The Exchanges

Q What is the right way of thinking about it?

A Yeah. So the first thing I'd recommend if, uh, you're getting an assistant, uh, is to have them help you save money. Uh, if you have a big budget, not a big deal, but the first project can be, Hey, help. Pay for your salary by looking through all my subscriptions, finding things to say, uh, save me money, find me refunds. Um, so that's just kind of like a cost-saving bucket. Um, then there's admin paying bills. Um, and then there's coordination, which is what you're talking about, basically being a PM. So coordinating, you know, the tax attorney asks for something from the accountant, and there's a bunch of docs, and it's just moving paperwork between, uh, systems, um, at enough scale and complexity that becomes effectively a full-time job. And, Obviously, you need someone you truly trust, uh, to go deep with, and we kind of recommend that you build this trust over time, and, you know, you give email and calendar access at first and bank account later, uh, but as you earn that trust, then the more access you give effectively, the more leverage you get.

AI assessment note: “the first thing I'd recommend if, uh, you're getting an assistant”

Q Um, that's exciting. So what else can you share about plugs for the company or things to watch out for, or for people who, you know, want to get assistance?

A Yeah, look, uh, I just say, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. Step one, if you're starting a business, you should hire an assistant, and if you've got 20 bucks a month, use ChatGPT. If you've got, you know, 10 bucks an hour, go on to Upwork and hire someone yourself. If you hire someone yourself, I would say my main recommendation is you need to interview a lot of people. You know, Athena, we have 50,000 assistants apply per month, and we put them through a huge battery of tests, and we hire like one in 300. So if you're gonna hire on yourself, make sure you interview Not 10, but probably like 50 people. Uh, if you have the resources for 3000 dollars a month, then you should work with a company like Athena, who can recruit, train, manage, and teach you how to delegate. And then when you have the resources for an in-person assistant, uh, hundred, 150 K a year, you should do that as well. Um, and then ultimately, you know, when you get later stage, you have Achieva staff, in-person assistant, and, you know, a fleet of Athena assistants in the cloud.

AI assessment note: “if you have the resources for 3000 dollars a month, then you should work with a company like Athena”

Q Yeah, that's very interesting. What, um, going back to other sort of founder principles, what is your stance on, um, Transparency with the company. Like, what's information that's helpful, maybe going back to Thumbtack days, what's helpful for the, the company to, uh, employees to know, or like, what, what are principles, like, that guide, you know, how much you share?

A Yeah, I mean, default transparency is obviously the best, but there's obviously some lines. Like, there's, uh, you know, at Thumbtack, there was a moment, you may remember this, a decade ago, where I woke up, And I had a message from someone on our team in the Philippines, and it said, Thumbtack does not exist on the internet. I was like, what? And I went to Google, you type in Thumbtack, and nothing shows up, and we basically received the death penalty from Google. Uh, there was a misunderstanding, they thought we'd done something wrong, but they, like, eliminated us from the internet, and so our traffic went to zero, uh, and our revenue went to zero, and I remember waking up, and like, I go to the office, and there's a class of 25 new Thumbtackers, who it's their first day, I'm supposed to do the onboarding with him. There's a journalist, like, walking around outside trying to get a quote, and, you know, that's one of those times where you can't share everything, and so, uh, you want to ultimately be transparent, but if I just walked into a new class and say, hey, the business might be dead, uh, it's not gonna work, and so you have to kind of get a handle of the situation, uh, you know, the people who need to know it, know it, and then once there's a plan and a solution in place, then the whole company, uh, is told.

AI assessment note: “once there's a plan and a solution in place, then the whole company is told”

Q What are other principles, like, you know, I love this delegate by algorithm, not by task. What are other principles or frameworks that are really important or non-obvious to, you know, get the most out of an assistant?

A Yeah, the, the cardinal sin of delegation is that it will be faster or better to do it myself. That's the number one blocker for most people, and the reason it's a blocker is because it's true. It will actually be faster or better if you do it yourself that first time, and it takes more effort to delegate, to teach someone how to do it. It might not be as fast or as good as you'd like it, but the only way you get leverage is by going through that work. So you have to overcome that activation energy. The second mistake people make is they don't compound for the long term, and they hire someone, and then switch an assistant every six, 12 months, but it's the compounding that creates incredible leverage. I've been working with Marnie for a decade, like a little sister now, and she knows everything about me. Um, so that's just kind of like common principles. Um, in terms of the way to delegate, I think the, this is just tactical, the methods. You know, the most common way people delegate is with your thumbs and your phone. That's the worst way. Very slow. Um, better use all 10 fingers at a computer, but that's actually pretty slow as well. The best way to really delay is using your voice. And so voice, you can talk two to three times faster. You can do it on the go. You can do it on a date, between lunch, you know, in the Uber. Um, you know, at Thumbtack during hyperscale times, I …

AI assessment note: “the cardinal sin of delegation is that it will be faster or better to do it myself.”

Q I'm curious for your interpretation of meetings. Some people are like, ah, you know, I, I want to have as few meetings as possible. Meeting's not the most efficient. I'd rather do everything async. What is your kind of sort of thinking between async and synchronous?

A I mean, Naval has a good line that's like, ah, a phone call's better than a meeting. A voice note is better than a call. A text is better than a voice note. Uh, I think in general that's true. And, uh, There's this, it's almost like a generational thing where I feel like you're in this a little bit of like, there's a reluctance to call people on the phone, and it's just, we do everything, text and email, but calling people is super effective. It's really high bandwidth. You can figure shit out in five minutes. And so, uh, I personally try to minimize meetings and then do more picking up the phone and talking to someone for five minutes. Um, when I'm in more chairman mode, Then I prioritize as few meetings as possible and voice notes, and, um, I, uh, I, what I request is voice notes out and text message back, because listening to voice notes is slow.

AI assessment note: “I personally try to minimize meetings and then do more picking up the phone”

Q One thing that you've been phenomenal at is, whether it's some tech or, is, is hiring executives. W, what do you think that you do differently, or what, what are the principles or frameworks that really guide your, sort of, exec hiring process?

A I mean, one thing that is obvious as you hire execs is the more senior they go, the better they are interviewing. Almost by definition, and so when you get to C-Suite, they all are really good at interviewing, and so you actually have to discard the interview more the more senior they go, and so I rev, uh, uh, I, I use references much more the higher you go, and then the other thing that I think is interesting that people should do more of is I just ask people for their three six year reviews. Like, at their last company, 10 people wrote reviews of them that are honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and I just asked to see it, and I say, hey, I'll share you, share mine, you show me yours. I actually think this would be a cool kind of reference pro startup, um, where you could like ping the LM about someone versus pinging their references. So I try to get to more ground truth on the person versus the UX of an interview is just gonna be pretty good when you get to the senior level.

AI assessment note: “I use references much more the higher you go, and then... ask people for their three six year reviews”

Q Yeah, that's very interesting. What, um, going back to other sort of founder principles, what is your stance on, um, Transparency with the company. Like, what's information that's helpful, maybe going back to Thumbtack days, what's helpful for the, the company to, uh, employees to know, or like, what, what are principles, like, that guide, you know, how much you share?

A Yeah, I mean, default transparency is obviously the best, but there's obviously some lines. Like, there's, uh, you know, at Thumbtack, there was a moment, you may remember this, a decade ago, where I woke up, And I had a message from someone on our team in the Philippines, and it said, Thumbtack does not exist on the internet. I was like, what? And I went to Google, you type in Thumbtack, and nothing shows up, and we basically received the death penalty from Google. Uh, there was a misunderstanding, they thought we'd done something wrong, but they, like, eliminated us from the internet, and so our traffic went to zero, uh, and our revenue went to zero, and I remember waking up, and like, I go to the office, and there's a class of 25 new Thumbtackers, who it's their first day, I'm supposed to do the onboarding with him. There's a journalist, like, walking around outside trying to get a quote, and, you know, that's one of those times where you can't share everything, and so, uh, you want to ultimately be transparent, but if I just walked into a new class and say, hey, the business might be dead, uh, it's not gonna work, and so you have to kind of get a handle of the situation, uh, you know, the people who need to know it, know it, and then once there's a plan and a solution in place, then the whole company, uh, is told.

AI assessment note: “default transparency is obviously the best, but there's obviously some lines.”

Q Yeah, totally. The, um, there used to be this sort of skepticism of like, hey, you can't really, and this still is actually, you can't really incubate company. Like the CEO has to be the co-founder, the founder, they have to drive it to. Where do you stand on, on kind of that, that debate?

A I think the biggest companies aren't incubated because the biggest companies have a founder who is monomaniacal from the beginning and compounds it for 50 years. And that's not incubation. Incubation is kind of, let me try a bunch of things. It's not this monomaniacal power law commitment. So if you're just trying to build a trillion dollar business, I think that's not the way to do it. But look, if you like, you know, we have a mutual friend who likes to remain anonymous, who incubates lots of companies, and he launches four companies a year. And he loves doing it, and he's gonna make a ton of money doing it, and that's just his style. He's not gonna probably have trillion-dollar businesses, but he's gonna have 50, you know, hundred-million-dollar businesses, which is still incredible.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest companies aren't incubated because the biggest companies have a founder”

Q Totally. Ok, so there's EAs, and then there are chief of staffs. How should we think about sort of the, the difference there, and what's really important to get right in chief staff? Is there a role that everyone, in addition to EA, wishes they, they had, um, but seems hard to find the right person?

A Yeah, there's no formal definition. I think it's something that, uh, an EA is typically more administrative, and taking things off your plate, and, uh, chief of staff is more offensive, and that's the type of person who can, Follow you into meetings. You could deploy to, hey, like, actually take this meeting for me, or hey, this problem came up, ah, today. Go figure out how to solve it. And so, a chief of staff typically has the capabilities to become a founder themselves, and the only reason they take the job as chief of staff is so they can see what it's like to be a founder, so they can go off, ah, to do it. So, you kind of get people who do more tours of duty, and you get super high capability, ah, but you don't get the same longevity as an assistant. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “an EA is typically more administrative, and taking things off your plate”

Q What are other principles, like, you know, I love this delegate by algorithm, not by task. What are other principles or frameworks that are really important or non-obvious to, you know, get the most out of an assistant?

A Yeah, the, the cardinal sin of delegation is that it will be faster or better to do it myself. That's the number one blocker for most people, and the reason it's a blocker is because it's true. It will actually be faster or better if you do it yourself that first time, and it takes more effort to delegate, to teach someone how to do it. It might not be as fast or as good as you'd like it, but the only way you get leverage is by going through that work. So you have to overcome that activation energy. The second mistake people make is they don't compound for the long term, and they hire someone, and then switch an assistant every six, 12 months, but it's the compounding that creates incredible leverage. I've been working with Marnie for a decade, like a little sister now, and she knows everything about me. Um, so that's just kind of like common principles. Um, in terms of the way to delegate, I think the, this is just tactical, the methods. You know, the most common way people delegate is with your thumbs and your phone. That's the worst way. Very slow. Um, better use all 10 fingers at a computer, but that's actually pretty slow as well. The best way to really delay is using your voice. And so voice, you can talk two to three times faster. You can do it on the go. You can do it on a date, between lunch, you know, in the Uber. Um, you know, at Thumbtack during hyperscale times, I …

AI assessment note: “the cardinal sin of delegation is that it will be faster or better to do it myself.”

Q One thing that you've been phenomenal at is, whether it's some tech or, is, is hiring executives. W, what do you think that you do differently, or what, what are the principles or frameworks that really guide your, sort of, exec hiring process?

A I mean, one thing that is obvious as you hire execs is the more senior they go, the better they are interviewing. Almost by definition, and so when you get to C-Suite, they all are really good at interviewing, and so you actually have to discard the interview more the more senior they go, and so I rev, uh, uh, I, I use references much more the higher you go, and then the other thing that I think is interesting that people should do more of is I just ask people for their three six year reviews. Like, at their last company, 10 people wrote reviews of them that are honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and I just asked to see it, and I say, hey, I'll share you, share mine, you show me yours. I actually think this would be a cool kind of reference pro startup, um, where you could like ping the LM about someone versus pinging their references. So I try to get to more ground truth on the person versus the UX of an interview is just gonna be pretty good when you get to the senior level.

AI assessment note: “I use references much more the higher you go”

Q What is the right way of thinking about it?

A Yeah. So the first thing I'd recommend if, uh, you're getting an assistant, uh, is to have them help you save money. Uh, if you have a big budget, not a big deal, but the first project can be, Hey, help. Pay for your salary by looking through all my subscriptions, finding things to say, uh, save me money, find me refunds. Um, so that's just kind of like a cost-saving bucket. Um, then there's admin paying bills. Um, and then there's coordination, which is what you're talking about, basically being a PM. So coordinating, you know, the tax attorney asks for something from the accountant, and there's a bunch of docs, and it's just moving paperwork between, uh, systems, um, at enough scale and complexity that becomes effectively a full-time job. And, Obviously, you need someone you truly trust, uh, to go deep with, and we kind of recommend that you build this trust over time, and, you know, you give email and calendar access at first and bank account later, uh, but as you earn that trust, then the more access you give effectively, the more leverage you get.

AI assessment note: “as you earn that trust then the more access you give effectively the more leverage”

Q I'm curious for your interpretation of meetings. Some people are like, ah, you know, I, I want to have as few meetings as possible. Meeting's not the most efficient. I'd rather do everything async. What is your kind of sort of thinking between async and synchronous?

A I mean, Naval has a good line that's like, ah, a phone call's better than a meeting. A voice note is better than a call. A text is better than a voice note. Uh, I think in general that's true. And, uh, There's this, it's almost like a generational thing where I feel like you're in this a little bit of like, there's a reluctance to call people on the phone, and it's just, we do everything, text and email, but calling people is super effective. It's really high bandwidth. You can figure shit out in five minutes. And so, uh, I personally try to minimize meetings and then do more picking up the phone and talking to someone for five minutes. Um, when I'm in more chairman mode, Then I prioritize as few meetings as possible and voice notes, and, um, I, uh, I, what I request is voice notes out and text message back, because listening to voice notes is slow.

AI assessment note: “I personally try to minimize meetings and then do more picking up the phone”

Q Let's go to Athena, and let's go where we started, which is sort of the intersection between, uh, humans and AI. How have you thought about building Athena, given sort of developments in AI, and what does that mean for your future?

A Athena started fully bootstrapped, human-only, scaled to a thousand people, no outside capital, and then we had this AI moment a few years ago, and it was clear we could, uh, make a big AI play, and this could become a generational business, or we could get railroaded by AI, and so, only one option there is go big, and, uh, our vision here is this, uh, is you take the best of a human and best of a machine, wrap it into one unified product, and what the machine does, Will increase over time, just like a self-driving car. And so, the human's the UX. It's on top. Uh, it will become more, the human assistant will focus more on project management and high-level, uh, work, uh, and really be that, like, caretaker, the empathy, that partner. And the machine will increasingly do the more rote, mechanical, administrative stuff. And, you know, just as, when you get into a Tesla, uh, You know, Elon made them with wheels, so, er, with steering wheels, so you could drive them, because they don't drive themselves, uh, when he started, but every time you get in the car, you're actually teaching the machine how to drive.

AI assessment note: “you take the best of a human and best of a machine, wrap it into one unified product”

Q Yeah, totally. The, um, there used to be this sort of skepticism of like, hey, you can't really, and this still is actually, you can't really incubate company. Like the CEO has to be the co-founder, the founder, they have to drive it to. Where do you stand on, on kind of that, that debate?

A I think the biggest companies aren't incubated because the biggest companies have a founder who is monomaniacal from the beginning and compounds it for 50 years. And that's not incubation. Incubation is kind of, let me try a bunch of things. It's not this monomaniacal power law commitment. So if you're just trying to build a trillion dollar business, I think that's not the way to do it. But look, if you like, you know, we have a mutual friend who likes to remain anonymous, who incubates lots of companies, and he launches four companies a year. And he loves doing it, and he's gonna make a ton of money doing it, and that's just his style. He's not gonna probably have trillion-dollar businesses, but he's gonna have 50, you know, hundred-million-dollar businesses, which is still incredible.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest companies aren't incubated because the biggest companies have a founder”

Q So to that end, um, I'm curious if you could share more, you know, frameworks or principles you live by in terms of time. Like, for example, I, I believe you put, you try to stack meetings in, you know, in a day or in as few days as possible or something. What are, what are certain sort of frameworks that are important for you in terms of time, energy?

A I mean, high level. Brian Johnson wants to break the chains of biology or longevity. I want to break the chains of time. And, you know, the question I ask myself is like, What's the most valuable asset in the world? It's not gold or Bitcoin or Nvidia clusters. It's time. Uh, we can always raise another round or do another trade, but you can't raise another decade. And so, if time is the primary asset, uh, and it's more foundational than everything else, we should focus on owning that and controlling it. And so, for different, this means different things for different people. If you are in hardcore scale mode, that may mean half-hour meetings for 14 hours a day, Where you are just grinding out interviews and doing things that only you can do as a founder, uh, or it may mean clearing your schedule and having time to dream about the future of the product or big deals. And I think you just have to know what stage of the business you're in and then design your calendar purposefully around that. And if you look back on the last month and the calendar does not reflect your highest goals, then, uh, you're not doing it right.

AI assessment note: “know what stage of the business you're in and then design your calendar purposefully”

Q So to that end, um, I'm curious if you could share more, you know, frameworks or principles you live by in terms of time. Like, for example, I, I believe you put, you try to stack meetings in, you know, in a day or in as few days as possible or something. What are, what are certain sort of frameworks that are important for you in terms of time, energy?

A I mean, high level. Brian Johnson wants to break the chains of biology or longevity. I want to break the chains of time. And, you know, the question I ask myself is like, What's the most valuable asset in the world? It's not gold or Bitcoin or Nvidia clusters. It's time. Uh, we can always raise another round or do another trade, but you can't raise another decade. And so, if time is the primary asset, uh, and it's more foundational than everything else, we should focus on owning that and controlling it. And so, for different, this means different things for different people. If you are in hardcore scale mode, that may mean half-hour meetings for 14 hours a day, Where you are just grinding out interviews and doing things that only you can do as a founder, uh, or it may mean clearing your schedule and having time to dream about the future of the product or big deals. And I think you just have to know what stage of the business you're in and then design your calendar purposefully around that. And if you look back on the last month and the calendar does not reflect your highest goals, then, uh, you're not doing it right.

AI assessment note: “design your calendar purposefully around that”

Q the, you know, you let the GSB people know you weren't going to accept it, and they sent you back this very moralizing email of how you're making the biggest mistake in your life, um, et cetera, you know, it turned out pretty good, but how do you, pretty good decision, um, how did you at the time think about getting enough conviction to take the leap and do it?

A It was scary. I, uh, got into, you know, this good school. Seemed like that was a safe bet. I knew I wanted to start a business, and, uh, you know, if I went to business school, I knew that I'd have all this debt, I probably might need to get a nice paying job afterwards, and if I was gonna go for it, I should probably just go for it. But, yeah, when the dean sent me that email, I was like, this is, Biggest mistake of your life. He said something like, ah, you can, startups will come and go, but you can only come to Stanford once or something. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I never responded, and I have it as a email in my, this save that I'm just gonna respond to whenever some tech goes public and be like, I made the right decision. And, you know, I have nothing against this guy. He's just doing his job, but it's good to have a little, uh, chips on your shoulder.

AI assessment note: “if I went to business school, I knew that I'd have all this debt”

Q the, you know, you let the GSB people know you weren't going to accept it, and they sent you back this very moralizing email of how you're making the biggest mistake in your life, um, et cetera, you know, it turned out pretty good, but how do you, pretty good decision, um, how did you at the time think about getting enough conviction to take the leap and do it?

A It was scary. I, uh, got into, you know, this good school. Seemed like that was a safe bet. I knew I wanted to start a business, and, uh, you know, if I went to business school, I knew that I'd have all this debt, I probably might need to get a nice paying job afterwards, and if I was gonna go for it, I should probably just go for it. But, yeah, when the dean sent me that email, I was like, this is, Biggest mistake of your life. He said something like, ah, you can, startups will come and go, but you can only come to Stanford once or something. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I never responded, and I have it as a email in my, this save that I'm just gonna respond to whenever some tech goes public and be like, I made the right decision. And, you know, I have nothing against this guy. He's just doing his job, but it's good to have a little, uh, chips on your shoulder.

AI assessment note: “if I went to business school, I knew that I'd have all this debt”