Alexis Ohanian: Why I Left Reddit and Why Greed Can Inspire Good
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What you said is so profoundly, right? We have replaced long term greed with short term greed, and we need to get back to long term greed because it's Better.

I'm I love being told them i'm right.

So thank you. Just what about holding if we just keep talking, i'll find something wrong.

okay?

Alex s. oha. Ian is a tech investor whose famous for a few reasons. Most people know him because he happens to be married to tennis icon Serena Williams. But if you didn't know, he's also the cofounder of reddit.

The reason I like him hover is because he's the kind of entrepreneur investor that absolutely leads with his values. After launching redit with his college roomy and friend in two thousand and five, he spent the next sixteen years helping IT to become the nth most visited website in the world. But IT was, after George florid was killed, that he decided IT was time to resign from the board, and he did so in protest.

He requested the company take more concrete steps to curb the hate on the platform and to replace him with a black director, which they did since then. Alex is founded an organization called 7 to invest in ideas at their earliest stages， and he's also become a leading investor in and advocate for women, sports, climate change startups and paid family leave, all the while proving that investing with your values is a really good way to promote long term greed. This is a bit of optimism.

So I wanted to start, instead of a obscured direction, good. I wanted to start talking about a postal sync. Me, I know some about your early years that you were in tech, but you aren't really an engineer.

You know you are studying IT, but you don't really go into IT. And i'm so curious as to your experience of impossible n drome, but more important, not how it's hurt. But I was helped.

Here's the thing. Okay, I need to define some terms here. So i'm finally with him pasture syndrome. But tell me from getting this right, like this idea that you're occupying spaces that you don't necessarily belonging, like you feel like an imposter in you in certain rooms or as the CEO that sort of thing right?

The way that most people use IT is that they don't feel qualified for the thing that they are doing and they want to keep IT a secret because they don't feel like they should be there. Yeah, that's I think that's .

how most people okay. So this may not help, but I don't think i've ever felt IT. And and I think there have been there have definitely been moments where I realize, oh, okay, like I play a lot of view games grown up like i've gotten to the next level and this next level is a harder level that i'm not necessarily a coop for.

But I don't know. I think this is IT probably helps to be the like, tall, confident straights White guy in every one of these rooms. And even when showing up to that first batch, Y Y combinator program is a very a traditional technologist, right? Eventually educated, he had a successful start up in the first dot com boom.

He created a very arrived diet, very well degreed group of founders in that first batch. Sam Allen, stanford dropout like you couldn't think of, a more central casting type founder, right? That was the standard for that first battery, seem Frankly for a lot of yy.

And I went to the university, Virginia, which is a great school, but it's a state school and it's a school that I know, paul, I think in his mind, he took a bit of a flying because he's like, okay, here's this founder and CEO, like, he's not an engineer. I mean, I started writing code when I was in middle school and high school, and I was taking classes in college, community college, before I got to uva. But I was not a great programmer.

I didn't end up studying engineering because that was just on another level. And at the time, I want to be a lawyer, and I eventually, eventually came back to tech. But pol gram was the first person, though, who did make me feel like I didn't belong. And but I still wouldn't call IT in pasture syndrome because I don't know on some level, I just pissed me off enough to want to prove him wrong that I don't know.

Did he actually say something to you like did he actually say, just look around here.

you're not one of us? yeah. Well, i'll never forget this.

So so my mother was german, like german borne. And so I grew up speaking german and english. And we had another founder in the first Y.

C. batch. He was danish. I obviously speak danni shed there, but he also speaks little bit german.

And he found out my mother was german. He found out I was german. And we started talking each other in german.

And I guess paul was sitting near us. This was one of the famous Y. C. Dinners you want to tuesday.

I think paul sitting near us and he goes over to my cofounder, Steve, who was the real engineer, and he says, Steve, alex, this sounds so much smarter when he's speaking in german than in english and and of course, Steve, when we got home, told me the story and I was like, what an astle like, do I actually sound that dumb when i'm speaking english? But I was the first time i'd ever had a moment like that where I was like, huh? Okay, like there are these people who exists, who and I lived, I guess, a pretty sheltered life, very middle class, grown up in the suburbs of of belt ore, and I just never encountered people because i've never met a person had gone to an ivy league school or certain ly acted like that.

And and I just thought, god. What an assets. But they didn't make me feel like I didn't belong there as much as I made me feel like I need to prove them wrong. And four years later, I was on a stage giving a ted talk.

And as I got off stage to the standing ovation, there was a part of me that was like, where's paul now? Like, I wish he could see this, because I Carry these when these moments happen. I put them on the wall.

And I did this when there was an executive at yahoo who invited us out in the early days of redit for what I thought was like a potential acquisition offer. And he asked about our traffic, and I said, two thousand sides today. And he said, you guys are rounding air, comparing ahoo.

Like, what are you doing here? And I thought, well, you invited us, like, I don't know, you invite, start up here to just hit on them, okay? And I went home and more back back to the office flash living room of reddy.

I put IT on the wall. I said, you are rounding eric. I wanted to look at every morning.

I wanted to remember this guy so that know, about twelve, thirteen years later, redit surpassed yahoo in traffic. And I tweet out and I told that story, hadn't told the pool, but I told that one. And I just like, thank you.

I didn't name, but but i'm so grateful of that guy and so grateful. yeah. Four, there was a moments because I think the privilege of having too incredible bly loving and supportive parents and know, like I had grown up, the way I grow up, like I get the benefit, the doubt and show many rooms. And so in these little moments i'm like, all good. Like, let me find a reason to be pissed at you and use that as motivation to do Better. Now I go to tell my wife these stories, and she's like, really, you have to work that hard to invent enemies like I just showed up at the tennis court and and had people who were we're doing much worse things, obviously, despite me here to stop me but but yeah, I don't know if I think in a weird way I have been lucky for not I can't like I said, there were times I know I was made to feel like I didn't belong, but I was at these fleeting moments that, like I said, I just use the ammo. And to this day.

i'm still grateful for them. I mean, that really is a mindset. Doesn't I did did you did you see the documentary the last dance about the world? yeah. And like how I mean that Jordan was so competitive that he would play games with the security guards and if he want to take their money, you know, he's never don't worry about you guys.

He took their money but .

invent these stories in his head just to be angry and at the at the other players, on the other team so he could take them down.

Yeah, it's not healthy.

but I was no, I don't think that's healthy at all. I don't think that's heavy all. But I I do find this is an amazing IT. IT is an amazing mindset, you know, which is when somebody is told by somebody more successful, more established, more famous.

Richard, whatever dynamic statistic you want to use, when where should have early in our careers, we are having ideas for a new business or A A book or a movie or whatever is that we're trying to do. And somebody tells us this is useless or you are useless. And for some, that is a dagger through the heart, and for some it's fuel to keep going.

You talked about having loving parents. I too had had sort of wonderful, loving parents. And very often when I was told this won't work, you can do IT. I sort of was more curiously to like, how can you just can see what I can see? And I was wondering if somebody can learn this mindset.

Have you ever seen some of the entrepreneur s you work with learn this mindset? Or is just luck of the draw? You know, if you had good parents, you're going to be fine. If you had a screwed up.

it's not gonna work well, no. okay. I think here's the weird. If I think about the goats, I think about the Jordans in tech and when again, purely on from a sort of tech innovation, six business outcome standpoint, you look at the jobs as the world.

You look at the bazas mosque, you go on this list and you see a lot of Young people who had tough situations, often at least one parent or not. You've got a couple adopted kids there. You've got ell's tortured relationship, his father.

You could actually look in one direction and say, okay, well, maybe the path to outsize tech entrepreneurs success is having this kind of damage at a Young age that you find a way that humans are, are amazing creatures, and you find a way to adapt to and turn into great strength. And it's wild. But like I I don't i've never talked to zc about this.

I feel like zc also had a pretty boring job. I don't I don't think it's as simple as like, hey parents, if you want your kids to be successful taxi s you should be horrible to them. Don't do, but I do think you can. I've seen versions of this manifest, but by and large, the sort of brokenness that is required, unfortunately, and I say that without judgment, but like the certain I mean, I have a certain amount broken ness is required to want to just keep building in doing and pushing more and and ever being satisfied.

I've seen IT come from places of tremendous stability, but i've actually probably seen in more places come from founders who had something right, first generation immigrants, founders who who again, had had situations where they just they needed to prove to someone or something they could try, uh, and talking me around, I will treat my child friendly that i'm like i'm very grateful for having IT, but it's a it's a unique thing. And I so your point, I think for a lot of folks, IT has learned early on in life, you know, the earliest almetco ders is probably eighteen, nineteen. Those are some of the Youngest to mite pitch. And i've seen some founders build a kind of resilience and fortitude over time, yes, but the seeds of IT are almost always present.

I don't know the back stories of like jeff bezos, I mean, that must have the tortured relationship with his dad and get a loving mother.

He did. Yeah, jobs was adopted. Jobs was adopted. Jeff is his parents split. And then he was adopted by jacket land's second husband, miguel.

Please OK OK. Maybe it's not about what you have loving parents or you have tortured relationship, but it's having at least one person in your life loves in. I know in my work when I talk about courage, I don't talk about courage is some deep, eternal fortitude. You dig down deep and find the courage. But rather, if you have at least one person in your life, personal professional doesn't matter.

IT doesn't matter who he is.

but one person in your life who see something in you that others don't see, or who says i've got your back or puts their hand on your shoulders. Don't worry, if everything goes south, i'll still be here.

That we're able to find courage knowing that we're not alone and it's the feeling that we're not alone that I think this is the fight, you know, that feels really and so I I wonder I wonder if that's all IT is is is who's your mentor, who's the person who loves you unconditionally, who's the person who's always got your back with? Is your mom, your dad or a professor, a friend? And I wonder if that's a common thread as well in all of those folks who have who have the fight.

I love that at this point. I've got three or four dozen companies that are invested in the earliest days that are now a billion dollar multibillion lar companies. And I can do a little straw poll of the CEO, if you like, because I I do think there's there there and that's certainly a much more actionable viewpoint, which is if we can create more opportunities to put someone in roles like he said, doesn't ough to be even a family member, could be a teacher, to get folks adults, ideally in those rules to provide that support, that unconditional love like IT just makes a world of difference. And and probably even if you don't want to be a tech of orange, I don't recommend the most people.

I mean, if you think about IT, like if you were to think back to high school or college and think of the one teacher, professor or coach who saw something in you that nobody saw, who believed in you, who took you under their way, how you want to put IT, like you can remember that person's name, right? Like, what's the name? That teacher?

yeah. mr. Knocks would have been my english teacher who definitely saw potential that that maybe I didn't see.

And then I had two coaches slash teachers, coach partner and coach glen on the football team, who also taught classes, of course, who I think saw something and and really govern ized. Again, IT only takes one or two. Yeah, and you're right. It's a lifetime of appreciation and gratitude.

I mean, like for me, I was mister the Amber, a doctor atkin and college was professor and even professor jack ism to some degree. And the thing that I thinks amazing about IT, which is every single one of us can recall those names, instantaneous ously. But if I ask you to tell me the names of all the other teachers you had that day on your schedule, you wouldn't be able to remember. Yes, that's the power of having somebody who believes in you. You literally Carry their name with you for the rest of your life.

Well, damn, that's a legacy right there. And you told them, do they know?

They must know. Two of the sign is the professional he doesn't know that I consider him in one of those people .

I have formally professor .

Jacobs and uh doctor in and mister the amram have all sons died um which is a shame you that one left to get tell him yeah I think .

that's a great idea .

I think I mean what what a great thing to do to go back to the people who believe in because every single one of us knows those couple of names like, have we ever gone back and said thank you, right? You know I just want you to know that I am who I am today, in part because of of whatever is you saw in me, and I didn't I didn't know at the time, but you treated me differently.

And I just want to say thank you to be able to go and express that gratitude to somebody that's a big deal now. Now IT also plays to the other question, which is, okay, are you that person to somebody else? In ten years, twenty years, thirty years.

they'll tell me your name. No, that's the real legacy. I hope so.

That's the real legacy. I talk about an infinite mindset and playing the infinite game, which is clearly we're born, clearly we live life and we die. But I think living forever is not about the companies we necessarily build because those will change and sometimes go away and our successors will break them and sell them.

And but I think it's it's the people we impact who live on beyond us, who Carry our values, is the continuance of values. And I think that's what great families do as well. Great families are still in their kids. The values of the family and those kids Carryed IT on.

This is the number one. And then four years ago, when I resigned in protest from the board of edit, this company I created and spent fifteen and sixteen years of my life building IT, was through this lands of making sure I spent the next thing of thirty seven, the next thirty seven plus years of my life fully aligned. We have not only doing my best work but doing IT way that I was really proud of.

So i'm trying to more intentionally build that way since becoming apparent. And I do care I mean, I yes, I care about the broader world of folks who may be are in some way helped by me your motivational or like the founders, I meet with different folks. But boy is having a kid focus IT and i'm torn to because they are definitely times when i'm like I can have such an impact on these founders who like, listen to everything I say, but my seven year old could not care less, and i'm trying to teacher about the comments.

And I am like Olivia in the rest of my life, my worklife. It's not very hard for me to get foxed to pay attention. But boy, seven year old, really, I mean, god, I am humbled every time I I .

love this image of you. I love this image of you sitting down with your seven year old le trying to explain you have to understand daddies .

kind of a big deal. I mean, no about in my mind I am thinking this. He just doesn't care. She's just short attention span and I am trying to make her care about yeah comments but it's yeah in my mind of course i'm like, don't you understand .

but let's go down this rather hole, right? Because especially in tech, you I say a lot of businesses, but especially in tech, IT seems IT feels like values come second to the ambition to be the next unicorn. The values come second to putting enough lipstick on the pig to make your investors happy so you can have a liquidity event and make everybody happy.

you know.

And so, you know, people may have good values at home, and they seem to leave them at home when they come to work. I'm sure everyone can not say, oh my god, my life change when I had my kid. And now my seven year old teaches me kindness. And then they come to work and say things to people like your smarter when you, when you speak german.

I like before paul had kids.

at least that was before, maybe he said today. But but what is, what is IT about the twisted, contorted incentives structures? And you see IT more than most um that values are put second and and the investors, by the way, are fine with that.

The investors are not saying, hey, whatever advice we give in, whatever pressure we put on you, hey make sure you stand up to a stay truly your values. Why is IT that? IT seems that moneys become more important values, which feels different from the way business used to run, you know, a few decades ago. And how do we get values back? And how do you evaluate the values of the people that you're investing in?

So I think part of what has changed is the stakes have gone a lot higher and more aware of how high the stakes are. Starting read at two thousand and five when zx started facebook, like two thousand and four, two thousand and three IT, was inconceivable that we could build businesses that could affect the world, right? That could affect elections, that could affect.

Is that guys right? We hoped maybe on some level, we could build something successful. But like none of those original creators, in the first way of social media, I genuinely believe none of us really could conceive of the road place today.

No one is ignorant to that today. Anyone building, especially the last couple of years starting a new company in tech, no one doubts how big of an impact they can have. And the rest of us in society also much more acutely aware that like technologies is really going to create even more outsize returns in the next couple of decades.

All these conversations are on A I are sort of immune system as a society has now been prime to realize like, no, no, no, no. As as we have these first breakthroughs like ChatGPT, we should be talking about this. Governments should be involved in the citizens should be involved in this.

And I don't they are having the the most effective conversation around IT, but we're definitely having IT. Everyone is icewise open at least about the stakes today in a way that they wouldn't been before. And that's also because these technologies is is just so downtown werf. And when IT comes to values, look, there's values.

There's the values, you know, treating people with respect that we'd like to teach sue that enter table or this i'd like to for my kids that once not too hard for me to make sure I translate the workplace, but then there's the more subtle ones, which is like there's there's the company value that we put on the wall. You know google don't be evil model has certainly evolved over the years. And and every company has some set of values that if if done well, are actually really, really useful ways to scale a founders vision.

And but they are usually pretty benie things like one of the first values we instated on the redit turnaround was about details matter. And that's because the product for years was not very well built. And so we needed to create a culture.

We're like people cared. They wanted to put their name on physical sign, their name to the code or the things that they were putting out in the world because the details matter. IT had to be well built product. And over time, the product got Better, the culture got Better, and we could shed that value. But that's like the lower case v value, the really media ones.

I think it's a world of grey, and I do think that when you're investing as early as we are, you know you're meeting a founder of before there's even a company, and so you're going off of as much diligence as you can do. But there's no there's not five years of pens. You know you don't have a ton. You're just really betting on the founder and their ability excuse. We didn't invest in thermos, but there are plenty of examples like theer's s we see fotos just go so off the rails and and really breaking laws. I think there's a world of grey, especially now in this age of AI because it's such a big tech change where you're going to see founders continuing to Operate with this grey area that you're talking about, which is I need to do right by my investors and i'm gona try my best to do what's right for society, but I need to win.

But isn't that part of the problem? I need to win. win. What like? What does that even mean?

I need to win.

It's not not a race where IT is a beginning, a middle and end. And I don't know what the numbers are in tech. I just know the broad american numbers, which is, you know there are thirty three million registered businesses, united states, and there have only been seven hundred and orns, which is A A company that reaches a billion dollars, the numbers of tech businesses is going to be even smaller.

And so it's kind like i'm going to be an actor. I'm going to be in the next, you know, ryan rends, right? Like the odds are so .

miniscule that to set .

out with that as a goal is unto itself. hilarious. I can just go back to the question I said before, like I have to win win what? Well.

OK, it's not .

it's not a game with a finish line in.

in, in the general sense, you're absolutely right in the A I sense what they would say the prize is. It's one that they need to win for themselves um which is reaching basically A G I, which is kind of a ag statement.

But artificial general, when you have an eye that is like basically truly on the level of replacing human work for so many things, so many cartons of capabilities that we can, is this kind of, I don't know, aha, like almost mythological thing, that folks debate how close we are to IT open the eye, has their own little rating system. And I think it's once we hit level five, like the whole world has changed type thing. And so they would say, okay, we need to win not just to beat our competitors in the U.

S. But we need to win to beat china. We need to win to beat other maybe nation states that may not have the same values as us. China is uneasy. You want to pick on that also working towards this.

And and in that way, it's got the summer manhattan project like characteristic to IT, which puts IT in its own little world, which again, if you'd say, hey, if we're in the one thousand nine hundred and forties and we know there's a chance we can make this thing that could bring coton court world peace, the atomic bomb IT is so important that we win, that we get there. First, I am saying that without judged, I can see the arguments for being really important and and almost by any means necessary, is what what IT takes. And I can see the other arguments against IT.

that so many thoughts this is .

getting everyday.

I know, is going to say, so this, I did. So what I think so interesting is two thoughts here. One that's so interesting is for the first time in a long time, we have stumbled upon a technology, as you said, at a time when the opportunity to be first as a nation.

not as a company.

is truly at the level of its existential and its global power competition. It's the it's the soviets, it's the germans and the and the allies racing towards a nuclear bomb, because whoever got there first would be able to influence the other. It's putney spurs, the american space program.

It's these firsts that are about superpower competition. And we haven't been in a situation in the globe like this for decades where there is great power competition and there is a technology that whoever gets there first gets to dictate the way the world's going to work. And I don't think the rest of the american population fully appreciates that part of what's happening here.

And I don't think either republican or democrats are talking about IT either. This is the space race. This is the menhaden project, as you put IT. This is this is about a nation that needs to achieve something before another nation does, is not about a company.

And I can give you some, we can talk with the lowest x version too. But I, I go back, I did. So I didn't study engineering, but I studied history, conveniently, world or two history.

And so is there any scenario where I would have wanted that not used to have got the atomic bomb first? Absolutely not. Of course, that's a counterfactual. We are like, oh, no way in help with whatever IT takes to beat the city to get the atomic bound.

Now if I playing that out is my maybe i'm not thinking IT but olympia or her kids one day and they're like, how important was IT hypothetically that amErica beat china to getting this thing is that is IT equivalent. You know, someone's going to get someone's going to get cancel here. But I think it's a worthy mental exercise to say how important is to amErica to make sure we're first here. And because the implications of this, what a is not the same as a literal bomb implications economically debate defensively like there, they're significantly mean what's also interesting .

as people forget about the unintended side effects, which is, you know, IT was, IT was in germany in the, I think was nineteen thirty nine, maybe ninety eight, and where they sort stumbled upon nuclear energy. And because IT was a time of war, IT was immediately applied to the building of a bomb.

And nuclear power has suffered because IT came to be during the second world war, and nobody considered IT as a clean source energy until after the war. And so IT IT just got a lot of baggage where people are afraid of nuclear power people, the word nuclear scareth people. And it's just bad luck in terms of bad timing.

And I wonder now that the same thing will happen to AI, which is if IT does become part of global great power competition, that moving forwards, we as a nation will struggle to make make A I anything other than a government or military asset. And people will fear those two letters, like they fear the word nuclear. Just because of the times that were in, if IT was ten years ago or fifteen years ago, where where A I showed up, the debate might have been very different.

Totally agree. And it's ironic that now because of A I and its tremendous power needs, we're reopening nuclear in the united states, right? Microsoft made commitment.

I think we'll see more plants reopening. And the good news, the technology has gotten, I know everyone thinks your noland, the technology, nuclear has gotten Better, safer, all those things. And I do think we'll see this renison. IT could use a rebrand.

IT could use a rebrand. But IT is ironic that we're using nuclear .

to power come back.

But I want to go down the other the other path because I said, have two thoughts about IT when you when you talk about this race and the winning right, which is what has happened in tech that I don't think has ever happened prior to tech, there's a dominant player in a space, right? Google is the dominant player in search.

OpenAI is the dominant player, at least so far in A I, and it's only like four, five companies that tech companies that basically control the world. Meta is the dominant player in social and the race. Perhaps there is great irony, which is these companies that become a sensibly monopoly.

therefore, that works.

Now amazon is the player in retail, is very hard for anybody to compete against amazon with your bricks and mortar or or online retail. It's just it's just very hard for anybody to to be somewhat close player. Well, mars, giving you a good college try.

You know, there are probably the only one that can take on amazon um and I think they're doing a decent job of IT. But IT seems like the race is to be the monopoly like which is we're all racing in a tech direction and the companies are trying to be the one that's trying to coton. Cowin is to be the monopoly and and that's what we have. We have A A, A sensible monopoly tech, and that seems to be the race.

I'm not in any trust expert, but I do think here's the weird paradox. So google is a great example there. Google certainly has monopolistic practices and characteristics.

You brought up service, go on. Here's the paradox. Google also invented all of these practices, machine learning, tensor flows. This stuff was actually originated in google, the papers of the research that OpenAI built on. But because google was so paradox of choice bearcroft what everyone to call they didn't want to candidate their beautiful search business, there was no internal incentive to actually develop this technology. And I took an outsider to disruption.

And there's a very good chance, I mean, if perplexity and a mont investor, but like if perplexity continues to go grow the way it's growing or someone's other, maybe it's ChatGPT, who knows we could actually see a replacement for that list of blue links that we've all got one so used to because it's just a Better experience. And so well, at the same time, I can agree there certainly applies c things about doing what it's done in the span of a few years. They are going to get severely chAllenged, if not appended by technology actually invented in house.

And that's to the nature of tech, which like, okay, I guess standard oil I get i'm not an expert on oil things, but like if you own where the oil comes from, you own the things that move the oil, you own the places that sell the oil, that feels like this vertical immigration gone arriving in neumann polish. Because if we're talking about atoms, we're time about to scarce resource and physical things. But in software, the cost of iteration you are scaling and the the ability, the rapidly with which technologies can evolve and change makes IT a different beast.

And I don't think any trust folks, I really caught up with that either the ssc was worried about amazon buying rumba or something or facebook to the worst one was facebook or meta buying gift fy, which is a platform of animated gifts like it's the time to look at meet up for those types of any trust practices, was like a decade ago. Guys like getting on them. Now forgive you in its so you have technology but keeps the stakes get higher and higher.

You keeps improving faster and faster. And then you have institutions like government that by design are slow and plotting along. And the next five or ten years, we will see a major collision because the technology will just keep out pacing, outstripping these institutions ability to to think through IT and regular .

its nature government government reacts. You know something is to make first they uh but and what I also think is so interesting, you know that that google example, I didn't know that one that google example just reminds me of kodak.

Kodak invented the digital camera in the seventies and suppress the technology to is not to canabal zed, to your point, film, paper, chemicals until finally an ironically IT was their patterns that other digital companies like fujian cannon started to use. IT know code act made money of the patterns until the patterns ran out. And then those digital companies put code access sensibly at a business.

And so it's ironic that, you know, a google technology may be the thing that put IT out a business, but it's still a race to replace the monopoly, right? Not exist with them. Because competition, as adam Smith defined IT, was that if you have choices, we benefit as customers. But if you take away the choice, the temptation from monopolist decision making, it's just too tempting.

No, this is the power of competition. And and I want to give you some help because I do think values can long term a line with business outcomes. And I can speak to a fairly specific example of using like border and conversation, but so I decided to company called raw health when these telehealth businesses started in twenty fourteen, when all the laws started changing.

So you could be a doctor practicing in one state and speak to via telehealth, like video chat, speak with a patient somewhere else and prescribes es in in another state is a big shift because now you could scale a real tee of business at the same time. E, D, mads, like vaga and see Alice, we're going generic. And so now you're going to need a preparation of much cheaper alternative brands.

And roll was there first on the scene with a few others and very intentionally built to business where they said, okay, we are going to build integrity and what we do because we know this can be abused, right? If you're pursuing profits at all cost, you could see a model and incentivises, not just the C E. O, but everyone in the business down just hit their goal for the quarter and push as much product as possible, even if someone didn't necessarily needed do really aggressive tactics to lock them in the subscriptions, push the unification on itself.

And they made a decision early on to build that into the culture. And where IT paid off wasn't just there because they found success kept growing. Keep growing, keep growing. And there was a moment in time I won't name the company, but some folks realized they could start writing prescriptions for A D, D, D. Medications like atri lin.

And IT was a no brainer for the business at row to not get into this in spite of the fact that there were new entrance who were aggressively growing because they knew you. This is a popular drug, making this drug, which is habit forming, really accessible to people like if you're putting value aside, seems like a great business model. But IT didn't, along with the values of row to really be pushing this product as aggressively as these folks were.

And we didn't even bother expanding into IT because there was too much of a downside risk. And not surprisingly, that company eventually got called out by the fda until a lot of trouble and has paid the Price far, as I can tell. And as that a whole thing unfolded, what was so compelling from this was the CEO was there was never a moment of hey for him that this was the right thing to do because he was playing a long term greedy game.

He knew that the brand of rome being a telehealth leader didn't just mean making as much money as possible in a quarter IT meant making sure that this was a brand that mattered and was something the customers trusted, but also that the government respected. Because at some point in these rapidly growing industries, whether it's AI, whether it's to tell a health doesn't matter, like you said, government is reactive. And so at some point, unfortunately, something goes wrong in government.

Step sentences is okay, what tells going on here. And they talk to everyone and they see what everyone's best like standards and practices are. And in that situation, you want to be the gold standard. Because then government goes and looks around, this is oh okay like you're the adults in the room. You're the ones who take this seriously, help us figure out what to make the standard because you're the ones doing the best. And in these are the areas where I think being high integrity actually alliance with being high like sort of greed because you have the long term best business outcome, because you you sacrifice some short term business outcome for the long term. Integrity and values move and in health is an obvious.

I think I think you you're touching on an inside here that I really appreciate, which is if we look at capitalism, the way I was priority of milton freedman, jack welch and we look at capitals in the wait is now where short term m quarterly results, shareholders supremacy are standard. And they've done great damage to the middle class. We've done great damage to the nation.

They've done great damage to economies. You know, I like to remind people that we've had three major stock market crashes. We had the one thousand and eighties. We had black monday. We had dock com, and then we had two thousand and eight, right.

three major dock market .

prior prior to that because of the the the glass legal act that was put enough to the great depression, which we dismantled in the in the eighties in the name of profit, we had zero. We had zero, zero major stock market crashes between the great depression and glass legal and the dismantling of IT in the eighties. And since then we've had three.

And so this idea of short term m and short term great and golden sex used to talk about this, you know, goldman sexes off on the poster child for sort of evil business these days. But even the old partners of golden sex, they used to talk about long term greed as one of their values. And I think this is right, which is we can get away from greek.

It's a very human instinct, is one of the reasons communism fails is because people are greedy. But the idea of of saying, look, we're not gonna get rid of greed because we're people. But if we can commit to having long term greed, we will make Better long term the decisions we will take care of employees, will protect the environment. We will be ethical because it's in our long term greedy interest.

yes.

And I think what you said is so profoundly right, so simple and so profound, which is we have replaced long term greed with short term greed, and we need to get back to long term greed because it's Better.

Yeah, yeah. And I could make the case for, and I love being told them i'm right. So thank you.

Just women to holding. And if we just keep talking, i'll find .

something wrong. Look, the I think I hope there is a long term case for IT with things like climate that I care about, my family foundation, all the money is going towards Young people who are taking big swings to combat climate change and and that's one area where you could say, okay, like IT is clearly in humanity, is best interest to make sure the planet is is not destroyed by our own action.

But IT is a really, really hard thing to get folks to value. Myself included. All this right are short term decisions for the, that is the ultimate long term greedy move, right? Let's make sure this planet thrives for a very, very, very long time and and that's probably the one that's the most sort of at odds with this because it's how long is long like let's .

go down that rabbit, let's go down that rabid hole. Why that long term greedy? He seems to stumble even among those who believe in IT, right? And by the way, getting worse.

Yeah.

that is. And I think one of the reasons this is even with long term greedy, there are metrics that help you measure that you're run the right path.

So the growth may be slower, but at least at setting in the right direction, right? And I think that's where we confuse what metrics are because that's all the metric is, which is it's a measured of speed and distance and you modulate for so that you can stay in the game, right? Like if you've ever run long distance, you don't hear go and run as .

fast as you can.

You n ah so this is what happened when people .

distances .

can goes. You can't run this passage again because you're run out to do. You have to modulate. If it's a short race, you just run as fast as you can and then the race is over.

But a long race, you have to find a pace so that you can stay in and stay in the race. But the point is you're still moving forward and you can still measure that patient. You can see how tired do you feel and you module.

And I think I think that, that one of the problems in climate is we don't have effective metrics that help us measure speed and distance to know that we're at least on the right path. So in other words, that if we continue in this path, we can see that long term greedy will work out. What scientists are asking is to do is just go on faith alone. And then every year they say up planets warmer.

Natural .

disasters are worse. There's no weekly or quarterly metric that says we're on the right path. Folks, let's keep with this.

Or this is going a little slower or this going a faster. That's module this. We don't have regular notions of progress. We just everything is, yeah, I screwed up again and that .

sucks to here with the carbon footprint of the average american, at least sort of consciously dos doesn't feel that what's the word bad like relations of two entire nations or relative to, I mean, even just the I I don't know the ships that are moving all the stuff we need to live our lives around the world, right? Like there are layers to, I think, for a lot of folks to hear, like, will wait, like i'm doing my best. You told me to recycle.

I do the recycling. I do the things I can. I walk where I can, Bobby aba and I just els like such a big tractable problem into your point either isn't there's no good news every year.

You look these little gines. There's there's an on profit i've been supported called ocean cleanup, and they have these dot machines. Have you seen this? No, there, these dot machines that eat up a garbage basically, and we massive, so they basically clean up plastic as auto in oceans, waterways.

And it's so interesting watching this because on the one hand, you know, IT feels you see tools on the internet like doesn't matter like we need and using plastics yesterday and all this stuff. But there's something for the for the proponents of IT. There's something deeply satisfying just seeing someone making progress, seeing that that's being removed from a waterway to get mist.

It's something and we're very visual animals. We're incredibly visual animals, which is why we're so off metric, subsist, write book. We want to see results to feel like we're making progress. And if you can't see IT, I can't feel IT. And so I makes total sense to me when your scoop and junk out of the ocean and you see a thing filled with that, that you're gonna go process you you like we're doing good because there's there's a metric and when people just say, you know, turn the tap off.

there's no, I don't shower doors.

Take a shorter shower, okay? There's no metric. And I think I think that's one of the things that's missing from all of this just to go off on A A little tight right a size. I get such joy. I think it's so hilarious when people debate whether the validity of climate change based on whether it's caused by human beings or it's just natural cycles of climate, which is like debating whether you have lung cancer from smoking or genetics.

Does that really matter? Does that really matter? You have lung cancer, right? And and even if IT is just a Normal cycle of climate, that's the equivalent of a media hit hurtling towards the earth that is going to hit us and kill us all.

And we can all assume safely that that was not made by us. It's just the cycle of of big rocks in the universe. And one of them letting our way would we intervene and trying to push you out off? Of course, what would we say? No, no, no.

Leave IT be. It's just the cycle. Of course we would intervene.

So, you know.

and so these ideas that we wouldn't intervene because it's a natural cycle or debating where IT comes from or such a waste of time and energy.

A good point. It's a good point because because both sides, both sides will definitely waste a lot of our time trying to convince the other side. Yeah, tear point.

I had never thought about that way. I really isn't worth that. We acknowledge that happening.

So do something. It's happening IT doesn't matter where IT comes from, it's happening. And it's kind like it's kind of like god. There are some people who are who don't really believe in god, but they pray just in case and it's like like like okay, maybe climate change is a hoax.

but what if it's not .

um maybe we do like some of IT .

just in case yeah yeah the marketing, the why, if I will, that he's always resonate with me that I don't understand why folks don't push more, especially more conservative folks. I am not let's say I don't love going out into nature.

I'm not out here like you won't find me hiking on a weekend and you won't find like I did do boys coat though as a kid, a cub scout while tiger than a cup scout that a boy can only made IT to life didn't make IT eagle. I'm a quitter, but I loved going camping, and I loved spending time in these parks. But one of things did be me to appreciate was the natural beauty of the world.

And in this idea that you always leave the campground Better than you ve found IT, and was a simple principle. And I just thought, dam like there is, at a minimum, regardless of who's to blame or what's to blame, we have a planet that we, at this point, only have one of for our species and and we should be trying to do right by IT. And thankfully, now I think we're seeing the wonder of what technology can do.

I think we're approaching some big break through here. We talked about AI robotics is tied hand and hand to that carbon estrade like, actually like trees are a great way to do IT all natural god invented method of capturing carbon. But we have some man made versions of carbon sequestration that are actually getting more and more compelling.

And we have invested in a few like a loom carbon where where I do think in the next ten years, we're going to find some phenomenal ways to actually get Better using technology at healing this planet. And that's also the stuff that when you're talking about an enterprising person who wants to devote decades of their life to solving a problem, especially one is biggest climate. I hope that these Young people see the chance to build as a much more seductive calling then, and i'm going to get in trouble for this.

But then standing on a street corner in new york, trying to get me to stop and sign their pfl. T it's nature conservancy. And i'm just like, please, like this can be, this cannot be the best way. Like come on your side.

this makes sense why you're saying this because you're talking about an entrepreneurial perspective versus a corporate perspective. You know, the corporate perspective is this is the way things are done. This is the way things have always been done. This is the thing that has always existed, and this is the thing that we're going to double down on with all the bureaucracy and complications to come with that because this is the thing that is for clear and comfortable.

And then there's the entrepreneur that says, got IT, you can keep doing that if you want, but i'm going to be over here doing carbon cy quest strained with technology and you know maybe let's just let's see what happens. I think more entrepreneurial spirit, I agree with you IT is ironic on so many levels and your hundred percent right like the politics don't matter like we want to protect nature because you know you're an environmentalists and you care about nature or great, that's your motivation. You want to protect nature because you're a hunter and you love being out on the woods with, you know on a weekend with your mates.

And I want to protect the woods. You want to protect nature because you're religious. And this is god's creation. And I want to do what I can to protect god. Really like the motivations are beyond politics, and for some reason, in our very american way, managed to politicize them to the point we are debating about something that is literally not political. Mother nature gives no shits.

doesn't care how you vote, that does not care. And he has given us a cool blue print. And i'm telling this stuff, you spend a little time. I've been doing the foundation fellowship ship for three years now and in the most inspiring part of IT is so it's eighteen to twenty four year old apply so this really is the film was like a college professor seeing these pitches. This is the next generation shown us what possible um there is a Young woman mati who start this coming called living carbon where they are literally breeding trees I think is a type of popular to be even more effective at the westering carbon and growing even faster. And like when I think about how if I were twenty again and I were thinking about what's the next company i'm going to start, I don't know if IT be a social media company and obvious ly had it's done and served me really well.

Thank you for saying that there is.

But there's this generation now that just feel it's IT feels within our grasp to actually make a huge impact on that otherwise very intractable ble problem.

And we've reached a point with the technology and we've reached a point with, I think, the youth of society, the really motivated the entrepreneur ones, would they know like, okay, like we saw how guys like me we're building up for the last twenty years, like what can I do to take these skills and really build something that i'm going to be so proud of them and and build them? They have a tremendous impact. And i've got some of these trees literally planted on my farm here.

And every time I take a store by then, i'm like, hello, yes, like there's an amazing team of hard working people. IT may not work, but there is this amazing sea of hard working people that have are going to vote decades of their lives to building trees that are going to do a even Better jobs to question carbons. We can plant these things everywhere.

But this goes full circle to where we started to this conversation, which is, neither you nor suck all of these big tech founders. None of them imagined in their wildest dreams that the thing that they did would have such an impact in the world. I think one of the chAllenges that Young entrepreneurs have when they are in the climate space is they can see the impact they need to have.

And I think it's overwhelming. And I think maybe to take that more, dare I say, it's not really realistic because it's still idealistic, can be on beyond what most people are imagining. But maybe don't try and bowl the ocean, but try make progress towards boiling a piece of the ocean.

Absolutely, just like cleaning, clean up, build the first robot that can automatically clean that first waterway, right? And and pull out five tones of plastic, and then build the next one little bigger, and then build .

the next one of big ger. The way you clean your houses, you start by cleaning one room.

I didn't know this was .

a climate pod. I don't know. Mean, you know, this is where I went.

I love IT. I do want to know that when you were putting that, why talk together? Did you did you know IT was a heater like you probably given in a few times before in some setting or what i'd like, but when you were like, you knew you had something.

So the answer is yes. I been giving the golden circle White talk for a about three years before somebody tap me on the shoulder and said.

you want to do tight there was no way. I was like, he knows this thing as a heater and it's so good, there's no way. I was just like, yeah, there there's something together tomorrow yeah no.

i'd been giving the talk for the talk for three years. D had everybody, i'd had hecklers and people throw stones at me, and i'd been asked all the questions. I'd work through them already. And I the chAllenge I had wasn't what I thought about the talk. The chAllenge I had was my talk was always an hour, and I had to do .

IT in eighteen minute.

And so that was that was the hard part. But but the the the idea that had already been validated for three years before I got the tap on the shoulder, that's why I got the because somebody had seen me give the our long talk and said, you know, you should do this at ted um and so I got this the the opportunity to do a ted dex year I love .

this and I have to and I make a notice to one because I had a hunch. I needed ask because I remember remember watching the talk and I like, this is good. I was like this good to feed me. This is good. But it's also worth noting to, I always love for the benefit of your listeners in case they ever had IT twisted like the final product never shows the hours and hours and hours and hours of work and stones and all the things that you adored before that point. And it's like we so many people myself and and others saw the that final product. They are on stage that went viral, but you lose sight of the fact this was, these are ideas that you were refining, that you were thinking on, that you were beating up, the other folks were beating up, that I got to that thing. And that's what made IT was all of that work that made IT show .

spectacular yeah IT IT takes a long time to .

become an overnight success yeah and I just but like it's not I don't know IT can never be set enough and so i'm .

glad you know but again, that goes back to tech, right? Because you meet some of these founders, you know, that have built businesses that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes. And you're like, when did you start to like, three years ago. So there seems to be the twisted notion for Young people that there isn't a lot of work require to be an overnight success.

You just need to play ruled and get the right investors in the right valuations and tada h and maybe that's true for some, whether those are sustainable businesses or not, you know and there are definitely some businesses that came out of nowhere and you know blew the doors off. But again, that number is that's like winning the lottery. My favorite about those founders is they don't acknowledge that they simply want a lottery.

They think they did something, and then they go running of speeches about how to succeed, which is the equivalent of the lottery. When are giving speeches about the numbers they chose? And if you choose these numbers too, you too will win the lottery. Sometimes it's just to say, hey, was the right idiot the right place at the right time?

There are a very few, if I just think over the last twenty years, there are very few endorsing successful to companies that were truly overnight. And even the ones know you look at OpenAI was the fastest, biggest consumer launch of all time like they were iterating .

GPT for years, years.

IT was a non profit when I started, but I think they started like twenty fourteen.

Yeah yeah. And they never never expected IT to be a business.

No.

maybe they did. No, I think I think you're right. I I think of I think you're right. I mean, I saw sam altman speaking in an event like a week before he decided to leave the not for profit and become part of the profit business.

And somebody asked the question, like, no, you know, like I have no shares and you know, i'm just happy, but not for profit and like, literally a week later. So I think you might be right there. Let me ask you a couple of final questions here. What can you tell us for people who are a Young entrepreneurs are just know in our lives, when is the time to step aside and let others take over? I mean.

you did IT IT read IT.

How does one know when it's time to move on and let somebody else take the rain? Like how do we know when, where, when we've Peter principled out? Why don't they get .

Peter principled? But you didn't Peter .

principal b but you didn't certainly came to a place where you like, right? I to go.

yeah, well, that's where I knew one voice out of five on the board, especially for issues that I really felt strongly about, like banning violence and banning hate communities like that, that stuff. I realized I was in a room that I wasn't aligned with, and these were things that I just knew where we're right for business, we're right for society, we're right for all these things.

And I couldn't I couldn't do with being the front man of the company. And founder of a company where I was just one vote out of five on something that felt so obvious. And so the promise I made this is four years ago.

I just never going to let myself in that situation again. So even in building seven, seven, six, which is this is going to my life's work doing early stage investing, incubating. But in all the companies I build from this and in this, it's just me from like there's no there's no board, so to speak, where I could ever have four of the voices telling me like that.

No, like communities with the violence and gore. fine. And that was was that was a Frankly IT was a moment where I I think I shed some mon navy about like how the world actually works and just realized, do you know what? I have an of agency.

I have a freedom. I ough wealth that I, an unfortunate ough, to accumulate. I can just write my own sort of playbook for the rest of my career.

And this thing that was like the big part of my identity for fifteen and sixteen years read IT. It's something my kids didn't know anything about. I going to be was three.

A deo wasn't even born. So I could manifest whatever I wanted for them to know me as I wanted. They needed to see me working. That was important me, but I needed them to see me doing really the best work of my career and and doing in a way that I felt was alone with, yes.

full circle IT goes right back to values a good. yes. Well.

well, I mean, it's I think if you find yourself in these rooms and you have the ability, right obviously you look if you ve got to pay bills, like there's lots of reasons why um to stay in these harder situations .

even if not really. But mean, that's a conversation for it's an entirely new podcast like that's a whole new episode, which is when we find that our that that our values are being violated, we can rationalize putting those values aside to could quote, pay the bills or everyone's doing IT or you know that's what my boss wants you when when the ethical fading starts to set in. And we can rationalize putting our values aside. That can't be good over the long term, but that's a different conversation.

Yeah, and I agree and I think there has to be I think as i've got an older it's help give me more clarity and look, i'm not i'm not putting myself on any kind of here. I mean, the world is grey in so many things. There are some black and White things for sure, but there's a hell of a lot of grey.

And so I just wanted to have, you know, I wanted I wanted one hundred percent agency to be able to make those decisions. And if I made him wrong, that on me, but if I didn't me, that felt really right and I was the right thing like I got to do IT. I didn't have to ever been a room like that again. So that's.

I love that, I love the accountability. What women sport are you investing in next?

H, i'm actually okay. So I been waiting to do something basketball. And it's not A W N B A team moment, but but my own motor, uva, has an amazing women's basketball program.

And so i'm putting some dollars toward I don't know what it's I don't want me to call IT something. I'll be patriot of patriots, the uva women's baseball. Basically, thanks to nial, I can put dollars to work.

I mean, couch sports is never going to the same. But in particularly, college women sports are never going to the same, because these women can actually now get brand deals that make them matter more to the N. C.

W. A right part of the reason, in four years you went from women's college baseball not being allowed to even save final four. And as true, because of some trademark thing that didn't wanted to be ruined, because I was for the man only.

And they had that weight room tobacco during covert, where the women had like two benches and the men had a whole full gym. We went in four years from that nightmare to know k. Clark Angeles, the highest ratings ever women's college basketball, this recent march.

Man is turned, the Better numbers in the men. And and how that shifted was was, yes, he had generational talent, amazing athletes. And ni forced everyone else to realize how valuable these athletes were because their social media following didn't alive with what the nc.

da. Fought was their value. So they weren't getting TV. This is unfortunate, vicious cycle that is trapped. Most sports they didn't get TV didn't get promotion and get itself because the men in charge didn't think people wanted to watch, got assaults like me to eating for years.

Now that if you just looked at their follower accounts, the women of college basque were way more pop than the men, and nl allowed the women to monitise that. And now that you have athletes making and some are making seven figures a year, again, the free market speaks and loud and clear. And now you're not making a case about equality or feminism or social justice.

You just simply saying, like the market spoken like N C, W, if you're not supporting these, you're badly your jobs now. And and i've been just excited to be this, especially back uva. And I want to I need to do even more back there. Um but this was a great place to start. So it's not really an investment because it's obviously donations, but still investing in in these Young en in the program and and hopefully scale.

Not all investments have financial returns.

still investment. That's right.

That's right. We invest in education. We invest in the future, we invest in our children and you're investing in college, women, sports.

It's an infinite or alias.

What a pleasure. Thanks so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciated. Thanks so much.

My pleasure, Simon. Big fan sam, thank you for everyone.

Thank you. If you enjoy this podcast, would would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, Simon sonic duck com, for classes, videos and more.

Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company. It's produced and edited by lynsey gardenias, David jaw and David Johnson. Our executive producers are hendra conrad and greg rooter sham.