Full Transcript for Missionaries Build Through It, Mercenaries Don't

said, sure, let's do it. 00:04:01.689 --> 00:04:04.729 And like 24 hours later, we had a one-page statement of work. 00:04:04.889 --> 00:04:08.329 And I remember we spent probably the most time, like, what do we call it? 00:04:08.569 --> 00:04:13.530 And after like five or 10 minutes, we're like, just fuck it, call it special projects, we'll figure it out later. 00:04:13.689 --> 00:04:14.329 Yeah. 00:04:14.729 --> 00:04:16.569 So it's anything, right? 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:22.569 I mean, I think the way you put it was you know, cats out of the bag, even though we're in stealth, I'm getting a lot of inbound. 00:04:22.730 --> 00:04:29.050 I just need someone who I trust to talk to kind of fairly senior people, and you know, have enough hours in the day. 00:04:29.129 --> 00:04:35.050 And I'm like, oh, I get to meet like you know, C-level people at like multinational companies, and I can do that. 00:04:35.129 --> 00:04:36.329 I'll I'll enjoy them. 00:04:36.810 --> 00:04:43.050 Well, I think like you've heard me talk about this, and since football season's coming up, we'll use the football analogy, right? 00:04:43.209 --> 00:04:49.610 I think when you start these things as a founder, you're just kind of playing streetball, right? 00:04:49.769 --> 00:04:54.810 You're just like, okay, dude, you like you go run down here, take a left at the car, and I'll get it to you. 00:04:54.889 --> 00:04:57.129 And it's a couple like who knows, right? 00:04:57.209 --> 00:05:02.170 It's just like kids showing up and playing, and that's like usually first phase of startup life, right? 00:05:02.569 --> 00:05:05.610 And then you you kind of enter team scale, right? 00:05:05.769 --> 00:05:15.769 Where you do have a team and like maybe you're like play more offense, but like a small high school team where you might also have to play defense every once in a while. 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:19.769 You might also be still having that's a tease today, so you're the QB. 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:20.649 Yeah. 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:23.129 So I which is where I think we are, right? 00:05:23.209 --> 00:05:25.129 We're at that team scale thing. 00:05:25.289 --> 00:05:32.810 Like we're talking about another new hire, and I was like, I was like, I don't know, like let's just bring her in, like we brought you in, special projects, like who cares? 00:05:33.050 --> 00:05:39.289 And then she'll find her way and figure out whether she's a receiver or a quarterback or a lineman or whatever. 00:05:39.610 --> 00:05:54.969 You just start to figure out what you're good at in the current environment we're playing, and then eventually we'll get to what I consider functional scale, where this is what you do, and this is all you do, and these are your metrics, and blah, blah, blah. 00:05:55.129 --> 00:06:01.289 Like we're talking about, I was talking to Kirk a little just before this, and he was like, Hey, I need help with X. 00:06:01.689 --> 00:06:03.289 He's like, Who can I go to? 00:06:03.529 --> 00:06:09.370 And I literally was like, post on the all channel, and it's whoever can actually do it. 00:06:09.529 --> 00:06:12.009 Yeah, like it's not a job description thing. 00:06:12.089 --> 00:06:15.449 It's like, if you can help me with this task, please raise your hand. 00:06:15.529 --> 00:06:18.170 Like, if you have the capability, just raise your hand, right? 00:06:18.490 --> 00:06:22.250 So I'm gonna actually, you know, let me just jump in here, right? 00:06:22.329 --> 00:06:30.009 So, first of all, like every time I I met people at you know, at zero RFI, one of my first questions over them is have everyone had a startup before? 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:35.849 Because I wanted to understand if they knew like what was normal chaos and what was no actual chaos, be worried. 00:06:36.250 --> 00:06:41.370 And for some of them that hadn't been there before, I'd be like, hey, this is like this is normal chaos, right? 00:06:41.449 --> 00:06:44.409 Like things like your messaging to customers. 00:06:44.649 --> 00:06:47.610 Like in the beginning, you're just trying a bunch of different formula out. 00:06:47.689 --> 00:06:53.209 You try to see when the customer leans in, when they give you like glazed eyes, they have no idea what you're talking about. 00:06:53.370 --> 00:07:00.089 Uh and then you get to the point where you kind of have a sense of what's working, and then you actually start documenting processes and people have real titles. 00:07:00.250 --> 00:07:03.610 So it is a very real thing that like startups go through. 00:07:03.689 --> 00:07:06.969 And if you haven't done it before, it can be kind of stressful. 00:07:08.329 --> 00:07:09.529 You don't know that that's normal, right? 00:07:09.610 --> 00:07:12.409 You can you just people around you don't know what you're doing. 00:07:12.649 --> 00:07:17.129 But as you grow as a team, certain things don't scale as well. 00:07:17.209 --> 00:07:20.649 Like the all zero channel that we have within Slack, that works. 00:07:20.810 --> 00:07:21.930 Sorry, we've talked about this. 00:07:22.089 --> 00:07:27.449 Like it works really well when there's 20 people and you know, like 20 channels, and like people are looking at everything. 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:36.089 Once you've gotten to like 50 channels on Slack and you've muted 40 of them, and there's like you know, 30 people all contributing to all zero, it doesn't work as well. 00:07:36.329 --> 00:07:44.649 So, one of the things that I've played with a little bit is I I'll ask Claude, I'm like, I need someone to help me with this, like, go through all the Slack conversations. 00:07:44.889 --> 00:07:48.969 Who looks like they might actually know what the hell they're talking about and can help me with this? 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:52.170 And that's like one of the big changes, right? 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:57.050 So it used like even as much as two years ago, like you had no way of doing that. 00:07:57.849 --> 00:08:00.889 So I would have to like, you know,

I needed someone to help me on like tech. 00:08:00.969 --> 00:08:01.610 I called Barry. 00:08:01.689 --> 00:08:03.849 Barry, like, who on your team can walk me through this? 00:08:04.009 --> 00:08:05.529 Or like I have no idea about anything. 00:08:05.689 --> 00:08:09.769 I call you, and then you're like, oh, you should talk to like Jared about that, wherever it might be. 00:08:10.089 --> 00:08:18.089 Now that kind of like unlimited cognitive capacity to just look at it all and figure it out is trivial. 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:26.089 So I find myself leaning more and more on Claude for like general questions where I would go to someone else to point me in the right direction. 00:08:26.329 --> 00:08:26.730 Yeah. 00:08:26.889 --> 00:08:27.689 I think it's funny. 00:08:27.769 --> 00:08:36.250 Barry and I were talking about like, as much as I'm business oriented, I will exhibit kind of my engineering true colors. 00:08:36.570 --> 00:08:36.730 Okay. 00:08:37.210 --> 00:08:43.769 Barry and I were joking around, I was like, because we both view everything as a ticket, like closing out a ticket, right? 00:08:43.930 --> 00:08:54.090 So when you post on Slack, okay, who's grabbing that ticket and closing it out in a in the form of like it might be a question, it might be like, hey, I need someone to review a proposal. 00:08:54.330 --> 00:09:01.529 So I think we kind of view like all task management as a ticket to the extent like, oh, everything should be on Lanier. 00:09:01.689 --> 00:09:03.210 Why don't we run everything on Lanier? 00:09:03.370 --> 00:09:08.889 And it's like, well, I think we might be the only ones that like the engineering brain side thinks of everything as a ticket. 00:09:09.210 --> 00:09:12.730 Other people actually want to have a conversation to discuss what's going on. 00:09:13.049 --> 00:09:13.610 Oh, no, no, no. 00:09:13.769 --> 00:09:15.529 Like I am like super millennial. 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:20.649 I'll go through great, like great pains to avoid an actual like synchronous voice conversation. 00:09:20.889 --> 00:09:31.929 But I have actually like, I'll tell you there is a certain value to having it in Slack or emails because it becomes like this huge unstructured database that you can hit. 00:09:32.090 --> 00:09:34.409 So I'll have, I'll give you another example, right? 00:09:34.569 --> 00:09:43.929 So, you know, customer development or sales, in a way, it's kind of like being it's kind of like being an AI chatbot, right? 00:09:44.090 --> 00:09:53.929 You're sort of like every word coming out of your mouth, you're predicting what you think is most likely to make the potential customer on the other uh end of the call happy. 00:09:54.569 --> 00:09:56.169 Which is basically how the chatbot works. 00:09:56.250 --> 00:10:00.730 And like, you know, hopefully when you're done spitting that out, it makes sense to them. 00:10:00.970 --> 00:10:03.529 But you know, when you get started just like Claude, it really doesn't. 00:10:03.769 -->

00:10:04.569 There's no brain there. 00:10:04.649 --> 00:10:09.850 It doesn't, they're not thinking about what they say, they're just hoping that it makes the the user happy. 00:10:10.169 --> 00:10:14.809 Uh so you know, if you're doing good customer development, you you actually know what you're saying. 00:10:15.049 --> 00:10:20.330 But good enough customer development is the the customer like hears what you say, and then they come back to you. 00:10:20.490 --> 00:10:22.809 But that's exactly what I meant, and then they say it their own way. 00:10:23.210 --> 00:10:25.049 Okay, now I know what I meant by that. 00:10:25.610 --> 00:10:36.490 But what I'll use sometimes is I'm going into a new conversation, and I'm like, okay, customer acts is kind of like these other four or five companies I've spoken to in the past. 00:10:36.730 --> 00:10:40.090 I'm thinking about exploring A, B, and C. 00:10:40.649 --> 00:10:42.730 Take Cloud, any other ideas. 00:10:43.529 --> 00:10:48.569 And sometimes it'll come up with an idea I haven't thought about to explore with them, and it's not bad. 00:10:48.730 --> 00:10:53.529 And I flip this trial balloon, and either they you know they get excited and lean forward or they don't. 00:10:53.769 --> 00:10:54.009 Yeah. 00:10:54.169 --> 00:11:00.250 But having it in that conversation, yeah, it's part of the raw material that you can pull from. 00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:02.009 So let's talk about this, right? 00:11:02.169 --> 00:11:06.009 Before you got here, you were like AI adjacent. 00:11:06.250 --> 00:11:15.289 Yeah, I I now you're like AI pilled, which I think is the reason I wanted to bring this up is like, you know, our listenership, our clients, it's it's all over the place, right? 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:19.769 We have boomers down the Gen Z kind of thing, right? 00:11:20.009 --> 00:11:25.370 And I think sometimes, I mean, I get criticized for a lot of things, both at home and at work. 00:11:25.689 --> 00:11:28.649 But one of them is like, KP, you're just out here. 00:11:28.970 --> 00:11:29.850 I can't relate. 00:11:29.929 --> 00:11:30.649 Like, I don't get it. 00:11:30.809 --> 00:11:35.129 Like, you say things like the other day, I was on a podcast and I said, Oh, you know, like an MCP server. 00:11:35.370 --> 00:11:39.850 And everybody on the podcast was like, Hold up, you need to explain this to us, right? 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:45.610 And I was like, Do I need to like I don't feel like I need like I'm explaining the internet, like I feel like I'm explaining how the internet works. 00:11:45.850 --> 00:11:48.809 But I did, I was uh I was kind and explained it. 00:11:49.049 --> 00:11:56.730 But you, I feel like have gone through your own personal transformation around how you work. 00:11:57.129 --> 00:11:58.409 And I think there's two things. 00:11:58.490 --> 00:12:00.409 I think one, you're a naturally curious person. 00:12:00.490 --> 00:12:02.409 That's why you've been an investor in startup. 00:12:02.490 --> 00:12:04.649 You're not a you don't lack curiosity. 00:12:04.889 --> 00:12:08.169 Maybe you just didn't have the platform to play, right? 00:12:08.250 --> 00:12:14.889 And then I think the other thing I do to people is I kind of give people the workload of 12 sevens, right? 00:12:15.049 --> 00:12:19.049 Like I give people the workload of like, oh, you're working seven days a week, 12 hours a day. 00:12:19.289 --> 00:12:25.610 And the only way you can actually have any time to yourself is because you're gonna figure out how to use the tools. 00:12:25.689 --> 00:12:27.610 Because if you're not gonna use the tools, there's no way. 00:12:27.850 --> 00:12:28.090 Yeah. 00:12:28.250 --> 00:12:43.929 Hold on, I'm gonna push back on that last part because so one thing that you did very well, and it helped a lot, is you made it very clear that everyone should be taking a couple hours each week just to be thinking about how they do what they do and to do it better. 00:12:44.490 --> 00:12:54.649 So, you know, it's one thing I've been with bosses that just drop extra workload on you, and then you're so far behind that you don't have any time to actually catch up and invest in your productivity. 00:12:54.809 --> 00:13:04.649 Uh, but you're very explicit, like those two hours a week that you're spending on figuring out a better way to do it, creating a project or a task or what have you, that is time well spent. 00:13:04.889 --> 00:13:06.970 Yeah, and there that that's the difference, right? 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:08.649 You know, you give them the need. 00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:10.090 So that helped a lot. 00:13:10.330 --> 00:13:12.649 You did say one other thing that really resonated. 00:13:12.730 --> 00:13:14.250 Like, I didn't have a platform. 00:13:14.409 --> 00:13:18.250 So, like, let's kind of let's kind of like take that apart a bit. 00:13:18.330 --> 00:13:24.970 So, what one of the few gifts I have, other than you know, acceptable hair, is sorry, Brendan. 00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:26.649 I said acceptable. 00:13:28.569 --> 00:13:29.049 I don't know. 00:13:29.129 --> 00:13:31.529 We'll we'll compare a top 10, top five lists. 00:13:31.610 --> 00:13:35.769 I don't know if I'm there or not, but uh, you know, I think I get at least an honorable mention. 00:13:36.569 --> 00:13:48.809 Is that I've always been very cognizant of like explaining things in simple terms, even if they're overly simple sometimes, but so people can at least get started. 00:13:48.970 --> 00:13:51.129 So I feel like I don't know what MCP servers are. 00:13:51.210 --> 00:13:53.289 I'm like, dude, it's a magic wand, right? 00:13:53.370 --> 00:13:56.809 It's like an API, but you don't have to actually program anything, right? 00:13:57.049 --> 00:13:58.569 Is that truly accurate? 00:13:58.730 --> 00:14:01.769 Uh maybe, maybe not, but it's accurate enough. 00:14:02.169 --> 00:14:04.009 Like, okay, I got it now, let's keep going. 00:14:04.409 --> 00:14:06.649 So to take it back, right?

00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:15.929 About going back to about two years ago, like you start reading what everyone's doing, but I'm very much a like, I gotta learn by doing. 00:14:16.569 --> 00:14:21.210 I gotta learn by doing like back, I don't know if you remember Code Academy back in the dawn of internet time. 00:14:21.370 --> 00:14:23.289 So they had like code year. 00:14:23.529 --> 00:14:30.490 So you're supposed to like learn like it was like uh HTML and CSS, a little bit of JavaScript, and you could do that all. 00:14:30.649 --> 00:14:35.689 And I was actually between two startups at the time, and and like it hadn't been announced publicly that I'd left. 00:14:35.850 --> 00:14:39.370 So I just sat down, I had like a month or two, and I just banged through it. 00:14:39.529 --> 00:14:45.210 And when I'm done, I'm like, I don't really know if I've learned this because I was just doing their exercises. 00:14:45.370 --> 00:14:50.090 So I had to set for myself my own little project that I wanted to do. 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:52.889 And then I'm like, okay, I really understood it. 00:14:53.529 --> 00:15:06.490 So the limitation here is like here I am in the venture world, or at the time in the venture world, but I was consulting for other VC funds mostly rather than doing my own investments, doing some of my own SPVs. 00:15:06.649 --> 00:15:21.529 So a lot of the things that I would have been using AI for, like figuring out how to prospect better, figuring out how to, you know, do my first pass through the decks and like a memo and all that kind of stuff, like I wasn't doing at scale. 00:15:21.769 --> 00:15:24.250 So I just, you know, I couldn't do it hypothetically. 00:15:24.490 --> 00:15:27.689 I wasn't able to like build those those muscles. 00:15:27.850 --> 00:15:31.450 You know, my book came up, came out about a year and change ago. 00:15:31.689 --> 00:15:42.169 So a lot of the stuff I was playing around with AI on were promoting the book and trying to get in front of different people, even video gen AI, but it's not the stuff that we're doing here. 00:15:42.409 --> 00:15:51.769 So when you brought me in and I had this kind of new set of tasks in front of me, it was like, great, let's start with the things that I find most painful. 00:15:51.929 --> 00:15:54.330 Uh let's start with stuff that I'm doing over and over again. 00:15:54.490 --> 00:15:56.490 I kind of know what good looks like. 00:15:56.649 --> 00:16:03.049 And let's let's figure out a way to take that off my plate or at least like get 50, 80% of it done faster. 00:16:03.210 --> 00:16:04.649 And that's the way I learn. 00:16:04.809 --> 00:16:05.049 Right. 00:16:05.210 --> 00:16:07.049 And I learned by doing. 00:16:07.610 --> 00:16:10.009 So that's really how my journey went. 00:16:10.250 --> 00:16:10.490 Yeah. 00:16:10.649 --> 00:16:12.330 I think also like it doesn't hurt. 00:16:12.409 --> 00:16:14.169 You know, we've got a great engineering team. 00:16:14.330 --> 00:16:17.850 I think they're pretty, they're kind of high empathy people, right? 00:16:17.929 --> 00:16:23.210 They're not like classic IT people, like, move over, let me show you how dumb you are. 00:16:24.970 --> 00:16:31.769 Listen, by the way, having someone to ask, and they can give you like, oh no, you're in the wrong direction, let me help you. 00:16:31.850 --> 00:16:32.569 That's gold. 00:16:32.730 --> 00:16:32.970 Yeah. 00:16:33.210 --> 00:16:35.769 But if you don't lean on him too much, you have to sweat first. 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:38.970 If you don't sweat at the front of you on your own, you don't develop the muscles. 00:16:39.210 --> 00:16:44.250 I will say, you know, as much as I I love Barry, I haven't had to lean on him for this. 00:16:44.409 --> 00:16:45.289 And you know why? 00:16:45.450 --> 00:16:47.929 If I hit a wall, I just asked Claude. 00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:48.409 Yeah. 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:50.169 And they told me, right? 00:16:50.490 --> 00:17:02.250 So it you know, this is like one of these unique errors in time where if you come at it from the right direction, it's actually easiest to learn with the least scaffolding. 00:17:02.490 --> 00:17:04.569 This will help you learn it. 00:17:04.730 --> 00:17:05.049 Yeah. 00:17:05.370 --> 00:17:06.330 How awesome is that? 00:17:06.569 --> 00:17:07.289 No, amazing. 00:17:07.450 --> 00:17:08.330 No, I I agree with you. 00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:12.809 And I think the, you know, being that we're like an AI native firm too, right? 00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:28.650 The way we have our knowledge management, and you know, there's there's so much information everywhere between Notion and Slack, and we've connected everything, and we have, you know, we've taken all this data, you know, we record all our calls using Notion. 00:17:28.890 --> 00:17:31.690 So there's, you know, so we we do a lot of that stuff. 00:17:31.769 --> 00:17:35.930 We all try very hard to keep our content accurate, right? 00:17:36.009 --> 00:17:38.809 Because of hallucinating and just weird stuff. 00:17:39.129 --> 00:17:42.650 But I do think it helps that we're AI native because it's really interesting. 00:17:42.730 --> 00:17:59.210 Like, I mean, one of the things you do is you work with a lot of our AEC clients on their transformation, and then the first thing they do is like, oh, well, our SharePoint servers on-prem, and you're like, whoa, like even before that, that's that's that's like already up on the scale. 00:17:59.450 --> 00:18:08.329 Like the the word that the we wait for this phrase, and then we're like Well, you know, we're on co-pilot, and immediately like inside of the man, I feel for you. 00:18:08.490 --> 00:18:13.369 Yeah, because on co-pilot, it's not that copilot's part of my language, a shitty tool. 00:18:13.529 --> 00:18:17.849 Like when my mom was having trouble with her like 20-year-old laptop upstairs. 00:18:18.089 --> 00:18:21.849 Actually, a copilot helped us figure out what was wrong with it and how to fix it.

00:18:22.089 --> 00:18:26.410 It's not that it's bad, it's a little bit of a symptom, yeah, right? 00:18:26.650 --> 00:18:46.250 Because the kind of company that will reflexively choose copilot are the ones that are locking things down because they're so worried about misuse, internal or external, they lock stuff down so tightly that it actually makes the AI experience bad. 00:18:46.490 --> 00:18:46.809 Yeah. 00:18:47.049 --> 00:18:55.369 And then what happens is you got your people in your organization going in there, like, I tried it, it sucked, I couldn't rely on it, it's not ready yet. 00:18:55.609 --> 00:19:00.170 And it's not ready yet, it means I'm not gonna look about, I'm not gonna even think about AI for another year or two. 00:19:00.329 --> 00:19:00.569 Yeah. 00:19:00.730 --> 00:19:03.769 Uh that's the I mean you wrote about this, but that's the real danger. 00:19:03.930 --> 00:19:04.089 Yeah. 00:19:04.170 --> 00:19:08.250 And when I hear I'm on co-pilot, I'm like, oh man, I'm sorry to get it. 00:19:08.569 --> 00:19:11.609 No, and I also think like, you know, it's like early days of internet. 00:19:11.849 --> 00:19:19.049 I used to like deploy like ISDN internet routers and do all this stuff on-prem. 00:19:19.129 --> 00:19:30.170 And then I'd start setting up computers with you know, with like Netscape, and uh my clients would say, Oh, don't give the accounting department a web browser, just give lockdown. 00:19:30.250 --> 00:19:31.690 Only they can only have email. 00:19:32.009 --> 00:19:32.970 I'm like, why? 00:19:33.129 --> 00:19:38.250 Yeah, oh the waste time on the internet, and I was like, really? 00:19:38.730 --> 00:19:41.450 And like I I hear similar yet, right? 00:19:41.690 --> 00:19:43.289 I hear similar patterns today. 00:19:43.369 --> 00:19:46.089 Like, don't give people AI because they're just gonna goof around. 00:19:46.170 --> 00:19:49.450 I'm like, you know, they have a phone, yeah. 00:19:49.690 --> 00:19:53.609 Like they have a phone, and they're probably aren't gonna goof around. 00:19:53.690 --> 00:19:55.849 If anything, they're the things I would goof around on. 00:19:55.930 --> 00:19:58.730 I don't want going through your servers anyway, right? 00:19:58.809 --> 00:19:59.049 Exactly. 00:19:59.369 --> 00:20:01.049 I'll even turn Wi-Fi off so you get no. 00:20:01.769 --> 00:20:04.970 I'm probably on Calci and Poly Market on my phone anyway. 00:20:05.049 --> 00:20:07.289 Like, that's more fun than AI, anyways. 00:20:07.930 --> 00:20:10.970 It was either that or porn, but anyway, let's move on. 00:20:11.690 --> 00:20:13.210 Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. 00:20:13.289 --> 00:20:15.450 I mean, it's like, and and they will get it, right? 00:20:15.529 --> 00:20:22.170 Once you actually tell them, like, hey, you know, if I wanted to goof high use my phone, like, oh, but that's not, I don't think it's the goofing around now. 00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:25.369 I think it's fear of I don't know how this works. 00:20:25.450 --> 00:20:30.250 And they'll either use AI, get wrong answers, and somehow that'll kill the company. 00:20:30.410 --> 00:20:31.049 Yeah, right. 00:20:31.129 --> 00:20:35.769 Like there's a lot of steps in between they'll go, they'll do it wrong and the company will die. 00:20:36.170 --> 00:20:38.089 But that's the real fear. 00:20:38.329 --> 00:20:44.250 Or there's a whole different level of uh exposure that your company has with AI. 00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:52.730 It's kind of like those early days when everyone was getting viruses because they opened up executables and like nobody kind of knew what the danger zones are. 00:20:52.890 --> 00:20:58.569 And today, like, if you don't have people who set it up appropriately, you are exposed. 00:20:58.730 --> 00:20:59.369 Yeah. 00:20:59.609 --> 00:21:05.930 You know, and that's so like I have a little sympathy for this CTO who's like, I'm locking it all down. 00:21:06.809 --> 00:21:09.210 But the truth is, like, dude, it's your job, right? 00:21:09.289 --> 00:21:12.410 You gotta go figure out how to give the best tools to your people. 00:21:12.569 --> 00:21:16.009 And if you're worried about what they'll do with the best tools, you got the wrong people. 00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:16.569 Yeah. 00:21:16.809 --> 00:21:20.250 I I also think to your point of like giving space, right? 00:21:20.490 --> 00:21:27.369 I think it's also important that like the CEOs say, look, we know we're doing this AI thing, and you're my CIO. 00:21:27.450 --> 00:21:34.329 And I know like you're so busy between the accounting system and all the stuff going on. 00:21:34.650 --> 00:21:36.970 Like, I'm gonna send you to a class. 00:21:37.049 --> 00:21:41.609 Like, I'm gonna you need to go learn and get comfortable or whatever it is, right? 00:21:42.089 --> 00:21:48.009 But the opting out, I think, is like that's just not ex like the opting out is not acceptable. 00:21:48.250 --> 00:21:55.609 Where I'm just you know, I someone the other day was like, I'm too busy doing my job to spend any time with AI. 00:21:55.930 --> 00:22:00.170 I'm too busy badly to get better at it, right? 00:22:00.490 --> 00:22:05.690 You know, I I would actually say, like, this is where like the CEOs kind of can live by example. 00:22:06.009 --> 00:22:15.769 It's weird, like you're gonna send this guy who's like 50 plus or minus, and like well respected in there, and they're good at what they do, but like the whole world changed two years. 00:22:16.089 --> 00:22:16.490 Years ago. 00:22:16.569 --> 00:22:17.690 So I do feel over them. 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:20.970 And then it's like you got to go back to like AI kindergarten. 00:22:21.129 --> 00:22:21.369 Right? 00:22:21.609 --> 00:22:23.289 And like, you know, can I do a product? 00:22:23.849 --> 00:22:24.329 I don't know. 00:22:24.490 --> 00:22:37.210 But you know, if the CEO is going out there and signing up for hackathons and doing this, I think publicly learning it and talking about it, like it sets the tone for

the organization that this is good, right? 00:22:37.369 --> 00:22:38.410 It's okay. 00:22:38.650 --> 00:22:44.089 Admitting that you're just learning AI is far better than not learning AI. 00:22:44.329 --> 00:22:44.650 Right. 00:22:45.369 --> 00:22:50.890 And I will I will also say, like, because we do this with a couple of formally and informally with customers. 00:22:51.210 --> 00:22:55.289 It is a question of giving them achievable first steps. 00:22:56.170 --> 00:23:01.129 You know, the analogy I sometimes use is like when I was younger, I played a lot of video games. 00:23:01.609 --> 00:23:03.930 And I I wish I had that kind of time today. 00:23:04.089 --> 00:23:04.410 Yeah. 00:23:04.650 --> 00:23:11.450 But because my first foray into the into the internet world was I did a lot of UI and UX stuff for a startup. 00:23:11.930 --> 00:23:16.970 I have this like special appreciation for people who can do onboarding really well. 00:23:17.529 --> 00:23:17.690 Right? 00:23:17.769 --> 00:23:22.650 You can you have people build these like very richly featured systems, and it's awesome. 00:23:22.809 --> 00:23:25.849 You can make it do everything but sing, and sometimes it can sing. 00:23:26.089 --> 00:23:30.170 And then you have like the newbie come on, and there's all these buttons, and they don't know what the hell to do first. 00:23:30.809 --> 00:23:34.089 So actually managing that onboarding is is critical. 00:23:34.250 --> 00:23:39.690 Like for a lot of the startups, you lose your customers right there, and then they cancel the subscription and they're gone. 00:23:40.089 --> 00:23:47.769 So I I tell people sometimes you gotta think of it almost like you know, one of those massive multiplayer online games. 00:23:48.009 --> 00:23:51.369 And you're bringing someone in, it's really complicated stuff. 00:23:51.609 --> 00:23:57.049 What goal does like you know, the the tutorial avatar tell them to do first? 00:23:57.849 --> 00:24:07.690 What is it, something that they can do and pay no attention to those 80 other buttons, you're gonna do, and you're gonna learn how to do it well enough, and it's gonna actually help you. 00:24:07.930 --> 00:24:12.170 You'll feel good about doing it, and you'll leave it saying, I gotta do this next. 00:24:13.129 --> 00:24:30.009 So if it were me, it's not just that the CTO or the CIO needs to understand AI, but I almost need to have a tutorial mentality or teaching mentality of like, how do I get my entire organization excited about learning? 00:24:30.089 --> 00:24:33.769 I make it easy for them to learn, make them feel like they've succeeded. 00:24:34.009 --> 00:24:40.730 Yeah, I think it's also like the industry makes people feel like less approachable, right? 00:24:40.809 --> 00:24:44.569 We throw this terminology out there, all this stuff, right? 00:24:44.970 --> 00:24:49.690 And you know why pickleball we're the ones saying MCP. 00:24:49.849 --> 00:24:52.250 Yeah, do you know why pickleball is so popular? 00:24:52.569 --> 00:24:55.289 Because it lets old fat people pretend they're playing tennis. 00:24:55.529 --> 00:24:57.609 Well, first it says pickle. 00:24:58.009 --> 00:25:00.170 Oh, yeah, it's not very serious, right? 00:25:00.250 --> 00:25:02.490 Yeah, it's kind of approachable, right? 00:25:02.569 --> 00:25:03.609 It's already approachable. 00:25:03.930 --> 00:25:08.490 By the way, no offense to like the 98% of the audience that play pickleball regularly. 00:25:08.809 --> 00:25:14.970 Right, but it makes I mean, look, I'm I grew up as a tennis player, yeah, very competitive, all that. 00:25:15.289 --> 00:25:22.650 And the the thing that I've appreciated about pickleball is I can play with people of all levels, right? 00:25:22.730 --> 00:25:29.769 It's it's it's like a a you know, whereas tennis, it's like you sit there and it's like someone that's just they can't serve, they can't serve, right? 00:25:29.930 --> 00:25:31.690 Yeah, it's just it's just too hard, right? 00:25:31.930 --> 00:25:33.930 And pickleball, I was like noticing this. 00:25:34.009 --> 00:25:36.730 Like pickleball, the reason it's probably one, it's called pickle. 00:25:37.129 --> 00:25:40.329 Yeah, how can that be you know scary, right? 00:25:40.410 --> 00:25:41.289 It's pickle. 00:25:41.529 --> 00:25:44.970 And then they say things like, you know, in the kitchen, in the kitchen, yeah. 00:25:45.129 --> 00:25:47.769 Oh my god, like it's just like it's just very approachable. 00:25:47.849 --> 00:25:52.329 Like if they would have called it like ultimate tennis or something weird, right? 00:25:53.609 --> 00:25:54.490 You know, I don't know. 00:25:54.569 --> 00:25:56.250 I never thought about that, but you're right. 00:25:56.410 --> 00:25:59.049 There's a certain whimsy to it, right? 00:25:59.450 --> 00:26:06.569 Yeah, there was that makes it doubly funny when you you find like that friend who's like hardcore into it, right? 00:26:06.890 --> 00:26:10.730 And you're playing doubles and like he'll miss a shot and he's like, damn. 00:26:10.970 --> 00:26:12.569 I'm like, dude, it's pickleball. 00:26:12.809 --> 00:26:14.170 Yeah, my my it's kind of funny. 00:26:14.329 --> 00:26:32.089 My my cousin's an orthopaedic surgeon, he's a sports surgeon, yeah, and he always jokes around that like his first two houses have been funded by tennis players, like people that picked up like Alta tennis, pickleball because no one stretches before pickleball, like mixed doubles, right? 00:26:32.170 --> 00:26:36.089 Like that crowd, his third and fourth houses have all been pickleball. 00:26:37.369 --> 00:26:39.210 So I wonder, hold on. 00:26:39.450 --> 00:26:42.730 I wonder if part, other than the fact that Claude is really good. 00:26:42.890 --> 00:26:48.890 I wonder if part of the reason Claude has overtaking OpenAI is because open AI has AI in it, it's scary. 00:26:49.129 --> 00:26:54.009 Claude is just that dorky guy whose parents were French, and I got stuck with that name growing up.

00:26:54.250 --> 00:26:55.049 There you go. 00:26:55.369 --> 00:26:55.930 Maybe. 00:26:56.250 --> 00:26:58.970 Although anthropic sounds very like, I don't know. 00:26:59.930 --> 00:27:00.890 Everyone calls it, you know, I'll tell you. 00:27:01.289 --> 00:27:02.250 Everybody knows what anthropic is. 00:27:02.410 --> 00:27:05.210 I'm not gonna search it up on anthropic, I'm gonna search it up on Claude. 00:27:05.450 --> 00:27:06.089 Right, right. 00:27:06.250 --> 00:27:06.490 Right? 00:27:06.730 --> 00:27:07.769 So interesting. 00:27:07.930 --> 00:27:08.170 Okay. 00:27:08.490 --> 00:27:14.089 Uh so you what you're saying is we shouldn't call it AI, we should just call it, you know, thinking-ish. 00:27:14.410 --> 00:27:14.650 I don't know. 00:27:14.890 --> 00:27:16.970 Call it teletubies, like call it something. 00:27:18.970 --> 00:27:22.170 It's like, you know, we'll we'll figure up some cutesy names. 00:27:22.250 --> 00:27:24.809 Like, yeah, call it Intel, and then we're good to go. 00:27:25.049 --> 00:27:28.250 Well, let's shift gears to startup world. 00:27:28.410 --> 00:27:32.730 So part of your job at Zero R5 is working with tech partnerships. 00:27:32.809 --> 00:27:36.569 We just announced one with track 3D, which is super cool. 00:27:36.890 --> 00:27:41.210 I'm a little biased because I'm one of their big investors, so definitely very biased. 00:27:41.369 --> 00:27:45.930 But I also believe like you work with people you know because you know, right? 00:27:46.009 --> 00:27:48.730 We know what's real, what's not real, what makes them better. 00:27:48.970 --> 00:27:56.890 But part of your job is talking to a lot of startups around partnering with us to partner on our platform because we don't want to build everything. 00:27:57.129 --> 00:27:59.769 We can't build everything, and we don't want to build any everything. 00:28:00.250 --> 00:28:02.490 And so your rubric is build by partner. 00:28:02.809 --> 00:28:06.089 Hey, we need this feature, build by partner, right? 00:28:06.730 --> 00:28:16.170 And one of the things that we're seeing is startup world, especially in construction tech and prop tech, is in a pretty bad place, right? 00:28:16.250 --> 00:28:23.450 In terms of funding, and there's a lot of folks that built, you know, fancy websites, right? 00:28:23.690 --> 00:28:29.930 Apps, it now the customer is vibe coding the equivalent in an hour. 00:28:30.089 --> 00:28:32.490 So they're like, why am I paying you all this money? 00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:43.210 And in fact, we covered on a previous pod where we're seeing these construction companies that have innovation groups are now hiring product people, they're hiring developers. 00:28:43.609 --> 00:28:50.410 And the the low-hanging fruit for them to pay for themselves is to say, Oh, we're spending money with these 10 startups. 00:28:50.970 --> 00:28:53.930 I can recreate it, and then we don't have to pay them, right? 00:28:54.089 --> 00:28:55.289 Immediate ROI. 00:28:55.450 --> 00:28:58.730 So then it's like, oh, let's hire more people because we're getting value. 00:28:59.049 --> 00:29:01.769 I got I got like four bullet points already on my answer. 00:29:01.849 --> 00:29:03.369 You want to put a fifth on the board? 00:29:03.609 --> 00:29:07.529 Or you want to I can't hold more than six ideas in head. 00:29:08.009 --> 00:29:13.369 But I think it's like there's a reality, which you and I, you know, talk to startups all the time still. 00:29:13.609 --> 00:29:15.049 Like, what are you coaching them? 00:29:15.129 --> 00:29:20.170 Like, you know, AOE did your seed round, you're not showing venture growth. 00:29:20.410 --> 00:29:20.650 Yeah. 00:29:20.890 --> 00:29:21.930 So what do you guys do? 00:29:22.170 --> 00:29:24.089 So let's let's take that step by step. 00:29:24.170 --> 00:29:30.009 So let's talk a little bit first about you know how like who should be afraid, right? 00:29:30.089 --> 00:29:30.890 Who should be afraid? 00:29:30.970 --> 00:29:31.930 Who should be very afraid? 00:29:32.170 --> 00:29:34.410 You know, we talk to the startups all the time. 00:29:35.049 --> 00:29:39.129 There is the perception out there, rightly or wrongly, I can just vibe code that. 00:29:39.210 --> 00:29:40.250 I don't need it anymore. 00:29:40.490 --> 00:29:49.930 Now, the truth is, if you ever like try to vibe code on your own, you'll get to the point where like you're 60, 70% of the way there, and then you're like, oh, I'm almost there, I'm almost there, and all of a sudden it's 3 a.m. 00:29:50.089 --> 00:29:51.129 and you're still not there. 00:29:51.450 --> 00:30:02.089 So it's actually deceptively tricky to get that 99.9% reliability that you expect from software. 00:30:02.410 --> 00:30:12.089 Now, it's okay if you're using it as an internal tool to support yourself, and there's a human in the loop, and you can like kind of catch it when it hits an edge case and chokes. 00:30:12.410 --> 00:30:13.609 That's fine. 00:30:13.930 --> 00:30:17.930 But you know, the vibe coding, it's a little bit hyped. 00:30:18.089 --> 00:30:19.529 It's a little bit hyped. 00:30:19.769 --> 00:30:21.289 It's not like that easy. 00:30:21.369 --> 00:30:30.009 It's kind of the difference between like I could paint, you know, the the kids' nursery, but it's not going to be as nice if I had a real painter on it. 00:30:30.890 --> 00:30:46.410 Now, where you're willing to go and like then get your your IT team to harden it and get it those last you know 20% over the line versus where it's like you know not worth it, it's usually the big spend items down. 00:30:46.650 --> 00:30:46.890 Yeah. 00:30:47.210 --> 00:30:49.849 But here's here's where I'll argue with you about that. 00:30:50.250 --> 00:30:51.769 This is the difference, right? 00:30:52.009 --> 00:30:58.170 If you're some tech nerd, I use nerd affectionately, in a construction company. 00:30:58.410 --> 00:31:03.690 I guess and you went and told the CEO, like, hey, I think we can replace X, Y, and Z. 00:31:04.009 -->

00:31:07.609 Here's three slides on how I'd approach it, and here's my budget. 00:31:07.930 --> 00:31:08.730 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:31:08.809 --> 00:31:09.289 Whatever, dude. 00:31:09.369 --> 00:31:10.569 Get back to your day job. 00:31:10.809 --> 00:31:18.890 The difference is these people are showing up with prototypes that are already working, which is cool and dangerous to the site. 00:31:19.049 --> 00:31:19.210 Right. 00:31:19.529 --> 00:31:26.170 So the CEO doesn't know, like, there's still work to be done, yeah, but they're inspired to say, yeah, go figure it out. 00:31:26.329 --> 00:31:31.210 And they are hiring people in IT and otherwise to run deployment on it. 00:31:31.289 --> 00:31:38.329 So I think it's it's real for the startups because then that just pulls out their sales cycle. 00:31:38.410 --> 00:31:38.490 Yes. 00:31:38.890 --> 00:31:41.049 The CEO thinks, oh, let's go see what happens, right? 00:31:41.609 --> 00:31:44.569 And three months is no big deal for a corporation. 00:31:44.730 --> 00:31:44.970 Right. 00:31:45.129 --> 00:31:49.930 Three months is you know, most startups will raise 18 months of runway at a time. 00:31:50.170 --> 00:31:52.809 Three months is one-sixth of their oxygen. 00:31:52.970 --> 00:31:53.529 Yeah. 00:31:53.769 --> 00:31:54.329 Right? 00:31:54.569 --> 00:31:56.970 So it that's a big deal if your sales get done. 00:31:57.129 --> 00:32:02.250 And it's really more than that, because as you know, when you want to raise your next round, it could take three to six months anyway. 00:32:02.329 --> 00:32:05.049 So you really only have 12 months to show results. 00:32:05.210 --> 00:32:05.529 Yeah. 00:32:05.769 --> 00:32:08.250 So if three months gets pushed out, that's a big deal. 00:32:08.410 --> 00:32:13.049 So even if it's not totally true, the perception that hurts that hurts companies. 00:32:13.129 --> 00:32:13.369 Yeah. 00:32:13.609 --> 00:32:16.089 Now, let me let me pose a question to you, right? 00:32:16.250 --> 00:32:18.730 Who should be more afraid of this? 00:32:19.210 --> 00:32:24.329 Salesforce or the guys like Ramp and Expensify that do your expenses? 00:32:24.569 --> 00:32:25.289 Salesforce. 00:32:25.529 --> 00:32:26.170 Absolutely. 00:32:26.410 --> 00:32:26.890 Why? 00:32:27.210 --> 00:32:29.369 Because nobody wants to mess with money. 00:32:29.609 --> 00:32:32.009 No, okay, that's not the answer I was expecting. 00:32:32.089 --> 00:32:33.289 That's what we never asked questions. 00:32:33.609 --> 00:32:35.369 I'm just saying, like security. 00:32:36.170 --> 00:32:36.569 No, it's much simpler. 00:32:38.170 --> 00:32:38.329 Right? 00:32:38.490 --> 00:32:40.410 Well, no, it's much, much simpler. 00:32:40.650 --> 00:32:45.049 How much does Salesforce cost versus how much does expensive cost? 00:32:45.289 --> 00:32:46.009 Yeah, right. 00:32:46.250 --> 00:32:50.970 It is, you know, six figures alone or more for many organizations for Salesforce. 00:32:51.129 --> 00:32:55.609 Yeah, it is like six bucks per person for the other ones. 00:32:55.769 --> 00:32:58.329 Where am I gonna put my, you know, what can I replace? 00:32:58.569 --> 00:33:03.450 So if I'm but here's something that I think is a little nefarious happening. 00:33:03.690 --> 00:33:04.890 Okay, well, I like that. 00:33:05.049 --> 00:33:05.289 Right. 00:33:05.609 --> 00:33:07.609 You lose people by using the word nefarious. 00:33:07.769 --> 00:33:13.049 Yeah, I I'm not on YouTube now because I said nefarious, and I think you cursed maybe. 00:33:13.369 --> 00:33:25.210 But I know corporates that are doing pilots with startups, paying them five, ten grand, whatever, and building the same tool in the background. 00:33:25.609 --> 00:33:27.450 We used to call that brain raping. 00:33:27.690 --> 00:33:29.690 Now that we're not on YouTube anymore, right? 00:33:29.849 --> 00:33:31.690 Yeah, and that's and that's a little skeezy. 00:33:32.009 --> 00:33:33.690 It's a it's it's happening a lot. 00:33:33.849 --> 00:33:35.049 Yeah, it's happening a lot more. 00:33:35.369 --> 00:33:41.769 It's happening a lot more because before it was more like getting the ideas, right? 00:33:41.930 --> 00:33:50.890 Yeah, now they're sitting there looking at like, oh, okay, so we're going to this pilot, and their team is like building behind them, like right behind them. 00:33:51.129 --> 00:33:58.809 Yeah, you know, and it's it's I'm saying it's becoming more the common thing than the exception thing. 00:33:58.890 --> 00:34:19.130 Yeah, because people are vibe coding, they believe you know whether they can or they cannot, yeah, right, they believe they can, and executive management believes they can because they see the quick prototyping, and they're like, Great, we'll pay these groups five grand for a five for a tutorial, yeah. 00:34:20.170 --> 00:34:25.930 And I I literally like this week I got on a call with someone that said, Yeah, we're piloting these three companies. 00:34:26.090 --> 00:34:27.370 I'm like, Oh, interesting. 00:34:27.610 --> 00:34:33.290 And then I get pitched by one of those three companies, and like, yeah, we're in a pilot with XYZ. 00:34:33.370 --> 00:34:35.290 And I'm like, Oh, that's cute, dude. 00:34:35.370 --> 00:34:47.130 Yeah, yeah, like they have no idea, or you get pitched by another company, it's like we got a pilot with them, and you're like, Yeah, let's let's take it up a notch, right? 00:34:47.210 --> 00:34:57.130 So, whether or not it is actually as easy as people think to get to a production quality, vibe-coded solution and you can get rid of the other guys. 00:34:57.370 --> 00:35:07.930 The truth is that we're at the stage in the cycle where enough people are convinced that it's worth a shot, that it's certainly hurting you know, the SaaS companies out there. 00:35:08.090 --> 00:35:22.410 And even if it's not the customer doing it, the other dynamic is what took you like a year to build, somebody who is bona fide good at coding too and has the vibe coding tools can now build

it in two months or two weeks, even. 00:35:22.730 --> 00:35:28.570 So even if the customer can't really do it, now the competition is nipping at your heels. 00:35:29.290 --> 00:35:30.890 So it is kind of rough. 00:35:31.050 --> 00:35:42.010 So the the companies that when I'm talking to them, the ones where I'm like, no, you're gonna be all right, or you're gonna be all right if you do X, versus the ones like, dude, you're screwed, you gotta go think about something else. 00:35:42.250 --> 00:35:48.730 What it comes down to is a mixture of how urgent is it to replace you? 00:35:48.890 --> 00:35:52.330 And that's like, hey, it's a trivial amount of money, don't spend your time on that. 00:35:52.410 --> 00:35:54.010 I'm just happy it works, move on. 00:35:54.250 --> 00:35:55.290 You're gonna be okay. 00:35:55.450 --> 00:35:56.890 All right, you're gonna be okay. 00:35:57.050 --> 00:36:00.970 You'll have other competition, but they'll be like, what are they gonna do? 00:36:01.050 --> 00:36:02.730 It only costs like five bucks a month. 00:36:02.890 --> 00:36:05.050 They're gonna come in and offer for four bucks a month. 00:36:05.290 --> 00:36:10.970 Like, honestly, I'm not switching to an unknown provider to save a buck a month per person. 00:36:11.130 --> 00:36:11.930 We're good here. 00:36:12.010 --> 00:36:13.930 It's not a big part of my cost structure. 00:36:14.090 --> 00:36:24.970 So, again, you know, whether it's vibecode replace or new competition coming in, if you're small relative to the volume that the value you provide, you're gonna be okay. 00:36:25.210 --> 00:36:31.770 Just keep at it, get your cost of customer acquisition down, grow, go, grow to the point like, you know, whatever. 00:36:31.850 --> 00:36:34.730 We're just gonna use, you know, fill in the blank here and be done with it. 00:36:35.050 --> 00:36:36.570 Can it go ahead, yeah? 00:36:36.810 --> 00:36:40.410 Yeah, can I tell you like I have a more simple thing, right? 00:36:40.810 --> 00:36:42.970 A, do your customers love you? 00:36:43.450 --> 00:36:45.530 And B, do they love your product? 00:36:45.770 --> 00:36:47.210 The rest of it doesn't matter. 00:36:47.370 --> 00:36:54.650 If you go poll 10,000 Salesforce customers, users, yeah, and say, Do you love Salesforce? 00:36:54.890 --> 00:36:56.330 The answer is no, right? 00:36:56.410 --> 00:36:57.370 The answer is no. 00:36:57.610 --> 00:36:59.290 Do you love Mark Benioff? 00:36:59.450 --> 00:37:02.250 Do you believe in what he stands for? 00:37:02.490 --> 00:37:03.930 Do you like him as a person? 00:37:04.090 --> 00:37:06.650 Do you believe like you're part of something? 00:37:06.970 --> 00:37:08.650 Absolutely not, right? 00:37:08.890 --> 00:37:17.370 It's like all the Tesla people that, I mean, because I'm in Northern Cal, all of them have little stickers like I bought this Tesla before Elon Musk went crazy or something. 00:37:17.610 --> 00:37:18.970 It's a little bit of that, right? 00:37:19.050 --> 00:37:22.250 There's that

there was that fanboy thing with Elon. 00:37:22.410 --> 00:37:28.330 And then they had a product that people like people still love their, like, they're not selling their Tesla, they love their Tesla. 00:37:28.410 --> 00:37:30.490 I don't love Teslas, I think they're weird. 00:37:30.810 --> 00:37:33.370 But people that have them love them. 00:37:33.530 --> 00:37:38.490 They've fallen out of love out of Elon, but they still get the car. 00:37:38.730 --> 00:37:39.690 They still get the car. 00:37:40.010 --> 00:37:41.610 Let's do a very quick tangent. 00:37:41.770 --> 00:37:51.850 I will say, like, yeah, there's a lot of wack-a-doodle going on there, but if you have to point to one person on the planet that did the most decarbonize, like it's still him. 00:37:51.930 --> 00:37:53.770 So I couldn't just drop 100%. 00:37:54.890 --> 00:38:00.890 But my point is, like, a lot of founders, they start, they get they get focused, right? 00:38:01.130 --> 00:38:06.010 On the next customer, the next customer, they forget the old customer that got them there. 00:38:06.250 --> 00:38:10.810 They kind of don't show them the love, they yeah, they don't return the call. 00:38:10.970 --> 00:38:12.650 Like, you know, like it's kind of funny. 00:38:14.090 --> 00:38:14.810 I don't disagree. 00:38:14.970 --> 00:38:16.410 I don't disagree at all. 00:38:16.650 --> 00:38:20.570 I maybe it's because I'm like super not millennial this way. 00:38:20.730 --> 00:38:24.970 I don't need an emotional connection to my vendors, I don't need to be part of their mission. 00:38:25.130 --> 00:38:27.210 I just want the software to just eff and work. 00:38:27.450 --> 00:38:33.690 Yeah, you're and I will say, even if I love the software and I love the company, right? 00:38:34.010 --> 00:38:41.370 If I'm paying six or seven figures a year for it and someone says they're gonna vibe code it, I'm gonna listen to them and give it a shot. 00:38:41.530 --> 00:38:42.330 So I don't know. 00:38:42.410 --> 00:38:44.490 You know, do you know why vibe coding is so popular? 00:38:44.730 --> 00:38:46.890 Because people love the phrase vibe coding, it sounds cool. 00:38:47.050 --> 00:38:48.810 It's like pickleball, it's very approachable. 00:38:48.970 --> 00:38:51.450 Oh, pickleball is like it's very approachable. 00:38:51.610 --> 00:38:52.250 It's very approachable. 00:38:52.490 --> 00:38:55.530 Vibecoding is like got me a black leather jacket, right? 00:38:55.930 --> 00:38:58.890 Just like pickleball is an activity and not a sport. 00:38:59.210 --> 00:39:02.330 Vive coding is not software engineering, yeah. 00:39:02.650 --> 00:39:04.010 But uh, it's also fun, right? 00:39:04.090 --> 00:39:05.530 It's it's that's what I'm saying. 00:39:05.610 --> 00:39:07.290 It's fun, it's approachable, it's cool. 00:39:07.530 --> 00:39:08.170 You know what it is? 00:39:08.330 --> 00:39:14.570 It's like it's like you've suddenly gotten to a point in a craft where like your output looks good, yeah. 00:39:15.050 --> 00:39:21.130 Right, and so like vibe coding is great, like all those things that you were like, I could never do it before, I have no idea how this works, it just does. 00:39:21.290 --> 00:39:30.570 Like one of the guys I was talking to, he's like, it's not gonna replace your your software development team, but all that stuff that they wouldn't touch because it just wasn't important enough for them. 00:39:30.810 --> 00:39:32.010 Now you can do that. 00:39:32.250 --> 00:39:33.530 Yeah, that's all I'm saying. 00:39:33.770 --> 00:39:38.730 Vive coding is for like, hey, I really wish I could be a nerd and a software engineer. 00:39:38.890 --> 00:39:40.170 So I vibe code. 00:39:40.410 --> 00:39:44.330 I really wish I could play tennis, I'll play pickleball. 00:39:44.570 --> 00:39:47.530 Yeah, but you know, but but the difference is it's like it's fun. 00:39:47.770 --> 00:39:49.770 They play pickleball, they get a little cardio. 00:39:49.930 --> 00:39:52.170 You vibe coach, you get a little productivity. 00:39:52.250 --> 00:39:53.930 So I'm not gonna poo-poo it. 00:39:54.810 --> 00:39:56.730 But I think I'm not poo-pooing it. 00:39:56.810 --> 00:40:01.130 I'm just I'm just making this the episode that people get mad at me and that you inspired me to say. 00:40:01.610 --> 00:40:04.490 We should go back to the are you screwed part of the conversation, right? 00:40:04.650 --> 00:40:10.570 Yeah, so I talked about a moment ago, the ones that you're gonna be okay, you just gotta like your execution has to change. 00:40:10.650 --> 00:40:18.650 But if you're those other companies, like you're big and like people need to think about it, and now they're thinking about vibe coding it, you know, you got a bit of a problem, right? 00:40:18.890 --> 00:40:21.530 So a cut they fall into a couple of different buckets. 00:40:21.610 --> 00:40:28.090 Like if they're really early in the in their growth curve, like you're you're gonna be still born on that one, right? 00:40:28.170 --> 00:40:34.490 You're too early, you can't afford the gap, you're not cash flow positive, like that's bad, you're dead. 00:40:34.650 --> 00:40:35.450 Yeah, right. 00:40:35.610 --> 00:40:37.850 So you can try to do something totally different. 00:40:38.010 --> 00:40:46.330 And by the way, you know, going from SaaS to AI-powered SaaS doesn't work because now your competition is all in the same place and you're just entering a crowded field. 00:40:46.490 --> 00:40:50.810 So that's not the that's not the course adjustment that makes sense. 00:40:51.210 --> 00:41:00.650 You know, what I've seen some of them, shockingly, I've seen some of them do is switch from becoming a SaaS type model to a software as a service model. 00:41:00.810 --> 00:41:00.970 Yeah. 00:41:01.210 --> 00:41:03.450 Because that flips the customer's mentality, right? 00:41:03.530 --> 00:41:08.170 So the customer's mentality is you know, I'm used to buying it this way. 00:41:09.050 --> 00:41:13.850 I want to have a person on the

other end, and you can be that person on the other end. 00:41:13.930 --> 00:41:15.850 You and the relationship starts mattering. 00:41:15.930 --> 00:41:17.370 I like working with that guy. 00:41:17.610 --> 00:41:20.170 Every time I give it to Bob, it just gets done. 00:41:20.250 --> 00:41:23.850 I get the clean reports back the next week, we're good to go. 00:41:24.250 --> 00:41:38.010 And behind the scenes, you're just 80% more efficient than you know, the the 60-year-old guy that's like still using you know Windows 2003 with Bob the paper clip in the background, right? 00:41:38.570 --> 00:41:41.050 So I've seen a bunch of people make that change. 00:41:41.370 --> 00:41:46.890 It does, at least now, usually take you off the VC track. 00:41:47.130 --> 00:41:47.450 Yep. 00:41:47.610 --> 00:41:48.570 And that's changing, right? 00:41:48.650 --> 00:42:03.850 But VC has been historically not into uh service businesses, with the obvious exception of like General Catalyst, because they backed us and a couple more, they're getting there, but it's it's been like service businesses, yuck. 00:42:05.370 --> 00:42:06.970 Here's here's my point about that, right? 00:42:07.050 --> 00:42:10.650 When you talk to startups, they love to for for the non-startup listeners, right? 00:42:10.730 --> 00:42:12.410 They love to use the term pivot. 00:42:12.650 --> 00:42:26.010 And what I've always said about making a pivot is if you're still passionate and a little bit maniacal about the problem you're solving, when you pivot, you're still focused on the same problem. 00:42:26.170 --> 00:42:27.770 Yeah, you're just doing a pivot. 00:42:27.930 --> 00:42:32.490 My first startup, 1997, was web-based construction management. 00:42:32.650 --> 00:42:35.530 Because I was like, the internet's gonna change how we do construction. 00:42:35.770 --> 00:42:37.370 The market was too slow to adopt. 00:42:37.450 --> 00:42:42.250 I had to pivot into more like telecom construction, like building out networks and all. 00:42:42.490 --> 00:42:43.770 And I did fine. 00:42:44.090 --> 00:42:46.090 Second startup was BIM. 00:42:46.330 --> 00:42:48.170 People aren't gonna know how to use this software. 00:42:48.330 --> 00:42:52.330 I'm gonna build a company around BIM because I really want to innovate how we build buildings. 00:42:52.490 --> 00:42:53.370 That was my mission, right? 00:42:53.530 --> 00:42:56.170 Use technology to innovate and do better. 00:42:56.410 --> 00:42:57.770 That didn't work out, right? 00:42:57.850 --> 00:43:02.250 Because people misused BIM and whatever, still was able to exit that business. 00:43:02.490 --> 00:43:10.330 Then I started consulting with all these AEC firms, helping them understand innovation because I wanted them to do better, like go do better. 00:43:10.490 --> 00:43:14.170 And then I was like, okay, well, that's not scalable, basically. 00:43:14.250 --> 00:43:15.210 I was like, that's not scalable. 00:43:15.290 --> 00:43:16.410 There's not enough hours in

the day. 00:43:16.490 --> 00:43:18.010 We still do consulting, right? 00:43:18.170 --> 00:43:27.050 Then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go in VC because now if I can fund innovative startups, they're gonna change the world, they're gonna change how we do construction. 00:43:27.210 --> 00:43:28.410 That's going okay, right? 00:43:28.490 --> 00:43:29.850 It's it's it's hard, right? 00:43:29.930 --> 00:43:34.170 It's still very hard, unless you're a massive capital allocator, but it's going fine, right? 00:43:34.490 --> 00:43:43.610 For the people who aren't in VC, the reason it's hard isn't it's super fun, but the reason it's hard is that we don't know if we've made the right decision for 10 years. 00:43:44.730 --> 00:43:47.290 Two years is enough to tell us we've made a horrible decision, right? 00:43:47.450 --> 00:43:52.890 But until the company exits in 10 years, like we don't know if it's gonna be a big win, a push. 00:43:53.050 --> 00:43:53.210 Right. 00:43:53.370 --> 00:43:55.290 So that's what's hard about VCH. 00:43:55.690 --> 00:44:02.730 And so that's why I've augmented like my mission with Zero RFI to say, hey, no, we have to have a like we're still doing the same thing, right? 00:44:02.810 --> 00:44:05.850 This is been this is when when people say, How long have you been doing this? 00:44:05.930 --> 00:44:07.370 I'm like, my whole fucking life. 00:44:07.850 --> 00:44:08.090 Right. 00:44:09.050 --> 00:44:13.130 But I think that's where the rubber meets the road with founders. 00:44:13.370 --> 00:44:15.610 Were they building something that's opportunistic? 00:44:16.250 --> 00:44:17.690 Were they actually passionate? 00:44:17.930 --> 00:44:21.290 Look, I'm not gonna people can have different passions, right? 00:44:21.450 --> 00:44:25.770 It doesn't have to be, you know, altruistic or anything. 00:44:26.010 --> 00:44:27.850 You can be passionate about gaming. 00:44:27.930 --> 00:44:32.970 I'm sure the people at Kal Shi and Polly Market are very passionate about what they're doing. 00:44:33.050 --> 00:44:34.890 They feel like they're solving a world problem, right? 00:44:35.210 --> 00:44:36.570 Can we put the P word away? 00:44:36.650 --> 00:44:39.370 Because like I hate when people say I'm passionate about things. 00:44:39.610 --> 00:44:45.850 Like if you're out there and like the overword, I'm not a LinkedIn profile size, I'm passionate about, like I just threw up in my mouth. 00:44:46.250 --> 00:44:48.170 What about I'm the TEDx speaker? 00:44:48.410 --> 00:44:51.290 Yeah, like it's it's it's one of those overused words. 00:44:51.530 --> 00:44:54.170 You ever hear the phrase missionary versus mercenary? 00:44:54.410 --> 00:44:54.810 Yeah. 00:44:55.050 --> 00:44:55.370 Yeah. 00:44:55.450 --> 00:45:02.010 So I I like when I first got into VC, people are like, listen, you want founders who are missionaries, not mercenaries. 00:45:02.170 --> 00:45:04.330 The guys that are like, oh, AI is changing everything. 00:45:04.410 --> 00:45:06.010 I gotta get in there and do something. 00:45:06.170 --> 00:45:10.250 But the moment they hit a rough patch, they're gone. 00:45:10.410 --> 00:45:10.810 Yep. 00:45:11.290 --> 00:45:14.650 Like they're not like committed to it, like, oh, it sucks. 00:45:14.730 --> 00:45:17.130 I am tired of looking my bank account go down. 00:45:17.290 --> 00:45:20.410 You know, I got a job for 250 grand doing XYZ. 00:45:20.970 --> 00:45:22.250 Startup's done, right? 00:45:22.650 --> 00:45:29.530 But the mer the missionaries are, and sometimes missionaries can be tough, they don't always listen, they think they know better, they should quit. 00:45:29.610 --> 00:45:31.850 But the missionaries, I'll give you an example. 00:45:32.170 --> 00:45:35.690 My favorite example, there was a startup, my old fund backed. 00:45:35.930 --> 00:45:39.690 The guy was taking his, he was uh an MD PhD student. 00:45:39.850 --> 00:45:52.490 He was taking his mom to get radiation therapy for her breast cancer, and he's talking to the radiologist and he's asking, like, you know, because you know, when you do that, they put two beams through you so that where they overlap, it's toxic. 00:45:52.570 --> 00:45:55.930 And where it isn't, the healthy tissue isn't like dosed. 00:45:56.090 --> 00:46:02.090 So he's like, Well, how do you know like how much you know radiation to put through and what angle? 00:46:02.250 --> 00:46:05.370 And like the doctor's like, well, you know, it's kind of more an art than a science. 00:46:05.530 --> 00:46:07.130 And the guy like basically trapped himself. 00:46:07.290 --> 00:46:08.890 Like, that's my mom right there on the table. 00:46:09.290 --> 00:46:10.170 It's also math. 00:46:10.250 --> 00:46:11.210 Like, what are you talking about? 00:46:11.450 --> 00:46:13.450 Yeah, and he's like, like, we've got all these patient data. 00:46:13.530 --> 00:46:17.770 The EHR is trying to uh medical records, health records, I have all the data. 00:46:17.930 --> 00:46:19.050 What the hell are you telling me? 00:46:19.130 --> 00:46:22.170 It's you know, yeah, I I think that's what we're gonna do. 00:46:22.330 --> 00:46:25.370 So he dropped out and he founded the company. 00:46:25.850 --> 00:46:30.970 Now, you hear that story, you're like, this guy's not quitting the moment he hits a bump. 00:46:31.130 --> 00:46:31.930 No, right? 00:46:32.090 --> 00:46:33.050 So that's what we look for. 00:46:33.130 --> 00:46:35.450 We look for the missionaries, not the mercenaries. 00:46:35.690 --> 00:46:39.450 And you know, when we hear the the other P word pivot, right? 00:46:39.690 --> 00:46:43.210 Part of us is is it the oh shit, this wasn't working. 00:46:43.370 --> 00:46:50.650 We had to do something totally different, pivot, or was it like, hey, we just saw a better path to the goal? 00:46:50.970 --> 00:46:51.210 Right. 00:46:51.370 --> 00:46:58.730 So like acceptable pivots in some ways are like, hey, we were gonna be like B2C, business to consumer, uh direct to consumer. 00:46:58.890 -->

00:47:06.810 And then we realized like we could go through other partners or you know, we could do the the B2B version of it, uh, but we're still like solving the same problem. 00:47:06.970 --> 00:47:08.970 We just found like a different point of entry. 00:47:09.130 --> 00:47:13.450 Yeah, like those are the pivots that we're like, that's cool, that's part of the normal experimentation. 00:47:13.690 --> 00:47:13.930 Yeah. 00:47:14.170 --> 00:47:15.530 No, I I think that's all fair. 00:47:15.610 --> 00:47:19.850 I mean, and we see it now with construction tech because there's some buzz around it. 00:47:20.170 --> 00:47:23.290 Lots of folks with very limited experience jumping in. 00:47:23.370 --> 00:47:35.130 I was talking to one founder a couple of years ago that raised like 20 million dollars, got punched in the face so many times, literally shut down the company and gave his investors the money back. 00:47:35.370 --> 00:47:39.290 And that was maybe the most ethical thing he could have done at certain points. 00:47:39.450 --> 00:47:45.290 Most founders, if they still have money in the bank, they will pivot and try to make it work. 00:47:45.450 --> 00:47:46.170 But you know what? 00:47:46.250 --> 00:47:49.850 We're we're also the bad guys too on the when we wear our VC hats, right? 00:47:50.650 --> 00:47:58.090 Like I've had founders, they're like four years in and they're like going on fumes, but they're like banging against it, they keep doing it, right? 00:47:58.170 --> 00:48:04.250 And I love those guys, but at some point I pull them aside and I'm like, your time is better spent doing something else. 00:48:04.570 --> 00:48:04.810 Right? 00:48:04.890 --> 00:48:05.850 It's like I love you. 00:48:05.930 --> 00:48:16.170 And as a VC, it doesn't matter if you're like throwing Hail Mary's now, you know, maybe someone has a hundred, you know, 100 to 1 chance of catching that ball and running it. 00:48:16.330 --> 00:48:19.610 That's better than a zero if you shut it down now for me as a VC. 00:48:20.010 --> 00:48:25.290 But for you as a human being, we're in an awesome point in history with so many possibilities. 00:48:25.530 --> 00:48:34.570 Why are you trying to like you know get a 99.9% failed startup to like come back to life when you can just have a clean slate and do something new? 00:48:34.970 --> 00:48:45.290 I will say I've been having that conversation with a lot of founders because I'm like, you realize the next three years defines the next 30 years of your life. 00:48:45.450 --> 00:48:45.610 Yeah. 00:48:45.930 --> 00:48:47.770 Is this what you want to be spending your time? 00:48:47.850 --> 00:48:51.610 Like, you just need to really think long and hard, you know. 00:48:51.770 --> 00:48:54.250 And I always say we're venture investors. 00:48:55.050 --> 00:49:03.290 We we get the you know, we have the honor of being part of your cap table, but it's mostly your company, right? 00:49:03.770 --> 00:49:07.770 And we we run we operate capital allocation through math. 00:49:07.930 --> 00:49:09.770 We expect so many companies to fail. 00:49:09.850 --> 00:49:11.210 Like that is our math. 00:49:11.610 --> 00:49:17.210 That does not like you're not gonna hurt my feelings if you say, KP, like I feel like I'm wasting my time here, I want to shut down. 00:49:17.450 --> 00:49:18.890 You will not hurt my feelings at all. 00:49:19.050 --> 00:49:20.490 In fact, I might respect you more. 00:49:20.810 --> 00:49:21.770 Yeah, it's true. 00:49:21.850 --> 00:49:35.210 I mean, most of us, it's funny, like if we've picked the missionaries properly, yeah, but the good people, you love them to death, they actually feel like they've let you down, and like sometimes they're like, I'm only doing it for you. 00:49:35.610 --> 00:49:38.490 And then you're like, Okay, I give you permission to bow out, right? 00:49:38.570 --> 00:49:40.490 It's good, it's baked into my numbers. 00:49:40.730 --> 00:49:41.850 Yeah, 100%. 00:49:42.330 --> 00:49:47.290 Yeah, we haven't really bad when people are like, No, there's a lot more juice here, right? 00:49:47.610 --> 00:49:48.810 Yeah, 100%. 00:49:49.450 --> 00:49:50.250 Well, very cool. 00:49:50.330 --> 00:49:51.850 This was a fun conversation. 00:49:52.010 --> 00:49:53.610 We'll we'll have you back on. 00:49:53.930 --> 00:49:59.370 So I suggest like when you have stuff you want to say, you should like just tell me, like, hey, I want to be on the podcast. 00:50:00.090 --> 00:50:02.090 And I think it was kind of a good break, you know. 00:50:02.170 --> 00:50:08.730 So Nick was in SF for the last month, so we did all of our pods in person, which was kind of different and weird. 00:50:08.970 --> 00:50:11.210 So I wasn't looking at a camera, I was looking over here. 00:50:11.370 --> 00:50:12.810 That was just really weird. 00:50:13.050 --> 00:50:20.890 But I think we were starting to get a little bit, you know, bro finance, a little bit like a little too TBPN, so to speak, about things. 00:50:21.210 --> 00:50:22.970 I don't even own the sleeveless vests. 00:50:23.130 --> 00:50:23.850 We're okay. 00:50:24.090 --> 00:50:26.330 Yeah, so I thought so. 00:50:26.410 --> 00:50:27.850 I figured this is a good thing. 00:50:28.010 --> 00:50:31.370 Yeah, and um just just a small plug, right? 00:50:31.610 --> 00:50:34.890 10th year this year of AEC Summit. 00:50:35.290 --> 00:50:39.370 I think you were a speaker at like version one or two or three. 00:50:40.330 --> 00:50:41.210 2018. 00:50:41.530 --> 00:50:43.530 Yeah, so a bit, right? 00:50:43.770 --> 00:50:45.610 I still have that logo, I'll share it with you. 00:50:45.850 --> 00:50:46.730 Oh, yeah, great. 00:50:46.890 --> 00:50:48.410 So it's gonna be in New York this year. 00:50:48.490 --> 00:50:55.210 So if you go to a summit.acummit.co, I believe you can get tickets. 00:50:55.370 --> 00:50:56.970 We it's kind of funny. 00:50:57.050 --> 00:51:03.210 Like every year I've like raised prices and made the group smaller because I was like the event manager. 00:51:03.690 --> 00:51:08.250 So I was just like, how do I cover my costs and do less work? 00:51:08.490 --> 00:51:11.130 Raise prices, reduce the number of attendees. 00:51:11.370 --> 00:51:13.610 This year we have some resources, right? 00:51:13.690 --> 00:51:22.810 So we've actually low we went from three grand a ticket to like a grand a ticket, and like I think bigger venue, bigger speakers, all the good stuff. 00:51:22.970 --> 00:51:24.490 So it'll be a lot of fun. 00:51:25.290 --> 00:51:28.810 It's in Brooklyn, so it's like yeah, it's in Brooklyn. 00:51:30.810 --> 00:51:32.330 All right, Andrew, good to see you. 00:51:32.650 --> 00:51:33.370 Thanks for having me.