Transcript of a Justin Kan podcast at The Quest: Glen Moriarty: 7 Cups of Tea.

Forum thread: 7 Cups Podcast with Glen! Listen and Share!

Subheadings added

[music]

What’s up, guys? It’s Justin Kan, and you are listening to The Quest.

Today’s podcast is with Glen Moriarty. Glen is a psychologist and the founder of 7 Cups of Tea.

7 Cups of Tea is an app that provides online therapy and free support, and since Glen founded the company back in 2013 they’ve trained over 440,000 listeners around the world and helped over 50 million people.

In our conversation we talked about founding the company, getting funded by Y Combinator, wellness startups in general, the ups and downs of Glen’s journey, the power of habits, and how to create companies as a positive force for change in the world, company values, and more. I love how mission-driven Glen is, and also his honesty in really coming clean about the difficulties of building 7 Cups.

As someone who’s been in therapy and had therapy help me through some very difficult times in my own companies, I deeply admire the work that Glen’s doing, and I really wanted to highlight someone using technology to build something positive for the world.

So, here is my conversation with Glen.

[music]

So I want to, I want to start off with the origin story of Glen, and how you got to the place where you were starting 7 Cups of Tea. Zooming backwards, like, how did you get up to the point where you were, you know, you were starting the company?

So the the story is like, um, you know, part of it is, you know, growing up having a bit of a tough, you know, childhood, tough family experiences. And and I think, I think a lot of founders experience those things. And, you know, and I think, uh, I don’t know any real data on it, but I think people are overrepresented who have been able to endure some level of pain and get through that, and figure things out and navigate things.

Um, so I think that’s just a general startup thing. You agree with that?

Totally. I agree with that. I found when I was, it took actually going through the entire startup journey and eventually becoming successful, and then going beyond that, to realize it, but part of my process was, I, you know, in the last couple years, I really realized that everything I had done in my entire life was for, to get the approval of the people around me.

Yeah.

You know, I just wanted the approval that I didn’t feel that I got when I was a kid, you know, from my peers. Maybe from family members. And so, um, I mean, I had a pretty nice childhood growing up in a lot of ways, but, but that was a major driving force in, of, Justin, you know, in everything I did, and that manifested itself. And for better for worse, right? Like, you know, it served me for, for a long time to be successful in, in some ways, but I was also a mechanism of self-torture.

Yeah, it’s self-torture. And in, enormous drive. And perseverance and grit, and I mean all of those kind of core… I mean, what’s that statement somebody says “Running a startup is like getting punched in the face repeatedly, and then somebody else throws a cookie at you every once in a while and you just gotta look for the cookies.”

Somebody’s heard that! That’s that’s an amazing one!

It’s, that’s what it’s like, right? It’s like, brutal. So anyways, um, so for me, um, I was, you know, I, I became a psychologist to learn how to better help people, you know, that’s, that’s really what I wanted to do. And being a psychologist is, you know, it’s, uh, it’s a lot of work. You go through a ton of it, and then you can, like, help one person at a time, really. And, and the way you scale it is you do group therapy. So you have like eight people in a room, and that’s really powerful.

I mean there’s there’s a ton that can be done with groups and I think we can get smart and figure that out in a whole bunch of ways that we that we haven’t yet, um, but, um, I have another company too. It’s a, it’s a learning, an online learning company. And that got me, you know, lifestyle business, and, you know, being okay financially and everything else. But I was studying, uh, offline behavior that hadn’t yet moved online.

So learning, when I was a kid, was entirely offline. Then I moved online. Dating was offline, then I moved online. And I was talking to my wife. My wife is a therapist, and she was listening to me. It was a startup problem, you know. So many of them are, and, and I thought, “What do people do who are, you know, founders, that don’t have somebody compassionate, you know, to listen to them?” And I’d been studying this, was, like, six months. I was studying offline behavior that hadn’t moved online in, like, a systematic way, for like six months, and in it I couldn’t figure it out.

And then that, to try to find a startup problem?

It’s to find start a problem, exactly. I was, just because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to try to create a new behavior. I didn’t want to, like, do something that wasn’t universal. I wanted to be like, okay, like learning is universal. Everybody wants to learn. But, like, learning is hard. Like, not everybody loves learning. It’s, it’s, too taxing. There’s all kinds of problems with learning. Like, it’s just tough. Whereas…

Yeah, I totally agree. I always say that people say they love learning, but they don’t really love learning, because learning involves failing a lot, until you kind of finally get it.

Yes.

It’s, and then, it’s like much harder than people think.

It’s much harder, and that’s real learning. That’s like real life learning, which people hate. Pain, right?

It’s like that. I saw that you had the, uh, the Ray Dalio Principles book, uh, his thing that, uh, progress equals, where pain plus reflection equals progress, right? Yeah, it’s like nobody likes pain, but that’s how we learn. But but even, you know, book learning is hard. It’s like, “Hey focus. Neuronal connections. Thinking. You know, imagining.” Like, so, so I was trying to think of something that wasn’t so arduous for humans to do. Um, that was universal human impulse and studying all these different things.

And then, she’s, my wife’s listening to me and it was, like, the, you know, the clouds parted and it was like, this is it, the need to talk to somebody. This is the universal human behavior that’s offline that hasn’t yet moved online. Then we should try to figure this out.

Y Combinator (5:59)

And, uh, so then I submitted the YC and I was older. I was 36. Um, I did not think there was a chance I would get in at all. I stayed up late, I did the, you know, the little one minute video thing. I could barely keep my eyes open, uh, and, uh, Paul Buchheit read the application and was like “this is a great idea”. And then I did the whole, I chose the, um, the last interview slot and I and I had a I had a thought like if it goes long I will think I’ve got good odds but if it doesn’t go long I’ll think I just blew it. And it ended up going like 17 minutes instead of the 10 minutes it was supposed to go. And I felt really good about it and I, uh, I just went downtown, down, and then PB called and said “Hey, we want to offer you a slot.” I was like “Oh my God I can’t believe it.” Um, so uh, yeah, I did, yeah.

And then we were, we were, in a neighborhood with a bunch of, uh, navy seal families and, um, this was in Virginia Beach and, uh, my wife was friends with all of these spouses and, um, they would go on deployments. And so it was normal for them to be gone for like six months, four months, eight months. And there was like this kind of tight community of people caring looking out for one another, and so we just decided to see it as a deployment, uh, because I had four kids. I even had a one-year-old, I mean, which was…

Oh wow!

I mean really yeah, um, and so yeah, then we went out there and then they came out for a month in the middle. But yeah, we launched it.

I was the first listener. My my wife was the second. I could never get enough listeners. I was going to like, you know, UCLA, trying to get people to listen and, uh.

So the original model was, people we just could come on this app and find someone who would listen to them and talk about whatever they wanted.

Yeah, what’s, what’s funny is like so as a psychologist, you know, you you meet face to face, right? So it’s like you… It wasn’t until a long time into this that I, like, realized how how difficult we were making seeking mental health support. So like from an Internet funnel perspective, right, it’s like: less clicks, less threatening, the better. Mental health is, like, 27 steps, super hard steps, and very threatening. Like, come meet with a stranger, fill out all this paperwork, you know, do a deep dive in all the things you don’t want to talk about, uh.

You know, call a person, drive there, it’s really, really tough. So then below that is video conferencing. Still intimate but but less threatening, more convenient. Below that is voice. Phone calls. And then below that is anonymous messaging. And so we launched with voice, which I already thought was way less threatening than all the other stuff. And so we used a thing called, um, Plivo which was like a Twilio, um, thing where the, the person seeking help would call. We’d ring all the listeners, yeah, we had like I don’t know, 40, 50 at the time. Whoever picked up the call would get connected, and it was voice.

And what we found was, like, ninety-nine and a half percent of people preferred messaging over voice, because voice was still too intimate, um…

Right.

It was still, it was like, uuuuggghhh, still much too much, you know, emotion, prosody and voice, and there’s too much awkwardness with it. But if you do messaging and you make it anonymous then way more people seek help than, than, than they otherwise would, um…

Makes sense. Like, nobody wants to call a restaurant, right. Everybody wants to text it now. Everybody wants to order everything online, and kind of it lowers the friction to human interaction.

Yeah, and that’s food. Like, “Hey, I need some food!” It’s not like, you know, “Hey, this is secret that I’ve never told anybody and I just need to get it off my chest.”

Therapists (9:50)

I’m curious, did you get pushback from the community of, you know, professional community of therapists and psychologists who are saying that this is, you know, too easy or, you know, it’s, in a way, it’s disruptive to the idea of traditional mental health help?

Yeah, so fortunately, um, we were, you know, really under the radar for a long time. And in 2013 that was really deliberate on my part because the idea then that you could train a regular person to care for another person was, was seen as radical. Now it’s not at all. Now the scene is, like, very obvious. Like, yeah, of course, why not. Like, just listening like this isn’t hard. Anybody can do this. It’s not hard. Like we have all kinds of problems. We should be doing this, um.

But we ended up adding therapists. So we, we love therapists. I’m a psychologist, I was nervous. We have over 100 clinicians on the platform. So, we see it like a treatment team where you, you know there are there, are volunteer listeners, there are licensed professionals, and there there are even chat bots. And, and together that combination of people can best help people.

So it’s, it’s not like like the Uber, where it’s like “Hey, we want to kill taxi cabs.” Um, it’s more like, “Hey, we need you but you’re super talented, so you should be helping the people that really need it, whereas like, if somebody else just has like a minor boyfriend-girlfriend or, you know, minor work stress problem, you know, we don’t want to clog you up with with these kind of minor issues where you could be, you know, you could be really helping somebody who’s experiencing more depression. And so that triage process that, that’s how we see it so now, now we get no pushback at all, um, and we, you know, we, we have a bunch of people, you know, in the company that are licensed people. And I think that that’ll get smarter and better where it’s like, right now the, the therapists don’t yet work with the volunteer listeners in that kind of way or with chat bots in that kind of way. But I think in the future it’ll be much more streamlined and, you know, and we’ll be able to help people, you know, significantly better because that that team will be tighter.

So, when you launched the company, what happened? How did it go? Was it immediately, you know, was the, was the audience immediately receptive? Did, was it viral? Or, you know, did you kind of have to go through the long dark night of nobody using it to figure out how to get users?

It’s really funny. So, my first meeting with PB, um, I was so excited. And, you know, I’d been working on the home side, and you know because we were gonna, we were gonna help first, we were gonna help, uh, parents with special needs kids. That was the original hypothesis, um, and, uh, and they were gonna help veterans, um, and we didn’t build any of that technology to connect people. And I’m trying to show him the website, and he’s like, “Did you launch this yet?”

And I’m like, “No, no, no, not yet.” And you know that fear, right, like, was probably not going to work, right, like that’s like, I don’t know if this is going to work. It, and it’s yeah, it’s basically like, “Okay we’re done. Thanks for coming in. Launch it and then come back next week.” And…

Yeah.

It was like, so you know at the time it was like, “Oh my God”, like, uuuuggghhh. But that was, you know, that was such a gift, like, “Do it, and then learn.” And I think what a lot of people don’t know is, like, most things are not going to work, and you have to just, like, keep at it and figure it out.

So, so we did that and I harassed all my family members, all my friends, “Hey, call this service. Hey, do this. Hey, do that.” And that’s when we figured out, like, the, the voice thing was too much for people. They were too anxious about it, um. And then I was sitting on, uh, I had this this apartment right down the street from YC and I would just sit on that guy, this horrible couch. I bought all my furniture secondhand, um, and I don’t even know where, I where I was able to get, there was like this really horribly looking floral couch.

And I just lived on that thing, and I would live in you know reddit chat rooms, any kind of support room, um, for like, you know, hours all day long just trying to listen and see how are people that are in pain? What are they trying to do? Like, how are they doing it and what are they doing to get out of that pain on the internet? Um, and…

What were they doing?

They were mostly just, like, chatting, and you know some of them were chatting in chat rooms some people were talking on subreddits. There’s, you know, it was like a lot of mental health subreddits, um, different, there were different, um, like mental health, uh, social networks, um, those were really the broad, you know, the kind of the, the kind of general solutions.

Launch (14:52)

Um, and then I just started inviting some of those folks, um, and then we started getting some…, we finally launched. And, uh, we got a lot of press and because there was like, no, there really wasn’t like it, it was not a solution on the Internet to provide emotional support to people, and it was like a novel thing. So then, like, you know, it, we got a lot of press and then, like, a lot of people came and, and then that was when the demand was, was so high and I could never get in front of it. I was like super stressed out.

And this guy, his name’s Robin Stepdo, I will be forever in gratitude to him, he’s an old English guy, was at the… So I called. I also, at the same time, I called like 200 non-profits, uh, in, in the Bay Area. None of them were at all interested in working with me, but, but one was.

Yeah.

And it was the Santa Clara NAMI. Uh, and this lady Kathy Forward, and she agreed to meet me for breakfast and so I, I went and I met with her for breakfast, and she said, “This sounds like a really good idea. I like it. Why don’t you meet my my team of, uh, you know, peers that provide support for people struggling with substance use, and families, and all this other stuff?”

So I was like, “Okay, awesome!” And then they became our first listeners, okay. And this guy said, you know, you know, and especially that time it’s like really all of 7 Cups. It’s always been like a, “Hey, we’re all in this together. How are we going to figure this out?” And he said, “You know, why don’t you put a little…”—we at that time, we had this rotating banner at the top of the the chat—and he said, “Why don’t you put up a banner that says one of the best ways to help yourself is to help somebody else?” And so we did that, and then all of a sudden we started getting people to sign up, you know, that, that had received help.

And so, some percentage, and then that helped us finally get in front of that demand.

So, as more people came for help to talk to somebody, then some percentage of those people would turn into the listeners who would, uh, talk to, you know, hear, listen to people.

That’s exactly right, yeah.

And then had a skill from there.

And then we had, uh… One of the main things is, um, we were just talking about this… So, we just had our birthday, so we had like a community meeting about our birthday but we had this, this, uh, group. We didn’t have our own chat room for listeners. So what listeners, when you’re chatting with somebody you might be, might be tough, you might have a question, so you’d have to like go PM, you know, private message somebody else to get help on that, and then they’d give you…

So then we had a, a, a, third-party app called Chatsy, where it was our first listener support room. And then…

Yeah.

Uh, then that kept crashing because it was growing too big, and then, so, then we had to finally build our own. But the community really grew from listeners. It was really listeners, you know, caring for the people that are seeking help, but also caring for one another. And that was, like, kind of, the heart of the community.

And then we build out forums, and more chat rooms, and eventually all the other kind of things that we’ve got.

The impact so far (17:45)

And so what’s been the impact so far? You guys have helped a lot of people.

Yeah. So we’ve reached, we just updated this for the birthday, so we now have like 427,000 trained volunteer listeners, 189 countries, providing support in 140 languages. So it’s like, and we we didn’t do… Sometimes people say what was your internal internationalization strategy, and we had none. It’s just that people around the world need help and support and some percentage of those folks sign up to be listeners, so we have this enormous international volunteer workforce, um, so that’s the, that’s, that’s, stat we’ve, we’ve sent about 1.3 billion little over that like 1.3 billion supportive messages, um, and, um, we’ve reached about 53 million people.

And so in a lot of parts of the world you know we we’ve already reached somewhere between one to five percent of the population. And so, there’s this very cool—I, I like to think about like community capacity—so, like, in these in these ABLE companies as they evolve, I think a part of it will be, um, real accountability around, like, things we want to make an impact on. Like, we really want to help this population, or we really want to tackle this group. And I think eventually we’ll see, like, shared dashboards on a regional basis and then people, listeners, from those regions driving the gains across those. Listeners and leaders driving the gains you know across those, uh, those things, we’re trying to make a dent, a dent in.

That’s pretty incredible. It’s 53 million people around the world.

Yeah.

That’s, um, I guess, did you ever imagine that it would kind of reach that type of scale?

I was always really super hopeful, you know. I was, and, and, and it’s, you know, these kind of conversations always… It, and, you know it’s like, they’re brutal right? Like every game is a “You got to work for the game. You got to figure it out.” You bang your head up against the wall and you get beat up a lot. You make a ton of mistakes. Take, make, a ton of significant mistakes. But I think you just keep evolving it, um, so I, I remain, like, we’ve, we’ve made tons, had tons of problems, we still have tons of problems, still have tons of mistakes but, um.

I, I really want us to build a really effective free mental health or emotional support system. Like, that’s what we’re really really trying to build. And like, with your habit you, like your app, anything that can be impacted by positive social support and behavior change. Whatever that is. Heart disease, obesity related disease, mental health, we want to be able to make a positive impact on those things. So if we’re, if we’re actually really successful and this, this new book, you know, How Innovation Works, basically says 15 years is what it takes to really cook up a, a really good innovation and so we’re seven years and we’re not even halfway there. So if, you know, it’s, it’s still long odds, still very long odds. But like, if we can figure it out, you know, we’ll be, it’ll be amazing.

So, what are the things that are are left to do for you?

Oh my God, there’s tons. Dude, it’s just, like, tons and tons! I mean, you know, matching people up with the best listeners for them. Um, like, we think about it like, whatever you’re struggling with there’s, like, digital medicines for it. Right, so like, um, you know. And the medicines we provide are like, chatting with a listener, that’s a type of medicine, and, and…

I know.

And then, chatting with different types of listeners, like, you, like, you’re, you would be a great startup listener, right? That’s a different type of medicine. Um, growth paths. We call them, growth paths or treatment plans. So like, what a clinician would, if you had panic attacks, they would walk you through a protocol, CBT protocol, to help you overcome those panic attacks.

So we have, like, 36 different paths, but there’s probably millions of those steps, and they can be reorganized and made differently. We’re going to create something that we call the playlist, where any kind of expert or other people can create their own growth path steps on 7 Cups, and so they can be voted up, voted down. And we’ll probably learn a whole bunch of interventions that are, that are effective that we didn’t even know about, we don’t know about now. So that’s, that’s the type of medicine. And then the third type of medicine is community just knowing that, “Hey, I’m not alone, there’s other people like me.” We’re figuring it out together.

So ultimately we want to be able to say, “Okay, here you are, this is whatever you’re struggling with, this is, these are the right listeners for you, these are the right exercises, for you, this is the right community for you, maybe here’s the other, the other, you know, apps that are in this kind of consortium that we can recommend.

Um, and then we work together to help you get real outcomes in your life so you’re happy, uh, and, you know, you, you have less suffering. That’s the vision. We’re we’re like 1,000 miles from that. We’re ten thousand or a million. It’s a long ways to go.

Is that, kind of, the primary north star for the company to reduce suffering in the world?

It is, yeah, it really is. We’re trying it. We’re trying to decrease suffering in whatever way we can.

Creating 7 Cups (22:59)

That’s a great goal. So how’s the process of, of starting this company? It’s been seven years. Seven years in, which is… Once, well, I once heard that, you know, eight years is kind of the average time it takes to get some sort of outcome for a founder. That’s actually exactly how long it took us to go from streaming camera on our head to you know Twitch exit. Uh, like what have you, how’s the experience been of starting this company, and this, you know, over this time, like, what’s it been like for you?

It’s been, I mean, like, we were talking earlier about the, the parenting is, it was super hard early on because you just didn’t know what you were doing. None of the infrastructure was built. You know, I, in, in 7 Cups is different, it’s like not a normal company. It’s not like a widget, where it’s like, “Hey, we’re just making widgets, and now we optimize the widgets, and now we increase the acquisition dollars to increase more widgets.” Like, it’s just like, it’s, it’s, it’s a very unusual, you know, like the complex adaptive system, community, like it’s a different type of thing.

So like, creating, you know, co-creating with the community, because the community creates it along with us, you know, with the team, was the listeners and the leaders, and we’re all trying to figure it out together. Um, it’s been incredibly challenging. You know, like, there’s there’s not many things, like, my, I had twins that were born 10 weeks early, premature. That was really tough. It was really really tough. Um…

I know.

I’ve had a, you know, a lot of pain in life. But, I’ve never had, uh, I’ve never tried to do anything as challenging as 7 Cups like it’s just, it’s been tough. It’s been good. It’s been really good. I’ve grown a tremendous amount, but it’s been really, you know, it’s been tough.

What have been those those hardest moments or inflection points for you?

I mean, I think it’s like, I remember, you know, people, sometimes people say, like, “Hey, do you ever use the service yourself? 7 Cups?” And it’s like, “Oh my God!” I’ve used it so many times, you know, especially early on. I remember just like crying, like just, like, like I would go on and I could never say like, “Hey I’m, I’m the founder of this thing and I’m really struggling.” Like, I don’t know, I don’t know how we’re gonna make any money, because what happened was, we, we built a thing, uh, and we had figured out all those kind of early elements. We had no idea how we’re gonna make any money. And…

Right.

And I, I, you know, everybody was sacrificing, like, nobody was getting paid market salaries. Some people weren’t taking a salary. Like, it was just, it was just a tough spot. And in the community thought some, there were some people in the community thought we were like selling all the data or like we had tons of money, and, and I at that time was like the, you know, I thought, I can’t tell them how bad it is. I have to pretend everything’s great, you know, and you kind of, you know, be the, be the good leader that’s, like, you know everything’s fine. Um, don’t worry, just keep listening. Yeah. You know.

Right.

And, uh, it was just killing me. I mean, I was like, I just could not sleep for it. Just took me forever. And we would try different things. We tried the, we tried monetizing the growth paths. So, upgrade, you know, and you unlock the depression growth path. That barely moved the needle. Uh, and then we finally figured out online therapy. Uh, and that worked. But before that, I mean, it was just super tough. It was just like, like, you know, we even went with our, I went around with like my, my digital hat in hand, you know, because at that time it was like, “Hey, you know, just got to get a quarter from everybody.” And it was like, “Hey, you want to give me a quarter? Okay, do you want to give me a quarter?” And it was like, I don’t want to give you, you know, I really don’t want to give you a quarter, like, you know, some people will but like nowhere near enough.

Um, and so I remember going on the service and just being, like, I have this incredibly challenging engineering problem. Like, I would frame it in, in ways that would not make it obvious that that was 7 Cups, you know, and I have a lot of people counting on me, and I’m terrified of letting them down. Yeah, I just, and, and, then you know, again. Well, I guess why I’m so hopeful for all these, like, social challenges we face, you just incrementally stick at it, and, you know, you make the gains, and it’s brutal, and there’s a whole bunch of challenges along the way, but you know you get there eventually, um, at least some of the time. And you know maybe, maybe, enough of the time, uh, you know we’ll get there and we’ll be able to make a real dent in some of these challenges.

Yeah, sure. That’s, I, I found that there’s those periods of, you know, struggling, when I look back on them I’m very thankful for them because I, you know, they were periods of tremendous self-growth for me, you know, where I like didn’t know where things were, what was going to happen, you know. I was very worried and that. they weren’t all successful. I had lots of companies that ultimately failed.

Yeah.

But I still am thankful for those, those periods of struggle, because I grew a lot and learned a ton from from them. Of course it’s easy to say now, on the other side, but at the time, you know, they seem like often enough times it was like the end of the world was happening, and I was the only one responsible for, like, everything that was going on, and so many different people. Um, and I didn’t know what, what I would do, possibly do, if I failed.

Yeah, exactly. It will loom so large, it’s the only thing you can see, and it is, but that’s where you grow. I mean, that’s where the, that’s where the, person is made, right? Even then you don’t, but you don’t wanna. It’s never fun going through it.

The problem is the path (28:26)

So the lesson for anybody out there who’s starting a company or, or, um, maybe considering starting a company. What’s the seven years encapsulated down into, like the one thing for them?

I think it really is that stoic idea that the problem is the path. It’s like, you, you know, I, I, the problem, the problem is, your friends. You don’t want the problem. You know there’s, there’s a type of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy. It’s really powerful. You’d probably really like it. It’s interesting. So it’s, it’s basically this idea that, um, problems happen in life and they they have a metaphor for the problem. It’s called Aunt Maggie. And Aunt Maggie is your annoying, uh, you know, you’re, you’re in your house and you know she’s… [knock, knock, knock, knock, knock]

You know, she’s knocking on your door and you’re hiding in the back, and you don’t want, you know. She goes away and then she comes back, and she’s knocking again louder this time and and you just want to ignore, ignore her. You just want her to go away and then… But that just complicates things because the, the, the big problems never just go away. So it’s like really in ACT the goal is you, you, open the door, say “Hey, Aunt Maggie! How’s it going? I don’t really want to hang out or talk to you right now, but I’ll tell you what I just made. Some lemonades, made some iced tea. Let’s sit down. Let’s have a conversation. Tell me about what’s going on.”

And then you know, it, and then in this, and then you have the whole conversation, and it’s horrible and it’s painful and then she leaves. And, you know, you get like a little gold nugget, you get, like, some kind of wisdom, or you get a key, whatever the metaphor is, you, you get something really valuable from solving that problem, whether, whether it’s personal growth, something for the company, something for other people, but it gets you something.

And then that’s the thing you need for the next level. You know, like, if it’s like a video game, it’s like, then you’re in to the… That key. And then of course you’re on the next level, and now Maggie comes back again. You’re right? And it’s like, but maybe it’s different. Not but she’s, you know, it’s even more annoying and even more problematic and even more challenging, and then you, you know, unlock that.

But that idea that, you know, when you’re taking, like, a water or soda bottle. You know, if you go to like a 7-Eleven and you take the first one, the next one slides down. I think the, “the problem is the path” idea, whether it be personal life or—and this is all principle stuff too—but, you know, whether, whether it’s startup, business, relationships, kids. Whatever that next biggest problem is, if you just face it, and you do your best to try to solve it, that becomes the path. And if you’re successful, you know, you’re blessed with another problem. Like, the next one comes sliding down at you, and then you just do that and, um, from an evolutionary perspective, or like an Annie Fragile perspective, I think that’s how you really evolve, and you’re a person navigating life, or your company navigating the market that it’s in, or whatever. I think that’s how you evolve and grow the, the capacities needed to better navigate personal life, or the market, or being a dad, or whatever.

That’s beautiful. Just take everything one problem at a time.

I think so! I mean, this is probably very, not a popular idea, but I, I think it’s how we grow.

You know. I think a lot of the, the issues that we tackle—and startups are very daunting, right?—like you…the idea of, like, how do you create this big company, or giant system, or fulfill your obligations to investors? And, um, I always thought about, if I am faced with a problem I don’t know how to, how to deal with or solve, just how do you break it down into component pieces, and then, you know, break that down into smaller pieces, and just find the smallest increment of work that you can do. Small, smallest problem you can tackle, and then just do that first.

Yeah.

And then, once you do that then figure out the next one. And, and in that way, you know, kind of build up momentum for yourself in tackling things that can be ultimately very difficult challenges.

Yeah. I think that’s really well said, and you build the muscles. It’s like you don’t, they can be just like these enormous things but yeah, if you can break them down it’s like, “Well, I can do that, and I can do that. I can do that.” And then eventually, maybe, it’s, you know, mostly solved.

Kids (32:53)

You don’t have any kids right?

I have one.

You do have…

I have a 10-month.

Oh, you’ve a 10-month! Congratulations! I didn’t know that. Okay. Boy or girl?

It’s a boy.

Oh, awesome!

Name’s Julius.

Oh, awesome!

Okay, so let’s say Julius, let’s say 20 years from now, know we’re, you know, my son’s 15 he’s already thinking about this stuff. So maybe 15 years from now, um, Julius is, uh, wants to do a startup. Uh, what’s, what’s the, what’s the thing that you would say? “Hey, this is the best thing about this.” And then, was it? And then, and then, what would be the “Hey, this is the worst thing about this.” And you really gotta, you gotta, be ready for the worst thing and, and I’m guessing the best thing, too, this is the best thing. You could be good, but you should also be mindful of this.

Yeah, so the best thing, I think the best thing is clearly that it’s such a vehicle for your own self-growth and self-awareness, you know, and self-discovery. For my, you know, all the things I’ve realized about how I show up in the world, what I struggled with, all the behavioral patterns that I had carried on from when I was a kid that were formed when, I, you know, when I was younger. All those things I realized, through the pain of various stressful situations in startups—that’s the best thing. And then, obviously, there’s a lot of if you’re successful. There’s lots of, you know, nice things in society that you get, uh, from it, but I, I would say that’s actually secondary.

And you know that’s that’s the downside of a startup. So, you know, they’re kind of, it’s two sides of the same coin in a way, those those painful experiences are what drive the growth. But you also have to go through those painful experiences, and that’s the best and worst part of starting a company.

Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s the, it’s, it’s really interesting when you said the, the, the, personal growth part, um, it’s like, what I, when you were saying, um, it made me think of, like, almost like, like echoes, right? Like the, like, reality is bouncing off of you and you’re, like, learning about yourself through the way the pattern of reality is, like, the experiences are unfolding and hitting you and then you have to kind of, like, learn and go through them and listen to what it’s, what is the message, kind of, life is sending you at that time?

Yeah. It’s, it’s an accelerated journey from what most people get to experience. You know, most people experience, um, stressful situations and painful, experience situations. they just don’t experience them every day or every week, and so you have this accelerated journey which which does put you on a path that I think can be incredibly, um, meaningful, you know, and, and where you, where you can learn a tremendous amount that you wouldn’t be able to. But it, you know, once you’re on the roller coaster it’s really hard to get off.

Yeah. So, so that’s like I, I think the secondary question then would be like, like, “Hey, you’re going to grow in, and excel. Your, your personal growth, your, your overall growth, but your personal growth is gonna go through this accelerator. You’re gonna, you’re gonna live lifetimes in years.” If you and I think that’s a nice way of saying it, like, the number of stressful scenarios, like if you have a normal nine-to-five job, you know, you’re not getting nailed frequently, hopefully. But then, startup, you’re getting nailed frequently. So, so then, what do you say to help Julius through that?

Siddhartha (37:17)

Well, to some extent, on one hand, you know one of my favorite books is this book Siddhartha. Um, and in the book, I don’t know if you’ve read it, it follows the life of Siddhartha as he goes, you know, through life. And my favorite part in it, in the book, is eventually, you know, he has a kid, and he, uh, becomes a, at the end of his life, he’s like a river, like a ferryman. He, like, ferries people back and forth across the river. And he has a friend who’s a ferryman. And this kid is now starting to experience life and becoming an adult, and making all these mistakes, and he said, Siddhartha asks his friend, he’s like, “How can I prevent my kid from making mistakes, these mistakes?” And this, his friend, is like “That’s part of the process. You know, he has to. You can’t prevent him. You have to go out there, and he has to go learn for himself.”

And, I think, in a way, that’s kind of how I feel about startups, you know. Whether it’s my own son or not he will have to learn himself. That’s kind of the point of the startup. But it really applies to anything you do in life, in your your entire journey. And so there’s nothing really I can do to ease it. Um, at the same time, you know, I think that what I would tell him is probably what I’ve been talking about a lot, uh, publicly, recently. Which is that, you know, just having a healthy base of, um, personal wellness behaviors will allow you to have, be anti-fragile enough to tackle on the these problems, and have these emotional swings, and experience these, like, ups and downs that you, that you have when you’re tackling any sort of heart problem. Whether it’s the startup or not. And so those are things, you know, like meditation and exercise and diet which help you, um, be grounded in yourself, and, I think, avoid the worst outcomes of like, the compulsive, compulsive behaviors and addictions of being a human being.

Yeah.

And so, if you can build that set of practices and, and give yourself that healthy base, I think you’re, you’re best suited to tackle any of life’s problems.

Yeah. So feel, kind of like, make sure you’re fueled up and continue to fuel up with healthy nourishing energy and resources, so that you can get through. Um…

Absolutely.

Because the temptation will, those things, and those are things… That’s really good! So it’s like, “Hey, before you start this journey, spend six months.” It’s, it’s interesting. It’s like, almost like, a pre-elective, right? So, like, you’re gonna go into a startup, you’re gonna take the startup course.

Yeah.

“Hey, spend six months developing some really good habits and get really healthy, Uh…

I…

Because you’re gonna…

That’s interesting, yeah. You know, it’s kind of like a personal, um, performance, you know, optimization in a lot of ways. Like when you are an athlete, right? Like you’re a star athlete you’re, what?, a tennis star, basketball star. You’re Lebron James, right? Or like Tom Brady, right? These guys don’t just practice basketball or play basketball. they also have, you know, wellness and dietitians and massage therapists. And, like, they have like 20 people full time who help them be at their best, be at their most optimal.

Now, you might not need a staff of 20 people or be able to afford it. Or if that might not make sense. But there’s probably a lot of baseline activities that you should be doing that will keep you ready to, you know, well, you know, at your peak performance to tackle whatever it is that’s, that’s coming up for you. And I think that really applies to everybody, really, in, you know, all aspects of life.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Stress (40:42)

Yeah, we find ourselves in these situations where we’re so stressed, um, in, in daily life and we’re so busy and we think, “Oh, I don’t have time to meditate. I don’t have time to eat healthy. I just need to eat something quickly. I, I don’t have time to exercise.”

And there’s some truth to that. People are very busy, and the modern modern life keeps us super busy, and keeps us on this treadmill. But I think of those things as an investment, you know. If you’re investing even just five minutes a day of exercise you, you’re going to get that five minutes back. I guarantee it, right? Um, yeah. If you invest five minutes in meditation, you’re gonna get those five minutes back, you know. You’re gonna get the value, you’re gonna. And you’re gonna see that value. And so, uh, you know, I think that, that’s just part of a real, a really important part of being grounded, and well, in your own experience.

Yeah, it’s funny. It’s like when you go through YC, right? Like, they tell you, like, exercise and sleep well, right? But it’s a, it’s really what you’re saying is like, level that up a fair amount. Like, get your, get your tank, you know, your, your emotional tank, your well-being. Take your wellness tank. Get it so that it’s high, just regularly. And so, when you’re taxed you know, it goes down, it goes down 20%, but your, your habits, the practices you’ve already been developing, grow it back up again. And then, so, you’re going to keep getting hit in life, like, you know, football players. You’re going to keep getting hit. But, like, you know, heal, recover, get stronger again. Heal, recover, and get stronger again.

Now, my meditation teacher talks about a window of tolerance, and that’s like the experiential things, you know. The, uh, the things you experience in life that that are happening. And like, what is within your window of tolerance, that’s stuff that you can metabolize and deal with. And then, things that will, are outside, you know, maybe they’re too extreme, just extreme pain, or there’s, you know, emotional discomfort, that are just outside of your window of tolerance. And kind of, you know, then you get, you get, uh, frazzled. And you kind of, like, get triggered and go off the rails. Um, and I think about it, is, like, by doing these healthy things you’re increasing your window of tolerance. You’re able to deal with, with someone more.

*And I can see that, you know, and anyone can do this experiment pretty easily. It’s like you go to, the next time, you know, the next time that you are experiencing some sort of stress, there are things you can directly. do to, um, to mitigate that, you know. But, like, for me it’s exercise. Like, if I’m going through something where I’m feeling sad, and my experience, or depressed, or stressed, or angry. If I go and immediately do just five minutes of cardiovascular exercise I will feel a lot different. Um..

Yeah.

And that’s, that’s a, you know, worthwhile investment to me.

Yeah, the resetting of the brain with exercise is just insanely powerful. It feels like we’re, it’s like we’re kind of gradually, unwillingly accepting the power of that. But yeah, I do the same thing with, with stress too. it’s like you can be super stressed and you just go for a run. And I come back and it’s like, okay things are fine. Like, it’s not great but, you know, I can figure it out, or we can figure it out.

Yeah, there’s a biological reason for that, right? Like, you have, your brain has an amygdala. It evolved to keep you safe, right, and create this fight-or-flight response. And hormones that come that, that are emitted when you are in situations that, where you feel like you’re being attacked, that’s natural, that’s human nature. And you can’t fight against it. And you shouldn’t want it to be different. That’s part of the experience of being a human being. Um, and so when you are, when you actually do something physical, some sort of physical activity, you’re enabling yourself to, like, move past this, to release those hormones and, and move beyond, and go back to your, like, neutral, natural non-triggered state.

I think that window of tolerance is a cool idea, too. It’s like, in, and I think with startups you can certainly get knocked out of your window of tolerance, right? It’s like…

Yeah.

The messy middle (44:32)

And it’s like, “How do you, how do you get back?” And that, that Scott Belski idea of The Messy Middle, have you seen that?

No.

It’s really smart. So he, he talks about, you know, that whole, like, that whole, like, ‘k great idea, trough of sorrow, and then you, like, kind of figure it out as it goes up, you know, you know.

Yeah.

He’s, he has this idea that gets the middle. And it looks like, you know, it’s up down, up down, up down, but you’re going up. Uh, you’re you’re on the trend line up, but the downs, every down is painful. And so his point is, optimize the ups and then endure the downs, because you’re gonna go back up again. But just endure them. Um, and I think that’s an insightful idea. So, like, with the window of tolerance it’s like every down, like laying people off, it’s brutal, it’s really hard. It’s down. But you, you just kind of kind of endure and get through it. And then you kind of go back up again. And there’s, like, you lose a major client or get in a fight or whatever. It’s like all those downs. And then your your capacity I think, um, yeah, it does definitely grow stronger in your ability to, to better manage things.

Well, you know, what I found, I’d like one of my, my, I guess, tropes or, um, ex-, things I’ve struggled with my entire life is, like, how do I connect more deeply with the people around me? I always long for human connection with the people around me, and I kind of, like, didn’t know how to get it. And in the past couple years I’ve really learned about, you know, being, approaching people with a curious mindset and being vulnerable, and how that drives human connection. And to me that’s, you know, maybe a little bit the more interesting thing than like… I used to be in the world of ideas of, like, “What are you doing?” Like, “What, what are the cool things you’re doing? “what, you know, what’s your startup, whatever?” And now that I’m connecting a little bit more on a human to human level, I think that’s, that’s kind of what I want to make this about.

Yeah, I saw your Fee…, I read your Feeling Good, uh, uh post and you’re kind of, um, letting your mind, letting yourself naturally compliment people, observe things about them, highlight things. And that’s incredibly unusual, right? Like people don’t do that. But it, it creates that connection.

Yeah, it’s, it’s kind of weird that it’s unusual, right? Because in our society where we, I mean we have, everybody’s out here longing for human connection with other people. The people around them. We have the most depressed society that we’ve ever had. I mean you’ve known this better than I do.

Yeah.

We’re, people are surrounded by people, and, and have so many mechanisms and means of communication with the people around them, and yet we feel as, more, isolated than ever.

Yeah. It’s true.

Why is that?

Yeah.

*It’s almost like we don’t, we’re not, we don’t learn. We’re not taught. And we don’t focus on the skills that help us connect with the people around us.

Yeah, I think that’s 100% right, man.

And yeah it’s not just this thing. It’s, it’s not even really just the social skill development. It’s like, we’re talking about, it’s like all those systems that are, we just don’t have the space to, to connect in a lot of ways. And, and we don’t have the scaffolding, or the skills to do it either.

Surpluses (47:30)

Yeah. I want to double click on that, actually. Like, how do you think that happens? Like, how do we? Why? Where do, are we lacking the space to connect with the people around us?

Um, I think, you know, I was—this is funny—I was, so, we can edit this out if this is…, but I was, I was thinking about, you know, I was telling my wife about you. And, you know, your your story. And the the new app and, um, how you had said, you know, you, you, you kind of got to the end of the road and it just wasn’t that interesting. Um, you know, maybe it was interesting for a little while but then to stop being interesting. Um, and it just wasn’t nourishing. And then all these other things are like really nourishing.

And so I was trying to figure out, like, what is the, how do we consolidate? Um, because, you know, I don’t think it’s like completely designed. I think a lot of it’s unintentional. But we find ourselves not in a great place, uh, as humans, right? As humanity. And so I was trying to figure out what is the right, what is, like, a simple framework to, to kind of diagnose the global problem. And then, what is the, what is the simple framework that might highlight new systems? Um, so I spent, like, I don’t know, the morning, thinking about that. Uh, to try to consolidate it. Um, and I don’t know if it’s great or not, but it’s, uh, it’s, it’s like an MVP of, kind of, like the beginning of an idea around it, I think.

So what is it I want to hear it!

So the basic idea is, is like, um, the, the, the broader, the, the first part is, like, “Hey, there’s all these surpluses, right?” So, right, right now in your life you have a a surplus of, let’s call it, it’s wisdom, right? So you, because not many people have done all that you’ve done, and, and, and, and of the people that do, almost nobody talks about it honestly, right?

You see glimpses. Like I remember at YC, and, you know they they bring the folks in every week and some of the, some of them are folks that are successful in the past, some are people that are successful, you know, now, and sadly some some of the folks, and I remember. This is 2013. I remember sitting there, it’s like you’re a bill…, you’re a billionaire! And you’re sad! And it’s, like, in, and you know yourself, kind of blows the mind. It blows the mind. It’s like, how? It’s like, how can you have this magnitude of success? And, and, and what was even worse about it was you could hear them comparing themselves with other people, still. It’s like the relative wealth thing. Like…

Yeah.

I have five million dollars but I’m poor because all my friends have 10 million. It’s like, I’ve been this successful but I feel bad about myself because I’m not that successful.

And no one ever believes it will apply at the next phase of their wealth or success.

Exactly, yeah, yeah.

It’s like a terrible video game, right? It’s like, “No, keep playing, keep playing, keep playing.” Um, but anyways, you have this, you have, what I’m saying is you have, it’s wisdom. But it’s… It’s a discreet form of startup wisdom, doesn’t quite capture it, because it’s broader than that, but it’s, it’s a… So that is your surplus now. There are few people that have that surplus. And now you’re using this podcast, so there’s a bunch of people like me, and other people that are in the startup, or business, or entrepreneurial life, life game. And we have these open questions. We have these needs. These, these, these ideas. And you’re connecting your startup wisdom surplus with founders, so you’re building a bridge between those things. And it’s free. It’s at no cost.

Yes.

And, and I think… So when you think about this societally, there are surpluses all over the place. So, like, Wikipedia, I think, is the best example.

Right.

Shirky, Clay Shirky called it the cognitive surplus. You have all these very smart people that have mastery of all kinds of content domains, and then you have all these people asking questions and looking for information. And so, Wikipedia was a bridge that unlocked the cognitive surplus, uh, habitat for humanity. You have a carpentry surplus. If people that need homes, you have a carpentry surplus, and you match up the carpentry surplus with the people that need homes, and you get homes. Um, AA, you know, people that are, uh, further along the path of coping with alcoholism, people that are just starting the path, and you unlock that surplus of helping people.

Um, I think there’s all, like, the… I was just talking to the friend, Ryan. He was talking about the the app that, um, you know, people that can see, so somebody’s, you know, who’s blind can say, “Hey, help me see this.” And then they, you know, put, put the app around so there’s a vision surplus. There’s, like, all these amazing surpluses. But this, the, the systems we have are not lined up to unlock those surpluses and match them up with the people who have the needs.

Well, in a way the Internet is kind of like that, right? The Internet is that connectivity layer that has allowed all of these marketplaces for various surpluses to get, to create liquidity around the surpluses. Like eBay is an example where people can, you know, have a bunch of stuff [in] their attic, they can sell it. Other people who want it can buy it, and that was a marketplace that never existed before.

100%, I think, that’s, I think, it’s exactly right. And it’s like, so the, so the, um, the, the goods or the services that are free and really helpful to solving other people’s problems. I think in terms of these new systems, I think that’s the liquidity that we need to open up, uh…

The DDOS attack (53:07)

Right, and we’re in the process of discovering new marketplaces to release, unlock, liquidity.

Yes, yes. So the, yeah, so, so to get to the, the, this, the my attempt at some kind of framework on this was, what if we think about team humanity? Uh, and what if we’re under, like, some kind of DDOS attack, right? So, like, the, the, in the, D the first D is “Denial”. So we’re, like, in kind of collective denial about the magnitude of our challenges. And in the mental health space, you know, we’ve always been in kind of denial about how many people are struggling. But, you know, now it’s even more so. And you can really look at any, kind of, part of the world, you know. Obesity, depression rate, suicide rates. Like, like, there’s, ah, racism. There’s a lot of signs that things are not good, right?

Yeah.

So we’re, but we’re kind of in denial about it. And then the, the second D is like “Division”. Like we’re, we’re fighting with each other, when really we need to be coming together, to work together to solve these problems. Uh, the O is “Opression”. Uh, there’s all kinds of oppression. A lot of groups are oppressed. A lot more than others, but very few humans are are flourishing, right? There’s just, like, not a lot of people you can point to and say, “This person’s doing great.” Like, there’s, there’s a lot of people that are struggling.

And then the S, and this is probably the most controversial is, um, “Sociopathy”. And it’s small. There’s like, you know, uh, you know, sociopaths are are overrepresented in some leadership circles. And let’s say 97% of leaders are not sociopathic. And they’re, you know, they’re really good people. They’re kind. Everything else. But there might be some percentage of people that have less remorse and empathy, that are, you know, leveraging, having more of an impact, uh, in a negative way. And…

Yeah.

And they might not in… And then there might even be systems that are set up that have more, you know, predatorial outcomes th an, than are designed on purpose, but just kind of evolve that way. And so, like, you think about, like, the food industry. So, like, we have a obesity epidemic in the US, and it’s like “Okay, everybody only has one stomach, but we need to grow the number of stomachs, so, we make all this food that’s addictive to to get people the equivalent of two stomachs.” And, and I don’t think there’s, like, a, you know, an evil character in Kellogg’s, you know?

Right, the evil mastermind who’s saying, “This is the way to, like, increase obesity in the world.” It’s just a natural incentive due to the way humans are.

Exactly, exactly, and… Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, one of one of the core kind of ideas behind, I guess, the way I want to live now is, is that, you know, human beings are running this model in their heads from a resource scarce environment.

Right.

Like, you know you, when in the resource scarce environment of, like, humans involved in, you wanted as much food as possible, especially calorically dense, you know, um, food. And so sugar is like amazing, right? If you can get sugar you want to eat as much of it as possible.

Um, in the resource rich environment, like, resource abundant environment that, no, those running that algorithm doesn’t make sense anymore. But we’re still running it. And so, that’s why you have this, you know, incentive to put sugar in everything. And then, um, you know people get, make up, that you have this massive obesity epidemic.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it’s, it’s not really, it’s, yeah, it’s not a, it’s not an incentive… It’s an incentive problem, but it’s not it’s not malevolent. It’s a, it’s kind of not something that’s naturally evolved. And, and the consequence of everybody running this outdated algorithm, um, and then, you know, having this emphasis on short-term thinking.

Yeah, 100%. And I think you can make that argument in a whole bunch of domains where things are hoarded, you know. Not, not just, right, like it was a sure, it was a shortage, you know. So…

Information would be another one with, you know, Twitter and Facebook. And, you know, information used to be scarce. There wasn’t a lot of it. You wanted to know everything that was going on around, around you. And then, now, you know, there’s infinite information and it’s very addictive. And so you can get lost down the, you know, rabbit hole in, in the Twittersphere. And all of a sudden you’re, you know, shitposting Trump memes.

Right!

Natural evolution of human beings.

ABLE organizations (57:40)

Right, right, exactly. So, so that, so that’s the, so to get to your point, like, why are we struggling with our connection? I, I think it’s because there’s, like, I think we’re under like some, you know, intentional, unintentional… It’s a multi-variable problem. It’s… But we’re under like a sort of DDOS attack. And then, I think we have to like, begin to figure out systems. Like, can in, like, 7 Cups, like, others that, that are different that, that provide new ways of, kind of, combating that, and growing more healthy responses. And so my my acronym for that is ABLE. ABLE organization. So they’re “Aware”. So, like, we’re not in denial about our problems.

Yup.

We, B, we “Build” new systems, because I’m not terribly bullish on our ability to overhaul the old systems. Um, we lead with humility, and humility doesn’t mean weak. You know, humble people are actually really strong. It, it just means you’re, you know, you’re, you’re “Listening”. You’re, you’re aware. You’re, you’re realizing you don’t know everything. And I think the last point is E. So, ABLE. And E is, um, we “Expect” more from one another.

I think, uh, humanity pre, uh, you know, it’s like we’re almost like kids, and we want these big institutions to be our parents and save us. And it’s like, they’re not gonna save us, you know. So it’s like we, it’s up to us to figure out and design new systems. And, and really go the extra mile and help one another, to begin to solve these challenges. So that was my attempt at, uh, you know, after our conversation, and thinking about ways to, um, capture maybe, a, an attempt at a framework. To say, like, was, it was, kind of, a good way of understanding the global problem. And then, what are some ways of maybe, uh, trying to solve it in a different way.

I like that. I like that. It puts the agency, you know, on ourselves to make a change in, in the world. And sometimes I feel like it’s, um, almost, like, a hopeless, or like a very daunting task, right? To, to, you know, you have all this momentum, uh, for humans, and human society. Think, you know, thinking very short term and running this outdated algorithm that you can’t really change, right? You can’t reprogram the human brain. Well, you can, but it takes a long time and a lot of effort, versus this, like, kind of, natural instinctive programming.

Um, and it seems a very daunting task to change. But having, having that framework maybe is a good first step to having agency. To feel like you can make a change in the world.

Well, I think with startups, like, I mean, if you think about Twitch, or really anything else, like… I think a lot of people that are not involved in startups, they don’t know the process of optimizing something. Like, that’s kind of a secret, right? It’s like, “How do you take you, walking around with your camera on your head, right, with Justin TV, and then to, to a billion dollar company?”

Like there’s a there’s ten thousand optimization steps in there. Probably more. Maybe a hundred thousand. Maybe three hundred thousand optimization steps. So it’s like, yes, it seems all these global problems we have, they seem like there’s no way, there’s no combination of variables, there’s no steps, there’s no metric board, there’s no, there’s nothing we can do to optimize and address those changes. It’s like, look, if, if a kid can take a video camera on his head… You know, I don’t know how old you were when you started. And…

Yeah, 23 years old

23, and that can evolve into that. Odds are we can figure out a lot of stuff. If, if we’re working together.

So there’s been a lot of negativity around the startup ecosystem, I think, from the outside world. As some of these companies have become giants, you know, like the Ubers and Amazons and Facebooks of the world. And people have, uh, maybe latched on to some of the downside consequences of these companies becoming really big very quickly. Um, do you still think that startups are the the solution to some of humanity’s biggest problems?

I think the vehicle of a startup is incredibly powerful. I, I mean I just, I, when you think about types of ways humans organize, right? Like, so you’ve got governments, you’ve got universities, you’ve got religions, you’ve got non-profits, you’ve got corporations, different type of corporations. You know, and some of the, and all of those are, yeah, I think in all those things there are, there’s tons of powerful ways that humans organize. Um, but the startups the YC particular training or whatever you want to call it, uh, way of thinking, I think is, is pretty powerful.

And and I think you can anchor those systems. So, like, the, the startup is, it’s just a framework. It’s just a mechanism the, the values that you anchor it to, or the things that you commit it to, will drive the trajectory.

Startups themselves are a little amoral.

They’re amoral!

And like it’s an amoral, it’s just a framework. And, uh, people forget that they tie the startup framework with maybe some of the negative outcomes they see. But, when, really, it’s, you know, the startup framework can be applied to any value set, starting value set, or problem space that you’re, you’re trying to tackle.

The money thing (1:03:09)

100%. So if you’ve, and that’s where I think that, that’s where I think, like, the money thing can get a little complicated. If, if, if the drive is towards constant shareholder growth, for more and more money, greater and greater revenue in terms of the, you know, these idea of ABLE companies, these new ways of unlocking liquidity, uh, with people that have got it, I don’t know if revenue first can be the driver.

So in the, in the value set of a startup design, to do social good in that way, I don’t know if revenue first, that’s a, that’s a strong anchor. And there’s in, that is, the, you know, there’s an ocean, there are several oceans behind that. So, so to design it differently, I don’t think that could be the first thing in that process. So it’s weird. It’s like, it’s like a startup vehicle that’s not revenue first.

Right, I was, I was actually talking to Brian Chesky from Airbnb about this a couple, maybe a couple months ago, where he was very interested in “Are there new ways to design a corporation, where you are putting other stakeholders first, you know?” Or maybe not first, but like, even considering the needs of other stakeholders?

Right now, it’s your fiduciary responsibility as a, you know, executive of a company, CEO of a company, to try to increase stake…, shareholder value as much as possible. That’s your job, and you’re actually obligated to do it. And so, um, his question was kind of at a corporate level. Was there, were there ways to, uh, I guess, right, and bake into the charter of the company that you are going to, um, consider different stakeholders. And I think that’s a really interesting question.

I do too. And I think the problem you’re trying to solve, like, for me in mental health, I don’t think you can solve it, but I don’t, I don’t think you’re gonna make an enormously big mental health company by being revenue first, because I think a lot of what you’re focusing on is helping people that are suffering. Human suffering. It’s a, I don’t think the route is, you know, like, like, there’s a lot of online therapy companies, which are great, and we do online therapy too. But like, we’re not gonna, there, there’s not enough clinicians in the world to, to solve all the challenges.

Uh, there’s, there’s just, there’s too much demand. And there’s not enough people that that want to become psychologists, or social workers, or therapists, or counselors, to do that. So you have to work with a, you know, a very big volunteer, you have to train regular folks to help one another out in order to do that.

So I, I think there’s ways to justify that and say, if you want to make a really significant impact in the world, and have a big organization, or a big company, you have to do those things in different ways. So, like, Chesky… The first Airbnb I stayed at was at YC. Awesome lady her name was Carol, um, she had a little house in Mountain View. She was a single mom.

It was, it was like completely unusual to me. Like I’d never done it before. She wasn’t home when I got there, you know. And it was great the next morning. We got up to, she had breakfast and it was like, it, you could see immediately this was a lady who was struggling to make ends meet. And here was a, you know, she had an extra bedroom, and she was able to, like… So I don’t know. I, I think in his model there are a lot of people that he’s, that he’s helping where they’re helping. You know, it’s a giant, I know it’s a giant company now that they’re helping that could be… You could probably make a relationship between “This is how I’m helping all these individuals” and “This is how it’s also good for the bottom line.”

The customer value ethos (1:06:44)

Right, right. So do you think, um, then I would ask, like, do you think it, you have to enshrine it in a corporate document? Or does it, is it sufficient that you have values as an organization that, uh, you know, put certain stakeholders first, right? Like one of the big values in YC companies is like talk to your customers, right? Like, they build for your customers. That’s something that, uh, Paul Graham, when he started YC was, you know, kind of enshrined in, like, you beat the drum of, like, talk to your customers to every YC company. And that’s really part of ethos now. And many of you know almost all YC companies that are successful start by really trying to provide a lot of value to their customer base. Um, do you think that’s sufficient, or do you need something else, right? To make an ABLE company, do you need to do some other set of things in the beginning?

I don’t think all of this is super intuitive, and I don’t think it’s all the way figured out yet. So I think any kind of, uh, I, I mean I think it’s excellent to have your values down and have them be real, like real, like actually real, and then have your customers, you know, or your users, or for, in our case, our community, like, they can really call you on it if it’s not real.

So I, I think it’s more like, like, yes. Definitely, explicitly identify all those things in whatever ways you can. But then I think it’s, like, really create the culture that is those things. Like the culture, uh, is the implicit outworking, like, so like they, you know, you have this, you have this kind of wisdom, now, that’s a part of you. You’ve earned it. Like it’s integrated into the fabric of who you are. You’re not all of a sudden gonna start behaving in a way that’s anti-what we’ve been talking about, because it’s in you.

Right.

And so I think in the culture of the, the company and in the team, and the people, and the community, and the clients, there has to be, like, an ecosystem where it’s like these ideas are not, like, on a wall. They’re, they’re, like, in our hearts.

Right, they’re a lived set of ideals and, and values. And I think that often, for my observation, is that younger founders, or new founders, um, are, are too busy. They don’t focus on that in the beginning, right? They don’t enshrine a specific set of values. They’re not thinking, uh, exactly, like, what kind of company do we want to build? Um, they’re just thinking of survival. They’re like, okay, I want to build a company that exists, right? Like that’s almost, you know, the first, the primary thing in their minds that they care about, which, you know, makes sense in a lot of ways, because you might not have the luxury of of the mental space to think about the future, you know, some of the times when you’re you’re starting a startup.

And the consequence of that is that the values enshrined in the company are random, right? They’re the values that maybe they’re, they’re their own personal values or their, those of their co-founders and early employees. And some of them are probably good, and some of them are maybe not so good. Um, but that, those types of behaviors and priorities get perpetuated throughout the existence of the company, and eventually, you know, very quickly, actually, it becomes too late to change it, right? It’s, uh, you, your, you know, nimble speedboat has become a cruise ship in terms of the direction that you’re heading. And, um, on, from a values perspective it’s very hard to change and try new values. And so you, the companies, end up with values that are representative of, kind of, this early accident, some of which are usually pretty pretty good if the company’s successful. Um, and many of which may not be very deliberate.

I think that’s a great metaphor. Yeah, and then you, you end up, yeah, and then it’s like too big to change, like you can’t adjust it. And it’s, yeah, and it’s, and I’m sure upon reflection, and I think it’s a very good point, like, I think of 7 Cups a lot like a child. Like, I’ve got four kids. I’ve, you know, you know my youngest, um, just turned eight. 7 Cups just turned seven, um, which is oh, you know, old from, from this kind of perspective. But, um, it’s like early on. It is like a kid in the sense that you’re just, you know, you’re not sleeping. You’re just trying to keep the wheels on the thing, you know. And like, you can’t, you, it’s hard to have the bandwidth to be able to think about those higher level things in that. But yeah, I think it, I think it is super important to do it.

The kid metaphor is probably right, because, I think a lot of parents, you know, want to do their best, but they’re so busy with the, you know, day-to-day working at your job and trying to make ends meet that it’s easy to maybe do things that are short-term, you know, good. Like give your kid the iPad, or something, to, like, entertain themselves, when you wouldn’t if you had more time and space. You might not want to make those choices, that might lead to, like, downstream consequences when the kid is 5, 8, 10 years old, or an adult. So how can you help people make those trade-offs differently? Like, when you’re, you know, especially in a startup, you know, you’re, you’re, you might want to have, think about your values, but you might be too worried about, like, are you going to be able to make payroll next month?

Imagine your funeral (1:11:52)

Yeah. There’s an interesting exercise you can do with individuals. Have you ever done this end-of-life exercise, where you imagine yourself at your funeral? Have you ever done this?

Oh, I have. I don’t know if it’s a… I’ve done it. Not necessarily. I didn’t hear about the exercise from anyone else, but about a year ago I thought about my, I actually read this book by Frank Ostasesky called, um, oh man!, I’m blanking on the name of the book, but he was a, um, ran the SF Zen Hospice for 20 years, and sat with like over a thousand people dying. And then, this was all the things he learned from the dying.

Um, I read the book, and I was very moved by the book. And I, it made me think about, like, what would I, what would I think of when I was dying? What would I, who would I want to see? And what would I tell them? And I actually went through the process of writing it out. And I went, and, to most of those people and I just said, “Hey this is what I, I was thinking about my own death, eventually, and what I would say, and who would, who do I want to see, and what I would want to say to them, and, uh, you were on the list, and here’s here’s what I want to tell you.”

I said, I thought why would I want to wait until I die, or I’m dying?

That’s super powerful.

I might as well just tell it to you now. And so, you know, for a lot of people was, “I love you and I’m grateful for your, our relationship.” Um, for some people was, “I’m sorry that I’ve let you down in these ways.” Um, but it’s really a meaningful exercise for me. I don’t know if that’s where you were, but…

No, no, no, but I think that’s an awesome idea. I mean, if you ever wanted to write that up and share that, I think that’s novel. I’ve not heard that. It’s almost like a lot of people wait to give all their money away until they’re dead, right?

Right.

And it’s like you’re giving away emotional money, right? Like interpersonal kindness. Like, like maybe I would write a, maybe you’d write a letter. Like my mom wants to write a book that we give, you know, she gives to the grandkids. But like, yeah, you’re just saying, like, there’s no reason for me to wait. Let’s, um, give it to you now.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it’s a good thing. Yeah, that’s a very cool idea. Um, and I’ve not heard of that. This, this exercise is where you are. You’re dead, so you it’s like a whole hypnotic process. But it’s like, you know, okay, you’re driving down the street. Um, you see, you know, your family and friends. Uh, you know they’re all parked along the side of the road. They’re going into a building. You’re curious. They can’t see you for some reason, but you can see them. They look sad. They’re all dressed in black. You go in the building. You follow them down this long corridor, take a left. You go into a room. There’s all kinds of people there. You walk down the center aisle, um, and there’s a casket in the front. And you look on the casket, and it’s you. And you’re 80, 90, 100, 110—however old you imagine you’re gonna be when you die.

So you’re, like, “Wow! This is really curious! I’m, I wonder what’s going to happen?” So you take, take a seat, and then, you know, your partner, if you’ve got one, comes up and says four things about you. Uh, if you’ve got kids one of your kid comes up and says three or four things about you. A co-worker says three or four things about you. And, um, some, some kind of non-profit or impact organization you’re involved with, they come up and say four things about you. And the idea is that this is your compass in life. So, rather than a clock which is like, you know, the tyranny of the urgent, whatever is urgent, we’re scrambling, which is like, I think, we’re talking about being a startup. But in your own personal life this is, if you live, if you begin with the end in mind, and you say, and I think a lot of this is Stephen Covey stuff.

But if you end up, if you say, “This is where I’m going. This is what I want people to say when I die.” You’re gonna have a pretty meaningful and fulfilling life along the way. And, and it kind of helps course correct you. It, you know, it’s like a compass, where it’s like, okay, “Hey I’m, I’m over here and I’m making a ton of money here”, or whatever. Or now I’m, uh, I’m getting accolades but it’s like, that’s, not, I don’t care if at my funeral anybody’s gonna say…

He made the most money.

“He made the most money!”, you know, or whatever, it’s a big deal. Like, none of that matters. So it’s like, can you can kind of get back on, you know, back on track? So it’s almost the equivalent of, that for a company. It’s like, not that, you’re dead, but like, let’s say you’re ultimately successful. What do you want? And I don’t know who the stakeholders would be, but what do you want? You know, you, you sell the company, or it’s, it’s, maybe, maybe it’s better like, it’s, it’s a fully mature, high functioning company, and it’s, it’s everything that you imagine it to be, you know. What do you, what do these people say about it?

You become a Fortune 500 company. What do the employees say? What do the customers say? What do people write about in the press? All of those things.

Yeah. What are the people who love you say? What are the people who don’t love you say?

Yeah.

You know.

That’s, that’s interesting. That’s a fascinating exercise.

It’s, it’s, it’s really good. I’ve done it a bunch of times. I’ve done it, I did it with people on my team and, uh, other parts of life, and it’s just anchoring. Because it’s so easy, you know, in a startup or just, like, in life in general, to be running, running, running, running, running, and, and not have that space to reflect.

I want to try that. Actually, if I, like, organizationally, I think that’s an interesting organizational exercise. I’d love to, I’d love to try. As I, you know, think about new, or build new organizations, or, you know, starting off with that, it seems like, uh, I mean it, can’t hurt.

Yeah, it can’t hurt, yeah. Yeah, and it doesn’t, it seems pretty low risk.

Yeah.

Hey, thanks for this awesome conversation. It was really good, uh, talking with you. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for telling, helping me tell, my story. Thanks for telling your story, and for continuing to do this so that other people can hear stories that, uh, I think provide a map, permission…

[music]

…freedom, humility, uh, and, and, uh, courage.

Thanks, Glen, and thank you for, for being here and being so open with me. That’s a lot of fun. This was awesome.

Okay, that was my conversation with Glen Moriarty. I hope you guys liked it.

One of the things I really loved about our conversation was how mission mission-driven Glen is in building something impactful for people in the world. It’s really a fundamental human need to be listened to, and something that we’ve all experienced. And, I, personally, am really fascinated by ways that we can use what we’ve learned in building technology, especially apps that can help people with wellness and positive behavior change on a daily basis. This is something that I’m really interested in. I think there’s this huge opportunity to improve human life through tech on an unprecedented scale today, but really only if we focus on it, and so I’d love to encourage more entrepreneurs out there to do so.

So I hope you guys enjoyed the podcast. If you like it, you know the drill. Rate us 5 stars on iTunes and you can hit me back @justinkan on twitter with feedback or comments, or just say “Hey, I appreciated this!”

Love you all, and I will see you next week.