The Exchanges

Q And what's true glory? What would you buy?

A It's certainly not the most exciting business in the world. That story is quite interesting, but it is a, um, it is a retailer of, uh, uh, hair care products, uh, and wigs in the US. Uh, it is, you know, the, um, uh, largest, uh, brand in the Southeast. And, you know, but here's a story of that, of, of how that occurred, which I think is quite, quite interesting. Um, in the context of the plight of small businesses, this company was started by a gentleman named Kevin And Kevin, uh, grew up in, uh, rural Southern Georgia, poor. Uh, he moved to Atlanta. Uh, he has, uh, you know, a, um, you know, deeply held, um, uh, love of entrepreneurship and had tried many, many, Uh, under resourced and ultimately failed endeavors, uh, you know, up until the point he started this company. And one day in 2012, he had this, this, this realization that he could build a business around this product and, um, started from the trunk of his car, uh, in Southwest Atlanta, which is, you know, not the best part of Atlanta. And, uh, he ended up Uh, over the course of four years, growing that business to nearly eighteen million dollars in revenue. Uh, and, um, uh, and, and one of the things that I learned, uh, in the course of, of acquiring the business was that he had been, um, uh, blackballed from virtually every major bank in the United States. And, uh, the reason for this, Was because they all, uh, pre…

AI assessment note: “it is a retailer of, uh, uh, hair care products, uh, and wigs”

Q Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Let me know. What are some of the big, big lessons for you?

A I would say that first, there's this tremendous lesson in Um, the value of building a truly mission-oriented company. Uh, of course, every company has a mission. Um, but the reality is they typically are, you know, uh, uh, BS, you know, or something on that spectrum. And, uh, Palantir, uh, is, um, uh, is, uh, I, I, I can't imagine, uh, a company with a more visceral and real life mission. You know, you and I both have friends who, you know, were, uh, you know, in Afghanistan and Iraq and, you know, and, and, and, and, and difficult parts of difficult cities all over the country and doing all sorts of things, um, you know, living out that mission. And, Um, the, the benefit of it, I believe, is that building a radically ambitious company like a Palantir, it, it obviously calls upon the very, very, very best that, the very best people have to offer. And in order to get the very best, uh, you have to have mechanisms of incentive that go beyond compensation. It's just not sufficient. Um, and, uh, the greatest mechanism of incentive is, uh, to give one the opportunity to actually make a difference in the world, I think. And so many people, so many people in so many different ways, um, discover that potential at Palantir. Uh, and as a result, Um, you know, uh, gave literally their all, uh, you know, literally, um, uh, and you get what you get out of that, right? You, you get, you get …

AI assessment note: “there's this tremendous lesson in Um, the value of building a truly mission-oriented company.”

Q Exactly. That's why it's fun to do the hard things because then there's not as many people doing them. So this area is more broken. Tyler, I want to ask you about leadership as well. Uh, you said one of your priorities is courageous leadership for normal people. What's that mean?

A I went through, um, a lot of my life. Uh, Joe, thinking that the, thinking that courage was this thing which, uh, one could only, uh, label, you could only, uh, you know, be given if you were a soldier or something. You know, didn't really even know quite what courage was. You know, it just, it, it, it kind of, it lives in the, in, in the, the, the, the holes of, like, you know, the greatest titles, you know, that one can have. Um, and, uh, If you read the definition of courage, though, it's really quite simple. You know, the definition of courage is the willingness to push forward, um, despite your fear, you know. And, and I said to myself, man, well, if it's as simple as that, then I'm Freaking courageous as hell. I, I, I'm courageous every day, you know, because, because every day, uh, I, I show up at this company, uh, where, whichever one it is, whether it was Ballantyre, it was Ryan True Glory, it was trying to build Saltbox, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't feel particularly, you know, confident or certain every day. Um, uh, but I do it anyway, you know, and, um, and every day, you know, for the most part, things get a little bit better, and people listen, and they follow, and, When they ask me, uh, if I'm confident, I tell them, yeah, a little bit, you know, and they like that, you know, and they say me too, you know, uh, and we just keep going.

AI assessment note: “the definition of courage is the willingness to push forward, um, despite your fear”

Q is key when you see the impact directly from the people out in the field and they're coming in, that's, that's, that's critical for it. I want to tie these to the current things you're doing a little bit. I'm curious. Tell us about Saltbox. It's an amazing, amazing company. I'm very bullish on everything I've heard. So how'd you get going on Saltbox and, and what are you doing?

A Yeah. Yeah. I started Saltbox in, in 2019. Uh, it was inspired by my experience, uh, in having bought that, uh, that, that, that, uh, having brought true glory. And, you know, I always, uh, thought Joe that, um, in some ways that, you know, I'm, I'm, um, I feel fortunate to have had this kind of master plan, which, uh, has actually worked pretty well. You know, the plan was, um, uh, you know, leave the valley and take that knowledge and connectivity and, and, and culture and, uh, and, and technology and go and embed myself in a, in the real world and discover some interesting problems and, uh, built a little business in the course of that. Uh, but the problem I discovered was, you know, quite interesting. Um, The, uh, what, what I realized in essence was that Uh, as a small business, which of course is a, you know, is a hugely critical part of our economy. Um, they have, uh, incredible, uh, digitally enabling tools to help power, uh, commerce, e-commerce. Um, uh, and those tools work very well. You think of, you know, the Stripes and Shopify's and MailChimp's of the world. The digital aspect of their world is, is, is beautifully organized, but there's this entire other aspect, which is a physical aspect of, of, of the world of an SMB commerce entrepreneur. And it is just a, Disaster. Uh, and, uh, you know, we're talking about, uh, interactions with suppliers and receiving, uh, …

AI assessment note: “I started Saltbox in, in 2019. Uh, it was inspired by my experience”

Q thrive and compete. So if you do this right, you're going to be able to help hundreds of thousands of people run their own businesses in ways they couldn't before. Like, what's the, what's the mission to you guys? What do you tell people? Because we've talked about mission-driven colleges in Palantir. How do you have that? How do you have a mission-driven culture here? What are you talking about?

A Yeah, it's quite easy, right? You walk through the halls of a Palantir facility, and you shake the hands of the entrepreneurs that are working, and you hear their often heroic stories. I met a few weeks ago, a LA County firefighter who is working double shifts, but, you know, running a small Uh, small candle making business out of, out of a salt box. You know, I mean, just incredible, incredible stories, right? And so, you know, uh, you cannot help to be, uh, inspired by, um, you know, their plight. And, uh, you know, one of the things that I, um, gathered early on, uh, again, drawing from what we learned at Palantir was that, um, you know, if you can create that mission oriented culture, it creates massive tailwinds. The truth is actually that, you know, for, we could, this could be an entire podcast episode, but, you know, for many, many years, decades, uh, Palantir did not, uh, uh, benefit in the way that it, we did not have a sort of tailwinds that we should in acknowledgement of our mission.

AI assessment note: “shake the hands of the entrepreneurs that are working, and you hear their often heroic stories”

Q Amazing. Amazing. Those are both good friends. Matt's here in Austin these days, you know, what are some of the lessons you brought with you from Palantir to, to, to saltpox? Tell us a little bit about your next steps after Palantir.

A Yeah. Uh, we, we should talk, we should talk, uh, we should, we should talk a lot about Palantir. I know you talk about it all the time, but there's just so, so much to, to, to, to, to talk about from, you know, what that company is on and what it's doing, but to answer your question, um, uh, I left Palantir in, uh, after six years at the company and, um, decided to Uh, to leave Silicon Valley altogether. You know, my, um, my wife and I had, had a tremendous run there. Uh, my wife Faith, um, she's, she's a pretty low key person, but she was actually, um, it's a debate whether she was the first or second or maybe, maybe third, we'll see, but employee of Stripe, you know, and she, uh, was, you know, um, uh, there with John and Patrick, uh, in their apartment, you know, before it was even called Stripe. It was called Dev. Dev, uh, slash dev in payments or something back then. And, you know, we had this, uh, kind of fairy tale, um, six years, uh, in, in, in the valley and, and, and took a great deal from that. But I think we were also always of the mind mindset that, you know, that we love it there. We were not from there. And, We really wanted to, uh, put ourselves back into what we think of as, as the real world, uh, you know, uh, which is arguably not, uh, you know, downtown Palo Alto.

AI assessment note: “I left Palantir in, uh, after six years at the company and, um, decided to”