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- [00:00]
Tony Conrad
Careful, you might get what you ask for. You know, you just got to be really careful about the way you structure your company in this era. Fast, high valuations, fast rounds, you know, inflated this, that, blah, blah, blah. It only compounds the pressure.
- [00:12]
Mike
Tony Conrad left unknown to chase the speed, experimentation and innovation of Silicon Valley startups. After building companies like Sphere and About
- [00:21]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
Me, he became one of the most influential early stage consumer investors behind brands like Blue Bottles, Sweet Green and Modern
- [00:28]
Mike
Animal at True Ventures.
- [00:30]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
Today, Tony is investing at the intersection
- [00:32]
Mike
of consumer behavior, AI and culture, backing founders, building the next generation of iconic companies.
- [00:38]
Tony Conrad
We have a miss on a market because the market, that's okay, I can live with that. But when we have a miss on a founder, that really upsets me. As your companies get to bigger and better scale, they demand more of your time. So I always took that responsibility incredibly seriously. I was working a lot more than most people. Literally 15 hour days every day. I was dead.
- [01:02]
Mike
Tony, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you, Mike?
- [01:07]
Tony Conrad
You know, I am good. I'm a little, as I was telling you earlier, I'm a little tired. We, we announced our, one of our companies, Modern Animal, got acquired and the announcement went out at 6am this morning, east coast time.
- [01:25]
Co-host/Interviewer
So I've been, I've been up doing
- [01:29]
Mike
stuff but, but that's so exciting. Congratulations on the outcome.
- [01:33]
Co-host/Interviewer
You know, I think this might be
- [01:35]
Tony Conrad
the first time I've ever done a podcast or you know, anything public facing on the heels of good news.
- [01:43]
Co-host/Interviewer
So normally I'm coming, normally I'm coming from some challenging news. So it's great to be here.
- [01:49]
Tony Conrad
Thank you.
- [01:50]
Mike
Well, I'm glad that you're, I'm glad that you're tired for good news. Yes. Instead of it, instead of it being for bad news. So that's, that, that's very good. I wanted to first talk about the beginning of your career. You spent a decade inside Denone and they're one of the most, of course, one of the most powerful consumer machines on earth.
- [02:09]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
You walked away and you went into
- [02:11]
Mike
tech and tech startups. What happened?
- [02:16]
Tony Conrad
Well, I think, you know, so first of all, like in that time period working for, you know, a CPG kind of brand focused company, that was a very coveted role. It still is a coveted role I think for a certain type of person. But you know, when I was coming out of college that was, that was just something everybody was kind of gunning for because it was great general management, P and L management training, you know, brand distribution, all that stuff. And I absolutely Loved working at Dannon. I never envisioned I would be working there for 10 years. In some ways I kept kind of getting, they didn't dupe me, but I kept duping myself into it and started off in New York and then they dangled moving to Paris and I went there for four years and then from there I ended up running mergers and acquisitions for Southeast Asia for the company. And so, you know, I just kept, kept kind of teasing it out a little bit and I kept getting more and more out of it. And so I really, really loved it. But I think it's different when you're working on something that's already at scale versus trying to work on something that is at inception of idea. And that really attracted me, right, to kind of, to kind of really better understand what I was capable of. And there's no, there's no better way to kind of figure that out than to be a solopreneur for a minute and then, you know, to get into doing things that are at the ground floor. So I really wanted to move from zero, you know, excuse me, I really wanted to move closer to zero from, you know, scale. And that was really it.
- [04:03]
Mike
Why, why on the tech side? Why, why not on like the CPG side?
- [04:08]
Tony Conrad
Because tech is, got faster iteration cycles and I think it was just,
- [04:17]
Co-host/Interviewer
you
- [04:17]
Tony Conrad
know, the direct relationship that you could have with, you know, consumers in tech is very different than kind of an arm's length relationship that you have with them. So you know, like if you're, you know, you're, if you're a brand manager of a yogurt company, you certainly are talking to consumers and trying to understand them, but you're not really interacting with them in a direct way. Right? And you're reliant on a lot of third party data, your partners, you know, to kind of get a feel for it. And tech is just like immediate. Like you see, like this thing works or it doesn't work or you know, I can run a few experiments and try to try to get it going and if that doesn't work, then you can just move on. And so I really love the data driven aspects of tech. And once I got a little bit of that taste, I couldn't imagine going back. It's like texting versus snail mail, you know what I mean? And both are effective, right?
- [05:14]
Co-host/Interviewer
And I don't mean that like in
- [05:16]
Tony Conrad
a disrespectful way, but it's just like they're both very effective ways of getting to a means to an end. But the immediacy of tech was just really, really exhilarating to me. And I never stop once I got a taste for it.
- [05:33]
Mike
Talk to me a little bit about that era. What was it like when it came to angel investing and also starting and also just being around the ecosystem. How did you get involved?
- [05:45]
Tony Conrad
Well, I've been doing this now for 25 years, almost actually getting closer to 30 years.
- [05:52]
Co-host/Interviewer
Don't want to age myself, but it's been a while.
- [05:56]
Tony Conrad
And I think, you know, when you get, you know, having access to founders, you know, in the beginning was part of the game, but then you kind of would wait around in the early days for a little bit of signal, right. And you kind of try to see where the idea was going. And as time has moved forward here, you know, you're able to move. You don't have to wait, you know, for that. It's almost too late. You, the way that our funds are set up is that we want to be the very first institutional capital that goes into a company. And so we're looking pre seed whatever is pre, pre, pre precede These days we're just trying to get involved with the right caliber of founder that is working on an interesting idea that we kind of ask ourselves, what if, you know, if they were able to succeed, you know, what does that unlock in terms of value? And so I don't think that the game hasn't really changed over time. I think that's the basic premise of what we do. It's just the, the, the time cycles have become so much more compressed and so it pushes you even harder to get, you know, to develop your networks and the kind of the flywheel in your network. So you're getting absolutely the earliest access to high caliber, interesting founders as possible. Right. And you know, if your other funds have different strategy, they want to wait until there's something that is working and then they want to make a bet that their involvement can help hyperscale it. You know, I'm more interested in being, you know, and I think we as a fund are more interested in being involved in the earliest part of that cycle because we feel like we can help impact the DNA of that company in a way that's much more significant than we can at a later stage of um, so anyways, I, I, I don't know if it's changed all that much. It's just those time cycles are just so much faster than they were before
- [08:00]
Mike
back when you were starting angel investing. And also kind of before you started your company, you just left the known. And whereas it Seems like in, in the San Francisco Bay Area, what was the approach to kind of get involved in the community and actually meet founders and even. And how did you even think about when you for were first starting on investing? What were the right founders that you actually wanted to partner with and back.
- [08:26]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about leaving Groupe Danone, there was a couple things kind of at play. One is I really wanted to get back home, right. And San Francisco. I grew up in Indiana, so this is not where I'm from. But figuratively speaking, I wanted to be back in the United States. And also in 1990, you know, 3 or 1994, 95. I was using the Netscape browser out in Asia and I was like, I was like watching Chicago Cub or not watching, I was like, you know, watching on a screen Chicago Cubs baseball and it would be like ball one,
- [09:07]
Mike
you
- [09:08]
Co-host/Interviewer
know what I mean?
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Mike
Like, it was like, I've been there, I've been there.
- [09:11]
Co-host/Interviewer
Yeah, but it was, you know, to me it was like, oh my God, this is be going to.
- [09:15]
Tony Conrad
To be amazing. And so everybody kind of knew that the Bay Area was happening and this where the movement was. And so I decided a. I wanted to get back to the U.S. it was really clear to me I wanted to live in the Bay Area because I want to be around this ecosystem. And thirdly, I also needed to take a year off. Like, I just, you know, I had, I had my, my children, my two boys while I lived in Asia. And I'd always fancied, I'm one of those odd people that at the age of five or six, I'd kind of always fancied being a father. And here I had these kids and, and I was just constantly on an airplane. You know, the job I had in Asia was a. It was a big geography to kind of COVID And so I just was never home and I really needed, I was burnt out and I needed a year off. And so I told my wife, I'm
- [10:03]
Co-host/Interviewer
going to obviously take a year off. And she says good luck with that. And, and, and she, she was working, she's an architect.
- [10:10]
Tony Conrad
And, and so we moved here and I did take that one year exactly to the day. But in that time frame I started just meeting with people, getting to know people. I didn't really know anyone in Bay Area, so I was just constantly networking and just what people were up to. And eventually I started writing a couple little checks. And so it was a great time to be an investor in 1997, that's for sure. And you didn't have to be very skilled and you'd probably have a good outcome. So anyways, that's how I got into it. And then the crash happened. And I think that's such an amazing moment in the history of Silicon Valley because it kind of showed a glimpse to the future, the speed of the future, and valuing companies in a different way, valuing what could happen and how could it unlock additional TAM and all that kind of stuff. But it also. It was. Well, yeah, I mean, I just think it was. It was just a perfect moment to. To kind of like pause and see a lot of the people. I don't know how to phrase this is why I'm struggling a little bit. But like, a lot of the posers, like, I guess is what I'll say. You know, a lot of people thought it was kind of quick, easy money, and those people had kind of gotten involved in tech and they weren't really in it, I think for the right set of reasons, which is about creating, you know, it's about making something from nothing. Just. I mean, yes, it comes with great rewards, but that can't be the primary driver. And I just think the community had become overly populated with that type of, you know, kind of professional. And so a lot of those folks kind of went back to their corporate jobs and comfort, you know, places that were a little bit more comfortable for them. But a handful of us kind of stayed back here because we could see the data doesn't lie. And it was like a, you know, every time you looked up, the stadium was getting fuller and fuller and fuller of people. And while there weren't business models, it's clear that there was traction and that it was working and there was something really interesting here. So I knew at that moment, like, this is what I'm doing. This is, this is. This is how I'm going to ride out the rest of my career. I'm going to be working around this stuff because I knew it would work and it eventually did work.
- [12:43]
Mike
So do you think, looking at that era, that late 90s, early 2000 era, when there was a big tech crash and there obviously was a bubble and then a crash, since you, I know that you've been through, you know, quite a few cycles, how do you think about this AI era? Do you think that right now there's a bubble when it comes to AI and there's going to be a crash or going to be. A change in terms of valuations that's quite substantial?
- [13:23]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, I think all of that, I mean, I do. Crash is a strong word here, I think.
- [13:31]
Mike
Is the market frothy? I guess maybe that's a better. That's a better way to say it, for sure.
- [13:36]
Tony Conrad
And I think, you know, markets correct themselves when things get misvalued and overly valued. Right. And so I think what's tricky about AI in this kind of era of new company is the TAMS on some of these companies. You know, these foundation. Foundational models are just extraordinary. And how it plays out in the application layer is to be seen. But I suspect that we'll have a lot of things in the beginning that are misvalued, and we can get back. We can get into that a little bit later when we talk about some of the risks and pitfalls for founders in this era. But I. Yeah, I just think. I do think there's a correction that will have to happen. In order for the models to work for everybody. Right. For the founders, for the entrepreneurs, the team members, for us as investors, RLP's. You know, I do think there has to be a correction at some point in time. So I think that's coming.
- [14:48]
Mike
Yeah, that's fair. It's very, very fair. So how did you end up at True?
- [14:54]
Tony Conrad
You know, True is I'm so glad I ended up partnering with John and Phil and Panee and Tony and, you know, so many of our team members here. You know, it was. Phil Black and I were sharing an office. This is back in that moment when like the. The market had crashed, it was 2003. And he said, just come work out of my office. And I was like, okay, I'll come do that free office. It's great at a pool table. It was fun. And he asked me if I wanted to join him in the fund. He was raising a different fund at that point in time called Blacksmith Capital. And I said, you know, no, I want to actually see if I can start a company. I feel like this is the moment. Right. And so that was when I found it.
- [15:42]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
Why?
- [15:42]
Mike
Why, sorry? Why did you feel like that was the moment when you said that so many people were kind of going back to their corporate jobs? I understand if you went back to your corporate job, you'd be travel around Asia or role. But was that. Was that ever on the table for you?
- [15:55]
Tony Conrad
No, that was never on the table. That's never been on the table since. Since that moment, like never one second have I actually dreamt or thought about that. What had happened. I got a Little Lucky in 2003. I invested in a company called Odd Post and founded by Ethan diamond and Ian lamb and the CEO of it was my partner now here at True, Tony Schneider, who subsequently became the CEO of Automatic WordPress and was also my co founder in a little another chapter in a company called Sphere, which we're going to get to here in a second. So odd post though was amazing because they were, they were really innovating on the edge of dhtml, which is Ajax, and it's what makes the web interactive and you know, and asynchronous.
- [16:48]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
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- [17:39]
Tony Conrad
Link in the show notes it Seeing these guys develop this company with $1 million total, they were like living in a library. They were pl. They were using things like a shared server, like, which became cloud.
- [17:54]
Co-host/Interviewer
Obviously costs were really low and they
- [17:59]
Tony Conrad
had a massive success. And I thought, wow, the cost to do these things has gone so far down that, you know, I think I can, you know, with a half million dollars, I think I can get something up and running and see if I have a good idea here. So that was really how that transition happened. At the exact same time though, Phil and John Callahan were getting together and founding True Ventures. And they asked me if I wanted to join and I said, you know, I wanted to do this company and, and I didn't think I could do that both. And they said, well, we get to write our own rules, we're starting our own fund, so why don't you join and, and you can do both. And I was like, how is that going to work? And they go, we'll figure it out.
- [18:43]
Co-host/Interviewer
So one of the first things that
- [18:44]
Tony Conrad
they did which was Amazing was they moved our partner meetings to Tuesday because for both Tony and I, it felt disingenuous for us to go work on our companies and show up on Monday morning, be the first thing that we did right. And so it just, we kind of felt our way around it. And I think what we realized really quickly, Mike, was what an unfair advantage it was to be both a venture capitalist and a founder simultaneously. I guess Reid Hoffman had done that, Andreessen had done that, and a handful of others, but it wasn't, that wasn't a thing that most people did. And it was just like in the boardroom, we were learning so much about growth hacks and things that were working that we could apply to our company. And when we were just being entrepreneurs, we were mixing with other entrepreneurs. And so it's deal flow was great and it made it really, really easy to kind of do both. And so we did both until. Until eventually we couldn't do both. Eventually you can't. Eventually that breaks.
- [19:53]
Mike
When was that moment? When was that moment for you is
- [19:55]
Tony Conrad
when your company works and your venture,
- [20:00]
Co-host/Interviewer
I think honestly that is when it breaks and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to blow my brains out. Like, how am I, how am I going to do both? You know, like, I just, you know, I was just, I was dead, you know, and by the way, I did,
- [20:13]
Tony Conrad
I signed up for this, you know, duality gig, you know, for over a decade because I went on to do another company as well. So.
- [20:23]
Co-host/Interviewer
Twice.
- [20:24]
Mike
Yeah, no, exactly. Well, talk to me a little bit about when you actually at the moment said I can no longer do do. True. And kind of had to focus on, you know, not that you weren't full time, but all of your energy onto the company.
- [20:37]
Tony Conrad
I don't think I ever got to that where like, I felt like I can't do this. It just, it was just tiring, you know, and as your companies get to bigger and better scale, you know, they demand more of your time and the stake, the table stakes are much higher and you owe it to those founders. And so I always took that responsibility incredibly seriously. It just meant that I felt like maybe I was working a lot more than most people. Probably not true, but like, you know, at least in my head, I was just like, my God, I mean, I'm working, you know, literally 15 hour days every day, and I got my family and I'm going home and I'm going to make sure I'm going to be there for dinner and bedtime and then I'm going to pop back up on my screen, you know, in the basement, you know, my glowing machine in a dark basement. You know, the, the optics were pretty bad for sure.
- [21:32]
Mike
So I know that you've, you've obviously you came originally from cpg. You started tech investing and investing in tech. You started, you started to two tech companies as well.
- [21:42]
Tony Conrad
Yeah.
- [21:43]
Mike
Why? What fascinated you about four Wall and retail concepts?
- [21:50]
Tony Conrad
Oh, you know, I think that most people just see four walls but you know, I just see it as a distribution node for a brand and you know, if it works it's not about the unit or you know, for me it's more about what it unlocks. There's brand, there's product expansion, there's cultural relevance and then I think if you can get to scale. One thing people don't really understand about 4 wallet is it's incredibly highly defensible. Right. The costs for somebody to get into that game are so much capex. Yeah, it's a lot of capital and that's kind of the knock on it and that's why it falls out of favor in a moment like this where AI is so super scale and all that that it's kind of hard to justify working on four wall stuff in this moment. But that'll change. That'll change because those same things I just said about defensibility and your ability to create very large scale businesses, you know, is real. And that's not going to go away. It's not like physical part of our world is going to, you know, disappear. At least in my lifetime. Maybe in yours you're younger than me, but not in mine.
- [23:03]
Mike
Well, okay, so one of the first four wall concepts, I believe, I believe one of the first wall. The one of the first four wall businesses that you invested in was Blue Bottle. That was one of the first ones. What attracted you about Blue Bottle? What were some of like the early signals that you felt had the ingredients where it could actually become a business
- [23:25]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
that makes sense for venture.
- [23:27]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, it's a perfect storm. I wasn't looking for it. You know, it was always a coffee kind of aficionado and you know it was, it was a space that I thought was interesting. I knew Blue Bottle. They'd had their one cafe here. A buddy of mine, Brian Meehan, who had founded a couple of other companies and very successful guy, he came over for dinner one night and asked him what he was working on. He said I'm working on. Don't tell anyone but there's this cafe called Blue Bottle. Do you know and I, yeah, of course I know it. In fact, I even know the founder he serves in the farmer's market and I always talk to him and extraction techniques and all this stuff, like whatever we were kind of geeking out about. He goes, well, I think, you know, he's open to actually a venture kind of type investment. And I go, how much do you think it would be? He goes, I think we're going to need $10 million. I go, I'll do half. And I literally shook his head.
- [24:30]
Co-host/Interviewer
He'll tell you the same story. I literally, I just leaned forward, I
- [24:32]
Tony Conrad
go, I'll do half. And he goes, like, for real? And I go, guaranteed. So then I came back and we had a policy here, true that you
- [24:43]
Co-host/Interviewer
have to, you kind of have to disclose anytime you're investing over a certain amount and you know, in anything just to make sure.
- [24:51]
Tony Conrad
And I think one of my partners asked me like, why? Why? I thought it was interesting that I would do that. And I was like, well, oh my God, I just laid out this thesis around, you know, there's Starbucks, there's obviously going to be an alternative to that. This is a very different kind of approach. And can they take 5 to 10% of the market cap of Starbucks? Absolutely. Like, you know, and for me it was like the question I kept asking myself was, no matter, any place in the world where there was a Starbucks, if you were to open a blue bottle or a kind of a artisanal based coffee shop across the street, how would it do? And the answer was it would do incredibly well. Would it kill Starbucks? No. But would it do incredibly well? Absolutely. And for me that was so that was the market sizing. I just kind of understood intuitively. And then the brand and what James Freeman, the founder kind of stood for was to me the same things you always look for in any tech investment. High conviction, a real like point of view around how you, you know, the entire like from the moment you walk in, what's the door handle to, getting to the point of sale, you know, using a square machine, having limited menu, having espresso drinks only consumed in porcelain kind of cups. Now they now do them in paper cups, but in porcelain cups at the time on premise people, because it should be consumed at a certain temperature. All this kind of stuff, this level of detail, just so like amazing to me. And it's the same thing that you find in the best founders, period like of any probably industry, but certainly in tech. And I was just like, you know what, this is a no brainer. The combination of Brian and him. This is like, let's go do this. And you know, we never look back. And it became, became certainly one of the more notable. It's not by, by an order of magnitude, not the largest outcome we've ever had, but it's just a very notable brand moment for us as a firm. And still today, you know, people, people
- [27:05]
Co-host/Interviewer
think of me as blue Bottle Tony. And I'm like, well, I've done these other things.
- [27:09]
Mike
I know he's done a lot of other things. By the way, Modern Animal just sold too. It was this morning, right?
- [27:17]
Co-host/Interviewer
Sweet green that we did.
- [27:18]
Mike
Yes, of course.
- [27:19]
Co-host/Interviewer
And then we have another one, you know, Madison Reed, which is massive in
- [27:24]
Tony Conrad
the, in the hairspace. And you know, and Amy Ehrett, who is a phenomenal founder. Phenomenal founder and one of our venture partners here at TRU as well. So, you know, it can work for sure.
- [27:38]
Mike
What, how does, how does True invest? Meaning when you decide that you want to, that you found a company that, that you want to invest in on. On True, how does it actually work? Do you need other partner buy in or are. How, how much, how much independence do you actually have in terms of, in terms of making the bet?
- [28:02]
Tony Conrad
I think you have a lot of independence to make the final decision. You do not have carte blanche independence to run the traps on. Is this a good idea? You know, what are the pros and cons of doing it all by yourself in a little silo and then go make that decision? That doesn't work for us. I think what we want to do is free us up to have healthy discussion, right. And to depersonalize it so we can just talk about the merits of a deal or a space or a founder in a way that's much more authentic. But ultimately, you know, each one of us is experienced enough and has hopefully kind of earned the right to be able to make the call. Right? You know, it's like, it's like, it's like being the head coach at the end, like on each deal, you're kind of like the head coach.
- [28:58]
Co-host/Interviewer
You know, you assemble a bunch of players, you go off, you diligence it,
- [29:01]
Tony Conrad
you do all the work. You know, you figure out whatever you're. You're open to listening to different kind of plays, but ultimately you got to make the call. And, and, and so that's what the kind of culture that we've tried to create here and not second guessing each other, right? And I've had, I've had deals where people are just like, oh, please don't do that. And you know, by the way I should probably listen most of those cases but a couple of times I've had deals and I won't tell you which
- [29:26]
Co-host/Interviewer
ones but there where I was just like, you know what, I'm going to make the call, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna do it. It's worked out just fine.
- [29:37]
Mike
Do you think in some ways it's an advantage of being in multi categories beyond just software businesses?
- [29:43]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, massive, massive. I mean this be great. There's thesis investors out there which I'm not one of them that we could sit here with and we can probably have a great debate on that. Right. How you know, your understanding of a space compounds really quickly the more that you're in it. And I do believe in that. Like I do believe I could go pull a trigger on another coffee investment and I don't want to and I'm not going to because I don't want to. I don't want to diminish what we accomplish with Blue Bottle. But like do I think I could could be successful again in that space? Absolutely. Because like I understand it but I do think that there's for a fund I love that we have a bunch of contrarian bets and lots of different categories. Everything from biology to I mean we have massive, massive unicorn companies and you know, at the intersection of biology and AI stuff that I don't even I have no clue about. Right. Thankfully we have partners that do Rohit and Adam and Puneet and Puneet does all kinds of stuff in security.
- [30:59]
Co-host/Interviewer
He's dead. Like he did duo security and they did version.
- [31:04]
Tony Conrad
Beza just had a $1.6 billion exit. It's just like there is real value in that but not for. If all of us were just security folks, you know, or biology folks, I think we'd be missing out on a broader set of opportunities that were that are quite interesting and can be real fun makers for us.
- [31:27]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much under delivering overcharging and incompetence, you truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with all only brand beloved highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates, agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the hidden gems first. It's free service, biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose Link in the show notes.
- [32:20]
Mike
How do you think about. Because I know you also have an extraordinary angel investment portfolio. How do you think about what makes sense from an angel investment perspective like Flower and Water and Trick Dog versus, you know, fund investments like Blue Bottle, Sweet Green. What's actually different? And do you know when you talk to a founder and if you're interested in the company, which bucket something kind of goes into?
- [32:44]
Tony Conrad
I do, I do, I do. And we try, we try not to do a lot of personal investing, right? Especially anything that could be around the edges. And as we've done things like Blue Bottle and these things, you know, it makes it harder and harder to find a kind of unique edge out there. So over time I've done less, less so. But I think on the personal basis for me it's about taste driven. They're often smaller, sometimes non scalable ideas, but they're things and they're people I want to back. They're people that I can turn a very modest amount of capital into a 3x, you know, or maybe a 4x 5x in a reasonable time frame. And you know, it's great and it's fantastic. On the fun level, there needs to be a path. Got to really believe on every investment you make that if things went right, you got a few lucky breaks and you got the right team, you know, the right founders, as, you know, protagonists that you could return the entire fund. Like in each one of our funds, we're now on our eighth fund. We've always had a company, you know, let's just go through the first four funds which are the mature funds. We've always had a company that does that, that returns the entire fund. Right. And so that's, you just have to, you have to have a real understanding, nuanced understanding of the different buckets there.
- [34:11]
Mike
I know it all depends about check size and that sort of thing, but when you underrate, I know it's if thing goes right, as you say, it has to return the whole fund. Does that, does that mean like a 10x return for example, based on the portfolio, based on the, the actual company specifically? Or is that, or is that upwards
- [34:31]
Tony Conrad
I think it's upwards. I think it's 25x and above 25x.
- [34:35]
Mike
So it has to. So you, so you're underwriting if everything goes right and you have a couple lucky breaks that you can get a 25x on that return on that investment.
- [34:45]
Tony Conrad
We've, you know, we have investments where we've made 75x.
- [34:49]
Mike
Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. That's extraordinary.
- [34:54]
Tony Conrad
It's extraordinary. Right.
- [34:56]
Co-host/Interviewer
But you know, you got to really push for that.
- [34:58]
Tony Conrad
You got to make sure, you know, and by the way, you know, like when we've got it wrong, which is most of the time, right. And that's the nature of this. Most of the time you're kind of. I mean, we have lower batting average than probably, you know, the like low end of a baseball, you know, professional baseball player.
- [35:18]
Co-host/Interviewer
You know what I mean? But when you get it right, it's
- [35:20]
Tony Conrad
just so crazy good. And when it doesn't go right, you know, there's two things that, well, one thing is inexcusable to me get wrong, which is the founder that we back. And you know, that is the thing where we need to over index and make sure that we're getting the right founder. Now, obviously we don't get 100%, we have Mrs. There too. But when that happens, when we have a miss on a founder, that bothers me like that, that really upsets me. When we have a miss on a market because the market didn't develop or kind of become something that we didn't. That, you know, it didn't become what we envisioned that it might be able to become. That's okay. Like, that's okay. That's just, you know, you just, you just, there's a why in the road and you just ended up on the wrong side of it and that's okay. And execution, that's okay too. Like if, you know, if you miss execution, you know, it's a bummer. Especially when that market is real and you just miss executed. That is a bummer. But I can live with that. But I can't live with it when we get the founder wrong. It's just that, that, that to me is like, that's basic 101 stuff that we gotta get right.
- [36:33]
Mike
How do you know if you have the wrong founder?
- [36:36]
Tony Conrad
Well, the first. Well, how do you know if you have the right founder?
- [36:42]
Co-host/Interviewer
Let's talk about that. All right? Now, I'm like my mother, I'm an optimist, right? You know, this is what I do. You know, I like it when a
- [36:56]
Tony Conrad
Founder is not rushed, is. Does not think of this as a game, is incredibly thoughtful. As thoughtful as we are about working with them as they are about working with, with us. Like, I like a founder that asks questions, and it's always a telltale for me at the end of a pitch if they actually ask any questions. If they don't ask, you can't tell you how many times people don't ask questions. And I may have even liked the idea up until that point in time and the founder, but then they didn't ask any questions. And it gnaws on me. And I've learned that that's. That's a pattern recognition moment. Like, you got to ask questions. Like, otherwise they're not going to ask the right questions to their partners, to prospective employees, you know, teammates, you know, all kinds of stuff. Right. They're just. They're just not. They're just going to be so in their own head, they're not going to be curious about what makes you tick. And so I like that. I like a founder that understands storytelling. I mean, and not like a fictional story, but, like, help. Help me understand your narrative. Like, I'm really interested in, like, the humanity of all this. Like, who's the human behind, you know, the, the, the name. And, you know, sometimes I'll walk into, and you'll have a founder that's maybe less experienced or nervous or whatever, and, and they'll have their presentation up, you know, on the screen by the time you walk in and. And they're ready to just kind of jump into it. And I'm. And I'm just like, just spend 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Let's just talk. I've done about the Chicago Cubs, you know, but let's talk about, like, you know, like, who are you? Like, tell me about you so I can understand, you know, the journey that you've been on, how you ended up sitting across the table from me. And I also like to share that back, you know, in a much more cryptic way. But, you know, I like to share that back. So I don't. Wait. I don't want to waste their time. Right. You know, this is their show, not my show. But I do want to share a little bit about that. So that's it. That's how I know if we got the right founders or not.
- [39:06]
Mike
How in this age where it seems like some categories, like AI for example, are moving super quick and founders are raising so much money and things are just going really quick, and maybe they. They kind of have to be rushed in A lot of senses. What's, what's your view on that? When it comes to talking with founders, if they have to move really quickly,
- [39:29]
Tony Conrad
you have to work, you have to move in a calculated way. So you do have to have a certain cadence to the way that you, you know, process and you kind of the, the decisions that you make and the moves that you make. My partner, John Callahan's pilot, and John, by the way, is one of the top venture capitalists in the world. We don't talk about because we don't publish our data, but I know the data and John is exceptional and he always says no. Quick hands is one of the first things they teach you as a pilot. And so when you're up there and something goes wrong in your aircraft, you gotta process very quickly, but at the same time you just can't help yourself. Yeah, panic, right? And so you really, you really need to do that. You need, you need people that are going to move with a strategy in place and tactics, but in a very calculated way. And I think that what we see is that, you know, like certain things, like fast, high valuations, you know, fast rounds, you know, inflation plated, you know, this, that, blah, blah, blah, you know, it only compounds the pressure later, right? And it shows up, it's harder to follow on rounds. There's less room to grow into the story. It's misaligned expectations. It's just all this stuff. And I've been seeing this now for 30 years and it's hard in a moment like this in particular where like, yeah, you know, you got an idea, let me value it at $50 million. But like, be careful, you might get what you ask for. Like, and founders, if you're that one founder, and every founder thinks they're that one right unicorn where like, damn it, I should not have given away 20% of my business early on for 5 million bucks, right?
- [41:22]
Co-host/Interviewer
You know, or even worse, it's like,
- [41:27]
Tony Conrad
you know, seriously, just slow down and like, structure your business in a way that is smart and creates an opportunity for you to be able to capitalize that company with the right people at the right valuations that make sense, right? That create an opportunity for you to have exits later or to eventually become a sustainable public standing company. All that stuff is really important to get right in this moment. I think most people are getting that wrong. I really do. And that's not being self serving. Like, I go back to my own companies, you know, sphere. And about me, like, I was an accomplished person already in the community. I could have Named valuations much higher on Sphere than I did. I could have, certainly when I did about me, I could have named kind of whatever I wanted in terms of valuation because it's a success of Sphere and the success stuff that we were doing with WordPress and automatic and Matt and Tony. Right. Like, but I didn't, like, I valued my company at $5 million. I took, you know, I took 20% dilution for a million dollars. Like I didn't need to do that. I could have taken 5% dilution, you know, But I'm glad I did because it presented itself, it presented, there was an early opportunity to have a great exit that was accretive to all of us and meaningful to my co founders and, and team members. And we were in position where we could go do that. Right. And feel great about it. And so we, you know, you just gotta be really careful about the way you structure your company in this era.
- [43:04]
Mike
No, totally. I mean, I've, I've heard you on past shows say that founders should resist overheating their early valuations. And you know, I know that you obviously, as you mentioned, Pat, you price your own last, last company very modestly. And when he could have gone higher, talk to me about like what Seed is currently at and because it seems like it's pretty inflated and if that's the case, how do you compete?
- [43:36]
Tony Conrad
It is inflated for sure. And the, there's lots of things where we just, we're going to be disciplined and we're not gonna, we're not gonna succumb to the pressure. But luckily, because of our reputation and our track, you know, our performance, you know, in the marketplace, we have an amazing flywheel of founders that we've worked with in the past who either go on to create new companies and they want to come back and work with us, or they're sending us, you know, team members that spun out of their successful company. Right. And so those type of founders, I think are the ones that we're working with. I think they're a little savvier in a lot of ways and they're over indexing on getting the right partner at this stage because it changes everything. If you get the wrong partner at this stage, it just. Your world is going to suck. I can't say it any better.
- [44:32]
Co-host/Interviewer
I've just been on too many boards
- [44:34]
Tony Conrad
where I've seen the wrong type of investment partner common. And I always say like, thankfully we're there because we can help protect the cultural DNA of the company. We can make sure that we buy. I Mean, I have. We have so many crazy stories, Mike. Like, companies that have gone public where the growth investors wanted to throw the founder, CEO who got us to that spot, you know, overboard, like six months, nine months before they went public. Like, just crazy, crazy stories where we've had to say, like, we're not voting for that. No way they've earned the right to take this thing public.
- [45:15]
Co-host/Interviewer
Like, we're gonna go all the way.
- [45:16]
Tony Conrad
Like, so there's just a lot of behavior out there that I think people are. They want their people in, you know, like, I want my people in to run this. And, and I think, like, that, that you just have to be careful about as a founder to make sure that you're getting the right partners around the table. So I think we're able to get our deal still, you know, we've never had a median ownership under 20% in any of our funds.
- [45:44]
Mike
Well, at what point, at what point does it make sense to oust the founder? What do they have to do?
- [45:51]
Tony Conrad
Anything fraudulent? Where we've had, you know, we've had that. We've had founders that are not collaborative and are hiding. They're not transparent, they're not open about what's not working and what, you know, you know what, what is working is easy, but what is not working. You know, just like in life, there are certain people that know how to manage up, but they don't know how to manage laterally or down. And so they're really good managing their board. But then we'll start to hear horror stories about how they're interacting with their executive leadership team or the culture is toxic, those kinds of things. Those are areas where I think it's like, it's not so much like ousting, but it's evolving. You know, moving away from a founder,
- [46:46]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
you know, like this episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much under delivering overcharging and incompetence, you truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then, it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates. Agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the hidden gems first. It's free service, biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose link in the show notes.
- [47:40]
Tony Conrad
I mean I'm still of the school belief that there's never a scenario in which a company benefits by not having its original founder or founders involved in the company. That may be an advisory role, it might be in a board role, it might be an operating role. There's all kinds of different ways that can happen. That doesn't mean that they're CEO and that's okay. I will line up on that if I think it's the right decision for the company. But rarely, rarely does that come to that. Most of the time I think that the founders that we're working with and why I say selecting the right people that you want to work with and then getting them, convincing them to want to work with you is that they're going to have a lot of self awareness, you know, the type of founder that we like working with and their going to know even before I do most of the time that it's time for them to maybe step aside. And I would say in over 80% of the cases when somebody has stepped away from being or when somebody we have made a change in things I've been involved with where we've made a change at the CEO level, they've been driving that or co driving that with us. Right. As opposed to us kind of like hey, this is not going to be a good day.
- [49:06]
Co-host/Interviewer
We sit down and have a bad
- [49:08]
Tony Conrad
tough conversation with you. Right. That just almost rarely, that almost never really happens, you know. But to be clear, it has happened. Been doing this for 30 years and yes, there's a handful of people out there that probably if they're listening to this go like well wait, that wasn't my case, you know, but that's not, that's not the norm here.
- [49:30]
Mike
How do you think though balancing that with your fiduciary responsibility of, with you know, LPs and obviously investors to obviously, you know, get the highest return on your investment.
- [49:47]
Tony Conrad
I think if all you're trying to do is get the highest return on your investment through hardcore execution, that's going to present problems later. Without naming any of these companies, I'm sure there's like five that just flashed in front of your mind where we know these kind of CEOs that just drove, drove, drove, drove, drove, drove and then everybody Kind of knew everybody swept it under the rug because they're executing really, really well and there is a massive price to pay, you know, down the road. And so I think that's not a healthy company. That's not a good company. And so you either pay the price now or you pay the price later. You know, in those situations,
- [50:38]
Mike
that's, that's fair. That's fair. I want to talk a little bit about, about, about me. You've described about me as a, as a capital efficient win. You've had two exits, a loyal user base, even if it didn't quite become the identity layer of the web that it was supposed to. What did that outcome teach you about how founders should define winning for themselves?
- [51:05]
Tony Conrad
You know, I'm proud of the work that we did at about me. And as you noted, we did have a very successful outcome. Bought it back then had another successful
- [51:18]
Mike
outcome, which is so rare. I mean, unbelievable.
- [51:21]
Co-host/Interviewer
It is rare and we're lucky that
- [51:24]
Tony Conrad
that happened or maybe we were skilled in making that happen, you know, hopefully a little bit of both. But I felt like it was a colossal failure for a bunch of different reasons. One is I shouldn't have sold it the first time, even though we had a great outcome because it was way too young and it wasn't ready and you know, AOL bought it. AOL was fantastic. I have nothing but nice things to say about aol. Tim Armstrong, their team there, like they were, they over delivered everything from what we expected. But the reality was it wasn't even a year old and it just wasn't ready for that. It needed more time to become.
- [52:14]
Mike
Why did they buy it? Why did they buy it?
- [52:16]
Tony Conrad
Well, because I think Tim, you know, Tim had built the revenue business at Google on the ad side and then he became very high profile CEO, you know, for aol. You know, AOL still had juice. It had a lot of assets and a lot of potential. And you know, so, you know, he came in and I think he looked around, he's like, okay, I've got a bunch of legacy business here that are, that are good, but I gotta find my, you know, my ipod, you know, and I need to take some shots on goal. And so I was, you know, they had also bought Sphere. And so I was leaving as he was coming in and I think he said, hey, you know, like, but you're the kind of person I need to have here. And I'm like, but Tim, I'm, I want to go, I want to go start another business. And I've stayed longer Than, you know, my lock up. Like, you know, I was above board here. Like, he's like, well, how about you be an advisor to me into the aol? And I'm like, okay, sure. And so we just stayed close and then just kind of over the course of that year of working on this idea, he just loved it. He, he totally groked it and loved it and I really liked him and respected him. And so he made us offer. And it's one of those moments where for me that, that offer, it was meaningful because it was like second time success. So like from that, but the financial rewards of it, I didn't need those, you know, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but I just did not need those. I had enough money already at that point, but I had co founders and I had team members and other people that this was going to be their first exit and it was meaningful to them. And so I just felt like, you know, let's do it. And so I kind of talked myself into it a little bit. It. I still think the premise, like somebody out there, I wish if I had more energy, I'd go do it again. Because I think the way that we learn about each other, we're just kind of outsourcing our identity to Google and who knows, AI, I guess here in the future, but we're just really outsourcing it. And I don't know, like, you know, if anybody's listening to this. I don't Google myself every day. So in fact I don't even, I
- [54:46]
Co-host/Interviewer
don't think I ever Google myself. I have no idea why it might come up.
- [54:49]
Tony Conrad
But you really want, you want to control that narrative of how you see yourself. And by the way, I don't want to also. I don't think of LinkedIn as my, I love reading and in that team there. But that's my professional identity. That's not who I am as a holistic person. And Facebook was kind of in that era was like, that's my social, that's my social graph and you know, like all that kind of stuff. And that also doesn't cover the professional side. So about me was just like this little simple idea that you could put it in your email signature, put it in your Twitter bio, put it wherever you are on the web. And people who are curious, like, oh, who's Tony Conrad? They click on that, there's a picture of me and here's a little bit about me and then here's all the links to the Things where you can find me on the web. And that's it. And I just think that that idea is still relevant today. So somebody go out there and do it. And then we had the name about me, which was amazing to have that name, you know, so.
- [55:54]
Mike
No, for sure, for sure. That's. Thank you so much for explaining it. And also the premise and the thesis that you had that you still don't. You still think there's an opportunity there in terms of building something for it.
- [56:09]
Tony Conrad
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I just think, like, yeah, your identity is so much broader than any one of these social kind of vertical, you know, channels that we're in.
- [56:24]
Mike
I know you're a generalist investor. I know we talked a lot about your consumer portfolio, which I really do appreciate you talking about it over the years. Consumer has kind of constantly been out of favor at least the past few years. What's your view? And do you feel like you're spending more time looking at B2B versus consumer?
- [56:46]
Tony Conrad
I am. Right this second. So consumer may go in and out of favor with investors, but it never goes out of favor with consumers.
- [56:58]
Co-host/Interviewer
Right. Like literally. So, you know, pause on that and then you're like, okay, consumer has this twisted relationship with tech where it kind
- [57:08]
Tony Conrad
of comes and it goes and it comes and it goes. Right now though, we're clearly in a, you know, a platform shift, you know, to AI. In fact, that shift has already happened. Now it's not even happening where I think the infrastructure layer and the tool layer is the most interesting here in the beginning, but soon it will be the application layer, both on the enterprise side and on the consumer side. And what we do know is that if you look historically in any of these big waves, the infrastructure layer, excuse me, the application layer is about 10x the value of the infrastructure layer. So there's a lot amazing outcomes that will happen around applications. But right now I think it's important for us to double down on some of the bigger kind of infrastructure type problems. You know, security being like, you know, foremost in our mind right now. And the entire stack, as we all know, like, it's boring. Anybody who's listening is like, yeah, I already know that, dude. Like, like the entire stack is, is being rewritten. And, and so I mean there's just incredible opportunities out there. And so that's what, that's what we're a little bit focused on now. We have three investments or I have three investments that, you know, on behalf of true that I kind of co sponsored or sponsored that I'm very Excited about that start to. I think they're kind of like prosumer business and I know a lot of people hate that word and I kind of hate that word, but it's the best way to describe it. So there's a company called Autos, another one called Pulse. Both these companies, oddly enough are chasing the same idea, which is using AI as your co founder. Right. And you know, you know, it's kind of the idea is you, you click once, give a few prompts and you go to bed and you wake up in the morning you got a company and then that company, you know, all the ops around it, the infrastructure, infrastructure stuff, all the marketing, consumer acquisition videos, ads, all that stuff is just being created by the agents and these companies are growing incredibly fast. So Autos and pulsea are the two that are both, they're coming at slightly different angles but they're both attacking kind of the same area. We can talk a little bit about how that happens because we don't.
- [59:47]
Mike
Yeah, we'd love to.
- [59:48]
Tony Conrad
Bets. Yeah, in the same space. And then the other one is Nectar
- [59:53]
Mike
Social, which I know Misbah well, she's great.
- [59:57]
Tony Conrad
Misbah and Farrah are, wow. You know, X meta, you know, they, they know their, they know all this social stuff incredibly well. And if you think about like websites being the, you know, the, the consumer engineering, you know, the DMs are now, you know, where the consumer is, you know, decisions, right. And interacting. And so Nectar Social is, I think, I mean, I think all three of these companies are going to be monster sized companies and they all have great, you know, Henrik and Nicholas at Autos, Ben who's a solopreneur at Polsia, and Ms. Ben Vera, they're just all fantastic founders to work with. So anyways, I think we're starting to move closer to this maybe consumer application area.
- [60:52]
Mike
So why are you able to make two bets in the same space?
- [60:57]
Tony Conrad
Well, we invested in one of the companies. It won't go into the total history here, but this happens sometimes where you invest in a space, you invest in a company. It's really clear Company A going after that idea that I just described. And you invest in something that's over here and really not at all there, but they're working on some different stuff and they kind of pivot a little bit and pivot a little bit more and pivot a little bit more and the next thing you know, like, oh, you wake up and you got two companies in the exact same space. And that's what happened in this particular case. And so, you know, it's a little tricky, but luckily, you know, all of those founders understand, you know, nothing was done intentionally. And, and now we've got these, you know, sort of, we've got these, these companies in our portfolio and our job is to be as supportive to both of them as possible. Right. And to have great guardrails around, you know, no sharing of information and all that kind of different stuff. So, you know, it's working out. I think it's always tricky. You just gotta, you gotta be in open dialogue and, you know, on our end, you know, we have to not overreact. I think if I was in their, in their, like, seat, you know, I'd be, I'd be a little bit upset, right? And I'd want to understand. But once I think I understood what happened or how that happened, then I'd be okay with it. Like, it'd be like, okay, I got it. Like, let's move forward here. This is not what we should focus on. Focus on our own company and go for it.
- [62:38]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much under delivering overcharging and incompetence, you truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates, agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the Hidden Gems first. It's free service. Biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose Link in the show notes.
- [63:31]
Mike
Yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's great that you're being upfront with it, by the way. I mean, you're saying it here, even publicly, so that's, that's, that's really impressive.
- [63:39]
Tony Conrad
I will say it because, you know, it sucks. You know, it does suck. It sucks for me, it sucks for. You know, it sucks on one level, but once again, any fund of our size when we have, you know, $4 billion under management, like you're just going to have things that end up overlapping. It's just, it's just the reality. You know, I remember there's been lots of times where we, we did not invest in things because being so concerned
- [64:09]
Mike
that, that it would be overlapping.
- [64:11]
Tony Conrad
Well, we knew it was overlapping and yet there were big outcomes. Like, so, you know, when I was on the board of Automattic and WordPress, you know, we did not invoke Best in Tumblr and we could have, you know, there's just, there's. There's things like that out there because it was so clear to us that that was whatever. It turns out that Tumblr and WordPress are kind of very different.
- [64:30]
Mike
Very different. Yeah.
- [64:31]
Tony Conrad
But in the time, it felt like they were the exact same thing, you know, And I know Andreessen had some stuff, you know, around Instagram and, and some other company, and they think they. Yeah, I can't remember what happened, but I think, you know, they kind of had a falling out with the Instagram guys and, you know, so they ended up having a stronger relationship with the other company. That other company went out of business and program, we all know, you know, had a fabulous success. So, you know, I think it's best if you can just avoid getting to a, you know, we're going to detonate the nuclear option here.
- [65:08]
Co-host/Interviewer
You know, there's a reason we're all
- [65:09]
Tony Conrad
working well together and, you know, these hiccups happen and, you know, it's part of life and so move on.
- [65:16]
Mike
Totally. What, what's your view on. On mega funds? Have they been really hard to compete with?
- [65:24]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, Yeah. I think more money you have, the sloppier you're going to be on valuations and rigor. And I also think, like, in some of these mega funds, you know, buyer beware, you know, you take what feels like maybe, you know, what feels to me like a very large round now, you know, 15, $20 million, you're taking it from one of these mega funds, but doesn't mean you're going to get the attention because it's such a small amount of their capital. Right. And so as soon as your idea isn't working that hard, they're just going to focus on other things. And that's not the way we work. So, you know, we want to be here for all the iterations of it, because it's when it. Once you finally get to the kind of promised land, that's what's rewarding. You understand all of that. It. It's just, it's messy, it's murky.
- [66:35]
Co-host/Interviewer
All the m. Words it's all that. And then when you get there you're like, yeah, like on a day like
- [66:44]
Tony Conrad
today with Modern Animal, I mean, you
- [66:46]
Co-host/Interviewer
know, that was, that's not a straight line by any stretch of the imagination, you know, but it is a very successful straight line at the end.
- [66:56]
Mike
Yeah, I mean I know you're also in Slack with Stuart, you know, just seeing how, how he's pivoted a couple times too. And the monster that obviously Stuart's amazing.
- [67:04]
Co-host/Interviewer
He did that twice where he pivoted and there's a good example, like, you know, like, you know, he's working on.
- [67:09]
Tony Conrad
Both times he's working on gaming companies and one he ends up being internal messaging system and the other ends up
- [67:16]
Co-host/Interviewer
being a photo annotated photo app.
- [67:18]
Tony Conrad
You know, these are really different ideas
- [67:22]
Co-host/Interviewer
that evolved out of these other projects
- [67:24]
Tony Conrad
he was working on. And I'll bet you, you know, he
- [67:28]
Co-host/Interviewer
might have had some overlap, his investors might have had some overlap with other companies.
- [67:34]
Tony Conrad
That happens.
- [67:35]
Mike
Totally, totally. What's one book that's inspired you personally? In one book that's inspired you professionally?
- [67:44]
Tony Conrad
Oh my goodness. I don't think we can go with one. It's a two bit personal.
- [67:48]
Mike
Love it, love it.
- [67:51]
Co-host/Interviewer
So In Praise of Shadows is absolutely
- [67:56]
Tony Conrad
probably my favorite book of all time. It's a very easy 100 page, kind of ish read. Perfect for me. I have trouble reading, so it's just amazing. But it's about design, it's about, you know, kind of 20th, early 20th century Japan and it's just incredible, incredible book. And Tony Fadell, you know, who invented the ipod and in the iPhone and Nest and a few other things. He had recommended it to me years ago and I'm so thankful that he did. I've read that book. I'll bet you I've read that book 50 times. And then Shackleton's Journey to me is the most mind bending story of leadership ever written. I don't know if you know that story.
- [68:49]
Mike
Yeah, I'm actually currently reading it.
- [68:51]
Co-host/Interviewer
Are you really? Okay, great, man.
- [68:53]
Mike
I'm like halfway through.
- [68:54]
Co-host/Interviewer
Yeah, I would just hear it's a little bit of a spoiler alert. But you can handle it.
- [68:59]
Tony Conrad
We all kind of know that. They all.
- [69:01]
Mike
Yes, yes, yes. Every single person survives, which is unbelievable.
- [69:06]
Tony Conrad
Every single person 100% survive the most gnarly like expedition that you could ever imagine. But within, I can't remember. You'll get to the end of this. But book, I think it's within three years, over 50% of them, once they're Back in England and wherever they go to, they die. Over 50%. Alcoholism, drug abuse, scurvy, all kinds of different things, right? But it's like the human capacity to persevere with a set of really incremental goals, like really modest incremental goals, and just day by day to get through it, get through it a little bit, Just get through it. Just get closer, get closer, get closer, you know? You know, once they get there, then they fall apart, you know, when they get home. And that part is sad. But the, to me, the, the leadership that it took is crazy. And it's just an amazing story.
- [70:12]
Mike
No, for sure. I. Hearing about how he's done, I mean, just. What I find amazing was just how he, man manages people, you know, in terms of. He should have this person, for example, be by his side because he thinks that this person would disrupt the rest of the group because he's like, kind of negative, you know, just. Just all these, managing all these different personalities on top of obviously getting people out to, to, to survive, the whole thing, it's.
- [70:40]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
It's really incredible.
- [70:42]
Tony Conrad
I'm going to Antarctica in November and I cannot wait. So I probably will reread this book. Oh, my gosh.
- [70:49]
Mike
Report back. Oh, my gosh.
- [70:51]
Co-host/Interviewer
I'll send you some photos. But on the professional.
- [70:54]
Tony Conrad
The Innovator's Dilemma, I think if you're in this business, is still the best lens on disruption. How disruption actually happens and why it happens. I think that's an amazing book. And then one that I'll just throw an extra one in here just for fun, is Andrew Sorkin, who have tremendous respect for. Wrote a book called 1929.
- [71:14]
Mike
I just read that.
- [71:15]
Tony Conrad
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's just so fascinating to me. And I think the parallels with. I'm not saying that there's going to be a depression by, you know, so I want to put big asterisks on that.
- [71:29]
Co-host/Interviewer
But I do think there are a
- [71:30]
Tony Conrad
lot of interesting parallels here, right. With what we're experiencing. And it's, you know, it's about, at that point in time, the, you know, the residential investor, you know, could get very easy, you know, interest free, not interest free, but, you know, low interest, you know, loans and get leverage. Right. And so, you know, it allowed a whole generation of retail investors to kind of come in that weren't accredited investors. And so that's why we have a lot of the rules that we have today. But the most fascinating thing about that, Mike, was when you understand the things that kind of pulled us out of the Depression. One of the key things was at the end of, I think the Secretary of commerce or whatever had this thesis that he wrote up that we should move from a six day work week to a five day work week. And you're like, well that doesn't make any sense. Yeah, but why that works is that the thesis was that it would create a whole cottage industry, but a large cottage industry around hospitality and travel and all that. And it worked. It literally worked because when you went to a five day workweek and then on Friday night you could leave and still go to church on Sunday. But when you were working, you know,
- [72:53]
Co-host/Interviewer
Saturday afternoon and you got only Sunday off, you're going to church.
- [72:57]
Tony Conrad
Like there was no travel, there was no hotel industry. I mean, you know, denote. And so I'm kind of wondering, you know, every time I reason why I like that book, why I think it's instructive for us. I know there's a lot of panic about job loss and by the way, I have that same job. I have that same, same panic and I think that's real and I think there is going to be like a bad moment for us. But I also believe in humanity's ability to problem solve and to kind of figure out unsuspecting ways to get through things. Shackle's Journey. And I think, you know, this idea around travel and so I don't know what will happen in the age of AI, but I'm optimistic that it'll, it will work itself out.
- [73:40]
Mike
Yeah, that's fair. I, yeah, I, yeah, that was such a great, such a great book. I actually got it for, for Christmas and I couldn't put, I, I just couldn't put it down. I just kept reading it and I'm actually not, I actually don't really read a lot. My wife is, is really like the
- [73:57]
Sponsor/Ad Reader
reader in the family.
- [73:58]
Mike
She reads like 160 books a year. I read, I read like, gosh, I don't even, I don't read that many books a year, but I just, I couldn't put it down. And then we'd also listen to, on like audiobook and stuff like that and the car and just, just loved it. Loved it.
- [74:12]
Co-host/Interviewer
It's, it's amazing. I mean I lug that book. I got it at Christmas too and I lugged that book to New Zealand and that's a, I mean that's a, that thing as you know, that's a, that's a hefty, hefty book to lug around. But I did, I finished it, you know.
- [74:26]
Mike
That's amazing. That's amazing. That's awesome. That's awesome. Tony, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
- [74:34]
Co-host/Interviewer
Likewise. I. I know my answers are never that crisp, but hopefully the narrative helps everybody to kind of claim their own perspective from this.
- [74:44]
Tony Conrad
Great. Thank you so much.