their familial background, their economic status, education, background and things of that nature zip code born into. So that's why I think equity is a better way to look at making the world a better place, because then it takes into context the backgrounds in which people come from. If you believe we can change the narrative, if you believe we can change our communities, if you believe we can change the outcomes, then we can change the world. I'm Rob Richardson. Welcome to Disruption Now.
Welcome to this Russia Now. I'm your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. With me is Joshua Gundu. He is the CEO of Stealth Startup. He's also had a lot of experience with product management and I believe is also an angel investor. So many different hats. He's he's Warren, I believe you also worked with Tik-Tok. So I think there's a lot of things I'd say to our guest.
Yeah, to explore there was from the Midwest moved his way out and is now finding himself as a as a as a Cali boy in L.A. so which has been part of his that that's helped build his network and we're going to talk about that and everything he's done there and hopefully gain some type of advice about what to do, what what not to do and how we can learn as founders and investors in the space. How are you doing today, man? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for having me on the show.
Always love to chat with folks all across, you know, especially from the Midwest as me being from Michigan. Always good to connect with other folks who have Midwest roots in the in the ecosystem. Absolutely. Well, if you can everybody on this show, please subscribe or subscribe to us on YouTube that like button and then also hit the subscribe button. You can also of course, on us on disruption. Now, we love to have conversations that are disruptive, that disrupt common narratives and constructs.
So I want you to feel comfortable to be as controversial. You usually are on on Twitter. So I know you're not going to have any problem with us, man. No, exactly. All right. So let's get right to it. So you you had this statement on LinkedIn, and I want to I want to talk about this statement and what it means to you and why you said it. You said, I am for equity because equity starts with everyone. Why is that statement important for you to put out and what does that mean to you?
Yeah, I think it's the reason I say equity. The reason I use the word equity as often as I do, because people think that like, it's like everything equal, like equality, like 5050. You get the sense, you get the chance. The thing about equity is that everybody doesn't start from the same place.
So to make things more, even across the board, you have to think about the advantages and disadvantages that people come from, whether it's like their familial background, their economic status, education, background and things of that nature zip code born into. So that's why I think equity is a better way to look at making the world a better place, because then it takes into context the backgrounds in which people come from.
Yes, but something that I believe one thing that sparked our conversation and kind of got us talking on there on Twitter, you made a reference and I'm not going to get it exactly right, but you made a reference that people often like to romanticize, that they pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They came from this struggling, hard background, and people seem to be romanticized with that. Like, I've seen that. But talk about why you see that as an issue. I know I do.
And how should we think about approaching that in terms of a a moment of self-awareness with the ecosystem? Yeah, The reason the first reason that I see it as an issue, because it usually comes from those who did not have to grow up in economic insecurity. It comes from those who came from either middle or upper middle, mainly upper middle, especially in the tech ecosystem backgrounds. And they were like, you know, you know, great hustle, you know, coming from nothing, things of that nature.
And I think they romanticize it because they think, I missed out on something. I could have had more more of that hustle, more that grit. Like, you know, like they like they're jealous of poverty or something, which is like always going to be jealous of change. Exactly. Jealous about nothing like it was. It's always weird for me when those who didn't experience it romanticize it, because those who experience it do not romanticize it.
They talk about the very real things that are when you grow up in economic insecurity or unstable environments, that does a lot of damage and it does more damage than it does good. And I know that folks in our ecosystem like to romanticize hustling and all that kind of stuff, hustling to get a like a an a your AP world class is fundamentally different than having to hustle to put food on the table.
Right. And I think they look at equate those two hustles, but you can't equate the two houses because their one is an achievement in an accelerated course and one is literally just doing what you need to do to survive, which also can take away the energy you might have going to be able to put into getting a good grade in that class. Yeah, I really think people have struggled with this because they struggle with things being given to them and they feel like they'll be looked down upon.
This is my perspective of the privilege they have, and this is not a singular privilege I'm talking about because I believe privilege lives on a spectrum, right? There are multiple ways to have privilege 100%. Right. And that's what this conversation gets. So divisive when I don't think it has to be if people look at it.
But I understand why it does become that, because the self identity of a person, people like to believe that they've done everything without any help because they romanticize with that. And that, I think, is utter bullshit, right? Because we don't we don't do anything by ourselves and often is the system. Yes. You have to work like I'm not divorcing work from it. But that to me is like common sense lack.
Of course you have to work like and I think people overemphasized how hard they worked to romanticize about where they came from because they don't like seeing themselves as privileged. But I heard this and Arlan Arlyn, I forgot Hamilton's name out of Hamilton. Yes. Thank you. So I don't know why I forgot that, but she was on my show discussing privilege and she's she really stated it the best I've heard it stated. She said privilege is just something you have is not a bad thing, right?
It's only bad if you lack self-awareness or you abuse it, which is the problem, right? Because people in this space are like, I got here, I went to Stanford. Why can't you all do that? And I found a way to make it. And they really under undervalue the ecosystem that they grew up in, the network that they had around them. So I believe it goes to that. I agree with that. I think that's a really good way to look at privilege.
And I know people like for some reason don't like to know that they were given certain legs up that those did not have because like like you said, people like to assume that it diminishes the work that they put in. But I always believe that opportunities and the way that people like what successes it's based off like the privileges you were born into, the systems that you were born into, as well as the personal choices that you made.
And depending on who you are and what you're doing, all three of those can be weighted differently. Like, you know, on, you know, with Guy RAZ, you always ask people, is it luck or was it hard work that helped you get to where you're you're at? And I'm always most into folks that realize that luck and privilege do have a material impact. So who gets to even work in this ecosystem in the first place? Absolutely. And privilege more than anything else.
Yes, you can, because you can persist long enough if you have support. I can think of so many examples. But let's take Amazon, right? Jeff Bezos didn't come from a nothing background that neither did Bill Gates. Neither did Steve Jobs. No.
All those folks and lots of lots of support, they got early access to the knowledge and and you speak to this often because we have a lot of people that are trying to downplay college like, well, look, all these founders didn't go to college like you're not Steve Jobs, you're not Bill Gates. If you have maybe if you were if you if if right now your parents gave you access to advance A.I. knowledge ten years ago, you probably do not need to go to college.
Right. Exactly. Unless you're that person. You do need to go to that. Right. So I do think there there is some perspective there. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think the thing about downplaying college to me is specifically in the tech ecosystem is the anti institution mantra that people tend to have Now a lot of tech folks back then, you know, when folks are coming out, they're like, we're the outsiders, We're like anti this and say that.
But when you look at the backgrounds of VC backed founders, operators at hypergrowth companies, operators at larger, larger venture firms as well as big tech, you know, they all have college backgrounds and if they didn't go to one of the most elite college, like the elite colleges, the thing that people don't notice is that a lot of them went to very expensive private schools for high school. So like, hey, yeah, I did. I skipped college.
But you also went to a high school that cost $30,000 a year. Yeah. So it's that is the nuances and the pattern matching that I've personally seen, which is why I'm like, yes, higher education is, is if higher education didn't matter, then you wouldn't see venture firms as well as founders and intros even being made say, they studied here, they did this, giving them some type of credibility during an introduction or during a conversation.
So as much as people like see, especially in tech, like to downplay, like why go to college, why why would I you know, go to go to college to to get a degree? And then in the in the ecosystem, if you really pay attention, that whole dropout narrative is actually not as apparent as people want it to be. Even in engineering specifically, people talk about it from the lens of founding a company or working an engineer, and people did not know this.
There's a lot more functions that go into running companies than being an engineer or founding a company or like being a founder. And now we see bad because VC backed founders usually have pedigree on the education and academic education and professional or one of the two. So that's kind of my thing with the college thing in tech is just that they're anti establishment and they're using they're using the anti-establishment political belief.
They have to push down and push away the importance of institutions, although these are the same people who are sending those kids, their kids, to these institutions. Yeah, I actually think it's a more it's it's more cynical for some because I also think they're pushing a narrative to people to make them feel as if, you know, they can be like them if they embrace these this kind of mentality and it and it kind of it pushes to me part of a political agenda. What people want are rhetoric.
And for people to believe that, you know, I too can do this, I can be just like that person. And not being realistic about what how that person actually obtained that. I'm a I'm a very I'm a I'm a great believer in, you know, anything's possible. Yes. And overcoming barriers, I have that belief fundamentally. And while at the same time I have to believe that a lot of people that are pushing the narratives of what they did, they're not being honest. No, they're not.
They're not telling you their familial background. They're not telling you their household income. They're not giving you the context of who they knew. Like, you know, we talk about the common sense wins. You know, Paul Graham from see knew them when they were teenagers. Exactly. Yeah. You know, and they both went to it's great schools and things of that nature. I think they both jumped out of Harvard and MIT.
But people focus on that versus like, how did Paul Graham know some teenagers in Scotland? How did how what networks were these kids in? So it's like it's a I wish people were more transparent about their backgrounds. But I think, like you said earlier, the more transparent people are about their privileges, the more they feel like that will take away from the way people view their work. Yep, I agree. But look, I'm a person that like I didn't grow up rich, but I had no poverty zero.
So we were middle class moving up middle class later and I ran for office for a brief stint. And I remember some people tried to, to, to, to kind of use that against me. And the thing is, I'm like, I don't know. I thought as black people, it's better. Our goal was to not just focus on poverty, but to get out. Yeah, it's not. And that's not it's not to look down upon people that didn't have to go through poverty because my parents both get opportunity.
I'm not saying they were better than anybody else, but they got opportunity, worked hard and were able to position, you know, people after them, me and their kids to be better off like we have to get out of that, Like we have to get out of that mentality and I think it is prevalent. Do you see that and how do you challenge it if you do?
Yeah, I think for me, I think that goes into like you know, the the age old like how black are you and people attributing too much of blackness to vulnerability, economic insecurity, instability and having to get it by any means necessary, you know, it would be greater. It would be great if people started like leaving that and not assuming that you are less or more part of the community based on how much economic insecurity or instability did you experience growing up or in your early adulthood?
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. But let's let's let's go down this road and challenge this a little bit. Right? So we talked about privilege being on a spectrum. And if I had to say, if you are a VC funded, you tend to be it's not just that you had a great idea. It's not that it's not just it's it's really just it's really that actually it's usually that you had a good network and you were in a system that gave you the opportunity to get this, I believe, heart, you know, heart stop.
What advice do you give people that maybe, you know, when you add the privilege to a spectrum, you know, obviously, if if people even if you're black, you go to one of those rich high schools and you go and you go to Stanford, you probably going to be connected in that system. But let's say you're in the Midwest. Let's say you went to a good school. You know, you went to Michigan State, I went to Universal, Cincinnati. And you're starting you're starting a business.
What advice do you give people if they don't have that will say, the VC infrastructure kind of going for them? How should they go about this, this this journey that is entrepreneurship? Is the goal to eventually raise or does that is that not the what's the what's the the that's actually a fair question. So you want to build a scalable business that is eventually venture back. What like what advice would you give folks not just to start a business,
Nothing wrong. That's a good thing to like start a business, figure out a way to make profit. But building a scalable business where you where you're using a technology, an idea that you believe can scale, how would you how would you advise a a founder coming up? Yeah. So for me, I think the way that I typically give advice on this one is you can de-risk two things. You can either de-risk yourself or de-risk the business when it comes down to just generally raising capital in general.
If you don't come from that background, I really recommend trying to divest yourself as much as possible because the metrics will always move. That's What do you mean by de-risk yourself? The way about de-risking yourself is one thing that I've seen a lot of people do is showcase their knowledge in the most natural way that it is to them. So if you're someone who can write long form, write long form, if you're someone that can write short form, get on Twitter.
If you're more audio in focus, create a podcast, things of that nature. So people showcasing your genius will de-risk you because, hey, maybe you didn't go to that school or maybe you didn't go to that. I love that. That's a bar showcasing your genius will de-risk you. Yeah, that's good. Go ahead. So that's kind of the thing that I that I've seen work for.
A bunch of folks who are outside of the ecosystem is like, Hey, you might not have the company markers or the education markers that are typically VC backed, but if you put your ideas out enough to the world in a in, the key thing here is in a format that you can consistently do, you can't just do it like one or two times. You have to really put the reps in.
So then eventually people are listening, reading or watching and then like, okay, like this, this guy or girl knows exactly what they're talking about, and then they start even really caring about like where this person went to school or what company they work, that they know that, this person could have gone this or done this, but they're in choose they may have, you know, circumstances, where have you.
But that's the way that I've seen people deal with themselves quite a bit, is via the consent lens. If you don't want to do that, then I would recommend on the work side, which is another practical one, is to just look to work at a company that you believe will get acquired or go public. That's a more nuanced one because you want to then look at the job opportunity as an investment opportunity, like, okay, if you want to.
Like I worked at a company called Burner some years ago, second phone number for any use case In my thinking, walking in there when I was leading product there was that I was like, okay, this company could potentially get bought by a telco or want to be like domain sites like Squarespace or go daddy to power another lever lever of communication when someone's creating a business, right? So that was the way that I was looking at that.
And I think if people started looking at the world of startups, not from the lens of like, okay, what are they going to pay me and what's my equity, but more so do you really see this company working out in the future? If you do, then great. If you don't and it's just getting your foot in the door also great.
But the way you really are going to be de-risk yourself in this industry outside of the education thing and outside of working at like a large, big tech company is really figuring out what company do you think get acquired, even if it doesn't get acquired for a lot of cash. Being a someone who worked at a place that did exit gives you a certain level of social capital in the ecosystem. So how do you go about making that you've had that experience clearly?
How do you go about making that that evaluation? So the de-risking yourself, you've talked about that in terms of essentially leveraging your genius, which I feel like you should do universally anyway. But how do you evaluate a company that you think can actually have the potential to, you know, to to actually have an exit? Yeah. I mean, for me, if I was someone who was still like working as an operator, I personally be looking at companies. This is my own personal thing.
Any company that I see that is being built upon a current policy change I think has a lot of a lot of potential. Like one of them I think is going to be big. And if people see it, please jump on it because I think it might be a thing. There's a lot of decriminalization and legalization around psychedelics. Okay. So I do see a world where there's marketplaces and consumer brands built around psychedelics, similar like the marketplaces that you might see for marijuana.
What they want is weed maps, things of that nature. We had Jewel out here with the with the tobacco. Unfortunately, that was a and that was a different thing. Know psychedelics are I mean, yeah. So they already did in Oregon. They're putting a bill up here in California. So it's like, where do you think the puck is going around policy?
Because I think the biggest companies in the future are going to be able to see all these policy changes, whether it's relaxing or adding new ones and a lot of technology creation and opportunity, financial opportunity. We built upon those. So for me, that's fascinating. For most people, I think think of like, what do you what are you seeing and where do you think the puck is going and see if you can find companies that are building around. Where do you think the puck is going?
I mean, I've heard that analogy actually has someone on my show talked about see where the puck is going, But I didn't hear it, which is interesting around policy, which is a fascinating way to kind of think about it. Right, in terms of where you think policy is going. And and then because that's that is very, very important, because that does make that does make or break and it makes often industries and opportunities, which is interesting. Right?
Actually that's I didn't think about it from that perspective And psychedelics there's I didn't think about it from that there's obviously still weed and how and how drinks are going to be done within we like I said, one of my show that actually had where you can essentially get high up a drink without without getting a hangover by using like marijuana, which is fascinating. Right.
And the guy I have to look up, I forgot his name right now, but he had a his product does that and he's in California and a couple other places but you don't get the hangover and you and and you can use weed you don't have any of the other health side effects, but you still get that kind of feeling of that high that people kind of want to have. So that's very interesting.
Like, I never thought of it like a I never thought about it from a policy point of view in terms of the opportunities I'm looking at that way. It's a very unique way of looking at it. It's actually part of the reason why I'm in this strange world that I know you've had. You've been a critic of it. I talked to a little bit about it, like Web3 Like what your and your as a product person. I can understand why you have it because we're horrible at product design.
But do you see what do you see there? If you don't have a thought in it, you don't have to. But in terms of like a policy opportunity, in terms of that, when it comes to the inherent blockchain technology and not not I think obviously trading nfts as anything that that is dead. But in terms of actually using the ledger and blockchain as a policy, do you see opportunity there? And if not, you know, we can, we can speak to that.
Yeah, I'm I'm not super like, you know, I'm as you know, I'm not super deep in the world of work being crypto, but what I've gotten from at least blockchain in the whole like, you know, saving things on chain and all that kind of stuff.
From what I've gotten from my own outside looking in thing, it seems like there's epic applications around HIPA compliance and the world of health when it comes down to data records, data storage and leveraging that data over time and knowing that this data is the right data, things of that nature. So I've heard that there's going to be a bunch of applications in the world of health. Yeah, that's what I, that's what I've heard, but I haven't heard anything outside of that.
As you know, I'm not as deep. No, they're not as deep. So I don't have to spend a lot of time there. I would like to talk about your, your, your, your feelings about engineering versus product design. If you were advising a founder, would you advise them to be better at coding or better at design? I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear definitely design. Okay. Why? Definitely design, Because you'll be able to showcase exactly what you're thinking to people.
And you wouldn't might make you wouldn't have to pay for a designer. So that's also a thing. It's a money saving thing too. But me, I don't have the deepest design background like I just do wireframes via or figma. And then I illustrated, I make it a clickable prototype via Marvel. But yeah, I think, you know, you see people like, people learn how to code, learn how to code, learn how to code.
I'm like, okay, but if you can't show people what you're actually trying to build, whether it can work or not, you can get you can get so much more across the people when they can see the thing versus when you're abstractly talking about the thing. Yes. So I think I hope that more folks are it doesn't have to be you have to be the greatest designer in the world. You just have to be able to show people what you're talking about. Yeah, I agree. I agree. So we talk about startups.
What would you say startups? What are the what's the most normal reason for failure? Because one of the things we're going to talk about is people talk about all the reasons for success. But again, a lot of it has to do with timing their networks. Let's talk about failure. What do you think is the top reason for failure of believing that the market is bigger than it is because you sold it to some of your friends and some of their companies and some of their buddies?
Because, you know, a lot of our stuff, you know, that's a that was a web3 problem. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like that's that's the thing that I've seen a lot like especially on the coasts. People think because people bought up you're thinking California about a thing in New York that the same thing will happen in the state of Michigan or the same thing will happen across the country and tastes and preferences and how people like to do things and also the work that they do and the style of work.
So many things. People think the market is bigger because the people who are like them, like it. But how many people like you are in the in the in the US and then the globe, one that comes to mind for me all the time on the when it comes on a consumer facing software is those who are looking to build companies around people that like move all the time or traveling on flights all the time. I'm like, how many flights do you think the average American takes?
And the average American only lives roughly 15, 12 to 15 miles away from the city, one which their mother was when they were born. So building for building for trends that are very insular to the group you identify with end up being the worst consumer businesses that I've seen. Which is very hard, though, right? Because it's like, So how do you get yourself from being in the bubble, from being external? Like, is there any habits or things that one can do to go beyond that?
I actually think you can you can you can take your product that look that is internal facing and figure out a way to lose a solution that is actually more consumer facing and friendly. If you get out of the bubble and figure out how to focus. But I found being doing that simple thing is very hard, right? Because people say, Yeah, so what do you as a as a person experience in product?
What do you recommend? Are some institutional habits that a founder or an organization could take to prevent them from seeing the consumer bubble? The first thing is knowing what bubble you're in. Like really? I really being real with the kind of bubble that you're in.
Like me, I live in L.A. before here, I lived in D.C. and also knowing that the people that I come across are folks who are VC backed founders, operators at Big Tech's VCs, all that kind of stuff, and realizing how small of a portion of the work of the even the white collar workforce that even is. Yeah. So I know being aware of the bubble you're in and then seeking out seeking out perspectives outside of the bubble that you're in.
So for myself, I listen to This American Life quite often and they talk about things that do are not attributed to like tech ecosystem and VC backed this and all that kind of stuff. I also like to listen to business podcasts that are not from the lens of software. Like I listen to one about pet food earlier today. Okay, I was listening to that. It was like this fresh pet pet food company that was like born in six and is still around now in 2023.
So for me, it's like knowing you're knowing the bubble year and finding whether it's podcasts, I find content consumption that is via podcasts or books. The easiest way to open my mind. That's the way that I always did it when I was a kid, is is able to do that.
And then also leveraging the Internet in the way of knowing that, knowing the kind of people you usually follow or usually listen to and being willing to follow or listen to someone that is not a carbon copy of the people that you typically download.
So that's I think those are the those are the three things that I've done which helped me like reach outside of the bubble that we're in because as you know, it's super easy for us in our ecosystem to stay in our bubble and not feel a need to be outside our bubble. And if our bubble rocks with it, then everybody should. But then you realize how small your bubble actually is. No, it's been a problem. I saw that problem when I was in policy and politics when I ran.
I mean, particularly, you know, those who are in office. This particularly, I can just say it is more on the Democratic side because I think the Republicans tend to do this better not not not necessarily complement, but they tend to do it better in terms of being able to communicate a simple message, Yeah, it is a company because they're able to get shit done. They are, as I'm understanding what their people are saying.
And I found that a lot of Democratic legislators, you know, they make it very complicated. And so one of my favorite books with product design you've probably read is insanely simple. Have you read that book? I have not read that, but I've heard it's a good one. It's a great one. But there's a simple there's a lot in there, he said. Like it, you know, it's simplicity is an all or nothing proposition. Either everything is simple or everything is complicated. And the reason why is challenge.
It is challenging actually, to keep making things simple, because you have to you have to keep coming back to that. Like I've this is hard. It's really hard and I've try to do it every day. My business is it's very, very difficult. Right. And and I think, you know, so legislators get into the mode where they they they think that everybody thinks around them like that. They understand that. They think people understand what they're saying.
And most of the time they're just speaking in Chinese to people like they have. They're not living this life that you live. They have no idea what the hell you're talking about. You have to break it down at a simple, like seventh grade level that people can understand and repeat it 10,000 times. Like, that's the only way you get it. But I found business is the same way, and I think some of that is going to help me.
That goes back to your point of de-risking yourself and you repeat a message over and over again. It's knowing like where your genius is finding that make it as simple and just repeat it over and over and over again. Right? And that's the but that is the that is the hard part to do. So I agree. All right. So I want to talk a little about investing that I have a couple of round up questions to it. So investing, what's the most important thing you look for when you invest in a business?
The most important thing I look for is exposure to the problem space that you're building in. Now, this doesn't have to come from a traditional job. It does not have to come from an educational experience, but it can come from one of those two. Or could it came, Hey, you're around this kind of thing growing up. You know, you you helped out your your your uncle, your aunt, your mom, your brother, your sister with something. It's just like, where did you get the exposure to the problem space?
I don't want the exposure to the problem space to come from something that you read online. This is something that I think a lot of people tend to do is like I like lived experience with it. If you haven't had lived experience with it, then I'm less so gung ho for the solution that you came up with because you never lived it.
So if you've lived it, then you have a you have your more than likely have a unique insight that cannot be found from just reading a blog post or a book or read, or listen to a podcast about the problems in the world. It's great when you've experienced some of the problems in the world, whether it's like you, you've seen them, you volunteered in them. So that's kind of the way I look at it. Like what problem did you have?
What exposure to get to the problem space, whether it's academic, an actual job or growing up or volunteering. There's a lot of ways to expose yourself to problem spaces that are not typically, this is my 9 to 5 job. Got it? No, it makes total sense. Makes sense. So. All right, what do what do founders get most wrong? Most often you think that VC backed founders? Yes, sure.
Okay. Founders in general, people are building things in general, believing that capital raised or not going to the capital. Right. Because I want this to be more applicable than just people who raised money believing, believing too much in the solution and less so in the problem that they're solving. I think a lot of people who, you know, you you probably seen in many a time as well happened to myself.
Yes. How how tied we can get to the solution that we came up with versus being like, okay, yeah, this solution might not work, but I'm more married. So making sure that the problem gets solved versus the solution I came with is this is a solution that solves the problem. So you got to get tired. You got to get very married to the problem that you're looking to reduce versus the solution that you came up with.
And I think it's hard for us to do that because it's like, okay, I launched my first thing. We we were seeing some traction. I feel like this should work. I find this to work because people wrap too much of their identities into the the companies that they rob too much of their identities into the company. I think that's the problem, right? So you can't make an IT it's hard to make objective decisions when you feel like the decisions you're making are making decisions about your own identity.
Yeah, And I've had a a wakeup call with my identity because you shouldn't tie your identity to actually even what you do yet to tie your identity to the values you have. Those agree that'll make your life a lot easier. And I didn't realize that. And I think when people realize that, it makes it easier to move off of an idea or a career path, or when the athlete has to retire, they realize like, my identity isn't this. That's not who I am. Exactly. I definitely agree with that.
So that's kind of how I look at it. All right. So how about investors? What's the most important? What do investors get wrong? Most often believing that if they are not the customer for their product, then there's no customer for the product. A lot of them do that. A lot of folks are like, I wouldn't use their my friends wouldn't use it, my partner wouldn't use it, my kids might not use it. Then there's like not a market for it. But that comes back to the insularity of people's networks, right?
So I think that's the biggest thing that investors get wrong, is like, if I wouldn't buy it, then who would buy it? That's not true because everyone is not usually, which is why you need more equity in an investment. What's more, things would happen. But we have a dominant perspective that comes from a closed network is not only a people only think white male, they think that that's part of it, but it's also a closed system in terms of where they went to school, who their network is.
So it becomes a very like a very, really narrow view of what innovation can look like when we're serving a very diverse population in this world, more diverse than we ever have. And there's so many underserved markets, I believe, because of that 100%. I definitely agree with you. Yeah. Okay. All right. A little bit. Talk about your career a little bit. So what's the name of your company is Stealth Startup. And I read something about it. It's the it's like the intersection of like software.
And so I think I can give you tell me. So the company we haven't released this publicly, so I'll just still talk about it in the abstract. I'll just. Okay. okay. Here it is. So the company is not really cause those that are we're just working and stuff. So the core of what we're looking to do is looking to reduce the labor shortage that we see in the trades. Think HVAC, plumbing, electrician, clean energy, things of that nature. That's where I have to stop, though.
Okay, on like what we're doing. But we will be people learn more about it at the end of next month when we're actually live. Okay. All right. That'll be very interesting because there is a and you know, there's some I know people in unions that would have a lot of apprentices. They're probably be interested in working with you on that, too. Once you if you get that upsell because it's you know they have a lot of labor shortages across the board period.
So that's very interesting. Okay. All right. So okay, let's let's talk about some things that you might have gone through like personally. So can you think of a time that you failed and how you grew from that? It can be in business, It can be personal. It's high time that I failed. I would say when I was trying to when I first graduated from USC, So I went to grad school at USC. My first was to grad school at USC.
I was recruiting for full time product jobs and most of the opportunity unfortunately was in S.F.. I did not want to move to SS, so I was really trying hard to get a full time product job out here in L.A. What ended up happening is that unfortunately that didn't happen, so I ended up having to take a product manager internship post-grad, making $12 an hour here in L.A. Imagine $12 an hour for four and a half months straight. And in L.A., that's poverty level, top of poverty.
yes, it is. Yes, it is. So that is that was one of the times where I was like, you're in my noodles every night. Yeah, it was it was like I was being too idealistic about what I wanted my next steps to be putting me in situations I did not want to be in at that time. Yes, it did. It definitely did that. But I learned from that and I learned what I did learn from that. Is that wild? The wild? These steps may have to change in ways you don't want them to. You can still hold the same angle.
Like I just I could still went to San Francisco and then moved back down to L.A. at some point. But I think I had a certain level of idealism about what my next step should be, which ended up me like, you know, not securing a full time product job out here for the first four and a half months when graduated and taking that internship for $12 an hour. So that's that was a lesson learned in a lot of ways. okay, great. All right. How about this?
What is you have a committee of three to advise you on life or business. Who are these three people and why am I would say for a more for my for my personal life, I would say my partner, she gives me a lot of she's a good sounding board in that in that way I would say my other two that I go to would be like my dad for sure, because he's worked and worked in business in a variety of ways.
And also, you know, he came here when he was 18, So he has a lot of experience about just like life in general. And then my last one, I want to use someone outside of that one person that I really do admire, their counsel and the way that they help me navigate is Charles Hodson from Precursor B.C. He was one of our backers. He's one of our larger backers in our in my last company.
And he doesn't only give great advice about how to navigate the VC ecosystem that we're in, but he also gives good life advice from a lens of a life lived. So that's that's the last person I would say like if I had to go to folks and like bring them, or if I brought them three together, one of them would be able to help navigate the the, the situation that I'm thinking about. So those are my three. Okay. You speak of that. You you had a quote you mentioned on Twitter that you find it strange
that people believe that you can ever be the same after you lose a parent. Yes. I'm assuming this has happened to you so what changes in a person do you think? I guess it's all personal. Like what changes and what what is it that you reflect on in terms of changing as a person that changes you fundamentally? I think losing the person, losing someone that knew you more than anybody else is a very transformative experience in a lot of ways.
Unfortunately, I have friends as well as myself, both lost like mothers and fathers and things of that nature. I think that people don't really know who they are until they've gone through grief, because grief because grief is a sadness that you walk with all the time. So that's kind of what what it is in the ways that I've changed. You know, I it's a sadness that you walk with all the time. Tell me about that.
What It's something like, you know, it's on you and you don't ever know when it's going to pop up. So that's the thing about grief. For those who may have never experienced it, you never know when it's going to pop up or when it's going to hit you. It's not always like, you're breaking down, crying kind of thing, but it can disrupt some of the nicer moments when it does, because then your mind shows off to to that. So for me, like, I don't know fully how how I'll change.
It'll be a year next month. I'm so sorry for your loss. Here is the hardest. Thank you. The first year is the hardest, but from what I've heard from folks, as time goes on, things get easier. But I think it never goes away. Yeah, I haven't lost my. Thank God I've lost my parents, unfortunately. Yet it's a cycle of life that you prefer to lose your parents. Your parents lose you because that's like I can tell you, I've seen that because my sister died. So you see, I see what?
Obviously, I go through my pain too, for that. But my parents, it's an unimaginable level of grief that they've gone through. Yeah. So I think the thing that changes the most, at least for me in the last year, has really you reevaluate what what kind of connections you really want in your life. Like, you know, we all have these like some like loose ties. You got friends. This is where it really makes you, like, think about, like, you know, if if I, if you were to pass earlier than you expected.
Are you spending time with the people that you truly want to or are you doing it out of obligation? And I think one thing that I definitely have made myself really not want to do is I didn't want to do it previous, but I really don't want to do it. Now is spending time with people out of obligation and also those who don't pour into you versus just take out of you.
And you realize that when you because you lose the person that would always pour into you and you you miss that in when you don't have that, you know, you got to find the deficit somewhere in the deficit, really, you got to fill that deficit somewhere. And the best way to do that is continuing to surround yourself with people who pour into you versus those who don't.
Because, you know, when a parent passes, you can get off your frustrations about people not pouring into you, into them and then they'll pour into you when they're failing. You're frustrated. You no longer have that. So you then really, really prioritize those who pour in because you've lost someone who did a lot of it. That was deep. I appreciate that. Well, all right, final question. This is not an easy one.
It what's an important truth you have that very few people agree with you on a lot of my tweets. But you get choose what you know. I'll probably have one that you're thinking about. I just thought about I just thought about one of the things that you just that you say. It's like, let me let me know it. Let me do it. So the one I was the one I was thinking about was how people how men really underestimate the importance of who they end up marrying in terms of their career.
Yes. See, I always get pushback on that, and I figured that was one. So I got that from men and women, because I do think men, especially upwardly mobile men. And, you know, you're you're really trying to have a good life, have a good quality of life.
I think who men choose to partner with, they should up the bar because when you look at it, it's like a lot of men's lives get all disheveled and torn all about and all that kind of stuff because they chose a partner off a purely sometimes either physical attraction or convenience, or they like, they cook, they clean, they do the domestic stuff. But like, those things are great. But is this the same person who can help build the life that you're looking to build.
And every every woman is not equipped for that. Like the tweet, exactly the same tweet. Was that like I was like men who are upwardly mobile and educated should not partner with women who are financially insecure and non ambitious because it will be a more of a liability to your life than an asset. But the reason I get pushback on that is because I do believe inherently there are men and women who believe that women inherently are a value add to a man's life no matter what.
I fundamentally do not believe that that's something that I've never truly believed, even though people want you to believe it. Like it depends on the type of woman is not any woman, it's the type of woman. And that type of woman is not a blanket type of woman. It's like the type of woman that is best for you. And that's the thing that I was really pushing on for folks. But people tend to push back on that because they believe that it's like devaluing the value of a woman.
It's not really doing that. It's more saying, what type of woman do you really value and making sure that you look at it from that long term game versus the short term thing. Because you go scratch that itch, you go, okay, cool. I was with her for a little bit. It's fine, it's cool. But then see all these other brothers and sisters that you really like. that would be that would be the move. That would be the move.
But that's kind of the that's the main one I've gotten pushback over the years is because people believe that obviously this is, you know, imbalanced men, women thing. But it's like for me, I like men definitely should choose better because too many men's lives get derailed from not doing that. Yeah, that's definitely controversial. But hey, we're all about disruption. So I look, I appreciate you coming on. Josh is great to have you on. It's going to be a great show.
Definitely look forward to keep it us keep us in touch as your new venture. You comes about. Definitely will. We'll make sure we share with the ecosystem. Really appreciate you coming on then. Yeah, of course.