The Exchanges

Q Yeah, I've noticed there's obviously very hard working culture in Vietnam. I'm amazed that obviously you get some really top engineers there that don't cost as much. I mean, people live very, very well in Vietnam on 50,000 dollars is my impression. What do you think of the talent you've seen so far?

A Oh, the talent is, I mean, that was sort of the, we've got, I mean, on par with, you know, the best engineers that I worked with at Palantir and at Blend, and what's cool about Anduin was they were a pioneer, like, Who would have thought that there would be this vibrant startup culture in, uh, in Vietnam, and Anduin was certainly one of the first companies to be there. Obviously, we no longer have sort of the right to first refusal on the best talent in Vietnam, i.e. there's just other companies out there. Things are now recruiting in Vietnam, so I think this, the word is out that there are great people there, but what I've loved at this company is like, people come to Anduin because of the culture, and critically, they stay because of the culture, and more importantly, and I've never had this happen at any other company where People leave the company. They'll be gone for one or two years and they'll actually come back to Anduin, right? So they go to a different company or they, they, they do get a, uh, advanced PhD degree, but they come back because they love the company. They love their peers and, and they just learn tons. And I'm excited because I think we like, we've got amazing engineers, but I don't think we've scratched the surface yet of like what they're truly capable of. And I'm just excited for all the innovation that's going to come in the private market.

AI assessment note: “on par with, you know, the best engineers that I worked with at Palantir”

Q And you've played fintech crypto type stuff. And then what brought you to Anduin? What is Anduin?

A Well, Anduin is a, and by the way, the name Anduin, uh, comes, I have, I have a weakness for, uh, for companies named after the Lord of the Rings. So, uh, Anduin, uh, is the land of the rivers from the Lord of the Rings. And, uh, it is a, uh, startup, uh, that was really rooted in a lot of the pain that people feel when transacting in the private markets, AKA any company that is in public. Um, and if you're an individual investor, it is extremely painful. It's a very exciting world because you're accessing the returns and the diversification that these hedge funds and private equity shops provide. And that's very exciting, but it's a highly analog process. And there's a lot of pain involved at every single point in the process.

AI assessment note: “it is a startup that was really rooted in a lot of the pain”

Q Like what do you, what are you seeing at the end of 20, 22 start 20, 23? Like I think our subscription's up Are there more funds raising?

A Listen, like everyone, I mean, we're not seeing, I mean, it was like one of the things that I was like keeping a close sort of, you know, when the market started to turn last year, it was like one of the things that I was sort of wondering about was like, what does this, what does this mean for demand? And like demand for our product has, has, if only it's only increased because of the denominator effect, because quite frankly, like, because this is now becoming a standard, right? Because People have been doing this process with paper and email for a very long time. And this is kind of an investor-led standard that investors are demanding. And it used to just be that onboarding an investor was just something you did. And if I was going to invest in a Sequoia fund, well, guess what? I would walk over some very hot coals to get my money into that fund. But it turns out like in this new environment, like you're on your onboarding process is your product. So, um, Uh, so, I mean, that's certainly a trend. Demand hasn't slackened one bit, and I think, if anything, yeah, this is very much the standard, and the one data point that I just sort of point out there is the fact that law firms, and I can say this because my father is a lawyer, like, the fact that lawyers are now adopting this technology, either trying to-

AI assessment note: “demand for our product has, has, if only it's only increased”

Q We, ah, we do helis skiing, which is also somewhat risky, but not as risky as that, I think. It's a different, it's a lower level. So you were at Palantir. What years were you at Palantir?

A I was at Palantir. So I came out to the valley. I was one of those people who, ah, had the misfortune of graduating into the O-two recession, ah, from undergrad, and then in the O-nine recession from business school, from Kellogg. Uh, so moved out to the valley. As you know, it was like a much quieter place back in 2009. And I remember having a conversation with someone, just asking somebody like, what are the most exciting companies out here? And, uh, somebody said, well, there's this company called Facebook, which we all knew, right? Which at the time had a hundred million users. It sounded, uh, fantastically large. Uh, but the cat was out of the bag on that one. And then they'd mentioned this cool company at 50 people at the time called Palantir. And what resonated with me then was just that it sort of married the two worlds that the one world that I knew pretty well, which was Washington DC having grown up there, but it also married this world that I very so much wanted to be a part of, which was this sort of world of technology. So, um, I knocked on Palantir's door several times before they actually let me in. Uh, there's a strong anti MBA bias at that company. So, um, which, uh, uh, but, uh, there's only rare exceptions allowed. Only rare exceptions. So I think I got into my second or Third try, uh, and I kind of, uh, but it, it was a fantastic ride, and you know, where I…

AI assessment note: “graduating into the O-two recession... and then in the O-nine recession from business school”