The Exchanges

Q No, absolutely, there is a courtship period, but in between, as we kind of go back to the three F's, in between the finding and the fixing, there's a crucial element of deal heat. What are your thoughts on this, and whether it's fundamentally good or bad?

A Um, I I don't think it's that clear cut. And I'm not trying to kind of dodge the question, but I'd say it's complicated. It's on, you know, I feel on one hand, it's a very valuable proxy for what could be interesting. If you believe in some quasi efficiencies in the marketplace, then, you know, you, you have to, you can't ignore that as a signal, right? I would say it's one input signal of many, but ultimately you have to make your own decision if it's a viable venture and investment for yourself and your fund, right? And, you know, you have to ground it in some truth or some conviction, whether it's the team, the momentum, the thesis, or the market, right? And I feel like it's one of those three items that has to kind of be encapsulated. The worry is if something has just momentum for the sake of having momentum, and at that point, it's just sort of folks trying to cram dollars into something because of an ego, egotistical reason, and there's some other person on the other side of the table bidding too, that's a little alarming and concerning. You know, you have to kind of dissect and understand why it's interesting to

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's that clear cut... it's a very valuable proxy”

Q Can I ask, is that outbound versus inbound theory changed now you're at Kleiner? A phenomenal brand name where the fire hose of deals coming in is, is massive, I'm sure.

A I still maintain that same view. I think sort of networks change, the world's Constantly changing. I think, you know, there's more companies than ever. I think there's more financing options than ever. And so I think, you know, you know, and there's, and there's more and more funds realizing that, like, why should you be in the, in this mental model of ambulance chasing when, if you can build conviction earlier, why not sort of preemptive financing? And so I think outbound is, I still believe in it. And I think, you know, it's, I personally think it's, I think it's, I find it difficult to sit back and wait. At least you want to start building those relationships with With founders sooner rather than later. Um, Because, you know, in many ways, sort of, some may say that, like, capital is pretty commoditized today Um,, and so, in essence, if you are selling something that's, like, partially a commodity, you should get to know, sort of, the founders, or the founders should get to know you also, particularly, sort of, if they have multiple options, and their financing could be in a situation where there's six, seven, eight term sheets in play.

AI assessment note: “I still maintain that same view.”

Q No, absolutely, there is a courtship period, but in between, as we kind of go back to the three F's, in between the finding and the fixing, there's a crucial element of deal heat. What are your thoughts on this, and whether it's fundamentally good or bad?

A Um, I I don't think it's that clear cut. And I'm not trying to kind of dodge the question, but I'd say it's complicated. It's on, you know, I feel on one hand, it's a very valuable proxy for what could be interesting. If you believe in some quasi efficiencies in the marketplace, then, you know, you, you have to, you can't ignore that as a signal, right? I would say it's one input signal of many, but ultimately you have to make your own decision if it's a viable venture and investment for yourself and your fund, right? And, you know, you have to ground it in some truth or some conviction, whether it's the team, the momentum, the thesis, or the market, right? And I feel like it's one of those three items that has to kind of be encapsulated. The worry is if something has just momentum for the sake of having momentum, and at that point, it's just sort of folks trying to cram dollars into something because of an ego, egotistical reason, and there's some other person on the other side of the table bidding too, that's a little alarming and concerning. You know, you have to kind of dissect and understand why it's interesting to

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's that clear cut... I'd say it's complicated.”

Q I do want to start today, though, with the fundamentals of venture, and you've said to me before that it's all about the Three F's. So talk to me. What do you mean by the three F's? Walk me through this.

A I will be upfront and say I stole this from one of my colleagues, and I think they put it a little more eloquently than myself, but the three F's in my mind are sort of finding, and that's sort of like the top of the funnel, right? It's like you have to see a company in order to invest in it, and I would say finding and picking are kind of like lumped together. Two very distinct, but still kind of get, you know, to just make that acronym sort of fit neatly. I would say finding includes sort of a picking piece. You can't pick unless you've seen, seen a deal, right? And then there's a financing part. You have to ensure that companies have enough gas in the tank to get where they need to get. And so, you know, it's, it's in many ways, it's sort of a lily pad from one financing to the next and, and fixing, and I would still call it building, but you know, we can just call it fixing for now, but sort of, there is this model, there is sort of a notion of investors being able to help companies as they're growing and sort of Help, help build with them, particularly I would say on the end, more so on the, I would say on the enterprise side where you can do customer introductions, maybe add value to the top line revenue side. I'd say even on the consumer side, there's a lot one can do, but it's probably much more explicit or sort of much more, you know, you can realize it sooner on the e…

AI assessment note: “the three F's in my mind are sort of finding... financing... and fixing”

Q Oh, you set up my question so well there. You said you don't want to be overexposed in one, say, category or theme. What do you make then of the rise of thematic investing, where it is very much, uh, a very, um, kind of portfolio undiverse approach, where you purely focus on consumer, enterprise SaaS, Bitcoin, whatever the theme, name the theme. What is your take on this rise?

A Well, I'd say themes have sub-themes. So, you know, if you, if you are sort of a, hey, we're frontier tech, You know, we're frontier tech investors, or, you know, we invest in machine intelligence. That's very broad at that point. Is it autonomous driving? Is it smarter applications? Is it applications to do sort of AR in the physical world for consumers? You know, I'd say, like, I'd say at that point, that's really sort of an overarching theme, and more of a marketing You just want to make sure sort of that is big enough, and then you're finding the pockets with sub themes or pockets within it. So I know you've had, uh, Jason Lemkin on, on, on your show, and you're close to him, but that's a very big market and theme. In fact, that's probably more of like a business model, and I wouldn't, it's really hard to call it a theme or category, I would say.

AI assessment note: “Well, I'd say themes have sub-themes. So, you know, if you”

Q I'm intrigued. You said there about obviously the financing and the fixing or the building, so to speak. A lot of investors have said to me before, in all honesty, The biggest value add an investor can bring is, is follow on funding. To what extent do you think you agree with this?

A I think it, it is a pretty big deal. The ability to sort of make, ensure that your companies can have enough gas in the tank to get to the finish line is crucial. And I mean, particularly sort of in sort of markets where there might be four or five competitors, if one can raise more than the others, you can suck out, suck the oxygen out of the room and have an advantage on customer acquisition and distribution in general. It just, I mean, I'm being very broad on sort of like, you know, just Being pretty broad and taking the 30,000 foot view here, not sort of focusing on the specifics of a company. But I think that the ability for a company to finance and its investors to continue to help it finance is important. I mean, you know, the reality of it is startups are sort of trying to achieve high growth with scarcity, and that's sort of how I internalize and digest startups fundamentally. They're growth machines, but the growth has to be fueled earlier on.

AI assessment note: “I think it, it is a pretty big deal.”

Q I do want to start today, though, with the fundamentals of venture, and you've said to me before that it's all about the Three F's. So talk to me. What do you mean by the three F's? Walk me through this.

A I will be upfront and say I stole this from one of my colleagues, and I think they put it a little more eloquently than myself, but the three F's in my mind are sort of finding, and that's sort of like the top of the funnel, right? It's like you have to see a company in order to invest in it, and I would say finding and picking are kind of like lumped together. Two very distinct, but still kind of get, you know, to just make that acronym sort of fit neatly. I would say finding includes sort of a picking piece. You can't pick unless you've seen, seen a deal, right? And then there's a financing part. You have to ensure that companies have enough gas in the tank to get where they need to get. And so, you know, it's, it's in many ways, it's sort of a lily pad from one financing to the next and, and fixing, and I would still call it building, but you know, we can just call it fixing for now, but sort of, there is this model, there is sort of a notion of investors being able to help companies as they're growing and sort of Help, help build with them, particularly I would say on the end, more so on the, I would say on the enterprise side where you can do customer introductions, maybe add value to the top line revenue side. I'd say even on the consumer side, there's a lot one can do, but it's probably much more explicit or sort of much more, you know, you can realize it sooner on the e…

AI assessment note: “the three F's in my mind are sort of finding... financing... and fixing”

Q You've said before that deal heat, in particular, can be a False positive in a day where there are more seed funds than ever. So unpacking that slightly, what do you mean by false positive with regards to deal heat?

A Yeah, maybe, I don't know if false positive is like the right best way to describe it, but just because something has momentum or deal heat, you have to understand why, right? I kind of talked about why is there sort of interest. In many ways, actually, I've seen that if you kind of peel back the onion, you can kind of find The root node or sort of the, the, the creator, there's sort of individuals that, you know, may have feel sort of have put some early dollars into a financing and have a strong network and sort of be sharing and shopping, shopping a financing excessively. And then you realize, wait, the reason a lot of people are talking about this is because one or two or three folks, and you want to really understand, like, is, is there momentum because there's this, this company has something, some meat and some Grounding around momentum. Or is it just because, and when I mean momentum, I don't mean from attraction. I mean, momentum in the financing. Or is it simply like, hey, this has been an over-socialized deal. And so I think you want to dig into some of that. It's like, you can't do this on every deal, but, you know, I think as you go down sort of, you know, as you go downstream, you know, there's more, more sort of dollars that cost to get a company started or less. And so, you know, obviously there will be a little more noise you have to sift through.

AI assessment note: “is it simply like, hey, this has been an over-socialized deal.”

Q Can I ask, is that outbound versus inbound theory changed now you're at Kleiner? A phenomenal brand name where the fire hose of deals coming in is, is massive, I'm sure.

A I still maintain that same view. I think sort of networks change, the world's Constantly changing. I think, you know, there's more companies than ever. I think there's more financing options than ever. And so I think, you know, you know, and there's, and there's more and more funds realizing that, like, why should you be in the, in this mental model of ambulance chasing when, if you can build conviction earlier, why not sort of preemptive financing? And so I think outbound is, I still believe in it. And I think, you know, it's, I personally think it's, I think it's, I find it difficult to sit back and wait. At least you want to start building those relationships with With founders sooner rather than later. Um, Because, you know, in many ways, sort of, some may say that, like, capital is pretty commoditized today Um,, and so, in essence, if you are selling something that's, like, partially a commodity, you should get to know, sort of, the founders, or the founders should get to know you also, particularly, sort of, if they have multiple options, and their financing could be in a situation where there's six, seven, eight term sheets in play.

AI assessment note: “I still maintain that same view. I think sort of networks change”

Q You've said before that deal heat, in particular, can be a False positive in a day where there are more seed funds than ever. So unpacking that slightly, what do you mean by false positive with regards to deal heat?

A Yeah, maybe, I don't know if false positive is like the right best way to describe it, but just because something has momentum or deal heat, you have to understand why, right? I kind of talked about why is there sort of interest. In many ways, actually, I've seen that if you kind of peel back the onion, you can kind of find The root node or sort of the, the, the creator, there's sort of individuals that, you know, may have feel sort of have put some early dollars into a financing and have a strong network and sort of be sharing and shopping, shopping a financing excessively. And then you realize, wait, the reason a lot of people are talking about this is because one or two or three folks, and you want to really understand, like, is, is there momentum because there's this, this company has something, some meat and some Grounding around momentum. Or is it just because, and when I mean momentum, I don't mean from attraction. I mean, momentum in the financing. Or is it simply like, hey, this has been an over-socialized deal. And so I think you want to dig into some of that. It's like, you can't do this on every deal, but, you know, I think as you go down sort of, you know, as you go downstream, you know, there's more, more sort of dollars that cost to get a company started or less. And so, you know, obviously there will be a little more noise you have to sift through.

AI assessment note: “is it simply like, hey, this has been an over-socialized deal.”

Q Can I ask, you've been in the seed ecosystem for many years now. Do you think we've seen the end of party rounds in, in kind of West Coast seed financing?

A You know, I think there's a, there's a large number of, I don't know if I would say large is the right word, but there's a number of institutional seed investors and, you know, they're sort of positioned to want to take anywhere from like, I don't know, seven to 15%, right? With probably 15 being kind of the ceiling. So, you know, in order for that to happen, they have to have the, I concentrate it Positioning the financing. There could be maybe one or two other participants, but you're seeing, I don't know, I mean, anecdotally speaking, you're seeing less of these rounds from like, 2012, 2013, where there's like, 12, 13 people on a cap table, and you've thrown the financing together, and you might have two to three million bucks on a note where, and I mean, it could still be on a note. It's a matter of sort of having excessive number of investors, and no one's sort of really having a claim. I'm seeing less of it, but Every so often a financing comes into play where the founder's like, you know, I just need the money, and I know what I'm doing, and they'd rather shard out, you know, sort of that financing to a number of investors. So I think it's a very subjective experience. I think the main thing is, is this founder aware of what they're doing, and sort of potential sort of repercussions down the line, or sort of realizing that, hey, this is just a means to an end for me. I k…

AI assessment note: “anecdotally speaking, you're seeing less of these rounds... I'm seeing less of it, but”

Q Fantastically concise, but how else a way to start them with a question from Nico, who asks, what were the big takeaways from your time with Tencent?

A Yeah, so maybe I could give some color on Tencent a little bit. I mean, Tencent, as many of you may know, is a three hundred billion plus market cap company, sort of predominantly with a Chinese user base. They're headquartered in Shenzhen, but with a pretty global presence, I'd say they're a pretty misunderstood company, partially because the end user is probably not in the U.S. or in Europe, and I ended up linking up with one of the executives there, just coincidentally, who helped now. He had actually helped NASPERS about 15 years ago find Tencent, and he eventually ended up joining the executive team there, was less operationally bound. He started doing a bunch of seed investing, and I think he'd seed invest in one or two companies in my YC batch, And then we just got linked up through pure sheer coincidence. And during my time there, I ended up doing about 20 seed deals. And what I really took away and learned from there was I fundamentally learned that outbound is the way venture works and inbound is rarely the way it should work. It's probably a byproduct of me just being jaded where you're not part of an institutional brand, but you want to be in early stage seed deals, right? Or early stage deals. And you're fighting sort of the lens of like, am I, are you a Are you in a corporate development function? What do you do? And I, I think it sort of forced me to create this,…

AI assessment note: “what I really took away and learned from there was I fundamentally learned that outbound”

Q I'm intrigued. You said there about obviously the financing and the fixing or the building, so to speak. A lot of investors have said to me before, in all honesty, The biggest value add an investor can bring is, is follow on funding. To what extent do you think you agree with this?

A I think it, it is a pretty big deal. The ability to sort of make, ensure that your companies can have enough gas in the tank to get to the finish line is crucial. And I mean, particularly sort of in sort of markets where there might be four or five competitors, if one can raise more than the others, you can suck out, suck the oxygen out of the room and have an advantage on customer acquisition and distribution in general. It just, I mean, I'm being very broad on sort of like, you know, just Being pretty broad and taking the 30,000 foot view here, not sort of focusing on the specifics of a company. But I think that the ability for a company to finance and its investors to continue to help it finance is important. I mean, you know, the reality of it is startups are sort of trying to achieve high growth with scarcity, and that's sort of how I internalize and digest startups fundamentally. They're growth machines, but the growth has to be fueled earlier on.

AI assessment note: “I think it, it is a pretty big deal.”

Q Fantastically concise, but how else a way to start them with a question from Nico, who asks, what were the big takeaways from your time with Tencent?

A Yeah, so maybe I could give some color on Tencent a little bit. I mean, Tencent, as many of you may know, is a three hundred billion plus market cap company, sort of predominantly with a Chinese user base. They're headquartered in Shenzhen, but with a pretty global presence, I'd say they're a pretty misunderstood company, partially because the end user is probably not in the U.S. or in Europe, and I ended up linking up with one of the executives there, just coincidentally, who helped now. He had actually helped NASPERS about 15 years ago find Tencent, and he eventually ended up joining the executive team there, was less operationally bound. He started doing a bunch of seed investing, and I think he'd seed invest in one or two companies in my YC batch, And then we just got linked up through pure sheer coincidence. And during my time there, I ended up doing about 20 seed deals. And what I really took away and learned from there was I fundamentally learned that outbound is the way venture works and inbound is rarely the way it should work. It's probably a byproduct of me just being jaded where you're not part of an institutional brand, but you want to be in early stage seed deals, right? Or early stage deals. And you're fighting sort of the lens of like, am I, are you a Are you in a corporate development function? What do you do? And I, I think it sort of forced me to create this,…

AI assessment note: “what I really took away and learned from there was I fundamentally learned that outbound”

Q Can I ask, you've been in the seed ecosystem for many years now. Do you think we've seen the end of party rounds in, in kind of West Coast seed financing?

A You know, I think there's a, there's a large number of, I don't know if I would say large is the right word, but there's a number of institutional seed investors and, you know, they're sort of positioned to want to take anywhere from like, I don't know, seven to 15%, right? With probably 15 being kind of the ceiling. So, you know, in order for that to happen, they have to have the, I concentrate it Positioning the financing. There could be maybe one or two other participants, but you're seeing, I don't know, I mean, anecdotally speaking, you're seeing less of these rounds from like, 2012, 2013, where there's like, 12, 13 people on a cap table, and you've thrown the financing together, and you might have two to three million bucks on a note where, and I mean, it could still be on a note. It's a matter of sort of having excessive number of investors, and no one's sort of really having a claim. I'm seeing less of it, but Every so often a financing comes into play where the founder's like, you know, I just need the money, and I know what I'm doing, and they'd rather shard out, you know, sort of that financing to a number of investors. So I think it's a very subjective experience. I think the main thing is, is this founder aware of what they're doing, and sort of potential sort of repercussions down the line, or sort of realizing that, hey, this is just a means to an end for me. I k…

AI assessment note: “I'm seeing less of it, but Every so often a financing comes into play”

Q Oh, you set up my question so well there. You said you don't want to be overexposed in one, say, category or theme. What do you make then of the rise of thematic investing, where it is very much, uh, a very, um, kind of portfolio undiverse approach, where you purely focus on consumer, enterprise SaaS, Bitcoin, whatever the theme, name the theme. What is your take on this rise?

A Well, I'd say themes have sub-themes. So, you know, if you, if you are sort of a, hey, we're frontier tech, You know, we're frontier tech investors, or, you know, we invest in machine intelligence. That's very broad at that point. Is it autonomous driving? Is it smarter applications? Is it applications to do sort of AR in the physical world for consumers? You know, I'd say, like, I'd say at that point, that's really sort of an overarching theme, and more of a marketing You just want to make sure sort of that is big enough, and then you're finding the pockets with sub themes or pockets within it. So I know you've had, uh, Jason Lemkin on, on, on your show, and you're close to him, but that's a very big market and theme. In fact, that's probably more of like a business model, and I wouldn't, it's really hard to call it a theme or category, I would say.

AI assessment note: “I'd say themes have sub-themes. So, you know, if you, if you are”

Q Reverting also to the finding, Uh, Nico at General Catalyst is intrigued. How do you ensure the best opportunities come through the pipeline, and how do you then look to manage that pipeline and fire hose of opportunities?

A Yeah, I would say, I mean, a lot of it boils down to me for people. I think, you know, having done a number of seed deals over the years, you know, from a, from a seed line, it's a very people first mentality. As you kind of get a little later stage, some mixture of sort of traction, people, the people, Question doesn't go away. Like, can this person continue to execute a rapid clip and sort of continue to build a great company and ensure that growth doesn't stagnate and build a culture and do all these things? So for me, it fundamentally boils down to the individual I'm meeting. And if that meeting, and you know, you can't meet everyone. So for me, it's sort of really like sort of trying to dig into the DNA of the individual, their background. Well, like, why are they best suited to do this? Even if I am, even if I'm about to reach out to a founder, I want to understand a little more about their backstory and how they got there. Do some research on them. Get a sense for their persona online. If they don't have a persona online, if they, they had some academic background, you know, dig into some of the research they've done in the past. So really try to get some, you know, as close of an understanding of who they are, how they got here before even meeting them. And you can't do all of that up front, but So I would say sort of just dialing into the individuals and the co-founder…

AI assessment note: “sort of trying to dig into the DNA of the individual, their background”

Q More and more, I find that venture is not so much about the picking of the company, but the timing of the picking itself, as you said there. I'm intrigued. How do you evaluate, then, the right time, and how do your partners look to assess whether it is the right time for that opportunity, or there's potentially a later bite at the cherry, so to speak?

A We're very fortunate where we have two funds within one firm, and, you know, we invest across the stages, so If we, on the venture side, feel something's just not clicking here, and we think there's an, you know, excess, you know, there is some weird form of risk that we just can't sort of stomach today. Um, there's a chance for our growth fund to invest down the road. And yeah, I would say, I would say there's never a clear cut answer there, right there. And then, you know, a lot of it may also sort of be dictate on the appetite of how many boards one is sitting on, how many finances have been done this year, where in the life cycle of the fund you are, There's also timings from just an internal timing, and I, I find that the best founders actually are kind of aware of this notion of timing, um, and how, how they approach you and your process and how they kind of dig in around it.

AI assessment note: “dictate on the appetite of how many boards one is sitting on”

Q your time at Tencent, Uh, I want to discuss seed, and before we dive into the quickfire round, I have to ask, you were obviously active in the market with Tencent. Comparing that to now, would you say there is a mass excess of capital in today's seed market, with I think it's 335 seed funds today, as opposed to the 30 or so that were around in 2009, 10?

A I would say there's a lot of alternative forms of capital in the market. I'd say when I was at Tencent, and I think, you know, we've We had a pretty strong track record with the team. I was, when I was there and they continue to do so. I would say there are many alternative sources of capital that may not have looked and felt like an institutional exercise, right? Or an institutional fund. So I don't over worry about the excess of capital. I think it can be problem. It can be problematic if you are trying to start a new fund where what's your differentiation, right? And everyone's sort of really looking for a differentiation, right? In, in the fun or the strategy, right? And at least focus. So maybe it's unearthing areas that no one's really looking at today and you start small and, and you move upstream over time. So I try not to think about it too much in that sense. At the end of the day, either, you know, either you win or you lose. And I think that's more of like the concerns or sort of what's, what, what I, what I, you know, what keeps me up at night.

AI assessment note: “So I don't over worry about the excess of capital.”

Q Reverting also to the finding, Uh, Nico at General Catalyst is intrigued. How do you ensure the best opportunities come through the pipeline, and how do you then look to manage that pipeline and fire hose of opportunities?

A Yeah, I would say, I mean, a lot of it boils down to me for people. I think, you know, having done a number of seed deals over the years, you know, from a, from a seed line, it's a very people first mentality. As you kind of get a little later stage, some mixture of sort of traction, people, the people, Question doesn't go away. Like, can this person continue to execute a rapid clip and sort of continue to build a great company and ensure that growth doesn't stagnate and build a culture and do all these things? So for me, it fundamentally boils down to the individual I'm meeting. And if that meeting, and you know, you can't meet everyone. So for me, it's sort of really like sort of trying to dig into the DNA of the individual, their background. Well, like, why are they best suited to do this? Even if I am, even if I'm about to reach out to a founder, I want to understand a little more about their backstory and how they got there. Do some research on them. Get a sense for their persona online. If they don't have a persona online, if they, they had some academic background, you know, dig into some of the research they've done in the past. So really try to get some, you know, as close of an understanding of who they are, how they got here before even meeting them. And you can't do all of that up front, but So I would say sort of just dialing into the individuals and the co-founder…

AI assessment note: “a lot of it's like playing air traffic control”

Q More and more, I find that venture is not so much about the picking of the company, but the timing of the picking itself, as you said there. I'm intrigued. How do you evaluate, then, the right time, and how do your partners look to assess whether it is the right time for that opportunity, or there's potentially a later bite at the cherry, so to speak?

A We're very fortunate where we have two funds within one firm, and, you know, we invest across the stages, so If we, on the venture side, feel something's just not clicking here, and we think there's an, you know, excess, you know, there is some weird form of risk that we just can't sort of stomach today. Um, there's a chance for our growth fund to invest down the road. And yeah, I would say, I would say there's never a clear cut answer there, right there. And then, you know, a lot of it may also sort of be dictate on the appetite of how many boards one is sitting on, how many finances have been done this year, where in the life cycle of the fund you are, There's also timings from just an internal timing, and I, I find that the best founders actually are kind of aware of this notion of timing, um, and how, how they approach you and your process and how they kind of dig in around it.

AI assessment note: “there's a chance for our growth fund to invest down the road”

Q your time at Tencent, Uh, I want to discuss seed, and before we dive into the quickfire round, I have to ask, you were obviously active in the market with Tencent. Comparing that to now, would you say there is a mass excess of capital in today's seed market, with I think it's 335 seed funds today, as opposed to the 30 or so that were around in 2009, 10?

A I would say there's a lot of alternative forms of capital in the market. I'd say when I was at Tencent, and I think, you know, we've We had a pretty strong track record with the team. I was, when I was there and they continue to do so. I would say there are many alternative sources of capital that may not have looked and felt like an institutional exercise, right? Or an institutional fund. So I don't over worry about the excess of capital. I think it can be problem. It can be problematic if you are trying to start a new fund where what's your differentiation, right? And everyone's sort of really looking for a differentiation, right? In, in the fun or the strategy, right? And at least focus. So maybe it's unearthing areas that no one's really looking at today and you start small and, and you move upstream over time. So I try not to think about it too much in that sense. At the end of the day, either, you know, either you win or you lose. And I think that's more of like the concerns or sort of what's, what, what I, what I, you know, what keeps me up at night.

AI assessment note: “I don't over worry about the excess of capital.”