Dave founded his company right after 9/11, when his MIT friend Danny Lewin died in the attacks. Vestmark, a platform valued at $8 trillion, acquired his $2 trillion company. The host notes that Airbnb and Uber also launched during crises, arguing downturns are when entrepreneurs should push forward.
And Vestmark's an $8 trillion platform acquiring Dave's company, Vestmark, which is a $2 trillion platform. I mean, just a, a normal, a normal Tuesday morning.
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a fun journey too because we started the company right after 9/11. I, not many people remember, but at the time there wasn't a lot of confidence in America. And, you know, in hindsight it turned out to be one of the best times in history to be investing in America, you know, buying back in. But after 9/11, uh, you know, Danny Lewin, the founder of Akamai, who is a friend from MIT, died on one of the planes. Uh, one of my high school classmates was in one of the buildings. New York, Tech as a whole was just absolutely in the, the worst depression you could imagine. It's just a great testament to an Amer— American spirit to, one, for the team to come together and form a company in that moment was, was pretty epic. A lot of our MIT friends and frat brothers were part of that founding, and they're gonna do really, really well in this transaction. So it's just heartwarming. The enthusiasm and reinvestment and belief in the country is, is just so heartwarming to see.
Dave, you said something really, really important about the timing, right, of starting this just after 9/11. And again, you look at what happened in the financial crisis in 2008, some of the greatest companies came out of that, from Airbnb and Uber. Again, to the entrepreneurs out there, when shit officially hits the fan, rather than moping and hiding, the question is, how do you build? How do you make things better? The phoenix rising out of the ashes of situations like that.
Yeah, you know, the, the, the country always goes through these panic cycles, and I think one's coming up related to AI. And they're, they're always unfounded in hindsight. And the worst thing you can do is freeze up. And so this is gonna be one of those moments. So maybe I can tell this story a few more times, you know, and, uh, and inspire people to like, Do not hide right now. This is the time to be building, creating, running like hell.
