Speaker 1  0:00  
Hey everybody, welcome back to the uncharted podcast. If you're just tuning in after a while away, we are super excited to have you back. This is a brief conversation Michael and I had in September of 2024 largely recounting the exciting year plus that Uncharted has had since our last podcast conversation, and importantly, framing out the exciting q4 and 2025 to come. We talk a little bit about the markets. We talk a lot a bit about reflections on Uncharted and reflections on Uncharted and what's happened. It was a fun little conversation, and, most importantly, very happy to have everyone back for season two of the uncharted podcast.

Speaker 1  0:39  
Enjoy Welcome to the uncharted podcast. Uncharted is a community of some of the world's best entrepreneurs, founders, investors, creatives and beyond. At our dinners and at our annual summit in New York, we have dialogs with people who are truly at the top of their game across every industry. This podcast is designed really to offer the world and the audience a peek into the magical conversations that happen behind closed doors at our events, and, more importantly, a peek into the brains of people who are truly at the top of their game. My goal with every guest is that if you know them well, you'll hear them talk about something or say something they've really never said before, and if you've never heard of them, you'll know exactly what makes them such a badass by the time the episode is over, welcome to Uncharted We're glad you're here. You It is late September 2024 we are rolling into what is already a busy season for Uncharted thus far, we are rolling into what seems like it's going to be a crazy q4 for a number of reasons, economically, politically and beyond. I want to start with a softball question in the spirit of how we usually start the uncharted dinners, which is just tell the world and tell the audience, as a businessman, how are you seeing the playing field right now? Yeah.

Speaker 2  1:54  
So note that Noah said softball question because he was trying to take sympathy on his audience. He just said, you know, this is a bear with very little brain. We want to make sure, yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker  2:05  
right. That's what I'm getting at really, exactly.

Speaker 2  2:09  
Well, you know, yeah, the fourth quarter will be really, really interesting. I mean, one is the election, and you touched upon that. But what a stark choice. Just had a rate cut. I didn't think that the Fed was going to go down, you know, 50 basis points. I thought it was going to be 25 so that was pretty bold, yeah, what was very interesting, apropos, that was the employment numbers. And nobody has seen a reset. I don't know if you've noticed that, but they, they took those numbers and they said, you know, we had to make a big adjustment, like 800,000 jobs over like three months, which is material, huge. We've never had one of those. So how they missed that? I'm not quite sure. I think you're right. I think it's going to be a very busy fourth quarter. I think that, you know, you would like to think that the FinTech Apocalypse and the VC apocalypse, you know, will thaw out just a little bit. And I do think that the reason for those Apocalypse was related to rates, right? If you could make 678, percent in your money, totally liquid, totally sure, why would you go 15 points in venture now, when you were getting zero on your money and that you were essentially going negative two because of inflation, then venture made at 15 points a whole lot of whole lot of sense. It's also a truism, and this is off the point, but a truism, and it is times like this, where there's less competition, less competition for labor, and a lot of costs coming down, that great companies are born. So we've seen that in various cycles that just after it crests, a lot of great companies are founded. Let's unpack

Speaker 1  3:56  
the state of venture thread, just because it's going to be top of mind for listeners and the audience, as it always is in the uncharted ecosystem, venture became much more appealing, to your point, when six or 7% was not the norm, but 0% was the norm. So you had all this capital flood into funds who probably had more than they needed to spend, and everything got propped up. Give your POV on sort of the last, I want to say, five years cycle that's kind of washed out where we are now and where it goes from here. Well,

Speaker 2  4:24  
I'm gonna go back further than that. And I'm gonna go back further than that to 2000 right? So I've been witness to three, you know, three, you know, explosions. One was 2001 was 2008 and one is kind of now, they're all different, but the same at the same time. You know, when you're in the middle of it, everybody, despite the frothy valuations, still think it's going to continue to go up. And then, you know, as soon as it explodes, they go, what were what were we thinking? You know what? Why didn't we sell? This is no exception to that. I do think that the valuations, you know, might have been a little bit frothy, but, you know, then again, if these are companies that are going to show great growth in the future, they're not so frothy. If you want to see froth, and we're going to talk about this a little bit more. Look at the valuations for AI. I mean, they're just insane. I mean, you know, you put 100 and $50 billion valuations on a company that barely is showing any revenues. It's despite the fact that many people think that AI is going to change the world. I think that that's that's really problematic. In the end, I think that we are going to see a return to more robust valuations. We're going to see the IPO market open. I think you're going to see, you know, M and A activity go up. So I think we're on the path to normalcy. And I think what we have now is abnormal. And you know, there's so many signs of that, I'll give you just one, which is, if you wanted to buy stock in the secondary, you know, three years ago, you'd buy it at par to the very last raise, and now you're talking down 70 80% same companies are doing well, but you know, it's just a reflection of the market. People need liquidity. Yeah, totally. So anyway,

Speaker 1  6:26  
on the topic of AI, there's a two prong question here. Number one, do you believe the commonly shared opinion of many that AI is going to change the world? Do you believe that? Part One and Part Two, how do you square the path to normalcy, as you're describing it, with the fact that these AI valuations are so crazy. Do you think people in AI are going to lose their shirt?

Speaker 2  6:47  
I'll start with the last question first, which is, many of them will. You know, not all the companies that are raising you know, humongous amount of capital are going to survive, or at very least be significant in the future. And the valuations are so profound that it's no wonder a VC game, right? VCs can't participate in this. We're not, when you're talking about, you know, 100 and $50 billion raises. So it outstrips, you know, the capacity of just about everybody. And if you put money into something like that, you know, you're going to get 1/10 of 1/10 of 1/10 of 1% it's just not going to amount to anything, even if it doubles and triples, which some will and some will, I think, be extinguished, in terms of, does it change the world? You know, the answer is yes, but not as fundamentally and utterly in all the sectors that people are predicting as one would think, right? And I'm reminded that two years ago was nfts. Nfts Were going to change the world, and then before that, it was blockchain, and before that, it was crypto, and before that, it was cannabis. And what we see is a rush to what's new, in part because if you don't partake in what's new, the investors say, hey, Noah, you know, are you investing in AI? And if you say, No, we're taking a wait and see attitude. We think that the valuations are a little bit drummed up, then they will say, sayonara, I'm taking my money and I'm going somewhere else. And so there really is this notion of, you know, land rush, beauty contest, stuff that we see in the What's New space. And there's always something that's what's new. You remember

Speaker 1  8:37  
at our early Uncharted dinners, which were about three years ago, there was a parabolic presence of NFT founders at the dinners, right? When we started, all of a sudden, when nfts got hot, it felt like there was five out of every 15 guests were doing an NFT company, just because they were all raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. Folks,

Speaker 2  8:55  
forget about that, right? Folks, forget that. AI is the new nfts, right? I mean, it was just as exciting and frothy, and the predictions of how it was going to take over the world were just as profound, and that was that really hasn't materialized. Now, I don't think AI is going to travel kind of the same route. I definitely see some very significant applications for that, and some are already in the marketplace

Speaker 1  9:22  
just to pull the AI thread, because it's top of mind, and we're about to go talk about it at an uncharted dinner tonight. How do you square that opinion, which is basically, I don't mean to paraphrase and put words in your mouth, but basically that it is dramatically overhyped, right, at least in terms of the impact you actually think is going to have. How do you square that? And please do correct me if that's not actually what you're trying to say. But how do you square that opinion with the preponderance of talent that seems to be flocking to the space number one and number two, the unbelievable amount of attention the space is getting from every big company, it seems in the s and p to. At least say, what are we going to do about this?

Speaker 2  10:01  
You know, I would just point to history and use that as a guide. Okay? Because this, we've seen this movie before, and you pointed out it. They Uncharted dinner that, you know, every other guest was talking about, the hundreds of millions of dollars they were raising for nfts. It was very frothy, then probably not as big as AI. I'm not saying there's no truth to it. I'm just saying that, you know, I don't think anything can deliver on a promise that big.

Unknown Speaker  10:34  
Let's transition to Uncharted, just because it's top of

Speaker 1  10:38  
mind, tell the audience, tell the world, why? Uncharted, on a personal level, is you someone who is for all intents and purposes, you could be done right? You've made way more money than one might say you need to. You could deploy it, you could invest it. You could sit on the sidelines and hang out. And yet you are clearly very excited multiple times per month now to sit at dinners with some of the best entrepreneurs in the world and do a mix of talk and listen. Why is that?

Speaker 2  11:01  
Well, first of all, a lot of people say I should be done, right? They just say, you know, what got, you know, like you should have hung up those spurs. And that's

Unknown Speaker  11:08  
why you want to tell them you want to stop

Unknown Speaker  11:10  
it to them. That's really why the

Speaker 2  11:12  
why Uncharted I, you know, I have been around the block a few times, and one of the reasons for Uncharted, probably the reason for Uncharted, is that entrepreneurs don't have advocates, or certainly enough advocates. And I have been witness to when I don't want to cast aspersions, because all they're doing is obeying their own rules. But my advice to young entrepreneurs is that you are not the customer. The money is the customer and the money is the customer, because you have to raise fund, 234, and five, because a venture capital firm is like a shark. It's got to keep on eating, or it, you know, and swimming, or it dies. The other thing is that, and you hear this from VCs all the time, that they make 25 bets out of the fund, and one invariably returns the entire Fund, and the rest is Phil they're in the two in 10 business, and they're the business of triage and making those decisions and calls pretty quickly. And one of the techniques is to load the companies up with rocket fuel, and if they crash into the wall, they're just part of the eight out of 10 that don't work. The fact of the matter is, some cars should be driven at 55 miles an hour, and some should be driven at 550 miles an hour. And there are two different cars, and there is no room in a VC portfolio for what I call a d1 athlete. Now you should be, you know, a half back or an end or something at the University of Michigan, right? And we should call that a great football career. You didn't make the bros, but it's a great football career that doesn't work in VC land. You got to be a 30x a 50x 100x but a 3x 5x there's no room for that, and that, I think, is really in the too bad category, right? The fact of the matter is, you know, entrepreneurs and startups their product, and it kind of reminds me what Hitchcock said about actors, and what he said about actors is, I never said actors are cattle. I said, treat actors as though they were cattle, okay? And startups, entrepreneurs, founders are product, and they are not treated, I think, with the appreciation and regard and sympathy and affection that they should be. And I also think that the only person who can dispense advice to an entrepreneur is another entrepreneur. And you see that all the time that many of these VCs didn't have a popsicle stand. They went to Harvard, and they're trying to run the war from the Pentagon and not the trench. And until you've been in the trench, you kind of have no business calling the shots, and you see that all the time. And sadly, entrepreneurs are in a position where they kind of have to listen to them, or they think they do, because A, the VCs are really, really smart and B, they're your wallet, and you can't get mad at your money, right? That's a John Malone saying what I want to be with Uncharted I want to be the champion to the entrepreneur. I want to celebrate the entrepreneur. I want the entrepreneur to feel good and feel that they're appreciated and regarded and. Precious. And they are precious because if you look at what rules this country, if you look at what propels this country, it's startups, and it's stark, and startups are all of the job creation in this country. It is all of the wealth creation in this country. And yet, if you look at the entrepreneurs, most of them don't pay themselves $100,000 right? They pay themselves less 30% pay themselves nothing. And the second most prevalent form of funding is rating your own 401. K. This is the resolve and the verve and the intention of the entrepreneur, right and the confidence that they have. And it's astonishing, because the statistics are that 75% of startups fail so shoulder to cry on sympathy, therapy, celebration, appreciation. That's what Uncharted is all about. And it's meant to be advocacy for the entrepreneur. And they introduce entrepreneurs to other entrepreneurs and the rest of their ecosystem, and to give them the regard of the precious resource that they actually are our country. We as a people, we embrace failure. We'll admit it, we'll own up to it. We'll say, what were we thinking at the time? And we'll get beyond it. We'll learn from it, right? Edison said, I never failed. I just figured out 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb, right? So that's how we approach the world that does not exist that way. In London, it doesn't exist that way. In Paris, it doesn't exist that way. In the rest of the world, we have this ability to try things, to risk things, to allow ourselves, you know, the empathy of failure. I think we're unique as a people, and then we built an ecosystem around that ethos that allows us to start things and do so in numbers that do not exist in the rest of the world. This year, almost 6 million businesses will start in this country. We have 135 million homes in this country. So 5% one home in 20 is building a business. That's unbelievable. We're doing it in greater numbers post COVID than we did pre COVID, by a lot. I

Speaker 1  17:40  
have a follow up question, which is, sorry to use this word again, also somewhat of a softball, but I just like hearing you talk about it, because it's interesting. There is a lot of interplay between Uncharted and I think knowing you quite well at this point, how you think about your legacy and the legacy you want to leave as it relates to your business and your career. Can you just pull that thread for me, a little bit of how those two things relate?

Speaker 2  17:59  
Sure, I think one of the most flattering things that happens to me is if there's a guy like a Kevin Ryan, who I admire greatly because he has a great brain. He's built some profoundly important businesses, he is a restless intellect, brilliant and if he sees one of the things, I start and says, I COVID that I wished I did that. That is the highest form of praise. And I do that all the time for his stuff, right? Highest form of praise. So what do I want as my legacy? I think it was Walt Whitman who has on his tombstone. Our names are writ on water. Now, by the way, that's a screw you because it's on his tombstone. It's made out of granite. Your name is written water, me granite. And what's that all about. It's about creating something we still read Walt Whitman, right. It's building something enduring, something that people can point to and say that was smart. This guy made a difference. And one of the other boxes I want to check always is that this company not only employed people and enriched stakeholders, but it improved lives, and that's always a great thing to drive to and as it relates to Uncharted, as it relates to Uncharted, you know, what we try to do is have speakers that evangelize that very thought, right? Let's do well by doing good. We're smart enough to come up with ideas that at once are enriching to the stakeholders, but also help society. Give

Speaker 1  19:48  
me a few of your favorite stories, sound bites, snippets or outcomes that have happened from an uncharted event that stick out to you since we've started this a few years ago. Now,

Speaker 2  19:59  
I. A couple immediately come to mind, and one that comes immediately to mind. I won't use names, but a company has been formed, and it is a joint venture between two of the guests that we had an uncharted two guests that run huge companies, and they found that, really, through our suggestion that there was a common ground between them, and they formed a joint venture that has now raised millions of dollars and is about to deploy, we also introduced them into an enabling technology, which happened to be a new cryptocurrency that was kind of critical to make it all work, and that also happened in Uncharted. Actually happened in different years in Uncharted. So what we do is we introduce entrepreneurs to other entrepreneurs. Sometimes that's just a friendship. Sometimes it's an exchange of notes. Sometimes it's a shoulder to cry on, but sometimes it's a partnership. Sometimes it's, you know, I'm looking for a CTO. Can you help me? Sometimes it's coming up with a new idea to change the world. That's what this is all about. The banger, really good i I'll add one other thing. Please add another story, and it's less of a story and more of a theme and a philosophy, which is the basis of all of this is generosity and the basis is democracy. Now I will contrast that to somebody else's conferences, and that's somebody else's Michael Milken, who I have unbelievable regard for, who has raised billions of dollars for prostate cancer, but he charges $50,000 for his conferences. The thing about that is that's the only criteria to get in, will you stroke a $50,000 check? We have a different criteria, and our criteria is, do you belong there? Are you going to make a contribution, as in, contribution to the zeitgeist of what we're putting together? Because we're always looking to make it better and make it more useful to all the attendees. So our criteria is you are invited and you're there because you belong. You should be there. You have something to contribute. Intellectually, that's our criteria. So it's fundamentally based on appreciation and generosity. Sometimes people call it a party, and I bristle at that. It is not. It is a convening, right? And it starts at 11 or so and it ends at 11 or so. And for sure, there is fun, but there is really valuable programming, and the most valuable programming for anybody is to meet their others, which is something you and I encourage. We get on the stage and say you're here with one job, one responsibility, and that is, make five new acquaintances, and we work hard to try to facilitate that, to pre game, to give people lists of other people. We have our interns there right to be the Sherpa guides to make those introductions. That's what Uncharted is really all about. It is the new associations, the new encounters, the new meetings, the new exchanges of ideas. And that is because a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we are very isolated, right? We're heads down, working 80, you know, 100 hours a week, and totally focused. And this is a time to meet your community, and it is a time to expand relationships, expand your thinking, expand your network, right? And we hope that in one day, by having this community laid out before you, you now have this opportunity to create that engagement that can last from here to the next Uncharted A year from now. That's our goal.

Speaker 1  24:26  
We think about the uncharted summit as the Super Bowl, right, right? If this is a football season, Uncharted is our Super Bowl. It's the big event. It's, in many ways, the tent pole event of our entire programming, but in no ways is it the entire thing. And we think of our dinner series as our Monday night or Sunday Night Football Prime Time Events. They are coved. They are, in many ways, ultra curated, difficult to get into by design and really where a lot of magic happens. And we're building programming throughout the rest of the year to represent the regular season and all the media and fanfare that happens around this. Season celebration of entrepreneurs. The summit is the Super Bowl. The dinners are the Monday night and Sunday night flagship premiere games, and everything else represents the regular season. That all builds up to this one thing, but in many ways, the real magic, the highlight plays, the real impact for these people who make careers out of this. Continued with my analogy, happens during the regular season. That's where the actual thing is played, right?

Speaker 2  25:20  
And I will say, Noah, that you and me and the team try to be very thoughtful of this in ways that are non obvious. And a good example of that is the fair at our dinners, right, which is amikasi. And it's amakasi because we tried the traditional fare, and when the waiters come around with the string beans and bump everybody's head, it just interrupts everything. But somehow those little, tiny plates are sneaked right in front of you 15 times over, because it's 15 courses, and the conversation never stops. And that was done with great intent, but I think that's an illustration of how we try to reflect on every single detail to perfect it totally. And I guess that makes us a little obsessive. That makes

Speaker 1  26:13  
it obsessive, but if you think about this, well, we hosted the first ever Uncharted dinner, may 20, 2021 we sat in your office, then on the 14th floor, and I think for two hours, I was at a whiteboard, you were sitting down, and we were planned out, almost to a T including the introductions, minute to minute, start to finish, how this dinner was gonna go. And in many ways, we haven't deviated much, just because the first one went so well. We've made slight refinements, but we've kind of kept to the script of what's worked well,

Speaker 2  26:41  
and I think also experientially, Uncharted Super Bowl is out in South Hampton in a very special venue, very special house. And likewise, our monthly dinners are also in a special house. And that environment, I think, signals to the assembled that you're in something special, something different. And this isn't a restaurant, it isn't some back room somewhere. This isn't food in a box, which they do, by the way, have it milking. This is meant to be an extraordinary experience. And it all, I think, lets people speak with great Verity, which I guess is something else we are for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. So there is an authenticity here. This is not somebody, dare I say it, from a bulge bracket bank who took an entrepreneur course or two and thought, you know, okay, we're going to get a bunch of entrepreneurs because we can get some banking volume out of them. This is really here to make things better and improve things and try to facilitate things and create not just conversation, but forward action. Making your businesses better is what we try to do.

Speaker 1  27:59  
I also think that in a world where there are now lots of dinners, lots of entrepreneurs getting invited to things, lots of banks and big companies trying to sponsor events that will just have any excuse to get people in a room, and I've heard from many founder friends that they're pretty darn tired of just your average dinner at this point, your average event, your average networking thing where you just go put a name tag on and hope for the best. The intention behind how you establish a container for people to have honest, open, vulnerable and important, impactful conversations, it's really important, right? Actually going through the meticulous.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai