Tiger Sisters - Stop wasting time — go straight to your dream job (advice from 1st Snapchat Investor, Jeremy Liew)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Jeremy Liu. I'm a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partnerist. I've been there since 2006. Some of my notable investments would include Snapchat, The Honest Company, Affirm, and Blockchain.com. I'm 29 now. What advice would you give your 29-year-old self? Do you know what you want to do with the rest of your lives? I think there's a lot of folks who think, well, I know what I want to do, but before I can get there, I've got to do these things first. And like, I'd say, no, you just go do the thing you want to do. And go directly to that thing. The more experience you have doing that thing, the better you will be at that thing. If you had said, no, I don't know what I want to do, that opens up a whole, you know,

Starting point is 00:00:34 different path. I ended up working with people who I just greatly admired. I felt like I was learning a lot from them. Whenever they went somewhere, I just sort of blindly followed them, because oftentimes they're going to a new place where they don't have a bunch of people that they trust. So you can slip stream behind them in a pretty interesting way. Both of those things can help accelerate your career in a way that you might not otherwise be able to do. What is a failure that you are most grateful for? Gosh, so many failures. which one should I talk about? Let me talk about the time I got fired.

Starting point is 00:01:17 I'm your host, Sherey, I'm Gene, and We're the Tiger Sisters. What goes through the mind of an investor who is invested in companies that have gone on to become multi-billion dollar companies such as Snapchat, Affirm, and Blockchain.com. In this podcast episode, we have an interview with Jeremy Liu, and then we also discuss the takeaways at the very end, where Gene and I go through our biggest learning. learnings, kind of in a business school case study method. We'll get to the interview right after this break. Hey guys, quick break to let you know that we now have merch on sisters matcha.com.

Starting point is 00:01:52 We have sweatshirts and t-shirts that we designed yourselves. Go check it out. And please rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. These ratings are so important for the distribution and survival of Tiger Sisters Podcast. Thank you for your support. Hi, I'm Jeremy Liu. I'm a partner at Lightspeed Venture Pontilis. I've been there since 2006, focused on consumer investing.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Some of my notable investments would include Snapchat, Be honest company, Affirm, and blockchain.com. Prior to joining Lightspeed, I worked for a bunch of Web 1.0 companies for about a decade, so Netscape, AOL, City Search, IAC. And before that, I was at McKinsey for a couple of years. Awesome. So we'll just jump right into the icebreakers. So Jeremy, what are you listening to now in terms of podcasts?

Starting point is 00:02:44 Oh, I have been listening to Radio Lab a lot. I like the way that they deep dive into sciencey stuff. Mm-hmm. Cool. Next icebreaker question is that when you were a kid, were you a rule follower or a rule breaker? I was 100% a rule follow-ups. Yeah, I was not a rebel. Not a rebel?

Starting point is 00:03:04 Not a rebel. At home, in the classroom, just a rule follower. Yeah. I would say so. I would probably say I was a rule acceder. And what about now? How do you identify? I don't think of myself explicitly as a rule follow or a rule breaker. I don't really think about rules in that way, I guess. I sort of, at some point, you get to make your own rules and you get to follow your interests in those directions and it's a much more comfortable place to be. I love that, making up your own rules.

Starting point is 00:03:39 for your own game. Yeah. Okay, so the first question in this series is that I'm 29 now. What advice would you give your 29-year-old self? Do you know what you want to do with the rest of your life? Hmm. Do you? Do I? Yeah. Yes, I do. Okay. Then that's great. Then it's easy. So it's just go do that thing, right? I think there's a lot of folks who think, well, I know what I want to do, but before I can get there, I've got to do these things first. And like, you know, if I want to be investment bankrupt, I've got to get operating experience. If I want to be a venture capitalist, this I've got to get operating experience at a startup

Starting point is 00:04:13 so that I have the right set of experiences to become a successful investor later on. I'd say, no, you just go do the thing you want to do and go directly to that thing. The more experience you have doing that thing, the better you will be at that thing. So just keep going. If you had said, no, I don't know what I want to do,

Starting point is 00:04:30 then that opens up a whole different path. But luckily, you do know what you want to do. So you're good. Nike was on to something. Just do it. Yeah. I mean, if you know, then it's pretty straightforward. Yeah, you can go directly there and you don't have to pass through any intermediary steps.

Starting point is 00:04:47 Yeah. If you don't know what you're doing and I didn't know what I wanted to do, then I don't have general advice for people. I can only tell you what worked for me, which was I, at a number of places in my career, I ended up working with people who I just greatly admired. I felt like I was learning a lot from them. and whenever they went somewhere,

Starting point is 00:05:10 I just sort of blindly followed them. And that has a couple of effects. First is if they really as good as you think, then they tend to make pretty good, well-informed choices about what they're going to do next. Secondly, you can slip stream behind them because oftentimes they're going to a new place where they don't have a bunch of people

Starting point is 00:05:28 that they trust around them, both trust personally and they trust professionally. And so you can slip stream behind them in a pretty interesting way if you're going with them into those sorts of situations. And so both of those things can help accelerate your career in a way that you might not otherwise be able to do. Something I'm realizing now is that people are indexing

Starting point is 00:05:48 on now, like when they start a company looking for a co-founder, it's all people they trust and people that they've worked with previously and have a good working relationship with. So yeah, totally it's finding the people you admire and sticking with them because they can mentor you and bring you up in a different way. I would say that's a slightly different angle. If you're starting at company with somebody, then the trust needs to go in both directions. If you are following someone, then the fact that they can trust to you is a lot more important than it's not bi-directional in that way.

Starting point is 00:06:23 There's a hierarchy to it. And so, you know, that allows you to jumpstart things a little bit more when you're junior, whereas it's obviously much more peer-based if you're thinking about. about starting a company with somebody. Fair. That's a good distinction. Yeah. So could you please share with us what your first job was and how it shaped your work ethic? And this could be your first job job, like, as, you know, a kid. I studied mathematics.

Starting point is 00:06:51 I went to the International Math Olympiad on the Australian team in my last year, high school. And I'd always assumed that, like, I would go on to study mathematics and become a math professor somewhere. and I ended up running into this guy who was also on my team called Terry Tao. And he's probably regarded as like the brightest living mathematician today. But I didn't know that where I met him. I saw a 14-year-old kid when I was 18 and he was just so much smarter than me, that I suddenly realized, wow, this is what good looks like. I thought I was good, but this is actually what good looks like as a mathematician. And I am just not there at all.

Starting point is 00:07:43 So I ended up getting, you know, my degree. Since I'd seen like how far off of, you know, the standard of excellence was, I was like, I got to do something where I can be better at it than this. So I could have going into business because it's, the bar is just so much lower than this. Which is then the best mathematician of our time. Well, I didn't realize that that was actually that. Well, I knew it was like, wow, that, you know, this random 14-year-old is so much smarter than me, I should do something else. So I end up going to McKinsey, and I spent a couple of years there out of undergrad. So what is a time or what is a failure that you are most grateful for?

Starting point is 00:08:22 And what did you learn about yourself? Gosh, so many failures. which one should I talk about? Let me talk about the time I got fired. I was working for USA Networks. It's now called IAC, and I was VP of Strategic Planning, working for this guy, Dara Kosser Shahi,

Starting point is 00:08:48 who was the CFO of IAC at the time. He went on to become CEO of Expedia and now the CEO of Uber. And he was a great boss, like an amazing boss, and I learned a ton from him. And I was really grateful, and he gave me a lot of opportunity. And so he was the EVP of strategic planning or something like that. He became promoted to the CFO. This guy, Dan Marriott, was brought in to be the new head of strategic planning.

Starting point is 00:09:23 He's actually a guy that I'd worked with in the past at City Search. all part of the IAC group of families. I didn't give him anywhere near enough respect. I was this snotty, 28-year-old, 29-year-old who really thought that I was ready for more than I was and didn't like the fact that this guy had been brought in on top of me when I used to have this direct client to the CFO, and now there was someone between me and him.

Starting point is 00:09:52 And I wasn't respectful, and I didn't know how much I lacked in my ability to, like, I couldn't understand why I couldn't just stay in this role and, you know, not have this person between me and the CFO. And I was just very unaware about, you know, the presence that I was missing about the, you know, broader scope of experience and intuition and judgment that I was missing. I figured that, like, I could run spreadsheets as well as anybody, like, and that was the job, right? And of course, it was just a tiny slimmer of the job. And, you know, over time, like, you know, my lack of respect for Dan, which he 100% deserved and which absolutely, if I had been more self-aware, would have realized, you know, led me to a situation where it was not penable for me to continue in that role.

Starting point is 00:10:46 And so, you know, I ended up leaving IAC. I was lucky in that another guy at IAC, the president of IAC, so strategic planning at IAC basically meant which company should we buy next. So the time that I was there, we bought Expedia and Hotels.com. We bought Match and City Search and ticket roster. You know, we sold the USA Networks, Bravo, Sci-Fi Channel, TV studio, movie stations. So it was quite a transformation. So it was a great set of experiences.

Starting point is 00:11:16 and the president of IAC ended up having all of these companies that we acquired reporting to him and he ended up leaving to be the CEO of AOL in 2002. And so I was able to tag along with him and ended up as his chief of staff, the SVP of corporate development there. So it turned out that I had a nice sort of, you know, everything just fell into place for me, which is very lucky. I had a place to go that was exciting and challenging and gave me new opportunities. But I did not, I didn't recognize the breadth of experience and capabilities that I needed. And, you know, with that, it's helpful to understand the gap between

Starting point is 00:12:05 where you are and what you need to be because then you can start working to close that gap. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It's very clear the reflection that's gone into, and a lot of the thinking that's gone into this. Didn't feel good at the time. Right, of course. Agile felt quite shitty at the time. Yes. You know, you go.

Starting point is 00:12:22 Thank you for sharing that. And I feel like maybe that's where touchy-feely also helps as well. Touch-feely is great. Yeah. Yeah. The next question is about hot takes. So what is a hot take that you have or a belief that you have that might be more contrarian in the VC or business tech world?

Starting point is 00:12:41 So I can then speak for myself and not as a representative of like, light speed or any of the other positions that I hold, I think that there's a good argument for AI companies to be nationalized. So there's a couple of dimensions on that. The first is, and I would say that I hold this strong opinion weekly, because I'm still learning a lot about, you know, a lot of fundamental kind of structures of, you know, the AI ecosystem. And I think we're still waiting to see what some of these implications are and how quickly they'll play out. Sure.

Starting point is 00:13:20 But I think that we are going to see of the course of the next presidential administration significant impact from AI on jobs. I think that, you know, a lot of the white-collar jobs that, you know, have historically been the path to the middle class in the U.S. are going to get, the productivity is going to get dramatically increased for people who are relatively senior in those roles. And that's going to mean that there's going to be like less opportunities for people who are more junior in the roles because that is the mechanism through which productivity was usually enhanced for people, right? It's like you have this sort of team that reports to you. And there's analysts and

Starting point is 00:14:03 Analyst, you know, L1 developers, you know, it could be in law firms, it could be in accounting firms, it could be certainly in, you know, developer roles. But any time when your work is primarily digital, like your input and your output is digital, you're not touching a physical, you know, fixing a car or like doing surgery on a human, but you're mostly working on a computer. So I think we're going to see massive productivity. improvements and I think that's going to result in for at least entry level jobs, you know, a significant reduction in those. And then I think that will propagate as AI gets

Starting point is 00:14:48 better and better and you start to see what honors agents and so forth. And I do think that this is going to happen over the quality of four-year time horizon and we start to see that in a meaningful way. So if you are a, if you're a company, you know, whether you're an open AI or Microsoft or any of the foundational model developers, you're only responsibilities to shareholders. And so, you know, you're excited about the prospect of replacing $150,000 salary with $20,000 AI agent or whatever. Because that's just revenue to you. Yes.

Starting point is 00:15:25 But the externalities of that, which is significant job loss, are not borne by the shareholders, so you don't have to worry about it. those are going to get born by society. It's going to get born by the government. And so privatization would be one way to internalize some of those externalities when I think we're going to see significant change in the composition of the labor market. That's one reason. A second reason is more a geopolitical one. So I think a lot of people are talking about China and its work to develop AI. you know, we heard of the conference today that, you know, the sort of spread is, they're between

Starting point is 00:16:03 six months and two and a half years behind the U.S., but gaining foster right now, and they're gaining faster for a couple of reasons. One is that they have much greater ability to add power, but second is they have, you know, much more access to data. But the third reason is I think that they have greater talent density, right? You know, there's less, you know, less, you know, foundational model teams in China and they can actually be brought together. And so, you know, the more, the way of your talent density, typically the greater level of innovation. Sure. Talent density for AI in the U.S. is actually spread out over quite a large number of foundational

Starting point is 00:16:43 model companies. And actually it's being increasingly spread out as people spin out of niche down and specifically open AI, right, and go and join or start other companies. So you're seeing some of that talent density. actually sort of getting spread out a little bit more, if you could bring all that talent density back together again, and I think you could actually see a re-acceleration of innovation within, not to say that it's been slow, but like a lot of the progress has been about, you know, more compute and more data.

Starting point is 00:17:15 And there has certainly been some innovation algorithms as well. But by bringing all those people together, I wonder if we couldn't actually re-accelerate our overall development as a country. Totally. That's really interesting. I mean, it's also a different. mindset and mentality too. I feel like in China or in west eastern countries so much about it is the collective. And here in the U.S., it's so much more about the individual and the individual company

Starting point is 00:17:39 and, like, who is winning out. And so I see it as quite distributed today. So I wonder if, yeah, there can be something done to bring everyone together. And maybe that's the power of like open source as well, is that everyone contributing to the same. Potentially. Yeah. I mean, pot of ideas. If you just sort of like, you know, people are talking about the next generation model is going to cost about a billion dollars to train. And, you know, people are already talking about the generation after being 10 billion and maybe the one after that being 100 billion. And, you know, whether that's, you know, historically has been 18-month cycles, maybe it starts to extend out a little bit. But if you look at the overall U.S. software market, it's $600 billion.

Starting point is 00:18:20 And you could say, well, you know, the market expands because now you're actually going to go off the salaries. And so like now you've got a much bigger TAM. But if you think about a hundred billion dollars to train a model, right, and you say, okay, well, let's say there are five foundational model companies, right? Today there's more like 10 or 15 in the West. But let's just say that some calls consolidation is every five. So that's 500 billion dollars to some level replicating work, right? Because if you look at foundational models performance, they're actually pretty tight with each other with typically the most recent release being leap leapfogging to the top because they're all following a very similar path so five times a hundred

Starting point is 00:19:04 five hundred million dollars if the software market's 600 billion dollars a year then like you know at some point you can you say well can you do a next order made to you like starts to get harder and harder yeah see how that all works so fascinating if you start to convert from the 15 to the 5 to 2 or maybe even one, which would be the nationalization. Right? Then I'm, you know, you remove some of this duplication.

Starting point is 00:19:31 You get, again, some of the talent density. Aligned incentives. Aligned incentives and so forth. So, you know, that's a, like, I hold this opinion weekly, you know. It's an interesting thought experiment. Certainly not as, you know, your representative of lights people or anything else.

Starting point is 00:19:50 But it's, you know, I think when you, you zoom out from the perspective of what makes sense as an investor to what makes sense at the level of like the country? Yes. Sometimes you get different answers. Fascinating. It's really, really cool. I appreciate you sharing that because I hadn't heard that before. And it's interesting to think what could be. Cool. So we're going to move on to, we have two more questions left. This one is more of a fun question. So it's about travel recommendations. Okay. completely different. I'll do a little 180 here. But so for travel recommendations, like, what is a place or city that you really enjoy visiting when you're, you know, off from work?

Starting point is 00:20:32 So I step back for making new investments at light speed at the end of 2021. And we took a family gap here of international travel. We left the summer of 22. I came back summer 23. And we spent the first couple of months in a month in Tanzania and a month in Kenya. And that was truly fantastic. Yeah, would recommend. Strong recommend. Yeah, I think, yeah, I would say that I would want to live there, but like, you know, in terms of like a vacation destination to experience, you know, safari and like really realize that at the end of the day, we're all just bags of meat,

Starting point is 00:21:11 you know, like, you know, could be easily. Like, you know, you don't think of yourself as like prey, you know, at all. You just think of itself as like apex of the, you know, know, of all animal kind in our day-to-day lives, but like, you go see, now you're like, okay, we are just bags of meat that could just be easily eaten and, like, it's only through our brains that we got to, you know, the level that we are. Amazing. Did you end up climbing Kilimanjaro? No, that sounds like a lot of work. I think it is. I was there on vacation. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Well, I don't know. You go to the gym and all that stuff. It's just like, oh, me,

Starting point is 00:21:44 maybe it's like a bucket list item or something. Cool. And so the last question that we have is on conference. And so for conference 2024, what is something that you're looking forward to or the value you feel that you're getting out of this coming to this conference? A lot of tech conferences that I go to, you're mostly there for the networking. You want to figure out, okay, use this person. What can they do for me? You know, how can they help me with whatever agendas that I have? What I've enjoyed about conference has been that, you know, some of the things that are like obvious to people in other fields are like, you know, you know, used to me, you know, particularly I think around some of the framing around some of the political

Starting point is 00:22:25 stuff. So, again, like, this is, again, obvious to people who are paying more attention, but, like, I really would have thought that AI is higher on the agenda of, or should be higher on the agenda of whoever wins than, you know, the next election. And what I heard was actually the most important thing that's going to get all the attention is taxes because the Trump area tax cuts are going to expire in 2025. And, like, they have to be. like it's urgent maybe not as important but certainly urgent and that's going to get all the attention so like just some of these like again like maybe for many people this was sort of obvious but for me it was not and so um like getting these perspectives that are a bit more orthogonal to my day to day I find it very

Starting point is 00:23:06 helpful yeah definitely it's the worlds that we inhabit and then people inhabit different worlds have different algorithms and when you bring them together there's a lot of cross-learning that happened. I think that's oftentimes where you get the most benefit. Totally. Yeah, is through these sort of insights from other industries. Awesome. Is there anything else? Do you have any questions for me or any questions that you want us to ask? No, I'm good. Okay, awesome. Then that's it. Nice job. How do you feel? Good. That was great. Guys, I'm really excited about the discussion. It's so good. There's so much. know a lot of your takeaways. And also, I just want to say, Jeremy is one of those people that

Starting point is 00:23:50 he's so smart. Like, I'm like blown away by how smart he is. And he's so good at expressing himself and explaining things. And there's, there's a lot to talk about. And we'll get straight to the takeaways right after this break. Hey, everyone, quick break to share something special, sisters match. We've launched limited batches of ceremonial grade, single estate, single cultivar, matcha, straight from the family farm, shri work. on in Japan. It's pure, authentic, and crafted with intention. Head to sisters matcha.com to grab yours before it sells out. Make matcha your daily ritual for lasting energy and focus. The first takeaway is when Jeremy talks about his advice for 29-year-olds, he has two pieces of advice. And the one that I really,

Starting point is 00:24:33 really loved is work with people that you admire. This one is just, it really hit home for me. Yeah, I think he was even more specific about it, where he was literally like, if there's someone, that you really respect that you work for, you should follow them where they go. He said blindly follow them. Yeah. And he also used the word slipstream. That actually leads me to Jeremy's first piece of advice for 29-year-olds where he said, if you know what you want to do, go directly to that thing.

Starting point is 00:25:03 Do not take any like other steps. So I don't know if I fully agree with that or I would say, sure, that can be true, but there are definitely caveats. and there are... Caravayat. Do I have an accent? Carveillots. I think there are certain circumstances, right?

Starting point is 00:25:23 Yeah, it's nuanced. It's definitely, it's nuance. It's nuanced. I get the sentiment behind his idea, but yeah, I do think there's... Yeah, like sometimes you do need to optimize for other goals in the meantime. Like, let's say you eventually want to be an entrepreneur. You want to be in a good financial situation when you're doing that, right? So maybe you can't just jump directly.

Starting point is 00:25:43 to being an entrepreneur, you need to first gain like XYZ skills or build up your safety net over the course of like two, three or four years first before you can then go directly to what you want to do. Yeah, I think it's a balance, right? It's all, it depends on the person. It's so nuanced. Like, do you already have the skills needed up into a point so you can get to, you know, being an entrepreneur? If you like are literally starting from zero, it's really hard. It's really hard to be like, okay, I'm going to be an entrepreneur tomorrow. If you don't kind of have like some of the stepping stones along the way to get there, I do hear his point because like it depends on the person, but like if you want to be an entrepreneur and you're like, I have to do these three things first,

Starting point is 00:26:26 you can get stuck doing those three things and like get very complacent and then never do the thing that you want it to do. Yeah, I see why he's giving that advice because I think more often than not, it's the opposite. People will delay and people come up with all. these different excuses that are not really like actual blockers but are just more reasons for them to delay not doing the thing that they truly want to do exactly i mean graham weaver a lecturer at stanford g who i've never heard of him very famous she only mentions him all the time um i mean i was in his class he's kind of like a cult following at stanford for a good reason um i like when you mention your professors it's fun you like it yeah because it makes me feel like i know them

Starting point is 00:27:12 and it makes me feel like I also went to Stanford. I talk about them every single episode actually. I know. They're like, they're your friends. They're like literally amazing. But he's like in your head at least. It's mutual, I think. They know me.

Starting point is 00:27:25 They like me. But he's just like the two most dangerous words anyone can ever say is not now. Like that's a grand weaverism where it's like, you know, not now. I'm going to wait until I get this promotion. Not now. Like I'm going to wait until after my mom. my kids are out of the house. Like those words, if you continually say them to yourself, it just is not going to happen ever.

Starting point is 00:27:49 Yeah. And maybe like the first step is to clock how often you are saying it. Yeah. And it comes in different forms, right? Yeah. Like another saying is like you can't improve what you don't measure. Well, you're not tracking. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:04 That's a genism. No, that's what PM said. That's what product managers say. Yeah. I'm going to take ownership of that. That's a genism. If you can't measure. you can't improve it. So you have to figure out ways to measure it. That's what product managers

Starting point is 00:28:16 said. I thought I invented that. You definitely didn't. It's what product managers say when you're like running an experiment or like feature testing. Yeah, that's why you need taxonomy. What's that? Metrics. Putting in metrics in like a. I don't know people call it taxonomy. Yeah, because the metrics have to follow a certain like structure that has a taxonomy, like scientific taxonomies. Oh, I see. Right? We just never called it that. Oh, what'd you call it? We just have metrics. And it's just like Amy testing. Unstructured, crazy-ass metrics sounds like.

Starting point is 00:28:49 The next takeaway is when Jeremy literally said, gosh, so many failures. Which one should I talk about? This made of so many good quotes. He has so many good clips. Like, do you think he realizes that? I don't think he knows. Wait, did you like my impression? I said it exactly in the way that he said it.

Starting point is 00:29:09 You should be an actor. A voice actor. But I mean, he talks about when he got fired and it was because of this lack of self-awareness is what he said. But I love it, love it, love it, love it when like leaders, business professionals, CEOs, like these people talk about their failure moments because people in general don't talk about when they failed unless prompted. And even when prompted, a lot of people don't give honest answers. And this was just such a moment of where he gave such an honest answer of when he was fired, why he was fired. and what he learned from it after reflecting on that moment. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:45 And I love the specific example that he gave because one, he took a lot of ownership. And then two, it was the type of example where he literally was just like, I was disrespectful. He was like, I was a, he didn't say this, but he's like, I was a shithead. He was like, I was a dick. I was rude to this new person that came and became my boss. And I didn't give them the respect that they deserve. Yeah. And so I got fired.

Starting point is 00:30:07 And so like I feel like a lot of times when people give failures, they're like, oh, I was fired because, you know, the business like... Or they spin it. Yeah. Or they kind of, they don't talk about it as a personal failing. Like a, I don't know. Like his is almost like, it's like a failure of character in ways. And people never talk about themselves in a way where they portray themselves as having

Starting point is 00:30:29 failure of character. But I honestly respect him more. Yeah. Because he talked about a moment where it was a failure of character. Yeah. And like how he's just like, that was wrong of me. And he's like, it was completely. wrong and I was fired and this is what I've learned from it. And honestly, he talked about his next

Starting point is 00:30:45 career moves. Had he not been fired, he wouldn't have gone to his next thing. So I think that's also really telling too that it's like part of his origin story. Yeah. Okay. I want to take the kind of like devil's advocate of that a little bit though because it sounds like the reason he was fired is because he was disrespectful because he had a very high opinion of himself, right? He was very self-confident in his abilities. What if, though, that very reason why he got fired was the reason why he was able to like make the jump to the next step and like take on these roles that were really big opportunities that he had to like sort of put himself out there for and really believe it himself. Yeah. It's like the flip side of that coin. I agree with that. I wouldn't say it's a what

Starting point is 00:31:30 if. That sounds exactly like the situation that happened. Yeah. Yeah. So I can see it. It's like maybe your greatest weaknesses are also your greatest strengths in some ways different contexts in this instance yeah that's kind of a powerful thing i just said but like can you think of how does that apply to you like what is your greatest weakness that is also a greatest strength i don't know this was an interview but i have an answer okay i've given you an opportunity i think my greatest um one of my greatest strengths is that I read the room really well. I take cues from how people are feeling. And like, for example, in the workplace, like I can see like if, you know, when I was at LinkedIn, if someone was talking about a new idea, I can pretty much clock how people are feeling and responding to a certain idea

Starting point is 00:32:20 based off of their reactions or no reactions. Like, even on Zoom, like I can kind of clock things. Yeah. They're like subtle. Settle behaviors. I'm very attuned to that, actually. And I don't think people realize that I clock it. The flip side of that is that like I overanalyze everything in terms of how people are feeling and I take in the past have taken that into consideration too much when trying to like express myself so that no one gets hurt and that's not what I do now but like it has taken a lot of me to get over that. Sherey's in her confrontational phase now. According to our mom, I'm in my confrontational phase post Stanford post touchy feelie. I'm like, that didn't land well on me.

Starting point is 00:33:08 She loves to tell you how she feels nowadays. Well, I love to tell you how your actions make me feel. Yes. And how does that make you feel? Very good. One more point that I want to make about that failure anecdote that he gave is that like in between him talking about the actual. failure anecdote. One of the things he said was like, yeah, at the time I was working for my

Starting point is 00:33:39 CFO, who was Dara, who then became the CEO, is now the CEO of Uber. And then he was like, oh, and then I was also working for the president of the company IAC, who then I followed, and he eventually became the CEO of AOL. Right. So it was just like he kind of, one, he followed his own advice, or that's what he was, I guess that's why he gave the advice because this worked really well for him. And then two, it again just goes to show. that like it's a small world it's a small world yeah the people that you work for the people that work for you the people that you become friends with and are your colleagues everyone goes on to do something yeah yeah i kind of like that though the world is small especially it depends on what

Starting point is 00:34:25 industry that you're in but in like tech and finance consulting for the most part i feel like those industries can feel very small, especially if you're operating at like one of the like fang companies or like a bulge bracket finance company. Yeah. And know each other. Yeah. This is just like a teeny tiny like slice of an anecdote that he gave. I'm sure you could give like 50,000 other examples of this. Yes. Also, Jeremy is a GSP alum. Oh, right. So I felt a connection to him in that way. So cool. I'm just kidding. So cool. One thing that I connected with the most. most was when we asked him about if he was a rule follower or a rule breaker as a child. And his answer was the one that, again, I connected with the most out of all of the answers that

Starting point is 00:35:13 we had. So what he said was, oh, I was a rule acceder. Like, not only was he a rule follower, he was like following the rules to a T and even exceeding them. And I feel like that is kind of how I grew up in my childhood is I was just always like really afraid of doing the wrong thing. Like I think I grew up with like, again, I mentioned this before in our previous season, but just this really strong deference to authority and kind of like fear of authority. So I was always afraid to do the wrong thing. And I was a rule acceder. I'd never put it that way.

Starting point is 00:35:54 I'd never put those two words together in my head. So it's like I just love when someone. said something and you're like, oh, that's exactly how I was. That's how I felt. That's how I lived my life. I just never found a phrase for it. He spoke directly to you with those words. He really did. He really did. I was behind the camera, but I was like, I was like, it me. Jaw drop. Yeah. But then he goes on to say, he was like, yeah, but now I follow my own rules. Yes. You grow up and you kind of create your own rules to follow, which I think has also happened for me. So I just, like not to the extent I think that I could take it.

Starting point is 00:36:31 Like I think I could go much further with it. And I kind of like hope I do in the future. But it's just really inspiring to me to see someone who kind of like started off the same way I did and has been able to like do so much and have this like career and be this person that I really admire and like has sort of like broken the rules or like created his own rules for himself. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm like, cool, that could be me. Yeah. It's nice talking to, it's not nice.

Starting point is 00:37:04 It's so informative talking to people who are a few steps ahead of you because then you get to see what could be for you. Yeah. And like knowing where they started from being like, oh, I also started from that same very like narrow, restrictive, sort of scared, like fear based mindset. So interesting. I was recently in the car with a. new friend of mine. Okay. And we were driving. He was driving and I was in the passenger seat and we were at a red light and there were no cars around. I'm a rule acceder as well. And he made a left turn on a red and we were in a car. It was illegal. It's just blown up someone's spot right now. I'm not

Starting point is 00:37:47 going to say who it was. But he did it was so nonchalantly that like I was and he didn't even address it. And then I addressed it. I was like, uh, you know that was a red. Right. And he's like, what? He's like, no, of course I knew. But he's like, there are no cars around. Like, I can totally make a left. And I was like, no, you cannot. Like, that is illegal.

Starting point is 00:38:06 Like, or I didn't even say that was legal. I was just like, that's wrong. And he's just like, there's no cars. It was fine. It's safe. I don't know. It just like shook me to my core that there are people out there. Every day, Sherey's getting shaken to her core by something new.

Starting point is 00:38:19 Well, do what I mean, though. Like, I have never done that and I will never do that. Even though, like, yeah, it was, there were no cars around. No one was watching. no camera, but like, I don't know, it kind of showed me a different way that people live life. And he was so comfortable doing it that it really pushed me out of my comfort zone to be like, oh my God, someone else is doing something differently. Yeah, I've never done that.

Starting point is 00:38:43 Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but I do like to drive fast. Yeah, her speeding tickets will be a way to commemorate that. Well, I don't have that many speeding tickets. How many do you have? know, but there, there was like very specific reasons for each one of them. That you didn't realize how fast you were calling? No, once I was in an emotional state because my friend and I were discussing a third friend

Starting point is 00:39:10 that we were very concerned about. And then you got a ticket, you were pulled over? Yeah. Oh my God. But like actually, that was like so many years ago. That was like literally like 10 years ago. That's karma. And I remember that.

Starting point is 00:39:20 That was karma. That was like, God is like, you've gone too far. We need to call a poopo on you. Slow down. So the next takeaway was Jeremy's hot take. I honestly had no idea what he was going to say or what direction he was going to take it in. But it was him talking about the impact of AI on jobs. And he actually said that AI should be nationalized.

Starting point is 00:39:47 And so my response, my takeaway is not really about that hot take at all. But what he said afterwards was a strong opinion loosely held, which is a like tenant that I, believe in because it basically means like this is my opinion, but I'm also open to new ideas and new inputs so that my opinion might change. I think the best leaders that I've followed really have conviction for their own ideas and their beliefs, but then they're just like super open when new inputs happen that they're willing to change their mind. Yeah, I think that the reason he gave for that was he said, I'm still learning about fundamental structures of AI ecosystems. And he's like, yeah, there's space for me to continue to know more information that'll change my belief.

Starting point is 00:40:34 And I've actually seen this in the workplace at LinkedIn. A lot of people in my most recent team on LinkedIn learning, like not that we argued, but we like had a lot of discussions and it was like super passionate. But at the end of the day, people were willing to change their mind. And I think that's the hallmark of like a person that I would love to work with. Yeah. Yeah. And then like the next step of that is we used to talk about a lot at work is disagree and commit. Yes.

Starting point is 00:41:01 It's like you can still have opposing views. You can still disagree, but you can decide on an action or a step forward and then commit to that. Yes. Disagree and commit. That was also a big thing at LinkedIn as well. The worst people are the ones who disagree and then like don't commit. And there is no plan forward, you know. They're like they're begrudgingly committing.

Starting point is 00:41:25 No, that's not how we do it. Yeah. And then I guess like another saying that people, not to like just go into like aphorisms, but another saying is it's just better to take an action and potentially be wrong than to take no action. Then taking no action is also a decision and an action in and of itself. Well, another way to put it, not making a choice is a choice. Is that a sureism?

Starting point is 00:41:52 I read it somewhere. You can, you can, I'm going to be a shriism. Okay. The last thing I'll say about his hot take is that I love how he actually backed it up with numbers. So the way that he actually presented it or backed it up was like a very like McKinsey style sort of set of facts where he was like, oh, the reason is because like, what did he say? He was like, oh, next gen models cost one billion dollars. then the one after that will cost $10 billion, then $100 billion to train. And then this is the cycle of like historically 18 months is how long it takes to train them.

Starting point is 00:42:30 Let's say the U.S. software market is $600 billion. Let's say there are five foundational models. It's 500 million. He walked us through his framework. Yeah. And it's just, I think it really speaks to how not only like inherently intelligent he is, but it's like a second level of intelligence where you can take a really complex. complicated thought and break it down into a way that anyone can follow and understand.

Starting point is 00:42:59 That's like a layer deeper of intelligence. It's like the being able to communicate really complex ideas simply. Yes. It reminding me of like a professor, honestly, in that like maybe you're. Yeah. I mean, professors are brilliant. But like, I don't know. I've had professors in undergrad, especially in like computer science and engineering who are

Starting point is 00:43:20 brilliant but like not necessarily good teachers because like we couldn't follow their theorems because they were like talking about it at such a high level but the best teachers are the ones who can simplify things explain things in different ways so that people can understand them yeah i think jeremy would be such a good professor he would be a great professor but jeremy maybe consider for your next your next act yeah being professor go back to stanford teach there That's our official recommendation from the Tiger Sisters. Ding! Thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of the Tiger Sisters.

Starting point is 00:43:57 Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. Thank you guys and we'll see you next time. Bye!

Tiger Sisters - Stop wasting time — go straight to your dream job (advice from 1st Snapchat Investor, Jeremy Liew)

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