The Exchanges

Q with a little bit on you. So tell me, a lot of the people we have on the show have very similar backgrounds, and I probably shouldn't even bother asking the question of how did you get into venture. So this one, I think, is going to be a little bit different. So talk to me. What was your route into venture, and how did you come to found backstage?

A Yeah, it's a little different. I guess most people say that about themselves, but I didn't have any financial or investing background. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and for the first 30 years of my life, I kind of bounced around the country. Had different companies that I started. I started a music magazine in my twenties. I started a blog that was read by 50,000 people a month called Your Daily Lesbian Moment. The magazine was called Interlude Magazine, and had a lot of really fun things that I worked on. I built my way from indie music Tour managing all the way to arena level touring as a production coordinator and road manager, and all of that was a lot of fun, but I didn't make much money, and I didn't pay the bills, really, so I had a lot of housing insecurity, had a lot of food insecurity, especially in my thirties, and around 30, which was about a decade ago, around 30 is when I started seeing more and more about this place called Silicon Valley, this, like, magical land called Silicon Valley, and it was mostly through, like, seeing stickers of Airbnb on Ashton Kutcher's Laptop. Or hearing Justin Bieber talk about investing, or Ellen DeGeneres hearing through the grapevine in West Hollywood that she had been investing in startups. And of course, I knew some of these companies, but I didn't really understand how they worked. So I got curious, and I wondered, while I was on …

AI assessment note: “I didn't have any financial or investing background. I grew up in Dallas”

Q with a little bit on you. So tell me, a lot of the people we have on the show have very similar backgrounds, and I probably shouldn't even bother asking the question of how did you get into venture. So this one, I think, is going to be a little bit different. So talk to me. What was your route into venture, and how did you come to found backstage?

A Yeah, it's a little different. I guess most people say that about themselves, but I didn't have any financial or investing background. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and for the first 30 years of my life, I kind of bounced around the country. Had different companies that I started. I started a music magazine in my twenties. I started a blog that was read by 50,000 people a month called Your Daily Lesbian Moment. The magazine was called Interlude Magazine, and had a lot of really fun things that I worked on. I built my way from indie music Tour managing all the way to arena level touring as a production coordinator and road manager, and all of that was a lot of fun, but I didn't make much money, and I didn't pay the bills, really, so I had a lot of housing insecurity, had a lot of food insecurity, especially in my thirties, and around 30, which was about a decade ago, around 30 is when I started seeing more and more about this place called Silicon Valley, this, like, magical land called Silicon Valley, and it was mostly through, like, seeing stickers of Airbnb on Ashton Kutcher's Laptop. Or hearing Justin Bieber talk about investing, or Ellen DeGeneres hearing through the grapevine in West Hollywood that she had been investing in startups. And of course, I knew some of these companies, but I didn't really understand how they worked. So I got curious, and I wondered, while I was on …

AI assessment note: “I didn't have any financial or investing background. I grew up in Dallas”

Q First, does the haters hurt you? They really hurt me, and honestly, it kind of ruins my day when I get even kind of one horrible comment. Do the haters hurt you? And I guess, what advice would you have for me, Arlen? I need it.

A Yeah, we're human, and so yes, they do hurt. Certain types hurt more than others. What hurts me more than anything is when a black founder or a black person who is not necessarily an entrepreneur, but is like observing, says something like, I'm trying to do this for the clout, or I am not authentic, or I'm not who I say I am. And they claw at the work that I do, and they've never met me, they don't know me, or they know me, but they're saying it behind my back, and that happens often as well, and of course I hear about it. So of course those things, they hurt me, but what I try to do is not let them get to me. So what happens is I'll have a moment, I'll have, let's say it's five minutes or an hour, and I'll accept that I'm human, it's okay to feel this, and it is a thing to be bummed out about. But then, that same thing that we talked about before about that pride sort of kicks in, and I say, well, let me think about all the things that I've done. Let me think about all the things I've done, not only in the last five years, but in the last five hours. Let me think about the things that I've accomplished for other people and for myself. And then let me weigh that against this one person's opinion of me, who most likely does not know me and does not walk in my shoes. And how much weight can I really give what they have just said? And then the ones that really kind of frustrate me…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, we're human, and so yes, they do hurt.”

Q know it's a very kind of luxurious position to be in, but I guess my question to you is, like, how do you think about your relationship to money, having been, as you said, many different jobs growing up, and not earning as much as one might do in investing, and then having seven different income streams now, how do you think about that relationship to money for you personally?

A Yeah, my relationship with money is that I don't have any reverence for it, It doesn't control me. It doesn't impress me. It is simply a tool, and for so long, because I grew up poor, because most of my adult life, 85% of my life has been in poverty. I've lived below the poverty line for that amount of time, and have been around people in the same circumstances. Even if I've had really cool jobs, they've been far and few between. Because of that, I used to hate money. I used to hate the way it made my mom cry. I used to hate the way it kept me from being able to have nice clothes, and so people would make fun of me, or have my hair, or different things when I was I used to hate money, and I used to think, kind of subconsciously, but I used to think, if I could have a lot of money, I can control it, and then I'll get back at it. It'd be my revenge to have money, and thankfully, that no longer fits into anything that's part of my ethos. I mean, for the past five years, up to a decade, I now think of money as it's strictly a tool. I've seen money. I've had proximity to money. Personally, I'm ok. I do well. I do ok. I can provide for myself, for my wife, for my Close family. I love being able to do that. That's a beautiful thing, but I'm not rolling in the dough, right? But I do believe, and I do know, that over the next decade, I will amass a vast amount of wealth, of personal wea…

AI assessment note: “my relationship with money is that I don't have any reverence for it”

Q First, does the haters hurt you? They really hurt me, and honestly, it kind of ruins my day when I get even kind of one horrible comment. Do the haters hurt you? And I guess, what advice would you have for me, Arlen? I need it.

A Yeah, we're human, and so yes, they do hurt. Certain types hurt more than others. What hurts me more than anything is when a black founder or a black person who is not necessarily an entrepreneur, but is like observing, says something like, I'm trying to do this for the clout, or I am not authentic, or I'm not who I say I am. And they claw at the work that I do, and they've never met me, they don't know me, or they know me, but they're saying it behind my back, and that happens often as well, and of course I hear about it. So of course those things, they hurt me, but what I try to do is not let them get to me. So what happens is I'll have a moment, I'll have, let's say it's five minutes or an hour, and I'll accept that I'm human, it's okay to feel this, and it is a thing to be bummed out about. But then, that same thing that we talked about before about that pride sort of kicks in, and I say, well, let me think about all the things that I've done. Let me think about all the things I've done, not only in the last five years, but in the last five hours. Let me think about the things that I've accomplished for other people and for myself. And then let me weigh that against this one person's opinion of me, who most likely does not know me and does not walk in my shoes. And how much weight can I really give what they have just said? And then the ones that really kind of frustrate me…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, we're human, and so yes, they do hurt.”

Q writing an LP check, and when you look back at the journey you've been on and building backstage, building the income streams, the question that I have is like, do you take a moment and step back and go, wow, that's incredible. I'm really proud of myself. Not in an arrogant way, but I'm proud of myself, and how do you balance between that without kind of pausing too much?

A I talk about this in my book, It's About Damn Time, because I want others to kind of take on a little bit of my confidence if they're lacking any. I am proud of myself for many things. Usually it is a very introverted, alone kind of thing where I will take stock, and I will say, wow, how did you get here? Sometimes I'll be walking around my neighborhood, or I'll be flying my mother somewhere, or we'll be in an interesting situation, and I'll say, how did I get here? How did I go from sleeping on the floor of the airport to To being able to just provide so much for so many different people, not just my immediate family and friends, but so many people maybe I haven't even met, and I do take pride in that, and I have no reservations in taking pride in that, because we're here for, what, 80, a hundred years if we're lucky. We have this finite amount of time. Hopefully we are good people. I mean, everybody's a hero in their own story, but hopefully we're good people. We have the best intentions, and we go out there and execute every day, and we give, give, give. What is the issue, then, With saying to yourself, or maybe, you know, celebrating those small wins. I think that, especially women, and especially people of color, we are kind of trained. This is not to say that white men are not, because obviously we're having this conversation, but I think a lot of us are trained, dependin…

AI assessment note: “I am proud of myself for many things. Usually it is a very introverted, alone kind of thing”

Q we came for the cake and not the crumbs, and I think that's such a good line. I do have to ask before the quickfire, you've mentioned backstage, obviously, continuously throughout this chat. The question is, like, over the journey and over the team building experience, what's been some of the biggest firm building lessons for you when it comes to building backstage into the institution that it is today?

A Yeah, and I still think of us as such the underdogs. I don't even know if we're the institution that, or entity that you think of, but it has been one learning experience. Experience after the other. We went from one person, me, with a backpack and a dream, to three or four people who believed in me and really took pay cuts that you couldn't imagine, to having more than 40 people across two countries just a few months later to build the accelerator that we built, and now down back to five or so people with multiple layoffs through COVID, even before COVID, having resource issues. We've always been resource strapped. So there have been lessons like that all throughout this journey. There have also been lessons about how I am as a leader, what my strengths and what my weaknesses are. It's a daily growing and education for me, and I do set an intention for myself and have high expectations for myself and continue to nurture that. I've learned that I can't do everything. I can't be everything for everyone. This is something internal that I have. I have a savior complex, so I've learned that having that, it doesn't really play well when you have employees because you have to make decisions that are based on other metrics Rather than your heartstrings in that case. So there's been so much. I think I've also learned that I'm very resilient, and that I do have a vision I can see around…

AI assessment note: “I've learned that having that, it doesn't really play well when you have employees”

Q said, you're incredible because you see talent in people way before anyone else does, and you've done this time and time again. I guess the question is, and I hate the question, like, oh, what do you look for in founders? But I guess one of the leading indicators for you that someone has that grit That hunger, that relentless resourcefulness, that you have to be a part of it.

A I think a lot of it is built up over time. You've definitely established relationships with founders, and it isn't always figured out in that 1:15 minutes. I do what I call pattern matching for grit. I do the same thing that other investors do with the data that they are used to, and the profiles that they're used to, and I just supply that to my lived experience. And so, someone who demonstrates, either in our first meeting or our Across several meetings or having conversations, who has this really rare combination of being passionate, but being grounded. So one without the other, I think, is a non-starter, because you can have all the passion in the world, and just be really unwieldy with that, or you can be really grounded, and not take any chances, and not have much of a vision, and go after what your vision is. But if you can find someone, which I often do, who has been Both at the same time. And then on top of that, they have something in their background. It doesn't have to be great on paper. It doesn't have to be the right school or the right foreign company, but if they have something in their background, maybe they worked for their family at their family company, washing dishes, but they watched their parents for 10 or 20 years build something from nothing. Something like that, or maybe they were an operator at someone else's company for several years, and they never …

AI assessment note: “rare combination of being passionate, but being grounded”

Q you think about the next 10, and I know this is kind of quite a bold question to ask, and a very tough one, what does that look like? Do you have milestones where you're like, in two years' time, I want to do 10 accelerators, I want to do 10,000 companies, whatever that company number is. Do you have, like, milestones for what you want to achieve moving forwards?

A No, I don't do the very close milestones, because life has so many other things in mind for us, as we can see with this year. We don't even know what November is going to look like, right? So I don't do the incremental goals. What I do say is, it's very easy for me right now to think from 40 And what I believe is that the next decade I will amass the majority of my wealth. I have a goal for myself to return at least a billion dollars in capital in the different ways that I do. It's not just out of one fund here or one thing there, but a total of a billion dollars returned to LPs and to myself and to our employees over the next 10 years is a goal I've set for myself so that I can walk towards that. And it's just a way, again, to just sort of Keep me balanced and measured, and it's fun to think about. Besides that, there's no way to quantify and to even guess what impact outside of Capital the existence of Backstage is going to have, and I say that with, again, with pride and with humility at the same time. The fact is, whether you like us or not, whether you like me or not, the fact is that the work that we do at Backstage has changed the game. And venture capital, and we'll continue to do so even if we were to take our foot off of the pedal today. Even if we were to An impact that is indelible and cannot be reversed, and to think that we feel internally we are just getting star…

AI assessment note: “No, I don't do the very close milestones”

Q said, you're incredible because you see talent in people way before anyone else does, and you've done this time and time again. I guess the question is, and I hate the question, like, oh, what do you look for in founders? But I guess one of the leading indicators for you that someone has that grit That hunger, that relentless resourcefulness, that you have to be a part of it.

A I think a lot of it is built up over time. You've definitely established relationships with founders, and it isn't always figured out in that 1:15 minutes. I do what I call pattern matching for grit. I do the same thing that other investors do with the data that they are used to, and the profiles that they're used to, and I just supply that to my lived experience. And so, someone who demonstrates, either in our first meeting or our Across several meetings or having conversations, who has this really rare combination of being passionate, but being grounded. So one without the other, I think, is a non-starter, because you can have all the passion in the world, and just be really unwieldy with that, or you can be really grounded, and not take any chances, and not have much of a vision, and go after what your vision is. But if you can find someone, which I often do, who has been Both at the same time. And then on top of that, they have something in their background. It doesn't have to be great on paper. It doesn't have to be the right school or the right foreign company, but if they have something in their background, maybe they worked for their family at their family company, washing dishes, but they watched their parents for 10 or 20 years build something from nothing. Something like that, or maybe they were an operator at someone else's company for several years, and they never …

AI assessment note: “who has this really rare combination of being passionate, but being grounded.”

Q to say yes to and what to say no to, and this could be a magazine, and you get far more than me, so I'm totally aware of that, but it could be a magazine request, or it could be a new strategic direction, be it Accelerators, be it learning funds, whatever that may be. How do you determine what to say yes to versus what to say no to?

A Well, it's an art, not a science. I base it on boundaries. I think turning 40 in 2020, I turned 40 October 30th. I think it's helping me establish these boundaries that I never had before, especially in my twenties. And most of it is predicated on your personal boundaries. And then on top of that, it's what has the most impact per ounce or, you know, pound for pound. How do you measure it? And so it's an art, not a science. There's no one way to do it, but I say, is this going to make me look really good, but not have really any other outcomes for anybody else? If it's something that is going to be fun for me, I'm going to get a lot of praise for it and a lot of attention for it, but it literally has no other good outcome. It's almost like choosing between the right foods to eat. Does this fuel your body? Does this fuel our mission or does it not? Or is it fatty? Is it just excess? And so that's how I look at things. If it's only going to affect me, if it's only going to benefit me, it's off the table. It's just plain and simple. I don't have any time for it and I have no use for it. But if it's going to amplify our message, if it's going to attract more and more great founders to us, if it's going to attract capital for those founders and for us as a organization, if it's going to make someone feel good about themselves and inspire them to create companies and to keep this goi…

AI assessment note: “If it's only going to benefit me, it's off the table.”

Q you think about the next 10, and I know this is kind of quite a bold question to ask, and a very tough one, what does that look like? Do you have milestones where you're like, in two years' time, I want to do 10 accelerators, I want to do 10,000 companies, whatever that company number is. Do you have, like, milestones for what you want to achieve moving forwards?

A No, I don't do the very close milestones, because life has so many other things in mind for us, as we can see with this year. We don't even know what November is going to look like, right? So I don't do the incremental goals. What I do say is, it's very easy for me right now to think from 40 And what I believe is that the next decade I will amass the majority of my wealth. I have a goal for myself to return at least a billion dollars in capital in the different ways that I do. It's not just out of one fund here or one thing there, but a total of a billion dollars returned to LPs and to myself and to our employees over the next 10 years is a goal I've set for myself so that I can walk towards that. And it's just a way, again, to just sort of Keep me balanced and measured, and it's fun to think about. Besides that, there's no way to quantify and to even guess what impact outside of Capital the existence of Backstage is going to have, and I say that with, again, with pride and with humility at the same time. The fact is, whether you like us or not, whether you like me or not, the fact is that the work that we do at Backstage has changed the game. And venture capital, and we'll continue to do so even if we were to take our foot off of the pedal today. Even if we were to An impact that is indelible and cannot be reversed, and to think that we feel internally we are just getting star…

AI assessment note: “No, I don't do the very close milestones, because life has so many other things”

Q know it's a very kind of luxurious position to be in, but I guess my question to you is, like, how do you think about your relationship to money, having been, as you said, many different jobs growing up, and not earning as much as one might do in investing, and then having seven different income streams now, how do you think about that relationship to money for you personally?

A Yeah, my relationship with money is that I don't have any reverence for it, It doesn't control me. It doesn't impress me. It is simply a tool, and for so long, because I grew up poor, because most of my adult life, 85% of my life has been in poverty. I've lived below the poverty line for that amount of time, and have been around people in the same circumstances. Even if I've had really cool jobs, they've been far and few between. Because of that, I used to hate money. I used to hate the way it made my mom cry. I used to hate the way it kept me from being able to have nice clothes, and so people would make fun of me, or have my hair, or different things when I was I used to hate money, and I used to think, kind of subconsciously, but I used to think, if I could have a lot of money, I can control it, and then I'll get back at it. It'd be my revenge to have money, and thankfully, that no longer fits into anything that's part of my ethos. I mean, for the past five years, up to a decade, I now think of money as it's strictly a tool. I've seen money. I've had proximity to money. Personally, I'm ok. I do well. I do ok. I can provide for myself, for my wife, for my Close family. I love being able to do that. That's a beautiful thing, but I'm not rolling in the dough, right? But I do believe, and I do know, that over the next decade, I will amass a vast amount of wealth, of personal wea…

AI assessment note: “my relationship with money is that I don't have any reverence for it”

Q incredibly. I guess the question for me is like, what would you like to see the venture community do that would catalyze and accelerate all of the incredible work that you've done? It could be have a set number of investments to underrepresented founders. It could be the diversification of partnerships. What one or two Like, this would change the game and accelerate all that I've done for many years.

A Well, first thing is, we're still somehow Black founders, Latinx founders, etc., are still put into this bucket of, like, us versus them, other HR, charity, etc. Still in twenty-twenty, I just can't get over that. So if that sentiment, if that changes, and when that changes, that's when the true change happens. But on top of that, in order to make that happen, it is catching up to the hundred and thirty billion dollars that was It was put into venture capital in 2018 in the United States alone, where black women received, I think, two hundred and fifty million of that. When that changes, when we are represented with the demographics in the United States versus the amount of capital that black women are getting, right? So more like eight percent of all venture capital is going to black women rather than point oh oh

AI assessment note: “more like eight percent of all venture capital is going to black women”

Q to say yes to and what to say no to, and this could be a magazine, and you get far more than me, so I'm totally aware of that, but it could be a magazine request, or it could be a new strategic direction, be it Accelerators, be it learning funds, whatever that may be. How do you determine what to say yes to versus what to say no to?

A Well, it's an art, not a science. I base it on boundaries. I think turning 40 in 2020, I turned 40 October 30th. I think it's helping me establish these boundaries that I never had before, especially in my twenties. And most of it is predicated on your personal boundaries. And then on top of that, it's what has the most impact per ounce or, you know, pound for pound. How do you measure it? And so it's an art, not a science. There's no one way to do it, but I say, is this going to make me look really good, but not have really any other outcomes for anybody else? If it's something that is going to be fun for me, I'm going to get a lot of praise for it and a lot of attention for it, but it literally has no other good outcome. It's almost like choosing between the right foods to eat. Does this fuel your body? Does this fuel our mission or does it not? Or is it fatty? Is it just excess? And so that's how I look at things. If it's only going to affect me, if it's only going to benefit me, it's off the table. It's just plain and simple. I don't have any time for it and I have no use for it. But if it's going to amplify our message, if it's going to attract more and more great founders to us, if it's going to attract capital for those founders and for us as a organization, if it's going to make someone feel good about themselves and inspire them to create companies and to keep this goi…

AI assessment note: “If it's only going to benefit me, it's off the table.”

Q writing an LP check, and when you look back at the journey you've been on and building backstage, building the income streams, the question that I have is like, do you take a moment and step back and go, wow, that's incredible. I'm really proud of myself. Not in an arrogant way, but I'm proud of myself, and how do you balance between that without kind of pausing too much?

A I talk about this in my book, It's About Damn Time, because I want others to kind of take on a little bit of my confidence if they're lacking any. I am proud of myself for many things. Usually it is a very introverted, alone kind of thing where I will take stock, and I will say, wow, how did you get here? Sometimes I'll be walking around my neighborhood, or I'll be flying my mother somewhere, or we'll be in an interesting situation, and I'll say, how did I get here? How did I go from sleeping on the floor of the airport to To being able to just provide so much for so many different people, not just my immediate family and friends, but so many people maybe I haven't even met, and I do take pride in that, and I have no reservations in taking pride in that, because we're here for, what, 80, a hundred years if we're lucky. We have this finite amount of time. Hopefully we are good people. I mean, everybody's a hero in their own story, but hopefully we're good people. We have the best intentions, and we go out there and execute every day, and we give, give, give. What is the issue, then, With saying to yourself, or maybe, you know, celebrating those small wins. I think that, especially women, and especially people of color, we are kind of trained. This is not to say that white men are not, because obviously we're having this conversation, but I think a lot of us are trained, dependin…

AI assessment note: “I am proud of myself for many things. Usually it is a very introverted”

Q we came for the cake and not the crumbs, and I think that's such a good line. I do have to ask before the quickfire, you've mentioned backstage, obviously, continuously throughout this chat. The question is, like, over the journey and over the team building experience, what's been some of the biggest firm building lessons for you when it comes to building backstage into the institution that it is today?

A Yeah, and I still think of us as such the underdogs. I don't even know if we're the institution that, or entity that you think of, but it has been one learning experience. Experience after the other. We went from one person, me, with a backpack and a dream, to three or four people who believed in me and really took pay cuts that you couldn't imagine, to having more than 40 people across two countries just a few months later to build the accelerator that we built, and now down back to five or so people with multiple layoffs through COVID, even before COVID, having resource issues. We've always been resource strapped. So there have been lessons like that all throughout this journey. There have also been lessons about how I am as a leader, what my strengths and what my weaknesses are. It's a daily growing and education for me, and I do set an intention for myself and have high expectations for myself and continue to nurture that. I've learned that I can't do everything. I can't be everything for everyone. This is something internal that I have. I have a savior complex, so I've learned that having that, it doesn't really play well when you have employees because you have to make decisions that are based on other metrics Rather than your heartstrings in that case. So there's been so much. I think I've also learned that I'm very resilient, and that I do have a vision I can see around…

AI assessment note: “I've learned that having that, it doesn't really play well when you have employees”

Q Can I ask, in terms of the, you mentioned, obviously, the teams getting there to 40. I didn't know it was quite that large. And then, you know, the layoffs. Layoffs are always incredibly tough, especially with the Saviour Complex, Bundly. How did you manage that, and how did you deal with that? It's such an incredibly tough time.

A What happened over and over again. So it wasn't like it was this big event, right? It was like it happened in waves. Every few months, something else would hit us. We've never had the correct amount of resources compared to what we're building. And I also scale for the moment. And I also scale ahead of time to go where the puck is going. And so some of it, I have to say some of the layoffs and some of the downsizing was planned because it was about building this infrastructure for a 150 or so companies. In a short amount of time, that infrastructure was so important. On top of that, building the four-city accelerator. So there was a lot of planning in that, and a lot of other people having to do with that. But it was, I would say, starting in 2019 is when it was at its lowest for me personally, because it seemed like every month we were laying someone off. And a lot of these 40 or so people, they were contracts, so it wasn't like we were all kind of, everyone was being laid off. Some people were just having their contracts canceled or postponed. But it was every single person had come to Backstage as Friends and family, and we just had our fifth year anniversary just recently, September, and so many people who had worked at Backstage came to this virtual meetup, and I got to see them, and we were able to talk through email, and we keep up with so many people. I started thinking…

AI assessment note: “I started thinking of Backstage as less of a company... and more like a university”

Q incredibly. I guess the question for me is like, what would you like to see the venture community do that would catalyze and accelerate all of the incredible work that you've done? It could be have a set number of investments to underrepresented founders. It could be the diversification of partnerships. What one or two Like, this would change the game and accelerate all that I've done for many years.

A Well, first thing is, we're still somehow Black founders, Latinx founders, etc., are still put into this bucket of, like, us versus them, other HR, charity, etc. Still in twenty-twenty, I just can't get over that. So if that sentiment, if that changes, and when that changes, that's when the true change happens. But on top of that, in order to make that happen, it is catching up to the hundred and thirty billion dollars that was It was put into venture capital in 2018 in the United States alone, where black women received, I think, two hundred and fifty million of that. When that changes, when we are represented with the demographics in the United States versus the amount of capital that black women are getting, right? So more like eight percent of all venture capital is going to black women rather than point oh oh

AI assessment note: “eight percent of all venture capital is going to black women”

Q Can I ask, in terms of the, you mentioned, obviously, the teams getting there to 40. I didn't know it was quite that large. And then, you know, the layoffs. Layoffs are always incredibly tough, especially with the Saviour Complex, Bundly. How did you manage that, and how did you deal with that? It's such an incredibly tough time.

A What happened over and over again. So it wasn't like it was this big event, right? It was like it happened in waves. Every few months, something else would hit us. We've never had the correct amount of resources compared to what we're building. And I also scale for the moment. And I also scale ahead of time to go where the puck is going. And so some of it, I have to say some of the layoffs and some of the downsizing was planned because it was about building this infrastructure for a 150 or so companies. In a short amount of time, that infrastructure was so important. On top of that, building the four-city accelerator. So there was a lot of planning in that, and a lot of other people having to do with that. But it was, I would say, starting in 2019 is when it was at its lowest for me personally, because it seemed like every month we were laying someone off. And a lot of these 40 or so people, they were contracts, so it wasn't like we were all kind of, everyone was being laid off. Some people were just having their contracts canceled or postponed. But it was every single person had come to Backstage as Friends and family, and we just had our fifth year anniversary just recently, September, and so many people who had worked at Backstage came to this virtual meetup, and I got to see them, and we were able to talk through email, and we keep up with so many people. I started thinking…

AI assessment note: “starting in 2019 is when it was at its lowest for me personally”

Q strategy, you know, you're a very public figure today, and I think there's a lot that people think they know about you, but actually there's a lot more behind the scenes as well, and so I guess when it comes to the strategy side of things, are there some elements that you think are fundamental, but maybe not obvious to the naked eye, and how do you think about those?

A Yeah, I think a lot of people may misconstrue what What my intentions are, like, what my goals are, and why I'm doing the things that I'm doing. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I, I am kind of all over the place. You see me all over social media. You see me on different magazines and different headlines, and the majority of that, I mean, 99% of any press is inbound. It's coming from me. I also say no to, I would say, 80% of what comes to me. So I either say no to it, or I pass it on to someone else. So I think it's these different layers of this Call it five-dimensional chess that I'm playing. Maybe it's even more than that. Where my main goal every single day when I wake up, I think about how do I catalyze other people, and especially how do I catalyze black and brown founders who can then be the generators of generational wealth for their families and so on in their groups. And I look at this in decades and not in quarters, and I think that a lot of times because people just catch the headline or they catch the cool Instagram posts, or they catch me saying something isolated. They may think, and again, I'm saying this because it feels this way, and also I've heard it, may think that I'm, like, trying to be famous, or I'm trying to get some sort of clout, which is very funny because I named my fund Backstage Capital for a reason. But the strategy around it, thou…

AI assessment note: “I look at this in decades and not in quarters”

Q strategy, you know, you're a very public figure today, and I think there's a lot that people think they know about you, but actually there's a lot more behind the scenes as well, and so I guess when it comes to the strategy side of things, are there some elements that you think are fundamental, but maybe not obvious to the naked eye, and how do you think about those?

A Yeah, I think a lot of people may misconstrue what What my intentions are, like, what my goals are, and why I'm doing the things that I'm doing. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I, I am kind of all over the place. You see me all over social media. You see me on different magazines and different headlines, and the majority of that, I mean, 99% of any press is inbound. It's coming from me. I also say no to, I would say, 80% of what comes to me. So I either say no to it, or I pass it on to someone else. So I think it's these different layers of this Call it five-dimensional chess that I'm playing. Maybe it's even more than that. Where my main goal every single day when I wake up, I think about how do I catalyze other people, and especially how do I catalyze black and brown founders who can then be the generators of generational wealth for their families and so on in their groups. And I look at this in decades and not in quarters, and I think that a lot of times because people just catch the headline or they catch the cool Instagram posts, or they catch me saying something isolated. They may think, and again, I'm saying this because it feels this way, and also I've heard it, may think that I'm, like, trying to be famous, or I'm trying to get some sort of clout, which is very funny because I named my fund Backstage Capital for a reason. But the strategy around it, thou…

AI assessment note: “my main goal every single day when I wake up, I think about how do I catalyze”