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Demystifying the conversations we're already here at RRE and with our portfolio companies. In each episode, your hosts, Will Porteous, Raju Rishi, and Jason Black will dive deeply into topics that are shaping the future, from satellite technology to digital health, to venture investing, and much more.
Raju: And all of a sudden it’s last call—and I don’t know, it was like three in the morning or something like that—and so the guy said, “Last call.” And so, Will with his, you know, sort of unbelievable foresight says, “Well, is there a limit to the number of beers that we can order?” And the guy says, “No.” So, I think we ordered, like, 12 beers. And we had a row of beers stacked on the table and—with no intention of drinking them—
Will: Not at all.
Raju: —but we became friends with so many people. Like, “How did you get beers?” And we’re like, “Well…” [laugh]. And they’re like, “Can we pay you for those beers?” And like, “No, no, no. Have a beer.” And it was amazing.
Will: And we were the toast of the University of Copenhagen.
Raju: We were the toast. We were the toast. And then we show up at our hotel a few hours before the flight’s taking off the next day. But we made it. Which is fine.
Raju: I’m Raju Rishi.
Will: And I’m Will Porteous. Welcome to RRE POV, the show in which we record the conversations we’re already having among ourselves, our entrepreneurs, and industry leaders for you to listen in on.
Raju: Hello, listeners. This is Raju Rishi, joined by my partner Will Porteous. Will and I just came back from an international road trip across three countries in Europe.
Will: [laugh].
Raju: I genuinely love traveling with you, my brother.
Will: I love traveling with you, too, but I think three European cities in five days with two early morning flights was a lot. There’s only one person I work with that I could have done that with, and it’s you [laugh].
Raju: Yeah. Actually three early morning flights because that last one was early morning, too. Yeah, that was brutal. So, you know, Covid dramatically changed the business requirement for travel. In fact, I know many VCs who just don’t travel anymore. And I find that there is value in staying at your desk and banging out a bunch of meetings, but there’s also some serious downside. And I split the difference and probably do half my meetings in person and the other half via Zoom. How about you, Will? Do you—more travel, or are you just more kind of at your desk, or is it kind of the same?
Will: I think it’s about 50/50, for me. But what I find really interesting is that committing to doing a meeting in person is an enormous gesture of goodwill now. So, it’s almost like we travel to meet people for the important conversations, and you send a really powerful signal about your intention when you go to meet someone in person. If the default is to do something over Zoom, if the default is to just kind of have a video conference, you’re kind of telling the person maybe you’re not that serious, or maybe you’re not that interested. And so, I actually find that there’s an enormous amount of relationship value in in-person interaction. And I travel a lot. I always have. You always have. In fact, I think you probably set some records in your days running international at Lucent, records that probably should be in the Business Travel Hall of Fame.
Raju: I agree. 53 countries in two years.
Will: 53 countries in two years [laugh]?
Raju: Yeah, that was brutal. Although, I got to—be honest—like, it seems like it’s every other week, but you could hit a bunch of countries like we did in Europe or even in Asia or in Latin America in one week. So.
Will: But to put things in perspective for our listeners, Raju was living in New Jersey at the time, and is it correct that you once went to Italy for the day?
Raju: I’m going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about that. Many times, do Italy for the day. So, anyway. You know, I agree with you a hundred percent. There is a powerful message about your commitment to someone or something when you show up in person now. And that didn’t—you know, sort of like Covid, kind of said it was acceptable to do things through Zoom. And I think, you know, when you show up, I think people, sort of like, sit there and understand that you have made a very, very deliberate commitment.
And so, I think that speaks loudly for certain things. And obviously, you know some of the LP meetings that we had, you know, those folks notice because they’re used to taking more and more meetings through Zoom. But I think there’s a couple of other real, powerful value propositions that we should talk about. Like, one, I’m a big believer in body language, you know, and reading body language. I think, you know this, Will, but, like, when I moved to this country, I didn’t speak any English and they put me in school and they put me literally in a special ed class because the teacher said, “Hey, listen”—they said to my mom—“Does he speak English?” And she said, “No.” And she said, “Do they speak Spanish?” And they said, “No.”
And so, they said, “Well, we got to put him in special ed. There’s no other place to put this guy.” And, you know, I spent the first year there. And it was actually this bizarre gift. You know, I knew I didn’t want to be there, like, when I was there because, you know, I can multiply, like, 17 by 17 in my head, and I was like five.
But I learned to read body language there. I learned to just observe and see if people were understanding me, not understanding me, how things felt. And it was like, you know, when you see this, like, Daredevil guy in Marvel, and he loses a vision, and all of a sudden, every one of his senses gets better, I think when you can’t speak, your sense of body language, does, you know, get profoundly better. So, I think body language is one of those things that you can’t see over, Zoom. Like, a little bit you can, you know? You see the eye contact, but like, you don’t always know whether that person’s really thinking about it, or whether they’re looking down a piece of paper, or whatever. I think that body language is super, super important. I think also, when I see face-to-face meetings—I don’t know if you see the same thing—but I get people’s full attention.
Will: Well, right. Yeah, completely right.
Raju: Yeah. So, I think the attention, you know, the body language, I think, is really powerful. And the last thing I’ll say, I think it creates a level of bonding that people have, sort of like—you know, I just feel like when people make commitments over Zoom, they don’t honor that. I mean, statistically, they don’t honor them as much as if they’ve arrived face-to-face, shaking somebody’s hand and said, “I’m going to do this.”
Will: Well, I think that’s exactly right. And for the person who’s willing to hustle and travel, you actually have an enormous advantage over anyone who’s trying to do the same business over Zoom. And it sends a really strong signal, not only of your commitment to the relationship, but of the fact that you’re willing to work hard for the partner. And you know, without going into details, I think you and I can reflect on some things we’ve learned in our travel last week from seeing some longtime limited partners, that even though we know them, we never would have learned if we hadn’t gone in person.
Raju: Yeah, it reminds me that a long time ago, there was United Airlines had this commercial where the CEO of a small comp—for me, like, I don’t know, 50 people in the room, and he starts calling out people’s names and giving them tickets, like, he’s handing out these United Airlines tickets. And he said, “I got a call from one of our customers who’s really kind of, like, annoyed or, like, upset, and this is a super loyal customer.” And if this customer says, “I don’t see your people anymore,” it meant so much to the CEO on this commercial, and he started handing out tickets and saying, “You’re going to go see customer X, you’re going to see customer Y.” And it’s true, right? Like, I think that level of, like, loyalty when you’re doing it face-to-face is super important. So anyway.
Will: Completely agree.
Raju: Let’s start with board meetings. How do you work with your boards now? Are your meetings sort of largely Zoom, or are they, you know, sort of, how does that function, and how do you sort of agree to it at a board level? And I’ll talk to you about how I do it with mine.
Will: So, my meetings, I’d say, are 70% in person, about 30% remote. I have certain companies that have opted for most of their board meetings to be remote because many of the directors don’t travel very much. They may be overseas, the board’s really spread out, and the board needs to meet at a pretty high cadence, and so we end up doing a lot of things over Zoom. And I guess everyone’s gotten acclimated to that.
I don’t love it. I think that we would probably have some even more powerful conversations if we were all in the same room. And I have a strong bias towards board meetings that are in person. In today’s environment, with our companies typically having four or five directors, many of them from different geographies, it’s almost inevitable that some of the directors are not in the room, even for in-person board meetings. And all I’ll say is, boy, you know by default, if you’re not in the room, that you’re missing something.
Raju: That is super I—
Will: There’s a conversation that happens outside the room. There’s a conversation that happens—there’s a sidebar, you’re missing something.
Raju: Wow. 70%, that’s high. That’s higher than I would have imagined. I do about 50/50. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s 50/50. I would say it’s like 40% in person, 60% remote. And I have a couple of, like—you know, for the listeners, whether they be venture capitalists or they are entrepreneurs—I think the key to all of this is to pick a set number that you’re going to do in the year that are face-to-face and get everyone to commit. Because, as you said, I think it’s really, really tough when you have 80% of the people there physically, and 20% of the people on Zoom because they’re just not going to get a word in edgewise. And they might be important, you know, votes and important, you know, sort of individuals to hear out, but the loudest people are going to be the ones in the room.
And so, I find this works when you pick, let’s say, you know, you have six board meetings a year, and you say two or three are going to be in person, no question. And everyone says, “Yes, I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll be there.” Inevitably, you might have one person drop out for whatever reason, but if the vast majority of the people are in the room, I think those meetings tend to be very productive. So, that’s a tip for me. And then I would say, you know, tie in a lunch or dinner. Do you do lunches and dinners at every one of your, sort of, in person?
Will: Absolutely.
Raju: Yeah, I think that’s important. I think that gets a little bit more camaraderie. And I think we said this in one of our other podcasts, but like, in the history of, like, all of my companies, there’s differing levels of value in board meetings. And there are four or five in the life of a company that are so important. You’re going to have levels of discussion, it’s going to be, like, whether you know we got to go raise now, or, like, a lot sooner than we think, or like, we have a massive issue on our hands, or there’s a potential acquisition that just kind of popped in.
So, four or five that matter. But you don’t know which ones.
Will: Right [laugh]? Yeah.
Raju: You don’t know which ones until you actually get there. I mean, you might get the ma—a couple of them, yeah, you know this one’s going to be important, but, like, some of them, you’re in that room and you’re like, holy crap. Like, things are either going exceptionally well, and we need to find out it had put more fuel in the fire, or things are going really, really wrong. And it didn’t feel that wrong when I saw the board materials, but while we’re talking, we got a real issue on our hands. So.
Will: Well, and there’s things that you pick up in one board meeting that become really valuable in others. I’m thinking back to our conversation about motivating and retaining talent. One of the crucial things that happens at board meetings, particularly board meetings where you have a dinner, is you get to know the rest of the management team, and you get a feel not only for their engagement in the business, but for their character, for the other stressors in their life. Sometimes realizing that VP of engineering has two young children at home, and that they’re working nights and weekends, and it’s really hard on the family, and that’s going to be a factor in terms of retaining that crucial person. Those subtle details turn out to be really valuable. And also, when you as a board member cement those relationships, you’re able to play an important role in critical conversations that may come later on. So.
Raju: That is such a good point, Will, is the extended management team. I hadn’t even thought about until you just said it, but absolutely. I went to a board meeting, and when I saw this VP of sales on Zoom, polished, buttoned up, knew the data, but then I went to dinner, and, you know, asked very simple questions that any VP of Sales should know, and it was really obvious to me that this person didn’t know what they were doing, and they had just rehearsed and practiced for the board meeting.
But then when you got them in person, you’re like, this person really is not ri—because I’m deeply analytic. I love sales, and you know, so if you don’t know the basic, rudimentary, you know, functions of how your team is functioning, you know, yeah, you’re just practicing for the mic. How about just for, like, companies? How would you think about it for companies that are remote only? And I think we talked about this at a previous podcast, but like, how do you get that face-to-face piece kind of solved? Or do you think that no company should be remote anymore?
Will: I think that there’s a tipping point on these things. I think you can design effective organizations that are almost fully remote, provided that you create compensating mechanisms in your culture, and that includes certain communication norms. I had a company that started as a global company from day one, and they actually kept cameras on in every office around the world where people were working so that you could see whatever was going on, even if there wasn’t a meeting happening. Like, you could see what was happening in the San Francisco office. You could just see people walking around, if you were sitting in the Seoul office or the Munich office.
I don’t love remote because I think it becomes more challenging to build culture. And so, as I said, you’ve got to come up with major compensating mechanisms. You’ve got to have full organizational off-sites, which means spending the money to have people travel, to stay in a nice situation, and really invest the time in being together, not just for meetings, but for team building, for getting to know each other. If you don’t create those compensation mechanisms, fully remote will never work for you.
Raju: Yeah. That’s interesting. I, you know, I prefer companies that have a local office. I really do. I think they become—there’s an advantage, [laugh] you know? You have an advantage over your competition because you were there face-to-face. You can, you know, look somebody in the eye and they commit to something, and they do it. And you have to look that person in the eye the next day because you’re in the office if you haven’t done it.
I think if you do have a remote-only company, or a company with multiple offices, which is inevitability, right? Like that happens, like, you’ve got an office in some European country, or, you know, bi-coastal, or you have engineering in one location and sales another, I think you have to have one to four all-hands in person, where everybody from the company is together. And though I say one to four, I prefer four. I think you have to have—you know, some people, they can’t do the financials, right? They’ve just been very, very low budget in terms of how they got pulled together, and so it’s difficult for them to do four of them per year because it is a costly endeavor, but I think you have to have at least one, probably, you know, if you can afford it, four. Because you’re saving a bunch of money by having remote workers and no office, just go do it.
And I think you’re going to find that those moments are where things get catalyzed, and people who’ve never seen each other face-to-face, kind of, see somebody, shake somebody’s hands, and then all of a sudden, a lot of chemistry and magic starts happening. So anyway, that’s sort of our tip. We’re not going to have a Gatling gun section, just for our listeners. I know some people just fast-forward to the Gatling gun section because they love it. Like, the rest of this podcast is a little bit of a Gatling gun and so we’re going to move on to it.
What I’m going to do is we’re going to move to the travel tips section right here. And I know you travel all the time, Will. I travel all the time. We’re going to go back and forth. I’m going to ask you for your tip, one tip. I’ll give one, and then you give one, and we’ll go kind of back and forth. So, what’s your first tip?
Will: So, my first tip is actually, know how to use a hotel. If you’re fortunate enough to—which is a sort of weird thing to say, I realize—but if you’re fortunate enough to travel at a reasonably comfortable standard, and when you check into a hotel, you ought to recognize for a moment that everybody who works there is willing to do things to help you have a successful trip, right? And so, right across from the registration desk is often the concierge desk. If there is anything you need, if there is a restaurant reservation that you need, or someone that you’re trying to get in touch with, that concierge is willing to go to work for you. Learning how to work a hotel and get a hotel to work for you, you can unlock a lot of value from the money that your company is spending for you to be there.
Raju: I agree. I’m going to tell my favorite story about working a hotel. This is a little lengthy, but I’ll tell it. So, I was running international for AT&T and Lucent, and I had hired a country manager in Argentina. You’re already laughing, Will. Because Will has heard this story.
Will: [laugh].
Raju: Okay—
Will: I love this story.
Raju: Yeah. It’s not my favorite story. I had lots of international. This is a good one. So, I’d hired her—her name was Patricia Vasquez—and she picked me up from the airport and kind of drove me to the hotel. And you know, I was pretty thankful she got me there. And she says, “I pick you up at nine o’clock and we go to Tango.” So, I sit there and say, “Yeah.”
So, I’m like, oh crap. I have no idea how to tango. Nothing. Zero experience. I’m like, I didn’t—but, you know, when in Rome, whatever. And I’m like, I’m going to learn. I’m going to learn. So, I go over to the concierge and I say, “Hey, I know it’s a short notice. I have, like, four hours. I have to learn how to tango and I have to get an outfit.”
Will: [laugh].
Raju: Yeah, exactly. So, the guy’s like, “No problem, Mr. Rishi.” And you know, gets me hooked up with, you know, somebody who can teach me how to do all this stuff. And I, you know, practice for, like, an hour-and-a-half. I think I got it. No rose in the mouth, no swapping roses or anything like that. And he gets a tailor for me, comes and just measures me out, and I get this, like, amazing looking costume, like, a black leotard. I got a hat, you know?
Will: I bet you looked great.
Raju: Dude. You know, like—I—it is, it is—I got a look in a box. I probably still have it. I’m never going to wear that again [laugh]. So, I come down to the lobby, I’m wearing this hat and this leotard, black leotard, and Patricia looks at me. She goes, “Oh, very interesting.” And so, I get in her car, we go, and we sit at a table. I go, “I thought we were going to go to tango.” She goes, “Yes, we watch tango.” And I am, like, freaking out. I’m wearing this black leotard with this hat. But per your tip, the concierge took care of me.
Will: Totally delivered for you [laugh].
Raju: I worked the hotel. I worked the hotel. Anyway, I was so mortified. But, you know, listen, I have, I know a little bit how to tango, now. It’s been a long time.
Okay, my tip—this is simple—yours are better, I think, but like mine, is adjust to the time zone before you get on the plane. This can be really hard because, you know, what I mean by that is, sleeping on the plane makes sense. Sleep on the plane and wake up in the morning in wherever destination you’re going to be, you know, basically ready to go. And so, you’ve kind of adjusted as much as you can. And if that means you’ve got to sort of, you know, really exhaust yourself the night before so that you can sleep on the plane, do it.
You know, I know it’s hard because we all want to watch, you know, Princess Bride on the plane for the eighth time, and they feed you every 15 minutes on the international flights. And it’s like, whoa, you know, cheesecake? Yeah, I’ll have the cheesecake. And then two minutes later they’ve got, like, oh, we have, like, a cannoli, extra cannoli left over, and so [laugh] yeah. Don’t do it. Adjust.
Will: No, that’s right, don’t do it. I think that you know, if you’re lucky enough to be traveling in business class, or even—business class, or even better-, it’s important to recognize that part of the way they justify the fare is that they think they’re running a sort of Michelin star restaurant in the sky. And it’s all nice, well and good to eat in nice restaurants if you have that opportunity, but it’s actually, like, a terrible idea for your body in the physical constraints of a pressurized cabin at altitude, right? Because the low pressure situation is a lot to ask of your body already, and the dehydration situation that goes with being in an airplane cabin, even in today’s more modern aircraft, is asking quite a lot of your body. So, to drop a heavy meal on top of that and maybe some really nice wines, you’re kind of setting yourself up for a rough, rough arrival.
And if you want to punch through that jet lag, I do have a routine, you’re right, that I apply in the way that I travel. So, I do try to time my meals very consciously. I almost never eat the first meal on an overnight international flight. I eat earlier in the day before I go to the airport or something like that. And I do try to sleep if I can.
I use something called Flykitt, which helps a lot in terms—it’s basically just melatonin, but it definitely helps with that. And then I’ll eat the breakfast beforehand. And then exercise and being outdoors will do more to accelerate dealing with jet lag than just about anything, I think. And if you can use those things to push your body over, you’ll sleep well on that first night overseas.
Raju: I love it. I love it. I was going to say very similar things: eat before you get on the plane, hydrate, exercise when you get there. I think those are, like, a package of, like, diet and, you know, sort of like, functional tips. Any other quick tips that you have, and then I’ll get into?
Will: I have two. The first one, so how do you get away with a week or more on the road and checking luggage? And the answer is, hotel laundry. And hotel laundry is expensive, like, I have an allergic reaction to what it costs, but it’s the difference between checking a bag and not, a lot of the time. And if you look at it that way, it can be justified.
Raju: I love it. I love it. I also said in my tip section, only carry-ons because you don’t know whether your flight’s going to get diverted and you don’t know if you’re going to land someplace because, you know, there was an issue. And the luggage might be going someplace else because it’s a kind of connecting flight, or whatever. So, only carry-ons, only carry-ons. And I totally agree, like, if you have to, do laundry in the hotel. So, do you have a tip on what to carry, what to bring with you? Anything that is, like, out of the ordinary that you would tell people, like, hey, might be worth it?
Will: Oh, I mean beyond, like, the extra pair of glasses. And—
Raju: You remember. Will, knows. Will knows. We were just on this flight, and I had gotten a new prescription for my reading glasses, and the stem fell off of my glasses. And of course, I jury rigged it. I put a set of, you know, massive air pod headphones on that clasped one the remaining stem to my ear and kept the glasses in place. But yeah, a second pair of glasses is a great tip.
I suggest a first aid kit, like, a very, very, like, basic first aid kit with a couple of, like, you know, ibuprofen or whatever because you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get it where you go. Any out of the ordinary things that you bring with you? Out of the ordinary?
Will: I don’t think so. I do have a tip on luggage, actually, which is, you know, you and I were just traveling together, and I had this old Rimowa suitcase that completely disintegrated. The handle—like literally has, you know, hundreds of thousands of miles on this suitcase—and the handle was just destroyed in this Lufthansa flight. And turns out, you can get these things serviced worldwide. So, paying a little more for good luggage also means that they help you take care of it.
And I walked into the Rimowa store in Munich with this completely shattered handle, and I walked out ten minutes later and 60 euros lighter, with basically a brand-new handle and what feels like a brand new suitcase. Sometimes, you know, you pay a lot for good luggage, but it sometimes comes with a guarantee and a service plan that you may value in the long run.
Raju: I love that. I love it. The one thing I carry that, you know, maybe people don’t carry is, I think called iFly, but basically it allows you to connect your Airpods, or your AirPod Max—those big ones that kind of go over the ear—to one of those small jack things, and it then Bluetooths from that, you know, jack, to your actual headphones. Because they give you these, like, string headphones in some places, and you have to turn the volume up to, like, 1000% and then you can barely hear and you’re missing a lot of stuff because they’re not a lot of stuff in closed caption. I think that thing is remarkable because it basically converts that headphone jack into your bluetooth headphones, and that has been the saving grace for, like, planes that are sort of stuck or whatever. Okay—
Will: I bet.
Raju: —so any other quick tips, or can we move to the next section? Okay, next section. I’m just going to ask a couple of, you know, well you tell me, favorite airport? What’s your favorite airport?
Will: Oh, that’s the Munich Airport. If I’m traveling to Europe, I like going in and out through Munich. It’s easy to get to the city, it’s never too crowded, never have delays, ground delays, and the truth is, it contrasts pretty sharply with another airport in Germany, where things are not so smooth [laugh].
Raju: Yeah, I love that airport, and you and I were just there recently. My favorite is actually my home base airport, which is Palm Beach. I think that it’s like, so small, and the people know me. It’s like, “Oh hey, Mr. Rishi, you know, no need to go through security.” [laugh].
Will: Palm Beach is a sweet little airport, and it’s been just like that for, like, 30 or 40 years. It has totally not changed. It’s a nice place to fly into.
Raju: Yeah, it’s about, I can get on my flight, you know, very, very quickly, and there’s usually no line. Okay, so what’s your best travel experience? Best one?
Will: Gosh, that’s a hard question. I mean, I have a lot of family travel that I’ve loved over the years. You know, I love going to concerts in foreign countries. I love seeing new countries. I was fortunate to travel a lot when I was young, and it just it feels at home to me to be on the road. What about you?
Raju: Yeah. Well, no, it’s with you and me, together. Like, many years ago, Will and I went to Copenhagen, we saw this pension fund, and it was like we had, like, two hours to get to the airport. So, we rushed. You know, we got the car servi—oh, we didn’t even have time for the car service. We took the train to the airport because it was actually faster.
Will: Oh, that’s right.
Raju: And we get there, and we get through security, and we’re, like, sitting in the lounge, pleased with ourselves, and we get these alerts saying, “Your flight’s been canceled. We have a mechanical issue.” And not only is it canceled, but like, there’s no other flights that day, so you’re going to have to stay in Copenhagen. Which, at first we were a little upset, and then we thought about it and said, amazing. So, we—[laugh] we found our hotel. We got another night at the hotel, and we went to this place called Café Victor, which—and there was a guy named Stefan who was plying us with drinks.
And, man, it was like, what was that movie? It wasn’t, like, Hangover. It was like that movie, you know, where that $20 bill kind of floats around, and there’s all these different experiences that happened?
Will: Yes. Yes.
Raju: Yeah, I can’t remember, like, Short Circuit. I can’t remember, like, something like this, Short Time? After Night? After Hours? Something like that, it was the name of the movie. I think it’s After Hours, actually.
So, we drink at Café Victor, and we’re like, we’re still not done for the night. You know, our flights are in the morning. So, we started walking through all of Copenhagen looking for bars that still were serving alcohol. And we had quite a few drinks. It was fantastic. And then everything was shut down, except a university bar.
Will: [laugh]. That’s right.
Raju: Yeah. And so, we’re headed there, and on route, we see this couple, kind of arguing in the street. And Will and I were like… then this woman was like, kind of a little bit afraid and, you know, we were brazen. We had some alcohol in us. And Will says, “Yo.” And I was like—but I look over and I see the guy, and he goes, “What are you doing?” And it was like, Will’s an imposing figure, like, six foot five? Four? What are you?
Will: I don’t know. I’m six three, but we were also both fathers of daughters, so I think we were concerned [laugh].
Raju: Yeah, there was concern. We started talking to the guy, what are you doing to her? And he was like, “No, no, no, it’s okay.” And then she steps in front of him, and she’s, “No, no, no, it’s okay. He’s my boyfriend.”
And we were just—it was like, we don’t want any issues tonight. And like, you know, otherwise, we’re going to take this into our own hands. And so, they were like, nervous, and the two of them escaped down the subway, and I think we prevented, well, I don’t know what we’ve prevented, but we were just, like—
Will: I think they went on to live happily ever after since we intervened.
Raju: But that wasn’t the end of the night. We actually show up at this university pub, and it’s like, got all sorts of stuff all over the wall, and all of a sudden it’s last call—and I don’t know, it was like three in the morning or something like that—and so the guy said, “Last call.” And so, Will with his, you know, sort of unbelievable foresight says, “Well, is there a limit to the number of beers that we can order?” And the guy says, “No.” So, I think we ordered, like, 12 beers. And we had a row of beers stacked on the table and—with no intention of drinking them—
Will: Not at all.
Raju: —but we became friends with so many people. Like, “How did you get beers?” And we’re like, “Well…” [laugh]. And they’re like, “Can we pay you for those beers?” And like, “No, no, no. Have a beer.” And it was amazing.
Will: And we were the toast of the University of Copenhagen.
Raju: We were the toast. We were the toast. And then we show up at our hotel a few hours before the flight’s taking off the next day. But we made it. Which is fine. So, that was one of my favorite. All right, worst travel experience? Worst one?
Will: I went to Moscow in January of 1990 in the winter, and I stayed—I was part of a youth delegation—and I stayed in a government-sponsored hotel near the airport in Moscow. I mean, it was, if you think about what your average airport hotel is like, and then you roll back 30 years and you put yourself in Russia, that’s… it was basically, like, greasy cabbage soup served, like, twice a day, and maybe an hour or two of daylight. And it was so, so deeply cold. I loved meeting the Russians, but it was pretty rough travel.
Raju: That sounds awful. That sounds awful. Mine was—and you alluded to this earlier—I used to do these day trips to Rome, which I know sounds psychotic, but like, I literally was like, okay, we’re going to fly in the evening, and you get on a night flight, you sleep, and then you land at, like, 4:30 or five o’clock in the morning in Rome, and then, you know, you go do your meetings, and you get back on a plane at three or four in the afternoon, and you’re back home. And it’s brutal on your body, but, like, it can be done. And I was like, this is my third time doing it.
And I got used to it. But you don’t carry any luggage. That’s a beautiful thing. But that also was the flaw in this whole equation. So, I get off the plane and I start walking, and, you know, see, like, four—a police officer with three, you know, other police officers around him, and they said, “You. Like, where’s your luggage?”
And I was like, “Well”—I mean, I’d gotten off the plane and gotten through security, by the way, so I was on the other side of security, and I had no luggage—and they’re like—I said, “I didn’t bring any luggage.” And they said, “We need to go.” And so, of course, you know, they’d flash some weird badges, and I go toward them. And I get to this area, and it’s kind of a remote area. I don’t see anybody around.
Will: This is scary.
Raju: Yeah, it was really scary. And they were like, “You bringing money?” And I was like, “No.” They said, “Well, who comes to Rome would bring no luggage?” I said, “Well, I’m just coming for the day.” He said, “You’re doing money laundering?” And I said, “No.” And they start, like, patting me down. They said, “So, where’s your passport?” And I pull out my passport, and the guy, like, reaches for it, and I don’t know, I got, like, this really creepy sixth sense, and I pulled the passport back, and I kind of shove it into my, you know, jacket. And he starts scouring for it.
And nobody’s around, and I start walking, and they start following me, but it’s in the airport, and I figured the airport is safe. And so, I pull out my phone, and I call my head of international at Lucent, and I say, “Hey, you know, I’m at the airport, and these guys are chasing me,” and, like, you know? And they’re just like now, I’m in a more open area and there’s other people around, and they kind of backed off. And my head of Italy said, “Look, my brother works at the airport.” And he calls him, and he calls me right back, and he said, “Are you in a public area?” And I said—“Are there people around?” I said, “Yeah, there are people around.” And he said, “Are the guys still there?” I said, “Well, they’ve kind of backed off.” He goes, “He doesn’t know of anybody who does this kind of thing in the Rome airport.” And they were basically trying to steal. They thought there was money—I had money, like, strapped to my chest.
Will: Oh, my gosh.
Raju: And they were trying to take my passport and my whatever funds I had because I didn’t believe nobody would have luggage. But basically, it was a crime syndicate.
Will: Oh, wow.
Raju: Yeah—
Will: Lucky—
Raju: —that kind of stuff.
Will: —you were okay. That’s scary.
Raju: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I know we’ve been going for a little while. I just got one more story, a quick story to tell, and then I’m going to ask you what your favorite travel movie is, Will. So, this other quick story is, like, you know, like, it we the frequent flyer programs keep you kind of dedicated to a particular airline or a hotel or whatever, and I try to optimize around it a little bit because there’s some value. And it isn’t so much for the points, for me. It’s like the way you get treated, right? If there’s an issue at a particular hotel and you’re, like, frequent stay, or an issue with an airline, they put you on something. Like, you get first dibs.
And, you know, I hit this, you know, massive level with United, which is Global Services, and you get to board first. Like, you know, first is sort of like, people with disabilities, and then the second is, like, military, which absolutely should go before everybody, and the third is global services. And so somebody, you know, that they board the disabilities, they board the military, and then I see this guy. He just walks past everybody and past me, and I’m like, looking at him, and, you know because I’m like, confused, and he turns around, he looks at me and he says, “There’s always another level.”
Will: [laugh]. That’s great.
Raju: And to this day, I don’t know what that level is, but it intrigued me. It intrigued me. There’s another level.
Will: There is another level. Actually, that you made me think of something, a story I have to tell. So, I have a friend here in New York. Our kids went to school together, and he’s a hedge fund guy who used to cover Asia from New York, which meant that he was flying to Asia ten times a year, easily, maybe more. And he was such a frequent flyer on Delta that Delta Airlines actually bought a billboard on the LIE, just the route that they knew he would always take—
Raju: Oh, my God.
Will: To JFK, and for, like, a period of a week, when they knew he was going to be traveling, they put up a billboard that said, “Thank you, Peter Yu you for being among our most frequent and loyal flyers.”
Raju: Oh, my God. That is—
Will: Literally on the LI—on the Long Island Expressway on the way to JFK. And Peter was that, which is—
Raju: —that’s another level.
Will: —there is, apparently, a whole ‘nother level [laugh].
Raju: There’s always another level. Okay, last question, and we wrap it up for our listeners, but what’s your favorite travel movie?
Will: So, I mean, it’s a classic and it’s kind of off color, but Airplane is actually one of my favorite all-time movies. So.
Raju: Okay, I had two. Airplane with Leslie Nielsen, that was one of them, and the other was Vacation with Chevy Chase [laugh].
Will: A hundred percent.
Raju: Two classics, two classics. Okay, I think this is the end of it. So, you wrap it up, Will, for us.
Will: Well listeners, thanks for hanging out with us to explore a topic that we all live with in this world as venture investors and as entrepreneurs and as people who are building companies. We’re grateful for your loyalty to RRE POV, and we look forward to having you with us on another episode soon. Thank you.
Raju: Thank you for listening to RRE POV. You can keep up with the latest on the podcast at @RRE on X or rre.com, and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed. We’ll see you next time.