Nomad Capital

Transcript

0:11

Welcome to Finding Proof, where we discuss all things early-stage VC. We're your hosts, the Thanasis and Jenny of the PROOF Fund, and our goal is to get to know the best seed and early-stage VCs out there.

This episode was spent time with Mark McCabe who is the founder and partner of Nomad capital a seed, stage fund based out of Dublin, Ireland, that invests in seed-stage companies in the US and Europe.

Mark, thank you for joining us today. I usually start by asking about your fun, but I think you're kind of story is so, integrated into what you're doing as a fund I'm going to start by asking about your background and how you came into the tech industry and then came into being a VC investor.

Yeah, for sure.

Happy to and thank you both Jenni, Anthony asks for having me on for this, my story in Tech.

1:10

I guess like many involves good degree of luck and Fortune along the way, as you can probably hear.

I'm not from the Some Ricci from Ireland.

Although I did live in the US as a kid and weirdly that kind of was the Genesis I guess for me getting into Tech I moved out when I was a young kid and that experience faster than me one, an obsession with computers at a pretty young age chance to use them in school, a chance to play around with the early internet.

1:38

And also through playing Little League, baseball meeting a number of the young kids who eventually would go work in Tech and some of these friendships were I initially got my chance.

I've been working at Google and Dublin and had wanted to move into Venture and was able to get an internship with a seed stage Fund in the Bay Area, cold SV Angel very well.

1:59

Known seed fund like one of the Premier seed funds before seed was like a trend, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Ron Conway is considered Godfather of Silicon Valley and I was incredible experience to get to work with him.

When I moved over for the internship in 2010, it was really just before The start of this Wild Bull Run that we were on for so many years.

2:23

And I think the year, prior Facebook had done, a dying around, should be hard to conceive.

Certainly up to last year.

Maybe this year, you might conceive of it.

But during the course of that internship, I had a few really notable experiences.

One was on my think was my second day working for SV Angel.

2:38

We went to go visit the Y combinator class of Summer 2010 and that was me totally hooked.

It was just this transcendent.

Since getting to meet all these Founders in one place, we super ambitious, super young, people building tools that I wanted to use and was just really excited to kick out on with them.

2:59

I worked pretty hard during the internship.

They offered me a gig full-time.

After that end up spending a year and a half with SV Angel.

But during that time, I had started to ask myself like where do I see a career in Venture going?

And I could see it going very far, but I felt there was a lot.

I wanted to do still as an operator.

3:17

Having had that experience.

Creates a little bit of Google.

I wanted to get more experience and hopefully make myself a better investor.

And the one company I was particular test with was Airbnb and I've met the founders through SV Angel.

And I've actually been a host on the platform relatively early on San Francisco, is an expensive place to live.

3:35

I can vouch for that.

Yeah, I know you got actually when I first moved to the berry, I had no credit history.

So getting a lease was even a challenge.

So hearing the pitch for Airbnb, was, you know, it just hit me at this perfect time and I ended up joining them.

I'm at the very end of 2011, spent seven years at the company, it was their first BD higher and then went on to start one of their verticals, Airbnb for business.

3:57

When you went into Airbnb, did you think that it had the potential to get as big as it is now, or how did you think about the opportunity set?

So, I had been obviously in the VC world and the VC world was an interesting place because I think a lot of them saw the power in the growth of Airbnb that it was already experiencing.

4:18

At that point, I think when I first met them, they were giving us an update and it was like we think this thing's working, we might do two million bucks and bookings this year and I just thought that was incredible.

I couldn't believe that many people were renting out their rooms.

And again, obviously for ABC's were investing Sequoia, let the see Greylock.

4:36

Let the a, it wasn't like it was completely off the radar.

But I also could see that none of these VCS really fully believed in the product because none of them would use it, it was still a pretty strange notion to sleep in a stranger's.

Bed and inverted commas.

And my kind of reaction to that was a lot more people, sleep in hotel rooms than in these strangers beds.

4:56

And and that I as a someone who loves to travel and had backpack quite a bit on my own, I'd worked in philanthropy.

So traveled, some pretty remote places as well prior to Google, I just saw really huge potential.

The business did I think there would someday be millions of hosts that I think the company would ever be valued at a hundred billion dollars?

5:17

I couldn't be sure although Remember while still at SV Angel meeting, Joe gebbia at South by Southwest at a small informal party that Airbnb were throwing.

And he looked at me in the face and said, this is going to be a 300 billion dollar company someday and I think what really motivated me about it is, it was easily the most fun tech company that I could see out there.

5:38

Like I wasn't that interested in e-commerce in finding new ways to buy things, but to go and stay in a loft in Brooklyn was something that I couldn't do without are B&B and to have some of the experiences I did early on in the platform were legitimately just gave me a completely different experience of visiting a new city.

5:57

What's at the top of your Airbnb experiences list?

That's a really tough one.

Okay.

Hands up.

Simon cliched now because everyone stays in tree houses, and castles and weird things and Airbnb, but this was in 2014.

6:13

So I had been working at the company two years at this point and my wife and I went to go stay in Is treehouse in Belize and it was on a farm and it was the whole family were involved in the running of this business and they had a few treehouses, they have a main building and then they had this large kitchen building and in the kitchen buildings it was open.

6:34

Are you would sit there in the morning and they would prepare these like really incredible tortillas that I've yet to find anything considerable or comparable.

Since with this like black refined green on top of it.

And it was just incredible but then they would also then take you on Horseback and what was quite cool is?

6:54

The proprietor had previously been this kind of local information source to archaeologists.

So he knew the local and really well and archaeologists would consult and when they were going to do days.

And so he knew where a lot of these old digs were and he would take people up on Horseback to go to these digs occasionally stopping to recite poetry.

7:15

I know.

Wow.

You're like, please shade almost insane.

This point, but it was this truly incredible experiences.

Like kids came on the ride with us.

They were on their own horses.

They were pretty young as well.

They were maybe eight and seven, eight and six something like that, and they were writing their own voices along beside us and easily, one of the most memorable trips I've ever been on.

7:33

Yeah, no, that sounds incredible.

I feel like you're good, go back sometime soon because the way that you described the tortilla and the beans and I just I feel it think you're overdue for a visit.

I have it's a little bit further than it used to be but actually got back.

Yeah.

What was it about venture capital?

It'll that really Drew you in.

7:49

So, I think when I first started learning about DC, when I was about 18, 19 again, like I was saying it as a teenager, I'm getting into this nascent internet and it leads me the meta side of it, like the internet talking about the internet, and one of these pots led me to dig nation and I used to watch their video podcasts and this was really when I first actually learned about what a VC was.

8:10

And so from the very start I'm hearing from from Rose, and from Albertson, like have Venture works.

And how these ideas eventually get to this Mass platform where everyone knows about them.

And I think that's kind of what excited me.

8:27

Most that Venture presented this like really believable path to help dreams.

Come true to help people spin something out of nothing and not just something but like something that was Global that was hugely impactful and it could happen incredibly quickly.

8:43

And I think really what drew me to venture is just the first time, I started really interacting with Founders and And seeing what they were putting on the line of what they were willing to risk to build the businesses.

They were building and know, we went around a little bit, but you were about to say.

So I know you have your own fund now.

No more Capital, which obviously you can tell us about, but it, did you say, you went back to Airbnb?

9:02

You went to Airbnb, I should say.

And then talk to us a little bit about that and then how you transition to your own fund.

So, joined Airbnb in the summer of 2011 and actually about two years into the journey or maybe even less Alfred Lynn took Sequoia seat on the Word and only a few months after he joined.

9:20

He asked me if I wanted to partake in the scouts program.

And I think I was probably one of the few people that are being be who previously worked in Venture.

And that way, I was a fit for the program.

But for my time at Airbnb and I'm sorry, Alfred, I was a terrible skate.

9:35

Like I was so heads dying and what we were building and really bought into the cult of Airbnb that I made very few Investments as a sky during my time.

I'd Made one investment prior to joining Airbnb, which was in a company called the intercom and it's during kind of the latter years of my time at Airbnb.

9:55

The intercom is really taking off, and it's strange to explain this, but it's almost impossible to believe that the companies you're investing in seed as a young investor are truly going to turn into these enormous companies.

And I really felt like that like, I believed that Venture returns it possible.

10:12

I've seen bronze historical Investments and I knew how successful he had become a doing this.

To believe that the next generation of companies are going to follow suit that this was going to continue, was just really hard for me and my kind of mid to late 20s to fully by into but intercom was kind of this thing that pulled me along with it.

10:30

And as intercom success continued I started rethinking about investing again and left Airbnb.

At the end of the summer 2018 and I did a couple of things one.

I started a consultancy shop where I was helping Founders raise Capital series a and Beyond and to I started investing some Small funds with a friend of mine, Brad Flora, Focus, trying y combinator.

10:52

So we would raise a dedicated fund for a YC batch.

Put it to work in that batch and then rinse and repeat over and over.

And really, both of these things were incredibly inspired by Ron.

I'm my time at SV Angel like the series.

A side was something I'd fully crib from what he was doing.

11:08

At SV Angel he would take a number portfolio companies under his wing every year and he would completely orchestrate that rounds and that's what motivated me to start that and then on the Inside it was really just an excuse to, stay involved with early-stage companies to have a reason to beat them to support them in some way.

11:26

Or another.

One thing that I have certainly done at Airbnb is built an incredibly valuable network of operators.

Also of investors, we had some pretty interesting alumni in the past that they went after Airbnb and I just wanted to be involved in a number of different ways in ways where I felt Founders really needed support and fundraising particular was one of them.

11:46

It's just incredibly asymmetrical.

Process.

Binders, maybe if their experience, they've raised Capital four five, six times in their life.

That's an experienced, fundraiser on the founder side, whereas VC's obviously do this every single week and I think they often don't get some of the language that investors use.

12:05

They don't know how to read necessarily the true level of interest in what they're building.

And I think also there, so deep in the weeds, it's quite hard for the most to position the high, kind of strategic value of what they might be building.

And in those ways I wanted to continue to serve them.

12:20

But also gain experience by seeing more of these rounds and understanding how they worked and operated.

And so that takes us to the end of 2019.

And I've been in the Bay Area 10 years at this point, my wife and I decided we had two small kids in the bay and we wanted to try and get a shot to moving back to Ireland.

12:39

So we moved back to Summer 2019 about a month before the pandemic started and the timing on that hammock.

Hits in january-february.

Yeah, and I'm longing to travel time, trying to figure out what to do and I'm catching up with a lot of people that I've met during my time in the bay and Darren all these different places.

12:57

None of them are in the bay anymore.

There are palm trees in the background, is in Snowy Mountains, and the penny really dropped that.

It just doesn't really matter where you are anymore.

And this is probably going to be one of the legacies of the pandemic.

And that's when I decided to start Nomad Capital, it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

13:14

It's a reference both to obviously my remote nature in Ireland, but Also to the journey that finders go on and wanting to be a glass of water or an oasis on their journey.

And I think you've kept the fun sizes.

Small, right.

Which I think is, is that still the strategy?

13:30

So, talk to me a little bit about that.

And I think that's a little bit unique, right?

And the world these days.

Yeah.

So the fund is pretty small.

It's a ten million dollar fund.

There were a few reasons for that.

One was actually one of one of the people I find really inspiring.

13:47

And this industry is Gary tan.

His first fund was seven and a half million, and I remember saying to myself, if that was enough for Gary, or surely 10 will be enough for me, but also, I was moving continents and I was in a completely new market.

New Geo new people to meet and work with.

14:03

And I felt that size of Fun would allow me to be most collaborative to work with the widest variety of funds and secondly I believe in working for you run.

I by also believe investing it.

See stages is like walking on black ice and really what I wanted to prove was that I could essentially professionalized, the Angel Investing in small fund investing.

14:23

I done previously and start to build relationships.

The same time.

Is there a company either within your respective, portfolio, previous Investments or just General within the VC ecosystem that you're aware of That if we were to roll back time a little bit, and you were in the same scenario of joining Airbnb that you'd want to join now.

14:43

Yeah, I guess my auntie, my auntie employment portfolio.

Really has one name on it and it's stripe.

So I was interviewing with John and Patrick around the time, I was joining Airbnb and ultimately didn't get the offer, so it wasn't really something that I passed up, but I was very close to it.

14:59

I would have been, I think the 9th or 10th employee at striped, but truthfully.

I couldn't get as excited about payments as I could.

Have had Airbnb and I was really just focused on getting my dream job had Airbnb but it was a fascinating interview experience and getting to know both those guys during that process and during my time at SV Angel and I certainly would have been pretty good one to join that early.

15:22

Do you think you'll ever want to go back into an operator rule?

My wife says, there's absolutely no way I could she thinks venture has destroyed me for all future.

Operational roles I do think about it.

I think the grass is always greener.

And the one thing about Venture, they can be quite frustrating at times someone who has worked in a tech company and help build businesses.

15:42

Is I disconnected, you are from the success and I comes 99% of what happens within a company of the people within it.

And certainly sometimes, you can see things, you might have done differently opportunities that you thought were very large.

Don't get capitalized on, but I think over time that we were kind of grows.

16:01

And you've seen this in Venture.

You've seen folks actually moved back into operating roles or even this kind of Jewel, operator + VC, roll, I'm someone who tends to focus and to try and only do one thing at a time.

Or at least one type of thing at a time.

But yeah, I could definitely see myself eventually going back into an operational role.

16:20

I just need another 5-10 years Adventure.

Probably you spoke about the pandemic changing, kind of our business.

Do you really think that companies will be built in many different locations?

And now use obviously, see, you always had teams that were distributed but now it's even getting more more widespread do you see that being the status quo, going forward?

16:42

And how does that change how you look for opportunities, or what you look for, and the opportunity set?

I think it really depends on the type of business.

Yes, there are certain kinds of business that absolutely just transcends Geographic borders.

I don't think it really matters necessarily where those businesses are built and particular software businesses.

17:02

I think we've seen that there's a significant portion of the talent universe that want to work remote, that will consider employment across Gio's.

There's now a huge Suite of tools to help you hire an employee.

17:17

This team in a number different ways across Gio's, I think we're even seeing benefits to AIDS asynchronous, work having different team members in different time zones.

So there's a lot of really positive reasons and I think to be honest, it's going to point at this point.

We've seen enormous companies emerge from regions from Latin America, us Europe.

17:39

Not just say, the largest countries in Europe are the largest GDP countries in Europe.

We've seen huge Winters come from Eastern Europe from southern Europe.

And we've seen also winners and in Asia and Africa.

Africa's.

I think it's clear that large Tech businesses can be built across the globe.

17:54

I think.

Certainly when it comes to Consumer businesses especially consumer businesses that have like operational playbooks.

There's maybe an advantage, definitely, an advantage to starting in a larger go1, which is governed by the same language, same regulatory Frameworks, and that makes some businesses harder to scale in Europe.

18:14

I certainly see some types of companies that might start in the UK, or France, or Germany and You can see that like they're going to be focused on their domestic markets for a while and that just gives time for competition to form in some of those other domestic markets.

But when it comes to software software, I think really the global market is in play, nearly immediately of the business world is certainly a dominant English-speaking World outside of China.

18:38

And I think it just doesn't matter.

Really what matters is the caliber of the founding team.

Their ability to attract that certainly matters a lot more than where their base and where they're on their computer, how has your back?

A crowned within each of the respective companies that you've been in.

And also as a previous investor at SV Angel, how has that shaped what you're looking for in a company?

18:59

And your criteria said how you counsel Founders without a doubt.

The biggest impact, it's given me the biggest impression it's put upon me.

It is just around the Dynamics of the founding team and I think airbnb's was a very special finding team for a number of reasons.

You three very different personality.

19:16

One more analytical, more logical, one more, You certainly ingenious maybe is the right word and one who would stop at nothing to see a company succeed.

And I think those three people those three personalities were so interesting because they gave a lot of different kinds of people a role model at the company and we attracted really wide variety of different characters.

19:42

But certainly people who are at least unified by this love of travel.

This appreciation of cultures around the planet and that made it both.

Both very eclectic but also very diverse in a way of thinking and I think that was super powerful while the founders were different in their own ways, they were clearly incredibly passionate about what they were building.

20:02

They were willing to go to extreme lengths and work extreme hours to make the business successful.

And not only that but they were willing to do it on an idea that I think again while there was investor interest, a lot of people thought was quite novel that it was this novelty essentially early on and so that's that.

20:20

I'm not I'm never going to find Nate Jones Brian again but I look for this compliment.

I look for this passion, I like I look for people who really want to work for each other.

I look for people who really know what they want to find in the team around as well.

And so, I think that's probably the biggest influence its had on, why invest in startups, is there a company from your current portfolio?

20:42

That maybe you want to highlight and just give us the story of how you came upon it and what Drew you to the founding team and how it's done.

Yeah, there would be a lot.

I think if I had to pick one that the kick is a great story, I would probably be and open.

20:58

It's an Irish company.

I don't do a ton of investing in Ireland, but it's a really fascinating story and I think it shows some of the resilience and Ingenuity that I look for in teams and and open actually, originally started as a gift store in Dublin and whenever you be was setting up their office here in 2015, they reached out to The team and asked, if they could help prepare these gift boxes for the kind of nascent host community in Dublin and Airbnb was going to announce their office.

21:28

And they wanted to involve the close community in it.

And open said, sure we are happy to do that.

And during the discussions, they discovered that everybody was actually looking for a global gifting partner and open bravely put up their hand.

So we can do that for you to which Airbnb responded.

21:43

That's really sweet of you.

Your this gift store in Dublin.

We need someone who has a global logistics Network who Can give people as easily in Delhi as they can in l.a. don't think this is going to be a great fit and the and open team went back to the drawing board.

21:58

They actually find this guy, Ross Shannon who's neither, CTO and asked him to scheme up.

Have they would catch up to some of these new startups that were entering the corporate gifting space, and they submit a proposal to Airbnb, which they actually, which was remarkable in and of itself.

22:15

But over four years Airbnb was their exclusive customer, they scaled up.

Entirely on the Airbnb platform.

And what was really well this they learn so much from this one customer.

They learned that actually these gifts were not just kind of marketing tool or maybe a tool to resolve issues affordably.

22:34

They actually might even be like high Roi to that guests who were gifted for some reason, or another had a much higher likelihood of rebooking.

And the six months afterwards that hosts who were gifted tended to stay on the platform longer.

And some 2020, they finally started actually branching out, seeking out other customers.

22:54

And after four years is a start-up with zero funding, they raise their first round of capital and it was a really amazing round LED by first round capital and local globe.

And it was just incredible to see this team come from this really humble creative beginning and hustle their way to, you know, most folks right there.

23:11

See Brian within a year to starting a business for years is definitely not the norm.

That's a great story.

Shifting, gears a little bit.

I asked this question on it.

Every podcast that we've had as of late, but the market is obviously on on top of everyone's mind right now.

And what are your thoughts on the current market environment?

23:29

If you had to maybe predict what's going to happen, especially near term?

What are your thoughts there?

And then, lastly, what advice?

Have you been giving two Founders, predicting the markets.

I shouldn't even dare to do.

I think 11 belief, I have it's not incredibly sophisticated.

23:45

I feel that there's potentially more pain to come.

That I don't know the Feels like 2020 and 2021 with this real-time of hubris.

Once we got over the initial shock of the pandemic the tech sector.

It was a real time of hubris and evaluations Rose Beyond long-held norms and I feel like everyone's still hoping that we're going to go back to that and it's that kind of General sentiment in the air, that makes me feel that there's worse to come, but that we haven't fully learned our lesson in a way of looking at it, but I'm very lucky that I get to it.

24:19

SM businesses, incredibly early.

On course there's a knock on effect a funding slows down, at Series E and d and pre-ipo.

This has a knock-on effect, then the other ends and those rents are not too far in the future but I still get to look at the Venture industry with a much longer lens and I think there may be, one of the reasons that I'm still quite optimistic.

24:40

Despite the market conditions were in is actually something I heard recently from a sequoia partner that was at one of their scared events this summer.

He talked about how one of the Actually D highest performing Fund in Sequoia history, was started in 2009.

And I think really the lesson.

24:56

There is that sometimes in the bad times, what you tend to see is people doing this for more altruistic reasons, starting companies for more altruistic reasons just because they really want to and not because there's tons of capital available and that it's this really soft fundraising environment.

25:13

So I think hard fundraising environment actually can create a really exciting investment ecosystem.

And, and so that's something that I'm very much leaning into at the moment.

And then four Founders, the obvious thing is investors are responding to completely different signals than they were a year and a half ago.

25:30

I think it's all been said in terms of efficiency and efficient growth and this is now the new mantra.

But I think what I tell them is you have to focus on the same things, you always have to focus on, you have to build something that people desperately want to pay to use and that is the only Benchmark really for startup success in my mind.

25:47

And in that way, the goal posts.

Have not moved.

So maybe just people more can see them better than they could before I appreciate hearing your outlook and your advice to Founders so quick question, before we move to the standard questions at the end.

What as you look forward?

Are you planning to keep up kind of raising small, these small funds and leveraging your network to get in super early into a number of opportunities, or do you want to scale up?

26:12

Do you want to make this into a firm with more Partners?

How do you think about your future?

Most of my thought process around.

This is how I can keep a Any, what I do best with something that that really helps and supports Founders.

And yes, there certainly a temptation to raise a bigger fund, Tennessee to need seed rounds and maybe in a more constrained investing Focus than I've had previously.

26:34

But the joy that I get out of this is from be incredibly Broad and for meeting as many teams as I can and truthfully, I can't ignore my own personal motivation and doing this job and so likely us certainly keep writing the same, check sighs.

26:52

I think it's a check size that offers Founders the chance to meet a lot of good lead funds.

It's a check size even allows them still to work with angels and with friends and family that they want to bring in two rounds and that's really important.

Like I want the founder to be aligned with what I'm doing as well.

27:09

In terms of Fun Size for the kind of checks that I write typically in 100 to 300 K, a seat.

I think really, I think more in terms of what's the right number of Send a portfolio at this risk threshold and my previous hit rate that will allow me to return to LPS.

27:27

And so from a fun size perspective that's it's a completely different thought process but right now they align pretty well.

Like I think if I was to raise 20 to 30 million fund and write the same checks, I'm really reducing the ROI for my LPS.

27:46

I'm reducing the risk as well.

The same time and I think I found that somewhere between 50 and 60 Investments of this nature is the right model for me.

So if I was to raise a larger fund, I think I'd have to rethink the strategy, but one thing I do see is certainly finders wanting to continue the journey with me Beyond seat and a chance to continue.

28:05

Investing in future rounds is pretty appealing to me.

So shifting into our forest standard questions segment or first question, is the national Venture Capital Association advocates for public policy that supports the Venture community and the American entrepreneurial?

Ecosystem.

28:20

If there is one thing that you would change about the VC industry, or one policy that you would advocate for what would it be?

It was the hardest question of the for definitely, the most serious of the for maybe, I don't have a huge amount of opinion on the regulatory environment.

My career really started in the US and having also experienced what it's like to invest in various parts of Europe.

28:42

I feel like the u.s. does it best.

It's easily the most most flexible it supports the widest range of Moves and investing types.

And it also has this incredible infrastructure of different kinds of investors funds.

That want to invest in funds, understanding adventure and its place in the investment landscape.

29:00

And I think that's obviously really changing a lot in Europe.

But if there's one thing that I think I've seen a few times, it's just about opening up access to more individuals, and a lot of that's been influenced by my time.

Working with the AngelList platform throughout the years, I've had different friends, maybe, even outside of tech who've asked me like, They could get more involved and how they could make investments, and some of the requirements around, self-esteem, attestation and investor qualifications, make it really hard for them to invest more checks, certainly on the fun side, there's pretty considerable administrative burden.

29:34

If you have over a certain number of LPS, which of course, makes you more likely to consider larger checks versus smaller ones, their structures.

There are loopholes and ways around this.

There's ways to raise roll up vehicles and I think those things, Things really freeing investing.

29:51

So certainly like opening up access to more people.

I think another thing that I'd love to see changed is greater, so greater degree of flexibility on access with within Venture.

But also, I think within employees and the equity that they hold, I think there's just so much waste on that side.

30:07

I have friends who who have left operating roles and been faced with such a tight window to exercise that they walked away with zero shares.

And these are people who put real skin in the game and and misled on really Changing opportunities as a result equally, I've seen people waste away at companies where they're miserable largely for the same reason.

30:27

And while there's been an opening up a funding around this, there's plenty of people willing to give out loans and cut.

Some of these products feel outside of the norm, they feel quite risky.

And I really applaud what we've seen from companies actually like Airbnb, who really lengthen the exercise window.

30:43

So they allowed us a seven-year exercise window.

This is a change that happened about halfway during my time at the Company.

So went from three months to seven years, which made a huge difference to people, really just either aligning with the business or not.

Now then having the right people, focused inside the business.

30:59

Equally, what stripe of done, I think is really interesting, and kind of making first, a number of secondary is available to employees, but also in changing, the structure of how they shoot grants.

I'd like to see a greater degree of flexibility for employees.

I think it would be really cool is almost if I think of the Handover of equity as this huge signal, like, I think most VCS do, if Keith All of a sudden wants to buy secondary, and in a tech company, think everyone's going to pay attention, everyone's going to that's going to actually increase the value of that stock, almost, on its own.

31:30

And so, I think there's a lot of valuable signal to be gained out of how we think about Equity, but it's incredibly a liquid, it's incredibly locked up and so that's another area where I think there's maybe room for Innovation and change.

Great number two, if you weren't a VC and money wasn't a concern, what career would you have?

31:48

And can I take a guess?

Yes and say that it has something to do with a guitar.

Unfortunately, never quite had the talent to follow the guitar full-time and I certainly put in the hours but no, it wouldn't be a less talented is not important as well.

Then yes, probably rock star but no, honestly if I feel very fortunate to be in the position to do what I do, it's not really an easy thing to do when you have, you know, it's a very high-risk job and truthfully to this because I think it's the coolest thing I could possibly do with my time.

32:19

To get to sit here every New Year's generation of Founders.

Tell you what they believe in and then see those acted, I over years now that I've seen 10 years of it, it's one of the most addictive things I could have ever imagined.

It feels like you're but a small Observer on history and maybe in a very geeky business e sense.

32:39

But certainly I feel like over the last 10 years, I've seen things that were really transformative and changed how my friends in Ireland's, my friends in France and the UK Live, their daily lives.

And so I can't really think of anything that you know, with no responsibilities that I'd rather do.

32:56

But I think certainly one thing I'd like to do is probably spend more time with my kids think I get probably more.

They're one of the few things that I get more joy out of than this job.

Yeah, no, that's amazing.

So sounds like obviously number one, you'd be a VC investor and then number two is between either being a rock star or operating treehouses.

33:17

Yeah.

I'm trying to start a band.

With my kids.

And this is hopefully a nice man.

All of those things happen.

Yeah, bundled solution.

Number three is, who is someone that you look up to, and why?

So mentioned, his name already, but certainly Alfred Lynn and I have a number of reasons for why he's a brilliant person like incredibly intelligent.

33:38

Incredibly generous with his time like I have submitted 25k Scout checks into Sequoia and I will get like a phone call from Alfred the next day wanting to debate the merits of this.

Art up.

And this is someone who I can't imagine.

How low on the priority list of things.

33:54

My 25k Scout check is for him, but it's super low and yet like he really enjoys the process of doing this.

He's also not polemic like you're not really going to see him Tweeting or blogging.

He gets on with his work.

I've seen him be immensely valuable to a lot of Founders.

34:11

He is incredible operating experience as well as investing experience.

So he's done it all and he's Relationships like, really strong relationships with people, like styling the whole length of his career, and I've seen that first time and certainly, if there's that one person, I'd like to emulate, it would be him, that's good.

34:31

I have a lot of respect for him.

To number four is what is the best piece of advice you've ever received.

Okay, so it's this is two parts and this one, I'm going to cry to Ron Conway to lessons that I learned from Ron.

That like have been immensely invaluable to me throughout my career, and number different things.

34:49

One Ron was easily the most transparent boss I ever worked for Ron would share information with us that patently we felt it was wrong for him to tell us at times that he didn't need to share with us for us to be particularly good at our job.

But he knew that we would get considerably better if he was very open with information that he was learning and he was choosing to empower us and trust us.

35:11

And that was something that I carried kind of all the way.

Am I early Airbnb?

Career and I didn't have anyone under me.

But after sort of about the second year I started building Team.

And I like immediately, I just thought back to this principle of like, how can I disclose as much as possible to the team?

35:26

But in a way that they now feel like they have the right information to their jobs better.

And also to feel like I'm someone who wants to include them who feels like there is responsible for building something successful, as I was so that was lesson.

Number one from Iran and the second lesson was a bit more direct because he used to say that I write quite regularly.

35:45

If you would maybe meet someone that he had spoken to in six years and now they're starting.

A company and and Teresa wants to fund it and Ron is this incredible networker but he's very genuine networker he doesn't do it.

Certainly not clear to anyone on the outside that he's doing it just to network and he would say it regularly that Silicon Valley is very small place.