Conversation
Harvard & YC Insider: Backing the Builders in AI, Quantum & Defense — Matthew Sutton
Transcript
All right, Matt, thanks so much once again for making the time for us today. We are so excited to get to know you closely. I have a feeling you're one of the most underrated in Masters and under the radar. That's because when I started looking for you and searching for you, I was not really able to find so much yet. You have a stellar success story and life story. For us, do you want to get started by introducing yourself with your own words?
Sure. It's a pleasure to see you all today, and thank you for your kind words. So my name is Matt Sutton. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I'm a native of Massachusetts resident. Grew up in Western Massachusetts, attended a public college, UMass Amherst. And spent some years in politics. Along the way, my travels brought me after college to Oxford university, Trinity college, where I spent the summer there. And, um, and again, went into politics after that. I did that for a while. And in 1994, I, uh, I 92, I, uh, joined Columbia business school. I got a finance degree, went to wall street. It was very excited about doing that. And, uh, I got to work with a fantastic firm, Oppenheimer and company and see IVC world markets for. The better part of 12 years where I became a managing director and I had a chance to work with some of the most brilliant founder or investors at places like Fidelity and Wellington management company. And I learned how institutional money management worked. In 2007, I decided I would step away from working on Wall Street right, right before the recession. was unusual and unfortunate timing, but I joined a private equity firm that was buying industrial manufacturing companies. had known the founder through business school and he was a brilliant founder. And, ⁓ over the course of about, six years, we bought a half dozen industrial manufacturing companies. And through that, learned the whole process of, financing and purchasing companies, ⁓ working through a recession. learning about labor unions and how to work with other people in challenging environments and deal transactions. So that was a hugely formative experience for me. And then in 2012, I left that opportunity and thought I have some really interesting experiences, including in the political world. had worked in, again, in Wall Street. I had gone to business school and worked in private equity. And I thought if I could take all these skills and experiences and put them to use. in supporting early stage companies that I could provide some context and background about how to build a business from the ground up. so I set forth at that point in time. I did that. And from there, ⁓ I, along the way, was offered an opportunity to join Professor Randy Cohen, who was launching a class called Field X at Harvard Business School. So I'm not a professor. but I'm on staff and I've been there for 10 years, eight years, just about eight years working on staff. And Professor Cohen and I built that course together. And through that, we've had over a thousand students in our class, incredible founders that we've gotten to know very well over their life, lifetimes as they leave and move on to their next career or build their company. We've also had the pleasure of having people like Jason Kalkanis, Tim Draper. Kevin O'Leary, many other founders who will come in speak to the class. And then we will work with the students directly. So I've done that. I've also worked with Harvard Ventures, which is an undergraduate group focused on venture capital and entrepreneurship. And I've done some engagements where I've been a moderator, a keynote speaker at events on space media AI over at MIT. So I'm spread around a bit, but I am obsessed with entrepreneurship and I enjoy it thoroughly.
Mm. I think it's not difficult to tell that because if I take a look back at your background and the story that we also previously had talked about, you are curious and then you happen to have done so many different things in different ecosystems. If you just take them in a cluster base, like you were in finance and then you were in politics.
and then you're in academia, but you're so entrepreneurial across all the stages. And now finally you channeled it straight to the ultimate focus. Actually, that reminded me of you're probably also familiar with genres, machineries versus mercenaries. And now we've actually wrapped it up so nicely that when I take a look at you, really I see the same thing. When we start and we graduate, we are looking for a roof. to sustain ourselves and then we go, at least my story was similar. I just wanted to go abroad and I needed to sustain myself independently. So I'm more like a mercenary style, like I'm just going like a soldier. Okay, this is what I need to do. And then somewhere in the mid-career, like a few years later, you realize, ah, there must be something more than this. Then you turn into the missionary mode. And then towards another set of years passes and then you say, no, actually my craft is this. Is that correct? If I tried to explain your journey on a high level, would that be an accurate demonstration?
Yeah. No, that's, that's a great summary. I've, I've, enjoyed my life's journey. It's, it's not an easy path in the sense that, I think the easier path would have been to stay on wall street, to be paid well and working for a large organization. it was, something I was never totally comfortable with. I worked, I had a great set of bosses. had great people I worked with. many of which are still there. It just wasn't where I really felt like my deeper interest lied. And from the time that I was a kid, you know, I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I also liked making money. And I would do things like go to the local golf course and swim in the watering holes and pull out golf balls and sell them to golfers or shovel driveways or Sand floors or, you know, my best friend and I started floor sanding and that was our first company and we had so much fun. we, we didn't destroy anybody's house. We were like, we were like 12 or 13 years old. so we, so I, I've always been intrigued by, you know, how you build a business and how you have experience. And I think the, passion that I had was sort of suppressed a little bit because I wanted to.
follow a path where I could learn about finance and, you know, and you go through life and if you're afforded the opportunity to pursue something that you really love, that's a great gift. mean, there's a lot of people that will say that don't follow your, your dreams or your passions because it's a, it's a failing idea. And I disagree. I just think that you have to equip yourself with the tools and resources to move in the direction. that you may be able to help those ideas come to fruition. And so I've, I've moved towards that, but I'm still, I'm still learning every single day. And I just had a pitch pitch day for our students yesterday for field X, which is our, our class. had about 90 students presenting and it was amazing. And I learn every single semester and every conversation. it's really, it's great. And the amazing thing about entrepreneurship is. Although there are people who write books about it, something that is, it's an oral history and it's experience and failure and struggle. And it is not something that you can read like a cookbook that tells you what to do.
But also, if you take a look at the entire global ecosystems around entrepreneurship, you are in one of the top of the top of the ecosystem. Like literally, take it only from the university basis that Stanford, like if you take a look at all the numbers around how many unicorns, how many founders got funded and so on in the last decade. Stanford, number one. Number two, either Harvard or MIT, like head to head.
And if you take a look at this, how would you really position these differences between those ecosystem? What is this magic that, you know, those places have it? We can't replicate it anywhere else. perhaps like ⁓ Israel would be a little bit closer in terms of that innovative dynamics. But like other than that, I'm really curious to hear. How do you see this entire global map? Because you are working globally with multiple founders in different locations. And what are the nuances that we could maybe understand better through your hands-on experience?
Yeah, no, it's, it's such a great question. And I think a great deal about it. I'm actually missing ⁓ Y Combinator demo day, which is one of my favorite four days out of the year as I go and see some really amazing founders. it's a, it's like, if you think of analogy of wine, the varietal of venture capital that exists in San Francisco or the Bay area versus what it is in Boston or New York or Miami. It's all very different. And I think we tend to lump things in together. And as far as founders go, you know, it's interesting on social media, there's a lot of conversation about, know, which region has the best founders. And what I would say is without a doubt, a hundred percent, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, this area code, which has Harvard, MIT, and by the way, we've also got BU and BC, and we've got all these other great institutions here. Babson, Bentley, there's so much innovation, but on a per capita basis. I would say during the school year, we have greater throw weight than any other region in the world per capita. Now, that's a great place to find your peers, to find your tribe, to find people you want to build with. And it's not, I would say, assigned to a particular college, meaning Harvard or MIT or any other place. If you dissolve the sweaters everyone wears, it indicates which schools they're at. It's an aggregation of brilliant humanity that assigns itself to this one geographic place for a moment in time when people are in school. And I think. We are the best in terms of creating a great ecosystem to build in. think what we have fallen short on is really taking ideas and commercializing them. So I think that's where California has done a great job, particularly in the Bay area. and again, the folks at Y Combinator or, you know, South Park commons have built incubators and accelerators with a
curate really amazing founders and they help them to build and commercialize. So it's really, it's almost a two step step process. There's, there's still great VCs in Boston, but I would say, you know, in terms of raw material, talent, community, this is the best place to build. you know, there are other places like Stockholm, which is exceptional, but I think in terms of going to technologies, wall street. is not in New York, it's in the Bay Area. And the valuations are reflective of that. And it's hard work and expensive to build and live and thrive there, but you can really find fantastic VCs and communities there. And a lot of newer VCs that I know that were former students of mine are actually setting up small VCs out there that are helping empower these amazing companies as well.
Mm. In my experience, I haven't lived, but I have visited. Sometimes, you know, it's nothing that you can really explain in the books or on a poster or in the places. You need to go and stay there and spend time. And then because the information flow is so free and fast, like you get to interact with people much easier than any other places on the planet, because I have a feeling. Both innovative ecosystems have this give back mentality and all this pure genuine joy of exploring things together because they know that if I today have an exchange with you and I learn out of it and if I share what I know, like it is more like a equilibrium rather than competition or rather than, ⁓ if you do the same thing, I still have stuff to learn from you and you still have something to like, even if it is, let's say,
counterintuitive, but this is the vibe and the experience that I had collected over time. Also, like seeing the people as for who they are, not because of what companies they work for so far, because you never know. Like today I might be, let's say collecting garbage, but tomorrow that might be just for me to, you know, bring the food to the table. But tomorrow I might learn something on the site and then just take it away.
this incorporating individuals to this existing environment is also the art of it rather than who were born and raised there. But also if somebody comes from outside, they also really integrate those individuals as if they have been a part of this organism. I kind of see it like an organism that is my arm, legs. I can't just tear them apart. Am I talking too much right now? But I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.
Mm-hmm. No, no, mean, this is important. It's really important. think one of the things that I think is really interesting is that I've come to this conclusion that, you know, it's not about clubs that you join. It's about just the human experience. think that that's I've always been obsessed with the right brain, the creative artists, music, curating art shows, things like that have always drawn my attention. And and when it comes to founders, they're artists. Right. mean, people who are technical and, I'm always looking and saying, I'm, following this path of I want somebody who's technical first. Who really understands not just, have an idea, but how to build it. But what I also believe is that it's not, it doesn't matter which school you're at or a club that you're in because building is done in a dorm room with other people who are of like mind working into the middle of the night until you're exhausted.
because you're not necessarily pursuing something that has a monetary value in that moment. You're in a human experience of exploration and creativity that's really dynamic. And it thrives with bad pizza in a dorm room, staying up late at night, and building and failing and building and failing and iterating, and then hopefully finding your way. And so I think when I...
when I interact with, or whether it's with graduate students, undergraduates, business school students, it is a common dynamic that you see firsthand. And you can see where it's natural and where it's almost contrived, where people are trying to force themselves into building an idea. And it's almost uncomfortable to see.
Given the number of high-caliber founders and future founders that you have been interacting on a day-to-day basis, actually you are on the very high end of the spectrum because your interactions are already by default higher than the entire global average. Then how do you assess those initiatives?
the team of people they are talking to about the ideas that they're gonna bring to life. it's interesting when I take a look back at your portfolio again, they are insanely technical things and they are mostly like constraint driven. Like let's take a look at Star Cloud. They remove the constraint of Earth and then and they do the math, they try to do the physics, but at the same time,
there's like quantum computing ones or defense ones. they, how do you find your way when you interact with those founders? And then at the back, still, what is your mechanism to validate? Yep, that makes sense. Or is mostly, because I always see it's founder, the team who is building it. And what are you building to do what? Like what values are coming into the humanity?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. Now that's another good question. so what I do is I operate independently. I don't have a fund. just manage on behalf of my own family. And I have, I have, but I have people I partner with and collaborate with. So I'm not, I'm not technical. Like many VCs are, or angel investors offer, you know, a background in, ⁓ computer science or machine learning or engineering. I don't have that. And what I've done is I've spent the entirety of my professional career around founders and builders. And what I first start off with, there are certain areas that I believe like the world's going through a big, what I call the big defrag. It's like a defragmentation of all of these industries, healthcare, finance, online sports betting and media and entertainment. So What used to be illegal in cannabis and sports betting is now legal in some areas, right? Prediction betting didn't exist. Now it exists, you know, and all of these things are living in dynamic. and so what I do is I try to find a few. I will develop a thesis about a particular industry that I have an interest in. an example was like, ⁓ online sports betting was a area that became legal.
⁓ I got plugged into a company called simple bet that was started by a repeat founder, Joey Levy. he and Scott Marshall and Chris Bevilacqua started that company and trying to bring, sports betting into the public domain. And they had to go state by state. And meanwhile, there are larger players out there that were really dominating the space. So they found a niche and then Joey Levy went off to go start another company with Jake Paul called better. which is really a sports media company doing really well. And, you know, as I went through that, the first data scientist at SimpleBet in that first investment was a former student that I knew, Varun Sriram, who was at Harvard. And he was able to
provide me with some insights about the technology. And as the first data scientist, he was instrumental in really building and defining that space. And because we had a previous history, I was able to come in as an early investor and advisor to that company, which was later bought out by DraftKings and then better still operating on its own and doing extremely well. you know, what I tend to do is I come up with a thesis. I dig deep into it. I, meet with a lot of people, help a lot of people. And along the way I may have an opportunity to invest in, a really amazing company. or what I'm doing more recently is advising companies. So, ⁓ I might get equity in a company for doing that. And that's, I've applied that to defense tech, to, ⁓ AI, there's a lot of other areas and. It's a great world to be in if you are easily distracted and obsessed with learning about new things.
The stuff that you are developing your thesis around are for some people overwhelming enough. Then I have a feeling you do genuinely enjoy that. Like you do genuinely enjoy looking into space, looking into quantum computing, looking into all the, all the companies in their very targeted domain and the problem that they are solving. That makes sense because you also try to see on a human level. don't think we lack technologies most of the time or we lack any capital on the street. There's enough capital to do anything. It always comes down to human beings. Who are those people trying to do this together? Would that be a good assumption if I tried to through your lens?
Yes. Yes. Yeah, no, the, the human experience, whether you're as a builder or I'm building a tribe, a community, I think we all do better when we work collaboratively. And, you know, I look back, um, I have a picture across me here of my father and his cohort, my late father, who was invited in 1975 to go work with a group of people on NASA to build, um, or do research related to, um, the first space colonization program. And when I was. You know, 12 years old, that was something that I was really fascinated by. And I, my, my study is filled with photos from that program. And, and while it didn't, that idea was not realized immediately and isn't still technically realized. Like the foundation of it led to a lot of advances in space. And now, you know, I've got former students of mine that are building, A program that's about to launch. It's going to be a really big deal with the great producer and a great former student of mine, Sri, who has partnered up with Richard Bram, who was a producer with James Cameron to talk about the future of space. And they're going to, and it's a whole area of work. And then, you know, I had the chance to, we connected through, ⁓ Philip Johnson and his work at star cloud and. You know, I'm obsessed with that. And there's a bunch of other things that I'm tied into as well there, but, know, getting back to this whole thing, they are all people who travel on a common path together. And again, whether it's in space or on earth, find ways to work as groups to realize brilliant ideas and bring them forward.
I will never forget my first interaction with you. You were unlike any other people. You pause and you said, tell me who you are. Like, what do you do? What do you enjoy? I did this because most of the times I had a feeling things started to get very transactional in the world that we live in. whenever you have an interaction, there's always like, okay, what is the input you give me? What is the output I can see? rather than hello human being who are you like what are your dreams like what are the things that really feel you and then you explained me about the pictures in front of you and then that also already started to again put into my mind you do value to the person in front of you first and then okay what does this person
Where does this person find the joy? Where does this person feels himself or herself productive and contributing back? I haven't really, can we just have a fun conversation? Like if I were to fundraise something, like probably the first question you would ask me would be more about me and then I would be what I am working on. Would that be right? ⁓
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think the the common theme that that I see and I believe in the other investors that I know that I really respect they always they always focus on the team or the founder. But I think going even further into that, you know, there if you if you listen to founders podcast, which David Sanra runs and is amazing. He's been to our class before and I think he's going to be coming back again. He studies the history of founders. And you know what you find is you see a human being in front of you, but there's a whole history of life and experiences, good and bad, that have led to that person being who they are right now. And if you don't understand where they're from,
Or the stresses that have motivated them, whether it's poverty or pain or suffering. Again, just like studying an artist, great artists are often people who have very complicated life histories. You can't completely start that conversation. So I think it's a good precursor to think about, you know, I always say, you know, where were you born? Who else was in your family? What were your sports or hobbies or interests? And where did you go to college? And. I just had a student from Kazakhstan who was talking with me about his company and I don't know much about the country. And so I'm always learning about new places and new things that people are from and what they're up to.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing I would say is finance by its nature is very transactional and very zero sum. And if you just start with the principle of we're putting a deal together and we're doing a transaction or I'm investing in your company, it's just a very superficial rap. Like I like the idea of if I'm going to invest my time in you, if Even if I'm never going to invest in you, I'm never going to advise you, but I'm just going to invest my time in this relationship. You know, for me, it's really important to understand who you are and what motivates you and what inspires you and how I can help. there may never be a transaction that ever comes, but I know one more person. And if I can help them along the way, it just, it fills a place in my heart that makes me feel complete as a human being. And again, that didn't. That really didn't exist too much, you know, when I worked on Wall Street, it was, it was very distant. and I think, I, I hope in the future, people are a little bit more in tune with that because, you get to know people in a very different way.
But so far, we kind of covered the upper part of the curve in your stories. then is there any moment that, because you mostly are a city investor, when I take a look back, when I take a look back to your portfolio, is there any story that you can share with us that came to your desk? Actually, I know one of them, but I will let you say that you passed on it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I have I have several scars on me, but, everything is a learning. But I had the chance to meet one of the founders of cursor when he was ⁓ just a month Sanger before he started at MIT. It was just a brilliant, wonderful, nice person. ⁓ I met him at the British open. son plays squash and he was playing squash. got to know each other. We've been, we've been friends for years and, along the way we had a lot of meetings and, you know, just supported him as a person, met his whole team, great people. And what was amazing about that group of people, there were four or five people that were constantly working. had a consulting firm. They had a 3d software company, which I was actually invited to invest in. and I always felt like AI was always the, the true calling for Amman. And I didn't know the rest of this group as well, but this is well before any sphere and cursor, you know, came out to, ⁓ to, to become what it's become. And, yes, if I had. had the foresight to invest in that 3D software company, it would have been amazing, but I didn't. And Amman is still one of my dear friends and we spoke just a couple of weeks ago and just one of the most exceptional people I've met. I'm excited to see how he's doing. So it's great. You have to learn and learning isn't always easy, but you
You can't go back and change the past. mean, we had Mike Maples from floodgate in our class recently. He was talking about passing on an opportunity and, ⁓ you know, I related to that experience because you never forget those experience. are like, they are like scars on your, on your forearm that you can look at and remember. But what it does is it tells you to, in this case, Not just assume that when you're investing in an early stage company, that that idea is fully formed. may change and modify itself and evolve and grow and transmute into something completely different. And that, and again, that's what happened with cursor, but you know, there are other companies I've, I've made different mistakes with, in the case of cursor, like I just knew that group over the course of four years. And they never got real big backing here in Boston, but when they went to California, they connected with a lot of people and that's where the company really took off. so it's one, one big learning. And if you, if you get too hung up on the things you didn't do right, you're going to miss what's right in front of you. And what's right in front of you is something new and different. It's like, it's like a meditation that you have to. Acknowledge, learn from, and then come back to your center.
I actually like that. Then how about the sort of engagements you had or investments you had? The outcome was successful, but your reasoning was actually not quite, how we say, spot on, but still, name it intuition, name it gut feeling, and you nevertheless went for it. Do you have anything similar to that scenario?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, this is a great question also because back around 2015, 2016, I had the pleasure of having my first experience at Harvard Business School. I was just volunteering time at that point. And when my of my Student groups graduated. was Edomar Zur and, Matt Graham and they were two great students and they started a company called VHOP, which was last mile delivery. And, ⁓ along the journey back then, you know, Uber was around and Lyft was around. And, ⁓ my colleague, Randy said, you know, doesn't Uber do last mile delivery and, Edomar who is the CEO of the company said yes. And. He said, but we'll do it better. He's like, he's got a good ego. And then, ⁓ and then, ⁓ and then he said, well, how are you going to proceed and how are you going to compete? And he said, I'm going to, I am going to do a thousand deliveries and learn how this business works. And he's like, and you've got an incredible will. And he actually, that was, that was it. I mean, his idea was. Conceptually good. but it was really a chance to invest in support. And over the course of months, there were one of his co-founder and he moved on. And so itamar was still building and brought on another co-founder and then he left. And then there was a, you know, a period of time where there was a lot of other stuff going on running out of money. you know, the, every single thing, including the kitchen sink was thrown at itamar and Eda.
I remember him calling me one day. I was in a parking lot outside of New Jersey where I was going to a friend's house and he was like, money's running out. You know, like it was so bleak and, and he's like, I'm going to go through this. I'm going to fight right through this. And within a year and a half, he met Fred cook who became his new co-founder. COVID he, they actually benefited from. the changing in consumer activities and their business took off and now they're a unicorn and and they're growing massively. And ⁓ and Ida, I contact him all the time and I say, you come back and speak to our class. And he's like, no, I'm too busy, you know, eating the world. So he's he is. So for me, he was an example of somebody with a great idea about what he was going to do. And his will was. Like there was no one who who's worked harder at building their company I've ever met than him.
You only know if you live, if you only know if you go through, if you only really relate to those people, if you have been part of the story, like either by like being next to them or living together with them or as simple as you have your also personal versions of your stories. I assume that not everything every time was amazing at the top, right? Like we always have some moments when I said...
Ouch. What am I supposed to do now? Like, is this a sign I should pivot to another direction? Did you have this? think it was more like this. Like you came to, it's more like, okay, where's my craft? I think your craft question came in. This one, right? Because you looked, there's something bigger than this. There's something, the value function started to kick in. Hey.
Yeah. And I think, I think this actually goes back to something else that, that I, that I would reference against, is that, ⁓ my, my view of my role is to, not to be a shepherd, but a partner, a friend, guide. sometimes it's providing, tough love, ⁓ just to honesty, because there's not.
There's not any ill will in my body towards anybody that I work with. If, if I say that I'm going to help you, I'm going to help you. And whether I'm an investor or an advisor, I say, I'm just going to help you. You know, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to try to help you work through your issues because there's no, there's no, linearity in building a company.
It's hard. It's really hard for people. we hear about that all the time. Yeah, I mean, is an element of suffering that to be a founder is about the embrace of suffering and understanding suffering is it may be physical pain or emotional pain, but it is pain you have to see and work through rather than to avert your eyes because there's always going to be even with another success. There are more steps down along the way. And I think the key is to just try to be able to work with somebody. And what I try to do is I'm like, give them pause and step back and observe where they are open the aperture and step away from what you're doing. then. We refocus on the task at hand.
But Matt, at the same time, you are surrounded by quite ambitious people, high achievers. What do think your bias is in that set up? Because you have repeat founders that are amazingly successful and then they, here we go, we do another quantum product as an example. And at this moment, it's humanly so natural. to say, of course I'm going to just invest, of course I'm going to be a part of this. But then I have a feeling your deal flow is huge enough. And what is your filter? Like how do you apply your filter? In a way, it covers your very own blind spots at the same time.
Yeah. I my filter is I don't look just here in Cambridge or in Boston or New England or on the Northeast. I look wherever the opportunities are and find really interesting people, whether again, they're in Stockholm or Indonesia or Kenya or London or wherever it is. And, and again, I have a thesis on very particular spaces that I'm active in.
And I bring in people that know the technology a little bit more than my, if I have blind, those are my blind spots. But, ⁓ you know, what I really, what I tend to really lean into when I'm looking for, these founders is really people who are intellectually curious, like they could have all the money in the world and all the success in the world. And, and I always say to them, You have, you have 10 seconds to answer this question. If you weren't doing what you're doing right now, what would, what would be your next company? And the really good founders always know what that next company would be. And so there's, there's a real zeal for people who are great builders. Like, I, met, Chad Rigetti, ⁓ and a Dalia who, ⁓ started a Segaldry, which is AI or a quantum computing company, really trying to solve the issue of the physical limitations of AI compute. And he was presenting with 140 other people at Y Combinator. And I met with him after. And I saw his last name. I'm like, this guy is, this is like the Thomas Edison in this particular domain. And
He was not surrounded by people. There were a lot of people enchanted by a lot of other companies and we had a great conversation. They're building their company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And I have no idea what his financial successes have been or Adelio's financial successes are. I do know that if he built and sold this company or tuck it public and his brain would bring him back towards building the next. thing and, I finding people like that is, is the most extraordinary thing. And you see that. again, looking at thousands and thousands of founders over time, you begin to sort of see these signals and it's the signals, the really super early stage signals that are what I look for. don't look for, mean, I, I invest in some other companies that are.
You know, well along their way, like I was not an early investor in, you know, in anthropic. That was me. Just, this is an incredible company. ⁓ I don't chase a lot of these things, but my, my intuition is to focus on very early stage founders where the company hasn't even shown up on any VCs radar because their idea hasn't come into form and doesn't have a financial model tied to it. There's a lot of people that talk about.
⁓ Heretical thinking, and in other words, trying to see something that is beyond human comprehension that no one else really understands. And like polymathic AI is an example of that. And you, you look at these type of companies and they, they're, they're just a long way away from generating any revenues. But I have all the time in the world to sit and talk and work through that.
with those founders and I, and I relish that space. It's a, it's a long journey before there's a monetization event, but it's, you know, if you're, if you're willing to sit with somebody a long time and work with their, with their, their ideas, I mean, like that, that really is, is unique. It's a good spot to be in for sure.
Thanks for this. So on some, on one hand, those are the outliers. But on the other hand, there are certain patterns, even among, even if you call them outliers, but there are some certain nuances that you can catch when you speak to them. It's not like everyone has A, B, D, but some has A, the other C. But I think the common denominator would be safe to say this drive and commitment, like coming little bit off.
unearthly, where you're not like, yeah, would like to probably get work some people too. But the ones that you're backing are not around the ARR, MRR, or when am I going to exit this company? They are more after, I love this space. I messes cognitively so much into this. I want to shift this problem and then make seriously happening during my lifetime when I'm alive. Like not after that.
Lovely to meet you, Matthew. So through this segment, I'll just kind of run through a few questions that we have from people in the audience. And the goal is to try and have a little bit of a flow so that it ties together somewhat. And hopefully we don't also kind of double up on things that you may have already answered throughout the...
throughout the podcast so far. So I think the question I have that kind of takes on some of what you've said so far is you're not geographically restricted in where you're looking for opportunities. In terms of how they avail themselves to you, is that because people from those kind of various areas are coming into that kind geographical location around you, so that's how you're getting introduced? Or is it how do you find those potentially more obscure or more geographically dispersed founders outside of that to give you that edge.
Yeah, thank And it's great to connect with you, Cameron. ⁓ So the thing that I found is when I go to my class, everybody is there from all around the world, from every continent, from every country. It's just incredible. it's really the most wonderful thing about ⁓ the academy or being in an academic institution is that you get a chance to meet with people from various backgrounds. ⁓ And sometimes, you'll find somebody who will write a cold outreach. I got ⁓ an outreach from a freshman at Harvard last year and was working on what I would refer to as polymathic AI, trying to use unconventional tools for doing things like examining ⁓ weather patterns, climate change, but also tools that could be used for hedge fund trading. He and his brother started this company and had been working on it for seven years, but now because of the changes in AI, these tools have become much more dynamic and their work has become much more ⁓ in demand. And I've been, you know, advising them for about a year now ⁓ and their company is called sometime AI and they're based in London. And I talked to the founder, ⁓ Aude once a week, sometimes several times a week. And, know, they're, they're building away and there are no restrictions on what we're doing. ⁓ I also had a chance to meet with, ⁓ Ella, Pinovich who started a company, ⁓ a jewelry company that was based out of, Kenya, Africa. She had gone to MIT, but she and her partner. Started a company, built it, and she moved on from that company at some point and then started a company called powered by people with Hedwig Alexander, ⁓ and Alison Phillips and Hedwig was from Denmark. Alison's from Toronto and they wanted to basically create a global marketplace for artisans to be able to produce products at modest scales and then be able to ship them from places like Kenya or India, you know, or, know, or Africa and India. ⁓ You know, the, the far East, wherever it might be, to sell their products to, domestic retailers. And so there's been no real barriers on that, but I've, I've worked with them for almost 10 years now on building this platform that has changed so dramatically, but their narrative is no different than any other company. They, they have built with great strength and fortitude and ⁓ evolve their model in such a way that they've been able to really begin to accelerate at a time where retail is a little bit wobbly right now. And there are, just a fantastic team of people. So, I do have people give me a cold outreach. have, ⁓ also traveled to various places. ⁓ I was going to, tell you that I'm also going to, ⁓ Panathena, which is a. conference that's going to be taking place in Athens, this summer in May. And that's a collection of curators and musicians and technologists and people from all around the world who are meeting in that location and will be communing over, you know, dinners and wine and being out in nature and just speaking to one another and discussing what is waiting for us in the future and how we can be relevant to that.
Thank you. I think that's really useful to... We have a few questions that kind of tail off that a little bit, so I'll come onto those in a second. In terms of... Obviously you're very tied to academia with your current roles. Is there a common or a specific thread that you see where... with the relation to academia, people having to unlearn academic traits as they're moving into kind of building and founding. think when we spoke to Brendan, Brandon from one of our previous kind of episodes, he mentioned that there's, there can be quite a big shift when you go from the PhD mindset to suddenly having to build a company and ⁓ develop from there.
Yeah, it's, it's very interesting. So, like I said, I, I've been helping to lead this course on entrepreneurship for 10 years. And, and what I, what I see is there's such a, there's such a history at this institution and we are sharing a lot of knowledge and intelligence, but you know, when you, when you launch a company, when you're starting a company, It is fundamentally a right brain creative endeavor. It is the intelligent is computer scientists working. is machine learning and it's trying to solve problems. And when you're in that space where you're building at certain points in time, it's important to begin moving left brain or operational functions into that. domain because you want to think about at some point, KPIs, how do we measure performance? How do we grow the company? But the fundamental idea of imposing academic structures on startups is a very awkward, and brittle concept. And in something that is rapidly changing in dynamic, sometimes it can, it can have an adverse effect. So. I try to work with my colleague, we try to work with people to think about how to oscillate and move between the creative and, for lack of a phrase, the academic or the more structured elements that try to operationalize or impose financial structures into these creative endeavors.
I'll ask Mario who has a question related to your investing in the defense sector The question that he had, which was repeated a few times among some of the colleagues that have joined the chat was, how do you decide which companies are worth backing in such a strategic and sensitive sector? and what you expand on that.
Yeah. So again, thematically what, what has gone on that's very interesting right now is that you have this military industrial complex that's been around for years and years and years. And these large companies that grew out of various war time structures have provided great defense for the United States and for other countries as well. But where, where we are right now is. we're moving through a period of time where the nature of ⁓ warfare and defense has changed dramatically. And as a result of that, we need to make different decisions about how we're allocating capital, how we're funding technology, and how we're innovating. And the current administration has been very aggressive about trying to bring forth new forms of innovation through things like the Golden Dome. ⁓ initiative, which is an underlying set of resources that are helping ⁓ new innovators move into the marketplace. And whether that's missile defense or it's AI or it's intelligence, or now as we look at things like ⁓ the genius mission or Genesis mission, rather, they are trying to put resources again behind quantum computing. And I think it's we're also going to be looking at areas such as ⁓ ransomware protection, cybersecurity and so forth. So there's a whole new world of companies that back in the old days, people would say, well, you know, the government's very slow and lumbering in terms of providing resources. And that's no longer the case. There is a lot of funding that's coming forward to build dynamic, flexible, ⁓ very resource driven ⁓ resource effective ⁓ platforms ⁓ in innovation in those spaces. So some of the companies that I've looked at around missile defense, ⁓ EPRS is one and ⁓ another one, Perseus was a company that I had a chance to meet with the founders at Y Combinator and what they were doing in terms of providing missile defense really made a lot of sense. creating flexible, dynamic, mobile tools that could be used to take down attack and doing so with a very clear mind's eye on bringing down the economic cost and the versatility of these tools, which really made a lot of sense. So that's an example of one of the companies that I was really drawn to. They had great technology, ⁓ a great group of people around them and just fantastic people.
Yeah, think that there's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. And my focus is principally on US-based platforms because I can wrap my head around it. I can meet with people directly. I know more about what's going on in that front. But it is very clear that our allies in other countries also need support and One of the areas that I've been really intrigued by, and I hope to attend one of the conferences in the future, is what's going on in Nordic states in areas like Finland. ⁓ How they are managing ⁓ to take on this issue of being able to provide for themselves, because with the US pulling back from some of the resources that they're providing into the region, the idea of having our allies be able to provide defense for themselves is going to lead to continued demand in that region. And I think we'll continue to have positive relationships with those, with those countries, but it's not, not a space that I've been super active in, but I'm definitely curious about.
Understood. We have a question from Niamh that's just come in, question developed on what we were just speaking about, but it was how do you balance the move fast and break things ethos and mentality that some builders have in that sensitive sector like defense where that can maybe have larger ramifications. How do you do that responsibly, I guess?
Yeah, ⁓ I think what, and again, Mike Maples is somebody I really think is an exceptional venture capitalist from flood gate. If you get a chance to listen to any podcasts with him or in Mara Co, they're really great. You know, one of the things that I agree with him on is this idea that, you know, when you're building these companies, particularly if it's, again, you're using heretical reasoning and trying to look out at the outer edge of a new and emerging technology, you can. allocate time and resources to help take small bets and test your thesis. And if it fails to continue to test that thesis as you go forward to develop. ⁓ a strategy that's going to help you succeed. Whether those are leading to technical breakthroughs or you're allocating resources to help customers or potential customers begin to use your product, you have to allocate resources intelligently, but you don't need to go a whole hog into a particular segment. so from my perspective, I think the idea of move fast and break things is probably more important now than ever before. And then the cost of building companies has come down dramatically. And so, you know, the cost of failure for a short burst of progress or potential progress is well worth the allocation of those resources to ⁓ move yourself forward quicker.
that's an amazing question. again, ⁓ there are people that I wouldn't necessarily call them incrementalists, but people who are taking an existing product and make it ⁓ notably better. I think that's sort of the standard playbook for innovation. And ⁓ it's very hard for very large companies to do, but ⁓ as a founder, that is a common target that people look at. and I think if you can make a 10 X improvement in a product's development and you can get people to buy into it, it is, it is a well trodden path. ⁓ one of the things that I see as a challenge with that is that if you're going up as an, as you're coming in as a, going up again, against an incumbent. As an innovator, it's very hard to displace that company that's been up and running for a long period of time. Even if you have a better product and it's cheaper, there's all always a, ⁓ principal agent issue where you can run into a problem where the individual who's actually the head of it or making, CTO or somebody who's making it or a CIS somebody who's making a decision on behalf of the corporation may say, well, at the end of the year, I'm not compensated. for taking the risk of a new innovation that could fail and then I'll lose my job. Right. And, or they might say, I'm not measured on making incremental games. ⁓ I'm tend to, I tend to be drawn towards people who again are playing where they believe the puck is going, where they look down range three years and they can see something that looks like it's going to create a massive change in a market. And there's always risk in that, but I think that that's, that's to me, a place where you can be much more creative and innovative, but it usually takes a longer period of time. And I tend to be drawn towards companies that are building things that are much more complicated and harder to prove out.
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for the conversation and all the insight. It's really amazing. So my question is about, mentioned earlier about the power of the background and the founder's background and their story. And I was kind of wondering in the context of especially a market where many people say there's a bubble in AI and kind of in those direction, how do you distinguish when the story is kind of productively contributing to the growth of the company versus when it's more like a ⁓ narrative or substance kind of situation. How do you make that distinction?
Yeah, of course. Sure. ⁓ I guess taking an example from now is a bit dangerous because it's hard to the future. how do you know when... Well, there would be an argument to say that there is kind of an AI bubble right now if the companies that are standing on the OpenAI API or other APIs ⁓ of the big AI companies don't end being profitable and don't end up having the returns that people expect they will. And so that's probably going to be a case, at least for a part of the companies. don't know then whether it's a bubble or not is determined by how many. Since you're investing in Entropiq, I saw in your background, I was kind of wondering how do you tell the difference between kind of when a company is telling a story and that story kind of goes about substance, same case of many companies in the dot-com bubble, for example, versus when it's actually a product and a story that is there and the substance is also there at the same time.
Great, thank you. Thank you for your question. ⁓ It is a challenge to figure it out. And again, the debate of whether or not we're experiencing a bubble or we're in it, it's sort of like figuring out whether you're living through a period of inflation. Sometimes you don't know until after the fact. And I think, from my standpoint, when I'm really uniquely focused on innovation and startups,
I think some of the things that you have to see are that you're, you're seeing that there are customers, there are users that are trying this. So what I, what I'm telling founders a lot of the time is when you develop a product and you want to get people using it, can you, can you get that product? Can you build a discord and can you begin to build a community? Right? So you build the tech and then you build a community and the discord channel you want to bring in. It's like a big dorm room, right? You want to bring in a lot of people who are going to make a more robust conversation and challenge the ⁓ claims you make, challenge the tools that you're building, and that makes your product better. ⁓ I'm always drawn towards open source platforms. So I think open source represents a potential threat for some of these foundation models because the world is changing so rapidly. And as you said, there are economic variables that are hard to ignore. I just, you you're, you're trying to run out the clock and figure out whether or not, you know, you're going to get to a point where there's only three or four foundational models that exist and they wipe everybody else out and then start charging people more money and adding new functions on, or whether you have open source options that come out. And again, you know, if you get a bunch of people on discord and they build a huge community, I've seen this a lot in crypto. ⁓ that can validate a market. And then the other thing is like Reddit and other platforms where there's a social context and people are actually diving into a deeper conversation. It gives you validation on a social level and where you're able to create open source, you can collect more feedback. And I think sometimes that can be a validating tool.
Can I ask a follow up or so in kind of in what you're saying, there's the on one hand, I hear that bringing as many people in. What's the risk of that versus kind of building an echo chamber in some sense? Because you mentioned also earlier the the the the the environment in in Silicon Valley and San Francisco and Y Combinator. And of course, there's brilliant people and incredible ideas getting built there. But how do you
Yeah, no, it's that's that's an awesome observation. Yeah. I think again, people get they get lured into a way of thinking that often can convince them that their product is working and then they go to the outside world because the outside world is going to tell them what the truth is. Right. Are people going to buy this product? Are people going to use it? And if you and if you don't push yourself into places where you're uncomfortable, people, human beings are averse to being uncomfortable. Right. No one wants to be uncomfortable. And I think it's the job of a founder and the founder team to step back and again, open the aperture and step away from what they're building and constantly. What am I doing? What am I building? Because people use this term I'm heads down and heads down is good until you run into a wall. You know, you, you, you have to step back and observe what you're doing and try to expand that audience. And then. When you think about commercializing, you hopefully see how people are using it and you develop KPIs and tools and validation techniques that may be shown by getting a small customer or a couple of small customers or a few users to validate what you're doing. And the role of finance, you know, and the economics serve as a way to validate whether something's being used or. the latency time, how much time are people spending on it? What's the feedback that you're getting? And I think being able to take tough criticism is really important for founders to be able to realize it's not personal. It's just the ability to really look honestly at what you're doing and seeing how you're progressing I think is important.
Hi Cameron, thank you. Matthew, a pleasure to meet you. Good to see you too. Very interesting time, so a little bit about what we do. So we do smart mobile grid systems to provide energy and internet in remote areas. So let's say what we have realized is now that if you want to build a company that it's in defense, it's becoming a little bit challenging.
if you work, let's say, in the real defense rather than just playing a startup. So, for example, we're in the process of bringing a Ukrainian company, a manufacturer that works in signal jamming here to Finland. And we cannot share even the names of the people that actually that we're working with because, of course, they're being targeted right now by Russians. They have, let's say, 80 % of the market share of signal jammers in Ukraine. And of course, we're going to provide the battery systems. My question is, how do you fundraise in defense if everything is sort of restrictive, if you're really operating in real defense. If you want to build a startup in the normal spectrum, it's all about marketing. But if you work in defense, you cannot even talk about what you're doing.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a great, it's a great question. so one of the things that I would say is, ⁓ particularly in the area of defense, you have to go into, ⁓ warm, safe spaces where dialogue can happen freely. Right. And what I mean by that are accelerators. Like in the U S there are things like space works. There's
Q lab, there's a lot of, ⁓ governmental agencies that work to support innovation in defense. And in Finland in particular, they just had a conference there recently. And I think one of the things that is a good idea to do is put yourself, I think we don't spend enough time realizing we're not in opposition to each other. We have to work collaboratively on things and you have to find. ways to engage in a, whether it's an accelerator or a community, where are you based out of? Are you in Finland or? Yeah. So, so you guys just had slush, right? A couple of weeks ago, which I missed and sad. I was going to get my boots out for that. But, I would say one of the things that I believe is ⁓ you have a great ecosystem around defense for Europe that is actually rooted
in Finland. And I think there was a conference fairly recently. But I think one of the things you want to do is you want to go to governmental agencies and you want to go to conferences like that. And literally don't go in with this is what I'm doing. Go in and say, I'm here to learn. I'm here to discuss and try to read how this ecosystem is operating. So you can find those safe and proper places where you're allowed to speak freely. ⁓ about what you're doing and how you can collaborate.
Thank you so much, helps quite a lot, Matthew. Appreciate it.
All right, so I'll walk through these ones for now. So firstly, the sentiment was absolutely enough what you're saying and the kind of sentiment you're putting out in terms of your experience across transdisciplinary practice. Are there mistakes that you've seen early on operationally, strategically that have been a common thread or tend to be more specific to each use case?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ I think going back to something that I spoke about earlier, I think one of the things is, like, if you decide that you want to be an entrepreneur, it's really important to know. Again, there's a lifetime of suffering ahead of you. And that doesn't mean pain and suffering, emotional distress and breakdown in May, but it means you have to condition yourself to you have to say, where am I going to situate myself? What are the resources that I need? Do I have the financial wherewithal to stay in this battle for a longer period of time? And you have to condition yourself to accept that you are not it's not a linear path to build a company I think that's the first thing that I see and when people don't do that. I think they're in for a difficult ⁓ surprise Going back to Mario's discussion with me. I think finding communities where you can get into a nest with a group of other people who may be doing work in the same general area. I mean, the good thing about AI in particular is that I feel like there's more people that are working collaboratively on ideas rather than in opposition to one another. But I think finding those communities and then, you know, I think really trying to think about your team when when I look at the companies that I've backed, I'm always looking for people who are ⁓ you know, I don't generally invest in solo founders. want a couple of people because they can hopefully work collaboratively with each other, even if they're not co-founders. You know, as you know, a technology first, you know, people who just have a good idea, but no technical background. It's very hard to build on that. Even if you have an industry domain expertise and. know, and what I'm particularly drawn towards is trying to find people who. have built something before and maybe they failed or maybe they succeeded, but they had an opportunity to learn from that and move forward. So those are kind of the things that I, I don't know if that answers the question, but that's generally what I'm looking for. And in the absence of that, I think it can get a little bit more challenging.
Hmm. And then I think the follow up to that question was how do you overcome the issue where people don't necessarily know what they want or understand the problem? The example given was Steve Jobs on the iPhone or Henry Ford versus a faster horse. Have you come across those scenarios and how do you approach that?
Thanks Yeah, I mean, I mean, the truth is when you start a company 100 % of the time, when you start that company, that company is not going to be the same company two years from now. I mean, it's just, I mean, I've never seen it. You know, I mean, maybe in some instance that that's the case, but I think companies evolve. You develop an idea and you know, You start with an idea that you're an e-commerce company in Kenya. And then all of a sudden you realize the dynamics are changing and then you're expanding outside of Kenya. And then you're realizing the company needs more financial robustness and you figure out how to monetize a part of the business in FinTech and you integrate that into your platform and build it. so, you know, When I talk about powered by people, it's really one of my favorite companies because they have had such incredible strength and fortitude and been through, you know, growth periods and declines and headcount reductions and back in growth. And they are an unstoppable trio and they've got a whole community around them. But it's, it's, it's been very, it's been a very. very difficult process to get to where they're at. And they're one of many companies and, so many of these, you have to realize what I'm building. If you get too attached to the physical manifestation of what this is, you know, what, what, like what this object is and realize it's actually, no, it's you're moving towards this future state and just trying to constantly iterate and improve what you're doing. you're going to be far better off.
That sense. And it sounds like they've had an incredibly interesting journey and ties back to I know what you were speaking about earlier on, you know, just in terms of the strength of will that is required. I know we are trying to be respectful of your time. There are a few more questions that have come in. But what I'll do for now is hand back to Nihaal just to kind of run through some closing remarks and then we can potentially touch base with you afterwards about any kind of questions that come through and communicate those then. But it was a pleasure.
Matt, do we have a few more minutes? Because I do like my old questions that like the moment open source, for example, popped up, then in my head, actually. Can you dig a little bit deeper on this topic for me? Because right now as AI progress and advances, there are multiple frogs on the way that might happen. So how do you this altogether?
Yeah, I think, and I think I'll speak more broadly about open source in and of itself. I think ⁓ when you build a technology menu, when you build a platform for like a DevOps tools, for instance, and you bring that out to the world and you say, this is how this tool works. It's very structured and rigid. And there's, and there's like a control mechanism that helps you protect your IP, which again, is very important with early stage companies. But I think directionally, when you think about ⁓ open source technologies, what they do is they create an open system that allows not just one individual or a team of people to build within this vacuum or this, again, an echo chamber, but you also have an opportunity to ⁓ move outside of that. ⁓ expand your reach and get the input from people that use that product every single day. And I think whenever you do that, you're going to get a chance to get a better product. It's going to be more user friendly. And, if you design the technology correctly, you can hold that IP, but you, you have to have a level of trust with your community that they're not just going to take your idea and run out the door with it. And.
That takes, it's, takes a lot of bravery and you know, I'm sure there's a lot of failures built into that, but I feel like, ⁓ the foundational models themselves are not really designed that way. There's a certain threshold you get to. And, ⁓ one of my, one of my favorite, ⁓ founders, is a guy named Ben Vigoda who started Gamelon and now runs a company, ⁓ called product genius. And he and I had a great conversation on this subject recently. maybe you'll have a chance to speak with him at some point, but really have some great insights on the advances in open source. as much as we like to believe we know where ⁓ AI is going, no one does, no matter what they claim. And it's a fast moving system.
Mm. Hehehehe I just find it difficult to comprehend when things are advancing in closed loops, when they also have such big impacts on the entire humanity. at the same time, open source is, in order to keep it sustainable as a company, if you live on open source, then you need to have a very good differentiation and it should be able to
serve you to build this engine moving forward. Therefore, I was really keen to see how you think about it, how you approach it. If a company would reach out to you that they are operating on open source, how do you face? If they were to come knock on your door previously, would you give them a chance? What would be your utility function around this when you're doing the trade-offs and then the risk?
Well, every community is different, you know. And again, like I think about user communities. think even if you don't use an open source platform when you're building a company, let's use gaming or online sports betting or something like that, or predictive markets. mean, if you're in a space like that and you've got thousands of people or hundreds of thousands of people that are using your system, like
Why wouldn't you ask them what their opinion is? Why wouldn't you ask them, how do I make this product better? How do you stress test your beliefs if you're not willing to actually hand somebody the steering wheel? And it's a crazy idea, but I feel like the advances over time are favoring companies that have the ability to sort of lean into this idea of innovating from outside rather than.
Yeah, got it. And then actually that can tie back to when you said about iterations and asking to improve it in a way you just don't look into the people who are using because they are not there to develop your product, rather they try to give you feedback and yet you pick the ones that are like complementary to your vision. Is it something that you very hands-on actively try to also demonstrate in the field X classes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's fantastic. I mean, our class is amazing. Like I said, we've had 1,000 students through it and some very successful companies have come through it. And we launched the class when there were only, I think, five courses at Harvard Business School on entrepreneurship. And now I think there's 15. And there's a lot of people trying to do what we're doing. The secret weapon we have in our class is that we have five or 600 mentors and people who are available to help the students. So if I, if I meet with somebody and they say, well, I'm doing something in healthcare and I want to do, you know, a tool for a cardiac care, or I want to do something for a particular, ⁓ therapy or, you know, building something in defense. I know there are a large group of people that I can put them in contact with, right? So we spend time working with those students, but on beyond that, we bring in people from, who have been CEOs of companies, venture capital. They've had very high positions in various organizations that can come in and they use, what, ⁓ is referred to as crystallized intelligence, meaning they they've had a successful career and they're able to take that knowledge.
But it is again always tying back to this ecosystem because it's always the people, always people talking to people and it's like return on involvement. Like everyone involves collectively on the thing and the outcome might not be necessarily my own stuff, but it's going to be yours. But then next day tomorrow, you're to do something directly or indirectly is going to make my life much easier and better or just by watching I'm going to learn from you. What would you recommend to other universities who are trying to establish something similar to this? Because we can learn from anyone. It doesn't necessarily always have to be whatever we have in our own ecosystem. Then we can also try to bring those folks together in a similar drive. Right? Is it so difficult? There's magic. Why can't we get this magic?
Yeah. Hmm. No, it's, it's, it's, it's really exciting. I think entrepreneurship does not fit neatly into the academic world more, more specifically, ⁓ because it is you, you get into, you get into this wonderful school, right? You get in there because you succeeded everything. You get straight A's, you are top of so many things you worked at a top consulting firm. And then you go and you take a class and you say, I'm going to teach you about failing. And that's, and that becomes your teacher. So it's very, it's very counterintuitive. And then you're not using books. mean, we, we produced a case study this semester, but, the best teachers are the people that come into the class and said, this is what my experience was as a venture capitalist, as an entrepreneur.
And people who are even outside of those worlds to talk about what was their experience. And they all differ from place to place. But when all said and done with, it's not something that fits neatly into an academic institution where people are tenured, people have very safe careers, they're using textbooks and speaking before classes. And HBS has been great. And, ⁓ you know, I know there's schools like, ⁓ Stanford has been great. but I think one of the areas that I think is really, ⁓ a great opportunity that doesn't get a lot of attention is with undergraduates. Because the undergraduates who come into school, they're not the risk aversion, the comfort that you experience after you graduate and you have a job and a, and a life is not, they don't know what that's like.
Right there, they're on a mission and, you know, and I think that there's a great opportunity, not only here, but throughout the world. And it's not, there's a lot of interest in entrepreneurship, but there's not a lot of work that's really being done to support. You know, people who are undergraduates or even graduate students in a way that's very practical. And I always find it funny that some of the most notable people who are associated with entrepreneurship have, these come out of academic institutions, they have books and then they, they, they tell you, is how you bake a cake. I'm like, no, yeah, there's eggs and there's flour and there's water, but, but there's, there are some elements of that. And there's some really important things that again, you get from going to business school, you understand.
Mm. It's actually so true. is always, I used to say that if there was, sometimes people ask what books should we read, what books should we look, I always say like adapt to your experience because if there was any book that would explain us how to become a unicorn company founder, probably we wouldn't have all those problems around us. There are five steps. Like exactly. I was about to make it work. And maybe then today I actually had a, I was.
with my hairdresser. And he asked me that he listened to a podcast where the guest said, what I thought it wouldn't be possible six months ago, I thought it would take us five years. It just happened. And then he looked at me, how is this possible? Because he knows in the field I am. And then it actually then reminded me because, you said, we learned them, we teach them how to fail. This six month is more important than the last five years.
And it's like in rolling bed that every last six months or three months even, you never know at what direction things are going to be. Today OpenAI, tomorrow Google, the other day another player comes out. What scares you the most in such a setup? It's very optimist, I'm very optimist, but at the same time, we all have our concerns around how we consume information, how we synthesize.
Yeah. I think it's, it's not something that scares me per se. there's a lot to be afraid of, but it's sort of like looking out of your boat and wondering that's at the bottom of the ocean and thinking about what terrible things are down there. There's this water and fish and exotic creatures. You don't like, there's not, you don't know what you don't know. Right. And human beings tend, if you're
If you're sort of vibrationally thinking about something negative or uncertain or worrisome, it's going to take you to dark places. So my call to action is keep your feet moving, right? Don't, don't sit still. The, the, the time and cost it used to take to build a company used to take years. And now it takes a much shorter period of time.
And rather than focus on ARR or MRR or whatever, you know, metrics you're looking at or listening to finance, people talk with you. think trying to find ways to again, have some agency over what am I building? How do I want to build it? Who do I want to build it with? Being very thoughtful about the funds that are going to come in. just had a wonderful former student. ⁓ Logan Brown, who, launched a company called Soxton AI, which is a full stack AI platform for startups. she was very, ⁓ selective about the VCs and the people who invested with her because she understood that there's going to be, there's a long road ahead. Right. And those people.
Become part of your family and your community and they've got your back and they're going to help you build and taking the time and being very deliberate about that. think is really, really important. ⁓ and then thinking about who you're hiring and not everybody's going to fit. So you're going to have, you're going to come and go, but there's a, there's an opportunity in a, in a way that you can move forward, ⁓ and build over time. And yeah, things can come out of the blue. DeepSeek or Kemi K2 comes out with a new version and it changes everything. But, you know, all you can do is sort of operate with the known knowns and pursue the level of creativity and engagement. And the last thing I would tell you that I think is also ⁓ really important is to understand that people get burned out. And so I think as part of people's day,
finding time, whether it's a meditation or in the midday going for a 15 minute walk and not talking about business and leaving their phone in the office or again, meditating ⁓ and trying to understand you have a life outside of this. And if you're going to build, you have to be able to realize that it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint. And. ⁓
Sanato, Sal, O'Sullivan, who's one of the best writers I know. just wrote a post on this. Just put something out on this, just talking about burnout and wasn't just about founders, but I think it really says it's incumbent upon us to have great intention about what we want to build and how we want to build and keeping yourself accountable to making sure that journey is positive as best you can.
Hmm. Yeah, I have a feeling I cannot get enough of this conversation. So at some point I need to come to my final question, which is a kind of little tradition we started. Previous guest leaves the question for the next guest and our previous guest was Chappell, who is building Entangle. his question was the following for you. And he asked if you were stranded on an island by yourself.
I would bring I'm I'm a food person and I would bring, you know, amazing food along and I would bring the best friend founders that I could find to build together with. And I know that's sort of an odd answer, but it comes back to this whole thing that I'm talking about is like building with your tribe and your community. That's where everything emanates from on a desert island. can't imagine there's too many things that I could ⁓ I could get my
⁓ No, his background actually is an aerospace and he pivoted into data centers to keep them reliable. And currently he's actually serving, except one old hyperscalers is a fancy founder at same time. Matthew, it was such a real pleasure and apologies if I overrun my time with you because I so much enjoyed it.
No, absolutely. I think like now I could sit here all day. For me, it's just, I think I'm going to take my time and try and digest everything that I've been able to learn on the call from you and also tie that to, we've got this great opportunity to jump on these calls with people like yourself. And like you say, building that tribe, I think has been amazing as we've kind of run through this and we'll continue to do so.
Thank you so much, Matthew.
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