Generated Transcript

[00:00:14] David Hornik
Hello and welcome to VentureCast. I am David Hornik with August Capital.

[00:00:19] Howard Hartenbaum
And this is Howard Hartenbaum, also with August Capital. And we have a guest today. I’ll let her introduce herself.

[00:00:26] Lisa Maroney
Hi, I’m Lisa Maroney. August, also with August Capital for the summer.

[00:00:31] David Hornik
For the summer. Well, not necessarily.

[00:00:33] Lisa Maroney
Not necessarily.

[00:00:34] David Hornik
Let’s see how this conversation goes. We’ll see how you are at podcasting.

[00:00:39] Lisa Maroney
Because the final test.

[00:00:41] David Hornik
That’s right, this is. You know, you’ve been. You’ve been spectacular so far this summer, but frankly, we haven’t podcasted together.

[00:00:48] Howard Hartenbaum
So if any of you listen to this and you think we should keep her, please send David a note that says keeper. And if you think we should get rid of her, please send David a note that says, who was.

[00:00:59] David Hornik
Who is this Lisa?

[00:01:01] Lisa Maroney
And if you really like me, please send me a note.

[00:01:04] David Hornik
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So. So it’s funny. I mean, we had this conversation. What was it? The last podcast, when I said. I said, like, if Raul would call us quickly, then he could have this internship. And then he didn’t call. So we had. We had to give it to Lisa.

[00:01:22] Howard Hartenbaum
Because he had his chance. He gave him. And we’re, you know, we stand behind our word. And you offered the guy a job, and he didn’t call fast enough.

[00:01:30] David Hornik
So I understand he’s hanging out, wandering around Yale this summer, but he could have been here, but instead, no, Lisa is sitting. Sitting in Raul’s chair, like, oh, you know, you’re. You’re lost her game.

[00:01:41] Lisa Maroney
So I have to say, I was listening to Venture cast podcasts while interviewing for this job, and I heard that last podcast about Raul, like, somewhere during the process, and I was like, who is this guy?

[00:01:53] David Hornik
Why does he get this.

[00:01:54] Lisa Maroney
Why does he get this job?

[00:01:55] David Hornik
Well, like all things, it’s about position. He’s my son’s roommate. That’s how we get to deal with. That’s how you get a job.

[00:02:02] Howard Hartenbaum
Otherwise, how else would he have ever heard of Venture?

[00:02:04] David Hornik
Guest who did you know, right? Actually, the way that we ended up hiring Lisa is sort of an interesting example of this sort of broader thing, which is I was an eir, an entrepreneur in residence at the Rock center at Harvard Business School. A little ironic, since I am neither an entrepreneur nor was I in residence, but in any event, chatted with a friend of yours who I think is spectacular.

[00:02:31] Lisa Maroney
Wonderful, wonderful human.

[00:02:33] David Hornik
Yep. And. And. And I said to her, like, oh, why don’t you spend time with us? And she’s like, no, no, that sounds like a terrible idea. But I have a friend who you all really like, so, you know, so it’s good news that she. That she hated us.

[00:02:51] Howard Hartenbaum
And I think you didn’t start. I mean, when you started, I was the only person who actually met.

[00:02:56] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, right.

[00:02:57] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:02:58] Lisa Maroney
Well, what happened was I talked on the phone with every single one of you, and then.

[00:03:03] Howard Hartenbaum
And then somebody said you had a partner meeting.

[00:03:05] Lisa Maroney
And someone said, has anyone actually met this girl? And Howard got the task of being like, hey, Lisa, you want to grab breakfast?

[00:03:12] Howard Hartenbaum
And then we had breakfast in it. And I said, yeah, okay. It works fine. And then we came back at the next Monday. I said, yeah, it’s all good. They said, has anybody else met?

[00:03:19] Lisa Maroney
And literally, Howard’s lied to me was, well, you seem charming enough. I was like, oh, okay. I guess the bar’s pretty low.

[00:03:28] David Hornik
Well, that’s. Yeah, yeah, enough. Howard’s charming enough. Enough for what?

[00:03:33] Howard Hartenbaum
Debatable. Debatable.

[00:03:36] David Hornik
All things are situation specific, and now that you’ve spent the summer here, you know, like, you’re charming enough. I know. Like, I mean, seriously charming. At least as charming as Hornig and Hart and Baum Lobar.

[00:03:51] Howard Hartenbaum
You know, you can define. You know, life is good when you wake up in the morning and you’re looking forward to the things that you’re gonna do that day. And unfortunately for many people, they wake up and they’re like, I hate my job. I don’t want to go to work. I’ve got this commute. Whatever the issue. Hate my wife. You know, whatever the issue is, they don’t want to deal with it. How did you feel every morning when you woke up this summer?

[00:04:14] Lisa Maroney
So every morning I woke up this summer, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go and when, which introduced some early morning anxiety of, oh, shit, like, where’s this breakfast? How am I gonna get there? But I kind of enjoyed that, you know, challenge of, oh, wow, every day’s different. Every day’s gonna be a whole new cast of characters going to be in a different meeting every hour, you know, not really knowing where I’m headed next. And that kind of, like, constant learning, constant on your toes thing is addictive.

[00:04:43] David Hornik
That’s good, because I. You know, I’ve had this conversation with some of my kids where I say, like, oh, yeah, my day is, you know, at 8. I go and do this thing until 9. Then I pee, and then I get another Diet Coke. And then 9 to 10, I do a thing, and 10 to 11, 11 to 12. And. And their comment is like, that is awful. That sounds horrible. Like, what do you mean? It sounds so good like that, you know, and so I don’t. It’s obviously not for everyone. And the days when it really is, you know, seven hour long meetings or something, it’s. It is actually kind of exhausting. You’re kind of, oh, my God, yes and no.

[00:05:18] Lisa Maroney
But you get to five o’ clock and you’re like, oh, my gosh, it’s five o’.

[00:05:21] David Hornik
Clock.

[00:05:21] Lisa Maroney
How did that all happen? And it’s only, you know, and you.

[00:05:24] Howard Hartenbaum
Still have all your email to do.

[00:05:26] David Hornik
Well, that’s a different problem.

[00:05:27] Lisa Maroney
You contrast that to, you know, jobs where you sit at your desk. Like, I used to sit at my desk from 9 to midnight in some cases.

[00:05:35] Howard Hartenbaum
Right.

[00:05:36] David Hornik
What were your desk jobs? You were at a consultant for a period of time.

[00:05:39] Lisa Maroney
I was a consultant for a period of time. Student doesn’t really count as a desk job, does it? I do sit at desks for long periods of time. I was at the White House for a summer, which was kind of like this, like, constantly on your toes, meeting with various people, grabbing coffee, writing PowerPoints that are condensed up to a chain of command. And then last summer at a startup where it was, you know, drinking from the fire hose all the time.

[00:06:04] Howard Hartenbaum
So her voice might be a little bit low, so you might want to move a little bit closer.

[00:06:08] David Hornik
You have. You have to compete with the incredible.

[00:06:12] Howard Hartenbaum
I sit back because I boom.

[00:06:13] David Hornik
I know, because he has this super low booming voice and I’m super whiny but super loud. So for everybody who’s listening, you’re like, more Hardenbaum, less hornick. That’s sort of like. And as Howard knows, that ratio’s pretty much flipped. It’s like, oh, no, afford it.

[00:06:30] Lisa Maroney
Well, this is actually something I noticed. So I ta’d an exec session on negotiations early in the summer. And one of the exercises we did was we videotaped and video recorded people having a difficult conversation. And it was, you know, a group of four people around a mic, mixed gender. And I had to position the mic closest to the women during the thing just because their voices, for whatever reason, weren’t getting picked up by this mic. And it was so interesting to see because I could hear them fine. But the, you know.

[00:06:56] David Hornik
Yeah, I guess it’s physiological.

[00:06:58] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, Vocal cords are different.

[00:06:59] David Hornik
It’s also psychological. It’s all these things. So, you know, the interesting thing. So the biggest challenge you had getting this job, it turns out, had nothing to do with you. You were charming enough, so that was fine. But it turns Out. The biggest challenge is that, first of all, venture capitalists in the summer, like, go on vacations and they do, you know, like, there’s no. If you were to come here in September, then from like September, the beginning of school year until Thanksgiving, we’re all pretty much around. We’re all here and we’re all doing our thing and everybody’s. But the summer, it’s like, who’s going to be here? Whatever? And so we had this interesting conversation which was like, all right, who’s here?

[00:07:41] Howard Hartenbaum
And when.

[00:07:42] David Hornik
When are you here? What are. What. What are we gonna have Lisa do? Like, what. Is there a thing. Are we. Because we didn’t want you to be here going. We’ve. We had one other intern ever, and he basically was like, eh. Like, we gave Sebastian some stuff to do and then he was sort of like, so what now? What people? And he mostly hung out because we just hadn’t been very thoughtful about it.

[00:08:06] Lisa Maroney
Right.

[00:08:06] David Hornik
And so we had to kind of come to. So one of the things that we decided was that you would shadow each of the partners over the course of the summer for a week each.

[00:08:16] Lisa Maroney
For a week each. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So day one, I get a list from Mary of, you know, here are your weeks.

[00:08:23] Howard Hartenbaum
And that was your first week.

[00:08:24] Lisa Maroney
Yeah. No, you weren’t my first week. You were like, week five. I think first week was Eric and Tripp. They kind of tagged you for weeks.

[00:08:31] David Hornik
One and two of them.

[00:08:33] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, they kind of tag teamed the first because they were helping me on board and stuff. Yeah.

[00:08:37] Howard Hartenbaum
So I’m curious. So you spent a week. Ish. With each person. Like, what are your impressions? And you won’t offend us, you can’t offend Howard. It’s pretty hard to offend me, but I dare you to try.

[00:08:52] David Hornik
That may be one of your impressions.

[00:08:56] Howard Hartenbaum
You can’t offend me, but I’m offensive.

[00:08:59] David Hornik
Those are different.

[00:09:00] Lisa Maroney
Probably inversely, anyway.

[00:09:02] Howard Hartenbaum
So what were your impressions of the different folks and, you know, positives and negatives and sharing all of our secrets with strangers on the other end of this.

[00:09:09] David Hornik
And. And you know, frankly of the job. Right. Because I remember when I joined the venture business, I’d been an attorney. I thought I understood it because I was like, I’d been in board meetings, I’d seen VCs do their thing, and then I got here and I was like, oh, that’s what VCs do. And by the way, each week you’d find some new thing. And after year three, you’re just like, okay, I think I Kind of get it. And then there’d be a new thing. You’d be like, so some of it is like, do you, do you feel like you have a good sense at this point what Venture is about? And then if you do, you know who’s best at it, we’d like to know specifically who among us. And that’s of course me.

[00:09:45] Lisa Maroney
So really objective feedback. So different people have very different pacing is the first thing I noticed. Like, some people have, you know, like a prescribed pattern of how to structure a day, right? Like multiple breakfasts, a lunch, a dinner, you know, kind of consistent day to day. And other people, it’s more like, here’s a meeting, here’s a meeting. Constantly grabbing at various things. I think there’s a different approach to sourcing, right? So sourcing was something where I came into this job and day one I thought, oh, well, sourcing will just be me sending emails to the people I know, being like, hey, I’m a VC now, so, you know, cool. Like, so, hey, so like tomorrow show up, right? Like, that’s kind of what I thought would happen. And then I realized, oh, that’s totally not at all what this job is. This job is, you know, certainly keeping in touch with your friends who are smart people who are going to do interesting things in the future, but it’s also being a little bit more proactive, maintaining relationships that already exist, certainly doing some cold outbound and kind of quickly looping them into the August family.

[00:11:04] David Hornik
I do think, you know, as I’ve thought about it over time, because I went to a relatively large undergraduate institution. I went to a large ish graduate institution. Right? You spend these time that you start calculating, okay, how many people are, how many potentially interesting, smart, thoughtful people are you interacting with in any given moment over the course of your education alone, right? And here you are, you’re doing a jd, MBA in a, in a big school. And so we, we kind of did a the math. I was like, well, wait a second, you know, you’re interacting with what, 4,000 people, is that right? You think 4,000 interesting people over the course of the time you’re doing your graduate degree?

[00:11:50] Lisa Maroney
Yeah. 900 HBS people per year, 500 HLS people per year. I’m there for four years.

[00:11:57] David Hornik
Yeah. So if you touch both Yale, you could have 14, 1500 times four. Four.

[00:12:02] Lisa Maroney
And that kind of proved true over the summer. Like, I remember I was reading some article on TechCrunch about a company and noticed a guy’s name, knew him from college, hadn’t Talked to him in four years, but sent him an email being like, hey, not sure if you remember me, but we did this club together in undergrad, and I would love to catch up. And that stuff leads to interesting relationships.

[00:12:22] David Hornik
And of course, the same is true. We talk about the PayPal mafia or whatever, but of course, it’s that same kind of thing in companies. So if you are an early person in Facebook and then it ends up with thousands of people, then you touch thousands of individuals in a company. You touch that, right? So there are many, many ways that you can meet lots of people. So it’s sort of about, are you a person who likes a. Likes people? That’s, you know, this is Howard’s downfall. And then how do you. You know, how do you get.

[00:12:51] Howard Hartenbaum
I’m going to put one of those automatic door closers on my office. So if anybody walks out the door.

[00:12:57] David Hornik
Automatically, it’s not actually true. Right. I mean, the thing that’s funny about you, Howard, is that, like, you are obviously, you are blunt. That’s like how you live your life. But there’s. But people love that, right? If people didn’t.

[00:13:10] Howard Hartenbaum
Some people love it, some people love it, right?

[00:13:12] David Hornik
So it’s not like you’re not a people person. You’re a totally people person. You’re just like. You like people who are sort of feel. Who are. Who are more confident in their own points of view. You like people who can take real feedback, right?

[00:13:26] Howard Hartenbaum
And understand that it’s just one person’s feedback and it may not be correct. It’s just a viewpoint. I mean, I can watch up to somebody and say, my God, I can see why you love that ugly baby.

[00:13:38] David Hornik
It’s genetics.

[00:13:39] Howard Hartenbaum
I’m glad it’s not my baby, but what an awesome baby.

[00:13:43] David Hornik
See, I can actually hear Howard saying.

[00:13:46] Howard Hartenbaum
That and getting away with it.

[00:13:48] Lisa Maroney
And people would be like, oh, that’s just Howard being Howard.

[00:13:51] David Hornik
I have actually described certain of my own children as ugly babies. I’m not gonna say specifically which, but Beckett did look like a little. Anyway. But, you know, then people are like, oh, my God, you can’t say that about your. Like. No, but they come out, they’re all squished. They get a squished up head and, like, you know, Noah had a unibrow. Like, they got cute. Ish.

[00:14:17] Howard Hartenbaum
I see no harm in saying what other people are thinking. Anyway, back to Lisa.

[00:14:24] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:14:25] Lisa Maroney
Okay, so back to enough about our argument.

[00:14:27] David Hornik
Actually, Howard has these beautiful daughter who I’m sure were, like, adorable from the day they came out. So he can’t even opine on this topic. He has to talk about the ugliness of my children. Screw you, Howard.

[00:14:40] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah.

[00:14:41] David Hornik
Lisa was commenting that. So we just met these students. We had a meeting today with these four Stanford students are working on a thing. I spent now something like a year with them. They’re really smart or whatever she was saying. Oh, this really makes me nervous about parenting, because how do you create kids who are this thoughtful and smart and whatever? But the good news for us in this business is, like, we just get to hang out with them. Right. Which is pretty amazing.

[00:15:05] Lisa Maroney
Exactly. So a little bit anxiety inducing because they’re young and full of potential and, you know, oh, man, you guys have already done so much. What have I done?

[00:15:14] Howard Hartenbaum
You know?

[00:15:15] David Hornik
Well, we do wonder that, Lisa. I know.

[00:15:18] Howard Hartenbaum
But we have high expectations for what I will do. You’ll keep going.

[00:15:22] Lisa Maroney
So back to differences between you guys. Another big point of difference was the food options to which you bring entrepreneurs. So I noticed that Howard had very strong preferences for breakfasts and for Japanese food lunches.

[00:15:40] David Hornik
But it was only like five, which I appreciated.

[00:15:42] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah. David goes to that Japanese restaurant more than we were.

[00:15:46] Lisa Maroney
The downtown Palo Alto type.

[00:15:48] David Hornik
That was the morning. But just to be clear, Howard and I were on a race to who would get to a hundred times at that particular Japanese restaurant. And you beat me by three.

[00:15:57] Howard Hartenbaum
Is the actual brewery.

[00:15:59] David Hornik
You got there when I was only at 97. And now actually, you’re clear. You’re. You’re. You’re scorching past me because I haven’t.

[00:16:04] Howard Hartenbaum
Been in a bit, but I just went to Japan for, like a week and a half. I’m not gonna eat any Japanese food for the next six months.

[00:16:11] David Hornik
You’re out.

[00:16:12] Howard Hartenbaum
I had enough. So you’re gonna. It’s all yours.

[00:16:15] David Hornik
So you just went and you just went to Switzerland?

[00:16:17] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah, I went around.

[00:16:19] David Hornik
Yeah. I think that’s safe.

[00:16:21] Howard Hartenbaum
Anyway, food preferences is a difference that’s relevant to the job.

[00:16:27] David Hornik
What you have certainly seen is that it turns out that eating meals is part of the job.

[00:16:31] Lisa Maroney
Eating meals is definitely part of the.

[00:16:33] David Hornik
Job if you have other. Some people have a job where they’re like, oh, thank God it’s lunchtime, so I can go like, on Pokemon Go or whatever and hang out. But this job, for most of us, a meal is just another moment in time to catch up with some people about. And I don’t know if that does that. Did that. Was that something that made you happy, or was it sort of like, ugh, do you ever get away from this Fucking job.

[00:16:59] Lisa Maroney
I think I expected it. We were talking about this yesterday, that this job is one where there’s no firm delineation between work and life. Right. Like any.

[00:17:08] Howard Hartenbaum
Especially for David.

[00:17:11] Lisa Maroney
He has no life.

[00:17:12] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah.

[00:17:15] Lisa Maroney
I mean, any meal with any friend has elements of, you know, learning stuff about new companies, industries, what people are up to. And all of that is now relevant to my work in a way it wasn’t before. So, yeah, like everything is work to some extent.

[00:17:32] Howard Hartenbaum
But I think of it like efficiency.

[00:17:34] Lisa Maroney
Yeah.

[00:17:35] Howard Hartenbaum
Like by adding in at least a breakfast and a lunch every day, you get two hours of more work out of the day because you have breakfast at 7 or 7:30 or 8 or whenever it is. But you’re like, you get into work and you’ve already had a meeting.

[00:17:47] Lisa Maroney
I also think they’re more authentic conversations. Right. Like over breakfast, over lunch, you’re relaxed. You’re just chit chatting with the person, especially the wine. That also helps. That also helps. But you know, at some level, it’s about people meeting people as people without these layers on top of it of, oh, I’m a venture capitalist.

[00:18:05] Howard Hartenbaum
It’s very stressful for many people to come in and sit in a conference room. You know, we’re used to our conference room, but people come in and it’s this big room and a big, you know, wooden table and they kind of sit there and there’s a big screen and they can be uncomfortable, but you take them out for, you know, breakfast or lunch or whatever and it relaxes totally.

[00:18:24] Lisa Maroney
And I want to know what they’re actually like and whether we click.

[00:18:28] David Hornik
I do feel a little badly though, because, you know, so Lisa is shadowing me this week and we had. I can’t. Do we have breakfast Monday or just Tuesday? I don’t even remember. But anyway, it’s been breakfast. But we had a dinner last night where we were talking with a CEO candidate for one of my companies. So that meant that suddenly your day has extended past dinner. And then tonight we have a board dinner that’s, you know, for one of my companies. And that’s. And again, these are super interesting things and I’m happy to do them as, you know, as Howard. Yeah, you are, I’m sure. But it is kind of one of those reminders that as much as I think this is a great job, it’s not an. Not a like, easy job where you come in from 10 to 4 and whatever else. It actually turns out that the venture business, because it has no delineation, because it has no beginning that Depends on.

[00:19:21] Howard Hartenbaum
How much of a workaholic.

[00:19:23] David Hornik
So you think that’s just me?

[00:19:24] Howard Hartenbaum
I think you more than most, because you will still fill the whole day and say, great, I have an open dinner today. I can do my CEO interview then, where most people would just work it into their daily schedule. So I think you’re a little bit more extreme.

[00:19:37] David Hornik
Sorry.

[00:19:37] Howard Hartenbaum
And then because you spent a week with me and we had one event in the evening, we went to a Ronstadt event to meet the CEO or whatever. And Ronstadt’s a big staffing company and up in the city, so by the time we got home, it was nine. By the time we found your place, it was like, 9:30 or 10. She had moved. She couldn’t remember where she lived. I’m driving.

[00:20:00] Lisa Maroney
Howard was ready to fire me.

[00:20:01] David Hornik
Day one of shadowing.

[00:20:03] Howard Hartenbaum
I wouldn’t fire you for that. I would just say, get out and walk. Good luck.

[00:20:06] David Hornik
Yeah, get a nap.

[00:20:09] Lisa Maroney
And I was mortified.

[00:20:10] David Hornik
It’s like, I don’t even know.

[00:20:11] Howard Hartenbaum
She didn’t know the address. She was like, I think you go left. I think you go left here.

[00:20:15] Lisa Maroney
I remember when David dropped me off after the concert, literally on day one. And you’re like, where the hell is this?

[00:20:20] David Hornik
Where are you living in the burbs. So ridiculous. This concert that Lisa went to was the Beyonce concert.

[00:20:28] Howard Hartenbaum
It was like, first day of work, right?

[00:20:29] David Hornik
Very first day. Turns out that the wonderful people of Silicon Valley bank invited me to go see the Beyonce concert. But I was this interloper, because it turned out that it was this gathering of really great female entrepreneurs and VCs with Silicon Valley Bank. But I had said, oh, you know, my daughter would love to go to the concert. So Lisa goes with me. I’m like one of three men in the room. But she got to not only go to Beyonce concert with, which is great, and meet the Silicon Valley bank people who are amazing, but also meet, like, all these, you know, founders and CEOs.

[00:21:04] Howard Hartenbaum
Which you didn’t even know was happening. All you knew is that you’re taking your kid to a concert.

[00:21:07] David Hornik
No, they had been very clear that I had no business there. And I said, oh, that sounds great. In my defense, I did bring my daughter.

[00:21:16] Lisa Maroney
Yeah.

[00:21:16] David Hornik
So that was fine.

[00:21:17] Lisa Maroney
And Dar is lovely.

[00:21:18] David Hornik
So. Yeah, I think it’s a fair point that, like, some of us have extended days and whatever. Have you traveled with anyone?

[00:21:27] Lisa Maroney
Yes. So we went to Texas last week, and then one, I went down to San Diego on a day trip myself to go to this MIT robotics conference down there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which was cool.

[00:21:38] David Hornik
What? MIT Robotics over at Caltech. Where was it?

[00:21:41] Lisa Maroney
No, it was hosted at Qualcomm.

[00:21:43] David Hornik
Oh, all right.

[00:21:44] Lisa Maroney
In San Diego.

[00:21:45] Howard Hartenbaum
Do you have any neat robots?

[00:21:46] Lisa Maroney
Yes.

[00:21:47] David Hornik
How are gloves and robots?

[00:21:48] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it.

[00:21:50] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah, tell me.

[00:21:51] Lisa Maroney
Yeah. Well, there was this.

[00:21:52] Howard Hartenbaum
Now’s your chance.

[00:21:53] Lisa Maroney
So the MIT startup Exchange runs some interesting content. I think they roam from cities across the country, but each one has a different topic area. So this one was robotics. There’s one upcoming in September about aeronautics, but it was just, you know.

[00:22:08] Howard Hartenbaum
But did they like show you robots working and stuff?

[00:22:10] Lisa Maroney
Totally. So there was this company called Emotors, which is building super cute Tamagotchi style robots for your desk that are like pets to keep you company during your workday.

[00:22:20] Howard Hartenbaum
That’s what I mean.

[00:22:21] David Hornik
And do you feed them actual stuff?

[00:22:23] Lisa Maroney
They have little simulated food. There’s a backstory. Like the robot is a nuclear waste robot in training and it’s supposed to sort the nuclear waste from your desk anyways, but they’re super cute. And there was from that all the way up in sophistication to robots that can pick things off assembly lines and know how to grasp a gallon of milk versus an orange versus a banana.

[00:22:44] Howard Hartenbaum
Versus, you know, Here’s a picture of a robot cutting a guy’s lawn.

[00:22:47] Lisa Maroney
That’s awesome.

[00:22:48] Howard Hartenbaum
I walked by this house, it was like. I don’t know what brand it was, but I was like that. It was super hot outside and this robot was just driving around mowing the lawn. And I’m like one more profession out of the.

[00:23:01] David Hornik
Well, it makes perfect sense, right? I mean, we have these. You have the sweepy Roomba, the vacuum Roomba. Then you have the Wet Roomba, the pool robot. That is like, that’s an amazing thing that just sort of wanders around your pool and cleans it in the process.

[00:23:15] Howard Hartenbaum
You have a pool?

[00:23:17] David Hornik
I now have a pool.

[00:23:18] Howard Hartenbaum
Oh, you do.

[00:23:19] David Hornik
Too small to need a robot. It’s more like a. It’s more like a. A waiting pool. But, but how about. I mean, you know, this is controversial and all that, but the fact that the, the psychotic idiot who was shooting police ended up being taken down by a robot that blew him up. That’s a real question. Like, we have these drones, so they’re.

[00:23:44] Howard Hartenbaum
Already doing that in the military where there’s somebody like a sniper in a building. They don’t know how many people in there. I saw the pitch. It was a company on Palo. I think it was the same robot on Page Mail A few years ago. And they basically. These robots are pretty heavy, and they’re like the size of a backpack. The guys, they run by the building, they throw them through a window, right? And then they can climb upstairs, and they’ve got cameras and there’s an explosive charge on them. And they, you know, like a shape charge. And they basically go into the room and they’re talking through a speaker. They say, I’m gonna blow up if you don’t come out. And then the person doesn’t come out and they push the button. Because it’s safer for the guys on the outside than coming in the room, you know, trying to find them. It’s kind of an interesting. Using it domestically is pretty shocking domestically.

[00:24:27] David Hornik
Particularly since the same approach would have worked non lethally. Like, there are all sorts of things the robot could do.

[00:24:34] Howard Hartenbaum
What, like yell foul language at him?

[00:24:36] David Hornik
For example, that, hey, you, mother’s death. That’d be me. I’d be in charge of. That’d be the perfect job for me and my son Beckett.

[00:24:44] Howard Hartenbaum
Swearing at, Swearing at that. But domestically, if you think about that, you know, you’re supposed to capture the guy and have due process. No, you just put a military device in there and you go and you blow it up. Yeah, but I’m all. I’m a fan of that. Think of how inexpensive those things are.

[00:25:00] David Hornik
So let me get this straight. Yeah, yeah. The dude killed doesn’t have to process, but it’s super cheap economically.

[00:25:08] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, I don’t know about that.

[00:25:09] David Hornik
Okay, let’s move on to another topic. What else did you learn about the venture business, Lisa?

[00:25:15] Lisa Maroney
Other things about the venture business.

[00:25:17] David Hornik
What do you think of the partner? Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:19] Lisa Maroney
Another interesting difference was styles during board meetings.

[00:25:23] David Hornik
Oh, okay.

[00:25:24] Howard Hartenbaum
Oh, tell us about this. We would like to know.

[00:25:26] Lisa Maroney
Yeah. So styles Spectacular.

[00:25:27] Howard Hartenbaum
That was specifically between David and I. What are our.

[00:25:30] Lisa Maroney
I haven’t seen David in a board meeting yet.

[00:25:32] David Hornik
She’ll go, yeah, that’s what you do?

[00:25:36] Howard Hartenbaum
You email the whole time?

[00:25:37] Lisa Maroney
Well, he told me that he makes sarcastic jokes, so I’m expecting more sarcastic jokes.

[00:25:43] David Hornik
Jokes at a board meeting is value add.

[00:25:45] Lisa Maroney
Yeah.

[00:25:46] Howard Hartenbaum
Do you think I talk too much in a board meeting?

[00:25:48] Lisa Maroney
I’d say of the partners, I’ve seen you give the most in person, like, instantaneous feedback.

[00:25:54] Howard Hartenbaum
But is it too much?

[00:25:55] Lisa Maroney
I didn’t think so.

[00:25:56] David Hornik
What does she know?

[00:25:58] Howard Hartenbaum
You know, when somebody’s talking too much to hear themselves talking?

[00:26:01] David Hornik
Yeah, you know.

[00:26:02] Lisa Maroney
No, I didn’t think you talked too much. I thought that.

[00:26:03] David Hornik
I don’t mean that, like, what does Lisa know. I mean, like, what do edifice know? Too much. Too much.

[00:26:07] Howard Hartenbaum
I don’t know, I’m saying from a. When somebody’s talking too much, you know it. Ben Narin.

[00:26:12] Lisa Maroney
But you don’t talk, you ask questions. Right. So you know.

[00:26:16] David Hornik
Can’t believe you just threw Ben Narrison.

[00:26:19] Howard Hartenbaum
I went to a pitch with Ben once and he talked more than the guy. And I beat him up afterwards and we both laughed about it. It was fun. And then we drank champagne.

[00:26:26] David Hornik
I have to say that, like, if we’re talking, if we think Ben Narrison talks too much, I can only imagine what you think of me.

[00:26:31] Howard Hartenbaum
Yep. Anyway, sorry, we’ll let you talk again.

[00:26:34] David Hornik
No, we’re still talking. We’re talking too much. Just to be clear, Howard and I were reprimanded at our partner meeting by one of our partners this Monday because we were doing just this and he was like, shh, we’re trying to get some stuff done. And Howard and I are like.

[00:26:46] Howard Hartenbaum
And you remember what I said, which was, well, we’re better than last time. Right.

[00:26:50] David Hornik
He said, ye, it’s progress. But I think it means that we’re not allowed to sit next to each other anymore. Which is also true. Like the board meeting I have tomorrow, Rory o’ Driscoll’s in the board meeting and we should totally not sit next to each other because we’ll let you finish now.

[00:27:08] Howard Hartenbaum
Different styles and board meeting.

[00:27:11] Lisa Maroney
Okay, so Howard’s at one end giving. Asking questions as they come up, kind of in real time, popcorn style. I thought it was effective to the opposite end, like kind of sitting, taking in the information, letting communication happen primarily through body language. Actually maybe asking questions. Yeah, yeah, asking a question every now and then. And then I got the sense that most of the feedback happens offline after the fact. Right. So kind of taking in the information.

[00:27:43] Howard Hartenbaum
Transaction, totally non confrontational, dealing with it.

[00:27:46] Lisa Maroney
Well, yes and no. So sometimes the emotions communicate confrontation. So sometimes he’s pissed and he lets the person know. So he’s sitting there, he’s not making eye contact. He wants you to know he’s pissed. That’s not the Jewish version, but that’s for. That’s to communicate a specific point. Right. So that.

[00:28:04] Howard Hartenbaum
See what I think is interesting about it is, you know, Vivek was a co founder of his own very successful company and I don’t know, he wasn’t the CEO. I don’t know how much he participated in. In board meetings. David, you and I and Eric have been to a lot more board meetings than Vivek has, you know, I went along, you know, with my former partner to hundred, like, all the time. And you were a lawyer for companies. You went to tons of board meetings. And I bet Vivek has just not seen so many different styles of more interaction. So he’s set in doing it in a more conservative fashion.

[00:28:40] David Hornik
I think that a lot of it is. A lot of it’s just personality, right? Like, at the end of the day.

[00:28:47] Howard Hartenbaum
You’Ll tell me to my face when you’re pissed at me. Vivek will tell you that he’s pissed at me, and then you’ll tell me. So I think it is. I think it’s style.

[00:28:57] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, I think it’s totally style. And if Vivek were to ask questions, you know, in real time, it probably wouldn’t work, right? Like, his style is his and works for him.

[00:29:07] David Hornik
I’ve found that over time, I. I don’t. I think I’m more or less the same. I ask questions, I respond, I bubble. But the one thing that has shifted over, over. So, yeah, I probably. I mean, I went to a bunch of years of board meetings and then a bunch of years in the venture business that now there are moments when I just go. I just rant. It’s a little bit like in. In. In the Incredibles.

[00:29:31] Howard Hartenbaum
Meaning, like, you just can’t take it.

[00:29:32] David Hornik
When the guy’s monologue, he says, I caught you monologuing. Yeah, it’s. I just go, like, okay, we could have this long conversation, or I can just go, no, stop. Like, just stop. And the funny thing is, because people have worked, now work with me, you know? So, for example, Rene Lacert, who I’ve worked with for 15 years, when I do it, he just sort of laughs and he’s like, okay, I get the context. Whereas if I had just joined a board. You can’t do it. I sort of did it actually in one of them, but. And. And it was. And I realized, like, oh, David, you have to earn the right to rant. You know, And I remember doing this my very. I was super excited about this new company. I’d been a VC for a short period of time, and we had the first board meeting, it was at the office.

[00:30:19] Howard Hartenbaum
And I’ve been a VC for, like, 12 years, and.

[00:30:24] David Hornik
And I was hyper. Like, real. I mean, even more hyper than I usually am. And I just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and this and that. And I was totally directing, and it was like. And the board meeting was fine or whatever, but it finished up. And I called the CEO and said, I’m really sorry about that, that it won’t be like that in the future. I was super excited about your company. And I. I just got over. I got. I got overly involved there. And you. And he said, oh, that’s no problem. But you could hear in his voice that he was thinking, oh, thank God. Like, that was horrible. So, yeah, it’s always changing, right?

[00:31:03] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah.

[00:31:04] David Hornik
And it also depends on what’s happening in the board, so that’s kind of fun. So you got to see a bunch of that.

[00:31:10] Lisa Maroney
And then the partner meetings.

[00:31:12] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:31:13] Lisa Maroney
Different styles in the partner meetings. Those you guys see. Yeah, it’s more or less everyone we’re present.

[00:31:19] David Hornik
That doesn’t mean we see.

[00:31:22] Lisa Maroney
But I think what I appreciate most about this place is that everybody has a very distinct personality. And at the partner meeting is where you get to see those personalities interacting with each other. And the beauty, hilarity, sometimes frustration that comes from that. Right. But you can see, especially going around the circle, talking about an investment that’s controversial. You know, how different people have different kind of power zones through which they filter information, and how an investment can look super positive filtered through one power zone versus another.

[00:32:03] David Hornik
Well, you’ve seen a couple of those, actually. It’s been a good summer in that regard. And without being specific about it, we recently have one that’s deeply technical, has a bunch of technical risks, and. And it’s sort of, you know, it’s kind of out there. And you got to see us kind of work through that. And you know that. I think that was an interesting process. You got to see another company that had a very untraditional way of operating. And so you got to see us think. Think through that, which I think is interesting. Right. I mean, you know, because each one. Each company comes with its own interesting challenge.

[00:32:43] Howard Hartenbaum
Every company has that’s interesting as something that’s a good reason to run away.

[00:32:48] David Hornik
Yeah. And sometimes it’s true.

[00:32:51] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah. You find out later.

[00:32:53] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:32:53] Lisa Maroney
Has there ever been a company where it was like a 95 or a hundred and the only thing that was hair was this? It seems too perfect.

[00:33:03] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah, we lost all our money on that one.

[00:33:05] David Hornik
Yeah, we’ve had a couple of those.

[00:33:07] Howard Hartenbaum
Without throwing names out there, but, yeah, we saw the company. We loved it. We love the guy. We all voted strongly for it, and we lost all our money. And there’s a theory that anytime the partners all agree on a deal, you’re going to lose your money. So you’ve got to be a little bit more critical when everybody’s excited.

[00:33:24] David Hornik
And for every rule, then there’s another rule. I mean, that’s the thing.

[00:33:29] Howard Hartenbaum
And I can make them up.

[00:33:30] David Hornik
The venture business is such a ridiculous. No matter how many years and whatever else you kind of get to the end. You and I were having lunch yesterday with two, you know, smart undergrads and this other classmate of mine who said, like, oh, so what? You know, you’ve been at it a long time. You must know you’d be getting better at it and whatever else. And I said no. I just turned down Uber. If I was getting better, I’d say yes to some of these things. But I keep saying no. It’s killing me. Howard, are you playing Pokemon Go over there? Just to be clear, have we bored?

[00:34:11] Howard Hartenbaum
So, Lisa, have you played Pokemon Go?

[00:34:13] Lisa Maroney
I do play Pokemon Go because, I.

[00:34:15] Howard Hartenbaum
Mean, we have kids and we watch them doing it. And the thing I like about it is. So we came back from Japan and kids were. My kids are 18 and 22. I mean, they’re not really kids, they’re adults and jet lagged, but they’re like, I gotta go out for a 10 kilometer walk to hatch some eggs. And I’m like, go. And they come back. I walked 28,000 steps today. It was all because of Pokemon. Like, it’s getting people out there to walk around. And I’m going out for a walk and my older daughter’s going, would you mind taking my phone with me? With you?

[00:34:45] David Hornik
She wants me to go with you.

[00:34:48] Howard Hartenbaum
No, no. But. So we were seeing it from different perspectives. And I was in Japan the day it launched and the day after it launched, and we were in some areas where there was a bunch of people and it was 1 in 15 people was doing is an unbelievable phenomenon. But they weren’t using the augmented reality piece. They were just. They had the map view on and they were just walking around doing it. It wasn’t the ar, wasn’t the piece of it.

[00:35:12] David Hornik
That’s what’s unbelievable.

[00:35:13] Howard Hartenbaum
Because you think it’s ar, but it’s not it.

[00:35:15] Lisa Maroney
I would argue even if you have the AR view disabled, it’s still augmented reality because you’re walking around the physical.

[00:35:22] Howard Hartenbaum
World with the ma. Yeah. Looking for that sign that you got to get near.

[00:35:25] Lisa Maroney
Like a Pikachu somehow existing in that flower pot. Even though it obviously doesn’t.

[00:35:29] Howard Hartenbaum
But people aren’t looking at it through the picture view. At least that’s what I noticed. Very few people, they don’t want to drain the battery.

[00:35:35] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, you got to optimize.

[00:35:36] David Hornik
Yes. My son is not interested in that view. So last night I get home and he reported to me his two Pokemon Go injuries of the day. I said, what do you mean Pokemon Go injuries? He said, well, first I was skateboarding around because I guess as long as you stay under 15 miles an hour or something, it counts. So he was skateboarding around. He said, I’m not. And I got to the point where my legs would crank cramping up. So that was, you know, and then he showed me. So then I was biking because, okay, I got. Whatever. And then I slipped and I ripped apart my ankle on the tire. I’m like, who knew this was so perilous? Like, you got to be a little more careful or less like loserish.

[00:36:21] Howard Hartenbaum
So you’re using it?

[00:36:22] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, yeah. So I’m meeting all the, like three to six year old boys of Menlo park and Palo Alto who seem to be the user base near me. So I was telling David this yesterday. I find it really, like, calming and therapeutic because it’s. It’s totally escapist. You log in. Like, all I want to do is find the next one, use my lure, you know?

[00:36:43] Howard Hartenbaum
Have you done battles and stuff too?

[00:36:45] Lisa Maroney
I have yet to do battles. I think I’m getting. I’m level.

[00:36:48] Howard Hartenbaum
You’re aware of that? Like you get to.

[00:36:49] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:51] David Hornik
Oh, no. We were. So we were in New York.

[00:36:53] Lisa Maroney
Yeah.

[00:36:54] David Hornik
And we went down to the Whitney Museum. I always like to go see art. And Beckett’s like, wait a second, there’s a battle. There’s. What do they call it? A Park gym. He’s like, there’s a gym here? That’s what all these people are doing here. Let me see who I’m gonna take down. And I’m like, art, we’re gonna go see art and I’ll see you. Okay. I’ll catch up with you. I gotta win this gym for my trooper team. Yeah, it’s kind of crazy, but what do you think? Is it going to last or not?

[00:37:22] Howard Hartenbaum
You know, I’m a big believer in that. The only thing that matters with consumer stuff is long term engagement. And all games historically have their ups and downs. And you can make a lot of money working your way through a population. This one is working its way through really fast. So the question is, three weeks from now, are you, Lisa, still playing Pokemon and Go or not? Or have you gone through the thing and you’ve caught 80 of them and you’re bored and you can’t find the next one, or you’re tired of flipping the little. You Know, throwing the pokeballs or whatever. That’s the real question. If. If this thing, people are still doing it three, four weeks later and spending an hour or two hours a day walking around, like, then it’s going to be huge. Yeah.

[00:38:03] David Hornik
Well, I was just. I just heard that there are still the half life of farmville. Think like, oh, farmville is huge. Whatever else, people must are so over it. What? There are still thousands of people who are spending tons of money, 100,000 bucks.

[00:38:19] Howard Hartenbaum
A day in profit in Farmville.

[00:38:21] David Hornik
Right.

[00:38:22] Howard Hartenbaum
But the question is, are those new people who are picking it up now, has it already worked through the population and that’s the tail or not? I don’t know the answer, but Pokemon is moving so fast. It will be interesting to see because it’s working through so quickly.

[00:38:37] David Hornik
So you also made the observation that. That for your daughters, at least they were spending more time on Pokemon than they were on Snapchat.

[00:38:44] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah. I said, what’s giving? Like, you’re spending a few hours a day like, oh, we haven’t been Snapchatting because they’re not big Facebook users. So I said to him, it’s kind of funny to think about, like, the CEO, Snapchat got his whole team together. Zuckerberg got his whole team together. Like, what are we going to do about this menace called Pokemon Go? Our usage is going down. Our revenue is going to. We should buy them for 50 billion. We should take them down. We should build a competitor. They are having those meetings because there’s only so many hours in a day. My kids are a few hours a day on Pokemon Go.

[00:39:15] David Hornik
Yeah. I mean, some of it is, like, defensive and some of it’s offensive. And because remember, remember the Ice Bucket Challenge that ended up raising a ton of money? And every nonprofit similarly was like, well, what do we. We need a nice bucket challenge. Like, of course you need an ice bucket challenge, but it’s too late because it’s already bit. It’s already been a nice bucket challenge. So the interesting thing is, not only are they saying, like, wait a second, we’re losing usage on Snapchat, but they’re also saying, like, okay, so is augmented reality, like, a thing that’s important now? And are we going to build it into messenger? Are we going to build it into Twitter or whatever? Or is this just a game that comes and goes?

[00:39:53] Howard Hartenbaum
I think it’s a hit game. But if. If your kids are doing it a few hours a day for a few weeks, if they stick around, then the guys that they left are hosed. But if they decide they’re sick of Pokemon Go, do they go back to Snapchat or do they look for Snapchat? Or have they lost that kind of pull towards it? Because it’s a passe thing. Because kids are very quick with this.

[00:40:15] David Hornik
But I think the thing about this is why I think this one’s a little weird is that Snapchat’s a messaging platform, right? So my kids use it to communicate with their friends. They so as opposed. So maybe you’re watching fewer Snap stories or sending few. Right? All that stuff. But you’re still going to use it to communicate. Because if you don’t, you better find some other platform. Now, maybe Pokemon Go get smart and builds a messaging platform into the thing and you could literally displays because you’re already on there. So be like, not only can I message you, but I know where you are and hey, I’m here, come find me. By the way, there’s a little Whatever. I don’t.

[00:40:53] Howard Hartenbaum
Yeah, there’s that rare whatever.

[00:40:55] David Hornik
That’s happy. That’s so, so lame.

[00:40:57] Lisa Maroney
A squirtle.

[00:40:58] David Hornik
Beckett has like a million Pikachu. I just gather them.

[00:41:01] Howard Hartenbaum
Wait, she’s got all the news.

[00:41:02] Lisa Maroney
A tentacool, which evolves to a Tentacruel.

[00:41:04] David Hornik
Oh, yeah, I’m sure he’s got that. What level are you?

[00:41:08] Lisa Maroney
11.

[00:41:08] David Hornik
That’s pretty good.

[00:41:09] Lisa Maroney
I’m sure he has me.

[00:41:10] David Hornik
He has you.

[00:41:11] Lisa Maroney
It’s respectable. My only goal was to be Trip and I accomplished that. So yeah, I slowed down after that.

[00:41:17] David Hornik
Trip was pretending like this was something he could do while walking his babies and stuff. Which it sort of is. Right. That’s the other thing. There’s some things you could do in tandem, like driving.

[00:41:29] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, I have done that.

[00:41:31] David Hornik
You have done that.

[00:41:32] Lisa Maroney
I have done that.

[00:41:33] Howard Hartenbaum
You know that texting on your phone is like $150 fine, but driving, hopefully.

[00:41:37] Lisa Maroney
The police don’t find me going, that’s a $300 fine.

[00:41:40] David Hornik
No, then the cop has to pay you.

[00:41:41] Lisa Maroney
Well, the problem is, you know, driving through Google, you’re driving at like 10 miles per hour and there are lots of Pokemon there.

[00:41:47] David Hornik
Alright, this is really not a good idea.

[00:41:49] Lisa Maroney
The other interesting thing about Pokemon Go that we haven’t talked about is from the perspective of a small business who now recognizes that if they put a Pokestop outside of their door, they’re going to get this influx of people chasing Pokemon. If not Pokemon Go will this type of model where there’s an overlay in the world.

[00:42:07] Howard Hartenbaum
In Japan, they launched on day one with a partnership with McDonald’s. All 3,000 McDonald’s in the country where Pokemon stops.

[00:42:15] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:42:15] Howard Hartenbaum
And we got to the airport at Osaka and we saw McDonald’s. My kids ran. They’re like, forget about the bites. We’re going to McDonald’s. They didn’t buy anything, but McDonald’s got them to come up to the.

[00:42:27] Lisa Maroney
Which is crazy because that’s the same behavior that I had as a kid when Monopoly. Right. Drag my mom to McDonald’s because I wanted to get whatever it was. Park place. And now it’s something online. And in this virtual world is having the same behavior.

[00:42:41] David Hornik
But we see this in lots of different dynamics. We have this company pay near Me, and it’s about using cash to pay for online transactions. And they partnered with seven eleven. So you can go and pay cash at seven eleven. And part of the reason seven Eleven was enthusiastic to do it is that you go and you pay your car payment and you pick up a Slurpee or a beer or Snickers or whatever. Right. And so behaviors that drive people in particular. So we were talking about this, I guess yesterday, about the idea of pokey tourism, where you could say, like, okay, if you’re the island of blah and you want to attract more people to come, then you then pay Pokemon.

[00:43:23] Howard Hartenbaum
I’m sorry, what’s it? Niantic. You pay them to get you a custom creature.

[00:43:27] David Hornik
250,000 bucks to create something that’s only available in on, you know, on your island. And they have to take a ferry and suddenly you’ll have. People will stay. Right. Like, they gotta keep. There are only so many. So they have to stick around. Like, digital goods have whatever characteristics you give them. And so if, you know. So you could literally create a character and a set of them and frequency and all of that to optimize for. You’re going to stay here tonight. Which is kind of insane.

[00:43:58] Lisa Maroney
It’s totally insane.

[00:43:59] Howard Hartenbaum
Well, it could be as simple in that model as you can catch it there. But you gotta walk, you know, you gotta walk 10 miles to Hatchet there. And so the door.

[00:44:08] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:44:08] Howard Hartenbaum
Or one mile one day and one mile the next day or something.

[00:44:12] David Hornik
Exactly. It’s like you can hatch it. It must hatch over two days. Right? That’s an easy rule. And it will require one of two behaviors. Staying over or coming back. Those are the only.

[00:44:24] Howard Hartenbaum
Remember that TV commercial they had? It was like for IBM Web Sphere, where they have the startup company and they have the screen and they’re turning on their service and Customer one and they’re like, yeah, like customer two. Like, yay. Three. And it starts going faster and faster. They all get quiet. They’re all scared. You gotta wonder, like, when they launched this game, the CEO of Niantic and his team were sitting around and they’re like, oh, shit.

[00:44:49] David Hornik
For sure. Totally.

[00:44:51] Howard Hartenbaum
Does it launch in Japan with a.

[00:44:52] David Hornik
Twitter fail whale problem?

[00:44:54] Howard Hartenbaum
Total server challenges in Japan.

[00:44:57] Lisa Maroney
Yeah, it was terrible for the first week. It was a miracle that people kept persisting because greater than 50% of the times you logged into the game, it would crash.

[00:45:06] Howard Hartenbaum
So Japan front page news the day it launched, like, they had it all, like, front page newspaper. Like, you walk in the lobby of the hotel and there it is. Pokemon Go lodges today. And my kids are there.

[00:45:16] David Hornik
Yeah, yeah, Yep. No, we sitting at fast. We’re like, oh, we got to get in touch with them so we can help front it. Right? Fastly is a CDN business that can offload a bunch of traffic. We had the traffic. We had the pipe. It’s like, how do we get to Niantic? We can help them.

[00:45:31] Howard Hartenbaum
Did you.

[00:45:32] David Hornik
We did not get to them directly yet. Maybe we did. Are we there? Anyone? Well, Lisa, I appreciate you spending the summer with us. I appreciate that you’ve expressed some enthusiasm for both the profession and August Capital.

[00:45:54] Lisa Maroney
That’s the bar.

[00:45:57] David Hornik
I don’t know what the bar is.

[00:45:58] Lisa Maroney
Charming enough. Some enthusiasm.

[00:46:00] David Hornik
Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:01] Howard Hartenbaum
No, charming enough. Sufficient enthusiasm significantly exceeded expectations.

[00:46:07] Lisa Maroney
Glad I passed.

[00:46:08] David Hornik
You have a career ahead of you of some nature.

[00:46:13] Howard Hartenbaum
Oh, man.

[00:46:14] Lisa Maroney
My mom listening to this is having heart palpitations.

[00:46:16] David Hornik
I hope she is listening to this. We love your daughter because we’re trying.

[00:46:20] Howard Hartenbaum
To break into that segment, the mom segment.

[00:46:25] David Hornik
In all fairness, she’ll be joining my mom listening, who is often like, oh, I enjoyed it. And I thought Howard was funny. I didn’t really understand what you were talking about, but I always enjoyed.

[00:46:34] Howard Hartenbaum
I always enjoyed listening to Howard.

[00:46:38] David Hornik
I always enjoy listening to Howard, you know, tell his daughter, blah. I always get this feed. I get the feedback loop. So please pass on your mother’s feedback. We would appreciate that. What’s your mom’s name?

[00:46:47] Lisa Maroney
Marianne.

[00:46:48] David Hornik
All right, Marianne, we very much would appreciate any feedback you have.

[00:46:53] Howard Hartenbaum
Shout out to Marianne.

[00:46:55] David Hornik
Yeah, that’s right. We used to do that, right? We used to have a shout out, shout out, end of the show.

[00:47:01] Howard Hartenbaum
I think we should shout out to Ben Narrison because I threw him up.

[00:47:04] David Hornik
Yeah, man. To Marianne and Benaress in. Thank you so much for listening. This has been venturecast. I’m David Hornik from August Capital.

[00:47:14] Howard Hartenbaum
Howard Hardenbaum, also from August Capital, and.

[00:47:16] Lisa Maroney
Lisa Maroney, also from August Capital for the foreseeable future.

[00:47:21] David Hornik
Thanks.