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Welcome to "Visionary Voices," the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So welcome to the show.
So can you give me a top level overview of
your journey so far and how you got to the
place that you're at right now?
Yes, so I've been leading engineering
teams here in the Bay Area for the last 15
years.
Two years ago, I built a team of over 50
engineers at Mindbody, and we were able to
grow the team in San Francisco, New York
and Prune, while maintaining a 55% women
engineering team, which was one of the
highest ratio of women engineers in the
Valley.
After that experience, I started my own
company, Upward Recruiting, to really help
companies hire more women engineers.
And then my philosophy is that if you put
a woman at a fast-growing startup, her
career is gonna grow with her and we're
gonna get more women in tech leadership
position.
That company, Upward Recruiting, grew
really fast.
So suddenly I started having, encountering
entrepreneurship issues and I wanted to
brainstorm some of the issues that I was
having with other founders.
So then I would go to founder events, but
again, I would find myself like
engineering being the only woman in the
room.
So then that's when I decided to start my
own tech community of female founder.
And now in Silicon Valley, we are one of
the largest and most active community of
tech female founders.
Wow, that's quite a journey.
That's quite a journey.
I guess going back to, as you mentioned,
growing that team and really exploding it
because you hired so many people and you
explored that business.
I guess what did that look like?
And what was that experience like?
How did you find that talent?
How did you then build that company up to
where it is right now?
Yeah, definitely.
So we were in San Francisco and at that
time, it was one of the most challenging
market to hire engineers because we have
the Facebook and the Google and they pay
ridiculous amount of salaries.
So then you have to compete not against
those companies, but against all of these
startups that have more resources for you.
So what we did is we spent a few weeks and
months
really thinking through our interview
process to make it very attractive to
candidate, but also to make it very
attractive to women candidate.
So a few things that we did is that
throughout the interview process, we
really talked about the mission and the
benefit and the culture of being at
Mindbody.
And actually from the first phone call
from the candidate that I have, I was
selling them the position.
So then by the time they get to the offer
stage, they...
are most likely to accept our offer
because at that point in time, any
engineer that you would meet would have at
any point, like three, three offers to
choose from.
Um, so we did a lot, we optimize our
interview funnel to make sure that we
didn't get, um, candidate drop-offs.
And then we put programs in place.
to have a very strong onboarding.
Because when you grow from seven to 50 in
a very short period of time, you have to
onboard a lot of people.
So we make sure our onboarding process was
right on point.
We made sure that we had a process to
promote people very transparently.
And then as soon as they get in and then
they start, the next six months, they're
focused on growing their skillset and
integrating within the team.
Hmm interesting that's definitely an
interesting process of how you can grow
and grow that team I guess with that I
guess going back to you know go from zero
to one You know, what does that look like
for these Silicon Valley businesses and
software companies, you know How do they
do that?
You know if you want MVP and then you're
wanting to okay firstly build a team Like
how do you identify who you need?
I guess and then you mentioned about the
interview process and things like that But
like how would you get started with that?
Like how would companies, you know gets
that point?
Yeah.
So first off, you need to figure out,
okay, well, what, what do you want to
build?
Right.
And going from going to the MVP is all
about figuring out, well, what are your
assumption around your product?
Let's say you want to build a tech product
and you have an assumption that people
need that product.
Right.
At the end of the day, it's just an
assumption.
You need to validate that one, people need
it.
And two, the most important thing is that
they will pay for it.
Because if they don't pay for it, then you
have a hobby.
You do not have a business.
So figure out, okay, well, what is one
feature that I can build that people would
pay for it?
Once you have that feature, figure out,
okay, well, how, what, how you want to
prove that?
Do you want to do a mobile app?
Do you want to do a web app?
I always recommend starting with a web app
because it's less of a development
process.
Once you have, you figure out, okay, well,
this is a web app, then you figure out,
well, this is the type of engineers that I
need.
If you want a web application without AI,
for example, you may want to hire a
full-stack engineer, or you need really an
iOS app because you're building some kind
of gaming or you're building an app that
needs a lot of camera use.
then you would need like an iOS or Android
engineer.
So figuring out what you wanna build, what
platform you wanna use, and then figuring
out who you wanna hire.
Once you have that idea, then you can go
on LinkedIn and reach out to the right
candidates to hire those folks.
Right, okay, so it's all about just really
mapping out what you actually need,
because you see that time and time again
where companies might hire people which
they don't actually need, because they
haven't really identified who it is that
they need right now, so they do these bad
hires, and it's very costly and very
expensive.
I guess with that, I guess what's some of
the piece of advice that you could maybe
give startups when they are going from
that zero to one that can really help them
grow and scale in a very, let's say,
profitable way, in a very safe way, let's
say, without making those bad hires and
things like that?
So even when you talk to investors, one of
the things that they want to see is like
execution and timing.
You need to set up a process where every
week or every two weeks you are moving
fast and you are releasing.
Even if you are onboarding a new person,
even if you encounter some issue with your
business, you want to make sure that you
set up a very strong process.
And one of the ways to do that is through
this concept of lean startup and agile
methodology.
which really emphasizes releasing an
iteration and then getting this loop where
you're releasing, you're getting customer
feedback, you're iterating over this
customer feedback, you're improving your
product and releasing it again.
Once you have this loop figure out, then
it's a much better way and safer way to
grow because if you don't get this
customer feedback early on or set up this
loop,
Then you might be building for three
months, for six months, for a year,
without really validating your idea.
So then what ended up happening is that
you already spent years or months of
resources because engineering or product
is expensive.
And you may be marketing the wrong thing
without really getting customer
validation, which poses a huge risk to
your business.
So make sure that you have this process
set in place so that will just guide you
to success over time.
So you're constantly iterating and
proving, but then also testing those ideas
that you've created, right?
Exactly.
And not only that, but you're also
iterating and improving your own
processes, right?
Because then you can get your team
together every week or every two week and
figure out, okay, well, what are we doing
right?
What is making you unhappy?
How can we make you more productive?
So once you have this mindset of growth
and feedback, there's really no stopping
you because you're getting feedback from
your customers.
You're getting feedback from your
employees.
So at the end of the day, your customers,
your employees, they're all happy, they
all feel heard, and you are always
building the right thing for them.
Amazing.
Yeah, so it's not only working on of
course a product, which is of course very
important, but also your team, right?
Also the people around you.
Are you getting that feedback?
Are they happy?
Are you retaining staff as well?
Because it's one job finding them, but
it's another job retaining them as well.
Isn't that right?
Hiring is one of the most important things
that you could do as a leader because one
hire that has maybe a bad attitude can
really create a toxic culture.
So you need to make sure that one, whoever
you hire fits within your culture, has the
right skill set, but also the culture that
you are creating is a culture of
collaboration, a culture of growth.
And the only way that you can really do
that is by setting up
processes that are one, transparent, but
also processes that make the employees
feel heard.
Because if you have a loyal employee, if
you have an employee that is really happy
to work at your company, they're gonna be
10x more productive than an employee who's
not engaged.
So that's one of your most important role
as a leader.
Yeah, finding those staff that will go the
extra mile and uplift everyone else as
well will be amazing.
But if you have it in the opposite
direction, it can also be detrimental to
you, right?
Exactly.
So at Mindbody, for example, we used to
take employee surveys every few weeks.
And by far, the team that we built was one
of the happiest team at Mindbody.
And we could see the business impact
directly because we were we were very
productive.
We were shipping products every week, we
were growing like crazy.
And then when Mindbody wanted to build an
office in Prune, they took my team to try
to experiment with that.
So happier employee definitely led us to
higher performance and more engagement and
more customer over time.
No, no, amazing.
I guess with the companies that you work
with now, because a lot of them are funded
and all these different things, I guess
what advice would you give to a company
maybe looking for funding?
What should they have in order to get that
funding?
I know you mentioned before about
iterating as quick as you can, but is
there anything else there that could be
helpful for them to find that funding?
Because a lot of the companies I've spoken
to is they're struggling to get funding,
right?
And they don't know maybe what to do in
order to get that funding.
So what does that look like from your end
and what's your experience there?
Yeah, so for context, one of the things
that we've been building, so I run a tech
female founder community that I already
mentioned, but we also have a venture
studio where we're incubating those
startups.
So basically, they come to us and then we
give them hands-on technical expertise.
We build their app for them.
We help them with fundraising.
We help them with marketing, really
anything that they need to grow their
startup.
So one of the advice that I give is
that...
Now, the funding landscape is different
than it was two, three years ago when it
was really easy to raise money.
So that means that investors are more
cautious on how they're deploying capital.
One of the things that they are looking
for is, you know, traction, investor
readiness, and team.
Who is on your team, right?
What has their accomplishment been?
Do they have a track record, right?
And even if someone, let's say,
you know, did not take a company exit.
What in your track record, what in your
career makes it that you are the best
person to solve your problem, right?
And that's one of the things that investor
look like for is this concept of unfair
advantage.
What is your unfair advantage?
What is something that you know more that
nobody else has, right?
And that you are the best person to solve
your problem.
So that's one thing that
I encourage founders to do is like, found
your unfair advantage, find something in
your background that will make you stand
out for investors and then also find a
co-founder or a founding team member that
also has that.
For example, let's say you are building in
AI startups because now AI is really hot,
it's a growing field, there's a lot of
money growing into that.
find someone who not only says, hey, I
know AI, but something in their background
that proves that actually they know AI,
right?
Have they studied AI?
Have they built AI product?
Have they coded AI products?
Because now investors can see through it
very, very easily.
So that's one part, which is the team.
Now, the second part is traction and
having...
kind of that your MVP is needed.
And traction can be different things.
It could be a wait list of users, right?
If you have a wait list of 10,000 users
that are willing to try your product,
that's traction enough.
If you see a fast growth rate in the
number of users that you're having, that's
traction.
If you are selling to enterprise, what is
your monthly recurring revenue?
Is it 10K?
Is it?
Is it 20K?
Is it 100K?
And that's enough for investors to want to
fund you.
So find what traction is important for you
and use data to keep track of that.
And then the third thing, refine your
pitch, refine your story.
At the end of the day, having a good story
on why you're doing that will attract
investors' attention.
And then once you have your story, figure
out
which investor you need to approach.
Because one of the things that you need to
remember is that an investor has a very
specific stage that they fund and a very
specific type of company.
So let's say you are doing a B2B SaaS
product, do not go and approach a
healthcare investor who is funding series
A companies.
So once you have a list of investor that
are funding your stage and your industry,
then you can start building those
relationships with them.
And then when you have all these three,
components, you are really ready to raise
funding.
Now amazing that that's really insightful
I guess circling back to what you said
about the marketing point of view so
getting those signups early doors on these
different things I guess from a marketing
point of view.
What does it what do those strategies look
like just because I'm in the marketing
space I'm always interested to learn.
You know, what does that look like on your
end?
Yeah, definitely.
So maybe let me give you a little bit of
tidbit that I learned being here in
Silicon Valley is that before the way that
you really grew a tech startup is through
your product, you have an innovative
product that people have never used
before, right?
And this is like what Uber came up with.
This is what Airbnb came up with.
It's very, very unique products that did
not exist in the market.
Now what makes a startup
grow is distribution.
Distribution is key.
And one of the ways to get distribution is
through social media because never in
history have we had such a powerful tool
to reach mass markets.
One of the ways that I do and the way that
I reach my clients is through LinkedIn.
Because
my clients or basically my target audience
that I wanna reach is the founders and the
engineers in the Bay Area and a lot of
them live on LinkedIn.
So I guess the first step is identify who
is your target audience?
Where do they live?
Are they on Instagram?
Are they on LinkedIn?
Are they on TikTok?
And then start learning about these
platforms, start releasing content maybe
two or three times a week and then see
which content resonates with your
audience.
So for me personally, like a year ago, I
may be, I had 2K followers on LinkedIn.
I never posted content.
I didn't get any kind of engagement range
just because I rarely posted.
And then for the last few months, I've
been posting two, three times a week.
And now my followers grew to over 10K.
I became a top voice on LinkedIn.
Every week, my posts received from 20K to
100,000 views.
But it took a lot of grit and
experimentation to get to that point.
So figure out what works best with your
audience, what messaging resonate, and
then go all in on that.
Yeah, no, 100% completely agree with what
you're saying there, especially as you
mentioned in modern day You know, you can
go viral on something like tiktok and get
10 million views or 5 million views or
something like that Which is crazy when
you think about it, you know getting that
many eyeballs on your product early doors
Maybe even before you've even launched
maybe you're the mvp point, but you're
posting content Um, and then the other
thing with content as well, which I like
is that it compounds over time, right?
It's not like you do a cold call and it's
a one-on-one transactional thing.
It's it's there It's there forever and you
can repurpose it onto multiple platforms.
You can do so much with content
that a lot of people should start tapping
into.
And that's a big shift we've seen recently
as well within just the B2B space.
So a lot of the B2B companies now are
getting into this style of content.
So you see posting on LinkedIn, a lot more
actual, like real content, not just some
fake content that they're putting up, some
actual real authentic content.
Are you seeing that a lot now as well with
the B2B companies and that side of things
as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think having a presence on LinkedIn for
B2B changes the perception of you to
become kind of this industry expert in
your field.
So then once you reach out to those
leaders, your response rate increases by
10x.
For example, now in Silicon Valley,
because I do a lot of content for founders
and engineers, my response rate when I
reach out to someone is close to 95%,
which before is probably closer to 10,
20%.
So it's a way for you to really market
yourself as an industry leader and get
your name out there.
And then once people start hearing about
you,
then they would want to chat with you,
right?
And then once you get them on that call,
then you can figure out if the services
that you are selling is the right fit for
them, and if you want to work with those,
with them as well.
So definitely an amazing strategy for B2B.
No, no, definitely.
And plus, because it builds that trust and
authority straight off the bat, right?
If they see someone with 20,000 followers
messaging them, they're like, well, people
have already confirmed that they're
authentic and they're genuine and they can
provide value in some way, shape or form.
So yeah, you're completely right there.
I guess, you know, circling back to your
journey overall then, I guess, how's your
personal development journey been like?
Because of course, as an entrepreneur, you
go through many different, you know,
phases of it, many different struggles.
I guess, what's that journey look like for
you and what does that look like?
Yeah, definitely.
So when I started upward recruiting, I did
not know what entrepreneurship is.
I was like, I have a very specific
mission.
I want to help companies hire more women
engineers.
It was more of a passion project.
And suddenly it grew so fast.
And the reason why it grew fast for me was
all about my network.
So one of the VCs reached out to me to try
to...
hire me as a VP of engineering for one of
his companies.
And I told him that I'm not looking for a
role right now because I have this company
to hire more women engineers.
He resonated with the mission so much that
he opened up his entire portfolio
companies for us.
So suddenly, we got 40 to 50 roles to work
with that really took my company on
another journey.
But personally, what I found myself doing
is that I found myself working so hard.
I was putting in maybe 100 to 120 hours a
week.
And at that time I had a one year old and
a five year old during the end of COVID.
So it took a big toll on my, on my mental
health, to be honest.
because I was always working or with my
kids, I never really took break or focused
on myself.
But then I realized that that's not a
sustainable thing to do.
And I think a lot of startup founders or a
lot of entrepreneurs get to that, where
they are so committed to their company
that they forget a little bit about taking
care about themselves.
And then they end up burning out like I
did.
I burnt out.
I said, this is not sustainable.
I started working less.
Yes, of course, my business took a hit,
work less or putting less hours, but it
was more sustainable over time.
Then I started going to a lot of
networking events to meet with other
entrepreneurs.
And that's really when my personal
development grew because I was talking to
maybe 100 to 200 new people every week.
So I learned so much about business, about
growing a company, about investment, just
by meeting those amazing people to work
with.
And then I found...
my home.
I found my home in the tech female founder
community where I could really have an
impact not only on them, but on Silicon
Valley as a whole.
So I've honestly, sometimes I feel like I
am living my dream life where every day I
wake up and I am doing my mission of
making tech more, more diverse and we are
actually having success in it.
For example, I can give you a story.
So every week or every two weeks, we throw
events for female founders.
And for so long, Silicon Valley, if you
think about a founder, you think about
this man founder, and it's really hard to
find other women.
But I met one of the women in our
community that moved from Poland a few
weeks ago, and then she told me, I was so
scared of coming to Silicon Valley,
because everybody was telling me that it
is such a-
tech broke culture and I wouldn't find
anyone to support me, but I did not feel
that when I joined because of your
community.
I met so many incredible women
entrepreneurs and I don't feel alone, I
feel supported.
And that for me was one of the most
important or best thing that I heard in my
life because we are actually starting to
have an impact on Silicon Valley.
That's amazing.
What I love there and what I'm taking away
from it is that you have such a strong
mission when it comes to your business and
what your focus is on.
And that's how it started for you, right?
You had this mission that you wanted to go
after and then you've learned the
entrepreneurship game, et cetera, et
cetera.
Because a lot of the businesses or
business owners that I speak to sometimes,
they don't quite have that mission.
They're doing it because, you know.
They think they can make some money maybe
or whatever it's gonna be, which is all
fine.
But your mission truly is authentic and
genuine, which is why you're now starting
to see the success of it is because you've
done such a good job with it and had such
a big impact.
I guess within your women-led founder
group and community, what's in the lessons
that you're learning there from other
people?
Is there anything that's standing out
there that you see maybe trends with
startups within that category?
Yeah, definitely.
I think what you just said, which have
having a mission driven company helps you
grow faster.
Because like I said, what is the most
important thing for your company?
It's distribution.
And, you know, one of the ways to get
distribution is social media, as we talked
about, one of the ways to have people
follow you is through your mission and
what you are, what you are giving back to
them, right.
And the other thing that I found is
community led growth.
Having a community of people that will
follow you and that will be your biggest
advocate is one of the best asset that you
can have for your startup because suddenly
you're not the only one advocating for
your startup.
You're not the only one going and selling
your services.
You have an entire community doing that.
For example, for me,
I have VCs and even bankers reach out to
me all the time because one of the women
founders in my community talked about me
to them.
I don't even need to go and do marketing
or cold outreach.
It's just coming inbound.
Having community is one of the most
important assets that you can have in
2024.
The third thing, and I think that's why...
women founders succeed at a higher rate
than men counterpart, there's a lot of
studies that actually show that, is
because you need to be scrappy with your
money, right?
Do not go and throw, if you have a few
millions in your seed round, do not go and
throw crazy parties and spend all your
money there.
Just be very scrappy on what you are
spending.
Know exactly what, you know, what your...
a dollar is going out to and why it's
coming in so that you can increase your
runway.
So if there are downturns or if you need
to pivot in your business, you have the
cash to do so and then you don't have to
close your company.
And that is one of the most important
skills you could have to build a
sustainable business.
Amazing, yeah, very interesting, because
you do read a lot of companies raising so
many million or whatever it's gonna be,
but there is a thing as
overcapitalization, right, where you can
have maybe too much money where you didn't
actually need to take on all that
financing and all that funding.
Do you see that a lot as well, maybe
companies taking on too much and then not
allocating resources properly and all
those different things as well?
Yeah, definitely.
So that's exactly what happened two, three
years ago, is that all these companies
were raising massive amounts.
So there was one company that I know of,
they had just had an idea, and they raised
$9 million in seed round with just an
idea.
They didn't have an MVP, they didn't prove
it.
And it was a very, very common story that
you heard in Silicon Valley, which all
these companies were raising a crazy
amount of money.
And then...
once they had that money, they would just
do a lot of hiring that they didn't
necessarily need.
So then they would hire all these people.
These people would work on projects or
products that were not necessarily
benefiting the business just because they
needed things to do.
And then as a result, their runway was
lower and then they crashed and then they
closed down.
And suddenly
this way of just giving free money is not
really sustainable over time.
And then we need to really make sure that
we're giving them to businesses that have
a sustainable business model.
So now we're learning the lessons that we,
you know, we, we encountered unfortunately
two years ago.
So I think now startups and investors are
much more scrappy with the money that
they're having.
Hmm, no, definitely.
I guess how do you see this changing over
the next few years?
And what's your I guess predictions in a
way of the industry evolving and changing
because as you mentioned You know the last
three years has been back and forth
massively, hasn't it?
So what do you see the next maybe the next
three is looking like for startups
founders, you know funding all those
different angles And all those different
things
Okay, so I'm gonna say one word, AI.
Okay, and the reason why AI is gonna
change everything for us is because AI
will unleash productivity that we never
had before.
We're gonna start seeing solopreneurs that
because of AI can do and be productive the
similar rate as if they had a team of 10,
which means that one person can be 10x
more productive.
So suddenly the money that you need to
hire people, you don't need to spend it on
hiring people.
You can spend it on go-to-market, you can
spend it on advertising, and you don't
need to raise that much funding to grow a
business as that you usually have to
raise.
So we will see a lot of solopreneurs
emerging and being productive, which means
that we will see.
a lot more competition, right?
Because suddenly, if 10 people can create
10 companies, where in the past 10 people
could maybe create two companies, now you
have more competition, and then the
execution and the speed of what you're
executing is going to be bigger than ever.
So that's one part.
The second part is that never in history
has a technology been adopted this fast.
So when LLM came out,
Yeah.
10 months, they had 100 million users,
right?
If you think about it, that's just crazy.
And we are just starting.
ChatGPT only is on version four now,
right?
So we don't know yet what is this new
world gonna look like with AI.
So it's gonna be really exciting to see in
the next three years how it's gonna
disrupt a lot of technologies.
So I'm really excited about the future and
what it's gonna hold.
But we don't know yet what it's gonna be.
We just have to wait and see and be
patient.
Yeah No, definitely ai's is definitely
incredible and it's exponential right
because it learns from itself and then all
these different things is very much
exponential the Evolution of AI itself.
I guess when it comes down to building
these companies you mentioned that you
know You're basically gonna need less
people coming into the into the business
to build certain things and do certain
functions How do you see that affecting
maybe the recruitment side of things and
hiring people?
Do you think it's gonna be a case of more
hiring people to actually build the AI's
themselves and manage the AI's and those
things?
Like prompt engineering is a very big
section on these different things Do you
think that's gonna be the wave then and
replace those jobs?
that might have been taken by AI, let's
say.
I think for recruitment, we're going to
think, for example, instead of having to
have maybe 10 junior employees, then you
can have maybe two junior employees, and
then you can have more senior employees
that could use AI in a very specific set
ways to be more productive.
So definitely, I think the number of jobs
for a certain department.
And engineering is going to decrease just
because one person is going to be much
more productive.
But I think the skill set that they're
going to look for, that recruiters will
look for, will be more advanced than now.
We want someone who, one, can use AI, can
understand it to be able to use it,
especially in engineering.
And then also, the type of jobs that are
going to be created with AI are going to
be different.
Like suddenly now, you need an engineer
who's really good at prompt engineering,
or maybe at GPU optimizations.
These roles did not exist in the past.
So yes, a lot of jobs will be replaced,
unfortunately, because anytime there's
technologies, jobs are replaced.
Like for the internet, typewriters got
replaced, all the manual work got
replaced, but new jobs got created.
Like software engineering got created,
which never existed in the past.
So now a bunch of new jobs are gonna be
created with AI.
We don't know exactly what it's gonna be,
because nobody could have predicted 10
years from now that there would be such
thing as like prompt engineering.
And then you can make a lot of money doing
that.
And by the way, I do hire sometimes for
machine learning engineer and the salary
that they're asking for now is like 350K.
Five years ago, I could not have predicted
that.
So we don't know yet what those new roles
are gonna be, but we just have to wait and
see, I guess.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, bring it back to those salaries.
I guess it shows you how much money is in
this sector.
As you mentioned, AI is such a big thing,
you know, huge salaries.
If you can learn those skills and upscale
yourself, I guess that's one for maybe
more employees that are looking to build
their way up into a company, is if you can
maybe learn these skills and learn these
much needed skills right now, this AI, ML,
all these different things, that you can
really raise your salary and grow within
the business and grow within a company by
just acquiring those skills.
Exactly.
And now is the best time to do it because
AI is just starting off.
I know a lot of people are talking about
it, but if you think about technology,
technology goes to an exponential curve.
And for AI, we're still at the beginning.
It hasn't hit the exponential wave yet.
So now is the best time to get those
skills set.
One of my best friends, for example, she's
an engineer.
She was
She's very, very interested in AI.
And then I encouraged her to go and do a
six month bootcamp in AI because now is
the best time to learn it.
Because by the time that she is done, she
will already know more than 90% of people
because not a lot of people have those
skillset.
So if you start early and learn it, you're
gonna have a massive advantage compared to
all the other people.
Cause you're gonna be senior in one year
because you're gonna know more in one year
than most people know.
because there's not that many people who
know about AI.
So now is the best time to get those
killed.
Yeah, no, I completely agree with you.
I guess shifting gears a little bit.
So this is a question I always ask guests
that come onto the show.
So if you can go back to your 18 year old
self and you can only bring three things
with you, whether it's mindset,
philosophy, some technical knowledge, you
can't take the price of Bitcoin back
because that's not in the rules.
But what would those three things be and
why would it be those things?
I guess it would be, if you things, the
first thing, and I think I did not realize
that at 18 year old, but I'm realizing
now, is your network is your most valuable
asset.
Your network unlocks opportunities you
never thought of.
So I would tell that to my 18 year old,
start building your network early on,
start building a group of people around
you who will support you, who will open
opportunities for you from the beginning.
Because now that I'm going through and
meeting so many people in Silicon Valley,
I realized the people that are most
successful are the one that have the
biggest network because they're the one
who get the opportunities very, very early
on.
The second thing would be to basically
learn how to set, you know, this work-life
balance for yourself that, yes, it is
important.
to grow in your career and to dedicate
time for your career.
But it's also important to focus on your
wellbeing from the start, right?
So start exercising earlier, develop a
group of friends, find your hobbies so
that you don't get burnt out on different
phases of your life.
And then the third thing is...
start buying real estate in San Francisco
very, very early on, because this is the
best investment that you're going to do in
your life.
Because now real estate is just crazy.
And I feel, you know, 15 years ago, you
could buy something really, really for a
very good amount and now you would just be
sitting on a bunch of real estate empire.
Yeah, yeah definitely well, well that's
amazing well, it's been an amazing episode
I've learned so much myself So thank you
for coming on
Of course, thank you for having me.
It was such a pleasure being here.
Okay, brilliant.
Alright.