Beyond Success: Gagan Biyani’s Inner Journey Building Udemy, Sprig, and Maven

Hello and welcome to the Heart of Entrepreneurship podcast, where we explore building a startup from a place of love and inspiration and presence. I'm here with a very special guest, the extraordinary entrepreneur Gagan Biani. Gagan has founded Udemy as well as Sprig, which supplied lunch for my last startup, uh, every day for years. So I'm very grateful. And more recently Maven, one of the leading cohort-based learning platforms, and many, many other things that we'll get into. But truly, I think an extraordinary entrepreneur. And one thing I just want to say to kick off, you know, having had the chance to spend some real quality time with you last year is—

was that earlier this year?

Gosh, earlier this year. I, well, first of all, I love you., and I really, really appreciate you for your mix of brilliance and heart. Like, people talk a lot about this, like, oh, head and heart. And I just see like a depth in you in both dimensions. So just wanna let you know how much I appreciate you for that.

Thank you, Dave. Well, um, I had a really special time with you, as you know, and, um, I love that you've dedicated your life to giving your gift, uh, to others and I really felt that presence. So happy to be here.

Yeah. And just, just people are wondering context. We, we did a retreat in Sun Valley for about 4 days, uh, about a dozen founders that Gagan participated in last January. Um, so let's just start, maybe just share a little bit about your journey. Um, like what do you want, what do you want, you know, people listening to know about your journey? You know, maybe not just what we could read on LinkedIn, but some of the more interesting aspects that you think have really shaped how you've evolved as a founder over the years?

Yeah, um, you know, I, I grew up in a middle-class family in the Bay Area, but I knew nothing about startups or business and didn't know you could become an entrepreneur. As classic Indian kid, you know, doctor, lawyer, or engineer, um, is what the expectation was. And I think that Over the course of my teenage years, my parents had— they split up and we had a bunch of financial difficulty. And it really fueled me to think about money and business as a motivation for, you know, to drive me forward. And so I think that I very much started to become entrepreneurial at that same time. I started my first business when I was like, you know, 12 or 13 years old. And I, um, and, and I think—

what was that?

Uh, it was a speech and debate camp. Um, so kind of a friend approached me and said, hey, we should run a camp together. We ran it together, and then it became this big thing. It became, um, you know, 150+ students in a summer. By our 4th or 5th summer, we were doing like I don't know, $50 grand or something in revenue. I don't, I really don't remember.

At 13 years old?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Well, but were you as nerdy as that sounds, or did you just figure out how to tap into that kind of, uh, need in the community?

Uh, I missed the question.

I said, were you as nerdy as that sounds, or did you just figure out— yeah, okay.

I was nerdy, but I lived in a—

I was pretty nerdy, but I didn't— speech and debate feels like a whole nother level. I know Jesse did it too. So there's, there's some correlation maybe there of success.

It's, it's by far the number one activity you can put your kid into if you want them to be, you know, happy and successful because it teaches public speaking. It teaches thinking, which is probably the number one thing it teaches is just logical thinking. It also teaches philosophy as well as it's competitive. So it has honestly like a ton of benefits. And I really am grateful I had that. I wasn't as good a debater as I was a teacher and a business person. So I basically started the education business and realized that amongst my peers, we were the number one debate team in the country my sophomore year and my senior year, and completely bootstrapped. We were like the only team without a coach, without a formal coach. Didn't pay for anything. And we basically made, made, used the camp to fund the program. And yeah, I was, I think worth noting, like I was both a great business person and also like a terrible manager, you know, had fights with my team members, which candidly like still happens to this day, but, but was, was less mature about it back then. So I always had this sort of duality for me of like, okay, like people like working with me, like most people really enjoy working with me, but every once in a while there's like a personality conflict and I just like, like can't deal. And so something we might talk about, but basically from there I went to college and I just like slowly over high school and college became very disaffected by the education system. And really wanted to change it and felt like universities act like they have this elitism. This is in 2005, you know, so remember back then people weren't— it wasn't mainstream to say universities suck. Like, like most people assume that getting an MBA was the number one most valuable thing you could do if you were going into business. And I did not feel that way. In fact, I had extreme disdain for the education system. I thought it was really bad. I thought that, um, Berkeley was way underpowered relative to its potential, which is where I went to school. And, um, and so I came out thinking, man, I really want to change this, but I had no idea how. And I eventually found my way into entrepreneurship. It took me a year and a half to figure out that it was an opportunity This is back when no one knew that you could start an app and make a million bucks. No one knew you could start a startup. Like the vast, vast majority of people thought that that was, you know, didn't believe that was a career trajectory. Now we're in like 2009, 2010. And eventually I discovered TechCrunch and started reading and, and sort of looking into this and realized, whoa, there are actually— there's a micro cosm of people who are— microcosm is not the perfect word, but there's a small group of people for which they are making a career out of building tech companies. And I didn't know that was possible. Once I figured that out, I was all in. And so I ended up meeting the co-founders of Udemy, building that company. And then I had kind of a chaotic exit where my co-founder and I split split up and he basically fired me. Went through a year of, of sort of figuring out what's next and then came up with the idea for Sprig. Started Sprig, grew really fast. Eventually, like, it totally collapsed and shut it down. Then took 3 years off and then started Maven, which also went through like a 1 to 2 year period of like a total rise and collapse. And then I had to sort of re— we had to restart the company almost with some of the same principles, but just slight edits to the business model and to the customer segment we were targeting. And now it feels like Maven's like on a healthy trajectory and we're quite proud of what we deliver. So that's sort of my entrepreneurial journey.

And if I can, you had a co-founder at Maven I've had two.

Um, one has left and one I'm still, uh, working with, and we have a, you know, 5-year relationship now.

So you've had a number of experiences of having, having, being a co-founder and then having you or a co-founder leave. So that might be something to explore.

And basically every company that I've been involved with and almost every company I've ever heard of has a co-founder departure. So it's actually like, I cannot think of a company that I know of that doesn't have a co-founder who was really early, who eventually left, and then that person usually gets erased from history. So no one knows about them, but they exist. And then usually if you have 2 to 3 co-founders, you know, I've almost never seen a company where all 3 last to the end, if you will, like to the exit or to the IPO or whatever. That also isn't very common.

It's interesting. It doesn't get talked about a lot, maybe to your point of like the second or third co-founder gets erased in history. But it's, I notice it's, as you're saying it, I'm like, oh yeah, I can think of a lot of examples like that. And it's not a commonly, you know, discussed thing in Silicon Valley and startup communities. Um, and which, you know, I think if you are, if you are a co-founder and you're parting ways with another co-founder or thinking about it, it really is not normalized. So it can feel like, oh my God, what's wrong with me that like, I can't make this work with my co-founders. So I'm just appreciating normalizing it a bit that like, it's almost like, you know, almost maybe more intense than a marriage in some ways. Plus there has to be all these other layers of alignment beyond just like the romantic and sort of life alignment of like how you want to do business and your goals and all that. So it makes sense to me that the odds of you choosing somebody for whom that alignment is totally on and stays on as things evolve are low. And, you know, given that 50% of marriages end in divorce, it's not shocking that co-founder marriages often do too. But it's interesting how I don't hear that talked about a lot. Um, yeah, there's so many threads I want to pull on. Go ahead.

Just to pull on that for a second, I mean, I would say normalizing any sort of churn within a company is really important. I mean, you know, it's very common as a first-time founder, uh, especially if you're the type who's listening to a podcast called Heart of Entrepreneurship, for you to feel like bad every time someone leaves. And, and everyone does. Like, I feel bad every single time anyone leaves. Like, That's just whether they leave voluntarily or whether I have to let them go, you know, it sucks. But I would also say like it's sort of the norm, right? Like, like of early teams, you know, first 10 employees, like 5 years in, the chances that you have more than 20% of that team is pretty low. Um, and you know, at Maven, we have roughly 50% of that team, uh, about 5 years in. And, you know, we're lucky and we put, you know, I've grown a lot. And so I kind of am better at, you know, both identifying people and also retaining them if they're the right fit. But I'd still say that means 50% of our early team is gone. And actually, if you like, look at old offsite pictures of Maven, you know, half the people are gone, like, and it's, it's normal. Um, so that's probably a broader way of saying not just co-founders, it's, it's anyone you work with. Like, you know, executive coaches, same thing. Like, you know, the number of executive coach relationships that last forever, very, very few, probably less than 20, 10%. I don't know, something like that.

Yeah. And then you end up doing a podcast together. Exactly. Um, so I, I love this point too, cuz I do, you know, work with a lot of founders who, especially the first person they let go, but even the, you know, the 10th or 100th, there's this incredible amount of fear and tension and guilt really. This is something I work with founders a lot on, you know, this notion of like the hero move, the like, oh, I feel bad letting them go. I want to sort of save them from that pain. And I think it's a really, I think it's really important one to recognize if somebody is not a good fit for your team, it's actually a lose-lose. Like you're really not doing them a favor by keeping them. I see you nodding. So it's, you agree. You're not doing them a favor by keeping them. One, like in all these subtle ways, they will get the message that you don't think they're awesome. And that has a huge effect on their experience and psychology. And two, if they're not in a role where they're thriving, right? If they were thriving, you wouldn't be wanting to let them go. So they're clearly not in a role where they're thriving and letting them go find a role where they can thrive is, is, I don't wanna go so far, like it's a gift, like let's not be empathic and recognize that it is a really scary, sometimes sad, frustrating experience to be let go. So, you know, as a human, we can empathize with that. And as, can be a real big blow to our ego. You know, it's like, oh, I thought I was good. I've never had a setback in my life and now I'm fired. Um, it can be really scary. And, you know, I know so many people for whom it was the best thing that ever happened to them. And I think it's, it's easy to just see that, see it as bad. And you even said like, you always feel bad. And I, if I was coaching, I'd, I would invite you to discern, cuz we use that language a lot. Like, oh, I feel bad. Like what you really mean is, I feel sad, most likely guilty, and maybe guilty, sad and guilty and embarrassed, probably words that I would bring in.

I mean, for me, when I end up letting someone go, in part, it's, you know, the end of what was originally a very exciting relationship, because hiring someone is very positive feeling. And I'm usually really optimistic when I, when someone comes on the team. And so I'm usually a little bit embarrassed about the fact that I was wrong. Usually by the time someone's being let go, I also have already done things that are embarrassing because generally speaking, when someone's let go, I usually let them go a little late. And I'm usually already telling them that they aren't doing a good job in ways that are not the nicest way to do that. And for what it's worth, I think like my way tends to result in like chaos fast, but luckily that also means that I let go of people fast. There's also like the alternate personality type that has no chaos but lingers for, you know, months and years. And you— what you don't realize in that situation is, yeah, there was no conflict, but also subconsciously there was a lot of damage being done.

Yes.

To, you know, if there was a lack of confidence in the relationship and you were sort of not giving that person their full opportunity to do what they wanted. So either way, you know, I think that when a departure occurs, yeah, sadness, embarrassment, frustration, you know, guilt. Yeah.

And so who wants to feel all those things, right? So You know, that's, I think, the trap that a lot of founders fall into is like, I don't want to feel that. So then they avoid it. And then, you know, like you said, I've, it's probably the most cliché and also true line that I've heard from founders, which is like, I always wish I had done it sooner. I have literally never met a founder who's like, oh God, I wish I'd waited a little longer to let go of that person. Literally never. And so every time, at least I've seen it, once they let the person go, first of all, the stories they made up about the bad things that might happen, especially with senior people. Oh my God, if I let go of my head of sales or head of engineering, you know, like that could be catastrophic and the company will burn down and, you know, we won't be able to raise money, all these things. And then in many cases, I see the literal opposite happen. Be curious if you have examples like that., where like team members step up in surprising ways. The, like, you know, the, the culture sort of uplifts because there was a way that that person, because they weren't a fit, were kind of, you know, anchoring down the culture or the team. Um, so I think your earlier point, like churn is normal and it's a part of the experience, um, is important both if you're a team member. That you don't make it mean too much about you, right? Like startups are an evolving creature and you might have been a perfect fit for year 1 or year 0 to 2, and it's no longer a fit. It doesn't mean you're a bad human, that you're not valuable and valid. It just may no longer be a fit. And then, you know, for founders and leaders, um, I, you know, there's this, there's this kind of meme, um, that I learned in, in Joe Hudson's masterclass around called Enjoy Over Manage, and he makes this point that like, if you think about your best team members, best employees, they don't actually require that much management. Like, it's a pretty— is that— I don't know if that's your experience. Be curious to hear.

Yeah, I agree. I agree with that entirely. In fact, my best team members manage me.

Uh-huh. Right. So if you're spending a lot of time managing people, it probably means you don't have enough churn, right? You're like, I just see this pattern a lot of like, oh, but aren't I supposed to coach them into their greatness? And aren't I supposed to like, you know, manage them well? And if I was just managing them better, you know, what Joe says he does when he hires, he asks someone like, what's your dream job? And then if their dream job is the job, then he hires them and, you know, tries to really help them, you know, discern what actually is their dream job and is that true. And the point there is just, I think most founders tolerate a lack of alignment that's like way, um, larger than optimal for everybody. And, and, you know, I had a professor, um, in business school where I wasted, uh, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Court McGaughan, um, who said that like the best in the world are like baseball players. They get it right maybe 2 out of 3 times, you know, you know, in terms of batting average. Um, and so what's that?

But batting average, 1 out of 3.

What is it? 1 out of 3? Yeah. Yeah. See, I'm, I, you can see I don't know anything about baseball either.

300 is an, is 300 is an outstanding batting average.

Okay. Perfect. Even makes the point.

If you have an over .300 batting average for a long period of time. Like, it's really outstanding. And I don't know that much about basketball, baseball, but I know enough to know that that's true. And so like 1 in 3. So baseball is actually a very interesting analogy for that reason.

Yeah. So if you start with that premise that getting it right 1 out of 3 times is winning, there's a lot less self-judgment. And, you know, it's interesting you use the word embarrassment and guilt. Um, I was funny, like I, you know, I just made a mistake, right? So I said 2 out of 3. It was, it was actually 1 out of 3. Um, I can feel a little bit of like a twinge of embarrassment and, um, I just, yeah, it's an, like, just as a coaching moment for you, uh, I would, there's a general theme I would say of welcome the feeling, question the story. So if I was coaching on that, um, and supporting you to have a more, um, you know, preferred experience around letting people go. I would welcome the feeling of embarrassment because feelings just are, but I would question the story that like you did something wrong. And actually that, right, there's like an embarrassment, like I screwed up in some way and that's bad. And so I would, you know, given that what we just said, you know, you got, if you're, You still have 50% of your people, maybe you're, you know, you're, you're Hall of Fame territory. Um, so I would just invite you to question the story that like, oh, that, that's bad. Like that, that, um, you could feel the embarrassment if that's what you feel, but that like, I ought to be embarrassed because I made a mistake in hiring. Um, and then guilt requires a story that you did something wrong, more in the sense of like ethically and. Um, again, welcome the guilt as a feeling, and I would invite you to question that story that you did— you're doing something wrong in letting someone go, because you might be letting them go find their next amazing, you know, career or boss.

Yeah, I think a lot of that resonates with me. I think that, you know, the, the resistance I have internally to hear— hearing that is, well, you know, on some level recognizing that I might have made a mistake at the beginning where I hired the wrong person, or that I might have made a mistake along the way and how I manage them or what expectations I set for them. Also, my story is that it helps me do better next time. It sort of provides a drive. And one of the big challenges, like, just to take this very macro that I've had over my career, is like I told you the story about how I started, like I started to put food on the table for my family, particularly long-term economic stability, you know, and I've now delivered that. Like my family doesn't have economic challenges anymore.

And congratulations.

Thank you. It's a huge relief. It's a big deal every day. Not every day, but like every month or two, you recognize this and you think to yourself, like, like, pinch me. You know, but you feel grateful. Very grateful. Like, yeah, very like, and, and, you know, even, even my brother has done that for himself as well. So between the two of us, it's like really fun to watch us both like, and now our partners are also like very, very successful. So it's like as we've grown the family, like we're very— and none of us, none of the four, you know, my brother, his partner, me, my partner, like none of us came from that kind of stability. So it is a, it is a big deal. And so going to this next, bringing this back, it's like there is this feeling of, well, when I started my career, I was entirely motivated by like fixing wrongs and sort of like, like, like pain-driven motivation, right? Like on some level. And it's been actually quite challenging, like quite challenging. Like I would say it's been like it hasn't been nearly as emotionally challenging as being pain-driven. So it was way better. But from an intellectual or even a growth perspective, it's been as challenging. Like I haven't figured out how to get out of pain-driven motivation. And this example is a great example of, you know, when I let someone go, I almost want to feel bad about it because it forces me to reflect. And improve. That's my story. So I'm curious what you would say to that story, how you would navigate that.

Yeah, there's a lot in there. Let's unpack it. I know, just first, let me just scratch this curiosity itch because it just keeps coming into my mind, if that's okay. So you're a kid, you're experiencing financial instability, you know, our parents are struggling and You say to yourself, I want, I want financial stability. And somehow you go from that to, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. Not the most obvious way I could see, like, oh, I'm going to be a doctor. I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be an accountant. Um, I just, I noticed, I'm just really curious to like, how does that happen in your mind that entrepreneur is the thing? Because you said you weren't, you know, you weren't in and of Silicon Valley growing up. How did that occur to you as the thing that was the path for you to economic stability?

I don't think that when I started it, I— there's a difference in the conscious and the subconscious, right? So retrospectively, subconsciously, I was very driven to deliver financial stability for my family and it, you know, drove me significantly. However, on a conscious level, I wasn't thinking about that. And my mom did a very good job of not— of, even though there was a lot of pressure and I kind of knew it, like I was paying rent to my mother, you know, even when I was a fresh grad right out of college, like, you know, even though there was the pressure, my mom I think did a very good job. And, and maybe I also somehow knew to take the gift of, okay, but like don't put that pressure on you like on a daily basis. So I wasn't as conscious of it. So it was like, so why did I eventually start a company? You know, well, I thought I was more about control over stability, over financial stability, than it was, and betting on myself, than it was necessarily like the guarantee of financial stability. And I think these are very, very different. So somehow I don't have a good explanation today on it. Maybe we could, you know, if we spent the whole podcast, I'm sure we get to it. But like somehow my way of thinking about, you know, financial success was more actually on the control aspect of it than it was on the stability aspect of it. So what entrepreneurship gave me was this feeling that if I did a good job, I would succeed and I would be rewarded and allow myself to free myself of the shackles of, you know, to bring it back to the education system of other people's judgment of how good I was. You know, that was, I think, how I wanted to deliver financial stability for myself. I wanted to do it without feeling reliant upon others. And one of the challenges with doctor, lawyer, engineer is, you know, as long as you're not— I mean, even in entrepreneurship, you're relying on other people. You eventually realize that. But like, it is one of the most independent forms of success. You can do it more your own way than anything else. And, you know, I was, I was, I was constantly frustrated that I thought I was way better than what my, like, society was giving me credit for throughout So my frustrations with high school and college were basically that I was being like pressed down, that I thought I was better than the rankings I was getting in the colleges I was getting, I was getting from my teachers. And so that is actually— that combined with financial concerns led to this. Not solely, I would say I was not actually very top of mind thinking about money.

Got it. Sounds like you wanted something that was more pure meritocracy, like, uh, my actual talent leads to the result. And, you know, yeah, if you're an engineer or one of these, you could, you can be fired, versus an entrepreneur, in theory, you control your own, your own destiny. And then you're at Udemy and you get fired.

Yeah.

How was that for you, given everything you just said? And how was that experience? What'd you learn?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I was like 23, so I was, you know, that's crazy. Like, I started the company at 21. I was maybe 23, 24 when I got fired. So I was still just insanely young and immature. And so, um, it was a— it was actually a— at that time, it was a reinforcing mechanism of, okay, well, I need to be in full control, not in part. And, and I want to double down on control. Um, and, you know, I, I will say that I think it's actually beautiful to have, uh, that feeling, as well as it does cause challenges. Because as we all know, uh, the story of Sprigg ends up being trying to have full control and then eventually, like, just completely losing anyways.

Um, but, uh, and those two things were directly related?

Like, I think so, yeah. I mean, I mean, well, you know, no, yes and no. I mean, they're directly related. So I took full control, like I own 55% of, or 45%, but I was, I was basically like, we had 4 co-founders and I took the majority of the of the equity at Sprig.

And, you know, which for those who don't know, was a hot meal delivery service. Is that—

Yeah, it was, it was basically like one of the first ghost kitchens. We had a central kitchen in San Francisco and we delivered hot food that was healthy and the menu changed daily in 15 to 20 minutes for $15 to $20.

Yeah, it was awesome as a consumer of it. I mean, as I mentioned, you know, I I fed myself and my team in my startup, and it was— I loved this service. So, okay. And then, yeah, so you want— so you had 55%, you wanted control.

So I, and I, I made decisions, you know, consistent decisions to sort of like— I, I was working at Lyft. I didn't— I, I liked Lyft, but I, I didn't try to double down on appeasing the Lyft founders and sort of building my career around them, even though that company was— I, I knew, you know, it was probably worth less than $100 million when I was there, and I knew it was going to become big. I thought it would have been bigger than what it is. But of course, as we all know, the story was a little more rocky towards the latter period of that company's history. But the point being that I chose to go out on my own. I remember my first investor, my Series A investor, not the seed investor of Sprig, So my second investor, he, you know, once made this comment to me. He was doing diligence on me, did a ton of diligence, talked to my co-founder at Udemy. And, you know, his eventual conclusion that he told— I asked him like, why did you get comfortable with investing in me after hearing about this story of Udemy? He's like, what I learned was you had to be CEO. And You know, the beauty in that is I think he was right. I think that for me to be truly successful and sort of achieve my best version of myself, it was always going to be sort of charting my own path and being in control of that destiny. And I think that I feel it is unlikely at this point in my life that that will ever change. Like, I feel—

is that what happened at Udemy? Was there clash with like, yeah, our struggle wanting to have decision authority and control.

I mean, I think that, that is— there are multiple stories of how you could describe the Udemy, um, situation, but one of the big ones was that Aaron, who I'm now very close with, um, and talk to quite regularly, mentor of mine, um, but Aaron was CEO. It— he, he was very much deserving to be CEO, there was no question. But as the company started to evolve and grow, I started to wonder if it made more sense eventually for me to be CEO because there were certain parts of the job, the CEO job, that I was clearly better at. I think even to this day he would say I'm better at even now, even though he's learned all these skills now. But like, like what? Just managing investors, operating a P&L, like more from a financial standpoint, not from a product standpoint. Not from a vision standpoint, you know, managing a marketing team. And, you know, marketplaces are just very driven by, by supply and demand more so than products. So the, the, the company was basically like needed to be very good at marketing and sales. And so I, you know, go-to-market, I would say I was better at he was a much more stable leader. He was a better manager. He still is to this day. He's a more— he's more— he's more of a visionary. He takes way bigger risks. I'm a little bit more balanced and measured. He's a little bit more shoot-by-the-hip crazy, but also like in a good way, right? Like does things that no one would expect. And that can be really magnificent. And so we have very polar styles that would have actually blossomed well. I think the other challenge we had is, as, you know, founders, we just simply couldn't raise money from the best people. And as a result, we didn't have good mentors or coaches or anyone to help us navigate this relationship. And I will always wonder, you know, if we had different VCs or if we had different, you know, if we had coaches or whatever, would we have been able to work it out? Because we did eventually build a very positive relationship. You know, many years later we reconnected. And so, yeah, I think so. That's all to say that the lesson for me of Udemy and Sprig was a real focus on control in a world where, yes, you do have more micro control, but your macro control is still very low. I think, you know, startups, I think in entrepreneurship you have a lot of macro and micro control because if your goal is just to make half a million to a few million dollars a year, and Jesse's going to hate me for this, but like, sorry, it's just easy. Like, it, it, like, for me at least, like, that's, that's easy. Like, and the level of—

it's relatively easy, we could say, relative, of course, tens or hundreds of millions and a billion dollar business.

Yes. Yeah, it's completely different. And what that means when I say easy, what I mean is it is solely in your control. You can, in any business, no matter what business or market you enter, you can build a multi-million dollar business in that. If you want to sell Q-tips, you can do it. If you want to build— you can build a multi-million dollar business in freaking Q-tips. You can, you know, you can build a multi-million dollar business in, you know, car sales, in restaurants, like whatever it is, it is doable and you cannot blame the macro environment at all. Um, once you get into hundreds of millions or billions, um, of revenue and your goal is to go from zero to that over, you know, 5, 10, 20 years, um, the macro risks are really high. Um, and you have to predict the future and ride waves that you— that are impossible for anyone to know, because if they were possible, then VCs would be more accurate, right? But even the best VCs bat like a baseball player at .300. And that's, that's unheard of. Like, that's—

but the good news is their Grand Slam home runs are worth 1,000, you know, 1,000 runs versus just, you know, 4. Go on. You want to finish?

Yeah. So, you know, typical VC, if they bat 10%, they're killing it, right? Because it's better than zero. As long as you're better than zero as a VC, you're pretty much doing well. And so in startup land, you do have a lot of macro risk and there's just no way around it. There's very— there's, there's, there's not a startup out there that has the potential to get to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars that doesn't have macro risk, especially on a 10-year horizon. And as a result, you kind of have to accept that when you start a startup.

Yeah, there's this really simple exercise I learned from the Conscious Leadership Group. That I love called Sorting the Files. And the idea is you have two, two, you know, manila file folders, um, for those who remember what those are. Um, and, uh, one file folder is entitled Things I Can Control, and the other file folder is entitled Things I Can't Control. And the real issue with control is confusing which things go in which folder, right? Because I see so many, especially founders, try to control things that they can't control. Even with firing people, like how the person's gonna feel, right? I had a conversation this morning with a client who's like trying to figure out, you know, what to say to get the person to feel the thing they want them to feel, right? That's an example of trying to control something that's not in your control versus just speaking your truth and they'll have the experience they have. And similarly, or, you know, letting someone go and letting them have their experience. They might be sad, they might be angry, they might be scared, you know, and not trying to control that. Or like you're saying, like these macro, you know, environment tariffs, governmental things, you know, there's, you know, and we could, we could maybe just call it luck at some level, right? It's just the humility to recognize there's a certain, well, we could just say there are, there's things that are within your control and things that are not. By the way, the other things that are not in your control are like, um, your thoughts, what people think of you, what people say about you, what people— other people feel, um, even to some degree your own feelings. So a lot of energy is wasted trying to control things that you actually can't control. And I'm saying that to the audience, and I'm saying that to you, Gagan, that like, I, I'd be curious you know, for you to kind of do that audit of like, okay, where am I trying to control things that I actually can't control? And that's where you tend to get into trouble. Um, I'm still a little curious how the, like, you see the needing to control leading to Sprig not working. And I want to leave time to go into this, this, the heart of the matter here around motivating yourself from pain. And, um, what I think I might have heard you say that I might perceive as like the chip on your shoulder of trying to prove something and how that served you and how, you know, kind of this question of what if you didn't have that and would you still be motivated and how, how do you do that?

Yeah, well, I, I don't have it today, so, so that I, I, I don't—

nothing to prove.

Uh, I mean, to say that there's nothing to prove would be a, a would be an exaggeration, but, but we are very, very much in a, um, polar opposite level of needing to prove things.

Amazing. How'd you do that?

Well, I proved it. I don't know. Uh, one way.

Okay.

No, I don't think it's just that. I don't think it's just that. I think, I think that with Sprague, I was confronted with the reality that there is quite a bit of luck. Well, I have to make sense of it one of two ways. Like, I could make sense of it like I made the wrong decision and chose the wrong market. I think that's true and I think that's right. But I can also confront it like, you know, what market you end up picking is kind of random. And, you know, having now met a lot of the most successful founders out there, you know, and having interacted with, you know, people who have made billions of dollars as founders who have started iconic companies, and then I myself having done, you know, a significant order of magnitude less than that, but still having real success. And then there are people who have done an order of magnitude less than me. And, and comparing and contrasting, I, I have very, very significant trouble believing that there's a difference. In intelligence and capability of, say, the Google founders. I'll go that extreme, you know, and the founders of Lyft, you know, like, you know, you know, I've met— I've not met the Google founders too much, you know, I don't know them, but, but I'm just giving an example everyone can relate to and also not trying to subtweet someone that I know. So, so it's better to just name a random person. It's like the talent level at a certain point is not the defining factor and your decision-making is not the defining factor of your success, especially in such a high-variance business. Like, is Jeff Bezos the smartest? Well, let's not say what is he today. Today he might be the smartest businessperson on the planet. That's very possible. But in, you know, his— I think he started Amazon probably in his early 30s, if I remember correctly. Like, it was after a career on Wall Street. So late 20s, early 30s, whatever, when he started Amazon, was he— if you, you just like compared his— like if you had a, if you had a—

was he a billion times smarter than—

yeah, you know, not even a billion. Like was he even, was he even 2 times smarter than, than, than, than like someone else who started another company that didn't work out? Let's say Daisy Systems or Sun Microsystems or whatever that didn't get to the same thing. So even 2 times smarter, like, like he wasn't— like I wouldn't even be surprised if the variance there is so low that it's imperceptible. To a, like, like it's imperceptible. Like Jeff Bezos could have been 20% dumber and still had the same outcome. And it wouldn't, you wouldn't be able to, like, you wouldn't be able to predict it. There'd be no correlative, you know, in my, my science, my, the, the science is in my brain. The math is all in my brain, but I'm not able to articulate it with scientific terminology. But like, there is not as much of a correlation there. And what does that mean? You know, what does that mean for me? Well, for me, what that means is that, like, my life has taken me on this path. I am an N of 1. As I go through life, I make decisions that fit me really well.

Yeah.

And I cannot assume that that is going to lead to X, Y, or Z levels of success, like, compared to others. But I can assume, and I do assume, that because I know that I'm sufficiently talented and I'm doing a good job and I'm doing my best, like I will get what I— what I will get something that will be sufficient for me. And, you know, that I think is kind of the lesson that you have to come to at some point. And am I 100% there? No, I still compare myself to all my friends who, you know, I have friends who run a billion-dollar company and are worth, you know, 10x more than me. And they got to do it, you know, from 0 to 1, like 0 to 100. I went 0 to 5. I didn't get 5 to 100. And that is a chip on my shoulder a little bit. But I think I also am just like, yeah, that's kind of what happened. And like, you know, I still mostly for the vast majority of my time think of myself as just like a really happy person today and not very driven by this comparison or self, even self-comparison of how good am I. Hmm. Yeah.

And one of the things you're pointing to is we're just human and the human mind tends to compare and notice it doesn't tend to compare to all the billions of people who are quote worse off than us. It just compares to the few people we can find that are quote better off. Um, also really appreciating your comment on timing. You know, my last startup was a meeting software company that we sold to Cisco in 2016. And almost sold to Zoom actually in 2016. And had we started 2, 3 years later, like I think it would've been a really, really different outcome. And, you know, certainly didn't know COVID was coming. So timing really does matter. And I think if there's a, there's probably several takeaways, but if there's a core takeaway that I would want entrepreneurs listening, it's that you make it mean so much more about you than it actually means. Like you make it so personal and it's, it's not that personal to your point. Like whether you end up Larry, Sergey, Jeff Bezos, Elon, Sam, you know, like, or something else is, is not truly a reflection of how valuable you are as a human. I mean, not at all. I believe all humans are equally valuable. And so that mistake of equating your value to the value of your company is a, I think is a major trap. Um, so, and I think part of, you know, the idea of Heart of Entrepreneurship is, is to shift away from that because that trap I think is one of the things that creates attachment, creates fear, creates— and maybe we can use this as a segue to this, this conversation around— creates this feeling of pain, this heaviness, this stress. And, um, I do think most founders are driven by what you, what you're calling pain or some sense of lack or fear for, for a long time. What you, for you, I think felt like scarcity and lack and a need to, I, you know, both prove something, but also achieve some sense of safety that you didn't feel. And it's interesting to me that you have achieved that level of economic you know, you have enough money now that you don't feel financially insecure. And it sounds like you've, I'm curious, like how, how, how safe you actually feel. 'Cause there's a, I guess a story I have that money doesn't actually give you that safety that many people discover once they get money, that feeling of safety. So I'm curious if that's your experience, but you know, when I asked you what, what had you no longer have a chip on your shoulder, Part of your answer was that you proved, you proved it. So yeah, curious a little bit about your experience because I think, you know, part of it was the, the failure and facing that failure of Sprig, my guess was also a formative experience in your growth. So yeah, maybe just talk a little bit about how you feel like you've grown as a human being through these different, you know, startup journeys. And then let's get specifically into how you're still motivating yourself from pain and how you might shift that.

Yeah, I mean, uh, so let's disambiguate like proving it from burden of proof, um, for a moment. So, you know, if you looked at my burden of proof that I had for myself in my 20s, probably mid to late 20s, like in my early 20s, honestly, like if you had told me that I would accomplish what we did with Udemy, even with the, you know, leaving Udemy and everything else, I just would have been like, oh my God, you like— so actually, if you look at my 21-year-old self or anyone prior to like really 25, 26, like, you know, I would say my burden of proof was so low. Like, it was just like, yeah, I have a successful business. Like, great. I made $1 million. You know, that's— that would have been great, um, for most of that time. Maybe your eyes get slightly bigger as you get closer to it. So, but then I think around SPRAKE time, which I was 24 when I started SPRAKE, but, um, 25, 26 is when it really came into focus, I'd say, you know, my burden of proof astronomically increased, right?

I, I got—

I got—

you raised the bar.

Yeah, raised the bar a lot. You know, like I was like, you know, I'm going to have started $2 billion companies by the time I'm 30. I'm going to be one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, like blah, blah, blah, like, and I'm going to do it by 30, you know? And, you know, what was important to you about that? You know, just proving that I was good. I think, I think actually, like the, the underlying sort of story going on here is like feeling like I had to prove to somebody that I was good and feeling like in most of my childhood, and I was getting external signals mostly from adults and the system, that I was like good but not great, you know, basically. And like, I guess more accurate than good is like I wanted to prove that I was great. And so, and I was very frustrated by, by by the fact that I was being told I was good but not great. And, and that, um, you know, and so I wanted to prove that, I think. And then with Sprague and the departure from Sprague, you know, where I really think that my burden of proof completely changed was not during or even immediately after, but it, you know, I took 3 years off after, which is—

before you go there, do you remember how you felt when it was clear like Sprig is failing? Total relief. Interesting.

Well, well, well, when I first— when it is failing, when you first start to get it, like complete dread for about a year and a half, like debilitating levels of dread, like could not— sometimes could not go to the office, like, you know, like, was— I mean, we were laying off people. Like, we had over 1,500— we had 1,300 employees at our peak payroll, 2-week payroll period. So, and we let go of all of them over the course of a year and a half. So like, it was just constant firefighting and, and dread and, and shame, employment and shame and, and fear and, um, you know, all sorts of things. Once we decided to shut it down complete immediate relief. And I never felt that dread again. Like, I don't think it ever came back, really. Like, I— it just immediately was relief. And, and so it was after that relief, I then was like, holy shit, like, I'm a millionaire and I'm completely free. Like, that control conversation, right, is like actually what you realize when you start a company, especially when you raise money from investors, you have employees.

You have— you have more bosses than anybody in—

more bosses than anybody. Exactly.

And you have no bosses. I, I like the reframe of clients. Like, you have a lot of clients to serve, which I think is a better frame. But I get, I get how it can feel like I have all these bosses.

Yeah, I mean, you know, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Like, it's true. Like, it is fucking stressful. Like, you are dealing with everybody's problems. Anytime someone gets in a disagreement with another person, someone cheats on someone, like I worked in a kitchen, remember? So these things actually happen. Like someone commits sexual harassment, you know, someone gets hurt literally. Like we had someone who, who was— had permanent life, you know, injuries. Someone commits suicide. Like all of these things, they all come back. Like you are obviously not solely responsible for any of these things at all, but like people lean their stress on you in those moments., and you have to take it. And of course, like, the ideal world is not to take it, let it flow past you, you know, um, using your, you know, tai chi sort of system. But like, the reality is, like, people do it to you, and you will eventually have some absorption of it. And so it's a lot of stress. And, and so when I was finally free of that— and, and by the way, the pressure, the outside pressure of the company succeeding or failing, and You knowing it was failing, but everyone else think it's succeeding. So hero, and you feel like a fraud and, you know, all that. So you then go and you spend, you know, I spent 3 years, I was just completely free and it was insane. Like the most blissful time of my entire life. Like, I mean, being married is close, you know, like I would say like I'm actually really, really free being like in a happy marriage. But, but I will say that that even still you cannot compare the two. Like, they just have different values. Um, completely free in the world, financially secure, um, and going out there and just like doing whatever I want for many years. And I realized I was so happy doing nothing, like nothing basically, that I could not possibly be solely defined by how— but the burden of proof could no longer be like— it just didn't make sense. Like, how could it possibly be like becoming a billionaire? Because I'm like, you know, I, I had this meeting with Brian Chesky. I'm sure he won't care that I say this because he probably doesn't even remember. But like, I had this meeting with Brian Chesky in person at his office in Airbnb. It was the only meeting I took and the only visit I made to the States in roughly like 9 months after I left, you know, for travels, I flew back to meet with Brian Chesky only to recruit me for a role at Airbnb. And I was very— and I met him and I was— I told him what I was doing, you know, like that I was traveling the world and I was playing, staying in places for a month and blah, blah. And he was like, and I think this was genuine. He was like, if it weren't for Airbnb, I'd be doing exactly that. And I was like, wow. I mean, that is a guy I was comparing myself to. That is a guy who I thought for a long time, I thought I'm as good as him. I've met people who work for him. I've seen what he does on the field. I know, I know. I've seen him throw the ball. Like I've seen what he's doing. I still to this day would tell you that there is very little difference, not just between me and Brian, but between lots of entrepreneurs, like, like, like 100,000 entrepreneurs and Brian. Like, I think he's amazing. I think who he's become is probably different than what I am today because his experiences are different. And, and so that, that's hard to compete with. But, but at that time, like, I think there was a lot of similarities between him and all all the other people who are starting marketplaces, he happened to pick travel. Anyway, so even if you compare, you know, Brian to like 100,000 other people who tried to start, or maybe it's 10,000, I don't know the number, but like, you know, he ended up starting Airbnb. He has now learned things that no one else has. And that's just reality. And who he is today is like, in a certain way, not in every way actually, is the, is the lesson here. But in a certain way, he has learned things that, like, you know, I can never do at my company. I don't have that instinct and lessons, etc. But I got something different. And the thing I got that I have met very few people— I've met a few people in the world who've had the joy of the experience that I've had, where I've been able to prove myself for myself in a career way and then also gone and had like, years of just like play and joy and exploration, like a true sabbatical in sort of the, the, you know, the, the ancient sense of that word. Um, and I got to really enjoy myself and find who I was and, and found, you know, my now wife while, while traveling. And so my burden of proof changed. And my burden of proof, you know, I did not lose the desire to keep building. I did not lose the desire to prove myself. You can hear hear it in the way that I'm comparing even to this day. But I started to have a perspective shift that there are many versions of comparison. And, you know, a Naval quote really reminds me of this that I love. It's like, he's like, I think he's re-quoting someone else, but it's like, if you're envious of someone, think of it like you have to trade their entire life for your life. Like in this case, it's like, would I give up my wife to be CEO of Airbnb? Like, absolutely not. Like, like there's, there's not a question in my life. Now if I could bring my wife with me, like yes, but like would I—

you can't just take the one slice of their life that you, you're, you know, envious of and leave all the rest and all the rest.

Exactly. So I think that is something that I really have taken with me. So the burnout-proof change. And I— and the chip on my shoulder really, really subsided.

And what's the burden of proof now?

I don't know. Is there a burden of proof? I mean, honestly, like, I don't know. Like, maybe it's— there is still things like that I desire and want, but I don't think they come from proving myself. I don't feel— I don't know.

I think it's an illusion. That's— it was a It was a leading question. I was hoping you'd say that. Um, yeah, I don't think there is any burden of proof. And what— proving what to whom? Like, what do we mean by that, right? I think that we're inherently and born worthy, and the rest is just what we choose to do. And I think you made this point several times in several different ways around authenticity. That is really important because, you know, I've said to a bunch of founders, you know, okay, you're trying to figure out like What did Sam Altman do? What did Brian Chesky do? Or what would, you know, Larry and Sergey do? It's like, well, what if what they did was be unapologetically themselves? Right. And so I see this pattern a lot of, of trying to emulate these other people who have the results that you want. And I think we get overly attached to your point of the results because we make them mean something about who we are and trying to prove something. Versus really just following your authentic truth, your authentic desires and wants. And I believe, and you kind of said this earlier, that leads you to whatever you're here to learn and experience rather than some idea you have of what you're supposed to be learning and experience, which probably came from someone else or some need to prove something by some external standard. So I love that. It seems like that's part of what's been your own insight is Oh, I have these desires. And you don't need to feel a sense of lack or need to prove something to follow your desire. Like, I just, I love to ski, so I ski. You love to start companies, so you start companies. Like, and that's, you know, when we talk about the heart of entrepreneurship, right? That is, that's like coming from love. Like, what if you could just do it because you love to do it? And I hear, and we have a few more mentally. I hear that there's still some way that you're motivating yourself from pain. So tell me a little bit more about that and what you'd like to experience instead.

Um, you know, honestly, I, I don't totally know. I just know it's there. Like, it's sort of like this thing where it, it still feels like I'm still try— like, it's, it's, it's almost like a— it's like a Have you ever done— you've done, um, EMR, right? Um, electro— what is it? The, the— what's that called?

EMDR, the thing with the EMDR. I have not. I don't think I've actually done it, but I know what it is.

EMDR is really interesting. Um, it's like you, uh, bring up memories in a coaching session or a therapy session, and you use, um, this stimu— bilateral stimulation is the way that I did it. They, you know, basically like you can do any sort of version of it. But for me, it was buzzers in my hands. And you essentially try to process and relegate the memories that are really driving you, the negative ones especially, into sort of a more foggy, distant past, kind of like the way when you wake up from a dream, you know, you, you have very few bits and pieces. Of a dream that you remember, and then days later it's like, oh yeah, I had that dream and it has a thing and blah blah blah, like, but you don't really know anything about— you can't describe it at all. It's a feeling, but you can't describe it. I would say that's where I'm at with the burden of proof thing. Like, there is a subconscious, it's not even a thought there, of course, but I also feel like I'm— I definitely feel like I'm mostly acting without it. So I am at the point where like most of my macro decisions, like if I look at my macro decision to start Maven, if I look at my macro decision to, you know, get involved in Oakland politics, which I'm very involved in, if I look at my macro decision to not be an investor, um, you know, where I used— I was an investor for a little while, um, I, I look at even my decision to become an investor for a little while where I was investing in startups. I think those were not really defined by a feeling of pain. Um, they were defined mostly by feeling of play, curiosity, maybe confusion, but not pain. Uh, and like, what do I— what else do I do? A little bit of boredom, probably. Like, maybe that's some of the pain, is boredom. Now some of the pain is like, oh, I don't want to be bored, so I gotta do something.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking earlier, you took 3 years off you know, there, there's this quote, most of man's struggles comes from his inability to sit quietly alone in a room. And you were traveling the world, you weren't sitting quietly alone, but I, I know a lot of founders have tried to take time off, thought, oh, that's, oh, that'd be such a relief. But they really struggle. How, like, how did you, I don't know, do you have a sense of like what, how did that work for you that you were able to be without the identity of, uh, you know, entrepreneur and.

Well, I did throw myself into my own personal mission during that time period. Right. So I think it's worth noting that, that I had training wheels. I wasn't literally like, I am going to try and sit alone in a room tomorrow after having spent, you know, 10 years throwing myself against a wall every day trying to build a company. Like, I think that's not the story. The story was I, you know, I made it easier on myself by giving myself a sort of micro personal mission, which was to really become, to build a broad-based understanding of modern human society is what I would call it. I know it sounds really stupid, but like what I mean by that is like I literally took like a map of the world and I said there's all these different people all over the world, like groups of people, you know, Africans as a category or Indians as a category or East Asians as a category. And I was like, I just kind of want to get to know all these people, like as, as, as, as, as societies, not as individuals, because there's 9 billion people. Impossible. But as societies, I wanted to get to know them. And so I like took a map literally and like pointed out areas I thought would be good hotspots. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go explore all these areas. And I said, over the time, I— this happened. And so there was a personal mission, you know, and some people might have a personal mission to like sail around the world and learn sailing, or they might have a personal mission to go and like you know, climb the top 10 peaks, right? Like, first of all, she didn't sit quietly and alone in a room.

You had a mission. It was just— it was another pursuit.

It was another pursuit, but it did force me to sit quietly alone in a room. Say again? I would not say— so, so as an example, I know Andrew Warner is going to eventually listen to this, and like, I will just give my two cents on, on what I think what I feel. It's me reflecting back. Andrew once was like, yeah, I did something similar. I went and ran a marathon on all 7 continents. Like, I will just say that I think that there is a, like, relative difference between the amount of quiet you can find doing one or the other. And the path that I chose allowed me to find quiet and not— and by the way, if he had done that over the course of a year, doing a marathon on every continent, he would absolutely find quiet.

And what did you discover in the quiet?

I just discovered myself, like my, my, my own unique expression of myself, and like discovered that I was really happy with it. I was really proud of where I'd gotten to in my life, like as a human. Like, it just, like, you know, one of the things I did is like I wouldn't tell people what my career was. I, I kept my career private and really did not answer questions about it. So people would ask me, What did you do? Whatever. Luckily in foreign countries, it's less common to ask that when traveling. But, you know, people would ask me, I just wouldn't answer the question. I'd say, oh, I did marketing in tech. That's basically what I did. And like, I would never tell them that I was a founder. I would not tell them the name of the company, etc. And so I forced myself to show up however I was at that moment, that day. Like, you know, if I show up and meet someone, like they're experiencing who I am at that moment, they have no baggage whatsoever. And I realized I really liked that. I like that.

You learn to love yourself without the identity of success or money or, you know.

Yeah. And honestly, without any real identity.

Yeah. Without any identity. Beautiful.

People barely knew my name, right? They barely knew where I was from, like what ethnicity. They didn't know anything.

Just right now, this human being right here.

Yeah. We're like beautiful. You know, sitting and talking about like the, the, the play where, you know, the, the sort of people on the street, and we're just talking about nonsense basically. Like, do I like myself in that moment? I found that I did.

I'm so glad that you had that experience. Um, so the thing I want to say to you about the, this like echo of pain, which is kind of what I'm hearing, um there's this— I'll paraphrase a little bit— expression I heard recently, which is, your unfelt feelings are keeping your unwanted patterns in place. And, um, I did hear you say, maybe I'm running away from boredom. And that's partly why I asked about, like, were you sitting quietly, you know, alone in a room? Um, boredom is actually a form of anger. A lot of people don't, don't connect that. Regardless, my sense is, um, if you go toward the boredom and welcome and feel the boredom, um, you might gain some freedom in that. And more generally, I would really look like, to me, where true freedom lies is in welcoming all feelings. Guilt, shame, embarrassment, dread, uh, anger, sadness. So I would get— I don't know if you have a sense— I'd get curious, which are the feelings you tend to— because most of us have like, oh, these are the good ones, these are the bad ones, these are positive, these are negative. We learned, you know. Do you have a sense of, are there any particular feelings that you tend to judge or avoid or suppress?

Uh, probably still more gratitude and sort of like warm feelings, I would say, is part of it. Like, I still stay in my head when things are great.

Like, yeah, by the way, that's, that's eerily common that, you know, people think that we, we mostly resist the quote-unquote negative feelings and important quote-unquote the ones we perceive as negative— anger, sadness, fear. Most people actually resist joy aliveness, uh, gratitude even more. It's like this upper limit we have. And so that might be as powerful a journey for you as anything. It's just like, it's like, okay, you might default to what feels more like a reminiscent of painful feelings, um, in, in just resisting the joy. And really, I think what causes pain is resistance. So any feeling resisted feels painful. That same feeling not resisted doesn't. So I wonder how much of the pain is just resisted joy, and what would happen if you really practiced celebrating, um, in those moments where you notice going into your mind to distract yourself. Go back into your body and see how much you'd be willing to feel the effervescence, the the joy, the— do you have a sense of what you're scared of? Like, what if you just fully welcomed all the joy and gratitude and excitement?

Um, I have a sense. We have gotten to the point of the conversation that is for a private coaching session and not a public one. I hope that the, uh, public session was sufficiently enlightening for anyone listening.

Perfect. Well, yeah, I think that's a good— let's have that conversation if you're open to it. Sure. And, um, I think it's a good— it's a good leave for a lot of, you know, folks listening. You may actually be resisting joy and aliveness, and then, um, the symptoms of that feel like common symptoms— being in your head, blah, blah, blah— and most people don't realize that's actually what's occurring. So that's a good reflection. If I might, uh, be very self-indulgent, um, you attended this 4-day retreat that we did in January. Um, you were really generous and gracious and sort of providing some glowing commentary. I guess what I want to ask just to, as we close here is, um, like there's a lot of founders, especially ones who've been really successful or, or, you know, identify as like super smart. Think they don't need these kind of things, don't need to do the, the inner work. Like, if you could share, if you'd be willing to share, what was it for you that was so powerful that had you choose to come and be glad that you did to this 4-day retreat?

Well, on the inner work part first, I just say, like, you know, I heard this the other day. I was like, 4 of the top 10 tech founders of all time, like, by, by like net worth, like, attend Burning Man regularly, like, had to happen for like 20, 30 years. Like, personally think I can have my own opinions about Burning Man today. But, you know, if you've been going for 20 to 30 years, you've done a lot of self-reflection and a lot of personal growth. It's impossible not to in that environment. And so I'd say like, it's actually like I don't know many. There are some. There is a set of investors and founders who do not ascribe to the personal growth mantra, but the vast, vast majority do. So I would just say like it's pretty universal. And the reason in my mind is that like eventually you realize that everything you're dealing with, whether it's a strategic challenge of where to take the company, or it's a personnel challenge of having like consistently bad like COOs that you hire, or whether it's like dealing with a partner who doesn't want to partner with you, but you're frustrated and you're dealing with it. Like all of these challenges can be improved through inner game work. So like the more you understand yourself, the more you can regulate your emotions, the more you can make decisions from a, you know, without lack, as you say, and sort of some of the language that you use, like the more you can do that, the better you're gonna perform and the happier you'll be. And so in my mind, you know, the reason I went from, you know, whatever, 20% retention, you know, 5-year retention of my team at Udemy or at Sprig, to like 50+% at Maven. You know, the reason why I'd say like Maven is, is probably I think it has a chance to be the most stable and successful company of the three. You know, it's still too early to say for sure, but it has the chance. And the reason why I'm enjoying myself so much more this time than I did in previous times, I think all of those are because I have invested in personal growth And it's not always— it's not a direct thing. You do the personal growth, you're not going to feel better the next week. You know, you just sort of invest in it loosely over a very long period of time. It's like practicing a sport. Like, you know, I play soccer and I practice, I practice, I practice. And very often the week I have a great practice, I don't have a great game. Or the week I have a great game, I come back to practice and I screw it up. But now I've been doing this like practice game rotation for 3 years now. And like, if you compare myself 3 years later to where I was when I started, it is, is unrecognizable growth. And I no longer— my dips today in my game don't come anywhere close to where my game was when I started. And I think that same thing is true for entrepreneurship and the way you practice. Is you go and you spend, I don't know, $10,000 to $20,000 a year roughly, you know, and obviously it scales up as you get more successful. $10,000 to $20,000 a year and like 4 to 10 days worth of accumulated effort per year, every year into just bettering yourself. And if you do that like over the course of a long period of time, time, like, you will see a night and day difference between how you show up and what your outcomes are across the board. It doesn't give you that much of a better chance at product-market fit, but it does give you a much better chance at execution and strategy success.

Uh, I'm— I wholeheartedly agree, but I'm obviously quite biased. I appreciate you sharing your perspective on that, that the Your outer results are a reflection of your inner, inner world. Uh, well, again, I want to be mindful of time. I know we've run over a little what we said, so thank you for being so generous with your time and being vulnerable. And, um, is there anything else you want to leave the audience with that you'd feel remiss if you didn't say? Okay, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure.