The Exchanges

Q Where were you not fierce enough? When you look back now to those times, and you're like, we should have been fiercer.

A Lyft. Yeah. Uh, we could have been way fiercer on Lyft earlier. Um, it was the one time I saw Travis hesitate. Um, uh, so what happened was Lyft was, you know, Zimride, and I had passed on Zimride, and then, um, They saw Uber launch with black cars, and so they launched effectively what became UberX later. We were already working on launching UberX, and, um, and so, but they beat us to it, and they launched, launched with Lyft, with the pink mustaches, and people's cars, and, and so on. They weren't black cars, um, and they were illegal. Like, they didn't have approval from the San Francisco Taxi Commission. So Travis Basically for six months was like, you know, telling the, the taxi commission, the city, government, like, you know, hey, these guys are illegal, like, well, you know, why are you allowing it, et cetera, instead of launching it, you know, as well, um, which was like the first and last time he ever made that mistake. Um, and in that six months is when Lyft kind of took off, and they ultimately ended up with about 30% market share. They never expanded globally. It's funny, Andreessen, having lost the Uber deal, ended up doing the Lyft deal, and we had, you know, Travis and Emil, you know, they were close to, to acquiring it, uh, acquiring Lyft, uh, which, you know, uh, but they wanted too much, uh, ownership, uh, so that luckily didn't work out, um, but Lyft was, I …

AI assessment note: “we could have been way fiercer on Lyft earlier.”

Q Uh, listen, he does, uh, and, and I, you know, I have respect for him as an ambassador, like, candidly. Um, is there a justification for it? I try and put on my ambassador hand, and I think now, well, If we haven't returned cash to investors in a long time, I need liquidity. If investors are pressuring me to put liquidity back in the pot. Is there any justification?

A No. Absolutely not. It's, it's absolutely, the answer is no. And the reason is, you know, Benchmark invested in, in February, in February, Yeah, I'm sorry, March, March, 2011 is, you know, so Benchmark invested in March, 2011, um, at a, I believe it was a fifty million dollar pre-money valuation. They put ten million in. So they were sitting on a massive win. Um, but they were only in the company for like six years when, when Gurley went after Travis. Um, and you know, typically it takes seven to 10 years to get to liquidity. So it wasn't in the zone or the window where you'd be like, You know, 10 years, 12 years, we had, we don't have liquidity, et cetera. It's like, give him four more years. If you had just waited four more years, you know, this would be a trillion dollar company. So that, that, when you look at that, and the impact it would have had on the world, um, there's no justification for it.

AI assessment note: “No. Absolutely not. It's, it's absolutely, the answer is no.”

Q Where were you not fierce enough? When you look back now to those times, and you're like, we should have been fiercer.

A Lyft. Yeah. Uh, we could have been way fiercer on Lyft earlier. Um, it was the one time I saw Travis hesitate. Um, uh, so what happened was Lyft was, you know, Zimride, and I had passed on Zimride, and then, um, They saw Uber launch with black cars, and so they launched effectively what became UberX later. We were already working on launching UberX, and, um, and so, but they beat us to it, and they launched, launched with Lyft, with the pink mustaches, and people's cars, and, and so on. They weren't black cars, um, and they were illegal. Like, they didn't have approval from the San Francisco Taxi Commission. So Travis Basically for six months was like, you know, telling the, the taxi commission, the city, government, like, you know, hey, these guys are illegal, like, well, you know, why are you allowing it, et cetera, instead of launching it, you know, as well, um, which was like the first and last time he ever made that mistake. Um, and in that six months is when Lyft kind of took off, and they ultimately ended up with about 30% market share. They never expanded globally. It's funny, Andreessen, having lost the Uber deal, ended up doing the Lyft deal, and we had, you know, Travis and Emil, you know, they were close to, to acquiring it, uh, acquiring Lyft, uh, which, you know, uh, but they wanted too much, uh, ownership, uh, so that luckily didn't work out, um, but Lyft was, I …

AI assessment note: “we could have been way fiercer on Lyft earlier.”

Q Just for, why are you becoming vulnerable? Because you're opening up.

A Well, if, you know, if, if someone has a nefarious strategy to get rid of you, and you agree to a, uh, independent investigation by the Attorney General of America, you're vulnerable. Like, they're, they're, they're going through every single thing, and it can turn it into something that it's not, right? Um, and so, things can be manipulated and all of that. Um, and, and so, you know, six months later, It's, uh, the report's supposed to come out, and, uh, that week, Travis, um, tragically lost his mother in a boating accident. Uh, um, mother and father, uh, were in a boating accident, and she passed away, and he was in the hospital. His father was also, like, close to death, and in the middle of that tragedy, Um, Benchmark Gurley decide to go after Travis. So they delayed the, the release of the report. And the report, by the way, didn't find anything wrong that, you know, Travis did, or I did, or there was nothing, nothing in there about, you know, him, you know, directly, um, and the recommendation was like to go hire a Sheryl Sandberg, like a chief operating officer. So Travis was actually in Chicago the week that he lost his mother, um, and recruiting a chief operating officer. And, um, You know, dealing with the tragedy and trying to take care of his company, um, and Matt Kohler and Peter Fenton show up at his hotel room, surprise him, with a letter with five early investo…

AI assessment note: “if someone has a nefarious strategy to get rid of you, and you agree”

Q Uh, listen, he does, uh, and, and I, you know, I have respect for him as an ambassador, like, candidly. Um, is there a justification for it? I try and put on my ambassador hand, and I think now, well, If we haven't returned cash to investors in a long time, I need liquidity. If investors are pressuring me to put liquidity back in the pot. Is there any justification?

A No. Absolutely not. It's, it's absolutely, the answer is no. And the reason is, you know, Benchmark invested in, in February, in February, Yeah, I'm sorry, March, March, 2011 is, you know, so Benchmark invested in March, 2011, um, at a, I believe it was a fifty million dollar pre-money valuation. They put ten million in. So they were sitting on a massive win. Um, but they were only in the company for like six years when, when Gurley went after Travis. Um, and you know, typically it takes seven to 10 years to get to liquidity. So it wasn't in the zone or the window where you'd be like, You know, 10 years, 12 years, we had, we don't have liquidity, et cetera. It's like, give him four more years. If you had just waited four more years, you know, this would be a trillion dollar company. So that, that, when you look at that, and the impact it would have had on the world, um, there's no justification for it.

AI assessment note: “No. Absolutely not. It's, it's absolutely, the answer is no.”

Q What do you think is your most outlandish belief? SpaceX is being a 10 trillion dollar company is quite a bold statement. Yeah. Saying there will be many more trillion dollar companies is quite a bold statement, saying that you think that we'll get to a stage in 20 years where we won't die. Any others? You got any more for me?

A Yeah, um, you know, I, I helped start the network state movement with biology and, um, and joe lonsdale i had lunch with joe like 2012 and i i said you know hey what if we started you know new cities that had sovereignty new city states and tokenize it and you know uh Have, have ownership become, citizenship become ownership, and, um, we started hosting new city salons, and Balaji came to it, and then Balaji wrote Network States, the, the book, and then we had the first two Network States summits. That movement led to another mantra of mine, which is, you know, Great founders should try to start new industries, not just companies. Should start a completely new industry. Like Hyperloop was a new industry, um, and, and in this case, uh, network states and new cities is a new industry, and there's now hundreds of startups starting new nations. Praxis is another one of them that I'm involved in. That's one of the largest network states, uh, and they're looking at a million acres of land, Uh, in, uh, in different places in the world, and that I've been helping them with. But we're gonna basically see new nation states, new countries be started in our lifetimes, and you're gonna see a lot of people opt in to those, those new, new nations. So I think that's, that's one of my probably more controversial, uh, but the map, the world map, 200 years ago looks very different than it does to…

AI assessment note: “we're gonna basically see new nation states, new countries be started in our lifetimes”

Q Remind everyone what was the Susan Fowler blog post?

A It was an engineer that, um, had a bad experience with a kind of a middle manager, her, her, uh, engineering, uh, uh, middle manager, um, who, uh, Basically harassed her, um, and, ah, and so she wrote a blog post about it, um, and I remember that day vividly because, um, Travis, ah, and I were in, ah, Malibu. We, you know, every summer we rented a, a Malibu house, and, ah, with, ah, some good friends of ours, um, and, Uh, so we had this, kind of, I call it the last innocent weekend in Silicon Valley. Uh, so we had this, you know, great weekend, laughing and, and, uh, relaxing after working really hard. I'd just flown in from China. Um, and, uh, the blog post happened, and Emil walked in and was like, hey guys, like, you should take a look at this. It's got 3000 likes. Uh, so we read it. Um, And then Rachel Whetstone called, who was a political operative that had, uh, Gurley had advised Travis to hire, um, and it turned out there were two political operatives from Google that were hired, um, and Rachel was one of them. So Rachel's on the line, and she immediately says, you know, we need to hire, uh, Attorney General Holder, Uh, which was Obama's Attorney General who had, uh, recently stepped down. It was at a big law firm. We need to hire Attorney General Holder to do an independent investigation of workplace culture. Um, and I looked at him, and I was like, it's a trap. I, you …

AI assessment note: “It was an engineer that... middle manager, um, who, uh, Basically harassed her”

Q it's kind of the, the sane space in my week. Um, She's also expensive. She loves Chanel. So there's downsides to everything, right? Uh, listen, dude, I want to go to the Uber story, and I want to go to your time at Manlio. How did that come to be? I'm going to kind of leave it deliberately vague and open, because I want you to lead the way there.

A Absolutely. It was, it was a great journey. Uh, I started, uh, my first company called WebOS. Senior year of college, and that's when my mom bought me the, the laptop, and I was working a night job to, to just, you know, as a security guard to, to make enough money to start my company, so I had the, the little LG laptop with a dial-up connection, and I was, while I was on a, you know, uh, in the security job all night, I was, uh, working on, on the startup as well. And at WebOS, I started recruiting really young talent, uh, And, um, you know, because I was, I was young, and at the time the greatest developers in, on the internet were really young. They were like, 15 year olds, like Anthony Casalina, who's the founder of Squarespace. There was this kind of, you know, realization that I had an eye for talent, and then that led, later led to meeting Travis, uh, many years later, and getting that sense of like, oh, this, this, Travis is different.

AI assessment note: “that led, later led to meeting Travis, uh, many years later”

Q Can I ask, was that a necessary evil? And what I mean by that is, that much money, that early, was it required to achieve what Uber achieved, or in reflection, was it a little bit too much too soon?

A No, it was what was required. You know, this is atoms and bits. Like, you, you need cars, and people, and labor, and millions of them, right, uh, around the world. And you need to be able to subsidize it, uh, to get, uh, the market share going. I mean, I remember, I went to most of the city launches around the world, and we came up with, like, a whole playbook, um, including getting celebrities to come in, And so I, you know, in my round, I, you know, brought most of Hollywood into Uber. Uh, Guy Osiris likes to joke that, you know, I've made more people in the music industry money on, on Uber than they have in the music industry. Uh, but I brought Scooter Braun, Troy Carter, um, Ari Emanuel and WME, um, uh, many, many others. Uh, Sophia Bush, uh, Olivia Munn, um, you know, all, all invested in that, in that Series B at 33 cents. So, um, and then they, they helped us because when we went around the world and we wanted to launch, it helped to have a celebrity be Rider Zero or Rider One, so I brought Edward Norton into Uber, um, and so I remember for the LA launch, um, We were like, ok, we're gonna have, Rider Zero was, was, uh, Travis's parents, his mom and dad, uh, and then Rider One, I was, I was having dinner with Edward, and I was like, you know, why don't, why don't we, and he was like, I'm going surfing this weekend, and I was like, would you mind taking an Uber SUV with yo…

AI assessment note: “No, it was what was required. You know, this is atoms and bits.”

Q Could Travis have pushed back and said, release the letter? See you later.

A I think, look, you know, I think he was in a very tragic week in his life where he's lost his mother, and I've just lost my mother, so I understand the grief that you're going through, especially in a tragedy like a, like a boat accident, and so he was very vulnerable, and, uh, and they pounced, uh, Which is just unbecoming. Like, it's not the type of behavior that any VC or investor should do. Um, and, uh, they took advantage of that fact. And it worked. Uh, they got him, they got him to, to step down. And then what happened, which got me directly engaged in the battle, in the, what I call the Uber war, um, was that about in early August, um, They then sued in Delaware courts after they had already gotten rid of Travis. They then sued to get rid of him and his two board seats that he had gotten that he hadn't appointed yet. So three board seats. So they wanted, you know, effectively board control, um, and they sued to get rid of him. So I hired Quinn Emanuel, John Quinn, who's like the fiercest litigator in the world, in the corporate world. And, um, And I, and I countersued Benchmark, and, um, you know, flew to Delaware, uh, and landed, went to this little courthouse, and it made me fall in love with the American justice system, because this, the entire corporate legal system is held up by this tiny little town, little courthouse, and so I go in the courthouse, We make our ar…

AI assessment note: “he was very vulnerable, and, uh, and they pounced”

Q it's kind of the, the sane space in my week. Um, She's also expensive. She loves Chanel. So there's downsides to everything, right? Uh, listen, dude, I want to go to the Uber story, and I want to go to your time at Manlio. How did that come to be? I'm going to kind of leave it deliberately vague and open, because I want you to lead the way there.

A Absolutely. It was, it was a great journey. Uh, I started, uh, my first company called WebOS. Senior year of college, and that's when my mom bought me the, the laptop, and I was working a night job to, to just, you know, as a security guard to, to make enough money to start my company, so I had the, the little LG laptop with a dial-up connection, and I was, while I was on a, you know, uh, in the security job all night, I was, uh, working on, on the startup as well. And at WebOS, I started recruiting really young talent, uh, And, um, you know, because I was, I was young, and at the time the greatest developers in, on the internet were really young. They were like, 15 year olds, like Anthony Casalina, who's the founder of Squarespace. There was this kind of, you know, realization that I had an eye for talent, and then that led, later led to meeting Travis, uh, many years later, and getting that sense of like, oh, this, this, Travis is different.

AI assessment note: “led to meeting Travis, uh, many years later, and getting that sense”

Q What do you think is your most outlandish belief? SpaceX is being a 10 trillion dollar company is quite a bold statement. Yeah. Saying there will be many more trillion dollar companies is quite a bold statement, saying that you think that we'll get to a stage in 20 years where we won't die. Any others? You got any more for me?

A Yeah, um, you know, I, I helped start the network state movement with biology and, um, and joe lonsdale i had lunch with joe like 2012 and i i said you know hey what if we started you know new cities that had sovereignty new city states and tokenize it and you know uh Have, have ownership become, citizenship become ownership, and, um, we started hosting new city salons, and Balaji came to it, and then Balaji wrote Network States, the, the book, and then we had the first two Network States summits. That movement led to another mantra of mine, which is, you know, Great founders should try to start new industries, not just companies. Should start a completely new industry. Like Hyperloop was a new industry, um, and, and in this case, uh, network states and new cities is a new industry, and there's now hundreds of startups starting new nations. Praxis is another one of them that I'm involved in. That's one of the largest network states, uh, and they're looking at a million acres of land, Uh, in, uh, in different places in the world, and that I've been helping them with. But we're gonna basically see new nation states, new countries be started in our lifetimes, and you're gonna see a lot of people opt in to those, those new, new nations. So I think that's, that's one of my probably more controversial, uh, but the map, the world map, 200 years ago looks very different than it does to…

AI assessment note: “we're gonna basically see new nation states, new countries be started in our lifetimes”

Q What is that? Is that like, I'm so naive and, Is that like solving cancer? Is that like solving climate change?

A Yes. So, you know, where I think things are gonna go is that quantum and AI, even at the chipset level, are going to merge. Um, and then that's going to revolutionize all aspects of our lives. We'll find cures to every known disease known to mankind, uh, within, I would say, the next 10 years. So, one of the things I, you know, started saying before Brian Johnson, who's a dear friend, uh, uh, to my, I said to my friends, is like, don't die. Like, don't, don't jump out of planes, don't ski, uh, just don't die in the next 20 years, because we're gonna reach a point of longevity where you'll be able to help, live a healthy life for 150 plus years.

AI assessment note: “We'll find cures to every known disease known to mankind”

Q What is that? Is that like, I'm so naive and, Is that like solving cancer? Is that like solving climate change?

A Yes. So, you know, where I think things are gonna go is that quantum and AI, even at the chipset level, are going to merge. Um, and then that's going to revolutionize all aspects of our lives. We'll find cures to every known disease known to mankind, uh, within, I would say, the next 10 years. So, one of the things I, you know, started saying before Brian Johnson, who's a dear friend, uh, uh, to my, I said to my friends, is like, don't die. Like, don't, don't jump out of planes, don't ski, uh, just don't die in the next 20 years, because we're gonna reach a point of longevity where you'll be able to help, live a healthy life for 150 plus years.

AI assessment note: “We'll find cures to every known disease known to mankind”

Q Just for, why are you becoming vulnerable? Because you're opening up.

A Well, if, you know, if, if someone has a nefarious strategy to get rid of you, and you agree to a, uh, independent investigation by the Attorney General of America, you're vulnerable. Like, they're, they're, they're going through every single thing, and it can turn it into something that it's not, right? Um, and so, things can be manipulated and all of that. Um, and, and so, you know, six months later, It's, uh, the report's supposed to come out, and, uh, that week, Travis, um, tragically lost his mother in a boating accident. Uh, um, mother and father, uh, were in a boating accident, and she passed away, and he was in the hospital. His father was also, like, close to death, and in the middle of that tragedy, Um, Benchmark Gurley decide to go after Travis. So they delayed the, the release of the report. And the report, by the way, didn't find anything wrong that, you know, Travis did, or I did, or there was nothing, nothing in there about, you know, him, you know, directly, um, and the recommendation was like to go hire a Sheryl Sandberg, like a chief operating officer. So Travis was actually in Chicago the week that he lost his mother, um, and recruiting a chief operating officer. And, um, You know, dealing with the tragedy and trying to take care of his company, um, and Matt Kohler and Peter Fenton show up at his hotel room, surprise him, with a letter with five early investo…

AI assessment note: “if someone has a nefarious strategy to get rid of you... you're vulnerable.”

Q Could Travis have pushed back and said, release the letter? See you later.

A I think, look, you know, I think he was in a very tragic week in his life where he's lost his mother, and I've just lost my mother, so I understand the grief that you're going through, especially in a tragedy like a, like a boat accident, and so he was very vulnerable, and, uh, and they pounced, uh, Which is just unbecoming. Like, it's not the type of behavior that any VC or investor should do. Um, and, uh, they took advantage of that fact. And it worked. Uh, they got him, they got him to, to step down. And then what happened, which got me directly engaged in the battle, in the, what I call the Uber war, um, was that about in early August, um, They then sued in Delaware courts after they had already gotten rid of Travis. They then sued to get rid of him and his two board seats that he had gotten that he hadn't appointed yet. So three board seats. So they wanted, you know, effectively board control, um, and they sued to get rid of him. So I hired Quinn Emanuel, John Quinn, who's like the fiercest litigator in the world, in the corporate world. And, um, And I, and I countersued Benchmark, and, um, you know, flew to Delaware, uh, and landed, went to this little courthouse, and it made me fall in love with the American justice system, because this, the entire corporate legal system is held up by this tiny little town, little courthouse, and so I go in the courthouse, We make our ar…

AI assessment note: “he was in a very tragic week in his life... so he was very vulnerable”

Q Remind everyone what was the Susan Fowler blog post?

A It was an engineer that, um, had a bad experience with a kind of a middle manager, her, her, uh, engineering, uh, uh, middle manager, um, who, uh, Basically harassed her, um, and, ah, and so she wrote a blog post about it, um, and I remember that day vividly because, um, Travis, ah, and I were in, ah, Malibu. We, you know, every summer we rented a, a Malibu house, and, ah, with, ah, some good friends of ours, um, and, Uh, so we had this, kind of, I call it the last innocent weekend in Silicon Valley. Uh, so we had this, you know, great weekend, laughing and, and, uh, relaxing after working really hard. I'd just flown in from China. Um, and, uh, the blog post happened, and Emil walked in and was like, hey guys, like, you should take a look at this. It's got 3000 likes. Uh, so we read it. Um, And then Rachel Whetstone called, who was a political operative that had, uh, Gurley had advised Travis to hire, um, and it turned out there were two political operatives from Google that were hired, um, and Rachel was one of them. So Rachel's on the line, and she immediately says, you know, we need to hire, uh, Attorney General Holder, Uh, which was Obama's Attorney General who had, uh, recently stepped down. It was at a big law firm. We need to hire Attorney General Holder to do an independent investigation of workplace culture. Um, and I looked at him, and I was like, it's a trap. I, you …

AI assessment note: “an engineer that, um, had a bad experience with a kind of a middle manager”

Q Was it an unfortunate time in terms of just the coincidence of timing between the terrible situation of mother dying and the, you know, bluntly, the situation, or was it a deliberate coinciding?

A I mean, I think they took advantage of an accident for sure, um, but, uh, it was a architected strategy starting, like I said, January of, of 2017 to get rid of him. Um, and I, I believe that it was, you know, one of the worst venture, ah, decisions ever. Um, and value destruction happened for, for everyone involved. Um, and, you know, I, I think, one, venture is too secretive of a industry. Um, and that's one of the things I, I, I believe is, is, as this kind of story comes out, Of what exactly happened at Uber, and more will come out, um, as our investigation kind of completes now, we're kind of in the sixth, seventh year, and the lawsuit- How much have you spent on this investigation? I hired the top investigators in the world to figure this out. The fact that we found out it was Fusion GPS, that somebody hired Fusion GPS, um, to, to fabricate a police report and go after me, um, and then The fact that they went to that extent, um, you know, and usually you never find out about these firms, because they're hiding behind multiple layers of law firms, so you can, you can't pierce the veil. So the story of how this, this firm, you know, figured out is, is pretty incredible. Um, so I feel very lucky, and my dad, who's 86, made me promise to, to figure out what, what happened, because, you know, people who know me, No, I was innocent, and it was, in fact, fabricated, and so we ha…

AI assessment note: “I think they took advantage of an accident for sure, um, but, uh, it was a architected strategy”

Q Can I ask, was that a necessary evil? And what I mean by that is, that much money, that early, was it required to achieve what Uber achieved, or in reflection, was it a little bit too much too soon?

A No, it was what was required. You know, this is atoms and bits. Like, you, you need cars, and people, and labor, and millions of them, right, uh, around the world. And you need to be able to subsidize it, uh, to get, uh, the market share going. I mean, I remember, I went to most of the city launches around the world, and we came up with, like, a whole playbook, um, including getting celebrities to come in, And so I, you know, in my round, I, you know, brought most of Hollywood into Uber. Uh, Guy Osiris likes to joke that, you know, I've made more people in the music industry money on, on Uber than they have in the music industry. Uh, but I brought Scooter Braun, Troy Carter, um, Ari Emanuel and WME, um, uh, many, many others. Uh, Sophia Bush, uh, Olivia Munn, um, you know, all, all invested in that, in that Series B at 33 cents. So, um, and then they, they helped us because when we went around the world and we wanted to launch, it helped to have a celebrity be Rider Zero or Rider One, so I brought Edward Norton into Uber, um, and so I remember for the LA launch, um, We were like, ok, we're gonna have, Rider Zero was, was, uh, Travis's parents, his mom and dad, uh, and then Rider One, I was, I was having dinner with Edward, and I was like, you know, why don't, why don't we, and he was like, I'm going surfing this weekend, and I was like, would you mind taking an Uber SUV with yo…

AI assessment note: “No, it was what was required.”

Q How did you meet Travis? Take me to that meeting.

A Yeah, so, um, I met him because, uh, Sheryl Sandberg actually was a mentor of mine, and, um, I was building, you know, Facebook apps and iPhone games for my, uh, one of my first companies. Sheryl read an essay that I wrote about entrepreneurship and reached out to me on her own and was like, hey, could you do lunch? And she had just joined Facebook, and she wanted advice about the apps Store, and what percentage they should charge, and then I shared that, you know, Apple charges 30%, you could probably charge 30%, which is what they ended up doing, and so we would meet once a quarter, um, and she was a great mentor, and then I was selling SGN, and she told me, Shervin, you should go into venture, you'll be disruptive, um, and I was like, I just didn't think I had a seat at the table, but she sent an email to, like, five top VCs, uh, the next day without telling me, I haven't seen the email, but I heard it's really great, because I started getting recruited, and I had an offer from Kleiner Perkins, and an offer from Menlo, and I ended up going with Menlo, um, and, uh, that really was the beginning of my venture career. I had been an angel investor before that, and been, you know, invested in Facebook and other, other companies, um, but, uh, when I started at Menlo, I, I hit the ground running, and I closed, In my first 90 days, I, I closed Uber, Warby Parker, um, Tumblr, and Mac…

AI assessment note: “I met him because, uh, Sheryl Sandberg actually was a mentor of mine”

Q How did you meet Travis? Take me to that meeting.

A Yeah, so, um, I met him because, uh, Sheryl Sandberg actually was a mentor of mine, and, um, I was building, you know, Facebook apps and iPhone games for my, uh, one of my first companies. Sheryl read an essay that I wrote about entrepreneurship and reached out to me on her own and was like, hey, could you do lunch? And she had just joined Facebook, and she wanted advice about the apps Store, and what percentage they should charge, and then I shared that, you know, Apple charges 30%, you could probably charge 30%, which is what they ended up doing, and so we would meet once a quarter, um, and she was a great mentor, and then I was selling SGN, and she told me, Shervin, you should go into venture, you'll be disruptive, um, and I was like, I just didn't think I had a seat at the table, but she sent an email to, like, five top VCs, uh, the next day without telling me, I haven't seen the email, but I heard it's really great, because I started getting recruited, and I had an offer from Kleiner Perkins, and an offer from Menlo, and I ended up going with Menlo, um, and, uh, that really was the beginning of my venture career. I had been an angel investor before that, and been, you know, invested in Facebook and other, other companies, um, but, uh, when I started at Menlo, I, I hit the ground running, and I closed, In my first 90 days, I, I closed Uber, Warby Parker, um, Tumblr, and Mac…

AI assessment note: “Sheryl read an essay that I wrote about entrepreneurship and reached out to me”

Q Was it an unfortunate time in terms of just the coincidence of timing between the terrible situation of mother dying and the, you know, bluntly, the situation, or was it a deliberate coinciding?

A I mean, I think they took advantage of an accident for sure, um, but, uh, it was a architected strategy starting, like I said, January of, of 2017 to get rid of him. Um, and I, I believe that it was, you know, one of the worst venture, ah, decisions ever. Um, and value destruction happened for, for everyone involved. Um, and, you know, I, I think, one, venture is too secretive of a industry. Um, and that's one of the things I, I, I believe is, is, as this kind of story comes out, Of what exactly happened at Uber, and more will come out, um, as our investigation kind of completes now, we're kind of in the sixth, seventh year, and the lawsuit- How much have you spent on this investigation? I hired the top investigators in the world to figure this out. The fact that we found out it was Fusion GPS, that somebody hired Fusion GPS, um, to, to fabricate a police report and go after me, um, and then The fact that they went to that extent, um, you know, and usually you never find out about these firms, because they're hiding behind multiple layers of law firms, so you can, you can't pierce the veil. So the story of how this, this firm, you know, figured out is, is pretty incredible. Um, so I feel very lucky, and my dad, who's 86, made me promise to, to figure out what, what happened, because, you know, people who know me, No, I was innocent, and it was, in fact, fabricated, and so we ha…

AI assessment note: “they took advantage of an accident for sure, um, but, uh, it was a architected strategy”

Q Are we lucky or are we too small?

A I think if people like you, Harry, uh, and me, and, you know, others who have great instincts about people and about companies and trends, uh, are always going to succeed. Um, and they're going to get in that deal, even if they lose it to a, a bigger VC like I did in, in the Uber case. Um, your resilience and your grit matters. So if you can build authentic relationships with the great founders of the next 20 years, you'll be their partners in, in, uh, in, in building these, these amazing trillion dollar companies. Um, and, you know, so I do think, I think we're lucky. I think we went through a drunken period because the business models weren't actually correct. But now, you're dealing with AI, quantum computing, you're going to have basically the power, the mind of God, in terms of computing power, as you saw with Willow. And, you know, I've said for a long time, the reason I'm doing quantum computing is that with quantum computing, what I see coming down the pike, we'll be able to solve problems that would take billions of years to solve. We'll be able to solve them in hours and days.

AI assessment note: “so I do think, I think we're lucky.”

Q Are we lucky or are we too small?

A I think if people like you, Harry, uh, and me, and, you know, others who have great instincts about people and about companies and trends, uh, are always going to succeed. Um, and they're going to get in that deal, even if they lose it to a, a bigger VC like I did in, in the Uber case. Um, your resilience and your grit matters. So if you can build authentic relationships with the great founders of the next 20 years, you'll be their partners in, in, uh, in, in building these, these amazing trillion dollar companies. Um, and, you know, so I do think, I think we're lucky. I think we went through a drunken period because the business models weren't actually correct. But now, you're dealing with AI, quantum computing, you're going to have basically the power, the mind of God, in terms of computing power, as you saw with Willow. And, you know, I've said for a long time, the reason I'm doing quantum computing is that with quantum computing, what I see coming down the pike, we'll be able to solve problems that would take billions of years to solve. We'll be able to solve them in hours and days.

AI assessment note: “so I do think, I think we're lucky.”

Q You're an LP in many funds, and we were chatting outside before this, and you were like, there's just no cash coming back from the last vintage. How do you think about that? Have we seen the death of liquidity?

A Liquidity has been a major problem, um, and especially during the, the four years of Biden, uh, um, and, uh, it just coincided with really bad policies and, you know, a derf of M&A, uh, lack of IPOs, um, I think that's gonna change in the next four years. I think, I think during the, you know, I, I was an early, um, person to come out and support Trump, and I co-hosted David Sachs' fundraiser with Chamath back in, uh, June six, um, and publicly endorsed Trump, and, you know, and most of my, my generation, my cohort, um, people like Elon, or David Marcus, or, Um, you know, Sean from Sequoia, uh, Emile Michael, like, all of these guys and gals are in Palm Beach doing, like, 17 hour days. You know, it's like the, the best and the brightest have converged. And also, it's very similar, like, Silicon Valley goes to Washington, you know, uh, and so I'm very excited, because, you know, you look at David Sachs is now the AI, you know, and crypto czar for the president. Elon is running Doge with Vivek. Um, you have some of the brightest minds in the world about to revolutionize the way government works and make it way more efficient. Um, you know, I wrote a proposal about privatizing, um, many aspects of government, including the U.S. Postal Service, which is a big money loser, is not using modern technology to compete with FedEx and, and, uh, UPS and, and DHL and so on. Um, and we could…

AI assessment note: “Liquidity has been a major problem... I think that's gonna change in the next four years.”

Q Why was that not an option? People want liquidity. We see this more and more with secondaries and late-stage secondaries today. Why did we not just say the benchmark Hey, Bill, you know what? You want liquidity? I get it. I'm an investor. I get it. You want liquidity? We'll buy you out at a great price. Why was that not an option?

A So the SoftBank conversations, ironically, Travis and Emil started those conversations, the ultimate twelve billion dollar investment from, from, uh, SoftBank Vision Fund. Um, they started that, that whole negotiation, and then Travis got, you know, uh, Removed from Uber and, and so did Emil at the same time. And so they got two, two of the greatest minds in Silicon Valley were taken out of the company. This is the greatest value destruction that's happened since, um, firing Steve Jobs at Apple. Um, and it was a massive mistake. If you look at, if you look at Tesla, it's a trillion dollar company now. I believe if Travis and Emil had stayed at Uber, Uber would be a trillion dollar company by now. Um, and, you know, uh, they brought in Dara Khosrowshahi, who's a, a, a dear friend. So I, I call, uh, Dara the great, you know, stabilizer, and, uh, he has taken Uber to, you know, a hundred seventy-five billion market cap, which is great. Um, And profitable. He's done all of those things. Um, you know, Travis was working on ideas like self-driving, uh, and automation, and, and, uh, he was very, he was, he was in pole position at the time, and I saw him speak in Saudi Arabia at the FII a couple months ago, and they asked him, like, what would you have done if you had stayed at Uber, and he specifically went to, like, If you look at all the great things that are happening in AI and the…

AI assessment note: “So the SoftBank conversations, ironically, Travis and Emil started those conversations”

Q What do you think makes him so good?

A Well, my theory on this is, you know, I've been lucky to be able to work with what I call foundational founders. Really exceptional intelligence. Um, highly intelligent founders. Um, and, you know, I got a, I got this experience of, of kind of sensing that kind of intelligence because I was, I was in a magnet school, uh, with some brilliant, brilliant minds. Um, it was a math, science, communications magnet that they tested A bunch of kids, and a hundred of us were picked. We were the guinea pigs. So I got bused for like, you know, hour and a half each way every day, wake up at five in the morning, go to the school that was in Silver Spring, Maryland, um, and then I met all these brilliant, brilliant kids. Uh, kids that, you know, uh, would remind you of a young Elon or a, a young Travis, and a lot of them ended up, you know, helping build Google, and Built Danger. Founded Danger. Um, these were my, my, uh, my fellow, you know, students at, at, at the Magnus School. So, with, with Travis, I immediately was like, ok, he's extremely brilliant. Um, and one story I like to say is I'm, I'm close to Yuri Milder. He's been a great mentor. Uh, I met him when he first did the, the Facebook deal. And that's how I actually met Daniel and Shaq through Yuri. Uh, we went on a, uh, a, uh, a meeting and trip together, and, uh, we all hit it off, and Yuri, uh, I brought Yuri into Uber. Uh, so I…

AI assessment note: “I brought a bunch of people into Uber, I could tell you that story.”

Q What do you think makes him so good?

A Well, my theory on this is, you know, I've been lucky to be able to work with what I call foundational founders. Really exceptional intelligence. Um, highly intelligent founders. Um, and, you know, I got a, I got this experience of, of kind of sensing that kind of intelligence because I was, I was in a magnet school, uh, with some brilliant, brilliant minds. Um, it was a math, science, communications magnet that they tested A bunch of kids, and a hundred of us were picked. We were the guinea pigs. So I got bused for like, you know, hour and a half each way every day, wake up at five in the morning, go to the school that was in Silver Spring, Maryland, um, and then I met all these brilliant, brilliant kids. Uh, kids that, you know, uh, would remind you of a young Elon or a, a young Travis, and a lot of them ended up, you know, helping build Google, and Built Danger. Founded Danger. Um, these were my, my, uh, my fellow, you know, students at, at, at the Magnus School. So, with, with Travis, I immediately was like, ok, he's extremely brilliant. Um, and one story I like to say is I'm, I'm close to Yuri Milder. He's been a great mentor. Uh, I met him when he first did the, the Facebook deal. And that's how I actually met Daniel and Shaq through Yuri. Uh, we went on a, uh, a, uh, a meeting and trip together, and, uh, we all hit it off, and Yuri, uh, I brought Yuri into Uber. Uh, so I…

AI assessment note: “foundational founders. Really exceptional intelligence. Um, highly intelligent founders.”

Q Why was that not an option? People want liquidity. We see this more and more with secondaries and late-stage secondaries today. Why did we not just say the benchmark Hey, Bill, you know what? You want liquidity? I get it. I'm an investor. I get it. You want liquidity? We'll buy you out at a great price. Why was that not an option?

A So the SoftBank conversations, ironically, Travis and Emil started those conversations, the ultimate twelve billion dollar investment from, from, uh, SoftBank Vision Fund. Um, they started that, that whole negotiation, and then Travis got, you know, uh, Removed from Uber and, and so did Emil at the same time. And so they got two, two of the greatest minds in Silicon Valley were taken out of the company. This is the greatest value destruction that's happened since, um, firing Steve Jobs at Apple. Um, and it was a massive mistake. If you look at, if you look at Tesla, it's a trillion dollar company now. I believe if Travis and Emil had stayed at Uber, Uber would be a trillion dollar company by now. Um, and, you know, uh, they brought in Dara Khosrowshahi, who's a, a, a dear friend. So I, I call, uh, Dara the great, you know, stabilizer, and, uh, he has taken Uber to, you know, a hundred seventy-five billion market cap, which is great. Um, And profitable. He's done all of those things. Um, you know, Travis was working on ideas like self-driving, uh, and automation, and, and, uh, he was very, he was, he was in pole position at the time, and I saw him speak in Saudi Arabia at the FII a couple months ago, and they asked him, like, what would you have done if you had stayed at Uber, and he specifically went to, like, If you look at all the great things that are happening in AI and the…

AI assessment note: “So the SoftBank conversations, ironically, Travis and Emil started those conversations”

Q You're an LP in many funds, and we were chatting outside before this, and you were like, there's just no cash coming back from the last vintage. How do you think about that? Have we seen the death of liquidity?

A Liquidity has been a major problem, um, and especially during the, the four years of Biden, uh, um, and, uh, it just coincided with really bad policies and, you know, a derf of M&A, uh, lack of IPOs, um, I think that's gonna change in the next four years. I think, I think during the, you know, I, I was an early, um, person to come out and support Trump, and I co-hosted David Sachs' fundraiser with Chamath back in, uh, June six, um, and publicly endorsed Trump, and, you know, and most of my, my generation, my cohort, um, people like Elon, or David Marcus, or, Um, you know, Sean from Sequoia, uh, Emile Michael, like, all of these guys and gals are in Palm Beach doing, like, 17 hour days. You know, it's like the, the best and the brightest have converged. And also, it's very similar, like, Silicon Valley goes to Washington, you know, uh, and so I'm very excited, because, you know, you look at David Sachs is now the AI, you know, and crypto czar for the president. Elon is running Doge with Vivek. Um, you have some of the brightest minds in the world about to revolutionize the way government works and make it way more efficient. Um, you know, I wrote a proposal about privatizing, um, many aspects of government, including the U.S. Postal Service, which is a big money loser, is not using modern technology to compete with FedEx and, and, uh, UPS and, and DHL and so on. Um, and we could…

AI assessment note: “I think that's gonna change in the next four years. I think, during the, you know, I, I was an early”