Tiger Sisters - They Lied: You Don’t Need the Ivy League or 90-Hour Weeks to Win. Startup Expert Kofi Ampadu of a16z

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

What if the game of success really is rigged – and the secret to beating it has nothing to do with pedigree, 90-hour weeks, or hustle culture?Kofi Ampadu is a two-time founder who went from living in his sister’s basement to becoming a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he runs the firm’s Talent x Opportunity initiative backing overlooked founders. He’s also the “life-metrics” VC who turned his own days into data — proving you can win without the Ivy League, endless grind, or blind resilience.He explains:▫️ The hidden “credential trap” making ambitious people broke – and why prestige can be the new poverty ▫️ Kofi’s 3-number Daily Win Score that predicts whether you’ll crush the day or spiral into burnout ▫️ Why 90-hour hustle culture is a lie (and the tiny shift that outperforms all-nighters)▫️ When resilience backfires: how being too tough can bankrupt your dreams and your wallet ▫️ The one question that vaporizes stress on the spot – straight from Kofi’s mental-health journal ▫️ Beating bias in any boardroom: Kofi’s “rigged-game” playbookIf you’ve ever felt the rules weren’t written for you, this episode hands you the cheat codes.⏰ Timestamps00:00 – Intro: “Hard Now, Easy Later”00:59 – Meet Kofi Ampadu02:21 – Playing a Rigged Game (and Winning Anyway)04:35 – Why Founders of Color Carry Extra Weight07:36 – “Do the Thing NOW” – Kofi’s Go-For-It Rule10:47 – Kofi’s Founder Journey (Inventing DoorDash??)12:52 – Lessons From His Dad’s Work & Life 14:47 – VC “Cheat Code” – Learning From Every Pitch17:07 – “What can I do to change this?” Mindset check 19:35 – “What are you willing to give up for it”? Living on $0 Rent23:06 – Eternal Co-Founder: Marriage as Startup Power25:41 – Brown-Bag Debates & Cross-Skill Learning29:27 – The 3-Metric Daily Win Score Explained33:17 – Pandemic & BLM: Turning Stress Into Action36:43 – Time-Blocking Your Failures40:41 – Lightning Round Kick-off42:29 – 90-Hour Hustle Culture Is a Lie44:45 – Is Y Combinator Overrated?45:46 – Ivy League Degrees Useless in Startups?47:23 – White Guy in a Hoodie49:40 – Final Takeaways & Call to ActionSubscribe & tap the 🔔 so you don’t miss the next episode, and drop a comment and rate us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 🐯👯‍♀️ Tiger Sisters — Your Silicon Valley & Wall Street Big SistersDecoding Money • Power • Love✨ New episodes every Monday | Shorts all week  ✨We turn Harvard and Stanford MBA case studies and hard‑won tech & finance lessons into frameworks you can use this week.▫️ 🚀 Ivy League Cheat Sheets in 30 min – no $250 K tuition required▫️ Recession‑Proof Personal Finance Rules – salary jumps, automated investing, psychology of money▫️ Networking Scripts that Work – DMs behind Goldman offers, $100M+ deals, & Fortune 500 partnerships▫️ Exclusive Sit‑downs with billionaire investors, unicorn founders, & media powerhouses▫️ Mindset & Life Design Resets – growth mindset drills minus the pricey career coach▫️ Wellness • Fashion • Habit Hacks that survive 12‑hour workdays, travel, and fun▫️ ⬇️ Free Templates & Worksheets linked in episodesShare this channel with your friends & let’s level up together.------------------------------------------------------------------ 💛 LET'S CONNECT: ~ CHERIE ~🤳🏻 Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cherie.brooke 📱 TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@cherie.brooke ✍🏻 My Substack – https://cherieluo.substack.com/ 👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherie-luo/ ~ JEAN ~🤳🏻 Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jeanluo_/👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanluo 🎵 Music produced by Sammy Signal https://open.spotify.com/artist/2HsyknHuxhT8RoZfn5rqMS🛍️ Items Referenced:🍵 Sisters Matcha & SISTERS Merch: www.sistersmatcha.com🌀 Everything else: https://amzn.to/3z0dx5b

It's a cheat code, right? Conceptually, anything in life that's worth having. In the beginning, it's just going to suck to do it. Hard now, easy later. I was a founder. It was a time in my life where I made the least amount of money, but I was probably the happiest. So whenever I find myself stressing out about something, I ask myself, like, what can I do to change it? Founders of color are underfunded. It does you know good to start playing the game, and while you're playing the game, they're complaining about the rules that you knew were already rigged. You show up to the game, and you just say, okay, I know the rules are not set up for me to win.

but I'm going to win despite. I'm going to try to build some allies along the way. True or false, raising money is easier if you're a white guy in a hoodie. I would say true. It's just based on the data. Kofi. True or false. Ivy League degrees are useless in startups.

True. The thing the reason is... Welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast where we talk about money, power, and love. I'm Sheree. I'm Gene. I'm Kofi. And where the Tiger Sisters? Hey guys, quick break to let you know that we now have merch on sisters matcha.com. 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. Kofi is a two-time founder, a deeply analytical thinker, and someone who has actually built an entire framework and system to track his life for good days and bad days. He's going to tell us all about that later on. Hi, Kofi. Hi. Could you please introduce yourself in your own words to our audience? Hi, everyone. I'm Kofi Ampidu. I'm a partner at Indreason Horowitz where I have the pleasure of leading the Talent Times Opportunity Initiative. It is a

program where we focus on finding founders who have the talent and drive to build big businesses. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for being here. vibe check first. You have good days, bad days. Is this a good day? Is this a good day to film? Actually, it's a great day because I'm here with you guys. Great day. Oh, good. I'm so relieved to hear that because I didn't want to mess up your streak or Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's a green day for us. Kofi, on our podcast, we talk a lot about intersectionality. So you're Ghanaian American. You're an immigrant and also a person of color. You've had to navigate many rooms where people

don't look like you. In the startup world. in the VC world, was there a turning point where you decided I'm going to play this game differently? I think I actually use my different hyphen-hyphens as an advantage. I think oftentimes as a person of color, when you're in the room, you probably work the hardest to be in that room, right? So, you know you work the hardest to be in that room. And I also think about it as a chance to change minds where it's what stereotype can I debunk when I'm in that room. And I think for me, it's understanding. And it's always, I always tell founders this. It's you decide to play a game. Yeah. You know the rules of the game. Unfortunately, sometimes the rules of the games are a bit rigged

against you. But you knew that going in, right? I don't think there's any surprise that, specifically speaking about founders, I don't think there's any surprise that, okay, founders of color are underfunded, right? So I think it does you know good to start playing a game, and while you're playing a game, you're complaining about the rules that you knew were already rigged. Right?

So I think you show up to the game, and you just say, okay, I know the rules are not set up for me to win, but I'm going to win despite. And as I'm going to try to build some allies along the way, right? And so for me, it's always about understanding the game that I'm trying to play and then playing within the rules, but trying to change the rules along the way, right? Because it's really hard to, I think, decide you want to play a game. And then your rookie year, you're axing the commission of the league to change the rules.

It's like, who are you? Like, you haven't done anything. So I think as you make progress, you then start using your bulls. bully pulpit to make change. I'm going to win despite. Exactly. Wow. That's very powerful.

And I feel like now you're in that position now where you have the bully pulpit and you're making change for everyone else who's playing the game. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. I think it's really important to highlight the wins. When I think about founders of color, one of the things I notice is oftentimes there's this unfair weight on founders. where I know it's a high failure rate environment, right? I know a large number of companies are not going to make it to the side.

But as a founder, it's sort of you started to play the game. You start realizing, okay, the idea that I'm bringing to market, maybe it's not working. I've done several pivots. But you're so resilient and you don't want to give up because you feel like if you give up, you're stopping maybe the next black founder, maybe the next female founder. from being funded. And I talk to founders and that's not necessarily your responsibility. I think your responsibility as a founder is to just do everything you said you were going to do. There's so many founders that say I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And they actually don't do X, Y, and Z. They start doing A, B, C,

right? And what happens is you start to lose trust. But if as a founder, you decide you did everything that you set out to do and it didn't work out, it didn't work out. I think investors are astute enough to know that not every company is going to work out, right? So I don't think founders need to put that weight on themselves. And that's one of the conversations that I constantly have with founders to say, okay, resilience is a great thing, but it's also a double-edged sword where you can be too resilient and then start compounding your opportunity cost. Yeah. I feel like that's almost like a really good framework to go into a lot of different situations where the two things you said were like, one, recognize the game for what it is. Like understand the rules.

and the bounds and like the same rules don't necessarily apply to you. And then also you're kind of saying just like get that understanding in your head and then get it out of the way. Like don't be thinking about it all the time for everything that you do, but just like know that going in. And then you can act within the rules that are applied to you. Yeah. It's a distraction, right? If you, if you, you're thinking about it all the time. It's unfair. It's unfair. It's like, yeah. That's a fact that's unfair, right? You're playing a game. How can you eventually make it fair for yourself? it resonates so deeply. I think more than you know, it resonates really deeply with me and also the ethos of our podcast.

Because one of the goals of Tiger Sisters podcast is to really break open. Like traditionally gate kept institutions like tech and VC and also like Stanford and Harvard, where like if you don't know someone who knows someone who knows someone, like how the heck are you supposed to figure out the game of everything? of like applications and recommendations. And then, you know, when you're trying to, for interviews, it's really difficult on the outside. And so I think creating more opportunities for people. Yeah, that's a really powerful thing.

So, Kofi, one question that we like to ask our guests is for a piece of advice that they'd give their younger self. So I'm about to enter my 30s, genes in her mid-30s. So when you're looking back to your 29-year-old self, what would you tell him? Yeah. So I journal a lot. And I was actually talking to a friend. And they were just like, man, you're doing everything you said you were going to do.

And I was like, what are you talking about? And they sent me a doc that I wrote in 2012. I sent them a VC plan. And the plan was very, very close to what I'm doing now. A VC as in like the startup of you? Yeah. So it's like, well, it's, I sent them a plan. around a fund that I was going to start.

And it was very, very close to what I'm. It's like 85% overlap to what I'm doing. And I kind of thought to myself, I'm like, what happened along the way? Like, it felt like it took me too long to start doing this thing, right? Because I took different paths. Like, I took a job as a consultant. Right. So my advice, like my younger self would be, like, do the thing right now.

Right? there's no perfect, I think I was looking for like the perfect time to do something. And often it's so easy to convince yourself or tell yourself a story, right, where it's, I'm going to do this and then I'm doing that and then I'm going to come back and do this thing. As opposed to what's the thing you want to do now? Like, why don't you just like do it? So like read them back, like looking at that plan and then like flipping back through my journal and seeing how this is the thing I wanted to do, but I took these like roundabout turns to get there. I would just say, just try to do the thing now. And I think you're always going to be rewarded for failure, right?

Like you're, if you put your best foot forward, like people are going to see you're trying, right? And you may get a shot like a lot sooner. I have this one professor who says the two most dangerous words are not now. So if people keep saying not now, they keep pushing it later and later and it becomes not ever. Yeah. I think to give yourself some credit, you're doing what you said you would do. That's crazy. No, it was like bonkers.

I was just like, I was just like, wait, what? You manifested. Yeah, and it made me happy because there was a time where, because you know, I went from being a founder and now I'm a VC and I'm like, did I just like leave the founder dream too early and move over to the other side of the table? Did I just become like an investor because it's like the new. you hip thing that everyone wants to do. So it did make me feel good about my life decisions.

I was like, oh, okay, this was the plan on. You're like, deep down, I wanted this more than a decade ago. Yeah, yeah. That also, that's a good friend, that you had someone, a friend that you were so close with, that you sent them, like, your life plan. Yeah, my best friend. I, yeah, we share, like, I tell them everything, so. You love that?

Well, almost everything. Okay, Kofi, back to you. to your founder days now. So not the like LinkedIn version, but like the real version. So let's start with an open question. Tell us where did your founder journey first begin? Founder journey first began when I realized I didn't really like my job. Classic. And then like looking back, I felt like I was old as a founder during my time as a strategy consultant. I just didn't enjoy what I was doing. And a friend threw me at Lifeline. He said, I'm, I have this idea at a startup beverage company, and I want you to join me as the co-founder, CEO.

Yeah. That was only where I was leaving my job. I needed to be CEO. No, but I was like, man, it's the lifeline I need it. And the ball just started rolling. And then in retrospect, sort of like looking back, I felt like I've always been a founder. I remember, and I'm going to date myself a bit, but when I was in high school, I had a bunch of different side hustles, right? I would burn CDs and sell them to classmates.

So I was making mixtapes. And then one of my side hustles were it was, we would actually, my senior year of high school, you can go off campus to go get lunch. I would take food orders from underclassmen, and I would just charge them a delivery fee. DoorDash, who? Right?

So looking back, I actually... Inventing. I actually think I came up with Dordat. Just kidding, but it's... just sort of having that in the back of my mind of, hey, I want to do something that is not restricted to, I'm doing a nine to five. And that's what entrepreneurship really gave me. So my first company was age two melon. We started a beverage company that was a health and wellness beverage company. So this is, think back in a day where you can sell a 12-ounce bottle of juice for $10 and know I'm about an

and it just got me in the game and I don't want to leave the game. Like, I love it. I love being around entrepreneurs that inspires me to want to do more. Yeah. It sounds like you really had that entrepreneurial spirit from a very young age. And you've mentioned previously that your family or your dad ran a mom-and-pop shop. Did you feel like that entrepreneurial spirit or growing up around that influenced you? Might have, right.

So I think when I think back to my dad, being an entrepreneur. I felt like he was an entrepreneur because he needed to be. He wasn't classically well educated, right? And he, when he moved to the States, he was a cab driver. Hated being a cab driver and wanted to do something else. And that's something else was, I'm going to start a small mom and pop shop. And he's still doing it now. Right. And it's been his path out. And sort of like looking back on it, he's happy. I remember, um, having a conversation with him a few months ago where he's about to be 70 next year. And he's still working.

But I thought he was working to live, right? And so I was just like, when are you going to retire? He's like, what are you talking about? I love what I'm doing. And I was like, can you tell me about a typical day? And when he described his day, I was like, holy shit, he's retired. Like he's just sort of doing something he loves. And it's just motivating him and keeping him going.

That's the dream. That's my role model. I have these professors at Stanford who are like in their 70s, well into their 70s, mid, late 70s, and they're still teaching. And I'm like, that's what I aspire to do to find something that drives me so much that I can continue working because I love it and because I want to. Yeah, like he loves it. And it's just, it's so inspiring to see where it's just like how can find in something that you can do for the rest of your life. I think it's the mission that we're all on, and I'm happy he found his. Do you feel like you found that?

I think so. So for me, it's, I love being around founders. I love being around people who constantly have ideas. No two days are the same for us. And I think that's what inspires me. I have a quest to learn. So whenever I, it's a cheat code, right? So I think as an investor, you are meeting with a founder,

even if it's a founder you're not going to invest in, you're learning about something completely new. And oftentimes you're meeting with somebody that's dealing with it on a everyday basis. So you're just accelerating your learning curve. And I love that. And then when my founders come to us with issues that they're having, we get to rollout sleeves up and work with them on trying to figure out those issues. It's like you get to have a different job day to day, week to week. Yeah.

And I don't have the stress of being a founder. Wait a minute. This sounded pretty good. No, no, it's good stress, right? So it's when I was a founder, it was a time in my life where I made the least amount of money. Yeah. But I was probably the happiest. And the reason I was the happiest is whenever an issue came up, I felt like I was in control of either solving that issue.

Oftentimes, I think when you are an employee, when an issue comes up, you may not come completely be the one who can solve it. Right. But as a founder, you have complete agency. You can either hire somebody to help you solve it. You can go learn a thing to solve the thing. Right. So there's so many things that I think being a founder of the flexibility that it gives you

that I love. And I think for me, the role that I have with TXO, when I think back to it. So TXO started in 2020. I joined the firm in 2021. TXO was still being built from a foundational standpoint. And when I got in there, I was able to help build a foundation. So I felt like it's, I still got to flex some entrepreneurial muscles. Right.

And I think that's what keeps me excited about what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And we're constantly always trying to figure out like what can we do next. And we consider ourselves a startup within the firm. Yeah. We're constantly trying to figure out like what can we do next to ensure that we're creating value for our founders. Yeah. I feel like this is a very revealing answer. because it's so clear that you are a very high agency person.

Like that's how I would describe you. I feel like having known you for not that long, that's like probably one of your most defining characteristics. I would agree. No, in all seriousness, it's all about like what can I do to change something. Yeah. Right. And I think it's been really helpful for my mental health,

where there's so many things in the world that you can stress out about. And so whenever I find myself stressing out about something, like I don't like the feeling of being unhappy and being stressed. So whenever I find myself stressed out about something, I ask myself that one foundational question, right? It's like, okay, what am I doing to change it? Like, what can I do to change it? And if you drill down and you can't do anything to change it,

like oftentimes it's like, all right, so don't stress out about it. Because if you're literally, you're, you're, you're, impacting your mental health for something that you can't make any change too, right? Oftentimes, there is something we can do to change it, right? It may be, it may feel small and minute, but I think a lot of actions start from something that is small and minute. I think it's also really powerful to be surrounded by people who adopt a similar mindset. Like, I am the captain of my ship mindset. Everything gets harder because you make a change in the short term. Things get But then in the long term things usually, if you make the right decision, like get better.

But it's fun being around those people. Yeah. It's like folks who understand you have to optimize for the long term. When you want lasting change, it's in the beginning it's not going to be fun, right? It's like hard now. I think it's just like hard now, easy later. Right. So if any, I think conceptually anything in life that's worth having in the beginning, it's just going to suck to do it.

So if you want to get in better physical shape, in the beginning you go to the gym, you're not going to see results. It's going to suck that if you need to wake up early. You're not going to be used to doing that. But once you start seeing results, when you start getting in better shape, it's going to be easier for you to say, I'm going to wake up earlier. So I think it's always kind of thinking about it from a standpoint of like what do I need to do now to optimize for the long term? So while you're bootstrapping, you told us that you moved in with. your sister. We'd like to go there because we live together.

Yeah, so we're bootstrapping. And we live together. We work and live. She is my sister. So you kind of see where I'm growing here. I mean, was that sustainable? Did you have to like put your pride aside? Or was it just really easy?

Like, how did that feel? Yeah, I had to put my pride aside. So just to kind of paint the picture, I had the apartment in Manhattan that we all pre-game that. pre-game that. We were going to go out. Right? So it was like, I had the balcony. I had like all like the amenities. The floor to ceiling, window. I had, I had that. And I know where we started. So I think for me, it was also me telling myself I'm all in. Like if you're, if this is a thing

you say you care about. Yeah. The thing you say you want to grow. What are you willing to give up for it? For me, it was like, it's pride, right? Like, hey, I'm moving back in with, I would have moved with my parents if they live closer. Right. Like, and being, being very serious because I think it was my way of saying I'm all in. Yes. And I think being all in means, like, how do you reduce your burn? Right.

And I think as a founder, I often kind of think through, if you're a founder and you raise money and you hire a team, you should probably pay yourself the least. You should pay yourself enough to live, right? But you shouldn't pay yourself enough to save enough money for vacation. because your payoff is going to be at the end of the journey. And so went all in and then I'm so fortunate that I have a supportive family. My sister was like, sure, like move in. And I think for her too, it was like free child care.

Because my niece was, I think my niece was like maybe two or three at the time. And it was like I really, it was a great time for me. I got a chance to get closer to my sister, my brother-in-law. And they actually also used my presence to as a carrot for my niece. So I lived in a, I literally lived in a basement. I lived in a basement. And if my niece was acting up, they were like, you can't go hang out with Uncle Kofi unless you eat your vegetables or you do this, right?

So it was like, they just liked having me in their space. I also made sure to contribute when I was there, right? So it was, I may not be paying rent, but okay, how can I maybe buy groceries, do this and that? And then I would, during the day, I wasn't there. I was at my coworking space. So all of that kind of like worked out. But I think I made that decision just because I needed to show myself that I was all in. It's really hard to kind of hold two troops, right?

I can't be the guy who has a nice Manhattan apartment that friends come to pregame at. And then I'm talking about. how it's really hard to build this company because I need money when I can literally take money out of that apartment by not paying rent and then using it to build the company. It's walking the walk. Yeah. And it's about sacrifice. What are you willing to do?

Yeah, it's a good story to tell when you're pitching a VC, right? Yeah. Like, how all in are you? And you said, I have to move in with my sister. I live in the basement now. Like my window is this big. Limited sunlight. Yeah. It's very heartwarming to hear about your support system and your relationship with your family and your sister.

I want to turn the conversation to your eternal co-founder, your wife, who you've mentioned before is a really important support system and has gone through all of it with you from the beginning. Yeah, I think it's so, I'm so lucky. It's a cheat code. Because even if you have a co-founder, it's sometimes you need to complain about your co-founder. And it's nice to have an outlet. Wait, what? Never. Hasn't happened yet. You need to have an outlet, right? And like for me, I was super, super fortunate where she's a journalist has interest in photography.

So she was taking product pictures for us. Wow. She would be helping us with our social media post, right? So it was, I felt like she was also all in. I think it's important to surround yourself with people who don't second guess the decisions you make because they see you as a whole human who can make adult decisions, and then they will support you. And obviously, if you're going to fall,

they'll be there to help, like, pick you back up. And I've been very fortunate to have that where the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurial journey has been something that I've gone through with her. And she is someone I can constantly talk to about what I'm doing. And I think what also makes our relationship, I think, really cool is she is in a profession that has, like, very little to no overlap with what I'm doing. Right. She's a documentarian, a journalist, a photographer. And you like that.

Yeah, it's perfect, right? It's, I think the reason I think it's perfect is she also gives me a different perspective, right? Because I think oftentimes we can be so homogenous in our networks where it's an echo chamber. Like she gives me fresh perspectives, right? When I'm talking about something that I've seen, she may ask that question of, like, I can be talking about a company that I think is interesting. And she gives me like the regular, quote unquote, like regular person's point of view, right? Because I think sometimes we're so surrounded by technology or immersed with technology.

We don't understand, like, folks who may not be live in technology 24-7. And it gives me that perspective. Why do you need AI for that? Exactly. Like, what do you mean? Exactly. So she's not, she's not a techno optimist, which is good because it gives me, we have healthy debates.

Yeah. So we don't, we don't argue, we debate. So we have a lot of like healthy debates, right? Where we actually even started doing this thing where we do brown bag lunches. You and your wife? Yeah. So you would research. It's like a topic that she cares about.

She'll research it and then pitch it to me. and I'll, like, research something and I'll pitch it to her. So it's, like, me telling her. It can be about, like, AI and the benefits, the benefits I think AI is going to have in society, right? Where I think that the means, right, the ends justifies the means sort of, like, presentation. And then she'll do the same.

And I get to learn and have, like, different perspectives because I'm immersed and surrounded by technology all day and just having somebody who is maybe a little suspect of technology, Right is helpful and keeps me grounded in how I look at technology and how I look at what the futures can could potentially look like Mm-hmm and so this could be any topic any topic so I like the last one I did was it was an event about technology it was I just wanted to look at Francophone countries in Africa and why their currency was pegged to The French system right it's just like okay why is this thing so it's like whenever we are like why is this thing like why is this thing like why don't you research it? and tell me. And then is her role to like ask you questions?

Ask me questions. And then when she's also interested in something, she'll research it. And then I will ask questions about it. So it's like our way of like teaching each other stuff. Wow. Wow. I've never heard of something like this. We're kind of dorky.

Yeah. We're so cool. We have that at work. Wait, I would call that a brown bag lunch in a professional setting or like a nerd date. Yeah. With your wife. I love that. I can also tell how curious you both are.

Yeah. And how there's, if I'm understanding correctly, like so much learning between the two of you, learning from each other and also teaching. Yeah. I think I mentioned there's very little overlap in our professions. But then there's the big overlap is we have to ask questions, right? So for her as a journalist or a documentarian,

before she puts resources into doing a document. entry, it's like, is this thing like a legit thing? Right? How do I figure out if it's like a legit thing? Let me question the folks, right? And the same thing as an investor to before we put resources into it into anything. It's, is this company a legit company? Let's ask questions to figure it out. So it's like trying to, like we have that ability to ask each other questions to drill down to figure out, okay, should we invest time, resources, and money into anything? That's your shared interest. And I feel like your love language is like teaching each other new thing and like learning new things together. Yeah.

Wow. Not to psychoanalyze you. Your love language might be that. Yeah, I don't know. I've never heard it put that way, but I like it. That is so interesting. Well, something that I've been thinking about recently. So we talk about money, power, and love on our podcast because they're also interrelated.

You have the career stuff that you do, professional stuff. You know, you also have a partner. that's such a big part of your life. When I think about the partner that I'm looking for, it's someone who's also very curious about life, has a growth mindset so we can learn from one another. Yeah. Because your partner, I guess, can be your lifelong learning partner too.

And that's kind of what you guys have created for each other. Yeah. Think about it. When the zombie apopulose happens and you're still, you're a lowly two people left. You don't want to be bored with that person. Yeah. So it's true.

Wow. New standard. The standard has been created. The zombie apocalypse standard, yes. Okay, so Kofi, we've talked a lot about startups. You founded your startups. You advised startups. You also seem to kind of run your own life like a startup in certain ways.

So tell us about the system you created, where you track like good days, bad days, and how do we implement it? Yeah. So I came up with this in late 2019 and I actually started doing it in 2020. So 2019, when the year ended, I was just like, was this year a successful year? Like, oftentimes I think we, everyone does like a New Year's resolution, right? And it's this year I want to accomplish X, Y, and Z. And if you don't accomplish X, Y, and Z at the end of the year, you just assume maybe the year was a failure.

And I felt like, I didn't feel like a failure, but I felt like I failed. And I wanted a better way of tracking if I failed or not. Oftentimes our resolutions are tied to like professional achievements, right? But that's just one part, I feel like, of your life. And this was a very fortuitous time because I started it before the pandemic. I said every single day I'm going to measure my days to figure out if I won the day. And I measure them on three things. Physical, did I work out?

Did I eat well? Right. So physical health. And then mental health is, am I stressed? Did I go to bed happy? And then the last thing I measured was like my daily task. And every day I had three things I wanted to complete, right? At the end of each day, I would measure it.

And then at the end of each week, I actually was doing, I was publicly tracking it on the platform formerly known as Twitter. And I would put, oh, week one, I won six days out of seven. And I was also putting it on a spreadsheet. and I would have like little notes next to it. And just to remind me of like if there was like a bad, if I had a really bad week, kind of summarizing why I had a bad week.

And what I realized was I was really winning each year. And I think for most people, if they take that approach, you're drilling down on a daily, on a day-by-day basis. So if you are measuring each day, do you realize, man, I'm losing each day, you're going to take action to figure out,

okay, what can I change, right? And I think, I used to be a management consultant. So what doesn't get tracked? Doesn't get measured, doesn't get tracked, right? So if it's like, you're going through the week and you, at the end of the week, you're like, man, I had a bad week. And I'm like, what made it a bad week? Right. And you can't really pinpoint it?

That's a problem because how can you then change it for the future? And so for the last five years now, just been tracking that. And it's been super, super helpful. And I also do like the year over year. Yeah. And because I want to make sure I'm progressing, I'm up into the right, you know, I'm a VC. I need, we need growth, right? I aggressively like looking at the numbers on the spreadsheet.

I'm like, okay, I need to be better. Like what I, I'm not eating well. I need to eat better. I need to make sure that I actually put better daily task that I can complete, right? Because part of it too was just like, if you think about trying to accomplish things for the day, I think we're always more ambitious than our abilities are. So you make this big-ass to-do list. And you realize, oh, I can't really complete any of this stuff.

So what I actually do is it's like, what are the three things? And this is typically work related. What are the three things that matter for me for work today? And making sure I get that done. I typically get more than three things done, but at least after I crossed the three off, I know I've had a good day. I'm so curious.

I have so many questions. Oh, my God. I mean, like the PM in me is going crazy right now. But I'm like, okay, were there any, like, seasonal trends that you noticed? So part of the trend that I noticed was just, like, obviously with, like, COVID. Yeah. And everything I was happening with, like, BLM. Yeah.

It was, like, it's like my. my mental state was just like mush, right? I would, like the physical, it's also for me, it's a bit of like a, it's a bit of a cheat code because I naturally have been working out every day for a very, very long time. So it's just, it's habit forming. It's part of my day, my routine.

I actually plan things around working out just because that is my self-care. But it's everything that was happening from a macro, it was sometimes it was just like really tough for me to for me to deal with right and obviously I have a partner and how she deals with it also impacts my mental my mental aspect and so that impacts that would impact it and then that's when I started asking myself things like what can I do right so instead of me being stressed out what can I do about it so I do remember during the BLM protest I reached out to TechCrunch and I wrote an article and the article that I did for TechCrunch was I actually looked at,

and this is just me being a nerd again, right? I looked at a bunch of like prominent, um, startup podcast and looked at the guests that people have on those podcasts. And I realized like black, like people were underrepresented as guest, right? So I wrote a blog post called them Black Minds Matter. And the goal of that block post was to say, because I think around that time, everyone, was trying to figure out, okay, what can we do to make sure that America is a more equitable place, right? So for me, my recommendation was I think there are black people that can probably talk about product. There are black people that can talk about engineering and that can talk about investing, right? Let's figure out how to get them as guests on some of these prominent podcasts because I think it also changes the perception of, like,

whole race, right? So that was, like, around that time, that was my, instead of me being stressed out about it, what can my solve be? I think that is so cool, because that is literally the exact example of you using your bully pulpit and you finding like a very specific thing that you could do that was in your control that was specific to your area of expertise to make a difference and then also influence other people. And then also I think it's really cool because, it's a way where you took all the learnings, all the metrics, et cetera, and then you're like, okay, how do I come up with like some sort of conclusion or like learning from everything that I've been tracking? Because, you know, I can't control the outside world, but the outside

world is affecting me. So then what can I do to like flip it around, to like make a change in this situation? And then you actually did something about it. That's so cool. That's like the ideal use of data. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a nerd too. I think it's also important to mention I'm under no

like delusion that you're going to have a hundred percent like happy days, right? Yeah. That would be kind of weird, right? Then you wouldn't know what happiness is if you've never experienced like a low point. And so I think it's also important to make space

one of the things that I'm trying to be better at, and this is trying to make space for, I just heard this phrase recently, make space for your failures, right? So it's just like, okay, like, it's okay to, like, wallow. And, like, you missed, you had a goal, you missed a goal. It's okay to be sad about it, right, for some time. I'm not saying just never be sad about anything, right?

And having, sort of having that practice of, okay, this thing didn't go the way I wanted to go, the go. I'm bummed out about it. I'm going to be bummed about it for like a day, right? One of the things that I'm trying to be better at is time block being bummed out about something that didn't go well. Right. So it's just like, okay, I'm going to be upset about it for like a day. And then after the next, after that day trying to figure out like how do we move forward, right? Because you could, it's so easy to spiral. And I think it's so easy to spiral and make an excuse. Like excuses are the cheapest things to buy, right? Like, it's so easy to make an excuse. Um, so it's like, how can I

figure out like, okay, I'm bummed out, this thing didn't work out, give myself, like, the day to just sit on the couch, watch Netflix, like eat, like, unhealthy food, right? Like, and just bum out about it. But then the next day, let me move forward. Because I think oftentimes, unless it's like extreme circumstances, you probably are just in the same spot you are in before that thing didn't work out, right? Some circumstances, like if you lose a job, you're setback, right? And then if you didn't, if it's not like a job lost,

you're probably not set back. You're just probably in the same spot. So it's like, okay, how do I just pick up from where I'm at to reconfigure and move forward? I definitely want to adopt this framework or this model and try it out for myself. But something I feel like I need to be careful with. My mindset, I'm really, I don't like failure. No one likes failure.

But then I feel like just this is me being honest. I was just like, I want to be completely honest when I'm measuring my days. And so that I'm not like, was I happy? And, you know, kind of like stretch it a little bit. so that I can meet the metric. Do you know what I mean? It's like you have to be super honest with yourself when you're doing this or else it can feel like you're failing over and over.

I want to challenge that a little bit, the failure piece. So I think failure is actually like healthy. Yeah. So if you are approaching a situation with the intention of you're not going to fail, right, is you're probably going to move a lot slower, right? That is why literally large companies don't do anything worthwhile, right? Like really, really large, like, incumbent companies. It's because it's like, nah, what if we try this thing and it fails?

Right? It's, and if you ever watch, like, kids like learning how to play basketball or doing anything, it's oftentimes a person teaching them is just like, you've got to go faster. If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough, right? If you're very, very careful because we, I think as adults, we get into this mindset, of we have to be perfect before we do anything. Yeah. Right.

And then if perfection is always the aim, you're more than likely not going to try new things. Because as soon as you try a new thing, you're going to be like, I'm failing at this. And I'm going through that right now. I'm learning French and reading a book by Adam Grant. And one of the things he mentioned was the people who are really good at learning a language are people who the first day to learn a language, they start using it. Yeah. Right?

So it's like... Ah, we? We. We. So it's like you start using it right away. And part of like using a language is you're going to embarrass yourself. Yeah. You're going to fail.

Yeah. Right? But it's like we... And I know I'm going, I'm literally going through this right now where it's just like, I'm always like trying to pick the perfect spot to try it. And if you keep picking a perfect spot, you're never going to get the perfect spot. Yeah. Right?

So it's like I do think it's like... part of the process of achieving, like, success is like you just got to move fast. Just don't break things. Sounds like you need to plan some trips to these francophone countries. It's on a list. We have, like a fun, high, like a high energy segment. So we're going to try. Which we haven't tried before.

Yeah. So I'm really a guinea pick today. Thank you. We're just, we're not afraid to fail. is really... She's throwing it back at you. Do you like that? Full circle.

I'm fast with it. The next segment is called true or false. And basically what we're going to do is we're going to read you some hot takes from the startup world. And then you tell us, in your opinion, if it's true or false and why.

And they're going to be like fun, silly, like spicy, you know. So feel free to be fun, silly, and spicy. Was I know? not already spicy and spicy? Even more. So the first one, Kofi, true or false? If you are not working 90 hours a week, then you don't want it bad enough as a founder. False. You're going to work hard. And part of, I think, working hard doesn't necessarily mean you need to work long hours, right? There are going to be times where you're working maybe 90 hour weeks, but I don't think

it meets to constantly be 90 hour weeks. There are ways. I actually also think it's important to take breaks here and there. Right? It's, we just got back from like a founder's retreat and one that that things that we tell our founders on a founder retreat is building a company is a marathon.

Right. And that doesn't mean it's a marathon so you go slow. The people who win marathons are still running at a pretty fast pace, right? So there are going to be some miles where you're running at a five-minute pace.

They're going to be some miles where you just happen to be running at a seven-minute pace, right? because you're not always going to, there are going to be some weeks you don't always have it, right? But I don't think like there's a consistency of working like 90 hour weeks. You're going to need to work hard. And that's something that you just need to get your mind ready for. Love that.

Okay, Kofi. There are two co-founders that are either dating or married. Is that a huge red flag? Man. So it's not, it's a red flag. I wouldn't say huge. Right. Bege flag?

Yeah, there's a risk, right? I think as an investor when you're investing, you invest in risk, right? And you just need to know what the risk is, right? I don't think any investor invest in anything thinking it's a risk-free thing, right? Like, you invest in something trying to figure out what the risk is. I think when it comes to married co-founders, it's, okay, something can happen personally. And then they break up. what happens to the company.

Right? So it's, all it means is you're just going to have to ask them a lot of awkward questions before making an investment. So it is, it is a flag and we need to like drill down on that flag. Okay. I like that. You're like,

what can I do about this? How do I de-risk this? How do I de-risk your relationship? Okay. Kofi, true or false? Why Combinator is overrated and low-key a scam? I would say false. I say this because I feel like Y Combinator truly has like product market fit, right?

I say this joke where it's if White Combinator decided probably today that, hey, we'll take 5% of your company and we won't give you any money. People still apply, right? Because I think one of the things that you can never discredit them for is the network that they've built. Right. At the end of the day, if you are building a SaaS product and you join Y Combinator, is a potential that all the successful wide competitive companies can be your customer. So even if it's just to build traction with customers, right, to just get people to use your product to give you feedback, I think there's value in it. Yeah.

That's a real nerdy joke, by the way, Kofi. Pun intended. Okay. Kofi, true or false. Ivy League degrees are useless in startups. True. and I think the reason is, and this is the reason we have TXO,

we think anybody can build a company. It's not, I don't think you should, you don't have a right to build a company or a right to raise money just because you have a degree from a specific college, right? What that college does is it probably signals that you may be a high intelligent person, which is great, right?

But not everyone who is smart went to an Ivy League school, not everyone who's capable has talent went to an Ivy League school, so I don't think it's a prerequisite for being a founder. Kofi, true or false? If you don't know how to code, don't start a tech company.

False. I think, especially now, there are all these AI tools that you can use. I would say if you don't know how to code, what's the thing that you know how to do that makes you valuable to whatever thing that you're trying to build, right?

Like you don't want to be that person that has an idea. And then you either are using, you get a co-founder or an early engineer. And that engineer is the only valuable thing in your company. Right. So I think if you don't know how to code, like what else are you doing to make your company like super valuable? Do you know how to sell? Right. Do you know how to market?

Do you know how to, do you just know how to hire people? Are you a people person and you can be able to hire like the best talent to come onto your team? but I don't think it's the only thing you need to know how to do to be able to start a company. Okay, Kofi, true or false? Raising money is easier if you're a white guy in a hoodie. I would say true. And that's just based on the data, right? But I think even white guys in hoodies probably have a hard time raising money.

I think raising money is hard for anyone because you're, like asking people for money is not easy. so I think it's true, but it's probably hard for them too. Or at least if you ask them, they think it's hard. Wow, radical empathy. I've never been a white guy in a hoodie, so I can't speak from firsthand experience. Kofi, true or false? Building in public is just performative BS. I'd say false. There's an advantage to building in public. You can get customer discovery. you can get real time feedback.

And then you can also just signal to people around how fast you can move, right? I think oftentimes investors may be interested in investing in someone that can move really fast. So if each time you post about something you're doing, I'm like, man, this person was just at B. Now they're already at F, right? Soon they're going to be at Z.

So this is a, it's a moving train and I want to get on to that moving train. Few. Thank God you said that answer. because that's what we're doing. We build them public. Unless you're making a Masha company. Go behind closed doors.

I'm just kidding. Oh, so he did get spicy. He got a little spicy. Okay. I think this is the last one. Kofi, true or false? Most pitch stacks are just really well-designed lies. False.

And the reason I'm saying false is if you're starting off a relationship, which an investor-founder relationship, an investor-founder connection is a relationship. The first thing you're telling me, which is sending me a pitch deck, and if it's a lie, that's not a good start to a relationship. So I do think founders put a lot of care into,

or I would hope founders put a lot of care into, like what they're putting into their decks, right? And then if it's a lie, most of the times we're going to figure out during the diligence process that that logo you have on there is not actually a customer. I just want to say, Kofi, thank you for bringing your whole self today and for being so honest, sharing with us your life philosophy, your life framework, your life systems. It's just, it means so much to me, to us. And also, I know you said a lot of things today that will be deeply meaningful to our listeners.

So thank you. No, thanks for having me. This is fun. This is amazing. I think it was really powerful, too. I think reflecting on a lot of your personal answers and how it relates to your personal life and also to the career aspect, I really will take a lot away from the frameworks that you've talked about and the fact that you've been in the trenches yourself, building your own startup,

and now with TXO, you're helping people navigate through the trenches is really, really powerful. Yeah. Thank you. And so speaking of which, where can people follow you and where can people learn more about what you're doing and TXO? Yep. You can follow me on X at the Kofi Ampedu on X. And then you can follow TXO on X and Instagram at A16Z TXO. Great. And we'll have all of those linked in the descriptions of this video. Thanks so much, Kofi. Thanks for having me. And to our listeners, if anything that Kofi said made you pause or reflect or think deeply or yell at your phone.

And please like, comment, and subscribe. Rate us five stars on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts. And share with a friend. All right. Thanks. Bye.