Hot Smart Rich with Maggie Sellers Reum - The Truth About Prenups—and Why Money’s Harder to Talk About Than Sex (First’s Libby Leffler)

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

What if talking about money with your partner wasn’t awkward, but the key to keeping your relationship strong? Libby Leffler (@thisfirst), founder of First and former Google and Facebook exec, is redefining what it means to protect love with logic. From breaking the stigma around prenups, to helping women secure their futures, to proving that money talk is harder than sex talk, this is the conversation every modern couple needs to have before their big day. Why women are now leading the prenup conversation The surprising top 3 reasons couples get prenups (hint: it’s not just money) How prenups lower divorce rates - and strengthen marriages Why money talk is harder than sex talk in relationships The rise of millennial women protecting inheritance, property, and businesses How to start a money conversation without ruining the romance Why every couple already has a prenup (even if they don’t know it) The power of transparency in building trust, partnership, and love This isn’t about planning for divorce. It’s about protecting the life you’re building - together. ⸻ HSR Angels get $100 off all First prenup products with code HOTSMARTRICH.HOTSMARTRICH promo code good through 12/31/2025 at www.thisfirst.com; all coupon codes must be used at checkout at time of purchase (ineligible for retroactive discounts) ⸻ This episode is sponsored by:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠HSR Newsletter⁠⁠⁠ - Get 3 months free using ⁠this link ⁠⸻ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you like what you hear, rate, review, and subscribe to Hot Smart Rich, the podcast supporting women who own their worth — in business, wealth, and life. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube ⁠⁠⁠ ⸻ 💌Own your worth — and build the life you want. Subscribe to the Hot Smart Rich newsletter, the no-BS guide to startup life, consumer brands, and becoming your hottest, smartest, richest self, written by Maggie Sellers. Join 250,000+ women building wealth, confidence, and community on their own terms. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe here⁠⁠⁠ ⸻ Become an HSR Angel in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Global HSR WhatsApp⁠⁠⁠ channel⁠! ⸻ Follow Maggie: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Locker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ShopMy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon Storefront⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⸻ Follow Libby & First: ⁠LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it. Libby Leffler. Are you ready to get hot, smart rich? I am ready. I've been ready. I stay ready. I'm so grateful that you're here.

Thank you for doing this. Of course, absolutely. It's really fun to be part of this and to see the community you've felt. So cool. Oh, thank you. Well, I know you had a tough time getting down here from San Francisco, but I'm hoping you have some good answers to this because we always start with consumption habits. So what is the last thing that you bought?

The last thing I bought was the flight to come here because mine was canceled. The last thing I bought probably something for my kids. I don't know if it's that exciting. No, but the answer of having to buy another flight to get down here is such a founder answer. Yeah, like 4 a.m. Wait, you flew here at 4 a.m. I mean, no. I was supposed to fly here at, you know, whatever it was, 630 or 7.

I know you've been traveling. Yeah. I've been traveling. So we were like, okay, let's link up. then I wake up and it's like, hey, you're not traveling. But yeah, that's probably the last thing I bought, bought. Okay, I love it. I'm so excited that you're here because we're going to talk all about preempts today.

Yes. How comfortable are you talking about preempts after building in this space? I love talking about preempts. I mean, I think that it's part of that broader conversation about money. And I'm all about, and I've said this for a really long time, you know, I've worked in FinTech for many years. And I've always been very fascinated in that conversation about money. Like, I think it's a conversation I've been having around me and in my world since I can remember. Right. You know, my parents have both, they're both self-made, have worked really super hard in the business world,

in the real estate industry. And I was like super privileged to grow up in a world where they were talking about business with each other for as long as I can remember. Like, it really was a dinner table conversation. And so I was saying the F word, right, from the very jump, meaning finances. Do you say the F word in front of your kids now? Well, when I say the F word, right, I'm talking about finance, finances. I don't say the F word in front of my kids, or I try not to do. No, I don't say the F word in front of my kids, but they, they hear at different places. That's such a funny thing. I see, I don't even think about finances as a dirty word. Like, I'm so open about so much. So I didn't even connect the dots of like the F word was finances. But

I think that especially the word pre-nup is still such a dirty word in society. Do you think so? Yeah, I do. And it's interesting because even with myself and as I've gone through the pre-up process, like we actually don't call it a pre-nep. We call it a PMA, a premarital agreement. And for me, I think because it has had such a bad connotation, especially like things are changing now.

But when I was growing up, it was such a dirty word that changing the language gave permission to like think about it in a totally different way. Why do you think that even going back five or 10 years, that word pre-up was such a bad word? So there's a total pop culture depiction of what a pre-up is and who gets it. And so I think a lot of it starts there. Yeah. Right? With how the idea of a pre-up is depicted in media, in television, in film, and really who a pre-up is for, right?

That it's meant for some person, probably a guy, to pretend. himself from like some woman. Actually today, like we don't see in our customers, right, we don't see that stigma at all. Half of the prenupts that we do at first are initiated by women. So it's very different and it's for me, it's really surprising to see. Like I knew that that stigma had moved away. We're really at the beginning of a generational shift in terms of how people think about premarital agreements. And I love that you like reframed the name of that agreement and how you think about it.

Because it's really all about that conversation. And whatever you need to get that conversation going in terms of, hey, like we both have stuff going on. We both have businesses. We're running things. We're doing things. How do we think about this collaboratively for our life together? That's really what it's about. It should be a joining point, not a breaking point. So when we think about pre-naps, even going back to that example that you gave, where it's like a super wealthy man that's been depicted by having to protect himself from, let's just use the really stark word of like a gold digger taking his money. You're telling me that the archetype of who is coming to first to get a pre-nup is actually a lot of women. Forgetting what we think about marriage, why are women coming to first

to get a pre-nup and for what purpose? So we do free consultations. So we talk to people all the time about every reason that they come to us. The top three reasons that people come to us to get prenuptial agreements are debt. They're coming into the marriage with some kind of debt, usually a student loan, but maybe there's something else and they either want to protect themselves

or partner, whatever it might be, or they're planning on taking debt in the marriage in the form of often a student loan or a personal loan or whatever it might be. The second thing that we see most commonly is pets. So people are coming because they have their beloved pets, and they want to be able to carve out what happens to our pet if we don't stay together. People forget that, right?

Like, your pet is shocked. Yes. So pets are a huge deal. It's a huge, it's a huge, it's a huge, ask a question on that. Because in a PMA, from my knowledge, you don't actually figure out things like child support or like housing when you're actually doing your PMA. You usually do that when you are going through a divorce. what makes the animals or the pet something that is different than children when you're going

through a pre-nap? Yeah. So this depends on the law and how pets are determined by the law, which in terms of pets, right, they're real property or animals or whatever you might have. So you can in your PMA, do you have a pet? No. Okay. Well, we're getting one.

Okay. Well, think about your pet and your PMA. But that's one of, that's like this number two reason that people come. And they're always talking about kind of what they're going to do. And does someone, can someone have like the right to re-home and whatever that looks like? So that's really interesting, I think wasn't surprising. I think we always knew that people wanted to include this in a premarital agreement. And then the third thing is inheritance, right?

We're really on the cusp of a great wealth transfer that we know is about to happen. And millennial women in particular are really going to benefit from this. The women that are coming to us are talking about, hey, I'm totally self-made. I've worked my entire career, right? And I've got retirement and I've got investments and I'm expecting inheritance. Or it might be someone who, you know, maybe they purchased a home on their own. And they're thinking about what happens to this real estate that I own and how do I make sure that it's protected in the event that, you know, this marriage doesn't end up working out.

Most of the people that we talk to who reach out to us to learn more about what we do, and again, we don't give legal advice on our consultations, but people just want to talk. They want to talk about what's happening with them and their story, the context of why they're even talking about a pre-up. Most of them are just looking for understanding of how to have the conversation with their partner and realizing that in some way, no matter what they're doing, they're both working towards something, and they want to come into it at a point together that helps them keep the marriage stronger.

It's so interesting that you say it in that way because from your experience, do men or women have a harder time getting on board with a pre-napp? So when I think about our customers, like they're on board. They're on board, often doing research, trying to find a great option for themselves. We don't see, like I can't think of an example

where two people, there's someone dragging someone else into that experience. Interesting. Now, we're an online platform, right? So, you know, who self-selects for that? Probably the modern couple looking for a modern experience, and they might come to it pretty aligned. And they're like, hey, we've been interviewing and looking at different processes, and geez, it's going to take five months and how much does it cost?

and they're kind of looking for something better, a better way, a better path forward. But I wouldn't say that there's one or the other that like we really say, oh, that person's dragging this person into it. I think what's been amazing is seeing just how open people are and the conversations. Like I said, we do these free consultations. And so our team, lots of our team members talk to folks. And people will just, you know, it's like, hi, thanks for calling first. And they're like, here's my life story.

And you're like, what? Okay. Like, my name's Libby. What's your name? Do you do consultations yourself? I do. I do talk to many of our customers. Yeah, we have a lot of team members that do consultations and folks that are like pre-nup experts.

But I do talk to customers all the time. Every day. It's the best part of my job. I have to do it. I have to do it. If you could simplify what the pre-ups end up like looking like when they're set and done, what does it usually look like in terms of the trend that we're moving towards? Like people are keeping their own bank accounts and separate property, but then they're also doing

a common property. like what is the trend that you see happening with women inheriting this great wealth transfer with them having more education, owning more homes, things of that nature? So I can talk about this in the context of our consultations because of course we're not looking at sort of the end product of what people select for their agreements. In consultations, people are often talking about the following things. They're talking about, hey, we really just want something where our premarital property is separate. it like what we brought is ours and what we create together is or what we brought is like each of us keeps what we brought and what we create together in the marriage is ours. And so we often hear about

that, right? What's mine is mine. What I brought in is mine. What we create together is ours. And so that's interesting. We do get a lot of people just depending on the state that ask about augmenting or waiving alimony and spousal support. What does that mean? So they're just choosing to, change or customize for themselves what the terms of spousal support might be or agree upon that rather than revert to default laws. And so we do see a lot of people expressing interest in that. And we can, of course, help people with that because we do have lawyer reviewed prenuptial agreements. So those folks enter into an engagement agreement with, you know, lawyers that represent them independently on our platform. Those are kind of the common things that we see, right?

And then people, of course, wanting to account for their pets, you know, debt, whatever it might be. You know, if they have student loans and they really want to make sure that, like, hey, those are my separate loans. I brought them into this, you know, partnership and I want to make sure that those stay separate, those stay my property. Or maybe their partner wants to make sure that they stay theirs. This episode is brought to you by Tell Us Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what?

Yeah. cybercriminals love tax forms, but I've got TELUS online security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. It's so interesting the way that you're describing it because I think it's a really empowering conversation that people are having with your advice and help.

But it sounds like people are already coming to that on their. own and they're now like self-selecting to choose you guys as the way to actually get that done. Do you think that there has been a shift in that consumer behavior from women that are thinking about pre-ups in this way of like, this is helpful for me? Because I would say the discourse that I still see is very much like let's use Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bases's wedding as an example. People have been so quick to go online to talk about like what she's getting versus like his first wife. And it's still very much in my feet. at least, a conversation that's very much around like women taking and not like contributing to

the marriage. And it sounds like what you're saying is a lot of women are coming and being like, I want to protect my husband that he's not inheriting the loans that like I am obviously going to want to pay off even in my marriage. Do you think that there has been a shift in at least the customer that you're seeing to get to that place? I mean, we're seeing a lot of amazing people, men and women who've worked really, really hard. And it's like they're professionals, their first responders. They're like all, you know, there's people that they will stay at home or they might already be staying at home and working in the home, taking care of, you know, children

that may exist before this couple ends up getting married or maybe it's a second marriage or whatever it might be. we are seeing this like interesting phenomenon of people starting side hustles that have become great businesses, creators, starting amazing brands and like coming to us going, how do I even think about who owns my social media handle? Interesting. Right? Like literally the social media handle in their agreement and talking to us in the consultations about, hey, I've like developed these three things or I have a patent on this thing.

How do I think about the IP? you know, I've worked at a tech company. I'm like a, you know, I have a patent on this technology. How do I think about that? There's all these different permutations of customer and customer archetype and who comes in. And the thing that really, the common thread among all of them, like no matter what their profession is or what their ambition is or whether they're inheriting something or not, it's not, like a lot of people come in and they're like, I think I'll inherit something, but I don't really know. And I've never had the conversation. And I've never had the conversation. I don't know to what magnitude.

That's not the important thing, right? The important thing is they want to start from a place and a foundation of having this conversation. And that's really where we come at it, which is like, we want this to be amicable and collaborative. It's not a breaking point. It's an amazing joining point. And so the way that we've built this company is really with the belief in marriage. And we are super pro-strong marriage. And what does it mean to have a strong marriage? We think having a strong marriage means that you're

starting off on having these conversations early on. People spend hundreds of hours wedding planning and no time talking about money. Money is funny. It is hard to talk about money. Do you think money's harder to talk about than sex in a relationship? Interesting. I do. I think it is harder to talk about. Yeah, I think they both have their own. I think they both have their own. You know, there's personal things that come up in both, but I think that we're ingrained and have been. And I love what you're doing and expanding that conversation about money

and like asking really tough questions that, you know, get people talking about and thinking about and sparking that conversation in your community. But I do think it's harder to talk about. because there's so much, there's family history and the things that you learned and the way that you came up and came up talking about money, having it, not having it, what having it did to you, how it changed your ambition, or what not having it did to you, and how it changes the way you think about it. And then once you put kids in the mix, too, and that whole dynamic, I mean, that really changes, I think, how people have that conversation.

Do you think that having a pre-neb in place will increase or do you? decrease the likelihood of getting divorced. So there's statistics and studies on this that show that if you have one in place, like those group of people, the cohort of people that have a prenuptial agreement, have a lower rate of divorce. The divorce rates in the U.S. have stayed pretty consistent. They're between 45 and 50%. Well, if you look at it by age, like if you take a cohort of people, right,

we see some rates dropping, but I'm sure you've seen some of the press more recently around the high cost of millennial divorce, right? It's really increasingly expensive for people to be able to get divorced. And so, you know, the divorce rates hover. It's like between 45 and 50%. 100% of people think they're not going to be in the 45% to 50%. Right? They're never going to be the ones that are getting divorced.

Things happen, right? Things happen. People change, life changes. There's all kinds of circumstances. So, you know, we think it's a great path to be able to have these conversations early. Have you ever seen a wedding get canceled because of the pre-up process? I mean, I think it's like if you go through the pre-up process and there's something fundamentally off. Off.

Not with a person, but just with the sort of vibe on how you think about money, you know, whatever it might be. Now is a better time to figure that out than I think, you know, three, four years into a marriage. I was about to say, like, I actually have a friend who, through the pre-knit process, realized that it actually wasn't the right person for him. And it's really interesting for myself going through it. Like, you do talk about things that you would otherwise not. Like, you spend 100 hours planning a wedding. I would say, like, we have definitely spent way more time of figuring out what is actually going to be in this PMA. Because it sets aside what your role in responsibility will be in the marriage.

and also like what the expectations are. And I think so many people walk into a marriage thinking, oh, I'm going to have amazing wedding day, but they're not thinking down the line of like, what does it look like when I'm in my prime earning years as a woman? And like, I am having to go and take off time to have a child. Whether you take off a month, two months, three months in Canada, it's a year-long mat leave.

It will affect the trajectory of your career. Do you feel like you're also dealing with a lot of women that are having children later in life and are thinking about what that impact will be to their financial opportunity when they do take off time to have children? Well, the thing that we know for sure and that we've seen a lot of demand around, so now we do help facilitate this in people's agreements, we know that there are an increasing number of people coming through that have embryos and have frozen eggs and are making contingency plans for themselves so that they can pursue the things that they want to pursue now and have the opportunity to start a family whenever they'd like to start a family and have the, the freedom and flexibility to do that. And so, you know, I think we see all kinds of people. It's a really modern couple, right? It's all kinds of people. And that thing they have in common is like,

they really want to be able to come together and have that conversation and create an agreement that's theirs. Like, that's why we're called first. This is the first agreement that a couple will ever have. We think you should have a pre-up before you have a will. Like, this agreement should be something that's foundational to the relationship. And like you said, sets those expectations. Like, what does it mean for me to be a true partner in this relationship and having had that dialogue together? But it's every, it's every kind of thing you can imagine. I mean, like, this is funny, but one time we had someone call us and he was like, hey, do you have a frequent customer discount.

And so, which is like, you know, but it's funny, right? Like he obviously was joking, but he was like, look, I've been married before. I didn't have a pre-knit the first go around. I really want to make sure I have one now. And the frequent customer, that was a first. That was a first at first. The frequent customer discount. Every ambitious woman has a secret weapon.

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Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Have no more like Habinier yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Do you have any advice for people that are listening that are not yet at the stage of getting engaged, but they feel like they want to start talking about finances in a relationship? What is the right time to start talking about that before you're planning a wedding? Any time is the right time. How do you bring it up? Do you think that like they should have FICO scores and dating apps?

I think this is so first I think when you're first so first I have no dating advice for people I have stories experiences my friends have many experiences but I think there's never a wrong time to be talking about topics that are going to be fundamental to a relationship right and so I think of it akin to the conversation of would you like to have a family And so I don't know when people bring up that conversation, but like I've had friends that were in great relationships with people and learned late into the relationship that that person did not want children and they knew in their heart they really did and they didn't want, right, they didn't want to end up further down the road. And so they ultimately, you know, had to make tough decisions because

that's just for them it was a deal breaker, right? I think this money conversation is something that, you know, it would be interesting to like spark it whatever it is. Hey, how do you think about spending? What are your spending habits? What do you spend on? What do you say? How do you save? I mean, there's little things I think that can kick off the spark of a conversation and where you can kind of observe is someone really like do they totally shut down when you try to bring up any of these topics. I don't think you have to ask someone like for their tax return on date one. I think you can just kind of keep it chill. But yeah, I mean, this is fundamental. It's like career ambition. How do you think about? about the next 10, 15 years of your life.

Like, what are your personal goals, right? Money should be folding into all of those conversations. What about the timing for a pre-nep? Like, how long does it take usually? And do you recommend that couples do that before they actually get engaged in there's a ring or after? So I'm not a family law attorney. And so I don't represent clients in that capacity.

Therefore, this is not legal advice. This is not legalized. She's well trained. But we have people that call us. I mean, we have couples that are getting. married late in 2026 that are like done with their prenuptial agreements that just want to get it going move forward our lawyers often talk to customers about enforceability and considerations when it comes to enforceability in certain states there are state waiting periods before you can sign so we

never really want to see someone taking it up to the the final minutes before they get married right now what we hear from our customers is that a traditional process can take many months. We can do an agreement for someone much faster because we are an online platform, because we take all of the heavy lifting off of our customers and conducting them to great lawyers who practice in their state and who do this full time. So let's take a step back because we're talking to Sally that's listening to this and is like, I want to get a pre-up. I'm getting married. I'm getting married in five months. and you guys operate in the state that she lives in. Walk Sally through the difference between a traditional lawyer path to getting a pre-up

and what she will get with the experience with first. Okay, cool. So Sally comes to us. She purchases her agreement and she and her partner go through our online platform. And the key thing with us is you're getting all of that context up front. So let's say Sally wants a lawyer-reviewed prenuptial agreement. We offer multiple, right? We offer self-serve pre-ups that are fast, easy, legally sound agreements, but that forego

lawyer representation, which you can do, and that's totally valid. You can also do a lawyer-reviewed agreement. So Sally and her partner want a lawyer-reviewed agreement. Now it's going to be custom to them. The lawyers are going to review it. They come in, they buy. They go through our questionnaire. It's simple.

We cut through the legalese, get all of the disclosure done for them. And basically every key piece of information that their lawyers are going to do. to want to make sure that draft is in great shape and they have all the context. So that can be done in 45 to 60 minutes. They can be talking to a lawyer the same day. Once the agreement is in final shape, like the lawyers agree, hey, this looks good. We've kind of shared various disclosures with you or instructed you on things that you need to do to keep up with the terms of this agreement. You agree it looks good. The lawyers are going to finalize it. If you're in a state that has a waiting period, right? You're going to have to get through that waiting period. It must fully elapse. And after

that point, if you are in a state with no waiting period, you can proceed to signing execution of that agreement, depending on the terms. We include complementary notarization with every one of the agreements that we do, no matter what state you're in or what the state requirements are. Once you're done, you've executed it, becomes legally valid when you're married. We had a customer just last week who texted us. It was like, we love the notary. I did it at 7.38. am in my PJs. Then I took my kids to school. Then I went to my investor meeting for my new company. Now we're at the courthouse and we got married. Wow. Do you also service customers that have really complex situations that like, you know, because this is obviously a very easy way to get this done.

You can do it in like 45 minutes a week if there's not a waiting period. What if someone's listening to this that's like, whoa, I have like a lot of things going on and like it's not an easy situation or there's a big wealth disparity in a relationship. Like do you also service those customers as well? Yeah, we work with customers of all kinds of complexity. Our lawyers have really deep experience in terms of the number of years that they've been practicing, dealing with complex finances. We often have couples that have international assets now or might be thinking about a move to a different state or an international location. So absolutely, I mean, we're built to be able to handle simple, straightforward situations, but because we've put the lawyer at the center and always

have believed that that is really so important in getting the guidance that you're looking for in this type of agreement, you know, we can handle those types of complex situations too. If someone's listening to this on the other side of the spectrum of like they have literally no assets, like they have no debt, they have no assets, so does their partner, do you still recommend that that customer gets a pre-nup? We do. Because your situation today may not be your situation tomorrow. How do you predict, though, the things that are unknown? Like, let's say you're doing the pre-nep and it's like, I know you're not a family lawyer, so it's not advice, but I think, like, walk a customer

that's listening to this through that of, like, how would they even protect and procure in this agreement if, like, neither one of them has anything? So, like, what's theirs is theirs before, what they're going to build together as split equally? Like, wouldn't that just be, like, the rule of law of marriage? It could be, but I guess the question then becomes, do you want to write that agreement for yourself or do you just want the pre the pre-the pre-prenup that like your state government creates for you everyone has some form of a prenuptial agreement right you either have the one you created which can follow whatever the default law is and that's okay like again we have many people that come in and say hey what i came into this with i'd like to be mine what we create together we'd like

to be ours okay great so it's just the difference between creating and crafting something for yourself or just relying on and depending on, hey, this is what the default law is and we're just going to go with that. One of the best and earliest examples of this is a customer that we had, two customers we had come through. And they said, hey, we really don't have any assets. We don't have any. But I'm a songwriter and I have a bunch of IP.

And my partner is like a producer and a creative and they have a bunch of IP. And one day down the road, like, we think that stuff can get licensed. We think it can be built into a business. I think maybe I will inherit something. So today's situation is not necessarily tomorrow's reality. And so for that reason, we always recommend to people that are thinking about doing this and have the capacity to do this to come through and create something for themselves that at least gives them that ownership and that agency over what the financial future looks like for you. If, you know, you ever do. have to pull this agreement out. Like we want this to be the very best agreement that you never have to use. Yeah. We truly do because like I said, we're pro strong marriage. We don't want anyone to come into this thinking that they're planning for the worst. This is preparing together for like the outcomes of your of your marriage and it should be a really positive thing. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the community. Ooh. Then it's

It's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever center. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. You've worked with some of the most successful and powerful people in Silicon Valley. Why this idea?

I've always been really, really interested in how people talk about money, have that conversation, what people know about money, what people don't know about money. I think people make this conversation more complex than it needs to be. I think we can begin having these conversations in really like simple terms and just like very accessible dialogues. So one of the things I always wondered was, why does it cost me thousands of dollars every time I need to get a small edit to a legal agreement? On the business side, like I've dealt with this on the business side for now going on two decades or like on the personal side. And like, why is it that I learn about some of these things through other people? Like, why isn't this just sort of mainstream knowledge?

And so as I went through my career, I've had some really interesting career experiences and opportunities and worked for some incredible folks and worked alongside amazingly talented smart people. You know, one of the things I think people are comfortable talking about is work and promotions and, you know, what they're doing at work. But like people don't really talk that openly about money. Then when I got into different contexts, maybe it was in business school, there was like, the conversation felt a little bit more open in terms of how people, where did you come from? Why were you here? What are your ambitions for the future? Talking about kind of what the path was to get there. And then after that, I spent, you know, before I started this company, the last chapter of my career was really all in fintech, right? At SoFi, which is a fintech company. And then it comes. which, you know, is a real estate company. And, you know, both of those are conversations all about money. In terms of real estate, typically the largest financial transaction someone will ever make in their life. And so have found it really fascinating that, you know, that these things are not more widely talked about. I also think there should be a platform that is

like the go-to platform and the brand for this. Like, where do you go when you need an amazing personal legal ally and partner in your pocket to help you get whatever you need. We're starting with prenuptial agreements. We've always said that. I've loved that as part of the journey because I believe that's the first step. But that's kind of, that's the starting point. Someone that's listening to this, are they going to be a more successful founder if they have a resume similar to you?

No. No, they're probably more successful if their resume does not look like my resume. Why did you chase your resume? I didn't chase my resume. I chased my experience and learning. My big thing early on was I was always trying to do the coolest stuff I could working for and with the very smartest people I could be around. So like I was just all about learning.

I mean, the first job I had at Google, I got from a cold email. I really wanted to work at Facebook, which had come to Berkeley when I was there as an undergrad and I sent them a cold email. But I don't think they were hiring on the business side at that time or just, you know, I didn't have whatever they were looking for at that time. But I was trying to work there, went to go work at Google, which was an incredible experience for me and then moved over to Facebook a couple years later. But when I left Google to go to Facebook, people, that was not a thing you did. People were, making that shift, but it wasn't, it's just, you have to remember like the context of that time.

It wasn't like it is today. It's not the same as going to take a job at meta today. What I found was I was really interested in technology. I was really interested in kind of that global impact and scale and working at a company that had massive far-reaching like ripple effects on people and consumers in terms of how we used products. And, you know, I was at Berkeley when Facebook came to Berkeley. So I saw it really spread like crazy through campus and through the culture of, you know, my generation of people and found it really fascinating and had the opportunity to go work on a bunch of different things there from sales to operations and business development. And so I would say that I was always really chasing learning, growth, new opportunities, really trying to zig

where people were zagging. Like people that I knew in college, in my class at Cal were not going to really work at Google when I went to work there. There were a few people, but largely people were going to work in, and I was in the undergraduate business school there, accounting, banking, and consulting. And then, you know, when I was later, I did an MBA. and I think there are multiple really successful founders that have come out of that class. There's also people that are working in all kinds of different industries that are not. I mean, there are people working in the healthcare field, people working in nonprofit, public service, finance.

So I was just really all about learning. I full on believe that like I can make anything out of nothing. I believe that. Like I just am like, okay, well, let's do that. Let's try that. Can we do it? That's one of the big things for me, like, as I think about leading teams of people, I'm like, I want everyone to walk away from this experience. Of course, having an amazing experience and like building great relationships and everyone to be wildly successful. But I really want to

help people do things that they never thought they could do. And that's just for me, one of the things that I think I've been really lucky enough to work for and be around people like my parents early on who just convinced me that like anything that I wanted to make happen, there was a way to do that. Do you think that you've ruffled any feathers by doing that? I'm sure, yeah. And does that bother you? I mean, I want to have great experiences with people. I'm sure that there have been times in my life, that there have been ruffled feathers for all kinds of things. Yeah. So you've been married yourself for almost a decade, and we've talked a lot about pre-naps, and hopefully not marriage is dissolving. A decade is a long time. What is a piece of advice that you have

that anybody listening to this can apply to have a strong marriage? I think that communication, it's so, it sounds so cliche, like communication. But really, if you're not communicating, if you're not talking, like, what are you doing? I think especially if you're two people that are building, like, builders of things, you're busy, your heads down, you're ambitious, whatever you have going on, you have to be able to have that open communication. And whether that means setting aside like very dedicated time that's really focused time, not to talk about logistics, not to talk about kids,

not to really talk about what's going on at work, but just to talk about like each other, what's happening with you. How are you feeling? How is it going? That I think matters more than anything. More than all the stuff that you see like on Instagram, like couple goals.

Yeah. That stuff I also think there's a lot of advice going around. out there on the internet on social that sometimes I see it and I think, wow, I really have to make sure my kids are not on this. I mean, because there's just a lot. Anyone can pick up a camera on their phone and say whatever they want about your lifestyle, how you live, the messages that you're sharing. You know, like women shouldn't work. Women should do this. Why are they doing that? Why are they talking about being hot, smart, rich? I think we need to take a step back, have confidence in kind of what we believe in, who we are.

And I think if you can really ignore all of that noise and really just focus on the fundamentals, it really helps a relationship stay strong. And I think that goes for everything, whether it's a romantic relationship, a marriage, a friendship. You know, one of the things, I don't know if you can relate to this, but I think when you're in the thick of it really building something, you can't do everything. I can't do everything. Maybe there are some people out there who can, but like I have a finite amount of energy going back to planning. My days are very planned by me. I'm really thoughtful and intentional with my time. I know I can get a lot done very early in the morning. So I think people, you know, who know me, see me like up very early in the morning. And that's

to make sure that I have that time to communicate with my partner. make sure I have that time for my children, make sure I'm getting ahead of the stuff so I'm not a blocker for my team. And so we can like get things done together. You've been very modest about your background, but you've been early at some of like the companies we all use every single day, Google, Facebook. What is something you learned being chief of staff that you now carry with you as a founder? I think being prepared, which is the ultimate chief of staff responsibility, right, is to help make sure that all of the details. are organized and that all the context is there. That context really matters. Like every time I go

into a room, into a meeting, talk to a customer, I'm always thinking about what the context is. And everything, every step I take, everything I do, no matter how big the meeting is, no matter how casual it is, whatever it might be, I always prepare. You were so early building at Instagram and Facebook, but you yourself don't have a huge social presence as a founder. Why? First, I really want to be able to have like a personal space that's really for me. And that's really for my family. And now that I have children, I think children change everything.

Like how I thought about this before is so different than how I think about it now. I do share things about business, building businesses, being a founder, startup life on LinkedIn. And so that's a place where I think it's a fun place to build community and stay really connected to people that I've done business with. or have known for a very long time or in all kinds of different, like, more professional context. I think when it comes to photos, where I am, what we're doing, I really want that to be like a private space for me and the people that know me because I think it can get so taken out of context.

There is definitely right now a total trend happening where there's a business and then the founder and CEO of that business also themselves has a very, very big audience. that's a really powerful marketing tool. Like, no question. What matters to people is that we're delivering an amazing experience for them where they are. I really crave and love having like that small nook of my private slice of life in a world that does feel like very big and like anyone can just reach out and touch you at any time. Yeah. Okay, I want to end with some fun rapid fire.

Who do you think should pay on the first date? Who asked for the date? Oh, I like that answer. That's my answer. Who asked for the date? Okay. And who picked the location. Like, you know, I mean, yeah.

Okay. Would you rather find out he doesn't believe in pre-naps or therapy? I think pre-naps because I think. Really? Yeah, because I think therapy can help with that. Yeah. Okay. What is the hottest trait?

emotional availability or diversified assets. Emotional availability. What is the biggest ick during a money combo? Not having it. Love it. What is one dating green flag that no one talks about? I have it dated in so long. A dating green flag no one talks about.

Being willing to have a conversation about money. Love it. Right? Being willing to have a conversation about any of the tough stuff early on. Yeah. What is more emotionally draining? Fundraising, planning a wedding, or raising kids? Oh, planning a wedding.

Oh, yeah. Fundraising is, like, very fun and energizing. Kids are, I think, I find it physically kind of taxing sometimes. And then planning a wedding, I think, is just very chaotic and stressful. And so that's why I think there's this trend that we're saying definitely with our customers of like these chic elopements. Silent weddings. We love a secret surprise moment.

Okay, Libby, I've had so much fun talking to it. I hope that everyone feels really empowered that they're going to go to first and get a pre-nup. My community is amazing. They always want to know how they can help the person sitting in this chair. Are you hiring rules? Like, how can they get involved? Like, let's say they're not getting married and not our relationship. Like, how can they get involved with what you're doing?

Yeah, love that. So we, for the hot, smart rich community, we have a special promo at first. So if you come to first and you use the coupon code that we'll give in your community in your group chat, then you can come get a pre-nup with us, tell your friends. And we're here to help and have that conversation. So whatever we can do to help facilitate that and help anyone that's kind of thinking about doing a pre-up, someone who wants someone else to get one or help someone else with a

resource on that, we can be helpful too. Amazing. Um, just, you know, stay open, have that conversation, be open-minded about it and stay hot, smart risk. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And everybody please rate review and go visit this is first.com. Thank you.