Unlocking Elite Performance: Michael Ambrosino, Partner at Access Ventures, on Servant Leadership & Venture Success

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hey, Michael, Uh, thank you for coming in. I mean, if you just have an incredible background of success and resilience and hard work and determination and really spanning every aspect of what makes for just an outstanding servant leader and, uh, capital allocator as well. But just in general, in many different aspects, you are sort of the elite, the epitome, the model for the rest of the world. So, uh, thank you for coming in and sharing your experiences with my audience.

Speaker A: I might need to carry you in my pocket to be my hype man. Uh, I need that introduction all the time.

Speaker B: So, Michael, what were those three inflection points that made you who are today? And it could have been when you were three or five years old, it could have been challenges and other opportunities, um, and it could be mentors, um, throughout your life, things like that. So what are maybe the three pivotal points that created this amazing, uh, individual you are?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll turn back the thought. And sometimes it's just easy, as Steve Jobs says, to connect, uh, the dots looking back. But I think at a young age, I grew up in the city, and when you grow up in a city, you're probably more inclined to just, like, pick up some level of sports or athleticism, because that's what's available to you. And, uh, I grew up playing baseball and just a deep love for it at such a young age. And, uh, I remember specifically my younger brother, who's just a natural athlete, like the kind of guy that can jump out of the gym without even trying to. Um, he was the number one pick in our little league trap. And you know me as the older brother. Like, I got a little sour about it and like, no, I'm supposed to be the number one pick. Like, I'm your older brother and, you know, I'm like, crying. And I go to my dad, who's like a pretty old school traditional guy, and, you know, I'm like, wiping my eyes and it's like, well, what's wrong? I'm like, well, you know, I'm supposed to be the number one pet. And he's like, well, are you going to cry about it eventually? And, uh, I said, no. And I wiped my eyes. And so fast forward to my birthday. Um, I'm going to his car and expecting a gift. And at a young age, you're just maybe looking for a video game or I don't know. And he opens the trunk of his car, and I'm looking at the objects and I'm like, I don't see any gift. And there was Just a bunch of books. And they were baseball books, they were pitching books. And just something that I'll, um, remember for the rest of my life is that I read these books and instantly saw progress in my skills and ability. And they were very minor tweaks. And you probably heard the analogy of, like, in golf, if you, like, tear off just a little bit, uh, like the long tail of that, just like hundreds of yards, like, that's how it felt for me, that no one had picked up that I was holding a baseball incorrectly to throw with more velocity. And, like, simply by changing the grip and holding it properly, like, I saw, like a step function and velocity, and I'm like, holy smokes, how many other things in life are like this, where I'm just a little off? And if I had the right information, the right data, like, what. What else could that apply to? And I saw my skills improve, and it just kind of made me someone who loved to get what I perceived as the best information. And I feel like if you can get really close to people that are performing the best, like, I don't need to be the guy that, like, comes up with this new way to do something, like just mirror and mimic the best and, yeah, put your own flavor and twist on it, right. It's still gotta feel like you. I would extend that caveat. But again, like, most things have been done. If you could, like, mirror mimic the technique in the effort, usually you'll yield a, uh, comparable result. So I'd say that was the first one. And it was really amazing to just take on that kind of leadership role, which it felt like to me as a pitcher, because so much is in your control as a pitcher, and it's a good and a bad thing. I like control. I know that about myself. And in some ways, the game starts and stops with you, and it becomes a little bit more of a mental game than a physical game at times, which I felt like gave me an advantage versus somebody who may have a, uh, stronger or more capable, typical stature or athletic ability. And that part of my life played out where my brother and I, we were pitcher and catcher. So we had, like, this really fun, you know, connection where I'd, like, kind of know what he wanted and vice versa. And we wound up bringing the first city championship back to the Bronx in, like, 45 years, where we grew up, which was a lot of fun. And, um, fast forward to high school. All I cared about was playing baseball. And I had to take three buses each way each day to get to school. And then I had baseball practice, and I'd come home and I just do it again, rinse and repeat. So there wasn't much time for me to think about anything else at that stage of my life. And I dedicated everything I had to it. Like, the downtime that I have is basically for homework and, like, watching Major League Baseball just as an observer. And come junior year, kind of how it works in baseball. And it's changed now because, like, all sports and sports science has changed a ton since I was like. But you kind of would go on this circuit where, like, junior year was, like, really the most important year if you wanted to play, like, at the next level, which I aspire to. And so I'm having a great junior season. And, uh, really just one pitch of which I specifically remember, I felt the difference after that. It changed everything. And, uh, I needed Tommy John surgery, which is much more common here today than it was back then, but everything just flipped upside down. And, like, I remember at the age of 17, just, like, trying to figure out who I was because I, like, unfortunately. But, uh, like, this dagger in baseball at the time, I'm like, okay, well, this is done. Like, people don't really come back from this, and people do now. But I really got into a place of, like, who am I? Like, what's my identity without. Without baseball? And it was like a dark couple days for me where I'm just, like, moseying around the house and, like, have my hoodie tucked all the way down and don't really want to be seen or heard. And again, it just kind of came from this absence of, like, having a purpose at the time. And everything was dedicated towards that. So, uh, it wound up being a really amazing thing. And again, this goes back to being able to see it looking back, where because I had this surgery, uh, I was in physical therapy. And most teenagers, you would get a job that's almost like manual labor at the time. You need some landscaping or you're a lifeguard or something like that. And because I had this injury and I didn't have full range of motion and all this stuff, I needed a role that would enable me to not do something physical and would also give me flexibility to prioritize this physical therapy I was going through. And so, um, I wound up getting a call, and a lot of college students get this. But I was just graduating high school to do direct sales, which, again, people have had experiences all over the spectrum. And I know it's not for everybody, but it was really formative for me. And so I wound up working for vector marketing and sold Cutco cutlery. That was like a huge part of my development as a person. And uh, by the way, if you want me to keep going, I can pause. I don't know what makes sense. I can, I'll rip it if uh, you don't pause me.

Speaker B: Well, uh, let's go back, right. And um, you had this sort of um, dynamic with your brother, right? You're both athletes in fact, really, really great Athlet. And you go to your dad and uh, he gives you these books. But I think it's really interesting when you read the books you discovered that these little minute fine tuning can have a huge dramatic effect in terms of your skill capability. And it opened up this whole idea that if you fine tune, if you have the resilience and you're willing to be adaptable, you can make these uh, adjustments and then uh, perform in an elite level. But you have to be willing to be curious to make those adjustments, right? And what you're sharing too is that you very much have this kind of internal locus of control which means you look to yourself for the improvement. You look to yourself to make the fine tuning and things like that. And you're willing to do that analysis or um, you know, internal look of a control or, or this uh, I, you know, agency and, and that self agency and identity and, and, and the self motivation and uh, almost like Angela Duckworth's grit, you know. So you're combining all of those and you realize this at a foundational edge, right? Or age. And I think that's just really fascinating that you had the worth off to do that even though you uh, when you got the injury and you were doing rehab, let's say three times a week and it required a lot of commitment. You knew enough that you know what? I'm going to put myself into a situation where I'm going to challenge it. Because direct sales is not easy, guys. Again, it's um, self agency, it's uh, internal locus of control. You determine the outcome and it's being adaptable and hard work and you're adding another layer and that layer is on the human side starting to understand human behavior. Because when you do direct sales you have to understand the other and, and what motivates them when you're going to sell. And in fact uh, you become the top salesperson in the country and you break records and things like that, which, which will go to that. But your dad to open up the trunk of his car and he had these books on Pitching. Um, so what aspect of your. So you're. It sounds like your dad was really into sports as well and things like that. Can you maybe go or. No.

Speaker A: Like, it's still the oddest thing to me because I don't think my dad has read a book since elementary school, so it's not like he's an avid reader. He dropped out of high school in three days. And he doesn't like sports. He doesn't follow sports. Like, he doesn't know anything that's going on in sports. But I really don't know what posed him, um, to or prompted him, I should say, to do that. And I think, really he wanted to see me excel. He always wants to see me excel. And I think it's just my dad has always. And I think sometimes this happens with parents, right? You want your children, ideally, to live a better life than you've lived, and you want them to have more than you had, and you want to be able to afford them the things that are better in this world. Then I think something that feels really aligned in that element is education. And so my dad did do whatever he could to give you the best of what was even possible for his status. And I do think about this a lot. And that's why the Internet is like, the great equalizer is like, most people can't grow past what they have exposure to. And you and I had that conversation the first time that we spoke. But I'll dive into that later in the call. When I moved to San Francisco at the time, like, I had no exposure to so much of the information and content that people out there had exposure to. And that was just like, table stakes for them. It wasn't like something that, like, they. Everybody kind of had some of these same ideologies, philosophies. And, um, for me, m. I was like, whoa, this is what everybody knows. Um, but I'll add one thing, and I think about this a lot, is it's one of my biggest envies amongst really young people is when you're a kid, you're not really thinking about failure that much. If you go and pick up a baseball, you're not like, am I throwing it right? You just throw at it. And that freedom to not judge yourself and just do it is so liberating. And then as we get older, this ego begins to develop, and you're almost too scared to take any action at the thought of failure. And I know I experienced that now, where sometimes, like, if I don't do something, like, as to my standards, the first time I'm just like, oh, uh, I'm never going to be good at this, you know. Well, and like that's just not how life works. And I have to remind myself of like, dude, why did you think you're going to be good at this the first time that you ever did it? Like, that's just not how life works. But when you're a kid it's just like none of those things are really crossing your mind in the same fashion. And like, I think when you experience a level um, of success in any vertical, like it tends to bleed over in confidence in other areas and the two aren't necessarily correlated. So I do have that thought a lot.

Speaker B: So, you know, you join uh, Cutco and Vector Marketing and they use college students. Right. And uh, and it's commission based sales. And you actually made a claim though, right. You said, you know what, I got to be the top salesperson. And it didn't quite work out initially, but it did. Can you go over that story? Because some people when they, when they make a claim and then they don't make it on the first try and this speaks to the resilience, right. To keep, keep going at it. Uh, can you tell? Because I think it's a great story.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm going to actually back up the truck a little further on that experience because I think it's really easy like for me to draw straight lines with like some of the like, you know, highest accolades that I achieved. But when I first started that was like, not the case for me. And like in my own training class, a lot, a lot of people got off to a faster start than I did. And something you asked about, like formative experiences in my life, I was like, really lucky to have an amazing first mentor professionally. And one of the key traits that this man possessed was that he saw me bigger than I saw myself. And I think when you're young or you just look up to someone when they can see for who you are and who you can be rather than where you are in this moment, like sometimes you borrow that confidence. It's like, well, I think that person is really smart and he sees this and me, so maybe there's something there. Right. And I think at like 18 years old, like you have this image of yourself. But for me it was just all baseball related to anything outside of baseball. I didn't have that much confidence. So my first summer, um, and this was such a valuable lesson in life. In the company, they have these things called push periods. And it's just this fabricated way to, uh, have you sell more, but they build it up. It's like the super bowl and everybody goes all in. And so, just for perspective, I had been working for two months prior, and in that two month period I had sold around $7,000, which isn't like lighting the world on fire by any means. There are a lot of people who like excelled at a much faster clip than I did. And then this push period comes and part of this objective of the company is like to have people like stretch themselves and pursue goals that they never have before. And so during this push period, it's like an 18 day window. You like just, you commit to the process of the push period. You commit to the activity of just like the rules where you're either on a demo, trying to set a demo, or in the office, like, can you commit to that for 18 days? And those three things seem simple enough to commit to, but obviously there's things that go into it. But the goal that they had me pursue was $10,000 in 18 days when I had sold 7,000 in two months prior. And so like, my mind was like, how is that going to happen? Right? Like, there's just no way that I can like outperform my prior results in this shorter window of time. And at the time when I was entering this like, you know, 18 day window, I felt like I had the least amount of leads that I'd ever had because I like burned them all. So I'm like, I already used my best options. Like, I don't have anything in the holster necessarily to like go and pursue this goal. And so I committed to the activity. And funny enough, I remember I got this feedback from this first mentor, um, was still very much himself figuring it out at that point. But I think one thing that happens when you're like a high school student specifically, this feedback has been shared a lot is that, uh, you just take and follow directions pretty well. Like because you live this structured life, like that was the case for me where like, I kind of just like did what I was told. And so like, if you gave me like the blueprint for how to do something, like, the least I could do is at least follow the blueprint. And like in so many of these sales type scenarios, like, if you just follow the outline of things that have worked in the past, you're probably going to receive some similar level of success. And so I remember, uh, I walked up to my manager and I'm like, hey, how do you sell $10,000 in 18 days. And he goes, you start by making 300 phone, um, calls right now. And he told me that my response was, okay. And I just turned back to my seat and I just did it. And, like, I didn't think about it because I was like, well, if this is how you do it, right, like, this is how you do it. And I think now I might, like, look back and be like, I don't want to make 300 phone calls right now. But, like, at the time, I just followed the directions. And so there was this moment, um, even leading up to the story that you're speaking of, where a really big transformative moment in my life was, uh, the number one student in the nation. I saw him on stage, and it just sold, like, $30,000 in the month of January. And again, that same mentor of mine was sitting next to me who's like, you could be him. And I'm like, really? You think so? You see that in me? And so as soon as that guy got off stage, I, uh, was like, okay, this guy's probably got some super secret silver bullet special sauce that I got to know about. And, hey, I want you to mentor me. I want to take calls with you and learn under your way. And so I took some of these calls with them. And I don't mean to say this in a diminishing way, but I was so unimpressed. I was like, this guy. This is the guy who got this results. And then I grew more confident. I'm like, if this guy can do it, I actually do think that I can do it. And, uh, fast forward, I decided after that person had set the record for what I wanted to pursue, that I was going to pursue it, too, and not just break his record, but try and set the company record, which was like, $55,000 in the month of January. And so I wound up pursuing that the first time. And, uh, I sold $30,000 a month of January, which by all accounts, in that context, was still exceptional. I was still the number one student in the nation. I wound up feeling such a failure because I'm like, oh, my God, I fell short of my goal by 40%. That is just kind of disgraceful. Uh, I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment because, like, one of the things that they try and have you do in that setting is, like, create some level of public accountability. And I think that's good in some ways, and in other ways, maybe it's not so good. But, like, I felt like I gave all these people my word that I was going to do this. And, like, the truth is no one probably cares that much, but, like, at least to me, I was like, oh, my God, like, I gotta follow through on this. And then when I fell so short of my goal, like, I was. I was really discouraged because, like, I did try my hardest at the time, and I, like, left no stone unturned. Like, I exerted max effort. And so in my head I was like, this is just not possible for me because I know that I gave this 100% of what I could give right now. It wasn't like I didn't have any remorse on the fact of my effort was there. And so that was the first time, like, while working at that company where I, uh, like, even thought about just not doing this anymore because I was like, oh, my God, like, if I can't. If I can't achieve that goal, like, who am I even, like? And I feel horrible because I, like, I felt so short. Like, I feel like a failure. That's just weird how that works, right? Where, like, you can do something that's, like, by all accounts, really impressive or, like, compared to the rest of the field, really just above the rest of people. At least sales is measurable in that way. And just feel like, wow, I'm a failure. Like, I'm like a loser. Like, all those thoughts were, like, swimming through my head at the time. Um, I don't know if there's anything to say on that, but I can fast forward a little bit too.

Speaker B: Yeah. And then. And then, um, in your original manager, that's a sim, right? Of course.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, same.

Speaker B: Yeah. So a seam. And, um, you also, in one of your first staff meetings, that you studied the secrets of the millionaire mind, I think, as well. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. You take good notes. I remember when I first got invited to what they called, like, a key staff meeting. And, like, fast forward, like, they just want you in the office more. And so anyway, that they could, like, brand it, uh, in a way that seems intriguing. They're going to do that. And, like, when you're like, someone who loves teams, like I do, I'm like, key SAP. Like, I want the inside secrets, whatever. And it was cool because at that time, like, I think most kids, unless they have a natural inclination themselves or their parents kind of thrust upon them, um, the concept of reading is not fun. It's just. It feels forced because you're like, you have to do it in school, and it may topically be on things that you're not interested in. And so for me, when we went to this key staff meeting. Part of the key staff meeting is you work on some skills for the role in the job and then you would read like the group would read out of a book that's like personal growth oriented. And so I remember the first book was T uh Harv Ecker, Secrets of a Millionaire Mind. And I remember some of the concepts being shared and like why aren't they teaching me this in school? Like this seems like the stuff that I really should be learning about and knowing and it just wasn't, it wasn't the same content and it felt like oh, uh, these are skills and lessons that like can be applicable for the rest of my life. And oh, uh, like I like this. And I think when you work in a direct sales role because it is hard, it is really uncomfortable, it forces you to grow and so they try and get you on that on ramp pretty early of like let's, let's grow these youngins to uh, be bigger than their fears almost. And that was really impactful, uh, to just like kind of begin reading books and also be interested in reading books. Um, to get my hands on content and like, you know, just you begin to form these habits of like one of the challenges that they offered was just to read 20 pages a day, which doesn't seem like it's like that big of a number. Like pretty much all literate humans are capable of reading 20 pages a day. And if you read 20 pages a day, you're probably going to read like 14 or 15 books a year.

Speaker B: That's true.

Speaker A: That's like a lot more than most of the world. Right. And so in my head I'm like, who can't read 20 pages a day? Right? Like come on, that's just, that's simple enough. But it was like this bite size amount that was doable for me and I also felt myself getting smarter which is like a really good feeling like consuming this information and like oh, it's showing up in my life and there are times when I can use this. And yeah, I think that feeling of progress is definitely a powerful one.

Speaker B: Yeah, because you're shifting your cognitive framework right. From being an hourly kind of wage earner to one that could think strategically and, and um, this um, internal locus of control, self agency and think strategically about capital accumulation and advanced financial mechanics and just the psychology of it all, financial habits and wealth, uh, psychology. And that would be really transformative for you. And I know that you went in and re challenged yourself. So can you tell about that journey? Because I know your Last sale was late at night and the conditions were terrible. And yet you still, you know. So I think it's just a fascinating story.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is a fun one. And I, like, look back at those moments and just, like, kind of makes me smile. Like, you're almost like, too young to like, even realize what you did. Like, to have that naivety in some ways. But so I want to, uh, Tony Robbins event and unleash the power within events. And I was 2020 at the time, and they asked this question of, like, what's your biggest fear? And it was in November. And so this fear that I had was like, oh, no, January is coming around again. Like, are people going to remember the fact that I fell on my face last January? I'm really, really shy and nervous about that. And so he's like, okay, write down your biggest fears. And I'm like, I know this one. I didn't know the question he was going to ask afterward, but just like, okay, like, how do you conquer it? I'm like, oh, man, I feel like I got set up here. And so, uh, I'm like, oh, no. Like, I. I have to try and break this record again because, like, I'm. I'm so afraid of it. And there's this quote that I think is really, like, paradoxical and funny is that fear is the only thing that gets smaller as you run towards it. And that's how I felt. And so I was like, all right, I'm going to, like, go out and, like, try and set the January record again. And I'm like, okay, but maybe you, like, don't tell anybody, right? And it's like an internal goal. And, like, you can just keep it to yourself and, you know, no one will find out. And if you hit it, awesome. Like, if you don't, like, no one will care. Like, no, you gotta go through it. Like, you gotta do it in the same way. Like, you gotta put yourself out there. And so, like, I said, hey, I'm gonna do it. And so I did my best to, like, start off the year on a strong foot because, like, during January, as college student, you have your break. And so in my head, how that looked is that I was gonna, like, sell the most that I was going to sell while I did not have my classes because I had more time. And then the back half of January, once my classes start again, I was going to have a comfortable cushion that I was just back filling. And that's just not how life works for the most part. But I remember making 1200 phone calls before the start of the year to try and fill my calendar. And uh, kind of fast forward, this is like a, it was a five week month that uh, January. So I remember after the fourth, like right at the beginning of the fourth week, we had like our like year end slash kickoff conference. And during that conference, um, I kind of swept all these like sales awards. And I remember I was at $32,000, which beat last year. So like, yeah, progress, great. And I remember saying to myself, like, oh my God, like I'm, I'm still 20,000. Like I'm at least $20,000 plus short of this fall right now. Uh, like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. And I also had this weird thing come over me where like, I'm um, on stage and like sweeping all these awards and I like kind of resented the fact that everybody was blowing smoke up my ass like, oh man. Like, you're the man. And I'm like, this is not the goal. Like, the goal is what this is. I'm like, well, it also was like a point in my life where I'm like, if these are the people I'm surrounding myself with, like, I need to be around people that are thinking bigger because if they think this is big and I don't, then like, I need to be around people that are going to challenge me and push me. And so I remember going home from that event and like having this moment where I'm like, okay, you could like sail it in, right? And like work decently hard your last week and you know, probably finish it around like $40,000 and like, guess what, that's like a uh, 33% increase over last time. You'll be like coasting and beating everybody else. And you know, and then I remember during the Unleash the Power within event, Tony like briefly said, and there's a book called the Men. Think it. If you haven't read it, you should figure it out. And I just like remember being at UPW and like Amazon and get to my home at that moment. And then I had all these books in my house. And like that night I remember it was like, well, midnight 1:00am Um, I just like staring at the ceiling thinking like, how am I going to do this? Should I even pursue it? Is it worth it? And then I remember saying, michael, the version of you that worked their butt off this entire month would absolutely kick the ass of immersion right now that wants to like, let up. And so I was like, okay. And then I just remember, like, Hearing Tony's voice and like, almost like seeing Azim and thinketh on my shelf, like, glowing, like, pick me up. And so luckily it's a really short book and I read it in like an hour or two. One of the most important concepts of that book is like, the moment that doubt becomes more dense than like, your thought of possibility, like, you're just finished. And I'm like, okay, well, I can't let doubt creep in. And like, okay, but like, how could I really get myself to a state where I believe that I can do this? Like in my phones? I feel like I can accomplish this. Not like faking it, but I really need to embody this. And so I did something that I'd never done before. I basically like, went back to all my, uh, old customers and asked if they would sit down with me and just like took an approach that I never took before, which is a lesson for the rest of my life, is like a new approach often can yield like expansive performance. And so fast forward, like, I had sent emails out to like, all my old customers and asked them if they wanted to sit down with me again, like before I graduated. And I would sharpen their knives and they were like, okay. And a bunch of people responded. But like, as is life, where some people like respond to a text or an email and like, they're like, yes, I'd love to see you. And then like, they miss the rest of like, keep scheduling a time, right? And so I, I sold $20,000 plus in a week before. Only one time in my career prior. And so I had a lot of doubt that I could do it again. And that last day, I remember I needed to sell $11,000 in the day and I had four appointments and I felt good about a couple of them, but like, also like, didn't think that I was going to sell $11,000 on four appointments. And so I. My first appointment was at 7:00am um, and I remember getting out of my house at 6 and it's like, no, it's like not what I need today. Like, I don't need anybody canceling, like, whatever. And so I go to that first appointment to, uh, the first time I sat down with them, they made a fifteen hundred dollars purchase. This time they bought a can opener. And I'm like, really not helping me towards my goal. And it's like, I need to sell $11,000 and I just spent like an hour and a half or 50 and like, there was nothing against that customer. She's so lovely. But I, like, didn't feel like I was making progress towards my goal. And so then I went to the next appointment, and I wound up selling, like, $2,500. Like, I got this boost. Feel like, okay, like, me. Like, I can do this. And so as I progressed, I, like, figured, okay, how can I use my weakness in this case as a strength? Think outside of the box. And what I figured out is that the snow was coming down. And, like, okay, this really sucks, but what edge does it offer me? And the edge was that everybody was home because no one was leaving their houses during this snowstorm that was coming in, and I was already out. So I'm like, okay, anybody who said that they would sit down with me or I was in the neighborhood and I had a past customer there, I'm just gonna show up and knock on the door and ask if they have time to sit down with me. And I kind of know that they do because they're sitting at home in the snow, kind of probably just, you know, watching Netflix or something. And so I wound up, you know, basically selling, like, an additional. Like, I was at $8,000 at 8pm and so we. I felt good, but I had no means. Like, I exhorted, like, I, uh, knocked on everybody's door that I could, like, that was tapped. And so it's like 8pm and snow's coming down, and I'm just like, man, like, $3,000 is not small in that context. It's like, uh, there's. What's your strategy? And there aren't many strategies to deploy at that point. And so I'm, like, looking through all my leads, and there was one woman, and it's not always the best indicator, but, uh, there was one woman who, like, made a very large purchase for me who, like, hey, you should sit down with this woman. Like, they just moved into the home. Like, it's a big, beautiful home. Like, they'd probably be a good prospect. And, you know, I remember taking the first call with her, and she was so lovely. And she's like, oh, my God, yes, I'd love to sit down with you. Like, please, just call me back at this time. I'm like, okay, cool. And I followed up with her for, like, a month and just never got a hold of her again after that first phone call. And, like, I left a voice note, you know? And so 8pm comes. I'm, like, pretty close to her house, and I call her and remember her name is Sasha Blackwell. And I'm like, hey, Sasha. She's like, oh, my God, Michael. Like, I got your voicemail. I was meaning to call you back. Like, what time next week? Can you sit down with me? And I'm like, I'm like five minutes away from you right now. And like, I really am close to this goal. Like, is there any way you can sit down with me right now? And she definitely has some apprehension to do, like it's some blizzard and like, I don't know you and you're like coming to my house on like, you know, Monday night. But anyway, I just tell her I'll be there in five minutes and show up. And I made this promise with my college roommates and friends that they weren't allowed to, uh, let me in the house, uh, until I broke the record and I was off comms the whole day because I just had no time to chit chat with them. And so, yeah, the last appointment of the day, like, you know, I wound up. Well, I shouldn't even say appointment because it wasn't scheduled, like, you know, past midnight. Winds up being like this $3,000 sale. And uh, yeah, I just remember coming back to my place, like, having broken this record and like my roommates celebrating me and like lifting me on their shoulders. And that's just having this like, epic night and Was true. What the book said is that, like, I never left the doubt, become more dense than like my belief in myself. And that was such a valuable lesson, like, you know, until the clocks hit zero. Like there's pretty much always a way, like if you're willing to like, think outside the box and yeah, sometimes ask people for help. It's another lesson that I've had to learn. I'm not that good at as I like, control. But all those things, like a match to this beautiful moment, uh, which still helps me today.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's just so many different stories of just continual growth. And I taught logic when I was younger and we, uh, talk about stepwise refinement. In other words, if you have this really what seems to be an impossible problem, you break it into incremental steps and you chew at it. And then by doing so, you can put a person on the moon. I mean, it could be fantastical. There is no barrier, really. And as long as you get this mindset that you could conquer and that's what you've done, right, you, you divide these things into these best practices and steps and you, and you execute on those steps. And guess what? You end up achieving what is considered to be impossible goals. And your whole life is really, uh, a testament to that of continued growth and, and I guess um, where you are today, you're so successful is to try to keep that mindset because you know sometimes you lose as you get older you lose some of that uh, you know, um, that innovation sort of fearlessness kind of mindset. Right? Sort of the innocence part of it. So I'm going to kind of compress some of this now because uh, we've spent quite a bit of time on the, the first part. So I'll just kind of um, sort of summarize this next part. You do a relocation to Silicon Valley and to organizational leadership. This idea of almost like geographic arbitrage in the pursuit of innovation and taking all of your optimized performance and behavioral mechanics and the agility, the resilience and really the dedication and the mentorship that you receive and all the books and the lessons you've learned from traditional, the sales environment and then uh, expanding that operational theater. So you move from uh, New York to San Francisco which is a global epicenter for technology, venture capital and high growth startups and that leads uh, to an entirely new economic paradigm. You actually um, shift your focus from consumer of our goods to software, digital infrastructure, venture backed enterprise and you get mentorship again though um, and because you weren't afraid to say you know what I can learn from you and then um, people will say oh gee, they're willing to say provide guidance in essence. And you're like a sponge in the sense that all of these lessons you'll pick up and so you integrate into the Silicon Valley ecosystem, um, operating as the director of community growth with abundant uh, uh, coaching organization. And it's about the facilitation of human potential and generating commercial value as an organizational catalyst. And you're continually refining your own psychological mindset and skill set because you realize there's this tremendous uh, capability in the empowering part and the navigating to professional and personal development. And uh, you're a student of life philosophy, right? So you realize that when you're working in that environment of um, startups and high uh, growth people but also in startups um, uh, there's this whole aspect of human motivation, behavior psychology, peak performance optimization and you learn about that. So you continue to refine all the things you learned when you didn't uh, sales and you were so resilient and m, the empathy aspect of the coaching, uh, creating a sort of a really unique, well rounded executive skill set that proved uh, very invaluable. And so you then get into the founding of the profile firm. So can you talk about that? And then from there walking to, uh, where you are today, and that's, you know, you're in venture capital and so on. Right?

Speaker A: So I think when you live in San Francisco, it just feels like the world revolves around tech and innovation. Like, that's what it feels like when you're there. Like, if you're at your, like, normal coffee shop and other parts of the world, like, they're having their conversations. And if you're like, in the bay, it's like all tech, startup, innovations, venture, et cetera. It's like all that's talked about. In some ways it's like, enthralling. And in some ways it's also like, maybe we can talk about other things too. Uh, is what gave me a foot out the door at one point. But I think when I first got there, I recognized that everybody kind of burned the bridge to pursue their dreams, and I wanted to be surrounded by that energy. That's kind of what prompted the move. And I would meet all these founders and talk to them and ask them, hey, what's the hardest things that you're dealing with? And I kind of always came back to the same two things. It was talented and it was money. And I didn't think that I was at the time going to be able to very much help on the money front. And so I'm like, okay, I have an idea how to get people through the door. And you work with these founders and it's so hard to be a founder. It's so hard in so many different ways. The way I try and explain it to people is if you ever watch the NFL, these men are moving so fast, and sometimes you might see someone barely touch them and knock them off balance. It's because when you're running that fast, it's really easy to get you off guilt. And so that is basically the life of a startup. It's like you're running so fast all the time that it's just so easy to push you off balance, because moving slow is not an option. You're never going to beat an incumbent that's already, like, large and established by moving slow. Like, your advantage as a startup is the fact that you're nimble and can move quicker than that. Like, you're not having meetings about having meetings. You're going out, uh, and like, iterating as fast as possible. And you can allocate all your resources to, like, one problem, right? And it's just a little different. And a Fang model, which, if you're a Facebook or an Apple or a Netflix or a Google. You can't move as quickly on things because they're just like guardrails and bureaucracy when you're at a company that size. And so I love working with people the very early stages because we had a conversation, someone can go and take action on it the second after the call ended. Uh, and to see people do that, you also begin to just, like, notice these patterns of, like, these founders and like, the ones. And it's not perfect, right? Because, like, so much of, like, forming a successful company is timing. It's like pursuing the right product at the right time. There's a lot of that stuff to it. But you then begin to notice, like, the ones who usually make it, there's just this level of obsession, and you see it immediately. And it's like nothing else really matters to them other than building this thing, which we can debate whether that's healthy or not, but that's just where they're at. And so being around people who were just going after their dream and leaving it all on the table felt so aligned. And to see many of those founders figure it out and also just pivot, like, constantly, like, not have the result that they wanted and, like, take the feedback and, like, it'd be really easy for them to quit at that moment or really be easy for them to, like, sunset the company, return the money back to the investors. Right? But, like, they just kept iterating and, like, eventually found product market fit. And then it, like, almost changes into an entirely different company once you find product market fit. Like, I think you probably heard these numbers. And there's this famous Peter Thiel book called Zero to one. And that's a stage of the business. And then there's 1 to 10, and there's 10 to 100. And all of those present such different problems. And typically the skills that helped you succeed in that other bucket don't lend themselves to the next stage. You almost have to become an entirely different company in these stages. And so it's really fascinating, like, when you begin to, uh. I like things that are measurable, like performance M. It's really hard to improve if you can't measure it right. And like, at these companies, like, all this stuff begins to shift, like, so quickly. And some of it's just like, it's really interesting where it's almost like. And again, I love sports. It's weird how long it took the NBA to recognize that, like, three points is more than two points. And now you see all these teams shooting three pointers, right? Because if you shoot 40% from three, you take five threes, you have six points. It's. You shoot you know, 50% on two pointers, right? It's not as many as six points. So it's. People shifted the activity right of like what is performance wise and what makes the most sense. And like to watch people experience almost like this asymmetry so quickly by like one thing, right? Like they figured out one growth engine, they figured out like one way to acquire a customer, they figured out one way to service a customer. They figured out one product that really just had such an impact. Like it was so fun to work with people that like in some ways it's good that San Francisco Shelby from the rest of the world because it doesn't allow the thoughts of doubt and risk to impact it. In some ways it's very insular. But it's a really special place to be. And if you haven't spent much time in the Bay Area, um, you have the opportunity to. It is a really cool place to experience and just people watch, sit down in the coffee shop, have conversations, see what matters to people, see what they're thinking about. And I don't live there now. I do get back there often in this era during this AI super cycle. The feeling in San Francisco is just charged. It's really incredible.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean you become really the person um, in the capability of the profile firm and highly specialized technical talent recruitment and architecting it and navigating as you mentioned, the various capital uh life cycles right from seeking talent from the initial pre seed to seed to series A, B, C, D et cetera. And the requirements are different and requiring the rapid transition uh from this sort of visionary founders all the way to a global organizational hierarchy. You did all of that and continue to do that uh, now and then more the capital allocation side as well. But you know your company and you, you built this uh, elite unicorn status and these founders that you were able to um, uh work with. And it's just uh, amazing the ability to go from direct sales and human psychology and then taking that into the you know, the founder kind of mentality and the different stages of the founder mentality. And you know in seed and series A it's highly volatile. Uh sometimes the product market fit is still not quite there. It's very chaotic. And yet what you're doing, you're sourcing ah, highly adaptable, risk tolerant people with extreme resilience. And that's. Those are sort of the traits that you uh, mirrored in uh direct sales. Right. So establishing a functional baseline capable of sort of repeating and securing substitute uh subsequent I should say institutional capital. You're then able to take them to Stere's, uh, well into A, B and C. Rapid scaling, aggressive uh market penetration required system wide capabilities here. Transition the teams by recruiting specialized middle uh management. Operationalize the UM founder early vision driving predictable revenue models. Predicting the uh, core company culture from hypergrowth degradation and then from series D pre IPO acquisition ah positioning global market dominance. You're then recruiting for season C operators capable of managing the massive headcount, preparing for that public market scrutiny and culminating these unicorns valuations. You've done that very successfully I would say the most successful uh operator in that space. And as a result you develop a lot of respect. Uh, people would come to you and you would get um, tremendous insight very early. Um, uh, um and I should do a time check here but I know there's some where you say I knew that this could have scaled and I, I, I did. I uh, you know for some reason I didn't pursue it and things like that. Let me do a time check. How much more can you go over? Because we've done about an hour.

Speaker A: Yeah, probably like 10 minutes.

Speaker B: Okay, 10 minutes. Okay. So um, so we're going to have to go more to the wrap up phase. So did I get that right? In terms of what you're doing with the profile firm, is there anything I missed? And then let's get into the flagship ventures, access ventures and your work there and things like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I think it's, you don't know that all these things are happening while it's going on. Like I was in my 20s and it's just like all right, well this is working right now. So I'm gonna do this right now because it's working right now. And I um, think I noticed that like wow, each one of these stages has different things and different complexities and challenges and like there's some like, like it was cool to work with some of the bigger companies but like actually mostly from the ability to say that I worked with a bigger company not because I like to work more. I actually very much liking working with the earlier stage companies because there was just like less red tape and like you can move faster and like that was more fun for me and my work I think was felt more impactfully. Right. If your team is sub 10 people, one person makes a giant difference. If your company is hundreds of people, one person makes less of an impact. And so yeah, it was really fun. And talent, some things have changed significantly and some things will remain the same. And maybe this is a little bit of a uptake. Um, but I think there's a lot of folks right now who are talking about all these layoffs within AI and like, I don't mean to be dehumanizing. Like, it's really sad in some ways that like, people are losing their work. And you know, also I can tell you that like, there's never been more hiring than there has been right now. On the other side of that, where, like, if you are willing to adopt some of these tools and like incorporate them into how you work, companies are actually paying more than they've ever paid before to have you on board. And so it is a weird dichotomy because again, the divergence of these two is becoming really, really sparse. But it's something that I only see growing at this moment because the application of all these tools is driving productivity in ways that we've never seen it done before.

Speaker B: Yeah. And because you span the entire ecosystem. Right. And now you're into the capital allocation side, as I mentioned. Uh, I should say Flex Ventures, Access Ventures. And it's a logical evolutionary step for you because you've architected these executive teams that became unicorns. And so it's a great, uh, transition to go into the capital allocation and you provide this very valuable, um, skill set. Right. Because really human capital ultimately is the driver. And so can you talk a little bit about that? And I know you have an interest in Bitcoin or that kind of marketplace as well, because you're an early adopter. So I'd like to get your uh, kind of opinion of where that's going at a macro level. Decentralized architecture, you know, cryptographic, uh, technologies and digital asset classes and then um, Web three, decentralized finance. But where you see things going, um, because now of the nature of your work.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think I'll start at the beginning and say that there's this Japanese mental model called the BT guy that it's kind of like where are your skills and things that you're good at? Meet something that excites you. Meet something that you know is a bigger contribution than yourself. And lastly, where like, if you perform, you are like, given your fruits and flowers for your performance. And so I was trying to figure out what that was and like the recruiting space didn't feel like it was offering it to me on a long term scale. So I wanted something where like, I was building and like I didn't start at zero every year. That's what it felt like at a recruiting firm. It's like I constantly had to find new clients and that's just, it's not a great feeling. And no one values your book of business like you value it. No one values your relationships like you value them. And so I was like, well, I'd love to be on the other side of this. That's if I could. Like, I feel like. And everybody kind of thinks this, admittedly I think, but it's like, well, if I was on this side, like I could, I could identify the talent. Like I know what founders like would wind up succeeding. You know, like I've been around a bunch of them and like, let me put that to the test. So I think there's some level of truth to that. And it's been fun being on the side of the table. Right? Because like now truly today, capital is a commodity. There's so much money that's out there that's dedicated to go into high growth companies. In tech, people know that it has the highest possibility for asymmetry. So I guess a lot of people are trying to find asymmetry where they can. But I think we are experiencing it in um, ways that we've never seen before because we've never seen growth this fast. Like if you were to look at OpenAI and in profit, like two model companies that everybody's talking about, like ChatGPT launched November 30th of 2022 and had ah, a million users in seven days. We had never seen anything like that before. And then on the other side of the coin, anthropic has grown 10x 10x 10x. That has never happened at the numbers that they experienced. Like is scale usually doesn't work that way. Right. You can't just like double, double, double, double, double, double, like that doesn't really work out. But they've been able to do that today. And so yeah, I'm super bullish on where we're headed. And I think the conversation of like, is this an AI bubble comes up all the time. And I understand why, but if you were to look at the behavior of bubbles, it actually always starts with the same thing. There's usually a huge step function in technology that creates the hype. The Internet as an example. Right. Of course there's a lot of companies that came out of the Internet era that are uh, great investors for people and there are a lot that didn't materialize. This feels a little different because these companies are Actually doing revenue and it always feels different. I'll highlight that too. Every bubble you're asking yourself the same questions. But if we're looking at like the tams that this is exactly, it's all addressable market, like we haven't even really deployed AI, uh in the physical world, which is way bigger than the digital world. And look at the size of these companies to date. So if I was to ask you, do you think our future is going to be more A.I. uh, driven or less? I think most people would say more if that's the case right now. I'm simplifying here, but like then it probably leads that a lot of these things are going to continue to grow. That doesn't mean that you should just be throwing money around left and right, like, but the biggest companies I think are going to be the biggest companies you've ever seen. Every super cycle, you kind of add a zero to the market cap of these companies and you know, there are trillion dollar companies now. Like no one thought that was possible so long ago, right? And now there are several billion dollar companies and I think we'll see our first $10 trillion company probably within the next couple of years. And like no one thought that that was possible or you're adding another zero to that side of the ledger. Um, to speak on crypto specifically, I'm less involved than I once was. I didn't, you know, kind of buy my first bitcoin at a young age. But some of that's luck, some of that's pursuit and you know, really a friend that put me on. And um, I think I like to focus less on crypto, more on blockchain. Like the tech is there and we're not seeing it, but it's happening all over the place. Like banks are beginning to integrate these types of technologies like payment. Rails are being reconstructed stable, coins are like being used on both sides of the ledger for giant, giant, giant banks and corporations. It's just less noisy than it once was because a lot of these types of things are kind of boring that just needed a facelift and now there's better technology that exists and it's not the same thing as like, oh my God, I invested in bitcoin at this price. Now it's up to this, right? I think there's maybe less of that in the future, right? That's at its day and like again, if you invested pretty early, you're in really good shape. But I think it's more the underlying tech that is still yielding lots of excitement and I don't know what those applications are going to be in the future, but I imagine again they're going to be supercharged by AI uh. The broad mandate of what AI uh can apply to is just like, that's what makes it special, is like, it's not like AI can change everything. And it is like AI can change everything. It's like this really weird way that there's so many things that it can impact.

Speaker B: Yeah. Before we get to the last question, and I encourage the audience to just research this so they should research further. You and uh, your venture group and you know, your chief of staff Abby and you got Robert, uh, ventureport, I believe, and Craig and just amazing backgrounds. Right. And to the audience that they want to see where things are going, follow, follow what you're doing and, and um, you know, where you're making investments and things like that. And then just kind of off the top of my head. So I need the audience do your own kind of due diligence and research. But um, you know, I read you know that um, JP Morgan, they put 1.5 trillion they're making in investments. I mean that's incredible. You have um, SpaceX, their ah, seed round was 20 million. Now they're heading towards 2 trillion anthropic just a few years ago. Their initial round was 550 million valuation. They're heading to a trillion. I know that, um, the North Kosal, I think you put in 50 million. 2019, they're heading to a trillion. If you look at um, um, let's see, Nvidia and if you bought their stock, let's say in 2015, I think it was about 20, 20 billion. Now they're uh, you know, five point something, 5.6 trillion. They've hit right this year. It's just as you mentioned, incredible uh, numbers right where things are going and, and, and you're at the center of that. You see things early, you're at the center of it. You're an amazing accomplished uh, venture, uh in so many different ways because so many dynamics to this and this leads to um, maybe last couple of questions, your reflections on some of those numbers. And then the last question would be, uh, what would be your recommendations to the audience and what questions would you want to leave the audience?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm not a public markets guy so I want to make sure that I highlight that uh, I know the private markets pretty well and I know the private tech markets pretty well. Like it's, it's a bubble and silo within a silo but I just like to highlight that because I don't meet many people who know like so much about every topic and God bless those people. But I think, yeah, I ah, have, first of all, I have so much respect for Jesse Bong and me founded Nvidia in the 90s. This wasn't an overnight success, uh, and we had a very successful business and decided to entirely commit it to pursue this AI vision. I don't think people talk about that enough of how much guts that takes to risk it all for the vision of the future. And you were already successful and now it's the biggest company in the world. So that's one thing that stands out to me and what you said, I think in the numbers we're still so early, the penetration of AI within the average consumer and enterprise is nowhere close to where it's going to be. And so if I was to say one thing that people are just like, play around with this stuff. Uh, right. Like we're so lucky because these companies have subsidized our usage. Like they continue to spend so much money so we can have these things pretty cheap. And there are projects that you thought would probably cost tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to build that you can now build yourself for like tens of dollars, which is such a share. And uh, in the past it's two things. It's money and it's time. It used to cost so much and it used to take so long. Most of those things have been eliminated where if you're not that technical, you can build things. You used to have to code in ones and zeros. Now I can code in English. There's such a jump that I didn't know that we'd ever experienced in our lifetime. And it's here and it's moving faster than ever. And so whether it's, you know, like a codex or a uh, quad cowork, like use these tools, those are the two ones that I recommend the most because it's like the simplest and just tinker, mess around, who cares? Fail, right? Like, hey, try and build something. Try and build an app for yourself and like, you know, make it. This is just the easiest one in my head is like making a personal goal app, right? Like, hey, I'm going to track these things, uh, daily habits, build it, mess up, work through the problem and like, see what it's like on the other side. Because it's never been a better time to build than it is right now. But like, you're still going to experience failure just like Anything else, I'm like, work through it. You're going to be better for it. And if you don't, like, you might be shown up by people or whatever, like using the integrate. That's something even. Seriously.

Speaker B: I mean, even Dariel says that M. By the end of this year, there'll be a person, just a person running a unicorn company and potentially could have AI do the arrest. Right. I mean, just incredible. Um, and you're at the hub of this as well. So, uh, are any other questions you want to leave the audience where, you know, questions they, uh, ponder, should ponder?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think for me, something that gets thrown a lot, thrown around a lot are books. What's your favorite book recommendation? And I think it's a useful framework. But the way that I kind of sidestep that conversation whenever someone asks me, what's a book that I should read? What's something that you've read that's changed your worldview or has impacted the daily behavior? And because those two things, to me are really hard, it's really hard to change someone's mind about how they view the world. And it's really hard to get someone to do something every day. And so I would like, pose that same thing in this realm of like, can you commit to just, like, tinkering around with one of these LLMs, um, every day, just, like, have it open, ask it questions, rest with it, right? Like, let it get to know you, you get to use it. Nothing's a dumb question. Explore it, pursue it. And I think the other question I would leave is like, can you ask yourself? And I've tried to train myself to do this, like, genuinely, like, can AI do this? And there's just like, so many times where the answer is yes, and you're like, oh, wow, like, then let me let it do it, right? So you can free up a lot of your time if you're just, like, willing to explore some of these tools, which that does take a little bit of an upfront cost, but, like, once you get past the upfront costs, it's like hours and hours of your time back.

Speaker B: So, Michael, again, uh, in gratitude for you for taking over an hour with me and exploring so many different areas, and you're just a phenomenal figure, a pioneer and icon that people should model and learn from and, and, uh, and follow your work and, uh, and your colleagues as well. So thank you for coming in and sharing your work.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks, Stephen. It's great to see you. Thank you for listening to the brand called you Videocast and Podcast, a platform that brings you knowledge, experience and wisdom of hundreds of successful individuals from around, um, the world. Do Visit our website, www.tbcy.in to watch and listen to the stories of many more individuals. You can also follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Just search for the brand called you.