1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:06,480 That so many tech founding teams end up building a technology, 2 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:10,960 let's call it a quote solution, that's still in search of a 3 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:13,960 problem. And it's so important to start 4 00:00:13,960 --> 00:00:18,040 with a problem and make sure you understand it's a big market. 5 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,960 If you have a great market, you can have a less than great 6 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,920 product and still do fantastically. 7 00:00:26,430 --> 00:00:30,590 Or you can look at things and say I have incredible 8 00:00:30,590 --> 00:00:35,070 technology, but there's no identified great market. 9 00:00:35,510 --> 00:00:37,550 It doesn't matter. You're not going to succeed, 10 00:00:39,630 --> 00:00:45,410 hey? Everyone, My name is Henry Surya 11 00:00:45,410 --> 00:00:50,290 Virawan and you're listening to the Technically Juno podcast, 12 00:00:50,810 --> 00:00:53,210 the show where I'll be bringing you the greatest technical 13 00:00:53,210 --> 00:00:56,930 leaders, practitioners and thought leaders in the industry. 14 00:00:57,510 --> 00:01:01,750 To discuss about their journey, ideas and practices that we all 15 00:01:01,750 --> 00:01:05,269 can learn and apply to build a highly performing technical team 16 00:01:05,790 --> 00:01:07,990 and to make an impact in your. Personal work. 17 00:01:08,630 --> 00:01:16,510 So let's dive into our journal. Hello again, everyone. 18 00:01:16,710 --> 00:01:19,030 You're listening to the Technical Journal Podcast, the 19 00:01:19,030 --> 00:01:21,470 podcast where you can learn about technical leadership and 20 00:01:21,470 --> 00:01:24,710 excellence from my conversations with great thought leaders in 21 00:01:24,710 --> 00:01:26,630 the tech industry, if you haven't. 22 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:29,920 Please follow the show on your podcast app and social media on 23 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:31,560 LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. 24 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,160 And if you like watching video contents, Techlyjournal is also 25 00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:38,920 now available on YouTube and TikTok To support my work in 26 00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,240 producing this podcast and its various contents. 27 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:45,160 You can buy me a coffee at techlyjunal dot Dev Tip or 28 00:01:45,160 --> 00:01:48,640 subscribe as a patron at techlyjunal dot dev patron. 29 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:52,240 My guest for today's episode is Jocely Rosenberg. 30 00:01:52,850 --> 00:01:56,130 Jyothi is a serial entrepreneur who has founded 9 startups with 31 00:01:56,170 --> 00:02:00,210 exits of over $100 million. He is the author of an upcoming 32 00:02:00,210 --> 00:02:04,210 book, Think Like a Tech Founder, Anecdotes of an Incorrigible 33 00:02:04,250 --> 00:02:07,490 Entrepreneur. In this episode, Jyothi shared 34 00:02:07,490 --> 00:02:10,850 his valuable lessons learned on founding and managing a startup, 35 00:02:11,170 --> 00:02:14,810 such as why and when you should decide to start up valuable 36 00:02:14,810 --> 00:02:17,930 advice for founders, including letting go founders who don't 37 00:02:17,930 --> 00:02:22,210 work out, dealing with failures. Being the CEO of your own 38 00:02:22,210 --> 00:02:25,650 startup and traits of a bad CEO we should avoid. 39 00:02:26,090 --> 00:02:29,370 Towards the end, Jyoti shared inspiring message about his 40 00:02:29,370 --> 00:02:33,250 story overcoming physical disability, which resulted in a 41 00:02:33,250 --> 00:02:36,090 foundation he runs called Who Says I Can't? 42 00:02:36,650 --> 00:02:39,970 And also described his formula why people with physical 43 00:02:39,970 --> 00:02:42,210 disability so often over achieve. 44 00:02:43,140 --> 00:02:45,580 I hope you enjoy listening to this episode and learning 45 00:02:45,580 --> 00:02:48,300 valuable lessons about founding and running a startup, 46 00:02:48,540 --> 00:02:51,620 especially if you are yourself currently running your own 47 00:02:51,620 --> 00:02:54,100 startup. And I'm also very much inspired 48 00:02:54,100 --> 00:02:58,140 by Georthy's sharing about his story overcoming his physical 49 00:02:58,140 --> 00:03:00,540 disability. And I hope you can also get a 50 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:03,020 spark of inspiration from his story as well. 51 00:03:03,700 --> 00:03:06,140 And it will be really great if you can help me share this 52 00:03:06,180 --> 00:03:08,580 episode with your colleagues, your friends and your 53 00:03:08,580 --> 00:03:11,010 communities. And leave a 5 star rating and 54 00:03:11,010 --> 00:03:13,450 review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 55 00:03:14,050 --> 00:03:17,210 Your small help will help me a lot in getting more people 56 00:03:17,210 --> 00:03:19,330 discover and listen to the podcasts. 57 00:03:20,050 --> 00:03:23,170 Let's go to my conversation with Jyothi after quick words. 58 00:03:23,210 --> 00:03:26,490 From our sponsor, are you looking for a new cool swag? 59 00:03:26,930 --> 00:03:30,290 Technically, Juno now offers you some swags that you can purchase 60 00:03:30,290 --> 00:03:32,810 online. These swags are printed on 61 00:03:32,810 --> 00:03:36,370 demand based on your preference and will be delivered safely to 62 00:03:36,370 --> 00:03:39,290 you all over the world where shipping is available. 63 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:43,000 Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techlijuno 64 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,280 dot dev shop and don't forget to break yourself once you receive 65 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:52,480 any of those swags. Hey everyone, welcome back to 66 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:54,720 the new episode of the Technijuno podcast. 67 00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:58,040 Today I have with me an author named Jyothi Rosenberg. 68 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:00,760 He's currently in the process of finishing his book. 69 00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:03,960 Actually the book title is Think Like a Tech Founder. 70 00:04:04,390 --> 00:04:06,790 So as you can tell from the title itself, we are going to 71 00:04:06,790 --> 00:04:10,230 talk a lot more about founding a tech company, a tech startup, 72 00:04:10,430 --> 00:04:13,390 how to become a good founders, and many lessons learned 73 00:04:13,390 --> 00:04:17,269 actually from Jyoti who has I believe set up 9 startups in his 74 00:04:17,269 --> 00:04:19,350 career. I think there will be a lot of 75 00:04:19,350 --> 00:04:21,990 learnings, a lot of mistakes that he want to share probably, 76 00:04:22,230 --> 00:04:24,190 and a lot of advice that we can learn from him. 77 00:04:24,690 --> 00:04:27,210 And at the end, later on, we will also talk about something 78 00:04:27,210 --> 00:04:30,690 that is really inspirational to me, The Who says I can't 79 00:04:30,690 --> 00:04:33,250 foundation that he does. And I think we'll hear a lot 80 00:04:33,250 --> 00:04:34,530 more later on in the conversation. 81 00:04:34,530 --> 00:04:36,410 So Geordie, thank you so much for this time. 82 00:04:36,610 --> 00:04:38,690 I'm really looking forward for our conversation. 83 00:04:39,250 --> 00:04:40,970 Well, thank you for having me on, Henry. 84 00:04:40,970 --> 00:04:44,570 I'm so glad that we got connected and that I can do this 85 00:04:44,570 --> 00:04:46,730 with you. I'm looking forward to the 86 00:04:46,970 --> 00:04:50,210 interactions. So when I read the first few 87 00:04:50,210 --> 00:04:52,970 chapters of your book, I can see so many things that you did in 88 00:04:52,970 --> 00:04:54,050 your career. Highlights. 89 00:04:54,090 --> 00:04:56,690 I always like to ask my guests to share a little bit more about 90 00:04:56,690 --> 00:04:59,330 themselves, if there are any major highlights or turning 91 00:04:59,330 --> 00:05:01,930 points, which I'm sure there are plenty that you can share with 92 00:05:01,930 --> 00:05:03,890 the audience here. Maybe to just give a little bit 93 00:05:03,890 --> 00:05:06,330 of background about yourself and something that we can learn from 94 00:05:06,330 --> 00:05:08,810 your journey. Sure, sure. 95 00:05:08,930 --> 00:05:12,730 Well, I started off getting a strong technical background. 96 00:05:12,730 --> 00:05:15,370 I got a pH. D in Computer science at Duke. 97 00:05:15,790 --> 00:05:20,030 And then I stayed on it Duke as a faculty member for five years, 98 00:05:20,190 --> 00:05:24,590 mostly teaching grad students. But actually I did teach one 99 00:05:24,590 --> 00:05:28,110 undergraduate course. Everybody called it computer 100 00:05:28,110 --> 00:05:33,790 science for poets. And here I was with 400 students 101 00:05:33,790 --> 00:05:37,550 trying to teach them how to program in BASIC when all they 102 00:05:37,550 --> 00:05:44,030 wanted was a science credit. But while I was there, I was 103 00:05:44,030 --> 00:05:47,160 doing research. That's kind of the expectation 104 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:49,040 if you have a position like that. 105 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:53,360 And I was on a NASA contract and we were supposed to build a 106 00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:59,320 single board 1000 processor, essentially A supercomputer to 107 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:04,320 go on board the space shuttle. And if this was just a fantastic 108 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:08,160 project, so much fun. And in order to build it, I had 109 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,920 to buy 2 traditional supercomputers, the kind that 110 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:14,040 sit up on a raised floor and have. 111 00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:18,820 Paylon Fire Protection. And that was just to simulate 112 00:06:18,860 --> 00:06:21,100 the single board computer we were building. 113 00:06:21,380 --> 00:06:25,860 And I felt like, wow, if this is something that could make a huge 114 00:06:25,860 --> 00:06:29,540 difference to NASA being on the Space shuttle, this ought to 115 00:06:29,540 --> 00:06:34,460 have application in the non NASA commercial world. 116 00:06:34,820 --> 00:06:37,780 But I didn't know anything about starting a company, but I said 117 00:06:37,780 --> 00:06:41,780 to my wife I got to do this and she said okay, she's such a good 118 00:06:41,780 --> 00:06:44,030 sport. She said, where do we have to go 119 00:06:44,030 --> 00:06:45,710 for that? And I said, well, we can't do it 120 00:06:45,710 --> 00:06:50,670 here in North Carolina. That's not true anymore in 2023. 121 00:06:51,110 --> 00:06:56,030 But this was 1987. It was true. 122 00:06:56,110 --> 00:06:58,070 You really couldn't start up, start up there. 123 00:06:58,430 --> 00:07:01,110 And I said to her, we going to have to either move to Boston or 124 00:07:01,110 --> 00:07:03,030 Silicon Valley. It's just said oh please, 125 00:07:03,030 --> 00:07:05,350 please, Boston. She's from Ohio. 126 00:07:05,510 --> 00:07:08,190 She said there's going to be an earthquake in California is 127 00:07:08,190 --> 00:07:10,750 going to fall into the ocean. So please don't do it there. 128 00:07:11,170 --> 00:07:13,450 Anyway, I'm not going to drag this out. 129 00:07:13,770 --> 00:07:17,850 It didn't work out in Boston, so we moved to Silicon Valley and I 130 00:07:17,850 --> 00:07:20,530 started my first startup. There was a supercomputer 131 00:07:20,530 --> 00:07:24,650 company based on the work we were doing for NASA, and it went 132 00:07:24,650 --> 00:07:27,490 fine. But you've all heard of Moore's 133 00:07:27,490 --> 00:07:32,210 Law and Moore's Law was our real competition, meaning traditional 134 00:07:32,210 --> 00:07:34,810 computers were going to catch up to us eventually. 135 00:07:35,210 --> 00:07:38,170 But we had a pretty good head start, the machine we made. 136 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:41,560 Was no longer a single board computer like for NASA. 137 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:48,000 This had 32,768 processors in a machine that was the size of a 138 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,920 four drawer filing cabinet, and it didn't need any special air 139 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:54,160 conditioning. It just plugged into standard 140 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:56,360 wall current in a standard office. 141 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:02,920 But it ran Unix and it was blazingly fast for the time. 142 00:08:03,420 --> 00:08:08,780 Now your iPhone 7, which is so many years back, was much faster 143 00:08:08,780 --> 00:08:12,860 than our computer, just to give you a sense of how fast things 144 00:08:12,860 --> 00:08:15,020 have changed. So I learned a lot. 145 00:08:15,340 --> 00:08:19,020 I was one of the founders, and we built this great machine. 146 00:08:19,380 --> 00:08:24,780 We sold it to American Express and the New York Times, and it 147 00:08:24,780 --> 00:08:26,380 wasn't a general purpose computer. 148 00:08:26,380 --> 00:08:31,060 It did some things extremely well, like search every word 149 00:08:31,060 --> 00:08:33,059 that the New York Times had ever published. 150 00:08:33,409 --> 00:08:38,210 In there, you know, 200 years or 150 years, and it could do 151 00:08:38,210 --> 00:08:40,730 unstructured text searching just like that. 152 00:08:41,049 --> 00:08:43,770 But it wasn't jumping off the shelves. 153 00:08:43,770 --> 00:08:47,090 In four years we sold 100 of them, which is considered good 154 00:08:47,090 --> 00:08:50,930 for supercomputers. Well, that kind of ended and I 155 00:08:50,930 --> 00:08:54,970 did a, you know, a short stint at a company that was a big 156 00:08:54,970 --> 00:08:58,330 software company at the time called Borland and Borland, 157 00:08:58,730 --> 00:09:01,740 ironically. Moved me to Boston because they 158 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:05,420 just done an acquisition of a company in Boston and we were 159 00:09:05,420 --> 00:09:07,980 supposed to be here for one year and then go back. 160 00:09:08,340 --> 00:09:11,940 But when we got here, my wife and I loved it so much. 161 00:09:12,340 --> 00:09:15,420 We loved it much more than California, which and all the 162 00:09:15,420 --> 00:09:18,620 people from California listening to this are going to scratch 163 00:09:18,620 --> 00:09:21,620 their heads and say what? But it just worked out better 164 00:09:21,620 --> 00:09:25,900 for us and the schools were just fantastic and unfortunately. 165 00:09:26,460 --> 00:09:31,540 The California taxes had started to hurt their schools, and since 166 00:09:31,540 --> 00:09:36,220 we've been here, I've started actually eight more, so a total 167 00:09:36,220 --> 00:09:39,300 of nine. The current one is my 9th. 168 00:09:39,660 --> 00:09:43,700 They've been in a variety of areas, Internet, infrastructure, 169 00:09:43,940 --> 00:09:47,780 security, various kinds of hardware startups. 170 00:09:48,220 --> 00:09:51,700 I've had two that had what I consider to be pretty good 171 00:09:51,700 --> 00:09:55,140 exits, which were sold for over 100 million. 172 00:09:55,610 --> 00:09:59,130 One of them was in the middle of the Internet bubble, and so it 173 00:09:59,130 --> 00:10:03,410 just was off the charts. But I also had a whole bunch 174 00:10:03,610 --> 00:10:07,090 that just failed. And so, you know, I'm jumping 175 00:10:07,090 --> 00:10:10,530 ahead because, you know, sort of why did I write the book? 176 00:10:10,970 --> 00:10:14,010 But I see a lot of people that write books and they tell all 177 00:10:14,010 --> 00:10:16,970 about all the great things that they did, and there's nothing 178 00:10:16,970 --> 00:10:19,860 wrong with that. But I feel like people learn 179 00:10:19,860 --> 00:10:24,900 more from all the bad things that happened and maybe, you 180 00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:28,860 know, understanding why did it happen and how could it have 181 00:10:28,860 --> 00:10:31,900 been avoided. You also asked what were some of 182 00:10:31,900 --> 00:10:35,300 the major events or turning points in my career. 183 00:10:35,660 --> 00:10:39,180 I would say making the decision to leave academia and going to 184 00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:41,940 do startups was, you know, kind of a major thing. 185 00:10:42,140 --> 00:10:46,540 But I've always had an interest and it still has to be sort of 186 00:10:46,540 --> 00:10:49,900 in the back. To go do teaching again, and 187 00:10:49,900 --> 00:10:53,780 maybe writing these books is partly an outlet to try to teach 188 00:10:53,780 --> 00:10:56,940 a little bit, the move to Boston was significant. 189 00:10:57,380 --> 00:11:00,260 I found that some things that were going on in Silicon Valley 190 00:11:00,260 --> 00:11:03,220 at the time, to me, were sort of worrisome. 191 00:11:03,220 --> 00:11:07,300 It was becoming a monoculture, meaning it lived off of almost 192 00:11:07,300 --> 00:11:10,980 exclusively the tech industry. And if the tech industry goes 193 00:11:10,980 --> 00:11:14,980 down, the whole Silicon Valley area is in trouble. 194 00:11:15,470 --> 00:11:18,990 And you can tell because you can drive up and down 101 with no 195 00:11:18,990 --> 00:11:22,630 traffic. But Boston has a very diverse 196 00:11:22,710 --> 00:11:25,590 economy. There's a strong biotech 197 00:11:25,590 --> 00:11:27,990 industry. There's a very strong financial 198 00:11:27,990 --> 00:11:31,750 services industry, a medical industry and tech. 199 00:11:32,070 --> 00:11:36,470 And so any one of those can be down and the others are not 200 00:11:36,470 --> 00:11:38,790 down. And so there's a balance there. 201 00:11:38,790 --> 00:11:43,230 And so that was very big deal founding my first company which 202 00:11:43,230 --> 00:11:47,320 happened here and. Where it was my idea and also 203 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:51,920 first time being a CEO. Those are major milestones and 204 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:56,520 learning that there can be very difficult in some cases bad 205 00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:02,400 investors surprised me and I learned about that and that the 206 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:05,280 challenge of founders. So these are all things I talk 207 00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,640 about in the book, but those are some of the highlights of real 208 00:12:08,640 --> 00:12:11,920 learning experiences. About hearing what you just 209 00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,240 shared and also looking back yourself, right? 210 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,200 I believe it's a pretty long and accelerating journey. 211 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:21,000 I would say founding like 9 startups, that is really great 212 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,680 to me, like being an serial entrepreneur and you have had 213 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,680 major good exits, right? More than 100,000,000, but as 214 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:30,320 you said, right, there's so many that also failed along the way 215 00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:33,000 and I think there are so many first experience that you had 216 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:34,640 that we will learn from this episode. 217 00:12:35,030 --> 00:12:38,630 Maybe let's start by going back to the time when you decided 218 00:12:38,630 --> 00:12:40,870 that you want to start a startup, because I believe many 219 00:12:40,870 --> 00:12:44,110 listeners here have these aspirations to, you know, become 220 00:12:44,110 --> 00:12:47,270 a founder or creating a startup. And since the listeners here 221 00:12:47,270 --> 00:12:50,630 majority from tech, maybe let's just focus on a tech startup. 222 00:12:50,910 --> 00:12:55,230 So in your mind back then, what made you decide to become a tech 223 00:12:55,230 --> 00:12:57,190 founder, right? You said that you work in 224 00:12:57,190 --> 00:13:00,670 academia before, and what made you decide to actually jump from 225 00:13:00,670 --> 00:13:02,230 academia to? A startup. 226 00:13:03,030 --> 00:13:06,910 I guess what I was seeing was that I knew that a lot of 227 00:13:07,150 --> 00:13:11,030 technology is developed under government contracts. 228 00:13:11,430 --> 00:13:16,590 I had a NASA contract, but I was aware of contracts funded by the 229 00:13:16,590 --> 00:13:19,470 Pentagon. For example, as a grad student, 230 00:13:19,630 --> 00:13:23,670 we were on the earliest versions of the Internet, which was 231 00:13:23,670 --> 00:13:27,310 actually called the ARPANET at the time, and it wasn't called 232 00:13:27,310 --> 00:13:29,550 DARPA back then, it was called ARPA. 233 00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:32,640 But then they decided to put the D in the front to make sure it 234 00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:35,960 was clear that it was the Defense Advanced Research 235 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:39,560 Projects Agency. So I knew that that was 236 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:43,000 happening, that a lot of tech was being built under government 237 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:48,720 contracts, and yet a lot of it, which clearly wasn't unique to 238 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:51,240 the military. I'm not talking about, you know, 239 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,400 weapons systems. I'm talking about networking 240 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:58,560 technology and things to do with just broadly with the Internet 241 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,720 and solving other hard tech problems. 242 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:05,600 And it didn't seem like they were coming out of the 243 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:09,280 contractors, the government contractors that were doing 244 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:12,520 these things. And that's been a theme for me 245 00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:15,720 my entire career. But at least as far as getting 246 00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:20,080 started, sometimes ignorance is bliss and I didn't know how hard 247 00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:21,040 it would be. I just. 248 00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:25,240 I wanted to try. I was at least aware that of 249 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:28,880 what I didn't know. And so on That first one, I was 250 00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:32,920 one of 12 founders, but the other folks were more 251 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,120 experienced. And so I felt like I could learn 252 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:39,800 from them and they were excited that I had done this research 253 00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:43,680 that was very aligned with what they wanted to do. 254 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:46,720 They all wanted to build a supercomputer that was 255 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:48,360 affordable. That was the goal. 256 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:51,080 The company was called Maspar, which was just. 257 00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:57,400 It's not a very clever, creative name for Massively Parallel, but 258 00:14:57,560 --> 00:15:00,840 yeah, the idea was to build an affordable supercomputer. 259 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:04,560 And then when I came in with the work we'd done that fit really 260 00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:10,000 well with what they were doing and they were very excited to 261 00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:13,960 bring me in and have me join. That first group of there were 262 00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:17,240 11 and I was the 12th, and a grad student of mine went with 263 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:22,460 me and so we were 13 people. Building this company, hardware 264 00:15:22,460 --> 00:15:26,660 and software all had to be built and then we could declare 265 00:15:26,660 --> 00:15:29,580 success. Because it was a supercomputer, 266 00:15:29,580 --> 00:15:33,300 it was affordable and people were buying it. 267 00:15:33,620 --> 00:15:35,860 But there were also the challenges that I mentioned 268 00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:38,900 earlier. Moore's Law and very difficult 269 00:15:38,940 --> 00:15:42,740 to make it good enough to make it perfect was definitely a 270 00:15:42,740 --> 00:15:46,820 stretch, but we had bugs and we only had 100 customers, but 271 00:15:46,820 --> 00:15:49,620 there was no Internet to distribute updates on. 272 00:15:50,020 --> 00:15:53,940 And so we would have to ship floppy disks to our customers a 273 00:15:53,940 --> 00:15:57,420 couple times a month, and luckily you don't go broke 274 00:15:57,660 --> 00:16:00,020 shipping floppy disks to 100 people. 275 00:16:00,380 --> 00:16:03,300 But we couldn't make it with bug free. 276 00:16:03,300 --> 00:16:04,980 And that was a little frustrating to me. 277 00:16:05,380 --> 00:16:08,100 It was naive, but frustrating. And that's why I went to 278 00:16:08,100 --> 00:16:11,820 Borland, by the way, because I asked people around who's 279 00:16:11,820 --> 00:16:15,900 building the best quality software in the world, and I 280 00:16:15,900 --> 00:16:17,460 wanted to go learn how to do that. 281 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:19,840 And that's why I actually joined Borland. 282 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:25,600 So compared from then, right, you said was 1987 right when you 283 00:16:25,600 --> 00:16:28,200 started and now it's 2023. Of course a lot of things have 284 00:16:28,200 --> 00:16:29,960 changed. What you saw maybe the 285 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,200 technology was initiated in the government projects. 286 00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:33,800 Now I think it's like ubiquitous. 287 00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:36,200 There are so many technologies available and around us. 288 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:39,000 So what will be your advice for people who are thinking of 289 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:41,840 founding a startup or building a tech? 290 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,880 Kind of like technologies. What would be your advice for 291 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:48,720 them to actually start thinking, OK, should I or should I not 292 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:51,560 start the startup? And what would be your lessons 293 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:54,000 also for them in this modern era, right? 294 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,280 Like what they should think about before they actually think 295 00:16:57,280 --> 00:16:59,320 whether the startup is going to be a successful one? 296 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:03,720 So a lot of startups, tech startups, we're going to be 297 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:06,839 talking about tech startups this whole time, are started by a 298 00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:08,000 couple of people. Couple. 299 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,960 Three people. They understand a problem. 300 00:17:11,349 --> 00:17:15,030 Because they came out of a market that has that problem and 301 00:17:15,030 --> 00:17:19,150 they're motivated because they see no one solving this problem 302 00:17:19,150 --> 00:17:21,310 and they can solve this, whatever it is, they can solve 303 00:17:21,310 --> 00:17:25,030 this problem. And that's a perfectly good, if 304 00:17:25,030 --> 00:17:28,830 not sometimes very, you know, great way in which to think 305 00:17:28,830 --> 00:17:32,830 about Okay, do I have something that can really be a startup. 306 00:17:32,830 --> 00:17:36,790 I mean, if there's a big problem in a big market. 307 00:17:37,250 --> 00:17:41,970 And you, because you come out of that market, know a lot about 308 00:17:41,970 --> 00:17:45,450 it, then you're like 5 or 10 steps ahead. 309 00:17:46,050 --> 00:17:50,690 The challenge still of course, is that so many tech founding 310 00:17:50,690 --> 00:17:56,170 teams end up building a technology, let's call it a 311 00:17:56,490 --> 00:17:59,930 quote, solution that's still in search of a problem. 312 00:17:59,930 --> 00:18:04,050 And it's so important to start with a problem and make sure you 313 00:18:04,090 --> 00:18:09,570 understand it's a big market. If you have a great market, you 314 00:18:09,570 --> 00:18:13,130 can have a less than great product and still do 315 00:18:13,290 --> 00:18:16,770 fantastically. Or you can look at things and 316 00:18:16,770 --> 00:18:21,250 say I have incredible technology, but there's no 317 00:18:21,250 --> 00:18:24,570 identified great market. It doesn't matter. 318 00:18:24,570 --> 00:18:28,610 You're not going to succeed. It's just, well, yeah, everybody 319 00:18:28,610 --> 00:18:31,410 will find exceptions, but you'll rarely succeed. 320 00:18:31,690 --> 00:18:34,890 And so the most important thing is look at your group of 321 00:18:34,890 --> 00:18:37,470 founders. You need to understand enough 322 00:18:37,470 --> 00:18:40,590 about the technology that you have the right people that can 323 00:18:40,710 --> 00:18:44,070 build something, but it's even more important that you 324 00:18:44,070 --> 00:18:46,510 understand the market and the problem really well. 325 00:18:47,030 --> 00:18:49,390 Thank you for that advice because I think that speaks 326 00:18:49,390 --> 00:18:51,110 true. I talked to so many product 327 00:18:51,110 --> 00:18:53,270 people as well. They also speak the same thing, 328 00:18:53,510 --> 00:18:56,550 building something that people want that solves the real needs, 329 00:18:56,750 --> 00:18:59,470 not like building a technology in such of the problem like you 330 00:18:59,470 --> 00:19:00,990 said. So I think that's a really good 331 00:19:00,990 --> 00:19:02,810 advice. So you mentioned a couple of 332 00:19:02,810 --> 00:19:06,010 times about founders. Most of the startups that I know 333 00:19:06,010 --> 00:19:09,130 also have a team of founders, not just one, although there are 334 00:19:09,130 --> 00:19:11,090 some which have just one founder. 335 00:19:11,410 --> 00:19:15,050 But why do you think so many startups have many founders? 336 00:19:15,050 --> 00:19:17,290 That's the first thing. And what will be the role of 337 00:19:17,290 --> 00:19:20,170 these people who will somehow maybe they are friends or maybe 338 00:19:20,170 --> 00:19:23,450 they just get connected right? What will be your advice for 339 00:19:23,450 --> 00:19:26,690 them to become a strong founder right that can lead this startup 340 00:19:26,690 --> 00:19:28,650 from initiation up to the success? 341 00:19:29,430 --> 00:19:33,390 I've had some startups where I was the sole founder. 342 00:19:33,630 --> 00:19:38,790 Up to this most recent one, there were six of us founders 343 00:19:39,110 --> 00:19:42,710 and that team. They're a group of people that 344 00:19:42,710 --> 00:19:44,470 all came together at the same time. 345 00:19:44,830 --> 00:19:49,870 It's very hard to add somebody late later as a founder. 346 00:19:50,070 --> 00:19:53,550 There's not a formal definition of founder, but there is a sort 347 00:19:53,550 --> 00:19:55,990 of an informal you're there at the beginning. 348 00:19:56,270 --> 00:19:59,110 You're the thought leaders of the company. 349 00:19:59,570 --> 00:20:02,770 They get a different kind of stock and that's important to 350 00:20:02,770 --> 00:20:05,250 understand. They don't get options which 351 00:20:05,250 --> 00:20:08,770 vest over time. They actually get well if it's 352 00:20:08,770 --> 00:20:11,610 done right. They get shares which are 353 00:20:11,610 --> 00:20:15,690 reverse vested, meaning you still need to stick around at 354 00:20:15,690 --> 00:20:17,370 the company. You don't just get the shares 355 00:20:17,370 --> 00:20:20,250 and get to walk away. And I've always had it so they 356 00:20:20,250 --> 00:20:23,530 reverse vest over four years, but instead of. 357 00:20:23,820 --> 00:20:28,060 Paying let's say $0.25 a share. When they exercise them some 358 00:20:28,060 --> 00:20:35,020 period of time later, they paid more like .001 cents for the 359 00:20:35,020 --> 00:20:38,580 shares and they pay for them upfront, and that protects them 360 00:20:38,580 --> 00:20:43,100 from being considered income. Instead their capital gains, 361 00:20:43,100 --> 00:20:44,980 because you're going to hold on to them for a long period of 362 00:20:44,980 --> 00:20:48,220 time and they're yours. Except that the company has a 363 00:20:48,220 --> 00:20:52,260 right to buy them back at this price you paid, depending on if 364 00:20:52,260 --> 00:20:55,240 you leave early. So those actually end up being 365 00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,600 important because those do distinguish the founders in an 366 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:01,880 economic way. But the most important thing is 367 00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:05,680 they have the knowledge and then they're going to be the leaders. 368 00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:09,080 I would typically have meetings with the founders to talk 369 00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:11,480 through everything that was going on with the company. 370 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:13,760 They weren't on my staff meetings. 371 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:16,600 I would have, you know, typical staff meetings where I would 372 00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,920 have the head of marketing, the head of sales, the head of 373 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:22,040 legal, the head of engineering product. 374 00:21:22,570 --> 00:21:26,250 But I would separately have a meeting with the founders and I 375 00:21:26,250 --> 00:21:28,490 wanted to make sure they were aware of everything that's going 376 00:21:28,490 --> 00:21:30,050 on. They would have opinions. 377 00:21:30,050 --> 00:21:31,410 They would say, what, what about this? 378 00:21:31,410 --> 00:21:34,610 What about that? They didn't have a formal role 379 00:21:34,610 --> 00:21:39,170 like that, but they have an informal, very influential, very 380 00:21:39,170 --> 00:21:43,490 important role. So it is difficult, I will say 381 00:21:44,010 --> 00:21:47,170 the larger group of founders you have, the more difficult it can 382 00:21:47,170 --> 00:21:50,250 be to deal with. You want me to expound a little 383 00:21:50,250 --> 00:21:52,880 bit more on why that is? Yeah, sure. 384 00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:55,800 So I think it will be great because if people have you know 385 00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:57,960 more than two or three Co founding teams, right. 386 00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,880 So that means there are a lot of perspectives and what do you 387 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,400 think will be better for the founders to actually align on, 388 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,320 right. So how can they work together or 389 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:09,760 what are some of the maybe anti patterns that should not do 390 00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:14,600 whenever they found a team? So I would recommend people to 391 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:18,520 keep the founding team very small, which is hard because as 392 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,520 you're founding the company. Somebody comes in, you know, 393 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:27,320 let's say they're your first employee after the founding team 394 00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,440 has come together. And this person says, hey, I'm a 395 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,040 very senior person. I think I should be a founder 396 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,800 too. And that becomes a very slippery 397 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,280 slope. If you do that, okay, you've got 398 00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:40,400 your founding team and you're moving forward. 399 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,760 And like I said, this founding team I have right now is 6 400 00:22:43,760 --> 00:22:45,430 people. And they're not all going to 401 00:22:45,430 --> 00:22:48,230 have the same views and they're going to feel like they should 402 00:22:48,270 --> 00:22:52,150 have maybe more influence over the strategy, the direction of 403 00:22:52,150 --> 00:22:54,350 the company. Sometimes this founding team 404 00:22:54,350 --> 00:22:57,670 would say to me, hey, we should be the ones driving strategy. 405 00:22:58,110 --> 00:23:00,590 Well, OK. But you know, once you've got a 406 00:23:00,790 --> 00:23:04,030 head of marketing and a head of sales, those people know a lot 407 00:23:04,030 --> 00:23:07,110 too. And so, you know, honestly, the 408 00:23:07,110 --> 00:23:09,950 founding team is not really driving strategy. 409 00:23:10,110 --> 00:23:13,590 They have a role in it. And then. 410 00:23:14,010 --> 00:23:18,290 Sometimes you can get a founder who gets off the rails and he 411 00:23:18,290 --> 00:23:22,730 gets very difficult to manage. And because this group came 412 00:23:22,730 --> 00:23:26,410 together at the very beginning and they all went together, went 413 00:23:26,410 --> 00:23:30,250 through some difficult times, when things are lean, there's a 414 00:23:30,250 --> 00:23:33,490 strong sense that they should be treated differently than 415 00:23:33,490 --> 00:23:36,370 everyone else. And that starts to create a rift 416 00:23:36,370 --> 00:23:38,930 within the rest of the company. And then when you have one of 417 00:23:38,930 --> 00:23:43,570 the founders who is just being so disruptive that it's. 418 00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,960 Hurting the company. Then as the CEO, you've got to 419 00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:50,240 make a really tough decision because how do you let a founder 420 00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:52,480 go? How do you ask a founder to 421 00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,240 leave? And it's happened and it's 422 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,480 really, really difficult because it scares the rest of the 423 00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,640 company because these are people that have been there from the 424 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:04,840 beginning, they're the leaders. And then suddenly one is asked 425 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,380 to leave the company. But you know, you got to do what 426 00:24:07,380 --> 00:24:11,100 you got to do to make sure that you don't let the culture go 427 00:24:11,180 --> 00:24:14,220 spiraling down because you've got somebody that's just not 428 00:24:14,220 --> 00:24:16,740 happy any longer. And sometimes it's just time to 429 00:24:16,740 --> 00:24:19,540 move on for somebody that's been there a long time. 430 00:24:20,300 --> 00:24:23,460 So from your experience looking at this letting founders go, 431 00:24:23,460 --> 00:24:25,660 right? If you have to summarize what 432 00:24:25,660 --> 00:24:28,660 will be some of the key things the Co founding team should 433 00:24:28,660 --> 00:24:32,220 think about whenever they want to ask a founder to leave the 434 00:24:32,220 --> 00:24:34,860 group, Are there certain things that you learn from that 435 00:24:34,860 --> 00:24:36,610 experience? Yeah. 436 00:24:36,610 --> 00:24:41,290 So I have a philosophy in all hiring of hire slowly, fire 437 00:24:41,290 --> 00:24:44,290 quickly. You hire slowly for the maybe 438 00:24:44,290 --> 00:24:46,810 obvious reasons that you want to make sure you get it right. 439 00:24:46,810 --> 00:24:51,330 And hiring people is one of the hardest things you do because 440 00:24:51,930 --> 00:24:54,650 you have this artificial situation where you're, you 441 00:24:54,650 --> 00:24:57,730 know, somebody you don't know. It's a stranger perhaps, and 442 00:24:57,730 --> 00:25:01,250 you're talking to them and you're not in a work situation, 443 00:25:01,250 --> 00:25:04,370 you're just talking to them sitting in a couple of chairs. 444 00:25:04,830 --> 00:25:07,310 And from that, you're supposed to decide if you're going to 445 00:25:07,310 --> 00:25:10,910 make a big bet on them. And then if things don't work 446 00:25:10,910 --> 00:25:15,750 out with a normal employee that you hired like that, you say you 447 00:25:15,750 --> 00:25:18,670 know it's not working out and you need to go. 448 00:25:18,910 --> 00:25:22,950 And I mean quickly, like the minute I find out that somebody 449 00:25:22,950 --> 00:25:26,510 is having a negative influence on the productivity of the 450 00:25:26,510 --> 00:25:28,630 people around them, I don't wait. 451 00:25:28,990 --> 00:25:33,390 I'll make the decision to let them go right then and there and 452 00:25:33,390 --> 00:25:36,400 you move on. Well, with founders, you really 453 00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:42,000 cannot fire quickly because it's such a big deal when you let a 454 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:46,800 founder go that you have to flip things around and say, I'm going 455 00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:52,000 to fire very slowly and you work with that person, you work with 456 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,120 the rest of the founders. It's frankly almost exhausting. 457 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,880 And then ultimately, well, the ideal thing is that person and 458 00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,000 you and the rest of the founders. 459 00:26:03,590 --> 00:26:07,550 All ultimately come to an agreement that it's time for 460 00:26:07,550 --> 00:26:10,190 them to leave. They're fully, I mean hopefully 461 00:26:10,190 --> 00:26:12,950 it's been four years, they're fully vested, you know the 462 00:26:12,950 --> 00:26:14,790 reverse vesting that I talked about. 463 00:26:15,110 --> 00:26:19,310 And so they earned those shares and they own a lot of them and 464 00:26:19,310 --> 00:26:23,270 they get to benefit in however the company turns out. 465 00:26:23,630 --> 00:26:28,550 So my advice is you normally hire slowly, fire quickly but 466 00:26:28,550 --> 00:26:32,510 with founders. You have to fire very slowly and 467 00:26:32,510 --> 00:26:34,670 carefully because of the huge impact it'll have. 468 00:26:35,390 --> 00:26:37,070 Right. Thank you for that tips. 469 00:26:37,070 --> 00:26:39,590 I think many people would have found it quite unique, right? 470 00:26:39,590 --> 00:26:41,910 Fire slowly. But I think it's probably for 471 00:26:41,910 --> 00:26:44,110 the better of the company as well not to disrupt, you know 472 00:26:44,110 --> 00:26:47,270 the whole idea of being a one unit team, right. 473 00:26:47,550 --> 00:26:49,590 So another thing that you mentioned in the beginning is 474 00:26:49,590 --> 00:26:52,390 that actually you had experienced failure as well. 475 00:26:52,510 --> 00:26:55,710 The statistics still speaks true, maybe 8 out of 10 startups 476 00:26:55,710 --> 00:26:58,260 fail, right? And still many people want to 477 00:26:58,260 --> 00:27:01,740 think of starting a startup. What makes people want to give 478 00:27:01,740 --> 00:27:04,980 this experience a try? And from your experience, did 479 00:27:04,980 --> 00:27:08,180 you actually regret experiencing all those failures despite you 480 00:27:08,180 --> 00:27:10,100 have two exits? 2 massive exits? 481 00:27:10,340 --> 00:27:13,220 But at the time when you had that failure, probably you would 482 00:27:13,220 --> 00:27:16,460 think differently, right? When you had the bad situation, 483 00:27:16,460 --> 00:27:19,980 or you wasted effort or all those things, do you think you 484 00:27:19,980 --> 00:27:22,060 will regret some of those journey? 485 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,200 Oh, I guess so. But the good thing is that time 486 00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,840 sort of heals wounds. And then, yeah, I can sit here 487 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,640 and say, wow, I worked really hard on that one. 488 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,240 One of the phrases I use is we hit the wall and there were no 489 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,600 skid marks. I mean, we just hit the wall 490 00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,800 fast and hard. And those are regrettable. 491 00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,400 And at the time it seemed like absolutely horrible. 492 00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,920 But I guess one of the things that. 493 00:27:49,330 --> 00:27:53,890 I've observed in myself and other startup people, Is there 494 00:27:53,970 --> 00:27:57,850 eternal optimists? Almost sort of pathological 495 00:27:57,850 --> 00:27:58,850 optimists? Maybe. 496 00:27:59,210 --> 00:28:01,930 And they just keep trying again and again and again. 497 00:28:02,370 --> 00:28:06,570 And there's another aspect to why do startups at all? 498 00:28:06,850 --> 00:28:09,810 And to me the answer is simple. If you work. 499 00:28:10,010 --> 00:28:12,650 And it was good that I did. I worked at a couple of big 500 00:28:12,650 --> 00:28:16,050 companies surrounded by startups, but I did a stint at 501 00:28:16,050 --> 00:28:18,770 Borland. 4 years, five years maybe. 502 00:28:19,180 --> 00:28:21,460 And then I did a stint at a defense contractor. 503 00:28:21,740 --> 00:28:25,900 And so those experiences teach you that it's not that big 504 00:28:25,900 --> 00:28:29,940 companies don't want to be innovative, it's that they 505 00:28:29,940 --> 00:28:32,900 really can't be. They become very risk averse. 506 00:28:33,220 --> 00:28:35,900 They've got too much to lose, they got too many shareholders, 507 00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:38,700 they got too many employees, they got customers, etcetera. 508 00:28:38,980 --> 00:28:41,940 And you can't make radical changes. 509 00:28:42,260 --> 00:28:44,660 I mean, think about the most recent announcement that Intel 510 00:28:44,660 --> 00:28:48,140 made with, they said we're going to drop everything but 64 bits. 511 00:28:48,550 --> 00:28:51,990 In the X86 architecture and they'll probably get a lot of 512 00:28:51,990 --> 00:28:54,950 pushback. They've had to keep the basic 513 00:28:55,470 --> 00:29:01,230 core of the 8080 working all of these years and think about how 514 00:29:01,230 --> 00:29:04,270 hard that has been for them versus somebody that just says 515 00:29:04,270 --> 00:29:07,350 on start from scratch, I don't have any installed base. 516 00:29:07,830 --> 00:29:11,590 So even though big companies would like to be innovative, 517 00:29:11,830 --> 00:29:14,870 they can't be. And so if being innovative is 518 00:29:14,870 --> 00:29:18,710 important to you, well. Then you kind of got to be at a 519 00:29:18,710 --> 00:29:20,750 startup. Now you don't have to found a 520 00:29:20,750 --> 00:29:23,550 startup. In fact, I recommend people who 521 00:29:23,630 --> 00:29:26,030 think they want to be at a startup join a company that's 522 00:29:26,030 --> 00:29:28,670 got 100 people. And that's still a startup. 523 00:29:29,070 --> 00:29:32,350 And that's still going to be a company that can Bob and weave 524 00:29:32,350 --> 00:29:36,470 and pivot and make changes that would, you know, make the head 525 00:29:36,470 --> 00:29:39,190 spin of people that work at a big company. 526 00:29:39,550 --> 00:29:43,030 So I don't know if that answered your question, but that's why I 527 00:29:43,030 --> 00:29:44,830 keep doing it. It's that. 528 00:29:45,260 --> 00:29:49,300 You get addicted to being able to innovate and move quickly and 529 00:29:49,300 --> 00:29:51,660 change things and try another angle. 530 00:29:51,860 --> 00:29:54,900 As long as you don't run out of money, that's the other problem, 531 00:29:54,900 --> 00:29:56,220 of course. Yeah. 532 00:29:56,500 --> 00:29:59,740 So you mentioned this eternal optimistic kind of mindset, 533 00:29:59,740 --> 00:30:01,460 right? I think that's really key to me. 534 00:30:01,540 --> 00:30:04,540 Whenever you work in a startup, sometimes it frustrates the 535 00:30:04,540 --> 00:30:07,860 person who worked there because there is no process, there's no 536 00:30:07,860 --> 00:30:10,980 good amount of resources, right? Everything needs to be started 537 00:30:10,980 --> 00:30:13,650 from scratch. I think becoming an optimist is 538 00:30:13,650 --> 00:30:17,250 really key and whenever you seem to find a failure you don't give 539 00:30:17,250 --> 00:30:18,810 up, right? You always have to find a new 540 00:30:18,810 --> 00:30:21,970 ways of solving the problems. So you mentioned about working 541 00:30:21,970 --> 00:30:24,530 in a big companies, right? I'm sure there's also a lot of 542 00:30:24,570 --> 00:30:27,610 advantage there compared to working in the startups and you 543 00:30:27,730 --> 00:30:29,730 even mentioned that you work in a big companies. 544 00:30:29,730 --> 00:30:32,770 Before you actually jump into startups all the way, what are 545 00:30:32,770 --> 00:30:34,890 some of the lessons you learn from big companies that you 546 00:30:34,890 --> 00:30:39,330 apply in the startups? Well, you can learn a lot about 547 00:30:39,530 --> 00:30:42,540 process. And you can learn because one of 548 00:30:42,540 --> 00:30:47,140 the challenges as the CEO of a startup is that you can't have 549 00:30:47,140 --> 00:30:51,300 too much process early on because it's sort of unnecessary 550 00:30:51,300 --> 00:30:53,260 when it's just five of you or 10 of you. 551 00:30:53,740 --> 00:30:59,540 But as it gets to be 255075 people, you start needing some 552 00:30:59,540 --> 00:31:04,220 more process, process around how you're going to hire process 553 00:31:04,220 --> 00:31:08,450 around product changes. Around deciding what your 554 00:31:08,450 --> 00:31:11,370 strategy should be. Reacting to what you're hearing 555 00:31:11,370 --> 00:31:17,090 from the market in a way that is fast but also makes sense. 556 00:31:17,410 --> 00:31:20,530 And then of course, dealing with your board and with your 557 00:31:20,530 --> 00:31:24,850 investors starts to require a certain amount of process, and 558 00:31:25,170 --> 00:31:29,410 you learn a lot about process at a big company, and you might 559 00:31:29,490 --> 00:31:31,810 learn both good and bad lessons from it. 560 00:31:32,010 --> 00:31:34,010 I'll give you an example. So Borland. 561 00:31:34,330 --> 00:31:39,850 Was a large company that had very efficient, useful process 562 00:31:40,330 --> 00:31:44,810 and I almost never felt like there was too much process at 563 00:31:44,810 --> 00:31:48,570 Borland, even though it was a 1500 person company and it was 564 00:31:48,570 --> 00:31:51,410 the third largest software company in the world at the 565 00:31:51,410 --> 00:31:54,490 time, only behind Microsoft and Lotus. 566 00:31:54,490 --> 00:31:56,210 Of course. Some of your listeners are going 567 00:31:56,210 --> 00:31:58,410 to go Lotus. What's Lotus? 568 00:31:59,790 --> 00:32:03,830 Well, Lotus got swallowed by IBM as people that do remember Lotus 569 00:32:03,830 --> 00:32:07,950 would we were just behind Lotus. But then I was that a defense 570 00:32:07,950 --> 00:32:12,390 contractor where they have gotten so bogged down in process 571 00:32:12,630 --> 00:32:15,750 and some of it's mandated by the government and they can't help 572 00:32:15,750 --> 00:32:20,750 it, but it just, it makes their overhead rates, you know, if a 573 00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:24,910 defense contractor is proposing to do some work that's being 574 00:32:24,910 --> 00:32:28,750 asked for by the government. If you look at what the overhead 575 00:32:28,750 --> 00:32:33,710 rate for some of these companies is, it's like over 200%. 576 00:32:33,790 --> 00:32:39,150 So you take somebody's salary and it's not multiplied by 25%, 577 00:32:39,150 --> 00:32:45,150 it's multiplied by 250% is how much that person is going to 578 00:32:45,150 --> 00:32:47,630 show up in your budget to the government. 579 00:32:47,910 --> 00:32:51,990 That's because there's so much process and that's not their 580 00:32:51,990 --> 00:32:54,790 profit. That's just what they say their 581 00:32:54,790 --> 00:32:58,220 overhead rate is. Then they tack on another 8% or 582 00:32:58,220 --> 00:33:03,100 7% as their profit. It's an amazingly expensive way 583 00:33:03,100 --> 00:33:07,020 for things to get done. When I joined a company that 584 00:33:07,020 --> 00:33:11,500 should have been acting like a startup and I was going in as 585 00:33:11,980 --> 00:33:16,460 CTO, and then eventually I became the CEO later and they 586 00:33:16,460 --> 00:33:21,180 told me about these things they had called pigs Pi G's. 587 00:33:21,580 --> 00:33:26,030 I said, what's a PIG? They said process improvement 588 00:33:26,030 --> 00:33:28,590 group. They had six or eight groups 589 00:33:28,790 --> 00:33:34,150 that met regularly to come up with and manage a whole 6 or 8 590 00:33:34,150 --> 00:33:38,230 different processes. So they had a group to define a 591 00:33:38,230 --> 00:33:41,470 process and to manage it. I said you have got to be 592 00:33:41,470 --> 00:33:45,590 kidding me, there were only 75 people at this company and you 593 00:33:45,590 --> 00:33:48,470 need 6 process improvement groups. 594 00:33:48,870 --> 00:33:53,980 Something's wrong here. So it can take over even a 595 00:33:54,020 --> 00:33:56,940 smaller company if you let it too much process. 596 00:33:57,820 --> 00:33:59,980 Right. So the learning here is process 597 00:34:00,020 --> 00:34:01,820 is good at a certain stage, right. 598 00:34:01,820 --> 00:34:04,300 So when you're small, probably you don't introduce too many, 599 00:34:04,420 --> 00:34:07,940 but as you grow larger, I think good process especially you have 600 00:34:07,940 --> 00:34:09,219 seen in the big companies, right. 601 00:34:09,219 --> 00:34:11,300 Of course they have good processes that we can follow, 602 00:34:11,540 --> 00:34:14,820 but also don't get too bogged down in unnecessary processes. 603 00:34:15,179 --> 00:34:17,139 I think that's the key lesson exactly. 604 00:34:17,139 --> 00:34:20,060 You mentioned also in the beginning that you had to 605 00:34:20,100 --> 00:34:22,360 decide. To step up as a CEO for the 606 00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,800 first time, right? Of course, if you want to found 607 00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,880 a team, there's a high chance. Also you have to become a CEO. 608 00:34:28,159 --> 00:34:31,639 And for many tech people, we sometimes want to just deal with 609 00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:34,440 technologies, right? Mostly also opt for CTO. 610 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,080 But in your book you discuss like why someone should consider 611 00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:41,040 becoming a CEO. So maybe you can walk us through 612 00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:43,360 the thought process here, why someone should think about 613 00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,719 becoming the CEO of the startup they found. 614 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:50,280 OK, so first of all, let me say this Tech startups. 615 00:34:50,739 --> 00:34:55,420 In their first phase, which is probably the 1st 18 months or 616 00:34:55,420 --> 00:35:01,060 so, the CEO has to be very comfortable and if possible have 617 00:35:01,060 --> 00:35:04,980 a deep understanding of the technology because they have to 618 00:35:04,980 --> 00:35:06,740 go out and they have to talk about it. 619 00:35:06,740 --> 00:35:09,220 They have to sell it to investors at the very least. 620 00:35:09,700 --> 00:35:12,500 And if every time they're supposed to talk about the 621 00:35:12,500 --> 00:35:16,220 technology, they have to bring the CTO with them, well that's 622 00:35:16,220 --> 00:35:19,250 pretty inefficient. And they really need to be able 623 00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:22,810 to answer those questions. And so there's a phenomenon 624 00:35:22,810 --> 00:35:26,330 which is common, where one of the founders is going to be the 625 00:35:26,330 --> 00:35:29,330 CEO and they understand technology and that's 626 00:35:29,330 --> 00:35:32,090 appropriate. But sometimes at the 18 month 627 00:35:32,090 --> 00:35:37,210 mark or so, that person is not the ideal person to be the CEO 628 00:35:37,210 --> 00:35:42,770 any longer and bringing somebody else in who has market knowledge 629 00:35:42,770 --> 00:35:45,170 or is really good at sales and marketing. 630 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:47,840 And you can't be great at everything. 631 00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:52,240 And so if you're a technology person who understands the 632 00:35:52,240 --> 00:35:55,840 market that you came out of, understands the problem, you're 633 00:35:55,840 --> 00:36:00,760 probably a great startup CEO and then you might have to switch 634 00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,640 into the CTO role or some other role and bring in somebody from 635 00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,000 the outside. And that's a hard thing to go 636 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,880 through. I went through it a couple 637 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,600 times, twice, and it still really was hard. 638 00:36:13,980 --> 00:36:17,860 But it happens a lot. So one reason that you want to 639 00:36:17,860 --> 00:36:21,860 consider being CEO is because you've got that knowledge of the 640 00:36:21,860 --> 00:36:26,060 market, of the technology, and you can represent it, you can 641 00:36:26,060 --> 00:36:29,180 sell it, you can pitch it in your pitch deck, and you can 642 00:36:29,180 --> 00:36:32,580 raise money much more easily. If that's true, of course the 643 00:36:32,620 --> 00:36:37,060 other reason to do it is that as you move through your career, 644 00:36:37,340 --> 00:36:40,500 you were probably an individual contributor, and then maybe you 645 00:36:40,500 --> 00:36:43,410 ran a small. Group you're you've led a small 646 00:36:43,410 --> 00:36:44,970 group. You might not have been the 647 00:36:44,970 --> 00:36:49,050 manager, but you can still lead as a coder for example. 648 00:36:49,290 --> 00:36:52,570 Or on the engineering side, you can lead as an architect. 649 00:36:52,650 --> 00:36:56,330 You can lead a team of 510 without being their quote 650 00:36:56,490 --> 00:36:59,490 official manager. And in my opinion, the only 651 00:36:59,490 --> 00:37:03,450 reason to move up to the next level, where you're managing the 652 00:37:03,450 --> 00:37:06,970 next level of people that they themselves are managing others, 653 00:37:07,210 --> 00:37:09,470 is because. You've got the experience, 654 00:37:09,470 --> 00:37:12,670 you've got the knowledge to understand all of the big 655 00:37:12,670 --> 00:37:16,590 picture, not just a feature, but you understand the whole product 656 00:37:16,590 --> 00:37:20,310 or we want to understand your product in the context of the 657 00:37:20,310 --> 00:37:24,150 customers full system. And so you have all that 658 00:37:24,150 --> 00:37:27,390 knowledge, but you can't do everything yourself. 659 00:37:27,790 --> 00:37:30,190 That's a really good reason to move up and that's a really good 660 00:37:30,190 --> 00:37:34,310 reason to be CEO, because you've got the experience and you've 661 00:37:34,310 --> 00:37:37,150 got the understanding of, like I said, the product, the market. 662 00:37:37,570 --> 00:37:42,170 And you are the ideal person to lead the whole company. 663 00:37:42,330 --> 00:37:45,410 You don't have to be a super expert at marketing, a super 664 00:37:45,410 --> 00:37:49,330 expert at sales, but you have to know enough about them to bring 665 00:37:49,330 --> 00:37:51,410 in a good person that you can manage. 666 00:37:51,770 --> 00:37:54,850 And so those are the two reasons, I think, for becoming a 667 00:37:54,850 --> 00:37:58,370 CEO of a tech startup. And you mentioned also like 668 00:37:58,370 --> 00:38:00,250 don't think that we can do everything right. 669 00:38:00,250 --> 00:38:04,370 So you need to find good people that you can delegate and focus 670 00:38:04,370 --> 00:38:07,130 on the things that you can bring much impact like you said, 671 00:38:07,130 --> 00:38:09,450 right, the technology itself maybe in the beginning because 672 00:38:09,450 --> 00:38:12,490 you have to pitch it to the investors or to also find the 673 00:38:12,570 --> 00:38:15,770 product market fit to the users. And also maybe if you know a 674 00:38:15,770 --> 00:38:18,130 little bit about marketing, right, you can also cover that. 675 00:38:18,580 --> 00:38:21,980 So in your book there's one chapter you talk about bad 676 00:38:21,980 --> 00:38:26,020 CEO's, I'm sure for many people who are not trained to become a 677 00:38:26,020 --> 00:38:29,060 CEO in the 1st place, what are some of the trades or some of 678 00:38:29,060 --> 00:38:32,460 the practices that you think are very important for the CEO's to 679 00:38:32,460 --> 00:38:35,660 avoid so that they don't have to become the bad CEO's for the 680 00:38:35,660 --> 00:38:38,500 company they found? Well, I'll answer your question 681 00:38:38,500 --> 00:38:42,380 by talking about the two bad CEO's without mentioning their 682 00:38:42,380 --> 00:38:46,500 company or their name, but just talk about their qualities of 683 00:38:46,500 --> 00:38:48,960 their characteristics. That are bad. 684 00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,040 So I had one company where I was the founder and we had already 685 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,560 pivoted twice and it still wasn't working. 686 00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:00,120 And I thought if I could find somebody that already 687 00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:05,240 understands a big problem in a big market that our technology 688 00:39:05,240 --> 00:39:09,000 could be fairly quickly adapted to because we were one of those 689 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,160 companies that thought we had a great solution and then spent a 690 00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,520 long time trying to find exactly what problem are we solving 691 00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:18,730 here. And so I brought a guy in from 692 00:39:18,770 --> 00:39:24,050 the outside, and what I saw in him that I loved was that he had 693 00:39:24,130 --> 00:39:28,850 a really clear understanding of major problem in the market that 694 00:39:29,010 --> 00:39:31,690 people were trying to solve, but we're doing a horrible job of 695 00:39:31,690 --> 00:39:33,890 solving. And there was an enormous 696 00:39:33,890 --> 00:39:38,050 opportunity. But he had a concept of loyalty 697 00:39:38,050 --> 00:39:40,930 that just dominated everything that he did. 698 00:39:41,250 --> 00:39:45,410 And if anyone actually disagreed with him about anything. 699 00:39:45,770 --> 00:39:50,810 He got extremely upset and he considered that disloyal, and 700 00:39:51,090 --> 00:39:55,850 this became such a big problem that someone like me that 701 00:39:55,850 --> 00:39:57,770 actually brought him in had to leave. 702 00:39:57,890 --> 00:40:01,250 It just wasn't a good mix. And so it was sort of this 703 00:40:01,450 --> 00:40:05,650 combination of micromanaging, meaning, not really delegating. 704 00:40:05,890 --> 00:40:09,890 And the people that he brought with him, they had this strong 705 00:40:10,090 --> 00:40:13,750 sense of loyalty to him. Which meant doing exactly what 706 00:40:13,750 --> 00:40:17,070 he said and never disagreeing or having a thought about it 707 00:40:17,070 --> 00:40:19,430 yourself. And it's stifled that 708 00:40:19,430 --> 00:40:22,350 creativity. It's stifled pretty much anybody 709 00:40:22,350 --> 00:40:26,110 from veering, from doing exactly what he told them to do. 710 00:40:26,350 --> 00:40:30,790 It was almost military precision and military kind of loyalty. 711 00:40:31,070 --> 00:40:34,870 So that one was a problem. Another one, the CEO, turned out 712 00:40:34,870 --> 00:40:39,390 to be bad, but it was because the board. 713 00:40:39,910 --> 00:40:43,990 This is another situation by the way, where I had been there 15 714 00:40:43,990 --> 00:40:47,870 months and then we felt like and I agree with the board that I 715 00:40:47,870 --> 00:40:52,470 was still new to sales and marketing and I hadn't really 716 00:40:52,590 --> 00:40:56,910 gotten as strong in those two areas as I needed to be to truly 717 00:40:56,910 --> 00:41:01,350 be a good longterm CEO. And so we were looking for 718 00:41:01,710 --> 00:41:05,020 potential CEO's. And my idea was we hire somebody 719 00:41:05,020 --> 00:41:09,620 that's an absolute super experienced sales guy selling 720 00:41:09,780 --> 00:41:13,140 high technology stuff. But the two candidates we looked 721 00:41:13,140 --> 00:41:17,180 at, one was like that and the other had been a CTO of a really 722 00:41:17,180 --> 00:41:21,140 huge software company, had never run a small company, had never 723 00:41:21,140 --> 00:41:25,220 raised money from investors and had never run sales or 724 00:41:25,220 --> 00:41:27,300 marketing. It didn't make any sense. 725 00:41:27,420 --> 00:41:29,660 Everybody's scratching their head saying, wait a minute, that 726 00:41:29,660 --> 00:41:32,600 doesn't make any sense. But he ended up coming in 727 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,280 against me and the rest of the founding team. 728 00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:39,480 In that case, we had a total of 5 founders and we all didn't 729 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:43,600 want this to happen. But we were told by the board 730 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:47,680 member who was also an investor, that if we threw our weight 731 00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,920 around, he would abide by what we wanted, but he would never 732 00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,120 invest in the company again. And we weren't going to be able 733 00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,200 to survive without that. So we accepted it and a year 734 00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,670 later. And I had stayed for almost a 735 00:41:59,670 --> 00:42:02,550 year to help him learn. And then I left. 736 00:42:02,950 --> 00:42:06,870 And shortly after I left, I found out that the company ran 737 00:42:06,870 --> 00:42:10,350 out of money and closed. I quickly called up my 738 00:42:10,590 --> 00:42:12,910 cofounders and I said I don't understand what happened. 739 00:42:13,230 --> 00:42:15,150 And they said he forgot to raise money. 740 00:42:15,510 --> 00:42:19,710 He didn't watch his cash. He didn't know how to raise 741 00:42:19,710 --> 00:42:21,390 money. So he kept putting it off and 742 00:42:21,390 --> 00:42:25,350 putting it off. And ultimately it just, boy did 743 00:42:25,350 --> 00:42:27,230 it hit the wall with no skid marks. 744 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,440 And that was very sad. So what's the point there? 745 00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:36,200 The point is there are a few things which every CEO has to do 746 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,160 and do almost religiously. What are they? 747 00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,960 One, watch your cash burn, How much runway do you have? 748 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:47,040 You have to have more than enough runway to sell your 749 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,760 product, Prove that you've got good product market fit. 750 00:42:51,230 --> 00:42:54,790 And if you see that your runway doesn't get you to cash flow 751 00:42:54,790 --> 00:42:57,990 positive, which you know it's not going to in the early couple 752 00:42:57,990 --> 00:43:01,510 of years, well then you need to make sure that you begin the 753 00:43:01,510 --> 00:43:06,590 process of funding around well in advance of when your runway 754 00:43:06,590 --> 00:43:10,190 runs out. You don't want to be like weeks 755 00:43:10,190 --> 00:43:12,990 away from running out of cash, right, as you're trying to close 756 00:43:12,990 --> 00:43:17,030 around because even nice investors will take some 757 00:43:17,030 --> 00:43:19,590 advantage of that and make sure they get a better deal. 758 00:43:20,490 --> 00:43:21,650 Wow. I didn't know that it could 759 00:43:21,650 --> 00:43:23,810 happen. Like a CEO forgot her to raise 760 00:43:23,810 --> 00:43:26,250 funding, right. So I think that's really a good 761 00:43:26,250 --> 00:43:28,650 lesson for all of us here. So one of the major 762 00:43:28,650 --> 00:43:32,290 responsibility of the CEO is to figure out the runway, the cash 763 00:43:32,290 --> 00:43:36,490 burn, and don't forget to raise the money for the next round. 764 00:43:37,010 --> 00:43:38,730 So, Jodie, thanks for sharing all this. 765 00:43:38,730 --> 00:43:41,050 I think it's really great. Great lessons from all your 766 00:43:41,050 --> 00:43:42,770 journey. I wish you well in writing the 767 00:43:42,770 --> 00:43:44,450 book. So when will we expect to see 768 00:43:44,450 --> 00:43:46,050 the book being published, actually? 769 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:52,240 I think the publisher, Manning and I are both feeling pretty 770 00:43:52,240 --> 00:43:56,040 good about it coming out before the end of the year, but it will 771 00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,280 be pretty late in the year. They're hoping that I'm done 772 00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,720 with the writing by September. I think that's a little 773 00:44:02,720 --> 00:44:05,680 optimistic, but the problem is that I'm not writing. 774 00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:07,440 This is not the only thing I'm doing. 775 00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:11,080 I'm still running a startup, and I'm helping a defense contractor 776 00:44:11,240 --> 00:44:15,280 try to learn how to spin out technology into the commercial 777 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,690 space. Like I told you earlier, I'm 778 00:44:17,690 --> 00:44:20,010 sort of, you know, I can't help myself. 779 00:44:20,010 --> 00:44:24,210 I still want to see that happen. But there are so many barriers 780 00:44:24,210 --> 00:44:27,850 to that happening anyway, Very busy and also running a 781 00:44:27,850 --> 00:44:30,690 foundation, but I think it'll come out before the end of the 782 00:44:30,690 --> 00:44:32,050 year. Right. 783 00:44:32,290 --> 00:44:34,690 So let's go to your foundation, which I think is also a very 784 00:44:34,690 --> 00:44:37,450 inspirational message, right? It's an inspirational 785 00:44:37,450 --> 00:44:39,410 foundation. So tell us more about it. 786 00:44:39,410 --> 00:44:41,890 Who says I Can foundation? What is it all about? 787 00:44:41,890 --> 00:44:44,650 And what is the core message that you want to convey out of 788 00:44:44,650 --> 00:44:47,410 that? So part of when you asked me to 789 00:44:47,450 --> 00:44:50,570 talk about my background, I talked about my career. 790 00:44:50,930 --> 00:44:54,770 But part of what happened to me that led to this foundation is 791 00:44:54,770 --> 00:45:00,290 that when I was 16, it was discovered that I had a rare 792 00:45:00,290 --> 00:45:04,930 kind of bone cancer in my right knee that only affects about 793 00:45:04,930 --> 00:45:07,850 1000. It's only in teenagers, only 794 00:45:07,850 --> 00:45:12,530 affects about 1000 kids in the United States a year and the 795 00:45:12,530 --> 00:45:17,010 only treatment back then. In 1973, the only treatment was 796 00:45:17,250 --> 00:45:20,130 amputation. Chemotherapy didn't even exist 797 00:45:20,130 --> 00:45:23,010 yet. Three years later, that cancer 798 00:45:23,010 --> 00:45:25,570 is aggressive. It was in the bloodstream and it 799 00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:29,450 landed in my lung. And then I had to have half my 800 00:45:29,450 --> 00:45:32,450 lungs removed. But at that point in time, 801 00:45:32,770 --> 00:45:37,250 chemotherapy did exist. However, the real point that led 802 00:45:37,250 --> 00:45:40,050 to who says I can't? Is that during all that time? 803 00:45:40,530 --> 00:45:44,370 People were telling me can't you can't ski again, you can't swim 804 00:45:44,370 --> 00:45:47,210 straight, you can't ride a bike because you won't be able to 805 00:45:47,210 --> 00:45:50,570 balance on it. And I was hearing can't so much 806 00:45:50,570 --> 00:45:54,610 that it was really destroying my self esteem and sort of hope. 807 00:45:55,050 --> 00:45:58,290 And I kind of fought back and said, well I'm going to figure 808 00:45:58,290 --> 00:46:02,410 this out and it took a long time, but I ultimately got good 809 00:46:02,410 --> 00:46:06,730 enough at one legged skiing that I'm currently a double black 810 00:46:06,730 --> 00:46:10,150 diamond skier. Then somebody said to me, I was 811 00:46:10,150 --> 00:46:14,310 the CEO of a company and somebody wanted me to fund their 812 00:46:14,310 --> 00:46:19,310 ride, which was supposed to help fund AIDS research, fund their 813 00:46:19,310 --> 00:46:24,030 ride from Boston to New York. And another person who worked 814 00:46:24,030 --> 00:46:26,470 for me said, oh, you sound so excited about that. 815 00:46:26,470 --> 00:46:29,710 Too bad you can't ride a bike from Boston to New York. 816 00:46:29,990 --> 00:46:33,750 So I bought a bike that afternoon and I trained hard and 817 00:46:33,750 --> 00:46:37,110 I did the AIDS ride from Boston to New York three years in a 818 00:46:37,110 --> 00:46:40,890 row. So I then wrote a memoir to try 819 00:46:40,890 --> 00:46:43,570 to help other people get some hope. 820 00:46:43,850 --> 00:46:47,730 And I started to, you know, in my own mind, figure out what's 821 00:46:47,730 --> 00:46:50,530 going on here. Because I kept meeting people 822 00:46:50,530 --> 00:46:56,170 that also were pretty determined and looking at sports as a way 823 00:46:56,410 --> 00:46:59,890 to feel good about themselves again and accomplish something 824 00:46:59,890 --> 00:47:01,610 that everybody else thinks you can't do. 825 00:47:02,050 --> 00:47:05,130 And I turned that into a book, and then I turned it into a Ted 826 00:47:05,130 --> 00:47:09,110 Talk. Which talks about why my theory 827 00:47:09,230 --> 00:47:13,910 why people who have a physical disability so often overachieve. 828 00:47:14,270 --> 00:47:18,110 So it's a Ted talk. If you type into Google Jothy 829 00:47:18,110 --> 00:47:21,430 TEDx, you'll find it. That's all you need to type. 830 00:47:22,010 --> 00:47:27,490 So the foundation is because the best way for me to feel like I 831 00:47:27,490 --> 00:47:33,530 can hands on help kids overcome a disability is by having this 832 00:47:33,530 --> 00:47:37,890 foundation that raises money and then we will buy let's say a 833 00:47:37,890 --> 00:47:40,690 running leg. So right now we're helping a 10 834 00:47:40,690 --> 00:47:44,330 year old girl who was born without a right leg birth defect 835 00:47:44,650 --> 00:47:50,930 and never run, but a year ago 8 to 9 started to really feel 836 00:47:51,210 --> 00:47:53,120 like. Well I really, really want to 837 00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:58,480 run and the reasons were that gym class was starting to leave 838 00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:00,800 her out. She would be the last one picked 839 00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,200 for teams because she couldn't run and so it was A tag game. 840 00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,520 She'd get caught 1st and if it was a kicking a ball game, well 841 00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:10,280 she wasn't much good at that either. 842 00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:16,400 Running leg for a 10 year old girl is $21,000 and insurance 843 00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:20,360 will not buy sports equipment for somebody with a disability. 844 00:48:20,830 --> 00:48:24,910 So that's what we do, and literally everyone. 845 00:48:24,910 --> 00:48:28,310 I've touched every one of these kids over the years, and I 846 00:48:28,310 --> 00:48:31,750 started it in 2013. We've changed their life 847 00:48:32,070 --> 00:48:34,790 permanently, and there's no better feeling. 848 00:48:35,230 --> 00:48:37,670 There's this little girl. She's left out. 849 00:48:37,790 --> 00:48:40,030 She wants to run. Her parents can't afford it. 850 00:48:40,350 --> 00:48:44,670 We get her a leg and she can't stop smiling and she's just. 851 00:48:45,130 --> 00:48:48,650 She run to gym class with her new running leg on. 852 00:48:48,650 --> 00:48:50,250 They'd never seen her run before. 853 00:48:50,250 --> 00:48:53,610 She goes running in and she's so proud to show it off. 854 00:48:54,010 --> 00:48:57,250 It's unbelievable. Wow, what a beautiful story, 855 00:48:57,250 --> 00:48:59,010 right? I also saw your tat top. 856 00:48:59,010 --> 00:49:01,450 It's very inspirational. I could see some videos. 857 00:49:01,450 --> 00:49:05,530 You did this bike riding, swimming over the sea, a few 858 00:49:05,530 --> 00:49:07,810 other things that you did. Even you jump on a rope at the 859 00:49:07,810 --> 00:49:10,250 end of the tat top. I think that was really cool. 860 00:49:10,740 --> 00:49:13,300 So in your talk you also mentioned this formula for 861 00:49:13,300 --> 00:49:16,420 someone who wants to prove themselves, Like who says I 862 00:49:16,420 --> 00:49:18,460 can't, right? So maybe tell us a little bit 863 00:49:18,460 --> 00:49:21,980 more about that formula so that people can also understand why 864 00:49:21,980 --> 00:49:24,900 you think the people with disability most of the times 865 00:49:24,900 --> 00:49:30,020 overachieve. So I believe and took me. 866 00:49:30,380 --> 00:49:32,540 It's been 50 years since I lost my life. 867 00:49:32,700 --> 00:49:34,500 This past January, it's 50 years. 868 00:49:34,940 --> 00:49:38,060 It's taken most of that time for me to kind of figure this out. 869 00:49:38,060 --> 00:49:43,180 There's three traits. That when combined, make this 870 00:49:43,260 --> 00:49:46,300 happen. The 1st is insecurity. 871 00:49:46,540 --> 00:49:51,340 Someone who has a disability has a baseline level of insecurity. 872 00:49:51,380 --> 00:49:53,540 Always, constantly. Why? 873 00:49:53,660 --> 00:49:56,340 Well, because when you're walking in your prosthetic leg, 874 00:49:56,700 --> 00:49:59,660 it's easy to fall. Amputees fall an average of once 875 00:49:59,660 --> 00:50:03,340 a week their entire lives, and you fall in places and it's 876 00:50:03,500 --> 00:50:07,500 humiliating or it hurts or it's dangerous, but it's more than 877 00:50:07,500 --> 00:50:08,900 that. You know, you get up in the 878 00:50:08,900 --> 00:50:12,200 middle of the night. And you don't have your leg on. 879 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,880 You got to grab a pair of crutches to go to the bathroom. 880 00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:19,240 That reminds you every day that you have a disability. 881 00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,440 And so there's this latent sense of insecurity. 882 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:27,520 OK, so then you figure out, oh, maybe I can do this sport, 883 00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,280 whatever it is, I can learn to ski if I work hard at it. 884 00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,880 And eventually people start to clap for you. 885 00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:37,800 I'll go skiing under a chairlift, and I'll get people 886 00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:39,400 in the chairlift, hooting and hollering. 887 00:50:39,720 --> 00:50:41,320 And that makes you feel exceptional. 888 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,600 And it's just like a drug. It's like the first time it 889 00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,240 happens, you go, what I really like that kind of recognition. 890 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,360 And so you want more of it. And so this combination of 891 00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:56,400 insecurity and exceptionalism, which sounds like it can't 892 00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:02,640 possibly be true in the same person, is this instable kind of 893 00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:06,520 thing that causes you to focus and work hard. 894 00:51:07,070 --> 00:51:10,430 And the third part of the formula is discipline. 895 00:51:10,830 --> 00:51:15,070 So insecurity by itself makes you crawl into yourself and be 896 00:51:15,190 --> 00:51:17,790 feeling sorry for yourself. Insecurity by itself is very, 897 00:51:17,910 --> 00:51:21,190 very dangerous. Exceptionalism by itself makes 898 00:51:21,190 --> 00:51:26,030 you arrogant and obnoxious. But you put those two together 899 00:51:26,190 --> 00:51:30,670 and they balance each other out. And then what seems to come 900 00:51:30,670 --> 00:51:34,950 naturally to people who've had a disability happen to them is 901 00:51:34,950 --> 00:51:37,770 discipline. You're only going to be able to 902 00:51:37,810 --> 00:51:42,050 keep up with these people that have two legs if you work really 903 00:51:42,050 --> 00:51:46,530 hard at how does this running leg work, It's not the same as 904 00:51:46,530 --> 00:51:49,330 your biologic leg, and you've got to adapt to it and you've 905 00:51:49,330 --> 00:51:53,370 got to adjust your brain to it. So discipline sort of comes 906 00:51:53,370 --> 00:51:56,290 naturally. So the formula is insecurity 907 00:51:56,570 --> 00:51:58,570 plus exceptionalism plus discipline. 908 00:51:58,970 --> 00:52:03,690 And my final point about it is that I believe that everyone 909 00:52:03,690 --> 00:52:05,930 eventually has a disability. Everyone. 910 00:52:06,170 --> 00:52:10,210 Eventually, and it's not always just something physical. 911 00:52:10,410 --> 00:52:13,690 Maybe it's a relationship problem and it's making you feel 912 00:52:13,690 --> 00:52:17,210 bad. But can you turn these three 913 00:52:17,210 --> 00:52:22,570 traits to your benefit when you're feeling bad and something 914 00:52:22,570 --> 00:52:26,410 bad has happened and can you overcome it? 915 00:52:26,890 --> 00:52:30,650 And if so, well, how? And I think if you think about, 916 00:52:30,770 --> 00:52:33,010 well, it's made me feel bad about myself. 917 00:52:33,370 --> 00:52:35,410 That's the insecurity part. But. 918 00:52:35,860 --> 00:52:39,780 If I use the discipline that I know is in me somewhere, maybe I 919 00:52:39,780 --> 00:52:43,660 can start to achieve some goals. And I forgot to say that 920 00:52:43,660 --> 00:52:46,700 earlier. Exceptionalism can come from you 921 00:52:46,700 --> 00:52:50,140 set a small goal and you work hard and you achieve it and you 922 00:52:50,140 --> 00:52:53,340 celebrate it, and then you set the next one and you keep going. 923 00:52:53,740 --> 00:52:57,900 Each one is no big deal, but by the time you've built on top of 924 00:52:57,900 --> 00:53:01,700 1, on top of the other on top of the other, you know it's a lot. 925 00:53:02,110 --> 00:53:06,510 And, you know, it's taken me 50 years to be able to swim from 926 00:53:06,590 --> 00:53:09,870 Alcatraz to San Francisco. This year will be my 30th time 927 00:53:09,870 --> 00:53:12,150 doing that. Not only did I do those long 928 00:53:12,270 --> 00:53:15,590 bike rides I mentioned, but I've done one that raises money in 929 00:53:15,590 --> 00:53:20,390 Massachusetts 18 years in a row. And I've tried a few new sports. 930 00:53:20,630 --> 00:53:24,230 I've now started paddle boarding, which is kind of fun 931 00:53:24,390 --> 00:53:27,630 with a special prosthesis just for paddle boarding. 932 00:53:28,030 --> 00:53:32,310 So yeah, it's a lot of work. But the rewards are worth it. 933 00:53:33,030 --> 00:53:36,430 Wow, it's very inspirational hearing what you said and also 934 00:53:36,430 --> 00:53:38,990 the things that you do. You did all this multi years, 935 00:53:38,990 --> 00:53:40,390 right? It's not just one time and you 936 00:53:40,390 --> 00:53:42,390 stop, right? But you did it consistently. 937 00:53:42,550 --> 00:53:44,790 Discipline like you said. And I think it's also very 938 00:53:44,790 --> 00:53:47,670 important that this is not just applicable for the disabled, the 939 00:53:47,790 --> 00:53:50,630 people with disability, right, but also people who are good 940 00:53:50,630 --> 00:53:52,750 physically. But maybe we had issues, we have 941 00:53:52,750 --> 00:53:56,270 mental health problems as well. So use this technique, use this 942 00:53:56,270 --> 00:53:58,910 formula to actually bring back the good in you. 943 00:53:59,290 --> 00:54:02,170 So thanks for this message. So Dorothy, as we reach the end 944 00:54:02,170 --> 00:54:04,370 of our conversation, I have one last question that I would like 945 00:54:04,370 --> 00:54:07,570 to ask you, which is for you to share what I call 3 technical 946 00:54:07,570 --> 00:54:09,930 leadership wisdom. You can think of it like advice 947 00:54:09,930 --> 00:54:12,650 that you want to give to us so that we can learn from your 948 00:54:12,650 --> 00:54:15,450 journey or your experience and all these startups and 949 00:54:15,450 --> 00:54:18,530 foundation that you set up. Yeah, I thought I had on this 950 00:54:18,530 --> 00:54:22,210 just a little bit. So #1 as a leader of a 951 00:54:22,250 --> 00:54:27,200 technology startup. Every day, focus on cash burn 952 00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:29,880 and your runway, because if you run out of runway, the whole 953 00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:32,840 thing's over. And the second thing that's sort 954 00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:37,040 of related to that is people say, why do startups fail? 955 00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,360 And of course the obvious answer is because they'd run out of 956 00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:41,920 cash. Well, OK, but that's too simple. 957 00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,080 Why did it run out of cash? They run out of cash because 958 00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,080 they didn't find a big enough market. 959 00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,680 So first, make sure you got enough runway. 960 00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,580 Second. Make sure you get product market 961 00:54:53,580 --> 00:54:56,820 fit. My current startup #9 is 962 00:54:56,820 --> 00:55:01,900 basically on its second life because in its first life we got 963 00:55:01,900 --> 00:55:06,020 to the point where we were struggling to get product market 964 00:55:06,020 --> 00:55:08,660 fit right. I finally said we're going to 965 00:55:08,660 --> 00:55:10,740 run out of cash if I don't do something. 966 00:55:11,060 --> 00:55:15,260 I let everyone go except for me, and I built it back up with a 967 00:55:15,500 --> 00:55:19,580 completely different market. That's working well and I 968 00:55:19,580 --> 00:55:22,960 avoided. The Hit the wall with no skid 969 00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:24,680 marks. We'll see how it finally turns 970 00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:26,720 out. So cash burn? 971 00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:28,680 Product market fit. That's one. 972 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:33,800 Second, do not underestimate the power of culture, positive or 973 00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:39,760 negative, and cultivate a good culture and root out any threats 974 00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,080 to it. I didn't always have a great 975 00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:46,960 positive culture at all of my startups, but I've learned how 976 00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,920 to do it Besides, you know, hire great people. 977 00:55:50,340 --> 00:55:54,220 But then empower them and don't micromanage. 978 00:55:54,580 --> 00:55:57,940 Then I think you can build a good culture, but if I see 979 00:55:57,940 --> 00:56:02,980 someone that's starting to be a spot of bad culture, it can 980 00:56:02,980 --> 00:56:06,140 spread. And so that's when you say okay, 981 00:56:06,460 --> 00:56:09,020 I flip the bozo bit on this person and they're going to have 982 00:56:09,020 --> 00:56:11,820 to leave. And then the final thing is I 983 00:56:11,820 --> 00:56:16,020 have some very simple management philosophies that I live by. 984 00:56:16,500 --> 00:56:20,260 One is assume the best. In everyone, assume the best. 985 00:56:20,620 --> 00:56:24,900 Now they may not live up to it, but start off by assuming the 986 00:56:24,900 --> 00:56:26,460 best. When you hear something bad 987 00:56:26,460 --> 00:56:30,500 about somebody, assume that it's not true and find out what's 988 00:56:30,500 --> 00:56:33,540 going on. 2nd, treat people like adults. 989 00:56:34,020 --> 00:56:37,940 Oh my God, that sounds so obvious and it's so often not 990 00:56:37,940 --> 00:56:41,780 the case. And the third is and this is 991 00:56:41,780 --> 00:56:46,100 going to sound a little trite, but again, it's so powerful is 992 00:56:46,100 --> 00:56:49,880 to follow the golden rule. If you're about to do something 993 00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:53,320 to somebody that you wouldn't like done to you, don't do it. 994 00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:54,720 That's it. Wow. 995 00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,360 Yeah. So those are classic rules. 996 00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,960 Yes, people might think it's simple, but it's so powerful. 997 00:56:59,960 --> 00:57:02,400 Sometimes we forget that, especially as leaders and 998 00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:04,840 especially in the situation where, for example, your startup 999 00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:08,160 is having a lot of issues, you know, maybe running a low 1000 00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:11,240 runway, for example, or finding product market fit, right. 1001 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:14,080 Sometimes we tend to forget about the culture and just chase 1002 00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:16,640 goals, metrics, finding customers, right. 1003 00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,880 I think what you said. Really, really important. 1004 00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:20,520 And thanks for sharing all of them. 1005 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,480 So, Jyoti, if people would like to follow you, find you online 1006 00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:26,840 or continue the conversation, is there a place where they can 1007 00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:30,560 reach out? Well, sure, I do have a website 1008 00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,520 for The Who says I can't part of my life, which is 1009 00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:38,720 whosaysicant.org. No punctuation, no spaces, just 1010 00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:43,480 whosaysicant.org and there is a way to sort of message to me 1011 00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:45,880 through that as well. And I think that through the 1012 00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,280 book that I hope some people that are listening to this might 1013 00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:52,400 consider reading. You didn't ask me why I wrote 1014 00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:56,440 the book, but I wrote the book because I think it's important 1015 00:57:56,440 --> 00:58:00,560 to be honest about our mistakes. And most of the book is filled 1016 00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:04,080 with lessons learned from mistakes, not the great things. 1017 00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,600 And other than that, my current company is called Dover 1018 00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:10,480 Microsystems. And it's a cybersecurity 1019 00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,640 company, hardware and software. And you could e-mail me at 1020 00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:19,160 jothie.j.othy@dovermicrosystems.com. Right. 1021 00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:21,880 So yeah, I think learning from mistakes is definitely crucial. 1022 00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:24,520 And I read the early chapters of your book, but it's really 1023 00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:26,240 exciting learning from the story. 1024 00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:28,480 You begin the first startup, right, the mistakes that you 1025 00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:30,480 made. I'm sure when the book is out, 1026 00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,360 it will help a lot for the founders or many people working 1027 00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:35,080 in the startup. So thanks again for that. 1028 00:58:35,470 --> 00:58:36,790 So thank you, Jody for your time. 1029 00:58:36,910 --> 00:58:39,270 I hope I can see your book by the end of the year then. 1030 00:58:39,790 --> 00:58:42,190 I will really work hard to make that true. 1031 00:58:44,390 --> 00:58:47,630 Thank you for listening to this episode and for staying right 1032 00:58:47,670 --> 00:58:50,390 until the end. If you highly enjoyed it, I 1033 00:58:50,390 --> 00:58:53,070 would appreciate if you share it with your friends and colleagues 1034 00:58:53,350 --> 00:58:56,310 who you think would also benefit from listening to this episode. 1035 00:58:56,790 --> 00:58:59,510 And if you're new to the podcast, make sure to subscribe 1036 00:58:59,550 --> 00:59:01,910 and leave me your valuable review and feedback. 1037 00:59:02,270 --> 00:59:05,150 It helps me a lot in order to grow this podcast better. 1038 00:59:05,670 --> 00:59:08,550 You can also find the full show notes of this conversation on 1039 00:59:08,550 --> 00:59:12,430 the episode page at techlyjunal dot def website, including the 1040 00:59:12,430 --> 00:59:15,550 full transcript, interesting quotes, and links to the 1041 00:59:15,550 --> 00:59:17,830 resources mentioned from the conversation. 1042 00:59:18,270 --> 00:59:21,310 And lastly, make sure to subscribe to the show's mailing 1043 00:59:21,310 --> 00:59:25,110 list on techlyjunal dot def to get notified for any future 1044 00:59:25,150 --> 00:59:27,430 episodes. Stay tuned for the next 1045 00:59:27,430 --> 00:59:30,670 techlyjunal episode and until then, goodbye.