Coatue Management Matt Mazzeo’s path into VC and his philosophy on being helpful

Hey everyone, welcome to This Much I Know, the Seedcamp podcast, and today's guest is a good friend, Matt Mazzeo, general partner at Kutu Management. Matt, show us that mug. Let's get a good—

that is what we're gonna do, some mind-blowing concepts today. This is what we're working on. Carlos, how are you, man?

Man, I'm super excited to finally get this shot and to be able to like pick your brain on a couple of ideas and themes.

Yeah, let's get it.

So to kick things off, I think it's useful for people to know a little bit about what it means to be a general partner at Coatue Management, what the organization does and where you fit into it. Just give us the lay of the land.

All right, let's rip. Um, so I'm a general partner at Coatue. I've been here about 2 and a half years. Part of my job, uh, most of my job is investing into early stage companies. So Coatue's been around for 20 years. We started as a hedge fund About a decade ago, we started investing into private markets with a growth fund. We're now on our fourth of those. In about 2.5 years, I joined to help us build out a venture fund and recruited a bunch of friends and team, and then we raised about $700 million to invest from the seed stage to the Series B, which is where I spend the bulk of my time. I invest primarily in the sort of like consumer and then consumer fintech and consumer enterprise businesses. I can go deep into each one of those, but really the job is the same thing I've been doing for more than a decade, which is like, finding early-stage companies that I like to work on, finding people that I like to work with, and giving them both capital, resources, relationships, and sort of getting hands dirty to do it. And, you know, now that I'm in Coatue, it's kind of a different level of it as well, you know. The resources that you can bring when you're investing from the very beginning of a company all the way into like every subsequent round into the post-public ecosystem And the, you know, the platform that the firm has built over the last 20 years is, uh, is just a different level of resource than I've ever had at my disposal to go and do it. So it's been exciting.

That's great. Well, you know, we'll be learning a little bit more about what you're looking at in a second, but one of the things that I've— I mentioned to you before we started that I like to do is to get to know the person is to talk about early days. Angel, um, talk about your the moment right after you graduated, what you studied, and what your first job was like. What was that process?

Yeah, happy to. So, I was basically a psych and ec guy in college. So, I graduated Harvard 2005, and I came out of college, everyone else had a plan, a really strict, like people had a defined destination. They were going banking or consulting, they were going law and medicine, and they really had it nailed down and I didn't. I frankly, like, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I got back to LA, slept on my mom's couch, and I started talking to a few friends and they all said, "Hey, you know, have you ever thought about being a talent agent?" Like mentors who knew me and the only frame of reference I had on that was like, you know, kind of salesy people and they were, you know, I kind of got insulted by it, but I decided to go and like learn about what it was and I realized that it kind of fit my personality perfectly. Of like going out, finding people that you wanted to work with and helping them build a career. And so, you know, I talked to a couple friends and one said, "Hey, you should go to CAA." And that's where I started. So I ended up being, you know, a couple weeks out of graduating and I was lucky enough to land a job working for the guy who ran the film finance department at CAA. And I was an assistant to an assistant. And eventually I found my way to an agent there who was developing this entirely new line of business called business development at CA, which then meant like starting entirely new divisions of the company. So, you know, within a couple weeks of graduating, I'm working for this guy named Michael Yanover, and I started, you know, basically helping CA develop into all these other categories.

It was awesome. So this is fascinating, 'cause we were talking about how we're both friends with Yanover, and I was referencing that I had watched a couple of YouTube interviews of you earlier where you were, Talking a little bit about the lessons you learned from him on how to ask questions and how to support and how to give advice to founders. Maybe if you're looking back in those days and you have to summarize the top 3 things that Jan overtaught you, and I'll send this to him and be like, look, what are the top 3 things you learned about how to engage with people to be able to really add value there for anybody who's listening to this who's either an angel investor or a seed investor who's engaging with founders, and for founders to also have an expectation of what value-add means.

Yeah, I think what was interesting, and one of the things that I learned from Michael was like, he asked questions in a way that got to two sort of truths. It was like, he asked questions to understand, like he got really to like what you— he wanted to know what you were working on and sort of like had a framework for how to ask questions to get to the meat of it. Like I'd never seen in my life somebody who would like, understand a business or an idea faster. And the reason is just he'd seen so many over his years that like he would come in and like within it felt like a few minutes he could dissect a business. It didn't matter where the business was in media entertainment, like that's where he was focused, you know, because he had had jobs in film and TV and music and video games and all, and, you know, uh, and digital businesses. And certainly having an understanding for the questions to ask to get to the meat of what a business was driven by was really important. And then the other side was equally important, was understanding, you know, how to get to the heart of the person and like what mattered to them and what drove them. And asking both of those questions in tandem. And some, what I find is in venture, often people can really laser in on this first one. Like there's a desire to like really get to the heart of the company and you kind of miss the entire other part of it, which is getting to the person on the other side of the table. And so what was unique is he never started a conversation around like, you know, tell me what you're working on. That was it. That was never the start. It was always like, how did you get here? Like, understand the person first. You know, it's funny, um, there was a moment in time between, uh, between Lowercase and Coatue where I was thinking of starting my own fund, calling it Backstory Capital, because largely it was built around this idea that, like— and I got it from Michael— was, uh, understanding someone's backstory is crucial, um, and what, what pieces brought them to where they are is, is kind of like, uh, is the magic of doing this job too. And so He would ask these questions and by the end of the conversation there was a third thing that he would get. So if the number one was like, you know, the person, number two is the business and the meat of it, and number three was how he could help. And, you know, he wouldn't do it in this like VC value-add way. It was never, you know, it was never like, what can I do to add value? That was never the conversation. Frankly, this was like a CAA truth. Like these three things, like understanding the person, understanding, you know, the career, and then understanding the last, which was like how you could make an impact. This was something that I got from everybody at CAA, which was like, you would find it. It was like panning for gold. You would, in the midst of the conversation, you'd be sitting there sifting for, you know, what you could do to make an impact on that person's life, and then you would do it. You wouldn't ask for help. You wouldn't ask for something like, you wouldn't like, you know, ask them what you could do to add value. It was like an active listening process through the entire conversation, and once you found it, you knew it. And it was like, I watched the agents at the company, I watched the best people in business do this consistently. There was one of the guys who ran the firm, Richard Lovett, was probably the best I'd ever seen at this. And at some point he would write down something in his notebook and I would ask him like, what did you write down? He's like, he would write down the thing that would be most important in his purview that he could do to help that person in their career. And then he would deliver on it, unsolicited, unasked. It was like a surprise. It was like a gift that he could do for that person. And forever it was like a reminder of like, uh, wow, that person really cared about me. And if you can nail those three things in a conversation, you've nailed it. Um, and kind of— it's kind of how I run every conversation that I'm in now.

And how— I mean, like, the reason why I think it's become a meme of VCs saying, how can I add value, is partially because some of them probably are very cynical about it, if not entirely just saying it as a matter of course. How do you see in a world where every investor is trying to get a head up on somebody else, that it doesn't just start losing its value? Where did this meme come from? It must have a ground truth to it.

Yeah, that's the problem with it is I think the meme came from really great intent, like venture ecosystem, the tech ecosystem. One of the things that this part of the world has that I haven't seen in many other places is a willingness to help. Like, you can go out there and get advice and support, and like, you can ask questions in a way that like the entertainment industry never would have shared. Like, you know, when you go to another founder, when you go to a VC and you sit down, you finally get the time to like ask questions, or you just go on like Quora or Twitter, there's a reason why those platforms are so active among this community. And the reason is because people are actually willing to go out like I can list my, I can't even count the number of mentors I've got in tech who I've never met. I've just read everything they've ever written. You know, Fred Wilson, when I got started, you know, I hadn't met him yet. I read everything that Fred had. Bill Gurley, before I met Bill, everything that he wrote, you know. It just goes on and on. Like, there's this, there is a willingness to help in this ecosystem. Where it gets memefied is like when it's transactional, where people are like, I helped you, and really the quid pro quo of it. That's where it gets, you know, particularly gross. But like, the idea that you can go out and get helped in this ecosystem is not something I'll ever knock. And it's like, if you approach the world like that, if you approach the world where I'm just going to help, you build incredible reputation. It comes back to you like a thousandfold. It's like the greatest hack in the universe is like this compounding help. And you just delete— like, if you just go in with that intention in life compounding support and compounding help is like the greatest investment you can make in yourself. Because eventually, at some point, you know, you remember the people, and at some point the world is small enough that those collisions happen again, and you have somebody that like you help again and you deliver back to. And like, if you treat the world multi-turn like that, you start to realize that it's like a really beautiful place to be. And it's like I don't know, it took— I was lucky enough that I remember at every turn in my life, like, the people that, like, helped me get where I am today. I have a weird memory for it, of, like, the individuals along this path of my life, and I was fortunate at different turns in my life to have people come and, like, help me and support me and rescue me when I needed rescuing, and, like, you know, and mentor me, and, you know, You eventually pay it back, but it's sad that it's become a meme because I think the heart of it is golden.

Do you think that as the ecosystem has been evolving, and as deals have gotten more competitive with time because there's more funds, do you feel like that meme has taken more value? Do you think that the increased competitiveness is helping founders? And if you're a founder, let's say, based in Europe, is the Valley the next best place to go raise just because of the hypercompetitiveness, people trying to outdo each other? Or would you say that there's no correlation there?

Oh, I think it's been a benefit for everybody. I think having more capital in market means more founders have access to capital. It means that the industry has been sort of like become by sort of forced to become more transparent. It has been forced to like, we moved from like Sand Hill Road and like you gotta have an address and you've had all these platforms like Y Combinator sort of like, totally open and clearly a lot of work left to do on that path, but having more competition, more dollars at work has been better, net better for founders, no question.

How has that evolved over time? Has it now been that the role of the typical investor has now fractured into maybe facilitating checks alongside angels who are now leading the charge for seed stage? How has that shifted now? What's a typical, say, pre-seed, seed, Series A round look like today versus a couple years ago in terms of who's leading it, what they're doing for the company?

Yeah, I think that's actually one of— I mean, this is like constantly evolving. I think the only truth there is, you know, whatever I say today is gonna be outdated in a few months, candidly. Like, yeah, and I look at it more like a blend from like every stage. There is no one path anymore. Like, you don't need to go and lock in your lead to go get your fundraising done. There's like a thousand options available to you. You can go to AngelList, you can go to an incubator, you can go to an accelerator, you can go to a seed fund, you can go to a Series A fund. Like, the, the, the blend of, like, fundraising options available to a company, whereas it used to be maybe like, I have to go and pitch this to the 20 funds on Sand Hill Road— like, that day is totally blown apart, right? Like, there is no singular path, and there's a lot of ways to win, you know, if you're, if you're trying to, like, fundraise for a company. Those options are like wildly more accessible today. Again, a ton of work that needs to be done on it, but having more optionality there has been net beneficial for founders, I think. Um, the challenge is, is like, for those who haven't— who are— who, um, you know, with that optionality comes less clarity on the right path. And like, you know, um, and I've seen more and more people step into sort of mines along the way because they fundraise in ways that are a little bit more exotic, and with that increases the risk associated with a different fundraising environment, or a different fundraising—

Give me an example of what you mean by exotic. What's exotic today?

Oh, like you raised a series of notes, like you raised a bunch of different SAFE notes along the way at different price points, and in some cases, what you've done an exceptional job of is minimizing dilution because you've been able to migrate the price point up at every SAFE. The problem that you might incur is like, you don't realize as you migrate each SAFE that like, you haven't converted yet. And so when you do go and raise your first equity round, you converted all at once and you're blown away by how much dilution you've taken. And it's like, you know, sometimes that like exoticism like is beneficial 'cause you were able to get the business to where it is. Sometimes it's, you know, it's a net negative because you might not be as sophisticated as, you know, the VC on the other side of the table. And so you might be taking on unknown dilution or unknown challenges along the way, but that's like one example of 100, right? Like sometimes you take on too much dilution early. Sometimes, you know, you bring in, I don't know, there's a bunch, you bring in a strategic maybe too early or in the wrong moment in time and you like complicate fundraising narratives down the line. And so, you know, I think one of the benefits of having more optionality is you have a lot more flavors to choose from. The downside is that like, it becomes harder to understand what the market perception will be one turn, two turns down the line.

Yeah. Well, that's a good transition point to bring it back to your transition from CA to Lowercase, because Lowercase is such an institution and such a great brand in the region. It was interesting to see how you made that leap. I'd be curious to hear how you made that leap and what What was the drive behind it?

Yeah, the story goes, I was like, I was the only person at CAA kind of like really focused on this ecosystem of like, you know, they kind of let me go run wild. So I got an office in San Francisco, you know, CAA was really about film, television, music. For those who don't know, we had about half of the talent in the ecosystem on our platform. And that meant we were representing them in film, television, music, sports, licensing, endorsements, like, you know, all the different areas that you could imagine for a career. For artists like Will Smith and Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise and Spielberg and Oprah and a whole bunch of different categories of talent. And my role was helping them figure out all things startup and digital. So literally I got to like, I went up a couple days a week, I was, you know, covering, you know, VC firms and tech companies and startups the same way that my colleagues covered studios, networks, sports teams, leagues, and brands. I got to go cover tech and it was awesome, the most fun you could possibly have in your 20s. And I was out there like when Netflix or when Amazon or Tencent was like, how do we partner with talent? I was basically the person. If you were an early stage startup, which one day, that meant you were YouTube, right? When Steve and Chad came down to LA and they were like, how do we partner with talent? They were meeting with Michael and I, and that was like, we were the front lines for all the talent of the agency. So if you wanted to learn about that ecosystem, tech and entertainment, it was just a weird moment in time to be able to learn it like hyper speed. And I was the one covering all things like, you know, Y Combinator and South by Southwest. And I got to, in the process of that, I got to know a bunch of the early people who were actually building in this ecosystem and who like, for who LA and entertainment and media was like interesting, but like super far off, not like core to what they were working on. And I just like loved the gooey middle between those two worlds. And then my friend who was like, you know, basically, working with Eric Schmidt at Google, Saka, you know, he started angel investing. He was like, you know, doing, you know, the first sort of like super angel-y fund where he was raising a little bit of capital and he was like, hey, Matt, you should really join me. We should do this together. You're basically a VC, you just don't have a fund. You know, you're helping all these companies succeed, you're helping build partnerships, you're even starting companies like where you're raising money for things like Funny or Die and Houssein and others. Like, you should really just do this with me and let's run at it. I'm like, listen, I have, I have the most fun job you could possibly imagine, CA, and I love the people. Like, I thought I was gonna like retire in a suit, like that was it for me. And then I don't know if you've ever met Chris, but he's like a very compelling human. And so when he wants to, when he wants to sell, he can generally sell. Um, and so he sold me. I like the, the vision of Lowercase and the two of us running after companies and early-stage investing. And like, it was It's a compelling vision. And it was some of the most fun times I've ever had in my life.

What was the biggest few lessons? I'll give you an example of one of the lessons that I learned. I used to be an engineer, and when I transitioned into investing, probably the biggest mistake I made early days was to fall in love with the idea because you like the solution and you like what they were working on, but it was not the right team to make it happen. And I had to learn that lesson the hard way. What was it like for you in those years, early years with SACCA, the lessons that you had learned to some extent at CAA, but that in practice within a fund no longer made sense or needed adaptation?

Practice with a fund needed adaptation. I think there's, I mean, it's hard to count like the life lessons. Like it was a totally new world, right? And, you know, I think I learned, I don't even know where to start. I'll just start riffing and you tell me when to shut up. How about that? I learned how to evolve the questions that I was asking and how to like lead a narrative. I learned how to storytell. I learned how to go and sit down with a founder and narrate the business of that founder's life or, you know, of what they were going after and put it into language that sometimes the founders didn't even have yet. And because you have this like 30,000-foot view that I would watch Chris go into a scene with a founder and like he would come out with like the screenplay of the company. He would be able to write the narrative often better than the founder had before and like— that was really valuable to a lot of people. Like, he had a saying like, "Stories beat spreadsheets every time," and the reason is because, you know, he could tell a narrative for a founder and a product and a market and opportunity with such clarity that it would often inform how that founder then raised from the rest of the funds and other partners. And it was because we sat in this weird middle between like funds and employees and multiple companies that we had a narrative for for opportunities in a way that others didn't when they were sort of heads down. I think that's one thing I learned. I think I learned a lot about conviction early and just finding people who were boldly humble and had a superpower and how to spot that superpower. And I'd always had that, you know, because that's kind of what CA teaches you is like, identify the outlier's superpower and then back the truck up into that. Like, when you find those people in life, hold them close and like, you know, do whatever it takes to help them in the process. Like, find the things that they're weak on and like go all in and like do the work with them. And like, Chris was just better at that than almost anybody, right? He would like, he would find the person, find the idea, and then he would like double down, triple down when he had conviction. There was no hesitation in, in that. And like I think there's a feeling when— when in this industry, one of the challenges is like, when you find something you believe, there's a— there's a— there's a— there's an interest in convincing people that you're right. There's a natural temptation to stop feeling like an idiot and like show the world that you believe this thing to be true and convince them that it is— that it is true. And it is like, the challenge of venture is, you know, one of the men— one of the challenges of venture is like You have to hold this state of conviction into things that are unproven, where you look like an idiot for a long period of time. The goal is to have that period of time feel not as long, because it's an uncomfortable place to be. The best investors hold that conviction irrespective of whether the world sees it yet. Not only that, they double down into it before it's obvious to the rest of the world. They are willing to feel like idiots for a long period of time. Because they paid a price that was too expensive, because the market was bigger than the world expected, because that willingness to be ridiculed is actually the goodness. It's like, it's when you're holding something that is valuable potentially that other people don't see. And some people just don't give a shit about it. Chris in particular doesn't give a shit if the other world doesn't believe him yet. And like, the idea that he would like try to pitch people on an idea was anathema to him. If he was pitching an idea, he should just be investing in it more heavily himself. So that's what he did. Like, Twitter, you know, he doubled down, tripled down every step of that company, tried to buy more of that company when it was not obvious to everyone else, and he ended up making a lot of money in the process doing it. And I think that feeling of like, you know, I should stop trying to convince other people that I'm right, I should just back the truck up when I feel that— that is a— that is that feeling is a big idea. And when you can like really feel comfortable doing it and back the truck up into things that you believe, you, you start like seeing the world, uh, in, in a different lens. You stop trying to convince people and you start trying to like invest more heavily behind that conviction.

So during your time working with Chris, I mean, and, and obviously leading your own, your own investments, what is the, the, the founder relationship or the, or the investment that you've feel most proud of looking back?

Oh, wow.

Not which one made you, you know, which one was the most successful, but one where you were like, okay.

It's a hard framing and it's not the right framing. It's a bait that I won't take. And the reason I won't take it is 'cause like, I don't separate. And my wife will tell you is like, I don't have a separation between like, this isn't a job for me. It's not like a founder relationship. It would be like me asking you like, who's your best friend? I don't know, like it doesn't feel right to be like, ah, it's this one and this is the one I'm most proud of. Like, I guess I love working with people and I love the fact that like my job affords me the opportunity to work with a lot of people who are like brilliant and driven and motivated by, you know, going and building something in the world. And like, I don't know, that mentality is something like intoxicating for me. The idea that like, I don't think about it like a favorite, like you could ask me like, what's my best returning as an investor? Like, you know.

Let me flip it then. Which is the lowest point during that period? Because I mean, we all have one. Like, you know, one of the ones that I wrote a blog post about that happened to me about 5 years ago was, there was an argument with another co-investor around a specific issue. And, you know, at the time, I look back and I could have handled it a lot better by just being even though it was more painful, is to be more upfront about that specific scenario. Like, dude, look, you're screwing me over, and I just avoided it, and they just blew up later.

But what was that for you? It's, it's a, it's a, the, the underlying, the underpinning, what you just said, is it is the root of all of them. And it's something that now I aggressively like snuff out whenever I feel it. And the feeling is avoidance. And expectation mismanagement. It's like when I believed something and like, and I expected something that I didn't confront, and I knew that there was a tension there. We all feel it, every single person. It's like, it's universal. And it's like your willingness to like confront those tensions fast that like actually leads to like avoiding pain later. Like the harder, like if you're able to hit head on and just say what you believe and say what you mean and flesh out your expectations, like, and discuss them publicly, transparently. Like, I have this belief, or I have this expectation, and I feel like we might be on different pages on this. It's okay to have that confrontation, but like, not having it leads to like many, many— it's like building on, on toothpicks, and what ends up happening is you layer on top of these toothpicks without ever like discussing the bottom, and it always collapses. The bigger the, the bigger the building, the bigger the collapse. Like And the more time you take between like when you start to feel that, that disconnect versus like when you actually confront it, like that's— that is actually like the secret to good relationships. Like, and I frankly, it's like with friends, with business partners, with like investments, with your partner, like just hitting that, like that, that tension head-on is actually like one of the best secrets to life I've found. Like, and I refuse to live in that tension. I would rather just like have the hard conversation immediately. And discuss something up front. And if you do it like, if you relish in that, in like, you know, diffusing the tension, you just have fewer bombs in your life and you just feel better. Yeah, we all feel this. Like, I am sure that right now when I said that, some people watching this or listening to this had something in their brain that was like, I feel that tension right now. That there is some relationship where you are letting a tense, a tension fester And if you, if you feel that in anything, my, my advice to whoever is listening to this is go and have a hard conversation today, because avoiding it is not going to help you, and at some point it will explode in your face. Go have the hard conversation. That's my best advice, unsolicited.

Yeah, no, it's great advice, and I would echo that. And I think that what's tricky is that not every investor is as open as you, Matt. And I think if a founder were listening to this and there's a few that I could think of top of my head that would be a bit sort of like concerned about having to even try to bridge that conversation with their existing investors. But, you know, it's, it's, I think you would echo that it's something you just have to find a way of doing it and try to expedite as much as possible. Yeah.

The answer is it is always, it is never going to be comfortable. That's the truth. It will never go away. It will never be comfortable. It's like, uh, it's like people who stay in a bad relationship for years longer because they're not willing to go through the hard breakup. And like, you— the problem is, you, one, you screw up the opportunity cost that could have happened post the conversation, and two, like, you end up having like the mismanagement of expectations only gets worse. Like, and you, you, um, both people obsess on it on both sides. You are both thinking about the same mismatch in expectations, and so that brain time is just like, it starts to like complicate things even worse. When you feel it, some people obsess on it over and over and over, and you can just expect that if you are thinking about the mismanaged expectations, the other person is too. It is just like—

Let me pick up on that thread, and I want to come back to the sectors that you are interested in today.

Yeah.

The areas, I want to come back to that, so do not worry, we will. I think that this— you brought up a really interesting point, which is sometimes there is a mismanagement of expectations that can form between founders and investors, not because there is a suppression of the truth, rather it could be philosophical approaches. Like for example, take a founder who might have a very specific product vision and that product vision isn't necessarily mapping to a particular way of exploring customer development. And then you have investors who have a specific view on, you know, like testing this out. And I'm just curious, you know, like how do you reconcile that?

Yeah, so it's funny, this actually happens like at every step too. So like, Again, it's like being transparent about it is the most important thing. But like, I find this problem happens between investors and like, and founders at the pitch stage. And what happens is like, you fill in the gap. Like, this happens a lot when an investor is like looking for a company that does X, and they find a founder working something in that problem set. And they're like, oh, I found it. I found the thing in my head. And it's like, you know, they give, they make the investment, they hunt it down, they close the deal, and they get into the relationship, they're like, what they realized that instead of asking questions, they filled the white spaces in between. And what they realized is they filled them in different colors. And like, when you get into the conversation about what's actually getting built or where the product direction is going or what could be there, they try to push, they try to nudge in that direction. And when you start to nudge, it's uncomfortable. And rather than be like transparent about like, I think your opportunity is this, you're the founder, you're building this, I believe there is an opportunity in this category that I think you should explore. Versus like, you need to do X. And like, that's this like weird tension that sometimes builds. And the need to do, or you should do, or like that, like that is something that you, that I stamped out in myself. Like, you know, I'm all for having transparent discussion about where I think there is opportunity, but the you need to, or you should, that like, that push gets weeded out of people fast in this ecosystem. Or you just like, you explode because you build a really shitty reputation and you like build something as like, that's the VC who's like super hands-on and pushy and trying to like manipulate the vision of the company and like, it's just a bad look all around. I think there's just got to be an admission like, I want to invest in people going after, you know, you invest in like the founder and you invest in like what their vision is, not what you want their vision to be. And so like, um, but that it— I've seen that like what you're referencing I've seen that start all the way at the pitch stage and it's tied to like, you know, again, it's when you start dating someone and you think like, oh, I found this person and they are all of these things, you fill in the blank spaces in between rather than asking those questions. It's an interesting sort of natural tendency that I think filters into all different parts of like relationships.

And for the founders listening to this, there you go. Like if you've, You sense that you're pitching to somebody and that's what's happening, watch out.

Now, yeah, and it's okay to ask both ways. Like, it's really important to ask, like, hey, I, you know, this is the vision that I have. Like, is this the vision that you align with, or are you, are you in line with, like, like, when you hear the I've been looking for this, like, make sure that this is the same this, because like that word, that little con, you know, uh, short 4-letter word might be totally different products. Might be totally different go-to-markets. Like, this hides a lot of detail, and like, getting an understanding for what this is and making sure we're both aligned on this is actually like a super important, you know, uh, exercise.

It is. And, and on, on this, let's cover the sectors that you're looking at at the moment. So one of the, one of the things that we were talking about last time we caught up was We're filming this right now during somewhat opening up post-COVID. Some of the themes that emerged during this time were around remote work and online events and an increase in health and health products. Maybe we just lay the groundwork with what are the areas that you're interested in looking at at the moment that are unique to the times that we're living in versus those that are just what you're interested in, period?

I mean, there's, there's certain things that are just obvious now that, like, part of our job is like finding things before they're obvious, right? Like, and holding that discomfort. Um, one of the op— one of the nice things and the challenging things of this moment is a lot of the categories that we were investing into, you know, for the last 5 years are now obvious to everybody. Um, you know, good and bad in that. Like, the good in that is like you don't have to hold this feeling of being uncertain for a long time. The bad of it is now everybody is going investing into these things. So like remote work is almost like a meme. Like once it becomes— once your investment category becomes a hashtag, you know, you might have to look in another category. You might have to start looking elsewhere. But like the obvious things like video first, right? Like the idea that we're all now video first, but you know that there's a cost that wasn't there to in-person interaction has engendered an entirely new cat— like Zoom is a verb, verb, you know, if I ask people, had you been to a, you know, a virtual event prior to this moment, they'd say, no, you're crazy, that sounds like some nerdery. And now it's like everyone has been to like, you know, an online X, whether it's a class, a workout, a happy hour, you know, a conference, we have to. And so, like all these things that were going to be inevitable just got thrust into the future years and, you know, years and weeks compressed. And so like, I think those trends are like not going anywhere. I think like those were inevitable on the exponential curve, and we just like— it's just like accelerated that future. I think like the things that like, um, the things that are also sort of tied to that are this idea of like, how do we communicate around our work process? Like all the things that used to be able to do— that used to be able to do by being in the same physical space, like have to be represented somehow digitally, right? And it's like the little moments, it's like the The nooks and crannies around like the look over the experience of looking over someone's shoulder or whiteboarding in a room or like, you know, as you were building a model together, like sitting around a laptop or sitting next to each other and you're co-located, like you have to represent those things digitally. And turns out like if your current methodology for, you know, doing that is like sending a file back and forth, that's a really shitty way to communicate. And so like having some sort of like real-time multiplayer modality, like cloud interactivity, like those things that we've seen in design, we've seen in databases, we've seen in spreadsheets, like all of those things are now forced to be like real-time digital cloud-native multiplayer mobile, like obvious, pick your big category. If it's like on-prem tied to, if it's single-player on-prem, you know, an essential business modality, like it's now gonna be cloud-first multiplayer mobile-enabled, Those things are somewhat obvious now because you got to do it in a way where—

What's the not obvious?

What's the not obvious? The answer is automation, I think, is finally getting to a place where it's going to be massively impacting all parts of our lives. And so, like, you know, it's happened in the enterprise. There are a bunch of companies that are automating out repetitive workflows, that whole process RPA ecosystem. I feel like that is the beginning of something that is going to permeate almost all parts of our world. And any process that's repetitive, if you do it more than once,, or if you do it many times daily, like expect that process to be quick, automated, and beautiful. And I'm starting to see like founders take that understanding that has infiltrated the enterprise and apply it to like all parts of consumer life, from purchase to like scheduling to, you know, to all the little nooks and crannies that were like inefficiencies in your life, to applying for forms online, to navigating, you know, government services. To like all of the things that can be automated that like, you know, today require like some understanding of an archaic or complex system, you know, or some like chat with a person where they're saying the same thing over and over and over, like the phone tree style navigations, all of those things are going to start to be automated more. That's a good thing. It's going to save a lot of people time.

So I'm— we're going to play a game.

Yeah.

I'm going to throw some sectors out at you.

Yeah.

And I want you to either just say, yep, obvious, not obvious. And then if it's not obvious, whether or not you think it's just that even though it might be, um, you know, interesting times, that it's just that these times have forced to look at it in a different way.

So here we go.

First one is Voice technologies, voice enabling technologies.

Super obvious, come on. Voice is like the hidden channel staring everybody in the face. You have every device, everybody's got like 50 different mics and speakers in their ecosystem. They've got Alexas, they've got their phone, they've got AirPods. This one's like, it's a no-brainer, of course. Voice and audio are like married together in a world where like, you know, I often look at sci-fi and I'm like, "Oh, of course that world's coming." And you look at the movie Her and it's whatever now, 10 years old or something, but it feels obvious. The combination of more mics, more speakers, the combination of voice analytics and machine learning for voice recognition, things like Otter that are now capturing more data, things like Hugging Face, which have made really sophisticated NLP available to anybody. I mean, if you don't believe that that ecosystem is coming for us where you're going to interact with machines, using your voice, you're just not paying attention to the, like, proliferation of, like, device technology and the, like, the underpinnings that are getting built for it. And we're just starting to see, like, the products that are going to get built on top of it for work, for play, for fun, for, for everywhere. So yeah, absolutely.

Property technologies.

Oh, um, property technologies. I think obvious, um, I think, like, again, this is— it's such a massive part of GDP, and like, you know, is real estate and like physical environment. I think the migration of like bits, bits and bytes to atoms is like feeling more obvious to people that you're gonna have technology infiltrate. Like, you know, the devices are getting smaller, you know, compute on the edge. There's just more stuff that you can do now in like devices and intelligence in all parts of those workflows, and it's just a huge market. And so like my roommate in college, Brad Grawy, runs a fund called Fifth Wall, and he's probably— he built Invitation Homes before it. He's a really smart human. He wouldn't be spending all of his time focused on it if he didn't believe it. And he's—

Let me just qualify. When you're saying obvious about proptech, are you saying that the— because there's a temptation to say all of these are obvious, but with the contraction especially in people who are going to be able to pay for leaseholds and stuff like that. Do you see that the prop tech is an obvious one long term, but it's just that short term it's not so obvious because there's a contraction in who's willing to pay for these products and services? No, I think it's—

sorry, yeah, I think it's obvious because like, one, it's a massive— like, here are the necessary conditions. Sorry, massive industry, historically un-techified, multiple services getting built simultaneously that feel like for every part of the stack, from how you live and the physicality of devices at the edge, that's getting easier and cheaper, and you're just getting all these natural tailwinds for technology to move into an ecosystem. Then when you start to look at PropTech in every form, from purchasing to leasing to management of the properties, all the things that go into the ecosystem, buying and selling land, All of that has historically been pen and paper and fax and discussion that is now migrating into like cloud-first, digital-first, like, you know, mobile. Like, it's just too big of an industry not to have all of those workflows built into it. And so in my mind, like, the answer is like obvious because huge ecosystem that's like legacy that like wasn't moving fast enough and is now like, you know, being infiltrated from every perspective, from the consumer side with like smart homes and smart devices all the way into the enterprise side with techifying and bringing intelligence to purchasing, managing, and all the workflows around property.

Fair enough. All right, tools for developers to develop faster.

I mean, super obvious.

I was specifically saying not dev tools, but IDEs and stuff like that. Super obvious?

Yes, super obvious. What?

Play it out.

Uh, yeah, that everyone has realized that, you know, you're— you're— we need to give, like, you know, that developers have superpowers to build technologies, that, like, powering them with more superpowers is, like, a good business because you can, like— they're fast adopters and you can build interesting businesses and they'll, like, you know, they become— they can become infrastructure players for, like, a whole new world of, like, technologies, that, like, selling an API can lead to a big, big business, right? Like, And if you market to a developer, you're marketing to the people who have massive leverage within a business, and they're now like, not just like the builders, they're also the decision makers for essential tools and services. And so like, you want to build new tools for those people because they become the things that power what could be like massive scalable businesses and marketplaces, public and private companies. And so like, you're gonna start to build dev tools 'cause there's a lot of value at that point of entry. It's like, if you could build into the infrastructure for all of future companies, you would do that. And it's like layering foundational technologies by servicing them with great tools and APIs is just good business. So pretty obvious. The other thing is like, there's just more of them. And so like, you have more developers, you know, over time and like selling to a growing ecosystem, new entrants is generally a good way to like build a business. So pretty obvious.

I'm trying to figure out how I can get a not obvious out of you. Let's see, VR, VR, is that played out still?

Not obvious, no.

There we go.

No, no, no, no, no. Like, and by the way, like, I am the biggest nerd on the planet. I've bought every device. I should be, I was a gamer as a kid. I'm still a gamer. Like I want it so bad. Ready Player One, bring it to me. But we're in the middle of COVID and no one gives a crap about VR. Like nobody cares. Nobody wants to sit there with that experience in their head on it, like, It's just, I've invested in this category, I want it to work desperately, I want that future, bring it to me now, but like, it's not obvious that anybody wants it, and you can't force something that people don't want yet. And I feel like we are at like the precipice of an iPhone moment. Like, there was a lot of smartphones that were prior that didn't get the form factor nailed perfectly. It feels like the technology is getting to a place, and we've had enough false starts yet, where like someone is going to nail it. So like we are at the place of visual-first immersive compute, like that feels like it is coming, but it is— today's form factor is not obvious that that is going to work. But I— it is obvious to me that I want that in the future and that we are one huge step function away. We are an iPhone moment away from it being, you know, a trigger for everyone. That is not obvious to me that that is immediate, and it won't be until we see the iPhone for this key category.

The last one in the category is stemming from the VR question, and this is mostly because of the volume of solutions out there, but live audio, whether it be a new podcast platform, a new broadcast platform, a new content maker, played out or not played out?

No, it's just getting started. And the reason for live audio is because like, um, it is a weirdly intimate channel and it is a really powerful channel for communication. And like, there's nothing like this discussion and we could be doing this on audio and we've done this on audio before. And there's something about the human voice that like brings an intimacy. So a lot of the people I'm sure are gonna be listening to this as a podcast, not a video, and they're gonna hear my voice. And they will know me better than any tweet or any email could possibly get to know me. And there's something beautiful and human in that. And like expanding that experience of like storytelling— we are a, we are a spoken animal. Like, it— our voice is one of the things that, you know, makes us most unique in this world. And, um, I think that as we start to understand how to process that, you know, better and like build those connectivities provide context, you know, what Discord has done for gaming, provide that context into all these different channels around music, or what Clubhouse has done in like bringing Twitter moments to life and Twitter groups to life. Like, there's something beautiful and special and intimate, and it feels like almost campfire-y, and it feels like we haven't quite nailed what that's going to be, but I believe that it's actually just as powerful as a video for a lot of people because it's multimodal. When you're doing, when you're doing audio you can be passive and there and doing all of these other things. Like, you can actually multitask and listen to a discussion and have a conversation and have hands-free and be doing other things and be going for a walk and be anywhere on the planet. And that freedom is really powerful. And if we can nail great experiences that are content-rich with live audio synced to it, it's like, uh, it's, it's just a really, you know, interesting moment for all of this stuff. And then on top of that, you're layering in interactivity. Like the voice bots are actually getting to a place where they're functional, where Siri and Alexa and these things can interact with you, and there's enough sort of— Siri, my Alexa literally started talking in the background— where you can like literally have like, you know, interactivity with your voice. That's a really powerful confluence of events that are all happening simultaneously, and so I'm super bullish on it.

Well guys, I think we've had quite a good exhaustive list of sectors, all of them. Still lots of opportunities to crack, which is a great thing to hear, uh, from you, Matt. It's really encouraging to hear that. If anybody—

right on, man.

And, um, and we really enjoyed chatting. I mean, I could, I could definitely keep on asking questions. I love chatting with you. It's always— I love the energy, but I also know if I were a founder, I would be like, this is the guy I want to work with. So you know how to get a hold of him on the website. I'm sure that you can find a way of getting in touch. I don't know if, Matt, you, you You share your details or people—

Yeah, @Mazzeo on Twitter. I'm pretty active in the DMs, so just hit me up. Cool.

Well, with that, guys, thanks for joining us, Matt.

You got it, bud. Thanks, Carlos. Great to hang. Always fun, man. All right.