The Exchanges

Q Until you realize how to get other people's capital. So, like, if somebody was asking you, like, Ankur, right now, I need to get rich people's money in order to build this thing, what would you tell them?

A I think you have to, for what worked for me was I had real fucking skin in the game. So what most people don't understand is they look at a venture fund, venture funds charge two and 20, right? Which is two percent management for your 20% carry, which is the take of profits. What people don't understand is it's actually closer to 20 and 20. It's one of the best kept secrets because venture funds charge those fees for 10 years. So if you raise a hundred million dollars, The investor makes twenty million bucks, maybe even 25, regardless of how the fund does. What I did with my fund is I took zero management fees, which was absurd for a fund of that size and a quarter of all the capital was mine. So yes, the notion doc is important. Yes. Like the mechanism is important, but end of the day, people saw I had real skin in the game that it became much easier for them to say yes.

AI assessment note: “what worked for me was I had real fucking skin in the game.”

Q That's a great line. What do you mean by that?

A So when I was 19 years old, 20 years old, I was in college. I had the chance to meet, you know, Marc Andreessen, Naval Ravikant, like all these, like, people that were iconic and I looked up to, and they all took me very seriously, almost as a peer. Like, what are you going to build? Like, this sounds so great. Contrast that with when I went to India and I tried to meet with the CEO of a couple of smaller companies. Would condescendingly ask where my parents were, right? It's such a different attitude, and I think San Francisco and Silicon Valley knows that young people have historically done incredible things, so young people are taken very seriously.

AI assessment note: “I think San Francisco and Silicon Valley knows that young people have historically done incredible things”

Q Interesting. And then today you're building a brand new company. Why did you choose this one?

A So it was while selling my last business. And again, I, as an immigrant, I know nothing about the tax code, nothing about how money works, personal finance. I wasn't investing. I was doing nothing, but I realized how it's smart lawyers and accountants, how much opportunity there is in our tax code. And there's no easy way of accessing it. So that was a little bit of a light bulb moment that I was like, if there was an easy way to make To productize all these tax savings, the tax code, that would be kind of a fun business to build. It's valuable to people. I also like love, I've always loved there's a system. How can you be smart about it? How can you hack the system, break the system, whatever. And this felt like a challenge that way. Like, you know, like here's a system with a bunch of rules, but there's loopholes. How do you actually help people take advantage of these loopholes? So it was a fun, fun kind of business to work on.

AI assessment note: “if there was an easy way to make To productize all these tax savings”

Q thing about basketball, but the leadership components of it are astounding, and how they had to, like, pair together the team. Plus, I didn't realize he was a Zen Buddhist the whole time, which is wild. You probably knew all this because you're a dude, but I don't know anything about that, so I'm reading that book. Is there anything right now that's, like, really inspiring you that you're reading?

A I think the book that, like, got me started down this entire path, and I still periodically reread it, is Richard Branson's book. And the reason, like, okay, the business is great and all of that, but there's this, like, spirit of him just having a fucking blast while doing this, Which I find to be kind of healthy, right? Like, yes, he works really hard. He starts a lot of businesses, but he's doing it for the love of the game. And he's having a really good time doing it. So I find that, that part pretty cool. Um, ironically, I read a lot now, but I probably spend 70, 80% of my time reading non-business books. Like, I just find reading enjoyable and...

AI assessment note: “I think the book that... I still periodically reread it, is Richard Branson's book.”

Q That's really sweet, though. Um, what about, what would you tell, you know, a young kid listening to all this today, who is just like, man, I don't know if I'm smart enough. I don't know if I can code. I don't know if I'll ever get there. What should I start? What would you tell a 20 something that wanted to be you?

A I think when I started, and I think it's true for a lot of people, there's a certain element of, like, doing these things for the love of the game in a way that, yes, part of my motivation was to be very successful and, you know, make a lot of money, but I also really liked building shit, playing with things, growing products, and to kind of not forget that part, I think anyone listening to this right now, you're in such a fun time To build and play with stuff. Like back when I was in high school, we used like Microsoft front page to build web. It was like the tooling was awful, right? Like now there's incredible tools where you can imagine anything, build stuff. I think it's a great time to like, yeah, just go deep on that, have fun with it. And, um, I think it's a phenomenal time for that.

AI assessment note: “just go deep on that, have fun with it.”

Q God bless me. I was telling Kate and Mark, our new president, That, um, I want you to meet him, you'd like him, but he, I'm like, these creatives, they're like, they have so many feelings. One cried in my office the other day, and I was like, I've never fucking seen this before. Have you ever had somebody cry at a meeting with you?

A So my last company, by the end, like Teachable, it became very hard to manage because, I mean, it was also around COVID and just the entire company, people forgot that we were there to make money and grow a business. And it was, yeah, things got, things got a little, a little bit out there. Like, I remember we would, like, people would, would get all these aggressive questions on, like, the snacks in the kitchen, not being up to, like, people were like, how, how do you feel if we unionize? And it's like, you're not working in a coal mine. Like, like, what do you want? Like, better yogurt? Like, it's, yeah, it's just, there was a lot of that.

AI assessment note: “So my last company, by the end, like Teachable, it became very hard to manage”