Kobie Fuller is a partner at Upfront Ventures. He came to the firm after investing at Accel and leading marketing efforts at EVOLVE, the large global fashion ecommerce platform.
Highlights from our conversation. -- we covered a lot of ground, so this is just a small part:
Kobie’s Athletic Background and Vision for Track and Field: Kobie, a former track and field athlete who competed in the 400m and 200m, believes the sport deserves greater mainstream attention due to its purity and universal accessibility. He discusses a new professional track league, Grand Slam Track, started by Olympian Michael Johnson, aimed at elevating the sport’s profile, potentially rivaling soccer’s popularity.
2 Journey into Venture Capital: Kobie’s entry into venture capital was sparked during the dot-com boom when he co-founded a soccer portal in college. Exposure to VCs visiting his startup led him to pursue a career in VC, despite initial rejections. His persistence, including sending physical letters to Boston VCs, eventually landed him a role at Insight Partners.
Decision to Pass on Oculus: We’ve all done it! At a career crossroads, Kobie chose not to join Oculus as CMO, opting instead for a VC role at Accel. He later invested in Oculus. He remains optimistic about AR/VR’s future, noting improved devices like the Oculus Quest, though he notes it’s not his primary investment focus.
Advocacy for Black Founders: Kobie addresses the underrepresentation of Black founders in tech, emphasizing the need for more diverse capital allocators and intentional outreach beyond traditional networks. He founded Valence, a platform to connect Black professionals, which grew to 30,000 members, highlighting his continued commitment to fostering inclusivity in the startup ecosystem.
AI’s Transformative Potential in Venture Capital: Kobie is bullish on AI, particularly its ability to augment human capabilities in enterprise software. He cies examples like portfolio company 1Up, which reduces RFP completion from weeks to minutes. He contrasts this with concerns about AI’s poten
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kent Lindstrom (00:01):
Why do I do this podcast? Hey, folks, it's Kent
Lindstrom partner in a bitcapital we invest in early stage
software companies, and I'm thehost of this podcast. And people
ask me all the time, why do youdo this podcast?
I will tell you why I do thispodcast. You know, when podcasts
first emerged in Silicon Valley,I listened to them, and I
(00:23):
thought to myself, well, theseare not very interesting.
This is a lot of people talkingabout how series A is the new
series B or whatever. And Ithought, huh, I really don't
want to hear that.
Unknown (01:22):
Or have people talk about the future of E commerce?
And I really don't find thatinteresting, but there are a lot
of people I find interesting.And while I'm getting pitched
all the time, I generally justreach out to people who I think
are very cool. And a lot oftimes they say, Yeah, I will
come on your podcast and we'llhave a discussion. So by
definition, today's guess. Kobiefuller is a cool person, and he
(01:48):
really is. You're really goingto like this. He is an investor
at upfront ventures. But there'smore to it than that. He's an
athlete, by the way, not thefirst athlete we've had in this
podcast. Think Ryan NEES
Kobie Fuller (02:13):
Kobie fuller is my guest today. Think, by the way,
thank you so much. I appreciateyou're all you're all listening
to me. I only do it a coupletimes a month, so a bit capital.
Remember busy guy, but I doappreciate it, and with that,
thanks. Here's Kobe Fuller, All
Kent Lindstrom (02:37):
back. This is the something about your
podcast. I am Ken Lindstrom, I'myour host. My guest today. Coby
Fuller, how are you doing? I'mdoing great. How are you thank
you so much for doing this. SoCoby has a very fancy, very
cool, but a very fancy VC resumehas been an insight partners
Excel and now a partner atupfront ventures. We'll explain
what that is, invested in thingslike user testing and Oculus.
(03:01):
But before all that, you were anathlete, and not the first
athlete on this podcast. By theway, I've had Ryan Nissan, who
played in the NFL. You did notplay in the NFL.
Kobie Fuller (03:12):
I did not NFL. Did not play a minute of football,
maybe in like elementary school.PE, but, no, but, but
Kent Lindstrom (03:22):
you did something cool. You did track
and so I ran the it was a 440when I did it in high school.
You ran track and field. Yes,through college and beyond. Is
that right? That is correct.That's insane. What What was
your? No one else will care. ButI do, what were your what were
your events?
Kobie Fuller (03:40):
So my events were 402 100 main events. And then in
high school, I did do the longjump. And so I was pretty good
at that. I was able to jump over22 feet, but yeah, 402 100.
Kent Lindstrom (03:54):
Did you ever do the four by 400 Oh,
Kobie Fuller (03:57):
yeah. Did the four by four? Did the four by one,
the four by one, we had theHarvard record for a couple
decades, until I got broken justa few years ago. So yeah, I was
definitely in all the relaystoo. That's incredible.
Kent Lindstrom (04:10):
It's a great event. You know? I did it in
high school and then got tocollege, which was a big 10
school, so I was not going torun Big 10 track, it turns out,
but I have a hypothesis. I thinktrack and field should be a much
bigger sport, and soccershouldn't be as popular as it
is. That's
Kobie Fuller (04:30):
funny. Well, I won't throw any shade against
soccer, but I do feel like trackand field should be a much
bigger sport, partially because,like, as long as you're able
bodied, like, everyone has theability to run, yeah, and if you
think about track and field too,it is. It's such a pure sport in
(04:53):
terms of what it is. There's aclear winner, a clear loser.
There's no subjectivity to it.Yeah.
And it's also kind of more likea combat sport when I think
about it, because you're you'reliterally racing against
someone, and that competitivedynamic around seeing who's able
to actually beat anotherindividual in a physical event
(05:16):
is really exciting. It'sactually one of my now close
friends, Michael Johnson, theOlympian, you know, had a number
of world records in the 402 100as well. He's actually trying to
change that overall notionaround track and field not being
such a mainstream sport. So hestarted a track league called
(05:36):
Grand Slam track and meet isactually coming up this Friday
in Kingston, Jamaica. So it'ssuper exciting, first
professional track league that'sever to exist. So hopefully it
does become bigger than soccerat some point. Well, you know,
it's interesting. I it doesn'tbecome bigger than soccer, but I
had Roger Aaron. Have you evermet Roger Ehrenberg? I had him
(05:57):
on recently from IA ventures,and then, one of the most
successful venture firms inhistory. Now he has eberg
capital, which invests insports, sports gaming and really
tech. It's all sports. He's abig Michigan guy, but he also, I
think he owns like, part of theMarlins, it's like, that kind of
thing. And then owns like, kindof part of emerging teams. I
don't know if he's in the thetrack game, but it is kind of
(06:19):
interesting when you watch it.You see it every few years. In
the Olympics, you could say,well, it's kind of boring. It's
just one race. But in somesense, it's like, if you think
of golf or NASCAR, you're like,Well, it's kind of it's kind of
boring watching a person golf,but you're not watching a person
golf, you're watching 40 peoplegolf at the same time. And so
track and field, it's like,yeah, okay, it's a long time. If
(06:39):
you sit around all day tillsomebody runs the 400
Kent Lindstrom (06:42):
but if you want, you're watching the four by 400
then there's the the pole vaultis cool. I mean, the people are
great looking like it's, youknow, like the pole vaulters
are, at least. I mean, I don'tknow. It should be a bigger
sport. That's my that's my take,
Kobie Fuller (06:57):
not, not, not a bad sport. So you
Kent Lindstrom (07:01):
So, you come out of it. And do you so you end up
in, you end up in VC, but youdon't fall the number of people
I talked to, you know, it's ahard, pretty hard, to get a VC
job and, but the number ofpeople I talked to were like,
Oh, I just fell into it. And,you know, they fell into it
because they went to Stanfordand their, you know, their
roommate was, you heard theirdad's name before, kind of
(07:22):
thing, right? Do you start outin the entrepreneurial side of
things, though, don't you? No, Iactually started out well, I
guess you ended up somewherewrapped up in that.com bust,
didn't you? Yeah, so you'reright.
Kobie Fuller (07:32):
So I did during the.com boom and bust. While in
college at Harvard, I gotexposed to venture capital. It
was actually through soccer. Allgoes back to soccer, I guess
it's a buddy of mine and and Ihad an idea around using the
Internet to connect soccerplayers with recruiters that we
(07:53):
ended up turning into an onlinesoccer portal that then became
one of the highest trafficsoccer sites online. Raised
angel money for it, and then atsome point, could have sold it
for a bunch of money, but wedidn't, because we're dumb kids,
and we're trying to raise a trueinstitutional round, and we're
unsuccessful in doing so,because around that time, then
(08:15):
everything started just going upin flames during kind of 99 2000
era, and it was during thatprocess, as we were looking to
raise true outside capital, Igot exposed to this whole world
of venture capital, and hadindividuals coming by our
office, which was a kind of adirty house in between Harvard
(08:35):
and Central Square andCambridge. And we're on our best
behavior trying to clean theplace up and show all the fancy
things we were doing. And thenafter a number of visits from
these VCs, I was like, hell, arethese guys fun job? Like, I want
to do that. And so ultimately,we had to shut down that, that
(08:58):
soccer portal. But then I gotobsessed with trying to find a
way into the world of venturecapital. So I literally wrote
physical letters to every Bostonbased VC, because, at the time,
was living in Boston, I didn'twant to leave. And I got maybe
one or two replies, physicalletters back. And you know,
folks are saying, No way. Kidlike, go get some experience. We
(09:19):
don't hire folks straight out ofschool, and yeah, I kind of at
that point was like, All right,this is not going to be
something that happens rightnow, but I was able to do a year
of investment banking and thenfind my way into my first job at
insight, which the job there iscold calling software companies
(09:42):
trying to source deals, right?And, and that's kind of where I
started, yeah, started mycareer. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (09:48):
it used to be a stat. I don't know if it's true
anymore, but something like,maybe it's apocryphal, something
like, there's more major leaguebaseball players than venture
capitalists or venture capitaljobs or whatever. I don't know.
Maybe that's not true anymore.
Kobie Fuller (09:58):
Maybe not true anymore. Now I. Like, it was
like, VCs everywhere, there's alot of them. Well, there's
Kent Lindstrom (10:03):
fewer, fewer, maybe this year than last couple
years. But as you know, fromthat experience, from those
people coming by your office,what like, what do you take away
from like? What did you learnfrom that experience? Like, from
kind of not selling, from seeinghow people came through and
treated you like, as you kind oflook back on it, what's your
sense of what that was all aboutcompared to where you are now?
(10:26):
And now you're on the inside ofthe thing?
Kobie Fuller (10:28):
Yeah, so long ago. I mean to me, what was exciting
is that this individual, forthem, we were just a 10 o'clock
meeting on their schedule, wherethey're meeting, you know,
founder after founder, and theyare going on this journey to
find who they should beinvesting money with and then
(10:51):
partnering with to then helpthem scale that business to the
next level. And for me, the ideathat my job could be one where I
get to meet with so manydifferent founders that are
building in so many differentindustries. And that be a way to
learn the whole craft of companybuilding through founders who
(11:12):
are, you know, in the ground onthe ground floor, doing that, I
kind of, I kind of like that,that vantage point and so not
the trenches, but being kind ofsitting in the cheap seats, but
yet still able to help from afarwith dollars and expertise and
advice. And that was, for me,like the perfect sort of
intersection of entrepreneurshipthat, at the time, just
(11:35):
resonated to me. And so that waskind of what I was fascinated
about. Does
Kent Lindstrom (11:39):
it tell you anything about sell it. You
know, there's a dynamic inventure capital where you get to
a point, and I've kind of livedthrough this one a few times,
where maybe your company can getacquired for $125 million for
which you will make $17 millionwhich is a lot of money. And the
venture firms kind of like,well, this is not good for me,
(12:03):
but that's a big deal for you.Like, what was, what do you
think of that dynamic? Oh,
Kobie Fuller (12:08):
no, that's a real that's a very real dynamic that
I think founders need to keep inmind when they take venture
dollars and who they takeventure dollars from because the
return profile that certain VCshave, it kind of different from
VC to Vc. But there's certaininvestors where, if you're not
(12:32):
going to return, I don't knowhow many multiples on their
capital, and it's a north of abillion or even, like 10 billion
exit, like they don't care. Andfor you, if an outcome around,
like $100 million exit is like aGrand Slam, then, like, you
shouldn't go on a journey withan investor who's optimizing for
(12:54):
the billion or 10 billion plusoutcome, because there's going
to be a misalignment at somepoint in the future where an
acquirer comes across the tableand is ready to cash you out
like that, Vc is going to say,shut up, go back to work. So I
think certain founders need torealize that if they're not
(13:15):
looking to aspire for that typeof outcome, they may not really
be set up for the product thatis venture capital, or that is
venture capital for the waycertain VTS actually play the
game. And that's like a realdynamic that some folks that
don't think really sometimesinto account, yeah, it's,
Kent Lindstrom (13:32):
you know, we talked because we do seed stage
investing, which is, you know,pre product market fit, almost.
And people ask, you know, andone of the things you look for
is grit in a founder that theycan just do the crazy thing,
which is start a company, whichyou really shouldn't do. And one
of the heuristics we give topeople is, you know, one way to
think about grit is, would thisperson, if they're going to
(13:53):
build $1,000,000,000.02 billiondollar company, they're going to
get that offer, it's like, justhappens, right? Zuckerberg got
the billion dollar offer thateveryone wanted to take. Can you
envision that person saying, No,are they so driven by, you know,
they're mad at their brotherbeing better at sports, or
they're never whatever isdriving them? Is it a thing that
you think will drive them pastthat and they'll turn down the
(14:13):
100 and $50 million offer? And,yeah, you know, I think a lot
Kobie Fuller (14:17):
of it kind of goes to overall motivation. Like,
why? Are they doing this likewhat in their journey has
brought them to the point wherebuilding this company, going on
this mission, and what is deemeda successful mission is probably
not a bunch of zeros in theirbank account, but it's an
(14:39):
outcome that is usually themchanging the world in some way
or capacity. That is the onlyreason why they give every day
trying to do something that isborderline psychotic, which is
like company building, and wherethe odds are pretty much against
you. And so we. Look for, I lookfor that, that grit and that
(15:03):
performance mindset around thatyou're probably going to fail,
but, but don't like, don't fail.Just do what it takes to
actually achieve that outcome,and sometimes, most of the time,
it doesn't actually work. Yeah,those founders that barrel
through all that and make theimpossible possible possible are
limited outcomes. So it's funny,you
Kent Lindstrom (15:23):
mentioned the probabilities and people showing
you what your office there's ablog post a long time ago that's
lost to time. I can't find it,but somebody wrote about each
stage of venture capital, of theprocess of raising money, and
what the entrepreneur thinks theprobability is, and what the VC
thinks of them getting funded.And so it starts with, like, you
(15:45):
have that first meeting, and,you know, the the entrepreneur
thinks, probably, oh, 50% we'regonna move to the next stage,
and the VC is like, 10% move tothe next stage. And then, you
know, you get the next one was,oh, you get to, you get to the
partner meeting. And like, the,you know, the entrepreneurs
like, Oh, it's a, you know, 80%I'm gonna get it. And the DC is
like, Nah, it's 50% at thepartner meeting. And finally,
(16:06):
you get to the punchline, youget to the term sheet, and
you're like, 100% if you're the,you know, the advert of the VC
is like 80% you know, kind of ondown the path. That's
Kobie Fuller (16:17):
funny. But I do feel like there's some moments,
though, where, again, there'sthese deals now that a lot of us
inventors are seeing whereyou're that you're the DC facing
after the hot deal, put theirterm sheet down, like, oh, this
could be, like, 100% in theentrepreneurs. Like, probably,
Kent Lindstrom (16:33):
yeah, well, yeah. I've talked to, I think,
like, roll off at Sequoia, whosays it's like, no, no, no, no,
no, please. Right? You're like,you don't want all the things
you don't want, then you justcan't get to the thing you do
want. So you're at insight.You've made it into venture
capital. Congratulations. Thatends up not be like, seems like
(16:54):
it's a great place to start, butyou still have more you move on
to excel at some point fromthat, right? Yeah. Well,
Kobie Fuller (16:59):
it actually is a couple pit stops along the way.
So a few of us, we actuallybroke off from insight. We
started a platform called openview. I was one of the founders
at open view. This was back in2005 where we raised a first
fund that was $107 million andand then a second fund that was
(17:22):
slight bit north of that Iactually then left open view to
be an operator, where, for twoyears I pretty much like, packed
my bags, moved from Boston toLA, dragged My wife kicking and
screaming from the Northeast,and found myself in the world of
(17:44):
women's fashion, where I was aCMO of revolve. Oh, wow, yeah.
So for couple years I was in thetrenches selling women's clothes
and doing that with actually nopractical marketing experience.
A lot of what I was doing withinvesting in marketing
technology. So one of my earlylucky wins when I was at Insight
(18:05):
was the exact target thatSalesforce acquired for a few
billion dollars. And that kindof had to be kept pulling on
this thread of marketingautomation and digital
transformation in the CMO suite.But yeah, I was selling, I was
selling women, women's clothes.
Unknown (18:18):
And so how do you get back out? Okay, now, now you got
a perfectly good career inmarketing women's clothes. I
hear people buy a lot of those.How do you how do you get back
into the VC world?
Kobie Fuller (18:29):
Yeah, so I got revolved in two years from
little less than $20 million runrate to a couple 100 million
with no outside capital. Andthen I I realized that it's not
my life's calling to throw,throw rager parties at Coachella
and and beg people to postpictures on Instagram exchange
(18:50):
for free clothes, which that'sessentially what we started
really doing in the 2012 2013time frame, because Instagram
started becoming a real platformaround that time. So it was a
perfect timing me being thereand being able to architect a
lot of what is now, kind of likemodern influencer marketing. But
I realized that, like that wasgoing to be my life versus a lot
(19:13):
of what I other things I wasdoing. And so I yeah, I was
realizing that after TSGconsumer focused private equity
fund came in to put some capitalon the balance sheet. It was no
longer a bootstrap business thatmaybe it's my time to exit stage
left and go back to what my truecalling was, which is venture.
(19:34):
Because if I go back to why Iwas so excited about the role of
VC when I was exposed to it incollege, was that I realized it
was being able to again sit fromthe chief seats, helping
multiple different founders andbe a part of multiple different
journeys at one point in timeand at revolve. I was spending
(19:54):
all my time in one venture, andit got incredibly boring to me
and.
Realized that really VC longterm was where I wanted to spend
my my final years, and it was,it was a tough decision, though,
because at the time, I was at acrossroads. I could have had the
fortunate opportunity to eithergo to Excel or my buddy at the
(20:16):
time was starting Oculus. Yeah,so I was pretty much looking at
joining Oculus to the groundfloor as cmo but then I realized
that, yeah, these crazy goggles,I don't know this is kind of,
kind of, kind of whacking it outthere and and so that's kind of
why I personally investedOculus, because I was too stupid
(20:37):
and I didn't actually join theteam. That's that I think
joining Oculus might have beenthe correct one, although I got
to say, for every one of those,somebody joined, you know,
schmoculus or whatever, and younever heard of it. So yeah, in
retrospect, of course, that'sthe right answer. And so what do
you make of what happened? Justcurious, what you think, you
know, it was such a big I hadsigned banister on recently. She
(20:59):
talked about excited. She isabout sort of ambient things
like Oculus and AR and VR hasn'tquite done the thing we thought
it would do yet. Though. Is itstill coming? Or is it, did we
miss something? Or it very muchis still coming. I think
people assumed it was gonna comea lot faster than it really did,
(21:23):
yeah, and part of that was theform factor. You know, the early
Oculus quests just clunky andreally hard to boot up and get
to the content you want.Peripherals are kind of a mess.
The field of view and the actualresolution not as high as it
(21:44):
was. You get to where we areright now, and you have these,
you know, the quest and otherswith mixed reality capabilities,
far more lightweight and adeveloper ecosystem that's
spending more time buildingcontent on there. We're still
not quite there yet, clearly,but the sales of the quest to
(22:06):
continue to actually increase.Will they be as dominant as the
smartphone? No, I think it'stime before we see it get to
that point, but I think it'sstill a pretty interesting
platform that has a lot ofdifferent use cases to it that
people find quite valuable,whether it's gaming or different
sort of productivity tools oreven commercial applications.
(22:28):
And I'm still bullish long term,but it's not where I'm spending
all my time sourcing, if I'mbeing transparent, yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (22:34):
and so well, how do you end up but upfront, then
this is kind of upfront isthere's a couple interesting
things about upfront, probablymore than this, but one, they're
in LA, yes, not San Francisco.You're in LA and have a really
like, like, there's a zillionevents that everyone has, but
upfront, has a pretty famousevent, right? Like, it's yearly
(22:54):
events, like, kind of coolerthan the other events. Like, a
couple celebrities show up.Everybody wants to go.
Kobie Fuller (23:04):
It's pretty cool. That's cool. That's cool. Sorry,
there's some background noisetrying to mitigate that. So,
yeah, so how I got up front, Ico invested with upfront on my
first two investments while Iwas at Excel, yeah. So it was
invoca, which was my firstinvestment I made at Excel
Santa, Barbara based marketingautomation platform. That's how
(23:26):
I got to first meet my nowpartner, Mark. And then second
investment was Osmo, which is akids augmented reality gaming
platform, which I actually metat the upfront Summit, which
Mark had me speak at and wasable to go and preempt their
series A And so very quicklyinto my time at Excel, I found
(23:48):
myself on two boards with my nowpartner, Mark, yeah, and I was
speaking at, I think, almostevery upfront summit that was
held while actually at workingat Excel. And it was through
that natural experience justworking with Mark and getting
integrated just organically withsome of the the team here at
(24:08):
upfront, that at least becamethis logical fit when there was
just a an opening over here atthe firm to transition, you
know, back down to La and bepart of the team, and it was a
lot of just mark and I excitedto work together and be
partners. Even though we werekind of already partnering up on
(24:31):
these portfolio companies, wasactually trying to find a way to
work more closely together. Soit was an organic transition
where wasn't looking to leaveExcel, but just about it was a
logical place to really makewrite the next chapter of my
career. That's
Kent Lindstrom (24:44):
cool. I know you invest everywhere, anywhere that
there's a huge opportunity, butdo you think in terms of there
being like an LA startup scene?
Kobie Fuller (24:52):
Yes, the 1,000% is a very vibrant la startup scene,
and one of the areas where we'reseeing most of the excitement.
Now is the world of hard tech,aerospace and defense. My
partner, Nick, spends a lot oftime in around that community.
The number of founders that arespinning off of platforms like
SpaceX or Andrew and others,there's constantly seeing new,
(25:16):
amazing companies that are beingformed. And so we're seeing a
really huge sort of just energyhere and around the hard tech
community, which is, which isgreat, yeah,
Unknown (25:27):
you guys have the, like, a SpaceX, SpaceX base, but
like, a rockets taken off downthere. I think somewhere. I
forget where I had somebody fromSpaceX on recently there. I
think they live in Culver Cityor something like, yeah, we can
see the rockets taking off fromwhatever the heck the Air Force
base is. I'm like, well, that's,that's, that's pretty cool. Take
your kids out to the backyardand watch that. Like, that's
(25:47):
pretty neat. That's
Kobie Fuller (25:48):
fun. It's fun being down here in LA it's not,
it's not bad, it's not bad, it'snot all this, a bunch of movie
stars and all that. We'reactually doing some hard work.
The
Kent Lindstrom (25:56):
people are better looking. But I grew up in
San Diego, so I get it. You haveto be careful. Like, yeah, it
gets pretty nice in San Diego. Acouple years can go by and all
of a sudden you're, you know,waiting for the insurance
settlement and surfing every daykind of thing, okay. Also,
Qualcomm was started in SanDiego, so, you know, anything
could happen. So I wanted to askyou whether you know, when I
(26:17):
started this podcast, it waseight, 910, years ago, I had in
guys like namdok, Kike, CharlesHutson, ADIA Zhao, Ryan knee, so
I was kind of curious aboutblack founders in Silicon
Valley. I call it SiliconValley, but in startups, and
there's always kind of been athing where there have just been
fewer than there should be. AndI was curious, like with they
(26:38):
had all kinds of different ideasabout it, and I'm just curious
what your ideas about it like,whether the black founders and
what are you doing about it? Arewe where we need to be, or
what's going on there? Yeah, by
Kobie Fuller (26:49):
the way, I gotta shut up. My very close friend
namdi, which you have theplatform. So namdi was part of
the reason why I even joinedinside. So we went to Harvard
together, ran track together.He's godfather of one of my my
sons were very, very closefriends. So, yeah, be remissed
by the admissions or nom de, hewent to inside first, and then I
went after. So that's great.Some of the story there, and
(27:10):
yeah, regards to, you know, thenumber of black founders that
are lack thereof. It's, it'sbeen, you know, pretty
underwhelming statistic thatwe've seen in terms of number of
folks that actually going out,being able to raise capital and
go and start companies. I'mhopeful and optimistic that can
and will change over time. Ithink part of it is there needs
(27:32):
to be more allocators that arefrom the community, that find
ways to actually get capitalinto the hands of founders that
look like us. But beyond that,there needs to be also a notion
of just being able to put biasessort of aside. And a part of
this people, sometimes,unfortunately, nationally,
(27:54):
invest in their own communitiesand then their own sort of
pockets. It's being able to getoutside of your own community,
and find ways to find innovationin other types of founders and
folks that are building besidesjust your immediate network. And
so things I've tried to do tohelp in that regard. You know, a
number of years ago, I started aplatform called valence that was
(28:17):
oriented around trying to combatthis. It was a professional
community for for blackprofessionals. And we peaked at
getting close to 30,000 blackprofessionals on the platform.
You know, raised the series, afrom ggV, and my good friend
Hans tongue, to go off and scalethis initiative, and ended up
exiting and selling to my friendPaul judge platforms called
(28:39):
Greenwood. And it's it'splatforms and initiatives like
that, where, in my opinion, istrying to create better net
mechanisms for folks who don'thave an ability to tap into the
black community to more easilydo so and be able to fund those
opportunities that are there,and also create a bridge for
those black founders to accesscapital and innovation economy
(29:00):
in a way they haven't been ableto do before. And so I'm hopeful
and optimistic the stats willchange. There are definitely
forces at play that are nothelping with the card that which
we're another conversation ofwhat we're seeing in terms of
(29:20):
just, you know, D and I havingjust headwinds against it, but I
still have hope and optimismaround what's being able to find
a way for more black founders tobe able to get the capital they
need, to actually start thebusinesses they need. There's a
Kent Lindstrom (29:34):
there's a couple of things people said to me,
Charles Hudson said, so, like,as Charles Hudson often does,
kind of woke me up on this onewhere I was, I was, like, kind
of people really biased, like,against black? Like, if some
great black found at thesecurity company came along,
would, like, Sequoia justdoesn't do it. And he said
something like, he's like, look,most people in Silicon Valley
know a lot of women. They mightbe married to a woman, but they
(29:57):
might not, just not know acouple black. Eyes. And it's
that like that it's not thatthey're seeing things and
saying, No, it's just thatthey're kind of not seeing the
thing was, how, like, howCharles kind of put it to me,
and he kind of suggested, youknow, be open. If somebody in
Silicon Valley can't get to you,it's probably a pretty bad sign,
(30:17):
right? If they can't figure outhow to network their way to you,
you know, to get an intro. Buthe's like, if somebody from
Tennessee state tries to reachout to you, take the cold email.
Because, like, why would theyknow how to get to you? They're
at Tennessee State. Like, theymight be great, but they're just
didn't happen to go to Stanford.I just thought that was kind of
a interesting insight fromCharles. Yeah, I think
Kobie Fuller (30:36):
it's, again, it goes back to people's networks.
And if your network isnationally designed and
organized the way we're kind ofmimics your life's journey, and
if you haven't interacted orbeen around many people from
outside your own community, thenfor you to think that one day
you're gonna wake up and be ableto tap into black founders or
(30:58):
black founders be able to tapinto you, it's not going to
happen. And so theintentionality around how you're
sourcing, just as intentionalityaround how you know, individuals
source for the next hottest AIdeal, if you really, truly
intentionally want to invest inthe black community, invest in
black founders, then it's it'sreally making sure that you're
spending time in the areas wherethose founders exist. But I also
(31:20):
want to be clear, like blackfounders are building some
incredibly hot AI companies.It's not like, it's mutually
exclusive. And so there's lotsof founders I reach out to cold
on LinkedIn that are some hotshot kids that look like me are
coming out of the topuniversities, and they're not
replying back to my emailsbecause they're too busy
building their companies. Andthey're like, I don't want to
(31:41):
talk to these Bozo VCs. It's notlike, I want to make sure people
realize it's not a world where,like, black founders are all of
them are trying to, like, youknow, find a hand on anyone to
help me. There are someincredible black founders that,
or not talking to VCs, arekilling it and doing fine. Then
that is a lot of the world thatI think people need to also
(32:02):
realize does exist.
Kent Lindstrom (32:03):
Yeah, same thing. No, no, no, please. Like,
like, I want in what, let me acouple final things. I want to
ask you. Like, you know, we'rekind of in a pretty specific
time in venture capital. I'mcurious what you think about us,
about AI, in a second, but whatdo you think about the venture
capital world now we've got, wehad kind of profusion of firms
emerge. I mean, you're, youknow, at a top, elite firm
there, but a bunch of seed firmsemerged. Is kind of a, you know,
(32:27):
an interesting phenomenon. Therehaven't been exits for a little
while. What do you know, the thebig guys are all fighting over
politics, you know, vinodsfiring at, you know, marking the
gods up on the mountains areangry at each other. What do you
what the heck is going on inventure capital? As a long time
observer,
Kobie Fuller (32:47):
it's it's a very interesting time. Well, first
off, I think it's a great timeto be in the game, because these
founders that are out here, thethings are being built, the
intelligence that I'm seeing itis, it's awesome. It makes the
job incredibly exciting andchallenging every day, because
(33:09):
trying to keep up with thesekids are building these as
groundbreaking pieces of tech.Is it makes the job is rewarding
the guards to the amount ofdollars that are out there
chasing these deals. It'sinsane. Rewind back to 2003 2004
when I was doing this job, like,be a VC, that wasn't cool. There
(33:29):
wasn't like, tons of us runningaround. Now you think about what
it means to be a VC, like, Isaid, like, there's probably
more VCs than there areprofessional athletes. Maybe
it's adverse, but there's a lotof us, yeah. And I think when
you had happened during kind of2020, 2021, when there was an
explosion of capital to actuallyenter into the asset class,
(33:53):
people thought it was likeshooting fish in a barrel,
unicorns being minted left andright. And there was an illusion
of value and wealth creation,the point where, like, I had
folks I knew saying, like, ohyeah, I would retire to being a
VC or, like, oh, VCs, my sidegig, like that stuff. And I'm
like, Wow, your eye hustle is mymain hustle. Like, that's what's
(34:17):
happening right now. And what isnow occurred is a lot of those
folks, they're going to have avery tough time, or had a tough
time raising their next fund.And so there's a washout of
those folks. Is a washout ofpartners that thought the job
was so easy, and they realized,Oh, this is hard work. What's
(34:38):
this thing? A pay to play down,like my founders are coming
after me because of, like, thiswhole thing called the pref
stack that's weighing them down.I didn't think that was a big
deal. All of these dynamics thatare just becoming very
unpleasant to folks wherethey're realizing it's like, Ah,
this, this is not fun. Wait. Howlong is gonna take for me to get
(34:59):
to carry each. Like, yeah, like,a decade, I'm good. And then so
there's a natural then flushingout of folks that, and a healthy
flushing out my opinion, fromfolks that actually like they
don't enjoy the craft ofventure. Like, to me, this is a
sport. It's a very hard sport,but I love it, and that's what
(35:20):
gets me up every day to do thejob is that I just enjoy what
I'm doing. And it's not becauseof, like, the money I could be
making. It's like, it's truly,in my opinion, like an
absolutely fun, rewarding butchallenging, incredibly
stressful job. Those folks thatactually take it that mindset, I
think, will thrive in this nextperiod that's gonna be
incredibly challenging andrewarding, with regards to new
(35:42):
dollars going out the door thesenew companies. And for those
folks that are up for the taskthat, you know, they can choose
to, you know, find somethingelse that's better suited for
their time, which I think isfine and is healthy. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (35:55):
that's really well said. I talked to somebody
recently. I was like, ah, thesepeople are having, you know,
tough time raising their secondfund. And he was like, a lot of
them aren't having a tough timeraising their second fund.
They've decided not to, becausethey came in thinking this was
like a fun, easy job, and I willnever complain about being a
venture capitalist, but it's avery hard, grinding job if you
(36:16):
do it well. And they were like,Oh, this isn't like, fly around
on the jet, you know, and make abillion dollars in a month. It's
a lot of detailed work andfailure and and so they're just
like, you know, maybe being thebiz dev guy at a hot company
isn't such a such a bad gig,after all, at this point.
Kobie Fuller (36:36):
I mean, there's a lot of emotions that you also
are working with, whether it'syour own emotion that's right,
partners, emotions, yourfounders, emotions, most
importantly, because they'regoing on these journeys. And if
you have a large enoughportfolio, as you start building
up your book, at any given pointin time, there's something
you're dealing with. And ifyou're emotionally grounded and
(36:59):
stable, to be there for yourfounders, helping them to
whatever they're dealing with.Then, in my opinion, you're not
doing your job as a VC, andthat's what I love doing, is
playing that role as a coach andtaking a neutral mindset around
how can I optimize the mentalperformance of the founders? I
(37:19):
work with the founders in ourportfolio in a manner where they
can bring their best selves totheir companies, to their teams,
and ultimately be best optimizedfor success, and if it
ultimately doesn't end up beinga multi billion dollar outcome.
Like, that's fine. Like, like,it's not a matter of life and
death, that's okay. Like, thisis just the way the game works
(37:42):
and the way the loss ratio playsout. Yeah, it's crazy.
Kent Lindstrom (37:45):
30 companies at any given day, somebody can call
up and say, Hey, things aregoing wrong. We're shutting
down. And somebody can call upand say, hey, guess what? We
just landed a big client in aSeries A and you never know
which day it's going to
Kobie Fuller (37:56):
be. Never know which day it's going to be. One
day your your company that wasonce considered a dog is now
high flying, and you're one highflying company is then now like
not doing so well. And that'swhy you never, you never know.
Man,
Kent Lindstrom (38:08):
we've had all of those. So let me finish on this.
I mean, we're an extraordinarytime. I think there been these
things, the internet emerging. Imean, it wasn't, it was a little
before, you know, when I wasinvesting or working, but then
mobile emerging. Now you havethese moments where something
emerges and everything changes.It seems like AI is one of those
times. What do you make of AI,the dark side of AI, the upside
(38:31):
of AI? What do you think? Well,I don't
Kobie Fuller (38:33):
want to talk about the dark side of AI, because we
could get this really, really,really dystopian. People love
that stuff. It's good. Well,it's well, it's so funny. On the
dystopian front, the only thingI'll mention is it's funny.
Quick story. So I have two boys,one's 917, so two weeks ago,
(38:53):
there was a morning gatheringthey had for the parents of you
know, the class where they'reshowcasing essays they wrote.
And so I show up to my son'sclass, and he brings me over,
and it's like, I want to showyou my essay. I'm like, oh,
cool, great. I look down thetitle of the essay is I hate
(39:14):
robots. And I'm like, What isthis? And it's basically this,
yeah, like long essay around howhe hates AI, how it's gonna
basically be destructive tohumanity. He has an example
which is an exaggeration, by theway, of us being in a Waymo
during his birthday last summer,and it kind of driving
(39:36):
haphazardly and almost likerunning us off into the ocean.
And I was like, What are youtalking about? But for some
reason, us being a self drivingcar, he did not like. And he
also talks about the fact, like,Hey, if you're at a pool party
and like a robot's invited, youcan't throw the robot into the
pool, it'll glitch, and that'snot fun. And it was fascinating
(39:56):
to just hear the vantage pointof a nine year old disagree.
Really not being super excitedabout AI, because it was taking
away some of the fundamentalthings that we as humans should
be prioritizing and really justengaging on a day to day basis.
And so that's at least one thingI think we need to be mindful of
with regards to AI, is what itcan do in terms of stripping us
(40:19):
of our humanity in connectionwith one another and just
blindly trusting it to dothings. The thing that gives me
hope and excitement, why I'mincredibly bullish on AI is I do
think you could, fundamentally,can make us better at certain
things and give us superhumanpowers. And if we look at AI as
(40:42):
a layer of assistance inaugmentation, whether it's on a
personal basis, and I asked theportfolio companies that are
doing that or even on aprofessional basis, and some
portfolio companies, both ofours in eight in one up, which
is streamlining the process ofcompleting RFPs, which is a long
(41:02):
couple week process that you gothrough during sales cycles that
the company is streamlined downto two minutes. Like, sales
people don't want to spendcouple weeks filling our RFPs,
which is just going out andcollecting information,
bothering SES to help them justrespond to a prospect. Like, now
you can, like, snap your fingerand be able to use their
(41:24):
knowledge system coupled with AIto just have you do your job.
And like, warp speed, like thattype of application exists in so
many different iterations acrossdepartments, industries, you
name it. And for me, it is themost exciting time period to be
investing in enterprisesoftware. And we'll start seeing
(41:46):
more and more consumerapplications that also give me
excitement. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (41:50):
it is incredible. I mean, it's always
been the case that, you know,people build these companies
like, that's a little bitbetter, you know, my thing is
better than Salesforce. It'slike, Yeah, nobody wants better
than Salesforce. They want iteither costs 1/10 is, you know,
it's like the dating app, right?It's like, you need to go on and
spend no time and meet like asupermodel who becomes your wife
(42:10):
in one move. Like, that's whatyou need. It needs to be that.
And these applications with AIare that where it's like, no,
yeah, this thing does 1/10 cutsyour time 90%
Kobie Fuller (42:21):
which those are? Those are big companies, yeah.
And the biggest thing, it'sjust, it creates incredible
outcomes. This. The outcomesthat some of these applications
are driving are insane. We haveone company called Laurel that's
in the category of kind of timekeeping AI time keeping with an
(42:44):
even bigger vision of that. Butthey're able, with their desktop
agent, find for the averageaverage service worker who needs
to bill for their time anincremental 30 minutes per week
per service worker of billabletime that can be completely
audited once you actually giveit to the end client, you can do
(43:04):
the math against that in termsof whether that drives, in terms
of incremental revenue for theservices organization, it's like
staggering it's like instantmoney. And so it's things like
that that are super exciting.What a great time, what a great
time to be in venture. This hasbeen great. What how do people
if they want to find you orfollow you or hear what you have
to say, What's the best way tofind you? Yeah, they can just,
(43:26):
you, find me, find me onLinkedIn. That's probably the
easiest way to connect with me.Or they can just, like, send me
an email. Honestly, just Kobieat up front. I'm pretty
responsive to most emails. Imean, it's funny, mentioned one
up Georgia, one up cold emailedme, and that's how we started
talking. And now he's aportfolio company, so I respond
(43:48):
to email. That's fantastic.Thanks so much for doing this.
Yeah, thank you. Thanks forhaving me. All right, this has
been the something about yourpodcast. My guest, Kobie filler,
Kobie filler, Kobie Fuller, talkto you next time you
Why do I do this podcast? Hey, folks, it's Kent
Lindstrom partner in a bitcapital we invest in early stage
software companies, and I'm thehost of this podcast. And people
ask me all the time, why do youdo this podcast?
I will tell you why I do thispodcast. You know, when podcasts
first emerged in Silicon Valley,I listened to them, and I
(00:23):
thought to myself, well, theseare not very interesting.
This is a lot of people talkingabout how series A is the new
series B or whatever. And Ithought, huh, I really don't
want to hear that.
Unknown (01:22):
Or have people talk about the future of E commerce?
And I really don't find thatinteresting, but there are a lot
of people I find interesting.And while I'm getting pitched
all the time, I generally justreach out to people who I think
are very cool. And a lot oftimes they say, Yeah, I will
come on your podcast and we'llhave a discussion. So by
definition, today's guess. Kobiefuller is a cool person, and he
(01:48):
really is. You're really goingto like this. He is an investor
at upfront ventures. But there'smore to it than that. He's an
athlete, by the way, not thefirst athlete we've had in this
podcast. Think Ryan NEES
Kobie Fuller (02:13):
Kobie fuller is my guest today. Think, by the way,
thank you so much. I appreciateyou're all you're all listening
to me. I only do it a coupletimes a month, so a bit capital.
Remember busy guy, but I doappreciate it, and with that,
thanks. Here's Kobe Fuller, All
Kent Lindstrom (02:37):
back. This is the something about your
podcast. I am Ken Lindstrom, I'myour host. My guest today. Coby
Fuller, how are you doing? I'mdoing great. How are you thank
you so much for doing this. SoCoby has a very fancy, very
cool, but a very fancy VC resumehas been an insight partners
Excel and now a partner atupfront ventures. We'll explain
what that is, invested in thingslike user testing and Oculus.
(03:01):
But before all that, you were anathlete, and not the first
athlete on this podcast. By theway, I've had Ryan Nissan, who
played in the NFL. You did notplay in the NFL.
Kobie Fuller (03:12):
I did not NFL. Did not play a minute of football,
maybe in like elementary school.PE, but, no, but, but
Kent Lindstrom (03:22):
you did something cool. You did track
and so I ran the it was a 440when I did it in high school.
You ran track and field. Yes,through college and beyond. Is
that right? That is correct.That's insane. What What was
your? No one else will care. ButI do, what were your what were
your events?
Kobie Fuller (03:40):
So my events were 402 100 main events. And then in
high school, I did do the longjump. And so I was pretty good
at that. I was able to jump over22 feet, but yeah, 402 100.
Kent Lindstrom (03:54):
Did you ever do the four by 400 Oh,
Kobie Fuller (03:57):
yeah. Did the four by four? Did the four by one,
the four by one, we had theHarvard record for a couple
decades, until I got broken justa few years ago. So yeah, I was
definitely in all the relaystoo. That's incredible.
Kent Lindstrom (04:10):
It's a great event. You know? I did it in
high school and then got tocollege, which was a big 10
school, so I was not going torun Big 10 track, it turns out,
but I have a hypothesis. I thinktrack and field should be a much
bigger sport, and soccershouldn't be as popular as it
is. That's
Kobie Fuller (04:30):
funny. Well, I won't throw any shade against
soccer, but I do feel like trackand field should be a much
bigger sport, partially because,like, as long as you're able
bodied, like, everyone has theability to run, yeah, and if you
think about track and field too,it is. It's such a pure sport in
(04:53):
terms of what it is. There's aclear winner, a clear loser.
There's no subjectivity to it.Yeah.
And it's also kind of more likea combat sport when I think
about it, because you're you'reliterally racing against
someone, and that competitivedynamic around seeing who's able
to actually beat anotherindividual in a physical event
(05:16):
is really exciting. It'sactually one of my now close
friends, Michael Johnson, theOlympian, you know, had a number
of world records in the 402 100as well. He's actually trying to
change that overall notionaround track and field not being
such a mainstream sport. So hestarted a track league called
(05:36):
Grand Slam track and meet isactually coming up this Friday
in Kingston, Jamaica. So it'ssuper exciting, first
professional track league that'sever to exist. So hopefully it
does become bigger than soccerat some point. Well, you know,
it's interesting. I it doesn'tbecome bigger than soccer, but I
had Roger Aaron. Have you evermet Roger Ehrenberg? I had him
(05:57):
on recently from IA ventures,and then, one of the most
successful venture firms inhistory. Now he has eberg
capital, which invests insports, sports gaming and really
tech. It's all sports. He's abig Michigan guy, but he also, I
think he owns like, part of theMarlins, it's like, that kind of
thing. And then owns like, kindof part of emerging teams. I
don't know if he's in the thetrack game, but it is kind of
(06:19):
interesting when you watch it.You see it every few years. In
the Olympics, you could say,well, it's kind of boring. It's
just one race. But in somesense, it's like, if you think
of golf or NASCAR, you're like,Well, it's kind of it's kind of
boring watching a person golf,but you're not watching a person
golf, you're watching 40 peoplegolf at the same time. And so
track and field, it's like,yeah, okay, it's a long time. If
(06:39):
you sit around all day tillsomebody runs the 400
Kent Lindstrom (06:42):
but if you want, you're watching the four by 400
then there's the the pole vaultis cool. I mean, the people are
great looking like it's, youknow, like the pole vaulters
are, at least. I mean, I don'tknow. It should be a bigger
sport. That's my that's my take,
Kobie Fuller (06:57):
not, not, not a bad sport. So you
Kent Lindstrom (07:01):
So, you come out of it. And do you so you end up
in, you end up in VC, but youdon't fall the number of people
I talked to, you know, it's ahard, pretty hard, to get a VC
job and, but the number ofpeople I talked to were like,
Oh, I just fell into it. And,you know, they fell into it
because they went to Stanfordand their, you know, their
roommate was, you heard theirdad's name before, kind of
(07:22):
thing, right? Do you start outin the entrepreneurial side of
things, though, don't you? No, Iactually started out well, I
guess you ended up somewherewrapped up in that.com bust,
didn't you? Yeah, so you'reright.
Kobie Fuller (07:32):
So I did during the.com boom and bust. While in
college at Harvard, I gotexposed to venture capital. It
was actually through soccer. Allgoes back to soccer, I guess
it's a buddy of mine and and Ihad an idea around using the
Internet to connect soccerplayers with recruiters that we
(07:53):
ended up turning into an onlinesoccer portal that then became
one of the highest trafficsoccer sites online. Raised
angel money for it, and then atsome point, could have sold it
for a bunch of money, but wedidn't, because we're dumb kids,
and we're trying to raise a trueinstitutional round, and we're
unsuccessful in doing so,because around that time, then
(08:15):
everything started just going upin flames during kind of 99 2000
era, and it was during thatprocess, as we were looking to
raise true outside capital, Igot exposed to this whole world
of venture capital, and hadindividuals coming by our
office, which was a kind of adirty house in between Harvard
(08:35):
and Central Square andCambridge. And we're on our best
behavior trying to clean theplace up and show all the fancy
things we were doing. And thenafter a number of visits from
these VCs, I was like, hell, arethese guys fun job? Like, I want
to do that. And so ultimately,we had to shut down that, that
(08:58):
soccer portal. But then I gotobsessed with trying to find a
way into the world of venturecapital. So I literally wrote
physical letters to every Bostonbased VC, because, at the time,
was living in Boston, I didn'twant to leave. And I got maybe
one or two replies, physicalletters back. And you know,
folks are saying, No way. Kidlike, go get some experience. We
(09:19):
don't hire folks straight out ofschool, and yeah, I kind of at
that point was like, All right,this is not going to be
something that happens rightnow, but I was able to do a year
of investment banking and thenfind my way into my first job at
insight, which the job there iscold calling software companies
(09:42):
trying to source deals, right?And, and that's kind of where I
started, yeah, started mycareer. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (09:48):
it used to be a stat. I don't know if it's true
anymore, but something like,maybe it's apocryphal, something
like, there's more major leaguebaseball players than venture
capitalists or venture capitaljobs or whatever. I don't know.
Maybe that's not true anymore.
Kobie Fuller (09:58):
Maybe not true anymore. Now I. Like, it was
like, VCs everywhere, there's alot of them. Well, there's
Kent Lindstrom (10:03):
fewer, fewer, maybe this year than last couple
years. But as you know, fromthat experience, from those
people coming by your office,what like, what do you take away
from like? What did you learnfrom that experience? Like, from
kind of not selling, from seeinghow people came through and
treated you like, as you kind oflook back on it, what's your
sense of what that was all aboutcompared to where you are now?
(10:26):
And now you're on the inside ofthe thing?
Kobie Fuller (10:28):
Yeah, so long ago. I mean to me, what was exciting
is that this individual, forthem, we were just a 10 o'clock
meeting on their schedule, wherethey're meeting, you know,
founder after founder, and theyare going on this journey to
find who they should beinvesting money with and then
(10:51):
partnering with to then helpthem scale that business to the
next level. And for me, the ideathat my job could be one where I
get to meet with so manydifferent founders that are
building in so many differentindustries. And that be a way to
learn the whole craft of companybuilding through founders who
(11:12):
are, you know, in the ground onthe ground floor, doing that, I
kind of, I kind of like that,that vantage point and so not
the trenches, but being kind ofsitting in the cheap seats, but
yet still able to help from afarwith dollars and expertise and
advice. And that was, for me,like the perfect sort of
intersection of entrepreneurshipthat, at the time, just
(11:35):
resonated to me. And so that waskind of what I was fascinated
about. Does
Kent Lindstrom (11:39):
it tell you anything about sell it. You
know, there's a dynamic inventure capital where you get to
a point, and I've kind of livedthrough this one a few times,
where maybe your company can getacquired for $125 million for
which you will make $17 millionwhich is a lot of money. And the
venture firms kind of like,well, this is not good for me,
(12:03):
but that's a big deal for you.Like, what was, what do you
think of that dynamic? Oh,
Kobie Fuller (12:08):
no, that's a real that's a very real dynamic that
I think founders need to keep inmind when they take venture
dollars and who they takeventure dollars from because the
return profile that certain VCshave, it kind of different from
VC to Vc. But there's certaininvestors where, if you're not
(12:32):
going to return, I don't knowhow many multiples on their
capital, and it's a north of abillion or even, like 10 billion
exit, like they don't care. Andfor you, if an outcome around,
like $100 million exit is like aGrand Slam, then, like, you
shouldn't go on a journey withan investor who's optimizing for
(12:54):
the billion or 10 billion plusoutcome, because there's going
to be a misalignment at somepoint in the future where an
acquirer comes across the tableand is ready to cash you out
like that, Vc is going to say,shut up, go back to work. So I
think certain founders need torealize that if they're not
(13:15):
looking to aspire for that typeof outcome, they may not really
be set up for the product thatis venture capital, or that is
venture capital for the waycertain VTS actually play the
game. And that's like a realdynamic that some folks that
don't think really sometimesinto account, yeah, it's,
Kent Lindstrom (13:32):
you know, we talked because we do seed stage
investing, which is, you know,pre product market fit, almost.
And people ask, you know, andone of the things you look for
is grit in a founder that theycan just do the crazy thing,
which is start a company, whichyou really shouldn't do. And one
of the heuristics we give topeople is, you know, one way to
think about grit is, would thisperson, if they're going to
(13:53):
build $1,000,000,000.02 billiondollar company, they're going to
get that offer, it's like, justhappens, right? Zuckerberg got
the billion dollar offer thateveryone wanted to take. Can you
envision that person saying, No,are they so driven by, you know,
they're mad at their brotherbeing better at sports, or
they're never whatever isdriving them? Is it a thing that
you think will drive them pastthat and they'll turn down the
(14:13):
100 and $50 million offer? And,yeah, you know, I think a lot
Kobie Fuller (14:17):
of it kind of goes to overall motivation. Like,
why? Are they doing this likewhat in their journey has
brought them to the point wherebuilding this company, going on
this mission, and what is deemeda successful mission is probably
not a bunch of zeros in theirbank account, but it's an
(14:39):
outcome that is usually themchanging the world in some way
or capacity. That is the onlyreason why they give every day
trying to do something that isborderline psychotic, which is
like company building, and wherethe odds are pretty much against
you. And so we. Look for, I lookfor that, that grit and that
(15:03):
performance mindset around thatyou're probably going to fail,
but, but don't like, don't fail.Just do what it takes to
actually achieve that outcome,and sometimes, most of the time,
it doesn't actually work. Yeah,those founders that barrel
through all that and make theimpossible possible possible are
limited outcomes. So it's funny,you
Kent Lindstrom (15:23):
mentioned the probabilities and people showing
you what your office there's ablog post a long time ago that's
lost to time. I can't find it,but somebody wrote about each
stage of venture capital, of theprocess of raising money, and
what the entrepreneur thinks theprobability is, and what the VC
thinks of them getting funded.And so it starts with, like, you
(15:45):
have that first meeting, and,you know, the the entrepreneur
thinks, probably, oh, 50% we'regonna move to the next stage,
and the VC is like, 10% move tothe next stage. And then, you
know, you get the next one was,oh, you get to, you get to the
partner meeting. And like, the,you know, the entrepreneurs
like, Oh, it's a, you know, 80%I'm gonna get it. And the DC is
like, Nah, it's 50% at thepartner meeting. And finally,
(16:06):
you get to the punchline, youget to the term sheet, and
you're like, 100% if you're the,you know, the advert of the VC
is like 80% you know, kind of ondown the path. That's
Kobie Fuller (16:17):
funny. But I do feel like there's some moments,
though, where, again, there'sthese deals now that a lot of us
inventors are seeing whereyou're that you're the DC facing
after the hot deal, put theirterm sheet down, like, oh, this
could be, like, 100% in theentrepreneurs. Like, probably,
Kent Lindstrom (16:33):
yeah, well, yeah. I've talked to, I think,
like, roll off at Sequoia, whosays it's like, no, no, no, no,
no, please. Right? You're like,you don't want all the things
you don't want, then you justcan't get to the thing you do
want. So you're at insight.You've made it into venture
capital. Congratulations. Thatends up not be like, seems like
(16:54):
it's a great place to start, butyou still have more you move on
to excel at some point fromthat, right? Yeah. Well,
Kobie Fuller (16:59):
it actually is a couple pit stops along the way.
So a few of us, we actuallybroke off from insight. We
started a platform called openview. I was one of the founders
at open view. This was back in2005 where we raised a first
fund that was $107 million andand then a second fund that was
(17:22):
slight bit north of that Iactually then left open view to
be an operator, where, for twoyears I pretty much like, packed
my bags, moved from Boston toLA, dragged My wife kicking and
screaming from the Northeast,and found myself in the world of
(17:44):
women's fashion, where I was aCMO of revolve. Oh, wow, yeah.
So for couple years I was in thetrenches selling women's clothes
and doing that with actually nopractical marketing experience.
A lot of what I was doing withinvesting in marketing
technology. So one of my earlylucky wins when I was at Insight
(18:05):
was the exact target thatSalesforce acquired for a few
billion dollars. And that kindof had to be kept pulling on
this thread of marketingautomation and digital
transformation in the CMO suite.But yeah, I was selling, I was
selling women, women's clothes.
Unknown (18:18):
And so how do you get back out? Okay, now, now you got
a perfectly good career inmarketing women's clothes. I
hear people buy a lot of those.How do you how do you get back
into the VC world?
Kobie Fuller (18:29):
Yeah, so I got revolved in two years from
little less than $20 million runrate to a couple 100 million
with no outside capital. Andthen I I realized that it's not
my life's calling to throw,throw rager parties at Coachella
and and beg people to postpictures on Instagram exchange
(18:50):
for free clothes, which that'sessentially what we started
really doing in the 2012 2013time frame, because Instagram
started becoming a real platformaround that time. So it was a
perfect timing me being thereand being able to architect a
lot of what is now, kind of likemodern influencer marketing. But
I realized that, like that wasgoing to be my life versus a lot
(19:13):
of what I other things I wasdoing. And so I yeah, I was
realizing that after TSGconsumer focused private equity
fund came in to put some capitalon the balance sheet. It was no
longer a bootstrap business thatmaybe it's my time to exit stage
left and go back to what my truecalling was, which is venture.
(19:34):
Because if I go back to why Iwas so excited about the role of
VC when I was exposed to it incollege, was that I realized it
was being able to again sit fromthe chief seats, helping
multiple different founders andbe a part of multiple different
journeys at one point in timeand at revolve. I was spending
(19:54):
all my time in one venture, andit got incredibly boring to me
and.
Realized that really VC longterm was where I wanted to spend
my my final years, and it was,it was a tough decision, though,
because at the time, I was at acrossroads. I could have had the
fortunate opportunity to eithergo to Excel or my buddy at the
(20:16):
time was starting Oculus. Yeah,so I was pretty much looking at
joining Oculus to the groundfloor as cmo but then I realized
that, yeah, these crazy goggles,I don't know this is kind of,
kind of, kind of whacking it outthere and and so that's kind of
why I personally investedOculus, because I was too stupid
(20:37):
and I didn't actually join theteam. That's that I think
joining Oculus might have beenthe correct one, although I got
to say, for every one of those,somebody joined, you know,
schmoculus or whatever, and younever heard of it. So yeah, in
retrospect, of course, that'sthe right answer. And so what do
you make of what happened? Justcurious, what you think, you
know, it was such a big I hadsigned banister on recently. She
(20:59):
talked about excited. She isabout sort of ambient things
like Oculus and AR and VR hasn'tquite done the thing we thought
it would do yet. Though. Is itstill coming? Or is it, did we
miss something? Or it very muchis still coming. I think
people assumed it was gonna comea lot faster than it really did,
(21:23):
yeah, and part of that was theform factor. You know, the early
Oculus quests just clunky andreally hard to boot up and get
to the content you want.Peripherals are kind of a mess.
The field of view and the actualresolution not as high as it
(21:44):
was. You get to where we areright now, and you have these,
you know, the quest and otherswith mixed reality capabilities,
far more lightweight and adeveloper ecosystem that's
spending more time buildingcontent on there. We're still
not quite there yet, clearly,but the sales of the quest to
(22:06):
continue to actually increase.Will they be as dominant as the
smartphone? No, I think it'stime before we see it get to
that point, but I think it'sstill a pretty interesting
platform that has a lot ofdifferent use cases to it that
people find quite valuable,whether it's gaming or different
sort of productivity tools oreven commercial applications.
(22:28):
And I'm still bullish long term,but it's not where I'm spending
all my time sourcing, if I'mbeing transparent, yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (22:34):
and so well, how do you end up but upfront, then
this is kind of upfront isthere's a couple interesting
things about upfront, probablymore than this, but one, they're
in LA, yes, not San Francisco.You're in LA and have a really
like, like, there's a zillionevents that everyone has, but
upfront, has a pretty famousevent, right? Like, it's yearly
(22:54):
events, like, kind of coolerthan the other events. Like, a
couple celebrities show up.Everybody wants to go.
Kobie Fuller (23:04):
It's pretty cool. That's cool. That's cool. Sorry,
there's some background noisetrying to mitigate that. So,
yeah, so how I got up front, Ico invested with upfront on my
first two investments while Iwas at Excel, yeah. So it was
invoca, which was my firstinvestment I made at Excel
Santa, Barbara based marketingautomation platform. That's how
(23:26):
I got to first meet my nowpartner, Mark. And then second
investment was Osmo, which is akids augmented reality gaming
platform, which I actually metat the upfront Summit, which
Mark had me speak at and wasable to go and preempt their
series A And so very quicklyinto my time at Excel, I found
(23:48):
myself on two boards with my nowpartner, Mark, yeah, and I was
speaking at, I think, almostevery upfront summit that was
held while actually at workingat Excel. And it was through
that natural experience justworking with Mark and getting
integrated just organically withsome of the the team here at
(24:08):
upfront, that at least becamethis logical fit when there was
just a an opening over here atthe firm to transition, you
know, back down to La and bepart of the team, and it was a
lot of just mark and I excitedto work together and be
partners. Even though we werekind of already partnering up on
(24:31):
these portfolio companies, wasactually trying to find a way to
work more closely together. Soit was an organic transition
where wasn't looking to leaveExcel, but just about it was a
logical place to really makewrite the next chapter of my
career. That's
Kent Lindstrom (24:44):
cool. I know you invest everywhere, anywhere that
there's a huge opportunity, butdo you think in terms of there
being like an LA startup scene?
Kobie Fuller (24:52):
Yes, the 1,000% is a very vibrant la startup scene,
and one of the areas where we'reseeing most of the excitement.
Now is the world of hard tech,aerospace and defense. My
partner, Nick, spends a lot oftime in around that community.
The number of founders that arespinning off of platforms like
SpaceX or Andrew and others,there's constantly seeing new,
(25:16):
amazing companies that are beingformed. And so we're seeing a
really huge sort of just energyhere and around the hard tech
community, which is, which isgreat, yeah,
Unknown (25:27):
you guys have the, like, a SpaceX, SpaceX base, but
like, a rockets taken off downthere. I think somewhere. I
forget where I had somebody fromSpaceX on recently there. I
think they live in Culver Cityor something like, yeah, we can
see the rockets taking off fromwhatever the heck the Air Force
base is. I'm like, well, that's,that's, that's pretty cool. Take
your kids out to the backyardand watch that. Like, that's
(25:47):
pretty neat. That's
Kobie Fuller (25:48):
fun. It's fun being down here in LA it's not,
it's not bad, it's not bad, it'snot all this, a bunch of movie
stars and all that. We'reactually doing some hard work.
The
Kent Lindstrom (25:56):
people are better looking. But I grew up in
San Diego, so I get it. You haveto be careful. Like, yeah, it
gets pretty nice in San Diego. Acouple years can go by and all
of a sudden you're, you know,waiting for the insurance
settlement and surfing every daykind of thing, okay. Also,
Qualcomm was started in SanDiego, so, you know, anything
could happen. So I wanted to askyou whether you know, when I
(26:17):
started this podcast, it waseight, 910, years ago, I had in
guys like namdok, Kike, CharlesHutson, ADIA Zhao, Ryan knee, so
I was kind of curious aboutblack founders in Silicon
Valley. I call it SiliconValley, but in startups, and
there's always kind of been athing where there have just been
fewer than there should be. AndI was curious, like with they
(26:38):
had all kinds of different ideasabout it, and I'm just curious
what your ideas about it like,whether the black founders and
what are you doing about it? Arewe where we need to be, or
what's going on there? Yeah, by
Kobie Fuller (26:49):
the way, I gotta shut up. My very close friend
namdi, which you have theplatform. So namdi was part of
the reason why I even joinedinside. So we went to Harvard
together, ran track together.He's godfather of one of my my
sons were very, very closefriends. So, yeah, be remissed
by the admissions or nom de, hewent to inside first, and then I
went after. So that's great.Some of the story there, and
(27:10):
yeah, regards to, you know, thenumber of black founders that
are lack thereof. It's, it'sbeen, you know, pretty
underwhelming statistic thatwe've seen in terms of number of
folks that actually going out,being able to raise capital and
go and start companies. I'mhopeful and optimistic that can
and will change over time. Ithink part of it is there needs
(27:32):
to be more allocators that arefrom the community, that find
ways to actually get capitalinto the hands of founders that
look like us. But beyond that,there needs to be also a notion
of just being able to put biasessort of aside. And a part of
this people, sometimes,unfortunately, nationally,
(27:54):
invest in their own communitiesand then their own sort of
pockets. It's being able to getoutside of your own community,
and find ways to find innovationin other types of founders and
folks that are building besidesjust your immediate network. And
so things I've tried to do tohelp in that regard. You know, a
number of years ago, I started aplatform called valence that was
(28:17):
oriented around trying to combatthis. It was a professional
community for for blackprofessionals. And we peaked at
getting close to 30,000 blackprofessionals on the platform.
You know, raised the series, afrom ggV, and my good friend
Hans tongue, to go off and scalethis initiative, and ended up
exiting and selling to my friendPaul judge platforms called
(28:39):
Greenwood. And it's it'splatforms and initiatives like
that, where, in my opinion, istrying to create better net
mechanisms for folks who don'thave an ability to tap into the
black community to more easilydo so and be able to fund those
opportunities that are there,and also create a bridge for
those black founders to accesscapital and innovation economy
(29:00):
in a way they haven't been ableto do before. And so I'm hopeful
and optimistic the stats willchange. There are definitely
forces at play that are nothelping with the card that which
we're another conversation ofwhat we're seeing in terms of
(29:20):
just, you know, D and I havingjust headwinds against it, but I
still have hope and optimismaround what's being able to find
a way for more black founders tobe able to get the capital they
need, to actually start thebusinesses they need. There's a
Kent Lindstrom (29:34):
there's a couple of things people said to me,
Charles Hudson said, so, like,as Charles Hudson often does,
kind of woke me up on this onewhere I was, I was, like, kind
of people really biased, like,against black? Like, if some
great black found at thesecurity company came along,
would, like, Sequoia justdoesn't do it. And he said
something like, he's like, look,most people in Silicon Valley
know a lot of women. They mightbe married to a woman, but they
(29:57):
might not, just not know acouple black. Eyes. And it's
that like that it's not thatthey're seeing things and
saying, No, it's just thatthey're kind of not seeing the
thing was, how, like, howCharles kind of put it to me,
and he kind of suggested, youknow, be open. If somebody in
Silicon Valley can't get to you,it's probably a pretty bad sign,
(30:17):
right? If they can't figure outhow to network their way to you,
you know, to get an intro. Buthe's like, if somebody from
Tennessee state tries to reachout to you, take the cold email.
Because, like, why would theyknow how to get to you? They're
at Tennessee State. Like, theymight be great, but they're just
didn't happen to go to Stanford.I just thought that was kind of
a interesting insight fromCharles. Yeah, I think
Kobie Fuller (30:36):
it's, again, it goes back to people's networks.
And if your network isnationally designed and
organized the way we're kind ofmimics your life's journey, and
if you haven't interacted orbeen around many people from
outside your own community, thenfor you to think that one day
you're gonna wake up and be ableto tap into black founders or
(30:58):
black founders be able to tapinto you, it's not going to
happen. And so theintentionality around how you're
sourcing, just as intentionalityaround how you know, individuals
source for the next hottest AIdeal, if you really, truly
intentionally want to invest inthe black community, invest in
black founders, then it's it'sreally making sure that you're
spending time in the areas wherethose founders exist. But I also
(31:20):
want to be clear, like blackfounders are building some
incredibly hot AI companies.It's not like, it's mutually
exclusive. And so there's lotsof founders I reach out to cold
on LinkedIn that are some hotshot kids that look like me are
coming out of the topuniversities, and they're not
replying back to my emailsbecause they're too busy
building their companies. Andthey're like, I don't want to
(31:41):
talk to these Bozo VCs. It's notlike, I want to make sure people
realize it's not a world where,like, black founders are all of
them are trying to, like, youknow, find a hand on anyone to
help me. There are someincredible black founders that,
or not talking to VCs, arekilling it and doing fine. Then
that is a lot of the world thatI think people need to also
(32:02):
realize does exist.
Kent Lindstrom (32:03):
Yeah, same thing. No, no, no, please. Like,
like, I want in what, let me acouple final things. I want to
ask you. Like, you know, we'rekind of in a pretty specific
time in venture capital. I'mcurious what you think about us,
about AI, in a second, but whatdo you think about the venture
capital world now we've got, wehad kind of profusion of firms
emerge. I mean, you're, youknow, at a top, elite firm
there, but a bunch of seed firmsemerged. Is kind of a, you know,
(32:27):
an interesting phenomenon. Therehaven't been exits for a little
while. What do you know, the thebig guys are all fighting over
politics, you know, vinodsfiring at, you know, marking the
gods up on the mountains areangry at each other. What do you
what the heck is going on inventure capital? As a long time
observer,
Kobie Fuller (32:47):
it's it's a very interesting time. Well, first
off, I think it's a great timeto be in the game, because these
founders that are out here, thethings are being built, the
intelligence that I'm seeing itis, it's awesome. It makes the
job incredibly exciting andchallenging every day, because
(33:09):
trying to keep up with thesekids are building these as
groundbreaking pieces of tech.Is it makes the job is rewarding
the guards to the amount ofdollars that are out there
chasing these deals. It'sinsane. Rewind back to 2003 2004
when I was doing this job, like,be a VC, that wasn't cool. There
(33:29):
wasn't like, tons of us runningaround. Now you think about what
it means to be a VC, like, Isaid, like, there's probably
more VCs than there areprofessional athletes. Maybe
it's adverse, but there's a lotof us, yeah. And I think when
you had happened during kind of2020, 2021, when there was an
explosion of capital to actuallyenter into the asset class,
(33:53):
people thought it was likeshooting fish in a barrel,
unicorns being minted left andright. And there was an illusion
of value and wealth creation,the point where, like, I had
folks I knew saying, like, ohyeah, I would retire to being a
VC or, like, oh, VCs, my sidegig, like that stuff. And I'm
like, Wow, your eye hustle is mymain hustle. Like, that's what's
(34:17):
happening right now. And what isnow occurred is a lot of those
folks, they're going to have avery tough time, or had a tough
time raising their next fund.And so there's a washout of
those folks. Is a washout ofpartners that thought the job
was so easy, and they realized,Oh, this is hard work. What's
(34:38):
this thing? A pay to play down,like my founders are coming
after me because of, like, thiswhole thing called the pref
stack that's weighing them down.I didn't think that was a big
deal. All of these dynamics thatare just becoming very
unpleasant to folks wherethey're realizing it's like, Ah,
this, this is not fun. Wait. Howlong is gonna take for me to get
(34:59):
to carry each. Like, yeah, like,a decade, I'm good. And then so
there's a natural then flushingout of folks that, and a healthy
flushing out my opinion, fromfolks that actually like they
don't enjoy the craft ofventure. Like, to me, this is a
sport. It's a very hard sport,but I love it, and that's what
(35:20):
gets me up every day to do thejob is that I just enjoy what
I'm doing. And it's not becauseof, like, the money I could be
making. It's like, it's truly,in my opinion, like an
absolutely fun, rewarding butchallenging, incredibly
stressful job. Those folks thatactually take it that mindset, I
think, will thrive in this nextperiod that's gonna be
incredibly challenging andrewarding, with regards to new
(35:42):
dollars going out the door thesenew companies. And for those
folks that are up for the taskthat, you know, they can choose
to, you know, find somethingelse that's better suited for
their time, which I think isfine and is healthy. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (35:55):
that's really well said. I talked to somebody
recently. I was like, ah, thesepeople are having, you know,
tough time raising their secondfund. And he was like, a lot of
them aren't having a tough timeraising their second fund.
They've decided not to, becausethey came in thinking this was
like a fun, easy job, and I willnever complain about being a
venture capitalist, but it's avery hard, grinding job if you
(36:16):
do it well. And they were like,Oh, this isn't like, fly around
on the jet, you know, and make abillion dollars in a month. It's
a lot of detailed work andfailure and and so they're just
like, you know, maybe being thebiz dev guy at a hot company
isn't such a such a bad gig,after all, at this point.
Kobie Fuller (36:36):
I mean, there's a lot of emotions that you also
are working with, whether it'syour own emotion that's right,
partners, emotions, yourfounders, emotions, most
importantly, because they'regoing on these journeys. And if
you have a large enoughportfolio, as you start building
up your book, at any given pointin time, there's something
you're dealing with. And ifyou're emotionally grounded and
(36:59):
stable, to be there for yourfounders, helping them to
whatever they're dealing with.Then, in my opinion, you're not
doing your job as a VC, andthat's what I love doing, is
playing that role as a coach andtaking a neutral mindset around
how can I optimize the mentalperformance of the founders? I
(37:19):
work with the founders in ourportfolio in a manner where they
can bring their best selves totheir companies, to their teams,
and ultimately be best optimizedfor success, and if it
ultimately doesn't end up beinga multi billion dollar outcome.
Like, that's fine. Like, like,it's not a matter of life and
death, that's okay. Like, thisis just the way the game works
(37:42):
and the way the loss ratio playsout. Yeah, it's crazy.
Kent Lindstrom (37:45):
30 companies at any given day, somebody can call
up and say, Hey, things aregoing wrong. We're shutting
down. And somebody can call upand say, hey, guess what? We
just landed a big client in aSeries A and you never know
which day it's going to
Kobie Fuller (37:56):
be. Never know which day it's going to be. One
day your your company that wasonce considered a dog is now
high flying, and you're one highflying company is then now like
not doing so well. And that'swhy you never, you never know.
Man,
Kent Lindstrom (38:08):
we've had all of those. So let me finish on this.
I mean, we're an extraordinarytime. I think there been these
things, the internet emerging. Imean, it wasn't, it was a little
before, you know, when I wasinvesting or working, but then
mobile emerging. Now you havethese moments where something
emerges and everything changes.It seems like AI is one of those
times. What do you make of AI,the dark side of AI, the upside
(38:31):
of AI? What do you think? Well,I don't
Kobie Fuller (38:33):
want to talk about the dark side of AI, because we
could get this really, really,really dystopian. People love
that stuff. It's good. Well,it's well, it's so funny. On the
dystopian front, the only thingI'll mention is it's funny.
Quick story. So I have two boys,one's 917, so two weeks ago,
(38:53):
there was a morning gatheringthey had for the parents of you
know, the class where they'reshowcasing essays they wrote.
And so I show up to my son'sclass, and he brings me over,
and it's like, I want to showyou my essay. I'm like, oh,
cool, great. I look down thetitle of the essay is I hate
(39:14):
robots. And I'm like, What isthis? And it's basically this,
yeah, like long essay around howhe hates AI, how it's gonna
basically be destructive tohumanity. He has an example
which is an exaggeration, by theway, of us being in a Waymo
during his birthday last summer,and it kind of driving
(39:36):
haphazardly and almost likerunning us off into the ocean.
And I was like, What are youtalking about? But for some
reason, us being a self drivingcar, he did not like. And he
also talks about the fact, like,Hey, if you're at a pool party
and like a robot's invited, youcan't throw the robot into the
pool, it'll glitch, and that'snot fun. And it was fascinating
(39:56):
to just hear the vantage pointof a nine year old disagree.
Really not being super excitedabout AI, because it was taking
away some of the fundamentalthings that we as humans should
be prioritizing and really justengaging on a day to day basis.
And so that's at least one thingI think we need to be mindful of
with regards to AI, is what itcan do in terms of stripping us
(40:19):
of our humanity in connectionwith one another and just
blindly trusting it to dothings. The thing that gives me
hope and excitement, why I'mincredibly bullish on AI is I do
think you could, fundamentally,can make us better at certain
things and give us superhumanpowers. And if we look at AI as
(40:42):
a layer of assistance inaugmentation, whether it's on a
personal basis, and I asked theportfolio companies that are
doing that or even on aprofessional basis, and some
portfolio companies, both ofours in eight in one up, which
is streamlining the process ofcompleting RFPs, which is a long
(41:02):
couple week process that you gothrough during sales cycles that
the company is streamlined downto two minutes. Like, sales
people don't want to spendcouple weeks filling our RFPs,
which is just going out andcollecting information,
bothering SES to help them justrespond to a prospect. Like, now
you can, like, snap your fingerand be able to use their
(41:24):
knowledge system coupled with AIto just have you do your job.
And like, warp speed, like thattype of application exists in so
many different iterations acrossdepartments, industries, you
name it. And for me, it is themost exciting time period to be
investing in enterprisesoftware. And we'll start seeing
(41:46):
more and more consumerapplications that also give me
excitement. Yeah,
Kent Lindstrom (41:50):
it is incredible. I mean, it's always
been the case that, you know,people build these companies
like, that's a little bitbetter, you know, my thing is
better than Salesforce. It'slike, Yeah, nobody wants better
than Salesforce. They want iteither costs 1/10 is, you know,
it's like the dating app, right?It's like, you need to go on and
spend no time and meet like asupermodel who becomes your wife
(42:10):
in one move. Like, that's whatyou need. It needs to be that.
And these applications with AIare that where it's like, no,
yeah, this thing does 1/10 cutsyour time 90%
Kobie Fuller (42:21):
which those are? Those are big companies, yeah.
And the biggest thing, it'sjust, it creates incredible
outcomes. This. The outcomesthat some of these applications
are driving are insane. We haveone company called Laurel that's
in the category of kind of timekeeping AI time keeping with an
(42:44):
even bigger vision of that. Butthey're able, with their desktop
agent, find for the averageaverage service worker who needs
to bill for their time anincremental 30 minutes per week
per service worker of billabletime that can be completely
audited once you actually giveit to the end client, you can do
(43:04):
the math against that in termsof whether that drives, in terms
of incremental revenue for theservices organization, it's like
staggering it's like instantmoney. And so it's things like
that that are super exciting.What a great time, what a great
time to be in venture. This hasbeen great. What how do people
if they want to find you orfollow you or hear what you have
to say, What's the best way tofind you? Yeah, they can just,
(43:26):
you, find me, find me onLinkedIn. That's probably the
easiest way to connect with me.Or they can just, like, send me
an email. Honestly, just Kobieat up front. I'm pretty
responsive to most emails. Imean, it's funny, mentioned one
up Georgia, one up cold emailedme, and that's how we started
talking. And now he's aportfolio company, so I respond
(43:48):
to email. That's fantastic.Thanks so much for doing this.
Yeah, thank you. Thanks forhaving me. All right, this has
been the something about yourpodcast. My guest, Kobie filler,
Kobie filler, Kobie Fuller, talkto you next time you
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