This Week in Startups - Understanding the UAE startup opportunity with Brad Gerstner and Ibrahim Ajami | E1751

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

This Week in Startups is presented by: VEED makes it super easy for anyone (yes, you) to create great video. Filled with amazing features like templates, auto subtitles, text formatting, auto-resizing, a full suite of AI tools, and much more, VEED gives you the tools to engage your audience on any platform. Head to VEED.io to start creating incredible video content in minutes. OpenPhone. Create business phone numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. TWiST listeners can get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at openphone.com/twist iConnections is a platform to connect and meet with elite capital allocators through their online platform and bespoke events. The first 25 VC funds to sign up for iConnections Miami 2024 event in January of next year will receive a 20% discount! Head to iConnections.io/twist to sign up today! * Today’s show: Altimeter’s Brad Gerstner and Mubadala's Ibrahim Ajami join Jason to discuss their first UAE impressions (1:33), how the country is attracting startup talent, unclogging the capital allocator log jam, and more (19:43)! * Follow Brad: https://twitter.com/altcap Follow Ibrahim: https://twitter.com/IbrahimAjami * Time stamps: (0:00) Brad and Ibrahim join Jason (1:33) First impressions of the UAE (10:25) Veed - Head to https://www.veed.io/pricing?utm_campaign=TWIS&utm_medium=Marketing&utm_source=YouTube and start creating professional-quality videos in minutes! (11:55) The story of Mubadala (19:43) Attracting talent to the UAE (26:53) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://openphone.com/twist (28:21) The shifting perspective of the UAE and the opportunity it presents (35:07) The level of curiosity in Abu Dhabi (37:02) iConnections - Get 20% off iConnections Miami 2024 event at http://iconnections.io/twist (38:21) Adjusting to the changing market (41:58) Mubadala’s portfolio and investing in SoftBank’s Vision Fund (49:40) Getting fit (56:27) Unclogging the manager log jam and the denominator problem (1:04:59) Investing in relationships (1:11:38) The progression of the UAE * Read LAUNCH Fund 4 Deal Memo & Apply for Funding Buy ANGEL Great recent interviews: Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland, PrayingForExits, Jenny Lefcourt Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow Jason: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

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All right, everybody, welcome back to this week in startups. I'm really excited because my friend, Brad Gersner, from Altimeter Capital, told me about a month ago that he was going to go to the UAE, the United Arab Emirates. And he was going on a tour to meet with all of the different family offices and funds over here. And I said, you know, I've never been, Brad. And I invited myself to come with you. So I said, do you want some company? And you were gracious enough to say yes.

And here we are in the UAE. Thanks for having me. It's been just an incredible few days. And I'm really looking forward to this because we're sitting next to somebody who's, I think, really driving innovation technology in this part of the world. Yes. And so with us is Ibrahim Ajami. Ibrahim, you are with Mubadala. Why don't you explain to the audience in America and around the world, of course.

course, what you do and maybe a little bit about the region and the sudden interest and collaboration we'll get into as we go, but maybe just a little background on who you are and what you do. Thanks, Jason. Brad, welcome to Abu Dhabi. First of all, I just want to say that it's a real privilege to be doing this. I mean, I just give you a little bit of a story. My mother sent me to a Microsoft DOS class in the early 90s here in Abu Dhabi.

Wow. And she would tell me, you need to go take this course on a weekend because computers were going to be the future. So fast forward 30 years, the fact that I'm sitting with you here in Abu Dhabi talking about technology and the bridge between Silicon Valley and the UAEs, it's a real big privilege for me. So, you know, I head up the ventures business for Mubadala. Mubalya is a large sovereign wealth fund from Abu Dhabi. We operate globally. we invest in all sorts of sectors, everything from financial services to healthcare, technology, semiconductors, manufacturing.

We operate from the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Asia. And I've been at Mubadla for 17 years. I joined them in 2006. And, you know, it's been an incredible journey. most of my career in mobile has been investing in technology and we can get into that. Yeah.

And so for people who don't know, the UAE, maybe like a little primer. Tell us about this region. People have heard of Dubai. People have heard of Abu Dhabi. They've heard of UAE. But they may not understand,

you know, the seven different states, if you will, or regions, how they operate together. We see on television as Americans, you know, Abu Dhabi, and certainly Dubai with some of the tall buildings and that there's a lot of activity here. Explain how this region was formed

and how it operates. Yeah, the United Arab Emirates is, just like you said, it's a federation of seven Emirates, seven states. And it was formed in 1971. So we're quite a young country, quite a young country, with incredible leadership

that is very committed. and devoted to growth and development and education and health and innovation. And we've gone through tremendous amount of change. And, you know, it's the Abu Dhabi is the capital. And we are very fortunate and blessed that we discovered oil and hydrocarbon resources here in the URAE in Abu Dhabi. And what we've been very focused on, the leadership has been very focused on, is leveraging those resources in transforming the economy and transforming the country over the past 20, 30 years.

I'm also thinking about the next 50 years and 100 years and taking a long-term perspective and a long-term plan. So I came to Abu Dhabi, my parents moved to Abu Dhabi in the late 70s and just to have witnessed this tremendous amount of growth. It's just truly incredible. Abu Dhabi is now a major financial center. Obviously, we're a large energy producing country, but we're also now a major financial center. We're a big education center and healthcare center.

And we've also taken, made a very important decision to make this as an important technology and innovation hub. Yeah, and it's very interesting. There seems to be a little rivalry between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Dubai with some buildings there, but they don't have, if my understanding is correct, the oil is not there, it's here, but the oil in the UAE has been sort of the revenue from it has been split amongst these seven different states. And so everybody is pursuing slightly different strategies. And there's massive investment in the discussion, Brad, that I thought was super fascinating. I'm curious your take on this as Americans as we come over here. This is your first trip here as well.

I've been to Qatar, Tatar, and so you and I are Neophytes. We're learning a lot here, and that was the reason I wanted to come on the trip, and I know that's the reason you started this trip. We were both fund managers, so, of course, we're interested in capital allocators over here and technologists and the startup community. But the unbelievable, unbridled optimism, innovation, and energy here is palatable. It feels to me very similar to New York in the night. In the 90s, Silicon Valley in the 2000s, what I experienced in Shanghai or Hong Kong, Australia, just some of these great other hubs. But there is a recognition that this incredible wealth, that this region was lucky to have,

there's a, there's a time frame under which that will last and that investment needs to occur. And that's been an overwhelming discussion I've been having with folks. they seem to think 2050, 2050, you know, hey, maybe the oil is not worth as much

and there's a 30 year window here to build additional industry. So what was your impression, you know, we're here

at day three of our trip. You've done a ton of meetings. I've done a ton of meetings. What's your general impression of this region doing

massive investment, the massive optimism and the transition? Yeah. Great question, J. Cal. The first thing is

leadership, matters. If you look at over the last 30 years in this country, the GDP is 10xed. The literacy rate has gone from 20% to over 90%. The number of schools in Abu Dhabi, I think, went from four to over 100. Now, this is a country with basically the same oil resources as a country like Libya, about the same size as a company country like Libya. Libya's GDP over that period of time is only two-xed, right? It's been fraught with wars, lack of innovation, certainly not a financial hub, right? And so in the UAE and Abu Dhabi in particular, you have a committed government leadership to diversify the economy away from hydrocarbons. The country has gone from

60% of its GDP was hydrocarbons to, I think, now less than 30% of its GDP is hydrocarbons. If you look at Dubai, it's on multiple dimensions, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I mean, two of the most busy airports in the world. Abu Dhabi is doubling yet again the size of their airport, it will become, you know, welcome even twice as many passengers. If you look at things like the Cleveland Clinic, the quality of life in Abu Dhabi, New York University in Abu Dhabi, you know, they've had more road scholars out of the, in the last 10 years out of NYU in Abu Dhabi than all but three other schools on the planet. It's incredible, including Harvard, Oxford, etc. So the renaissance here starts at the top. It is a welcoming open government that is inviting

entrepreneurs. And really, Ibrahim and I started a dialogue not because I was over here, wanted to come over here and look for capital. We can find capital anywhere that we want in the world. What was interesting to me is that founders wanted to be here, is that GPs wanted to be here, is that the innovation hubs like we spoke at the other night that was off the charts at Hub 71. You have incubators forming here. And we met five founders from around the world that 10 years ago would have been coming to the United States and now they want to set up shop in Abu Dhabi. And so I wanted to understand what was going on. Yeah. Okay, listen, I'm doing six video podcast a week and I can tell you dealing with video is 10 times more expensive and time

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it seems like the immigration policy, I heard people talking about golden visas, and just the support that you're giving to startups, you're making a big investment there. So maybe you could explain when founders come here exactly how you're supporting them and why they're coming here. Because it's a big decision where to put your company and it's a big strategic decision. And you guys are giving some very significant support. Yeah, listen, I just want to build on what Brad said.

This is something we also learned from Silicon Valley, which is founders and companies have choice. Just like founders and companies have choice about which investors they take money from. Founders today have choice about where to go and build their companies and how to set up. And what you see happening here in the UAE today is truly a coordinated effort between the policymakers, the regulators, the financial institutions, the investors, the capital providers to really create an inviting, welcoming, and enabling environment for entrepreneurs and founders. and we've been working on this for quite some time. So let me just share with you a little bit

the Mubadla story in technology. Yeah, please. Because I think that is ultimately going to help frame how we ultimately started creating a technology ecosystem here. We, in 2008, we decided to invest in semiconductors as Mubal. There was a point in time in 2008 where the U.S. wasn't investing semiconductors, the European are not investing.

And this is the great financial crisis. Right. Just for people who are young and don't remember, that 2008 is the great financial crisis. We took a decision, a very important strategic decision, that we will invest in semiconductors, and we committed to the sector. And we did that, and, you know, we, it was semiconductors as a cyclical industry. We went through ups and downs. We ultimately took the company public that we created called Global Foundries, and we continue

to be a majority shareholder, and we're very, very, very, very happy with that investment. In 2016, we stepped back and we said, we've been investing in semiconductors for eight years now, and over that period, we saw the emergence of the mobile with the iPhone and the emergence of the cloud, and a lot of the value that was created with software and the internet,

and we did not participate in any of that value creation, even though we actually powered a lot of it with our semiconductors. So we said, For Mubarlah to continue to grow that we want to grow, we must be active in software, we must be internet, active in the internet economy, we must be active in ventures. And to do that, we should go and set up in Silicon Valley, because that's where we're going to learn the magic. That's where we're going to learn the craft.

We should go start our journey in ventures in Silicon Valley, set up in San Francisco, and start getting to know the founders and learning the craft. and we didn't just go and say we are better than everybody else. We said, let's go partner with some of the best so we could learn from them and we can educate them about our part of the world. So this is seven, eight years in the making of us building our technology franchise.

And ultimately, that's what led us to, again, in 2018 to say, okay, we have all these relationships around the world in technology. After Silicon Valley, we also set up in London and we have offices here in Ovalu. We said, why don't we start creating an ecosystem here in Abu Dhabi? And so Mubadala will invest in the United States, in Europe, or here.

And so what is the focus then? Is it a majority to get people here or equally to invest globally? First of foremost, it's about identifying great companies, investing in them, and taking a long-term perspective and long-term journey with them for financial return. This is a very, very important distinction. We are, at the end of the day, we start and we're as financial investors. We're very financially focused. Because you want this to be evergreen.

You don't just want to take this incredible oil wealth and just donate it to a bunch of tech companies or you want to get returns. So this becomes a sustainable business, an evergreen business. A sustainable business that ultimately compounds over a long-term period of time. and we want to be partners and investors with long-term enduring technology companies. And then as we grow with these companies and as we learn about these companies,

we ask ourselves and we ask them, should you set up in the region? Should you come and set up in the URE? Can we help you with opening markets here in the URE? Can we help you with customers? Can potentially setting up in Abu Dhabi help your business grow? So that's also part of our strategic lens.

So if you step back from it, what is our product as venture investors as tech investors? Our product is we actually look like and feel like a venture capital firm out of Silicon Valley. But we're backed by a sovereign institution with the power and the resources and the scale and the capabilities of a sovereign. And we tell our founders, we're life cycle investors from C to IPO and beyond. We provide you access to a lot of our relationships and assets and businesses potentially as customers. we can help unlock opportunities for you. And we're a steady partner. We actually, you know, put the journey on our shoulders just like you are.

That's, you know, we've been telling the story to founders over the past eight years. And what's interesting, it's never resonated more as it's resonating today. Right, right. And let me just answer that from a GP perspective, right? Again, you ask the question, you know, there's a meme in the world right now. I mean, you and I are staying over it the four seasons in Abu Dhabi. We walk into the lobby, and it's like being in the lobby at the Rosewood Sand Hill Road in the heart of Silicon Valley. I mean, it is pulsing with founders, with GPs.

And part of the meme is that all these American GPs are over here carrying bags looking for money. And what I would suggest is that when you look at the depth of the commitment, a multi-decade commitment, as a GP, I want to partner with somebody. and we're not going to partner with that many people. We can only allocate so much capital a year. But I want to partner with somebody like Mabatala, where when my founder says, hey, who are your partners? We know you're partnered with great university endowments

and great families, et cetera, that I can say, you know, you ought to consider your distribution out of Abu Dhabi or partnered with Mabatala, meet Ibrahim, and, like, really know that they're going to deliver value enduring value. And so I think that that's what attracted us.

I mean, we really started a dialogue on Twitter, got to know each other through a lot of mutual friends. And then you see the power of this. If I walked out of the room and sent all my founders over here, I know they would thank me for introducing them. And I think that's the power of the relationship and partnership we're looking to build. It's very powerful to see the pace of change here. That's what I found shocking.

social change, economic change. I mean, just buildings and architecture. The investment is incredible. I also notice folks like to talk about politics a lot. They're really knowledgeable about what's going on in the United States. And we've been talking, I mean, my voice is getting hoarse because I've been talking until two or three in the morning.

Maybe we can talk a little bit about the regions and how they're different. They're the Saudi government, the kingdom is now trying, they're doing a lot of reforms, but it seems like reforms here started much earlier and have gone much further over time. There's about 500,000 nationals here and there's 10 million people total. Am I about correct? Yeah. So, you know, there's nine people for everybody who lives here or so. And it's completely international. When you come here, it feels like you're in Hong Kong or, or. London. Yeah, it's very diverse. Very cosmopolitan. Very cosmopolitan. You have the Louvre here. You have a full NYU campus. Brad was referring to Cleveland Clinic. Yeah.

You know, at the Cleveland Clinic, Abu Dhabi today, you have nearly 6,000 caregivers from 19 nationalities at the Cleveland Clinic. So it's, listen, I don't speak on behalf of the Saudi government, but they're also going through their growth and their diversification and their evolution. We've been working on this for quite some time for decades now. you see what's happening in Dubai.

It's a, it's a, you know, a commercial center. It has one of the best airports and airlines in the world. It's a major trading center globally. Yeah. Trade that goes through Dubai. In Abu Dhabi, you'll, you'll, you, you, you, you, you, you're heard over the past two, three days. We are creating quite a progressive, sophisticated financial center here. Yeah.

Because, again, we've taken a point of view that financial regulation and creating an innovative regulatory environment for. companies to set up here was going to be critical for success. So, you know, I think we're all, all these countries in the region are going through their journeys. And, you know, the, again, the, the, the special and beautiful recipe that's happening here in the U.A and specifically in Abu Dhabi is, again, this coordinated approach between the government and the investment firms and the financial decision. How do you deploy and leverage this capital to actually force multiply the impact, not just from financial returns, but ultimately force multiply the

impact from the economic and societal development over the next 20, 30, 40 years. The taxation for startups, for individuals, for corporations here is radically different than in America or in Europe, let's say. And then visas are much more available. Maybe you could explain what the golden visa is. And the taxation, because that's going to be, I think, very material. That's a material advantage, I think. Yeah, there's very little taxation in the year E. And, you know, the visa situation is actually quite interesting where, you know, again,

as we go back to this concept of founders and people have choice or talent has choice. And then we took a point of view and developed a strategy where we needed to build real depth in talent. We needed to attract talent. then you had COVID, which really accelerated this talent migration, where people wanted to go live in places that were secure and safe and... And open. And open?

During COVID, the region was open very quickly. Yeah. And it was, I mean, it was, again, a very coordinated, sophisticated strategy to be open, but at the same time controlled in a way to make sure that people were safe. So the golden visa was really, hey, if you are a talented entrepreneur, or have some talents and you want to come and live in the EU then we can give you a 10-year visa.

A 10-year visa? A 10-year visa. Isn't this incredibly frustrating? Like, Brad and I are just like, we deal with founders who have raised millions of dollars and they're still contending with being removed from the United States

and their employees and the drama of just trying to get a developer or some super talented person into America. You look at it as recruiting. Yes. look at this as, hey, this is a growth opportunity to bring people from around the world to the region. And then I cannot tell you how frustrating it is in America when talented people just we're not even letting them in. It is infuriating. Yeah, let me just build on that more. I mean,

if you look at, you know, we at Hub 71, which you both visited, which is our, think of that as a startup community. Yeah. By the way, why did we decide to build a startup community? Not just because we wanted some office space. That's something we learned from Silicon Valley, which is founders need not only a physical place, but they also need a place where they can connect with other people. Yeah. And share ideas and share pains

and ups and downs. So HUB-71 is this physical space, but it's also a place where potentially you can tap into customers, you can work with the regulators. And most importantly, which is, again, the magic of Silicon Valley, we invited venture capitalists

and capital providers because you can't build companies and create a startup ecosystem them without VCs. Yeah. So that's, you know, it's a comprehensive, wide-enraged community where we wanted to create some of the magic that we witnessed from around the world here.

So Golden Visa is yet another component of how do we attract talent? How do we invest in talent? And we don't want to just enable startups from the ground up. We also want to invite mature high-growth technology companies to expand here in the region. Can I say one thing? Oftentimes, you know, U.S. investors or U.S. entrepreneurs will go preach the values of Silicon Valley to the rest of the world. I mean, one of my takeaways the last three days is what we need to be learning from you all, right? I just spend an hour.

Where's our goal? Yeah, exactly. I just spend an hour with, you know, a member of the planning team of the Abu Dhabi, you know, of the UAE government. you know, and he was saying, how do we leverage generative AI in our government to take the next leap forward? I mean, is there anybody in Sacramento in California? I mean, you know, who's talking about how we can leverage, you know, generative AI or in Washington, D.C. Instead, we're trying to shut it down. We're trying to regulate.

We increase taxes. You know, we abuse businesses in the state of California. We don't have golden visas. We're not inviting immigrants to come to the United States. And here's the thing. It is not a divine right that Silicon Valley will be in 10 or 20 or 30 years, the place where founders go. They went there because we created the conditions for prosperity. Right?

And today I look at UAE, and they have a national imperative to diversify, to create the conditions for prosperity. I mean, you hear it. You see the enthusiasm and the passion. And so I think, you know, we would be well served to not just come over and talk. Yeah. But to listen and to learn and to think about what we need to take, you know, take away as well. Are you still using your personal phone number for your startup in 2023? Okay, listen, it's time to stop.

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And partnership is a truly a genuine and important part of our value system. And we've invested and committed and partnered with, I think, over 50 funds, early stage funds, seed funds, growth funds, some of the largest funds in the world. And we keep repeating that for us, you know, where we're really, we want to build a trust-based relationship. We want to build a long-term partnership. So we appreciate very much when these leading investors from around the world come to Abu Dhabi, invest time and building relationships with us. Why is that? Because you'll learn about us as we learn about you. And for us, it's not just solely about capital allocation.

Because in addition to being a fund investor, we also are a very active direct investor into companies. But it's about how do we also make an impact together? How do we help these companies together? How can we help your business as a fund manager? How can you help us think differently about our business? I just met with a fund manager earlier today here in Abu Dhabi. And he's like, hey, we have a very deep enterprise and AI capability. And he's been coming here trying to get a fund commitment.

And he said, listen, what I'd like to do is I'd like to set up some sessions with you and your team and do some education around the impact of AI on the enterprise space. that's an example of potentially this fund manager investing a bit of time and resources in helping build more dialogue and more trust and that's really, really important. You know, as Brad was saying, in a way, this is our moment, a lot of funds and are coming here to Abu Dhabi looking for capital. But we've been on this journey for the past 10 years. Yeah, this is something I've heard a whole bunch of, and I'll double click on in a second. another interesting experience I had, Brad, in talking to some VCs here and some early stage

investors, the valuations were incredibly high because there's a smaller number of companies and a larger number of angels and capital allocators, so a little more competition. And they were lamenting how high the valuations were. And I said, wow, I thought the companies would trade at a discount to Silicon Valley. Because in Silicon Valley, the companies, let's say they were worth $15 million in a seed round. You know, in Miami, you might see the same company worth 10 or in Austin, you know, 12 or whatever it is. So even the geography in the United States is different. And here we have, you know, 20 or 30. And I said, wow, that's going to be hard on exits. And they said, yeah, this is an issue where we're level setting and trying to figure that.

And we had a great dialogue around valuations. And then governance and boards. And so I already saw it because they, this venture group, they listened to this weekend startups. And they had a lot of questions for me. And we're having this very interesting dialogue. And they were educating me on, you know, I think one of the key learnings for Americans, and we had the same learning looking at Europe when we brought companies there, when Uber or Airbnb or Google, Facebook decided to go to Europe. It's not a monolithic thing. You know, each country is different, has different cultures, in some cases different languages, same thing with South America. And here, these are very different cultures, very different social norms and different size markets. One of the amazing statistics

that I heard was this is where food delivery has the highest margins. The food delivery service here is printing money. Why? Well, because people have big order sizes here. They can charge more fees. The average customer here spends more money. Very interesting, you know, because you and I are both investors in Uber. And labor costs are cheaper. Yeah, I left that part out. And so you have this incredible opportunity there. And so, and FinTech, people here are incredibly enamored with and willing to try different FinTech applications. But it's, let's face it, American venture capitalists were over-subscribed.

There weren't that many fund managers. And they weren't exactly interested in taking money from the broader region for many years. Now we see a little stumble in the U.S. markets, maybe too many venture firms, maybe a little bit clogged up ecosystem as people work through their balance sheets and some companies were overvalued, et cetera. Now they're interested. And the story I kept hearing was, we've been inviting people for a while. Nobody came. We went to Silicon Valley. We didn't get the warmest reception because funds were filled. Now there's more funds. There's more opportunity. So it seems like a very

unique moment in time that the funds might be willing to take capital from the region. So maybe you could talk a little bit candidly about how do people feel about that? Yeah, you know, it reminded me of 2016, 2017 when we first set up in San Francisco. Actually, some of the managers in California back then told us that, listen, you shouldn't set up here, you should just give us your money. And because this is our craft, it's not something that you should be doing. And if you fast forward till today, that engagement narrative perspective has shifted a lot. Listen, I say this to a lot of managers that come from the U.S. and from other parts of the world. Sovereign wealth funds, investment in technology and allocation to technology is here to stay and it's only going to grow from here.

Why? Because the sovereign wealth funds, let's face it, were doing a lot of public market. They were doing a lot of real estate. Private equity started. But now you're seeing a big interest in venture, early stage venture. and more private equity. For two major reasons. A real recognition

that there's a lot of value to be created in technology and in venture companies and building enduring technology companies. And number two, you have to understand that technology is starting to impact

large swaths of these countries' GDP. So the importance of engaging in technology is a very big national priority. You have to understand it. You can't just, You have to be a part of creating it and shaping it. You've got to get closer to it. By the way, both healthcare technology and the role of technology and healthcare and also

broad technology. So I think the managers, the thoughtful, smart, forward-looking, partnership-oriented managers are going to look at the sovereign wealth fund as allocators and say, how do I work with this new, very important constituent over the next 10, 20, 30 years? I mean, just to that point, you know, obviously there's a seminal moment where we talked about software eating the world. And now we're here at a moment where AI is going to eat software. Yeah. Okay.

And if you're sitting, you know, that's why there's such interest in all the conversations I've had with Ibrahim and his team with the EA, with others who are here about, you know, it is no longer about technology and then all these other industries. our defense industry, our hydrocarbon industry, every industry has turned into a technology industry. Yes. And so that national imperative around investing in technology is not just about diversifying away the hydrocarbon economy. It's if we want to be the most competitive in the world at all the other things in which we compete from tourism to the financial industry sector, then we have to be technology forward. And I found just the, you know, I'm curious, Jason, your take on this. just the general level of curiosity and IQ from government to allocators to founders here of these issues is extraordinarily high.

Yeah. It used to be Silicon Valley was like a secret playbook. You know, there was like a handbook and, you know, people just didn't understand a lot of how the mechanics, how the tactical issues were handled strategy. I had a number of people while I was here tell me, I would like to have lunch with you because I'm going to be a Kaufman fellow. I'm going to be coming to Silicon Valley and have an office here, different allocators, different family offices.

And I thought that was fascinating. They want to learn the craft of being a venture capitalist, an angel investor, not just blindly put money in and, oh, yeah, tell me in 10 years how my fund did. And that's a very distinct difference. The curiosity level and the interest in this, is palatable. Listen, when you're a fund manager like me, you're trying to raise money,

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So sign up at iConnections.io slash twist. Iconnections. dot I.O. slash twist. Yeah, I have a question for you, Abraham. You know, we've just gone through this period. You know, 2000, I mean, the COVID period. technology asset bubble that we went through. Interest rates went to zero. All asset prices went to the moon. We have 22 interest rates reset. Technology prices collapse. And a lot of allocators in this part of the world had really just started allocating to technology. And all of a sudden,

right into the teeth of this major correction. And what we see around the world is while we've had a massive financial dislocation, so asset prices are down 50 to 70%. We also have a major platform shift with AI. And so right at the time, arguably, that people should be allocating to venture capital, right? This vintage that's coming up, which is going to benefit from a major platform shift, you see everybody narrowing their apertures. Pulling back. The pulling back, right?

How do you deal? I mean, it seems to me you have a natural advantage. just because of the long-term strategic planning of the country. But talk to me about the internal dynamics. What are the pressures on you from the big bosses about like pulling back? Did you allocate too much? How are you guys thinking about allocations changing in the post correction of 2022? First of all, I mean, like I said, we have been investing in technology for nearly a decade now in software and internet and healthcare.

and health tech. So I remember when COVID, when COVID happened and we had this massive acceleration in investing, we didn't just show up and say, oh my God, let's start investing in technology. And then when this reset, recalibration that we're going through happening, we then just say, okay, let's just backtrack completely

and contract and stop investing. It goes back to we as Mubadla are devoted to innovation. We as Mubadala are committed to technology being a very important part of our long-term strategy. and we learned a lot during the semiconductor cycles. The importance of focusing on fundamentals,

the importance of having a steady hand through the cycles, doesn't mean we didn't make our mistakes. We also made mistakes during 2021, 2020 and 2020. We're a part of the macro that's unfolding, but we are uniquely positioned in the world today to continue to play a very important role in technology by leaning in. What?

What, what, what, what? One observation. Go, go, go, go. The high, don't get too high with the highs and don't get too low with the lows. And I was just thinking as you were talking, you had this experience. Obviously, we all had the experience. 2018, 2019, you have this. The pandemic happens.

It actually increases the value of Zoom, increases the value of stocks, Peloton. Everything goes to the room. More consumption, digital consumption, more people use Zuberites, etc. And then you mentioned, okay, we had a similar experience. We were educated through the cycle of semiconductors. but you also have a fundamental swing in value, where oil they were predicting would be $300 a barrel, and we've seen to go down to $30, 100.

Oil fluctuates 5x, 10x, I think you've experienced. So does that contribute to your ability to stay calm with big swings? I think a combination of that plus a committed long-term focused leadership here in Abu Dhabi. is a financial global institution like Mubadla that's deep and large and very well capitalized that can take a long-term perspective. How big is it? We manage $280, $290 billion.

$290 billion. If you look at Abu Dhabi in total, it's over a trillion dollars of sovereign wealth. I mean, you think about... It's the entire venture industry times. But the wisdom of the founding leader of the country. I think they started the sovereign wealth fund two years after the country was founded. That's right.

Right? So they could have just went out and spent all the money like yachts, like Ferrari's, back to Libya and other countries. Yeah, sure. They could have squandered the resources. They lived quite humbly and said, we got to invest all these resources in the future. We live in a dangerous part of the world. Like, let's really build this, you know, this incredible place that we dream about. And our sovereign wealth funds, you know, I can speak on behalf of Mubadla.

We've been building this institution, the management system, the culture, the value, use over the past 20 years. And we've made some mistakes and we've grown and we've evolved and we've never wavered on our long-term commitment of really being a responsible, astute, smart, long-term focused investor. And standing behind our commitment to the companies that we back, you know, Brad and I were talking about this, you know, and this is something we also learned from engagement with some of our best partners in Silicon Valley, which is every interaction where the founder is a sales process, but there's also sort of a bargain where if you commit on delivering your side of the

house, we will deliver on our side. And that's something that Moval is very, very committed to. You know, when semiconductors went through in cycle, we didn't just decide, oh,

it's time for us to exit and we don't, we hate this industry. Right. We stuck through it through very, very challenging times. And we're doing that today with software. Do you have some companies that are just been impacted by this downturn, down 60, 70, 80 percent?

And how are you hands? handling that. Yeah, fintech companies are, you know, consumer companies are also impacted significantly. Listen, I think we're going through, like many of the other leading technology funds are doing. We're spending time triaging our portfolio, deciding which companies to lean into and support. And there's some companies where we're saying, listen, we don't believe this company will be a big, important company in the future. So let's decide what to do there. And being very rational about it. Yeah. It's very hard to be rational. I think. think when the market swings this hard. And you also have a deep chip stack if you were to think

about it. And so you could put bad money after good. And so having that discipline, it's hard when you have a big chip stack. One of the things I want to ask you about a lesson learned, you know, or maybe, you know, something. There's a view that when you have 300 billion or trillion dollars of sovereign wealth, you know, that venture capital at the end of the day is a pretty fragmented craft industry. There are only so many winters that get created. You know, angel investors are writing $500,000 checks. But at the peak, we saw, right, we saw some gigantic funds get funded, right? And the most famous one of all is the Vision Fund. You know, $100 billion, vision fund one, and then they have Vision Fund, too. You were an investor in the Vision Fund. So

J-Cal wouldn't let me do the job here if we didn't ask you about the Vision Fund. So, Tell us a little bit about that journey. And, you know, what, if anything, you take away from this idea about the industrialization of venture capital. And is it even worthwhile for somebody who maybe wants to partner with you, but only needs $20 million a year to have that conversation? Or are you only looking at the scale players looking to partner with? Absolutely not.

We're also, you know, we've committed million dollars to small emerging managers. because these smaller emerging manners can provide us insight and signal and understanding and triangulation that potentially maybe these larger funds could not. So we also need like beat on the ground. You know, the soft bank experience was a very, was and continues to be a very important one for us. First of all, I just want to make sure, I mean, I want to remind you, we structured that fund commitment in a very unique way where 60% of that capital has a preff instrument to it. So it's not just an equity commitment.

So there's some protection mechanisms, which obviously are playing out today in our favor. And that's a very, it was a very important part of the structure. Which means for an audience doesn't understand, you get to have your money come out first. You have some downside protection. If something like Uber and that portfolio were to go down, you would be able to get more shares or some more consideration. And, you know, 60% of that is earns an interest. And then we also get our first money back. the interest first, then our preff instrument, and then any losses. So I think you're right

in how you articulated that. Softbank was just another unique moment in history, where they took a view, and we participated in that where potentially capital was a moat. And if you can deploy a significant amount of capital in these companies and provide them with the fuel they need, they could potentially grow exponentially and dominate the markets they're in. And we saw that play out in the likes of Uber. It didn't play out in many other cases that we thought of it.

So I don't believe that thesis holds anymore in the world we operate in today. That's changed, especially as we talk about AI, the world of AI, what happens with potentially AI disrupting major industries. Some of these companies might not require the significant amount of capital This is the key point.

And we've been talking about this a whole bunch around the poker table and in our discussions. And as we deploy capital, I had on this podcast in the past week, Aaron Levy from Box, Brian Cheskey from Airbnb and Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn fame and a capital allocator himself. And all three of them, I asked them, what percentage of work of your teams, your companies, your firms will be done by AI by the end of this year, 2023. So just six months from now or seven months from now, they all came up with the same number, 30%. And so if you look at Brad's thesis about getting fit, hey, maybe you don't need as many employees, maybe you added too many.

And then you add to it, well, everybody's going to be 30% more efficient. The companies we've invested in can pause hiring because they're actually adding, if they had 100 people in the company, they just added 30 this year because the 100 are so much more efficient. Now, the question becomes,

does next year is it 30 or does it compound because the technology is getting better and those developers instead of getting 30% better in 2024 they become 50% or 80% or jobs they were doing are eliminated and then we see

more riffs or we see them being deployed for new products and services and how quickly do they go down the product roadmap and to me and that's incredibly exciting we have companies Brad maybe you could tell me

which ones are the most capital efficient because you do a lot of public market investing, public market investing, which ones have the highest revenue per employee? And then where could that go if the trend continues? Because we were talking, hey, Uber hasn't done a riff. They did it back during COVID, but they haven't done it since. But the revenue went up 30% or whatever it is, 20, 30%, and the cost stayed fixed. And that's what's made their stock grow and the free cash flow. So what could it look like in revenue per employee?

in the coming decade. Well, you know, revenue per employee actually went down over this COVID period, which had never really happened in technology, right? Because these businesses, you know, the ones we all know about meta, who touches three billion consumers or Google or Amazon, etc. Their incremental EBITDA margins in those business are probably over 90%. Okay. So for every incremental dollar of revenue, 90 cents of that is falling to the bottom.

line. Because it's a fixed cost business. Correct. They're just inherently very profitable businesses, but two things happened. Number one, they started getting attacked by Washington, D.C. And so I frankly think they wanted to hide a little bit the profitability of the businesses because the stocks going up every day didn't help their standing in Congress. Number two, you had the COVID moment. And in the COVID moment, everybody thought these elevated growth rates were going to last for a really long time. everybody got unfit. They, you know, we're talking about meta going from 40,000 employees to 80,000 employees, Google going from 110 to 190,000, like, extraordinary number of hires. They gorged.

Working from home. We know they weren't really working from home. Okay. So productivity plummeted. So there are two things that happened. One, this idea of time to get fit really became, has become a lexicon, not only of Silicon Valley, but of all the startups. Like, we all knew it to be true. Like we could just do more with less.

That was before AI. Okay, so it was possible that, you know, and read Mark Zuckerberg's memo that he wrote in March of this year. Said year of efficiency and we're doubling down on AI. And just by getting fitter, he said leaner is better, flatter is faster. They got faster and better with fewer people. Okay. Now on top of that, they're going to train their own engineering coach. pilot on top of chat GPT4. And every engineer at Meta is going to get 40 to 50% more efficient.

So now you tell me, they went from 40,000 to 80,000 employees, they're tightening their belt, they're going faster, they're having more fun, it's getting leaner. And now you layer on AI on top of that. I think we're about to see three to four years of massive margin expansion in technology companies. And when you say margin expansion, we mean profits, cash coming in the door. It's going, these companies, I agree, they're going to become cash printing machines. And at the early stage, a three-person company is going to start to look like a 10-person company. A 10 person is going to start looking like a 30. I think this million dollars per employee, and I think it peaked in some companies at two, maybe Apple or some.

I think we might see five and 10 million dollar revenue per employee companies. Well, think about WhatsApp, how did it stay private? Oh, God, yeah. You're going to touch a billion people and you know, you have 20 people in the business going to 50 people in the business. So I... Instagram was 15 or 20 when they had 100 million people.

But I think the point the Eber made is really important. I just want to kick it back to you on that. You know, what I love about the way you said it is with a lot of intentionality, we looked at this notion that capital could be a weapon. It could be a competitive moat. Right?

And it didn't play out that way. And part of the reason it didn't play out that way is because when interest rates went to zero, the problem was everybody else used it as a weapon. So what we ended up doing is destroying the economics of these businesses because Lyft had their backers who gave them too much money. And every market ended up having too much. And they all chose to lose money. Right. And so now the interest rates have gone back up.

Now we have a cost of capital. The stupidity is getting wrung out of the market. And what I love is you're saying, you're saying as of one allocator, Mabato is not going to reenter the game of using capital as a moat. You know, and what is very exciting for us

about this AI cycle are two things. Especially for Abu Dhabi, if you think about snowflake or stripe or even meta, and you go to them and you say, you know what, come and set up in Abu Dhabi.

We can give you the golden visa and we can set up everything you need. A snowflake would say, okay, well, I need to put 20 software engineers and I have to put 50 salespeople. I'm going to need a 100-person team on the ground

in Abu Dhabi for me to do what I need to do. With AI, potentially, that's just 10 or 15 people. Yeah, so it just reduces significantly the friction and the barriers for a company like Snowflake to start thinking a lot more seriously

about markets that before were potentially just tertiary markets, secondary markets. And number two is, young entrepreneurs and founders that could potentially from the region, from Abu Dhabi, that could potentially start companies using AI and for them to scale,

whereas previously they needed to get talent, they needed to set up offices, they needed to hire resources, they can do this a lot more efficiently. So again, we've talking about getting fit. We've been preparing. We've been getting fit for this moment for some time.

And we truly believe we're ready for it. We are ready for it. And having the two of you here in a way demonstrates that we're ready for. It's very interesting. Your greatest asset was how deep, you know, this chip stack is, how large the fund is. And now that's not an asset. Now you actually have to be clever. You have to be nimble.

You have to sharpen the blade. It cannot just be, we could throw money at the problem. And you know who the most important brand ambassadors for us are? Our founders. Because we've been investing in these relationships for over a decade. And a lot of our founders that call us now and say, hey, we'd love to talk to you mobile. We just heard from this other founder and say, listen, not only do I, I, I'm looking for an investment, but I also want to understand how I can expand your part of the world, how it can potentially

build a real business in your part of the world. We didn't have that dialogue in 2015 and 2016. Yeah, I mean, we did see Google, Uber, a number of companies, you know, expanded to the region and have very profitable businesses. So there is definitely

hundreds of millions of customers here across the various countries, but it is not a monolith again. You have to address Egypt very differently than the UA very differently than Saudi. Each one is very unique. And that's going to an incredible learning process.

The other thing that I find is super fascinating. I've been very lucky, and because of my public profile, I'm able to raise funds. It's not very difficult for me. But my funds are smaller, and in the United States, the large LPs, let's say university endowments and retirement, pension funds, they're not adding a lot of new fund managers. And the existing fund managers, the large ones, they just decided. to bigger and bigger funds, and we're going to have multiple funds, and we're going to raise them faster. They're not adding new fund managers.

So then you have all these new fund managers, but domestically in the United States, the biggest complaint I hear is, oh, this giant university, $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, they're going to add one new fund manager. And then on my trip here, I've met, I wasn't going to do anything because, Brad. I was just coming here to hang and do cultural stuff and restaurants and eachworma and my trip got culturally and food trip got ruined because I have had 10, 15 meetings and they're heading new managers. There's an appetite to work with new managers and to do it quickly and to start relationships.

So for fellow fund managers who are in their first, second, third, fourth fund, who are not making progress because, you know, let's face it, some university or some pension fund, they've already allocated. You got those funds, what, 10 years ago? Correct. how many of them are adding a new fund if Injwereyson Horowitz or whoever is coming to them with their crypto fund, with their next fund. And there's a feeling amongst those large ones. If I don't do every fund by this big brand name, then they're going to get upset and they're not going to give me an allocation in the main fund, the small Series A fund, the crown jewel. Maybe you could talk, Brad, a little bit about that log jam that obviously this region unlocks. And that's what I've seen here.

When I came in the lobby, we saw all these people we knew. they were the younger fund managers. They were the 30 and 40, 50-year-old fund managers whose funds were under 10 years old, not the... And that's probably a different experience in the region because, I mean, Mabodal has got these extraordinary relationships historically with the Apollos and the Silver Lakes and the KKRs. Private equity has been big in this region for a long time.

I think it's venture that's newer to the region. And listen, let's, you know, a lot of the allocators here started allocated in 2018. they start moving some chips on the table and then venture blows up in 2002 but it didn't get off to the best start in terms of building reputation timing wasn't ideal

but in the U.S. You know, you've seen our chart the TVPI to DPI chart so you just get a lot of paper marks they're not turning into distributions as a result and that coupled with the fact that venture managers

have not marked down their books Yes. They haven't taken the medicine means that under the endowment model these endowments, charitable foundations, and others have what's known as the denominator problem. Explain. They're over-allocated. So when you look at the denominator in these businesses, the denominator has gone down for Harvard or for MIT or for children's hospital or...

The total value of their endowment has gone down. Because the mark-to-market things go down immediately. So their holdings in publicly... Meta, Google, et cetera. Those go down immediately. So on a percentage basis, it looks... looks like your venture holdings are a much bigger percentage of your overall holdings. So they went from 5 to 10% to 15 to 20.

Correct. Because they have not been marked properly. And for a fund manager, it's painful, maybe even shameful in their minds to mark it down. So they wait and hope that the market catches up. They hope they get a kick save. The reality is they're doing a disservice to the industry because now it makes these people feel like they're over allocated. But if you just mark the venture books the way they should be marked, which is down 50, 60, 70%, like their public market counterparts,

then on a percentage basis, you would be back to where you were before. So you have this denominator problem. You do see the aperture narrowing. Listen, I think it's great for the industry. I watched the cycle in 1999. I watched it in 2007. 2007, all the hedge funds showed up in Silicon Valley. They were all gone in 2008.

Same thing happened in 1999. And so this sort of creative destruction, It doesn't just apply to founders and operating companies. It applies to venture capitalists and allocators and LPs alike. And so, you know, we're going through that process. But when you come over here, you get a real sense. This country has been on a 50-year journey, right? And it's like when we're done here, I want to show you the before and after pictures

that I just saw of Dubai, 2005 to today. I mean, it went from nothing to, you know, this gleaming city. Abu Dhabi. I mean, these before and after pictures are utterly shocking. They only happen with incredible long-term strategic planning, a commitment by the government, coupled with industry. So when they have an industry focus and a commitment to innovation and technology, it means something. Imagine if the United States actually had a strategic plan around innovation and technology. No, they're not involved.

The only thing we've seen in our lifetime was the Chips Act, which was an acute moment of abject fear because of the Taiwan situation that, wow, we can't take this risk. We must have chip fabs in the United States. So just wrap it up by saying, I don't think the allocation issue is all of a sudden, you know, Ibrahim woke up and said, oh, the U.S. allocators aren't allocating. So I want to have Brad and Jason over and I want to. And like, this is part of, I get the sense of a 50-year journey. They want to be carbon neutral by 2050. They want to diversify away from hydrocarbons. And they're saying the same thing that you and I are saying to ourselves.

The best thing to bet on for the next two decades, five decades, is technology. It's going to be the thing that drives humanity forward. And you'll never hear a say. You will never hear a say that we're not allocating to new management. How could we? Yeah. That's not the strategy. What if a new manager shows up?

with a very unique point of view, with a very clear strategy that it's different, with some sort of a special energy and magic about that person, why would we close ourselves and shut ourselves from allocating to new managers? Again, as we think about Mubadla going from 300 to 600 to a trillion over the next 10, 15, 20 years, some of these managers will play an important role

in that growth trajectory for us. So it's also, you know, as as Brad said, this process of creative destruction, it's also about us learning and growing with them. The loyalty is something that's come up over and over again. It's part of the culture, huh? Like this gratitude, humility and loyalty. I keep hearing these themes over and over again. Very important. Educate me in the audience on how business works here because I've been taking these meetings and somebody pulled me aside and said, maybe slow down.

maybe too many details maybe build the relationship in the first meeting second meeting maybe more details third meeting data room so just on a pragmatic basis

take the time invest in the relationship you know Braddon invited me to his office in Menlo Park and then I said hey why don't you come to Abu Dhabi and then when I come to Silicon Valley

in a couple of weeks we're going to have dinner to learn about us and through that process we'll learn about you and then we can start mapping out, okay, how can this relationship, what does this journey look like together? It's just, it's very, very important. Just because of our long-term nature, we want to be partners with you through

good and bad times. It's not just about a quick transaction. A lot of managers that come here present a fund and then you never hear them say, hey, do you want to commit to my fund? It's not how it works. The bar is very, very high. So you also have to fight and you have to invest in that relationship. Makes sense. I think that's how it worked in Silicon Valley. When I hear Bill Gurley tell stories about benchmark. That's how it worked in the states for a long time until the denominator problem. And I think all of our endowments, all of our retirement funds hit their target. And then the venture funds who were already in those relationships, maximize those relationships as capitalism and as they're apt to do.

Can I tell you two stories about people that are invest in relationships? The first time I met Bill Gurley, I went to his office in San Francisco. And he walked into the meeting with a folder. that was full of research about our company and our CEO. And he walked in and he said, you know, hey, I just read all these interviews about your CEO and he was asking all these questions

and he was so curious. And I walked out of the meeting and I was like, wow, this is one of the best venture capitalists in the world. And he had spent so much time trying to learn about who we are before I even walked in. I've had so many meetings where I just walk in and people say, what's Mubadla anyways? Versus like that's the,

quality of the human pilgrimage is. By the way, I'm lucky to be sitting on a board with Mike Moritz and I find, you know, in this privileged position to also work very closely with him on a couple of opportunities. Of Sequoia, legend in the business.

That's right. As a journalist in the 80s. And I message, I WhatsApp Mike Moritz or I send him an email and I say, you know, sir, I'd love to speak to you about this. And he's literally, when you say, sir, by the way, he is a sir. He is knighted. That's right. It is Sir Moritz, by the way. And he keeps telling me, don't call me sir, and I can't.

I have to call him, sir. And he responds to me in less than an hour. I'm like, I don't understand. This is one of the greatest venture capitalists. And sometimes you're right, people that don't respond to you for like a month. Ultimately, you know, it's just a part of who you are. It is the, it's so interesting that Michael Moritz story, when I was pitching my company and I did my second company, I had Mark Cuban as my investor again because he had

back to my first company. And so I said, well, maybe I should try to get venture capital. And I said, well, who are the two most famous venture capital? John Dorr and Michael Moritz. So I emailed them both. And I emailed Michael. I said, I just sold my company Webluxing for $30 million to AOL, 18 months after I started it.

I've got a new idea. I'd love to talk to you about it. We met one time at this Internet Summit in Laguna, but you probably don't remember because I was a kid back then. Best, Jason. And I kid you not in an hour, my phones rang. I didn't pick it up because I didn't have his number of my phone. And he left a voicemail at my desk phone on my phone and replied to my email in the first hour.

Yeah. And said, when can you come up? Now, John Doer, and this is no dick to John. The next week, one of his partners called me and asked me to come there. I had already been to Sequoia and had made the decision to go to Sequoia before I was in the office with the Clowner Perkins team. And I always took that lesson with me. I now start at the top of my inbox. and I reply back to the last 10 people who've emailed me

because at least those people have that Michael Moritz experience and that's what made Sequoia great was that lightning fast response and that they out hustled everybody. There was a sense of urgency that matched the founder's sense of urgency and then Bill Gurley has that trait of a prepared mind. He's coming into every

whether it's going to a concert or going to a basketball game coming to a poker game or investing in a company or working with a partner. that prepared mind. It's interesting, you know, Jason, you know that we've heard a lot

about the all-in pot over here. That's been weird. So, you know. Stopped on the street 20 times. And lots of people are listening to it. And I think about the conversations that that grew out of. Yeah.

Right. Which is conversations with Bill. We all research, debate are insatiably curious about everything. Yep. We have an ongoing dialogue about it. And, you know,

docket forms and it ends up in this great. dialogue, authentic dialogue among friends on the all-in pod. And the reason I think it's so appealing and so popular here is because that's exactly the culture that exists here. Like without that curiosity, without that prepared mind, without creating the conditions for prosperity in this country, like it would not look anything like it looks like today. And I'm convinced that 10 or 20 years from now, because of that DNA, it's going to be, you know, again, you know, way further ahead than it is today and way further ahead in the region.

But, you know, the story about Bill and Mike, that, without that level of passion, fire in the belly, right, to do what we do, I would give the same advice to founders. Like, if a founder shows up in your office and hasn't done the research and is just there with a bag looking to put some money in it, like your conversion rate's going to be zero. It's not going to happen because it's really about the people who are authentically passionate about moving the world forward. And put in the miles. I mean, this is something that our CEO has embedded this value.

Like, go out there and meet people and learn and be curious. He comes to Silicon Valley twice a year. And when he comes, you know, his request is, listen, I want to meet new managers and entrepreneurs and founders. And I want to learn about what they're seeing. That curiosity, but also go invest in going out there. Like, you know, I like to tell the story of, you know, there's this company in San Diego. amazing company that we wanted to invest in. And I flew from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles, landed in Los Angeles, took a three-hour drive to San Diego, just to meet the founder,

and to demonstrate to the founder that, hey, listen, I'm here because I want to be in your place, in your offices, in your home tour. Two years later, the company ultimately did very well during COVID, got acquired. You know, I think that the fact that I went all the way there. Yeah, 36 hours. I invested the time to be with a founder. a lot for him. Of course. And, and that's a deep value for us here in Movala, which is, you know, you're not going to change the world by just sitting in your office here. You also have to go out there and you have to see the world and feel the world. I am already planning my second trip. Literally all the people who I didn't get to meet with, all the other regions,

everybody's reaching out to me. I'm like, I'm going to have to have a second trip and it's going to have to happen this year. It can't wait till next year. There's just too much going on. I mean, I, you know, J-Cal, you really need to talk to Hub 71. Yeah. You need to do a launch collab, right? That would be amazing. With Hub 71. And like, I think that it's, you know, it's high time to get some of your angel

yum-yam-yums over here in Abu Dhabi. It's, uh, that was, we're meeting with some VCs and, uh, they were like, should we do a podcast? I said, yeah, get good microphones and start interviewing people here. We'll listen, uh, you know, and you could do it this week in startups, UAE. That would be very cool That would be They got this podcast studio here I mean they got this incredible studio

Final issue We'll go close to the third rail here Social issues Very young country Very progressive People have Some thoughts on the women Here in the UAE

The Rights of Women Or Alcohol Consumption Maybe you could explain And just educate people How this operates year because we again in America sometimes look at regions as monolithic and not very uh in a very granular way this felt like the party were out last night felt like we were in uh los angeles or new york yeah i think people people were having cocktails no big deal uh people were smoking cigars um

it was pretty normal uh didn't people weren't wearing burkers not there's anything wrong with that but it was not, uh, uh, it didn't feel like this was like I've repressed society in any way. No, no, people should come here and,

and see what's happening on the ground. This is a very open, tolerant society. What people don't know is that we just, uh, you know, we just opened the, the Abrahamic center here in Avulavi,

which is the place where you have a church, a synagogue, and a mosque, um, all in one location. Uh, we have, uh,

tremendous amount of, of, uh, women talent in, in, uh, uh, ranks. We invest extensively in women, women's development. And it's a truly an important part

of our values and our leadership agenda. So it's, you know, I think truly the best way to see it is you'd have to come and experience it. Yeah. This is a very, very special. What's happening here on the ground in Abu Dhabia and in the UAE is, again, it's such a unique moment of time, not because of all the change and the growth, geographically where we're located between the east and the west. So, you know, it's a, it's such a special cosmopolitan with tremendous youth that is excited, energetic, focused on the future, building, growing, learning. We go out to the world, we invite the world. A lot of the youth have been educated in the West. Everybody I met who is a national

went to Stanford, went to Oxford, you know, went to D.C. or New York worked at Goldman in New York for a couple years. It is incredibly cosmopolitan and I think that's like a very interesting part of the story here is how rapid the social changes are happening. Yeah, you know, just a couple of stats that I thought were pretty fascinating. The average agent the country is 30, right? The U.S. I think is 37.

Japan is probably. 47. Yeah. Okay. UAE University, I think, is 75% women. The cabinet of the government is a third, I think, women. You know, and then, you know, think about like major cultural third rails. So the weekend, you know, in the UAE was Friday, Saturday to align with the Holy Day. But because the rest of the world, the weekend was Saturday, Sunday, and if you wanted to align with the rest of the world around business, they literally got all the citizens to agree to change the weekend, away from this very big deal. Right.

Incredible. And sent this amazing signal, right? I think, which is that, yes, we can be, you know, committed to, you know, whatever religious faith that we are. but it's got to align with also our broad national interests and initiatives. You know, I was shocked to learn some of these things and just how those things evolved.

So I agree with you. It's been a bit of an eye-opener for me. It's been a lot of fun. You know, Hub 71, you think about Hub 71, the startups, and assume that, oh, all the startups are, you know, people from here. The startups represent 30 countries. There's actually people that have come from

the U.S., people have come from China, people come from Japan, to set up in Abu Dhabi. They've made a decision to say, listen, I want to build my startup in Abu Dhabi. So it's really the diversity of it. That was incredible. I mean, I was people watching, you know, in Abu Dhabi and in Dubai, and they're separated by about a 70-minute car ride. And there's going to be a hyperloop. I understand for 20 minutes or a high-speed train soon between the two cities. And I was just trying to figure out where are all these people from?

And everybody I met, it's just a different place. Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, the United States. The diversity is just phenomenal. It is like London or New York. Think about what we've seen in the last few years. In China, would you be excited to be a new founder in China today, given the success of what's happened with Jack Ma and Yamang and so many other founders? Well, every education startup was basically nationalized.

So if you had an education startup, it was not. Or in the United States. Right? Like in the United States, if you're coming over there. Like, remember, so much of our success from Elon Musk, DeLerry, and Sergey started people moving from outside the United States into the United States. Yes, let them in. Because California created the conditions for prosperity, right? And we take that now for granted. And what I see is two major superpowers that drove most of the innovation on the planet for the last 30 years that are now taking the conditions of prosperity for granted. and you have a region like this that has its hand way in the air, that's transforming itself, that is actually doing those things. Golden visas, tax systems, support, investment.

Regulation. Regulation. And so, you know, I just want to say congratulations. It's been a lot of fun. I look forward to spending a lot more time back here. And, uh, and, JCal, I'm glad that, you know, we got the chance you recorded the all in pod from,

yeah, from here last night. We got to do, uh, you know, a fireside chat together. It's been a lot of fun. It's been fantastic. I mean, and just to the people here, what a warm welcome we got, huh? Yeah. So thanks to everybody and it just, it was very heartwarming, and great that people listen to the pods and getting stopped on the street for selfies and just, it was very, very kind. And, uh, man, the Schwarma. Man, I got to take you guys back to the Schwarma place tonight. I went to the best shwara. Oh, man, it was incredible. It's great having you guys in Abu Dhabi and welcome, welcome to Abu Dhabi. Thank you for having us. And we will see you

all next time on this weekend startups. Bye-bye.