[00:00] And I said, "Dennis, it's a bubble. How does it feel to be in a bubble?" Grabbed my hand and said, "Martin, it feels better than being outside the bubble." And I was like, "He's absolutely right. I have to go into this bubble. I'm in the wrong side of the table." >> So, I met Martine through Alex Bearing at 3G. I try to ask everybody that I interview, "Who should I do next?" Alex said, "Martin." I asked why. He said he's just the most lovable investor that he's come across.
[00:30] >> Sometimes we're accused of being dolphins in a sea of sharks. And I love to be a dolphin. Who wants to be a shark? Dolphins have much better life. >> I think in this conversation you'll see that Alex is right. Martine has a refreshingly light, funny attitude and way about him. He clearly does not take himself or almost anything too seriously. and yet has become one of the most successful private markets investors now helping run General Atlantic, one of the story private equity and growth equity franchises in the world.
[01:00] >> Drop down with no equipment other than the spear. You let little fish go by because you you're not there to hunt little fish. You're waiting for the big fish. I think his life is an adventure where you can feel him not only getting better, but at every single moment, making fun of it and laughing. You'll hear him and me laugh a lot in this episode. I wish there was way more of that in the investing field where so often it's so serious and so intense. You can have excellence and laughter at
[01:30] the same time. And I think Martin and this conversation is a testament to that truth. Alex, who introduced us from 3G, told me this incredible story about you getting a job after him telling you no and what you did to get it. Can you tell that? Can you tell story? That's one of the one of one of the good stories. >> Coming out of business school, I need to decide where to live because I'm from Bolivia. Bolivia is too small.
[02:01] I was finishing eight years in the US. US felt too competitive. So I had to think of somewhere else that had to be big, not too competitive and have beautiful people because I was single at the time. So that was the criteria. >> So Brazil >> Brazil end of one Brazil. Uh so I look at the most exciting jobs in Brazil and at the time the 3G founders had a private equity shop which at the time was the largest private equity shop in
[02:31] the emerging markets. This is 1997 and one of the partners has recently graduated from the same school was coming to town to interview Brazilians to hire one person. So I was like this is destiny. This this is for me. So I reached out to Alex Bing who you know is now running 3G and it's become a great friend and I introduced myself. This Bolivian super smart I really want to make it in Brazil and I hear you're doing a dinner. I'd love to come by if
[03:02] you if you'll have me. And Alex, who's super smart and tough. He's like, Martin, we're only hiring one person and it's not going to be a guy from Bolivia that doesn't speak Portuguese, so no, you can't come to my dinner. I was like, bummer. So that night, I show up to the dinner, introduce myself as Martin, and I said, don't worry, I'm not even going to eat. I just want to listen to you because I find you interesting. And I think he was taken back by my boldness that he did they did interview
[03:32] me. And um they did hire me, but they made one condition. I had to take some Portuguese lessons before I showed up, you know, 3 months later. And I said, "I'm happy to do it as long as you pay for them." >> Yeah. >> And that's how I met my wife. >> She was your teacher. >> She was my teacher. She was technically a teacher. The way it really worked is I called my Brazilian friends and I said, "Can you find a very smart, very attractive Brazilian PhD master somewhere in the Boston area and I have someone that will pay her to talk to me
[04:05] and that's I'm still married 25 years later. >> What What have you learned from Alex and from his team?" The founders of 3G, the original three founders are incredible people whom I worked with in the beginning of my career and um I once wrote a book. This is 2003. The company I had co-founded uh was was going through trouble. I took some time off and I wanted to answer the question of how does one make money in countries
[04:35] with so much turbulence. I mean Brazil Brazil in the 90s and in the first decade of the of the century was incredibly turbulent. I mean crisis after crisis after crisis very hard to make to create wealth to build companies with so little. It's like navigating through the fog. >> Yeah. >> You can move very slowly and there's things that can come at you from different ways. I partnered with uh this professor, this mentor of mine from Harvard College. He was teaching at Harvard Business School, Don Soul. And
[05:06] what we did was paired company analysis. Look at 10 very successful companies in um in Brazil that had made tremendous wealth creation in the crazy '90s. But look at their actions in contrast to 10 much less successful companies during the same period of time. uh and the test was these were pairs of companies that looked similar in size and value at the beginning of the '90s but by the end of the '90s one was at least 5x more valuable than the other. So that was the
[05:36] control group and that's how we studied and when one of the companies is the beer company Brahma that the Georgia Po Lemon and Marcel Telles and Betto had bought in 1989 that was competing against the other bean company called Antarctica that was owned by the Germans and at a foundation who in 1989 was a better more profitable more valuable company. But by a decade later when these two merged uh the Brahma shareholders kept 95% of
[06:07] the equity value. >> So it was 10x >> value creation relative to the comparison twin. >> How did they do it? They're great spear fishermen. You don't chase the fish. >> You wait. >> Wait. You well you decide where you're going to anchor. You drop down with no equipment other than the spear and you hold your breath for one minute, for two minute. You let little fish go by
[06:38] because you you're not there to hunt little fish. You're waiting for the big fish. And then when you're almost running out of oxygen, you got two or three seconds to get the big fish and then go up as you're both feeling the sort of lack of oxygen, he feeling a spear through his chest. But it's an exercise of waiting. Why do they say these are great spear fishermen? The step number one of spear fishing is deciding where you're going to anchor in looking to buy their beer company. They started to think about it 5 years before
[07:08] they were owners of the number one investment bank in Brazil, Bank of Guarantia. They were making tons of money out of volatility and inflation because you in high inflation periods you can make a lot of money if you are smart with math and finance. uh but they knew inflation would end one day and they said we want to buy a company that will benefit from a low inflation rising consumption. Beer is one such company. But they waited five years for this company to
[07:40] come for sale. And it came for sale two weeks before an election when the Swiss owners got scared that a socialist was going to become president Lula first time government and he was from the workers party and they called them and it says can you do a deal in a week? We'd like to get out of town. We don't want to take the risk of a socialist president. And Georgia have been waiting for that big fish, >> for five years, closed the deal in a
[08:12] week. >> And then he waited 10 years till Antarctica was in trouble when a big devaluation and closed the deal in three months. And then he waited another seven years to do a deal with Interbru. And then the biggest of all deals waited a following decade to do a deal with anouser Bush >> and and basically over this period $80 million initial investment in Brahma
[08:42] became a $60 billion plus excluding dividends but they're great fisherman >> and they wait for the big fish and as a concept that is something uh I've learned from them which is uh every four or five years there's a once in a generation opportunity that you have to be ready and be willing to move quickly to capture and if you do you can create disproportionate value for your company
[09:13] for your investors for your employees >> do you have a a a story of your own that is the closest to a great spear fishing outing >> I wasn't an entrepreneur I was set out by these three guys to go and find great entrepreneurial companies and invest $500 million in 20 companies. You got 18 months. Go. In month three, I >> That was your mission. That was >> That was my mission. That mission number one out of business school. Now that I was speaking Portuguese, I could I could go. >> And by month three, >> I remember talking to a buddy of mine
[09:44] because we were benchmarking different models and buddy of mine had taken a job in the US company that went public in the do era. clearly a bubble being valued at 20 times revenue which sounds quaint by today's standards by by 1998 and I said Dennis it's a bubble how does it feel to be in a bubble and he said to me grabbed my hand and said Martin it feels better than being outside the bubble and I was
[10:15] like he's absolutely right I have to go into this bubble I'm in the wrong side of the So very quickly left the fund and within I think three months we had raised $80 million to launch subarino.com >> uh which was the e-commerce Amazon.com merged with Alibaba uh to take on Brazil and that happened very very quickly. A second time after we sold my business during the GFC, I I
[10:46] was working for another fund briefly and looking to buy sort of a fixed income exchange in Brazil which a dominant platform 80% margin business a lot of competition and then all of a sudden the GFC happened and everyone dropped out everyone and I was like no you double down and we were able to buy a market dominant high margin business that's six times >> and we did it in two months
[11:17] >> and people are like what do you mean you're doing something with the GFC and I said if we're not willing to buy a dominant platform a six times ITA >> we should shut down >> the world it means the world is ending and we should the world is not ending a dominant platform will always be worth more than six times IA and there's been you know every every three or four years there's one such unique distortion that you have to move very quickly. That's perhaps one of the learnings of being an entrepreneur in the dotcom. Like I'm a rare investor that has been an operator, but I it's
[11:49] not just that I was I had been an operator. >> What the do taught me and I just realized this recently. You can do seven years of work in one year. >> Say Marvel. What do you mean? >> Like when you when Elon Musk says, you know, do your 10ear plan and try to get it done in one year. Yeah. You're like, he's like crazy. Yeah. >> Look what he's built. >> Yeah. >> In in the dot, it felt like the world was on steroids. >> Like in Sumarino, not only had we raised $80 million within the first three months. Within one year, I was in charge
[12:21] of uh international, we opened Sumarino in six countries with warehouses and customers and registrations and teams. It was done in one year. If you had told me how long it would take a normal person to do that, I would say 3 to four years. going fast and we were like no we we have to do it like this is a first first mover will be incredibly valuable we did it in one year so it's this this ability to move very very fast to capture opportunities which are fleeting
[12:52] which seem humanly impossible are actually not >> this seems like a moment of that is happening maybe on mega steroids you know I think of a company like cognition as a recent example that I know well where the pace of growth of the business is it's just sort of hard to believe that it's possible. You know, it's serving developers. Maybe previously a company like Stripe, which is one of the great companies in the US in the technology world, is a certain size. It's grown that size over 15 years. And these things are growing at a pace that is it's sort of hard to wrap one's head
[13:24] around. And so I'm curious how you think about that in the current moment right now, but also what lessons you learned about what it takes to go to put a 10-year plan into one year. like what what is different about the behavior in that compressed one-year period that makes that possible? >> So, this is like my fourth or fifth bubble and all bubbles are born out of a a truly transformative >> technology >> technology. Yeah. >> And in all the previous bubbles, the promise was spectacular. The short
[13:57] term was disappointing and the long term delivered more than expected. >> Yeah. But in that process, a lot of fortunes were made and destroyed. >> Yeah. >> So, um I think as a firm, John Athletic has been around for 45 years. We try to make different mistakes >> in each bubble. >> And I'm sure we're making our approach this time, different from the internet, has been to be incredibly aggressive at deploying AI in the portfolio.
[14:27] >> Yeah. >> The promise of AI is clear to everyone. Let's see what's working in the real world and let's share Brex practices. And we got incredible scale with over 200 portfolio companies. We have a 100 people in our portfolio support portfolio operations team. This year we'll do 500 projects with the portfolio. A third of them are AI projects. So we're seeing what works in the front lines. And as soon as we see a use case with real ROI and real revenue
[14:58] to the provider of the service and you can sort of model what the economics and the cost to serve and what the long-term profitability maybe is of this exciting new market, >> then we pounce. >> The first one where we felt that has happened is code generation. >> Yeah. Cognition and cursor and >> and it's just happened right now in the last 12 months. >> It's crazy. I mean based on public information anthropic revenues and coaching went from 200 million to over 4 billion in 12 months in B2B that kind of growth has not happened ever ever and
[15:30] it's so exciting and it's working in real life and programmers are happy and then all of a sudden you've got this new reality where human programmers are hyperproductive and they're working alongside agentic programmers who have no moral northstar and do not sleep. and how you get them to work together to a common output which is super sensitive to you the client who's running on the software. >> Yeah, >> super exciting. That's one area marketing optimization. Uh obviously it's it's machine learning on steroids.
[16:00] Uh we we we we're investors in Liftoff which is very much on this. We're investors in a software company called Insider that does enterprise marketing optimization. Uh data companies turbocharged with AI. We're investors in a Israeli company called VI. There's so much. It's super exciting. It's super risky. We're probably going to go look back and say we weren't bold enough in going for the killer app soon enough, but we've been bold enough before and it didn't pay to go very early. And I think what's really interesting about GA and
[16:30] we've been around for 45 years through all these technological cycles and we've been international for 30 years. We've been in the in emerging markets for 25 years. We take on a lot of risk, micro risk. We take on a lot of technology risk because we are investing across what we call 18 power alleys that cut across five sectors. Guess what our loss ratio is? >> Tell me >> 4%. >> On capital or on capital >> on capital on capital. Okay.
[17:00] um for this kind of like when in venture and growth equity loss ratios of 20 to 40% are common but there's something about the way we deal with risk that allows us to capture what we think are reasonably good returns but that's surprisingly low risk ratio and it has to do I think with an appetite for risk uh we don't take binary risk for us in when we do the sort of the scenario planning of three to 1,000 scenarios on one dozen in
[17:32] mind in one mind like you do when you think of an investment for us a worst case scenario a company grows into the valuation we paid for it and that limits what you do it limits the timing of where you go into a new industry you probably leave some money on the table but you also leave a lot of risk on the table and that product of you know reasonable returns with low risk is a great product. >> I have 95% of my net worth in that
[18:02] product and I sleep well at night. >> Yeah. >> I have a vastly undiversified portfolio of you know two assets GA. Yeah. And treasuries. >> The the the 45 years ago the sort of origin story of GA itself is so interesting. Chuck Feny such an interesting character. How does his spirit loom in the business and in your personal consciousness? >> He's the accidental billionaire. got the idea of duty-free by looking at naval bases where commerce was free in the Pacific during the Korea war. Starts
[18:33] building these duty-free shops, becomes a billionaire, sells to Louis Vuitton, and he's confronted with the question, what is the purpose of wealth? What do I do with this wealth? And his answer resonated really well with me. The purpose of wealth is to improve the human condition now, not tomorrow, now. because the present value of happier life for more people now is very valuable. Uh so he wants to give it all
[19:04] away. Forget giving half away. >> He's I'm he's like my v my dream is my last check will bounce. I want to die a poor man and I want to give it all. Uh but before I give it all, I believe uh you can create additional wealth by investing in innovation, by backing great entrepreneurs globally. And he said, you at GA to the original founding team at GA, go back the world's best entrepreneurs, be a good partner, and
[19:34] know that all the proceeds of our work will go to great causes. And we've been doing that for 45 years, backing great innovators everywhere. We've invested in over 500 companies over the last 45 years. Half of our investments have been in the United outside of the United States. And we've seen the power of innovation to create wealth uh globally. This is not a privilege just to US. It's not a privilege just to European. And this concept of what is the purpose of wealth
[20:07] is also meaningful personally. Like I I I think when I think of the wealth I'm creating and the people that I work with are creating, we're all incredibly thoughtful of how we allocate our time and wealth to make the world better and in the ways that are meaningful to us. And there's no right and wrong. Uh but I find that accumulating wealth is a is is makes you gloated and slow using your body and your life as a a channel of you know wealth that comes but goes to places that can be made better. But it's a
[20:38] beautiful way to approach life and particularly if you're in the profession of allocating other people's wealth into great innovators. It it all makes sense. It all fits in internally consistent and that's why we've been around for 45 years. They're not that many. You can count them in in both hands. The number of firms that are investors in tech and innovation that have been around and been successful this long. And I think it has to do with the internally consistent vision, mission, and plan
[21:10] that Chuck had for GA. >> That's not a normal origin story for a firm like this. Usually, it's a really just purely commercial enterprise. Some young investors set off and and build a firm. Um, this was different. What else about that founding DNA makes the setup of the firm unique? How does his original vision and setup allow you to act differently than others do today? >> There's this phrase written into our founding documents which is we're good partners to each other to our founders and to our clients. The
[21:40] partnership ethos is fundamental. And when you look at 45 years of references of 500 people we've 500 companies, thousands of people we've partnered with and you say, "What do you think of GA?" They're good partners. They're good guys. They're good people. They they say they do what they say they're going to do. They put the company's interests first. Sometimes we're accused of being dolphins in a sea of sharks. And I love to be a dolphin. Who wants to be a shark? Dolphins have much better life. Uh so I think that's a big part of the
[22:11] firm's DNA. So I'll give you an example. I uh I ran our general Atlantics uh Latin America program for the first seven eight years of my career at General Atlantic and in all the due diligence uh sessions they asked me what's how did you do it? Yeah. How did you make money in the one neighborhood that no one makes money because no I just I don't go that's part of the reason but the other reason is I say the reason we do well in Latin
[22:41] America is we don't have a Latin America fund. >> Ah >> because if we had a Latin America fund >> we're going to put money in Latin America. >> We're going to buy at the top but sell at the bottom. H and you know what? If you want to make money you do the opposite. You buy at the bottom you say at the top and they're like oh interesting. Why doesn't why don't other people do it? It turns out it's really hard to do to um have a team in Latin America or in China or in India or in Southeast Asia compete for attention and money through
[23:11] a Guang Global IC. It's so hard to do unless your culture is about partnership. The culture demands good partnership. >> Yeah. and the culture expels behavior that's not consistent with being a good partner. We're structured in in a way that first we are the largest investor in our own product by design. Right now we have about the employees of General Athletic have about 8% of the funds we administer over $5 billion of our own
[23:43] capital. This does not feel like managing other people's money. this feels my day-to-day I'm managing my family wealth first and foremost and I'm doing it with care and with intention and purpose the way we um fund raise is different also one one of the problems with the industry is the fund the five-year fundraising cycle to to be able to raise your next fund you have to deploy at a certain speed and you need to return capital a certain
[24:13] cadence otherwise you don't get to do the next fund and if there is that winter of risk like we've had for the last three years. Uh you're out of dry powder exactly at the time that things are on sale. So the traditional fundraising cycle fiveyear cycle creates lots of distortions and pain for our industry. Uh we have an evergreen a hybrid evergreen fundraising cycle meaning yes every two to three years we have a normal fund. So if you want a normal fund come to GA every two or
[24:43] three years perfect but if you're a large institution and are willing to do a standard managed account you can come in anytime and the two structures invest at same portfolio from here forward there's never conflict of mind the legacy but the advantage of that is there's no fundraising cliffs we're always fundraising it's always steady there's no big jumps there's no pressure to liquidate something to meet some artificial target that makes our lives so much easier. And then the the sort of third component that I think is
[25:14] distinctive which I hated initially because uh we have a communist system of compensation which is you all get a percent of the total performance not your individual performance. I was you kidding me? I'm a spear fisherman. >> I'm a spear fisherman. I I I got some big fish left in me. I mean this communism didn't work in the Soviet Union. Why is that going? And then I saw how it changed everything. in that the level of collaboration is fantastic. And the way you prevent the
[25:46] Soviet Union from happening is if you're not pulling your weight, you're not on the boat. So, it's a meritocracy in that you to be in this community where we all win together and lose together. We all have to be effective and bringing as much into the partnership that we're taking away from it. And that's what keeps the health and meritocracy of the system. But there isn't a hyper incentive to be hyperproductive because if I'm hyperproductive, I'll make more wins in that game. No, it's it's it's much more about winning as a team as opposed to winning as an individual.
[26:19] >> The the that dual structure, which is unusual, you know, not not common. What are the negatives or tradeoffs associated with that? Like do the fund investors get upset that they don't really know like what percent of the total they're going to get? There's two two two very serious trade-offs. First of all, it takes forever to explain. >> We'll do it at scale right here. They'll never have to do anything. >> And they're like, why do you have two series and why which one is better? Which one is worse? I can get it why this is good for you, but how is it good
[26:50] for me? So, sort of the on boarding experience is a painful experience. The other uh downside is fundraising is a perpetual activity. Whereas for uh a lot of my competitors every five years it's a six-month sprint that all they do is fund raise and then they can not fund raise for another four and a half years. >> It's kind of like binge dieting. You do it you only do it once every six years. And for us it's a no-brainer. That's a structure that leads to more productive
[27:23] deployment of C. My my friend John Kim who is a we're very well-known fundraiser at General Catalyst has this simple equation which is that persuasion equals desire minus fear. What have you learned about fundraising given that you've had to do it as a firm on a constant basis? >> I think most humans go from FOMO to fear and one of the traps of our industry is you can only fund raise when things are very expensive >> because that's when everyone's on FOMO. Have you been able to invert that fear
[27:54] to FOMO problem so that you can if you have been able to raise some money in the harder times? What is the key to doing that? Well, >> there's always someone in the world that has excess capital even in a time of fear and you go there. I I do this like in Brazil, you know, one other of our tricks or tricks, our strategies to navigate global complexity is in every geography we're in, we have the best families, the most
[28:24] entrepreneurial families become investors and we cultivate them not necessarily for their money, but for their insights >> around the country and around the entrepreneurs with which we partner. It takes a really long time and and a lot of those families are typically entrepreneurial. They're like, "No, no, I don't invest in funds. I invest directly because I created a business and I'm so good and I'm good at getting the big fish. And I'm like I asked him very simple question. I say hey um what percent of your net worth you have in Brazil? >> And they're like h like liquid net
[28:54] worth. No, no, no, no, total net worth. And they're like the number is typically between 90 and 95%. I said that's very interesting. And I said close your eyes. Imagine you're not Brazilian. you're a citizen of the world, what percent of your wealth would you put in Brazil? And they're like, oh, 3%. Yeah, how about I help you get a little closer to three than the 95 you're in. So, I find that argument to be genuinely effective
[29:25] because it's genuinely in their best interest. >> And I think people have a natural tendency to overinvest in that in which they understand. And of course, those families understand what it is to invest in Brazil. But in doing that they're massively underdiversified and the world has become really really risky and there's only one free lunch in finance. Do you remember that from >> diversification is the only free lunch. H so thinking strategically about you know how to diversify with whom to
[29:55] diversify is is hard but super valuable if you want that free lunch. Speaking of diversification, maybe the most interesting dimension of that today is geographic. We were talking before we hit record about the incredibly wide gulf between the pristine US, you know, equity assets and basically everywhere else in the world. There was a time when you saw this chart between like the S&P 500 and the Aquorld XUS or something and it was kind of back and forth and back and forth and then the line has just
[30:25] gone like this for 20 years where the US has just so completely dominated everybody else in enterprise value creation or or some measure like that. How do you interpret that shift? Is it secular? Is it is it going to be cyclical and go back towards the international markets? What do you think about that crazy bifurcation? The premium for ex US exceptionalism has never been higher. US public equities are trading at 26 times earnings for a
[30:57] 4% forecasted growth which is at the 97th percentile of the last 25 years. And the US dollar despite a 10% depreciation this year is pretty much uh two standard deviations far away from the uh the neutral state. So the US has never been this expensive. I love the US. It's still the number one economy. I still want have half my assets in the US, but not 90% of my assets in the US. Not only is it very expensive, total debt to GDP
[31:28] is 125% of GDP. That is the highest of the OECD. It's higher than it was after World War II when America levered to defeat the axis of evil. current plans in place, within five years, we're going to be at 145% of GDP, which is higher than Greece and Italy. And the US has not had a recession since 2009. Are you sure you want to have 95% of your assets in the United States of America? I I don't. Um, if you look at the rest of
[31:58] the world, uh, you can buy Europe at 14 times earnings, you can buy Brazil at nine times earnings, you can buy Mexico at 10 times earnings. uh we're we're finding 40 50% growers at 12 times I zipa 14 times IDIA many of them serving dollarized clients uh so the case for global diversification the price for global earnings the case has never been strongest the price has never been lower on a relative basis so I do think that in the next 10 years those
[32:30] who achieve some level of a diversification will be rewarded because I do think uh there's a little bit of froth in the US market and the opposite in a lot of the emerging markets. >> What have you learned on any recent trips to China? >> China is fascinating and I've been going to China for 25 years and I've seen the development. It's the fastest change in terms of per capita GDP in modern history or any country at at scale. It's an incredibly complex society.
[33:00] um tremendous amount of innovation and we were lucky in having been early in China as G. We've been investing there from 25 years. I am highly optimistic that tensions have stabilized and that market conditions are are are are improving and we've been underweight China for the last 5 years where we're we just we just did two deals. We're going to pick it up a little bit. There's always binary risk on the around the geopolitics, but there's just so much innovation. There's much so much
[33:30] entrepreneurial zeal. Um the one thing I learned I actually learned over drinks with a Chinese entrepreneur. So I I've done business in 19 countries and I love to connect on a human level with the entrepreneur. So much so much even at growth stage so much of the assessment of the company and of the partnership is about chemistry and uh it was very hard for me to build chemistry with the Chinese entrepreneurs. One night I'm having a long dinner with lots of um you
[34:00] know good food and and alcohol with an entrepreneur who was an anthropology PhD of University of Arkansas. And I said if someone can explain me the Chinese mentality it's this man. He said to me and like any oversimplification it's unfair but there's a grain of truth. And he said um what you have to understand about the entrepreneurs you're dealing with. He said, "This generation of entrepreneurs, people who are in their 30s and 40s, they're all children of the cultural
[34:30] revolution. Everything was taken away from these families, everything. And they are scarred and they have something to prove because they think something was stolen and they will get it back." So there's a level of drive and ethic, work ethic that probably matches the refugees of World War II that came to the states and did these great businesses after World War II or other people that have, you know, had hardship in in their life. But this applies to
[35:01] 98% of the entrepreneurs. They saw it with their parents. >> So that's the other condition you should take into account. How do your ancestors show up in your life and values? >> We're all products of our traumas and our adventures and our dreams is my worldview. So what are my traumas? Some are personal and some are generational. The generational traumas on my mother's side
[35:32] Jewish family had to flee the Russian Empire through Romania, then Argentina, then Bolivia. So fleeing leaving everything behind from my father's side very wealthy uh landed oligarchy of Bolivia h in 1952 there's a revolution they lose everything and their house and farms get burned down and they almost die >> when my father was a teenager. So on both sides there's a sense of loss and uh escape that is very present and they
[36:05] uh decide to become communists and doctors. They're both doctors in public hospitals in a little town in Bolivia. So that's their their trauma which I relate to the cultural revolution. They are religious so not not atheist. Um in in my personal life the trauma trauma comes from two places for me. Uh one is I grew up in Bolivia in the 80s and that was chaos. Bolivia in the 80s seven presidents in 10 years including four coup detas. We had inflation now
[36:37] you got 5% inflation. We had 35,000% inflation. So time >> 35 35,000 time value of money. I understand. Okay. Like like the only time my mom ever punished me was one time she sent me to exchange her salary for dollars when she got it. And I took a 1-hour break to visit a friend and it lost half its value in that hour. So I I I was grounded for a year because of that one hour break on the exchange. So
[37:07] anyways, uh so so so and there was also a lot of violence because of ethnic violence in Bolivia. So it was it was rough. It was it felt unsafe. It felt turbulent. And then I I have a genetic disorder. I I I bruise very easily like very very easily. So getting out of bed, deciding what activity to do is a riskreward tradeoff since the age of five. >> And that is a way of seeing the world that most people >> risk. Like I know how to price risk. I'm
[37:38] like ah not worth it. My my friends are like why are you always thinking of the downside? Well, quit. I have my reasons. So anyway, so that's I I find when trying to understand a person, I do it with entrepreneurs, seeing what their trauma was is super useful because I find a lot of the most driven people are driven because of foundational traumas. And if you understand them and you're traumatized yourself, you can relate and empathize, but you also understand the
[38:08] intensity that drives them. and and whether they can manage it and channel it productively. But but if you can, it is such a wonderful engine of transformation and it's cur curative. It's it's healing to channel it in a positive way. >> Have you ever worked with somebody that did extremely well with none of that traumabased drive who was just well adjusted and happy and kicked ass? >> No. Still looking for her or him. zero.
[38:41] And >> and again, it doesn't need to be rack to riches. It doesn't need to be a big disease. It could be like I heard one of one of our one of my fiercest competitors. He was cleaning. He was mowing the lawns of his buddies who were with the cute girls and his entire life he wanted to show them. I don't judge. That's a real trauma. Pain is pain. >> Yeah. >> So, how did you learn to harness it? because the the other end of the spectrum could be unharnessed and just
[39:12] chaos. How do you learn to harness or channel it to something productive? >> Managing one's emotions productive requires either therapy, writing a journal, or meditating. You should do two of the three. I do two of the three. >> Try to do the third one, but it's really hard. >> Meditation. >> Yes. >> Yeah. We're on the same page. If if I asked a bunch of people that knew you and the investments that you've made across your career, what is a U investment? Like what are the characteristics where they see that
[39:42] company like, oh, you know, how would they describe it? >> This is a funny story. I'll answer the question, but I'll answer. Yeah. >> Uh, so when I got promoted to chairman of the investment committee, so elevated from a Latin America role my life to uh head of the investment committee of General Atlantic, this iconic global, I was lost. So I go to the the the founding two founders. Steve Denning was a CEO for the first 20 years. >> Army man, Mckenzie man, Stanford MBA structured. I say, Steve,
[40:14] how do I make decisions across so many geographies and business models? What's the framework you think I should apply to add value to my partners? and he said, "You should develop a checklist that captures the characteristics of a winning GA deal." So, go back and look at our 25 years of history, our best deals. I'll share a couple characteristics. I I give you the three M's, but they're probably five Ps as well. Create a checklist. And I was
[40:45] like, "Yeah, checklist." Same day, I go to the co-founder, uh, Dave Hodgson. He's he's just super glued but just the smartest guy in the room always. >> Yeah. >> And I asked him the same question and the first thing he says refuse avoid the temptation to use a checklist. If it was as simple as a checklist, we wouldn't get paid millions of dollars to do what we do. And I was checklist. No checklist. Okay. So whenever there is a paradox, there's an elegant
[41:15] unparadoxing of the paradox. >> Yeah. So Danny Kaliman, thinking fast, think slow checklist manifesto built on work he did for the Israeli Defense Forces to create the checklist for the elite agents. Turns out uh the checklist work, but in applying the idea of checklist, there were these super interviewers that got even better results consistently than just the average interviewer. So, well, there was something beyond the checklist that that
[41:46] was statistically significant. And there's one interview of the super interviewer where she says, "I do the checklist because I have to, but after I do the appraisal, I close it and I close my eyes and see how I feel and I go with my gut and she has perfect scores." So the uh framework I use for what's the perfect martin or g ide deal is the combination of a checklist with my gut which I call the educated intuition.
[42:17] What's in the checklist of things we like? Huge TAMs, business models that create economic value and have mode teams with the right go forward capabilities. Uh situations where there's inorganic growth to get and there's tremendous amount of strategic value meaning someone will overpay to have this capability if we are successful. Uh so those are the things that uh the checklist aspires. Me personally, in the deals I've led, um, they have to make the world better. I am
[42:48] so proud that I invested in the number one investing platform in Brazil when there were only 80,000 people that own stocks in Brazil. And now 10 million people >> own stocks. >> What's it called? >> XP. It's publicly traded, $10 billion market cap. I invested when they were nothing. I am so proud that I went against every convention and invested on an edtech company. ETH was a dark alley. We have power alleys. There are some places we don't touch. And I was like, "No, no, no. This is different. This is different." This little company in the
[43:19] northeast of Brazil which was creating K through2 learning systems which is sort of a instead of using textbooks, you package everything in a sort of hybrid notebook with digital went from 80,000 students to 8 million students. 8 million kids every day today uh use this platform and it's world class. is really good content and it's an amazing entrepreneur, son of a teacher and we made money. Uh we have a platform that uh 97% of financial
[43:50] institutions use for digital on boarding. Turns out Brazil is the world capital of online fraud and this is the one company that catches it. And I am so proud that I started mentoring this kid when his company was nothing and I did it through Endeavor and it took me eight years before I had like became investable for J and then we invested and now they're dominant and so it's if they makes the world better I you see it's beyond money. It's energy. If the checklist is mind and the instinct is
[44:20] gut, have you met a great investor who's mostly heart? Uh, no. I think heart is super important if you want to be a leader of a large organization because you have to move the hearts of hundreds, thousands of people to row in the same direction with purpose and and with effectiveness. Uh and that is crucial and the heart is so powerful. It
[44:50] overrides gut and brain. It and to do it at scale. You you see these people that are super good leaders. The energy is captivating and they are wizards of the trade. It's really hard to do all three. A and part of being a good investor is to not fall in love because at the end of the day you have a fiduciary duty to produce returns and you have to make some tough calls and
[45:21] love is a treacherous thing. So funny story. So the one time that I didn't follow the checklist was uh for love. So obviously I had a checklist for the woman I'm going to marry. And when I met Daniela, my Portuguese teacher, she didn't score very high on the checklist. >> Where was she deficient? >> I will say, but things that are absolutely irrelevant to the task at hand. I had the wrong framework. And she was perfect in every way. And she's been perfect in every way. So, in
[45:51] matters of the heart, forget the checklist. >> Yeah. >> But I don't think the three of them come together in the investment profession. >> You uh you mentioned the two founders. What about Bill Ford? What have you learned from him? >> Oh, Bill. so much. Uh, so I think I I've worked with Bill for 15 years. I actually pitched Bill my startup and this is 1998 came in through through New York and I had heard a lot about General Atlantic and how they're different and they think long term and they're good partners and
[46:21] Chuck Feny really hard to get the meeting. We give them the meeting. Bill and I really hit it off. I made the pitch and he's like, "Uh, we're not ready for Brazil. >> I'm really sorry." And I was heartbroken because I really wanted G. And Bill was an amazing guy. 10 years later after I sold my business, was working at another fund. He called me and was like, "Remember me?" I was like, "Yeah, I remember you." He's like, "Can we try this again?" I said, "Yeah, we can try this again, but just for you know, you would have made 18 times your money if you had said yes." So, yeah, yeah, I
[46:52] know. I know. I know. So, come. Bill um has an incredible ability to see around corners and and and be visionary in making bets before they're obvious. >> So going into Europe, going to the emerging markets, going into consumer, going into life sciences, pushing me now to go into robotics and humanoids, I'm like, Bill, too early. No, we need to go to So he's he's he's an incredible ability to to look around corners. He uh also in managing the partnership
[47:24] and us has heart not for investment decision- making but in keeping our culture the meritocracy of the firm also with heart has helped me develop as a leader of of GA and letting from the heart and is an incredible money maker so his mind >> that helps too >> that helps that tip detail >> as you've progressed in your investing specific career. >> What changes the most as you become more senior? How does it feel the most
[47:55] different doing it today versus doing it when you're a, you know, lots to prove young analyst? >> Yeah. The hardest thing when you're young is developing patience and the conviction that you can wait a little longer for the big fish. You're young, it's up or out. You want to get going. >> You want to get going. You want to get deal experience. You want to get notches on your belt. And that's completely wrong instinct. And when you're older, you have a lot more range. You've seen a lot more and you got patience. You're like, >> "Nothing scares me and I know a big fish will come. Calm down. No pressure."
[48:27] >> Um, you are less in the front lines and more as a coach player helping you, training young partners to do what you used to do. Uh, and initially that can be very demotivating because Tom Brady likes to be on the field, not coaching or opining on Fox. Yeah, maybe not not so fun. Uh until you re re-imagine the game and you live vicariously through the people you're training and you enjoy their wins
[48:58] almost as much as you enjoyed your wins. So that's been the the the the me the mental flip that I had to do to enjoy this phase because of course scoring goals is better than coaching of unless you make the mental shift that live vicariously through them. The hard thing and that's why there's not that many venture and growth equity investors over over the age of 50. It's not just that we call in rich or we get tired or we develop new interest. I I think our
[49:28] brain ages and stops being plastic. So one one one of the uh great learnings from beautiful mind Dave Hodson who's aged beautifully. He's in his late 60s and is very sharp and very much on top of the new trends and he defies the convention and I said what what what is the secret to forget Peter Ata I want to hear from you I just want the brain I don't I don't care about my V8 and the max I want I want the young brain and he said three
[49:58] things the most important one is I refuse to think like an old man still plays I still wonder I'm still in awe and I don't fall into the trap of thinking I have the answer to everything. I'm always learning, experimenting, and playing. And that's the hardest part because uh we have this illusion as we get older that there's no room for play. There's no room for play. There's always room for play. >> How do you inject that into your life?
[50:28] >> You just don't take yourself too seriously. I'm always laughing about everything. making fun of every even even when confronted with the worst perfect storm where something happens I start laughing and I say what are the odds so many bad things could happen all at once this HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE SEVEN THINGS AT THE SAME time let's work through it that attitude I think is makes life a lot more fun >> so so what do you make of this current
[50:59] bubble that we're inside outside you know depending on the You mentioned humanoids, you mentioned bio a little bit. Like there's there's all this exciting stuff happening probably all of which in the long run will be amazing for people be a lot of consumer surplus and all this. Um you want to make money you know through this process for your for yourself and your partners. How does it feel to you to >> this is more meaningful because it will touch a higher percentage of GDP >> right? The internet was the other very meaningful one but it changes how we
[51:30] interact with each other. This will change much more than that. Unambiguous recommendation. If you're in your 20s or early 30s, go work at AI because you're going to live through dog years. Meaning, what we're talking about.com, seven years of activity in one year. And regardless of whether that company does well or you make money, you're going to have compressed learning that only happens once every 20 years. So, don't miss that opportunity. And when I say that age group, I mean that mental age group. You could be in your
[52:00] 50s and be in that mental after when you're ready to take risk. Just go do it. If you have a young mind today, go work in AI because it's going to be so much fun and the learning or I think investing uh is risky. Our approach which may prove to be too conservative was to take it slow because it's not clear yet where the value is going to be created. It's not clear yet how much more powerful the large language models are versus others that are more efficient um or how much of the value
[52:31] will be captured by the by the models versus the applications. So it's exciting to watch. I know we're going to have a moment where we're all going to wake up and say we've invested too much. I don't know if it's three years away or 18 months. I don't think it's No, for sure it hasn't happened yet. >> You don't think so? You don't think there's a chance that we're like kind of at we're in that moment already? >> No. >> Why? Why not? >> It's not crazy enough. Well, I was looking at some stats at comparing the AI wave, let's not call it a bubble
[53:03] to the com and to the railroads. And it's looking at the ratio of capex to revenue and and what percent of GDP was involved in this and how was this capex funded? and uh capex to revenue still not crazy and revenues new revenue streams are are managing and the biggest difference relative to railroads and.com is the funds are coming from really rich companies the magnificent six who are printing money out of their dominant
[53:34] positions are reinvesting a lot of this money into the capex that's powering all this innovation so it's very healthy it's it's not junk bond speculators or thin margin telecom companies that are levering up the wazoo with retail money to fund this wave of innovation. It's really profitable companies. So, I think it's got more legs. Will it be bumpy? Yes. Uh but the thing about predicting the future is it's really hard. Explaining the past is a lot easier. I'm always
[54:05] interested in this difference between risk, which I think of as sometimes quantifiable or imaginable, and pure uncertainty, like we literally just don't know what's going to happen or and if you think about where you've made money, how much do you think came from the un willingness to like embrace uncertainty versus taking really calculated risks? Listen, uh you never invest
[54:36] a lot of money without visibility to what you're doing. Uh there is fog and different layers of fog. And what the fog does is it slows you down, but if you look pierce through, you see clarity. You see a monopolist at six times. You see an opportunity to take it's not a shot in the dark and hope for the best. And what you can't do is just shut down and say this is too rust, too >> like too unpredictable.
[55:06] >> Yeah. >> You just have to engage with the unpredictability until you see something before others and you strike for the fish. >> In an era like this when it's all changing so fast and understanding the core technologies is important. How do you how do you personally learn like what is your preferred method to stay a breast of what is going on and like stay in touch with reality? >> Talk to young people. >> Yeah. >> Surf Tik Tok. Try different apps. Try crazy things. Go to places where there are no old people
[55:38] >> and you don't care. I don't care someone calls me old. I'm just playing. >> Uh so it's it's just keep it fresh. >> Value is in the new. M >> being in the new always >> uh even if it turns out to be a dead end. Most of what we do is dead ends >> but it doesn't mean it wasn't valuable to try it. >> Uh so that's the hardest thing. >> There's been this wild transformation of our industry in the time that you've been a professional in it. Um what does
[56:09] the competitive dynamic feel like to you today? There's so many smart >> the universe of amazing companies has expanded. uh the number of hundred million dollar revenue business growing 40 50% has grown 10x uh because more technology more people taking risk in more places unfortunately we compete against 19,000 GPS like one of our it was it was not very nice thing to say but one of my competitors said there's more GPS than McDonald's in in the United States which you know it's one of
[56:40] those GPS that are smaller they don't feel nice when you compare McDonald it's really too many GPS and and the industry is consolidating It's become incredibly competitive. You have to have more clarity. What is your competitive edge? How have we thought about our edge brand? We've built this brand about being good partners. This brand means something and people get value from GA inside. Attracts helps them recruit talent, get clients, go public scale to have muscles that small shops
[57:11] don't have. We have 100 people in operations. They can help you with pricing, Salesforce effectiveness, AI for what customer service, whatever you need. We got a team. It's there for free. Go for scale. We got an in-house human talent team that has taps into a database of 15,000 vetted executives that you need a CTO. We'll send you a list tomorrow of eight guys in the area who we've worked with and I think fit. That's that's that's an area. And then you have to be a specialist. Can't be a generalist anymore. So, we've chosen
[57:41] what we call the GA power alleys. There are 16 parallies, things like AI applications, value based care, digital payments, 16 paralysis. Check the website. In those paralities, we think we're among the best in the world and we show up with 32 case studies of we've done this 32 times. And yes, you can copy things that work, but guess what? You don't know the things that didn't work that we tried that we're going to prevent you from trying. So it it's made it harder to compete.
[58:11] But I do think scale and experience helps provided you are deliberate at learning from the experience and focused on how you build capabilities with scale in areas that really matter not just look good on a website. If you're teaching a seminar about or for young investors who are only allowed to go invest in non US companies, so everything but the US, what are the most important things for that crew to know >> about doing that well that's distinct
[58:41] from what it would take to do well in the US? >> There's a lot more volatility. So there the frequency of surprises is much higher. So agility is is is super important. Um we're also low trust cultures. They um even though most of them are religious doesn't mean you can trust. So a higher percentage of the time you may find yourself with a crook uh across
[59:12] the table. So the value of referencing is is is much more important. And how to do a good reference is super important because people don't say bad things about other people easily. So that's another one. H the third one which is a positive one which is the one great advantage of being outside the US is there's so many things that don't work well >> lower hanging fruit >> humongous lowerhanging fruit and if you
[59:43] provide a great service you capture a lot of value for a really long time. >> How do you do a good reference >> for an investment? You do it with a family that has given you money to make investments and you say, "Jang, we're about to invest $200 million in this entrepreneur. Uh, you know, you know his grandfather. Do you think we should take this risk?" >> And he's like, "Oh, no way. He's a crook. Son of a crook." Because
[60:13] he has money with you. He tells you the truth. If you didn't have money with you, he'd say at worst he'd say, "I don't know. There's some noise. I would do my homework or they're fine." Like, now for hiring, there's another hack which I learned which is so important. So much of life is getting the right people on the bus. And when you're going to do a reference on a hire, you call the person and you say, "Hey, I'm about to we're considering David for this role. This
[60:43] role involves the following five challenges. Ba ba ba. This is a very important decision for my company because we can't get this wrong. It's also a very big decision for David because he's happy at his job and if he gets this wrong, if we get this wrong, we've wasted time and he's out of a job. Help me assess if this is a good risk for me and Dave. And if you can have an honest discussion, if you don't feel comfortable engaging like this, let's
[61:13] not talk about it. But that's what I need the reference for. You'd be surprised. People are like, "Well, for that risk, David, leave him there. He's fine." But but that is a genuine way to answer it because what I described is actually true. If this is a bad fit, David should not be taking this job. Reference calls are like are not tell me about David. Is he a good guy? That's a waste of time because Dave People say, "Yeah, he's a great guy. He's a great guy, very competent. >> What have you learned about
[61:43] managing help manage the career success of investors, which is a very distinctive job from a career ladder in a company or something? Um, incentives matter a lot, I'm sure. I'm curious what you've learned about incentives. Um, what mistakes have you made? You know, if you think about you being responsible for other investors and you wanting them to thrive, what what's the good, the bad, and the ugly that that you've >> It's an apprenticeship business. So, pairing them up with different people with different skills, different styles is super important. Helping them from a
[62:13] very young age to make recommendations. Don't just do the task. Answer the so what and ultimately say what's my level of conviction in doing this investment? don't rely just on this more senior people. Actually, one of the tricks I used to do because I've been in three investment committees in my career, you know, the 3G advent and uh I would try to understand the mind of each investment committee member and predict
[62:45] what they're going to ask. So, I would read the memo and say George Apollo is going to ask this, Bill Ford is going to ask this, Jan Carlos Toro is going to ask this. And also predict their vote. By the end of a year of doing this, I had I was up to 80 90%. And what was really interesting, it was forced me not only to have my own opinion about a deal because I would read the materials, but look at it from the perspective of someone who's really good at making these kind of decisions. And my ambition was to one day be completely
[63:17] unpredictable when someone tried to do this with me in when I became a senior person because I was capturing learnings from 30 perspective. It's not true. I'm I'm actually pretty predictable by now. But uh it's it's it's learning vicariously by forcing yourself to have opinions and also putting yourselves in the minds of people who are proven investors is a way of the apprenticeship on steroids. And one of the things that that we do at GA, which I'm really proud of because it was culturally very hard to do, our investment committees are
[63:48] open to everyone. >> The whole firm, >> the whole firm, investment professionals. So every Tuesday 190 people sign up and there's no presenting. >> We we come in directly to Shark Tag just questions >> and it's beautiful. >> So So talk me through how that meeting works. So one person like a sponsor is proposing a deal. >> So there's a deal team. The deal team is typically a combination of a sector and a geo put together. There's standardized materials with the checklist. Uh it gets distributed by Friday we yeah Tuesday we
[64:18] come in. There's no presenting the deal lead. is always a deal lead. The main sponsor is there to answer questions >> and we have five investment committee members and the IC robot which also opines and we just ask you questions. >> What's the IC robot? >> We so we've we've been training this sixth member of the IC based on 45 years of data. So she votes on all our deals and and we've we've been having her do this for the last three years and we called her
[64:48] >> is she any good? >> So we've back tested her. Yeah. >> And she's much better than humans. >> But it turns out someone who's been trained in the past is very good at the past. >> Yeah. >> We only have three years of concurrent. So we need to wait another four or five years. I'm hoping that by the time we retire, I retire about 10 years, she'll be better than >> if I was doing that, if I could somehow do that exercise with you where I I could predict the sorts of questions that you tend to ask about companies, what what are they like? What are the big ones that you find yourself
[65:18] constantly asking sponsors who are are promoting a deal? >> Yeah. Uh getting in the mind of the founder, >> his his or her motivations, why this is so special and the trajectory that got to this. I try to meet the founders outside the investor community process as a sponsor basis of competition sort of true distinct uh competitive advantage and durability of o of the competitive uh advantage. And then I I think and then I try to push people on the tales
[65:48] uh both positive and negative like like if these six bad things happen what's how bad is it and how likely is it or if this amazing development happens which could be amazing how how unlikely is and who else would benefit from so I I always find the tales to be the most interesting because if you look at the distribution of our returns 10% of our best deals and we get lucky and they produce 50% return. So we lose money very little and then 10% we get 5x plus
[66:19] and these are really important and these all of them are better than the upside case in our memos >> because good things happen that we did not see coming but God bless and thank God. So I always find like we where are the lottery tickets? >> How do you assess h it seems like first of all incredibly important like all the data we know how important the right tail is for investing outcomes. Uh it's like, you know, well well wororn truth at this point. How how do you how does one get better at assessing the option
[66:49] value embedded in a given business? Like that that just seems so crucial, but I've never there's no book about that. There's no podcast about that. You've got 10 investments. How do you know which of the 10 has more embedded like right? So the pattern recognition from having seen winning lottery tickets gives you some help, right? If you've seen more of these, you begin to see where you get how how you can get lucky. Uh as
[67:19] important in all those lucky scenarios, there was a spear fisherman at the top to capture an opportunity that was available to many, but they seized it. So it's a lot more about >> the capital allocator at the top >> the the CEO is he someone that can spear fish >> and some people you it takes one to no one some people are really good at it some people are not spear fisherman >> what is your unfinished business
[67:50] professionally >> so listen I I I could not think of a better activity than working in growth equity at general athletic for the next 10 global growth equity in the middle of the AI revolution with the seniority that I have and the dry powder >> pinch me pinch me because I hope I don't die on a plane crash because it's going to be great. Uh so now after that and I think you have to start thinking I've
[68:20] been active mentoring entrepreneurs through Endeavor which is a nonforprofit. I'm in the board and I've been doing this for 25 years. I actually started mentoring which is an interesting tidbit when my business was running out of cash and after com sounds exciting but there was a death you know the dark valley of death and Linda Rottenberg the founder of endeavor she's like it is precisely at your darkest moment that you mentor because it's a sign of you have something to give >> in the darkest moment of the night which is interesting the whole AA like I have
[68:51] friends who are in AA the body system is so valuable because even at your darkest moment you have enough light to help someone and that gives you the strength to make it through. So I huge believer in mentoring that's something I will do for the rest of my life. And then I uh the unfinished business I think uh as I get older I I want to help in this higher education in the US. I think we've lost our way. And I saw the impact scholarship to Harvard did to a young
[69:21] kid from Bolivia and I I love that institution. I I love education and I think it's in a moment that it's uh lost his way and and we can find it back. C >> can you teach me mentoring? How how does one mentor? Well, >> my my strategy there's many ways to do it. um I don't have time to be someone's mentor for six years or to see them maybe as part of endeavor I'll see them twice. So I have to hurt them
[69:53] for the mentoring to be impactful I have to make it so obvious that it's so stupid they haven't yet focused on this that they're like show him and then they act on it. Uh so uh my mentoring sessions are very uncomfortable. I mean I do it I do it in with a smile on my face of >> course but it works. It it it's like crash therapy like three years of therapy in one hour. You got you no time for both. We're going directly for the
[70:23] for the sensitive points. And I learned to do it in a way that's not damaging or disrespectful in any way. But it is very scathing and saying you can't this is clearly an opportunity. Come on wake up. smelled the coffee and sure enough now I have a couple of billionaire friends who are like you really hurt me but thank you >> and and I'm so I'm always curious about like literal process like if you're meeting someone for the first time it is the format you ask them a bunch of questions and then you quickly do the you know the aggressive like why aren't
[70:54] you doing this thing >> so I I'm married to a shrink psychoanalyst so as a condition to our marriage I have to do psycho analysis and and it's a wonderful thing I wrote it's one of the three things I wrote therapy and meditation and um one one of my favorite he's now diseased but he was a philosopher writer an incredible Italian Brazilian guy very famous in Brazil and uh you would go to this one hour weekly session and he would look at you in silence and if
[71:24] didn't say anything after a while you just say in town and town is translating so I let you take it the most powerful way to Start a conversation with someone you're trying to get to know. Silence. You tell me. >> What do you want to talk about? >> What do you want to talk? >> Simple. >> Simple. I'll give you another one. I asked, what's the most important question you need the answer to from the universe? The answer to that question is so
[71:54] powerful because vocalizing that which you most want the answer to is liberating. My traditional closing question for everyone is the same. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? >> Daniela, taught me how to love. As I, as we established, my heart's not very developed and my gut and my brain are very developed. And uh she's such a loving, wonderful woman. and uh she's being loved by her and
[72:26] learning from her how to love back and then learning from her how to love our daughters and the way that they need to be loved. And she's so smart and loving me can sometimes be very hard. >> A beautiful place to close and thank you for the reminder to laugh a lot in these conversations. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you for having