The Daniel Mazur Podcast

I remember thinking I could go to the White House in jeans.

They told me no.

And I'm like,

oh god,

I don't own a suit.

I gotta get a suit.

I literally went out to the store and was like,

let me go buy a suit

because I'm gonna go to the White House.

All right, so with me

today is Daniel Kivatinos.

Daniel Kivatinos is a

successful second time YC founder

with his first company, Dr. Chrono,

having a nine figure exit,

which was a top 30 startup exit for YC.

Daniel put in the grind for 14 years

and raised millions of dollars.

And Daniel got into YC

again with his current company,

JustPaid.ai.

So JustPaid is a smart new

way to generate invoicing

to receive payments, sort of

think of it as an assistant

to help a company's finance team.

And with the

accounting shortage in the US,

JustPaid's work is

definitely solving a deep, deep pain.

JustPaid is solving a problem

that doesn't exactly jump out

at us in our everyday lives.

How did you get into

this unsexy space, Daniel?

Yeah, so I mean, just at a high level,

I started a company called

Dr. Chrono way back when.

And I saw the problem

there, but not just there.

I saw the problem in

other startups where,

you know, you hire

generally a finance team

and the finance team

helps with the company.

And this is just one

of those things where,

as you build a company and

as you become successful,

you start to generate

more and more revenue.

And as you generate

more and more revenue,

you tend to have to figure out ways to

collect that revenue.

And a lot of the time

you are just hiring people.

It's just a people

driven like industry today.

And, you know, it's kind

of like drivers of cars

and drivers of like rigs, you know,

today it's primarily people.

What is it gonna look

like in 10 years, right?

Are you gonna have just

people driving cars anymore?

The answer is probably maybe.

Like there might be like an approach

where some people are driving cars and

others are automated.

I kind of view the same thing with

accounts receivable.

AP, they call it AR and then

there's AP accounts payable.

So accounts receivable is every business

needs to generate revenue.

The thing is, it's just

a very painful process.

Like did this customer pay us?

Can we pay these bills?

Because an example is like, you know,

you're a broker of

something like servers or whatever.

You, you know, you're

basically leasing $100,000 worth

of servers, you know, getting

that server space for somebody

and that's a hundred thousand dollars.

So you have, you

basically lease it for a hundred K

but then this person

owes you a hundred K.

So you're kind of

figuring out like who owes what,

what, who, you know, it

gets really confusing.

So hire people to literally like,

I'd call it like bean

counting where you're literally

figuring out where's all

the money, who owes us what.

And then can we make

these payments over here

because we, you know, these people are like,

these people owe us hundreds of thousands

or millions of dollars.

Can we do this and that?

So generally it's a,

you know, as companies

are more successful, it's

very hard in the early days

to see this, but you

know, if you're generating

a hundred million dollars in revenue,

how do you think you're going to collect?

How does that revenue get collected?

Right? Like who generally is just people,

like making sure invoices go out and

people make payments.

And it's a people driven industry.

So, you know, I met

with my co-founder Analia

and my other co-founder Renee, you know,

prior to starting this company,

and we just kind of just

said, this is a problem.

It's a really specific

problem that every business

in the United States has at some level.

And it's huge.

And it's not just the United

States is across the globe,

but it's, you know, can you

impact and support businesses

as they scale and become more successful

and build something

meaningful in that way

that would be like fun to work on.

And I think Analia got

really passionate about this

and Renee got really passionate.

And I felt like it was a

really good space to go into.

It just, the market's not only big,

but it's also there's a need where

when you have like

people driven industries,

there tends to be

disruption down, you know,

down the road if the technology is there.

And AI is here and you know,

all this money is

going into AI right now.

It's just a really big industry.

So kind of a long winded

answer to your question.

Yeah.

How did you decide to like start there

after such a

successful exit with Dr. Crono?

You could have done pretty

much anything or nothing at all.

Like why did you decide to do just paid

and solve this problem?

It's a really good question.

I think, you know, when

you are an entrepreneur,

I think you have so

much time in life, right?

Like life is short.

And if you want to start businesses,

you have to do it fairly quickly

when you're like you have the energy.

And you know, we're all,

the way I look at it is

we're all going to die.

You know, we only have so much time

and like what impact and what,

what like legacy do you

want to leave out there

for people to think of you

and what you're working on?

And I think like,

just sitting around for

me doesn't sound appealing.

Honestly, it doesn't sound like what,

it doesn't sound like fun for me.

I think part of the journey

of just going and learning

and you know, becoming a

founder is a very, very,

as weird as it sounds, it's a better,

it's a better way to learn than,

than school.

Like I learned a lot in school, you know,

school was amazing.

I actually, the school I went to,

Stony Brook University was amazing,

but I love the journey of like learning.

And I think the

camaraderie of having a team

and having a mission, it's so impactful.

Like it really for me is almost like,

you have your family,

you know, that's there.

You have friends, but

then there's this mission

that you work on with a group of people

and you get really

smart people in a room.

Like amazing things can

happen that you could never expect.

Right?

It's amazing.

You look at the companies like SpaceX,

who would have thought that

would have been successful?

Yeah.

Nobody thought that was

going to be successful,

but you put really

smart people in a room,

you know, and they all feel

like they're on a mission.

You get this really amazing output

and that excites me.

And I'm like, that drives me a lot

where I can work on

something for 10, 15 years

because we have a mission

to do something important.

And the team is behind me and you know,

it's a lot of fun.

That's a part that

really like pulled me back in

very quickly.

And honestly, it's

finding the right people

that are passionate and

you feel like can do it.

You know, you don't

want to start a company.

And this is another thing with people

that you just are not

excited working with.

Right?

You want people that you believe in

and are smarter than

you that can like help you

get to the goal, whatever that goal is.

And you know, so picking

the right people to work with

is so important in the early days.

It's so critical.

And you know, in VCs

always think about this,

like what does the

founding team look like?

Right?

Like it's so important to a company

because that dynamic creates the value

from their energy in

the way that they're like

thinking about the business

and the way that they

play off of each other

and their expertise and their skillset.

How would you make your first hires?

Like if you were

starting another company today

or maybe even for Just Paid

since you relatively

recently began Just Paid,

how do you make sure you really have got

the right people in the right places

and that you're

screening for the right talent?

That's tough.

I think there's not a

single founder I know

that would say they've done it perfectly.

It's something that a lot

of people struggle with.

How do you do it?

I mean, you're never

gonna get it perfect.

You're never gonna like build a company.

It is a game of like sport

where you're kind of building the team

and the team is always changing.

So it may not be the same people

throughout the life of the company.

I mean, in different phases,

you hire for different people.

I think in the early phases,

like I was talking to

the founder of Mercury

and in the early days,

he just could get

whoever he could get, right?

Like whoever could believe in his vision,

like that's generally like what is true

is you try to find

people out like our believers,

but also people that are not negative

or they kind of pull you down

or they're like,

you get a sense and

everybody thinks it's all like IQ,

like building a company.

A lot of it is like EQ,

like emotional intelligence.

You wanna know, can I

work with this person?

Can they do something amazing?

And a lot of, again, like

investors look at it this way,

the most successful companies

or they may not be the

most smartest people.

They might just be the

people that are like committed

to the mission and get it

to from 0.0 to 0.8 billion,

where they're hugely successful.

So for me, I think look for people

that wanna work with

you in the early days

and look for people that

are not like mercenaries.

And what's a mercenary?

Somebody wants a $400,000 salary

and they want, you know,

RS use in your company

and they want security

and they wanna make sure the company has,

you know, whatever it is,

$700 million in the bank.

There are generally

mercenaries that are like that

and they're really good at what they do.

And you wanna hire people like that

because they're good at what they do.

But in the early days,

those are not the right

people for the company.

You want someone who kind of,

it's kind of like a

ragtag team, like Moneyball.

I don't know, everyone

who is like into startups

should look at the movie Moneyball.

Like just watch that movie

once and you'll understand.

Like you're gonna work

with imperfect people

that have personalities.

And the reality is even

when you get those mercenaries,

they're imperfect also.

And they have their own vision

of what the company is gonna be.

But in the early days

when you have a missionary,

they're like working for

whatever, 1 fifth of salary.

And they just don't care about the salary

because they really

wanna work on something

that they wanna work on.

And they like you and you like them

and you start like riffing off each other

and you start figuring out, okay,

this is the way the

company's gonna get built.

So like, I think that was one of my,

one of my, every

founder has some superpowers.

One of mine was like just getting people

to want to work with us.

That was a superpower

in the early days of,

I'd say just any company I work with,

it's like people

generally want to work around

really positive people.

And I would say I'm

generally a very positive person

and people like that.

They're like, I wanna work with you.

So a lot of them are missionaries

that are just, they wanna jump in,

they start to just try to do stuff.

And you see if it's a good working,

dynamic working with them.

How did you decide on your mission?

And like, how do you

like find a worthy mission

that like you and your team could like

work endlessly behind

and persevere, endure, have that grit?

Like, how did you pick that?

And how do you inspire like your team

and like potential talent to

like get behind that mission

and be like a missionary?

They probably, you probably

don't just encounter talent

in the wild who's like, I

want to change invoicing.

I wanna join a

company that changes the way

like finance departments

run, like from the get go.

You probably have to

do something more there.

How do you make that magic happen?

I mean, you really don't

know what the right idea is

in the early days.

Apple did not think about

the iPhone from day one.

They didn't think they were gonna become

and like this amazing

company with the iPhone.

Like that was not what

they were thinking about

when they started.

They were like, all

right, we're gonna try to sell

a small computer for a home.

And they had a really

rough version of this thing

where they had, they

can only make so many

and it just didn't work that well.

And, you know, it kind of was a,

it was a rough path for Apple.

They didn't get there overnight.

Like it wasn't easy.

They almost went bankrupt.

I don't know if you know that.

They were on the brink of bankruptcy

where Microsoft bailed

them out with a big like,

big amount of money.

Who knew Microsoft would do that, right?

Maybe it was because they

thought of it as like a monopoly.

And if there was only Microsoft, uh oh.

So let's give Apple some money

and then Apple out of nowhere

just kind of created

this amazing company.

So like, I think the

same thing with Nvidia,

they didn't think they were

gonna be what they became.

They just were thinking

about like just chips.

And, you know, it wasn't

about AI in the early days.

It was not an AI company.

So like you kind of, when

you're climbing a mountain,

you kind of have to

take each step every day.

And, you know, I mean, there's, you know,

you probably heard this,

people talk about like Kaizen.

Maybe you haven't.

Have you heard of that word?

I haven't.

It's doing one thing every day

to make an impact essentially.

It's at a high level.

Like it's, it's do one thing today

that'll make the company better.

And, you know, what is,

the question for me is like,

every day it's like, what is

gonna make the biggest impact

on the company?

And how do I get that

one thing done today

that'll help the team and the company?

I think a lot of the

companies that are out there

are built this way that

have like endured over time.

It's not like, like,

it's not like Netflix knew

that they were gonna be online streaming.

They knew, I don't know if

you know the history of Netflix,

but they just kind of, they

didn't even start with DVDs.

Like they had to get to this path.

They went down this

path and they're like,

DVDs are the answer.

Let's start shipping DVDs.

Okay, oh my God, let's try streaming.

Like they didn't see it from day one,

but it was like a process

of refinement over time.

And you would have never known that like,

for anyone who like knows

what VHS is and like video tapes,

not everyone knows,

but you know, Blockbuster

was their big competitor

where like they were both,

they both like had DVDs

and you could rent a DVD.

And Blockbuster was on

a path to crush Netflix.

I don't know if you know this,

like they were going to kill Netflix.

They had a CEO who was on a

mission to create streaming.

And by the luck of, by Netflix's luck,

like the CEO left Blockbuster

and then Blockbuster

immediately lost their way

and just said, we're gonna

just do the brick and mortar,

double down and just have DVDs and stores

because that's how we

make all of our money.

Like why would we do streaming?

Like what would...

And then suddenly

Netflix had their chance.

So it's like, there's this weird dynamic,

I heard one entrepreneur say this to me

and it stuck in my brain.

It's like 60% luck, 40% determination.

Like as crazy as that sounds.

From day one, I was just

like thinking about it.

I'm like, what's a

space that we could work in

for a long time?

And we had some crazy

ideas before this idea.

We had an idea to create like...

This idea like, and we

didn't go with this idea,

but like basically like death care,

completely different idea.

Yeah, throwing you off.

We were writing ideas now.

Death care was like a way to help people

that had like

disastrous loss in their life

create a better

experience for them in society

because people don't look

at that part of society much.

I mean, that was like the

broad idea of that idea.

And something about it

scared me where I was like,

I don't know, I don't know if the

market's big enough.

I don't know if

there's a real market there.

My co-founder was really passionate.

Vene, my one co-founder,

he was super passionate

about going into this field.

And I'm like, I wanted to do it,

but something was like

telling me, be careful.

Now, hindsight's

20-20, I could kick myself.

There may be like really

amazing startups doing this idea.

And there are a few that came

out of YC in the last batch.

I'm like, this is

literally our original idea.

And I'm like, it is, I don't

know if it's a good idea or not

because I never went that path.

So I'm going down this path and I'm like,

take it day by day and

let's see what kind of change

we can make in this industry

with like really

revolutionary technology.

Yeah, looking back in hindsight,

can you tell like why

it is that your instincts

were steering you away

from starting that company

about like end of life care?

And did I understand

correctly what it is towards it

for end of life care

or like managing death?

Like what exactly would it have been

if you're able to share?

I mean, I think it was

dealing with like trusts.

It was dealing with

like deeds and titles.

It was dealing with like

educate, mass education,

like figuring out a way to

have like a better experience

where people just have an

easy way to get it like started.

I, you know, right now

everyone in the world

basically has to like find

a lawyer, right, to do this.

When it comes to like picking an area

that is that you could stay

excited about for a long time,

like how do you know?

Like it's so hard to look ahead.

You worked on Dr.

Crono for 14 plus years.

Like how were you able to stay excited?

How did you know like,

oh, this is something

I can persevere, this is something I

could continue working

on until I get lucky,

until the opportunity comes.

Like how did you know that was the space?

And like how can other

founders who are looking

to start their first company know that

they can stay excited

about this thing?

I think it's, you may

not always be excited

about what you're working on.

Like there's days when

you just want to run away

and like hide.

But there are

industries where like you feel

like something's off for you.

And I'll give you an example for me

where things were like off.

Before I started Dr.

Crono with my co-founder,

in Dr. Crono, he wanted to

really start a gaming company.

And it just doesn't

excite me for some reason.

Like, and you have to like

go into like your lower level

trust systems.

This is very strange to talk about.

It's like, you get these

senses and a lot of people

ignore this, where you

kind of have to trust

whatever your body is telling you.

And like something about

gaming scares me because

I feel like it's a very transient thing.

And I'm trying to articulate what I mean.

And I love games and I

think people that build games,

it's amazing.

I think it's honestly a

great industry to be in,

but it's very,

it's an industry where

you either have a hit

or you don't.

And even if you have a hit,

the longevity of the

hit is like fleeting.

It may be a few years.

It might be five years.

It might be 10 years.

It might be one year.

It might be six months.

Like Pokemon Go.

Yeah.

Are people using it or is it gone?

Is it done?

Like, is it like a thing?

Like, is it out there?

Something about gaming

like is unsettling to me

when building a business.

And I don't like the reset.

Like we need to do another game.

Like this game didn't work, reset.

We need to do another game.

And it feels very much

like the movie industry,

which you're starting

from like zero essentially

to try to get people to

be excited about a movie.

And I feel like I want to de-risk.

And de-risk means compounding growth

on an existing product.

And like Zynga.

I don't know if Zynga is doing well

or if they're not doing well,

but they have like a pool of games,

you know, and it's like a book of

business, like gaming.

For me, I like

compounding companies in this sense.

Like I really like what Facebook did.

Again, social networks are,

they're similar to gaming.

You have to keep people's attention.

I like what like what

the banking industry did,

which is, I guess

these are things that like

are a part of your daily life.

And it kind of

integrates in in a way that like,

it's useful to you on a daily basis.

It's not something that may just,

you watch it and you're done.

You know, there's an

attention span to that.

So I'm like, how do

you layer in more value

every single day onto an existing product

that keeps people engaged and coming back

and you have to refine it like a lot.

But, you know, again,

the software industry,

what I mean, it is very

like fickle, you know,

good today, bad tomorrow, like, you know,

but gaming is even more brutal.

I'm like, I'd rather de-risk

and build like a B2B business

or a B2C business that isn't so fickle.

And I could be totally wrong.

I'm not in the gaming industry,

but this is the way I perceive it.

And I'm trusting my gut.

And that's something that, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Is this connected to like your desire

to build lasting companies?

That perhaps like in the

movie or the gaming industry,

like having to

continually like come up with like,

you know, the hits, if you will,

like perhaps aren't

building something as like

with a stronger foundation

that could have like more lasting impact.

Is that perhaps a part

of why you feel that way?

Yeah, I would say so.

I mean, but I would also

say stability is better

than instability.

Like you want more revenue over time.

You want people to like,

I feel like with the gaming industry,

it's like, boom, you have success.

And then people just get bored.

They lose interest.

Like it's very, very,

something is unsettling to me

about that.

I like the longevity of a like business

that will continue compounding.

Like I don't know, maybe you can name a business,

but that you can think of one like.

Amazon comes to mind.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like the way they like started

with like just a

retail, like online bookstore

and like how AWS has come from that.

Like so many different like services

and like how far they've spread.

Like that, like there was clear,

you know, expanding like potential there.

In hindsight, of course.

But with games, people are like, but with games perhaps, like in movies

and that kind of like

consume once content.

Oh, I'm tired of it.

Perhaps it's harder to build on top of

to create like more value in like an

ecosystem or a platform.

That's exactly right.

And I think Jeff Bezos like,

smart guy.

He was really smart.

Like he's thinking along the lines

of the way I'm thinking it's like,

he saw books as just a

conduit to more products.

You know, he's like,

I'm gonna start with books

cause everybody loves books.

They love bookstores.

I see the internet

scaling it like a rapid pace

and it's not gonna stop.

So the internet itself is like an engine

to keep going faster

and faster and faster.

But if books don't sell,

I built the product to

sell other products on it.

And I think that's a really

smart way to think about it

where it's not as

unsettling as the movie industry.

You know, there's these hit businesses,

there's some of the

tokens like crypto tokens,

like whatever, you know,

they have this like NFTs,

those sorts of things.

Not that those are bad,

none of that stuff is bad.

It's just for me as an entrepreneur,

I feel like I like

this long-term strategy

of one thing that we

could like continually refine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think that Jeff Bezos like knew

he was going to go

like past books one day?

Do you think like when

he started selling book,

like the first book online,

that was part of the game plan.

I'm starting with books today

and then I'm gonna sell so

much other stuff one day.

I think he was very clear that like books

were just the

beginning of something bigger.

I think his mindset was always that way,

which was this is not a one hit wonder.

It's not, you know,

we're just gonna sell books

and that's it.

His mind was very much racing like,

how do we get more users

to buy more stuff on here?

Because the internet's growing so fast.

Yeah.

We need to capture market and like

everybody will see it.

But I'm building the

platform, not really the items,

like other people were like, you know,

other people were putting

their inventory and whatnot,

you know, but I think he

saw the software itself

as the core thing to sell other stuff.

Yeah, okay.

What were the books for Dr. Crono?

The books for Dr. Crono.

What was that first little bit?

I mean, that company was

built differently than,

you know, I think what was

pure software from the beginning,

like I knew software could scale.

Like Amazon existed.

I saw Amazon success.

I'm like, for me, I just saw, you know,

medical records were

something that were not digitized.

It was just not a digitized thing.

So I'm like, that's our way in

because doctors are just using paper.

And this is back in 2007, 2008.

I had family members go to the doctor,

I'd go to the doctor and

they would just kind of

ruffle through like paper and be like,

when's your next tetanus shot?

And I'd be like, I don't know.

And I remember having this

conversation with the doctor

and he's like, I'll have to look it up.

And then he would

like, he ran over to like

a corner of a room,

he literally had files

and he would just

like ruffle through them.

And he'd be like, I don't really know,

but I'm just gonna

give you a tetanus shot.

Oh no. That sounds great.

Whatever, like, that sounds great.

And that was the experience I had.

And you know, my parents, same thing,

my brother, sister, same thing.

So I'm like, there's something there.

And I want to go that way

and we'll figure things out

as we go down that path.

And it was the paper

that really bothered me.

And it was the paper, you

know, it sounds crazy today,

but it was a paper

driven industry back then.

Like doctors would

just have piles of paper

and like you'd go to the doctor.

It still is that way today.

There's a lot of paper in

like the medical industry.

So you'll see it, but

it was like 100 fold

than what it is today.

Like it was bad.

Like everything was paper back then.

Yeah, well, moving

away from paper is great.

Saving trees, improving efficiency.

Like there's a lot of

companies that are still like working

to do that, like just

revolutionizing these

like unsexy problems,

automating a lot of things.

There's still a lot to be automated,

but it's getting better,

especially here in the US.

But in your journey with Dr. Chrono,

what was the closest

you came to giving up?

Like, you're like, fuck this, like,

I can't do this anymore.

Like, was there a point like that

or several points like that?

I mean, this goes for any startup.

And if any startup

founder says it's not true,

it's lying, I think

there's hard times in startups.

And I think every startup founder goes

to this psychological

warfare against themself.

And I think this is just what happens

where you ask yourself

like, what am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

Like, how do I continue on this path?

You know, I kind of, I view it like this.

Like it's very stressful,

but it's like, if you...

You're driving down like a highway at a

hundred miles an hour.

This is literally how I think about it.

And you have two friends who have said

that they could build wings onto the car.

And in about like one hour,

you're gonna fall off a cliff.

And your friends are climbing out there,

like putting the wings on,

and you're driving a

hundred miles an hour

towards this end of this cliff.

And that's the...

Do you believe your

friends can build the wings

or do you stop the car immediately?

And I think that's the psychological game

that every founder goes through.

Where they're like, can we do this?

And everybody is kind of

relying on everybody else

to like get the car to become a plane.

Yeah.

And there are startups

literally doing that right now.

But that cliff could be anything.

It could be bankruptcy.

It could be personal failure.

It could be, you don't have the money

to do something that you

need to, like a surgery.

I guess that's where

that stressor comes in.

Some people may not have as bad of

cliffs, maybe it's not.

But some people have disastrous,

my wife is gonna leave me.

It could be anything.

So there's...

So I think every

founder goes through this

momentous stress in their life.

I mean, I can tell you some hard times

that I personally went through,

had nothing to do with the company.

Sure.

Because you're doing this while

you're running the company, right?

So like the personal, like

there's not exactly a division

between like your personal

hard times and the company.

Like it's all sort of

one blurry mess, right?

Yeah. Love to hear about it.

Yeah, exactly.

That's the thing.

It's like you have to

like have a personal life.

You know, you have family members

and you have like all

these people in your life.

But this, for me, a dark time I would say

was one of my really close

friends was working with me.

Like super close, we

were really good friends

and he passed away, right?

And I'm like dealing with that stress.

And I'm like, this is horrible.

Like I'm like processing it.

And then I got a phone call like,

my dad has brain cancer.

And then I'm like, oh no, I

don't have like life savings.

How am I gonna help him, right?

And then I'm like helping my dad,

my friend passed away and my cat dies.

God. I don't know what happened,

but he was out and about

and my cat passes away.

So I'm like dealing

with all this like stress.

And I'm like, you have to

like still build a company

at the same time.

So it's like, and then

my dad passes away, right?

And I'm like dealing with

that building this company

and then my mom passes away.

And then my uncle passes

away all within a year.

Oh my God.

And I would say that was a rough time

because I was like, oh, I

was like, how do I do this?

Like, why am I doing this to myself?

Because I wasn't like wealthy.

I didn't have like, I

didn't have, you know,

I came from like small beginnings, right?

Like I didn't have wealth,

I didn't come from wealth.

So like, you wanna be

there for those people

like during those hard times,

like when they're

going through these moments

and it's like operating a business,

helping your family, not

having like much money.

I would say it's psychologically,

if I worked for Google,

it would have been easier.

I could have like, you

know, taken three months off,

whatever, five months off, right?

Google, I'm sure they take

care of employees for that.

So there's, there are

benefits to being an employee

that I think employees,

like they get these perks,

like whatever it is, like,

you know, someone's pregnant,

you get time off, like you

get that time off that you need.

When you're building a business,

you don't get that time off.

Like that's the reality

of building a business.

Like, and a lot of people

would just fold and crush

and like fall and be like, screw it,

I can't build it anymore.

So I think like going through that

psychological warfare,

what I'm talking about is like,

and there's other things like, you know,

I talked to hundreds

of founders and like,

I'm giving you what I went through.

Like every founder has like their thing

that they go through.

And I think it's, you know,

we went to Camp YC together.

I think, you know, a

lot of founders there

were really like talking

through a lot of the issues

that they were having.

And a lot of them had to do

just very different issues.

And I'm like, this is, you know,

building a company is not, it's easy.

In some senses, it's

really hard when personal life

is like also like battling for that time

and those resources in your life.

Yeah, I mean, like in a vacuum,

like starting a startup

sounds like a great idea,

but like when real life

comes at you and like, you know,

you have to take care of your own health

or your loved ones or, you know,

can't take the space you

need for yourself to like,

you know, recover from

grief or go through your grief.

Like that's the part, I don't think

anybody tells you about

before you start a company

that you really can't get that space.

You really like your

identity and the company's identity

sort of become merged in like a big way.

And like, you can't really step away.

Exactly, I mean, you could, but like,

most companies fail.

The reality is if you step

away, like for a long period,

it will just die.

Like, and you think, oh, it'll be fine.

It will, you lose that momentum.

People like look at you and

they see that like momentum loss.

Like, you know, sometimes they survive,

but I would say that

that's the more less normal.

So like every company is

a group of people, right?

Like every single

company is a group of people.

And it's like, they're all going through

their own personal

issues, but at the same time,

can you create a culture

that creates like greatness?

And like every year Apple

comes out with a new iPhone,

right, every year, they put this huge

pressure on themselves

to like reinvent what the

iPhone is and put it out there

and like show new software on the iPhone.

Sometimes like

creating cultures like that

where there's these like

pressure moments is really good

because then you're

striving towards that goal

to get whatever that is,

like to that goal, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So the founders who are about to give up,

who are like in that rut and are not sure

if they can keep going,

like what works for you

in like sticking with it?

What would you tell them to

like, to help them keep going?

I mean, there's a lot of

like thinking that goes into it,

but also a lot of emotions like,

I guess one of the things is like,

you're given this

opportunity, like don't fuck it up.

Like if you've gotten this far,

So close.

I mean, if you've gotten,

say you have $2 million

in revenue, whatever it is,

and then like you hit a bump in the road,

whatever, your husband is gonna leave you

because you're working on your startup.

Like I hate to say it,

that's like part of the reality.

And it's like, you could

quit and go take care of your

husband and like fix that relationship.

Or you could build the

business that has $2 million.

And these are like hard

things that actually happen

in real relationships

where like people are like,

damn, like I don't know,

I don't know what to do.

And it's like, you're

only given so many chances.

In my mind, like you live so long,

you live 80 years, 100 years,

like if you've gotten a

$2 million in revenue,

if you've gotten to $500,000 in revenue,

like do you want to peel

back and like give it up?

I mean, that's one piece of it.

And then the flip of the coin is like,

can you truly work for someone else?

Like, and this is for

some entrepreneurs out there.

I think some of them are so,

I met some

entrepreneurs who could not work

for other people at all, at all.

Like, and I think there's a

certain set of entrepreneurs

who can work for people

and there's a certain set

of entrepreneurs who can't.

You have to be really

realistic about that.

And like, if you cannot

work for other people,

don't give up.

Like it's just, the

reality is you have to keep going

down this path, right?

Like, and maybe your

relationship does fall apart.

Like I've been throwing this out there

because this is what literally happens.

Like, someone's husband is like,

hey, I'm not happy with all

the hours you're putting in.

This is like affecting our

relationship, wife, whatever.

So there's extreme moments

in like every person's life

where they're like

confronted over and over again.

Maybe you have like

one month in the bank of,

for the company or three months in the

bank for the company.

How do you get past that?

Like the reality is most

companies have these disastrous

moments where they're

like, I only have three months

of revenue left.

What the hell am I doing with my time?

And I do talk to

entrepreneurs like over the last month,

I spoke to one entrepreneur

who was in that situation.

And I'm like, I mean, I

asked them this question,

would you go work for Google?

That was the first thing I asked them.

And they said, no.

So I'm like, well, you got to

figure out a way out of this.

Then you have to like

work your way through this.

I mean, you heard about

like, burn your bridges, right?

Burn your boats.

Right.

Leave no option to return.

I mean, the reality is like,

if you don't have a life

savings and you, you know,

have nothing to lose,

you don't have a mortgage.

Those people are, you know, they have a

higher risk tolerance.

And for me, like when I

first started my first company,

I had, I intentionally

kept my life kind of simple.

But the reality is some

of my friends were like,

getting married.

Some of my friends were like

having like great families.

Some of my friends like

had a lot of life savings.

Like they had like, you

know, I'd be like, wow,

how did you save all that money?

I was like, yo, I worked for five years.

I'm like, man, what am I doing?

Like, what am I doing wrong?

Like I didn't save any money, you know?

And I'm like, oh my

God, I'm ruining my life.

Like, but whatever, like

this is the path I chose.

And I'm going to burn my

bridges and burn my boats.

Sorry, burn my boats.

And I'm going to go this path and like,

if I don't have a life savings, so be it.

Like, literally I'm like, if

I don't have a life savings

from the outcome of this,

but I'm going to work hard enough to try

to make that outcome

where I can have a

life savings from this.

Right?

So like, that's the

mindset you have to be in.

And it's, I don't know.

I also think anxiety is

like good for founders

as bad as it sounds.

I think it creates a

founder who's hyper alert

and thinking about the

business all of the time.

So like that stress,

it's not good to be in

that stress your whole time,

but it does create progress.

So like people like, you

know, work-life balance,

I mean, work-life balance

is great, but stress is good

because it creates,

it creates momentum when

you're using that stress

to like move the company forward.

Yeah, a sense of urgency from

the court is all of you will,

but not so much that you can't sleep.

Perhaps that there's a balance.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of

founders don't even sleep.

I mean, but you know, whatever it is.

There's a lot of, I mean, but this is me.

This is like advice for me.

It's not from other founders.

I'm just telling you like,

there's no like perfect map.

Every founder is different.

They operate very differently.

Like everybody

operates at a different level

and they build their

business in a different way

and their team works different than them.

And it's like, this is just

the way that I think about it.

Yeah, hopefully that--

Yeah, that does.

Absolutely.

You've mentioned having

a culture of greatness

in your team.

I've heard this from so

many different founders.

I have a great team.

We're always striving to be the best,

like building a culture of greatness.

Like what does that mean to you?

And how do you know if you have it?

I mean, honestly, you

could peel all of that away

and say like, do people

wanna use the product?

Like greatness is good at all,

but you need people to use the product.

Like that's number one.

But then there's like a

second order of magnitude,

which is like a wow

factor in the product itself.

Like, you know, teams and products,

I think the team creates the product,

but the product itself has to be the

result of a great team.

A great team is one

that works well together

with limited resources to get

extraordinary things done

in a small amount of time.

Like, right?

Like, you give in, here's,

I mean, what Sam Altman

did, like in the early days,

like AI, like no one's gonna use that.

Like, you know, he's gonna use that.

Like he started this

in like 2016, you know,

open AI and try to

figure out how to like create

an AI product for people.

They really didn't have

that many resources, right?

They really like, if it

didn't work, it would be dead.

But the team was savvy enough

and figured out a lot of ways

to get this thing off

the ground before it died.

Speaking of Sam Altman,

like you guys were like

the first health tech company like in YC,

which is crazy to think

about in the winter 11 batch.

So this was in the early days of YC.

How was that like?

How has YC changed?

Like how have things gone since then?

Yeah, actually, oddly,

like we were the first

healthcare company in YC.

There was another company called

Comprehend in our batch,

but we were like the first two real

healthcare companies

in Y Combinator.

And, you know, this is back in 2000,

I'll reverse a little

bit, but how we got into YC

and then I'll talk through like--

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of founders out

there, I'm sure wanna know

like what the sauce

is, how to get into YC,

which is like a lower

acceptance rate than Harvard.

How do you manage that?

Let's start there.

I mean, the first time we got into YC,

the first time I got into Y Combinator,

I think it was, they were

not who they are today, right?

Like it wasn't this big

known brand like Harvard.

I think it's actually

a brand now, it's huge.

It's like everybody knows about Y

Combinator out there,

but this is like 2008, 2009, 2010,

kind of heard about them.

And part of it was the

articles online from Paul Graham,

the founder of Y Combinator.

So he wrote a bunch of

articles about entrepreneurship

and like how to build a startup.

And, you know, me and my

co-founder were in New York City

at the time and we

were renting two desks.

And my co-founder was very

passionate about Y Combinator.

And, you know, part of

what I spoke about before

is like, I'd say one of

my superpowers was like

just getting people to like listen to me,

at least for a few minutes.

I emailed the founder

of Y Combinator directly.

I said, "Hey, we're

building this company.

We have traction, it's game changer.

We would love to talk."

And he emailed me back and he said,

"No, I'm in California."

And, you know, for me, that wasn't a no.

Like, so I emailed him back and I said,

"Well, we're working out of this like

little accelerator."

It wasn't an accelerator,

it was like a little like

startup room and we'd love

for somebody to come here

and just like talk to us.

And what convinced

them to even take the time

is I told them that

there were a few startups

in this like little building.

It was three

companies like just sprinkled.

That was it, three companies.

So I made it seem bigger.

I don't know, maybe, I don't know,

I don't even know what

it was, but he said like,

"I will send Alexis Sohamian.

He's in the area,

he'll swing by the office

and he'll give all the startups a talk."

And, you know, Alexis

comes into the building,

founder of Reddit and he's, you know,

Reddit wasn't that big,

Reddit wasn't that big.

It wasn't like what it is today.

And, you know, he gave

us the other two startups

like a little pitch

talk and we had enough time

like Alexis kind of sat there

with us for probably an hour.

I just saw like, "Oh, these

two founders have no funding.

They've been working

on this for a few years.

They are actually

building something significant."

We built the first medical

record on the iPad in history

and we had users using the product

and he really got excited.

Like it was just, he

saw the passion in us

because whether Y

Combinator invest or not,

I felt like we were

gonna build the business.

Like it was gonna happen.

And he saw that, like he's like, "Okay."

And for me, I didn't know who,

I didn't know anything

about Y Combinator really,

except these articles, right?

So I'm like, okay.

And he's like, "You

could fly to California

and you can be a polygram."

And I'm like, "Okay, I'm

calculating my life savings."

And I had, it's like $35,000 in the bank,

my personal life savings.

And I'm like, "I'll have to pay for a

flight to California."

And I'm like, "That, my

burn rate will be, you know,

like my burn rate is

gonna go up a little bit."

And I'm like, "I don't

know if this is worth it,

but I'll take the risk."

Me and my co-founder spend

the money, we buy the tickets.

We first go to this

thing called startup school,

because it timed well.

There was this thing

called startup school

and it was really good.

I was like blown away.

I was like, "Oh my God,

there's other people like us."

Like I didn't talk to entrepreneurs.

We didn't talk to people.

There was no

entrepreneur community like that.

Like it was just a couple of people

like hanging out and

building weird companies.

And essentially people

thought we were jobless,

like jobs.

Those guys, they don't have a job.

What are these guys doing?

Like how did you know you weren't crazy

without like seeing other

people doing things like you?

It's just, this is

something you trust in your gut.

Like it's all gut based.

Like you self-reflect, right?

You look at where people are

and are they truly happy in life

and are they liking what they're doing?

I don't think

entrepreneurship is for everyone.

Right.

What they were doing wasn't for me.

It was like, go get a job,

work for a large company,

get a salary, find a

partner, get a mortgage.

I was running that through my head

but like that doesn't sound fun.

That's not you.

It sounds like a burden.

I'm like, I need to

have fun while I'm working.

Like I want to do

something that's impactful.

And I met all these

people at the startup school.

I'm like, oh my God, they're like me.

They're all like thinking the same way

and they want to like do something unique

and they're passionate.

They want to like build something.

And I'm like, this

investor seems like they're good.

Other investors I met

were, they didn't have that.

There were a few that I

thought were smart people

but they didn't have

this energy in this room

from all these passionate founders.

And then I'm like, we have to

like pitch this really well.

So I'm like, I talked to

my co-founder and I'm like,

hey, I really, let's

get them as an investor.

I kind of went all in and I'm like,

we're going to get them.

And I think my co-founder was really,

we worked well together in this way.

We locked ourselves in a

room for like 10 hours.

So we practiced a pitch

when we were going to

meet Paul Graham in person.

And we go to Y

Combinator or Mountain View,

the little building and walk in.

And there's a line of all

these terrified founders

like that are going to pitch this guy

to see if they can

get investment from him.

And we go into the room

and we kind of just went

into that pitch that we pitched 10 hours.

We just went straight

into it and it was rehearsed.

And well, first, and I

thought we didn't get them

as an investor

because they're like, okay,

thank you so much.

Next, it was like a casting call.

Oh my gosh.

You can leave the room now.

Like it was, thank you guys so much.

We'll be in touch.

Oh man, that's not what you want to hear.

Well, it's not our pitch.

It was a line of people.

Granted, this is how it was done.

It was like a line of

people coming in and out.

But I just was like, okay,

we'll go back to New York City

and we'll build it and

they won't be our investor.

That was just my

thinking that night, that day.

And that night, Paul

Graham calls us and says,

hey, you want in or are you in?

And me and my

co-founder are on the phone.

It's like 8 p.m., 9

p.m. and late at night.

And I'm like, yes.

I look at my

co-founder and he's like, yes.

I was making sure he was aligned with it

and we both said yes to it.

He's like, all right,

you're gonna come to California

for three months and we're gonna give you

a little bit of money

and we'll just put you

through our program.

And I'm like, that sounds great.

And then you were asking about partners

to get to your first question.

So Paul Graham, the founder of Y

Combinator back then

was very involved.

Jessica Livingston and Paul

Graham were hugely involved.

Paul Bucheit, hugely involved.

Gary Tan was just hired in.

Sam Altman was just hired in.

So those are the

partners that we worked with.

Those are the, that was the partners.

Those are the primary

people we went to for help

in the early days.

So we got into Y

Combinator and it felt like college

because it was just an energy of hope.

Like we're gonna do something big

and all work well together.

I remember, you know, Paul

Graham just would get his hands

dirty and help us with

everything, which was great.

So it was a really

unscalable way of doing it.

Doing things that don't scale,

don't putting right there, right?

Yeah, he was literally helping us

whenever we asked for help.

And back then they, you

could just book as much time

with Paul Graham as you could.

And I think we booked, I

don't know, like 50 hours.

Maybe not 50, like, but a

lot of time with Paul Graham

and he would just, we

would do this thing.

Like it was like a walk.

We would basically go for like a walk

around the Y Combinator area and just

like kind of just talk.

About the business and

kind of get his thoughts and,

you know, Sam Altman we

would talk to and then Gary.

We always went to Gary

for design questions.

I'd always like ask him about like,

what about, what do you think about this?

What are we doing there?

But, you know, they were pretty honest.

They were pretty

honest, but really, really,

thinking about them as

they were just so helpful

in any way possible

that it left a good taste.

And it just, it was just

always a good experience.

And like, they would just align with us.

Yeah, working with PG

directly must have been amazing.

Like having all that

space and time with him,

like he's such a legend.

And yeah, it sounds like

you guys got a lot out of YC.

First time around, will you

say the second time around,

you guys got a lot out of it as well?

Was, it was quite different,

I imagine, the second time.

Well, the first time

there wasn't really software.

Like there was a little bit of software.

So like when we did demo day,

it was literally in a room with people.

And then you have to run up to them

to get their business card.

So like, you know, the first time around

with Y Combinator, I remember just say,

I remember thinking, I'm gonna stay here

longer than any founder in this room

and get as many

business cards as, oh my gosh.

And I literally stayed

there till like, I don't know,

it was like 1 a, it was like 11 or 1 a.m.

It was really late.

And I'm just like, all

right, all the other founders

are gone, there's one investor left.

I'm gonna go talk to him.

And the guy, he did invest.

He's like, you're the last founder here.

I'm gonna invest.

And he did.

And I'm like, oh my God,

that's such strange reasoning,

but that's great.

That's crazy.

And that was like really, yeah.

So sometimes it's just last man standing.

But you know, I had a

stack of business cards

and you had to like go through them.

So you just like look

at this phone number

and you're gonna be like, all right,

I'm gonna call this guy tomorrow.

Talk about old school.

So that's old YC.

That was like, it

was, he would, you know,

the YC partners, you know, Jessica, Paul,

all the other partners

would convince the investors

to come to YC, sit in a room for,

it was like hours, hours of their time.

They had like heavy hitters like,

Hermont, you know.

I don't know if you, you know, Hermont

from General Catalyst.

He runs all of General Catalyst.

So he was there.

All these great

investors were just in this room,

like amazing people like Sequoia.

And they were just all sitting there

like looking at the

founders, pitch one by one.

So the stress level was

also higher, way higher.

In the sense like if

you say something wrong,

in a room full of these

people staring at you,

I just, the pressure was just intense.

I mean, you went through YC this time.

I don't know what you

thought about like the demo,

you know, Devo Day Online.

It's insane, the weight of the moment.

We were a COVID batch, winter 21.

So it was a little

different, but still like had to,

you know, perform

live and had to be ready.

And thankfully we had software.

We didn't have to deal with

any physical business cards.

So yeah, it's

definitely changed quite a bit

since winter 11.

Yeah.

I noticed that when you

talk about the hard times

in the startup journey,

you have such certainty

like in your like

destiny of like success.

Like how do you come about this mindset

where like you like, is it like a form

of manifestation you have?

Like what is it that

gives you such high conviction

that you are going to

persevere and succeed

in like what you set out to do?

I mean.

What's the energy source?

Like how do other founders

develop such high conviction

in themselves, like self

faith and like believing

in their destiny and

their amazing outcome

that they could create for themselves?

I mean, I just think

it's taking it day by day

and not overwhelming yourself.

Like how do I create the next Nvidia?

Like if you do that, you're like,

you're kind of

psychologically like wasted.

You're just like, it's not

a good mindset to say like,

I'm gonna build the next Nvidia.

Like if you run around

saying that to yourself,

you feel like a liar, right?

And it's what can I do today?

I'm gonna go back to this to

like make the company better

for tomorrow.

And like, it's a, I

view it as like creating,

like you ever see

those like beautiful swords

or like whatever it

is, like a beautiful car.

It's like these things

are not made in a day.

And the reality is like,

you have to like understand,

you have to take it day by day.

Like if you're thinking

you're gonna like create,

I don't know, like Tesla in a day,

it's like you're

gonna psych yourself out.

I think for me, it's just a process.

And you know, I have

my days where I'm like,

what am I doing?

But at the same time,

like what's the inverse?

Like what's on the other side of that?

Like go work for someone else?

Like, does that make sense?

Like, yeah, totally, totally.

I think that will

resonate with a lot of founders.

Like they don't see

themselves working for somebody else.

Right.

Especially the best ones.

I mean, it's one of

those things are, you know,

you're gonna die, I'm

gonna go back to this.

Like you're going to die.

Like we're all gonna like

not be here in a hundred years.

So like, there's also

different tolerance levels.

Like of, you know, if you have a family

and you have like six kids

and you have a really great

family and you have a

mortgage, like maybe don't do it.

Like there's moments

in your life where like

you gather like a family,

like that's a scenario where like

maybe don't do it.

Like I hate to say it.

It's like, it's the risk is really high.

Like the failure rate is really high.

Yeah.

But you know, if you are determined

and you feel

passionate, like, I don't know,

just not everyone in the

world is fortunate enough

to even be able to do what we're doing.

Like what you're doing,

Daniel, with your, you know,

your startup, like

you're really fortunate

like to be able to

build that, like look at it

from that perspective

sometimes where it sucks.

But like, you know,

other parts of the world,

they don't even have

this opportunity, you know?

So like why not try?

I don't know.

I know I'm totally on

the same page and like,

I call my parents like

every two or three weeks

and I like thank them

for immigrating to America.

They came as like a

Jewish refugees from Ukraine

and like, I'm like so

grateful, especially like

as I'm traveling and I see

like just how much we have here

in terms of

opportunity, but also like the way

that the culture here

nurtures entrepreneurship,

like individualism and

ambition and you know,

that it's incredible.

And I'm like so

grateful to be here in the US

and like also when it comes to timing,

like I started this

company like five years ago

when I was 20.

So like I have the luxury

of not having a wife and kids

and mortgages and huge bills.

So yeah, timing I think is huge.

Like how, what do you say

to the founders out there

that have a lot to

lose, have like a spouse

that's depending on

them, debt or mortgages,

kids like who really

don't know if they can afford

to take the risk, like,

and they want to do it,

but like how can they

pull off that balancing act?

Do you have any words

of inspiration for them

other than maybe don't?

It isn't for everybody.

I agree with you there,

but for those who have

the determination to do it anyways,

like what would you tell them?

I mean, it's risk versus reward.

Like if you work on this business,

you may not have a life savings.

You may work till you're 90.

Like if it fails, that's what I mean.

Worst case scenario.

Say you work on it 10 years,

say you're 45 and you

work on it and you're 55

and you don't have a life savings,

you're gonna work till you're 90.

And it's a risk versus reward game

for everyone involved, right?

Like, and I think

everybody's situation is different.

If you have a sick family member

and you need to support them,

it may not be a good time.

If you have like, you

know, really young kids

and like you just feel

like you don't have the time

and your guts telling

you don't have the time,

don't do it.

You know, it's funny, have you ever heard

of the musician Bonnie there?

I have not.

Okay.

He's just one of

these musicians out there.

He just came out with an album yesterday

and his very first album,

he locked himself in a cabin

in Wisconsin in the middle of nowhere

to create this first album.

And it was really, it

was a really good album.

But I'm like, he had

the time and the clearness

and the space to explore different ways

to like work on that music.

You know, if you start to collect things,

like I have two dogs now,

you know, I love my dogs.

But as you collect

responsibility in life,

like you may not have

the resources or the time

to build it.

And it's a really a question for you

if you want to take that leap.

And if your partner's not

on board, like, you know,

just be aware of like, they

have to be kind of on board

with it also, if they're

really not on board with it.

Maybe they're not the right partner.

Maybe that's a whole

other issue, but if you care

about them and you want to be with them

and they're like, you can't do this,

we're $20,000 in debt.

Like, you have to look at everything

and kind of figure out

like, when is the right time?

And for me, like when I

started my first company,

I was in a situation where

like I saved enough money.

I calculated like a two

year burn with zero income.

And I'm like, I will live

off $50,000 for two years.

So it's $25,000 a year.

I will live with roommates.

I will not go on vacations.

I will live in a small little place

and I will push as far as I can

until I'm on the brink

of bankruptcy personally.

And that was like my thought

process for the first company.

But I didn't have a wife.

I didn't have a partner.

I didn't have a car payment.

I didn't have a mortgage, right?

Like, so I was ready to take that plunge,

knowing that I may

come out of the other side

with no nothing, like nothing.

15 years later, 20 years

later, I knew that going in.

Yeah.

I've heard this story

from like a similar story

from other founders.

Like why do founders do this?

It like seems so

ludicrous, like outside looking in,

like why do founders make that decision?

Like what makes it worth it?

I think it's the, I mean, there's

different takes on it.

One is the positive spin is like,

you believe in the idea so much

and you wanna work on this

idea, like it's worth the risk

and you believe it's gonna work.

I mean, that's one way to think about it.

Another is they wanna get rich.

Like a lot of

founders don't talk about it,

but they just wanna become

really wealthy and that's okay.

Like that's a good reason to go into it.

If you think you

could work on it 10 years

and you're passionate about it.

Another is you have a lot of

dysfunctional founders

who can't get jobs in the world.

And then they realized

that they can create value

outside of the structures

of like large organizations.

So they start small and then they build

and build and build.

Yeah, Google is lost, right Daniel?

Yeah, I mean, Steve

Jobs, he couldn't get a job.

He would walk around barefoot.

I don't know if you know that and he

didn't take showers.

Yeah, I knew about the

barefoot and the no showers thing.

I didn't know he couldn't get a job,

but yeah, he was

quite good and agreeable.

I mean, that's not true.

He worked at Atari for a

little while, but like,

I don't know, maybe he

would've went down that other path.

Yeah, he could've gotten

sucked into like the Waz's path,

like working at HP and

like just being really happy

to tinker, but I think

he was quite disagreeable

by temperament and it's

hard to imagine somebody

with that kind of temperament,

like taking orders from anybody.

So I mean, there's

those types of people also

that look at orders, but like,

there's no right or wrong way to like

become an entrepreneur

also, I think that

there's really nice founders

and there's really

like determined founders

and then there's founders

who are really aggressive

and mean, like there's a spectrum.

I don't think that

there's one size fits all

and people kind of cram

like the one size fits all

founder mantra down

people's throats a lot of the time.

And you know, that's not exactly,

you can still build a really valuable,

enduring, massively successful business

without being like this one

founder that's successful.

So I'd love to talk about

like building a lasting company

because you've talked about

how like all companies die.

How do you make a

company that truly lasts

and how do you make sure,

how do you know that

you're working on something

that like is meaningful and worthwhile?

And then maybe we'll,

I'd love to connect that

with like your greater life purpose,

like the purpose that

you've selected for yourself

or has evolved or you

might see it intrinsically

as intrinsically evident.

I'd love to hear how those

connect, how you found those.

Tough one.

Again, like I said, it's like

60% luck, 40% determination.

I think that's a piece of it.

Like, why are you doing this?

Like, why start these companies for you?

Like what was your reason for doing this?

Like, and how did it

connect to like your meaning

like behind your place here on earth?

Asking the hard questions.

I mean, my reason for

starting this, like this company,

I think it was the energy of the people

and the idea and the space and, you know,

if we could build something

that can go into every business

in the world, that's exciting.

Like there's something there.

And that's like a big mission

that like really excites me.

Everybody like I'm working with,

everybody's learning

every day from each other.

I think that's really exciting.

Like also I'm learning a

lot from my co-founders

and they're learning a lot from me.

And we're all kind of like jelling and

there's this energy.

And I really like a

mission, like driven life.

Like if you don't have

a mission in your life,

like what are you gonna do?

Like, I don't know, I don't know.

And this is just like the way I operate.

I think, you know, my

wife talks about it.

She's like, you just do this.

And I'm like, I could just not do it.

And like go to a beach and enjoy life.

But that gets boring, like really fast.

Like it's not really what I wanna do.

Like I think being in

like the game of business

is really fun because you get to learn

and it's not a lose-lose situation.

It's like a win-win where

like a lot of people win.

Together it's so fun.

It's like really fun

when everybody's like

working well together and enjoying it.

And like you create business partnerships

and everybody like, there's a

lot of like really good parts

to building a business.

Everyone says like

building a startup is so horrible.

I'm like, is it though?

Like there's really hard jobs out there.

For sure.

There's really other hard jobs out there

that people like they suffer.

Like I don't know.

I look at like people

building like skyscrapers

and like those

construction workers out there day in

and day out.

I'm like building a

startup is a fun strategy.

It's like strategy.

It's like how do we take

all of the money we have

and make it like work for

us in a really positive way?

You know, when you look

at construction workers,

I'm like, that's a really

grueling, stressful job.

I'm like, thank God those

people opted into doing that

because it's a really

hard job and it's like,

it's a job I wouldn't want to do.

And I think that's another thing.

It's like you look at all

of these different paths

in your life and you're

like, do I want to do this?

No, do I want to do that?

No.

Would I be happy doing this?

Yes, but this has problems.

And then you kind of like

figure out for yourself.

I do think that the world

glorifies entrepreneurship.

It is not what people think.

You know this Daniel, you're in it.

It's not like all fun

and glitz and glory.

It's literally day in and day out,

like sitting in front of your computer

and doing phone calls

and like working with people.

And it's not an overnight success.

People get in their head

like, oh, a year from now,

this is going to be so

big and I'm going to have

all these users and they kind of,

they view it as like

almost like the new rock stars.

I'm like, it's not that.

It's a grind in its own way.

And it's like stressful in

its own way, but you know,

I guess the people that go

in with it, with that mindset,

like they're going to

fail because it's not

what they're expecting.

Like I kind of went into

it knowing like, you know,

it takes time and you have

to like put a lot of energy

into it and you have to

like figure things out.

Yeah, it's definitely

grind and it's definitely

not the romanticized

thing you see nowadays

and sort of become trendy,

especially for young people

to try to get into entrepreneurship.

But after like your first company,

like you could have become a huge VC.

You had like an

amazing exit, a lot of press,

a lot of attention.

Why did you come back

to the founder path?

Like what was it that drove you to that?

Like what, what compelled you to do so?

You could have done so

many different things.

You could have, you

know, become a beach bum

and septumimosas, right?

What pulled you this way?

I mean, I don't know

if a lot of people know

how VCs operate.

I mean, who knows maybe

down the road I would do that,

right?

But you know, being a

VC is very different

than being an entrepreneur.

I think, first of all,

like 90% of VC firms fail.

I don't know if people know that.

So being a VC is not safe.

Yeah, it's exactly like a startup.

So you're investing in

high risk companies as a VC.

And like you are trying to

figure out who are the best

companies to invest in.

You know, you're trying to pick the best.

You are de-risked in a way

because you have maybe 10

companies or 30 companies

or 200 companies or 500

companies that you invested in.

So your chances of success are higher.

You know, and they also get like,

I don't know if you

know what two and 20 is.

Do you know what that is?

I do not.

What is that?

That's the way that VCs operate.

They get 2% management fees every year.

So if they raise $100 million,

they get $2 million to

operate their VC firm.

And then they get

something called 20% carry,

which is basically any exit that happens,

they get 20% of the exit amount of equity

that they hold in that company.

I mean, honestly, like being a VC

sounds like a really great gig.

I don't think it's a bad gig.

I'm like, it's not a bad job.

I actually think it's a really fun job.

You get to talk to entrepreneurs.

I mean, for me, I just, I know,

I work with a lot of entrepreneurs

and I felt like it was just a really,

you get your hands,

you know, into a company

and you get to like

work with the team a lot.

VCs don't, you know?

I don't know if you know, like they just,

they don't, they just, they don't get--

They say they will, but they can't.

Yeah, I mean, if you have 50 companies,

100 companies, like

you can only do so much.

And it's just a way

that that's structured

like a lot of the time, right?

Like you can't, you can't

help all of your companies.

So I know that you do some investing

with your investor hat on,

how do you decide which

companies to invest in?

I mean, for me, it's at

the really early stage.

Like I wouldn't invest in

like a late stage company.

I think it's just founders.

Honestly, I talk to the

founder, I look at the idea.

I know the risk going into

it, it's really high risk.

So I would love it if

the companies work out,

but at the same time,

I know the founders are

hopefully like trying their best and

trying to make it work.

But at the same time,

it's not like I'm gonna

be angry if it fails.

So it's the same, startups are hard.

And it's like, if you're

gonna invest in startups,

your chances of success are very low.

Like maybe one, two,

three, four, 5% will make it.

So 95% of the money you

put in may not be there

that you put in.

But if one of those

companies has a big outcome,

then you're in a really,

you can make your money back.

With all the AI hype going on,

like how do investors and founders both,

if a startup worthy

problem should be approached

with AI or not, or like

more traditional route,

so like solving a problem.

Like how do we know if

there's a problem to be solved

with AI or not, when now

everyone seems to be wanting

to throw AI and chat GPT

wrappers at everything?

I mean, that's a whole nother debate

in like the strategy, I think.

I mean, if you look

at it, they're building

like nuclear power plants now to support

the new infrastructure.

Yeah, Google just

announced the other day, right?

Seven reactors.

Amazon, you name it, like all of these

different businesses

are doing that and

they're massive server farms

like another like are

being built out and it's,

I don't know what the

outcome of it's gonna be,

but I can tell you that

like everything that's software

driven will have some sort

of AI in it at some point.

And it's, you have to pick the winners,

but it's also like the internet, right?

Like when the internet first came out,

they didn't know who

was gonna be the winners.

So like Amazon was one amongst many.

People thought Amazon might fail,

people thought pets.com might succeed.

Like you don't really

know, but in the long run,

a company is a sports team, right?

So like you kind of

pick your sports teams

and you say, I believe in this company,

I'm gonna invest in this sports team

because they seem to

have the most energy,

you know, intelligence,

emotional intelligence.

Like they also have like stuff going on

and they seem like the right team.

So that's how people would invest.

So do you invest everything in AI?

The answer is no, there's

good businesses outside of AI.

Like clearly there's a lot of like areas

that people can go into.

I just think AI is

going to change the world

at a really fast rate.

So the opportunities there are unknown

and people get excited by

like the upside of unknown.

Yeah, I can see us diving

into this for a few hours.

This specific topic.

This is definitely a lot longer one,

perhaps another time.

But what I wanted to ask, life post exit,

you had like a huge,

hugely successful exit

with your first company.

Like how does the math

change, the dynamics change?

Like, did you take

some space for yourself

between companies?

Like how did your view

post exit on like your life,

your purpose, your work change?

I'm sure it can't be

the same as it was before.

I think, you know, I

took about a year off,

essentially, give or take.

But I was just really

trying to figure out

like what to do next.

Like you kind of,

you kind of just think

about different things,

different areas.

Like, you know, I

thought about VCs a lot,

like becoming a venture capitalist.

I thought about doing all

different types of startups,

maybe being an advisor,

maybe just being an angel investor.

Nobody has like a right like path per se,

but I would say like for me,

it was just taking

that year off was good.

I drove across country.

Nice. Twice.

Twice. Twice.

That sounds like fun.

Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun, honestly,

like just seeing the United States.

So I drove across every state

and kind of experienced

each state and just spent time.

Honestly, I spent time like catching up

with a lot of friends

also, which was really nice.

Like I think part of like the

downside of doing my startup

was I just didn't

have time for, you know,

spending time with

like people I cared about,

like friends from college,

like friends from high school,

like just family and all of that.

So it was a lot of catching up to do,

like just seeing like

how people are in life.

And, you know, I think that's

one thing founders should do

is just try not to disconnect too much

and try not to go too

deep in your startup

because you want your

friends to remember you.

You want your family to be like,

oh, you know, you want to like

keep that relationship there.

They say that on your death bed

and like people just

talk about the people

they wish they'd spent more time with.

I don't think they're like,

I wish I'd gotten 5

million more ARR, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's, you know,

every founder kind of has that dilemma.

It's like, oh, I could work this Friday.

Oh, but my friends

are going out, you know.

I opted to work on the

Friday, but I, after, you know,

once I took time off, I was

just spending time with friends

and just catching up

with a lot of people.

It's really nice because

I feel like I've rebonded

with a lot of people

that like from my past

and it's just, it's really important.

I think just for everybody,

because people in your life, Daniel,

I'm sure that like,

you don't have the time

to talk to right now, but

like, hopefully they'll,

you know, just keep in touch with them,

like reach out to the

people you care about.

Yeah.

I try, but you know,

we, you know how it is.

You're guilty if you don't talk to them,

but if you do talk to

them, you're guilty,

you're not spending

time with the company.

So it's like trade off both ways.

Right, right.

Do you think there's a

connection between trauma

and the founder path?

Is there

trauma in every founder's path?

I would say no, I would say no.

I would say some

people are really privileged

or they had really good lives.

Not everybody has trauma.

Every founder is so different.

Like you're gonna have like some people

that have like disastrous trauma

for them to start a company.

I know, we went to that camp YC together

and I'm like, everybody has trauma.

I'm like, I don't know

if that's exactly true.

I think some people

just genuinely just wanted

to start a company and

they had a really good life.

And they just see it

as like a path for them.

There's always like a flip case.

I think for me, part

of it was maybe trauma.

Like my parents didn't have much, right?

So like for me, I was

like, how do I make our lives

like a little more secure and safe?

And I saw what my parents

had and my parents spoke.

My dad worked for the

government, which was great.

So he had security,

but we always struggled

because it was like,

they don't pay that well

at the government, right?

So like, and he had three kids.

So he was always like

trying to figure out how to have

like enough to support all of his kids,

which he did a really good job.

He honestly like taught me

a lot, like just work hard.

He's like, just work hard.

That was the ethic that he left for me.

And I'm like, God, I'll work really hard.

You know, so part of the

reason why I worked so hard

on my startup is because of my father.

That's not quite trauma.

That's just like him

showing a way for me to like be,

but that, you know, but I also saw the

way that he suffered

by working for the government

because he didn't make a lot of money.

You know, the government's great.

They do provide benefits

and they do provide a lot

of like resources, but like

you don't get ahead ahead.

You know what I mean?

Working for like the mail, you know,

and the Nancy's

supposed to service or like

as an elevator mechanic

or like in the military,

you're not going to come out

and like have ultra wealth.

Right? So like, I saw that.

I'm like, oh, he

struggled his whole life,

but he was taken care of in a safe way.

I'm like, what if I go this path?

That's way less known.

Who knows what's there?

Like, and that's honestly one of the

reasons why I did it.

I'm like, who knows?

Like, what's this path?

Let me, let me look on this path

and see what I can accomplish.

And speaking to some great

coaches the last few years,

I've learned that the most,

one of the most valuable

things you can learn is not like

the facts or the

specific suggestions or advice.

It's actually the frameworks.

Are there any frameworks that your father

or Paul Graham imparted on

you that have been instrumental

in the success that

you've had that you could share

with young founders

early in their journey?

Yeah, there's a lot of like thinking,

a lot of different ideas like

around what I think there's,

I call them like axioms of like truth.

Like people get really

rattled by competitors.

Say you have a competitor

and a competitor raises,

I don't know, $400

million to your company

and they're a competitor to you.

That scares a lot of founders away.

And I think that's the wrong thinking is,

oh, our competitor has dot,

dot, dot, we're gonna die.

Like a lot of founders

get really rattled by that.

And I think like doing that

too often will like put you

in a psychological

space where like you will be

self-defeated.

Like, so like don't look at your

competitors as much as,

as others are looking

at their competitors.

I mean, an example is

like dig and Reddit,

like Reddit was the underdog,

dig was the cool, cool company.

Like, I don't know if you remember this,

they were like, they

had a lot of funding,

people would all go to dig,

it like would work really well.

And it just was awesome.

And they had a lot of

funding and like they had

the cool employees, you know,

they had everything going for them.

And then like, poof,

like it all fell apart

very quickly at dig.

Like somehow Reddit just

like would just keep going

and going and going and it just,

it built momentum in that company.

And then somehow they got

all the users like piling in

like using the company.

So like for me, like one of

the, one of the axioms is like,

you know, don't worry about competitors.

Like don't worry about competitors.

Another one is like,

try to be a good standing

with your co-founders.

You're a solo founder, Daniel, right?

No, I have a co-founder.

Oh, you have a, okay, I didn't know that.

You know, always try to

have like a good standing

with your co-founder.

And that means like, if

they want the button to be blue

and you know that this

is gonna like damage your

relationship, you really

care if the button's green.

Like fight the right battles.

Yeah.

You know, and I think a lot of people

fight the wrong battles.

And I'm like, you know,

I'm saying this for myself.

Like I need to do

this also on a, you know,

a weekly basis, a daily

basis to like just pick the right

battles to fight as

you build your company,

because your co-founder is in

it with you for the long haul.

Like make sure you're

taking care of them.

Like making sure them

feel like they're empowered.

Make sure they feel you're empowered.

Like with that empowerment, you really,

both can do really great

work without like bouncing

into each other, you know, every second.

And I mean, that's another, another tip.

I think, you know, if

you have a co-founder also,

maybe get executive

coaching, maybe go to like,

we went to Camp Y Combinator.

Next time you go bring your co-founder,

I don't know if they were there or that.

Oh, I told him it's

like required a tendency.

He said he's coming, he's excited.

This was our first time like me.

So he sent me in like

to test out the waters,

but it was such an amazing experience.

Yeah, the bonding with

your co-founder is essential.

But like, you know,

some of the best companies

like Apple and Google

did have executive coaches.

I don't know if you know that Twitter.

Yeah.

So like.

We have executive

coaches, my co-founder and I.

Awesome.

I mean, it's like being an

athlete, you have a coach.

It's like someone that's in

your corner who can help you.

I did want to talk a

little bit about, you know,

the school.

Because I went to Auburn University.

It's like a school, I think

there's like only one company

that went where the founders came.

I went through Y Combinator,

there were Auburn alumni before us.

And like going to

such like a small school

with not really much of an

entrepreneurship program,

fairly small relative to

some of the Ivy Leagues

of the world, I definitely

felt some imposter syndrome

going out there, like

trying to raise capital,

going through YC.

Like, did you feel that

having gone to Stony Brook?

I definitely think that there's like a,

a circle of people that have like,

I'd call it like magic fairy dust.

And I would say like,

if you went to Harvard,

you have this like big check of approval.

If you went to Stanford,

it's a big check of approval.

If you went to MIT, it's

a big check of approval.

So like, those are like some

of the best schools out there

that get a lot of love.

Signaling.

Yeah, signaling from

the investor community.

But like, I think the

entrepreneurial mindset,

and you know, having the

entrepreneurial mindset,

like it was not as

prominent when I went to school.

Again, like I'm dating

myself a little bit, but we,

you know, the schools now are changing.

I think they're all

changing where they're realizing,

oh, like students need to like figure out

how to maybe possibly

build their own business.

And we need to teach them that.

When I went to school,

that was not the case.

And it was like, how do

you educate the student

and get them to figure

out how to get a job?

Did I feel imposter syndrome?

The answer is no.

I think I always felt like,

it gave me an

advantage and a disadvantage

all at the same time.

Like I had the perspective and,

so I went to a state

school, Stony Brook University.

They basically, the tuition is minimal.

So I don't know if you know this,

like this school is funding,

like if you live in New York

and you go to the

school, they basically charge,

what is it, like, I

don't know, $6,000 a year.

So like, I was able to

come out of that school

with not as much debt as like people

that went to these like other schools.

Now, Auburn I hear is expensive.

I hear it's a really expensive school.

My brother was a professor

there actually for a while.

Oh, interesting.

But, you know, I think,

I think you should become

the advocate for your school.

Like because you went to I Combinator,

I think people just need to be educated.

In all schools that there is another path

becoming an entrepreneur,

like it's your responsibility

to go to Auburn, not to put

the pressure on you Daniel,

but it's like you kind of

were the first to go this path.

Like you need to teach other kids,

like there is another way,

like and it's not just going to work for,

you know, a large

corporation, there is another way

and you did it, like you're living it.

So I feel like,

I don't know, I do think it like,

if you go to one of those other schools,

you're loaded with debt, right?

So you're kind of at a disadvantage

and you feel entitled, like life is easy.

I went to Stanford.

I went to Stanford, life is

easy, but I have this debt,

but I deserve a good job

because I went to Stanford.

Like there's also that

mindset that comes out of those

schools sometimes, not all the time,

not everybody that comes

out of the schools like that,

but I think, you know,

the school I went to,

like most of the students struggled

and they didn't have

wealth and like they could pay

for the school and the

school like funded a lot of it.

If you get all these students educated,

I had a different advantage.

Like I didn't have all

of those student loans,

but it also gave me humble

beginnings to like actually

work hard to build the company.

You get a lot of these

like really, you know,

great graduate students that

come from these great schools

and they just fail because they don't

want to do the work.

Right?

You're given that

opportunity, don't fuck it up.

But you know, I do hear

that like a lot of investors

and the investor community, it's a

community is of like

pockets of people who went to

Harvard or pockets of people

who went to Stanford.

So like they trust

the founder more, right?

So you are at that

disadvantage where like you may have

like a firm, a VC firm that

like everyone went to Harvard

or MIT and you didn't go.

So why would they invest in you, Daniel?

Like why you versus

an MIT student, right?

Like because they went to

MIT, they know that the school

has a certain way of doing things.

It creates that trust system.

Sorry, go ahead.

I mean, did I ever

feel imposter syndrome?

Did you feel like you

were doing it on hard mode?

Like you, did you

feel like it was tougher?

Probably now just talking to you,

probably it was way harder.

Like because I didn't have that pedigree.

So there's probably some

questions of who I was.

So you have to maybe prove

yourself a little bit more.

What you were saying earlier

about like how universities

and schooling had traditionally been

designed to like create

great workers or employees.

Like do you, I've had like

a number of young aspiring

founders, some founders have already

started between like

17 and 20 years old,

they'll come to me and be like,

why should I even go to school?

I could just start the thing now.

What would you say to those founders?

I would say go to school.

I would say find a school

that's not gonna load you

full of debt.

Don't just go for the

degree, I think they call it like

collecting badges.

Like I went to Harvard, now I

got to go to work at Google.

I have these trophies.

You know, don't go to

school to get a trophy.

Like at the end of the day,

you're gonna meet your really

close friends in college and

you're gonna learn how to like

live on your own.

You're gonna experience the

world in a really good way.

I worry about people like

loading up on just debt.

That really concerns me

like when you trap a student.

You know, if you're gonna go

to school to become a doctor,

the amount of debt

that's loaded on you is a lot.

You better be sure

you're gonna become a doctor.

Yeah.

I know a lot of people

who don't wanna be doctors

and they come out of

school and they're like,

I just have the debt

now, I have no choice.

And they're really unhappy.

And I'm like, be really careful

because if you don't

even wanna do the job,

you went to school for like a, I love,

doctors are amazing.

It's like become a

medical professional, do like,

some people that wanna

do that, it's like good.

But when someone doesn't wanna do it,

and I see the defeat in

them from like all that debt,

it's crushing like on their soul and

like, it's not good.

But a 17 year old, I

would say just go to college

and you know, find really

good, fresh, smart friends.

Find the smartest people in that college,

become really good friends with them

and like have fun with people

and learn how to live on your own,

learn how to do your launch.

And then like, if you

wanna run a company,

do it while you're in school.

Learn, do it while

you're in school, like, right?

Like start your company

while you're in school.

Like I think Aaron from box, box.com,

he started his company in school

and like was building

it in school and like.

Yeah.

We started ours like when

my co-founder and I were 20,

like still like students

at Auburn, but I don't know.

I've met a few 18, 19 year olds

who are in their freshman year

or about to go into

college and they're like,

I know what I want.

I'm obsessed, I'm dedicated.

I want to do the startup life.

I refuse to accept that the default path,

just going through, you know,

the assembly line of education.

I've heard that before.

Like what would you say

to those young founders

who already know what they want

and perhaps could do

their laundry as well?

I couldn't have started my company

without the co-founder I found in school.

School isn't about the

education, it's about the network.

And it's like learning

who you can like work with

and like build things with and like

that network becomes a

lifelong network, honestly.

Like I talked to a lot

of people from college,

like I went to college,

have really good friends from college.

That network is a

really good support system

to like a sounding board.

Now that's why I'm

concerned like when people go

for the trophy name,

like I'm going to go to MIT,

just be prepared to pay that debt.

Like that's the problem

when you take a trophy name.

You know, Berkeley I hear has

a cheaper, you know, degree.

It's like, that's where I get scared

is where people are

like chasing trophies.

And I'm like, you're

not thinking straight,

like go there to get a network of people.

So like for me, I went

to Stony Brook University

and I capitalized like

crazy on the network.

And it wasn't, it was

just like me having fun,

finding my way, like I

would have never done

computer science if I

didn't go to Stony Brook.

Like I went to a school that was very

computer science heavy

and I was like, this is

cool, it's like challenging,

it's different.

So like you're going to

learn like all different

sorts of things.

But if someone is dead set

on starting a company, like,

okay, I mean, maybe try

school, like, I don't know,

you know, the two year

degrees, associate degrees,

like you could get associate degree.

I don't know, there's no

right or wrong answer there,

but I worry about kids who

don't even get that experience.

And you went to

college, Daniel, so you know,

it's like you met your co-founder there.

I met him in sixth grade actually.

Oh, sixth grade, okay, sixth grade.

It was school, it was still school.

It was still school.

It was like networks in

school, it's all the networking.

You get to learn how to

socialize, you know how to like

not piss people off.

Yeah, yeah, like I, you

know, this is an argument

that I gave when I was

speaking to one such founder.

Like I met a founder who dropped out

freshman year of college.

I met him when he was like 23, 24,

and I could feel like

the lack of socialization,

not having gone

through that rite of passage.

Perhaps I met a

particularly immature fellow,

but like, I think

there's something you learn

where like society like molds you into

being more acceptable

and more fluid or better

social chameleon, perhaps.

So yeah, I could see

that side of it also.

What about like with the

actual things you learned

from like your coursework,

like psychology and computer science,

did that help you become

more successful in life

and as a founder, or was

it more about the network

as like first place in terms of value?

I mean, I think the network

was the most important part.

And then, you know, of course the

schooling was important.

It helped, but I think the

network like was insurmountably

more important where you

just get a really good group

of people.

And this is the thing about Y Combinator,

you get that group of people when you

plug into that network,

they have a really smart community

of the most smartest people in the world,

like brainstorming.

Schools are that, like

you don't realize like,

if you go out and you

don't get into Y Combinator

and you don't go to

school, you're on your own

and there's no network to

like bounce ideas off of

and you're kind of struggling, you know.

I spoke to one founder super,

like one of the best founders

I ever met, guy's brilliant.

He went to Harvard.

He's like, I went there for the network.

Then he went to Y

Combinator, went there for the network.

Then he went to Google.

And he's like, I went to

Google for the network.

And it blew my mind.

He didn't go work.

He didn't do it for the money.

He's like, I need to

know who these people are

so I can learn from them.

And he's one of the

smartest founders I know.

Guys raised hundreds

of millions of dollars.

And I'm like, I didn't

think about Google that way.

He thought of it differently than me.

And I was like, that blew my mind.

I was like, interesting.

So like Google is in

itself like a network of people.

The Googler community is like another top

of smart people out there.

But can everyone be that way?

The answer is no.

Like if you quit college,

you don't even go to college.

You may not think of things that way.

You may just like be

sitting in your office alone

and just like hiding and not actually

showing people product.

You have to get out

there and show people product

like all day long.

Like you have to talk about it.

You have to demo it.

You have to basically

get feedback and iterate.

You don't go to college.

You don't socialize.

It worries me.

That's all.

I don't think it's true of everybody,

but like even Mark Zuckerberg,

he met his co-founders in college.

Like Larry and Sergey met their

co-founders in college.

Like Steve Jobs met his co-founder

because they live next to each other.

I mean, that's not quite a network,

but still it was like

they hung out together a lot.

Yeah, I think the five people

you surround yourself most,

like I think like the

networks you get into,

I think that's absolutely huge.

And I pushed my little

brother to really like get into

like a great school.

It's like trying to

capitalize on a good network.

I hadn't, I didn't, you know,

I didn't prioritize

education the way he did.

And I see him already

reaping the benefits.

Before wrapping up,

I wanted to ask like,

if there was like a wild

story you could share with us

that you maybe haven't

shared with anyone before,

that, you know, it

could be startup related.

It could just be life related.

Anything you could share that's like

really out of left field.

Trying to kind of have a crazy story.

I mean, I've been to

the White House like a--

Wow.

Yeah, that's a crazy one.

What was that all about?

Yeah, so I mean, in my first company,

we were really innovative.

We built the first API,

not the first, we

built one of the first APIs

in healthcare for medical records.

And the White House was super interested

in like what we were doing

and we were very innovative.

And, you know, the

White House invited us just

to just sit in a round table

with a bunch of other

people in the industry.

And it was Joe Biden.

So Joe Biden was there.

He was the vice president

and then Obama was the

president at the time.

But I remember thinking

like, how did I get here?

That's pretty cool.

Like little room and being like,

I don't know how I'm in

this room, but this is awesome.

I felt really grateful, but

at the same time I was like,

I was just trying to make a living.

I built some real innovative.

And now I'm in this room with

all these really smart people

that run the whole country.

And Joe Biden was super interesting.

He was very passionate about healthcare.

And, you know, I didn't

know this, but his son died.

And he was talking about how his son

couldn't get his medical records.

When his son was really ill,

he couldn't get his

medical records fast enough

between two different places.

So it caused a

passion in the medical side

that I didn't know

that about like, you know,

him, he became president now, you know,

now he's president at the time.

He was vice president of like, wow,

that was a big passion of his.

That's crazy.

That was a crazy story.

Like I remember thinking I

could go to the White House

in jeans.

They told me no.

And I'm like, oh God,

I don't know this dude.

I gotta get a suit.

I literally went out

to a store and was like,

let me go buy a suit

because I'm going to go the white.

That has gotta be the most

like Sparta founder thing.

It was required.

You gotta wear a suit

when you go in there.

I had no idea.

That's a bummer.

That's a bummer.

Just stroll into the

White House in some jeans.

They don't like that.

And they're like, I

remember writing an email like,

can I come with jeans?

Is that okay?

And they're like, no, please wear a suit.

I'm like, okay, I gotta

get, gotta go buy a suit.

That's incredible.

That's a great story.

That's a great dinner story for sure.

So you gotta talk to Joe about healthcare

and healthcare still seems

quite broken here in the US.

And you're quite the expert on the space

having spent more than

a decade working in it.

Is there anything that you

think we could do to fix it,

to perhaps make it more

affordable, more effective,

like for the average American?

From a tech lens, perhaps, if possible.

I mean, it's very complicated.

There's so many moving parts.

One is I do think

things are getting digitized,

which is meaning for the first time,

data is really moving

well between industries

and one hospital can

send data to another.

And it is a struggle still in that sense,

but I think insurance

companies, it's still a mess.

I am worried that the insurance rate,

and everybody has to pay

more every year in insurance,

it's going up at such a rapid pace.

I'm like, I don't think

it's sustainable forever.

The insurance companies are,

they raise their rates every

year by 15%, whatever it is.

I'm like, at some point, it's

gonna be all of your salary.

You can't raise people's

rates that fast forever.

They're gonna start to

not have health insurance.

So, how do you fix that?

I don't know.

I mean, there's so many different areas

to tackle with this.

I mean, I do think that

there's real opportunities

out there with AI, right?

And that means medical

billing is really complex.

Like, use some AI to fix some of that,

make it less complex.

Like, the human body is really complex.

Like, doctors only have

so much time with a person.

Use AI to like, figure

out how to help people.

You know, there are so

many different use cases,

like, you know, x-rays,

you have to have a

radiologist look at an x-ray.

Like, I do hear really

great things about like,

AI determining if

somebody can has cancer or not.

So, you know, instead

of having a radiologist

look at each of these like x-rays,

you can have it at

the fraction of a cost,

like AI just basically

giving you an answer in that.

Spoke to one founder,

and he's really passionate

about like, detecting cancer.

You do a cancer screening

every year for like $150.

He's like, I can figure this out.

So like, if you get people like that,

that can detect cancer for 150 bucks,

everybody would pay for that.

Like, you probably pay

for it for your parents.

You'd be like, hey, you're gonna go get

your cancer screening.

I'm paying for it, dad.

Like, you know, it's like,

like there's more empowerment.

So, some of it is technology

can help in some of those ways.

But, you know, I

think some of these areas

are really complex, like

the insurance company issue.

Like, they can't keep

raising their rates.

It's crazy.

If they keep doing it,

and everybody's income

level is like just going up

at like whatever 4%, 5%, 6%.

Yet if an insurance

company is raising their rate

by 15% a year, something's gonna happen.

At some point, I'm like,

oof, this is gonna be crazy.

Maybe new insurance

companies will compete.

I don't know.

I'd like make

everybody change everything.

But something's gotta change.

This trajectory definitely

doesn't seem sustainable.

Any suggestions you might

give to founders out there

trying to solve this problem?

Where to start, perhaps?

I don't know, honestly.

I'm like, it's such a, I'd

have to think about it way more,

but it's just one of

the, it's definitely an area

I'm like, oh, this is...

It's BHAG.

Yeah.

A area.

Yeah, it's really complex.

And I'm like, maybe

it's not a startup idea.

Maybe it's a bigger issue

across the United States.

Yeah, policy, perhaps.

Yeah, yeah, maybe

there's something there.

I'll give you an example.

I thought about using

what an NFT represents.

Can you use the NFT to create something

like a birth

certificate, death certificate,

or a marriage certificate,

and then an NFT can be

used across different states.

Right now, everything is kind of on

paper, similar idea.

And I'm like, it's kind of like,

you kind of have to find the right place

to get the certificate.

But I'm like, that type

of startup has to have

buy-in from the government.

If it doesn't, it just dies, right?

And I think this is one of those ones

where the government maybe has to help.

I don't know, I don't know.

I don't have an

answer, but it worries me.

A lot of people are going

without health insurance.

Now more people can't afford it.

Companies can only

tolerate so much expense.

So it's becoming a strange situation,

like longer and longer.

If you take a look at Uber or Brex,

at their beginnings,

they were breaking the rules

and asking for forgiveness later.

Are there really problems

that startups can't solve,

like where they can't

start off breaking the rules,

finding something

that's just so much better,

like evolutionarily, or revolutionarily,

not evolutionarily better,

where they could solve that,

like the birth

certificate problem, for example?

Or are there really

problems that are resolved,

reserved for

governments, like state actors?

Never say never.

I think maybe I'm just

not the right founder

for tackling those two

problems that I just brought up.

I'm giving you the tough ones that,

when I think about those, I'm like,

I don't know the answer,

and I don't even know how to even begin.

Those are challenging.

So I would say there

probably is a way to do it

where you can get traction.

And it's like what Elon

Musk did with rockets.

Yeah.

We thought that would be good for

governments forever.

Wait, what's that?

We thought that outer space

was a government undertaking for decades.

Yeah, exactly.

It was just, he somehow got buy-in,

somehow was able to have

regulation, embrace it,

and now he's just

shooting rockets up all the time.

That was really tough.

He figured it out for that industry.

I'm sure people can

figure out other industries,

how to make things different, et cetera.

Yeah, so there's

definitely probably a way

to work on that.

Nothing a startup can't solve

with enough determination, right?

Right people, they'll

figure something out.

They'll figure something out.

It's all about the people.

On that note, I think that might be

a good place to stop, Daniel.

It's been an absolute

pleasure having you.

Is there any parting

words you might share

to young founders out there that want to

achieve great things,

achieve tremendous

success the way you have,

and anything you might share with them

before you wrap it up?

I think

learn as much as

possible, first and foremost.

There's so many resources out there now

that I did not have when I started.

All of it is online.

Just continually read,

devour as much as possible.

I would actually talk to as many founders

in Silicon Valley,

they're very open to talking.

Just reach out to them

and say, "I'm a founder,

"I'd love to pick your brain."

Talk to them about

starting their company.

You'd be surprised at who you can get.

I think

be bold and just don't be

scared to talk to people also.

I think that that's a really good trait.

There you have it.

Thank you, Daniel.

Awesome.

Pleasure having you on.

Likewise.

Thank you so much, Daniel.