The Great Reset: How Reid Hoffman & James Currier See the Path Ahead for Founders

This is Kristen O'Brien and you're listening to the nfx podcast

today James Courier and Reid Hoffman discuss the path ahead for Founder's in a post covid world what you need to learn and unlearn to get your company through a crisis Frameworks for the tough decisions Founders are facing today. And the way they see the world changing forever opening new opportunities for Savvy Founders

read is

A co-founder and was executive chairman of LinkedIn and is now a partner at Greylock. Let's jump in.

Reid Hoffman you need no introduction you and I have known each other for I guess almost two decades now you and I are both members of Henry come on fellows program where we're really big fans of combining Tech with Humanities and humanism basically and philosophy one thing you said recently I wanted to start talking to you about is, you know, in the in this time of change you said be human first and since since our stuff and then FX is about early-stage Founders. Like when you think about being human first, what does that mean for early-stage Founders during this?

Well, so part of the reason I said that is because the normal and very appropriate way of four Founders thing about their businesses is to be thinking you're all in, you know, you're at a hundred and fifty two hundred percent. It's the organization and the business first and part of that is because you know, this this expression that I use that's now widely attributed which is a start-up is like jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down. You need to be totally focused on. Yeah, there isn't balance in my life. I'm really

Making sure that this this this this entity starts going and nothing like integrity and all the rest of this stuff matters, but like just turn the rheostat up to 11, you know, put all your energy and all your sweat all your tears all your blood make it happen. And then the people you recruiting on board you're basically asking for the same kind of commitment the same belief in the mission and that is by and large the exact right way to be an early stage founder on the other hand when you get to unusual circumstances like this, you'd say, well actually it's not

Question about like whether or not you're relaxed on a Friday evening. It's not a real question about whether or not you're you know, maintaining your hobby while you're doing your business. It isn't a question about like well in a couple years when I get this going I can take you know, kind of a mini sabbatical or look a little bit of down time and I got to be all in seven days a week now. Now the question is will what's going on in public health what's going on with disease your family is probably under unusual stress right kids your partner's what's going on that your

Parents, you know your parents are like all these things are going on that are like, okay

the network that is normally supported you now need your support because you're the one who's the founder who's got the strength and the knowledge and the energy to do these things people around you now need

you exactly and so and so part of the thing that is to set back for this normal reflex, which is the right thing to be in and say look as I go to each day and as I get to each decision I go look what's the what's the thing that I should do as a human being first?

First and yes, maybe I'm taking a little bit of extra rest with a company a little bit of extra risk with a start-up that's fine in these circumstances, you know, you make that decision first and it could be anything from you know, everyone's trying to work from you know, when they're Sheltering in place work from home, but it's like look that kids the kids interrupting of you go look you make sure like, are you trading off with your with your partner well and and managing kids the kids doing. Okay and the stressful thing like, you know, how do I help you be as productive as you can but

I know that you're going to be spending time on these other things and you should be and if you're not I'm going to be encouraging to spend time on it because that's that's what matters in these times.

That's the human thing to do. Yeah, and there's and do you think it extends to to how you how you might reduce your Force? You know, a lot of these companies are having to do layoffs.

Yes in a couple of different ways. So one is how do you make decisions around riffs now? Sometimes you just have to its full stop. One thing is the question is is there some Industries which

just kind of as to work, you know slaughtered by kind of the staying in place rattle travels and obvious one, you know, sometimes it'd be like like your ass ass business serving small businesses. Well, okay small businesses. A lot of them are going to be intensely impacted and so we might go look I have to do a riff because like there is like there's like the recovery pattern here for me is at least a year out, right? It isn't like in three months. We're going to get to a place where it's like

Okay, it'll be like a recession were like 20 30 percent down growth rates lower. It's like mineral. This is slaughtered and I have to do that but then okay. The next question is is okay. When you're doing a ref are there options to do things like furloughing or their options to do reduced salary reduce bonuses. You say look this is what we're going to do and people can sign up for it or not. You know, that's the next level down on it because then you could say look we keep more people in place and then they then the next layer below that is you can kind of go well.

No, is there you know kind of ways I can help people kind of get their next jobs like we're going to do a reduction in force, but we're going to find the resources give them the resources actually ask people in the in the company to say hey be a reference if there's other things, you know about, you know, refer people to them. We're going to do things to try to help that transition. So I think it goes the whole stack down on Rifts now at the end of the day you're doing no one any favors. If you say we don't do a riff and then the thing just goes out of business in two or three months. That's the doesn't help anybody.

Actually, in fact, I've got a couple of my startups have done riffs. It's working through it. It's applying all these principles in terms of how you doing it. Oh and then the last point which is the kind of the point. I was making the first thing is sometimes people go. Oh my God uncertainty. We just got to go. We got a prion no revenue for six months and for the majority of our Tech businesses, if you really planning on no revenue for the next six months, that's a different universe. So I tend to say don't plan on that plan on really challenged and recession, but don't plan on.

No Revenue, like if we're in a place where a B2B business and you know kind of Enterprise, I know there's no revenue for six months. Then you're actually you're in a different place altogether as an industry is a society and reels and will be sorting things through there. So with that plan, you also monitor because maybe maybe I'm wrong so you go. Okay fine. We won't plan on no revenue for six months well plan on no revenue for a couple months or or you know to takes two x's long and is only sixty or seventy percent as much revenue stream.

That's what we'll play on but we'll be monitoring to see if it's right or not in order to recorrect.

And so what are some of the things that people who you think need to be unlearning right now, if you're early stage founder you said look normally you're operating in one mode, which is just the Go-Go mode. Now, you need to be a little bit more human and and realize that they need your support as much as you needed their support before when you were out slaying the dragon, what are some of the other things that we need to unlearn, you know, the mental patterns that we need to throw out the window.

So typically what you do

Try to do as an entrepreneur you try to simplify the problem that you're doing and try to have a specific set of hypotheses that you're testing usually around product Market fit or scale product Market fit sometimes, you know micro ones on. Oh, I'm going to hire this person who I think has a talent, although not that the experience they're going to learn like there's a set of things that you're you're testing. The problem is that you have to kind of now do you have to realize that there's a set of things that you're going to be that you think you'll be learning now that you won't actually

Different their unique versus repeatable things although you have to learn and adjust and adapt to the new circumstances and you have to be thinking about like, okay. So what are the things that we're going to do that are now that are just getting through the worst of this crisis one of the things that we can now learn that we would deprioritize learning but we're good to learn now, like so example a really classic want across the whole startup universe is well, we should really learn remote interviewing we should learn though to say, okay, you know separate from the circumstance we wouldn't have bothered learning remote unit.

Doing it just not a skill. That's a short list of priority, but we'll do it now and that could be helpful to us as we recruiting Talent from across the country Around the World opening up new areas, like learning distributed work. Some places really should learn distributed work very early some places shouldn't bother learning distributed work until much later what we're going to learn that now and then that could help us with talent and being in Boulder and Austin or somewhere else the startup so it's kind of a shift of mindset about which things

Things you're going to learn now. Why are you going to learn them learn them for just the crisis learning them for repeatable work and those are the kinds of things the kind of trade mindset. Now. The other thing of course is the generalization of the point that I just made is this a like for example in typical World your straps making progress, you're going to get financing. There's enough focus on entrepreneurship new products like that. We've shot product Market fit. We're going to scale good you'll get it may not be the pricing you like may not be from who you like, but you'll get financing now one of the things is external financing.

Things are going to be very difficult through probably at least August maybe if you're really lucky, it's July September October. I think pricing me get reset but it's but it's there. I think I will be back there but in that interim period new financing from a new player is super difficult. And so I seen a couple of them happen and the and their two categories in which I've seen happen one good friend of X, and the other is Scale company is where investors have been pursuing them from over a year as

Well, we're gonna do a round of financing. Anyway my god, look we've been wanting me in the in this company for a year. Anyway, we're gonna go in no matter the fact.

So where the where the feces know the founders already and have an established Rapport and knowledge is this

and I've been pursuing and then the other one is series A's and the reason why smart folks are still doing series that is is because they go look as long as we make sure that we're doing a series a with 18 months plus of capitalization. So there were on the other side of this then you got a pricing mismatch. Maybe the pricing is going to get hit.

A whole lot more than we think that now and what the pricing is, we make an error in pricing investing now, but the things we invest in now we'll get money later. And so those are the only two other than that no external finance things that I've seen.

Yeah, right and the companies with the series a as I mean the money becomes a competitive

weapon. Yes, right.

Yep, as other you're skipping or laying off or pulling back if you've just raised a series a and this time that you're going to have a little bit of an edge and moving forward in the markets that are

moving. Yep. And the one thing I would add

The companies that did raise a series a get that money to last you minimum 12 months. Preferably 18 plus months from

now we're saying to inform. Yeah, I think that's right. I think he's 24 is probably right. Now one of the things that people have been telling us they're learning right now that they hope to keep after the crisis is the DNA of frugality learning how to keep costs down reviewing, you know, the software subscriptions and everybody signing up for, you know, real estate costs containment not

Were hiring that sort of thing number one. Do you think that that's a good thing to learn number two? How does that play into the blitzscaling concept? Because I know that would be a in a way an opposite. I think I think probably Jeff Bezos has done both but very few do both. How would you see frugality is being a new learned behaving in the depression my grandfather my grandparents learn to, you know, be very frugal and they stayed that way their whole

lives learning for gravity is a good and smart thing to do. This is actually, you know, one of the things that we in Silicon Valley get

All too lazy asses because there's so much capital and capital is there because it knows it generates a bunch results that you know relative, you know, you know, I have known each other 20 years back when we started this. Oh my God Capital was extremely

important. It does 120 Venture

firms. Yes, exactly. And you were watching every dollar because it really made a difference. Yeah, and now you like wow, hey in a renter expensive will still get the nicer place and it'll be more expensive and there tends to be more of that and it's good to really be like strategic.

About capitals expensive sometimes impossible to get like, you know, kind of a pandemic, you know adjustment period and we should spend it as carefully as possible and that's always a good thing to learn. Now that being said within blitzscaling. There's two kind of I two things in a one is blitzscaling is relative speed. It's a am I moving faster than my competition at being the first to scale either my real competition or the potential emergent competition or that kind of thing and and that really matters in a bunch of markets, especially those with network effects.

Right all I add of X. And so the first you know, we call these Glengarry Glen Ross markets first prize Cadillac second prize steak knives third prize, you're fired the difference between one two and three really matters. And so relative speed does really matter. Now that being said it's relative speed. So if all of a sudden capitals drying up and you and an action packed everyone's being okay, we got to make sure we get to the right Milestones. Then what you're doing is not saying speed doesn't matter anymore would you saying is actually in fact I can now be more efficient in

I Capital spend and still be moving faster than my competitors and that's the mindset that you need to essentially shift to with this. It isn't that the rule of first to scale really matters now sometimes in your industry, maybe you might say look actually in fact, my the one who's going to be the first to scale is the one who gets across the pandemic desert the pandemic crisis and the one who gets across it actually. In fact, it's the survival of going across that matters and that's going to be the speed because its speed that compounds over time to scale not speed today's.

This week it's speed that is relative to when you really establish your scale product Market fit and have gotten the flywheel in the engine going

right relatives of the market that you're in and competitors and your competitors. Yep. Got it. Yeah. Yeah just just being the last one standing is often the the path

forward

exactly. A lot of this is going to come and go and I'm just wondering if you've got any ideas already about what's going to

Change around human behavior work or maybe social that you think you're already starting to see this adjustment being made to how we work or how we're going to be social. But some things will drop away people's hell we're going to get back to normal levels going to be at the bars. The restaurants will be at the Golden State Warriors games within a year and I'll be back to the same or are there other things you think that you can anticipate

changing? Well, I right Emma think the changes we all see the changes that have happened by shelter-in-place much other stuff the changes that persist tend to be the ones.

Where there is either a negative Force to keep that in place or a absent of a positive where people kind of go? Well, we were we were doing a bunch of that but maybe we didn't need to do as much of it. So I tend to think that some of the changes will stay is I think that I think will be a slower return in the events business because I think a lot of people especially travel as well because if people think look go watch, in fact, I can get a bunch of this done now that I've actually really had to dig into it see how video conferencing works, you know now I can get a bunch.

Bunch of that done this way. And that's actually much more time efficient for me that still allows me to do things. And I think you'll see more virtual events though, like before when people said hey we're going to do a virtual as I I'm just going to wait to do it in person 1 and person wants letters look well actually, in fact, maybe some of these events or some of these things I will do is virtual events, but I think that pattern I think simile distributed work. I think people will say the learn things like well actually in fact getting a day a week working at home or day a week working with no meetings or day a week or two half days, you know doing no meetings and

What that's actually going to be much more productive we're going to do that and I think those kinds of things I'm going to set a tools that go with it. I think well, we'll we'll play it

out. It does feel like the days of the five-day workweek in the office are over for at least information workers. Yeah, or at least

a version of it that says hey we're going to focus on these kind of new pieces of productivity we found and so even if we're all going to go to the office we're gonna actually do like it's like, you know, no meetings Wednesday, so nothing nothing scheduled.

Jewel not so we can kind of work through those things happen. I also think by the way, unfortunately, it's one of the things we need to put most attention to is I think the restaurant business will come back more slowly in part because I think people will have the residual worry about well what happens if the disease kicks off again and this is compact space and isn't so much they didn't like the restaurants didn't didn't didn't enjoy going and seeing people it just I think it will be a slower return in which case that will be a that's an industry that employs a lot of people provides.

Just service in glue within the culture of the community and I think that will be one that will be in terms of life will be slower as well. Yeah

and given that some of these things are going to change and persist are there things are there opportunities you see for the startup Founders a lot of people talking about I got to do a riff or I can't get capital or you know, it's hard for me. Well that's hard. But where's the opportunity within that that changing landscape but there's some things you see people doing

there are about to little bit of the reason I was mentioning like remote higher.

Going and interviewing, you know kind of patterns for asynchronous or distributed work the tools and improving the tool set, you know, kind of getting the you know, how do we make the two to three hours of work by my without interruption efficient, right? That's part of productivity like all those things of resist. A lot of people tend to say, oh we're going to do stuff because it will be the the market driven by the pandemic and you know, obviously there's some areas where that's super important testing equipment or kind of measurement Diagnostics that maybe it's just for a while.

There's a bunch of the stuff. That's like no. No, you got to think about like like the real product Market fit the you're always working towards two to three years out. And as part of that kind of two to three years out. You got to think. All right. I know things are going to be weird this year. But what are they likely to be not next year and in which case Target that and that's a little bit like the earlier lesson. I was mentioning is like there's some things that will look like lessons this year that actually only lessons for this year. Not one for 2021 and you won't fully know. You have to make a informed, you know intelligent risks.

Ask that on it, but that's the kind of thing to do. And so I think patterns of work patterns of company operations. I think will be persistent like some parts of product Market fit will be persistent. But some will also just be highly volatile.

Yeah. Yeah, and we've seen a lot of companies renegotiating all their contracts down to lower their total cost basis. We've seen them resetting all the salaries including the founders. Yep down we've seen some of the companies go after competitors directly go.

Competitors saying okay. We're going to take market

share. Yes exactly

because they're on their heels and we can choose to be on our heels and we can choose to be more aggressive. Yep. I've seen some some of these companies are moving to Virtual products. So these events planning company. They're moving toward. You know, how can we turn this into you know using webrtc? How can we now create a product that does something digitally that we used to do physically? Yes. And so then some of these major pivots I think are giving opportunities in the desert.

At this

point. Yeah, and I think that totally smart to do it's good to recognize. This is a wildly different time. It's not the only super crazy people think that two months from now, it'll be just back to where like where it was in January. That's the that's the insane point of view. Now some things are more opportunities. Some things are he's like example, your competitors may be really slowing down exaggerated. You've raised a series a your competitor hasn't you have an ability to grab customers do things you have ability to figure out a go to market.

Action that that may actually in fact be be lighter weight and more globally distributable. Like these kinds of things. Those are great opportunities to grab and then sometimes you always have to say well, but actually in fact, we also have to focus on cost and

Longevity. Yeah totally and are there some areas we do you think that Founders should be focused on in terms of making an impact over the next few years as we come out of this next year or the year after where there are startups that are needed to put people back to work or there are startups have needed that might not exist and we certainly

Only all this we've seen a torrent of serve remote working applications in the last few years already. So I always hard to know which ones of those will catch on and be big but beyond that are there areas. You think that Founders will start to see, you know, a greater return to speed that could really make an impact,

you know, the natural impulse for most people is like how do I like get medical tests to you know, the hospital equipment to the hospitals which was a very good thing to be doing a month ago. How do

Finance science and vaccinations and inoculations, you know, how do I support my local restaurants and so forth and I tend to think that the the the top Focus obviously for most startups should be is like look at my can get a really good business going. I'll be creating jobs that will be a back to work kind of thing for people and that that is actually a super important thing for me to do and I shouldn't get too distracted. Now that being said on a kind of a secondary order its kind of the

we're going to make our products free for hospitals and First Responders when we're going to be catering at our kind of startup as we're going back to work. We're going to make sure that we're going to be ordering food from from restaurants around like choose from restaurants to help get back on their feet and we're going to be a persistent order from them right as we doing. I think those things are also very good to do but things that kind of say, you know, I'm focused on my start up in my business first because that creation of jobs and Industry

We're going to be an Annex quarters recession. And the question is is it a small number of large number of X are large number X is the only real question with that.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think it's it's an instinct to try to take care of everyone around you in the micro. I think this idea that just by creating a scalable Enterprise and creating a foundation that could produce hundreds of thousands of jobs in the future is actually quite

A cool thing to do. Yep, exactly and it's important and doesn't mean that you don't care right you care deeply and you could do things as you can to help but that's the only way that this recession really gets back and that like, you know, the SMB jobs get recreated every house is that we move out of recession back into the normal growth of an economy. And that sometimes you have to have a long-term Focus for that.

Yeah, it does feel as if what you're saying, is that the the changes that we're going to have here?

Here for the next one need to be around the shelter in place because the economic impact of this the economic virus that this is may prove over the next two or three years to be more impactful than the virus itself and we have no idea but it could very well be and the response of shelter in place is probably not the optimal response we can have and so it's almost as if we need some cultural entrepreneurship not just entrepreneurship entrepreneurship but cultural entrepreneurship to shift. What are playbooks are as a union.

Decide yeah, we're in the emergency Playbook, which is the we fumbled right? We're going, you know setback. I mean like the kinds of things would be as say well look moment that we see that we append demek start to happen. You say look we're going to shut borders for the moment and we're going to ramp up testing intensely. There we go for that. We need to make sure that we have high testing capability. And and by the way, we done that here we might have been able to shut the borders like just shut the borders the US for a week ramp up testing.

Capable on Healthcare stuff and it would have been an entirely different curve that we were in

you know, the network here is interesting also though because because this virus connects all the countries if one country tries to do, you know heard immunity and the others don't do that. It creates a lot of suffering for the ones that try to do shelter in place while someone else is just out frolicking and then their people are spreading the virus around so it's interesting the sort of network effects if you will the different cluster implications of how everyone's

Rolls out because we're all interrelated now

a hundred percent. It basically says doing shelter-in-place doesn't really help you very much unless you also close the borders right for that relevant time and one of the weirdnesses in the u.s. Is you got some states, you know, California, Washington now New York going. Okay, we're going to do the shelter in place. And then okay. Well, what should we do? Should we then say? Okay. No one from any of the other states is allowed to come unless you've gone through your own quarantine process. We're not going to allow it Baseline.

Intelligence to say a quick brief shelter-in-place coordinated then actually has the least economic impact and the highest impact on the are not of the spread of the virus

and we need to at least understand the math behind that and then educate the decision-makers about that at every stage. So when the next one comes they're ready. Yes, exactly. Do you think there's any role that Silicon Valley has in what happens next or is everyone just mad enough at Silicon Valley at this point about our social media and all the chaos.

So that causes that our voices just aren't really welcomed

anymore, you know crises come with opportunities and obviously people were pretty Decades of the of the young swashbuckling technology entrepreneur being the hero dread pirate Roberts or the you know, the Johnny Depp character words actually heroic and then you know, the last five plus years is been, you know the tech lash and be will pretty angry. I'll cross it over things like, you know, did social media break democracy and truth-telling.

Owing did is the disbalance of wealth, you know causing extra suffering and we're not taking responsibilities for things we should be doing and some of that Tech lash I disagree with I think some of its, you know, the media being extra unhappy because people aren't paying as much attention in the media as they like, but the business models are being challenged and those kinds of issues. And so they they amplify that without you know, kind of taking honest responsibility for that being part of their perspective and motive there, but I think that the opportunity for Silicon Valley is say look,

Step up and help people in this crisis, like what are the things that we like? We as a valley what are the things we can doing in terms of, you know, kind of helping people get back to work helping with jobs, you know, helping with you know, vaccines and inoculation and pandemic helping with information. Like, you know, you see some defensive game going on right now, which is like well, let's let's stop the spread of bad pandemic information, right which is the kind of thing that social networks need to be doing more of which is

Stop the flow of what is just very clearly bad information anyway, but let's also now figure out how to help. How do we get good information? How do we build those trust things? Like so like what are the things we can do where people said? Okay, you stepped up and you did a lot more than you had to do right then the minimum to help the rest of us navigate this pandemic and I think there's an opportunity there and I think people should be doing it.

Yeah, and is there something that's going on is really unnerving to you right now. That's the thing that sort of stands out as wow. You know, that's something we need.

Stop right away or that's a that's a mindset or an attitude or a set of language

that's you made with him Silicon Valley with in Silicon

Valley in particular State hist on the environment that it is early stage Founders are in there listening to

well. This may be less the early stage Founders, but the one that I've been particularly irked about is it Silicon Valley because of its focus on the future has always been beating the drum on you know, Ubi Universal basic income and the way that they've been beating the drum. Is this kind of really terrible marketing. It's like

And terrible marketing is like Hey, we're creating all these Technologies going to take all these jobs away from you. But don't worry. We're going to put you on welfare and it's just like, oh my God run you're wrong the the speed at which the jobs are going to be taken away and change is not the speed at which you're envisioning. I understand you understand it's because of the speed at which the technology industry moves like take one of the favorites which like truck drivers like right now, there's a massive shortage of truck drivers and you say well but AV is going to take that away. It's like well, yeah, okay when the autonomous

Vehicle truck start getting manufactured 10 years from then is when they're going to be at Rough scale that actually in fact the truck driver industry will be picked. Okay. So when's one of those trucks going to be manufactured? I don't see it in the next couple years, like maybe it'll be manufactured next couple years and that will be the first one not the scale manufacturing lines or stop with this like say, hey guys, don't worry about the tech industry because we're all going to put you all on welfare stop.

That discussion say look there's a lot that we're doing with technology. It's going to be creating new jobs that's going to be now. There's going to be a adaptability. There's going to be transition. It's like the same transition from agriculture to Industry. There's going to be paying and we're going to need to help with that. We're going to do participate because yes, it's not to say there's your pain but that the Ubi thing is a ways out. And by the way, the precise limitations of the pandemic response of kind of writing minimum wage checks will show the exact current gap between now and ask

Our track future of Ubi because if you go to most people say would you like six weeks of minimum-wage check the answers? Absolutely. Yes, of course, I'd like that. Would you like that or would you like your job back there? Like I'll work out what the six weeks works like give me my job back, right? I really need the job. That's what you're going to say. And so that would be what I would say now that's not a Silicon Valley activity thing as much as a way that we talk for the rest of the world,

you know, it does feel tone-deaf to realize to suggest that people don't get meaning out of their work. Yeah, and that there are you happy on welfare.

Yes, and actually impact the truth of the matter is there's gonna be a lot of work for at least the next 20 years and probably longer than that. And so the next 20 years will 20 years is like 20 years has half a career of someone who's graduating this year.

So instead of having no jobs. It's just a matter of having to adapt to new types of jobs every 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 years, you

know, and and how to help with that is the actual

Focus anything else that's going on is in Irving you deserve anything that the VCS are doing that's bugging you.

Or well, not particularly. I mean, I do think that I'm less of a fan of what some VCS do which is go back and try to renegotiate drastically term sheets or other kinds of things. I get it responsibilities LPS and so forth, but it's kind of a shared thing. And so I kind of think the right approach is how do we share the pain in creating like what links is awesome about the industries we build and thing we do as investors and things we do as entrepreneurs as we play these nonzero-sum games and we go

Go and build something. That's that's new and much bigger and additive. You know one plus one is ten not too so that kind of to be the share the pain don't say well, okay, it's a zero-sum game, you know, you're in a position where you're in dire need. I'm going to try to get every last penny at it. It's like look, you know, let's let's let's share the pain through this and you know, some VCS are kind of going and being a little bit more rapacious than they should be. It's more individuals than firms and so forth, but but that's not I don't think it's

industry it is

Using our people snap back into a zero-sum thinking sometimes in times of Crisis. If so hard to train people out of it to begin with and then not back into it. Exactly. Yeah. I remember that moving out of Europe and the east coast and finding how much nonzero-sum thinking that is out here and how different that is how fundamentally different that changes the human relationships between people and you know, maintaining that through ups and downs is pretty critical. It's a cultural thing. It's a learned thing. It's a

Work thing where because you feel that way. I feel that way because the two of us feel that way other people are forced to feel that way but it starts to break down and it can get bad quickly.

Yeah, and the direct tie obviously it's their siblings between nonzero-sum thinking and growth psychology, right? Because if you think that action-packed the pie is growing. Yes, you want to make sure that you get a good portion of the pie and everything else. But if the pie is growing then it isn't a well for me to win you have to lose right and that that growth

Gee that nonzero-sum thinking is part of how we make progress in the world. And so holding onto that and making that the way the world works is super

important Henry how much your time are you spending investing these days and what sorts of what sort of stages you investing in.

There's a there's a these days pandemic days and there's at these days outside of pandemic days. So these days pandemic days, you know, it's mostly working with existing portfolio my own cross Greylock. And so if there's a bunch of my partners are still out there, really

Looking at new businesses and so forth, but I'm kind of doing I'm part of playing more of a when an entrepreneur gets introduced to me right now. I'm like, hey, you know meats are Gua meet Josh McFarland meet, you know, and I'll help them and work with them on it just for the the near pandemic days generally speaking. I'm part of how I describe a venture investor to people who don't understand the business that you look at 600 800 meals a year and you do 0 to 2 of them the benefit of my network is I don't have to look at 6,800. I can look at a smaller number, but I'm still doing 0 to 2 deals.

They are just like every gp2 good for you.

Well, it's been great to see you today man. I really appreciate you taking the time out

your app likewise. Look found two Partnerships. That was really important what you guys are doing it and if x is is great and really shining a spotlight on the things that matter building the new Global World these businesses with network effects really matter,