CHRIS SACCA
episode 15
Broadcast date: December 12, 2017
The Moonshots Podcast explores the world of venture capital. In this show we discover what's behind one Silicon Valley's sharpest minds - Chris Sacca. We have a lot to learn from Sacca who has invested in seed and early-stage technology companies such as Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Twilio, and Kickstarter.
sacca INTERVIEWS
Keen on... with Chris Sacca: Working at Google taught me to
PandoMonthly: A Fireside Chat With Sarah Lacy And Chris Sacca
Chris Sacca's commencement address at the Carlson
TRANSCRIPT
hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's Thursday, December seven, 2017. A big episode, 15 I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as usual I'm joined by the man with a plan fresh from Amsterdam, Mr. Chatto and. Good morning, Mike, how are you? I'm wonderful. How's life in Brooklyn. Uh, it's great. Wait, I kind of wish I could be back in Amsterdam, but uh, we'll get to, we'll get to the details on our, our live show in Amsterdam a little bit later in the show.
Nice. And are you feeling energized and ready to kick off a new episode now you're back get home base. Yeah. You know, there's always some recovery when you're, when you're traveling abroad. I'm sure as you're well aware, but yeah, it's, uh, it's been great plugging back in here in New York. Nice. Always appreciate home when you get back home after being abroad.
Yeah, definitely. So now that you're back, yo settled during our Brooklyn headquarters, what do we have installed in this show? Well, we decided to take a little bit of a jog into the world of tech and Silicon Valley investment. And today we're going to be learning from Chris Saka of lowercase capital. And, um, rather than give you our listeners and intro to him, I'll actually just let him speak for himself.
Uh, as he's giving a commencement speech. And, uh, I think he does a really great job of kind of giving his story in a nutshell. So here's our first clip from Chris socca. For example, when I was in college, I actually led my dorm and noise violations. I had my fake ID confiscated twice. I brought a lot of money to go to school and I still can't figure out where all my work study cash went.
I actually got arrested in college once for an on-campus food fight. And the only activism I was involved with when I was in school was when they shut down our on-campus pub to this day. It's funny. I, I never make my bed. I can't remember names well, and I eat horribly. Even worse. In 1998, I took my student loans that were supposed to be for grad school.
And I used them to start a company in a hedge fund within the next 18 months, I made $12 million. However, in a period of one week in the spring of 2000, I lost it all and found myself 25 years old. So deeply in debt. I owed $4 million in my own name. That is a colossal screw up and it makes your student loan seem pretty insignificant by comparison.
It took me five of the hardest ugliest years of my life. Sweating, scrapping selling, just convincing anyone to deal with me before. Eventually I clawed my way back to the February of 2005. I made it back to $0 of net worth. Exactly $0. I tell you now you will never feel richer. Then when you're worth exactly $0.
In fact, the last debt I repaid was to Sallie Mae, the student loan bar. And when I repeated due to a clerical error, it turned out I had actually overpaid my loan by $23 and 82 cents. So Sally Mae sent me a refund check and I'm here to tell you that I've never cashed that check. Actually, it's still on my refrigerator.
Because I just really liked knowing that Sallie Mae owes me money fast forward to today. And I run a venture capital and private equity firm. I founded called lowercase capital. We manage over a billion dollars and I do it with just one other employee besides myself. And I run the whole thing from a small little ski town near Lake Tahoe called Truckee, California.
And I never wear a suit. I never wear anything, but cowboy shirts, jeans that are ripped and sneakers. Wow there, you have it. He, do you realize when you do the math, he was worth 12 million and in one week he was out, he was in debt 4 million. So he lost $16 million in one week. Can you imagine? Yeah, that's.
That's over $2 million a day that, uh, that's got hurt, but, um, that's not quite the end of his story because just earlier this year, I guess sometime in the spring, he's actually stepped down from managing lower case capital and has gotten out of the investment game. So, uh, in 2005, when he was worth $0.
Hmm. He grew the firm to over a billion dollars under management and has now since retired. Oh my and just, you know, 12 years. So that's quite an amazing accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's, let's kind of, you know, Chris sucker is not necessarily. Uh, name as well-known as, as Peter teal or Mark Andreessen, but just to put his prowess as an investor into context, he's invested in Kickstarter, Uber, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
I mean, he, he was, he was voted this year by Forbes magazine is numbered too. Number two in the world for the smartest, for the best tech investors. And so the guy's 42 he's at the top of his game. His personal wealth is well over a billion and he decides to hang it all up to say, I do. What a character.
And I think that when you listen to that commencement speech, you get a little bit of a sense of, is this fun, loving it? You know, in England, they would call him a bit of a scallywag. You know, this guy is, he's a bit of a rebel. He does things his own way. Some of our audience might actually know him from, from shark tank, the television series.
And he's also. Uh, stopped recording that. But, but the interesting thing, he refused to wear a suit on the show. I've only ever seen him in Cowboys shirts. You know, apparently he owns like 70 of these vintage. Cowboy shirts. Yeah. But, uh, it was really interesting to kind of not only go into the world of investment for some knowledge, but kind of an alternative investor.
Well, maybe his approach is a little alternative, but he seems to have. Picked the best startups that you could. I think he's only missed out on just a few of Silicon Valley's, uh, you know, unicorns he has. Yeah. So he, yeah, he admits to missing Airbnb and Snapchat. So when we, when we talk about missing in the VC world, this means that, you know, he took a meeting with Airbnb, uh, had a look at their pitch deck and said, no, thanks.
And, um, I think this is, what's really interesting about Chris Sacca. So I, I want the listeners to get ready. He has got some super smart, uh, mental models and ways of thinking, but he also, for all the fun loving this and the casual way that he approaches the world, he's got some really. Strong beliefs on how people should behave and the values that they have.
So I think we're in for like a really exciting spectrum of really smart ideas and really, I think some challenging clips coming up in the second half of the show around how we should behave, how we should be not only as professionals, but also. As, as people. And I think this next clip is really interesting because this is him talking about picking winners as a venture capitalist.
And what, what I want you all to, to really enjoy about this is he's frankness and he's actually he's humility in this, uh, in recognizing he doesn't always get it. Right. So let's have a listen to Chris soccer being mostly wrong, but sometimes right. Right. And I've missed really good deals because I feel like I don't know anything about space.
I passed on Zynga. Um, Yeah. I mean, I'm going to start naming some of these and they're going to Mount to the billions of dollars. Right. So I pass on Zynga cause I'm like, I don't really know gaming. Like I don't know the partnerships in Asia. I don't know. You know, pink has talked to me about maybe an opportunity to join the team there.
And I'm like, dude, I don't know. I don't know this space. I don't think I can be that helpful. Like it would have been in retrospect, cool. To put in dumb money or whatever, but I just didn't know how that thing worked. I passed on guilt group. Like I've never been to a sample sale. I didn't realize what a big thing I was.
I mean, I dress like this, you know, like I had no idea how much money people spend on clothes and how rad that business would be. And like, and I knew the entrepreneurs and they're really admirable being diverse Gilt group today. No, I've never used guilt group. I'll let you know if they have like a Western sale or something.
I like, I pass on Airbnb. I was just like, Who sleeps on people's couches, you know, et cetera. I mean, these are all like multi-billion dollar businesses now that I didn't, I didn't think I'd either use or that I could be that helpful with like in the case of guilt, what am I, what am I going to do for the guilt group founding team, right.
They're already excellent entrepreneurs. And I'm like, am I going to hook them up with awesome designers? Am I going to bring a bunch of people to their site? Like, I don't know. And so, and so the first filter for me is, is this something I feel like I could be helpful with. From there. I don't know if I've built a really great system for figuring this stuff out, you know, as a VC I'm wrong most of the time.
And so whenever any VC tells you about the rules, et cetera, it's really funny because we're wrong all the time. Right? My portfolio, like. You know, you should expect me to be wrong most of the time when I'm right. I'm really, really right, right. That's that's what you should, accounting VC. You're going to get a returns.
Is that sometimes I just nail it and hopefully those will outpace all the things where I was like, yeah. For whatever reason, it just didn't pan out. What, uh, what's most interesting to me in a way is kind of how casual he is as in why or how he passed on Airbnb and other really successful companies. But I think, I think underneath that is this commitment.
So really only putting his money into things that he understands, because he knows that that's the only way he's going to be able to make the really successful investments. Yeah, exactly. He's almost like Warren buffet on this one buffet often will talk about, he only invest in companies that he understands, which is why he famously has never invested Amazon because he just doesn't understand the business.
So it's a fascinating approach. And what I love is in this world of the superhero investor tech entrepreneur, he can just sit there and go, you know what guys, you know, I'm missed. A bunch and to have messed Airbnb, I can see how with Richard speci you could miss it, but when you look at the, that business now and how great, Oh my gosh.
I mean, you know, you'd be kicking yourself, but I liked the fact that he can still go back to the thing is I invest in things, in things that I know and people that I can help. And this is actually a big theme of, he is like, he's he was just saying like, what can I do for the founders of guilt? They're great.
I don't know fashion, not for me. And I really like this idea of focusing on what you can do, not only with, in terms of investment, but I think this is on how we spend our time and who we work with. I think a big learning for me is, you know, focus on working with people that you can truly help. I really liked that.
Um, yeah, I, I don't have billions of dollars to, uh, to play around with. And so that's exactly what I took away from it too is, you know, the, the clients and the people and customers that I'm working with should really only be the ones that I can help the most. Like people shouldn't pay me if I'm not going to help them in a big way.
And that that's really that kind of customers centric. I think this is his own way of talking about like being customer centric in a way. Yeah, this is very much because in the end, you know, you're absolutely right. He's customers are the people that invest in his fund and his other set of customers are those that he invests in because he wants to serve them.
He wants to get what we call follow on rounds, where he can re-invest when they're doing well. So. To me, to me, I think it's very important focus on, on, on where you can help. And he's got some other very good approaches. Um, and, um, what, what we both really liked about this next clip, uh, is the fact that. He has this whole philosophy of don't be on defense at work.
Don't be on defense in life. Be on offense, be in control, be the master of your own destiny. And now we've got a clip coming up and he's talking about a scenario when one of these portfolio investment companies has received. Interest from a third party to purchase the company. So it's an acquisition situation.
And what we're going to hear now is Chris soccer's advice on how founders can think about this situation and how not to be on the defensive side, but how to be on offense. So let's listen to Chris soccer. When one of my portfolio companies gets inbound acquisition interest. My number one rule is like, stop, don't respond.
Don't do anything because. If you do, you're just playing defense. Right. Like so much of life comes down to offense and defense. If somebody offers you money for your company and you Emilia respond, you have just let them set the table completely. Like they have laid out everything and you're just working with what's given.
So I tell my entrepreneurs, like walk away, let's spend a weekend as a team and individually, like thinking about what do we really want? Like what matters to us? Money is a nice thing. Right. And it's usually on everybody's list. And so we'll put money on there. But like, is it how much money is it? How much potential for more money later?
Is it money now versus is it the potential to make money, but it might be risky, you know, that kind of stuff. So we put that there and we're like, what else? Do you want to be able to continue to work on this product? Does that matter? Or what if they just shut it all down and you get work on something else?
Just who your bosses matter, just where you work now or like where you have to move to like all this shit, all the shit, all the shit. And we put it all on a list and then we rank order it. And then would that list? I actually don't back into the room as the negotiator. I send like the founding team themselves back in, because I think nothing.
Is more convincing than an engineer who's already calculated the exact range, acceptable outcomes. Hm counter-intuitive huh? Yeah, I, I just. Boy, it's such good advice, Chad, both you and I have worked with founders. Some of whom have, have actually had it. These offers some have accepted, some have declined, but it's one of those big moments that can, if you're not prepared, it can really spin a team out of control.
And I love this mental model of Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Don't respond time out. Go away. Think about what you really want. And it sounds so simple and easy to do, but can you imagine when someone's ready to write you a big check, how easy it could be? Just a charge in there? Yeah, I think it's just good negotiation practice.
I think that he's sharing with us here, you know, for those of us that are freelancers or own our own businesses and work with clients. There is a little bit of coyness. I think that is advantageous to us as the service or the product provider. And, you know, whomever is being pursued in, in the negotiation is going to have a little bit of the upper hand.
And so I think. Both slowing the process down and kind of making the, you know, the acquiring party kind of come after you is just doubly beneficial to the team because you then have the time to figure out exactly how you want to orchestrate the deal. And then also, you know, make them show their true interest in, in you by, by having to come back to the, you know, having to go out and get you to, to come back to the table.
Yeah. And, and I think that the, the life lesson here is control the things that are within your domain. And don't worry about the things. That are outside of you and that you can't control, but I love this it's it's so often isn't it, Chad, that it's these mental models that successful innovators and entrepreneurs have that they just add up to such a competitive advantage.
I mean, in, in very much in this way, He reminds me of, of, of Musk and Bezos. He has a very strong view of the world and he's very clear on it. And if something doesn't fit into that, he doesn't judge it. He just declines to participate. In it and, and, and he, he, he's always looking to, to realize the outcomes that he's interested in.
And I just love the way in which he kind of frames this. To me, it captures almost the default entrepreneurial innovator, demeanor, which is know your core business, know where you add value, help others and stick inside the playing field that you know how to play. It's he's really, he's really got that, that down.
I think there's a lot for us to, to take from that. And you'll remember that in the live Amsterdam show we did. Chad, do you remember that Martin from go fast-forward was talking about how distraction and lack of focus is such a big issue for entrepreneurs? Yeah. And he has worked with many Dutch entrepreneurs in a mentorship and coaching capacity.
And I think that that was his kind of number one kind of attribute that kind of defined, you know, future success is, are you focused as a team, as a founder, as a company? And if not, then most of them were work that they needed to do together was to bring them back into that, that flow state in that focus.
Exactly. Exactly. Great. So I think the other interesting thing here is, and, and, you know, we're, we're pulling some clips here from some different conversations he's had. So we've had, uh, his commencement address at, uh, Carlson school of management. Uh, we've now got some clips from a foundation interview with Kevin Rose.
You can get. The full, full interviews from our show notes, which you'll find on moonshots.io and we've got lots of goodies, uh, coming up. Um, but I mean, there's a lot of good stuff about the sort of values and the, and the winning ideas that he has on how we should behave, how we should operate as people.
But, you know, he's got a lot to teach us. Chris Sacca has a lot to teach us. He spent a great deal of time at Google doing revolutionary things, working on wireless spectrum and so forth. But the interesting thing is he's also got something to teach us about talent. So do you want to set up this, this next clip, Chad, where he starts talking about talent and what to look for, but I think this clip and the next one really, I think.
Come from his time spent at Google. And so I'll actually just let him speak for himself in, uh, in, in speaking about identifying talent. Number one is I look for people who've, who've had a shitty job because even in our worst day in our, in our industry now, like it doesn't compare to a really shitty day of true ass busting work.
And so, um, number two, I look for people who've lived traveled or studied abroad. Um, I think it. Forces humility on you. You know, like in our environment, we're totally in control. We can go to our favorite places. We speak the language you show up in another country, you don't speak the language and you're just like, uh, you have to walk up to perfect strangers and ask them for directions.
You have to figure out shit to eat. Like your head is spinning the whole time, jet lags on top of you, that kind of stuff. Like, I really think that builds an implicit humility and resourcefulness and collaboration and people. So I look for that a lot. I look for people who play sports and whether it's team sports or individual sports I don't care about, but I do care that they have someone bounds in their life and they have some source of endorphins that, that keep them kind of like healthy and that they have some boundaries when they know to kind of turn off the switch and go outside a little bit ball around a little bit.
Yeah. I just think, honestly, it just makes me more well-rounded people and I think ideas come from those kinds of people. Like the really true self-destructive mountain, that mountain Dew type. Guzzlers and stuff like that, whose bodies fall apart, et cetera. They're not actually driving the creativity in this Valley.
They're not conceiving of the new ideas. They're not coming up with. Cool shit. It's the people who have these broader life experiences who have balance relationships who come up with the cool shit. And so college degree, no college degree, college degree is not a prerequisite, but it is kind of funny, like.
Doing well in college, I do think does correlate for me with the successful people I've worked with. Um, and so I don't think that's a prerequisite at all. Like, but I do think like college done, right? Like particularly like a liberal arts school is a lot less the individual facts. You learn more about learning, how to think, learning how to communicate, like experimenting with personal boundaries, getting laid, drinking too much, like taking the time to go abroad.
I worry that like CS students, these days don't have any time in their schedule to go abroad anymore. Like. And yet like living in Latin American Europe, like kicked my ass and taught me all kinds of cool shit and just made me, you know, more interesting. And so the last thing I was gonna say is I look for interesting people, people that I want to spend time with, you know, I mean, you'll hear a lot of people say, like I have this task.
Would I be willing to sit next to them on a plane from New York to LA or whatever, you know, New York, San Francisco for me it's um, I think I told you I bought the house next door to my house up in Truckee. I live up in like that. And, um, it's called camp lowercase and camp lowercases where. The portfolios come up one by one and do retreats.
And like, for me, it's like what? I have these guys up to my house. What I break bread with these guys, like, am I comfortable like spending that kind of time with them when I find it interesting enriching their ideas. Kind of inspire me and get me eager to help them out. And so that's a big filter for me too, because dude like at the end of the day, like hopefully we're all gonna make money, but I hope I reflect upon this time as being fulfilling, as meeting interesting people as being fun and healthy, like it's just not worth it for sure.
Otherwise we'd all go work for hedge funds and be miserable. Yeah, that last point was actually not that interesting. The whole interesting people. It was, it was more the, the first, uh, points, people that play sports that have experienced living or working abroad. And I think the most surprising ones, the one he actually kind of led with and then got it.
I know people that have had crappy jobs that I don't think I've ever really looked at that as kind of a criteria for someone that I wanted to work with. I know, I love it. So let, let me play it back to you. So, Chad, have you ever done a shitty job? Have you ever had to work and do some job? That was just awful, but you know, you were young, you got some cash, you got going.
I don't know that I can really think of many. I mean, I, you know, I've worked in food service, but it wasn't like crappy job. I think, I think everyone should work in food service. I mean, so that's kind of my addition or corollary to, uh, to, uh, Chris Saka has to say. I don't know if it necessarily has to be like a really crappy job, but right.
Tell us why you think food, service, restaurants, cafe. Why is that so important? You just become hyper attuned to people. You know, because you're, you have these micro interactions with dozens or hundreds of people a day. I think you're able to catch a lot of the nuance just of how people should be with other people.
And to think that's a very, very good skill that, and just being humble and grateful. Those are things that I think working in the service industry. Really attune you too, because if, if anyone shows gratitude or if anyone's shows humility to you, Oh, it has it as a member of the service industry. Like it makes your day, you know, like yeah, good tips and whatever.
Nice. But just someone being nice to you and human to you is I feel like even better. Yeah. Very, very true. Okay. Next pie. Have you traveled abroad? Have you lived abroad? My favorite experience was studying in Spain when I was in college. And yeah, I think immersing myself in that culture for three months was, you know, unforgettable, I think to this day, I still.
Love the afternoon siesta culture. I take a cue from my dog and try and take it easy after about 1230 or one o'clock so, so, uh, you, we have to go and do a live show from Spain. Then. What, what city were you in? I was in Toledo, which is just outside of, uh, Madrid. It's like an old medieval towns surrounded by a river and a Roman wall.
Yeah. It was a really fantastic place. That's cool. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you're doing well on the Chris cyclists. You've got one last one. Okay. Did you play some sports? Did you play some team sports? Did you get out there and do some, some running? Yeah. You know this about me? I, I played rugby. Um, yeah, that's, that's my, my Aussie, uh, connection, I guess it's about as Australian as I can get, uh, playing rugby, I guess, Australian football.
Yeah. I could get you playing cricket and then that would sort of finish the, yeah, no, that was, that was my favorite and most involved, uh, competitive sport in high school. And then in college now, now I do kick boxing, which, which is also quite fun. And yeah, I mean, I'm here on this podcast with you. I think we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't find each other to be interesting individuals.
So I think we kind of Mark that last, uh, category. Oh yeah. That one's kind of a, I don't know that one's kind of a throwaway. Um, I feel like, because of course you're going to want to work with. With people you're close to. Yeah. I w I would offer, I would offer you that, um, much like yourself, that working in the service industry, I've lived in four different countries.
I was going to say you've lived and worked. And multiple occasions and London and Amsterdam, San Francisco, Sydney, Australia, all of those plus the sports thing, really our character defining life enriching experiences. I think if. In the first half of the show, this, this clip to me has the most to offer our listeners because I think the things that you touched on the service and the humility that you get from working in the, uh, in the restaurant business, uh, traveling and, and, and.
Relearning things and, and working out how a different part of the world works. Uh, the joy of being in a team and working hard and running around these are things that make you great. And don't for a minute, think that these don't contribute to how you perform when you're in front of the computer. I believe that they're all directly.
Directly related. So I think that that's a huge gift that Chris Sacca has caught out for us. Like get these things, experienced these things and look for them in the people that you want to work with. Yeah. And I think even though he says, you know, college is maybe an indicator, a potential indicator of, of success.
I think really what he's talking about is don't be so obsessed with what you're doing, that you shut everything out, because I do think that well-roundedness, that he's speaking to is going to be far more valuable to you in the job market or in kind of the entrepreneurial world. As opposed to, like he says, you know, being a mountain Dew, drinking code, obsessed, you know, computer science student that never leaves their laptop.
Sure. It's so true. So true. What's what's really interesting is, you know, Chris spent a lot of time at Google and I think he really found some of the sort of insights into people. Uh, from his time there, but I think even more so I think we came across this theme that has been so huge in our show, which is focusing on the user experience, like just being obsessed about customers in general.
And so we've got this perfect clip that captures this theme and Kristin amazing things at Google. And he worked on some. Really audacious projects and have very good access to surgery and Larry, the two founders. So let's have a listen to what he learned from working at Google. Here's Chris. Oh my gosh.
What didn't I learn at Google? So I think one of the first things I learned at Google is one of the things that they teach everybody there, which is focus excessively and obsessively on end users. On their experiences and that a lot of the traditional distractions and building a product kind of get in the way of really cool innovation.
So if you think too much about cost upfront, about how many CPU cycles someone is going to use, how much bandwidth, how much storage, or even if you think about the politics, which partners you might piss off, et cetera, all those things can cloud building really cool products there. And so one of the things they did was actively discouraged people from thinking about a business model, instead, just focus on an end user problem.
And do everything you can to solve that problem right upfront. And then later, if you've created value, we'll find a way to capture that value back. It's so nice and succinct. I love it. Yeah, it is. It is. And, and what what's so interesting is he calls out one of the biggest problems that a lot of product design innovation people face.
Which is, yes, you need to think about the business model and the team you need to hire and how are you going to market the product. But first and foremost, what is essential is obsessing about the pains of your customer, the gains that they're looking for and make sure to validate that you're actually meeting those needs because.
Everything else, the people, the profit, the promotion, none of it counts if you don't have a validated product. And I, I just, I continually discover products that I use or entrepreneurs that I meet who have not worked hard enough on product. Yeah, I think it's the difficulty I think of especially founders that are product people.
You have the split brain of business owner, entrepreneur, and product. Product designer or developer and the business owners always like, how am I, how am I going to make money? How am I going to stay alive? How, how I'm going to keep this business going, which can cloud the product and service development and design.
And I think. I think you do have to split those functions either, you know, in your, in your own brain, you know, go to two different places, operate in two different ways. If you're a single founder or, or, or you, you know, you have to work in that way or split in amongst people, you know, have someone that is a product person that you tell them, Hey, I don't care about how we're going to make money for this.
If you just can get me a hundred or a thousand rabid, you know, raving fans, Then, let me worry about how to turn it into a, into a viable business. Yeah, I you're absolutely right. The way I sort of imagined this in my mind, it's like a, a race. Okay. And a successful startup or successful business is a race of four things.
You have to have great product, great people, great profit model and great promotion. All right. Those four PS. But I think the big secret is that they all need to be worked on concurrently. So you cannot afford to do one and not the other, you cannot afford to defer for too long, your profit model, because you're so obsessed about the product.
You just can't afford to do it. And so the greatest challenge of entrepreneurship and innovation is the capacity to think about, to work on and develop all of those four simultaneously, because I know for sure that a product. That has the story being built as you build the product, the way you're going to promote it is built into the product will be so incredibly successful people who are designing products that solve problems, but also create massive economic opportunity for a business.
These are the ones that win. So I think on its finest tip the greatest challenge of entrepreneurial-ism and innovation. He's doing all four at the same time. I don't want our listeners to miss, uh, what you're touching on Mike, because I think you're absolutely right in this idea of. Running experiments and design in parallel, moving from kind of a waterfall sequential sequence to a concurrent and in parallel sequence.
I think, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right, because that's how you achieve the speed. You know, that that gets you to market faster, that gets you in front of more customers quicker, et cetera. Totally, totally. And I love the fact that, you know, it's so complex, it's like a dark art, but, but to me, that's actually what makes it such a compelling area to focus?
Why love reading, thinking, talking about innovation, entrepreneurship, because it is just so incredibly hard. It's multidimensional and. You know, I just think of it as a playground to do your best, to try and realize your potential, to try and just be the best person that you can see. And what's really fun is when things that you do that you'll become your passion that you can do with friends and, you know, that's, that's what was so fun, uh, about our time in Amsterdam.
So. Before we talk and reflect on Amsterdam. Let's just recap. I think we've had some pretty cool thinking from Chris Sacca so far, you know, he sticks to the things he knows, you know, he focuses on working with founders. He can help didn't you think it was neat. This idea of just being, you know, in offense, in the acquisition process chat, I thought that was really neat.
Yeah. And the context about, you know, looking for people interested in sports, I can, I can understand kind of what, how his brain operates now with that, with that kind of sports metaphor. But I think it's very useful. Yeah, it totally, totally is. And, um, you know, I think the other thing that becomes really exciting is for the second half of the show, we've got a ton of really interesting, more behavioral beliefs values.
Advice ideas from Chris, uh, soccer. So we've got tons coming up and, and don't forget for all the listeners out there. You can go to moonshots.io. You can sign up for our newsletter. You can catch up on all the old shows. You can check out our live broadcast from Amsterdam even. And I think it's, I think it's a great moment for us to pause and.
And reflect on Amsterdam. So we, Chad, you know, two weeks ago we arrived in a Chile, a little bit gray, sometimes, sometimes wet Amsterdam. What are the, what are the things? It was, it was wet the entire time we were there. Okay. But, um, how did you enjoy your Amsterdam experience? Oh, I, I loved it. I think I was a little curious when you were speaking to me about how much kind of a hotbed of good entrepreneurs and companies Amsterdam is.
Cause it's not really the first place that I would necessarily think of in Europe, but after having spent some time there and meeting the Dutch people and speaking and asking questions of our Dutch shot entrepreneurs that we had on the show. It's definitely one of my favorite places in Europe.
Definitely like both as a tourist, but also just, you know, as a business person and entrepreneur. And we, you know, what I thought was really interesting is I think in the show and all the people that we met there, we got a real sense of some distinct Dutch. Characteristics that made Dutch entrepreneurs and innovators quite unique.
I thought, what, what really stood out for you in terms of the themes? The conversations that we had? I think the biggest thing was kind of Dutch transparency and belonged to honesty. Yes, totally. And how do you think that's powerful for them in their innovation efforts in creating businesses? How, how is that helping them, do you think.
I think it in this is just from my limited direct experience. You know, I think teens are able to just function better and have better communication practices. If they're open and honest, it seemed like all four of the entrepreneurs that we talked to touch on that theme and even people in the audience as well, when we were asking for their feedback and what they were learning.
Hm. Yeah. I, I feel that, that they're so Frank. Transparent. It gets a lot of miscommunication. It gets a lot of misalignment out of the way. And so people taking too. Yeah. Yeah. You feel like they're so prominent. They just want to build something good. Right. This seems to be the herring feeling you have with all of them.
And, uh, I think it's, it's a great tip of the hat to Dutch culture and tell us. You know, I obviously lived in Amsterdam and I'm very close life. A lot of friends that I got married there. My son was born there, so it's really my home away from home. But what was the city of Amsterdam, a light for you getting this deep immersion into the city?
Well, if anyone ever has a chance to travel to Amsterdam, I highly highly recommended. I think just the sheer. Age of the city. It was fascinating to me, I'm a little bit of a history buff and I think being able to see it in the buildings and the canals and the streets and everything was just really interesting.
I picked up two really fascinating books in bookstores there because I wanted to continue to immerse myself in the story and the history of the city. But you've got to get on a boat in the canals. And I feel like you've got to explore the city with some, you know, local or guide or friend, you know, that, that has lived there all their lives, or, you know, lived there for a long time.
And I was fortunate enough to do both of those things through, um, Airbnb's new experiences side of their product, where you can, you can hire tours and guides straight from within the app. You know, they, they recommend them to you kind of based on the city where you're staying and. It worked out. Perfect.
And my favorite part about that is it was with two Amsterdamers that have been living there, their whole lives. So you really got to see, you know, sides of the city that you wouldn't necessarily if you went to kind of a traditional tour company. So that's a little, uh, traveling hack for all of our listeners.
Definitely check out Airbnb's experiences that I think they actually vet. People for the experiences program more than for, um, hosts even. Yeah. Which w which is totally smart way to do it. Because when you introduce a new service like that, it's got, you'd rather have a small number of great experiences than a million really mediocre ones, right?
Yeah. I mean, I was talking to both guides and they said that. They had, you know, a long application that they had to fill out. And I think three video interviews, you know, to, I think to check knowledge and language proficiency, et cetera. Um, wow. Wow. Yeah. Quite an interesting vetting process. It was a great time in, in, in Amsterdam.
I thought we met some great entrepreneurs and innovators. It was what a blast doing the show in front of a live audience in video. How did you find that chat? Oh, I loved it. And thank you to all of the listeners that, uh, showed up on the stream. Yeah. I could kind of see you pop up, uh, as you, you tuned into the show, stay tuned, Mike and I are secretly trying to figure out.
Uh, all the places and people that we can talk to in a live broadcast format. So, uh, stay tuned, uh, sign up for our email newsletter and we'll be sure to notify you of the next live broadcast that we're, that we're thinking of. Yeah, plenty of good stuff for next year. And I think it's the perfect moment for us to dig into our last few clips on Chris soccer.
And, um, what's interesting is, you know, for all his, you know, fun, loving, you know, loose talking kind of approach, he has some really powerful views on how we should think and feel and behave as people. So let's, let's jump into this, this next clip. And this is Chris Saka talking all about finding true happiness.
Well, in my experience, quite simply, success is happiness. It all comes down to happiness. And I definitely don't mean that happiness that you feel when the gophers take over on downs and their own red zone, as great as that feels, I mean that happiness, that quite literally fills your lungs, the kind of happiness that makes a noise.
It announces its arrival with a deep inhale and a deep exhale that happiness. You know that happiness, right? That happiness is success because it turns out happy people get jobs, happy people create happy people when happy people fall in love and raise families, they lead and change the world. Happy people get what they want because often happy people are the ones who realized they don't actually need much more than they already have.
And they appreciate what they've got. Happy. People are contagious in every one of us here has the chance to be truly happy. Mm, I found that very, uh, yeah, it made me think and reflect when you, when you hear him talk like that. W where does this kind of send you to. It was an interesting kind of measurement or metric coming from, you know, a VC that was managing billions and billions of dollars as side.
I think from that very first intro clip, we haven't really heard him talk about money really at all. You're right. Uh, w w w which is refreshing again, I think why. Why someone like him has been able to be successful is he's taken a little bit of a different approach in how he's doing his investments. He doesn't really seem like the number crunching type to me.
I mean, I'm sure that he's very proficient at it, but like that's, that's not what drives him to do it. I think it is much more of this, this happiness that he speaks about in the previous clip. Mm. And, you know, I'm sure you can, you can critique, uh, guys like that and say, Hey, when you're worth a cool billion, of course, you can talk about happiness all your life.
Um, but I do, I do think, you know, the, the moment in that clip that made me go, you know, when he, when he, when he was like that kind of happiness, And, you know, for me, my journey has in my career has always been about, uh, becoming more and more aware of the things that make me happy. And, uh, I truly feel that I can do a better job.
I can discover a deeper level of mastery of the things that I do through happiness. And I think it's things that ignite your imagination, people. That you just are so fond of that you enjoy being with and working towards things that really matter. And, and I, and I, I, it is, it's like a physical thing, isn't it?
It's that, you know? Yeah. I think this next clip from Chris actually is related to happiness. You know, he's talking about kind of how we can. Grow our networks and become, you know, a part of, of a community. And it's just the simple idea of being helpful for me. I think figuring out how I can provide the most value to others is how I can achieve some of this happiness in the, in the work that I'm doing.
You know, what you're saying is like, you know, finding the right people that are aligned in the right way and doing things. Uh, together is, is, is the way to go. So here's, here's Chris actually talking about, uh, how being helpful. I grew up like tenacious and determined and like just unwilling to accept defeat, right?
I mean, chocking up losses along the way, but I'm willing to accept defeat. Like those are hallmarks of just how I was raised, who I was as an athlete, who I was as a young student, I've always been a pain in the ass. I've always kind of poked people and weaseled my way into their situations and stuff like that.
And try to prove I was helping. Well, but, but I think being in those settings, you know, in the beginning it started as networking, right? Like when you're, when you're outside the circle, you're like, I'm going to build up my network and I'm just going to build up the largest collection of email addresses and phone numbers I can possibly have.
And this is kind of pre LinkedIn. And, you know, there were other weird little social circles back then and Friendster and stuff like that. But I think a lot of that became a little bit empty. I think what really ended up building a brand for me or a business opportunity for me. Was just being known as being helpful.
And so, you know, I think going to all those events gave me a sense of the challenges that people were facing and kind of highlighted to me that, wow, I can solve some of those things. I mean, often where your most talented, it doesn't occur to you until you meet somebody. Who's got that problem. And they're like, damn, you're helpful or brighter.
That was a great insight or that's really good feedback. And you're like, well, that kind of came second nature to me. And, and then you see these other skills of theirs that are really intimidating and yet they don't even realize they're that awesome about that thing. And so I think being exposed to people kind of really established this idea for me, that if I can just be helpful, I'll get invited into these situations.
I mean, we're really lucky in Silicon Valley that nobody asks you, you know, other than at the beginning of a podcast like this, like where you went to school, nobody asks you what your parents do for a living. And we asked you your credential. And instead they're just kind of like. What, how can you help me right now?
Like I'm in the weeds. I need some help. What's your feedback on this? And if you're insightful and you're helpful, people just grab you and they pull you in. And so I think that's how, if I had one thing that I think is in the secret to the opportunities that have come from me, it's just being helpful.
Yeah. Absolutely
being helpful. I mean, I, I think this resonates with me. So much. I mean, what I, what this reminds me of is Stott. Every conversation, every meeting, just with this simple idea of how can I help this person? And it's like, cumulative, you just keep doing this. Every, every meeting, every conversation and people will be grateful, thankful they'll come to you with new opportunities.
I mean, Chad, I had a call with a client just before we recorded the podcast today. And they're just transitioning from a traditional kind of waterfall approach to building technology. And, you know, they've got like any business, all these constraints, everyone's busy, lack of resource and. By just listening and, and being focused on helping them.
We could have a conversation about implementing prototyping and working in an agile way that just taking this view of trying to be helpful. I felt like I really gave them a gift with some very practical things that I've just learned from doing it, but it was truly helpful for them. And it only, you know, it's just, it starts with that, that, that point of going into any prospective engagement and look to be helpful.
I just love this way of thinking. Yeah. I mean, he says it's kind of his one thing. That signifies, you know, how he's been successful and been able to, to have so many great opportunities because that's his, he leads with that approach, you know, how can I be helpful? And we heard it when he was talking about, well, why should I invest in the Gilt group?
He didn't see how he could be helpful. And so, um, that's why he ended up passing. Mm. Hmm. And I think the, um, the thing is he can be, uh, I think there's an interesting twist on this. He's kind of pretty chill about the whole thing, because he's like, look, I miss them. So what, I just focused on what I know because, and you hear it in his eyes because when I get it right, boy, do I get it right.
So, so it, it's interesting. It's the confidence to say no, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that most VCs probably have this in their DNA too, to a degree. You know, I, I think most VCs do want to get involved with companies where they can bring value, but I think he's even taking it as kind of a personal mission to also just approach everyone with this.
How can I help mindset? And, um, You know, even though, as we mentioned at the beginning of the show, he's decided to wrap up, uh, any new future investments. Um, he's, he's re really is on a mission. To do lots of interesting things with his wife is also quite a talent in the, in the advertising world. And, um, I feel like the confidence at 42 to say, okay, I'm the second best tech investor in the universe.
You know, I'm going to do something else. This, I think comes from some of these earlier clips, like he's in a search for happiness and doing something that truly brings him that delight. He wants to be helpful. I don't think there's a better way to kind of semis his life philosophy. I mean, forget business and innovation this next and last clip.
Is such a poignant way to kind of wrap up this sort of worldview, uh, that Chris soccer has. So let's, let's dive into the last clip. This is Chris soccer talking about to sleep well at night. It's amazing that in 2011, ethics are still such a problem in business. Probably even the problem in business with every passing day becomes clearer and clearer.
How over the last couple of years, individuals and their institutional sponsors. Defrauded investors and took ill-gotten gains off the table without a hint of sorrow or regret lies have been told to everyone involved, including Congress and yet bonuses have never been bigger. And entire industry has been bailed out.
And yet the primary malfeasance still have the gall to accuse the current administration of being meddlesome socialists. I know some of these jerks personally and professionally, and while it's easy to envy their private planes and their Aspen chalets, I'm here to assure you to a one. Every single one of them is haunted by demons.
Each of them, their public denials come at such compounding costs of their souls. In fact, every time they open their mouths, you can almost hear the batteries of their integrity draining. They're unhappy at home because their family and friends can smell the stink of dishonesty on their skin and in their clothes, their relationships suffer.
Their kids grow distant. I'm here to tell you there is no price worth trading off for sleeping well at night. Worrying to cover up lies is the lowliest cancer in the world. And it's lonely because you can never tell anyone about it. Even as it's metastasizing and eating you up inside. Don't cut corners.
Don't BS, don't lie. Be proud of yourself and stand for something. Money will come trust me, but no amount of money in the world will help you sleep well at night, if you haven't been legit.
Hmm, cut corners. Yeah, don't cut corners and don't lie. Uh, I don't know if I should be like applauding him for bringing that up or being like. I dunno, appalled that the industry is so bad and kind of where he sees things is so mad that he's like telling people not to do those things. Yeah. So, so the context there is he's, he's at 2011, so you're only a few years after Lehman brothers.
And I think he's calling out financial services industry as a whole here and the lodge, Jess, that they enjoyed and the lack of accountability. So I think he he's pretty squarely aimed at wall street here. And I think, but he doesn't hold it exclusively for them. I think he is going beyond that. I think, you know, the, the, the thing, this idea of just sleeping well, really works for me because.
When you've done the wrong thing, no matter how small or how big somehow you'd know it, and you carry it with you and you sort of, it bugs you. And I love that insight about, you know, it's this metastasizing cancer that you can't tell anyone now that's so, so powerful or like it's true. Like if you've been being an idiot and not treating people right.
You got to live with it, but you have to live with it on your own. I mean, if you worked hard, did your best and things didn't work out, at least you can just share it and be upfront, but it is, it's a pretty powerful picture that he paints. And we gotta remember, he's giving advice to college grads here.
He's like guys do the right thing. I, I it's hyper-relevant now, too. I feel like with what's going on with all of these allegations of sexism and sexual harassment and even sexual assault now. Yeah. I mean, especially all of you fellows that are listening. Yeah. Just like do the right thing. You know, I, I definitely take that to heart and, and what he's saying, and, and I think what's powerful now is if you go into the lives of all these perpetrators who have.
Mistreated women and just been awful. I think all of them would be filled now that everybody knows what, how they truly behave. Now it's out in the light, just. How full of sorrow and regret, they will feel for their actions. And whilst none of that is ever going to heal the wounds that they inflicted.
It's just like, just do the right thing because doing the wrong thing, it catches up with you and it's. That it comes back with interest and I, I'm sure there's a lot of regret in those guys. Yeah. And to kind of take it in into a more positive light. I think his idea of sleeping well is also just being sure that you're spending times on the things that really matter to you totaling all, all of the clips that we've heard.
Up until this point about, you know, striving towards happiness and working with the people that you want to invite into your home and all of those things, I think really just speak to sleeping well at the end of the night, you know, like I feel like that's a pretty good indicator of how well your life is going.
Is. Uh, you know, how, how fast and how well you sleep. Yeah, it's so true. Uh, like I feel like I'm just striving to make my life as full and rich as possible. And I'm always like a little bit trying to catch up on the sleep if you know what I mean. Like, you know, doing the podcast with you, you know, leading all the innovation work at quality turns, advising Finn, like there's just so much stuff to get done in a week.
Being a dad, being a husband, being a sunlight there's so much to do, but boy, I sleep well. I mean, life is full, right? I mean, how does it, how does it feel for you? Oh, exactly the same. I think. Yeah, how well I sleep is a very good indicator to me of kind of how things are going and how well or not I'm doing.
Um, so that was a really interesting kind of counter-intuitive insight from someone like, like Chris. So, so how would you frame your, if you look at all the things we've, we've discussed about Chris over the last hour, We've done everything from like this sleeping well back to, you know, staying right in your field and everything in between.
When you think about what's after the show, what's the, what's the one thing that's gonna stick with you the most? Which one was the real, uh huh. The one that was most reinforcing to me, it was his be helpful. I'm a. I'm an Eagle scout and Scouts do a good deed daily. Um, you know, that's, I can't remember if it's our motto or a slogan.
It might be the scout slogan, but yeah. Do do a good D daily. Um, I think that's something that I can really, it's easy and practical. Well, it's practical whether it's easy or not remains to be seen, but. I think being helpful is what I'm going to take away. Um, I, I personally, I love to be helpful too. I mean, I I'm finding it hard to pick one that was more powerful than, than that.
Um, but I, but I, I loved his thoughts on identifying talent and, you know, you know, basically work in a cafe traveler board and play team sport. I love that. That's so true. It's so true. Yeah. I, um, I wanted to be sure that everyone knows that they can find all of these interviews. In, in full on our website, moonshots.io.
I wanted to thank again, all of you listeners that tuned into our live show and maybe even some new podcasts listeners that found us from the live show. Jamie, if you're listening, I know you're kind of one of our newest listeners. Thank you for, uh, stumbling onto the show and giving us your, your feedback.
Mike, just so you know, I think he thought that our interplay on the show talking about the clips was quite good. Having your enthusiastic, um, Aussie attitude and my, uh, maybe my slightly dour hipster, Brooklyn attitude here.
What a characterization of the two of us. I know, I know it's a gross generalization, but. That's awesome. That's so awesome. Yeah, it wasn't it a blast so much positive feedback from the MCM live show. So many, uh, viewers on the live stream. It was great. It was, it was just a real joy to do it and I just can't wait to do another one.
Yeah. Yeah. And I still, I'm very interested in getting feedback from all of you listeners on who you would like us to profile. Um, what industries, what verticals and what innovators. Uh, you would like us to discuss, you know, Mike and I are continuing to grow along list and we would love to get your feedback on who you want to us to unpack.
Exactly, exactly. And, uh, thank you again, Chad. It has been just a joy to. Dissect to do D code to delve into the world of Truckee, California, to Mr. Chris Sacca. Um, it's been a great, great conversation. What's what's next? Uh, in your evening in Brooklyn, uh, walk the dog, have some dinner. What's what are your plans?
Yeah, I think I'm gonna cook some dinner, um, or hosting some family here over the next few weeks. So doing some preparation for that and, um, Yeah, I think, uh, try and take it easy. Uh, over the next couple of weeks into the new year so that I can kind of hit the ground running in full force. Uh, come the beginning of 2018.
Sounds great. Well, make sure you're well fed and well-stocked cause we've got plenty, more investors to decode and I'm I'm, I'm going to suggest, I think that it's time for us to go to. Ooh, two of the granddaddies of tech investing, I think Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen of the famed Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firms.
I just can't go past them as our next subjects for the next show. What do you think? Are you suggesting we do both of them or do Mark and, or been a separate? I think, I think we could do them together. Yeah. I think let's go a combo. Let's go. Let's go. It's it's like a back to back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I liked that idea.
And then maybe we can follow it up with Peter too. I think that that would be a really nice trifecta in the, in the Silicon Valley investment world. And then we can perhaps do a whole series on great tech designers. So I'm thinking Jonathan I've, um, you know, Joe from Airbnb, like I think there's some really cool design nine series that we could do as well.
Um, digging it now we can kick off 2018 with a design series. Sounds great. Sounds great. All right, Chad. Well, listen. Um, I think that's a wrap. I'm going to go and have lunch with my beautiful wife. You're going to go and make dinner. Do some prep for Thanksgiving and all that kind of good stuff. So I think it's, uh, urate from here in Sydney.
Um, thanks again, Brooklyn. It's been wonderful. And we look forward to having you all on our next show of the moonshots. Podcasts