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Making capital allocation decisions in low information environments and with alot of uncertainty is hard. This show talks to people who do this every day and teases out how to be good at it.
Martin Tobias (00:01.25)
Hello, this is the first bet. And every successful gets person gets interviewed about how they won. And very few people take them back to the moment before they had to deploy the capital when information was thin and they had to put their chips in anyway. I'm Martin Tobias and I'm the managing director of incisive ventures. I've placed bets three different ways as a CEO, as a poker player, and as pre-seed investor.
My guest today is Martin Jacobson. This is the first Martin and Martin show that we've done, who is a Swedish poker player, angel investor for over 15 years, and now has a new company as a first-time founder. In 2014, he won the World Series of Poker main event for $10 million. And he did it starting out in eighth positions out of nine players at the final table. And that that back at that time there was a four month break between the
cutoff and the final table. And what I want to talk about is that gap, how he bridged the information asymmetry and prepared for what was a low information environment to try to have an advantage in in that environment. And also talk about how maybe some of that experience has helped him make better angel investment decisions or a CEO. I think it's gonna be a really exciting conversation. So Martin, welcome.
Martin Jacobson (01:23.042)
Thank you. Yeah, it's great to be here.
Martin Tobias (01:25.804)
Thanks. So this this whole idea of you know at how you prepared for the World Series poker, you know wanna what I wanna do is take us back to how you thought about that. you you obviously have been playing a lot of poker, but then you had this different scenario, which is okay, I'm in the final table, but I've got a four-month gap. And how do I prepare for cause at the end of the day when you're playing poker
You know, you you your two cards, you don't know what anybody else has, but one of the ways to sort of bridge an information gap there is to prepare better. So I'm sure you researched the other players, did lots of hand histories, but maybe take us back to you know, what the stakes were at that time, what was going through your mind, and then how you prepared to be better at this low information environment that you were going into.
Martin Jacobson (02:19.765)
Right, yeah. So it it's kind of a funny scenario because it's it's a moment making the November nine, the final nine players and the WSP main event, it's like it's it's your biggest dream, but it's not something that you prepare for, even though you prepare for it your whole career. but then suddenly it happens and and you realize my my god, I got three months to prepare for the biggest, you know, infliction point in my career and a once in a lifetime opportunity because it's not something
It's you know, has seven seven, eight thousand players to start. So it's not something that happens every day. so I I knew I knew I wanted to dedicate the time as efficiently as possible to to give myself the best chance possible to to take it down. Even though I was at a slight chip disadvantage, you know, coming in eight out of out of nine. and like you hinted at poker is a game of information, right? So you wanna
gain as much information about your opponents as possible to give yourself that advantage point which is gonna increase your probability of winning. so that's immediately where my mind was headed. this was also you know quite a long time ago. So there was a lot less resources than what's available today. Today you have AI you know incorporated in the game at a very high level
Martin Tobias (03:20.669)
That's why we make stuff.
Martin Tobias (03:29.467)
That's maybe.
Martin Tobias (03:43.323)
Yeah. And and a lot more YouTube content and stuff like that. You can look at hand player histories and stuff like that. You probably couldn't do much of that. So so what did you do to bridge the information gap then?
Martin Jacobson (03:55.276)
Yeah, it was a very manual process. so what what I did, first of all I I I I created a Skype group with thirty of my strongest friends, also very very successful high level poker players and sort of brainstorm with them. How how would you suggest that I prepare? How do how would you spend these next three months? 'Cause I I figure that thirty opinions is better than one, so I would get a lot of good information that way. So we did that and then we also started
Martin Tobias (03:57.288)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Tobias (04:05.275)
Okay.
Martin Tobias (04:14.279)
Okay.
Martin Jacobson (04:25.363)
created simulations that we started playing for the final table. So what I did, I scraped the internet with the information I could get from my opponents on of how they have played so far. So I went on literally went on poker news and read every single hand report that that was reported that they've played, try to get into their mindset, did background research, you know, how how are they financially? How many how how how long have they been playing for? Stuff like that. So I wrote a player profile for each player.
That I handed out to these other 30 players in in in my Skype group. And then I said, let's play simulation on the final table. And you'll be, you know, this player, you'll be this player. And then we we we played out the final table and it was a bunch of different scenarios. I think we played 30 simulations in total. so you know, sometimes I would have the the chip lead and that would create a a lot of different dynamics.
Martin Tobias (05:05.807)
interesting.
Martin Tobias (05:11.11)
April buttons question fixes.
Martin Jacobson (05:21.473)
Sometimes I would be the short stack, sometimes I would be the middle stack, but one guy would have all the chips, so he would just try to bulldoze the the table, basically. So we prepare for all these different scenarios that could occur, but obviously look, you don't know what's gonna happen. because it's such an unpredictable game. So anything can happen. But I feel like that process really helped me prepare mentally for
Martin Tobias (05:22.118)
Huh.
Martin Tobias (05:37.242)
No.
Martin Jacobson (05:47.982)
for the actual final table because when I was there I felt so confident and I like w whatever happened I was I was sort of prepared for mentally because I knew I had d done this training.
Martin Tobias (05:57.158)
Yeah. And you had mentioned I think you tweeted before you went out there, a stoic quote. Was it from Seneca?
Martin Jacobson (06:08.549)
Yeah, yeah. Luck is what happens when opportunity meets what lu sorry, luck is what happens when yeah, yeah. Luck is what happens when opportunity preparation meets opportunity, yes, yes, yes. Luck is what
Martin Tobias (06:18.883)
you forget what it I think pre preparation meets opportunity. Right. And you sort of really took that to heart. And I I've heard other people talk about that, you know, while if you're going into a situation where the information is low and and and and and and unpredictable, having more reps and seeing more
of the potential scenarios so that you ha as an instinct have s maybe a better way to react when things do happen is one of the best ways to perform better in a low information environment. And that's exactly what you did. It was it actually super fascinating that you guys did this
in in an era before AI and anything like right now you could just ask AI to build a player profile for you on Antonio S. Fendari or whoever and and the and they do it. But that you guys did it manually and then you had people like simulating those other people and playing those things. So you were definitely ahead of the game in terms of the technology you could do today. But that framework, it sounds like what you're saying is
Martin Jacobson (07:08.521)
Yeah yeah.
Martin Tobias (07:27.298)
you know, you you tried to bridge the information gap by basically getting as much information as you could about the particular people and how they made decisions and then pr s simulation testing those things so that you were better prepared when you got into this environment.
Martin Jacobson (07:46.699)
Yeah, correct. Yeah, and I I I feel like that really helped my confidence and and I was able to execute much better because of it.
Martin Tobias (07:48.171)
Right, right.
Martin Tobias (07:55.551)
Okay. so you know, what was you know at that time the case against the approach that that you were doing? I mean you were gonna be at the final table one way or another, but I'm sure there are other people that prepared other ways. Some people just, you know, went to Thailand and boosted up, some people just kept playing their normal things, didn't do any preparation. Some people were probably telling you
You know, it's better to prepare another way. What were some of the alternatives that you considered or or that you saw other people doing that you rejected and why what w was there anybody telling you this this amount of preparation's stupid? No, e everybody was saying the same thing.
Martin Jacobson (08:36.363)
No, no, no, definitely not. And if they were, it was just it was just noise to me, you know. I was so dedicated to my process and y you know, no n very few has been in this situation, mind you. So it's hard for other people to say what's right and what's wrong. And it's also very preferential and and individual, what your approach is. And I've always been probably more on the over preparer side, for better or worse. But so this
Martin Tobias (08:51.83)
Sharp.
Martin Tobias (09:02.625)
Uh-huh.
Martin Jacobson (09:04.938)
approach suited me very well.
Martin Tobias (09:07.329)
Well, well, let's take maybe a a a different bet then. Let's go move a little bit into the how you decided to create Cupacoin, which we've talked about before, your new company. You could tell us maybe a little two seconds about what that is. And then you had a different decision to make there. It wasn't necessarily preparing, you know, all this for this low information environment, but you had to decide: am I going to deploy my time and capital against this opportunity versus the other?
five opportunities and I had to spending more time at poker or, you know, doing something else with your other coffee company. Walk us through how you used any s any of the lessons you'd had from the 2014 thing or whatever to this how do I decide to deploy capital into this new thing at a Coupa Coin. Are there any similarities, differences, different frameworks that you used for that kind of decision, which is different?
Martin Jacobson (09:58.37)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of similarities. You know, there's a lot of similarities between being a professional poker player and being an entrepreneur in the way you're managing capital and managing risk and execution, of course. so I've taken a lot of a lot of the traits that I developed from poker, I can now deploy in my entrepreneur entrepreneurial career. But it's still a new chapter for me. So I'm still learning every day, which is very invigorating and exciting.
Martin Tobias (10:18.46)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Jacobson (10:26.999)
you know, I'm sort of at the I remind myself that I'm at the stage where I was in poker 15 years ago when I just found the game and I'm learning all these strategies and trial and error and stuff. so it's very exciting. and to talk a little bit more Capital Coin. So CapitalCoin we're we're a performance platform for coffee operators and it's a way for the operator to incentivize the staff.
Martin Tobias (10:27.337)
Sure.
Martin Tobias (10:34.547)
Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (10:55.457)
by launching internal campaigns where that will contribute to better frontline action by by setting up targets. So grip bridging the gap between store targets and frontline action basically.
Martin Tobias (11:11.249)
Okay, perfect. So you decide to go all in on that, be CEO, put some of your own capital in it. take me to that decision and tell me how you d you know, what was the case against doing that? What was the case for? What frameworks did you decide to do that? I mean, was it this idea of asymmetric upside like at the World Series of Poker, your buy-in was ten thousand dollars, your downside was capped at ten thousand dollars, but your upside was
Not not unlimited, it turned out to be high, but you you had the decision at that point. Like I'm in eighth position, I could settle for that, or I could sort of shoot for the moon and try to get position one. You had a huge upside relative to your downside, which caused you to you know, invest a whole bunch of time to try to capture that upside, but it was sort of an asymmetric upside. is did you use that framework when thinking about starting CoupaCoin or tell us how you decided to do this versus
Martin Jacobson (11:54.572)
Yeah.
Martin Tobias (12:09.297)
The other thing spending more time at poker or or one of the other businesses that you have.
Martin Jacobson (12:14.389)
Yeah, I think to be honest, I feel like poker is kind of capped game, you know, there's it's a zero sum it's a zero sum game. Yeah, so and after winning the the main event, but basically reaching the the pinnacle of of of the game and the sport, it's it's not much more to accomplish. And I started realizing this that it was playing with my motivation to, you know, to put in the work and to compete.
Martin Tobias (12:20.805)
It it is. It i it's not asymmetric though. It i it is capped, yeah.
Martin Tobias (12:36.559)
Exactly. Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (12:43.165)
and you know, I'm at a different stage in life now where I'm realize like, you know, there's other things I want to do in life. Like I'm not in my twenties anymore where I was when I first got into the game. time passes very fast. But it's also poker is one of those things there you just kinda become trapped in the game because you have success, you get all the recognition and you know, you you create a community and your your routines and everything.
Martin Tobias (12:57.114)
Uh-huh.
Martin Jacobson (13:09.227)
So it's it's it's an easy one to leave, but it's also a hard one to leave because you have you know, all your you're you're very comfortable like in your lifestyle after a while, you know, as in yeah, most most careers I suppose. So it was definitely a stepping stone.
Martin Tobias (13:20.091)
Right. Right.
Martin Tobias (13:24.665)
If you if you feel like you you you you you've you've mastered it at at some level, but the one of the things you said it is very poignant, which is even if you've mastered it, it is in fact a capped game. You don't have asymmetric upside. You have the money that that's in the pot. Now it might be a lot of money in the pot, but it is a limited amount of there's not an unlimited amount of money in the pot. And every pot is a different decision framework, whereas being the CEO of something
You know, the amount that could be created over time could compound into it's not capped at all. Well, your losses in fact are capped.
Martin Jacobson (14:01.013)
Yeah, exactly. And I think for me, like I'm not that financially driven, I suppose. I'm more of I I'm I'm driven by solving meaningful problems. So that's what I wanted that's what I wanted to do. you know, when I took the step over to become an entrepreneur and I realized that I can take my skill set and all everything I've learned through a poker and try to adapt that to business and see how that goes. And you I'm not afraid of taking risks. So you know, worst case.
Martin Tobias (14:27.694)
So so walk me through how you decide to do Copa Coin and be the CEO versus the alternatives and the case against it and what frameworks did you use to decide to do that? I mean, it it is outside of poker, but I mean, I'm sure there were other options on the table at the time. How how did you choose this one and what frameworks did you use?
Martin Jacobson (14:45.025)
Yeah, for for a while I was looking into becoming a full time investor, possibly at at a VC firm. but I think the entrepreneur life suits me even better because I I just love the zero to one, you know, taking an idea and building it and really getting you know, down to the nitty-gritty. so CupCoin basically came about where a friend of mine
Martin Tobias (14:50.681)
Yeah.
Yep. but I think the LG return wise just gives me a better rest. I I just love the screar to a lot of you know.
Martin Jacobson (15:13.761)
that not not a close friend, like an acquaintance, I would say, who was running a c a franchise owned coffee shop in London and he was having all these problems with the staff where he couldn't get them to basically align with the store targets that he had. So there was a bridge there was a gap there where he and he he had really a hard time keeping on onto staff as well. Like his staff retention was really, really high. Yeah.
Martin Tobias (15:40.012)
Yes. Staff turnover, yeah.
Martin Jacobson (15:43.318)
So he was he came up with the concept of of Kappa Coin and ran a manual process of this and started seeing better results. Like the staff stayed on longer, they felt recognized, the incentives now felt were were visible and they were fair and there were incentives and before there were barely any incentives. So like why would the frontline staff care about your sales or your reviews if there's no incentive?
Martin Tobias (16:01.719)
Right.
Martin Jacobson (16:07.327)
And I know, you know, as a poker player, like incentives is everything, you know as well as it's invest everyone is driven by incentives at the end of the day. They might not be financial, but it there needs to be some incentive. Otherwise, why why would you care? So when he told me about this idea that he had and and how he implemented it in his store, I was like, this would be very applicable to all the whole industry, 'cause I know as an investor, yeah, as an investor and I've my background in hospitality as well. I know staff sharing is is a huge problem.
Martin Tobias (16:10.199)
It's everything.
Martin Tobias (16:20.469)
Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Tobias (16:29.887)
Lots of people. Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (16:37.705)
and it solves solves a lot of problems. not just the churn. Sharn is like a long term problem to solve, but it's just immediate, you know, bet better store performance, increased sales, Google reviews, all the the the metrics that the store owner cares about, and to actually get the staff incentivized to care about these as well.
Martin Tobias (16:39.659)
Like
Martin Tobias (16:48.22)
Yeah, you know, that the sport before must be pre-selled all the back air spots before under a paras and track what you have to staff set device there are not being controlled. Mm-hmm. So why so so it's not you you you have been looking around for things as an investor and this particular person's approach to the problem resonated with you because you had personal experience with this problem.
from other businesses and and other things. And and it was an important enough problem to attract you to you know, spend a l a lot more time, not just be an investor, but help him really scale that. Is is that is it the the fact that you had a personal stake in this problem helped you decide to do this one instead of just writing a check in some other company and not being the CEO?
Martin Jacobson (17:38.732)
No, I in the beginning I in the beginning I wasn't sure what what my role would be in this. and then I just kinda fell into the CEO role and I've been, you know, the one try driving the whole business work. with with my co founder, of course. But yeah, it's interesting how things play out. And that I mean at this stage of of of a business it's th things move so fast and and the plan doesn't r always go to plan. So you have to iterate and
Martin Tobias (17:39.829)
Was that
okay.
Martin Jacobson (18:07.543)
find you know, problem solve, constantly problem solve, and that's what I enjoy. You know, as a poker player, they're gonna I love solving problems, especially under pressure.
Martin Tobias (18:11.827)
Yeah.
Martin Tobias (18:16.284)
Yeah. I mean you you certainly have that. The the interesting thing is the time to decision or the time to results is very different. In poker, you know immediately when the hand's over if your decision was any good. As a CEO, you might have a little bit longer time. You write some new software, you hire some new people, it might take a month or two, but you actually have a reasonable
amount of time to figure out if your decisions were any good, not forever. In venture it the the timeline is completely different. Like I write a check and the company's not gonna do anything for ten years. And you don't know in venture if you're any good at it, literally for 10 to 12 years. I mean you've got markups and companies and portfolios and things, but the the the time horizon between decision and outcome in venture is like stupid.
And that that's one of the challenging things. It's a very similar decision process, but the time to results is is is different. I think as a CEO though, the the time is reasonable. and and one of the things I think I I see a lot of good CEOs doing is trying to compress that time from decision to result as much as possible. I mean, e Elon Musk is the king of that. I mean he's able to build
like AI data centers in like a year when everybody else spends it take takes five years because he just tells people like you don't have any fucking time. Like you have to do this in a week instead of three. I know normally you would want to take three months, but no, you have a week. And you know, you get like an eighty percent solution, but you get it done in a fucking week. So he just presses the the gas on the decisions. so did you invest in CoopACoin too or give it capital or
Martin Jacobson (19:50.829)
Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (20:00.48)
Mm-hmm.
Martin Jacobson (20:07.563)
Yeah, yeah, a little bit, not a not a huge amount. but but I'm also an angel investor, right? So I've I've learned a lot through my angel investing career and now it feels kinda good to actually have more control over the day to day, which you don't have as an angel. You know, you have very little control actually.
Martin Tobias (20:08.867)
Okay. Not a huge amount.
Martin Tobias (20:23.739)
That's that's true. It as an angel, you know, you can tell people to do things and if they don't do it, you know, it it it it doesn't really there's not a lot you can do. same with VC. I mean, I'm a significant investor in these companies, but if the CEOs decide not to do what I tell them, there's not much I can do. I I don't have voting control over any of these. but w so why don't you w what are if you had to say what the decision frameworks that you did learn
from an angel investment, you know, that's helping you as a CEO or poker. W what what are some of those decision frameworks that help you make better decisions as a a CEO?
Martin Jacobson (21:06.349)
some of the better that I've learned through angel investing would be like you say, like shortening the the the timeline on things. You can actually you know shorten the the
Not not the reward cycle, but the the cycle of when you receive information if if if the decision has any value or not. So like in poker we talk a lot about EV, right? Like every decision has an EV, like expected value. So we're that's our process, right? Like we're looking at this decision making as a quantifiable method of the value rather than the result. So result they there's a lot of unforeseen
outcomes that that can come from that that that that would are out outside of our control, right? But our decision making we're we're full in control of. So we're focusing on what we're in control of. So same in the day to day, you know, as a founder, you can you can only focus on what you what you on what you know and what what you can control. Yeah. So I try I try to focus on that and sticking to the process and building it my own process now as a founder and CEO.
Martin Tobias (22:13.771)
You can control. Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (22:23.467)
which is also something new that I'm learning, you know, day to day.
Martin Tobias (22:27.993)
So so focus on what you can control and try to compress the the the feedback loop to figure out if your decision was right as as much as possible, even as a a CEO. In poker is very simple, you know within five minutes if your decision was any good it because the river comes and that's and that's it. but I yeah, I I I completely
agree with that focusing on what you can control and not going on tilt when somebody pulls, you know, a one outer on you, not changing your decision process. And that happens as a CEO too. You can make a decision, we're gonna do this partnership with this company. And then that company gets bought and changes strategy and goes off. It you know, should you still have done the d the the partnership? Yeah, because at the time it was a good decision. It t turned out that something changed in the market over time. But I think one of the biggest mistakes I see
a lot of CEOs doing is second guess you know resulting, second guessing their their decision based on the results that they didn't like. and I do the same thing in poker. I always go back to what was my decision to put the money in the pot. If I if the information I had at the time supported the decision, the decision was good. Even if the result turned out that some guy I mean I was playing PLO the other night, a guy pulled a one outer on me and stacked me. I don't feel bad that I got all my chips in because he had a fucking one outer.
Martin Jacobson (23:50.882)
Yeah, but it goes both ways too. It's it's easy it's important to remember that sometimes you the results work out in your favor, but it was still a shitty decision. and that's when you really have to be honest. Yeah.
Martin Tobias (24:01.131)
That's true too. Yeah, you have to be honest you have to be honest both ways. you know, if you made a shitty decision and you got lucky, you gotta be honest, did I get lucky or did I make a good decision? So it seems like you spend
Martin Jacobson (24:10.945)
Hmm. But that's much, much harder. Much harder to do.
Martin Tobias (24:15.884)
It it is a much harder to do that thing. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Well, is there anything, you know, if you look back on your whole career, poker player, chef, angel investor and and so on, if you were talking to new potential founders of companies, what are the sort of one or two repeatable lessons that you've learned over the years about how to
make decisions in low information environments that you you would encourage people to learn.
Martin Jacobson (24:52.313)
I I don't know if it's like something you can learn, but I think yeah, you know, I so I suppose y you can. but I would I would say taking risk is huge. And that's something that that poker's taught me, but I think it was something I had even before poker to be honest, because if if if I look at back at my early life, like even just getting into poker, that was a high risk situation itself. Like
Martin Tobias (25:16.137)
Right.
Martin Jacobson (25:17.249)
Going to culinary school when everyone else was studying academics, you know, like that was a high risk situation, that giv decision. I accepted a a job in Barcelona to work at a Michelin star restaurant when I was twenty years old. That was a high risk decision. You know, so I I kept making these high risk decisions even at an early age, and then I s sort of just like found poker and
you know, started playing and had s early success and the that was it. And then I started angel investing, which is also high risk. So but I think I think it's important to remember that with risk comes opportunity and then and vice versa. Like with there's no opportunity if you never take any risk. so I think it's it's it's a really important skill set to to learn, to be comfortable taking at least some level of risk because otherwise you're just gonna pass off on too many opportunities.
Martin Tobias (25:43.978)
Yes.
Martin Tobias (25:49.034)
It's high risk.
Martin Jacobson (26:11.309)
and then it doesn't matter like what industry you're in. You just kinda leave so much potential at the table that yeah, you're not gonna be able to capitalize on.
Martin Tobias (26:18.726)
Exactly.
So be comfortable taking risks.
Martin Jacobson (26:25.579)
Yeah. Yeah, I think Seth God has a good quote. I think he said not taking risks is one of the riskiest things you can do.
Martin Tobias (26:26.151)
I like
Martin Tobias (26:34.185)
Absolutely. and and when you took a lot of your risks, you were early, and I encourage young young people to do that because you know, it it the upside could be asymmetric and the downside is capped. I mean, the first person I talked to on this podcast was Alec Torelli and he had a similar decision to enter poker. He was in school and he had to decide am I gonna go full time and poker or finish my school? And and he was giving up finishing school to go poker, but his point was
Martin Jacobson (26:35.575)
Ha ha.
Martin Tobias (27:02.662)
He had thirty thousand dollars in his bankroll and he's like, I have capped downside. I could spend a year playing poker and lose thirty thousand dollars and then I can go back to school. Like I have a two-way door here. I can still go back to that other path if this one doesn't work out. It's higher risk, but my downside's capped, my upside's asymmetric. And maybe I find something that turns out, you know, I'm taking a risk, but the downside's capped, and the upside is potentially uncapped. So it's worthy, especially when you're young.
to take those kind of risks because there's always a second door to go back if if if the the riskier thing when you're younger works. I mean, as you get older, you have less two way doors 'cause you've got a family and mortgage and things like that. But certainly when you're young, that take more risk is great advice.
Martin Jacobson (27:48.78)
Yeah, definitely agree. and it was the same for me, you know, I was in I d I never went to college anything, but I I knew I could always fall back go back to cooking and and being a chef. 'Cause it's easy to get a get a job in a restaurant. So I it wasn't a that, you know, that risky for me at the time. And yeah, like I said, I had luckily I was fortunate enough to have early success and that kinda like boosted my career early on.
Martin Tobias (28:14.807)
And that's good advice for people early. What would you say is something you've learned maybe in the last twenty years that is a a way to take risks now a little bit later in in your life that maybe is different than that?
Martin Jacobson (28:30.081)
I think your your risk tolerance that I I've noticed and I've I've spoken to a lot of friends that are in similar age as me, I think your risk tolerance as you get lower as you get older definitely decreases. So it gets lower and lower. that being said, I think my my risk tolerance is obviously much higher than than the average person. but I think that's something to be mindful of. That that like naturally, I think biologically we're we're kinda
Martin Tobias (28:48.358)
Yeah, I advise it.
Martin Jacobson (29:00.895)
wired that way that we become more risk averse the older we get.
Martin Tobias (29:03.843)
Yeah. But for you it doesn't go to zero because it makes life kind of boring. You're a fucking government employee or something then. Like if you're you work for the postal service and you're just punching your clock. I mean that that for people like you and me that would that would that would never work. so it certainly gets changed, but still taking an an appropriate amount of risk. Yeah, I have a story I tell
Martin Jacobson (29:11.511)
Yeah.
Martin Jacobson (29:19.467)
Nope.
Martin Tobias (29:31.746)
You know, I'm sure at poker tables you guys do a lot of prop bets. In the twenty twenty election, there was a prop bet at the table. It was about six months out from the election. Trump was running against Clinton. And Trump was 40 and Clinton was 60 at the time. And one guy at the table says there's a zero percent Trump wins the election. And I looked at him, I said, Zero? I think he's at 40%. what kind of odds will you give me? He goes, 10 to 1. I go, done. Thousand dollars. If somebody's giving you
Ten to one odds on a forty percent chance thing, even though you're a low probability to win, you should make that bet every fucking day and twice on Sunday. Because the pot odds, as they talk about in poker, the the upside, you know, compensates for the higher risk that you're taking.
Martin Jacobson (30:19.189)
Yeah, no, of course. Yeah, I mean yeah, if you can make those kind of bets you you'll be well off.
Martin Tobias (30:22.951)
but but but that's that's counterintuitive to a lot of people that are like I want a sure thing. I want to every time. but I think you're the kind of person, you know, like me that's like I don't I don't want a sure thing, I want reasonable capital allocations. even though you have a low in in VC, you know, nine out of ten of the companies that I invest in are gonna go to zero. I know that.
Martin Jacobson (30:31.052)
Hmm.
Martin Jacobson (30:48.641)
Yeah, and you're comfortable with that.
Martin Tobias (30:50.55)
There I I have to be comfortable with the fact that 90% of my bets are gonna lose. And that the one is gonna make up for all those losses. But that is a very different mindset going into it, knowing you're taking a bunch of high-risk bets and that as as a portfolio it's gonna work out. It's it's it's a lot harder for for people that are risk averse to do that kind of thing.
Martin Jacobson (30:55.789)
Mm.
Martin Jacobson (31:14.645)
Yeah, I think it that's almost impossible for for someone to wrap their head around. yeah, there d there's a lot of scenarios like that where I feel like I have a a pretty good advantage. Like just understanding probabilities as well. Like a lot of people would say, that's it's fifty fifty. Like no it's not. It's you know it's a i it it's eighty twenty. Yeah, yeah.
Martin Tobias (31:29.484)
Right.
Martin Tobias (31:34.166)
There's no chance very view things are fifty fifty Yeah, exactly. There's two options, so it's fifty fifty I don't know. I think one's more probable than the other.
Martin Jacobson (31:40.586)
Yeah.
I've heard yeah, I've heard people you know, handicapped fighting like that, you know, it's a it's a fight, so it's fifty fifty. Like professional fighters would say this all the time. it's a fight, anyone can win, it's fifty fifty.
Martin Tobias (31:55.553)
Yeah, no chance. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing your experience. I like the the way you think. I wish you good luck with Cooper Coin. Where can people find stuff about you? Twitter, LinkedIn, your website. I tried your website and it kinda erred out today.
Martin Jacobson (32:11.543)
okay, okay. yeah. Don't try my website. Don't try my Twitter because it's been compromised. but yeah, you can find me on on LinkedIn or on Instagram.
Martin Tobias (32:20.533)
Linked it. Okay. All right. Well thank you, Martin. It's been really good talking to you. Hope to see you around soon.
Martin Jacobson (32:26.648)
Thanks, Martin.