It's the classic immigrant story. But in real life, have a couple hundred bucks in their pocket, had to make it. And then watching them work super hard to get to a little bit better of a thing, a little bit better of a thing, and move that forward. That was transformational for sure.
This is the Insurance Technology Podcast, where we bring interesting people from across the insurance ecosystem to discuss and debate technology's impact on the industry. Join us each episode for insights and best practices from industry stewards and tomorrow's innovators. Now, here's your host Reid Holzworth.
Welcome to the Insurance Technology Podcast. I'm your host Reid Holdsworth. In this episode I'm going to be interviewing Alan Ringwald. Alan is the CEO and co-founder of Relativity6. I recently met Alan at InsurTech Boston where we were at a dinner the night before. And Alan was just such a humble, cool dude. But as you start to unravel his story and he started to open up some, just fascinating. And what's interesting as you listen to these episodes, is you'll hear it.
What I learned from Alan and about his life in those short moments prior to these interviews was a very small piece of his overall life. It's amazing what this guy has done and what he's been through. Stay tuned, you're really going to enjoy it. Alan, welcome.
Great, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
So Relativity6, for those that don't know, what does Relativity6 do?
Yea. Great question. So we try to keep it simple. We're really focused on one thing, one type of data point, and that's business industry classification. So what does that mean? It's basically we're focused on understanding what a business actually does. And it's not what the business did when they started their company, it's not what the business did when they filed that DMB number, it's not what the business did last year. It's what is the business doing right now.
What are the primary activities of that company today. That's what we're focused on.
Are you a data company?
Wow, I didn't think we were going to get so deep so early, Reid. Jeez.
We'll come back to that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But-- yeah, let's come back to it because that's complicated, yeah.
So Alan, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where are you born? Where are your parents from? Give us a little background.
Wow, for sure. I was actually born in Israel. My mom's Israeli and my dad's Uruguayan, actually. So they're completely different cultures. I was born there, and then a couple of months later, we actually moved to Uruguay. So I lived there as a toddler. And then I moved to the US when I was like four years old, so English is my third language, actually. And, yeah.
That's awesome. So what brought you to the States? If you don't mind me asking.
No, of course. So my dad applied to like 15 business schools all over the world. He was a young guy. And he got into it with one, which was Boston University. So we were supposed to be here for two years, and we just kind of stayed.
That's awesome. That's really awesome. What a great place to be. So you grew up in Boston.
I did, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's where I kind of--
In the city or outside or--
Actually right in the city. So he went to BU, Boston University, which is right in the city. My parents were really young, early 20s when they had me and when they were getting started. So didn't have much money and started off in some-- the dorms. I actually grew up, like I remember the BU dorms, kind of living there. And then studio apartment, then one bedroom apartment, then one bedroom in a little bit better part of town. We kind of made our way outside the city, but it took a while.
So I grew up seeing the grind from my parents, not having too much, and then working really hard to make it as the effect.
Ultimately what did your parents end up doing for a living?
Yeah, so my mom being an Israeli person, she basically could only get a job as a Hebrew teacher, of course. And she ended up actually getting a really good job at Brandeis University, which is like a pretty-- it has a bit of a Jewish identity and a Hebrew program, so she kind of started there. And she ended up working her way up, getting a PhD, and kind of really professionalizing that industry.
And kind of becoming like a professor within linguistics and a focus on Hebrew, and some other language acquisition type stuff. So she did that. My dad, kind of like a finance guy. And he ended up-- honestly, when he started coming up in Boston, it was a pretty racist town. It kind of still is, I'd say, in some ways. But his name is Miguel. And being named Miguel back in the '80s was not that cool. So he couldn't really get a job at a big bank or anything.
So he ended up finding his way into microfinance, which is basically financing-- kind of working with the World Bank, and then financing small businesses all over Latin America. And kind of hop like that way. So like giving them loans and stuff like that. So, yeah.
Yea, micro-finance world is a big-- there's a big addressable market with that.
Massive.
It's not as big here in the States, but like elsewhere it is massive.
It's massive. And what people don't realize is that there's an insane rate of return, because it's like a community focused business where a lot of different people come together and they have peer pressure to succeed and do well. And it actually legitimately is a very good investment. But like you said, it's not popular here, or it wasn't. Like Kiva was kind of the first company that quote unquote, "Made it cool" back in the day. Yeah, so.
But it was cool because growing up he would work in kind of every poorer Latin American country. And he would take me to on a lot of those trips.
Oh, no kidding. Like where?
Like all over Brazil, a lot in Peru, Colombia. Yeah, countries like that. And he would take me along, like go to the farms or go to these small manufacturers, and just expose me to that world, which was like super cool. So, yeah.
That's really awesome. Does your dad speak Spanish? I assume.
Yeah, he does. Yeah, he's Uruguayan and he was able to speak to me in Spanish growing up, so I was able to get that language. And then my mom speaking Hebrew was able to give me Hebrew, so yeah.
That's pretty cool, man. That's really cool. So how old were you when you were doing those trips with your dad?
Yeah, I started when I was probably like 12, and like all the way through college. I loved those trips. Like, remote parts of Brazil. Not Rio or Sao Paulo, or anything, like really remote areas. We'd drive for days to get to a location. And you just get to see a different type of world, really. So he exposed me to that really early. And I definitely ingrained that within me.
That's like-- that would be transformational to an adult. But as a child when you're growing up in that and seeing that--
Exactly, exactly.
Do you think that that kind of-- and this is kind of an obvious question, maybe a dumb question-- but molded you into who you are today? I mean, seeing that and being involved in that, traveling to all these different places and these different cultures and living in that. And then your dad's there to basically help these companies in these small communities, and therefore help these communities grow in a big way.
Yeah, no, exactly. I think that had a big part of it. I think watching my parents grind it out, like from having-- It's the classic immigrant story, but in real life. Have a couple hundred bucks in their pocket, had to make it. And then watching them work super hard to get to a little bit better of a thing, a little bit better of a thing, and move that forward, that was transformational for sure.
Kind of instilled the work ethic that I think you have to have to be able to make it in what it is that I'm doing now.
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's-- wow, that's pretty amazing. You've been to a lot of cool places or what it sounds like. So all that said, what was your favorite hobby, sport? What kind of stuff were you into as a kid?
Yeah, man. I was love playing sports. My dad-- actually is funny because we grew up here but my dad's from Uruguay. And I was like, dad, dad can I join little league? He's like, no. Because he would see these guys on TV, like these closers way, like, be huge. And he's like, you're big enough, you got to run around a little bit. So I focused more on, soccer was my big sport. But all sports, that was what I did.
I was always on a field from-- like, I'd be playing basketball all day, soccer all day, football, anything. Like, that was my number one hobby. And I was pretty sure I was going to be at pro soccer player when I grew up. And I had that horrific feeling that happens to all young athletes when they leave their town and go somewhere else, and realize there's much better athletes than your immediate area. And you're like, oh OK, that's not going to happen.
But that was always kind of like what-- I was sure that I was going to be involved in pro sports in some way. I was obsessed.
But it didn't work out, didn't happen.
It did not. Yeah, it's OK, yeah.
So then what did you do? Did you go to school, you went to college. Tell us about that.
Yeah, man. I did. So I actually ended up going to the college where my mom taught at because of how cheap that was. Like, it's basically free, which was great. I did end up taking one of her classes, which I regret. But I went to college, but honestly I didn't participate too much on the academic side.
So you went to college, but you didn't really do anything?
I mean, so here's what I did do. I didn't do much schoolwork, to be fair. But really early on, like freshman sophomore year, I had this insight that I was like, mm, there's all these kids here, and they're really lazy. And there's also tons of vendors right outside the school, laundromats like restaurants, you name it, all these small businesses. And I was like-- and this is-- I'm dating myself, Reid, but this is like 2002.
And I was like can I make a portal so that students could connect with all these small businesses? And can I make some money doing that? So I started this company called College Bellhop back in the day doing just that. It was funny because it like made the news because it was an e-commerce company, if you can believe it. Because we could accept payments online, which is nuts. And, yeah, I grew that to like 15 schools by the time I was a senior. So I spent a lot of time working, actually.
Were you generating revenue from it?
Yeah, yeah. A decent amount, actually.
Was it advertising revenue? Or how did you monetize it?
It was subscription-based. And we would just take a percentage of each transaction that we would do. And at the same time it was cool because you're helping out all these small businesses around the school that didn't know how to connect with the students.
Yeah, totally.
So it was fun. I actually sold it right as I graduated college, which was awesome. Probably the quote unquote, "Easiest company" that I've ever done. And I was like, oh, this is easy, I'm going to keep doing this. Yeah, so didn't do much schoolwork. Sorry if anyone's listening from Brandeis, great school, but it wasn't my focus at all. I was just wanting to get on the hustle and get doing stuff.
College is a fun time, man. I have a buddy-- it's a funny story. I have one of my really best friends. He went to a Marquette University, which is a great school.
For sure, great school.
And he's like, there was pictures of him in the halls and stuff. He never actually went there. He just weaseled his way into the dorms. He met somebody and said he was somebody, and he lived there on campus for a couple of years, literally.
That's a Steve Jobs story right there.
And has created a cute story. It's crazy.
I love it. I respect that.
All that dude did was just party and had fun.
That's good, that's what you should do.
Right?
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good time in your life to do so, right?
For sure.
Yeah. It's funny, I don't know. I think college is good for a lot of things. But at that age, do people really know what they want to do?
No, honestly I don't-- this is probably a super tangent, but I think 95% of kids are not ready to go to college at that age. And they should be working or doing something else, and then coming back. So I ended up going to grad school. And that's when I was like, oh, I see. This is cool. There's professors and I'm learning. But it took years to actually appreciate that. I think if you just go from high school straight to college, it's like you assume that that's what everyone does.
And you don't really realize what a privilege it is to just be like hanging out and homework. Like, what a great fun-- I know it sounds crazy but it's, like, you get to learn more about stuff. And you have professors that actually know what they're talking about, that's cool. So in my opinion college is generally not at the right time.
Yeah, I would agree with that. You've got to have that thirst for knowledge, right?
Exactly, you do.
And then you want to follow your path throughout that because, then you're passionate about it. I mean, everybody knows this story. I mean, how many people-- everybody knows somebody who went to school for eight years and has hundreds of thousands of in debt to be an attorney or whatever it is. And they're like, I hate this job. And then they're working in some completely different. And it's just-- and so everybody-- but I think it's good overall.
I think for some people in certain areas-- I mean, you grow up in Boston too. You were exposed to a lot. I mean, obviously you especially were exposed to a lot, dealing with your dad and traveling all over the world. But for some, if you get out of an environment, you go to another one, and you do the thing and whatnot. But I don't know if college really dictates what you truly become as an adult and your career path. And some people may be mad at me about that, I really don't care.
But I believe it's true. And it's like, I don't have a college education. I didn't do shit. I got like straight Fs in high school. I have a glorified GED, you know. But I went to I went to community college later on and I got 4.0. And I was doing, like you said, all the extra credit, all the stuff. I was like fascinated by it. And I never would have done that out of high school, it's what? No, I'm just going to a party with my friends.
For sure, for sure.
And so anyways, I would agree with that. It's a little controversial. You know what's funny, though, I was thinking about this the other day. It seems like education and the degree, especially now in the great resignation and all this stuff, and people are getting huge amounts of dollars for what they do.
It's like I don't know the-- I mean, as a CEO of IVANS and just doing what I do and all the stuff that I do, I don't remember the last time I was like we can't hire them because they don't have a degree.
Right, and I'm glad, honestly. Yeah, like I'll tell you, though, I worked at Google back in the day. So my next job out of-- it's like my first real job was like Google, I guess, once I sold my company. And that was crazy because at the time they were like, what are your SAT scores? And what school did you go? They've changed that. It was like five years ago they finally changed that.
But at the time I thought that was honestly one of the stupidest things ever, because they missed out on so much talent.
That's right.
It's like, yeah, as a kid-- if you make a couple of bad choices as a teenager, that can impact your adulthood? That just makes no sense to me. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What year was that roughly, when you went to work for Google?
Yeah, 2006.
Yeah, 2000-- so that's still when it was like super cool to work in Google. How was that like?
Dude, it was crazy. Dude, it was nuts. It was nuts.
Tell us. What were you doing?
It was like-- OK, so it was like right post IPO, which was weird.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so there was like a weird energy in the air because a lot of people had just made an incredible amount of life changing money. So you're like-- I'm sitting next to someone who's like looking for like yachts and like incredible cars. And I'm sitting there making OK money but not like that. It's like dude, it's crazy. And then there was just like-- literally my first week there they took the entire company-- I was in Mountain View-- to Tahoe to some five star resort for a week.
It wasn't a holiday time or anything, did it. And it was just like-- it was just insane. Like funny money, crazy chaos, not much organization. I jumped around departments constantly. It was kind of lived in that chaos, which I love. But things weren't-- it was just the Google itself had found product market fit, as they say, with AdWords, with like the monetizing search.
That's right, yeah.
So it was a money machine. And so in that-- and I think I got there right as that was really scaling and going crazy. They'll hire like thousands of people a week. Is just crazy. So it got so big so fast. And that's actually what the turnoff was, to be honest with you, about it. Was it got too big. It got so big it got to the point where it's like I wasn't sure that anybody knew that I was alive there. There's just like, you didn't need to be there.
It was kind of taking care of itself in many ways. A lot of smart people actually-- that was kind of the problem also is-- I say problem but it's anyone around me went to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, blah, blah, blah. And the funny thing is they all tried to be humble about it. They'd say or I'd ask, oh what school do you go to? And they'd say, oh, I went to school in Connecticut, which meant like Yale. Or I went to school in Boston, which meant like Harvard.
So I started being like, oh, I went to school in Boston so people would think to Harvard.
You know what's funny, it's like me as-- I don't have formal education, like I said. Yeah, and early on in my career, I felt like so ashamed. People would be like, what school did you go to? And I'm like, oh, I kind of want to lie about it, honestly. You know because like-- and it's like-- Dude, I've been in so many circles at so many dinner parties or whatever where it's like a pissing match, right. I went here, we went here, I went there. It's like-- and it is.
It's not just because they went there and they're just saying it, you know what I'm talking about. It becomes this thing--
It's your identity, yeah.
It is. And it's funny, as I got older and I've become more successful, I'm just really-- you know what I mean? Like, they can't say anything but like, what? What do you mean? You know, how-- And it's only because I'm successful and I've been successful that I'm not looked down upon in that moment, right. Because people do, they still do.
I know, no.
I think that's why I'm so down on school. Like, I'm just about this and about that.
I don't-- no, I don't think so. I think you're right, honestly. It's not that important. I don't think. Again, what you did as a 14, 15-year-old should not come back to you as an adult, I don't think. That's not how our society is currently built, sadly. So I get it.
You know what's crazy too, I was thinking about back what you said about Google and AdWords and all of that. During that time, that really transformed the world when it comes to marketing.
Oh, yeah.
And advertising. Like think of a print and TV and all that stuff. It's like, well, wait a second, I can really target the exact person that I want at the exact moment, and bring them in to my world, right?
Game changing. And you can track it, right? There's actual Roi to marketing, which is nuts.
So nuts. I mean, so those guys-- I tell you what I have a lot of respect for Google, even now. They're always on the top of their game, still are, in their own way. Everything they do on GCP and all that, and all these cool stuff. I mean those guys, they're bad ass, dude. They're bad ass.
For sure. And a lot of respect to the founders for making that happen. And they had opportunities to sell really early and make some decent money. And they stuck with it. And they can't compare but like I'm scaling a tech company now, and that's hard, you know. Execution is still hard. And look, what people don't remember is they were not-- like AdWords was not the first version of that to exist.
There were search engines already, they just made it like a cleaner version, like the experience was better and PageRank was really good. But is PageRank the reason they won? I don't know. But it was more than that. So it's like, it was really just execute. And then AdWords itself, that product, other companies were doing that. They just put all the pieces together in the right way to make it work.
So it wasn't like they didn't grind it out and execute, which I think a lot of people don't realize. So, yeah.
Do you think Google was successful and continues to be successful because they always execute, but they execute at a different level than everybody else.
Exactly, exactly. For sure.
Do you think culture thing? Do you think that has to do with the week trips to Tahoe, and stuff like that? I mean, is it just letting people kind of just really think and step out and solve the problem?
Maybe. No, I mean, that's how Gmail got started, was just like a couple of guys working there thought about it, thought that be interesting. And made it happen in their own independent time there. I think there's-- and they were kind of revolutionized the idea. It's kind of funny, but the cafeteria idea or like the free food. Which is like-- it sounds whatever but, dude. I mean, I'm sure you've been to like a Google campus, but it blew me away. It's like five star meals.
And then you think about it, it's like, of course, you don't leave campus, you just sit there and talk to your friends who work there, and then good things happen. And that makes sense. But, obviously, it was super expensive but they understood the long term benefit from that when a lot of people didn't, so. Yeah, I think they did things in a really different way. And obviously a lot of people copy them now. But they were definitely the original.
It's funny-- we'll get off this topic in a second. But, you know, I did a lot of work early on with a lot of startups in Silicon Valley area, and all of that and San Francisco. And I spent a lot of time. And there was a lot of guys, companies, that kind of copied that model, but they copied it for all the wrong reasons. It's like, let's give them the snacks, let's have the kegs of beer, let's act like we're open and free in that way. But then let's not give them good benefits.
And let's not pay them much. Let's work them like dogs. And, again, I think it comes back to what we were saying, it's just the execution in that way and doing what's right. And it worked, right?
Yep.
I don't know. Because I've been there, I've done that, and I've sat there, and I've hung out with people in those companies where they're like this place sucks-- But it's we get free snacks and whatnot and I like drinking beer here, but other than that it's terrible.
No, for sure. They committed 100% to it, and I think they still do. It's still a great place to be and they treat people really well. I think treating people well is kind of the key to everything, honestly, if you really want to make stuff work.
Wow, what an amazing story. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, I didn't know all of this coming into this. And just kind of unraveling this, guy's life, maybe it's just because we just passed 4th of July and I'm feeling very patriotic. But I'll tell you what, freaking America. Like, this guy moved here and immigrated here four years old, barely spoke, he didn't really speak English at all.
Ends up traveling the world with his dad through his dad's hard work drive, and then ends up at Google with a successful career at Google. Oh, and let me-- but don't let me forget, built a company and had a start up in college. Like America, I mean, it's amazing. And this guy just continues to truly crush it. It's funny, and you've listened to other episodes, people and their drive. And they just keep at it, and they keep winning. So stay tuned, it gets better. What happens after Google?
How did he found Relatively6? That's what's coming up next. Stay tuned, it's really cool stuff.