get solved, and not enough people ask themselves questions.
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:56.400
I every day when I'm using any sort of software, when I'm interacting with people, everything I take for granted, I always try to take pull back and be like, okay, how can we make this better?
00:32:56.559 --> 00:32:58.640
How why is this in this state?
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:06.160
I think it's a super good piece of advice for any young person that's trying to innovate and trying to change a bit, some pieces of the world.
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:12.400
Like really question everything that you take for granted, and you'll see that there's many ways you can impact this society for the greater good.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:13.440
Oh, that's great.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:16.480
But what's a piece of advice you'd give your younger self?
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:20.319
Work harder, be less, be more forward-thinking.
00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:23.680
Uh don't think about what's going to be the impact in one year, two years.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:29.759
Don't do things for greed and things very quick results.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:31.680
Trying to have a very long-term vision.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:35.519
Life is pretty long and success don't come overnight.
00:33:36.079 --> 00:33:52.160
So read, learn a lot, try not a very long-term vision, and I think that creates you happiness because when you're able to know what you work for for the very long term and not know what you work for for tomorrow, doesn't the sense of failure doesn't exist, right?
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:58.000
So if you're looking for immediate results, you're just gonna get you're just gonna get sad every day because sometimes you fail.
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:03.200
But if you look very far ahead, I think brings you another happiness in Jack.
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:05.039
This has been a phenomenal episode.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:10.880
Maxine, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts and perspectives on on Draper and your journey so far.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:12.559
So appreciate your time.
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:14.239
Thank you very much.
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:13.919
At the time it was you would push out push out a white paper with your idea of the product you're gonna build, the protocol you're gonna develop, and just people from everywhere in the world will just buy those tokens because tokens will go up 5x the next day.
00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:27.519
Welcome to Partner Path, a podcast that unpacks the venture capital and growth equity ecosystem from a junior perspective.
00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:34.240
Young entrepreneurs and investors have already had a massive impact on the industry, having started unicorns and launched billion-dollar funds.
00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:40.719
We discuss these success stories and more by sharing perspectives and advice from some of the industry's most prominent role models.
00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:47.280
This podcast expresses our views as of the date published and does not represent the views of and is not endorsed by any company for which we work.
00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:54.159
We are excited to sit down with Max Bucai, an investor at Draper, an early stage generalist fund.
00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:58.560
Max began his career as a foreign exchange trader before becoming an operator at AirSwap.
00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:02.320
His passion for blockchain continued when he joined Atari, leading the blockchain team.
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In January 2023, he joined Draper full-time post-MBA.
00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:07.200
Welcome, Max.
00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:08.560
Hey, welcome, Laura.
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:09.760
Thank you very much for having me.
00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.840
So at 15, you moved to New York from Paris with your four siblings.
00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:19.920
I mean, were there any memorable moments or kind of like culture shock from your first months in New York City?
00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:21.439
It was quite insane, right?
00:01:21.519 --> 00:01:26.319
Because like you're a big family, you have five kids, you have to find a place in New York City, like the biggest city in the world.
00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.640
I was living in a suburban area in Paris.
00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:37.920
I would say the first thing we noticed is every time we would go and buy something, if it was a car, if it was ice cream, if it was anything, everything was just so big.
00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:44.000
Like even for five kids, like we would only order like one thing, and everything was super massive compared to the portions in France.
00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:49.920
I think a little funnier also, in France, you drink wine with your parents when you're like 15, 16.
00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:55.599
And I remember like going to buy a bottle of wine with my mom, and my mom didn't bring her ID, and she was like 45.
00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:59.840
And even my mom couldn't get a bottle of wine or anything, and she would get ID herself.
00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:05.200
So she was like, Oh, if I get ID myself, you're never going to be able to buy a single drop of alcohol in this country.
00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:07.359
So she felt much better about that.
00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:09.120
Um, so that was pretty fun.
00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:18.719
In 2016, you started as a trader at a French bank at a really unique time when there were some interesting shifts in digitization.
00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:24.159
And I'm I'm curious what some of those shifts were and how it impacted your experience.
00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:28.159
Yeah, so I worked at BNP for 20 months.
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:32.400
Uh, essentially, when I arrived there, we were eight people in my team.
00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:34.800
So traders for every single currency.
00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:35.919
It was amazing.
00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:39.039
You could trade anything at any time.
00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:41.919
Did you have that flexibility as a junior member?
00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:54.479
I got flexibility very early on, which was a very lucky position, because of the fact that essentially when I arrived, we were doing trading for orders of$10 million and above.
00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:59.120
Everything below$10 million was done by the first algorithms that were starting to be developed.
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:08.000
When I left, the minimum size order that we would do as individuals was$100 million, and algorithms were doing 90% of all the trading that we were doing.
00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:17.520
So that led to the team coming from eight people to two people very quickly, and me having to do most of the job and getting a lot of responsibility.
00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:28.479
So I learned a lot because I was exposed to the risk of trading every day, and really that was the first time like really learning about risk management, being able to invest money, lose money, make money.
00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.919
I was really stressful because foreign exchange is a market that's 24-7.
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:34.639
Where did you start in blockchain?
00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:40.240
I mean, how did you even come across the fact that this might be the next big thing?
00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:45.120
People were starting to talk a lot about Bitcoin on the trading floor in 2017.
00:03:45.759 --> 00:03:53.759
And it was every every week there was a lot of news, the price kept going higher and higher, and people were starting to get there, was just so much excitement.
00:03:54.080 --> 00:04:02.400
At the time, all the opportunities they were okay, you have this technology, you have those assets, the crypto assets, and the only jobs in the industry were trading.
00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:06.560
So you either go and work for an exchange or you go work for a trading desk.
00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:19.120
And when I looked at those opportunities, I realized, well, I'm not gonna go to a trading desk to basically do the exact same job that I'm doing right now for that job to get disrupted by algorithms again in 10 years.
00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:25.680
So I need to look deeper into what is the real essence of this technology and how is it really gonna impact this industry?
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:33.680
And essentially at the time in 2017, you had exchanges that were very little oversight, a lot of hacks, a lot of misbehavior.
00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:45.680
And you had started to have the first smart contracts becoming on Ethereum that will enable two peers, so you and me, to exchange assets without ever depositing in a central place.
00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.720
And that was essentially the burst of decentralized exchanges.
00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:50.800
Was that what you were doing at Aeroswap?
00:04:51.040 --> 00:04:56.319
Yeah, so Aeroswap was one of the first, it was the third ever decentralized exchange.
00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:03.680
It was two guys, one very one very technical person and one old trader that started it.
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:09.759
We raised money, I worked part-time for them in 2017 before joining full-time in 2018.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:12.879
And it was a crazy time in the crypto market.
00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:20.399
We raised$37 million in the time of two hours from investors from all over the world coming in to buy our token.
00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:21.920
So quick diligence.
00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:23.439
What was that token worth?
00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:24.160
I mean.
00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:39.360
Yeah, I mean, a lot of it at the time it was you would push out a white paper with your idea of the product you're gonna build, the protocol you're gonna develop, and just people from everywhere in the world will just buy those tokens because tokens will go up 5x the next day.
00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:48.480
Um, so we had, I think, out of the 37 million dollars, it was 20 million dollars that came from retail investors, so just anyone going online and buying it.
00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.439
And then you have 15, 16 million dolling from funds.
00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:53.839
At those times, the funds' intelligence was super quick.
00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:56.720
I mean, they looked do you have the team in place?
00:05:57.279 --> 00:05:58.319
Is the idea good?
00:05:58.480 --> 00:05:59.680
How's your traction?
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:11.279
And pretty much they would invest in any sort of projects out there, which became kind of a problem because a lot of money was poured into some pretty bad projects that ended up going nowhere.
00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:12.720
But it was super quick, yeah.
00:06:13.040 --> 00:06:27.120
So you start to see, you know, this pickup of decentralized exchanges, and you really start building your thesis about where you want to focus in this area and what you want to do next in your career, which I think will be a great transition into how you got to Draper.
00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:34.399
But maybe just touch on some of the thesis work that you worked on that led to your next opportunity and then how that filled into Draper.
00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:48.319
A lot of the decentralized finance movement, when we looked at it, is how do we provide tools for individuals or companies to remove themselves from central risk of institutions?
00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:51.519
So the big risk at the time was exchanges.
00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:53.839
How do you remove that centralized risk?
00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:59.680
And how can you access financial markets without relying on any third parties?
00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:04.800
And I thought that was a great application for finance, and we saw it.
00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:16.879
We sold our company in 2020 to Consensus, which develops the wallet MetaMask, and now technology powers all the trades inside the MetaMask wallet, which that makes like$400 million of revenue every year.
00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:21.439
And the MetaMask wallet is where you hold your NFTs and your Bitcoin.
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:22.160
Exactly.
00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:29.199
Yeah, it's the most you know you can't hold Bitcoin, but you can hold every sort of Ethereum or EVM compatible chain tokens.
00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:32.319
It's the most popular browser wallet, you should get it.
00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:35.759
So basically, our technology was acquired to power all the trades inside of that.
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:48.959
And basically, what I realized is that by 2020, 2021, all the people that were attracted by the trading aspect of cryptocurrencies already started to take a deep look in the industry.
00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:55.199
And DeFi protocols were blowing up everywhere, so now you could do decentralized lending, decentralized leverage trading.
00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:58.079
And I thought it started to be already pretty well developed.
00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:06.000
And so I thought to myself, okay, we still have this technology that enables financial freedom and being able to hold your own assets.
00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.560
Where else are we going to be able to apply it?
00:08:08.879 --> 00:08:19.360
And I looked, I was in charge of a team doing special projects where essentially we looked a bit around of where else we can apply this technology, and I started to gaming and started developing a thesis around it.
00:08:19.680 --> 00:08:30.480
And in early 2020, I met the person who was the CEO and owned 20% of Atari, which is the legendary gaming company where Steve Jobs worked.
00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:35.759
They created some of the first computers, some of the first video game machines.
00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:44.320
And essentially convinced him that blockchain is a really good application for gaming and that we should build an entire team there.
00:08:44.720 --> 00:09:05.360
I think where that thesis came from is younger, I was a gamer, and playing on World of Warcraft, for example, if you played a lot of time, you could sell your accounts to someone else that wanted to buy to buy it because they just wanted to level up, but you could never do it through the World of Warcraft platform because World of Warcraft wanted people to go and pay them directly.
00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:08.320
And so you couldn't sell your account to someone directly there.
00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:21.600
You had to go on some sketchy Chinese website and being able to sell it so that you can extract value from your playtime, from your time spending on the game, leveling up the players, finding the good swords or finding the good items.
00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:29.279
I thought that was going to be the application to bring the next 10 100 million people into the industry and when to build a part of that.
00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:32.720
I think that's a great transition into your movement to Draper.
00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:39.279
Why don't you walk us through the background on Draper and how the fund differentiates from other venture capital funds from your perspective?
00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:51.440
So I always knew of Tim Draper, I think is a well, you have, yeah, I would say you have 15 venture capitalists in the bay that have gone through every cycle and found some very big winners.
00:09:51.600 --> 00:09:53.600
And Tim is definitely one of them.
00:09:53.840 --> 00:10:05.440
I found it because when I went through business school, essentially I thought to myself, first of all, my past to venture, I didn't really know anything about venture that much before I went to business school.
00:10:05.600 --> 00:10:10.720
And at business school, they teach you okay, look at your background, what have you done, what have you done well, what excites you.
00:10:10.799 --> 00:10:19.120
And what I realized is what I've done well is find trades very early, so defined then gaming, and help small companies scale.
00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:22.320
So venture seemed like it's something I had to try.
00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:25.279
Tim Draper is the most enthusiastic person.
00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:30.080
I met him in November of 2022.
00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:32.879
And essentially what the fund is built is pretty special.
00:10:33.039 --> 00:10:35.360
So he comes from a legacy of venture capitalists.
00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:42.159
His granddad was the first venture capitalist, his dad was a very prominent venture capitalist who opened venture capital in many places.
00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:49.120
I think he was the first venture capitalist in India, for example, and opened venture capital business in many places in the world.
00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:52.159
And Tim became a venture capitalist in 85.
00:10:52.480 --> 00:11:05.039
He created this fund called DFJ, which I think a lot of younger uh venture investors don't know, but DFJ in the early 2008 90s was the top one or top two venture capital firm in the world.
00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:07.759
They would do all the big deals everywhere in the bay.
00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:13.440
Some of the massive winners, Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, Hotmail, Baidu.
00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:25.279
And in 2008, he split up with his partners and decided to go and invest himself in Drape with Draper Associates, which was a vehicle that he always used on the site to invest.
00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:29.120
So Draper Associates, then he decided to open it to outside LPs.
00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:31.039
We're now on our third fund.
00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:34.720
The funds are between 200 and 250 million.
00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:50.320
I think what's very interesting about that is now you're seeing a lot of megafunds that manage billions, the funds are billion sized, but people really respect Tim's way of managing money because his funds he puts in 20% of the LP base.
00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:51.840
So we'll call it$50 million.
00:11:52.320 --> 00:12:00.799
And when you ask him, why don't you build a fund that's$500 million, you will get so much more fees, you'll be able to expand it so much larger.
00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:07.360
And he knows that I think every venture capitalist has to build a strategy and know how they can make the best returns.
00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:15.840
And he knows that if his fund is$200,$250 million, he can get a 40-5X because he has the pipeline to do that and he knows how to manage that size.
00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:20.240
And he would never put his personal money in a fund that's a billion dollars.
00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:23.039
And he doesn't need a billion dollar fund because the guy's made it already.
00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.320
So he doesn't need to earn all those management fees to pay himself a salary.
00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:31.759
So that's pretty impressive to be able to know like what's the right target for you in the market in which you invest.
00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:34.559
And like how to make money back for LPs too.
00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:40.399
If you think about a fund structure, the bigger your fund is, the expectation is that you return that and more.
00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:44.879
Whereas if you have a$20 million fund and you're returning 40, you've already 2X.
00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:46.159
Exactly.
00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:46.960
Yeah, exactly.
00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:54.879
So for yeah, for example, so he thinks that on 200 to 50, he can return 1 billion in total to his investors, and that's the size that he's the most comfortable doing with.
00:12:55.360 --> 00:13:08.159
So I think it's a really good place for me to learn venture capital also because venture capital, a lot of brand plays into it because there's a charm about talking to the entrepreneurs and being able to win some deals.
00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:17.840
But being in a place that's kind of and working for someone that has seen all the evolutions in tech from the late 80s to today, which the world has changed so much.
00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:22.480
Uh, there's been so many different business models, so many different ways to look at it.
00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:24.879
And the venture business has evolved as well.
00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.039
So it's really a great place to learn.
00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:37.200
Also, what I looked personally is I did really well in crypto blockchain, but and I love it, I'm passionate about it, I'm a user, I use it every day, I talk about it every day.
00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:39.279
But is it my life mission?
00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:40.960
I didn't really think so.
00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:53.519
And so what I thought about when I looked for jobs was I've been able to make those calls early in blockchain, but I want to be in a place where I can make early bets on all the future technologies that are going to change the world.
00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:59.919
Because probably today, if you're coming in as a new blockchain investor, might be a bit late to just focus only on that.
00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.639
You don't have a specific edge, the market's already pretty big.
00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:11.279
So, where can I be in a spot where I can make investments and trying to get a sense if I have very good judgments to catch technological trends early?
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:22.559
Because I would have wanted to invest in AI two years ago and then you know invest in ABC in two years and be able to continue working in a place where I can make those bets early on new technologies that are coming up.
00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:25.519
So being a general fund is really interesting.
00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:32.960
It matches perfectly well for me because we still do 20% investments in crypto and I get to lead that, so it's really amazing.
00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:42.960
From an investor perspective, how do you see Tim's experience and dominance in the venture capital industry come through?
00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:44.559
Is it through deal flow?
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:50.399
Is it through investment judgment and lens and being able to pick the winners from some alpha?
00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:52.960
Obviously, he's been around in the space for a long time.
00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:55.840
What fruit do you see yielded from that?
00:14:56.080 --> 00:15:01.840
Yeah, I think it's much more uh he's pretty laid back now because he's seen it happen so much.
00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:04.720
And it does he has a bit less pressure to.
00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:10.639
I think when you're starting your first fund, you have very high pressure because if you start your first fund and you fail, you're not doing a second fund.
00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:16.720
Tim can raise money for all his life, and so there's a bit that pressure aspect that's going down, I would say.
00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:23.120
What's really amazing for me is that I get to meet amazing people very directly because he's my only boss.
00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:28.000
We will do calls with the GPs of all the big funds in the world, the entrepreneurs.
00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:30.159
You know, we meet Elon Musk, who's a good friend of him.
00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:36.639
He was the first investor, a big ticket into Tesla, the founders of Skype the other day, they're building a new business.
00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:40.240
Tim was the first investor in Skype, we get to talk to them directly.
00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:42.720
So that's really unique in that sense.
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:53.360
I think also what's great is that for smaller checks, so the fund 200-250 will make like 150 investments in three years and a half.
00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:59.679
A lot of them are 500k, 1 million, and that we get a lot of autonomy.
00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:06.080
I get to push my own deals with basically Tim's hires me or hires other investors, and he trusts them.
00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:10.879
So I have maybe you know five to ten deals a year that I can do with little oversight.
00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:30.240
Because for him, at the end of the day, that he knows that in every fund there's gonna be two or three big opportunities that are gonna be the massive fund returners, and because he's been in the venture capital space forever, he's gonna get a look and an opportunity to invest in them, and those are gonna be the ones that are really gonna return the fund.
00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.840
And the rest of them, it's a great opportunity for us to prove ourselves.
00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:37.039
So great autonomy, it's really good.
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:46.399
To speak a little bit to the fund's interest in crypto, it sounds like he's been bullish on it since mid-2010s.
00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:49.519
How have they launched into the crypto space?
00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:57.840
And obviously you've defined your role, but does Tim have a thesis on the space, or what is the group's thought and approach to the space?
00:16:58.399 --> 00:17:04.480
Tim is actually, I think he comes from it from more like the political standpoint because he's a freedom maximalist.
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:14.720
So he believes that for every human to be the most productive that they can and the best version of themselves, they need to be set free without any constraints.
00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:28.240
He looked at the first time he bought some data connection in 2012, and he looked at this new currency that was not controlled by any financial system, was not controlled by any government, and so that resonates super well with him.
00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:35.680
And I think it resonates well, just the blockchain ethos in general resonates well with a lot of entrepreneurs, even outside of blockchain.
00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:40.559
So he was kind of the first big venture capitalist to take a massive bet in the industry.
00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:48.400
Essentially, what happened is he had bought some personally a little bit before, and then in 2013 there was this website called SickRoad, Silk Road.
00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:50.880
I was in college, some kids were using it.
00:17:50.960 --> 00:18:00.000
So essentially it's the first application of Bitcoin where you would go online in this marketplace and you can buy drugs or weird stuff with your bitcoins.
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:01.680
So it's like the black market.
00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:03.359
It's like the black market, exactly.
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:05.440
Read the story, it's really, it's really amazing.
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:15.440
I mean, the reason why it got shut down is because some darker stuff started happening there, but originally it was just, you know, some kids want to buy some pots, they will go there and they will use a couple of bitcoins.
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:24.079
And they got busted by the US government, and essentially the US government had all the bitcoins on the platform, I think it was like 20 or 30,000 bitcoins, and they were like, What the hell is this?
00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:25.440
We have no idea what it is.
00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:27.279
We're gonna auction it off to the public.
00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:30.400
So anyone in the US could come and place a bid to buy it.
00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:32.480
And Tim just bought them all.
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:41.839
That big stance, like 2013, buying that much, gave him a lot of opportunities to make some of the best deals in the blockchain industry because he was really prominent about it.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:46.000
So we're big investors in Coinbase, Gemini, Ledger.
00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:48.720
And today is even more bullish than ever.
00:18:48.880 --> 00:19:01.759
I think it's so that you know now is the second kind of wave around smart contracts, around the new developments in the past three, four years, the automation of tasks, it's really a big freedom enabler.
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:06.720
We don't really invest like in very technical, small features.
00:19:06.960 --> 00:19:10.640
So we're more like platform investors, we're really looking for paradigm shifts.
00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:18.559
So, how does this technology enable the populations in LATAM, in Africa to really achieve financial independence?
00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:26.480
Because now with this technology, what you have is we've seen in the past couple of years that costs of hardware have been going down.
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.039
Anyone can get their hands on a phone or computer.
00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:34.960
You have global internet penetration through some of the satellite internet projects, like Starlink.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:53.519
And so that what that means essentially is that we're gonna see a billion or two billion people that today cannot participate in the global economy, cannot come online, to be able to come online and teach themselves tasks through the internet and essentially and finance themselves by you the use of cryptocurrency and self-bank themselves.
00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:55.440
And that's gonna be a massive shift.
00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:00.480
Uh, it's really gonna empower, we think it's really gonna empower a lot of businesses and a lot of people all around the world.
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.200
So that's a big thesis uh for him.
00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:05.519
But how do you decide where to focus?
00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:10.559
The price of Bitcoin's gone down, kind of stay the same, not much traction there.
00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:13.920
Everyone's still arguing about what to regulate, what not to regulate.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.559
And so there hasn't been a ton of shifts there, even though I mean, even some of the larger institutions like BlackRock have tried to come out and with an ETF, for example.
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:28.799
So, how do you know where to spend time or or where it's worth to burn calories, just given the uncertainty?
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:34.480
Bitcoin now is pretty, I wouldn't I think Bitcoin now is becoming a pretty safe asset.
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.319
And I think actually there's a lot of very exciting things coming from Bitcoin.
00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:41.119
I would buy some Bitcoin now if I were you, uh, not financial.
00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:46.160
I don't even want to know how much 30,000 bitcoins bought in 2012 are worth today.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:47.920
Oh, yeah, it's absolutely bad.
00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:52.000
But you know, he's never sold a single one of them because when he invests in things, he keeps them for 10 years.
00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:53.680
He has a very long-term horizon.
00:20:53.920 --> 00:20:58.319
I think that's one thing that I struggle with every day in my job because I was a trader.
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:05.039
That's so every day I would come back home and I would know if I made$10,$100, I would lose$10,$100.
00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:07.279
Now I have to think 10 years ahead.
00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:21.200
And I think that's what venture capitalists do is do your research, look at macro trends, and try to understand how this little thing today that those two guys are pitching you in your office with nothing can become massive in 10 years.
00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:27.839
So you have to abstract the 98% that can go bad and look at the 2% of things and how big can it be?
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:30.400
I think for Bitcoin, there's very good tolerance right now.
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:36.960
You have it's gonna be accepted as an ETF, so that means every kind of uh large institution is gonna be able to trade it safely.
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:44.160
You have Bitcoin's halvings, which are events that happen every four years, that's coming up next year and that always collaborates with a raising price.
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:50.480
For us, when we look more at direct companies to invest in, we look at that very long term vision.
00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:55.759
So one of them being financial freedom for many people that get access to the global economy right now.
00:21:55.920 --> 00:21:59.680
Second, one of them is we think that there's going to be a whole reorganization of the web.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.599
Uh, the same way that we saw it in gaming, that's starting to happen in gaming.
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:09.599
So essentially the idea is to tell you that 10 years ago, you would go buy your DVD to watch a movie.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:19.599
You want to watch Harry Potter, you go to the DVD store, you buy the DVD, you can give it to Will, you can give it to your mom, you can give it to your dad, you can lend it out to someone, and then you can resell it.
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:27.200
Today, what the digital revolution created is that we're kind of stuck in funnels where we can access information super quickly.
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:34.480
You go on the app store, you buy the Harry Potter movie, it takes you two seconds, it's the same price, but you cannot do anything with that.
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:36.720
So, what does that mean about your digital ownership?
00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:42.319
You can't send that movie that you've bought for$30, you cannot send it to your mom, you can't send it to Will, you cannot resell it.
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:46.240
You just own a license to the movie for a certain amount of time.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:50.799
If tomorrow you're banned from app from the app store, you don't even have access to it anymore.
00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:57.039
So the idea is that we're gonna start owning and rethink about all the assets that we have online.
00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:02.720
I think NFTs was kind of a craze, you know, everyone buying their PFP, their profile pictures.
00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:09.200
But what it really kind of started to put in the consumer's mind is that aspect of digital ownership.
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:14.319
All the data that we have on our computers today, they can be removed and wiped out in two seconds.
00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:22.319
I think we're starting to see it happen in gaming because gamers are more digital native, so they've been growing around computers their entire life.
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.119
It's easier concepts for them to understand.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:32.960
But we're gonna see all the organization for music, social media, multimedia, videos, film, everything.
00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:36.720
And that's where we're gonna see the next massive platform arise.
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:40.400
What's what's really needed to change consumer behavior?
00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:48.480
Because consumers are part of the wave to drive this trend forward, whether it's the intersection of gaming and crypto, just buying crypto in general.
00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.960
I mean, I mean, what do you think it will take there?
00:23:51.680 --> 00:24:06.640
Consumers, first you need very high consumer usability, so UI UX, and I think that's a problem that's starting to be solved because you have just so much excitement and so much good developers that are building good tools and good designers that are making the experience seamless.
00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:11.440
And then at the end of the day, is is it cheaper and what's the value add for the consumer?
00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:25.759
You know, for example, if the model today is that it's cheaper to have one Netflix where you pay 20 bucks, one Apple TV when you pay 20 bucks, one YouTube TV when you pay 20 bucks, one Amazon Prime where you pay 20 bucks, I don't think that's the model that's gonna last.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.160
So and all technologies are gonna disrupt that, and technologies are gonna disrupt that.
00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:36.640
So at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to what's the price point at which you get to enter and use those things.
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:40.720
For the games, we've seen really good excitement.
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:47.599
Uh, large studios like TV Blizzard and Ubisoft, they all understand that this is coming and they're getting ready.
00:24:47.759 --> 00:24:52.079
So actually, they're all building games using blockchain technology in mind.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:59.440
So the technology had to be a bit battle-tested because there was still some blockchains, people are not sure about.
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:01.839
There's a bit of information asymmetry.
00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.000
But now we're getting to a pretty robust phase.
00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:28.400
And I almost think that this technology is solving uh consumer behavior that's already happening today, in the sense that when you gave an example earlier, I think another example is with Fortnite skins, where people have a rare skin, and the only way to sell that value that you've have in that skin is by selling your account or going on eBay and selling your entire console.
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:42.880
And so the ability to separate out the account or the console from a specific asset that's in one game, like a skin in Fortnite or a skin in World of Warcraft or something, is clearly there's demand for that technology.
00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:52.319
And so I almost think to a certain extent that the behavior is there and the desire is there, and the technology is really enabling things that are inefficient use of assets today.
00:25:52.559 --> 00:26:06.240
Yeah, and I think it all comes down to pricing because right now, Activision Bizo, they're Fortnite, they're like, why the hell would I allow people to swap assets between one another if I'm the only seller of assets and those guys cannot exchange it between us?
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:07.440
It's a one-way market.
00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:15.359
But tomorrow, if Ubisoft wants to build a Fortnite that lets you swap them, then the switch is gonna happen very quickly.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:26.000
So as soon as there's gonna be a big player that can build a really good AAA game experience, I mean Fortnite, I think last year was five billion dollars of money spent on skins.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:30.480
Those digital economies are really, really striving.
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:32.559
And we're gonna see that happen sooner than later, I think.
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:37.039
How do you see the intersection of gaming and then with the metaverse?
00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:42.880
Just given the challenges that a lot of these companies have faced of trying to get people to go into the metaverse.
00:26:43.039 --> 00:26:43.359
I don't know.
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:51.920
Do you see this extended reality technology continuing to grow or is the future maybe shifting a little bit of this hybrid universe?
00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:54.000
I'm just curious your thoughts there.
00:26:54.720 --> 00:27:05.200
Yeah, I think unfortunately, I think we the premise went a bit too fast, too quick, and that we didn't really give good steps to consumers.
00:27:05.359 --> 00:27:10.559
So inside blockchain, there's two famous metavers, there's the sandbox, the central end.
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:16.559
And today you have less than a thousand, five thousand players using it on a daily basis.
00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:32.880
And I think even Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, when they kind of laid out the vision, they were put you in front of your head like too much directly, like you're gonna live in this full immersive place, and you're gonna go to walk to work, walking your avatar around, and you're gonna do all your coffee chats there.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.200
And I just think it takes smaller steps.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:38.559
Like now we're seeing like AR is pretty much anywhere.
00:27:38.640 --> 00:27:47.440
You know, I think like a game like Pokemon Go, everyone can play it, or very different applications, like even filters, like use AR pretty much anywhere.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:55.920
For VR to happen, you have to first give consumers tools that are slightly that they're more used to it at first.
00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:02.960
Like right now, meta that they're doing the glasses with Ray-Ban is better than telling everyone just put an Oculus on all the time.
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.039
And that's just a too drastic change.
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:16.000
So I think they can't let's start the transition that they try to go a little bit too fast into giving you the future too much ahead, and some people get a little scared.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:28.480
But I definitely think it's the way things are going because you're seeing much and more people that are getting isolated, are playing, want to go in social environments where they can interact with others.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:32.559
I think games are, for example, Fortnite is the best, best metaverse out there, right?
00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:35.200
People go to concerts, you may go and meet your friends.
00:28:35.599 --> 00:28:41.200
That's where a lot of young people like, oh, let's meet on Fortnite and have their most of their social interactions.
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:53.039
For that to elaborate to a work environment, to everyday life, I think will still take a bit of time because also older generations are less digital native.
00:28:53.200 --> 00:29:03.759
But little by little, I think we'll see that, and also yeah, you're also seeing the need for privacy and control as well, because in my head, I see the point of the metaverse is it's like a lack of governance.
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:10.000
But then there's been issues of things going on in the metaverse that have almost created a need for governance.
00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:12.000
Where can they meet in the middle?
00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:19.119
Where it's like people are still using these technologies and you have this free state, but at the same time, there's some sort of control.
00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:20.720
And I don't have an answer to that.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:22.880
It's just something that I was thinking about.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.680
Yeah, and you saw the same thing with the internet, right?
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:30.480
Like you have lack of moderation of the internet that can impact a lot.
00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:37.680
You now you're seeing it with AI, you know, a lot of those talkative AI characters that you can interact with.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:51.359
I think there's this app called uh Chai, where essentially it's like kind of like a non-safe for work AI, and people are talking about their fantasies, and there's very little control, and you're seeing it leading to people killing themselves.
00:29:51.440 --> 00:30:07.680
So it's true that we're gonna need to figure out a way to technology freedom is great, but there's still consumers that you need to protect because if technology goes a bit too far without any sort of framework, it can lead to disastrous outcome.
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:08.480
Yep.
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:18.559
And before I close with my final two questions, if I can give you a million dollars today and you can put it in any Bitcoin, crypto-related company, who are you giving it to?
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:23.519
Oh, if I had a million dollars today, I would definitely put it in Bitcoin is the safest.
00:30:23.759 --> 00:30:28.319
I think there's also the massive tailwinds that are happening right now uh around Bitcoin.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:35.279
No, but what about a company, like a startup, or or it could be a later stage company, just like if I give you a couple million dollars, like who are you gonna give it to?
00:30:35.599 --> 00:30:45.759
Oh, if if you give me a couple million dollars today, I think one company that's very leading the charge and very underestimated and very underpriced is Coinbase.
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:46.799
I would put in Coinbase.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.920
I think the Coinbase stock is one of the most undervalued stock out there.
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:57.519
It's a very safe investment if you're gonna make you're gonna make 10x of 12, 15 extra money in the next year and a half, I think, if you invest in Coinbase.
00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:01.440
So then I don't want to give you all my personal, I don't want to give you all my personal data.
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:04.240
So yeah, you're like, I'm not answering anymore.
00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:07.759
And reminder, this is not investment advice.
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:08.640
Yes.
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:11.279
Max, two questions to end.
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:13.200
What motivates you to work hard?
00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:29.599
What motivates me to work hard in my job every day here is that it's really amazing that I've got really lucky to go and work in two early stage startups that both exit it, and that brings you amazing joy when you figure that problem, cracking them up and seeing a company grow and just experiencing that.
00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:32.079
I would suggest to anyone in the world to do it.
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:40.799
It's seeing starting from a company, five people, going to 50 or 100 people, making revenue, changing something in the world, being able to sell that company, the best feeling ever.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:44.559
And every day today, I work with entrepreneurs that are trying to do the same.
00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:54.799
And for me to be able to back them and kind of spur that joy and that excitement in each of them and go tackle so many problems that are in the world, I think is super, super interesting.
00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:58.880
I kind of, one of my boss told me one day, question everything.
00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:00.559
And it's something I never had done in my life.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:11.920
I was always, you know, going to school, listening to what people told me, get a job in banking, that's you would have a happy life doing that, and you would be able to have a good family and whatever your happy version of happiness is, you'll find that.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:15.279
Just keep your heads down and follow the line.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:23.039
And being now in the disruptive technology place, I realized that everything that's around you, you should always ask yourself a question.
00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:29.839
If someone tells you this is the way, if someone tells you two equals two, one plus one equals two, question that.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:32.720
Go further than just listening and take stuff for assumptions.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:34.559
Like question everything that's around you.
00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:37.680
Why is the world in that, why is the world functioning that way?
00:32:37.839 --> 00:32:46.559
Trying to go deeper because there's many, many things that are going to get changed and that are gonna get solved, and not enough people ask themselves questions.
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:56.400
I every day when I'm using any sort of software, when I'm interacting with people, everything I take for granted, I always try to take pull back and be like, okay, how can we make this better?
00:32:56.559 --> 00:32:58.640
How why is this in this state?
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:06.160
I think it's a super good piece of advice for any young person that's trying to innovate and trying to change a bit, some pieces of the world.
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:12.400
Like really question everything that you take for granted, and you'll see that there's many ways you can impact this society for the greater good.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:13.440
Oh, that's great.
00:33:13.599 --> 00:33:16.480
But what's a piece of advice you'd give your younger self?
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:20.319
Work harder, be less, be more forward-thinking.
00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:23.680
Uh don't think about what's going to be the impact in one year, two years.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:29.759
Don't do things for greed and things very quick results.
00:33:30.079 --> 00:33:31.680
Trying to have a very long-term vision.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:35.519
Life is pretty long and success don't come overnight.
00:33:36.079 --> 00:33:52.160
So read, learn a lot, try not a very long-term vision, and I think that creates you happiness because when you're able to know what you work for for the very long term and not know what you work for for tomorrow, doesn't the sense of failure doesn't exist, right?
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:58.000
So if you're looking for immediate results, you're just gonna get you're just gonna get sad every day because sometimes you fail.
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:03.200
But if you look very far ahead, I think brings you another happiness in Jack.
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:05.039
This has been a phenomenal episode.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:10.880
Maxine, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts and perspectives on on Draper and your journey so far.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:12.559
So appreciate your time.
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:14.239
Thank you very much.
