1. Eden Warner (Founding Principal at Treever, Ex-CFO of Fandango)

My Purposeful Path. Engineer to CFO

Unlock the secrets to a successful career with Eden Warner, whose inspiring journey spans engineering, finance, and entrepreneurship. From his early days at Northrop Grumman to leading a cutting-edge mobile marketing startup, Eden shares invaluable insights on making purposeful career decisions. Learn how strategic choices and adaptability can shape your professional path, as Eden recounts his transition from aerospace engineering to obtaining an MBA and tackling significant roles at Intel and ARCO.

Join us as Eden reveals the pivotal moments that defined his career, including a high-stakes decision between Intel and ARCO, managing international projects, and navigating the intricacies of the finance sector. Discover how Eden balanced financial considerations with long-term goals, leveraging his background in engineering to excel in business. His story offers a compelling look at the importance of initiative and ownership in career development, providing practical advice for professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs alike.

Finally, dive into the entrepreneurial world with Eden as he outlines the traits necessary for startup success. From the importance of extreme ownership to the dangers of rapid expansion, Eden's insights are a must-hear for anyone looking to thrive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment. Hear firsthand how adaptability and strategic hiring have propelled his ventures forward, and gain a balanced perspective on maintaining a fulfilling career. This episode is packed with lessons, anecdotes, and strategies that will inspire and guide you on your own career journey.

Feel free to leave comments here!

Episode Transcript

Daniel Koo (00:00):
Welcome to my Perfect Path, where we dive deep
into the lives of highachievers, exploring their early
years and pivotal decisionsthat have shaped their unique
paths to success.
Get ready to unravel the secretof how they braved career
shifts and made daring decisionswith limited knowledge and
resources.
If you've ever wondered how tonavigate your life and career
best, you're in the right place.

(00:21):
Today's episode, my PurposefulPath, features a very special
guest, eden Warner.
Eden's career journey isnothing short of inspiring.
He has worn many hats, fromengineering to business to
finance, across multipleindustries.
Before launching his ownstartup, eden worked at Intel,
northrop Grumman, arco, fandango, which are just some of his

(00:44):
career highlights.
Now he's building his ownstartup as CEO.
I'm really excited to sharetoday's episode to learn how we
can make our own careerdecisions after listening to
Eden's stories on the twists andturns in his career.
I hope you enjoy the episode.
Welcome to my Perfect Path, thepodcast where we uncover the
unique journeys of adults whoare shaping their own

(01:06):
definitions of success.
I'm your host, daniel, andtoday we have a truly inspiring
guest joining us, eden.
Welcome to my Perfect Path.
I'm thrilled to have you here.

Eden Warner (01:16):
Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Daniel Koo (01:18):
Would this be your first time on a podcast?
Yes, it is.
This is my inaugural podcast.
I've seen that you've actuallydone interviews with other
organizations as well.
I've seen Bridge.
How was your experience there?

Eden Warner (01:30):
No, it was good.
I mean, it was just a typicalkind of interview and it was a
little free-flowing, but it wasgood and it served its purpose
in terms of helping to guide him.

Daniel Koo (01:39):
Yeah, I think it'll be pretty similar today.
My first question to kick usoff would be from a high level,
what were some of the roles thatyou've had in the past?
I understand that you've hadmany, so I want to kind of set
up context for the listeners.

Eden Warner (01:50):
Okay, sounds good.
So I was a trained engineer.
I did management in theengineering field, then I got my
MBA, came out and had a financedegree, went into finance as an
analyst, then did managementroles in finance, was the head
of a plant, which I can go intodetail later, was the head of

(02:10):
investor relations for a Fortune50 company, then went to a
startup as a CFO, anotherstartup as a CFO, slash COO and
then lots of independentconsulting around that and I'm
doing another startup as a CEO.

Daniel Koo (02:26):
Wow, I mean that's a very big, big breath rolls
there.
I think that's like.
Mainly.
The reason I want to have thisepisode with you is that we want
to learn from how you makethose decisions and how you're
advancing your career Right.
So the episode today is calledmy Purposeful Path.
Could you share with us why youchose that adjective?

Eden Warner (02:48):
specifically.
Yeah, sure, in every one of mysteps that I've taken, there's
been a point where I had to stopand really think of what I
wanted next, and sometimes therewere things that looked like
they were much better and theycould be more lucrative.
It might seem in the short term, but they didn't fit in line
with the purpose of what Iwanted to do long term.

(03:09):
And so because of that is thereason I chose Purposeful,
because it's not one path, buteach time there were decision
points I used my purpose andwhere I thought I wanted to go
to help make those decisions.
I see.

Daniel Koo (03:24):
To kind of also tell the listeners what you're
currently doing, what are youworking on recently and what's
your role right now.

Eden Warner (03:32):
I'm doing another startup.
It's a mobile marketingplatform that uses video music
clips and native texting tocreate vignettes, but the
vignettes are driven by an AIbackend, so it allows you to
quickly create this vignette andsend it to a friend.
And it's a marketing toolbecause you can use a piece of

(03:52):
content that's sent to you, wrapit with music or pictures that
is useful for the friend andgive it something more meaning
than it would have otherwise.
So it allows it folks both foracquisition of new phone numbers
and acquisition of people.
So we're working on that now,where we have a beta that's
already built, we're working onfunding to do our production

(04:13):
back end and, just because Ilike to be busy, I'm also
training to be a coach, anexecutive coach.

Daniel Koo (04:19):
Oh, I see, Wow, I think I've also saw like you
were doing some consulting aswell.

Eden Warner (04:27):
Is that related to the coaching or is that
something else?
Now the consulting has reallymorphed into the company's
called Trever, so Trever iswhere my consulting work is
really focused now.
I mean, I've done otherconsulting.
That was around mobilemarketing, around many different
pieces, around finance andhelping small companies mainly
around small and emergentcompanies but now most of that
effort is in.

Daniel Koo (04:48):
Trever, I see Is your role kind of like the CEO
or the CFO.
It's the CEO.
Oh, I see Gotcha.

Eden Warner (04:55):
So I have a business partner for Trever.
He actually thought up the idea, but he's much more of a
creative and he is someone thatwas much more of a business
person to make this somethingreal and tangible.
So I work as a CEO and he has arole as a creative lead as we
move forward to build this out.
Gotcha.

Daniel Koo (05:13):
I think for the listeners that are kind of
focusing on entrepreneurshipactually me too so I think we're
going to learn a lot today.
One of the questions that Iwant to ask you from your early
influences is can you share alittle bit about where you grew
up and what your childhood waslike Maybe your background?
We just want to know if we canrelate to any of these things.

(05:34):
Some people might come fromdifferent places, right?

Eden Warner (05:36):
Right, so I'm first generation American.
Both of my parents are fromBarbados in the West Indies.
It's an interesting track andI'll touch on this later on
because we'll probably talkabout schooling at some point.
But all of my mom and her threemain sisters all came to
Cambridge, Massachusetts,because that's where the uncle
that sent them brought them tothe United States and then they
moved from there to differentplaces and my mom ended up in

(05:59):
New Jersey.
My parents split when I wasvery young and so my mom is who
mainly raised me in New Jersey,and so I grew up in New Jersey,
certainly not in the best ofneighborhoods and the best of
areas.
But my mom put herself throughschool, became a registered
nurse, moved us out of thatneighborhood, moved us into
better neighborhoods.

(06:19):
My schooling was all publicschool until I got to 10th grade
, and in 10th grade I went to aparochial school and I kind of
changed my trajectory.
I mean, I was always a reallygood student, but now I started
to see what I could really do.

Daniel Koo (06:33):
I see Were there any particular experiences or
individuals that influenced yourdirection at a young age?

Eden Warner (06:42):
I would say that was interesting.
Age, I would say that wasinteresting.
I started to play the clarinetwhen I was in seventh grade no,
sixth grade and a year later Imet a gentleman who played the
sax and he got me into playingthe sax and I would go to his
house every day to practice thesax and he taught me what it was

(07:04):
like to really commit tosomething, because I could play
the clarinet decent.
You know, I took classes atschool and I would practice a
little bit, but he made it aregimen, like I had to promise
him I came every single day andI put time into playing the sax,
sort of like an accountabilitypartner.

Daniel Koo (07:20):
Yes.

Eden Warner (07:21):
And so I learned at a very young age if you want to
do something well, you shouldbe committed to putting the time
in, and so for everything I did, I felt you just don't put your
toe in the water.
You know, if you really want toget the most out of it, you
have to put real time in, andthere's certain things that you
might do easy, and so it'stempting to just go well, I can

(07:42):
do this well easily, so I don'tneed to put that much effort in.
But you'll always see this hugebenefit when you truly commit
to wanting to do something.

Daniel Koo (07:53):
So that was an important influence for me.
You know that does remind me of, I think at one point in middle
school or early middle school,I realized that actually
studying for a test brings goodresults.
Yes, it's kind of a revelation.
It was a revelation for me,right, but I realized if I
memorize these things, or if Iunderstand these things well, I

(08:14):
actually get a good score.
I think that was a key moment,I think a lot of us have that
kind of changes us.
That's kind of interesting thatyou learned it from an
instrument.
Yes, exactly.

Eden Warner (08:24):
And I've used that with my children to tell them
learning to get discipline isnot necessarily because you are
studying for a test.
There's life outside of theacademics that can teach you
about discipline even better,and I've always thought music
was the one, because you cannever say I've practiced enough.

Daniel Koo (08:44):
Yeah, that's very true, that's very true.

Eden Warner (08:46):
Those words don't, because it's not like you're
doing a sport, even Even a sport.
You need to practice more.
But you could do it and supposeyou want to dunk, and once you
dunk you go okay, I can dunk,but there's never going to be a
dunk playing an instrument.
You just will be good and youcould be better.

Daniel Koo (09:05):
It's always better.
It's always better.
It's one of those things, yeah,so maybe, and we can go into
clarinet as well but was thereanything that you were very
passionate about ever since youwere young?
Maybe technology, I'm guessing.
Yeah, I used to do models.

Eden Warner (09:16):
So I would build just regular plastic models, but
it morphed into doing radiocontrol models.
So at a very young age for whatthis was I was in.
Everything happened aroundseventh grade.
I was in middle school and Ihad a really good friend of mine
and both of us were reallyinterested in models and we
decided we were going to buildN-scale ships.
Oh, okay so that's oneone-thirtieth scale, so that's a

(09:38):
big size.
If you're going to buildsomething like a cruiser or a
battleship, it's over five feetlong.
Oh, wow, okay, so we bothcommitted to building these
boats, and so I literallystarted building my boat, which
was a heavy cruiser called aCanberra.
I started building this inseventh grade and I finished it
in high school in 12th grade Wow.

(09:59):
And I built it out of balsawood buying little strips of
balsa wood at the time and allof it from a small six-inch
drawing in Jane's Fighting Ships.
So I used that drawing andscaled it up and built this
five-foot boat and finally putit in the water, fully working
when I was a senior in highschool.

Daniel Koo (10:18):
Oh, it was functional too.
It was functional.

Eden Warner (10:20):
It was radio-controlled oh wow so it
had full gearbox that geared theone motor into four propellers
and it had two rudders and ithad missiles that fired, that
were bottle rockets and it hadturning radar and all of these
things.

Daniel Koo (10:35):
My question would be how did you find a body of
water that you could fit thisinto?

Eden Warner (10:40):
Well, there were lakes in my area, which is not
like Los Angeles, but in my areain New Jersey I grew up in New
Jersey there were lots of lakesthat were man-made and so there
were lots of people that woulddo sailboats and stuff like that
.
But it was fun for us to bringout our boat.
When I finally brought thatboat out and put it in the water

(11:02):
and see all these kids comingaround and going oh my God, what
is that?
It was?
But my I would be in the housefor hours and hours and my mom's
, like you need to get out ofthe house.
I said yes, but I'm trying toget this thing done.
But I will tell you one quickstory about that.
So, like I said, I built thewhole thing from a six inch
drawing.
What I didn't realize was thatwas a waterline drawing, so it
didn't show what was underneaththe waterline?

(11:24):
So I find a model of the boatand it has a hull and I go oh, I
got how the hull is and I buildit based on that hull.
Later on I finally find realplans for it and find out the
bottom of that model wascompletely wrong.
It's nothing like what the boatis, it's flat bottom and the
boat's not really flat bottom.
And so I ripped the whole hullapart and rebuilt it.

(11:47):
Oh my gosh.

Daniel Koo (11:48):
That's dedication right there.

Eden Warner (11:51):
It was a little crazy, but it was driving me
crazy that it was not the right.

Daniel Koo (11:58):
It wasn't accurate.
It wasn't accurate, so I had tofix it.
Wow, I think that says a lotabout you and I think it
definitely shows what kind oftenacity you need for these
things.
Actually, that's a good segueto early 20s in your career.
You went to MIT.

Eden Warner (12:15):
Yes.

Daniel Koo (12:15):
And what did you study there?
I studied aerospace engineering.
Do you think that came fromthat similar interest area?

Eden Warner (12:21):
Right, because I also did model planes, but I
didn't fly them as much as I ranthe boat.
So when I got time to go toschool I was thinking between
naval architecture and aerospaceengineering, and MIT is one of
the few schools that actuallyhad a major in naval
architecture, in navalarchitecture.
But I decided that aerospacemade more sense for just
opportunities and everythingelse.

(12:41):
So at MIT it's not reallycalled aerospace, it's
aeronautics and astronautics,and so you can do air breathing,
which is airplanes, or you cando non-air breathing, which is
rockets and spacecraft, or youcould just do a mixture of both,
which is what.
I did I see.

Daniel Koo (12:57):
I want to ask you I guess early in your 20s were
there some pivotal choices thatyou faced, Maybe what companies
you wanted to apply to, whatkind of role you wanted to
transition into, Things likethat.

Eden Warner (13:10):
So I obviously graduated, or was ready to
graduate, to be an aerospaceengineer.
So the good thing about MIT isa ton of companies come to MIT,
so it's not like you had tosearch a lot.
There were a ton there.
And the question was, what partof the country would I really
want to be in?
And I remember the first placethat came was Goodyear Aerospace
and they were in Ohio and Isaid there's no way I'm going to

(13:31):
go work in Ohio, but this is agreat company to go practice my
interviewing on.
So I practiced that.
But then later on the finalthree choices for me were Boeing
in Seattle, northrop in LA andMartin Marietta in Florida.
And I remember each one hadtheir different pitches for why.
But what I loved about Northropthis is one of the early times

(13:53):
I had to make a decision likethis right was that I was going
to go to a research anddevelopment group and I felt if
I was going to go someplace andreally start to apply what I had
learned, because I had mainlyfocused on control theory, so
how to control vehicles and I'ddone a lot in modern control
theory and I said, if I go tothese other places, if I go to
Boeing and I work on someaircraft, or if I go to Martin

(14:17):
Marietta and work on somemissile.
I'm not going to do state ofthe art modern control theory,
but Northrop was promising methe opportunity to do that.
The biggest issue was I livedin New Jersey.
I'd never been west ofPennsylvania and now.
I was going to go to the WestCoast.
I had no family there.
I have no connection, nolinkage.

(14:37):
So that was a decision.
Are you going to move that faraway from family?
Because the job makes sense?
And the way I convince myselfwhich is something I will say
I've done throughout my careeris to recognize every decision
has time as part of the decision, and the biggest mistake you
make is not to think that timeis also part of your decision,
that you think when you makethis decision, it's for all time

(15:00):
.
That's a mistake.
People make all the time when,if you stop and go, what I said
to myself is I'm going to do itfor two years.
As soon as I said that, itbecame easy to go, do it, and
even if it wasn't going to befor two years, it allowed me to
say, yeah, I could do it for twoyears, I can go anywhere for
two years, and so make thedecision, put it in a box and

(15:20):
then make the best decision inthat box.
And the best decision in thatbox was to go to Northrop.
So that's how I went toNorthrop.

Daniel Koo (15:26):
I really liked that.

Eden Warner (15:26):
And.

Daniel Koo (15:27):
I agree with that because I think sometimes we put
too much pressure and if youhave the timeline that is
permanent, it becomes a muchheavier decision.
And your apartment leases are.
It's over in a year.

Eden Warner (15:43):
It's okay, you can move back.
And the good thing was you know,this is the glory of a big
company they were going to moveme.
You know, take care of all mymoving to move out there.
Funny, quick story.
So I had a car and they weregoing to move my car as well and
I had my five-foot ship and Isaid I want to take my ship with
me and they said, oh, thatwould take special crating and

(16:06):
everything else.
And then obviously the guy whowas moving me goes don't you
have a car?
And I go, yeah, he goes.
Well, you could just put it inthe car and I went brilliant.
So, that's how my ship was movedwas moved in the car.
Because the car wasn't even puton a car carrier.
They put it inside the biggesttrailer I've ever seen.
So they put all my belongingsand my car in the trailer and it

(16:26):
probably took up a third of thetrailer.
It was massive.
So, anyway, and they moved meall the way out and I went.
Well, if I find a company thatwill be back, I'll be fine.

Daniel Koo (16:36):
There we go.
We have a moving tip as well.
Just get a big enough box, justtake everything.

Eden Warner (16:42):
So that ended up being, you know, one of the big
first decisions thinking I wasgoing to come to LA for two
years and I literally never left, Right.
I mean, there's all kinds ofdecisions in between there and
other times I thought I wasgoing to leave, but I've never
left since.
So the two-year decision becameforever Right it came forever,
but it was not the same forever.

(17:03):
It was a ton of differentpieces, but it still ended up
being in LA, I see.

Daniel Koo (17:09):
When you made that decision specifically, did you
feel a lot of uncertainty andfear, or was it more of an
excitement?
And they were both.

Eden Warner (17:16):
I mean cause it was .
I'd never been that far awayfrom family, and so there was
always that, suppose somethinghappens, there's no lifeline at
all, because it's not like justanyone.
I know that was in LA, itliterally was me.

Daniel Koo (17:28):
And.

Eden Warner (17:28):
I'm like, well, you get to meet people and
hopefully that'll be fine.
But I will admit that when Igot on that plane to fly out
here, yes, there was a lot oftrepidation, but once you get
here and you start to meetpeople and, yeah, that starts to
go away.
But it was a fair amount.

Daniel Koo (17:42):
Was there something that you did specifically to
meet more people and increaseyour network here?

Eden Warner (17:47):
Well, I started playing volleyball when I was a
senior in college, and so when Icame out here oh, I forgot,
there was one.
One person in my class came outto California as well and he
played volleyball, and so he andI would start to get together.
And so I at least had this onefriend that I knew, and because
of volleyball I would start toget together, and so I at least
had this one friend that I knew,and because of volleyball I

(18:09):
would go to classes and stufflike that.
So I started meeting a ton ofpeople around the circle of
volleyball and that ended upbeing my main place for starting
to really know folks out herein LA.

Daniel Koo (18:17):
I think volleyball is a great sport to do that.
It's a very team dependentsport.
You really have to rely on yourteammates.
I personally played in highschool as well, so there's a bit
of a connection point there.
I guess we can kind of jumpinto more of what happened
afterwards.
So after your engineeringcareer, I understand you went to
UCLA Anderson for your MBA.

(18:38):
How did you make that decision?
And you also did it part-time,while working.
Is that true?

Eden Warner (18:43):
No, I did it full-time while working
part-time.

Daniel Koo (18:46):
Oh, wow, okay.

Eden Warner (18:47):
So you know you go to a company and you're going to
do engineering.
You don't really know what thatmeans, you just know you're
going to work in engineering.
And so for the first two yearsI was there, I was in this
research and development group,like I said, and I was the only
person I knew of my friends andall that left MIT who actually
landed someplace and was doingwhat he had done in school, so

(19:09):
you mean doing something thatyou've studied very specifically
?
Yes, so we were actually usingmodern control theory to try to
control a fictitious vehicle.
Took a vehicle, put a bunch ofeffectors on it and said can we
control it better using moderncontrol theory?
And just so folks understand,the only thing modern control
theory means is normally youhave the latitude of a plane

(19:29):
that you control and thelongitude of a plane you control
.
So you move rudders up and down, you move ailerons to go to the
side and those are justdecoupled loops that you use to
move the plane or the vehiclearound.
Modern control theory says whenI move my stabilizer it also
gives me a little bit of forcein the latitude as well as
longitude.
So why don't we take advantageof that and make sure that we

(19:53):
use that force when we'recalculating how we're going to
use other things to move in thelateral?
So it takes into considerationmore factors Right right, and so
that hadn't really beenimplemented before, and so we
were trying to see could we dothat with this vehicle that had
a ton of different types ofeffectors that had different
forces on it, and it was.
The answer was somewhat Oneaxis.

(20:16):
You got more benefit from it.
The other axis was unstable,and so we eventually had to just
zero out all of the moderncontrol pieces for that axis.
But anyway, so I did get to dothat and that was fun.
And then I was tapped and I hadto move to this secret project
and it was literally a placewith no windows.
And the funny thing is I nowcan say what it was, but for the

(20:36):
longest time I couldn't evensay a one hint of what it was at
all.
And if I traveled and I wasgoing to a big city, I could say
where I was going, but if I wasgoing someplace that probably
that's the only thing that couldbe there I couldn't tell it.
Even I can tell my girlfriendwhere I was going.
I couldn't say anything.
I could tell my mom where I wasgoing, I just had to just go.

Daniel Koo (20:54):
That would have looked really suspicious, though
, with your family and friends.

Eden Warner (20:58):
Yes, exactly.
So I went to that project and Iwent there as a flight control
engineer.
I went to a flight controlgroup and when I got to the
group they realized they had noone that could do a particular
subsystem, which were theactuators for the vehicle.
So I became an actuator expertquickly.
So I started working on thatwith the vendors and that's what

(21:20):
tapped me to start thinkingabout something different.
I kept thinking where is thisgoing to go?
Because engineers want you toget more and more specific as
you go up.
That didn't really feel likethe right way for me.
But when we were dealing withthe subcontractor for actuation,
I started dealing withcontracts and when I started
doing that I actually foundmyself kind of intrigued by it.

(21:41):
I liked it, I liked thebusiness terms around it.
I liked setting those terms,setting those pieces of it.
But I still was thinking whatam I going to do?
What do I do?
And here comes anothersubsystem, which is navigation.
So I had a unique situationwhere it was this older
gentleman who was a navigationexpert, but he was a very surly

(22:01):
gentleman.
He couldn't communicate toanyone, he was very mean and I
started working under him and itquickly became obvious to my
manager that well, eden's theonly one that can go into the
meetings and actually haveconversations, because Joe is
just not a nice guy.
But Joe liked me because Ipicked up on things quickly and

(22:23):
his big thing is he had notolerance for dumb people.
That was his problem.
So if anyone did anything thathe thought was dumb.
He was more than happy to tellyou that was dumb which is not a
great way to get people to dothings.
And so I started working underhis tutelage and became a
navigation expert.
But again I started workingwith our sub-vendor about the

(22:43):
navigation system.
And this was early GPS.
This is when GPS was not evenknown and we were using it for
our system.
And it was.
This was early GPS.
This is when GPS was not evenknown and we were using it for
our system.
And again, setting theparameters, doing the business
terms started to get meinterested and that's when I
started to decide businessschool would make sense for me.
And decision around that was doI want to continue to stay in

(23:04):
engineering or do I want to getout of engineering?
And I decided I wanted to getout of engineering, and that
decision meant I couldn't go tobusiness school and rack up a
ton of debt and then make adecision just based on paying
off the debt that I wanted thisto be a change, and I wanted to
be a change to what I wanted todo, not just what I needed to do

(23:25):
, and so that's limited thespace of the schools I would
look at.
I wanted a top 10 schoolbecause it's a business degree
and you have no other way toprove that you're really good at
it unless you go to a top 10school.
There's only two schools thatreally fit the bill in terms of
not racking up a lot of debt,being a top 10 school, and then
actually, I should say notracking up a lot of debt and
being a top top 10 schoolsreally only one, and that was

(23:47):
UCLA, because it was top 10, itwas in-state tuition, which was
really cheap, and, as a bonus,if I could work at my old
company, my living expenseswould not cause me debt either.

Daniel Koo (24:00):
Right, so it would maybe like equal out or at least
be sustainable to someoneExactly, and so that was why it
became my number one choice.

Eden Warner (24:08):
So when I got in there, I was clear that I was
going to go there.
I wasn't going to go toStanford because I would be in
so much debt.

Daniel Koo (24:15):
Yeah, I see that, I would only— it's a conscious
decision, yes, yes.

Eden Warner (24:20):
So UCLA fit the bill and I worked 20 hours a
week at Northrop.
I didn't say that Northrop wasthe company I went to.
I worked 20 hours a week atNorthrop while I went full-time
school at UCLA.

Daniel Koo (24:30):
So I have two questions.
One is when you were working,were you always thinking about
how you're going to craft yourcareer Like?
Were you always asking yourselfconstantly like what am I going
to do after this?
Were?

Eden Warner (24:42):
you that kind of person?
No, I would periodically askthat question.
My belief always was I can'tget anywhere if I don't do what
I'm doing well, so I wouldn't beconstantly thinking about the
next thing.
I would be mostly thinkingabout doing what I was doing
well.
The thing that I learned astime went on was not only to do
what I do well, but to keep myeyes open for other things that

(25:05):
the company needs done, anddoing it.
I see that became such apowerful tool in a big company,
because there's always gaps,there's always things that need
to get done and people aretrying to figure out who can do
it.
And if you just jump in and doit, people just love that, they
love the initiative, they lovethe fact you do it and, quite

(25:27):
frankly, it makes your job moreinteresting too, because it's
new stuff.
And so that's where my focuswas, and I figured the what I do
next would come when it needsto come, and then I would have
laid the groundwork that makesit easy to go do that.
That makes sense.

Daniel Koo (25:43):
Yeah, I guess one thing that I also like in the
company I work for is we focus alot about ownership right, and
there were some people actuallyeven calling it extreme
ownership right.
So even if it's not your areaof the code base, or even if you
don't own that part of theservice or something like that
software, we would kind of diveinto other people's code and go

(26:05):
in and dive deep and find outwhat the issue is and cause it,
even if it's not ourresponsibility technically Right
.
And I think that kind oflooking for spaces that will
increase your value is animportant skill to have overall.

Eden Warner (26:19):
Yeah, indeed, indeed.
So that's why I would say Iwasn't constantly doing that,
but I certainly was purposefulin thinking through, like my
biggest thing was I don't wantto do something too long.
That's always my thoughtprocess.
Now I might have not bethinking what's next, but I know
I'm not doing this long.
So at some point I'm going tohave moments where I go, okay,

(26:39):
since I know I'm not doing thiswrong, what am I going to do
next?
So that's kind of how it wasdriven for me.
So when I was in business schoolthey offered me this is an
example of being purposeful,right?
So after my first year I had asecret clearance.
So if I left at all anytime, Iwould lose my clearance.
So in the summer I knew Ineeded to get a job that was

(27:01):
more in line with what I wantedto do next.
So I got a summer internshipand I went to my boss and I went
you know, I've got a summerinternship.
I guess that's the end of thisworking, because I'm going to be
doing that for the summer andhe said well, I would love to
have you back in the fall.
Is there any way that we couldhave you still work in the
summer and I go.
I'm working full time.
I'm not spending my summerworking a lot.
I said I can give you eighthours a week and he goes.

(27:22):
We could do that, wow.
So for the summer I workedeight hours a week.
I had a project.
I built a C-state model for thevehicle we were doing, so we
could use it for simulations,and I worked at ARCO as an
intern for the summer.

Daniel Koo (27:35):
That's a perfect segue into what I wanted to ask.
You worked at ARCO, and thistime you weren't an engineer.
No, this was after your MBA.

Eden Warner (27:46):
This is actually first as an intern, so it was
between first and second year ofmy MBA.
As a finance person, I see.

Daniel Koo (27:50):
We can actually start from there.
I guess the beginning of yourcareer at ARCO and how that's
transformed over time.

Eden Warner (27:57):
Right, sure.
So I came there as an intern.
I worked in a small operatingcompany within the
transportation division.
So ARCO had a division that didmainly pipelines and ships.
They had like a big fleet ofships mainly to move oil from
Alaska North Slope down to theirtwo refineries on the West
Coast and then the pipelines tomove both crude and gasoline

(28:18):
product wherever they needed togo.
So this was a small pipelinecompany and I was put in that
company and the main reason Iwanted to take it was when I
went and interviewed with theperson.
He had a stack on his desk andhe goes if you come here, these
are my projects that my analystsneed to do and I'm just going
to grab one of these and give itto you.
So I'm not making up anythingnew for you, it's just going to

(28:39):
be a project we need to do.
So I love that.
So I went there and he gave meone of those projects.

Daniel Koo (28:48):
Sorry to interrupt.
No, so like the stack ofprojects.
What do you mean?
You liked what that was.

Eden Warner (28:53):
I liked the one he gave, that he chose for me, the
one that he selected for me.
I liked when he first said it.
I liked the fact that thesewere projects that his analysts
were actually going to do, thathe wasn't making up something
for the intern who's coming in.
Oh God, as an intern it was realbusiness that they needed done,
so I loved that.
And then, once I got there andhe told me what it was, I saw

(29:14):
the value in it and they reallydidn't have an answer, and it
required some real sleuth work,as well as some real statistical
work, to figure out what wasgoing on.
And it was how to predict theirmain pipeline coming from the
San Joaquin Valley, how much oilthere would be on that, and
sometimes it would be chock full, and other times it was barely

(29:37):
empty and they really had no wayto predict it, and so they were
hoping someone could puttogether a model that would help
them better predict it.

Daniel Koo (29:44):
So it sounds like you got a really good experience
out of that internship.

Eden Warner (29:48):
Yes, so it ended up being great.
What I actually felt from themtaught them a lot about what was
actually going on and in thatprocess, I think what made them
I think I would be great wasthat there's a gentleman who was
like their crude oil expert atArco and I tracked down who he
was and went and interviewed himand then used that information

(30:09):
and so one night my boss waslike so I heard, you went
downtown, what did you godowntown for?
I said I got a meeting withAlan Murray and I met with Alan
Murray.

Daniel Koo (30:17):
He goes you met with Alan Murray and I go yeah, well
, I wanted to get a betterunderstanding of flows.

Eden Warner (30:21):
He goes very good.
Very good so the project wasgreat.
They offered me a full-timeposition.
At the end of the day, cut tothe chase, my final decision was
between Intel and Arco and as agentleman I knew that from MIT
and also knew at Anderson whohad worked at Arco while I was

(30:43):
making this decision.
And while I was making thisdecision he got an offer to move
to Intel and it just so happensIntel was trying to get me as
well.
And I remember because this ispart of this decision process
thought process In the middle ofmy interview at Intel, one of
my interviews the CFO walks intothe room and the controller

(31:03):
who's giving me the interviewkind of loses her train of
thought.
Because the CFO walks in theroom and he goes.
Well, since she's having anissue, I'll just start asking
you questions.
So he starts asking mequestions and I'm answering his
questions and I guess he wasimpressed because he said he was
really happy to meet me.
He laughed whatever they madean offer for me and I told them
that at the end of the day theiroffer was a lot less than

(31:24):
Arco's.
I said that's not going to bemy only part of my decision
process, but you should at leastknow that.
So then they went on a hardsell to tell me why I should
want to go to Intel instead, andbecause of the equity and the
value equity, and everything.
I said, yeah, that might be true, but I don't know for certain
if it is.
And I remember the CFO calledme one day and starts trying to

(31:45):
explain to me why he knowsChevron.
And that's just, it's old andit's stale, that's the oil
companies.
And I said I'm not here todefend Arco, but Arco's not
Chevron, it's a very differentbeast.
And so we've had a lot oftalking.
At one point he finally goes.
I have a blank sheet of paperin front of me.

Daniel Koo (32:01):
What is it going to take for you to come to Intel?
That's a very good position tobe, yes.

Eden Warner (32:06):
And I went I don't believe you're doing this.
And I said to him what was afateful piece in terms of making
being purposeful right?
I said here's the problem Ihave.
Intel used to be a company runby engineers.
Now you're a company run bymarketers.
You're not a company run byfinance people.
I said I hate to say that toyou as CFO, but you have at that

(32:28):
time some ungodly amount ofmoney on the cash on the balance
sheet.
I said finance is not thedeciding factor for you.
It's just where to spend themoney is the deciding factor.

Daniel Koo (32:40):
I guess what you're saying is the most important,
heavy and impactful part of thecompany is not the finance
department.
Finance is not.

Eden Warner (32:47):
I said, but at Arco , there's no decision that's
made at ARCO that doesn't gothrough finance Because it's a
long lead time.
It's really important to makethe right decisions based on
what financial impact it is.
And so, for that reason, Ithink for me because this gets
at a point that you said, Ithink, early on which is, if

(33:07):
you're going to work somewhereand you're going to work in a
big company, work someplacewhere decisions are made,
because you have to have a skill.
You know, even if you want torule the world, you need to rule
the world starting from oneplace of expertise, and so have
that expertise be someplacethat's important in the company,
because then you can get toplaces you want to get to.

Daniel Koo (33:29):
So by this point your internship gave you enough
experience to know what financeis and I assume that you really
liked it enough to really likedelve into that career Right.

Eden Warner (33:39):
Finance was my focus.
Finance was my main focus inbusiness school, with operations
being my secondary focus.
So I was what I thought.
So the internship I would saymore validated than spurned, I
mean, or started, sparked thethought process.

Daniel Koo (33:56):
Would you say that it was really like simply fun,
or did you feel like it was veryengaging?

Eden Warner (34:03):
It was I keep going back to that word impactful,
because I just knew that thedecisions I was making was
important to the company.
It wasn't ancillary, it was tothe heart of the company and
that drove it more than anythingelse.

Daniel Koo (34:19):
So what was your answer to Intel and everything?

Eden Warner (34:22):
So I told Intel, no , I obviously went to Arco.
I remember when I told becauseIntel, I told them during the
over the frost they recruited.
Well, they put a senior personin charge of each candidate they
were trying to get and I hadthe corporate controller, was my
person and she would call melike almost every other day to

(34:44):
see how I was doing.
How was the decision process?
Is there anything else shecould tell me?
Is there someone else I need tospeak to?
Whatever, and when I finallytold her no, she goes she goes.

Daniel Koo (34:55):
I hate you.
She goes.
No, I'm kidding.

Eden Warner (34:57):
She goes, I'm going to, she goes.
I understand your decisionprocess.
Obviously, I wish you werecoming to Intel, but I'm going
to tell you this she goes.
We love you now, We'll love youlater.
So you have a year.
If any time in the next yearyou decide, arco is not the
right place, you have a job here.
You don't have to wonder.
You have a job at Intel and Iwas like that's really powerful.

Daniel Koo (35:19):
That's well done.
Yeah, that's very good.
That's a very good deal, that'swell done.

Eden Warner (35:24):
But I went to ARCO.
I went back to that sameoperating company.
First.
I worked there for a whiledoing the same kind of work.
Then I moved from there toTreasury, which is the corporate
entity for ARCO as a whole, andI managed a debt portfolio of
ARCO which was at that time $67billion.

(35:44):
And whatever was going on, wehad some environmental things
around it that I had to dealwith.
I had to do some stuff aroundhedging.
So I did a whole bunch ofdifferent things in that space
and then half a year in aspecial project opened up.
There was a gentleman who wasassigned to efforts that ARCA

(36:05):
was doing to open up in Chinaand on the downstream parts so
like the gasoline and otherparts of the refining process,
and he was leaving and theytapped me to take his spot,
which is a big, big deal.
So pack my bags, I'm going togo to China and the idea is
you're going to be thereprobably two to one, so maybe

(36:27):
four weeks there, two weeks back, and then it might increase
after that, but it's a two yearstint at least doing this and I
went to do that and a quickstory is within six months the
deal fell apart.
That was the end of that.
I came back to LA and then I gotdispatched to Australia for a

(36:48):
deal.
So the state of Victoria wasprivatizing all of their power.
Arco had a coal company inBrisbane, australia.
They partnered with two energycompanies from the US and they
were bidding for power stationsand they lost the first one and
now this was the second one andI was the finance lead to come
in in that process.

(37:09):
And although I think it wascrazy and it was way too
expensive and I remember tellingthe treasurer this is crazy, we
shouldn't even be in this he'slike that's not your job, you
just have to make sure that yousupport them as well as possible
.
Thank God we lost the bidbecause it was way, way
overpriced.
But it was a fun it was.
I mean.
It felt just like being aninvestment banker.
You're sleeping on the floor inyour suit, you're getting up at

(37:31):
one in the morning havingnegotiations with folks about
the trust agreements andeverything else.
It was exciting and we had somegreat meals.
Melbourne has amazing food butat the end of the day, thank
goodness we didn't get that andI came back to Treasury From
there.
I wanted to manage stuff, so Iwent off and I managed in the
finance.

(37:51):
I'm going to run through thisin the controllership in one
division and while I was doingthat it was an example of doing
other people's work or doingother needs not people's work,
but other things that theyneeded done.
The people I did that for hadthe decision to who would run
this important plant down inWilmington.
That is normally a job forengineers coming out of the

(38:15):
refinery that they have highhopes for.
I was the first finance guycoming down to run that project
and it was a beautiful business.
I mean, from $100 million inrevenue it threw off $65 million
in cash and for a manufacturingbusiness, that's pretty amazing
.
That's amazing.
Yeah, so I won't get intodetails of it, but I did that
and then I was loving that somuch that they tapped me on the

(38:35):
shoulder and said come doinvestor relations for the
company.
And so I went kicking andscreaming back to corporate and
ran investor relations and thatwas my last job at Arco.

Daniel Koo (38:45):
I see.
So it seems like even withinArco, you kept expanding your
scope.
Yeah, and they recognize that,they push you forward and it
seems like you were able to getwhat you needed out of Arco.
Yes, what was the next step andhow was the transition and what
I guess gave you the I don'twant to say courage, but what
gave you the push to move onfrom Arco Right, especially

(39:11):
since they've, I guess, theytreated you well and they
recognize your talent.

Eden Warner (39:14):
So what was the decision there?
Well, actually that's a big one, because I was the head of
investor relations when ARCOagreed to be bought by BP.
Bp had bought AdmoCo about sixmonths before, and now they were
buying ARCO and I'm the head ofinvestor relations, and so I
ended up flying to London tohelp prepare everything for the
announcement for this andeverything for it.

(39:35):
But I'm the ultimate redundant,as they use their word.
Position right.

Daniel Koo (39:38):
Because there's a head of investor relations for
BP.

Eden Warner (39:42):
So I'm assuming I'm going to leave as part of this.
But lo and behold, the CEO ofBP takes a liking to me because
he gets to work with me.
I go on the roadshow to talk toinvestors, and so he offers me
a special assistant job for him,working for him.
Okay, and it's probably thebest job that could have been

(40:02):
offered, because you literallywork hand in hand with the CEO
of BP, of BP, and the idea is,after you do this almost like a
training ground, for about 18months to two years, you go off
and run one of their biggestbusiness units.
But it would require me to nowtruly commit to being in the oil
industry.
I see, and so the way I lookedat it was, this opportunity he

(40:24):
was offering to me was amazing.
It's world class.
But if I do that, then the nextstep is to do something else, to
do industry, and unless I getthere and hate the company, I'm
not going to take that spot fromsomeone, that development spot,
just to take it, get thatexperience and leave the company
.
I won't do that.
So I said I really don't wantto be five years at an oil

(40:48):
company anymore, because if I'mfive more years.
I'm an oil person, that's it.
You can say I'm something else,but I'm not.
I'm an oil person.
And so I turned it down.
Wow, and I took the package,because I had the option to take
the package, because my job wasredundant, so I didn't have to
take this other job Makes sense.
And I took a vacation.
That's amazing.
I took a vacation and I saidI'm not going to start looking

(41:10):
for work until I'm ready to work, because I don't want to start
looking saying I'm going to lookin and find something and have
to end my fun when I'm not readyfor it yet, and I remember
talking to someone and I said tothem I said well, why don't you
just do this now?
I said no, because theopportunity cost for me right
now is my fun and my free time,so you're going to put a dollar
amount on that.

(41:31):
I don't think you got enoughmoney.

Daniel Koo (41:32):
I think if there's any reason to have fun in the
middle of your career, youshould take it, especially if
it's paid for Right, obviously.
I feel like, from what we justtalked about, you wouldn't have
taken.
Did you take the entire time,or did you feel like you wanted
to get back in?

Eden Warner (41:48):
I took not the entire time.
Entire time, or did you feellike you wanted to get back in?
I took not the entire time.
I gave myself a minimum.
I said six months is my minimum.
So after six months I willstart looking, and that's what I
did.
But the beginning of it was avacation already, because they
needed me to go to Singapore forthis event.

Daniel Koo (42:03):
And.

Eden Warner (42:03):
I said, okay, I'll do it, but my time ends while
I'm in Singapore, so I'm justgoing to do some traveling
around Southeast Asia and thenI'll come back.
And that's what I did.
So my vacation started while Iwas in Singapore and then I went
to Kuala Lumpur.
It was great.

Daniel Koo (42:21):
It was a really good trip.

Eden Warner (42:22):
And then I came back and I said in September
because whatever, yeah, it wasMarch.
I said in September will bewhen I start looking.
But yeah, it was March.
I said in September will bewhen I start looking.
And lo and behold, as soon as Istarted looking in September,
something came up from a place Ididn't expect, which is a
gentleman I had hired at Arco,who was from SC.
When he left Arco he went andworked for Disney.
The guy he worked for in Disneygot tapped to be the first CEO

(42:47):
for Fandango, the movie ticketer, that's it.
So he was working there as ananalyst and he calls me one day
and he goes Eden, we need a CFO.
You know, would you considerthis?
And I went no, it's 2001.
And I'm going, I'm not going togo to an internet company.
You must be kidding me, right.
But then he says, well, atleast come and find out more.

(43:07):
So I came and found out moreand I was like, okay, this is
different.
You know, it's not just anInternet company selling its
wares out there, where you canhave infinite competition that
drives down rents.
They actually had exclusiverelationships with the theaters
so only they could sell for thetheaters, so you didn't have
competition that way.
So that's a good model.

Daniel Koo (43:27):
I like that, like the advantages of having an
early internet business, thatyou could get away with those
things.

Eden Warner (43:32):
Yeah, and it's like having a brick and mortar.
So the exhibitor was your brickand mortar and you were doing a
service for them.
That was an internet service,but it's for them and only for
them.
So I said, okay, great, soyou're not spending it.
And I said they had deals wherethey had placement in all the
theaters that they were wired into sell.
We didn't have to pay for thatmarketing.
They just had to pay for thematerials or production but not

(43:56):
the placement.
So I said so you have cheapadvertising.
That was another big thing withthe Internet was people were
blowing tons and millions ofdollars on Internet advertising.
And then the last thing was didthey have kids running the
company?

Daniel Koo (44:07):
or was it adults?

Eden Warner (44:10):
Actually there's two other things, and they had
adults running the company, orwas it adults?
And actually there's two otherthings?
And they had adults run thecompany.
And the third was are theinvestors in this company trying
to just quickly get somethingup and then try to sell it, or
are they really trying to builda business?
And Equity formed the company.
Two VCs got together becausethey saw what had happened with
AOL and Moviefone and said if wecould pull together a

(44:30):
consortium of exhibitors, we cancreate a real business, and so
they actually wanted to create abusiness.

Daniel Koo (44:36):
So how was that process for you?
Did you go and talk to thesepeople before you joined?
Yeah, how were you able to dothat?
I guess you.

Eden Warner (44:42):
They just reached out.
They knew from the gentleman Iknew he told the head of HR, he
told the CEO and the head of HR,he told the CEO and he told
this other guy that was aconsultant for them, that was
kind of doing the financefunction for him temporarily,
and so they reached out to me.
But the funny thing is the CEOdidn't want to reach out to me
yet.
I don't know what his issue was, but they're like we can't lose

(45:03):
him.
So they've secretly met with meand vetted me and then, once he
realized that I made sense,then he was happy to talk to me
as well.
I see, it was interesting,because people say, how did you
move from oil to selling movietickets?
And I told people, business isbusiness and yeah, the scale was
different and that's why I lovefinance.

(45:25):
Right Finance was about knowinghow to make good financial
decisions.
Good financial decisions aregood financial decisions.
It doesn't make a difference ifit's oil in the ground, or it's
processed oil, or it's sellingmovie tickets.

Daniel Koo (45:36):
It's about making good financial decisions.
It's a core skill.
That kind of translates.

Eden Warner (45:40):
Right, exactly right, and it was that for me.

Daniel Koo (45:43):
So, from Fandango, did you feel like you enjoyed
your time there?
Did you feel like you grew alot in that company?

Eden Warner (45:55):
Oh, I did.
I grew a ton.
I mean, it was my first startup, right?
So it was a case of I thought Iasked all the right questions.
I knew how much cash they had,what their burn rate is, didn't
know that as soon as I joinedthem they were going to
quadruple their burn rate andspend a ton of money on
advertising, which was insane.
So within my first month I hadto have this come to Jesus
meeting, as I said, on aSaturday where I brought all the
executives in and told themyou're insane.

(46:16):
I said your plan will have yourunning out of money in three
months and you think you'regoing to raise money and you've
barely sold any ticket.
And it's between now and March.
And who sells movie ticketsbetween December and March?
No one.
Tickets between December andMarch?
No one.
So I said the new plan is wehave to be able to make it past
the summer, because at least thesummer is a better time that we
can sell tickets and then raisemoney and prove that we can

(46:39):
sell it.
So I said so, given that thisis our bogey, we've got to cut
40% out of our spend.
The good thing is, most of thespend was what they were going
to do, and they hadn't hired abunch of people yet, and so we'd
have to fire people.
We just had to not spend themoney they were going to spend,
which is a lot easier decisionto make, but they still were
kicking, screaming, and we wentthrough a lot.
I learned about bankruptcy.

Daniel Koo (47:01):
I became almost like a bankruptcy attorney.

Eden Warner (47:04):
We won in bankruptcy court where no one
thinks you could win, so therewas a ton that I learned a ton.

Daniel Koo (47:13):
Do you feel like there's a certain type of person
or, I guess, innate skill thatyou need to be in
entrepreneurship and likestartups?
Yeah, I say a unique capability.

Eden Warner (47:20):
I used to always say startups need amoebas, not
paramecium.
Paramecium have a fixed shape,they know what they are and
that's it.
Amoebas change shape, they growand they move and you need
people who can fill gaps,because there always are going
to be gaps and you might seesomeone just stick their finger
in that dike for a little whileand decide is that going to

(47:41):
become a big hole or is thatreally just a little dike and we
don't really need to dosomething about it?
If it becomes a big hole, okay,maybe we need to hire someone
to really do that.
But in the first analysis,you're not going to run out and
hire someone.
You need someone who could justdo something, and that's what I
did at Fandango.
I mean, I came in there as afinance guy and what did I end
up doing?
I ran sales for a while becausewe weren't going to sell.

(48:04):
I said we don't need to hire asalesperson.
Yet Until we wire enoughtheaters that we have a big
enough footprint, we salesperson.
Yet until we wire enoughtheaters that we have a big
enough footprint, we're notgoing to sell advertising.
What we need to do is I'll bethe head of sales.
We need to find a person who'sgot a great personality, that
can just meet people and get tothe place that when we actually
have something, they can't sayno to her.

(48:26):
And we found the perfect personfor that.
She was just amazing.
And so by the time we started tosell, she would come in and she
goes oh, just give me a $5,000sale.
And I said for you, shelby, ofcourse we got to give you
something right.
And because that was her joband I said originally she won't
have a commission, we'll pay hermore in salary and once we
start to get a real basis ofwhat we could sell, then we'll

(48:47):
reduce her salary and give hermore on commission.
And that worked out great.
But I was a salesperson.
I had never done sales.
I was the head of sales for ayear and all I kept saying to
her is go, do what you do, andif you need me to come in, just
to come in the meeting and goyes, I love you too.
I'll come in and you tell mewhat to say and I'll say what to
say and I'll tell you what youneed to do to get to a certain

(49:08):
level.
And it worked out great.
Makes sense, yeah.

Daniel Koo (49:11):
I think it kind of ties back to what we talked
about of, you know, extremeownership and also being or
looking at where we can havemore impact.
Yes, and really like increasingyour impact actually gives you
growth at the same time, right,and it seems like it expands
your scope and you're able toadvance your career that way,
right, I mean the old adage usedto be for any company that

(49:33):
especially a startup company iscash is king, and what is the
number one thing?

Eden Warner (49:36):
you're spending cash on People.
So for you to be judicious, youshould be really, really.
It should be a big deal for youto add a body, and so you
should find every way you can todo it without adding a body,
until you have to add a body.
And today's world is easierbecause there's software as a
service.
There's a bunch of things thatyou can use to help you to do

(49:58):
that.
Before you decide OK, this hasto be proprietary or I need
someone who's always available,but it should be.
When you get to that point, asopposed to I have this little
need, hire a person for it andhope that it grows into that.
You can't afford that.
That's the kind of stuff thatforces people to do these big
expanses and these painfulcontractions.
But if you always make it hardto add a body, then you grow.

(50:21):
Yeah, you're going to havepinch points at times.
You're going to have capacityconstraints.
That's okay, that's just life.
But it's way better to do thatthan to expect a huge growth and
don't get that and then have tostart cutting, because once you
start a culture of cutting, youcan never get away from it.
People just expect it, and thenthey operate out of fear as

(50:45):
opposed to operating out ofwhat's best for the company.

Daniel Koo (50:47):
That makes sense, I think.
I've heard something like hireslow and fire fast.

Eden Warner (50:51):
Yes, exactly, I think if you hire slow, you
actually may not even need tofire fast, exactly, exactly, but
that is your best hope for nothaving to fire fast.

Daniel Koo (51:01):
I kind of want to talk about.
To whom would you not recommendthis career?
Right For people who are maybedreaming about this
entrepreneurship.
I know people glorify it andromanticize it.
To whom would you not recommendthis career and say, maybe it's
not for you?

Eden Warner (51:18):
That's a good question.
Some of the quick thoughts aresomeone who thinks that they
only do one thing, like, givenwhat I just said, you think
that's a natural thing.
If there's just one thing thatthey're good at, and that's what
they think that they're good at, and that's it, it's going to
be a tough area for you.
If you need constant praise,don't do it, because it's just

(51:39):
not going to happen, right.
If you need to always have wins, don't do it.
If you think that this is ahard one, though, but if you
think that your job is going todefine who you are, don't do it,
because when it goes down,you're going to go down.

(52:01):
So it needs to be.
This serves a purpose, but it'snot my core purpose, because if
it becomes your core purpose, Iknow that.
That's why I say it's a hardone, because a lot of people
think you're supposed to liveand breathe.
I just believe it's just likehaving stock in your own company
, right?
I used to tell people, if yourcompany matches, don't put your
401k in your stock, because whenthe company goes down, then

(52:23):
your 401k goes down, right.
So diversify, right, right, andI'm saying diversify joy, right
.
Diversify, right, and I'msaying diversify joy, right.
Don't have your joy wrapped upin that same thing.
Find other ways to have joy.
So, if that's the only way youcan find joy, I don't think it's
a healthy thing for certain,and I still don't think it's the
right thing for you as well.

Daniel Koo (52:40):
But those are the ones that come to mind.
I see, and I guess the otherside of that question would be
to whom would you recommend thiscareer?
And maybe you can also tie itto what you?
Were thinking when you beganand what were the misconceptions
and what were like thesurprising good things about
that you enjoyed.

Eden Warner (53:01):
So you have to certainly be a person who I
always used to say that we arereally good at seeing risks and
not seeing uncertainty.
So when we look at uncertaintyas just human beings,
uncertainty means that it couldbe positive, it could be
negative, right, but we look atuncertainty and we're really
good at seeing the downside andit's hard for us to see the

(53:23):
upside.
That's just kind of the waywe're wired and I guess if
you're in a cave and you'reworried about going out and
something might eat you, youshouldn't be worried about the
risk, right?
There's uncertainty that youmight go out there and somebody
might give you flowers, butthere's a really good chance
something might eat you.
So I get why it's kind of wiredinto our DNA.
And so my thought is you reallyshould be a person who sees

(53:43):
uncertainty, that sees upsideand downside, not just downside.
Because if you're only lookingat downside, downside, not just
downside, because if you're onlylooking at downsides, it's not
going to power you through thetough times you have to do.
And for me, what was surprisingto me was I just thought if you
were in a startup and youscrewed up once, that's it,
you're dead.

(54:03):
And I got to realize you know,you got a lot more leeway than
you think you do.
That it's not as you make onemistake and you know you got a
lot more leeway than you thinkyou do that it's not as you make
one mistake and you die, as Ithought it was that not saying
no, there's a whole bunch ofstupid people and we all make
dumb mistakes with startups, andit doesn't necessarily kill you
.
In fact, it usually doesn't.

(54:25):
It's usually something muchmore macro or much more
sustained, like when you hearthe story of BlackBerry and how
BlackBerry died, it was likeyears and years of doing the
same wrong thing before theyfinally died.
You know it wasn't like theyjust made that one mistake and
apples come on, it's like, oh,you're dead.
No, they just kept going.
They had multiple chances tochange direction and they just

(54:46):
never did.
And that is a key thing thatI've learned is that I don't say
that to get sloppy.
I'm just saying don't think aworld is over because you made a
mistake in a startup and in abig company.
You know it's not going to killthe company, but you think it's
going to kill your startup, andit's not.
But just be willing to knowit's not going to kill it, but

(55:10):
you're going to have to put workin.

Daniel Koo (55:11):
I guess.
To summarize, turbulence isguaranteed, but there's a lot
more leeway than you think thereis.

Eden Warner (55:19):
And always remember that uncertainty has upside and
downside.
Uncertainty does notnecessarily mean only downside,
which is what will come to yourmind instantly.

Daniel Koo (55:31):
I like that.
Yeah, that's a very hopefulmessage.
I think a lot of peoplerecommending startups.
They always say, you know, ifthey knew what was going to
happen, they wouldn't do itagain, or something like that.
I think the CEO of NVIDIA alsosaid that at one point.
And it's very daunting if youhear things like that.
I have not experienced that inany of my startups and they've
been painful moments.

Eden Warner (55:53):
There's no question it's been painful, but I never
got to that place of saying Iwould never do this again.
Now there's things like youmight have a partner.

Daniel Koo (56:01):
that's difficult and that might be it.

Eden Warner (56:03):
But that's a separate thing than just doing a
startup right?
So no, I've never said that Iwould not do it because of that.
And Fandango was wild, crazy.
I go back I tell people I say Icould write a million stories
about it because it was such awild ride.
But there's nothing like goingsomeplace and no one knows it
and then you turn on the TV andyou see Fandango as one of the

(56:24):
apps in the app store or on theTV and whatever else you go.
And you started from when thatwas.
No one knew what it was.
That's one of the apps in theapp store or on the TV and
whatever else you go.
And you started from when thatwas.
No one knew what it was.
That's a beautiful feeling.
That is hard to match that inanything.
You can't get that anywhereelse.

Daniel Koo (56:39):
No, you cannot, you cannot.
No.
So for one of our finalquestions, what's one piece of
advice you would give someonestarting to cover their own path
?
Kind of based on yourexperience, maybe to start a
path similar to yours.

Eden Warner (56:54):
I'd say this is going to sound trite but find
something you like doing.
Really, I don't care if it'sprogramming, if it's.
Find something you like doingand then see how that might be a
bridge to the next thing youwant to do.
But try your best not to dosomething just to hold space or

(57:17):
just to get a paycheck.
If your goal and there'snothing wrong with this right
your goal might be I just want,I want to go hike, I want to
climb, that's the main thing Iwant to do.
And I just want to make enoughmoney to pay for my rent, pay
for my hiking equipment.
If I have a family, pay for myfamily.
But I don't.
That's it.
That's what I'm, that's what myjob serves that purpose.

(57:38):
There's zero wrong with that,that's great.
So in that case you don'tnecessarily need to do a job you
really love, because the loveis financing your love.
So that's why you feelcomfortable, you go.
I didn't put up with thisbecause it's financing what I
love.
But if your goal is to buildsomething, love has to be in

(57:59):
there, not your whole thing,like I said earlier, not all of
you, but there has to besomething in there.
You like to do that, you get upin the morning and you get
jazzed about doing some aspectof it.
So find something that, if youget to a point you have to pour
yourself into it, you can seewhy you would do it.
It's not a waste for you.
That's important.

(58:19):
And then the other piece iswhile you're not, like I said,
you want to do that, what you'redoing.
Well, you do want to keep inmind the prize.
Where are you trying to get to?
You don't necessarily have tomap it out, because I can
guarantee you if you map it outit'll be wrong.
But I used to always say thisif you keep in mind where you're

(58:40):
trying to go in the moments youleast expect it, your mind will
tell you ways to get there.
You don't have to overthink it,you just have to keep it as
part of your, not like adrumbeat, but just in your
consciousness.
I know this is where I want togo, and there'll be moments you
will be dreaming you will beriding a bike, you will be
swimming, you'll be sitting onthe beach, you'll be on vacation

(59:02):
, you'll be on a flight and youwill go.
Oh, my goodness, yes.

Daniel Koo (59:08):
To kind of summarize what we learned today I think
being purposeful with yourdecisions.
I think searching for impactand increasing scope.
I think also learning whatyou're passionate about and
really finding the field thatyou want to work in.
I think those are reallyimportant.
Also, to have the courage tojump to a different company,

(59:31):
jump to a different field.

Eden Warner (59:32):
But just have purpose in mind.
Right, have purpose in mind,and know why you're doing it,
and we talked about this earlier.
Always remember time is part ofthe decision.
Time is not an extraneous piece.
Time will help you make adecision.

Daniel Koo (59:45):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
Really appreciate your time, ohthank you.

Eden Warner (59:49):
Thank you so much for joining us today, really
appreciate your time and yourinsight.

Daniel Koo (59:51):
I think it's going to be a great episode and, yeah,
we hope to have you on thepodcast again at some point.

Eden Warner (59:56):
I know there's a lot more Defend Anger that we
would like to get into, so yeah,thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.

Daniel Koo (01:00:03):
I enjoyed it.

Eden Warner (01:00:05):
You made it easy.