The Exchanges

Q Can I ask, are there commonalities, I'm too interested, are there commonalities in the questions that you like to ask them? It could be For a writer, what was your process? It could be for an athlete, what was your training like? Are there commonalities in the questions that you find yourself asking these creators or performers?

A Yeah, I would say it runs the gamut between sort of the big philosophical, what drives you, when did you know you were good or outstanding or world-class at what you did, to more bespoke questions with authors. If I say, when did you first discover Or what got you to this point of view that then you decided to turn into a book? What did that feel like or look like? And then I'm also very interested in asking that person, how are you processing and handling the success? Are you feeling like, yeah, you know, not in an arrogant way, or maybe in an arrogant way, but I'm among the best in the world at what I do, so it's earned that I feel this way, or is it kind of like, oh my gosh, I turn left, I turn right, I got here, and I hope nobody finds out that I Just kind of lucked into this. That's really fascinating to me as well.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I would say it runs the gamut between sort of the big philosophical”

Q How did that feel? Like, these are cultural, seismic material. How does that feel?

A The interesting thing about being around all of that, both the feeling that there was a lot of self-importance in that community, and I used to think quietly to myself, look, I get it. These are incredibly skilled people, but at the end of the day, we're still not curing diseases, right? So, and at the same time, understanding the unbelievable power, those messages, putting out a The public's imagination. So again, there's a little bit of duality there, but it was incredible to be a part of something that you would see go out on a Friday night, you'd send it out in the world after working on it for a couple of years, and then to see people connect with it was a really powerful thing. I'll never forget, we did this movie, The 300. Jerry Butler, who starred in it, came with me to a test screening, and he hadn't seen any of it, because it was all green screen, and, and so I sat in the back with Jerry Watching how pumped up he got, watching himself and the movie and the portrayal, there were some incredible moments along that journey that I feel very, very lucky to have been a part of. You know, the most special experience I had was making the Jackie Robinson story, 42. He was a personal hero of mine growing up. You know, when we were casting for Jackie Robinson, there was this unknown actor named Chadwick Boseman that came in. His talent was so incredible and so undeniable. Along …

AI assessment note: “there's a little bit of duality there, but it was incredible to be a part”

Q Oh, that is so kind of you. I want to start there. We see this incredible business career today, success after success. I want to go back to the first endeavor, laundromats, the early days. How did you get your start in business, my friend? Take me back.

A Well, because I grew up poor, working and making money was just omnipresent. Had to shovel snow and mow lawns and things of that nature to help my mom keep the lights on. Then I also sort of knew from a young age that I didn't want to work for anyone else. I think that would turn out badly for both parties. And, you know, so the area I grew up in was economically challenged and needed laundromats. Tried to apply some innovation to laundromats with dynamic Pricing and some other things. Got the bug early of having an idea, being creative, hopefully about it. There's also that stretch of being able to turn an idea into reality, right? And into reality that then makes money, et cetera, et cetera. So I think if there's any skill set there, it's, it's great to imagine things, but you have to also make them come true.

AI assessment note: “needed laundromats. Tried to apply some innovation to laundromats with dynamic Pricing”

Q How did you think about what you're trying to accomplish? Because you've got this incredible business career and a fantastic personal life. How did you think about what you wanted to accomplish, going back to my predicament of trade-offs?

A The reason that I wanted to make money is the sting of not having it and being forced into situations that Felt uncomfortable to shameful to all kinds of things, and I didn't want to feel like that anymore. I'm not suggesting that, hey, go make some money, and that'll take care of all your work. That's not it, and again, I wanted to be in a position in life to both challenge myself and see what I could accomplish. I think that as I kind of stare at it, it started out just as, just get to the next thing, ok? I'm just building, and then you do well enough that you're like, ok, I did that, but that's just the The start. That's not the finish. And then inertia builds up. And then I didn't have some grand plan. There wasn't like, okay, I'm sitting here, and I'm going to build this thing, and then it's going to get to here. It was the momentum of some things working, and getting to a point, too, that I have very eclectic tastes. I like doing a lot of different things. To be able to get interested in something and go deep on it, I love that more than anything. One of the biggest privileges of my life Is I can listen to a great album most of the time if I want to talk to that artist and have an interaction, or a great athlete, or I read a book and I'm just blown away by what the author had to say. The ability in most cases to reach out and interact with that person, that to me is one o…

AI assessment note: “I didn't have some grand plan. There wasn't like, okay, I'm sitting here”

Q Can I ask, are there commonalities, I'm too interested, are there commonalities in the questions that you like to ask them? It could be For a writer, what was your process? It could be for an athlete, what was your training like? Are there commonalities in the questions that you find yourself asking these creators or performers?

A Yeah, I would say it runs the gamut between sort of the big philosophical, what drives you, when did you know you were good or outstanding or world-class at what you did, to more bespoke questions with authors. If I say, when did you first discover Or what got you to this point of view that then you decided to turn into a book? What did that feel like or look like? And then I'm also very interested in asking that person, how are you processing and handling the success? Are you feeling like, yeah, you know, not in an arrogant way, or maybe in an arrogant way, but I'm among the best in the world at what I do, so it's earned that I feel this way, or is it kind of like, oh my gosh, I turn left, I turn right, I got here, and I hope nobody finds out that I Just kind of lucked into this. That's really fascinating to me as well.

AI assessment note: “it runs the gamut between sort of the big philosophical, what drives you”

Q When you were thinking of that construct for life, what was it that led you to that decision in terms of wanting the holding company, in terms of not wanting the fund, in terms of not wanting to do another company? You could have done anything. Like, what was it that drove that decision making around the construct?

A I thought about it and said, again, I have eclectic tastes, and I get really excited about different things, and I want to go spend time in those things. So I thought to myself, if I just start a company and run a company, that's what I'm going to do. And I don't want to be sort of that narrow in terms of one company. I know that I don't want to be in the two and 20 business of just raising a fund, and then another fund, and another fund. That Just, it's a great business, but it wasn't for me. And at the same time, I knew I was at a point in my life that I may have some things to share and the ability to solve problems and how to look at things. So partnering with great management teams and saying, look, it's your company, but I'm going to provide the capital and hopefully some business wherewithal and judgment and technology that you would have a tough time recruiting. And then we can propel your company and hopefully do well, make money, And do things that are innovative and interesting, but I can also step back from that and not have to operate it. So those are some of the things that I thought about.

AI assessment note: “I don't want to be sort of that narrow in terms of one company.”

Q like, you know, I have this wonderful new girlfriend who is fantastic, lovely, no idea why she's with me, by the way, but I'm terrified that suddenly I'm going to be mediocre. The reason I've been successful, Thomas, is Because I've worked my fucking ass off for seven years, and I've grinded harder than anyone else. How would you advise me in this, like, fear of mediocrity by being normal?

A Look, what do you want your life to be, right? If you want to be as absolutely as wealthy as possible, and thought of as a top-tier investor, if that's what you want it to be in life, well, then you're starting to see what that roadmap looks like. On the other hand, if you say, look, those things are important to me, but I also want Want to have a social life. I want to have close friends. I want to have a girlfriend. I want to get married someday. I want to have kids. Then, you know, you have to think about what those trade-offs are, and I think the older that you get and the more success that you get under your belt, like anything else, you can go from just grinding all the time to pattern recognition. I've been here before. I understand how to make this work efficiently. My network of things that I can pull off more quickly because I can pick up the phone Or email the decision maker and get right to that person and get the attention that I need. All of those things can become much more efficient. They have to be earned, and that's why you put in the grinding. In my twenties and early thirties to mid thirties, that's what I did. I worked. Full stop. But there are choices that you can make along the way.

AI assessment note: “you can go from just grinding all the time to pattern recognition”

Q Oh, that is so kind of you. I want to start there. We see this incredible business career today, success after success. I want to go back to the first endeavor, laundromats, the early days. How did you get your start in business, my friend? Take me back.

A Well, because I grew up poor, working and making money was just omnipresent. Had to shovel snow and mow lawns and things of that nature to help my mom keep the lights on. Then I also sort of knew from a young age that I didn't want to work for anyone else. I think that would turn out badly for both parties. And, you know, so the area I grew up in was economically challenged and needed laundromats. Tried to apply some innovation to laundromats with dynamic Pricing and some other things. Got the bug early of having an idea, being creative, hopefully about it. There's also that stretch of being able to turn an idea into reality, right? And into reality that then makes money, et cetera, et cetera. So I think if there's any skill set there, it's, it's great to imagine things, but you have to also make them come true.

AI assessment note: “area I grew up in was economically challenged and needed laundromats.”

Q Speaking of a weighing mechanism, a lot on the show before have said about money and fortunes being kind of a weighing mechanism for how well they've done. I'd love to hear, how do you think about your relationship to money today?

A Look, I think that there's a couple of things that are important, and anytime, you know, I talk about things, it starts with intellectual honesty. That whole know thyself Is so important. If you decide internally that money is not only important to you, but keeping score and being lauded for those things, if that is truly important to you, well, I guess you're going to go after that, and that's how you're going to measure things. On the other hand, if you look at money as, look, it affords freedom, it affords choices, and it affords you the luxury of time to be able to spend your time in ways that you want, Instead of saying, look, I don't feel like doing this task, but I have no choice because I have to pay the rent. That's a different relationship, and I think that if you grow up poor, at least for me, there's always this odd thing where you're afraid that it's going to be taken away.

AI assessment note: “if you look at money as, look, it affords freedom, it affords choices”

Q You mentioned risk there. How do you think about your appetite for risk today?

A Well, there's a couple things. I mean, when you start a lot of businesses and you're, quote, entrepreneurial, people always want to know, like, man, that's crazy. You took all these risks. Yes, but I would argue my thought process is to take informed risk, right? To really look at the thing from all sides, ingest as much data as you can, get As many educated opinions as you can, and then say, okay, do I believe if I go into this that I have some advantage that I can articulate that is clear that gives me a better than average chance to be successful? If I am successful, does it matter, right? Is there enough there there in whatever circumstances you're in? And then if this blows up and doesn't work at all, what are the ramifications? If you look at all those things and say, yes, this is worth the risk. The reward is there, and if it doesn't work, I'm okay with it, right? So that's some of the thought process.

AI assessment note: “I would argue my thought process is to take informed risk, right?”

Q I do want to ask, you know, you mentioned that, you know, the luck in meeting a young director, Chris Nolan. What about the skill side? Where are you like, actually, this is where I showed skill and we were successful because of skill, which I don't think is arrogance.

A One of the things, I have no idea if this is skill, but it's what just popped into my mind. So after I sold Legendary, I knew that I didn't want to run an operating company, and I knew that I didn't want to run a fund. So I asked myself, instead of saying, I'm going to start X, I said, what is the construct that I need in order to be successful in the way I want to spend my time and highest and best use of my skill set, if there is any. So I designed a holding company. Right. Imaginatively called Tolco. And the idea was that we're going to buy companies or chunks of companies, and we're going to have this kind of mini Bell Labs with artificial intelligence and machine learning and data scientists and practitioners that could go and provide those skills to sort of industries that hadn't had a lot of innovation in them to be able to cause big growth so that I could fund and be partners with great management teams And bring technology and hopefully some business acumen to the table, but not actually sort of run something and operate something. It's worked out very, very well on all fronts, and I think that was one that was purposely designed the way it was designed, and knock on wood has worked out well.

AI assessment note: “bring technology and hopefully some business acumen to the table”

Q like, you know, I have this wonderful new girlfriend who is fantastic, lovely, no idea why she's with me, by the way, but I'm terrified that suddenly I'm going to be mediocre. The reason I've been successful, Thomas, is Because I've worked my fucking ass off for seven years, and I've grinded harder than anyone else. How would you advise me in this, like, fear of mediocrity by being normal?

A Look, what do you want your life to be, right? If you want to be as absolutely as wealthy as possible, and thought of as a top-tier investor, if that's what you want it to be in life, well, then you're starting to see what that roadmap looks like. On the other hand, if you say, look, those things are important to me, but I also want Want to have a social life. I want to have close friends. I want to have a girlfriend. I want to get married someday. I want to have kids. Then, you know, you have to think about what those trade-offs are, and I think the older that you get and the more success that you get under your belt, like anything else, you can go from just grinding all the time to pattern recognition. I've been here before. I understand how to make this work efficiently. My network of things that I can pull off more quickly because I can pick up the phone Or email the decision maker and get right to that person and get the attention that I need. All of those things can become much more efficient. They have to be earned, and that's why you put in the grinding. In my twenties and early thirties to mid thirties, that's what I did. I worked. Full stop. But there are choices that you can make along the way.

AI assessment note: “you can go from just grinding all the time to pattern recognition.”

Q Okay, flip it around. What are you excited for? What are you, actually, you know what, there is all of this, but actually there's this as well, and we should be excited here too. What are you excited for on that flip side?

A I think we still have a long way to go to reach a point where everybody's playing on the same field as it relates to issues, With women, issues with folks of color, but I have seen in my own life a massive shift, and I think that's a positive step in the right direction. To be sure, plenty of work left to do, but undeniably better than it was, and we need to continue to, to strive towards that. And I'm not a biotech guy, but when you look at the promise of what's going on in the medical field, what's going on with things like CRISPR, and just amazing things that are hopefully going to take a bite out of Terrible diseases and things like that, and the progress that's being made around cancer, and then there are certain things going on in technology that I think are going to be massive changes for the better. At the end of the day, from where I came from, I can't help but have a hopeful feeling, and I have the privilege of doing some college and university lectures and being around people at some of the best universities in the world. Their energy, their intelligence, their sort of Sober view, at least the folks that I'm talking to, on what needs to be done. They looked better equipped to me, certainly, than my generation did or does. So I think the generation that's coming up gives me hope.

AI assessment note: “when you look at the promise of what's going on in the medical field”

Q I do want to ask, you know, you mentioned that, you know, the luck in meeting a young director, Chris Nolan. What about the skill side? Where are you like, actually, this is where I showed skill and we were successful because of skill, which I don't think is arrogance.

A One of the things, I have no idea if this is skill, but it's what just popped into my mind. So after I sold Legendary, I knew that I didn't want to run an operating company, and I knew that I didn't want to run a fund. So I asked myself, instead of saying, I'm going to start X, I said, what is the construct that I need in order to be successful in the way I want to spend my time and highest and best use of my skill set, if there is any. So I designed a holding company. Right. Imaginatively called Tolco. And the idea was that we're going to buy companies or chunks of companies, and we're going to have this kind of mini Bell Labs with artificial intelligence and machine learning and data scientists and practitioners that could go and provide those skills to sort of industries that hadn't had a lot of innovation in them to be able to cause big growth so that I could fund and be partners with great management teams And bring technology and hopefully some business acumen to the table, but not actually sort of run something and operate something. It's worked out very, very well on all fronts, and I think that was one that was purposely designed the way it was designed, and knock on wood has worked out well.

AI assessment note: “I designed a holding company... purposely designed the way it was designed”

Q How did you think about what you're trying to accomplish? Because you've got this incredible business career and a fantastic personal life. How did you think about what you wanted to accomplish, going back to my predicament of trade-offs?

A The reason that I wanted to make money is the sting of not having it and being forced into situations that Felt uncomfortable to shameful to all kinds of things, and I didn't want to feel like that anymore. I'm not suggesting that, hey, go make some money, and that'll take care of all your work. That's not it, and again, I wanted to be in a position in life to both challenge myself and see what I could accomplish. I think that as I kind of stare at it, it started out just as, just get to the next thing, ok? I'm just building, and then you do well enough that you're like, ok, I did that, but that's just the The start. That's not the finish. And then inertia builds up. And then I didn't have some grand plan. There wasn't like, okay, I'm sitting here, and I'm going to build this thing, and then it's going to get to here. It was the momentum of some things working, and getting to a point, too, that I have very eclectic tastes. I like doing a lot of different things. To be able to get interested in something and go deep on it, I love that more than anything. One of the biggest privileges of my life Is I can listen to a great album most of the time if I want to talk to that artist and have an interaction, or a great athlete, or I read a book and I'm just blown away by what the author had to say. The ability in most cases to reach out and interact with that person, that to me is one o…

AI assessment note: “I didn't have some grand plan. There wasn't like, okay, I'm sitting here”

Q What time do you wake up? What do you do in the workout?

A Usually wake up around six 30, start if there's any emails overnight and so forth, do a little reading in the morning. That's another staple. Being well-read, intellectually curious, and constantly reading an eclectic group of books and articles and everything is super important to me. You know, the older I've gotten on the workout side, I used to make sure that we were going super heavy on weights and everything. Now there's a lot more interval training and cardio in between. Unfortunately, a bunch of stretching and so forth, and worry a little more about pliability with my trainer. I'm very much into routine, so I kind of eat at the same times, And then once the day starts, there's generally a bunch of these, uh, Zoom type things and calls and travel and so forth. You know, I also take time these days during the day to do some things that I want to do that have absolutely no utility in them whatsoever. That's important to me, so I guess that's a garden variety thing.

AI assessment note: “Usually wake up around six 30... on the workout side... interval training and cardio”

Q Speaking of a weighing mechanism, a lot on the show before have said about money and fortunes being kind of a weighing mechanism for how well they've done. I'd love to hear, how do you think about your relationship to money today?

A Look, I think that there's a couple of things that are important, and anytime, you know, I talk about things, it starts with intellectual honesty. That whole know thyself Is so important. If you decide internally that money is not only important to you, but keeping score and being lauded for those things, if that is truly important to you, well, I guess you're going to go after that, and that's how you're going to measure things. On the other hand, if you look at money as, look, it affords freedom, it affords choices, and it affords you the luxury of time to be able to spend your time in ways that you want, Instead of saying, look, I don't feel like doing this task, but I have no choice because I have to pay the rent. That's a different relationship, and I think that if you grow up poor, at least for me, there's always this odd thing where you're afraid that it's going to be taken away.

AI assessment note: “if you grow up poor, at least for me, there's always this odd thing”

Q Again, I told you beforehand, I just use this as advice sessions. The challenging element for me, Thomas, is like, really? People's This approach and behavior to you and around you, I've seen change so much. How do I counteract that? How do I embrace that? How do I behave with knowing that actually people will not be the same as they were before because of the wealth?

A I think any time that you're going to make fundamental decisions like that, you have to decide what your principles are. What is truly important to you? You know what? It's annoying, but it's not worth it. I'll just kind of get along with To go along. And I think once you've established those rules, you can always break them, but you need to have rules to break them. So whether it's with family, whether it's good friends, and you decide, I don't loan money to friends. I just don't do that. Or I do that, but I don't ever ask that they pay it back because that ruins things. Or when I'm out socially, I've decided I don't want to talk about business. I don't want to be approached, whatever it is. And then I think the other side of it is just the graciousness that goes with, you know, whether it's a college student or someone that listens to your podcast. And for them, it's a big moment that they get your attention for a minute, you know, is looking for true advice. So you just have to kind of work your way through that one and decide what's tolerable and what's intolerable, you know, and that's it. I think it's extraordinarily important to respect, you know, everybody. Somebody said this to me a long time ago is, you know, somebody's character is to watch How they act with people they don't have to be nice to, and I think that's always an interesting barometer. So you want to have …

AI assessment note: “you have to decide what your principles are. What is truly important to you?”

Q How do you think this interplays with traditional venture? Does that compete with traditional venture funds or is that an alternative slash additional?

A I think it is a little different. And the idea is now I do a lot of, especially tech investing personally, right? Where I'll go and just make traditional investments and so forth. But that's just with my money, and I don't have to raise money. I don't have to talk to LPs or anything like that. With Tulco, I'm by far the biggest shareholder, so at least, you know, again, most of the risk is my risk. So I liked that. That was important to me. But I think what's a little bit different, it's also very, very hands-on. We didn't operate the business, but we really do act partner-like, and we tell the companies that, you know, you really don't have to raise capital again. We'll provide the capital that you need until we get to a place where you're going to go public or You know, something's going to happen, and it just felt right and bespoke for me.

AI assessment note: “we tell the companies that, you know, you really don't have to raise capital again.”

Q What do you think allowed you to get comfortable being uncomfortable?

A I think it's understanding the difference between when you have choices and when there's a hard thing in front of you that you do the hard thing, and you just say, okay, this is what's in front of me, and it's not going anywhere, so you have to do that, and then I think thinking about Making up either excuses, or being a victim, or saying, you know, why me, or any of these other things, and they may be valid, those may be valid questions, but they're not going to push the rock up the hill, and I think it's just sometimes adopting a little bit of stoicism, or whatever, but just realizing that as frustrated as I might be at this, it's the task at hand.

AI assessment note: “adopting a little bit of stoicism, or whatever, but just realizing that”

Q What do you think allowed you to get comfortable being uncomfortable?

A I think it's understanding the difference between when you have choices and when there's a hard thing in front of you that you do the hard thing, and you just say, okay, this is what's in front of me, and it's not going anywhere, so you have to do that, and then I think thinking about Making up either excuses, or being a victim, or saying, you know, why me, or any of these other things, and they may be valid, those may be valid questions, but they're not going to push the rock up the hill, and I think it's just sometimes adopting a little bit of stoicism, or whatever, but just realizing that as frustrated as I might be at this, it's the task at hand.

AI assessment note: “I think it's understanding the difference between when you have choices and when there's a hard thing”

Q Does that still last, even now? Does that still persist?

A Sure, just because those things that you grow up with are ingrained and hardwired. At the end of the day, what I try to remember, I'd been very poor, and I Have been something different than that, and anybody that says that money doesn't matter, I'm sorry, that has not been my experience. It is not a road to happiness, but it certainly allows you to have freedom of choice and some other things, but I think you can have a very unhealthy relationship with money because it can make you feel entitled. It can make you feel that you're just automatically now somehow smarter on a variety of subjects, and I don't Find that at all, and you need to remember the roots of what it's like to be someone that isn't in that position, you know, and also in terms of just your own happiness and well-being. I haven't had this experience yet, but I doubt anybody on their deathbed says, bring me my financial statements, so you just have to truly keep it in perspective.

AI assessment note: “Sure, just because those things that you grow up with are ingrained and hardwired.”

Q the velocity and also just like the speed of execution being everything, especially with startups that we work with today. I do want to actually mention that kind of the breadth from the economy to society itself. There's a lot of things to be worried about. Really fascinated. You have such an incredible perspective. What worries you today when you look out at this? How do you think about that?

A Well, unfortunately, I'm an optimist by nature, but when you look at what's happening internationally with a lot of breakdown in what I'll call social contract stuff, belief in government, look at how people treat each other. When you look at things that go on on social media that you think to yourself, gosh, somebody just sat, took their time, To write that note, that nasty thing to that person or whatever, that's odd to me, and would that person do that to their face, right? Would you walk up to someone and say that? Here in the States, obviously, I think we're going through an incredible time that I hope we get through. Everything is this sort of binary, I'm right, you're evil. We can't have civil discourse because I can't, my ears can't even take that. I'm going to Cancel this speech that I don't agree with, because in terms of people either being accused of things or shamed of things, and if they come forward and say, hey, you know what? I screwed that up. I'm sorry. You know, that's not good enough or hard to do. I think that when someone's truly remorseful and sorry, obviously depends on what happened or what's going on. I just wish people would take a step back and just say, no, hold on a minute. We're actually all supposed to be a little more civil than this and more evolved than this. Climate change is something that I think is starting to happen more rapidly than eve…

AI assessment note: “when you look at what's happening internationally with a lot of breakdown in what I'll call social contract stuff”

Q you to stop. How do you think about how important resilience is to success, one, and then also how to know when to actually give up? You know, we both work with founders, and sometimes it doesn't work. That's okay. We have two opposing beliefs, so persistence is everything, but then also the realization that actually it's time to accept it didn't work. How do you think about those two?

A I think that there's this compass that you have, or develop, that tells you this is hard, because either no one's ever done it before, or this is a different way to do it, but I still believe we're going to make it through and get there, and when we get there, the reward is going to be fantastic, because it was different, and we did take the risk, and then there are other times that you have to recognize to say, look, the thesis may have been completely wrong, The team that's trying to execute this may be completely wrong. Maybe we're right and just early. Maybe we're right and world circumstances just don't allow this to happen, but you can't just keep banging your head against the wall just to say, I'm showing grit. I'm being persistent. And there's a bunch of stuff in the world that I just think all of your life experiences and whatever aptitude or intelligence and emotional quotient and all those things that you have allow you to make Decisions real time as they come up because the one thing that I am convinced of and in some ways fascinated by is what's different in the world today is velocity. Things happen so quickly and almost instantaneously. Technology is moving so quickly. Communications, things happening on a global spread just weren't that way even 20 years ago that you have to be Flexible, nimble. You have to think about the durability of your business in differen…

AI assessment note: “you have to recognize to say, look, the thesis may have been completely wrong”

Q How did that feel? Like, these are cultural, seismic material. How does that feel?

A The interesting thing about being around all of that, both the feeling that there was a lot of self-importance in that community, and I used to think quietly to myself, look, I get it. These are incredibly skilled people, but at the end of the day, we're still not curing diseases, right? So, and at the same time, understanding the unbelievable power, those messages, putting out a The public's imagination. So again, there's a little bit of duality there, but it was incredible to be a part of something that you would see go out on a Friday night, you'd send it out in the world after working on it for a couple of years, and then to see people connect with it was a really powerful thing. I'll never forget, we did this movie, The 300. Jerry Butler, who starred in it, came with me to a test screening, and he hadn't seen any of it, because it was all green screen, and, and so I sat in the back with Jerry Watching how pumped up he got, watching himself and the movie and the portrayal, there were some incredible moments along that journey that I feel very, very lucky to have been a part of. You know, the most special experience I had was making the Jackie Robinson story, 42. He was a personal hero of mine growing up. You know, when we were casting for Jackie Robinson, there was this unknown actor named Chadwick Boseman that came in. His talent was so incredible and so undeniable. Along …

AI assessment note: “it was incredible to be a part of something that you would see go out”

Q How do you think this interplays with traditional venture? Does that compete with traditional venture funds or is that an alternative slash additional?

A I think it is a little different. And the idea is now I do a lot of, especially tech investing personally, right? Where I'll go and just make traditional investments and so forth. But that's just with my money, and I don't have to raise money. I don't have to talk to LPs or anything like that. With Tulco, I'm by far the biggest shareholder, so at least, you know, again, most of the risk is my risk. So I liked that. That was important to me. But I think what's a little bit different, it's also very, very hands-on. We didn't operate the business, but we really do act partner-like, and we tell the companies that, you know, you really don't have to raise capital again. We'll provide the capital that you need until we get to a place where you're going to go public or You know, something's going to happen, and it just felt right and bespoke for me.

AI assessment note: “I think it is a little different.”

Q Tell me, what's the biggest investing miss for you, and how did it change your mindset?

A A couple things come to mind. I had an opportunity to invest in Uber and And Airbnb early. And to be honest, I completely missed the shared economy. I just thought, that's strange. You know, you would go and rent someone's room or you would, and obviously completely blew that and didn't have a good grasp on that. You know, with the crypto stuff, I don't own a lot of it. I'm a big investor in Genies, which is, you know, a company here in the States that everything from intelligent emojis to NFT and sort of web three O stuff. But I haven't gone deeply into the crypto stuff just because I don't have a, a deep understanding. It's always interesting to me when governments can step in and say, okay, we're now going to have this digital dollar backed by the full faith and credit of said government. I don't know. I'm not against it. I'm not negative on it. I just don't, you know, haven't invested heavily in it.

AI assessment note: “I had an opportunity to invest in Uber and And Airbnb early.”

Q Thomas, when did you realize that you were great slash outstanding at what you do? Turning that on you. I like that question.

A I think realistically, if you don't shake hands with the fact that there is absolute universal luck involved, that you could have gone an inch to the right, inch to the left, and my life would have been completely different, right? Now, at the same time, I'm also not going to sit here and act like I scratched off the winning numbers You know, at Lotto. That's one of the things that I find when people will ask me about the keys to success or things like that, or speaking at business schools, and want to know what that magic calculus is, and I think it's some part absolutely luck. Another part is just the persistence to keep after things when reasonable people stop, and I think it's also calculating your risk, taking in every bit of information you can, and then acting, and also just the choices about the hard work. I think sometimes in the world now, it's a very interesting time culturally between all the things that social media has brought to the world and culture, the velocity of those messages, the vitriol, the schadenfreude. It's a really interesting thing, and I still believe that there is some level of meritocracy in the world, and that your choices and sacrifices, and in some cases talent, start to stack up and add up to accomplishing something. And that we shouldn't cast those things aside and say, like, no, no, it's just privilege or something, and at the same time, we…

AI assessment note: “when people will ask me about the keys to success or things like that”